THE PENTATEUCH WRITTEN BY MOSES.

That the Pentateuch was written by Moses, is the voice of all antiquity. It has been all along, even to this day, the received opinion of both Jews• and Christians, that Moses, being commanded and inspired by God, wrote those books, which are called the Pentateuch, except only some particular passages, which were inserted afterwards by a divine direction, for the better understanding of the history.

We read, Exodus 24:4,7,8. that Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, which before that time had been delivered from mount Sinai, in a book, which is there called The Book of the Covenant. Afterwards, when God had added more precepts, he again commands Moses to write them, Exodus 34:27. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words; for after the tenor of these words have I made a covenant with thee and with Israel.” Near 40 years afterwards, Moses was commanded to write all the commands which God had given the people, and the revelations which he had made of himself to them, in a book, to be laid up by the side of the ark of the covenant, to be kept for a testimony against Israel. Deuteronomy 31:24-26. “And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.” And the original of this book of the law was in being, as we read expressly, till the times of Josiah; 2 Kings 22:and 2 Chronicles 34:and so, doubtless, till the captivity into Babylon, This book of the law, which Moses was thus commanded to lay up beside the ark, did not only comprehend those things, which were contained in some of those preceding chapters of Deuteronomy, wherein some things of the law were repealed; but the whole system of divine law, which God gave to the children of Israel, expressing the whole of the duty which God expected of them. This appears from Joshua 1:7,8.” Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe and do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded them; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate on them day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein,” etc. And therefore the Levites, whom Jehoshaphat sent to teach the people le their duty, did not do it in any other way than out of tie book of the law. “And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about, throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.” (2 Chronicles 17:9.)

And then it is further evident, that the book of the law which we have an account of Moses’s committing to the Levites, to be laid up in the side of the ark, Deuteronomy 31 did not contain merely what had then lately been delivered in some preceding chapters of Deuteronomy; because in this book of the law were contained tbe precepts concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and the office and business of the priesthood; which are not contained so much in Deuteronomy as in Leviticus and Numbers, as appears from 2 Chronicles 23:18. “Also Jehoiada appointed the officers of the house of the Lord, by the hands of the nests, the Levites, whom David had distributed in the ouse of the Lord to offer the burnt-offering of the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses.” 2 Chronicles 35:12. Nehemiah 10:34,35,36. Haggai 2:11, etc. Joshua 8:31. Ezra 6:18. Nehemiah 8:14,15.2 Chronicles 30:5. and 31:3. And in the book of the law were contained not merely the precepts which God delivered to Moses, but the sanctions and enforcements of those laws, the promises and threatenings; as appears from Deuteronomy 29:20,21. “The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy, shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him; and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven; and the Lord shall separate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of israel, according to all the curses of the covenant, that are written in this book of the law. See also ver. 27. and Deuteronomy 28:61. “Also every plague, and every sickness, which is not written in the book of this law, will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.” See also 2 Kings 22:13,16,19. and parallel places in 2 Chronicles 34:Daniel 9:and Joshua 8:34,35. “And afterwards he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word, of all that Moses commanded, that Joshua read not.” See Psalm 105:8,9,10, And not only the promises and threatenings were contained in the book of the law, but all the revelations which God gave, which tended to enforce it, or which in any way related to it, and even the prophecies that were there contained of what should afterwards happen to the people on their sin or on their repentance. This appears from Nehemiah 1:8,9. “ Remember, I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though there were of You cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.”

And besides, we read of Moses being expressly commanded to write histories of the acts of the Lord towards his people, as well as of the revelations which he made to them. So he was commanded to write an account of the people’s war with Amalek, with its attendant circumstances, that posterity might see the reason of this perpetual war which God had declared against Amalek. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua; for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” (Exodus 17:14.)

Now a full account could not he given of this affair without relating much of the preceding history of Israel; for an account must he given in the writing of the reason and occasion of the children of Israel’s coming to the border of the Amalekites, and what was the cause of the discord and war which subsisted between them and Israel, which would take up no small part of the history of the book of Exodus.

Besides, we are expressly told that Moses wrote the journeys of the children of Israel by God’s command. Numbers 33:2. “And Moses wrote their goings-out according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord;” and is it reasonably to be supposed that he would write those for the use of the children of Israel in after-generations, and not write the great and mighty acts of the Lord towards that people in Egypt and at the Red sea, at mount Sinai, and in the wilderness, which were a thousand times more worthy of a record, and of being delivered down to posterity, than a mere journal of the people’s progress in the wilderness, without those mighty acts? It is every way incredible that Moses, of whom we so often read expressly that he wrote God’s commands, threatenings, promises, and revelations, and the early histories of mankind, that he should not write those great acts of the Lord, and leave a record of them with the congregation of Israel; especially when it is evident in fact that Moses was exceeding careful that they might not forget those great acts of the Lord in future generations. Deuteronomy 4:9,10,11. “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thine heart all the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons,and thy sons, sons specially, the day when thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb,” etc, Here the very same orders are given for the keeping the acts of the Lord in the memory of posterity, as are given for the keeping up the memory of the precepts, chap. 6:7. and 11:18, 19. Job speaks of writing words in a book, as a proper mean to keep up the memory of them, and so does God to Isaiah.

Isaiah 30:8.” Now go write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.” Moses did not trust the precepts of God merely to oral tradition, he was sensible that that way only was not sufficient, though he gave such a charge to the people to teach their children; and the memory of the war with Amalek, when God saw it needful that it should be transmitted to posterity, was not trusted to oral tradition, but Moses was commanded to write it, that other generations might know it; and so the travels of the children of Israel, when they were thought of importance to be remembered, were not trusted to tradition, but a record was written to be transmitted. Very great care was taken that these acts should be remembered, in appointing monuments of them. Thus the passover was instituted as a perpetual monument or memorial of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the beginning of the year was appointed as a memorial of it, and the first-horn sons were consecrated to God in memory of God’s slaying the first-born of Egypt. Certain laws were appointed about strangers and the poor.

Deuteronomy 24:17,18,22. and 16:11, 12. and 15:15. 16:12. Leviticus 25:42,55. and about bondmen in remembrance of their peregrination and bondage in Egypt. To suppose that such care should be taken lest the laws themselves should be forgotten, which were appointed for the very end of keeping up the memory of the fact, and that those laws should be written down; and yet that no care should be taken that the facts themselves should be so far remembered as to write them down, when the memory of the fact is supposed to be of so great importance, that the very being and remembrance of those laws is by the supposition subordinate thereto, the memory of the fact being the end both of the existence and of the memory of the laws, is absurd. In Nehemiah 13:1,2,3. a precept is cited, with a part of the history annexed as the reason of the law, and altogether is said to be read in the book of Moses. The manna was laid up as a monument of their manner of living in the wilderness, and God’s miraculous sustaining of the people there. The feast of tabernacles was to keep in remembrance the manner of their sojourning in the wilderness; as in Leviticus 23:43. Aaron’s rod that budded, was laid up as a memorial of the great things done by that rod in Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the wilderness, and particularly of the contest with Korah and his company, and the censers of the rebels kept and turned into broad plates for the covering of the altar, as a memorial of what happened in the matter of Korah, and the fire from heaven, was kept without ever going out, as a perpetual monument of its miraculous descent from heaven, and the occasion of it; and the brazen serpent was kept as a memorial of the plague of fiery serpents, and the miraculous healing of those that were bitten. The tabernacle that was built in the wilderness, was a monument of the great manifestations which God made of himself there, and the many things that came to pass relating to the building of the tabernacle. The two tables of stone kept in the ark were a monument of those great things which happened when they were given. The rest of the Jewish sabbath was appointed as a memorial of the deliverance of the children of Israel out of bondage. The laws concerning the Moabites and Ammonites were appointed as monuments; and the gold taken in the war with the Midianites was laid up for a monument of that war. Numbers 31:54. A great many places were named to keep in remembrance memorable facts in the wilderness; and who can think that all this care was taken to keep those things in memory, and yet no history be written to be annexed to these many monuments to explain them, by him by whose hand these monuments were appointed; and he, at the same time, so great a writer, and so careful to keep up the memory of events by writing, in those instances of the writing of which we have express mention?

Another instance of Moses’s great care that these great acts might not be forgotten, is his calling together the congregation to rehearse them over to them a little before his death, as we have an account in Deuteronomy. He also left some precepts wherein the children of Israel were required themselves from time to time to rehearse over something of the general history of their ancestors the patriarchs, of whom we have an account in Genesis; and so the history of the people from that time, as in the law of him that offered the first-fruits, Deuteronomy 26.

And we find that great care was taken to erect monuments of the great acts of God towards the people after Moses’s death, as of their passing through Jordan, though less memorable than some of those. And the fact that there were monuments expressly appointed to keep in memory so many of God’s acts in Moses’s time, and not of some others more memorable, is an argument that they had a history of them instead of monuments, as particularly of the children of Israel passing through the Red sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts there. No act of God towards that people is more celebrated through the Scriptures than this; and yet we have no account of any monuments of it, or any ordinance expressly said to be appointed in memory of it, though there was a monument of their passing through Jordan, an event much like it, but less remarkable, and far less celebrated in Scripture. No account can be given of this, but that the history and song that Moses wrote and left in the book of the law, were monuments of it. Such was the care that was taken, that some of the acts of God towards the people might be remembered, that in appointing the monuments for their remembrance, it is expressed that it was for that end, that they might have it perpetually in mind as a token on their hand, and as frontlets between their eyes, as particularly in appointing the law of consecrating the first-born, to keep up the remembrance of God’s slaying the first-born of Egypt, Exodus 13:15,16. One of the laws or precepts themselves of the book of the law was, that the people should take heed never by any means to forget the great acts of God, which they had seen, and that they should not be forgotten by future generations, Deuteronomy 4:how unreasonable, then, is it to suppose that no history was annexed to those laws, and that at the same time that such a strict injunction of great care to keep up the memory of those things in future generations was given, they should yet be left without the necessary means of it! Again, another precept is, that they should not forget their own acts and behaviour from time to time, Deuteronomy 9:7, etc. See also chap. 8:14, 15, 16, etc. and chap. 5:15. So they are strictly required to remember their bondage in the land of Egypt, Deuteronomy 16:12. and chap. 24:18, 22. And also, to remember what God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt, all those great signs and wonders, and the manner of their deliverance out of Egypt, Deuteronomy 7:18,19. So they are strictly enjoined to remember all their travel, the way that they went, and the circumstances and events of their journey, Deuteronomy 8:2-5. and 14, to the end. And they are .charged to know God’s great acts in Egypt, and from time to time, in Deuteronomy 11:at the beginning. They are commanded to remember what God did to Miriam, Deuteronomy 24:9. Writing of those works of God that are worthy to be remembered and celebrated by praises to God, is spoken of as a proper way of conveying the memory of them to posterity for that end, in Psalm 102:18. “This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.” The importance of remembering these works of God related in the Pentateuch, is mentioned not only in the Pentateuch itself, but also in other parts of Scripture, as in “Remember his marvellous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth.” (Psalm 105:5.)

By the marvellous works which God has done, and his wonders, is meant those marvellous works that he did to Abraham and his seed, from the calling of Abraham to the bringing in of the people into Canaan, as appears from the following part of the psalm; and it is observable here that the psalmist connects the wonderful works and the laws or judgments of God’s month together as in like manner worthy to be remembered. See also Chronicles 16:12. with the subsequent part of that song. The law, and covenant, and wonderful works, are in like manner connected as not to be forgotten, in Psalm 68:10,11, and in the 111th Psalm, the psalmist intimates that God has taken some special care to keep up the memory of those works ver. 4. “ He hath caused his wonderful works to be remembered,” speaking of these works, as appears from what follows in the psalm. And what other way can we suppose it to be that God hath done this, than the same with that whereby he caused his covenant and commandments spoken of in the following verses, to be remembered, viz. by causing them to be recorded? The works and commandments are joined together. Ver. 7. “The works of his hands are verity and judgment, all his commandments are sure; and again in the 9th verse, “He hath sent redemption to his people, he hath commanded his covenant for ever;” as they are doubtless connected in the record. Compare Psalm 147:19. and 103:7, In the 78th Psalm, the psalmist, after speaking of the great care that Moses took that the history of the great works of God towards Israel in Egypt and the wilderness should be remembered and delivered to future generations, (in ver. 4, 5, 6, 7.) then proceeds to rehearse the principal things in that history in a great many particulars, so as to give us, in short, the scheme of the whole history, with many minute circumstances, in such a manner as to show plainly that what is there rehearsed is copied out of the history of the Pentateuch.

It is the more likely that the history of the Pentateuch should be. a part of that which was called the law of Moses, because it is observable that the words law, doctrine, statute, ordinances, etc. as they were used of old, did not only intend precepts, but also promises, and threateriings, and prophecies, and monuments, and histories, and whatever was revealed, promulgated, and established, to direct men in their duty to God, or to enforce that duty upon them. So the blessings and the curses that were written by Moses are included in that phrase, and the words that Moses commanded. Joshua 8:34,35. So promises are called law, and the word which God commanded in Psalm 105:9. and 1 Chronicles 16:15. So promises and threatenings are called the word which God commanded his servant Moses. Nehemiah 1:8,9. Threatenings and promises are called statutes and judgments in Leviticus 26:46. Thus we read, Exodus 15:25,26. that at Marab God made for the people a statute and an ordinance, but that which is so called is only a promise. So we read in Joshua 24:25. that Joshua made a covenant with the people, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem, which was nothing else than only his establishing what had been there said by a record and a monument, as appears from the context. So when God, in the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32 calls upon heaven and earth to give ear to his doctrine, which he says shall distil as the rain, etc. therein is included both history and prophecy, as appears by what follows, and what, in Psalm 78:1. is called a law, is only a history, and the very same with the history in the Pentateuclh in epitome, those dark savings of old, which the psalmist there rehearses, as appears from what follows in the psalm; which makes it the more easily supposable that the original and more full history, of which this is an epitome, was also amongst them called a law. And it is probable, that when we read of the great things of God’s law, Hosea 8:12. and the wondrous things of God’s law, that thereby is not only intended precepts and sanctions, but the great and wondrous works of God recorded in the law. It is evident that the history is as much of an enforcement of the precepts, (atid is so made use of,) as the threatenings, promises, and prophecies; and why then should it not be included in the name of the law as well as they? There is something of history, or a declaration of the great acts or works of God in that, which is by way of eminency called the Law, viz. the Decalogue; in that there is a declaration of the two greatest works of which the history of-the Pentateuch gives an account, viz. the creation of the world, and the redemption out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: the latter is mentioned in the preface of the Decalogue, and both in the 4th commandment in Deuteronomy. But the fact that history was included in what was called the law, is so plain from nothing as from Moses’s own records. Deuteronomy 1:5. “ On this side Jordan in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare that law, saying-” and then follows in this and the ensuing chapters, that which is called this law, which consists in great part of history, being a rehearsal and recapitulation of the history in the preceding books of the Pentateuch. What follows next in this and the two next chapters is almost wholly history, which undoubtedly there is special reason to understand as intended by those words, “Moses began to declare the law, saving.” See also Deuteronomy 4:44,45. and 31:9, 24, 25, 26. and 5:1.

Again, the book of the law, and the book of the covenant, were synonymous expressions; (see among other places, Psalm 105:8,9,10.) but the word covenant, as it was then used, included history, as Deuteronomy 29:”These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses;”-and what next follows is history, such history as was introductory, or concomitant, or confirmatory to the precepts, and threatenings, and promises that follow, and of this nature is all the history of the Pentateuch, It is abundantly manifest that the manner of inditing and writing laws in the wilderness delivered by Moses, was to intermix history with precepts, counsels, warnings, threatenings, promises, and prophecies.

It may be noted, that it was very early the custom in Israel to keep records of the public transactions of the nation, and they regarded this as a matter of so great importance, as to have men appointed, whose business and office it was to keep these records. So we find it was in the days of Solomon and David, and in the days of the Judges, as early as the days of Deborah. Judges 5:14. “ Out of Zebulun, they that handle the pen of the writer.” It is probable from the context, that these were their rulers, or some of the chief officers in the land that kept records of public affairs.

Before this, also, we have express account of Joshua and Moses making records of public transactions. (See Joshua 24:26. and the forementioned place concerning Moses’s writing records.) And it is evident that these transactions which related to the bringing of that nation into a covenant relation with God, and redeeming them out of Egypt, etc. were always by that nation chiefly celebrated, and looked upon as the greatest and most memorable events of their history. Now, therefore, is it credible, that in a nation, whose custom it was all along, even from the very times of those great transactions, to keep records of all public affairs, that they should be without any written record of these transactions?

There is no other way that would be natural of writing a divine law, or a law given by God in an extraordinary manner, with wonderful and astonishing circumstances, and great manifestations of his presence and power, except that of writing it in this manner, and recording those extraordinary circumstances under which it was given: first introducing it by giving an account that it was given by God, and then declaring when, how, and on what occasion, and in what manner it was given. And this will bring in all the history, from the beginning of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy. Who can believe that Moses wrote the law which God gave at mount Sinai, without giving an account how it was given there; when the manner of giving was so exceedingly remarkable, and so affected Moses’s mind, as appears from many things which Moses wrote in Deuteronomy, which are there expressly called by the name of a law, and which we are also expressly told that Moses wrote in the book of the law, and delivered to the priests to be laid up in the sanctuary.

There is such a dependence between many of the precepts and sanctions of the law, and other parts of the Pentateuch, that are expressly called the law, and that we are expressly told were written in the book of the law, and laid up in the sanctuary; I say, there is such a dependence between these and the history, that they cannot be understood without the history. Many of the precepts, as was observed before, were appointed to that end to keep up the remembrance of historical facts and that is expressly mentioned in the words of these laws themselves. But such laws obviously cannot he understood without the history. Thus this is mentioned as the reason of the appointment of the feasts of tabernacles, viz. that the children of Israel might remember how they dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness; 23:43.

Now this required the history of their travels and sojourning there. So the law concerning the Amalekites, Moabites, and Amorites, appointed in commemoration of hat passed between the congregation of Israel in the wilderness in their travels there, and those nations, cannot be understood without the history of those facts; and these require the history of the travels of the children of Israel, and of the things that led to those incidents, and that occasioned them. So that great law of the passover that is said in the law to be in remembrance of their redemption out of Egypt, and the many particular rites and ceremonies of that feast, are said expressly in the law to be in remembrance of these, and those circumstances of’ that redemption. Now it is impossible to understand all these particular precepts about the passover without a history of that affair: and this requires the history of their bondage in Egypt, and the manner how they came into that bondage and this draws in the history of the patriarchs.

The preface of the ten commandments cannot be understood without the history of the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and of their circumstances there, in the house of bondage; nor can what is given as one reason of the 4th commandment in Deuteronomy be understood without an account how they were servants in the land of Egypt, and how they were delivered from their servitude. We very often find this mentioned as an enforcement of one precept and another, viz. God’s deliverance of the people out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage and out of the iron furnace. See Leviticus 18:3. 19:34. 22:3:3. 25:42, 55. 23:43. and 26:13, 45. Numbers 15:41. Deuteronomy 4:20. 6:12. 7:8. 8:14. 13:10. and 20:1. Which shows how necessary the history is to understand the law. The many precepts about the Porn’ bondman and stranger that are expressly enforced, from the circumstances of the Israelites in Egypt, absolutely require a history of their circumstances there. And there are in the enforcement of the laws, frequent references to the plagues and diseases of Egypt, threatenings of inflicting those plagues, or promises of freedom from them, which cannot be understood without the history of those plagues. The law of no more returning again into Egypt, Deuteronomy 17:16. requires the history of their coming out from thence. The law concerning not admitting the Moabites and Ammonites into the congregation of the Lord, because they so treated them in their journey, could not be understood without the story of their treatment, and that required an account of their journey. The law concerning sins of ignorance, Numbers 15:22,23,24. depends on the history for its being intelligible: “and if ye have erred, and not observed all these commandments ‘which the Lord hath spoken unto Moses, even all that the Lord hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the Lord commanded Moses, and henceforward among your generations, then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance,” etc.

Here is a reference to God’s revealing himself from time to time, iii a long series of revelations to Moses, which cannot be understood without the history. The law was written as a covenant, or as a record of a. covenant, between God and the people; and therefore the tables of the low and the tables of the covenant, the book of the law and the book of the covenant, are synonymous phrases in Scripture. And the psalmist, Psalm 105:1,10. speaking of the covenant that God made with the patriarchs, says, that God confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and unto Israel for an everlasting covenant, It is to be noted that the promise to Abraham is what is there especially called the low, and the word which God commanded. The threatenings of the law are called the words of the covenant which God made by Moses in .Jeremiah 11:8. But if Moses wrote the book of the law as a record of the covenant that was made between God and the congregation of Israel, it was necessary to write the people’s consent, or what was done on both sides, for there was a mutual transacting in this covenant. See Deuteronomy 26:17,18. “Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways,” etc .-”And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments.” Agreeable hereto is the account we have, Exodus 19:8. and 24:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. and Deuteronomy 5:27. and 26:17.

The discourse that we have in Deuteronomy 29:and 30:is introduced thus, “These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.” But the following discourse, called the words of the covenant, is made up of the following things, viz. a history of the transaction, Moses’s rehearsal of past transactions and wonderful dealings of God with them, with reproofs for their insensibility and unaffectedness as introducing what he had further to say. He then proceeds to charge them to serve the true God, and to avoid idolatry, and then to enforce this charge with awful threatenings and predictions of judgments that shall come upon them if they transgress, with the circumstances of these judgments, and promises of forgiveness on repentance and the w hole concluded with various arguments, pressing instances, solemn appeals, obtestations, exhortations, etc. to enforce their dots. If such a miscellany is called the words of the covenant, we need not wonder if the whole book, that ‘is called the book of the lure, should be a similar miscellany.

It was necessary that a record of a covenant between God and the nation of Israel, should contain the story of the transaction. But this, if fully related, would bring in very much of the history of the Pentateuch, which is extensively made up of an account of those things that were done by God, to bring the people into a covenant relation to him, and the way in which they became his covenant people. Hence the psalmist, in Psalm cv. having mentioned this covenant and law which God established with the people, proceeds in the ensuing part of the Psalm, to rehearse the series of events relating this covenant transaction, from God’s entering into covenant with the patriarchs to the children of Israel’s being brought into Canaan.

It was exceedingly necessary, in particular, when Moses was about to write a record of the covenant which God established with the people, and to give an account of the manner in which he entered into covenant with them, and brought them unto a covenant relation to him, to show the beginning of it with the patriarchs, with whom that covenant was first established, and with whom was laid the foundation of all that transaction, and that great dispensation of the Lord of heaven and earth with that people, in separating them from all the rest of the world, to be his peculiar covenant people. The beginning and groundwork of the whole affair was mainly with them, and what was done afterwards by the hand of Moses, was only in pursuance of what had been promised to them, and often established within them, and for which God made way by his acts and revelations towards them. What God said and did towards those patriarchs, is often spoken of in the words of the law (those that are expressly called the law) as the foundation of the whole, and also in other parts of the Old Testament; as most expressly in Psalm 105:8,9,10.; see also .Joshua 24:3, etc.; and many other’ parallel places.

And there is very often in the law, strictly so called, an express reference to the covenant that God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as in Leviticus 26:42. Deuteronomy 4:31,37. Deuteronomy 6:10,18. and 7:8, 12. and 9:5, 27. and 10:11, 15. and 19:8. 26:3, 15. and 30:20. which passages are unintelligible without the history of the patriarchs, And there are many other passages in the law, wherein there is an implicit reference to the same thing; as in those in which God speaks of the land, which the Lord their God had given them, or had promised them, the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Canaanites, etc. referring to the promise made to Abraham, Genesis 15:18, to the end; where God promises to Abraham the land of those nations by name.

Again, the forementioned considerations, many of them must, at least, induce us to believe that Moses wrote the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, so far at least as he himself was concerned in that affair, and was made the chief instrument of it, from his being first called and sent of God on that errand. But this as naturally leads us back further still, even to what God said and did to the patriarchs; for the beginning of this history directly points and leads us to those things as the foundation of this great affair, of which God now called Moses to he the great instrument. Thus when God first appeared to Moses, and spake to him in mount Sinai out of the bush, and gave his commission, it was with these words, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Exodus 3:6. So again, ver. 13, 14, 15, 16. “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said, moreover, unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, for’ that which is done to you in Egypt.” So again, chap. 4:5. “ That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.” And chap. 6:2, 3, 4.” And 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 by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.” It is unreasonable on many forementioned accounts, to believe any other than that Moses should write the history, and it is most credible that he did it on this account, that those first extraordinary appearances of God to him, as is natural to suppose, made most strong impressions on his mind, and if he wrote any history it is likely he wrote this. But from these things it appears that the history of the patriarchs lays the whole foundation of the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and of God’s separating them and bringing them into a covenant relation with himself.

So that it cannot be understood without the history of the patriarchs.

Would it not therefore have been an essential defect in Moses, in writing that history, to leave the children of Israel without any record of that great foundation?

There is frequent mention in that part of the Pentateuch, (which is expressly styled the law,) of several tribes of Israel and their names, and of the patriarchs who were the heads of the tribes. Deuteronomy 3:12,13,15,16. and 27:11, 13. and elsewhere. And Moses was commanded to engrave the names of the twelve patriarchs on the stones of the breast plate of the high-priest. But these things are not intelligible without the history of Jacob’s family. In Deuteronomy 10:22. there is a reference to Jacob’s going down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons, which is not intelligible without the history.

The law for him that brings the offering of the firstfruits cannot be understood without the history of Jacob’s difficulties and sufferings in Padan-Aram, and the history of his going down into Egypt with its circumstances, and the history of the great increase of his posterity there, and the history of their oppression and hard bondage there, and the history and circumstances of their deliverance from it, and the history of the great and wondrous works of God in Egypt, and the Red sea, and the wilderness, until the people came to Canaan. And if Moses left no record of these things; then, in the law, he enjoined him who offered the firstfruits, (i.e. of all the people, every individual householder, from generation to generation,) to make an explicit confession and declaration of those things that he did not understand.

What is said in the law, of the Edomites, as the children of Esau, and what God had given to him for His possession, and the favour God showed Esau, in Deuteronomy 2:4,5,6,7,8, and 22. and the law concerning the Edomites, Deuteronomy 23:7,8. how they should be treated, because Esau was their brother, cannot be understood without the history of the family of Isaac. And the kind of mention made of Moab and Ammon, as the founders of the nations of the Moabites and Ammonites, and the favour showed them on their father Lot’s account, in Deuteronomy 2:seems to suppose the history of Lot and his family, rind cannot be understood without it. And the reference there is in the law to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Deuteronomy 29:23. cannot be understood without the history of tha affair.

These things that have been mentioned, lead us up in the history of the Pentateuch, within less than eleven chapters of its beginning; so that according to what has been said, all except this very small part of the Pentateuch must have been delivered by Moses to the children of Israel; and it is unreasonable to suppose that this small part was not delivered by the same hand as part of the same record. The history of Abraham begins with the 26th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis; and the beginning of that history is there so connected with, and as it were grows upon, the preceding history of Noah and his posterity, that to suppose any other than that they were originally the same record, having the same author, is most unreasonable. That Moses’s history began any where between that and the beginning of Genesis, or that that part of Genesis from the beginning to the 26th verse of the 11th chapter, is to be divided, as having several writers, are suppositions which, from a hare view of the history itself, any one will be convinced are erroneous. But it will appear still more unreasonable not to ascribe it to Moses, if we consider not only the connexion of the beginning of the history of Abraham with it, but the dependence of many things in the following history upon it; and also in that part of the Pentateuch that is more plainly called the Law. There is frequent mention made both in the law and history of the posterity of the sons of Ham, Mizraim and Canaan, called by the names of these their ancestors, mentioned chap. 10:6. and of those of the posterity of Mizraim, called Caphterim, mentioned ver. 14. and in Deuteronomy 2:23. and of the posterity of the sons of Canaan, mentioned ver. 15, etc. called by their names. And in the following history there is mention made of Ham, the son of Noah, Genesis 14:5. Mention is made of Elam and Shinar, Genesis 14:1, etc. of whom we have an account, chap. 10 Frequent mention is made of the land of Cush, (in our translation, Ethiopia,) so named from Cush, the son of Ham, of whom we have an account, Genesis 10:6-8. So there is in the following history frequent mention of the land of Aram, the son of Shem. In Balaam’s prophecy, referred to in the law in Deuteronomy, mention is made of Ashur, Chittim, and Eber, Numbers 24:22,24. The great event of which Moses most evidently wrote the history, and which takes up all the historical part of the Pentateuch, from Genesis 10:26. to the end of’ Deuteronomy, is God’s separating the seed of Abraham and Israel from all nations, and bringing them near to himself to be his peculiar people. But to the well understanding of this, it was requisite to be informed of the origin of nations, the peopling of the world, and the Most High dividing to the nations their inheritance: and therefore the 9th, I0th and 11th chapters of Genesis are but a proper introduction to the history of this great event, In the song of Moses, of which mention is made in the law, and which Moses in the law was required to write, and the people in the law were required to keep, and learn, and often rehearse, there is an express reference to the separating the sons of Adam, and God’s dividing the earth among its inhabitants; which is unintelligible without the 10th and 11th chapters of Genesis. In that song, also, is plainly supposed a connexion between this affair, and that great affair of separating the children of Israel from all nations to be his peculiar people, about which most of the history of the Pentateuch is taken up. The words are as follows, and in them the people are expressly called upon to keep in remembrance both these events that are so connected, which obviously supposes a history of both, Deuteronomy 32:7-9. “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee; when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

And by the way I would observe, that in the following words are also references to other historical facts of the Pentateuch that cannot be understood without the history.

In the fourth commandment, there is such a mention made of the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and of God’s resting the seventh day, as is a kind of epitome of the first chapter’ of Genesis, and the beginning of the second, and is unintelligible without that history; and there is a reference, in Deuteronomy 4:32. to God’s creation of man, and there is mention in the prophetical song of Moses of the name of Adam, as the grand progenitor of mankind, Deuteronomy 32:8. And there is mention made of the garden of God, or Paradise, Genesis 13:10, And before I leave this argument from references to historical facts, I would observe, that a very great part of the thirty-one first chapters of Deuteronomy, (which are most evidently, as I observed before, a part of the law of Moses, laid up in the holy of holies,) are made up of nothing but recapitulations, brief rehearsals, references, and hints of preceding historical facts, and counsels, and enforcements from history, which cannot be understood without the knowledge of that history.

And not only does the law of Moses de rend upon the history, and bear such a relation to it, and contain such references to it that it cannot be understood without it, but the manner of writing the law shows plainly that the law and history were written together, they are so connected, interwoven, blended, in wrought, and incorporated in the writing. The history is a part of the law, its preamble from time to time being often made an introduction to laws; and there are continually such transitions from history to law, and from law to history, and such a connexion, and reference, and dependence, that all appears as it were to grow together as the several parts of a tree. These, as they stand, are parts of the continued history, and the history of the facts is only as an introduction and preamble, or reason and enforcement, of the laws, all flowing in a continued series, as the several parts of one uninterrupted stream, all as one body. So that the bare inspection of the writing, as it stands, may be enough to convince any one that all has the same author, and that both were written together. Such is the manner of writing the laws concerning the passover, the chief of all the ceremonial observances, in the 12th chapter of Exodus, and the law concerning the first-born, in the 13th chapter, and the statute and ordinance mentioned in the 15th chapter of Exodus 25,26 verses. Such also is the manner of writing that law by which is made known to the children of Israel, which particular day is the sabbath, Exodus 16:23. Such is the manner’ of writing the Decalogue itself, which in the highest sense is called the law of Moses, in Exodus 20:that it is unreasonable to think that it was recorded by Moses without any of the concomitant history, and those words in the law, Exodus 20:22,23. Such are the laws ordering the particular frame of the tabernacle, ark, anointing oil, incense, priest’s garments, with the history of the consequent building, etc. The revelation made to Moses when God proclaimed his name, Exodus 34:6,7. which is an important part of the law, together with ver. 10, 11, etc. and ver. 30, 31. The several laws given on occasion of Nadab and Abihu’s being burnt, Leviticus 10:and chap. 16:particularly ver. 1, 2. taken with what follows, together with the last words in the chapter. Sce also Leviticus 21:1 and ver. 24. and chap. 22:1-3, 17, 18. The law concerning blasphemy, with the story of the blasphemy of Shelomith’s son, Leviticus 24:The law of the Levites’ service, with the history of their being numbered and accepted instead of the first-born and consecrated, Numbers 3:and 4:and 8:The law of putting the leper out of the camp, Numbers v, at the beginning. The law of polluted persons keeping the passover, with the history that gave occasion for it, Numbers 9:6. The history of making the trumpets, with the law concerning their use, Numbers 10 The law constituting the seventy elders, which is only giving a history of their first appointment, Numbers 11:The law of the presumptuous sinner, with the history of the sabbathbreaker, Numbers 15:30, etc. The law for the priests, Numbers 18:which supposes a foregoing history of the rebellion of Korah, see ver. 5. and ver. 27. compared with the 13th verse of the preceding chapter. The law of the inheritance of daughters, with the history of Zelophehad’s daughters. The law of the cities of refuge on the east side of Jordan, with the history of the taking of the country.

History and law are every where so grafted one into another, so mutually inwrought, and do, as it were, so grow one out of and into another, and flow one from another in a continued current, that there is all appearance of their originally growing together, and not in the least of their being artificially patched and compacted together afterwards. It seems impossible impartially and carefully to view the manner of their connexion, and to judge otherwise.

Another argument that the same care was taken to preserve the memory of the facts, as to preserve the precepts of the law, vir. by making a public record of them, to be preserved with the same care, and so in like manner laid up in the sanctuary, is, that it is declared in the law, that the whole law was written, and the record of all the precepts of it transmitted to posterity as a monument of the historical facts, or to that end that the memory of those facts might be kept up in future generations. Deuteronomy 6:20, to the end. “And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon Pharaoh and upon all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day: and it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.”

It is a plain and demonstrative evidence, that the Jews had all along some standing public records of the facts that we have an account of in the history of the Pentateuch, that these facts are so abundantly, and in such a manner’, mentioned or referred to all along in other books of the Old Testament. There is scarcely any part of the history from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, but what is mentioned or referred to in other books of the Old Testament, that were the writings of after-ages, and some of them are mentioned very often, and commonly with the names of persons and places, and many particular and minute circumstances, not only that part of the history which belongs more immediately to the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and their journey through the wilderness, but the preceding introductory history, and not only that which concerns the Jewish patriarchs, but the first part of the history of Genesis, even fl-am the very beginning. In these writings we have very often mention of God’s creating the heavens and the earth; Isaiah 65:17. and 66:22. and 40:21, 22, 28. and 51:13. and 42:5. and 44:24. and 45:12. and 37:16. And 66:1, 2. Jeremiah 10:11,12. and 32:17. and 51:15. and 14:22. 2 Kings 19:15. Psalm 89:40,12. and 102:25. Zechariah 12:1. Psalm 115:15. and 121:2. and 124:8. and 134:3. The manner of God’s creating by speaking the word, Psalm 33:6,9. and 148:5.

The world being at first without form and void, and covered with darkness, agreeably to Genesis 1:2. is referred to Jeremiah 4:23.

God’s creating the light is referred to Psalm 124:16.

God’s creating the light and darkness, Isaiah 44:7. agreeable to Genesis 1:3,4.

God’s creating the firmament, Psalm 19:1.

God’s creating the waters that are above the heavens, Psalm 148:4,6. agreeable to Genesis 1:7.

God’s gathering together the water’s, Psalm 33:7. His making the sea and the dry land, Psalm 95:5. stretching out the earth above the waters, Psalm 136:6. appointing the sea its decreed place, Jeremiah 5:22. Proverbs 8:29.

Psalm 104:9.

God’s creating the sun, Psalm 19:1,4. and 74:16.

God’s creating the sun for a light by day, anrd the moon and the stars for a light by night, Jeremiah 31:35. Psalm 148:3,6.

God’s creating great lights. The sun to rule by day, and the moon and stars to rule by night, Psalm 136:7,8,9. See also Psalm 104:19. with ver. 24.

God’s creating the sea, and the many creatures that move herein, and the whale in particular, Psalm 104:25,26.

God’s creating the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and all that is therein, Psalm 146:6; many parts of the creation is mentioned, Proverbs 8:22-29.

God’s creating man and beast, Jeremiah 27:5.

God’s creating man, Psalm 8:5.

Man being made of the dust of the earth, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

Man’s having dominion given him in His creation over the fish of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and beasts of the earth, Psalm 8:6,7,8.

Man’s having the herbs and plants of the earth given him for meat, Psalm civ. 14, 15. agreeable to Genesis 1:29. and 3:18.

The first marriage, or God’s making Adam and Eve one, is referred to, Malachi 2:15.

Adam’s name is mentioned, Hosea 6:7.

The garden of Eden is often mentioned by name, with its pleasures and delights, Isaiah 51:3. Ezekiel 28:13. and 31:8, 9, 16, 18. and 36:35. and Joel 2:3 Adam’s violating the covenant is referred to, Hosea 6:7. The curse denounced against Adam. that as he was dust, so unto dust he should return, is referred to, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

The curse denounced on the serpent, that He should eat dust all the days of his life, is referred to, Isaiah 65:25. Micah 7:17.

Mention is made of the flood of waters that stood above the mountains, and God’s rebuking and removing the flood, Psalm 104:6,7.

Noah’s name is mentioned, and His righteousness before God, and great acceptance with him, referred to, Isaiah 54:9. and Ezekiel 14:14,20.

The waters of Noah’s flood, and their going over the earth, and God’s covenant with Noah, that he could no more destroy the earth with a flood, are mentioned, Isaiah 54:9.

Many of the names of the descendants of Noah that we have an account of in Genesis 10 are mentioned in other parts of the Old Testament, and some of them very often, and every where in an agreeableness with the account we have of them there; Psalm 78:51. and 10523, 27. and 106:22. and 83:8.

Isaiah 11:11. and 23:1, 2, 12, 13. Jeremiah 2:10. and 25:20-25. and 49:34- 39. Ezekiel 27:5-15. and ver. 20-25. chap. 30:45. and 32:24, 26. and 38:2- 5,6,13. Micah 5:6. and in many other places.

The names of others also that we have an account of as heads of nations in the history of the Pentateuch before Moses’s birth, beside the patriarchs of the Jewish nation, are frequently mentioned, Psalm 83:6,7. Isaiah 11:14,15. Isaiah 60:6,7. Jeremiah 2:10. Jeremiah 25:20,25. Jeremiah throughout, and in many other places, all is in agreeableness to the history of the Pentateuch. The Philistines coming forth out of Caphtor, Amos 9:7.

Jeremiah 47:4. compared with Genesis 10:14. and Deuteronomy 2:23.

The name Babel is often mentioned. There is particular mention of the ancestors of the Jews dwelling on the other side of the river Euphrates, and particularly Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, Joshua 24.

Abraham being brought from thence of God, from the East, from the other side of the river, his coming at the call of God, and being led by him into the land of Canaan, Joshua 24:3. Isaiah 41:2.

His being called with Sarah his wife, Isaiah 41:1,2.

God’s leading Abraham throughout the land of Canaan, Joshua 24:3. agreeable to Genesis 12:6. and 13:17.

God’s blessing Abraham is mentioned, Isaiah 41:1,2.

Abraham is spoken of as a righteous man, and God’s servant and friend, Isaiah 41:2. and verse 8, Psalm 105:42.

God’s entering into covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promising them the land of Canaan, Psalm 105:8,9,10,11,42.

The church of God in the families of those patriarchs, being very small, and their being strangers and sojourners in the land of Canaan, and their going from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people, and God’s wonderfully restraining men from hurting them, and his reproving kings for their sakes, and God’s calling them prophets, Psalm 105:12-15.

God’s giving Abraham an easy conquest over great kings and rulers of the principal nations of the world, as in Genesis 14:14, etc. is mentioned in Isaiah 41:2,3.

Melchizedek is mentioned by name as being a great priest of the true God, and both a king and a priest, Psalm 110:4.

God’s fixing the border of the seed of Abraham at the river Euphrates, as the history of the Pentateuch informs us that God did in His promise to Abraham, Genesis 15:18. and afterwards from time to time to the Israelites, is referred to 2 Samuel 8:3.

The great plentifulness of the land of Sodom is spoken of, Ezekiel 16:49.

The great wickedness of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ezekiel 16:46-56. Isaiah 1:10.

Their being guilty of notorious uncleanness, Ezekiel 16:50. 1 Kings 14:24 and 15:12. and 22:46. 2 Kings 23:7.

Their being of a very proud and haughty spirit, Ezekiel 16:49,50. agreeable to Genesis 15:9.

Their being very open, and barefaced, and shameless in their wickedness, Isaiah 3:9.

Their being overthrown with a very great, and terrible, and utter destruction, Isaiah 1:9. and 13:19. Jeremiah 49:18.

Their being the subjects of sudden destruction, Lamentations 4:6.

God’s overthrowing them with fire, Amos 4:11.

Their being overthrown with perpetual and everlasting desolation, without ever being rebuilt, or inhabited anymore, Isaiah 49:18. and 1. 40. Ezekiel 16:53,55. Zephaniah 2:9.

Their being overthrown together with neighboring cities, Jeremiah 49:18. and 1.40.

The birth of Isaac, as a special gift of God to Abraham, Joshua 24:3.

The birth of Jacob and Esau the sons of Isaac, by a special gift of God, Joshua 24:4.

Esau is mentioned under the names of both Esau and Edom, as Jacob’s brother, in the book of Obadiah, and often elsewhere.

Jacob’s taking hold of Esau’s heel when they were born, is mentioned, Hosea 12:3.

Jacob’s being preferred before his brother by God’s election, Psalm cv. 6.

Isaiah 41:8. Malachi 1:2,3.

God’s appearing to Jacob at Bethel, Hosea 12:4 Jacob’s fleeing into the country of Syria, serving for a wife, and particularly his serving there and doing the business of a shepherd or keeping sheep Hosea. 12:12.

The two wives of Jacob, Rachel and Leah, are mentioned as those that did build the house of Israel, Ruth 4:11.

Jacob by his strength having power with God, and having power over the angel, Hosea 12:3,4.

The names of the twelve sons of Jacob are mentioned in Ezekiel 48, and very often elsewhere.

Esau’s having mount Seir given to him, Joshua 24:4. agreeably to Genesis 26:8.

And the name of Ishmael, and his posterity, and of the sons of Abraham by Keturah, and the sons of Lot, and the sons of Esau, are often mentioned, agreeably to the account we have of them in Genesis.

Joseph’s being sold into Egypt, and being a servant there, Psalm 105:17.

Joseph’s being by Providence sold into Egypt before the house of Israel, to preserve life, Psalm cv. 16, 17. agreeable to Genesis 45:5. and 50:20.

Tamar’s bearing Pharez to Judah, Ruth 4:12.

Joseph’s being bound in prison in Egypt, Psalm 105:18. as Genesis 39:2.

Joseph’s having divine revelations in prison, and his thereby foretelling future events, and those predictions coming to pass, and that being the occasion of Pharaoh’s taking him out of prison and setting him at liberty, Psalm 105:19,20.

And Joseph being upon this exalted over all the land of Egypt, and being made lord of Pharaoh’s house, and ruler of his substance, and being next to the king himself in power and dignity, and being Pharaoh’s vicegerent, and so having power and authority over all the princes and nobles of Egypt, Psalm 105:21,22.

The famine that was at that time in the land of Canaan, that obliged Israel and his family to seek elsewhere for bread, is mentioned, Psalm 105:16.

Jacob’s going down into Egypt with his family, Joshua 24:7. 1 Samuel 12:8. and Psalm 105:24.

Their multiplying exceedingly in Egypt, till they were become more and mightier than the Egyptians, and the Egyptians dealing subtlety with them to diminish them. Psalm 105:24,35 agreeable to Exodus 1:9,10.

The Egyptians first loving the Israelites, and then afterwards being turned to hate them, Psalm 105:25.

Their being slaves in Egypt, Micah 6:4. Jeremiah 2:20. Judges 6:8.

The cruelty of their bondage, its being as it were an iron furnace, (as it is called Deuteronomy 4:20.) is mentioned 1 Kings 8:51. Jeremiah 11:4. and Judges 6:9 The particular kind of their service in handling pots, wherein they carried their mortar, and working in furnaces, in which they burnt their brick, is referred to 1 Kings 8:51. and Jeremiah 11:4. and Psalm 68:13. and 81:6.

God’s taking notice of their cruel bondage and great affliction with compassion, and a fellow-feeling of their calamity, Isaiah 63:9. agreeably to Exodus 2:23-25. and chap. 3:7, 9, 16.

God’s making known himself to them in Egypt, Ezekiel 20:5. agreeable to Exodus 3:1-6. and yen. 13-16, 29-31. and chap. 6:2-6.

God’s making himself known to them by the name of the Jehovah your God. Ezekiel 20:5. agreeable to Exodus 6:2,3,6. especially verse 7.

God’s promising and securing to them in Egypt to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey. Ezekiel 20:6. agreeable to Exodus 3:8,10,12,14,17. and chap. 6:2-8. where we have an account of his swearing by his great nameJEHOVAH, and I AM THAT I AM.

God’s making use of Moses, a great prophet, as the main instrument of bringing the people out of Egypt, etc. Isaiah 63:11,12. Hosea 12:13.

Aaron’s being joined with Moses in this affair. Joshua 24:5. 1 Samuel 12:6-8. Psalm 77:20. and 105:26. Miriam’s also being joined, Micah 6:4.

God’s-working very great wonders for his people in the time of Moses and Aaron, Psalm 77:11-14.

His working great wonders in Egypt, Psalm 78:12,43. and 81:5. and 105:27. and 125:9. and 106:9. Joshua 24:5. Great tokens and wonders upon Pharaoh and all his servants, Psalm 135:9.

God’s redeeming the people out of Egypt, Judges 6:8,9. and 11:16. Samuel 12:6-8. Psalm 81:10. and 74:2. and 77:15. and 78:42. and 114:1.

And 111:9. Jeremiah 2:6,20. and 11:4. 1 Kings 8:51. Jeremiah 16.:4.

Ezekiel 20:10. Hosea 12:13. Amos 9:7. Micah 6:4. and many other places.

God’s turning the rivers and pools of Egypt into blood, so that the Egyptians could not drink the waters, and also thereby killing their fish, Psalm 78:44. and 105:29.

The land’s bringing forth frogs in abundance, to fill even the chambers of Pharaoh, Psalm 78:45. and 105:31.

The plague of lice is mentioned Psalm 105:31.

The plague of the divers sorts of flies, Psalm 105:31. and 88:45.

God’s sending hail, and thunder, and lightning, and flaming fire with hail, to the breaking of the trees of the field and destroying their cattle, Psalm 88:47,48. and 105:32. agreeably to Exodus 9:22, etc.

God’s sending locusts to eat up all the growth of the field, Psalm 78:46. and 105:34, 35.

The plague of darkness, Psalm 105:28.

God’s smiting and destroying all the first-born of Egypt with the pestilence, the first-born, both of men and beasts, Psalm 78:50,51. and 105:36. and 135:8. ann 136:10.

The children of Israel’s going out of Egypt upon this last plague, Psalm 78:52. and 136:11. Joshua 24:5.

Their going out with silver and with gold, Psalm 105:37.

The Egyptians’ being glad to be rid of them, Psalm 105:38 agreeably to Exodus 12:33- Their being brought out with a strong hand, and an outstretched arm, Psalm 136:12.

Their being led by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire to give them light by night, Psalm 78:14. and 105:39. Isaiah 4:5.

Their being led into the wilderness, Psalm 68:7. and 78:40, 52. and 95:8. and 106:9, 14. and 136:16. Jeremiah 2:2,6. Ezekiel 20:10. Judges 9:16.

The people going to the Red sea, Judges 9:6.

The Egyptians pursuing after the people with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea, Joshua 24:6.

The people crying unto the Lord at the Red sea, Joshua 24:7.

The perverseness of that generation, Psalm 106:6,7. 95:8. and 78:8,etc.

Isaiah 63:10. Psalm 81:11.

Their provoking God at the Red sea, Psalm 106:7. agreeable to Exodus 14:11,12.

God’s putting darkness between Israel and the Egyptians, Joshua 24:7.

God’s dividing the Red sea, and causing the people to pass through, and causing the waters to stand as an heap; his turning the sea into dry land, so that the people went through on foot dry shod, Psalm 78:13. 66:6. And 24:13. 77:16, 19, 20. 114:3, 4. 136:13, 14. 106:8, 9. Isaiah 10:26. 52:10. 63:11, 12, 13. Habakkuk 3:8-10,15. Psalm 77:10-20.

God’s destroying Pharaoh and his hosts, his chariots and his horses by the Red sea, by bringing the waters upon them to cover them, so that there was not one of them left, Psalm 74:13,14. 76:5, 6. 78:53. 136:15. 106:10, 11. Isaiah 10:26. 51:9, 10. and Joshua 24:7.

God’s doing these things at the Red sea by the lifting up of Moses’s rod, Isaiah 10:26.

God’s conquering and crushing Egypt in a forcible manner, and with mighty power, Psalm 89:10. Isaiah 51:9.

God’s doing such great things for to preserve a people for the glory of his own name, and to show his mighty power, Psat. 106:8. agreeable to Exodus 8:16.

The people’s singing praises at the Red sea, Psalm 106:12. Hosea 2:15.

Psalm 66:6. 105:43. agreeable to Exodus 9:16.

This destruction of the Egyptians being reported and famed through the earth, Isaiah 23:5.

The people’s murmuring in the wilderness for want of bread, Psalm 78:17, etc. and 106:14.

Their soon transgressing, and provoking, after singing praises at the Red sea, by lusting and tempting God, Psalm 106:13,14,15.

The people’s dwelling in tents in the wilderness, Psalm 106:25.

The people’s being encamped in the wilderness, like an army, Psalm 78:28. and 106:16.

God’s sending the people manna, and feeding them with bread from heaven that was rained down upon them, Psalm 78:23,24,25. and 105:10.

God’s revealing his holy sabbath to the people as we have an account in the l6th. of Exodus Ezekiel 20:12. Nehemiah 9:14.

God’s giving the people waters plentifully to supply the whole congregation out of the rock of Meribah, by striking the rock and causing the waters to gush out, Psalm 78:15,16,20. 81:7. and 105:4. and 114:8.

Amalek’s coming forth in a hostile manner against Israel in the way when he came up from Egypt, 1 Samuel 15:2.

What Jethro the priest of Midian said and did, that we have an account of Exodus 18 is referred to 1 Samuel 15:6.

God’s entering into covenant with the people at mount Sinai, or Horeb, after they came out of Egypt, and giving. the law and statutes, and judgments there, 1 Kings 8:9. Psalm 76:8. Ezekiel 20:10,11. Malachi 4:4.

God’s giving the law by a very terrible and awful voice from heaven, Psalm 76:8.

God’s appearing there with extraordinary manifestations of his majesty and glory in the heavens and in the earth, with an exceeding-shining brightness and beams of glory, attended with the utmost danger of being struck dead in a moment, as by a pestilence, to those that transgressed, Habakkuk 3:3,4,5.

The earth trembling, and the mountains quaking exceedingly at that time, Judges 5:4,5. Habkkuk 3:6, 7, 10. Psalm 114:4. and 58:8.

And particularly mount Sinai shaking, Judges 5:5. Psalm 48:8.

The people’s making a molten calf at mount Sinai, and worshipping that as the representation of the God of Israel, Psalm 106:19,20. Ezekiel 20:8.

God’s saying on that occasion that he would destroy the people, but Moses standing before him as an intercessor for them, to turn away God’s anger, on which God spared them, Psalm 106:23.

Moses’s putting the two tables of stone into the ark at mount Sinai, when he made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt, 1 Kings 8:9.

The people lusting for flesh, and tempting God by asking meat for their lust, Psalm 78:17,18,19.

God’s wrath on that occasion, Psalm 28:21, etc.

God’s giving the people quails in answer to their desire, in vast abundance, which were brought by a wind which God caused to blow, and let fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations, Psalm 78:26, etc. and 105:4. 106:15.

The wrath of God’s coming upon them while the meat was yet in their mouths, and suddenly slaying them with a great plague, Psalm 78:30,31, and 106:15.

The people not believing, for all God’s wondrous works that they had seen, despising the pleasant land, and not believing his promise, that he would bring them into it, and murmuring at the report of the spies, and being for turning back again into Egypt, Psalm 78:32, etc. ver. 41. and 106:24, 25.

God appearing on that occasion as though he would p our out his fury and consume the whole congregation, but yet spared them for his mercies’ sake, lest the Egyptians and other heathen nations should hear of it, and should take occasion from thence to reproach the name of’ God, Ezekiel 20:13,14,17.

God’s swearing in wrath on that occasion concerning that froward and perverse generation, that they should not enter into his rest, but that he would destroy them in the wilderness, because they had seen God’s miracles, but yet exceedingly provoked him, and often tempted him, Psalm 95:8-11. and 106:26. Ezekiel 20:15,16.

God’s promising Caleb the land whereunto he went, Judges 1:20.

Korah and his company envying Moses and Aaron in the camp and the earth’s opening her mouth and swallowing up Dathan and Abiram, and their company, and a fire from the Lord consuming others of them, Psalm 106:16, etc.

What Moses said to the Levites about their inheritance, Numbers 18:20, etc. referred to Joshua 13:33. “But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheritance; the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them.”

The people’s angering Moses at the water of strife, provoking His spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes, Psalm 106:32,33.

Israel’s sending messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land,” and the king of Edom’s refusing to hearken thereto, Judges 11:17.

The people’s compassing or going round the land of Edom, going along through the wilderness, Judges 11:18. agreeable to Numbers 21:4. and Deuteronomy 2:1-8.

The people’s passing through a great and terrible wilderness, a land of pits, and of great draught, a waste and desolate country, Jeremiah 2:2,6. Hosea 13:5.

The people compassing the land of Moab, and coming by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitching on the other side of Arnon, because Arnon was the border of Moab, Judges 11:18. exactly agreeable to the history of the Pentateuch, Numbers 21:11,13. and 22:36.

The people not being suffered to pass through the land of Moab, Judges 11:17,18.

Israel’s sending messengers from their camp in the borders of Moab to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, “Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land,” and Sihon refusing, but upon this, gathering all his people together, and coming to Jahaz to fight against Israel, Judges 11:18,19,20.

God’s delivering Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and Israel’s possessing their land from Arnon, even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan, dwelling in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that belonged to Sihon, exactly agreeable to the history, Judges 11:21-26. Joshua 24:8. Psalm 125:10,11. 136:17-22.

And afterwards smiting Og, the king of Bashan, and possessing his land’, Joshua 24:8. Psalm 135:10,11. and 136:17-22.

But that Balak, the king of Moab, durst not venture, after he had seen this, to go out against Israel, and never engaged them in battle, until Israel went against them, Judges 11:25,26. agreeable to Numbers 22:2. and the consequent history.

Balak’s stirringBalaam, the son of Bear, to curse the turning the curse into a blessing, while people, and God’s in Shittim, Joshua 24:9,10. Micah 6:5.

Israel’s sinning by joining themselves to Baal Pear, and eating the sacrifices of their gods, and God’s being provoked, and executing wrath on the congregation for this sin, and Phineas’s executing judgment an this occasion, that was counted to him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore, Psalm cvi. 28-3 1.

The war of Israel with Balak, and their victory, Joshua 24:9,10.

The people’s long sojourning in the wilderness, Joshua 24:7. and Isaiah 63:9.

God’s speaking from time to time to Moses and Aaron from a pillar of cloud, Psalm 99:6,7.

Moses’s faithfulness in his office, Psalm 99:7. agreeable to Numbers 12:7.

Their great perverseness, hardness of heart of that generation, and their frequent rebellions, and provoking, and vexing God’s Spirit, and tempting of him in the wilderness, even for forty years, Psalm 78 throughout, especially ver. 40, 41. and 81:11, 12. and 95:8-11. Isaiah 63:10. Ezekiel 20:13.

God’s repeated and continual judgments against them, wasting them by a great mortality that pursued and destroyed with great manifestations of divine wrath. Psalm 90 Isaiah 63:10.

God’s often pardoning and sparing the people, so as to forbear to destroy the whole congregation at Moses’s intercession, but yet not without giving great manifestations of his wrath towards their sins, taking vengeance of their inventions, as Moses ground their calf to powder, Psalm 78:38, etc. and 99.

The people’s promising time after mime to repent when smitten with terrible judgments, but yet turning again quickly to sin, not being stedfast in God’s covenant, Psalm 78:31-37.

God’s showing great favour to the young generation, Jeremiah 31:2.

God’s entering into covenant a second time with that young generation, Jeremiah 2:2,3. Ezekiel 20:18,19,20.

He that can observe the facts of the history of the Pentateuch after this manner mentioned and referred to in the writings of the several ages of the Israelitish nation, and not believe that they had all along a great and standing record of-these things, and this very history, can swallow the greatest absurdity. If they had not had this history among them, or one that exactly agrees with it, it would have been morally impossible, but that amongst this vast number of citations and references, with so great a multitude of particularities and circumstances mentioned by so many different writers in different ages, there must have been a great many inconsistencies with the history, and a great many inconsistencies one with another; and it would have puzzled and confounded the skill of any writer who should have attempted to form a history afterwards that should every where without jarring so harmonize with such various manifold citations, and rehearsals, and references so interspersed inn, and dispersed through, all those writings of several ages; and unless these writers had such a record to be their common guide, it could not have been otherwise than utterly impossible.

It was impossible that this vast number of events, with so many circumstances, with names of persons and places, and minute incidents, should be so particularly and exactly known, and the knowledge of them so fully, and distinctly and without confusion or loss, kept up for so many ages, and be so often mentioned in so particular a manner, without error or inconsistency through so many ages, without a written record. How soon does an oral tradition committed to a multitude vary, and put on a thousand shapes, and mix, and jumble, and grow into confusion! Here appears in fact to have been an exact consistent knowledge and memory of things kept up, and that shows that there was in fact a standing record; and the comparing of the records of the Pentateuch with these innumerable citations and references, shows that this was in fact that identical record.

The facts of this history are very often rehearsed just in the same order and manner as they are in the history of the Pentateuch; and in many places there is a rehearsal of the facts of’ very great parts, and sometimes a kind of abridgment of the bigger part of the history, as Joshua 24:Psalm 78 and 105 and cvi. and 136. Ezekiel 20:5-23. And we sometimes find the facts of former parts of the history of Genesis joined with the story of the children of Israel’s redemption out of Egypt, and travels in the wilderness, as introductory to it, and sometimes even beginning with the story of the creation, in like manner as it is in the Pentateuch, and after the captivity, in Nehemiah 9.

These events are commonly mentioned after such a manner as plainly supposes that a full account of them was already in being, and well known and established, as in those words, Though Noah, Daniel, and Job stood before me. It supposes the history of those men extant and well known among the people, and so in these words, We should have been like Sodom and like unto Gomorrah. It is supposed that the history of the destruction of those cities was what the people were well acquainted with. So those words, Psalm 78:40. “How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert,” plainly supposes a hi story extant, that gives a particular account of those things. It is after the manner of a reference to a history. So it is very often elsewhere, as Ruth 4:11. “The Lord make this woman that is come into thine house like Rachel, and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel.” So Joshua 13:33. “But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheritance, the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them;” the words are mentioned plainly after the manner of a citation. So Judges 1:20. “And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said.” Psalm 90. “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek:” it supposes an extant account of Melchizedek. See also Samuel 8:3. Isaiah 13:19. Jeremiah 49:18. and h. 40. Ezekiel 16:46-56.

Amos 4:11. Zechariah 2:9-Isaiah 41:1-8. and hi. 1, 2, 9, 10. Micah 6:5. and very many other places there are that show the same thing, which it would be tedious to mention.

And sometimes these historical events are mentioned so much in the words of the history of the Pentateuch, as could not be without a written history to be a guide; as particularly Jephthah’s rehearsal, Judges 11:15-28.

That the children of Israel had a great standing record among them of those facts that they looked upon sacred and holy, is evident from Psalm cxi. 4. The psalmist, speaking of these works, says that God had made his wonderful works to be remembered. They are those works of which we have an account in the Pentateuch, as is manifest from ver. 7, 9. The words in the original that are translated, he hath made to be remembered, are [...] he hath made a record. The word signifies memorial or record. The word recorder, 2 Samuel 8:16. I Kings 4:3. 2 Kings 18:18. Isaiah 36:3,22. and other places, is which is a word of the same root; the words Zeker and Markir are just in the same manner akin to one another, as the English words recorder and record.

So the history of these facts is called God’s report, (as it is in the original,) Habakkuk 3:2. “I have heard thy report, and was afraid. What that report was, appears from what follows: it was the report of those works there mentioned: which works he, in this verse, prays God to revive, But in the 15th and 16th verses the prophet more plainly tells us what that report was that made him afraid, viz. the account of God’s marching through the Red sea, with the other great works of God, mentioned in the foregoing part of the chapter.And a his great record that the writers of the Old Testament cited so often, was contained in the book of the law, may be argued from the manner in which these facts are sometimes mentioned. The psalmist, in the introduction which he makes to his rehearsal of the story of the Pentateuch in the 78th Psalm, calls that story by the name of law, ver. 1. and the precepts and history are united in the notice he here takes of them, and mentions the history as what God had commanded the memory of to be carefully kept up as the proper enforcement of the precepts, ver. 7. with the foregoing verse. And being given of God as an enforcement of the precepts of the law, is as properly looked upon as a part of the law, as the prophecies and other arguments made use of in Deuteronomy, and other parts of the law. So the history is introduced in such a manner in the 105th Psalm, speaking in the introduction of the covenant and law which God established with the people, ver. 5, 8, 9, 10. that makes it naturally to be supposed that the history he rehearses is taken out of the book of the law.

The wonderful works and precepts of the law are spoken of together, as in like manner to be remembered; ver. 5. “Remember his marvellous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth.” So these wonderful works are repeatedly mentioned or referred to together, Psalm cxi. And so again they are in the introduction to the rehearsal we have of this history in the 106th Psalm, as in ver. 2, 3. So the law and the historical facts are mentioned together, Psalm 103:7. as being both alike of divine revelation. “He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” We find the precepts and history cited together, mixed, and blended in the 81st Psalm, as they are in the Pentateuch.

It appears from profane history to have been the manner of the nations of old to keep the ancient histories of their nation, and their genealogies, and the genealogies and acts of their gods, in their temples, where they were committed to the care of their priests as sacred things. This, in all probability, was in imitation of the example of the Israelites in keeping the Mosaic history which Moses committed to the care of the priests, to be laid up in the sanctuary as a sacred thing; and the ancient records of the neighbouring heathens, particularly of the Phoenicians, show the priests of the Jews had such a history in keeping giving an account of the creation of the world, etc. even so long ago as the days of the Judges. This appears from Sanchoniathon’s history, wherein he mentions many of the same facts, and confesses that he had them from a certain priest of the god Iao.

The ancient heathen writers do make mention of Moses as the writer of the things contained in the former part of the book of Genesis. [See instances, Miscoll. No.1012 and 1014, at the place marked thus (||) in the margin. See also ff. No. 429, at the same mark, and 432.] Again: Another argument that will invincibly prove that the history of the Pentateuch, as well as the precepts, was of old, from the beginning, contained in the book of the law, that sacred book which the children of Israel had among them laid up in the sanctuary from the days of Moses, is this, viz, that it is certain that the book which the Jews had among them, when they first returned from the Babylonish captivity, which they called the book of the law, and the law of Moses, and made use of as their law, as the same book of the law that their nation had all along as their great and standing record and rule, and as such had kept in the sanctuary of old, was that very Pentateuch which we now have, containing both the history and the precepts. This was the book of the law that Ezra made use of, and that Ezra and the Levites that were with him did so publicly and solemnly read and explain to the people, as we have account, Nehemiah 8:and which was laid up in the second temple in the same manner as the book of the law of Moses had been in the first. That this book was the same with the Pentateuch that we now have, is exceeding manifest from the genealogies and historical references in the first book of Chronicles, that was written on occasion of all Israel being reckoned by genealogies after they came out of the captivity. See 1 Chronicles 9:1. None that read those genealogies and historical references will make himself so ridiculous as to question whether these were not taken from the very history that we have in the Pentateuch, and an history that the Jews had among them as the ancient, great, and established records of their nation.

And again: If they had any other book of the law when they first came out of the captivity, it is impossible but that it must be preserved, for they must have a high regard to it as being the same with that sacred book that had been regarded in all former ages as the great and holy rule of their nation, and accordingly kept as most sacred by the priests in the sanctuary of God, in the holy of holies, beside the ark of God. We find the writings of the prophet Jeremiah were preserved, Daniel 9:2. how much more would they preserve the law of Moses! But the Jews had no books of the law preserved, they have none other now, and have had no other in all ages since; they had no other in Christ’s time, and we have no account of any other in all the accounts we have of the nation, from Christ’s time to the captivity; though in these accounts there be very much said about the book of the law, and though there were many controversies about it from time to time, and innumerable copies of it, and many that made it their business to study, to write, and to teach it, though there were synagogues established through Palestine, and through the world wherever the Jews were dispersed. The custom of synagogues in every city began near the first return from the captivity. See Prideaux, part I. p. 534, etc. Yet there is no mention made in any accounts we have of the Jews of any other book of the law that was among them in any of those times, nor of any knowledge or thought that any of them had that there had ever been any other book of the law in any former times. It is evident that the book of the law that the Jews had in Ezra’s time, was very publicly known among the people, by the great pains that Ezra and others took thoroughly to acquaint them with it, and therefore it would have been impossible to make so great an alteration in that sacred book to which they were taught to pay such a regard, and which was laid up in the holy of holies in the temple, and in their regard to which the people soon after the captivity became, in some respects, even superstitious. I say it would have been impossible to have made so great an alteration in it, that whereas formerly it had only a body of precepts, now it was turned into a large history, with precepts here and there mixed and blended, without some notice being taken of it, and some notable disputes, and controversies, and some remaining traces at least of the alteration, and some remaining knowledge of the former purer volume, It would be endless to reckon up the absurdities of such a supposition.

There were many sects among the Jews in Palestine, having many disputes and differences of opinion about the law of Moses; but there was no such dispute or difference as this, whether this was the genuine book of the law.

And not only the Jews in Palestine, but all the Jews through the world, which were so vastly dispersed even in Esther’s time, yet without controversy or any difference of opinion, all acknowledged this same book as the only book of the law, and this was the book of the law that was read in all the synagogues through the world, and was owned by the Samaritans also; (of which more afterwards;) which would have been impossible, if this was so different from that book of the law that the Jews had, and was so publicly known in Ezra’s time. The Sadducees, many of whom were learned men, and boasted of their freedom of thought, and taking liberty to differ from the Jews, and were a kind of infidels, and rejected most other writings that the Jews accounted sacred, yet acknowledged without dispute the book of the Pentateuch, as we now have it, as the genuine book of the law of Moses, and as the record of God. So did the Samaritans, though they hated the Jews, and exceedingly differed from them in other things, and were such enemies to them after the captivity, that they would rather reject a thing for being one of their customs or principles; yet they owned this Pentateuch as the genuine law of Moses, which it is exceeding absurd to suppose they would have done if the book had been new made with all the history foisted in sometime after Ezra; so that undoubtedly this was the book of the law that the Jews owned and made use of, and regarded as the true law of Moses in Ezra’s time.

Now, as to the consequence, if the Pentateuch, as we now have it with its history, was the book that the Jews had and used as the book of the law soon after the captivity, then it will follow that it was also the same book that was their book of the law before the captivity; for if such a great alteration was made in the book of the law, it was either done by Ezra, or by some of the Jews, before he came up to Jerusalem. It was not done by Ezra, for the priests in Jerusalem had the book of the law among them before Ezra came, even when they first came out of the captivity, as appears from Hag. 2:11, 12, 13. Thus saith the Lord of’ hosts, Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.” See also Ezra 2:62,63. 3:2-8. 6:18. Hence, if Ezra had made such an alteration, the Jews would all have known it, and could not have been imposed upon, and made to believe that this book was the same with the book of the law.

Neither the priests, nor the Levites, nor any of the people, make the least opposition to Ezra’s copy of the law, but all allow it, receiving it as an undoubted copy of the law of Moses. See Nehemiah 8:And then it is most apparent that the style of the history of the Pentateuch is very different from Ezra’s style-in the two books of Chronicles and the book of Ezra, whose style in history is very distinguishable from all the preceding histories of the Old Testament. Besides, it is manifest, that at the time that Ezra went up from Babylon to teach the Jews the law, the book of the law of Moses was not a thing of which the Jews, who were then abroad in the world, were destitute, as of a book which was lost or secreted, of which they were in quest, but of which they had not the possession, but it was a book well known by multitudes, and this fact was a thing at that time notorious and known to the heathen. It is manifest from the copy of Artaxerxes’s letter, Ezra 7:25. “And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not.” This made it impossible for Ezra to palm upon the people a book of his own contriving and writing, instead of the book of the law of Moses, the grand and ancient law of their God, which was the grand rule of their nation, and the foundation both of their civil and sacred constitution, and of all their privileges, and of their very being as a nation, separated from other nations.

It is very manifest, that soon after Ezra’s coming first to Jerusalem, as it is thought about ten or a dozen years after that event, Nehemiah, the king’s cup-bearer in Shushan, in Persia, was well acquainted with the book of the law of Moses, Neb. 1:7, 8, 9.; which clearly proves the falsity of the sup position that the nation of the Jews had at that time no other book of the law of Moses but that which was of Ezra’s forging and publishing, as nothing would be more absurd than to suppose his new forged book would in so short a time be published, and well known, and received, and establish, not only at Jerusalem and Judea, but among the Jews dispersed over the world as far as Shushan, in so short a time.

And it could not be that any of the Jews in Judea should forge this book after the captivity, and impose it on the priests and the people before Ezra came, for this would have made no less jar between Ezra and the rest of the people than the other; for then Ezra would have known that this was not the true book of the law, for he was well acquainted with the law before he came out of the land of the captivity to Jerusalem. He was a noted scribe in the law of Moses in Babylon., Ezra 7:6. insomuch that he was famed for it among the heathen, and was noted for it by the king of Persia, who over and over gives him that as a name that he was known by, “ Ezra the scribe of the law of the God of heaven.” Ezra 7:11,12,13. And Ezra went up with a design to teach the people in Jerusalem this law of Moses; this was his main errand, as appears from Ezra 7:6,10,14,21,23,25,26. and the hook of the law that he taught the people he did not receive at Jerusalem of any of the priests, or others there, but carried it up with him in his hand, as appears from Ezra 7:14,25. And Nehemiah 1,2.

This great forgery, or fraudulent substitution of such a book as the Pentateuch for the book of the law of Moses, could not he done and imposed on the Jews at any time soon after the return from the captivity, for from what has been said already, it appears that there was the same book of the law well known by many, and received by all at that time, both by the Jews in Judea, and also by those who still remained in the land of their captivity; which could not possibly arise from any other cause than the tradition of this book from their forefathers who lived before the captivity, It is impossible that such a forgery should so quickly, so easily, and universally, without dispute or difference of parties, obtain through so great a nation, so disunited in the places of their abode. it could not have been so difficult to introduce and give currency to a forgery in any thing, as in the book of the law of Moses, their grand and sacred rule, and constitution and foundation so much so that never did any people so much, and in so many respects, depend on any body of laws, as the Jewish nation depended on this book. It was for the sake of the laws commanded them and the privileges given them in this book, that they forsook their habitations and all their possessions in the land of their captivity, and bore the loss and trouble of their journey to Palestine, and the great difficulties of rebuilding their city and temple, and resettling again in the land, and re- establishing their state there. And therefore we may be sure they would be, above all things, careful with regard to that book. In Haggai’s and Zechariah’s time, before the temple was finished, they had this book among them, as I observed before; but then many were living that had seen the former temple, and must know what kind of book that was that was called the law of Moses, that was amongst the people before the captivity, and was kept in their first temple. The highest ambition of the Jews that returned from the captivity, was to be like their forefathers in their religious privileges; and therefore they were for building a temple as near as they could like the former, and those that had seen the former temple wept bitterly that this new temple was no more like it; and doubtless they would be for having the same book of the law. The people that remembered the former temple must needs know what book that was, that was then called the book of the law, being so much and so severely reproved and threatened from time to time, by the prophet Jeremiah, for not conforming themselves to it, Jeremiah 2:8.” The priests said not, Where is the Lord?

And they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. Jeremiah 18:18. “Come and let us devise devices against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priests.” Jeremiah 42:23. and 8:8. “How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?

Lo, certainly in vain made he it, the pen of the scribes is in vain.” Chap. 6:19. and 16:11. 44:10. and 26:4. and 32:23. See also Lamentations 2:9.

Ezekiel 7:26. and 22:26.; and indeed the whole book of Jeremiah seems to suppose the book of the law extant, and visible among the people; the people therefore, that returned from the captivity, would not easily have received any other book, as the book of the law, to be their sacred rule, and to be laid up in the sanctuary, different from that which their forefathers had, and which had been laid up in the holy of holies in the former temple.

The book of the law of Moses was not lost in the time of the captivity, but was well known among the Jews in Babylon, Daniel 9:10, 11,12, 13.; and that this was a fact very publicly and openly known among the heathen, that they had the law of their God among them in the time of the captivity, is a thing manifest from Daniel 6:5. and Ezra 7:12,21,25.; yea it was extant among them just before their return, as appears from Daniel 9:10,11,12,13. “Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God.”

And several of the prophecies of Daniel suppose the book of the covenant to be extant, Daniel 11:22,28,30,32. which shows more plainly how impossible it was for another book so different to be universally imposed on the nation in Babylon and Judea instead of this book, so soon after the captivity. it a p pears that the Jews in the captivity kept the writings of the prophet Jeremiah among them, from Daniel 9:2. How much more would they keep copies of the law of Moses, which they esteemed as the foundation of all!

Again: It is most manifest that the Jews in their first re-settlement in Palestine, had those very records that we now have in the Pentateuch, as the records that had been constantly upheld in their nation, as the ancient, established, and undoubted sacred records of their nation, insomuch that when they on that occasion reckoned the people by their genealogies, they founded their reckoning on these records, and ran up their genealogies to the accounts given of their forefathers, and the first original of their families in them, making this record their standard, and grand rule, by which to judge who were true Israelites and who were not, and who were true priests and who not. So that they refused so much as to admit those that could not prove themselves to be of the seed of the priests, or of the seed of Israel according to the rule of this record, as appears by the genealogies in the first book of Chronicles, and particularly chap. 9:1. and Ezra 2:59,62,63. It was necessary for any one in order to prove himself to be of the genuine seed of the priests, that he should be able to run up his genealogy to Aaron; for his p roving that he was of the seed of some other person that lived since did not prove it, unless he also p roved that that person was a descendant of Aaron. And so for any one to prove that he was of the seed of Israel, he must be able to run up his genealogy to Israel himself.

So that this very record at that time was of such established reputation among them, that they all with one consent made it the very foundation of their re-establishment; they founded their nation and church in this its restoration wholly on this foundation, and by this rule, which shows that this record was no new thing among them, just then devised, with which before they had never been acquainted. It was a notorious fact, that in Esther’s time, known to the heathen, that the Jews who remained dispersed all over the Persian empire, from Judea to Ethiopia, agreed in one established law, which was very diverse from those of all other nations; Esther 3:8.

Again: TheZENDAVESTA, or book that Zoroastes wrote, shows that the history of the Pentateuch was extant either in or before the time of the captivity of the Jews into Babylon, and was of great reputation then, because many things in that book of his are taken out of the history of the Pentateuch. He speaks of Adam and Eve as the first parents of mankind, and gives in a manner the same history of the creation and deluge that Moses doth, and speaks therein of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, in the same manner as the Scriptures do, and out of a particular veneration for Abraham, he called his book the book of Abraham. (See Prid. part I. p. 318.) These things must have been taken from the Jews either at or before the time of the captivity. (See the preceding pages in Prideatix.)

Again: Another argument, that the Pentateuch with its history was the book that the Israelites anciently had among them as the book of the law of Moses even before the captivity, is, that the Samaritans had this Pentateuch as it is with its history, under this name of the book of the law of Moses.

One argument that the Samaritan Pentateuch was written before the captivity, is, that it is written in the ancient Phaenician or Hebrew character; whereas, the Jewish copy is written in Chaldea letters; those letters becoming natural to them in their captivity; and therefore if they had taken their Pentateuch from the Jews after the captivity, they would have doubtless taken it in the same characters in which they had it; but in that it is found among them not in their characters, but in the characters that the Jews used before the captivity, it is a strong argument that they took it from the Jews before the captivity, and not afterwards. Whence should the Samaritans take those old Hebrew characters, if not from the Jews before the captivity? They were characters to which they were not used in their own country, but were much more likely to he used to the Chaldean characters then, from their living in the neighbourhood of Chaldea. And if they took the Pentateuch from the Jews after the captivity, whence should they take those characters, which were neither natural to themselves, nor in use among the Jews at that time?

Again: It is not at all likely that the Samaritans would be so fond of a conformity to the Jews after the captivity, as to adopt their laws and make the Jewish constitution their own, seeing there was always, even from the first return from the captivity, such a peculiar and inveterate enmity between them and the Jews.

And as such an alteration of the hook of the law could not be made after the captivity without notice being taken of it, so-neither could it at airy time before, even in the most degenerate and ignorant times in Israel. Yet there must be so much knowledge of this book, as must render such a cheat impracticable; for the whole nation, in all its constitution, both civil and sacred, and in the title they had to their inheritance, and in all their usages, and innumerable peculiar customs, was so founded on this law, that it must unavoidably lead at least many in the nation to such a degree of knowledge of it, as to enable them to distinguish between that which is supposed to be so different from it as such a book as the Pentateuch, and only the body of the Mosaic precepts. Though the law was commanded to be laid up in the sanctuary, and kept there, yet it was not kept from the common use of the priests. The priests are cal led those that handle the law, Jeremiah 2:8. See also Jeremiah 18:18. Ezekiel 7:26. Haggai 2:11.

Malachi 2:7. it was required of the priests that they should be thoroughly acquainted with the law, for they in the law of Moses are appointed to teach it to the people. The great number of ceremonies and minute circumstances with which their business was attended, and also the multitude of observances which they were to teach the people out of the law, made it necessary in the nature of things that they should be thoroughly acquainted with the law, even to the having it as it were by heart. Hence the priests and Levites in all their cities and dwellings through the land, must be supposed to have copies of the law in their hands. This being also the judicial or’ political law of their nation, the rule of the civil magistrates and judges in all civil and criminal matters, and the rule by which every man held his possessions, and was defended in his civil and common rights; this made it necessary that civil magistrates, and those who sat to judge in their gates, should have copies of the law in their hands. The king was, by an express statute of the law, required to write him out a copy of the law with his own hand, and the law was commanded to be read to the whole congregation of Israel once in seven years. And particularly pious and devout persons were wont to have by them copies of the law, for it is mentioned as the character of the godly man, Psalm 1 and 37:31. “That he meditate on God’s law day and night.” And all were commanded in the law to be continually meditating on the law, and make it as it were their constant companion day and night, that it might be for a sign on their hand, and as frontlets between their eyes, and that they should make it the continual subject of their conversation one with another, as they sat in the house, and as they walked by the way, etc. It was not to be shut up only in the holy of holies, and in airy respect so disposed of as to be out of the reach of any, but to be nigh to every one, in every one’s heart and mouth, as appears from Deuteronomy 30:11-14. See also Deuteronomy 6:6,7,8,9. and chap. 11:18, 19, 20. and chap. 4:9. It is true the law, in times of great degeneracy, was much more neglected, and less known; and copies of it were more rare than at other times, as in the reign of Manasseh. The original that Moses laid up in the sanctuary had been neglected and lost, being buried up in rubbish, as the temple of God itself was neglected, and the finding of it by the priest was a thing greatly taken notice of and excited the observation and inquiry of the king and people into the nature of things contained in this book, and the Spirit of God set in on that occasion greatly to impress the king’s mind with the things contained in that book, and the finding and reading that very book, as written by Moses’s own hand, had a natural tendency greatly to engage the attention of the king, and to affect him in the reading of it. But we are not to suppose, that during that degenerate time, there was no copy of the law extant and in use among any of the people. If in the most degenerate times in Israel, there were seven thousand devout worshippers of the true God left, though but little known, so undoubtedly in Manasseh’s reign there were many of the priests and Levites, and others that were devout worshippers of the true God, enough to keep many copies of the law for their use to direct them in God’s service.

As to the passages in the Pentateuch, wherein a later hand than that of Moses is evident, they are very few: as Witsius, in his Miscel. Sac. observes. Two of them are only a kind of translation of the names of places, as of the city of Hebron, and the place to which Abraham pursued the kings, where it is said he pursued them unto Daniel The history is exactly the same that Moses must be supposed to write, and the place mentioned the same that Moses mentioned; but the alteration that is made by some later hand is rendering the name of the place by a word whose signification was known to the people; and those two are the only instances that appear manifest to me of all that Le Clerc mentions, excepting only the account of Moses’s death and burial As to the name Hebron, so often used in the Pentateuch, it is very probable that there is in it no later hand than that of Moses; fur, though it was called Arbak at first, yet it seems to have been named Hebron, which signifies fellowship, from his there entering into an association or covenant-fellowship with Mamre, Eshrcol, and Aner.

Compare Genesis 13:18. with chap. 14:13. It is likely that Abraham might give a name to this place from his entering into this fellowship with those men here, that he should name the place where he entered into covenant with Abimelech, Beer-sheba, from that covenant, as Genesis 21:31,32.; or possibly this name Hebron, or fellowship, might be given to the place from that wonderful communion and fellowship which Abraham there had with angels, with whom he ate, and drank, and conversed most familiarly under an oak, and where at the same time he familiarly conversed with God about the destruction of Sodom, which is much remarked by Abraham and God himself, Genesis 18:ver. 17, 27, 37. Or it might have been named so first from Abraham’s fellowship with Mamre, Aner, and Esheol, and afterwards confirmed from this his communion with God and the angels, as Beersheba was first so named from Abraham’s covenant with Abimelech, and afterwards confirmed from Isaac’s covenant in the same place, Genesis 26:30-33. It seems that after this, when the posterity of Abraham heft the land and sojourned in Egypt, this place went no more by that name Hebron in the hand of Canaan, but when the children of Israel returned, and Caleb took possession of the place, he restored the name which Abraham gave it.

See Dupin, at the beginning of the first volume of his Ecclesiastical History. See concerning places inserted after Moses’s death, Numbers 21:14.

As to the account of Moses’s death and burial, it was not Ezra that made this addition; for the Samaritan Pentateuch, which was taken from the Jews before Ezra, has this addition, and all other passages that have been supposed to be additions. This addition of Moses’s death in all probability was made by Joshua, who, it is evident, was a divine writer, and a writer of divine records, and was Moses’s successor, who alone was in the mount with him forty days and forty nights, and who succeeded to Moses’s authority, and to most of his divine privileges and intercourse with heaven, on whom Moses laid his hand, and committed the care of the whole congregation, and of the law and tabernacle, into his hands. He succeeded Moses as the head of the congregation, and as their judge, and as the person by whom they were to transact-with God, as it was with Moses. He had the care of setting up the tabernacle, and therefore he took care to set it up in Shiloh, and he took the care of the settlement of the church of Israel, and the establishment of the worship of God in Canaan, and he was looked upon as having the care of the book of the law of Moses, even so as to have power to add words to it, as appears from Joshua 24:26.

Places in the New Testament, which suppose Moses to be the penman of the Pentateuch, John 5:46,47. Mark 12:26. compared with Exodus 3:6.

Acts 15:21. 2 Corinthians 3:14,15. Hebrews 12:21. [342] Genesis 1:2. “The earth was without form and void.” The first state of the earth, or this lower world, shows what it was to be afterwards, viz, a world of confusion and emptiness, full of evil, vanity of vanities. So in the first state of man in his infancy, is an image of what man always is in himself, a poor, polluted, helpless worm. [427]” And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The word translated moved, in the original is [...] which, as Buxtorf says, the Hebrew note properly signifies to hover as a bird, or to brood as a bird over her young or her eggs when sitting on them; and both Grotius and Buxtorf observe from the writers of the Talmud, properly signifies the brooding of a dove upon her eggs. See Buxtorf on the Radix [...] and Grotius de Veritate, B. 1. Sec. 16. Notes; where Grotius also asserts more than once, that the word merachepheth signifies love. Hence the many fables among the heathen about the world’s being formed by love, and by the breeding of a dove, etc. Macrobius resembles the world to an egg, in the 7th book and 16th chap. of his Saturnalia. And hence the Syrian gods are called by Arnobius the offspring of eggs, by which gods he means the stars. Orpheus had his opinion from the Phoenicians, one of which was this in Athenagoras, that mud proceeded from water, after which he mentions a great egg split into two parts, heaven and earth.

In the Argonauticks, ascribed to Orpheus, we have these lines, “In verse he sung the origin of things- How Love, the cause of all things by His power Creating every thing, gave each his place.” And Aristophanes, in his play called the Birds, in a passage preserved by Lucien, in his Philopatris and Suidas, “First of all was Chaos and Night, dark Erebus and gloomy Tartarus. There was neither earth, nor air, nor heaven, till dusky night, by the wind’s power on the wide bosom of Erebus, brought forth an egg, of which was hatched the god of love; (when time began:) who with his golden wings fixed to his shoulders flew like a mighty whirlwind, and mixing with black Chaos in Tartarus’ dark shades, produced mankind, and brought them into light. For before love joined all things, the very gods themselves had no existence, But upon this conjunction all things being mixed and blended, aether arose, and sea, and earth, and the blessed abodes of the immortal gods.” Grotius.

Ibid. [448] Genesis 1:2. “ And the earth was without form and void.” Tohu, Bohu, which last are words signifying vanity and emptiness. Thus God was pleased in the first state of the creation to show what the creature is in itself; that in itself it is wholly empty and vain, that its fulness or goodness is not in itself, but in him, and in the communications of his Spirit, animating, quickening, adorning, replenishing, and blessing all things. The emptiness and vanity here spoken of, is set in opposition to that goodness spoken of afterwards. Through the incubation of the Spirit of God, (as the word translated moved, signifies,) the Spirit of God is here represented as giving form, and life, and perfection to this empty, void, and unformed mass, as a dove that sits infuses life, and brings to form and perfection the unformed mass of the egg. Thus the fulness of the creature is from God’s Spirit. If God withdraws from the creature, it immediately becomes empty and void of all good. The creature as it is in itself is a vessel, and has a capacity, but is empty; but that which fills that emptiness is the Spirit of God.

As the Spirit of God here is represented as hovering or brooding as a dove, so it is probable, when the Spirit of God appeared in a bodily shape, descending on Christ like a dove, it was with a hovering motion on his head, signifying the manner in which not only He personally was filled with the fulness of God, but also every individual member of his mystical body.

So that this that we have an account of is one instance wherein the old creation was typical of the new. (See note on Ephesians 3:19.) [398] Genesis 1:27,28,29,30. Covenant with Adam. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them; and God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing 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. 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.”

Here is described the sum of the blessedness that man had in his first estate.

Here is first his inherent spiritual good, which lay in his being created in God’s image. Here is the happiness that he had in the favour of God; his blessing of him is a testimony of it; Here is the happiness he had in his intercourse with God; for his thus talking with him in this friendly manner is an instance of it. Here is all his external good, which consisted in two things: first, in having society, implied in that expression, Male and female created he them, and in those words, Be fruitful and multiply. Here is the sum of their outward good in the enjoyment of earthly good. Here is the possession of the earth, and the enjoyment of the produce of it, and dominion over the inferior creatures in it. These things were evidently given to Adam as the public head of mankind. God in blessing them, evidently speaks to them as the head of mankind. The blessings he pronounces are given him in the name of the whole race, and therefore the favour manifested in blessing them is implicitly given to him as the head of the race. God’s making them in his own image and then blessing them, implies his bestowing those blessings pronounced on the subject blessed, on the condition of its continuing such an excellent subject as he had made it, and as it now stood forth to receive his blessing, or continued in such a happy capacity to enjoy the blessings as it now was. Otherwise the blessing would be in a great measure made void; for in order to men’s being happy in the blessing, two things were needful: first, that the enjoyments granted should be good; and secondly, that the subject should be good, or in a good capacity to receive and enjoy them; therefore both these are doubtless implied in the blessing here pronounced on Adam, which is plainly pronounced on him in the name of the whole race. And therefore, in like manner when Adam is threatened with being deprived of all these in case of his disobedience, Adam must understand it in like manner as a calamity to come on the whole race, and consequently the implicit promise of life, as the confirmation and increase of the blessing, respects also the whole race. Hence the covenant must be made with Adam, not only for himself, but all his posterity. [450] Genesis 2:2. “And on the seventh day God ended all his works.” The word translated work, is rtkalm which comes from dalm , angel or messenger, and therefore most properly signifies a work done in the execution of some function to which the workman is appointed, as the angel, messenger, officer, or workman of another; and so is fitly used concerning the work of creation; which was performed by the Son of God, who is often called the angel of the Lord: he being the Father’s great officer, and artificer, through whom he performs all his work, and executes his eternal counsels and purposes. [451] Genesis 2:5. “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.” This seems to be observed to teach that all the life that is in the creation is immediately from God, and not from the creature itself: that in itself is wholly lifeless and void, and empty of all perfection. The vegetable life that is in the lower world was immediately from God. Of all the innumerable kinds of principles of life that now are manifest, every one was immediately from God. Though the earth, and the rain, and the cultivation and husbandry of men be now made use of, yet these living principles were not first owing to them, for they were before them. So it is as to all principles of spiritual life in the spiritual creation. [397] Genesis 2:9. and 3:22, 23, 24. Concerning the Tree of Life. This tree seems manifestly to have been designed for a seal of Adam’s confirmation in life, in case he had stood, for two reasons: 1st, because its distinguishing name is the tree of life; and 2d, because by what is said in the latter end of the 3d chapter, there appears to have been a connexion by divine appointment, between eating of that tree and living for ever, or enjoying a continued, certain, and everlasting life. But yet here are these difficulties attending such a supposition. If it was so that this fruit was intended as a seal of Adam’s confirmation in life, and was by divine constitution connected with confirmed life, then it should seem that it was something kept in store, reserved by God to he bestowed as a reward of his obedience and his overcoming all temptations, when his time of probation was ended.

There seems to be an allusion to this in Revelation 22:14. “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life.”

And chap. 2:7. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life.” So that it was not to he come at until the time of his trial was ended, for if he had eat of the tree before His probation was ended, confirmed life would doubtless have been as much connected with it as after he fell, and that would have defeated God’s design, which was that he should not have confirmed life till his obedience was tried; and if so, why was there not need of cherubim and a flaming sword before, to keep Adam from the tree, before he fell, as well as afterwards? Whereas there seems to have been nothing to keep him from this tree. The tree was not forbidden him; for he had leave to eat of every tree, but only the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And as there was no moral hinderance, so there seems to have been no natural force to keep him off: it does not seem to have been out of his reach; for, if so, what occasion was there for placing cherubim and a flaming sword after he fell. The tree does not seem to be hidden from Adam, for, if it was sufficiently secured from him by this means, before he fell, so it was afterwards, and so what need of the cherubim and flaming sword? From the account which Moses gives of the place of this tree, that it was in the midst of the garden, it appears probable that it was in the most conspicuous place in the whole garden; as the tree of life is said to grow in the midst of the street of the heavenly paradise. Revelation 22:2. The street of a city is the most public place in it; and that Adam might have it in view to put him in mind of the glorious reward promised to his obedience, to engage him to the greater care and watchfulness, that he might not fail.

The most probable account that is to be given of this matter is this: that the fruit of the tree of life was not yet produced; but that it was revealed to Adam, that after a while the tree should produce fruit, of which whosoever eat should live for ever; that he might eat of it if he persisted in his obedience; and that if he did not persevere in obedience he would expose himself to death before that time, and so cut himself off from ever tasting of it. The tree probably made a most lovely and excellent appearance, and sent forth a sweet fragrance, and perhaps was gay in the blossom, promising most excellent fruit.

This tree, as it grew in the midst of the garden, so probably it grew by the river, that ran through the midst of this Paradise. See Revelation 20:2.

Ezek.47:12. [469] Genesis 2:9. and 3:22-24. On the Tree of Life. There is not the least probability that every fruit-tree in the garden of Eden was then loaded with ripe fruit all at one time. If so, there would have been no provision made for Adam’s subsistence through the year, according to those laws which God had established concerning the trees when he created them; for, according to those laws, the same fruit was not to be perpetually hanging; but when the fruit was ripe, the fruit was to be shed, otherwise the seed would not be shed upon the earth in order to a new production, according to Genesis 1:11,12. “God said, Let the earth bring forth grass; the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so.” It is much more probable that it was with the trees of paradise as is represented of the trees that grew on the banks of Ezekiel’s river of living waters. It is represented as though there were all sorts of fruit-trees, and some yielding their fruit one month, and others another; so that there were ripe fruits newly produced every month of the year, and so a perpetual summer, and also a perpetual spring: some trees were hung with ripe fruit, and others in the blossom, in each month in the year. St. John’s vision, Revelation 20:2 may be so understood that each single tree bore twelve manner of fruits on different branches; and yet perhaps there is no necessity of so understanding it; and so one sort bore ripe fruit in one month, and another in another; so that the same tree was always in blossom in some part, while some other part was loaded with ripe fruit. But in Ezekiel’s vision the variety of fruits seems to be on different trees, because it is said there shall grow all trees for meat.

Corol, This is a confirmation of the supposition, that the angels were not confirmed till Christ had ended his humiliation, and until he ascended into glory. For Christ is the tree of life in the heavenly paradise, in the native country of the angels; just as the tree of which we have been speaking was the tree of life on earth, the native country of men; and the Scriptures give us to understand that this person, who is the tree of life in this heavenly paradise, is “angels’ food.” Hence we may infer, that the fruit of this tree was the food by which the angels have their eternal life, or their confirmed life. But as man, who was made under a like covenant of works with the angels, would not have been confirmed, if he had persevered in his obedience, till the tree had brought forth its fruit, and till the fruit of the tree was ripe; so it is not probable that the angels were confirmed, until Christ, the Tree of life in the heavenly paradise, had brought forth his fruit.

But what is the fruit that grows on this heavenly tree, the second Person of the Trinity, but the fruit of the Virgin. Mary’s womb, and that fruit of the earth spoken of Isaiah 4:2. and 9:6. “In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely, for them that are escaped of Israel.”-” For unto us a son is born, and unto us a child is given,” etc. (how often are the children that are born in a family compared in Scripture to the fruit that grows on a tree!) when this holy child had gone through all his labours and sufferings, and had fulfilled all righteousness, and was perfected, as this expressed in Luke 13:32.Hebrews 2:10.and 5:9: then he was seen of angels, and received up into glory, then the fruit was gathered: Christ, as full ripe fruit, was gathered into the garner of God, into heaven, the country of angels, and so became angels’ food: then the angels fed upon the full ripe fruit of the tree of life, and received of the Father the reward of everlasting life. Christ did not become the author of eternal salvation to man, till he was thus made perfect, neither did he become the author of confirmed eternal life to the angels till he was made perfect. Thus the fruit of the tree of life did not become the food of life to either men or angels till it was ripe.

This tree of life did as it were blossom in the sight of the angels, when man was first created in an innocent, holy, pheasant, and happy state, and was that creature from whence the future fruit of the tree of life was to spring, the blossom out of which the fruit was to come. It was a fair and pleasant blossom, though weak and feeble, and proved a fading thing like a flower, When man fell, then the blossom faded and fell off; man came forth like a flower, and was cut down, but the blossom fell in order to the succeeding fruit. The fall of man made way for the incarnation of Christ, it gave occasion to the production and ripening of that fruit, and to its blessed consequences.

Thus, though Christ God man be not the Saviour of the angels, as he is of men, yet he is the tree of life to the angels, and the bread of life as truly as to men. [77] Genesis 2:17. “In the day that thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die.” This expression denotes not only the certainty of death, but the extremity of it. Thou shalt die, in the superlative and to the utmost degree; and so it properly extends to the second death, the death of the soul; for damnation is nothing but extreme death, and I am ready to think that God, by mentioning dying twice over, had respect to two deaths, the first and the second, and that it is to those words the apostle John refers in Revelation 20:14. when he says, “This is the second death.” It is much such a reference as he made in the 2nd verse of that chapter. There he explains to us who the serpent was that beguiled Eve, viz. the dragon, that old serpent, who is the devil and Satan: so here he explains what the second of those deaths, that was threatened to Adam, was. See notes on Revelation 20:14. [325] Genesis 2:17. “Dying thou shalt die.” If we sometimes find such kind of doubled expressions, and also this very expression, dying thou shalt die, as in Solomon’s threatening to Shimei, when no more is intended than only the certainty of the event, yet this is no argument that this does not signify more than the certainty, even the extremity as well as certainty of it.

Because such a repetition or doubling of a word, according to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue, is as much as our speaking a word once with a very extraordinary em p basis. But such a great emphasis, as we often use, signifies variously; it sometimes signifies certainty, at other times extremity, and sometimes both. [320] Genesis 2:17. “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” This, in addition to notes in blank Bible,-And besides Adam died that day, for he was ruined and undone that day, his nature was ruined-the nature of his soul-which ruin is called death in Scripture, Ephesians 2:1,5.

Colos. 2:13. Matthew 8:22. John 5:25.The nature of his body was ruined that day, and became mortal, began to die, his whole man became subject to condemnation, to death; he was guilty of death, and yet that all was not executed; that day was a token of his deliverance; and his not dying that day a natural death, is no more difficult to reconcile with truth, than his never suffering at all that death that was principally intended, viz. eternal damnation; and probably there were beasts slain the same day by God’s appointment in their stead, of which God made them coats of skins, for it is probable God’s thus clothing them was not long delayed after that they saw that they were naked. [110] Genesis 2:21. “Adam received Eve as he awaked out of a deep sleep;” so Christ receives his church as he rises from the dead. Dr.

Goodwin speaks of this deep sleep of Adam as a type of Christ’s death, 1st vol, of his Works, part 3:p. 58. [251] Genesis 3, at the beginning. “Now the serpent was more subtle,” etc. ‘What is an argument ex posteriori of the devil’s having assumed the form of a serpent in his temptation of our first parents, is the pride he has ever since taken of being worshipped under that form, to insult, as it were, and trample upon fallen man. To this purpose we may observe that the serpent has all along been the common symbol and representation of the heathen deities, Jul. Firmic. de errore Proflhn. Relig. p. 15. That the Babylonians worshipped a dragon, we may learn from the Apocrypha, and that they had images of serpents in the temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus, hib. 2:cap. 4. informs us. Grotius out of several ancient authors, has made it appear that in the old Greek mysteries they used to carry about a serpent, and cry, Era, the devil, thereby expressing his triumph in the unhappy deception of our first mother. The story of Ophis among the heathen was taken from the devil’s assuming the body of a serpent in his tempting of Eve. Orig. contra Celsus, lib vi, And to name no more what Philip Melancthon tells us of some priests in Asia, is very wonderful, viz. that they carry about a serpent in a brazen vessel, which they attend with a great deal of music, and many choruses in verse, while the serpent every now and then lifts up himself, opens his mouth, and thrusts out the head of a beautiful virgin,’ (as having swallowed her,) ‘to show the devil’s triumph in this miscarriage among those poor deluded idolaters.’ Nicol’s Conference with a Theist, vol. i. [452] Genesis 3:14. “Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” This doubtless has respect not only to the beast that the devil made use of as his instrument, but to the devil, that old serpent, to whom God is speaking, chiefly as is evident by the words immediately following. The words, On thy belly shalt thou go, as they respect the devil, refer to the low and mean exercises and employments that the devil shall pursue; and signify that he should be debased to the lowest and most sordid measures to compass his ends, so that nothing should be too mean and vile for him to do to reach his aims. The words, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy lift, have respect to the mean gratifications that Satan should henceforth have for his greatest good, instead of the high and glorious enjoyments of which heretofore he was the subject in heaven; and that even in those gratifications he should find himself sorely disappointed, and so his gratifications should from time to time in all that he obtained as long as he lived, turn to his grief and vexation, agreeably to the use of a parallel phrase, Proverbs 20:17.” Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.” When a man has eagerly taken into his mouth that which he accounted a sweet morsel, but finds it full of dirt, it moves him immediately to spit it out, and so to endeavour to clear his mouth of what he had taken as eagerly as he took it in. So Satan is from time to time made sick of his own morsels, and to spit them out again, and vomit up what he had swallowed down, as the whale vomited up Jonah, and as the devil vomited up Christ, when he saw that he had swallowed down that which, when within him, gave him a mortal wound at his vitals. [456] Genesis 3:14,15. “And the Lord said unto the serpent,” etc, In this first prophecy ever uttered on earth, we have a very plain instance of what is common in divine prophecies through the Scripture, viz. that one thing is more immediately respected inn the words, and another that is the antitype principally intended, and so of some of the words being applicable only to the former, and others only to the latter, and of God’s beginning to speak in language accommodated to the former, but then as it were presently forgetting the type, and being taken up wholly about the antitype. Here in the 14th verse, the words that are used are properly applicable only to that serpent that was one of the beasts of the field; so here it is said, Thou art cursed above all cattle; which shows that this prophecy has some respect to that beast that is a type of Satan. But, in the things spoken in the next verse, the beast called a serpent seems to be almost wholly forgotten, and the speech to be only about the devil; for the enmity that is there spoken of, is between the Seed of the man, and that Seed a particular person; for the words in the original are, “He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel;” it is (He) in the Hebrew, and av1’o~ in the Septuagint; as is observed in Shuckford, vol. 1:p. 286. [322] Genesis 3:20. “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” What Adam in this has respect to, doubtless is that which God had signified in the 15th verse, viz. that Eve was to be the mother of that Seed that was to bruise the head of the serpent, the grand enemy of mankind that had brought death on them, and had the power of death, and so was to be the author of life to all that should live, i.e. all that should escape that death. So Eve was the mother of all living, as all that have spiritual and eternal life are Christ’s, and so the woman’s seed, because Christ was of the woman. Adam, when he had eaten the forbidden fruit, and his conscience smote him, had a terrible remembrance of the awful threatening, “ Dying, thou shalt die;” and therefore took great notice of those words which God spake concerning the seed of Eve bruising the serpent’s head; which seem to afford some relief from his terror, and therefore he thought it worthy to give Eve her name from in, as the most remarkable thing that he had observed concerning Eve, and the thing that he thought more worthy to be remembered, and could think of with greater delight and pleasure, than any thing else concerning her, and therefore he thought it above all things worthy that her name should be a continual memorial of it.

That the thing of which Adam took special notice in giving his wife this name, was not her being the universal mother of mankind, or the universality of her’ maternity, but the quality of those that she was to be the mother of, viz. living ones, is evident from the name itself, which expresses the latter, and not the former; the word ‘Chavah’, which we render Eve, expresses Life, the quality of those that she was to be the mother of, and not the universality of her maternity, And it is not likely this would have been if there was nothing in this quality of her posterity that did at all distinguish her from any other mother; which would have been if all that was intended by her being the mother of those that were living, was that she was to be the mother of such as were to live in the world; for so all other mothers might be called Chavah as well as she, or by some name that expressed that quality of life. A name is given for’ distinction; and therefore doubtless Adam gave her a name that expressed something that was distinguishing; but if what was meant was only that she was the mother of all mankind, then the thing that was distinguishing of her, was merely the universality of her maternity, and not at all the quality of her posterity. Why, then, was not the universality, the distinguishing thing, expressed in the name, rather than the quality, which was not at all distinguishing?

Again: It is not likely that Adam would give her a name from that which did not at all distinguish her from him. If persons have not names that shall distinguish them from all others, yet doubtless they ought to have names to distinguish them from those with whom they always live, and from whom there is most occasion to distinguish them. But if it was not the quality of her posterity, but only the universality of her progeniture of mankind, to which he had respect, that was what was common to her with himself.

If it had been only her being the mother of all mankind to which Adam had respect, it would have been inure likely that be would have given her this name on her first creation, and on her being brought to him; which was after that benediction, “ Be fruitful and multiply;” but we find that this name was not given on that occasion, hint then Adam gave her another name, Genesis 2:23. he called her Ishah, from her being taken out of man; but the name of Chavah, as the mother of all living, is given on another occasion, viz, just after God had promised that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and immediately after God had pronounced the threatening of death on Adam, as in the verse immediately foregoing, “ till thou return to the ground, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return:” while Adam is tinder the terror of this sentence of death, he comforts himself with the promise of life couched in what God had said to the serpent. Adam gave Eve a new name on the occasion, from that new thing that appeared concerning her after the fall as sine had her first name from the manner of her creation, so she had her new name given her from Christ’s redemption, and Adam gave her her name from that which comforted him, with respect to the curse that God had pronounced on him and the earth; as Lamech named Noah, Genesis 5:29. “And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.”

It was a common thing for the progenitors of Christ to have names given them from something that had respect to him or his redemption, or some of his benefits: so were Seth, and Noah, and Abraham, and Sarah, and Israel, and Judah, and others named.

And besides, we have no parallel place in the Bible to justify our understanding this expression, all living, of all mankind that shall hereafter live upon the earth, or including them with those that are now living. [399] Genesis 3:20. There are also these further arguments to confirm that Adam does not give his wife the name of Eve, which signifies Lift, because she was the mother of all mankind, but because she was the mother of Christ, and of his living seed, who are the seed of the woman of whom God had just spoken. 1st. This name is exceedingly proper and suitable to signify the latter, because, “in Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive; by man came death, so by man also came the resurrection of the dead;” “the second Adam is made a quickening Spirit;” “in him was life and he is the lift.”, All mankind by the first Adam are in a state of death, dead in trespasses and sins, but Christ is the bread of life, of which he that eats should live for ever; and he is thus the fountain of life to the children of men, by bruising the head of the serpent, or destroying him that has the power of death, even the devil; which God had just before promised should be by the Seed of Isha, the name that Adam gave his wife at first. 2. It is not likely that Adam would give this name, viz. Living One, as a distinguishing name for mankind, to distinguish them from other creatures; for the same name is, from time to time in the preceding chapters, given to other creatures, as chap. 1:21, 24, 28. and chap. 2:19. where the word is radically the same; and so afterwards the name is often given to other animals, chap. 6:19. 7:4, 23. 8:1. and in many other passages of Scripture.

And especially it is unlikely that he would give this as a distinguishing name to mankind immediately upon man’s fall, whereby he was ruined, and had brought that threatening on himself, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;” and immediately after he had been told by God that he was dead, (i.e. in effect so,) “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” Adam could not mean by the phrase all living, what indeed we sometimes use that expression to signify, viz, mankind; but yet we do not intend by it, all that have had, and now hove, the human nature, as though life was a distinguishing property of that nature, but we merely mean by it those that ore now alive, to distinguish them from those that are dead, or are not yet born, And it is exceeding unlikely that Adam would now first find out this name to distinguish mankind, even those that vet had no life or being, as though life was a distinguishing property and dignity of human nature, on the occasion of so great, awful, and affecting an event, as the first entrance of any such thing as death into the world, to waste, and destroy, and make fearful havock of all mankind, all Eve’s posterity, and that originally by her means. If Adam had meant by all living, all mankind that then had a being in this world, the name was very improper for her; for he that was living of mankind was the only person of all mankind that she was not the mother of: he was rather the father of her. But in the other sense it is true, Eve was the mother of all living universally, of every living one, as it is in the original, There is not one that has spiritual and eternal life of all mankind, who in this sense is excepted, not Adam, nor Christ, no, nor herself, for in this sense, as she was the mother of Christ, she was her’ own mother. 3. It is remarkable that Adam had before given his wife another name, viz.

Isha, when she was first creamed and brought to him; but now, that on the occasion of the fall, and what God had said upon it, he changes her name, and gives her a new name, viz. Life, because she was to be the mother of every one that has life; which would be exceeding strange and unaccountable if all that he meant was, that she was to be the mother of mankind. If that was all that he intended, it would have been much more likely to be given to her at first, when God gave them that blessing, viz.”

Be fruitful and multiply,” by virtue of which she became the mother of mankind; and when mankind was hitherto in a state of life, and death had not yet entered into the world, But that Adam should not give her this name then, but call her Isha, and then, after that, change her name, and call her name Life, immediately upon their losing their life and glory, and coming under a sentence of death, with all their posterity, and the awful, melancholy shadow and darkness which death has brought on the whole world, occasioned by Eve’s folly, is altogether unaccountable, if he had only meant, that she was the mother of mankind. 4. That Adam should change her name, and call her name Lift, after he had given her another name, doubtless was from something new that appeared, that was very remarkable, concerning Eve; and doubtless we have an account of what that remarkable thing was. The scriptural history is not so imperfect as to give us an account of such an event as a person’s name being changed, without mentioning the occasion of that change. We have several times elsewhere an account of the change of persons names in Scripture, but always have an account of the reason why; but we have no account of any thing new concerning Eve, that could give Adam occasion thus to change her name, and call her Lift, but only what God said concerning her and her seed after her fall. We have an account of this change of her name immediately upon it, and therefore must understand that as the occasion of it. This was an exceeding proper occasion for such a name, and it is natural to suppose that Adam’s mind might now be so affected by the curse of death just pronounced by God, and the promise of life by Eve, as to induce him to change her name from Isha to Lift.

It is most probable, that Adam would give Eve her name from that which was her greatest honour, since it is evident that he had respect to her honour in giving her this name. The name itself, Lift, is honourable; and that which he mentions concerning her being the mother of every living one, is doubtless something he had respect to as honourable to her. Since he changed her name from regard to her honour, it is most likely he would signify in it that which was her peculiar honour; but that was the most honourable of any thing, that had ever happened, or that ever would happen concerning her-that God said that she should be the mother of that\parSEED, that should bruise the serpent’s head. This was the greatest honour that God had conferred on her; and we find persons’ names changed elsewhere to signify something that is their peculiar honour, as the new names of Abraham, Sarah, and Israel. 6. All new names, of which we have an account in Scripture as given prophetically, are given with respect to some great privilege persons have by some special relation to Christ, or interest in him, and his redemption.

So Abraham’s and Sarah’s new names were given them of God, on occasion of the promise made to them, that in their seed all the families of the earth should be blessed; and Jacob’s new name of Israel is given because as a prince he had prevailed with Christ in wrestling with him, and bad obtained the confirmation of Abraham and Isaac’s blessing to him and his seed, when he and his posterity were in danger of being cut off by Esau. [466] Genesis 3:20. “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she is the mother of all living.” To suppose the living here to mean those that are restored to spiritual life, and shall be saved from death, and have everlasting life, is agreeable to the denomination the apostle gives true Christians, 2 Corinthians 4:11. Oi xwntev the living, or the livers; and again chap. 5:15. [82] Genesis 4:1. “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” In Eve’s expressing herself thus, it is probable she had an eye to what God said, that her seed should bruise the serpent’s head: and now seeing she had a son, her faith and hope was strengthened that the promise should be fulfilled. [453] Genesis 4:3,4. Cain’s and Abel’s sacrifice. Abel when he comes before God is sensible of his own unworthiness and sinfulness, like the publican, and so is sensible of his need of an atonement, and therefore comes with bloody sacrifices, hereby testifying his faith in the promised great sacrifice. Cain comes with his own righteousness, like the Pharisee, who put God in mind that he paid tithes of all that he possessed. He comes without any propitiation, with the fruit of his ground, and produce of his own labours, as though he could add something to the Most High, by gifts of his own substance; and therefore he was interested in no atonement, for he was not sensible of his need of any, nor did he trust in any; and so being a sinner, and not having perfectly kept God’s commandments, sin lay at his door unremoved, and so his offering could not be accepted, for guilt remained to hinder. This reason God intimates, why his offering was not accepted, in what way he says to him, verse 7th, “If thou doest well-if thou keepest my commandments, thou and thine offerings shall be accepted; but seeing thou doest not well, as thine own conscience witnesses that in many things thou hast offended, the guilt of sin remains to binder thy being accepted without an atonement, thy righteousness cannot be accepted, whatever offering thou mayest bring to me.” See Bp. Sherlock’s Use and Intent of Prophecy, p. 74, 75. and Owen on Hebrews 11:4. p. 18. [344] Genesis 4:7. “If thou doest well, shalt not thou be accepted and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Cain was not accepted in his offering, because he did not well-because, 1. He was a wicked man, led an ill life under the reigning power of the world and the flesh, and therefore his sacrifice was an abomination to the Lord, Pray. 15:8. a vain oblation, Isaiah 1:13. God had no respect to Cain himself, and therefore no respect to his offering, as the manner of the expression (ver. 5.) intimates. But Abel was a righteous man: he is called righteous Abel, Matthew 23:35. His heart was upright, and his life was pious; he was one of those whom God’s countenance beholds, Psalm 11:7. and whose prayer is therefore his delight, Proverbs 15:8. God had respect to him as a holy man, and therefore to his offering as a holy offering. The tree must be good, else the fruit cannot be pleasing to the heart-searching God. 2. There was a difference in the offerings they brought. It is expressly said, Hebrews 11:4. Abel’s was a more excellent sacrifice than Cain’s: either, 1. In the nature of it. Cain’s was only a sacrifice of acknowledgment offered to the Creator; the meat-offerings of the first of the ground were no more, and for ought I know might have been offered in innocency. But Abel brought a sacrifice of atonement, the blood whereof was shed in order to remission, thereby owning himself’ a sinner, deprecating God’s wrath, and imploring his favour in a Mediator: or, 2. In the qualities of’ the offering. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, any thing that came next to hand, what he had not occasion for himself, or was not more charitable. But Abel was curious in the choice of his offering, not the lame, or the lean, or the refuse, but the firstling of the flock, the best he had, and the fat thereof, the best of those best. 3. The great difference was this, that Abel offered in faith, and Cain did not-” Abel was a penitent, like the publican that went away justified; Cain was unhumbled, and his confidence was in himself, like the Pharisee who glorified himself, but he was not so much justified before God.” Henry on verses 3, 4, 5. [“ If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.”] Not at Cain’s door, but at God’s door. His wicked doings lay, as it were, at the door of God’s temple, to prevent his admittance and acceptance with God: they stood as a partition-wall between God and him. Wicked men’s sins are a cloud which their prayers cannot pass through, and which hinders their offerings from being brought into the holy place: they are a thick veil before the door of the holiest of all, to hinder their access to God. 1 John 3:2 1 22. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” [51] Genesis 4:14. It seems to me no way improbable that Cain’s house was intended, and by him understood, not only of him personally, but of his posterity. Such he might (earn from his father Adam, seeing the covenant that was made with him was made not only for himself, but for his posterity. If Cain understood it only of himself personally, it seems somewhat strange that he should express himself after such a manner. The inhabited earth was not broad enough for such expressions. The expression, from thy face, may be in the same sense as David was shut out from the face of God when he dwelt in Ziklag, from his altar where his people sacrificed and worshipped him, and where he especially manifested himself. Doubtless there were then such things as well as afterwards. [323] Genesis 5:29. “And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed-” Noah comforted God’s people concerning their labour and fatigue, that was the fruit of God’s curse on the ground. 1. And chiefly as the Redeemer was to be of him, who should deliver his people from all their labours and sorrows, and should procure them everlasting life in the heavenly Canaan, a better paradise than that which was lust, where the ground is not cursed, and shall spontaneously yield her rich fruit ever month, where there remains a rest to the people of God, who shall rest from their labours, and their works shall follow them. 2. He first invented wine, which is to comfort him that is faint and weary with fatigue, and the toil of his hands, and which makes glad man’s heart, remarkable type of the blood of Christ, and his spiritual benefits. 3. To him was given leave to eat flesh, as a relief from the fruit of the curse on the ground, which rendered the fruits of it less pleasant and wholesome.

God gave Noah leave to feed on the flesh of other animals, to comfort him under his toil of his hands in tilling the ground. And this is another type of our feeding on Christ, and having spiritual life and refreshment in him: for, in feeding on the flesh of animals, our food and the nourishment of our lives is obtained at the expense of their lives and shedding their blood, as we come to feed on Christ by his laying down his life. And these things in Noah that should he matter of comfort under God’s curse, are the rather taken notice of in him, because in his time the curse on the ground was to be more fully executed than ever it had been before-the good constitution of the earth was to be overthrown by a flood, and its wholesomeness and fertility greatly diminished, and so the toil of his hands would be greatly increased, were it not for this relief given that has been mentioned. 4. Before Noah, God’s people did not know how far this curse would proceed; they probably foresaw that God intended to execute the curse on the ground in a much further degree than ever yet he bad done. God had not comforted his people by any limits set in any promise made to them, but to Noah God made a gracious promise, setting limits to the curse, promising in some respects a certain measure of success to the labour of their hands, promising that seed-time, and harvest, etc. should not cease. [5] Genesis 6:4. The monstrous births that arose from the conjunction of the sons of God with the daughters of men, typify unto us what an odious monster results from the conjoining of holy things with wicked, as of a holy profession with a wicked life in hypocrites, and what powerful enemies against religion such are, whether they are particular persons or churches, as the church of Rome, that monstrous beast, in whom are joined the profession of the name of Christ and many of his doctrines with the most odious devilism, who has horns as a lamb, but speaks as a dragon: and their bulk and huge stature denotes their pride, as none are so proud as hypocrites. Vid. 257. [257] Genesis 6:4. And their great bulk, and strength, and renown, besides the pride of such persons and churches as join the religion, doctrines, and worship, and profession of his church, with the deluding glories and bewitching pleasures of this world, and of the heathenish and other human and carnal churches and societies of it, here typified by the beauty of the daughters of men. I say, besides the pride of such churches, these things seem to denote the earthly pomp and splendour, and worldly renown and glory, and great temporal power, that such churches affect, and are commonly in providence suffered to arrive to, as the church of Rome and others. [428] Genesis 6:4. “And there were giants in the earth in those days,” etc.

Pausanias, in his Laconics, mentions the bones of men of a more than ordinary bigness, which were shown in the temple of Esculapius, at the city of Asepus: and in the first of his Eliacks, he speaks of a bone taken out of the sea, which aforetime was kept at Piso, and thought to have been one of Pelops. Philostratus, in the beginning of his Heroicks, in forms us that many bodies of giants were discovered in Pallene, by showers of rain and earthquakes. Pliny, b. 7:ch. 16. says, “That upon the bursting of a mountain in Crete, there was found a body standing upright, which was reported by some to have been the bodyof Orion, by others, the body of Aetion.

Orestes’s body, when it was commanded by the oracle to be digged up, is reported to have been seven cubits long. And almost a thousand years ago, the poet Homer continually complained, “that men’s bodies were less than of old.” And Solinus, chap. 1:inquires,” Were not all that were born in that age less than their parents?” And the story of Orestes’s funeral testifies the bigness of the ancients; whose bones when they were digged up in the 58th Olympiad at Yegea, by the advice of the oracle, are related to have been seven cubits in length. Other writings, which give a credible relation of ancient matters, affirm this, that in the war of Crete, when the rivers had been so high as to overflow and break down their banks, after the flood was abated, upon the clearing of the earth, there was found a human body of three and thirty feet long: which L. Flaccus, the legate, and Metellus himself, being very desirous of seeing, were much surprised to have the satisfaction of seeing what they did not believe when they heard.” Grotius de Verit. b.i. sect. 16. Notes.

Josephus, h. 5:chap. 2. of his ancient history: “There remains to this day some of the race of the giants, who by reason of the bulk and figure of their bodies, so different from other men, are wonderful to see or hear of.

Their bones are now shown far exceeding the belief of the vulgar.”

Gabinius,in his history of Mauritania, said that Antaeus’s bones were found by Sertorius, which, joined together, were sixty cubits long. Phlegon Trallianus, in his 9th chap. of Wonder’s, mentions the digging u the head of Ida, which was three times as big as that of an ordinary woman. And he adds also that there were many bodies found in Dalmatia, whose arms exceeded sixteen cubits. And the same man relates out of Theopompus, that there were found in the Cimmerian Bosphorus a company of human bones twenty-four cubits in length. Le Clerc’s Notes on Grotius de Veritat. b. 1:sect. 16.

We almost every where in the Greek and Latin historians meet with the savage life of the giants mentioned by Moses. In the Greek, as Homer, Iliad 9th, and Hesiod, in his Works and Days. To this may be referred the Wars of the Gods mentioned by Plato in his Second Republic, and those distinct and separate governments taken notice of by the same Plato, in his third book of Laws. And as to the Latin historians, see the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and the fourth book of Lucan, and Seneca’s third book of Natural Questions, Quest. 30. where he says concerning the Deluge, “that the beasts also perished, into whose nature men were degenerated.”

Grotius de Vent. h. 1:sect. 16. [199] Genesis 6:14. “Make thee an ark of gopher wood.” The word in the Hebrew language seems to imply that the wood was of a bituminous or pitchy nature, and consequently more capable of resisting wet or moisture, and St. Chrysostom particularly calls it [...] ‘square wood not liable to rot’.

The learned Fuller rightly concludes it to be the cypress, from the affinity of the word for cypress in Greek, which is [...]; from whence, if the termination is taken away, Cuphar, or Gopher, consists of such letters as are often changed into each other; neither is there any wood less subject to rottenness and worms than this is, as all writers do allow. Pliny saith that the cypress-wood is not sensible of rottenness or age, that it will never split nor cleave asunder except by force, and that no worm will touch it, because it hath a peculiar bitter taste; and therefore Plato advised that all records that are to be preserved for the benefit of future generations, should be written upon tables of cypress. Martial says that it will last for a hundred ages and never decay. Thucydides saith that the chests were made of cypress in which the Athenians carried away the bones of those who died in war for their country, and the Scholiast gives this reason for it, because it would never decay; and the Pythagoreans abstained from making coffins of cypress, because they certainly concluded that the sceptre of Jupiter was made of this tree, and no reason can be assigned for such a fiction among the poets, but because it was the fittest resemblance of that eternal power and authority which they attribute to him. Theophrastus, speaking of those trees winch are least subject to decay, adds this as a conclusion, that the cypress-tree seems to be the most durable of all, and that the folding-doors of the temple of Ephesus being made thereof, had lasted without damage for four generations. In this Pliny is more particular, and saith that those doors were made of cypress, and they had lasted till his time, which he saith was near four hundred years, and still looked as if they were new. And Vitruvius. speaks both of the cypress and of the pine-tree, that they kept for a long time without the least defect, because the sap, which is in every part of the wood, hath a peculiar bitter taste, as is so very offensive that no worm or other consuming animal will touch it. He also tells us that such works as are made of such wood will last for ever. And therefore he advises that the beams of all churches should especially he made of cypress-wood, because such as were made of fir were soon consumed by the worm and rottenness; and as it was such a lasting wood, so it was also very fit for the building of ships. Peter Martyr, as cited by the learned Fuller, saith that the inhabitants of Crete had their cypress-trees so common, that they made the beams of their houses, their rafters, their rooms, and floors, and also their ships, of this wood. Plutarch saith that the ship carpenter in the first place useth the pine from Isthinos, and the cypress from Crete; and Vegetius adds, that the galleys are built chiefly of the cypress, and of the pine-trees, or of the larch and fir; and in the epistle of Theodoricus to Abundantius, the prefect, in which he gives him a commission to build a thousand barks for fetching provisions, or breadcorn; he commands him to inquire throughout all Italy, for proper artists, for wood for such work; and wherever he should find the cypress or pinetrees near the shore, that he should bury them at a reasonable price.

Neither was it thus only in Crete and Italy, but Diodirus proves that in Phoenicia there was timber sufficient to build ships, because Libanus, near Tripoli, and Biblus, and Sidon were full of cedar-trees, and larch-trees, and cypress-trees, which were very admirable for show and greatness; and Plato, among the trees that were fit for ship-carpenters to use, places the cypress next to the pine and the larch-trees. And even in latter years, we are told that the Saracens did hasten from Alexandria to Phoenicia to cut down the cypress-wood, and fit it for the use of the ships. And as the cypress-tree was very fit for this use, so it grew in great plenty in Assyria and Babylonia, and therefore Arrian and Strabo speak particularly of in-, and that the numerous fleet which Alexander the Great built in those parts, was made of the cypress which he cut down, and which grew in Babylonia.

F or there was, as they say, a great plenty of these trees in Assyria, and that they had no other wood in the country which was fit for such a purpose.

Bedford’s Scripture Chronology, p. 111, 112. notes that the reason why they needed a sort of wood not subject to decay or rottenness, was chiefly because the ark was so long in building. Had it not been a kind of wood of extraordinary durableness, it would have decayed and spoiled in much less than 120 years, being exposed to the weather. [259] The country where Noah built the ark, was probably in Babylonia, or the region there about, which abounds with cypress or gopher-trees. The Gordyean mountains in Armenia seem to be at a proportional distance, and since they are allowed to be the highest in the world, there is no reason for receding from the commonly received opinion, viz. than-those were the hills whereon the ark stopped. Here it is that the generality of geographers place the ark. Here it is that almost all travellers have found the report of it.

And lastly, here it is that the inhabitants of the country show some relics of it, and call places after its name to this very day. Complete Body of Divin. p. 324. “In Armenia est altior mons quam sit in toto orbe terrarum, qui Arath vuigariter nuncupatur; et in cacumine montis illius arca. Noe post diluvium primo sedit; et licet propter abundantiam nivium, quae semper in illo monte reperiuntur, nemo valet ilium ascendere; semper tamen apparet in ejus cacumine quoddam nigrum, quod ab hominibus dicitur esse Arca.” Hist. Orient. c. 9.

The mount Gordion, called by the Turks Ardogh, is the highest in the world; the Jews, the Armenians, and the Mussulmans, affirm that the ark of Noah stopped at this mountain after the deluge. La Boulaye’s Voyages.

They tell us likewise that the city Nahsivan, which is about three leagues from the mountain Ararat, is the oldest in the world; that Noah dwelt therein when he came out of the ark; that the word Nahsivan is derived from Nah, which signifies a ship, and sivan, which signifies to stop or Stay; and that this name was given to it because the ark stopped at this same mountain. Tavernier’s Travels, tom. 4. [297] Genesis 7:1-7. The company in Noah’s Ark was upon many accounts a type of the church of Christ. The ark did literally contain in it the church of God, for all flesh had corrupted their way before God, and true religion and piety seemed to be confined to Noah and his family. The ark was made for the salvation of the church, and for the saving the church from the destruction which the world was to undergo, and to which it was doomed, and of which all the rest of mankind were to be the subjects in an overflowing deluge of God’s wrath. So Christ, God-man, mediator, was made for the salvation of His church, to save it from that destruction and woe that is denounced against this wicked world, and that deluge of wrath that will overwhelm all others. The way in which persons were saved by the ark, was by taking warning from Noah the preacher of righteousness to fly from the wrath to come, and hearkening to the call, and flying for refuge to the ark, and getting into n-he ark. So the way by which we are saved by Christ, is by flying from the deluge of God’s wrath, and taking refuge in Christ, and being in him.

The ark was a refuge from storm, and from wind, the rain that poured down out of heaven in a very dreadful manner, it did not hurt those that were in the ark; so Christ is a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest. Isaiah 32:1. He is a place of refuge, and a covert from storm and from wind. Isaiah 4:6. “ He is to his church a refuge from the storm, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” Isaiah 25:4. “He that is built in Christ, when the wind blows, the rain descends, and the floods conic and beat upon His house, it will not fall.”

The company in the ark was safe in the greatest catastrophe, when n-he world was as it were dissolved. So they than-have Christ for their refuge and strength, need not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of n-he sea, (as they in fact were in the flood, they were in the midst of the sea, the sea surrounded them and overwhelmed them,) though n-he waters there of roar and are troubled, though n-he mountains shake win-h n-he swelling thereof, Psalm 46:1,2,3.

Though the waters were so exceeding great and over-whelming, yet those that were in the ark did not sink in them. Though the waters overtopped the highest mountains, vet they could not overwhelm them; though the ark when it stood on the ground was a low thing, in comparison of other things that the waters overwhelmed, yet the waters could not get above them, but let the waters rise never so high, yet the ark kept above them, which evidently represents the safety of the church in Christ in the greatest danger, so that “when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow three.” Isaiah 43:2.

Concerning those that belong to the church of Christ, it is promised in Psalm 32:6. “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found; surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.” And though the church often appears as a low thing, as though the mighty waters that come against it could immediately overflow it, yet the church is kept above water, let them come in ever so fiercely, and rise never so high. If it was not the Lord that is on their side, oftentimes her enemies would swallow her up quick. This also represents to the how Christ was kept from sinking under his sufferings. It was impossible that Christ should fail in the great work that he undertook; and though his sufferings were so great, though the deluge that came upon him was so very great, the billows of wrath so mighty, enough to overwhelm a whole world, and to overwhelm the highest mountains, to overtop the stoutest and mightiest, yet Christ did not sink and fail, but was kept above water; he kept above all, and in the issue triumphed overall; as his church also in him shall obtain the victory over all her enemies, and shall appear finally above them, let them rise never so high, and deal never so proudly, as the ark kept still above the water, when the waters were mounted up even to heaven. The ship wherein Christ was could not sink. Matthew 8:24,25,26. “And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves; but he was asleep, and his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saving, Lord, save us; we perish, And he said unto them, Why are ye fearful? 0 ye of little faith! Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.”

They that went into the ark were saved, when thousands and millions of others were destroyed; so they that dwell in the secret place of the Most high, that make Christ their refuge, and the Most High their habitation, thousands shall fall at their side, and ten thousands at their right hand; only with their eyes shall they behold and see the reward of the wicked, but no evil shall befall them, nor any plague come nigh their dwelling, Psalm 91.

There was then one ark that any could resort to for refuge in the whole world. So there is no other name, than the name of Christ, given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. There was no other refuge but the ark. If they went up to the tops of their houses, or to the tops of the highest mountains, it was in vain, the waters overtopped them; so if men trust in their carnal confidences, in their own strength, their own works, and mount high in a towering conceit of their own righteousness, it is in vain. In vain is salvation looked for from the hills, and the multitude of the mountains, for there is no safety but in the Lord. Other refuges did they then probably look for, more likely to save them than the ark, for they could scarce conceive of such a way of safety by the floating of such a building on the waters, the art of making ships having not been discovered before that time. So men’s own righteousness looks more likely to men to save them, than Christ. They are ready to say of the Lord’s anointed, How shall this man save us?

There were but a few saved, when all the rest of the world was destroyed; so the church of Christ is but a little flock.

The door of the ark was open to receive all sorts of creatures, tigers, wolves, bears, lions, leopards, serpents, vipers, dragons, such as men would not by any means admit into the doors of their houses, but if they came they would soon have beat them out again. So Christ stands ready to receive all, even the vilest and worst: he came to save the chief of sinners.

There were all kinds of creatures in the ark; so in the christian church are gathered together persons of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, persons of all degrees, all kinds of tempers and manners. In the ark the wolf dwelt with the lamb, the leopard lay down with the kid, all were peaceable together in the ark, even those that were the greatest enemies, and were wont to devour one another before, as it is prophesied that it should be in the christian church, Isaiah 11:6, etc. 65:25.

All in the ark was subject to Noah, as the church is subject to Christ; all was saved by his righteousness, Genesis 7:1. “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” As the church is saved by Christ’s righteousness, there is no rest any where for God’s people but and in Christ, as the dove that Noah sent forth found no rest for the sole of her foot but in the ark; when she wandered from the ark, she found no rest till she returned again. The dove therein was a type of a true saint, as the raven was a type of a false professor, who separates from Christ, and returns to him no more.

The ark was taken up from the earth, and after being long tossed to and fro in the waters, when it was not steered by the wisdom of Noah, but was only under the care of Providence, is rested on the top of an exceeding high mountain, as it were in heaven, and was brought into a new world; so the church of Christ in this world is tossed to and fro like a bark on the water, passes through great tribulation, and appears to be overwhelmed.

Isaiah 54:11. “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted! behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and will lay thy foundations with sapphires.” At last, through God’s care of it and mercy to it, it rests in heaven. The ark, in the midst of the flood, rested on a mountain strong and high; so the church, when ready to be overwhelmed, rests on a rock higher than she. [354] Genesis 7:8,9, and 14, 15, 16. Concerning the resorting of all kinds of birds, and beasts, and creeping things to the ark before the flood. The particular animals that were gathered together to the ark and saved there, when all the rest of their kind were destroyed, were those that God had pitched on, and in his sovereign pleasure chosen, out of the many thousands and millions that were of their kind, and yet they were of every kind, as it were of every nation of birds and beasts. So that here was a lively image of that gathering together of the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, that there was before the destruction of Jerusalem, and before the terrible judgments of God that came on the earth at and before Constantine’s time, and that will be before the great destruction of God’s enemies that will he about the time of the destruction of antichrist, when the harvest of the earth shall be gathered in before the vintage, and the gathering together there will be to Christ before the great, and general, and last destruction of the wicked by the general conflagration, when the world shall be destroyed by a deluge of fire. There are elect of every nation that shall be gathered in before the final destruction of the wicked world, as is often said in Scripture, especially in the book of Revelation. The doves and other birds then flocked to the windows of the ark, representing that flocking of souls to Christ which shall be as doves to their windows. They flocked together, the eagle, the vulture, and other rapacious birds, together with doves and other such birds, without preying upon them; representing times of great ingathering of souls to Christ, wherein the wolf dwells with the lamb, and the leopard lies down with the kid, etc. [346] Genesis 8:7,8, etc. Concerning the raven and the dove, that Nook sent forth. The dove is an emblem of a gracious soul, which; finding no rest for its foot, no solid peace or satisfaction in this world, this deluged, defiling world, returns to Christ as to its ark, as to its Noah. The carnal heart, like the raven, takes up with the world, and feeds on the carrion it finds there. But return thou to tiny rest, 0 my soul, to thy Noah, so the word is, Psalm cxvi. 7. “0 that I had wings like a dove to flee to him,” Psalm 55:6. The olive-branch, which was an emblem of peace, was brought, not by a raven, a bird of prey, nor by a gay and proud peacock, but by a mild, patient, humble dove, It is a dove-like disposition that brings ins to the soul earnests of rest and joy. [166] Genesis 8:21. “ And the Lord smelt a sweet savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will not,” etc. It. was not for the acceptableness of that sacrifice that made God promise that he wound no more curse the ground, but the acceptableness of the sacrifice of’ Christ represented by it. [347] Genesis 9:5, etc. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require it whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” We have an account of murders before the flood, but nothing that looks as though murder was wont then to be revenged with death by men, in an established course of public justice. Lamech, when he had been guilty of murder, seems not to have been executed for it by men. And by the story of Cain, it should seem that God took the punishment of murder then into his own hands. In all probability, a little before the flood, when we read that the earth was filled with violence, the earth was filled with murders, and that those giants who then became such mighty men, and men of renown, were guilty of many murders, and that it was in the earth as it was in corrupt times in Israel, and the land was filled with oppression and violence, in other respects their hands were full of blood, Isaiah 1:15. Jeremiah 2:34. “And the land was full of blood,” Ezekiel 9:9. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they broke out, and blood toucheth blood: the like in many other places. And there being no human laws for putting murderers to death, therefore God did in a remarkable manner take that work into his own hands in the destruction of those murderers by the waters of the deluge; but now establishes it as a rule henceforward to be observed that murder shall be revenged in a course of public justice.

Another reason why God now does expressly establish and particularly insist on this rule is, that God had now first given them leave to shed the blood of beasts for food, which had not been granted till now, which liberty they would have been in danger of abusing, to make shedding of blood appear a less terrible thing to them, and so taking encouragement the more lightly to shed men’s blood, had not God set up this fence. [238] Genesis 9:12,13,14,15. Concerning the rainbow that God gave for a token of the covenant to Noah. The author of Revelation examined with candour, supposes that the rainbow was never seen before Noah saw it, on occasion of his revealing his covenant to him, and says, “The tradition of antiquity concerning the rainbow, seems strongly to confirm this opinion; for Iris, which is the name of the rainbow with the Greeks, is said to be the daughter of Thaumas, i.e. Wonder, and the messenger of Jupiter, to carry his great oath to the other gods when they had offended. Now this seems to be a fable plainly founded upon the solemn covenant now mentioned, which God made with men after the deluge: the covenant of God on this occasion plainly implies the oath of God, as you may learn from Isaiah 54:9. where God declaring his resolution of mercy to the Gentiles, useth these words, ‘For this is as the waters of Noah unto me ,for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.’“ [348] Genesis 9:12, etc. Concerning the rainbow, the taken of the covenant, This is on many accounts a token of God’s covenant of grace, and his special promise of no more overthrowing the earth with a flood in particular.

It was a most fit token of the covenant of grace of which this particular covenant was a part, and also an image, as appears by Isaiah 54:8,9,10.

Tokens of things that appertain to the covenant of God do as fitly confirm this promise, as they did the promise mentioned in the 7th chap. of Isaiah, ver. 14. It is light which is the symbol of God’s favour and blessed communications to those that are the objects of his favour, and a symbol of hope, comfort and joy, excellency and glory, It is a very pleasant light, excellently representing that grace and love that is manifested in the covenant of grace, and that sweet comfort and peace, and that excellent grace and glory, that is the fruit of that love.

It is light manifested in all the variety of its beautiful colours, which represent, as has been elsewhere shown, the beauty and sweetness of the divine Spirit of love, and those amiable sweet graces and happy influences that are from that Spirit.

It is a pleasant sweet light in a cloud, which is the symbol of the divine presence, and especially of God manifest in the flesh, or in the human nature of Christ, and therefore fitly represents the pleasant grace and sweet love of God as appearing in Christ God man. The light of the sun is more beautiful and pleasant to our weak eves appearing thus in a cloud where the dazzling brightness of it is removed, and its pleasantness retained and illustrated, than when we behold it in the sun directly. So the divine perfections, as appearing in Christ God man, are brought down to our manner of conception, and are represented to the greatest advantage to such weak creatures as we are, and appear not glaring and terrifying, but easy, sweet, and inviting. The light of the rainbow in a cloud, teaches the like mystery with the light of fire in a pillar of cloud in the wilderness, even the union of the divine nature, or God dwelling in flesh.

It is a pleasant light in the bosom of a dissolving cloud, that is wearied with watering, and is spending itself for the sake of men, and in order to shed down its fatness, its nourishing, benign, refreshing influences on the earth, and so fitly represents the beauty, and love, and excellent fulness of Christ, as it is manifested in his dying for men. The drops of rain fitly represent Christ’s blood and also his word, and the blessed communications of his Spirit, which come by his death, and are compared to the rain in the Scripture.’

As the cloud fitly represents the human nature of Christ’s person, so also it doth Christ mystical, or the human nature of the church. In the rainbow the light of the sun is imparted to, and sweetly reflected from, a cloud, that is but a vapour that continues for a little while, and then vanishes away in an empty, unsubstantial, vanishing thing, driven to and fro with the wind, that is far from having any light or beauty of its own, being in its own nature dark.

The multitude of drops from which the light of the sun is so beautifully reflected, signify the same with the multitude of the drops. of dew that reflect the light of the sun in the morning, spoken of, Psalm cx. 3. (See notes in the place.) They are all God’s jewels, and, as they are all in heaven, each one, by its reflection, is a little star, and so do more fitly represent the saints than the drops of dew. These drops are all from heaven, as the saints are born from above; they are all from the dissolving cloud: so the saints are the children of Christ, they receive their new nature from him, and by his death they are from the womb of the cloud, the church: Jerusalem which is above, is the mother of us all: the saints are born of the church that is in travail with them, enduring great labours, and suffering, and carnal persecutions; so those jewels of God are out of the dissolving cloud. These drops receive and reflect the light of the sun just breaking forth, and shining out of the cloud that had been till now darkened and hid, and covered with thick clouds; so the saints receive grace and comfort from Christ’s rising from his state of humiliation, suffering, and death, wherein his glory was veiled, and he that is the brightness of God’s glory was as it were extinguished, as was signified in the time of it, by that eclipse of the sun. The light which in the sun, its fountain, is one and unvaried, as it is reflected from the cloud appears with great variety; so the glory of God, that is simple, is reflected from the saints in various graces.

The whole rainbow, composed of innumerable shining beautiful drops, all united in one, ranged in such excellent order, some parts higher and others lower, the different colours one above another in such exact order, beautifully represents the church of saints of different degrees, gifts, and offices, each with its proper place, and each with its peculiar beauty each drop may be beautiful in itself; but the whole, as united together, much more beautiful. Numbers 24:5,6. “How goodly are thy tents, 0 Jacob! and thy tabernacles, 0 Israel”! as the valleys are they spread forth, as the gardens by the river’s side; as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as the cedar-trees beside the waters.” Psalm 48:2. “ Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion.” PS. I. 2. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.” Psalm cxxii. 3.

Jerusalem is builded as a city compact together.” Part of this bow is on earth, and part in heaven, so it is with the church. The bow gradually rises higher and higher from the earth towards heaven, so the saints from their first conversion are travelling in the way towards heaven, and gradually climb the hill, till they arrive at the top. So this bow in this respect is a like token of the covenant with Jacob’s ladder, which represented the way to heaven by the covenant of grace, in which the saints go from step to step, and from strength to strength, till they arrive at the heavenly Zion; so in this bow the ascent is gradual towards the top in the way to heaven; the beginning of the ascent is sharpest and most difficult; the higher you ascend the easier the ascent becomes. On earth this bow is divided, the parts of it that are here below are at a distance from one another, but in heaven it is united, and perfectly joined together. So different parts of the church on earth may be divided, separated as to distance of place, have no acquaintance one part with another, and separated in manner of worship and many opinions, and separated in affection, but will be perfectly united in heaven. The parts of the rainbow, the higher you ascend, the nearer and nearer do they come together; so the more eminent saints are in knowledge and holiness, the nearer they are to a union in opinion and affection; but perfect union is not to he expected but in heaven.

This beautiful, pleasant light, appears after the heavens have been covered with blackness, and have poured out rain on the earth, seeming to threaten its destruction by a deluge; so it is a fit symbol of his mercy after his anger, the turning away of his anger, his mercy appearing in the forgiveness of sins. So the glorious gospel follows the law, and Christ’s glory follows his sufferings, and comfort in the hearts of the saints follows sorrows of conscience; yea, this light is light in darkness, it is a beautiful light reflected from the dark cloud, showing God’s love in his anger, his love appearing in his frowns. God’s love never so greatly appeared as in the sufferings of Christ, the greatest manifestation of his anger against sinners, and his love when the shower is over in past threatenings, and convictions, and terrors of conscience, which the saints have been the subjects of.

The rainbow, if completed, would be a perfect circle, the most perfect figure in every part united, fitly representing the most excellent order and perfect union that there shall be in the church of Christ. The rainbow is sometimes in Scripture represented as a circle, Revelation 10:1. “And a rainbow was upon his head.” The reason why the circle is not now complete, is because a part of it is as it were under the earth; but if we by standing on a high mountain, or otherwise see it all raised above the earth, we should see it a complete circle. So the church of Christ is now incomplete, while a part of the elect church is buried under the earth, and a part has never yet received being, but after the general resurrection, when that part of the church that is now under the earth shall be raised above it, then the church of Christ would be in its complete state. If we could view the resurrection church from a high mountain, as the apostle John viewed it, and saw it in the colours of the rainbow, reflected from these precious stones, we should see the circle completed without any p art wanting, all disposed in the most perfect union and beautiful order. The order of the drops of the rainbow, supposing them to represent saints, and the sun to represent Christ, is the most apt, commodious, and beautiful, both with respect to the sun and each other. They are in the most apt order with respect to the sun, all opposite to him, and so placed in a fit posture to view the sun, and to receive and reflect his rays, all at an equal distance from the sun, and all in a sense round about him to testify their respect to him, and yet none behind him, but all before his face, and all in the most apt order to behold and reflect light on, and converse together, and assist and rejoice one another. On the whole, here is an image of the most pleasant and perfect harmony, of a great and blessed society, dependent on, blessed in, and showing respect to, the fountain of all light and love.

The sun is as it were in the centre of this beautiful circle of little jewels or stars, as the sun is in the centre of the orbits of the planets, and as the ark, and the mercy-seat, and the seven lamps, were in the midst of the tabernacle of blue, and purple, and scarlet, those colours of the rainbow, and as Christ is in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and as the throne of the Lamb is in the midst of the saints of heaven, who are round about that throne, and also a rainbow round about the throne, Revelation 4:3,4. and as the Lamb, who is the light of the new Jerusalem, has that city adorned with the colours of the rainbow round about him.

Each drop contains in itself a beautiful image of the sun reflected after its manner according to that part of the sun s glory which is most conspicuous in it: one contains a red image of the sun, another a yellow one, another a green one, and another a blue one, etc.: so each saint reflects the image of Christ, though each one has his particular gift, and there be some particular grace or spiritual beauty that is most conspicuous in him. The whole bow, when completed into the form of a circle, or all that multitude of shining jewels or stars together united into that excellent form and order, do together constitute one complete image of the sun. Though the image differs from the sun itself in the following things: 1. That whereas the disk of the sun is full within its own circumference, the image is empty, it is a circle not filled, but left empty to he filled with the sun; so Christ has all fulness in himself; hut the church is in itself an empty vessel, and Christ is her fulness. 2. Whereas the light is single in the sun, in the bow it is diversified, reflected in a great variety, the distinct glories of the sun as it were divided, and separately reflected, each beauty by itself, as it is in Christ and his church. 3. Though there be so many that each one reflects a little image of the sun, and the whole how or circle be of so great extent, and be so beautiful, yet the sun infinitely exceeds the whole in light, the whole reflects but a little of the brightness of the fountain.

A drop of rain fitly represents man. It is a very small thing, of little value and significancy; a drop of the bucket, and light dust of the balance, are mentioned together as small and worthy of no consideration. It is very weak, very mutable, and unstable, exceeding liable to perish, soon falls and is dissipated, and cannot be made up again. The continuance of a drop of rain is but short, it is a thing of a very posting nature, its course is swift, and in a moment it sinks into the earth, and is no more, which fitly represents the frailty and mortality of man, whose days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, who is but a momentary thing, and hastens with a swift course to the grave. Man’s dying and sinking into the grave is compared to this very thing, of water’s being spilt on the ground, sinking into the earth, and so being irrecoverably gone, 2 Samuel 14:14.

The drops of rain reflecting the light of the sun in the rainbow fitly represent the saints, for in them fire and water are mixed together, which fitly represents the contrary principles that are in the saints’ flesh and spirit.

In those drops are a brighter spark of heavenly fire in the midst of water, and yet it is not quenched, it is kept alive by the influence of the sun, as the heavenly seed and divine spark is kept alive in the saints in the midst of corruption and temptation, that seem often as if they would overwhelm and extinguish it. So God suffers not the smoking flax to be quenched. The drop in itself is wholly water, as the nature of man in itself is wholly corrupt; in the saints, that is, in their flesh, dwells no good thing; they have no light or brightness in them, but only what is immediately from heaven, from the Sun of righteousness. In the drops of the rainbow is represented both the saints descending to the grave by the flesh, and also their ascending to heaven by the spirit of holiness, for the water descends swiftly to be buried in the earth, but by the fire, a beautiful light, in them is represented an ascent as it were up a hill from the earth to heaven.

These drops fitly represent the saints on another account, as Mary’s alabaster box of precious ointment represented the heart of a saint; this drop, though itself is weak and frail, yet is clear and pure as alabaster, and contains as it were a spark or show of beautiful heavenly light in it, which represents the same divine grace that Mary’s precious ointment did. [419] Genesis 10:and 11:The dispersion and first settlement of the nations.

By the descendants of Jophat were the isles of the Gentiles divided, Genesis 10:5. By the Isles, the Hebrews denoted not only such countries as were on all sides encompassed by sea, but also such countries as were so divided by the sea from them as that they could not be well come unto or at least used not to be gone unto, but by sea; in brief, they called islands all beyond sea-countries, and all people islanders, which were wont to come by the sea to them and to the Egyptians, among whom the Jews lived a long time, and so called things by the same names, at least in Moses’s time, when the people were lately come out of Egypt. Now such are not only the island of Cyprus, Crete, and other islands of the Mediterranean, but also the country of the Lesser Asia, and the countries of Europe; and indeed those countries, so many of them as were then inhabited and known to the Jews, were not only beyond the sea, but peninsulas mostly encompassed by the sea, as the Lesser Asia, Greece, Italy, and Spain, And that not only Europe, but the countries of the Lesser Asia were called isles, seems manifest by lea. 10:10, 11. “The Lord shall recover the remnant of his people from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Ilamath, and from the islands of the sea.” Lesser Asia is either here included under the term, islands of’ the sea, or wholly left out; but it is not likely the countries of Asia would be mentioned, so many of them to the south-east and north of Judea, far and near, and the countries of Europe beyond the Lesser Asia, and all countries of the Lesser Asia wholly passed over.

The sons of Japhet were seven, Gomer, Magotr, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodenim, Genesis 10:2,4.

To begin with Gomer and his sons, to whom we may assign t he greatest part of the northern tract of the Lesser Asia for their first plantations.

Josephus tells us expressly that the Galatians who lived in this tract were called Gomerites, and Herodotus tells us that a people called Cimrnerii dwelt in those parts; and Pliny speaks of a town in Troas, a part of Phrygia, called Cimmeris. All the northern part of Lesser Asia was anciently called Phrygia by the Greeks, which is a word that in the Greek language signifies torrid or burnt country, as Gamer in Hebrew is from the Radix Gamar, which signifies to consume; and its derivation Gumra, or Gumro, signifies a coal, and it is certain there was a part of this country which was specially called by the Greeks [...], Burnt Phrygia.

Ashkenaz, who of the three sons of Gomer is first named by Moses, was seated in the western part of the nation of Gomer, i. e, in the north-west part of the Lesser Asia; as it is hardly to be questioned, there being so plain footsteps of his name to be found in those parts; for in Bythinia there is a bay formerly called the Ascanian bay, together with a river and lake of the same name, and in the lesser Phrygia, or Troas, there was both a city and province anciently known by the name of Ascania, and there was isles lying on the coast called the Ascanian isles; nor is it any way unlikely but that in honour of this Ashkenaz, the king and great men of those parts took the name of Ascanias, of which name, besides Ascanius, the son of Eneas, we find a king mentioned in the second book of Homer’s Iliads, which came to the aid of Priamus at the siege of Troy, and from hence probably came that name the Greeks gave to the sea, the Euxine sea. From the family of Ashkenaz, upon the coasts along which lies the entrance into this sea, with some variation of the sound, which length of time might naturally introduce. And the prophet Jeremiah foretelling the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, has this expression, chap. 51:ver. 27. “Call together against her the kingdom of Ararat, and Miseni, and Ashkenaz;” where, by the kingdom of Ashkenaz, may very well be understood the inhabitants of those parts we are speaking of, for Xenophon, as Bochart has well observed, tells us that Cyrus having taken Sardes, sent Hystaspes with an army into Phrygia, that lies on the Hellespont, and that Hystaspes having made himself master of the country, brought along with him from thence a great many of the horse and other soldiers of the Phrygians, whom Cyrus took along with the rest of his army to Babylon.

Riphath, the second son of Gomer, is probably supposed to have seated his family in the parts adjoining eastward to the plantation of his brother Ashkenaz. This opinion is confirmed by the testimony of Josephus, who expressly says that the Paphlagonians, a people inhabiting some portion of this tract, were originally called Rip/iateana, from Riohat, There are also some remainders of his name to be found here among the writings of the ancient Greeks and Latins. For in Apollonius’s Argonauticks, there is mention made of the river called Rhebaeus, which rising in this tract, empties itself into the Euxine sea. The same is called by Dionysius Periegetes and others, Rhebas. Stephanus does not only acquaint us with the river, but tells us also of a region of the same name, and whose inhahitants were called Rhekai; and Pliny places here a people called Riphoei, and another called Arimphoei.

The third and last son of Gomer named by Moses, is Togarmah, whose family was seated in the remaining, and consequently in the most easterly, part of the nation of Gomer, and this situation of the family of Togarmah is agreeable both to sacred and common writers; for as to sacred Scripture, Ezekiel thus speaks, chap. 38:ver. 6. “Gomer, and all his bands, the house of Togarmah, of the north quarters, and all his bands;” and again chap. 27:ver. 14. “They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs, (i.e. the fairs of Tyre,) with horses, and horsemen, and mules.” Now the situation that we assign to Togarmah makes it in a manner lie true north from Judea and Cappadocia, by which name a considerable part of the lot of Togarmah was in process of time known to the Greeks, was very well stocked with an excellent breed of horses and mules, and that the inhabitants were esteemed good horsemen, as is well attested by several ancient heathen writers, as Solinus, of Cappadocia, Dionysius Periegetes, Claudian, and Strabo; and there are to be found footsteps of the very name of Togomah in some of those names, whereby some of the inhabitants of this tract were known to old writers. Thus Strabo tells us that the Trochmi dwelt in the confines of Pontus and Cappadocia. And several towns lying on the east of the river Halys, and so in Cappadocia, are assigned to them by Ptolemy. They are by Cicero called Trogmi, and Trachmeni by Stephanus; and in the council of Chalcedon they are called Trocmades or Trogmades; there being frequent mention made in that council of Cyrimus, bishop of the Trogmades.

We next proceed to say something of the colonies which, coming from the nation of Gomer, in process of time spread themselves in several harts of Europe. Herodotus tells us that a people called Cimmerii formerly dwelt in that tract of Lesser Asia, which we assign to Gomer. So he tells us withal th at these people put out a colony to Palus Maeotis, on the north of the Euxine sea, and so gave the name of Bosphorus Cimmerius to the strait betwixt the Euxine sea and the Maeotick lake, now commonly called the strait of Caffa.

This colony of the Cimmerii increasing in process of time, and so spreading themselves still by new colonies further westward, came along the Danube, and settled themselves in the country which from them has been called Germany. For as to the testimony of the ancients, Diodorus Siculus (as Mr.

Mede observes) affirms that the Germans had their original from the Cimmerians, and the Jews to this day (as the same learned person remarks) call them Ashkenazim of Ashkenaz. Indeed they themselve, retain plain marks enough of their descent both in the name Cimbri and also in their common name Germans, or as they call themselves, Germen, which is but a small variation from Gemren, or Gomren, and this last is easily contracted from Gomerin, that is, Gomereans; for the termination en is a plural termination of the German language, and from the singular number, Gomer, is formed Gemren by the same analogy that from brother is formed brethren. The other name Cimbri, is easily framed from Cimmerii, and by that name the inhabitants of the northwest peninsula of old Germany, now called Jutland, were known not only to the ancient, but latter writers, and from this name of the inhabitant’s, the said peninsula is called Cimbrica Chersonesue, and that frequently by modem authors.

Out of Germany, the descendants of Gomer spread themselves into Gaul, or France. To prove this, Mr. Camden quotes the testimony of Josephus, when he says that those called by the Greeks Golatae were originally called Gomerites, which words may be understood either of the Asiatic Golatte, commonly called by us Galatians, or the European Galatte, commonly called by us Gauls. If it be taken in the former sense, then it is a testimony for the first seating of Gomer in the tract of the Lesser Asia we have assigned him, and on this account it is before taken notice by us. Mr.

Camden also produces the testimony of other writers to prove the Gauls to be from Gamer, as of Appian, who, in his Illyricks, says expressly that the Celtte, or Gauls, were otherwise called Cimbri. Those barbarians whom Mantis defeated, Cicero plainly terms Gauls, and all historians agree that these were the Cimbri. And the coat-armour of Beleus, their king, digged up at Aix, in Provence, where Marius routed them, does evince the same, for the words Beleos Cimbros were engraven upon it in a strange character. Again: Lucan calls that ruffian that was hired to kill Marius, a Cimbrian, whereas Livy and others affirm him to have been a Gaul; and by Plutarch the Cimbri are called Gallo-Scythians.

Hence we conclude that the ancient inhabitants of Britain were descended from Gomer, for it is not to be questioned but that the isle was first peopled from those countries of the European continent which lie next to it, and consequently from Germany or Gaul. The name by which the offspring of those ancient Britons, the Welch, call themselves to this very day, is Kumro, or Cimro, and Kumri, and in like manner they call a Welch woman Kumraes, and their language, Humeraeg; and since the Saxon-s and Angles were Germans, who, as was before observed, were descendants of Gomer, and were near neighbours to the people that were more especially called Cimbri, hence it follows that our ancestors, who succeeded the old Britons, were also descended from Gomer.

But now to proceed to the other sons of Japhet, as the nation of Gomer first seated itself in the northern tract of the Lesser Asia, so the nation of Javan seated itself in the southern tract of the same. And this appears not only from the name of a country in this tract called Ionia, but also from the situation of the four families of Javan’s sons within this tract, which are mentioned in this order by Moses, Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim, Genesis 10:4.

Tarshish seated himself on the eastern part of this tract, as is probable, on several considerations. For Tarsus is a chief town of Cilicia, and Josephus expressly affirms that Cilicia, and the country round it, was originally known by the name of Tarshish, It is scarcely to be doubted, but this was the Tarshish to which the prophet Jonas thought to flee from the presence of the Lord, as also that this principally was the Tarshish mentioned so often by the pro hets, on account of its trading with Tyre.

To the west of Tarshish, adjoining the portion a1pertaining to Kittim, or Cittim, which word having a plural termination, does, in all probability, imply the descendants of Keth, or the Ketians. Ptolemy tells us of a country here called Cetis, and Homer in Odys. 4. mentions a people called Cetii, who were thought to take their name from a river, Cetius, in the same quarter. But it is remarkable that this is agreeable to the name mentioned by Homer. Josephiis will have the isle of Cyprus to have been the seat of the Cittim, because therein was a town called Citium, of good note, but it is not to be questioned, but the continent was peopled before the island, and consequently that the Cittim first seated themselves on the continent, from which they might, probably enough, send in process of time some colony over into the neighbouring island of Cyprus.

The two remaining families of Javan, viz. Elishah and Dodanium, seated themselves on the western coast of the southern tract of the Lesser Asia.

Here upwards, or northwards, were anciently situated the AEoles, who as they carry some marks of their pedigree in their name, so are expressly affirmed by Josephus to have been descended from Elishah, and from him to have taken their name. And since the country, peculiarly called in afterages, Ionia, joined to the south, of what was in said ages peculiarly called AEolia, it is probable that the said Iowa, (so peculiarly called perhaps, from Javan’s living there with his son Elishah,) was possessed originally by the sons of Elishah, or else partly by them and partly by the Dodanim--of whom next.

On the same western coast, south of the family of Elishab, may the family of Dodanim be supposed to have first planted itself, for there we find in ancient writers a country called Doris, which may not improbably be derived from Dodanim, especially if this be plural, as the termination seems to import, and so the singular was Dodaus; which being softened into Doran, the Greeks might easily frame from thence Dormss, whom they assert to be the father of the Dorians. Certain it is from the Greek writers themselves, that the Doris or Dorians were a considerable body of the Greeks, insomuch that Dorico Castra is taken by Virgil to denote the whole Grecian camp, wherefore it is very probable that they had their extraction from one of the sons of Javan, the father of the Greek nation, and distinguished themselves from the other families of Javan, by assuming to themselves the name of the father of their family, as the others did, and consequently called themselves Dodanim, which the Greeks in time moulded into Doris. The Greeks say of Dorus, the father of the Dorians, that he was the son of Neptune, who evidently was the same with Japhet; (see No. 405.) and though Dodanim was the grandson of Japhet, yet according to the usual way of speaking among the Hebrews, he was called the son of Japhet. The change of Dodan into Dorus is the more likely, by reason of the great likeness there is between the Hebrew D and R. Hence, (viz. from Doris,) some might pass over to the isle of Rhodes, which might take its name from those Dodanim, which by reason of the likeness of letters is sometimes writ Rodanim, which seems to have been the opinion of the Seventy Interpreters, by their rendering the Hebrew word Dodanim by [...], Rhodii.

I proceed now to speak of the colonies of the posterity of Javan, that in process of time were made from their first settlements, and I shall begin with the two last mentioned, Elisha/i and Dodanim; for those lying on the western coast of the Lesser Asia, as they increased, peopled by degrees the many isles that lie on the adjoining sea, and so at length spread themselves into the European continent. The family of Elishah seems to have possessed themselves of most, or at least the most considerable isles lying in the sea between Europe and Asia, forasmuch as they are called by the prophet Ezekiel, 27:7. the isles of Elishah. What the prophet there says of the blue and the purple from the isles of Elishah, is very applicable to the isles of this sea, forasmuch as they did abound in this commodity, and are on that account celebrated by common authors, and some of them took their names from it. And the sea itself on which these isles were, seems originally to have been called the Sea of Elishah; which name, though it wore away in process of time in other parts, yet seems to have been all along preserved in that part, which to this day is frequently called the Hellespont, as if one should say Elisae Pontos, the Sea of Elishah, And this derivation of the word Hellespont will appear’ yet more likely, when we consider that the descendants of Elishab, passing over into Europe, came afterwards to be termed Hellenes, and their country Hellas, a name which in process of time became common to all Greece; in which there were other footsteps of Elishah’s name to be found formerly, as in the city and province of Elis, in the Peloponnesus, in the city of Eleusis, in Attica; and in the river Elissus, and Ilissus, in the same province. Some think the Campi Elisii, so much celebrated among the Greeks, to have been so called from Elishah.

As to Dodenim, or the Dorians, the Spartans, or the Lacedemonians, looked on themselves to be of Dorick extraction, and there were formerly remainders of the name to be found in those parts of Greece. In the province of Messena, in the Peloponnesus, there was a town called Dorion, and of the other tract of Greece, lying above the isthmus of the Peloponnesus, there was a considerable part called Doria, Dorica, or Doris; to say nothing of Dodona: and all the Greek nation is sometimes called Dores, as was before observed, out of Virgil.

As to Kittim, or the Cittim, they probably sent their first colony to the neighbouring isle of Cyprus, which seems to be called the land of Chittim, Isaiah 23:1-12. But in process of time wanting more room, and therefore seeking omit further, and finding the lower p arts of Greece already inhabited by the descendants of Elisirab and Dodanmm, they still proceeded on, coasting along the western shores of ‘Greece, until they came to the upper and northern parts of it, which not being yet inhabited, some of them planted themselves there while some others of them descrying the coast of Italy, wemit and settled themselves in that country.

Hence it comes to pass, in probability, that both Macedonia in Greece, and also Italy, are denoted in Scripture by the names of Cittim, or Kittin. The author of the book of Maccabees plainly denotes Macedonia by the land of Chetiim, when he says that Alexander, the son of Philip the Macedonian, came out of the land of Chitiim, 1 Mac. i 1.; so also chap. 8:5. the said author calls Perseus king of Macedonia, king of the Citums. The more ancient name of this country was Macetia, and the Macedonians themselves are otherwise termed Macetae.

The place of Scripture where Chittim, by the consent of almost all expositors, denotes the Romans, is Daniel 11:29,30. for by the ships of Chittim, there mentioned, is understood the Roman fleet; by the coming whereof, Antiochus was obliged to desist from his designs against Egypt.

There are also several footsteps of the name Chittim, or Cheth, to be found in Italy, among eminent writers; as a city of Latium, called Cetia, mentioned by Dionysius Helicarnasseus: another city among the Volsci, called Echetia, mentioned by Stephanos; also a river near Eumae, called Cetus. Nay, there are not wanting authors who expressly assert the Romans and Latins to have had their extraction from the Citii, or Cetii, as Eusebius, Cadrenus, Suidas; whose testimonies are produced by Bochart; and this learned person observes further, that the word Chttim does, in the Arabic tongue, denote a thing hid, so that the name Latins might be origimially only a translation of the old eastern name Chetim.

There remains now only the colonies of Tarshish to be spoken of and wheresoever else they seated themselves it is highly probable that Tartessus, a city and adjoining country in Spain, and much celebrated by the ancients for its wealth, was a colony of Tarshish. Bochart has observed that Polybius, reciting the words of a league between the Romans and Carthaginians, mentions a place under the name of Tarscium; and Stephanus expressly says, that Thrscium was a city near Hercules’s Pillars: the situation whereof agrees well enough with that of Tartessus. Again, what is said by Ezekiel, chap. 27:ver. 12. agrees very well with this Tarshish; for the words of the prophet run thus, “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs;” i. e, in the fairs of Tyre. Now, as has been before observed, Tartessus was celebrated among the ancients for its multitude of riches, and the metals mentioned by the prophet were such as Spain did formerly abound with. Some also are of opinion that the Etrusci of Italy, otherwise called Turrheni and Tusei were a colony of Tarshish, The word Etrusci, without the initial E, (which was frequently added to derivatives,) contains the radicals of Tarshish.

The descendants of Tarshish were the most expert seamen, and consequently the chief merchants of the early ages of the world. Hence the whole Mediterranean sea seems to have been at length comprehended under the name of the sea of Tarshish. And because the descendants of Tarshish were wont to make longer voyages, and to adventure further into the open sea, than others did in those days, it is not unlikely that they had ships built for this purpose, and so of somewhat different make both as to size and shape from the vessels commonly used by others: and hence it is probable that all vessels built for longer voyages and greater burdens came to be called ships of Tarshish, because they were built like the ships of Tarshish properly so called.

Having observed these things concerning the settlements and colonies of the four families of Javan, I would here add something with respect to Javan himself, the father of this whole nation; and I would observe that it is probable that the colonies that passed over in process of time into Europe, though they were distinguished in reference to their distinct families by their distinct names, yet were all at first comprehended under the name of Jonians. Indeed the Scholiast in Aristophanes (as Bochart hath observed) expressly says, that all the Greeks were by the Barbarians called Iaones, i.e.

Ionians. Hence the Ionian sea came to be extended anciently to the western coast of Greece, and that northwards up as far as the western coast of Macedonia.

Now it is plain that the name Ionians was derived from the founder of this nation, Javan. For the Hebrew word, setting aside the vowels which are of disputable authority, may be read Ion, or Jaon. But supposing the word to be all along pronounced with the same vowels it has in the Hebrew text at present, it is granted by the learned in the same language, that the true pronunciation of the Hebrew vowel, Kamets, carries in it a mixture of our vowel o us well as a, so that the Hebrew nwy is very regularly turned into the Greek whence by contraction may be made Ie>wn Since therefore not only the forementioned Scholiast, but also Homer, styles those who were commonly called tones, by the name of Iwn it is not to be doubted but the Ionians were so called from Javan the founder of their nation. Agreeably to what has been said, we find the country of Greece denoted in the book of Daniel from time to time the country of Javan, Daniel 8:21. 10:20. 11:2.; and also in Joel 3:6. And though the Athenians affirm that the Asiatic Ionians were a colony of theirs, yet Hecateus in Strabo affirms, that the Athenians, or Ionians of Europe, came from those of Asia.

Having spoken somewhat largely of the posterity of Coiner and Javan, because Europe appears to be chiefly peopled by them, we now proceed to take notice of the other sons of Japhet, among whom I shall speak next of Tubal and Meshech, which are so mentioned together from time to time in Scripture, that it is evident that their settlements were adjoining one to the other.

Meshech joined on to the nation of Gomer eastward, and so settling at first in part of Cappadocia and Armenia, what according to the present vowels in the Hebrew is Meshech, was by the Seventy Interpreters, and others, read Mosoch, and hence it is very probable that they are the same called by the Greeks Moscoi , Mosci, who were seated in those p arts, and from whom no question but the neighbouring ridge of hills took the name of Montes Moschici, mentioned by the old geographers.

To the north of Meshech adjoined the first plantation of Tubal, who, by Josephus, is expressly affirmed to be the father of the Asiatic Iberians. The same historian asserting that when the Greeks called Iberi were originally called Theobeli from Tubal, adds hereunto that Ptolemy places in those parts a city called Thabilica. Mr. Bochait sup poses the Tibareni, a people mentioned by old authors in this tract, to have been so called, from Tubal, by the change of L into R, which is very frequent. But that Meshech and Tubal seated themselves in those parts is in a manner put beyond dispute, by what is said of those two nations in Ezekiel 27:13.” Tubal and Meshech were thy merchants; they traded in slaves and vessels of brass in thy market.” For it is evident from the testimonies of heathen writers that the Pontic region, especially Cappadocia, was remarkable formerly for slaves, as also that in the country of the Tibareni, and Iberia, there was the best sort of brass. Mr. Bochart observes that the Hebrew word translated in this place brass, is sometimes rendered steel; and hence he remarks that as a piece of iron or brass is in the Arabic tongue called Tubal, probably from its coming out of the country of Tubal, so it is likely that from the excellent steel that was made in their country, some of the inhabitants thereof were denominated by the name of Chalybs among the Greeks: the word Chalybs, in the Greek language, signifying steel.

That the Muscoviles, or Moscoviles, in Europe, were a colony originally of Meshech, or Mosock, called by the Greeks, Moschi, is very probable.

Magog is, by the testimony of Josephus, Eustathius, St. Jerome, Theodoret, and, (as Mr. Mede expresses it,) by the consent of all men, placed north of Tubal, and esteemed the father of the Scythians that dwell in the east, and north-east, of the Euxine sea. This situation is confirmed by Scripture itself, Ezekiel 38:2. “Set thy face against Gog, in, or of, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” Bochart conjectures that the mountain called by the Greeks Caucasus, took its name from Gog, But the name of Gog was entirely preserved in the name Gogarene, whereby was formerly denoted a country in those parts, as we learn both from Strabo and Stepiranus, And from hence perhaps in time was fashioned the name Georgia, Gurgistarm, whereby at this very day is denoted a considerable tract in this quarter. That Gog denotes the Scythians in the prophecy of Ezekiel, may be rationally inferred from Ezekiel 39:3. where God speaks of Gog thus, “I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.”

Now it is too well known to the learned to need proof, that the Scythians were remarkably famous of old for their skill in the use of the bow and arrow, insomuch that some among them for their winking with one eye when they shot, are said to have given them the name of arimaspi, oneeyed.

Nay, it is thought by some, and not without ground, that the very name of Scythians was derived from shooting, forasmuch as in the German tongue shooters are called Scutten.

To say something of the colonies of Magog, In the panegyric of Tibullus to Messala, we find mention made by the poet of a people about the river Tanais, called Magiai, which probably came from Magog. Yea, it is not improbable that the Mreotick lake into which the Tanais runs, took its name from the descendants of Magog; for Magogitis, or Magiitis, the Greeks might naturally after their manner soften into Maiotis, which the Latins and we render Maeotis, We read in Pliny, that the city in Syria, called Hierapolis, was by the Syrians called Magog, which name it is thought most likely to have taken from the Scythians, when they made an excursion into Syria, and took this city. On the like account it is that the city in Judea, called Bethisan, was also called in after-ages, Scythopolis.

Now Hierapolis being thus called Magog, it is not improbable but the adjoining part of Syria might be from thence called Magagene; which afterwards might be moulded into Gomagene, and so into Comagene; by which the northern part of Syria was denoted among the Greeks and Latins.

The next son of Japhet is Madai, who is almost universally looked upon to be the father of the Medes, who are all along denoted by the name of Madai in the Hebrew text. Bochart thinks the Samaritans a colony from those; he conjectures that the name of the Samaritans was originally Sear Madai, which in the original language denotes the remnant, or posterity, of the Medes. See objections against this and another region allotted to Madai, in Pool’s Synops. vol. i col. 117, 118.

Tiras, or Thiras, the last son of Japhet, is by universal agreement esteemed the father of the Thracians. The name whereby the country of Thrace is called in oriental writers, plainly shows that the Greek name Thrace was originally derived from Thiras, the founder of the nation. Ancient writers also tell us, that here was a river, a bay, and a haven, each called by the name of Atheyras, and they mention a city in the peninsula of Thrace called Tyristasis, and a tract in this country called Thrasus, and a people called Trausi. We learn also from them that one of the names of Mars, the god of the Thracians, was Qourav . Hence Homer calls Mars by an epithet Qourouv Arhv , Mars Thuras, We read also in old authors of Tereus, the son of Mars, and first king of the Thracians, and of one Teres king of Odrysae, a people in Thrace: and the Odrysn themselves are said to take their name from one Odrysus, a great person among them, insomuch that in after-ages he was worshipped by the Thracians as a god. As for the colonies of Tiras, it is hardly to be doubted but some of them planted themselves in the country over against Thrace, on the north side of the Euxine sea. From there is a considerable river in those parts, called in both Greek and Latin writers Tiras The very same as the name of the father of the Thracian nation, which river is now called the Niester. There was also a city of the name of Tires, standing on this river. The inhabitants of these parts were also formerly known by the name of Tyritae, or Tyragetae.

Though probably the Tyritae might denote the true descendants of Tyras and the Tyragetae might denote a mixed race, that arose out of the Tyritae mixing with the Getae, a bordering people, descendants of the Cetim, who settled in Macedonia.

It is not unlikely that Tyras might first sit down with his family in the Lesser Asia, in the country of Troy, which had nothing to part it from Thrace but the narrow strait of the Hellespont, and the ancient king named Tros, whence the country is denominated, was probably no other than Tyras, It is the common opinion and tradition among Greek writers, that the inhabitants on the east side of the Hellespont and Propontis, were originally or anciently Thracians.

We proceed next to the first plantations of the sons of SHEM, There are five sons of Shem mentioned by Moses, viz. Elam, and Ashur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.

I shall begin with the settlement of Aram, as being the first nation of the branch of Shem, adjoining to the nations of the branch of Japhet, already spoken of. For the portion that fell to the nation of Aram, lay in the countries called by the Greeks Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Syria. It is probable that Armenia took its p resent name from Aram. Mesopotamia, as it was so called bythe Greeks, from its situation between the rivers Euphrates and Tygnis, so it was called by the Hebrews Aram Naharaim, i e. Aram of, or between, tie two rivers. And whereas one part of this country, viz. that lying next to Armenia, was very fruitful, and the other to the south very barren, and so of the like sort with Arabia Deserta, to which it adjoined, hence the former is in Scripture distinguished by the name of Padan-aram, which is equivalent to, Fruitful Aram.

Aram’s sons are four, viz. Uz and Hul, Gether and Mash. As for Uz, he is by a great agreement of the ancients said to be the builder of the city of Damascus, and his posterity are supposed to have settled the country about it. Here see Pool’s Synopsis on Genesis 10:23.

The family of Hul, or as it is in the original, Chul, may, with great probability be placed in Armenia, particularly the Greater Armenia, for there we find the names of several places beginning with the radicals of Chul, as Cholua, Cholvata, Cholimna, Colsa, Calura; and to mention but one more, Cholobatene, which last seems to have been formed from the oriental Cholbeth, which denotes the same as the house or dwelling of Chol. Now this Cholobatene being the name of a province in Armenia, from this especially we may gather with good probability that Chul with his family seated himself in those parts.

Between Hul to the north, and Uz to the south, their brother Mash seated himself; viz, about the mountain Masius, From this mountain issues out a river of Mesopotamia, called by Xenophon Masca, which probably comes from the name of this son of Aram, who otherwise is called in Scripture Meshech, the radicals whereof are plainly contained in the name Masca.

The inhabitants of the tract adjoining to the M. Masius, are by Stephanus called Masieni, or Mastant.

Gether probably seated himself east of his brother Hul, on the eastern borders of Armenia; where some in Ptolemy observe a city called formerly Getarrr, and a river of the same country called Getras.

We now pass on to the nation of Ashur, which is eastward of the nation of Aram, in the country called Ashur in the eastern tongues, which is Assyria, properly and originally so called, lying east of the Tigris, and wherein stood the city of Nineveh, which was afterwards called Acetabene, and also was sometimes by a change of S into T formerly called Attyria. The most ancient king of Assyria was said to be the son of Zames, i.e. Shem, and is styled in Suidas, and some others, Thuras, corruptly for Atthuras, i e.

Ashur; for Ashur in the Chaldee tongue is Atthur, or Atther. This Thuras, the son of Zames, was worshipped by the Assyrians as their Mars, or god of war.

That Elain seated himself in the southern tract beyond the river Euphrates, is beyond dispute, not only from the authority of the Scriptures, wherein the inhabitants of the said tract are plainly and frequently denoted by the name of Elain, but also from heathen writers, wherein we read of a country here called Elymais, and a city of the same name.

To the lot of Arphaxad is assigned by learned men the more southern part of Mesopotamia, where the plain or vale of Shinar lay, on the river Tigris, together with the country of Eden, and the tract on the east side of the same river, called Arapachitis, a name plainly derived from Arpachshad, which is the name of Arphaxed in the Hebrew text, That the vale of Shinar, with the country of Eden, was part of the first plantation of Arphaxad, is supposed on these probabilities: 1. That Noah, after the flood, returned and settled himself again in these parts, us well knowing the goodness of the soil and pleasantness of the country, which is confirmed by a town here called Zama from them. 2. That upon the dispersion of mankind and confusion of tongues, as the primitive Hebrew tongue was preserved in the family of Arphaxad, so agreeably hereunto this family still continued in the same parts where they then were, together with their grandsires, Noah and Shem. 3. This opinion may be confirmed from Genesis 10:30. “And their dwelling was from Mesha, as you go unto Sephar, a mount of the east;” for the Mesha here mentiouued is probably esteemed to be the same mountain as is before mentioned under the name of Mash, or Mesime, in the western parts of Mesopotamia; so that if the forecited text is to be understood of the descendants of Arphaxad, (as is thought by several learned men, and also by the historian Josephus,) it will import thus much, that the southern part of Mesopotamia, lying on the east of the mount Mesha, or Mesius, was first peopled by the descendants of Arphaxad; (and accordingly we here find Phalga, a town probably named from Peleg, or Phaleg, settling there;) and so on eastward as far as to Sephar, a mount in the east. Now this mount Sephar is probably thought to be the mountain adjoining to Siphare, a city in Aria, and which lies directly east from Mesha; and though this be a long tract of ground, yet it will be but proportional to the numerous descendants of Arphaxad, especially by Joktan, of whom more by and by. 4. It is the tradition of the ancients, Eustathius, Antiochenus, and Eusebius, that Salah, the son of Arphaxad, seated himself in Susiana; and agreeably hereto, we read in old writers of a town called Sela. But now Susiana did contain part of the country of Eden, which adjoined to, or in all probability was part of; the vale of Shinar, largely taken. 5. It is further confirmed that Arphaxad seated himself in the vale of Shinar, because we find that Terah, and Abraham his son, came out of those parts, Genesis 11:31. “ And Terah took Abram his son, and went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan.” Now it is confessed, I think by all, that Chaldea comprehended at least a great part of the vale of Shinar, and it is certain that it comprehended as much of the country of Eden as lay west of the common channel of the Euphrates and Tigris On this text of Scripture seems to be grounded what Josephus saith of the Chaldeans being called the Arphaxadeans.

Having thus seen the first settlements of the descendants of Arphaxad, let us turn our eyes a little upon their after-colonies, particularly those that sprung from Joktan, of whom Moses reckons up no fewer than thirteen sons; and as Moses assigns their habitation from Mesha to mount Sophar, so in this tract learned men have observed the names of several places, which by their likeness to the names of Joktan’s sons, seem to tell their respective situations.

There is nothing certain concerning Lud, the remaining son of Shem, but that he did not seat himself in the country of Lesser Asia, called Lydia.

Ham was the youngest of the three sons of Noah. He had four sons, Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. We find Egypt twice or thrice in the book of Psalm called the land of Ham, whence it seems probable that Ham went thither himself; and there settled with his son Mizraim And it is scarce to be doubted but the person denoted by the Greeks under the name of Jupiter Ammon (in honour to whom there was a temple erected in the parts of Libya adjoining to Egypt, much celebrated for its oracles) was no other than Ham.

It is well known that the nation of Canaan settled itself in the country so often called in Scripture the land of Canaan. Upon the dispersion of mankind the country lying on the east and south-east of the Mediterranean sea fell to the share of Canaan, so that he was seated between the nation of Aram to the north and east, and the nation of Cush, his brother, to the south and south-east, and Mizraim, another of his brothers, to the southwest: his western boundary was the Mediterranean sea. His descendants are thus reckoned up by Moses, Genesis 10:15,18. “Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arcite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite.”

Of Sidon were the inhabitants of the city of Sidon, and the country about; which city, us is apparent both from sacred and ancient profane writers, was in the more early ages of the world much more considerable than Tyre.

Sidon is called Great Sidon, Joshua 19:29.; but Tyre does not seem to have become considerable until about David’s time. Homer never so much as once mentions pyre, but often makes mention of the Sidonians, and Tyre is expressly called the daughter of Sidon, Isaiah 5:12.

The second family of Canaan mentioned by Moses, is that of Heth, whose posterity placed themselves in the southern parts of Canaan, about Ilebron, as appears from Abraham s concern with them there, Genesis xxiit. We also read that during Isaac’s dwelling at Beersheba, Esau took him wives of the daughters of Heth, Genesis 26.

The Jebusites were seated about Jerusalem, which was originally called Jebus, I Chronicles 11:4; so that the Jebusites joined on to the Hittites in the mountains towards the north. As the Hittites and Jebusites, so also the Amorites, dwelt in the mountainous or hilly part of the land of Canaan, as appears from Joshua 11:3, And the spies gave this account, Numbers 13:29. “ And the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and the coast of Jordan.”

Now as the Hittites seem to have possessed the hill country to the west and south-west of Hebron, and the Jebusites to the north, so the Amorites might settle themselves at first in the hill country to the east and south-east of Hebron. This seems probable, because the mountainous tract lying next to Kadesh-Barnea, is called the mount of the Amorites, Deuteronomy 1:7.; and we are told, Genesis 14:7. that Chedorlaomer smote the Amorites that dwelt in Haze ron-lamar, which was the same place with Engedi, Chronicles 20:2. and so was seated in the hilly pa~ of the land of Canaan to the east, or towards Jordan. And their neighbourhood to the country beyond Jordan might be the occasion that the Moabites were in process of time dispossessed thereof by the Amorites; whence that tract beyond Jordan is called the land of the Amorites; and Sihon, the king thereof; is always called king of the Amorites.

The Girgasite is the next family mentioned by Moses, who probably seated themselves at first along the upper part of the river’ of’ Jordan. Here, on the eastern side of the sea of Tiberias, or Galilee, we find in our Saviour’s time a city called Gergesa.

The Hivite we find was seated in the upper or northern parts of Canaan, and so adjoining to his brother Sidon. For we read, Judges 3:3. that “the Hivites dwelt in mount Lebanon from mount Baal-Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath.”

In process of time, these families intermixed one with the other; whence we read of some Hivites, Amorites, and Hittites in some other places than those we have assigned them for their first settlements, and also the Amorites becoming the most potent nation in process of time. Hence they are put to denote, frequently, any one or more of the other nations of Canaan.

Many of the posterity of Canaan of different families, either originally or afterwards, (possibly by being dispossessed of their original settlements by the Philistines, or by other means,) appear to have settled confusedly together, and to have become so intermixed that the names of their distinct families were not kept up, but they were called by the general name of Canaanites. hence we read in the fore-cited passages, Numbers 13:29. The Canaanites dwelt by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.

As to the remaining families of Canaan mentioned by Moses, the first of them that occurs is the Ar/cite; which is probably thought to have settled himself about that tart of mount Libanus where is placed by Ptolemy and others a city called Arce. Not far from this settlement of the Arkite, did the Simile likewise settle himself; for in the parts adjoining, St. Jerome tells us, was once a city called Sin. As for the Arvadite, the little isle of Ardus, lying up more north, on the coast of Syria, is supposed to have taken its name from the founder of this family. In the neighbourhood on the continent did the Zemanite probably fix, forasmuch us on the coast there we find a town called Symyra, not far from Orthosia. And Eusebius does expressly deduce the origin of the Orthosians from the Samareans.

The only remaining family is the Hamathite. or the inhabitants of the land Hamath, often mentioned in sacred writ, and whose chief city was called Hamath. This country lay to the north of all the rest of the posterity of Canaan.

The nation of Cush had its first settlement in the country adjoining to his brother Canaan on the south, that is Arabia. That by Cush in Scripture, is denoted Arabia, and not Ethiopia in Africa, is manifest every where in Scripture, particularly from Numbers 21:1. compared with Exodus 2:15-21. and Habakkuk 3:7. 2 Kings 19:9. 2 Chronicles 14:9. and Ezekiel 29:10. “I will make the land of Egypt desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the borders of Cush.” Now all that have any knowledge of old geography, know that Syene was the border of Egypt towards Ethiopia in Africa.

There Cush being the opposite boundary cannot be Ethiopia in Africa, but must be Arabia.

The sons of Cush are Seba, Havilah, and Sabtah1 and Raamah, and Sabtecha; to which Moses subjoins the two sons of Raamah, Sheba and Dedan; and then adds lastly that Cush begat Nimrod, who began to be a mighty one upon earth, Genesis 10:7,8, etc. Now we shall find all these but the last seated in Arabia. As for Seba, the first son of Cush, he probably seated himself in the south-west of Arabia, where we find a city called Sabe. On the southeast side we find another city called Sabana, where we may therefore place Sheba, the grandson of Cush, by Raamah; and the reason why we choose this to be his situation, rather than the other side of the country, is, because it is on the eastern side of Arabia that we find his father and his brother situated; and it is likely he seated himself in their neighbourhood. On this account we find him always mentioned with his father and brother, as Ezekiel 27:22. “The merchants of Sheba and Raamah were thy merchants,” and chap. 38:”Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish,” etc. Now these two names, Sheba and Sebah, being so much alike, the two different families were confounded by the Greeks, and called promiscuously Sabeans. Hence Pliny says that the Sabean nation inhabited those parts spreading themselves to both seas, i. e, from the Red sea to the gulf of Persia. But the sacred writers exactly distinguish them, Psalm lxxii. 10. “The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.”

On the same side of Arabia with Sheba was seated, as has been mentioned, both his father Raamah and his brother Dedan. For, as to the former, we find on this shore of the Persian gulf a city called Rhegma by Ptolemy; which it is not to be doubted was so called from this reason, for the Hebrew name, which in our translation is rendered Raamah, is in other translations, particularly the Septuagint, rendered (agreeably enough to the radicals) Rhegma. Nor far from Rhegma, mentioned by Ptolemy, we find on the same coast eastward another city called Dedan, now-a-days Dadaen, from which the neighbouring country also takes its name, as Bochart has observed, from Barboza, an Italian writer in his description of the kingdom of Ormuz.

On the same shore of the Persian gulf, but higher northward, we find in Ptolemy the situation of a city called Saphtha, whence it is probable that Sabta, the son of Cush, seated himself here.

Higher still to the northward was seated Havilah, or Chavilah, along the river Pison, on the western channel of the two, into which the common channel of the Tigris and Euphrates again is divided, before the waters thereof empty themselves into the Persian gulf. That Havilah was seated here, is confirmed in that Moses tells us it was seated on a branch of that common channel of which Euphrates and Hiddekel were a part: and in this country, where we have placed Havilah, there was, agreeably to what Moses says of Havilah, plenty of gold, and that good gold; which is agreeable to what ancient authors tell us of Arabia. Moses adds, that in Havilah was Belodach, which some take to signify pearls, others the Bdellium gum, It is much the most likely, however, that pearls are what are intended; for Moses, in describing the manna, says it was like coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of Belodach. Now it is evident from another description that the colour of manna was white, Exodus 14:31. which is opposite to pearls, as also is the roundness of the manna, but in nowise to the Bdellium gum. Hence the Talmudists, mentioning this description of manna, instead of saying it is like the colour of Bdellium gum, say it is like the colour of pearls; and it is certain that there is no place in the world that produceth so fine pearls, and in so great plenty, as the sea next to the shore of this country, where we place Havilah; as is evident from the testimony of Nearchus, one of Alexander’s captains; of Isidorus; of Chorax, who lived a little after; of Pliny, and AElian, and Origen; of Benjamin,a Navarian; of Tudela, who lived five hundred and fifty years ago; of Texeira, a Portuguese; of Balby, Linscot, Vincent, Le Blanc, Tavernier, and Thevenot. And if we understood the Belodach of the Bdellium gum, this also abounded in Arabia, and particularly near the Persian gulf, as appears from the testimony of many ancient writers. And as to the Schoham, which Moses says was to be found in Havilah, which we render the onyxstone, it is doubtless some precious stone that is meant by this; and it is evident from ancient writers, both sacred and profane, that Arabia formerly abounded with precious stones. See Ezekiel 27:22,23.

And that this very country was the country of Havilah, is manifest from Genesis 25:18. where we are told that the Ishmaelites dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt; and from I Sam. 15:7. where we are told that Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur that is before Egypt. In both which passages, by this expression, from Havilah unto Shur, is probably meant the whole extent of that part of Arabia from east to west; and it is evident that Shur was the western boundary of Arabia, from those passages, and also from Exodus 15:22. where we read that Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and therefore it seems no less evident that Havilah was in the eastern extremity of Arabia, over against it, and consequently where we have placed it. Where we find in common authors a people placed, whose name retains the visible footsteps of the name of their forefathers, Havilah, or Chavilah, as it is in the original; thus, by Eramosthenes, are placed on these parts the Chavlothi; by Tresans, Anienas, the Chaulosii; by Dionysius Periegetes, the Chablasii; and by Pliny, the Chaveleai.

There remains now Sabteca, who, we must not doubt, placed himself among the rest of his brethren, especially since there is room enough left for him in the northern p art of Arabia. His descendants might from him regularly enough be styled at first by the Greeks Sabsaceni, which name might afterwards be softened into Saraceni, by which name it is well known that the people of this tract were formerly denominated; and this is the more probable, because Stephanus mentions a country in those parts called Saruca.

The reason why no mention is made in the Scriptures of the Sabtaceans, may be this, that those parts of Arabia lying next to the Holy Land, are by the sacred writers denoted by the name of the whole land of Cush, or Arabia, it being to them as it were instar totius; being the only part of the land of Cush they were usually concerned with; and they probably learnt it first in Egypt of the Egyptians; who, after their father Mizraim, called the country the land of Cush, it being natural to him to call it from the name of his brethren, rather than from one of his children.

Moses having named the other sons and grandsons of Cush, sulujoins, Genesis 10:8. “And Cush begat Nimrod.” By this distinct mention of Nimrod after the rest of his brethren, the sacred historian is supposed to intimate that Nimrod was indeed the youngest of the sons of Cush, but, however, the most remarkable of them: and accordingly it immediately follows in the text, “He began to be a mighty one upon the earth.”

By what method Nimrod became thus mighty, Moses seems to intimate by these words, “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.” He probably applied himself to hunting, to destroy the wild beasts that began to grow very numerous, and very much to infest the parts adjoining to the nation of Cush; and by his great art and valour in destroying wild beasts, he inured himself and his companions to undergo fatigue and hardship, and withal to manage dexterously several sorts of offensive weapons. Being thus occasionally trained up to the art of war, and perceiving at length his skill and strength sufficient, he began to act offensively against men.

The country at first assigned to Nimrod, the youngest son of Cush, was probably the country on the east of Gihon, the eastern branch of the common channel of Euphrates and Tigris, after its second division, hefore it emptied itself into the Persian gulf; next to his brother Havilah his brethren having possessed Arabia. This part next to Arabia was assigned to him, and so being the portion of one of the sons of Cush, was called the land of Cush, as it is by Moses when speaking of the river Gihon, “The same is it which compasses the whole land of Cush;” which country was formerly, by the Greeks and Latins, called by the name of Susiana, and is now called Chuzestan. The Nubian geographer, and some other Arabians, call it Churestan. The inhabitants of the land call it absolutely and plainly C/ins, if we will believe Marius Niger. The same region is called Cuthah, Kings 17:24. speaking of the people transported thence into Samaria, by Salmanezer. The word Cuthah, or Cuth, undoubtedly came from the word Cush, or Cus, the last letter of which is often changed by the Chaldeans into a T or Th, as Dion hath observed; so they called Theor, for Sar, and Attyria, for Assyria. There are yet many marks of the word Cush found in the same province. We find there the Cassions, neighbours of the Uxians, according to the position of Pliny, Ptolemy, and Arrian There is also a little province of Susiana, viz. Cissia, and the people Cissians. The poet Eschylus takes notice of a city of that name, situated in the same land, and what us remarkable, he does distinguish it by its antiquity.

This country was probably named Cush before Nimrod was born, or at least when he was young, before he distinguished himself in the world, from Cush his father living beta, in that part of the face of the earth, that fell to the lot of him and his posterity, that was nearest to the original settlement of Noah and his sons, and was the pleasantest and most beautiful, like Eden, on which it bordered. While Cush sent forth his elder sons to settle Arabia, it is likely that hue staid here himself with his youngest son, who was probably very young when the earth was divided.

But Nimrod, when he found his strength and ability for war, and being grown famous for his extraordinary valour in destroying wild beasts, was not contented with the lot assigned him; but invades first the neighbouring part of the nation of Shem, which upon the division of the earth fell to the lot of the family of Arphaxad, and so makes himself master of the lower part of the land of Shinar, being a most pleasant and fruitful country, and pitching on that very place where the city and tower of Babel had been, began to build the capital city of his kingdom. Moses says, “The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” As to Erech, it is probably the same that occurs in Ptolemy under the name of Arecca, and which is placed by him at the last or most southern turning of the common channel of the Tigris and Euphrates. The fields hereof are mentioned by Tibullus, on account of its springs of Naphtha. The Archevites, mentioned Ezra 4:9. are thought to be some that were removed from Erech to Samaria. What in the Hebrew is Acehad, is by the Seventy Interpreters writ Archad, whence some footsteps of this name are probably thought to be preserved in the river Argades mentioned by Ctesias, as a river near Suttace, lying at some distance from the river Tigris, and giving name formerly to Sintacene, a country lying between Babylon and Susa, and because it was very usual, particularly in those parts, to have rivers take their name from some considerable city they run by; hence it is not improbably conjectured, that the city Sittace was formerly called Argad, or Acehad, and took the name of Sittace from the plenty of Psitlarias, or Pistacias, a sort of nut, that grew in the country.

Strabo mentions a region in those parts tinder the name of Artacene, which might be framed from Archad. As to the other city belonging to the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom, viz. Calneh, and which is called, Isaiah 10:9. Calno, and Ezekiel 27:23. Canneh, It is mentioned as a considerable place, Amos 6:2. “Pass ye up into Calneh and see.” It is said by the Chaldee interpreters, as also by Eusebius and Jerome, to be the same with Ctesiphon, standing upon the Tigris, about three miles distant from Seleucia, and for some time the capital city of the Parthians, That this opinion concerning the situation of Calneh is true, is mightily confirmed from the country about Ctesiphon being by the Greeks called Chalnoitis; and since we are expressly told by Ammianus Marcelhinus, that Pacnnus, a king of the Parthtians, changed the name of the city Ctesiphon, when he gave it that name, we may reasonably suppose that its old name was Calneh, or Cholone, and that from it the adjacent country took the name of Cholonitis.

And whereas it is said, Genesis 10:11,12. in our translation, “Out of this land went forth Ashur, and built Nineveh, and the city of Rehoboth, and Colah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calab, the same is a great city.” It might have been rendered as agreeably to the original, and much more agreeably to the preceding verses, and the drift of the historian, Out of that land he went forth into Ashur, and built Nineveh etc. for Moses in the preceding verse having told us what was the beginning of Nimnrod’s kingdom in the land of Shinar, then goes on to tell us how he extended it further afterwards to other cities beyond the land of Shinar into the land of Ashur.

Ninezeh was a city that lay on the river Tigris, somewhat above the mouth of the river Lycus, where it runs into the Tigris.

Rehoboth is a word in the Hebrew tongue that signifies streets; and there being a city or town called Birtha by Ptolemy, and the said name denoting in the Chaldee tongue the same as Rehoboth does in the Hebrew, hence it is thought to be the same city, and it is not to be doubted but the Birtha mentioned by Ptolemy is the same which Ammianus Marcellinus calls Virta. It was seated on the river Tigris about the mouth of the river Lvcus.

As for Calah, or Calach, since we find in Strabo a country about the head of the river Lycus called Colachene, it is very probable the said country took this name from Calach which was once its capital city. Ptolemy also mentions a country called Colocine in those p arts; and whereas Pliny mentions a people called Classita, through whose country the Lycus runs, it is likely that Classita is a corruption for Chalachita, To this city and country in all probability it was that Salmanezer translated some of the ten tribes, 2 Kings 17:6. He placed them in Chalach, as it is in the original.

Resen, the other city mentioned by Moses, is supposed to be the same with a city mentioned by Xenophon under the name of Larissa, lying on the Tigris, and being as Moses says between Nineveh and Calah, and was also said by Xenophon to have been strong and great, (but then in ruins,) being two parasangs, that is, eight miles, in compass, and its walls a hundred feet high and twenty-five feet broad, which agrees with what Moses says of Resin “The same was a great city.” Larissa was a Greek name, we find a city so called in Thessaly. There was another which the Greeks called by the same name in Syria, which the Syrians themselves called Sizora, It is therefore easy to suppose that the Greeks might change Resen into Larissa, It is likely that the Greeks asking, What city those were the ruins of? the Assyrians might answer, Laresen, i e. of Resen, which word Xenophon expressed by Larissa, like the names of several Greek cities.

We proceed now to Mizraim, who by Moses is named second among the sons of Ham. And where he at first settled himself; we need not doubt, since the Hebrew text generally denotes Egypt by the name of the land of Mizraim or simply Mizraim. I proceed therefore to the descendants of” Mizraim. The names whereby these are denoted by Moses, are plurals.

They are thus enumerated by Moses: “Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtubim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.

To begin with Ludim, whereby are denoted the Ethiopians in Africa, and who alone are commonly so called both in ancient and modern writers.

That these Ethiopians are denoted in Scripture by the name of Ludim, and their country Ethiopia by the name of Lud, the learned Bochart has proved at large, by no fewer than ten distinct arguments: I shall mention only those that are drawn from the sacred Scriptures, as from Isaiah 66:19. And Jeremiah 46:9. where Lud or Ludim are said to be very skilful in drawing their bow, which agrees punctually with the character given of the Ethiopians by many ancient writers.

As to Anamim, Bochart thinks the inhabitants of the country about Jupiter Ammon’s temple might be denoted from this Anarnim. The same learned person thinks the Nasamones took their rise and name, as also the Amantes, and Garamantes, and Hammomantes, mentioned by old writers, on the adjacent parts.

The Lehabim came next both in the text and in situation; for it is very probable that Lehabim and Lubim are one and that from hence was derived originally the name of Libya, which, though at length extended to the whole African continent, yet at first belonged only to the country Cyrenaica. Now this country lying next over against Greece, hence the name of Lehab, or Lub, originally belonging to this tract only, was moulded into Libya, and given to the whole continent over against them on the other side of the Mediterranean sea, just as the name of Africa, properly pertaining only to that part of this continent which lies over against Italy, was therefore by the Latins extended to all the continent; or, to come to our own times, much after the same manner as we extend the name of Holland to all the Dutch provinces, and the name of Flanders to all the Spanish provinces, in the Netherlands, whereas they properly denote only the two particular provinces in the Spanish and Dutch Netherlands that lie next over against the island of Great Britain.

The Naphtuhim are probably enough placed by Bochart in the country adjoining to Cyrenaica, or Libya, properly so called, towards Egypt, viz. in Marmorica; for here we find in Ptolemy some remainder of the name in a place called Aprnchi Fanurn, And in the heathen fables, Aptachas, or Jphtuchas, or Ant uichus, is said to be the son of Cyrene, from whom the city and country of Cyrene took its name.

The Pathrusim, or descendants of Pathros, are mentioned next by Moses, whereby are to be understood the inhabitants of the Upper Egypt, or Thebais, where Ptolemy places Pathyris, an inland town not far from Thebes; and agreeably hereto, the Septuagint translation renders the Hebrew Pathros by the Greek Pathyris.

The Caslunim are thought to have first settled in the country on the other side of Egypt, called Casioti, where is a mountain called Casius; and this situation of them is confirmed by what Moses says concerning them, viz. that from them sprang the Philistines, who in process of time made themselves masters of the adjoining tract of the land of Canaan.

That the Caphtorim were situated near to the Casluhim, is inferred not only from Moses’s putting them next one to another in the forecited place of Genesis 10:but also from this, that the Phihistines, who are, in Genesis 10:13. said to be descended of the Casluhim, are elsewhere denoted by the name of Caphtorim, as Deuteronomy 2:23. Jeremiah 47:4. and Amos 9:7. which perhaps cannot be better accounted for than by supposing the Casluhim and Caphtorim to be neighbours, and so in time to have been mutually intermixed, or to be looked upon as one and the same people.

Now the name Caphtor seems to be preserved in an old city of Egypt called Captus, from which, as the name of Captetes is still given to the Christians of Egypt, (whence the translation of the Bible used by them is called also the Coptick translation,) so it is not unlikely that the common name of Egvpt was derived from it, it being called AEgyptus, for AEgoptus, as if one should say in Greek Aia Koptou , the land of Koptus.

And it is a good remark of the learned Mede, that the Greek Aia or AE, is likely derived from the Hebrew’ XXX, or Ei; to which may be very pertinently subjoined this remark, that in Jeremiah 47:4. What we render the country of Caphtor, is in the Hebrew text termed Ai Caphtor, which are the two words which we suppose the Greeks to have moulded into the name Aiguptov . Our translators observe on the forementioned place in Jeremy, that the Hebrew word translated the country in the text denotes also an isle, as it is rendered in the margin, agreeably to which it is observable that the city of Coptus stood on a small island, so that upon the whole we need not doubt thereabout to fix the first settlement of the Caphtorim.

Of the four original nations descended from Ham, there remains now only that of Phut to be spoken of; and the first settlement of this is with good reason supposed to be in the parts of the Libyan or African continent, which join on next to those possessed by the descendants of Mizraim. For in Africa, properly so called, below Adrumentum, was a city named Putea, mentioned by Pliny; and in Mauritania there is a river mentioned by Ptolemy called Phut. St. Jerome is very full to the point, telling us that there is a river in Mauritania which was until his own time called Phut, and from which the adjacent country was called Regia Phytensis, the country of Phut. Mr. Bedford supposes it was the river Niger that was called by this name, and that the posterity of Phut settled themselves chiefly on that river, (as the first inhabitants of the earth were wont to choose the neighbourhood of rivers for their settlements,) and from thence spread themselves into other parts. [415] Genesis 10:1. These things are evidences that all mankind are originally from one head or fountain, and of one blood, viz. 1. That all agreed in the same custom of sacrifices, which could be from nothing else than tradition from their progenitors. 2. Their all agreeing in counting by decads, or stopping at ten in their numerical computations, which Aristotle says, all men, both Barbarians and Greeks, did use. 3. Their having every where anciently the same number of letters, and the same names (or little varied) of them. 4. The remarkable affinity of all ancient languages. 5. Their dividing time into weeks, or systems of seven days, of which practice to have been general there are many plain testimonies. 6. Their beginning the day or revolution of twenty-four hours with the night. Yea, perhaps, if one consider it, the whole business concerning matrimony. Thus, Dr. Barrow, vol. ii, of his Works, p. 93. [405] Genesis 10:1,2. Concerning Japhet, the son of Noah. Neptune is the same with Japhet, who is called the god at the sea, because mountains, places, islands, and the great peninsulas of Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Spain, were peopled by his posterity. The name Neptune is derived from the same radix that Japhet is, htp from to enlarge, whence tpy , Japhet, and htpn Nephta, in niphal, according to the allusion of Noah, Japht Elohim Japhet, Genesis 9:27. “God shall enlarge Japhet proportionably whereunto Neptune was called by the Greek Poseidw~n , which grammarians in vain attempt to deduce from the Greek tongue, seeing, as Herodotus in Euterpe asserts, the name Poseidon was at first used by none but the Libyans or Africans, who always honoured this god. Poseidon is the same with the Punic word nfyçp Pesitan, which signifies expanse, or broad, from Pasat, to dilate or expand. Japhet’s name, and what is said of him, God shall enlarge Japhet, well suits with Neptune’s character among the heathen, who is styled, Late imperans and Late-sonans, as also one that has a large breast. The genealogy of Neptune confirms that he is Japhet: he is the son of Satarn, i.e. Noah. See note on Genesis 1:27. Gale’s Court of the Genesis p. 1. h. 2. c. 6. p. 73, 74. [400] Genesis 10:6. Now what the heathen said of Jupiter is evidently taken from Ham, the son of Noah. Noah is the Saturn of the heathen, as is evident by note on Genesis 1:27. It is fabled that Saturn had three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, who divided the world between them.

Sanchoniathon says, “The son of Saturn was Zeus Belus, or Baal, the chief god among the Phoenicians. It was a name assumed by Jehovah, the God of Israel, before abused to superstition, as appears by Hosea 2:16. It is elsewhere written Beel Beel, or Bellso>min , which answers to the Hebrew Baal Shamaiim, the Lord of heaven. Zeus is derived from Zeuhot, and answereth exactly to the Hebrew Cham, from the radix Chamam, to wax hot. Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians called Jupiter, Ammon, from their progenitor Ham; whence Egypt is called “the land of Ham,” Psalm 105:23,27. Also Plutarch testifies that Egypt in the Sacred. of Isis, was termed zew whence this, but from Cham? And Africa of old was called Hammonia. The Africans were wont to worship Ham under the name of Hammon. These things are more largely treated of by Cudworth, p. 337, 338, 339.

Again: Sanchoniathon terms Jupiter, Sydyk, or as Damascius in Photius, Sadyk. Now this name is evidently taken from the Hebrew Saddik, the just, which is a name given to God, as also to the first patriarchs, whence Melchizedek. The name Jupiter is evidently the same with Ia Pater, Ieu Pathr that is, Father Jah, or Jeu. That God’s name, Jah, was well known to the Phoenicians, who communicated the same to the Grecians, is evident by what Porphyry says of Sanchoniathon’s deriving the materials of his history from Jerornbatus, the priest of the god Iam. So Diodorus tells us that Moses inscribed his law to the god called Jan. So the oblique cases of Jupiter are from God s name, Jehovah, as Jovi, Jove, etc. The same name, Jai, in the oracle of Clarius Apollo, is given to Bacchus again. Jupiter was Sabasius, from that title of God, Jehovah, Sabaoth. (This Cudworth also notices, p. 259, 260.) The fable of Jupiter’s cutting off his fathers genitalia, seems to arise from Ham’s seeing his father’s nakedness. Again, in the metamorphosis of the gods of Egypt, it is said that Jupiter was turned into a ram; which fable Bochart supposes to have had its rise from the cognation between the Hebrew words la , or El, and lya , Aiil, a ram, the plural number of both which is the same, Elim. The tradition of Bacchus being produced out of Jupiter’s thigh, seems to come from that known expression to signify the natural proceeding of posterity from a father, their coming out of his loins. Gale’s Court of the Genesis p. 1. b. 2:1. 1. p. 10, 11, 12, 13. [410] Genesis 11:3,4, etc. Concerning the building of Babel and confusion of tongues. Bochart, in his preface to his Phaleg, about the middle, says,” What follows concerning the tower of Babel, its structure, and the confusion of tongues ensuing thereon, also of its builders being dispersed throughout various parts of the earth is related in express words by Abydenus and Eupolemus in Cyrillus and Eusebius.” Bochart, in his Phaleg, gives us a description of the tower of Babel, out of Herodotus, parallel to that of the Scripture, and where it is said, Genesis 11:9. that it was called Babel, because the Lord confounded their language. Hence pagan writers called those of this dispersion, and their successors meropev men of divided tongues. So Homer, in the Iliad, a[i ge>neai meropwn anqrwpwn generations of men, having divided tongues. Abydenus affirms, that it was a common opinion, that the men whom the earth brought forth gathered themselves together, and builded a great tower, which was Babel, and the gods being angry with it, threw it down. Gale’s Court of Genesis p. 1. b. 3. c. 8. p. 83. [430] Genesis 11:3,4, etc. Concerning the tower of Babel, Cyril, b. 1. against Julian, quotes these words out of Abydenus, “Some say that the first men that sprang out of the earth, grew proud upon their great strength and bulk, and boasted they could do more than the gods, and attempted to build a tower where Babylon now stands; but when it came nigh the heavens, it was overthrown upon them by the gods with the help of the winds; and the ruins are called Babylon. Men, until then, had but one language, but the gods divided it, and then began the war between Saturn and Titan.” Grotius de Vent. b. 1:sect. 16. Notes.

Dr. Winder supposes that the crime of the builders of Babel was an obstinate renouncing the orders before given by Noah, and agreed to by his sons, under the divine direction for a general dispersion and division of the earth among the various families of mankind, and that the builders of Babel were not the whole body of mankind, but that part of them which, according to the forementioned orders and regulations, were to be settled in parts that were to be westward of the original settlement where Noah dwelt; and that, after they had dwelt in Shinar, ambition might inspire some of their leaders with the thoughts of setting up a great empire. But that this supposes that there were at that time other tribes elsewhere, against which they might direct their ambitious projects. There appears (says he) to have been something of ambition either for power or fame, or both, in their design; for they said, Let us make us a name. “There is” (says Dr. Winder, p. 127.) “a most noble authenticated confirmation of the Mosaic history, by this city or country retaining the name Babel, or Confusion, by which every age and nation called this great city, the supposed seat of the first empire, even according to heathen writers, which seems to be a name of infamy and reproach, which its own princes or inhabitants would not have given it without some such notorious undeniable circumstances obliging them to it. What a signal defeat (says he) was here given by Providence to this ambitious plan-” Let us ma/re us name;” for what they aimed to erect as a monument of their grandeur and glory, God indeed suffered to stand long, but then it was as a monument of their own infamy and folly, the impotency of their rebellion, and their decisive defeat.” [240] Genesis 11:7. Concerning the confusion of languages. The state of the world of mankind, with respect to variety of language, now and in all past ages that we can learn any thing of from history, does exceedingly confirm this account of the confusion of languages. Without this, it is very unaccountable how there should be so great a variety of language in so little a time, or indeed ever at all. Concerning this, the author of” Revelation Examined with Candour,’ observes as follows: “It is true that the English and all living languages are in a perpetual flux; new words are added, and others die, and grow obsolete. But whence does this arise? Not at all from the necessary mutability of human things, but most evidently from the mixture of other tongues. Scholars add new words or terminations from the learned languages, either through affectation of learning or desire of adorning their native tongue with some words of more elegance or significance; and others from a commerce with other countries of different languages, naturally adopt some of their phrases and expositions into their own. And so our language varies; and what then?

How does this affect the question concerning the continuance of the same language, where no other was ever taught or heard? The Jews spoke the same language from Moses to the Babylonish captivity: if their polity had continued, would they not speak the same language to this day?” [And here I would insert what Bedford in his Scripture Chronology observes, viz. that “the Arabic continued the same from the time of Job till later ages.

The Arabic spoken by Christians in Asia at this day, is the same with that spoken by Mahomet, the impostor, which was much the same with that used in Job’s time; and the Chaldee remained the same from the time of Iaco till the date of the Babylonish Talmud; and the Greek continued the same from the days of Homer to Chrysostom.” See Bedford, p. 291 and 512.] The author of Revelation Examined with Candour, goes on. “Some of the inland inhabitants of Africa are found to speak the same language now which they spoke two thousand years ago (and in all probability the same observation is true of our neighbours, the Welch). Could they keep to one language for two thousand years, and could not the descendants of Noah keep to one language two hundred years? Could they keep their language amidst a variety of so many others about them, and when it is scarcely possible that they should be clear of all commerce with people of different tongues; and could not these keep their language, when it was impossible that they should have any commerce but with one another?

Those Africans, to say nothing of the Welch, now keep their own tongue; though there are so many others in the world to taint, and by degrees to abolish it. If there were no other language in the world but theirs, does any man believe they would not continue to speak it for two thousand or ten thousand years more, if the world lasted so long? It is true, as arts increased, and customs changed, new terms and phrases might be added; when then new words would increase and adorn the tongue; but sure no man would say it would destroy it, unless it be believed that new branches, or fruit, or flowers, do daily destroy the tree they shoot out from.” “The learned author of the letter to Dr. Waterland seems to think, that all other languages sprang as naturally from the Hebrew, as many shoots from the same root, or many branches from the same stock: but I am confident, whoever carefully considers the genius of each of the ancient languages now extant, will find as little reason to believe that they all had their original from the Hebrew, as that all the variety of the forest and fruit-trees in the world were originally but so many shoots and branches from the palm-tree of Judea. “Besides all this, if we consider that the language of Adam (if we could suppose it imperfect in him, when it was demonstrably inspired by God, yet) had time enough to arrive at full perfection in 1656 years; and that Noah and his sons had time enough to learn it in perfection before the flood; the youngest of his sons being about 100 years old at that time, and himself 600; we cannot with any colour of reason imagine that there could be any necessity of adding so much as one word to it before the building of Babel.” Thus far the author of Religion Examined with Candour.

And besides all this, the greater excellency and regularity of some of the ancient languages so early, when arts were in their first beginning, as the Latin and Greek, the latter of which was in great perfection in the days of Homer, seems to argue something divine in it. If the arts and learning of the nation had so early brought their language to such a pitch of perfection, they had made infinitely greater progress in this than in other things that pertain to human life.

The manner in which God confounded the languages of the posterity of Noah, seems to be by confounding their memory with respect to their former language, but not utterly destroying it; so that they still retained some notion of many of the words and phrases of their former language; hence it is found that other languages have in many words affinity to the Hebrew. [275] Genesis 13:10. “And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the p lain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, be fore the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as thou comest unto Zoar.” Zoar here probably is the same city which was elsewhere called Zoan, which was of old the chief city of Egypt. (See No. 254.) The Hebrew letter n Nun, seems easily convertible into r , Resch, as in Achon, Achor. Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadrezzar. Zoan was probably at this time the most famous and the royal city in Egypt. It stood in the Delta of Egypt, or that part of it that was near the sea, through which the river Nile ran in many branches, so that it was well watered every where, as the land about Sodom is here said to be; for “it had not only the river Jordan running through it, but the river Arnon from the east, the brook Zered (Numbers 21:12.) and the famous fountain Callirhoe (Pliny, lib. 5. c. 16.) from the south, falling into it.” (Complete Body of Divinity, p. 350.) Probably this fountain is the same with the well, which the princes of Israel digged with their staves, Numbers 21:16,17,18. And probably being a low flat country, which is sometimes called a plain, sometimes a valley, Genesis 14:10. was in the time of the swelling of Jordan overflowed, as Egypt was with the Nilus. [302] Genesis 14:15,16, etc. Abraham in thus conquering the great kings and princes of the earth, and their united hosts, is a type of Christ and of the church. God seems to have granted this great victory to Abraham, as some earnest of those great blessings he had promised to him; the belief of which promises was attended with so much difficulty. Here was given some specimen of what Abraham’s promised seed should do, which includes Christ and his church. Abraham might well represent Christ, for Christ is Abraham’s seed, and he might well represent the church, for he was the father of the church, the father of all that believe, as the apostle testifies. And besides, Abraham and his household was then as it were God’s visible church; God had separated Abraham from the rest of the world to that end that his church might be continued in his family. And though there were as yet some other true worshippers of God, who were not of his family, vet soon after the church was confined to his posterity.

This victory of Abraham was doubtless intended as a sign and earnest of the victory that Christ and his church should obtain over their enemies, and over the nations of the world; because God himself makes use of it to this purpose in the 41st. chap. of Isaiah: “Keep silence before me, O islands, and let the people renew their strength; let them come near, then let them speak; let us come near together in judgment: who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow, he pursued them and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.” It is not probable that this victory of Abraham would be spoken of in such lofty language, and in expressions so much like those that are elsewhere made use of to represent Christ’s glorious victories over the powers of earth and hell, if the one were not a type of the other. This victory of Abraham is in this place mentioned to that end, that the church, the seed of Abraham, might take it as a sign and evidence that they should not be subdued, but should subdue and conquer the world, as appears from what follows, ver. 8. “But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” Ver. 10, 11. “Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall perish.” Ver. 1.5. “Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth, thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.”

Abraham conquered the chief nations and princes of the world, which was a seal of what God promised him, that he should be the heir of the world.

Romans 4:13. “ For the promise that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” He conquered them not with a hired army, but only with the armed soldiers of his own household. So the armies that go forth with Christ unto battle to subdue the world, (Revelation 19:14. “And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean,) they are his church, which is his household.

Abraham conquers the kings of the earth and their armies united, and joining all their force together, and therein his victory was a type of Christ’s victory, as in the 41st Isaiah 6,7. speaking of th is victory, “They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering: and he fastened it with nails that it should not be moved.”

Abraham by his conquest rescued Lot his kinsman; so Christ our near kinsman by his victory over our enemies, who had taken us captive, delivers us. Abraham redeemed Lot and the other captives freely, and would take nothing of them for his pains: so Christ freely redeems us.

Abraham redeemed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, that wicked people; which is a type of Christ’s redeeming sinners. [129] Genesis 15:17. “ Behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passes between those pieces.” The smoking furnace, I am ready to think, signified the same as fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices, that is, the wrath of God in the midst of Jesus Christ. The furnace passed between the pieces, that is, as it were, through the midst of them. The burning lam p which followed was a fire of another nature; it was a clear bright light; whereas the other, though exceeding hot like a furnace, was all smoking.

This signified the Holy Ghost, who is often compared to fire; and the lamp signified that light, glory, and blessedness which followed Christ’s enduring wrath, and was purchased by it, both for himself and for his people. And doubtless this also has respect to the church in Egypt of Abraham’s seed, and signified those things that God was now telling Abraham in his deep sleep. The smoking furnace signified their suffering grievous persecutions and afflictions in Egypt, which is called the iron furnace; and the shining lamp signified their glorious deliverance in the fourth generation, and being brought into the land of Canaan. Isaiah 62:1. “And the salvation thereof shall he as a lamp that burneth.” The birds coming down, that Abraham frayed away, were to typify the devils, and their endeavours to devour Jesus Christ and the church; this thing may also signify the terrors and consolations that attend the wish of conversion and deliverance out of spiritual Egypt. [363] Genesis 15:17. “And it came to pass, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those Pieces.” Here were four things that were significant of the death and last sufferings of Christ, all at the same time. 1. There were the sacrifices that were slain, and lay there dead and divided.

Christ feared when his last passion approached , lest Satan should utterly devour him, and swallow him up in that trial, and cried to God, and was heard in that he feared; and those fowls were frayed away that sought to devour that sacrifice, as Abraham frayed away the fowls that attempted to devour this sacrifice while it lay upon the altar. 2. The smoking furnace that passed through the midst of the sacrifices. 3. The deep sleep that fell upon Abraham, and the horror of great darkness that fell upon him. 4. The sun, that greatest f all natural types of Christ, went down, and descended under the earth, and it was dark. “It is probable this furnace and lamp which passed between the pieces, burned and consumed them, and so completed the sacrifice, and testified God’s acceptance of it, Judges 6:21. 13:19, 20. and 2 Chronicles 7:7. This was of old God’s manner of manifesting his acceptance of sacrifices, viz, kindling a fire from heaven upon them ‘and by this we may know that he accepts our sacrifices, if we kindle in our souls a lively fire of divine affections in them.’“ Henry. [241] Genesis 16:10-12. “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude And shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction, And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” The following observations are taken principally out of a book entitled Revelation Examined with Candour. This prophecy is remarkably verified in the Arabs. The Arabs are the undoubted descendants of Hagar and Ishmael. I Ishmael was circumcised at thirteen years of age; so have all those his sons from him until the establishment of Mahometanism, and many of them to this day, though some of them circumcise indifferently in any year from the 8th to the 13th, but all professing to derive the practice from their father Ishmael. he was an archer in the wilderness; his sons, the Arabs, have been the most remarkable archers in the world, and are so to this day, and in the wilderness too, where culture is not known. Hagar was a concubine and an hireling, and while she dwelt with Abraham, Abraham dwelt in tents, and was continually moving from place to place. Ammianus Marcellinus observes of the Arabs, that they had mercenary wives hired for a time. The learned Dr. Jackson makes it exceeding evident that the Arabs and the Saracens were descended from Ishmael, and also the writers of the life of Mahomet, and the writers of travels and voyages without number. In short, it is a point universally agreed upon all over the east and south. As the Ishmaelites lived tinder twelve princes by Moses’s account, so these principalities remained till later times, bearing the names of the twelve sons of Ishmael, as Le Clerc makes very evident.

The first part of the prophecy, viz. I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude, is fulfilled in them. The Hagarenes spoken of in Scripture, and the Arabs, especially the Scanitae, were very numerous, and the Saracens were more numerous than either. But this prophecy is most evidently fulfilled in that vast empire that the Saracens have set tip in the world.

The next part of the prophecy is that he should be a wild man. The word which is translated wild, in this place signifies a wild ass: the literal construction of the phrase in Latin is erit Onager Homo: He shall be a wild ass man. The Arabs are above all nations a wild people, and have been so through all ages throughout so many hundred generations. They vary no more from their progenitors’ wild and fierce qualities than the wild plants of the forest, never accustomed to human culture, do from the trees whence they are propagated. The dwelling of those Arabs and the wild ass is alike, and indeed the same.

See Job 39:6.

The next part of the prophecy: His hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. The meaning of which words seems to he that they should be in perpetual enmity with all mankind, and yet should subsist in the face of the world. And such a sense of this prophecy seems to be agreeable to the idiom of scripture phrase. Thus when the Scripture speaks of brethren with respect to nations, sometimes nothing is intended but only other nations that are round about. So when it is said concerning Canaan, Genesis 9:25. “ A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren,” it is not intended only, nor chiefly, and it may be not at all, that he should be a servant of servants to his literal brethren, Cush, Mizraim, and Phut, the other sons of Ham; but that he should he a servant to other nations; and it was fulfilled especially in his posterity’s being subdued by the posterity of Shem and Japheth-When it is said, “he shall dwell,” the meaning is, that they shall remain a nation, and still retain their habitation and possession without being cut off, or carried captive from their own land. In such a sense the word is used, Psalm 37:27.” Depart from evil and do good, and dwell for evermore.” This expression is explained by other passages in the Psalm, as ver. 3. “ “Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land.”

Ver. 9. “Evil-doers shall be cut off, but those that wait on the Lord shall inherit the earth.” Ver. 10, 11.” Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth.” Ver. 18. “The Lord knoweth the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be for ever;” and ver. 22. “For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth, and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off.” Ver. 29. “The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.” Ver. 34. “And he shall exalt thee to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it.” It is also agreeable to the scriptural way of speaking, when it is said, “he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren,” to understand it, that they after all their opposition to it shall see him still subsisting and retaining his own habitation in spite of them: so the expression in the presence seems evidently to signify, Psalm 23:5.. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” This is also remarkably fulfilled in the Arabs, for they have ever lived in professed enmity with all mankind, and all mankind in enmity with them; they have continued in a state of perpetual hostility with the rest of their brethren, and yet have subsisted perpetually under it before their faces, and in spite of them all; they have neither been destroyed nor lost by mingling with other nations; they marry only in their own nation, disdaining alliances with all others. Their language continued so much the same through all ages, (as Bedford in his Scripture Chronology observes, that it continued much the same from the days of Job until latter ages.) shows that this nation has never been much mixed with other nations. They and the Jews only have subsisted from the remotest accounts of antiquity as a distinct people from all the rest of mankind, and the undoubted descendants of one man. And the Arabs never were subdued and carried captive, as the Jews have been.

Alexander the Great intended an expedition against them, but was prevented by death. What Alexander intended, Antigonus, the greatest of his successors, attempted, but without success being repulsed with disgrace, and the loss of above eight thousand men, he made a second and greeter attempt, but without success.

They lied wars afterwards with the Romans and Parthians, but were never either subdued or tamed: resembling in this (the only comparison in nature that suits them) the wild ass in the desert, and sent out by the same hand free, as he whose house is also the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling, alike disdainful of bondage, scorning alike the multitude of the city and the cry of the driver. Pompey made war with them, and some part of them seemingly submitted, but never remained at all in subjection to him-after this they misled and deluded Crassus to his destruction. Antony after this sent his horse to ravage Palmyra, but the city was defended from them by archers, who were probably Arabs. Afterwards their chief city was besieged by Trajan, one of the most warlike and powerful of all the Roman emperors. He went in person with his army against them with great resolution to subdue them, but his soldiers were strangely annoyed with lightnings, thunders, whirlwinds, and hail, and affrighted, and dazzled with the apparition of rainbows, and so were forced to give up the siege. After this, Severus, a great conqueror, after he had subdued all his enemies, marched in person against them with great resolution to subdue them with his greatest force, and warlike preparations, besieged the city twice, but it twice repulsed him with great loss; and when they had actually made a breach in the wall of the chief city, they were strangely prevented from entering by unaccountable discontents arising among the soldiers, and so they went away baffled and confounded. These Ishmaelites, when their wall was broke down, being invited to a treaty with the emperor, disdained to enter into any treaty with him. After this the Saracens set up a vest empire, and so the prophecy of their becoming a great nation that could not be numbered was most eminently fulfilled.

They also have dwelt in the presence of all their brethren, in another sense, viz. that all their brethren, the posterity of all the other sons of Abraham, and even the posterity of Isaac, have seen them remaining and unsubdued, and holding their own dwelling, when they all of them, and even the posterity of Isaac and Jacob themselves, were conquered and carried away out of their own dwellings. [301] Genesis 17:10. Circumcision signified or represented that mortification or the denying of our lusts, that is the condition of obtaining the blessings of the covenant. Totally denying any lust, is represented in Scripture by cutting off. Thus, cutting off a right hand, or right foot, is put for the denying of some very dear lust; so cutting off the flesh of a member so prone to violent lust, signifies a total denying of our lusts. A main reason why lust, or our natural corruption, is represented by the instrument of generation, is because we have all our natural corruption or lust by generation, i.e. by being the natural offspring of the corrupt parents of mankind. Therefore when God would signify that our original or natural corruption should be mortified, he appoints that the flesh of the part specified should be cut off.

Another reason why the seal of the covenant that God made with Abraham was appointed to be affixed to this part of the body, seems to be that God made this covenant not only with Abraham and for him, but him and his seed. It mainly respected his seed, as abundantly appears by the tenor of the words, in which the covenant was revealed from time to time; and therefore the seal was to be affixed to that part of the body whence came his seed. The covenant was made not with a man, but with a race of men ordinarily to be continued by natural generation; and therefore the sign of the covenant was a sign affixed to the instrument of generation. The sign was a purgation of the member of the body, by which offspring was procured, and was to be a sign of the purification of the offspring. God seeks a godly seed, and children that are holy.

Corol. Hence we learn that seeing the Gentiles now in the days of the gospel are admitted to the seal of Abraham as the Jews were, and are admitted to an interest in Abraham’s covenant, and to the blessing of Abraham, so that Abraham is become the father now, not of one nation, but of many nations in the way of that covenant, as the apostle Paul abundantly teaches; then the posterity of Christians by natural generation are now God’s people, and are a holy seed by Abraham’s covenant, as the Israelites were of old. There are but two ways in which persons can become of Abraham’s covenant, race, or generation: one is by generation by the natural instruments of generation, to which the seal of the covenant was affixed, and so continued from the root to the branches; the other is by ingrafting a new branch into that stock, that shall after in-grafting grow and bring forth branches, and bear fruit upon that stock, as the other branches did that were cut off to make room for them.

In this way now many nations or generations are of Abraham’s race, instead of one nation or family. [355] Genesis 18:Isaac, the interpretation of whose name is Laughter, was conceived about the same time that Sodom and the other cities of the plain were destroyed, and he was born soon after their destruction. So the accomplishment of the terrible destruction of God’s enemies, and the glorious prosperity of his church, usually go together, as in Isaiah 66:13,14. “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem-and when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb; and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servant, and his indignation toward his enemies.” First the enemies of the church are destroyed, and then Isaac is born, as that prosperous state of the church is brought about, wherein their mouths are filled with laughter, and their tongue with singing. So the Egyptians were first overthrown in the Red sea, and then Moses and the children of Israel rejoiced in peace, and liberty, and sung that glorious song of triumph. So first Babylon is destroyed, and then the captivity of Israel is returned, and Jerusalem rebuilt. So when the heathen Roman empire was overthrown, then commenced that prosperous and joyful state of the church that was in the days of Constantine. So when antichrist is destroyed, there will follow that joyful glorious state of the church we are looking for. Isaac was the promised seed of Abraham, the father of all the faithful, the blessing he had long waited for, and when Sarah brought him forth, it represented the same thing as the woman in the 12th chap. of Revelation “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; and she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” The accomplishment of the prosperous state of the church is in Scripture often compared to a woman’s bringing forth a child with which she had been in travail, It is so in particular by our Saviour, John 16:19,20,21,22. “Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, atid said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when site is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no maim taketh from you.” Hereby is especially represented the accomplishment of the church’s glory, joy, and laughter, after the destruction of antichrist, or the throne of Rome, that is spiritually called Sodom. [431] Genesis 18:Concerning the burning of Sodom, etc. Diodorus Siculus, b. 19. where he describes the lake Asphaltites, says, “The neighbouring country burns with fire, the ill smell of which makes the bodies of the inhabitants sickly, and not very long-lived.” Strabo, b. 16. after the description of the lake Asphaltites, says, “There are many signs of this country being on fire, for about Mastada they show many cragged and burnt rocks, and in many places caverns eaten in, and the ground turned into ashes, drops of pitch falling from the rocks, and running waters stinking to a great distance, and their habitations overthrown; which give credit to a report amongst the inhabitants that formerly there were thirteen cities inhabited there, the chief of which was Sodom, so large as to be sixty furlongs round; but by earthquakes and fire breaking out, and by hot waters mixed with bitumen and brimstone, it became a lake, as we now see it. The rocks took fire, some of the cities were swallowed up, and others forsaken by those inhabitants that could flee.” Tacitus, iii the fifth book of his history, has these words: “Not far from thence are those fields which are reported to have been formerly very fruitful, and inhabited by a large city, but were burnt by lightning, the marks of which remain, in that the land is of a burning nature, and has lost its fruitfulness; for every thing that is planted or grows of itself, as soon as it comes to an herb or flower, or grown to its proper bigness, vanishes like dust into nothing.” Solinus, in the 36th chap. of Salmasius’s edition, has these words: “At a good distance from Jerusalem, a dismal lake extends itself, which was struck by lightning, as appears from the black earth burnt to ashes. Theme were two towns there, one called Sodom, the other Gomorrah; the apples that grow there cannot be eaten, though they look as if they were ripe, for the outward skin encloses a kind of sooty ashes, which, pressed by the least touch, flies out into smoke, and vanishes into fine dust.” Grotius de Vent. h. 1:sect. 16.

Notes. [359] Genesis 19:23,24. “The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” This signified that the terrible destruction of the wicked is at the beginning of the glorious day wherein the Sun of righteousness rises on the earth, and at the coming of Christ, Lot’s antitype, and visiting his church, the little city, the apostles, of the church. So it was in the days of the apostles, in the morning of the gospel day, when Judea and Jerusalem were so terribly destroyed. So it was in the days of Constantine; and so it will be at the fall of Antichrist; and so it will be at the end of the world. See Job 38:13. Note. [336] So Dagon fell once and again before the ark early in the morning; so after the disciples had toiled all night and caught nothing, yet in the morning Christ came to them, and they had a great draught of fishes; so Christ rose from the dead early in the morning, It is said concerning God’s church, that “weeping may continue for a night, but joy will come in the morning.”

The children of Israel were all night pursued by their enemies at the Red sea; in the night they were in the sea, in a great and terrible east wind, but in the morning watch the Lord looked through the pillar of cloud and fire, and troubled the hosts of the Egyptians; and in the morning the children of Israel came up out of the sea, and the host of the Egyptians was destroyed, and the children of Israel rejoiced and sang. Jacob, after wrestling with the angel in the night, obtained the blessing in the morning. “He that ruleth over men shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds: and as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.’ 2 Samuel 23:4. Psalm 49:14. “The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling, In the morning, when the Sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings, the day comes that shall burn as an oven, (as that day burnt in which Lot entered into Zoar,) and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly, shall be stubble, and the righteous shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be as ashes under the soles of their feet.” Malachi 4, at the beginning. The church in the 59th Psalm, after expressing her great troubles from her enemies, and declaring how God should destroy them, says, verse 16. “But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning, for thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble.” So likewise the church, in speaking of her troubles, in Psalm cxliii. 8. “Cause me to hear thy loving-kindness in the morning, for in thee do I trust; cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto thee.” It is said of the church, Psalm 46:5. “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early.” And then in the 8th verse, it is said, “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth.”

Hosea 6:1,2,3. “Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind up. After two days will he revive us; in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain and the former rain unto the earth.” [276] Genesis 19:24,25,26,27,28. Concerning the destruction of Sodom and the parts adjacent. The very ground of that region, great part of it, seems to have been burnt up. For it was in great measure made up of bitumen, or what the Scripture calls slime, Genesis 14:10. “And the vale of Siddim was full of slime its; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.” And because of the abundance of bitumen in the lake of Sodom, it was called of old, and is still called, Lacus Asphaltites. It is full of bitumen, which at certain seasons boils up from the bottom in bubbles like hot water. This bitumen is a very combustible matter. It is in some places liquid, and in others firm; and not only lies near the surface of the earth, but lies sometimes very deep, and it is dug out of the bowels of it. So that the streams of fire that came from heaven set the very ground on fire; and therefore it is here, in the 28th verse, that Lot looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and towards all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. So that the country burning was a very lively representation of the general conflagration; and by the melting of the bituminous ground in many places was probably a burning lake, and so was a lively image of hell, which is often called the lake of fire, and the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. Note, that bitumen is a sulphurous substance, (see Bailey’s Dictionary,) and there ore is fitly compared to hell fire in Scripture, Jude, 7th ver. “ Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” There seems to be an evident allusion to the manner of the destruction of this country in Isaiah 39:9,10. “And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day: the smoke thereof shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.” Deuteronomy 29:23. “And the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath;” where we are expressly taught that the very ground of this country was burnt. The ground burning up sunk the land, and made this valley deeper, so that after that the waters of Jordan perpetually overflowed it; and besides, there was probably an earthquake at the same time, by which the ground subsided, as the tradition of the heathen was. It is probable that the same time as the meteors of their air were inflamed, the bitumen and other combustible matter that was in the bowels of their earth was also enkindled, or the fire that was first kindled on the top of the ground might run down in the bituminous and sulphurous veins deep into the earth, and being there pent up, might cause earthquakes, after those cities and inhabitants were all consumed, which might make the country to sink, and turn it into a bituminous and exceeding salt lake. The ground there was doubtless very likely to sink by an earthquake, being hollow, as it is evident it is still, in that since the surface of the earth hath been broken to let down the water at the river Jordan and other streams, there is no outlet out of the lake above-ground, but they have a secret passage under the earth. The bitumen there is mixed with abundance of nitre and salt, which by their repugnant quality might cause a more violent struggle in the fire that burnt down into the caverns of the earth to cause an earthquake. See many of these things in Complete Body of Divinity, p. 351, 352. [239] Genesis 19:26.. Concerning Lot’s wife. Revelation Examined with Candour. “The unreasonable delay of Lot’s wife was without question occasioned by her solicitude for her children, which she left behind her.

The story of Niobe weeping for her children, and being stiffened into stone with grief; is doubtless founded upon this history. Possibly, too, the fable of Orpheus being permitted to redeem his wife from hell, and losing her afterwards by looking unseasonably back, contrary to the, express command given him, and then through grief deserting the society of mankind and dwelling in deserts, might be derived from some obscure tradition of this history. Sodom was now the liveliest emblem of hell that can be imagined. It was granted to Lot by a peculiar privilege to deliver his wife thence. He was expressly commanded, Genesis 19:17. “Look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” By her looking back, contrary to this command, his wife was lost; after which he quits the city, and dwells alone in the mountains, Here are all the main circumstances of the fable, and the poets had nothing to do but to vary and embellish as they liked best. [380] But his wife looked back from behind her, and she became a pillar of salt. What happened to Lot’s wife when she looked back as she was flying out of Sodom, is typical of what commonly happens to men that are guilty of backsliding when they have begun to seek deliverance out of a state of sin and misery, and an escape from the wrath to come. The woman was there stiffened into a hard substance; which signifies the tendency that backsliding has to harden the heart. She became a senseless statue; which signifies the senselessness which persons bring on them by backsliding.

There site was fixed, and never got any further; which typifies the tendency that backsliding has to hinder persons from ever escaping eternal wrath. [361] Genesis 21:10,11. “Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bond-woman and her son; for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” The son of the bond-woman is men’s own righteousness; which is the son of the first covenant, given at mount Sinai, which is Hagar; and Isaac, the son of the free-woman is Christ, as applied to the soul by faith: he is the child of promise, and the son of the freewoman: at least this is part of the signification, It is Sarah, the mother of Isaac, that urges the casting out of the bond-woman; so it is the church in its ministry and ordinances, which is the mother of Christ in the souls of believers, that urges the casting out our own legal righteousness, It is Christ that is the heir of the blessings of the covenant; it is by his merits only that we have a might or title to those blessings; we must cast out our own righteousness, and not have any manner of regard to that, as though that had a right, or as though a right came by that. [“ And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight, because of his son.”] This signifies how very hard and grievous it seems to persons wholly to cast out their own righteousness, the son of the legal covenant from mount Sinai, because they are our own works, our own offspring, that are dear to tins, as Ishmael was to his father Abraham. [138] Genesis 21:8. “And Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.” This typifies the weaning of the church from its milk of carnal ordinances, ceremonies, and shadows, and beggarly elements. Upon the coming of Christ, the church under the Old Testament is represented as being in its minority; and the apostle tells us that babes must be fed with milk, and not strong meat. Christ therefore dealt with his disciples just as a tender mother does with her child, when she would wean it from the breast. There was a great feast provided, which represents the glorious gospel feast provided for souls when the legal dispensation ceased by the coming of Christ. It may also signify the weaning of souls from the enjoyments of the world at conversion, and the spiritual feast which they find instead of them. [362 ] Genesis 22:Concerning Abraham’s offering up his son Isaac. God’s command to Abraham to offer up his son Isaac, considered with all its circumstances, was an exceeding great trial. Abraham had left his own country and his father’s house, and all that was dear to him, and followed God, not knowing whither he went. First, he left Ur of the Chaldees with his father. This was a great trial, but this was not enough. After this he was required also to leave Haran and his father’s house there, after he had been there settled in hopes of a blessing which God encouraged him that he would give him in a posterity. When he came there he found a famine in the land, and was forced to fly the country and go down into Egypt for sustenance; and God appeared unto him time after time, promising great things concerning his posterity. Abraham waited a long time, and saw no appearance of the fulfilment of the promise, for his wife continued barren, and he made his complaint of it to God. God then renewed and very solemnly confirmed his promise; but did not tell him that it should be a child by his wife, and therefore after he had waited some time longer, he went in to his maid; but God rejected her son, and he waited thirteen years longer, till he was an hundred years old, before he obtained the son promised; and then God gave him but one, without any hopes of his having any other. After this, at God’s command, he cast out his son Ishmael, though it was exceedingly grievous to him, on encouragement of great blessings in Isaac and his posterity. And now, at last, God commands him to take him and offer him up for a burnt offering. He does not merely call to see him die, though that would have been a great trial under such circumstances; but he is to cut his throat with his own hands, and when he has done so, to burn his flesh on the altar, an offering to God-to that God that carnal reason would have said had dealt so ill with him, after he had lived long enough to get fast hold of his affections; after he was weaned from Ishmael, and had set all his heart on Isaac; and after there began to be a most hopeful prospect of God’s fulfilling his promises concerning him.

And God gave him no reason or it. When Ishmael was to be cast out, the reason assigned was, that in Isaac his seed should be ca/led. But now, in seeming inconsistency with that reason, Isaac must die, and Abraham must kill him; and neither one nor the other must know why, nor wherefore; and, as Mr. Henry observes, how would he ever look Sarah in the face again? with what face could he return to her and his family, with the blood of Isaac sprinkled on his garments?” Surely a bloody husband hast thou been to me,” would Sarah say to him, as Zipporah said to Moses, Exodus 4:25,26. [7] Genesis 22:8. “My son, God will provide a lamb for a burnt-offering.”

This was fulfilled in Christ. [350] Genesis 23:Concerning Abraham’s buying, in Canaan, the possession of a burying-place. Canaan is the land that God made over to Abraham by covenant; and yet he gave him none inheritance in it to live upon, as Stephen observes; no, not so much as to set his foot on, Acts 7:5. But the first-possession he had in it was the possession of a burying-place, or a possession for him to be in after he and his were dead; which signifies this, that the heavenly Canaan, the land of promise, the rest that remains for the people of God, is a land for them to possess, and abide and rest in, after they are dead: they do not enter upon the possession of it, until after they are dead, and then they are gathered to their possession in Canaan.

Therefore it was so ordered that Jacob and Joseph so much insisted on it to be buried in that land. [161] Genesis 24:15. Rebekah, and Rachel, and Zipporah, Moses’s wife, those types of the church, all found their husbands, who were types of Christ, when coming out to fountains to draw water; which typifies this, that Christ is found by believers in a way of the use of the means of grace.

The woman of Samaria found Christ when coming to draw water. [71] Genesis 25:22. “And the children struggled together in the womb.” I believe this had reference to the spiritual war that is in the soul of the believer, Christ’s spouse, between the flesh and spirit: the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary one to another. [35] Genesis 27:29. “Let the people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee; be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee. Cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. Hence we learn that the prophets themselves may not understand their prophecies, for Jacob thought that this should be accomplished of Esau. [406] Genesis 27:18,19. “And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it, and he called the name of that place Bethel,” etc. So, chap. 31:13, 45. and 35:14. From hence the heathen Baetylia, mentioned by Philo Biblius out of Sanchoniathon. The god Uranus excogitated Baetylia, having fashioned them into living stones. Bochart conceives that Sanchoniathion, instead of living stones, wrote anointed stones, (from the radix [...] Shuph, which, among the Syrians, signifies to anoint) which Philo Biblius read [...] whence he changed anointed, into living stones. So Damascius tells us, I saw a Baetylus moved in the air. The Phoenicians, imitating Jacob at Bethel, first worshiped the very stone which the patriarch anointed. So Scaliger, in Euseb tells us that “the Jews relate so much, that although that Cippus, or stone, was at first beloved of God, in the times of the patriarchs, yet afterwards he hated it, because the Canaanites turned it into an idol.” Neither did the Phoenicians worship only this stone at Bethel; but also, in imitation of this rite, erected several other Boetylia, on the like occasion as Jacob erected his pillar of stone as a memorial of God’s apparition to him. So in like manner both the Phoenicians and the Grecians, upon some imaginary apparition of some god, (or dust, rather,) would erect their Boetylia, or pillars, in commemoration of such an apparition. So Photius, out of Damascius, tells us that near Heliopolis, in Syria, Asclepiades ascended the mountain Libanus, and saw many Boetylia, or Boetyli; concerning which he relates many miracles. He relates also that these Boetylia were consecrated, some to Saturn, and some to Jupiter, and some to others. So Phavorinus says, Baetylus is a stone which stands at Heliopolis, near Libanus. This stone some also called [...] which is the same word by which the Seventy render Jacob’s pillar. Gale’s Court of the (len. p. 1. b. 2. c. 7. p. 89, 90. [169] Genesis 28:18-22. “And he took the stone that he had set for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it--And this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God’s house.” This anointed pillar is a type of the Messiah, or Anointed, who is often called a stone or a rock, and is the house of God, wherein the Godhead dwells and tabernacles. He was signified by the tabernacle and temple, as Christ tells us, when he says,” Destroy this temple,” etc. And he, we are told, is the temple of the new Jerusalem. This is the stone that was Jacob’s pillow; it signified the dependence the saints have upon Christ, and that it is in him they have rest and repose, as Christ invites those that are weary to come to him, and they shall find rest. The psalmist says he will lay him down and sleep, and awake, the Lord sustaming him. And as the stones of the temple rested on the foundation, so the saints, the living stones, rest upon Christ, building and resting upon that rock. This stone signified the same with the other that he built there when he returned: chap. 35:7. “And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el, because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother.” Ver. 14. “And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone; and he poured a drink-offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon.” [417] Genesis 33:1-7. As Jacob’s family returned to the land of Canaan, after Jacob had been long banished from thence, so it is probable will be the return of the spiritual Israel to God, its resting-place, and as it were to the promised land, to the land flowing with milk and honey, to a state of glorious rest, plenty, prosperity, and spiritual joy and delights, in the hatter days, which is often represented by the prophets as bringing God’s people into the land of Israel, and recovering them from foreign lands, where he had driven them. Jacob, at his first entrance, meets with great opposition from those professors who are often in Scripture rep resented by the elder brother, as Cain, and Ishmael, and Zarah, the son of Judah, who first put forth his hand, and David’s eldest brother, and the elder brother of the prodigal. But Jacob’s meek and humble behaviour towards his opposing brother, to soften and turn his heart, teaches the duty of Christians. Jacob’s family was divided into several companies, one going before another with a space between; so the return of the church of God will be by several companies, that will come in one after another in successive seasons of the pouring out of the Spirit of God, with a space between. In Jacob’s family, the lowest and meanest went first, and afterwards the more honourable and most amiable, and best beloved; so, in the spiritual return of the church of Christ, God will first bring in the inferior sort of people; he will save the tents of Judah first, agreeable to the prophecy, Zechariah 12:7. “The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, do not magnify themselves against Judah.” And the first outpouring of the Spirit will be the least glorious, and they that are first brought in are not only inferior among men, but the least pure, beautiful, and amiable as Christians in their experiences and practice. In Jacob’s family went first the hand-maids and their children; so this is the blemish of the first children of Christ that shall be brought in at the glorious day of the church, that though they will be true children of Jacob, yet shall they be as it were children of the handmaids, with much of a legal spirit, i.e. spiritual pride and self-confidence. After these comes Leah and her children, who were more honourable and better beloved than the former; she was a true wife, but yet less beautiful and less beloved than his other wife: so after the first outpouring of the Spirit there will be a work of God that will break forth, that will be more glorious and more pure than the first. In Jacob’s family came last of all the beautiful Rachel and Joseph, Jacob’s best beloved and dearest child of all the family; so will it be in the church of God in days approaching. Jacob goes before them all, leads them all, and defends them all; so doth Christ go before his church as their leader and defence. [126] Genesis 37:28. “And they lift up Joseph out of the pit.” Joseph was here a type of Christ; he was designed death by his own brethren, as Christ was; he was cast into a pit, whereby his death and burial was signified. He was lifted out again, and his resurrection was an occasion of their salvation from famine and death. [127] Genesis 38:28, etc. “Zarah put his hand out first, but Pharez, from whom came Christ, broke forth before him.” This imports much the same thing as Isaac’s casting out Ishmael, as Jacob’s taking hold of Esau’s heel when they were born, and afterwards getting his birth-right of him, and as David’s getting the kingdom from Saul. [407] Genesis 41:The history of Joseph’s advancement in Egypt, etc. “The Apis and Serapis of the Egyptians seems to signify Joseph, because, 1. It was the mode of the Egyptians to preserve the memories of their noble benefactors by some significative hieroglyphics, or symbols; and the great benefits which the Egyptians received from Joseph in supplying them with bread-corn, is aptly represented under the form of an ox, the symbol of a husbandman. Thus Suidas (in Serapis) tells us,” that Apis, being dead, had a temple built for him, wherein was nourished a bullock, the symbol of a husbandman.” According to which resemblance also, Minutius, a Roman tribune, was in very like manner honoured with the form of a golden ox, or bull. 2. Joseph is compared to a bullock in Scripture, Deuteronomy 33:7. “ His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth; and they are the ten thousands of Epharaim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.” 3. The same may be evinced from the names Apis and Serapis, for Apis seems evidently a derivative from [...], Father, as Joseph styles himself, Genesis 45:8. “So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” As for Serapis, it was the same with Apis, and also a symbol of Joseph, which Vossius collects from this: 1. It had a bushel on its head, as a symbol of Joseph’s providing corn for the Egyptians. 2. From the etimon of Serapis, which is derived either from an ox, or from rwç , a prince, and Apis, both of which are applicable to Joseph.” Gale’s Court of Genesis p. 1. b. 2. c. 7. p. 93, 94. [128] Genesis 41:14.” And they brought Joseph out of the dungeon.” By Joseph’s being cast into the dungeon, is signified the death of Christ; by his being delivered, his resurrection; and the ensuing great advancement of Joseph, to be next to the king, signifies the exaltation of Christ at the right hand of the Father. Joseph rose from the dungeon, and was thus exalted to give salvation to the land of Egypt and to his brethren, as Christ, to save his people. [103] Genesis 44:32,33. “For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. Now, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bond-man to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren.” Judah is herein a type of his offspring Jesus Christ. [382] Genesis 48:21.” And Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I die, but God shall be with you.” So Joseph, when he was near his death, said to his brethren after the like manner, Genesis h. 24.” And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die; and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abram, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Thus the blessing of the presence of God with the children of Israel, and his favour and salvation, is consequent on the death of their father, and their brother, and Saviour: shadowing this forth, that the favour of God, and his presence and salvation, is by the death of Christ. He, when near death, said to his disciples, John 16:7.” It is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” And elsewhere he promises that the Father and the Son will come to them, and make their abode with them. Isaac’s and Jacob’s blessing their children before their death, and as it were making over to them their future inheritance, may probably be typical of our receiving the blessings of the covenant of grace from Christ, as by his last will and testament. We find the covenant of grace represented as his testament.

Christ, in the 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of John, does as it were make his will, and conveys to his people their inheritance before his death, particularly the Comforter, or the Holy Spirit, which is the sum of the purchased inheritance. [403] Genesis 49:10. “Until Shiloh come.” “Silenus, so famous among the poets, whom they place in the order of their gods, is derived from hence.

Diodorus, lib. 3. says, the first that ruled at Nisa was Silenus, whose genealogy is unknown to all, by reason of his antiquity, which is agreeable to what the Scriptures say of the Messiah, Isaiah 53:”Who shall declare his generation?” And elsewhere, “To us a child is born, to us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the everlasting Father;” and other passages. As for Nisa, where Silenus reigned, it seems to be the same with Sina, as was showed elsewhere. See No. 401.) The Messiah welt there. It was he that dwelt there in the bush. And there he manifested himself and spake with Moses and the children of Israel. This is represented as his dwelling place several times in Scripture; and therefore, when God redeemed the children of Israel from Egypt, and brought them there, he is represented as bringing them to himself. Near this mountain was the altar called Jehovah Nissi, which is a name Moses gave the Messiah. Of Shiloh it is said, and to him shall the [...] the gathering, or the obedience, (as the word signifies,) of the people be.

Thus Silenus is made by the poets to be the greatest doctor of his age, and he is called Bacchus’s preceptor, i.e. according to Vossius’s account, Bacchus was Moses, (see No. 401.) and Silenus, or Shilo, or Christ, instructed Moses on mount Sinai, or Nisa, the place where Bacchus and Silenus were said to be. Bacchus and Silenus are made by the poets to be inseparable companions. Another attribute given to Silenus is, that he was carried for the most part on an ass, which Bochart refers to that of Genesis 49:11.” Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes.” The mythologists fable Silenus as a comrade of Bacchus, to be employed in treading Out grapes; this Bochart refers to, Genesis 49:”He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes;’ and is agreeable to what is said of the Messiah elsewhere in the Scripture, “1 have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people was none with me.” They characterize Silenus as one that was always drunk, as it is supposed from what follows, Genesis 49:12. “His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk,” which Solomon makes the character of one woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath overcome with wine.

Proverbs 23:29,30.” Who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.” They ascribe to Silenus for his meat cow’s milk, which Bochart makes to be traduced from Genesis 49:12. “And his teeth white with milk.” That Silenus is the same with Shilo, further appears from that of Pausanius Eliacon 2. [...] the monument of Silenus remains in the country of the Hebrews. See Gale’s Court of Genesis p. 1. b. 2. c. 6. p. 67-69. [383] Exodus 1:6,7.” And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation; and the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them.” After the death of Christ, our Joseph, his spiritual Israel began abundantly to increase, and his death had an influence upon it. It was like the sowing of a corn of wheat, which, if it die, bringing forth much fruit. John 12:24.” Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” From the call of Abraham, when God first told him he would make of him a great nation, to the deliverance of his seed out of Egypt, was 430 years, during the first 215 of which they were increased but to 70, but in the latter half, those 70 multiplied to 600,000 fighting men; so sometimes God’s providence may seem for a great while to thwart his promises, and go counter to them, that his people’s faith may be tried, and his own power the more magnified; and though the performance of God’s promises is sometimes slow, yet it is always sure; at the end it shall speak, and not lie, Hebrews 2:3.” How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?” [432) Exodus 2:Concerning Moses. Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. I. reports, out of the books of the Egyptian priests, that an Egyptian was slain by the words of Moses; and Strom. V. he relates some things belonging to Moses, out of Artapanus, though not very truly. Justin, out of Tragus Pompeius, says of Moses,” He was leader of those that were banished, and took away the sacred things of the Egyptians; which they, endeavouring to recover with arms, were forced by a tempest to return home; and Moses being entered into his own country of Damascus, he took possession of mount Sinai.” And what follows is a mixture of truth and falsehood; where we find Arvas written in him, it should be read Arnas, who is Aaron, not the son of Moses, as he imagines, but the brother, and a priest. The Orphic verses expressly mention his being taken out of the water, and the two tables that were given him by God. The verses are thus- So was it said of old, so he commands.

Who’s born of water, who received of God The double Tables of the Law.

The great Scaliger, in these verses, instead of hulogenes, with a very little variation of the shape of a letter, reads hudogenes, born of the water.

The ancient writer of the Orphic verses, whoever he was, added those lines after he had said, that there was but one God to be worshipped, who was the Creator and Governor of the world.

Palemon, who seems to have lived in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, has these words: “ In the reign of Apis the son of Phoroneus, part of the Egyptian army went out of Egypt and dwelt in Syria, called Palestine, not far from Arabia.” Several things are related about his coming out of Egypt, from the Egyptian writers, Monethro, Lysimachus, Choeremon. The places are in Josephus against A p ion, with abundance of falsities, as coming from people who hated the Jews; and from hence, Tacitus took his account of them. But it appears from all these compared together, that the Hebrews descended from the Assyrians, and possessing a great part of Egypt, led the life of shepherds, but afterwards being burdened with hard labour, they came out of Egypt under the command of Moses, some of the Egyptians accompanying them, and went through the country of the Arabians unto Palestine, Syria, and there set up rites contrary to those of the Egyptians.

Diodorus Siculus, in his first book, where he treats of those who made the gods to be the authors of their laws, says, “Amongst the Jews was Moses, who called God by the name [...] i.e. Jehovah,” which was so pronounced by the oracles, and in the Orphic verses mentioned by the ancients, and by the Syrians.

Strabo, in his sixteenth book, speaking of Moses as an Egyptian priest, (which he had from the Egyptian writers, as appears in Josephus,) says, “many who worship the Deity agreed with him, (Moses,) for he hath said that the Egyptians did not rightfully conceive of God, when they likened him to wild beasts and cattle; nor the Libyans, nor the Greeks, in resembling him to a human shape; for God is no other than the Universe which surrounds us, the earth, and the sea, and the heaven, and the world, and the nature of things, as they are called by us. Who, says he, (i.e.

Moses,) that has any understanding, would presume to form any image like to those things that are about us? Wherefore we ought to lay aside all carved images, and worship him in the innermost part of a temple worthy of him, without any figure.” He adds that this was the opinion of good men-he adds also that sacred rites were instituted by him, which were not burdensome for their costliness, nor hateful as proceeding from madness.

He mentions circumcision, the meats that were forbidden, and the like; and after he had shown that man was naturally desirous of civil society, he tells us, it is promoted by divine and human precepts, but more effectually by divine.

Pliny, book 30 chap. 1. says,” There is another party of magicians which sprung from Moses.” Juvenal has these lines- They learn, and keep, and fear the Jewish law, Which Moses in his secret volume gave.

Tacitus, Hist. V. according to the Egyptian fables, calls Moses one of them that were banished.

Dionysius Longinus, (who lived in the time of Aurelian the emperor, and favourite of Zenobia, queen of the Palmyrians,) in his book of the Sublime, after he had said that they who speak of God, ought to take care to represent him as great and pure, and without mixture, adds, “Thus does he, who gave laws to the Jews, who was an extraordinary man, who conceived and spake worthy of the power of God, where he writes in the beginning of his laws, God spake,- What?-Let there be light; and there was light. Let there be earth; and it was so.”

Chalcidius took many things out of Moses, of whom he speaks thus, “Moses was the wisest of men; who, as they say, was enlivened, not by human eloquence, but by divine inspiration.”

Numenius, as Eusebius quotes his words, book 8:chap. 8. says, “Afterwards Jamnes and Mambres, Egyptian scribes, were thought to be famous for magical arts, about the time that the Jews were driven out of Egypt, for those were they that were chosen out of the multitude of the Egyptians, to contend with Musoeus the leader of the Jews, a man very powerful with God by prayers, and they seemed to be able to repel those sore calamities which were brought upon Egypt by Musoeus.” Origen against Celsus refers us to the same place of Numenius.

Artapanus, in the same Eusebius, b. 9:ch. 27. calls them the priests of Memphis, who were commanded by the king to be put to death, if they did not do things equal to Moses.

Strabo, in his 14th book, after the history of Moses, says, “that his followers for a considerable time kept his precepts, and were truly righteous and godly.” And a little after he says,” that those who believed in Moses, worshipped God and were lovers of equity.”

These things concerning Moses are taken from Grotius, de Vent. h. 1. sect. 16. [154] Exodus 2:Moses in the ark upon the waters is a type of the church.

The church of God is like a babe, in infirmity and weakness, in helplessness of itself, and dependence upon a superior help, and in that the members of it are all in a spiritual sense become as little children. And it is like a babe upon the waters floating through all manner of changes, dangers, and troubles, and yet upheld and preserved in Christ the ark. He was especially a type of the church of the Jews in their oppressed condition in Egypt. It was a wonder they were not swallowed up by their enemies, and drowned and lost in their afflictions, and the multitude of their adversaries. Moses in the water and not drowned, is much such another type as the bush all in a flame and not burnt. He was also herein a type of every elect soul, who is naturally all overwhelmed in sin, and misery, and danger, and is redeemed or delivered, as Moses was taken out of the water. [408] Exodus 2:Moses is the same with the Egyptian Osiris; for, 1. Moses is the same with Bacchus, as has been shown before, No. 401.; and Diodorus tells us that Osiris was called by the Greeks Dionysus, the name of Bacchus. 2. Diodorus tells us that Hercules was the chief captain of Osiris’s army, who was Joshua, as has been shown, No. 402. 3. Diodorus tells us that Osiris had in his army Anubis covered over with a dog’s skin, which thence was pictured with a dog’s head, and called the dog keeper, etc.; all which seems to refer to Caleb’s name, which signifies a dog. 4. Pan is said to war under Osiris, which is the same with Christ, whom God promises should go with Moses when he says, [...] my presence shall go with him.” See No. 404. 5. Osiris is said to have horns from the mistake on Moses’s character, who is thence pictured with horns, because of his beams of light--the word in Hebrew for horns and beams being the same. 6. Moses with the princes of the tribes carried up the bones of Joseph into Canaan: hence the poets’ fable of Osiris’ bones, etc. See Gale’s Court of Genesis p. 1. b. 2. c. 7. p. 94, 95. [159] Exodus 2:5. Pharaoh’s daughter became the mother of Moses, which typified the calling of the Gentile church, that is naturally the daughter of Satan, the spiritual Pharaoh, which becomes the church of Christ, and so his mother; and also is to represent that all the saints of which the whole church consists, are naturally the children of the devil, that by conversion become the spiritual mother of Christ, as Christ says that whosoever shall do the will of his Father which is in heaven, the same is his mother, etc.

The whole church, which is often represented as the mother of Christ, is in her constituent parts naturally an Egyptian, and the daughter of Pharaoh.

She found Moses when she came down to wash herself in the river. The river here represents the Holy Ghost, and the washing is the washing of regeneration, by which souls are brought to Christ, which is signified by baptism, by which their admission into the christian church is declared and sealed. Pharaoh’s daughter is more than once made use of in Scripture, to signify the church, especially the Gentile. So was Pharaoh’s daughter that became Solomon’s wife, for the church is figuratively both the wife and mother of Christ. [384] Exodus 2:5. Pharaoh’s daughter came to Moses herself, into the same river into which Moses was cast. So, if we would find Christ, and be the spiritual mother of Christ, we must die with Christ, be made conformable to his death, be buried with him by baptism; must die to sin; must be crucified to the world, and die to the law, and be willing to suffer affliction and persecution with him. By such mortification and humiliation is the soul washed in the river into which Christ was cast. [439] Exodus 2:6. “And behold, the babe wept.” As Moses, in the water, was a type of the church in affliction, so his weeping a little before he is taken out of the water, seems to be typical of the spirit of repentance, mourning, and supplications often spoken of in the prophets, given to the church a little before her deliverance from adversity. [412] Exodus 3:14. “I am that I am,” etc. Some of the heathen philosophers seem to have derived notions that they had of the Deity from hence. Plato and Pythagoras make the great object of philosophy tobe [...] that which is; To< o\ntwv On that which truly is; and also To< au]to on being itself The Seventy render this place in Exodus thus: Egw eimi o\ w\n that the philosophers by their To< On To< o\ntwv On and To< au]to On meant God, appears by what Jamblicus saith of Pythagoras,” by Twn Ontwn Beings, he understood sole and self agents, immaterials, and eternals. Other beings indeed are not beings, but yet are equivocally called such by a participation with these eternals.” So Plato, in his Parmenides, (who was a Pythagorean,) treating of To< On kai En which he makes the first principle of all things, thereby understands God. So, in his Timoeus Locrus, he says, To< On Being is always; neither hath it beginning. So again in his Timoeus, folios 37, 38. he proves nothing properly is, but God, the eternal essence, “to which,” says he, “we do very improperly attribute those distinctionis of time, was, and shall be.” Plutarch says, To< o\ntwv On “ The true Being, is eternal, ingenerable, and incorruptible, unto which no time ever brings mutation.” Hence in the Delphic temple there was engraved [...], Thou art. Gale’s Court of Genesis p. 2. b. 2. ch. 8. p. 173, 174, 175.

That Plato by To< o\ntwv meant God, appears by his own words in his Epist. 6. fol. 323. “Let there,” says he, “be a law constituted and confirmed by oath, calling to witness the God of all things, the Governor of beings present, and things to come, time Father of that governing cause whom, according to our philosophy, we make to be the true being, On o\ntwv etc, This is the same with him that revealed himself to Moses by the name I am that I am, out of the bush, that was the Son of God. G, C. of Genesis p. 1. b. 3. c. 5. p. 64. Plato seems evidently to have heard of this revelation that God made of himself to Moses by the name of I am, etc. omit of the burning bush in mount Sinai, and to have a plain reference to it in his Philebus, fol. 17.; he confesseth, “The knowledge of the To< On ,” etc. was from the gods, who communicated this knowledge to us, by a certain Prometheus, together with a bright fire. G, C. of G. p. 2. h. 3. c. 2. p. 228. [457] Exodus 3:14. “And God said unto Moses, I am that I am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, IAM hath sent me unto you.” “ We are informed that there was an ancient inscription in the temple at Delphos, over the place where the image of Apollo was erected, consisting of these letters, “ Ei ; and Plutarch intro his disputants querying what might be the true signification of it. At length Ammonius, to whom he assigns the whole strength of the argumentation, concludes that “ the word “ Ei was the most perfect title they could give the Deity, that it signifies\parTHOU ART, and expresses the divine essential Being, importing that, though our being is precarious, fluctuating, dependent, subject to mutation, and temporary; so that it would be improper to say to any of us, in the strict and absolute sense, thou art; yet we may with great propriety give the Deity this appellation, because God is independent, uncreated, immutable, eternal, always and every where the sanne, and therefore he only can be said absolutely To Be. Plutarch would have called this Being To< o\ntwv On Plato would have named him which he would have explained to signify Ousi>a , implying TO BE essentially, or self-existent.” Shuckford’s Connections, vol. 2. p. 385, 386. [505] Exodus 3:18. “And you shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.”

That is, inform Pharaoh that your God that hath met with you, has instructed you to ask this of him, In this Pharaoh was not treated with any falsehood or unjust deceit. The utmost that can be supposed by any objector is, that here is an implicit promise, that if he would let them go three days’ journey into the wilderness, they would return again after they had there served their God, and received the revelation of his will, which he should there make to them. But if there had been, not only an implicit, but an express, promise of this, it might have been consistent with God’s real design, and the revelations of it that he had made to Moses, and by him to the people, without any false or unjust dealing. God knew that Pharaoh would not comply with the proposal, and that his refusal would be the very occasion of their final deliverance. He knew he would order it so, and therefore might reveal this as the event that should finally be brought to pass, and promise it to his people, though he revealed not to them the exact time and particular means and way of its accomplishment.

Conditional promises or threatenings of that which God knows will never come to pass, and which he has revealed will not come to pass, are not inconsistent with God’s perfect justice and truth; as when God promised the prince and people of the Jews in Jeremiah’s time, that the city should surely be preserved, and never should be destroyed by its enemies, if they would repent and turn to God, and cleave to him, though it had been often most expressly and absolutely foretold that Jerusalem should be destroyed by the Chaldeans; and as the apostle Paul denounced unto the mariners that were about to flee out of the ship, that if they did, the ship’s crew must perish, though he had before in the name of God foretold and promised that there should be the loss of no man’s life, but only of the ship. [443] Exodus 4:6,7. “And the Lord said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again, And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as the other flesh.” This sign is much like the foregoing, of casting the rod on the ground, and its becoming a serpent; and much the same tiling is signified, but only more is signified in this Litter sign than in the former. By Moses’s hand is represented the hand or arm of the Lord, which often in the Old Testament signifies the Messiah. By God’s plucking his hand out of his bosom, is meant his appearing for the salvation of his people. While God long forbears to appear for his churches salvation, while they are longing and waiting for him, he as it were hides his hand in his bosom; Psalm lxxiv. 11. “Why withdrawest thou thine hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom.” There are remarkable appearances of God in the world for the salvation of his people, which are both by the coming of the Messiah, both of which are long wished and waited for before they are accomplished. The first is God’s appearing in the world for the redemption of the church, by laying the foundation of her salvation in the first coining of the Messiah, after the church had long waited for him, while God had hid his hand in his bosom. At length the arm of the Lord is made bare, the Messiah appears, but in such a manner that it was to the surprise and astonishment of those that saw him-many were astonished at him, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. They were offended in him. He had no form or comeliness, and when they saw him, there was no beauty that they should desire him. He appears in the form of sinful flesh. He was as it were diseased with the leprosy, because himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses. He was made sin for us, as though he had been all over leprous or sinful. God’s second remarkable appearance will be in the Messiah’s second coming for the actual salvation of his people, when he will appear without sin unto salvation, without the leprosy of our sin, and will appear in that glory that he had with the Father before his humiliation, which he emptied himself of at his first coming. God having answered his prayer in glorifying him with his own self, with the glory he had with him before the world was: as Moses’s hand, the second time he plucked it out of his bosom, was restored as it was at first. This type of the redemption of the Messiah was fitly given on this occasion, and as a sign of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the carrying them through the Red sea, the wilderness, and Jordan, into Canaan, because the redemption of the Messiah, both fundamental and actual, was variously represented and presignified in that great work of God. [195.] Exodus 4:20. Moses’s rod. “And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.” This rod typified the word, both the personal word, and the word of Revelation. The word of God is called the rod of God’s strength, Psalm cx. 2. It is called the rod of Christ’s mouth, Isaiah 11:4. it is expressly represented by the rod of an almond-tree, Jeremiah 1:11. Moses’s rod was the rod of an almond-tree. Jesus Christ is also called a rod. “ There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” he is frequently called a branch, or sprout, a tender plant, etc.

If we consider this rod as representing the revealed word of God, then Moses or Aaron, who kept and used the rod, represent Christ. A rod is the instrument of a shepherd, by which he governs, directs, defends, and orders his flock, and this rod was that that Moses kept sheep with, which he was found with when he was feeding his father-in-law’s sheep, when God app eared to him in the bush. The same that a rod or staff is to a shepherd and his flock, the same is the word of God to Christ and his spiritual flock. As Moses used it in leading Jethro’s flock of sheep, so he used it in leading God’s people Israel. As the word of God is the instrument Christ uses to save his people, and to destroy their enemies, and work those wonders that are wrought in bringing them to salvation, and which belong to the application of redemption, so Moses used this rod in the temporal deliverance of his people. It is the word of God that is used to remove all obstacles, and overcome all opposition in the way of a sinner’s conversion and progress in holiness; as Moses’s rod was made use of to divide the Red sea.

If the rod be considered as representing Christ, then Moses or Aaron represent God. Moses cast his rod on the ground, and it became a serpent, and he took it up, and it became a rod again, signifying how that Christ, when he was sent down by God to the earth, and was made sin for us, became guilty for our sakes, was accursed, and appeared in the form of sinful flesh: he appeared in our stead, having our guilt imputed to him, who are a generation of vipers. Thus, when the children of Israel were bitten with fiery serpents, Christ was represented by the brazen serpent. The rod being become a serpent, swallowed the magicians’ rod or serpents; so Christ, by his being made sin for us, destroyed sin and Satan. When Moses took up his rod from the ground, it was no longer a serpent, but became a rod again, so when God took up Christ from his stroke of humiliation, he was acquitted, justified, he had no longs the guilt of sin imputed to him, he no longer appeared in the form of sinful flesh. Rulers and princes are compared to rods, Ezekiel 19:11,12,14. and to branches, Psalm lxxx. 15, 17. so Christ himself is often called a rod and branch.

It is by the word of God or by Christ, that God works all his wonders in and for the church; and Moses wrought wonders by his rod. It is by Christ that all obstacles and difficulties are removed in order to our salvation. As the Red sea was divided by Moses’s rod, it is by Christ, and in his name only, that God’s people prevail over their enemies. The children of Israel prevailed while Moses held up his rod, and when he let it down, Amalek prevailed; Moses held up the rod in that battle as the banner or ensign of the armies of Israel, as is evident from Exodus 17:15. so Christ is lifted up as an ensign, isa. 11:10.

When this rod budded. and blossomed, and bare fruit, that which it brought forth was almonds, intimating this, that the spreading of the word of God in producing its effects in the world will be rapid. The almond-tree is a tree of a very sudden growth, and speedily brings its fruit to perfection.

Jeremiah 1:11,12. So the word of God is quick and powerful; this is the way which the powerfulness of it is shown in the suddenness of its producing its great effects, isa. 66:7, 8. “Before she travailed she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child: who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children.”

As Moses and Aaron represent God, the rod represents Christ: as Moses and Aaron represent Christ, the rod represents the word as they represent ministers, the rod represents two things, vie. the word of God which they preach, and their faith; and this rod was Moses’s staff, and this staff represents the same as Jacob’s and Elisha’s staves. See note on Numbers 21:18. [442] Exodus 4:20. Moses’s rod. One thing at least typified by this rod is faith, the same that was signified by Jacob’s staff with which he passed over Jordan, and that he leaned upon in his last sickness, that the apostle speaks of in 1kb. 11:and Elisha’s staff that he bid the servant lay on the dead child, and the staves of the princes with which they digged the well, and David’s staff he took in his hand when he went against Goliath. The word properly signifies a staff as well as rod, such a staff as persons walk with, or lean upon: the word comes from a root, one signification of which is, to lean.

The word translated bed, Genesis 47:31. (Jacob bowed himself upon the bed’s head,) comes from the same root, and there fore the apostle renders it staff, in Hebrews 11:The word is not the same in the original with that used to signify Elisha’s staff that was laid on the child, but it is a word ‘of the same signification, and therefore both words are used to signify the stay of bread, the latter in isa. 3:1. and the former in Leviticus 26:23. This word is used to signify Judab’s staff, that he gave to Tamar as a pledge, Genesis 38:19. [390] Exodus 5:to 14:inclusive. Concerning Pharaohs’s hardness of heart and obstinacy in refusing to let the children of Israel go, and the manner of God’s dealing with him. In Pharaoh’s behaviour is very lively represented the behaviour of impenitent sinners when the subjects of reproofs and corrections for their sins, and under convictions of conscience and warnings, and fears of future wrath, with respect to parting with their sins, or letting go the objects of their lusts. Indeed it is an instance of this very conduct; for Pharaoh in refusing to let the people go, refused to let go the objects of his lusts: in keeping them in bondage, he kept his sins. His pride was gratified in his dominion over that people. He was loth to let them go, because he was loth to part with his pride. His covetousness was also gratified by the profits he had by their slavery; he would not let them go because he would not part with the object of his covetousness.

God commanded him to let the people go, he sent his commands from time to time by the hand of Moses and Aaron, and warned him of the ill consequence if he refused: so God counsels and warns sinners by his word, by his ministers. God first made known his will to Pharaoh in a mild and gentle manner, chap. v, at the beginning; but that was so far from being effectual, that he was only the worse for it. Instead of letting the people go, he only increased their burdens: so God is wont in the first place to use gentle means with sinners. But impenitent sinners are not the better, but the worse, for the gracious calls and counsels of the word of God; they sin with the greater contempt for it: as Pharaoh took God’s command in disdain. He said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?” Then God proceeded to lay greater matter of conviction before Pharaoh, and to warn him of the mischief that would come upon him by his refusal, by turning the rod into a serpent; (see notes on that miracle, Exodus vii.) and when he still hardened his heart, then God began to chastise him, by turning the water into blood, which was not only a chastisement, but also a clear and loud warning of the future destruction he would bring upon himself by his obstinacy. (See notes on that plague.) So God is wont to give sinners fair warning of the misery and the danger of their sins before he destroys them. After this, when God’s hand pressed Pharaoh, and he was exercised with fears of God’s future wrath, he entertained some thoughts of letting the people go, and promised he would do it; but from time to time he broke his promises when he saw there was respite. So sinners are often wont to do under convictions of conscience and fears of wrath; they have many thoughts of parting with their sins; but there is never a divorce actually made between them and their lusts; it is common for sinners when under affliction and threatening dispensations of providence, to make promises of amendment, as in times of sore sickness, and when in danger of death and damnation, but soon to forget them when God’s hand is removed, and future damnation more out of sight. In such cases sinners are wont to beg the prayers of ministers, that God would remove his hand and restore them again, as Pharaoh begs the prayers of Moses and Aaron, Exodus 8:8. “Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Entreat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people, and I will let the people go that they may sacrifice unto the Lord;” and so ver. 28. 50 ch. 9:27, 28. and 10:16, 17. Pharaoh was brought by God’s judgments and terrors to confess his sin with seeming humility, as Exodus 9:27. “And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time, the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.” This was when there were mighty thunderings; and it follows in the next verse,” Entreat the Lord that there may be no more mighty thunderings.” So chap. x.16, 17. “And he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you; now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once.” So sinners oftentimes under affliction and danger of future wrath, and when God thunders upon their consciences, seem very penitent and humble, and are much in confessing their sins, but yet have not their lusts divorced from them, have no thorough] disposition to forsake them. Pharaoh, in the struggle that was between his conscience and his lusts, was contriving that God might be served, and he enjoy his lusts, that were gratified by the slavery of the children of Israel. Moses kept insisting upon it that God should be served, and sacrificed to; Pharaoh was willing to consent to that, but he would have it done without his parting with the children of Israel. Exodus 8:25. “And Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.” So it is oftentimes with sinners under fear of divine wrath; they are for contriving to serve God and enjoy their lusts too; they are willing to he very devout in many duties of religion, but without parting with their beloved sins How do some wicked men amongst the papists and elsewhere seem to abound in acts of devotion, how much pains do they take, how much trouble and loss are they at; they are like the Samaritans that worshipped the God of Israel, and served their own gods too. So did the Jews, Jeremiah 7:9,10. “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal; and come and stand before me in this house?” And Ezekiel 23:39. “For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it, and lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.” Moses objected against complying with Pharaoh’s conscience, and proposed in this matter that serving God and continuing in the land of Egypt among the Egyptians in slavery to them, did not agree together, and were inconsistent one with another. The Egyptians, their taskmasters, would abhor that service that God required, and would not tolerate it, but would kill God’s worshippers; and therefore there was a necessity of a separation to he made between Israelites and Egyptians, in order to God’s being served. So the service of God and our still continuing in the service of our lusts, are inconsistent one with another, as Christ says, “ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” There is a necessity of forsaking one in order to cleave to the other. If we retain our sins, if we do not part from them, they will kill those duties wherewith God is served.

When Pharaoh saw that it would not be consented to that the people should only sacrifice to their God in the land, then he consented to let them go, provided they would not go far away. He was not willing to part with them finally, and therefore would not let them go clear, but would have them within reach, that he might bring them back again. So it is often with sinners, with respect to their sins; they will refrain a while from them, but will not wholly part with them, taking an everlasting leave of them, quitting all hopes or expectations of ever having any thing more to do with them.

Afterwards, when God’s plagues came still harder upon Pharaoh, he consented to let the men go, if they would leave the women and children, Exodus 10:8,9,10. and then after that, when God’s hand pressed him still more sorely, he consented that they should go, even women and children, provided that they would leave their cattle behind them but he was not willing to let them go and all that they had, Exodus 10:24. So it oftentimes is with sinners, when pressed with God’s judgments, or fears of future wrath; they are brought to be willing to part with some of their sins, but not all; they are brought to part with the more gross acts, but not so to part with their lusts in lesser indulgencies of them; whereas we must part with all our sins, little and great, and all that belongs to them, even women and children, and cattle; they must all be let go, with their young and with their old, with their sons and with their daughters, with their flocks and with their herds. There must not be a hoof left behind. At last, when it came to extremity, Pharaoh consented to let the people all go, and all that they had; but he was not stedfastly of that mind; he soon repented and pursued after them again; and then, when he was guilty of’ such backsliding, he was destroyed without remedy, which is often the case with sinners. Note, when there is only a forced parting with sin, though it be universal, yet it is not sincere, nor is it like to be persevering.

God exercised abundance of patience with Pharaoh before he destroyed him, and the warnings that were given him were louder and louder, and God’s judgments upon him greater and greater, and God s hand and design in them became more and more manifest. First, God only sends a command from him, directing Moses to deliver it, and let it be accompanied with humble entreaties, paying him the honour due to a king, Exodus 3:18. and 5:3. After that, Moses spake with more authority; God made him a god to Pharaoh, and be no more besought him as a subject, Exodus 7:1. and his word was confirmed by miracles, But in the first p lace, the miracles were such as did not hurt them, but only warn them, as that turning the rod into a serpent; and then God proceeded to miracles that were hurtful, which yet were imitated by the magicians; but then God proceeded further, to do things that the magicians could not imitate, but themselves confessed manifested the finger of God. And then, that the evidence might be still clearer, and God’s meaning in those plagues plainer, God proceeded to sever between the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel dwelt, and the rest of Egypt; and then in the next plague God severed even between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt; and then in the next plague, the plague of boils and blains, was not only beyond what the magicians could do, but the magicians themselves were the subjects of the plague, and were grievously tormented, so that they could not stand before Moses. And this plague was brought upon them by the ashes of the furnace, wherein they employed the children of Israel in their slavery in burning the brick they made, that Pharaoh might see wherefore God was angry, and did so chastise him. After this, Pharaoh was more particularly and fully warned of God by his word than ever before, and was forewarned what those plagues would at last come to if he continued still obstinate, Exodus 9:13, etc. And then after this God brought the plague of hail and thunder, that was more terrifying and threatening than any heretofore; and then to complete the destruction caused by the hail, the locusts were sent to eat up what the hail had left. Then came the plague of darkness, with frightful apparitions of evil angels, (see Note,) which was more terrifying still than any that had gone before, and the distinction made in it between the children of Israel and the Egyptians was more remarkable, for they had light in their dwellings where they dwelt mingled with the Egyptians. And then before that great destruction by the last plague, Pharaoh was again particularly warned of what was coming, and when, and in what manner, it would come, much more fully and particularly than ever, Exodus 11:4, etc. And then came the last and greatest plague that preceded Pharaoh’s own destruction, attended with the greatest tokens of God’s wrath and a remarkable distinction between the Israelites and the Egyptians; and last of all, Pharaoh himself, with all the prime of Egypt, was destroyed in the Red sea. [385] Exodus 7:9-12. Moses’s rod, when cast unto the earth, became a serpent. So Christ, when sent down to the earth, appeared in the form of sinful flesh; he was made sin for us. So Christ was represented by the brazen serpent that was made in the form of the fiery serpents that bit the people. Moses’s rod, when on the ground in the form of a serpent, swallowed up the serpents of the magicians. So Christ, by being made sin, he swallowed up the devils, the parents of sin, when he appeared in the form of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh; by being made a curse he destroyed the curse; by suffering the punishment of sin he abolished the punishment of sin; and at the same time that, being made sin, he destroyed sin and the devil, and so swallowed the serpents in that sense.

So he received and embraced sinners, (that are in themselves serpents) by his love and grace, so that they became as it were his pleasant food, and so he swallowed down serpents. In this sense God’s people are represented as his pleasant food; they are represented as the wheat in opposition to tares, and as his good grain in opposition to chaff. See Isaiah 6:13:” But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return and shall be eaten; as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.” [385] Exodus 7:9,10. Moses’s rod, that had been a shepherd’s staff, to lead, protect, and comfort a flock of sheep, and by which Moses led and comforted Israel as a flock when cast upon the land of Egypt, became a serpent, a terrible, hurtful, and destructive creature. So Christ, that is a shepherd to his people, their protection and comfort, is destructive to unbelievers, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence: his salvation is poison to them through their rejection of it. They have a greater fall by the second Adam than by the first, and Christ will at last be a lion to destroy them as that pillar of cloud of fire that gave light to the Israelites was a cloud and darkness to the Egyptians. So the word of God, (which is another thing signified by the rod,) which is a means of the salvation of Israel, is a sword to destroy the Egyptians.

Christ was represented by a serpent in the wilderness, because he was made sin for believers, but he will be made sin to unbelievers; he was made a curse for Israel, a serpent for them, but he will be the greatest curse to sinners, a terrible serpent to the Egyptians. So the Saviour of Israel proved the most dreadful destroyer of the Egyptians; and the word of God by Moses, which proved the salvation of his people, was their destruction.

This seems to be one thing intended by this miracle, for there seems to be something threatening to the Egyptians, for the serpent had a very terrible appearance and motion, as appears by Moses’s fleeing before it, when he first tried the experiment at mount Sinai. It was something threatening of the plagues that were coming. God was pleased first to threaten the Egyptians, and give them warning of approaching judgments, before he began to execute them. [471] Exodus 12:2. “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year unto you.” Because in this month God wrought out for them that great typical redemption out of Egypt, representing the redemption of Jesus Christ, and also because he intended at the same time of year actually to complete the work of spiritual and eternal redemption of his church by the death, resurrection, and ascension of the great Redeemer. It is probable that the Israelites, as well as other nations, had till now begun the year in autumn, about the autumnal equinox, about which time of year there is reason to think the world was created. But as now God at the time of the redemption changed the day of their sabbath, (as Mr. Bedford in his Scripture Chronology makes probable,) so he changed the beginning of this year from the autumnal equinox, the time when the old creation was wrought, to the spring, about the vernal equinox, the time of the new creation. The old creation was wrought in the fall of the year, the time when things are just going to decay, and to a kind of ruin, and winter approaching, that shuts up the whole face of the earth as it were in a state of death; the Orderer of all things probably thus signifying that the old creation was not to continue, the heavens and the earth that then were should be shaken, and soon begin to decay, as it did by the Son of man; the curse which that brought, which was in effect its ruin, as it were, brought all to its chaotic state again, and laid a foundation for its actual total destruction. But the work of redemption was wrought in the spring, signifying that as in the spring the world as it were revives from a state of death, and all things are renewed, and all nature appears in blooming beauty, and as it were in a state of joy; so, by the redemption of Christ, a new world should be created, and the spiritual world, the elect creation, should be restored from death, and brought to a new glorious, and happy life. [280] Exodus 12:15. Concerning leaven. It was a most fit type of the corruption of the heart by reason of its sourness, and because of its infecting spreading nature, so that a little leaven leavens the whole lump, (in which respect also it is a fit type of false doctrine, as Matthew 16:6,11, i 2,) and because of its swelling nature, for the nature of corruption is to swell self, it radically consists in inordinate self-love, and primarily is manifest in pride and self-exaltation. The swelling nature of leaven represents the nature of corruption with respect to its principle, viz. inordinate self-love; and the sourness of it represents its nature with respect to its tendency, which is enmity.

But especially is leaven a fit type of original sin, by reason of the manner of its propagation; for as original sin is propagated from father to son, and so from generation to generation, so it is with leaven, one lump leavens the next, and that the next, and so leaven is propagated from lump to lump, for ever. The old lump leavens the new, and therefore is called the old leaven. [351] Exodus 12:35,36. “And they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and the Lord gave the people favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required, and they spoiled the Egyptians.” The treasures that the children of Israel by this means carried forth out of Egypt were very great, even so as in a great measure to leave Egypt empty of its wealth, and so as to enrich the Israelites. Psalm cv. 35. “He brought them forth also with silver and with gold.” Genesis 15:14. “They shall come out with great substance.” When a person is redeemed by Christ out of spiritual bondage, at the same time they are set at liberty they are also enriched, they have great substance given, as it were gold tried in the fire, and those riches are the spoils of their enemies, all that spiritual wealth, glory, and blessedness, and even heaven itself, is in some sort the spoils of Satan; that which God has deprived him of to give to the saints, as the earthly Canaan was taken away from the Canaanites and giants of the land, the enemies of the Israelites, and given to them. So heaven was taken from the fallen angels; they were driven out thence by the spiritual Joshua, to make room for the saints. The devils left heaven, in all probability, by their opposition and envy towards the saints, and rising up in open hostility against Christ as their head, revealed to be such in God’s decrees; and so their hostility against the spiritual Moses, and Joshua, and. their seed, and seeking to keep them down: these spiritual Egyptians and Canaanites left their spiritual and heavenly possessions, riches, and honours, and inheritance, and God took it from them and gave it to them that they opposed and sought to impoverish and destroy, and impoverished them to make those they bated rich with their riches. Yea, they themselves, though their enemies, are made in some sense to give them their own riches to enrich them and impoverish themselves, for they are made by Divine Providence the occasions of their being brought to their spiritual and eternal riches and glory. Satan has been the occasion of the saints’ heavenly riches and glory in tempting man to fall, and so giving occasion for the work of redemption, and then in procuring the death of Christ, and oftentimes is made the occasion of particular advantages that the church obtains at one age and another, and his opposition to the nature of particular elect souls, is always turned to be an occasion of their riches and fulness; so that all the wealth and glory that the church has, is in a sense, and indeed in many ways, from Satan, though he seeks nothing but her destruction.

Another thing signified, is that the church of Christ, when redeemed from her enemies and oppressors, especially from Rome, heathen and antichristian, that is spiritually called Egypt, should have their wealth and glory given into their hands, as is foretold by the prophets, Psalm lxviii. 30. “Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submits himself with pieces of silver.”

Zechariah 14:14. “And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel in great abundance.” Isaiah 60:5,6,9, 10, 13, 16, 17. and chap. 61:6. which was fulfilled in the days of Constantine the Great, and will be more gloriously fulfilled at the fall of antichrist. Thus the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just, and Christ shall have a portion divided to him with the great, and shall divide the spoil with the strong.

It is to be noted that the tabernacle in the wilderness was made of these spoils the children -of Israel took from the Egyptians. It was made of those jewels of silver, and gold, and raiment; so all the utensils and holy vessels of the tabernacle, the ark, and the mercy-seat, and the cherubim, and the candlestick, and table of shew-bread, and altar of incense and layer, and his seat, and also the priests’ vestments, the twelve precious stones of the breastplate, as afterwards the temple, was built chiefly of these vast treasures that David took from his enemies; whereby is signified several things. 1. That God’s church, that in Scripture is represented as Christ’s house or temple, and as his raiment and ornament, and as a golden candlestick, etc. is wholly constituted of those saints that are his jewels, that are the spoils of his enemies, that were once his enemies’ possession, but that he has redeemed out of their hands. Those precious gems that are near his heart, and are as it were his breastplate 2. That Christ himself, that is the antitype of the tabernacle and temple, and especially of the ark and the altar, is one that has been rescued out of Satan’s hands, and comes to be an ark and altar, no other ways than by his resurrection and ascension, whereby he was delivered from captivity to Satan. 3. Hereby is signified that the church of Christ, when it shall be fully redeemed from the tyranny of Rome, that is spiritually called Egypt, shall be adorned and beautified with the wealth of her enemies; that vast wealth that has hitherto been improved to gratify the avarice and pride of the church’s enemies, shall then be improved to holy purposes, to build up the church of Christ, to beautify the place of God’s sanctuary, and to make the place of his feet glorious, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honour into the church. Thus Satan shall be spoiled of his wealth and glory, and that which used to be improved in his service, shall be taken from him, and shall be in improved in the service of Christ; so that what he hath swallowed down he shall vomit up again. [463] Exodus 13:2. Concerning the pillar of cloud and fire, or the cloud of glory. This pillar of cloud and fire, and also the cloud of glory on mount Sinai, and in the tabernacle and temple, was a type of Christ in the human nature. The cloud was a fit representation of the human nature, being in itself a dark body, a vapour, a weak light thing, easily driven hither and thither by every wind, or the least breath of air; while it continues, is a most mutable thing, sometimes bigger, and sometimes less, constantly changing its form, puts on a thousand shapes, and it quickly vanishes away, is easily dispersed and brought to nought; a little change in the air destroys it, a little cold condenses it, and causes it to fall and sink into the earth. See Samuel 14:14. A little increase of heat rarifies and causes it wholly to disappear. A cloud is a most fit representation of the human nature of Christ, because it is derived from the earth, but yet is a heavenly thing.

The bright, glorious, and inimitable fire or light that was in the midst of the cloud, represented the divine nature united to the human. The cloud was as it were a veil to this fire, as Christ’s flesh was a vest to the glory of the divinity. When Christ took the human nature upon him he veiled his glory, the bright and strong light of the glory within, which otherwise would have been too strong for the feeble sight and frail eyes of men, was moderated, and as it were allayed and softened, to make it tolerable for mortals to behold. Thus the glory of God is exhibited in such a manner in our incarnate Saviour, so as it were to moderate, soften, and sweeten the rays of divine glory, to give us a greater advantage for free access to God, and the full enjoyment of him. [456] Another thing signified by God’s glorious appearing in a cloud, was probably the mysteriousness of the divine essence and subsistence, and of the person of Christ, and of the divine operations. Thus it is said, Psalm 97:2. “Clouds an d darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.” 1 Kings 8:12. “The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.” Psalm 18:11. “He made darkness his secret place. His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.” Proverbs 30:4. “ What is his name, and what is his Son’s name, if thou canst tell?” Isaiah 9:6. “ His name shall be called Wonderful.” Judges 13:18. “Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?” God’s nature is unsearchable, ‘tis high as heaven; what can we do? ‘Tis deeper than hell; what can we know? His judgments are a great deep, which we cannot fathom, and a cloud that we cannot see through; we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness.” Job 37:19. In the cloud of glory there was an excellent lustre, but it was veiled with a cloud; there was a darting forth of glorious light, and an inimitable brightness. But if any over-curious eye pried into ii, it would find it just lost in a cloud. God clothes himself with light as with a garment, but yet he makes darkness his pavilion. Thus the blessed and only Potentate dwells in the light which no man can approach unto, and is he whom no eye hath seen nor can see, Timothy 6:16. [130] Exodus 15:25,26. “And the Lord showed him a tree which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet,” etc. “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” This tree is the tree of life, and signified Jesus Christ; it signifies God himself, and the waters are God’s people, as it is here explained in the 26th verse; the trees being cut down, represented the death of Christ, and being cast into the water, his uniting himself to his people by coming down from heaven, by taking our nature, and by his Spirit. [172] Exodus 15:27. “And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters.” These twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees, are a representation of the church. The twelve wells of water answer to the twelve tribes, twelve patriarchs, twelve heads of the tribes, and twelve apostles. They signif.v the church itself, and then they answer to the twelve tribes. The church is compared to a fountain or spring of water, Song of Solomon 4:12. The hearts of believers are like wells of living water, the water being the grace of the Spirit, or they signify the ministry of the church, and so they answer to the twelve patriarchs, and twelve apostles the twelve patriarchs were the fathers and fountains of Israel, according to the flesh and the twelve apostles, and gospel ministers, are the fathers of Israel, spiritually. Through the twelve apostles, Christ delivered his pure doctrine to the world, as through so many fountains of pure water, and through gospel ministers in general, Christ communicates the living water of his Spirit to the church, as through so many springs, or pipes, or conveyancers, Zechariah 4:12. The twelve fountains signify Christ himself; be is represented by twelve fountains, as the Holy Ghost is represented by seven lamps, Revelation iv, and he is called twelve wells, according to the number of the instruments by which he communicates himself. However, in which sense soever we take it, the water represents the Holy Spirit. Christ communicates himself to his church only by his Spirit; he dwells in their hearts by his Spirit, the ministers of the gospel are instruments of the conveyance of the Spirit, the hearts of particular believers are fountains of living water, that is, of the Spirit.

The seventy palm-trees signify the church, which is compared to a palmtree.

Song of Solomon 7:7, 8. Deborah, the type of the church, dwells under the palm-tree. Believers are compared to palm-trees, 1 Kings 6:29. “And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims, and palm-trees, and open flowers, within and without;” which represented saints and angels: the number seventy answers to the seventy elders which were representatives of the whole congregation of Israel, and are called the congregation, Numbers 32:12. Joshua 20:6. or church, which is a word of the same signification.

It is probable the palm-trees grew so about these twelve fountains, that their roots were watered and received nourishment from them. [59] Exodus 16:19,20. “Let no man leave of it till the morning,” etc. hereby perhaps we are designed to be taught our absolute dependence every day upon God, for the supplies of his grace and spiritual food. We not only depend on him for the first conversion of the soul, but daily depend on him for grace afterwards. This manna must be given us every day, or we should be without food. We are taught not to rest in and live upon past attainments, but to be continually looking to God, and by faith fetching from him fresh supplies. We must not lay up in store the grace of this day for to-morrow, to save us the trouble of seeking and gathering more. We never have any to spare; hereby we shall make a righteousness of what we receive and do; and when we make that use of it, it is like manna that breeds worms and stinks. [473] Exodus 17:9. “I will stand on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand.” Moses’s rod, as has elsewhere been observed, signifies three things, each of which it signifies in this case. 1. It signifies faith, by which God’s people overcome their enemies: “for this is the victory that overcomes, even our faith.”

Mr. Henry says this rod was held up to God by way of appeal to him, Is not the battle the Lord’s? Is not he able to help, and engaged to help?

Witness this rod, the voice of which thus held up was that of Isaiah 51:9,10. “Put on thy strength, O arm of the Lord. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab?” 2. It represents the word of God, the rod of his strength, which is the weapon by which Christ, the antitype of Moses, overcomes his church’s enemies. This is the sword which proceeds out of his mouth. 3. Christ himself lifted up as the banner of his militant church. Christ is prophesied of in Isaiah 11 as a rod, “a rod out of the stem of Jesse;” and in the same place it is said, “He shall stand for an ensign of the people,” and their ensign as an army brought out of Egypt, and fighting and conquering their enemies; the children of Edom, in particular, are mentioned, ver. 1-10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16. This ensign and banner is Jehovah-Nissi, Jehovah our banner, agreeable to the name of the altar Moses built on this occasion, ver. 15. Moses stood on the top of a hill, and there lift up this ensign, the wonder-working rod, which had brought such plagues on their enemies, and such marvellous deliverance for them before, that the people at the sight of it might be animated in the battle. Christ himself, when he was lifted up on the cross, that he might draw all men to him, was lifted up on a hill. He stood and cried on the top of a hill, even the mountain of the temple at the feast of tabernacles. God hath exalted him to heaven, set him on his holy hill of Zion; caused him to ascend a high bill, as the bill of Bashan; hath set this rod in the mountain of the height of Israel, and from thence his glory is manifested to gather men to him, and to animate his church to fight his battles. From thence his glory was manifested on the day of Pentecost after his ascension, and from thence it will be manifested to his church, when they shall go forth to their victory over antichrist and all their enemies. he will shine forth on that mountain of the house of the Lord, from behind the veil, from between the cherubim; and all flesh shall behold it, and so all nations shall flow together to the mountain of the Lord-shall be gathered to this ensign; and then shall that be fulfilled in Isaiah 11:10. “At that day there shall he a root of Jesse, which shall stand for art ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek;” ver. 12. “And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth.” [205] Exodus 17:15. “And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-Nissi” (i.e. The Lord my banner). Altars were types of Christ, and therefore were sometimes called by the name of God as Jacob called the altar he built in Bethel, El Bethel, or the God of Bethel. The special reason of Moses’s calling this altar, that he built on occasion of their victory over Amalek, the Lard my Banner, was that Christ in that battle was in a special type represented as the banner of his people, under which they fought against their enemies, to which they should look, and by which they should be conducted as an army were by their banner or ensign, viz. in Moses holding up the rod of God in his hand on the top of the hill, as verses 9,10,11,12. That rod was a type of Christ, as has been shown, No. 195.

Moses, while the people were fighting with Amalek, held up this rod as the banner under which the people should fight: while Moses held up this rod, Israel prevailed, and when he let it down, Amalek prevailed.

This is agreeable to what God commanded when the children of Israel were bitten with fiery serpents. Numbers 21:8. “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole;” in the original it is, “set it for a banner,” or “ensign,” or “upon an ensign.” In all likelihood, the brazen serpent was set up on one of the poles of the standards or ensigns of the camp, and probably on the standard of the tribe of Judah, which was a lion, and was a type of Christ, who is the lion of the tribe of Judah: so it is prophesied that Christ should stand for an ensign. Isaiah 11:10,12. “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek--And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel.” [474] Exodus 20:24,25,26. “An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me-- And if thou wilt make an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it: neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar.” These rules have respect to what was to be done now immediately, the altars they were to erect, and the sacrifices that were to be offered in the wilderness before the building of the tabernacle. God’s altar was to be very plain and very low, so that they might have no occasion to go up to it by steps. The heathen greatly adorned their altars with the curious works of their own hands, and worshipped in high places, and built their altars very high, thinking hereby to put great honours on their gods, and make their services very acceptable to them. But God lets his people know that their seeming adorning, by their own art and handy work, will be but polluting, and their recommending themselves by their high altars will be dishonouring themselves, and showing their own nakedness: perhaps typifyhg this, that whenever men ascend high and exalt themselves in their own works or righteousness in God’s service, they show their own nakedness, and pollute his worship, and render the services they offer abominable to God. Mr. henry has this note on this rule for plain affairs: “This rule being prescribed before the ceremonial law was given, which appointed altars much more costly, intimates that after the period of that law, plainness should be accepted as the best ornament of the external services of religion, and that gospel worship should not be performed with external pomp and gaiety.” [63] Exodus 23:20. “Behold, I send an angel before thee,” etc. This does not seem to be the same angel spoken of in the 33rd chap. which was a created angel, but the Son of God; for what was spoken here before was in the name of the Father. [112] Exodus 24:18. “And Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.” Moses being so long in the mount with God when he received his mind and will to reveal to Israel, represents Christ’s being in heaven with his Father to receive his mind and will to reveal to his church-his being from all eternity in the bosom of the Father; and it may be particularly forty days, because Christ came down from heaven, signified by this mount; it was four thousand years from the beginning of time, and from the creation and fall of man, and since the covenant of grace first took place, and Christ actually became the Mediator between God and man; which, putting ten for a thousand, and every age or century for a day, answers to forty days.

That mount, when Moses was in it with God, typified heaven, as the apostle teaches, Hebrews 8:5. [285] Exodus 25:10, etc. “And they shall make an ark of shittim-wood,” etc. The ark was upon many accounts a lively type of Jesus Christ. The ark was united to the Godhead, it had the cloud of glory over it and upon it, which was the symbol of God’s immediate presence. The ark was the throne of God; Jeremiah 3:17.; i.e. it was that that was his immediate seat, and where he was present in a higher manner than he was in any other place, or to which his presence was united in a more immediate manner than to any thing else. God was present in the land of Canaan, or the holy land, more than in any other part of the face of the earth. God was present in Jerusalem, the holy city, or city of God, above all other places of the land of Canaan, and he was present in his temple above all other places in that city, as a king is more immediately present in his own house than in any other part of the royal city. But God was present with the ark, which was his throne, more than in any other part of his house. So the human nature of Christ is as it were the throne of God, where God is present, more than in any other part of the whole universe, It is of all created things the highest and most immediate seat of the divine presence; that in which God resides in a higher and more eminent manner than in any other part of the highest heaven itself, that is his temple. The ark, in itself, was in some respects a mean thing for the throne of God and for the symbol of God’s most immediate presence. It was only a wooden chest; it appeared without that form and pomp which the heathen images had, on which account the heathens despised it, and the children of Israel were often ashamed of it, and had a mind to have images in the stead of it, as the heathen had. So the human nature of Christ is in itself a mean thing; man is but a worm; the human nature has no glory in itself; it is but a vessel, that must receive its fulness from something else. As this chest in itself was empty, its fulness was what was put into it. Christ, when he was on the earth, appeared without form or comeliness, without external pomp and glory. The Jews, when they saw him, saw no beauty wherefore they should desire him, and he was despised by the Gentiles; he was to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness. Though the ark was in some respect mean, yet it was exceeding precious; though it was made of wood, yet it was over-laid with gold. So the man Jesus Christ was exceeding excellent; though he was a man, one of the mean race of mankind, yet he was a holy man, perfectly holy, endowed with excellent graces and virtues. Christ God man, Mediator, is wonderful; his name is secret, his person and offices are full of unfathomable mysteries. hence Christ’s name is called Wonderful, as the prophet Isaiah says; and the angel that wrestled with Jacob says, “Why askest thou after mv name seeing it is secret, or wonderful?” and Isaiah chap. 53 says “ Who shall declare his generation?” and again, in Proverbs 30:”What is his Son’s name, if thou canst tell?” As an ark is a thing shut up, what is in it is secret; hence secret things are called arcana. The mercyseat was upon the ark, and never was separated from it, which shows that God’s mercy is only in and through Jesus Christ. The ark was God’s chest, or cabinet. Men’s cabinets contain their most precious treasure: which denotes the infinite dignity and preciousness of Christ in the sight of God the Father, and the infinite love the Father hath to him, and delight be hath in him. The beloved Son of God is his most precious treasure, in which God’s infinite riches, and infinite happiness and joy, from eternity to eternity, does consist. Cabinets are made to contain a treasure; so the ark contained the precious treasure of the law of God, and the pot of manna: the one signifying divine holiness, of which the law of God is an emanation and expression; and the other signifying divine happiness, for manna was spiritual and heavenly bread, or food; but food is the common figure in Scripture to represent happiness, delight, and satisfaction; or in one word, those two things that were contained in this cabinet, signified the Holy Spirit, which is the same with the divine good or fulness of God, his infinite holiness and joy. Christ is the person in whom is the Spirit of God, and therefore he is called the Anointed. In him dwells this fulness of the Godhead: he is the cabinet of God the Father in which is contained all his treasure. In him the Father beholds infinite beauty, (or holiness, which is the beauty of the divine nature,) and in him the Father has his food, or infinite delight and satisfaction.

The ark in the temple was not only God’s cabinet, containing his treasure, but it was also Israel’s cabinet; it contained the greatest treasure of the children of Israel. (See Note on Isaiah 4:5.) So Christ is the greatest treasure of hiis church; he is their pearl of great price; he is the church’s portion and chief good; in him is contained all the church’s fulness; of his fulness she receives, and grace for grace; all her happiness, all the covenant blessings that she hath, are bound up in Christ. The church hath the Holy Spirit, which is the sum of all her good, no otherwise than through Christ and in Christ. God hath given the Spirit not by measure unto him and from him; it flows to his members as the oil on Aaron’s head went down to the skirts of his garments: particularly it is only in and through Christ that the church hath holiness expressed in the law of God, and happiness expressed by the pot of manna.

The ark itself, considered separately from the things it contained, was only a repository and vehicle to contain other things more precious than itself.

So the human nature of Christ is only a repository or vehicle to contain and convey that which is infinitely excellent and precious. In this human nature of Christ dwelt God himself. The divine Logos dwelt in it by his Spirit, signified by the law and manna. The Spirit of God never dwelt in any other creature in anywise as it dwells in the man Christ Jesus; for in him he dwells without measure, on which account also he is called Christ, or Annointed, By the Spirit of God dwelling in so high and transcendent a manner, the human nature is united to the divine in the same person. And as that human nature of Christ is as it were the container or repository of the Deity, a vessel full of the divine nature, so is it as it were the vehicle of it, by which it is conveyed to us, in and through which it might be as it were ours in possession; for it is by the Godhead being united to the nature of man, that it becomes the portion of men, as the ark of old was as it were the vehicle of the Deity to the children of Israel. It was that by which they had the Deity, whose dwelling-place is heaven, dwelling among them as their God, and by which God maintained a gracious communication with them.

The human nature of Christ had the Logos, or the Word of God, dwelling in it, as the divine eternal person of the Son is often called. This was typified by the ark’s containing the word of God in it, written in tables of stone, and in the book of the law. Christ is the light of the world, as that law contained in the ark is represented as the light of the congregation of Israel, Deuteronomy 33:2. From his right band went a fiery law for them.

Christ is the bread of life that came down from heaven; he is that that was signified by the manna in the wilderness, as Christ teaches in the 6th chap. of John; and he is so by the Spirit that dwells in him, and that he communicates, which was typified by the ark’s containing manna, the bread from heaven.

The law that was put into the ark signified the righteousness of Christ, including both his propitiation and obedience. Christ’s preparedness for both, is signified in the 40th Psalm, by that law, Thy law is within mine heart. God’s law was put within Christ’s heart, as the law was put within the ark, hence he satisfied the law by his sufferings; for it was out of regard to the honour of God’s law that when he would save them that had broken it, he had rather himself suffer the penalty of the law, than that their salvation should be inconsistent with the honour of it; and it was also because God’s law was within his heart that he perfectly obeyed it.

God was wont to manifest his glory from above the ark in the holy of holies, so it is only by Christ that God manifests his glory to his church; they see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; he is the effulgence or the shining forth of his Father’s glory. So God was wont to meet with the children of Israel over the ark and there speak with them, and give forth his oracles and answers; so it is by Christ only that God reveals himself to his church. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son that is in the bosom of his Father, he hath declared him.”

The ark is called the ark of the covenant; the covenant that God made with the people was contained in it. The covenant that God hath made with mankind, is made in Christ. The covenant was made with him from eternity; the covenant was then committed to him from us. The promises were given us in Christ; it is he that reveals the covenant, and be is the Mediator and surety of the covenant. The book of the covenant was shut up in the ark, which denotes the mysteriousness of the things contained in this covenant, as was said before; things shut up in an ark are secret, or arcana; and especially hereby seems to be signified that the great things of the covenant were in a great measure hidden under the Old Testament, they were covered as with a veil. As Moses put a veil over his face, so he hid the covenant in the ark. The ark itself was hidden by the veil of the temple, and the book of the covenant was hid by the cover of the ark, i.e. they were as it were hidden under Christ’s flesh: the carnal typical ordinances of the Old Testament are in Scripture represented as Christ’s flesh, Romans 2:1,2,3,4. Colossians. 2:14. The veil signified the flesh of Christ; Hebrews 10:20. and so doth the cover of the ark, or the ark considered as distinct from what was contained in it. The covenant of grace was, and the glorious things of the gospel were, contained in that book that was laid up in the ark; but it was as it were shut up in a cabinet, bud under types and dark representations. Christ rent the veil from the top to the bottom; so he opened the cabinet of the ark. The faces of the cherubims were towards this ark, and the mercy-seat upon it, to pry into the mysteries of the person of Christ and of this covenant of grace; for “these things,” as the apostle Peter says, “the angels desire to look into.”

The ark was carried on staves, on the Levites’ shoulders; so Christ is brought to his church and people in the labours of the ministers of the gospel.

It seems, by Jeremiah 3:16,17. as if the ark were a type of the church as well as of Christ; but no wonder: the church hath such a union and communion with Christ, that almost all the same things that are predicated of Christ, are also in some sense predicated of the church. Christ is the temple of God, and so is the church; believers are said to be his temple, and they together are said to be built up a spiritual house, etc. The law is in Christ’s heart, Psalm 40 As the law was in the ark, so God promises to put his law into the hearts of his people. Christ is the pearl of great price; he is the Father’s treasure. his chief delight; so the church is his cabinet, and believers are Ins jewels. ‘The ark represents the human nature of Christ especially, or the body of Christ, and the church is called the body of Christ. [475] Exodus 25:23, to the end. Concerning the shewbread table, and the golden candlestick. These both were to stand continually in the holy p lace, before the veil of the holy of holies, one on the north side, and the other on the south. Each of these seems to represent both a divine person and also the church. Each represents a divine person; the shew-bread represents Christ, and was set on the south side at God’s right-hand, as Christ is often represented as being set at God’s right-hand in heaven, being next to God the Father in his office, and above the Holy Spirit in the economy of the persons of the Trinity. The candlestick, or at least the oil and lamp of it, represent the Holy Spirit, and is set at the left-hand of God’s throne. Christ is as it were the bread of God. He is so called, John 6:33. He is the portion of God the Father, in whom is his infinite delight and happiness, and as our Mediator and sacrifice, He is as it were the bread of God; as the ancient sacrifices, that were only typical of Christ, are often called the bread of God. This bread is called the show - bread, in the Hebrew Lechem Plannim, the breed of God’s Puce, or presence. So Christ, in Isaiah 63:9. us called Malak plannim, the angel of God’s face or presence. This bread had pure frankincense set on it, which undoubtedly signifies the merits of Christ, and so proves the bread, that had this pure frankincense on it, to be a type of Christ. And besides this, the bread and frankincense are called an offering made by fire unto the Lord, Leviticus 24:7,9. which is another proof that this bread and incense were a type of Christ offered in sacrifice to God the bread was prepared to be as it were the food of God, by being baked in the fire, and the frankincense, when removed for new to be set on, was probably burnt in the fire on the altar of incense. There were twelve cakes of shewbread, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, to signify that Christ, as offered up in sacrifice to God, is offered as representing his people and church, and presenting himself to God in their name. This bread represents Christ not only as presented in the presence of God as the bread of the saints, for this bread was eaten by the priests in the temple, Leviticus 24:9. So Christ is often spoken of as the bread of the saints, he is the bread they will feed upon in heaven, which is the holy temple of God, where the saints are all kings and priests.

This bread also represents the church, who are spoken of not only as partaking of Christ, the divine bread, but as being themselves the bread of God, 1 Corinthians 10:17. God’s people are very often, in both the Old Testament and the New, spoken of as God’s food, his fruit, his harvest, his good grain, his portion, etc. This seems to be one reason why the shewbread was to be in twelve cakes, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, because the bread represented the church, as the twelve precious stones in the breastplate did. These loaves had frankincense set on them, to represent that God’s people are not acceptable food to God, any otherwise than as rendered so by the incense of Christ’s merits; the loaves of shew-bread were to be set on the table anew every sabbath, representing these several things. 1. That in God’s finishing the work of redemption, or in Christ’s finishing of it, when he rested from it Christ especially became the bread or sweet food of God, wherein he was refreshed; as God is said to have rested, and to have been refreshed, when he finished the work of creation, so much more when Christ finished the work of redemption. 2. As the sabbath day especially is the day of the worship of Christ’s church, so on that day especially does Christ present himself as their Mediator, and present his merits as their sweet food and incense of God to recommend them and their worship to the Father. 3. Christ is, on the sabbath day, especially set forth as the bread of his church in the preaching of the word, and administration of the sacrament.

On the sabbath day, the disciples came together to break bread, and it is then especially that his saints do feed upon him, in meditation, hearing his word, and partaking of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, as the priests ate the shew-bread on the sabbath. 4. The sabbath is that time wherein especially God’s people do present themselves to God as his portion through Christ. 5. The time wherein in a most eminent manner they shall be presented by Christ, and will present themselves to God as his portion, is on the time of their eternal rest (the antitype of the sabbath) in heaven. 6. This is also the time wherein they will in the highest degree feed and feast on Christ as their bread, as the priests ate the shew-bread in the temple on the sabbath.

In the golden candlestick that stood before the throne, on the left side was a representation both of the Holy Spirit and of the church. The pure oil olive that fed the lamps is indisputably a type of the Holy Ghost; and it is evident, from Revelation 4:5. compared with chap. 1:4. and 5:6. and Zechariah 3:9. and 4:2, 6, 10. The burning of the lamp represents that divine, infinite, pure energy and ardour wherein the Holy Spirit consists.

The light of the lamps filling the tabernacle with light which had no windows, and no light but of those lamps, represents the divine, blessed communication and influence of the Spirit of God, replenishing the church, and filling heaven with the light of divine knowledge in opposition to the darkness of ignorance and delusion, with the light of holiness in opposition to the darkness of sin, and with the light of comfort and joy in opposition to the darkness of sorrow and misery. This light being communicated from a candlestick, represents the way in which these benefits are communicated to the church, viz. the way of God’s ordinances, which are called a candlestick, Revelation 2:5.

It is evident that the candlestick represents the church from the 4th chap. of Zechariah and the 1st of Rev, and Matthew 5:13,14,15. and 1 Timothy 3:15. The matter was gold, as the church is constituted of saints, God’s precious ones. The candlestick was like a tree of many branches, and bearing flowers and fruit, agreeable to the very frequent representations of the church by a tree, an olive-tree, a vine, a grain of mustard-seed that becomes a tree, the branch of the Lord, a tree whose substance is in it, etc.

The continuance and propagation of the church is compared to the propagation of branches from a common stock and root, and of plants from the seed. In this candlestick, every flower is attended with a knop, apple, or pomegranate, representing a good profession attended with corresponding fruit in the true saints. Here were rows of knops and flowers one after another, beautifully representing the saints’ progress in religious attainments, their going from strength to strength. Such is the nature of true grace and holy fruit, that it bears flowers that promise a further degree of fruit, the flower having in it the principles of new fruit; and by this progress in holiness, the saint comes to shine as a light in the world. The fruit that succeeds the uppermost flower is the burning and shining lamp, representmg several things: 1. That the fruit of a true saint, or his good works and holy life, is as it were a light by which he shines before men, Matthew 5:13, 14,15. 2. That in a way of holy practice, and by progress in holiness, the saints obtain the light of spiritual comfort. 3. That in the way of going from strength to strength, and making progress in holiness, they come at last to the light of glory.

The lamps were fed wholly by oil constantly supplied from the olive-tree, representing that the saints’ holiness, good fruits, and comfort are wholly by the Spirit of God, constantly flowing from Christ. The oil that was burnt in the lamps before God, was an offering to God; so God is the p rime object of the grace and holiness of the saints, their divine love flows out chiefly to him, as Mary’s precious ointment was poured on the head of Christ, but ran down to the skirts of his garments. Their good works are acceptable sacrifices to God through Christ, and are not of the nature of christian works, if not offered to God, as if there be nothing of a gracious respect to God in them. The saints’ light shines before God, their gracious and holy practices are pleasant to him, and of great price in his sight, as the light is sweet; and the light shone around and filled the temple, as the odour of Mary’s box of ointment filled the house. The inhabitants of the temple had the benefit of the light of the candlestick, as the saints of God have especially the benefit of the good works of the saints.

The propagation of the church through successive generations is sometimes represented in Scripture by the gradual growing of a tree, and shooting forth its branches. And when the church is represented as bringing forth fruit as a tree, by her fruit is sometimes meant her children, or converts; and therefore one thing that may be intended by fruit and flowers succeeding one another in this candle stick, may be the continuance of the church and gradual increase, ‘her bringing forth fruit, and that in order to the bringing forth more fruit, until she hath reached the latter-day glory, when God shall bring forth her righteousness as the light, and her salvation as a lam that burneth; then shall she come to a state of glorious light, of truth, knowledge, holiness, and joy. [143] Exodus 28:30. “And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment, the Urim,” etc. Called the breastplate of judgment, because in matters of judgment that were too hard for the judges, they were to come to the priest, who was to inquire of God by Urim and Thummim, in the breastplate, for a determination, according to Deuteronomy 17:8,9. [476] Exodus 30:7,8. When the high priest lighted and dressed the lamp, then was he to burn incense on the golden altar of incense; signifying that the sweet and infinitely acceptable incense of Christ’s merits was by the Holy Spirit signified by the lamp, (see No. 475.) It was by the eternal Spirit that Christ offered up himself without spot to God. It was by the Holy Spirit many ways. It was by the Holy Spirit that the human nature of Christ was united to the divine Logos, from which union arises the infinite value of his blood and righteousness. It was by the eternal Spirit that Christ performed righteousness. It was by the Spirit of God that Christ was perfectly holy, and performed perfect righteousness. It was by the Holy Spirit not only that his obedience was perfect, but performed with such transcendent love. It was by this Spirit that his sacrifice of himself was sanctified, being an offering to God in the pure and fervent flame of divine love which burnt in his heart, as well as in the flame of God’s vindictive justice and wrath into which he was cast. And it was by this that his obedience and sacrifice were offered with such a love to his people, for whom he died, as implied a perfect union with them, whereby it was accepted for them [441] Exodus 32:33,34, There are many things in the circumstances of this second giving of the law that we have an account of in these chapters, that are arguments that these two transactions did represent the two great transactions of God with mankind in the covenant of works and covenant of grace.

It was in this last covenanting of God with the people, especially, that Moses appeared as a mediator, to which the apostle has respect, Galatians 3:19. It was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator, when the people had broken the covenant given at first with thunder and lightning; the law then was made use of as a school-master to convince them of sin. God threatened to leave them, and not go up with them, and when the people were overwhelmed by it, and mourned when they heard the evil tidings, God then further awakened them and terrified them, sending such a message as this to them, “Ye are a stiff-necked people; I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee; therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.” Thus this awful threatening was given forth with some hope and encouragement that peradventure they might live, given in that last clause, that I may know what to do unto thee. By thus applying the terrors of the law, God brought the people to put off their ornaments, which were typical of their own righteousness. Chap. 33:5, 6.

Moses now acted as a mediator, and not merely as an intermessenger, as he did in the first giving of the law. he offers his life for theirs; he offers up himself to be accursed and blotted out of God’s book for them, after he had told the people that they had sinned a great sin, and peradventure he should make atonement for their sin, which is to do the part of a mediator.

See chap. 32:30, 31, 32.

On this occasion, the Lord speaks to Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend, when he came to speak to God in behalf of the people; well representing the intercourse of our Mediator with the Father, chap. 33. 11. And on this occasion God made all his goodness pass before Moses, and proclaimed himself “the lord, the Lord God, gracious and merciful, forgiving iniquity,” etc. Chap. 33:19. and 39:5, 6, 7.

The covenant the first time was written on tables that were the workmanship of God, as the soul and heart of man in innocency was; which workmanship of God was destroyed by man’s apostacy: so, upon the children of Israel’s apostacy, Moses brake the tables that were the workmanship of God- The covenant now was written in tables that were the workmanship of Moses, the mediator, as the law of God after the fall is written in the fleshly tables of the heart renewed by Christ.

God promises, that in fulfilment of the covenant he now the last time enters into with his people, he will do wonders, such as have not been done in all the earth, and that all the people should see the work of the Lord. So God in the way of the new covenant that he entered into with Christ, did those great things by Christ in the work of redemption which are so often spoken of in Scripture as being so exceeding wonderful.

God made this covenant with Moses, the typical Mediator, as the head and representative of the people, and with the people in him or under him as his people, that he showed mer’cy to for Iris sake. Chap. 34:27. “ And the Lord said unto Moses, Write these words for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with the and with Israel;” and verse 10. “ Behold, I make a covenant before all thy people; I will do marvellously.”

Before Moses came down from the mount in wrath within the tables broken; so Christ comes as God’s Messenger to execute wrath for the breaking of the covenant of works. Now he comes down with the tables of the testimony iii his hand, with his face shining. This being typical of the light of grace with which Christ’s face shrines in God’s Israel. See Note on Exodus 32:19. and 33:1. [404] Exodus 33:14,15. “And he said, My presence shall go with thee (in the original XXX) And he said, if thy presence go not with us carry us not up hence.” Hence probably the heathen Pan and Paunus, the god of shepherds-the shepherds were the Israelites that were by the Egyptians called the shepherds, because a shepherd was a strange thing in their country. Hence Pan is supposed to be one of Bacchus’s principal commanders, because God’s presence is here promised to be with Moses and the people, to help them in their wars. And Pan going with Bacchus to war, is said to have put astonishing fears on all their enemies, which arises from the great terrors with which the God of Israel (whose shepherd) brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, with which he terrified the Egyptians and Israel themselves, and all nations, by what appeared when God gave the law; and so the great terrors sent into the hearts of their enemies in Canaan, so very often spoken of. See Genesis 35:5. Exodus 15:14,15,16. Deuteronomy 2:25. and 11:25. 34:12. and Joshua 2:9. and Exodus 34:10. and Psalm 106:22. Deuteronomy 7:27. and 10:17, 21. 26:8.

Exodus 23:27. God never manifested himself so much to the heathen nation in his awful terrors, as he did in the affair of leading Israel as their shepherd out of. Egypt through the wilderness into Canaan, and settling them there. Those fears and terrors are spoken of as from the presence of the lord. Psalm 68:7,8. “O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selab: The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence µynp , of the Lord, (the Pan or Paunus of the heathen,) even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of the God of Israel,” (the shepherds,) and Psalm 97:4,5.

His lightnings enlightened the world; the earth saw and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.” For terror and trembling is often spoken of as what properly arises from the presence of the Lord. Isaiah 64:1-3.” O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the water’s to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations might tremble at thy presence! When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.” So Isaiah 19:1. Jeremiah 5:22.

Ezekiel 38:20. Hence that proverbial expression, panic fears. Bochart says that Paunus among the Latins is the same god, and of the same original, with Pan. Pan is said to be an Egyptian god, to come up with Bacchus (i.e.

Moses) to fight against the giants. That which God promised Moses when he said, “my presence shall go with thee,” was his Son; the same with the angel at his presence, spoken of Isaiah 63 and therefore when Christ was crucified. Hence the relation of Plutarch touching the mourning of the demoniac spirits for the death of their great god, Pan, and the ceasing of their oracles thereupon. Bochart says, “The Hebrew np , Pan, one that is struck, or strikes with astonishing fears.” See Court of Genesis p. 1. h. 2. c. 6, 7. 70, 71. [266] Exodus 33:18-23. Moses, when he beseeches God to show him his glory, seems to have respect to a visible glory; something to be seen with his bodily eyes, yet not exclusive of an inward sweet sense of those glorious perfections, of which the external glory by which God manifests himself is a semblance, which was wont to accompany the external discoveries of divine glory that God made to the prophets, the external glory being made by the Spirit of God accompanying being made a means of a sense of the spiritual glory, as the music of a song of praise is the means of a sense of the excellency of divine things. But by the context it is manifest that it was a visible glory that Moses had a most immediate respect to. Moses seems to have apprehended from what he had seen of the visible manifestations which God had made of himself to him; and it may be from the apprehensions which other holy men before him had entertained concerning God, from what God had revealed to them; that there was some transcendent external majesty and beauty, some immensely sweet and ravishing brightness, the sight of which would exceedingly fill the soul with delight, that was immensely above all that he had yet seen.

And God, in his answer to Moses, and in what he did in compliance with his request, seems to allow Moses’s apprehension to be just, which probably was because it was God’s design to all eternity to appear to the bodily eyes of his saints inn such an external glory in the person of Christ God man; and Moses’s acquired right from the visible manifestations of an external glory which God had often made. These were indeed an intimation that there was such a transcendent external glory in some sort belonging to God, even to the second person of the Trinity, in that it was established in God’s gracious decree and eternal agreement of the persons of the Trinity; on the foot of which establishment were all God’s proceedings with the church of Israel, that Christ should everlastingly be united to an external nature and in that be manifested to his church in an external glory. The external manifestations which he had made of himself to Moses and other holy men, were presages and prelibations of this. Moses longed to see and enjoy that of which they were specimens and prelibations, Christ is the glory of God in his image, and no man hath seen God at any time, but it is he that always manifested himself by visible appearances. God granted to Moses to see something of this glorious brightness, as he passed by, so much from a view as it were of his back, but not of his face. Probably this, as he passed by in a visible form, shone within an ineffably sweet and glorious brightness, far exceeding all the brightness that is ever seen in the word for glory and delightfulness. (Vid. No. 265.) But God tells him that he cannot see his face, for no man should see him and live; i.e. not only could they not see that spiritual glory in which he manifests himself in heaven; but there is evidently a respect to an external glory: no man should see that external glory of God’s face, in which God intended to manifest himself to his saints in heaven to all eternity, in the face of Jesus Christ.

Coral. Hence the glory of Christ at his transfiguration was not that glory in which the human nature of Christ appears in heaven, and especially that in which it will appear after the day of judgment; only a shadow and faint resemblance of it; for that glory, God says, is such as no man can see and live; and so, of the appearances of Christ’s visible glory that Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the apostle Paul, and the apostle John had. [267] Exodus 33:18,19. “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory, And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom 1 will show mercy.”

Moses, from his finding his great acceptance and favour with God in the power that his prayers and intercessions had with him, so as it were to appease God’s wrath against the congregation of Israel, which was so great for their making rime golden calf and from his obtaining, by prayer, the promise of so great a favour as that God’s presence should go with them, which promise was made with this gracious declaration made of God’s favour to him; “ For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name;” and from God having in all this spoken to Moses, as a man speaks to his friend: this great mercy of God to him has two effects on Moses. 1. It gives him a sense of God’s excellency and glory, especially the excellency of his mercy and free goodness from this manifestation of it to him and his people after their great sin, and makes him long for a full sight of the glory of so excellent and good a being. 2. It encourages him to ask for this exceeding great mercy of seeing God’s glory. God’s mercy and favour being so very great in past instances, encourages him to ask yet farther and more exceeding favor; and we do not find that God rebukes Moses as being too forward and presumptuous in such a request, or as not being content with so great mercy as he had received already, but on the contrary seems to manifest an approbation of his making such an improvement of mercy already received, for he grants his request so far as is consistent with his present state. Several things are observable, concerning the manner of God’s showing Moses his glory, wherein, though it was extraordinary, it is agreeable to the manner of God’s discovering himself to the souls of his people in this world. 1. It was not face to face, which is reserved for the heavenly state; Corinthians 13:12.; but it was as it were a view of the back instead of the face. 2. It was as passing by. Herein is a great difference in the manner in which the saints have the discoveries of God’s glory, and that wherein they shall see him hereafter. Hereafter they shall dwell in his presence, they shall be fixed in an everlasting view of the glory of God, their eye shall be perpetually feasted with a full vision of his face; but here, when the saints have extraordinary discoveries of the glory of God, they are transient and short; sometimes it is only a glance; Christ stands behind the wall for the most part, and when he shows himself it is through the lattice as passing by a window, but hereafter they shall be in Iris presence-chamber with him.

Here tie saints see God as passing by before them, and then He is gone. 3. Hereby is properly rep resented how imperfect are the spiritual discoveries which the saints have of God here. They see God as it were when he is gone by they have somewhat of a sight of him, but yet very imperfect, as of the back of one that is just gone by, giving of them a sense that he is indeed an infinitely glorious being if they could but have a full sight of him: they earn see so much as to give an idea of what might be seen, if they could but come at it. They seem to be as it were on the borders of seeing it, and their appetite is excited to see it; but while they are admiring and longing, and reaching after it, it is gone and passed away. 4. The discovery of God’s spiritual glory is not by immediate intuition, but the word of God is the medium by which it is discovered: it is by God’s proclaiming his name. So God reveals himself to the saints in this world, by proclaiming his name in the joyful sound of the gospel. 5. It is by causing his goodness to pass before him, which is agreeable to the way in which God discovers himself to his saints by the gospel, which in a peculiar manner is a manifestation of the glory of divine grace or goodness. Divine grace is the leading attribute in that discovery, which God makes of his glory by the gospel, wherein God’s goodness is revealed more than any; wherein, and wherein especially, it is revealed as free and sovereign; and which is another thing that is a peculiar glory of the gospel, it is a mutation of free and infinite grace, as consistent with strict justice in punishing the Son; and therefore both are mentioned together in that proclamation God makes of his name to Moses, as in the 5th, 6th, and 7th verses of the following chapter. 6. While God draws nigh to Moses, and he is in God’s presence, Moses is commanded to hide himself in the clefts of the rocks, that God may not be a consuming fire to him, and that he may be secured from destruction, while the bumming blaze of God’s glory passes by, (as Watts expresses himself,) which typifies the same Redeemer who is as the munition of rocks, and as a strong rock, and the hiding-place of his people; who is compared to a great rock to secure from the burning heat of the sun by its shadow, and was typified by the rock out of which water was fetched for the children of Israel. God’s people can be secured from destruction when they are in the presence of God, and in his approaches and converse, no other way than by being in Christ, and sheltered by him from, being consumed by the flames of God’s pure and spotless holiness. 7. God covered him with his band while he passed by, not only that he might not see more of the glory of God than he could bear, but also that iris deformity and pollution might not be discovered, to bring on him destruction from the presence of that infinitely pure and holy God, and from the glory of that power that passed by. So in Jesus, God covers our deformity and pollution, he beholds not iniquity in Jacob, nor sees pollution in Israel; he turns away his eye from beholding our transgression therefore it is that we are not consumed in our intercourse with God. 8. Moses beholds God’s glory through a crevice of the rock, as through a window at which he looked out; which represents the manner of God’s discovering himself to his people in this world, which is as standing behind a wall and showing himself through the lattice.

Another reason why God makes all his goodness to pass before Moses, seems to be, that this was the attribute that God had wonderfully been exercising towards Moses, and the congregation of Israel, whereby Moses was now especially affected with that attribute, and especially longed to see the glory of it, as was before observed. And at the same time God tells Moses that he will be gracious to whom he will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom he will show mercy, because he had wonderfully manifested the sovereignty of his mercy in forgiving, as he had done, a people that had so exceedingly transgressed as the congregation of Israel had done in making the golden calf; and also that Moses might not be lifted up by God’s bestowing such unspeakable favours on him as he had done, and now promised to do in answer to his request, but might be sensible that it was not for his worthiness, but his own sovereign pleasure. And another reason is, that the glory of God’s goodness is that part of God’s glory, of which such a poor, feeble, corrupt creature as man is can best bear the sight, while he lives and remains such; for it is the most mild and gentle attribute, and the manifestation of it affords a cordial and support to enable him to bear it. [88] Leviticus 12:6. “ She shall bring a young pigeon or a turtle dove;” which typifies repentance as well as love. Ezekiel 12:16. “They shall be as doves in the valleys, each one mourning for his iniquity.” This is a proper sacrifice for original sin that the child brought unto the world with it by the parents’ means, a sacrifice both for the parents’ and children’s sin. [204] Leviticus 23:34,35,36. Matthew 1 Luke 2 The feast of’ tabernacles- The birth of Christ-Lord’s day. Bedford, in his Scripture Chronology, makes it appear exceeding probable that Christ was born on the feast of tabernacles; as also Mather on the Types. And besides what Mr. Mather on the Types observes of this feast, and of the time of Christ’s birth, there are the following things observed by Mr. Bedford. 1. He shows that in this month, about the same time of the year that Christ was born, the world was created; thus the beginning of the new creation and the old, the creation of the first Adam and the second, are at the same time of year. 2. That Moses, this type of Christ, came down from mount Sinai, which was a type of heaven, on the first day of this month, and declared that God was appeased, and the people pardoned, and his face shone as if the divinity had inhabited the manhood, so that the Israelites could not look upon him; and he then gave directions that they should immediately set about building the tabernacle, (which was hitherto hindered by, and because of, the golden calf,) seeing that God would now dwell among them, and forsake them no more: upon this the people bring their offerings, which were viewed and found to be sufficient. And then immediately they pitch their tents, knowing that they were not to depart from that place before the divine tabernacle was finished. And thus they set about this great work with all their might, at this time of the year. Hence the fifteenth day of this month, and seven days after, were appointed for the feast of tabernacles, in commemoration of their dwelling in tents in the wilderness, when God dwelt in the midst of them. 3. That Christ was not only born at the feast of tabernacles, and so circumcised on the last day, or eighth day of that feast, which was a great day, and probably appointed out of respect to the circumcision of Christ that was to be on that day; but also that the feast of tabernacles in. which Christ was born fell out on the first day of the week, and so the eighth day of the feast, on which he was circumcised, also fell on the same day of the week. 4. That the feast of the dedication of the temple of Solomon, (which was a type of the body of Christ, as well as the tabernacle,) was not only held on the feast of tabernacles, the feast on which Christ was born; but also that that feast happened to be on a Sunday, as the day of Christ’s birth was, and so the last and great day of the feast was also held on a Sunday. Vide Scripture Chronology, book 4 chap. 4. 5. I would further’ observe, that on that day the Godhead did, in a sensible manner descend in a pillar of cloud, to inherit the temple, as in the incarnation of Christ, the Godhead descended to dwell in flesh. See No. 396. Note on Zechariah 14:16, etc. [315] Numbers 10:10. Concerning the festival of the new moon. The change of the moon at her conjunction with the sun, seems to be a type of three things. 1. Of the resurrection of the church from the dead by virtue of her union with Christ, and at the coming of Christ; for the moon at her change, that lost all her light, and was extinct, and seemed to die, revives again after her conjunction with the sun. 2. Of the conversion of every believing soul, which is its spiritual resurrection. The soul in its conversion comes to Christ, and closes with Christ, as the moon comes to the sun, into a conjunction with him. The soul in conversion dies to sin, and to the world, crucifies the flesh with the affections and lusts, dies as to its own worthiness, or righteousness, whereby it is said in Scripture to be dead to the law, that it may receive new life, as the former light of the moon is extinct at its conjunction with the sun that it may receive new light. In order to our coming to Christ aright, we must not come with our own brightness and glory, with any of our own fulness, strength, light, or righteousness, or happiness, but as stripped of all our glory, empty of all good, wholly dark, sinful, destitute, and miserable. As the moon is wholly divested of all her light at her conjunction with the sun, we must come to Christ as wholly sinful and miserable, as the moon comes to the sun in total darkness. The moon as it comes nearer the sun grows darker and darker; so the soul, the more it is fitted for Christ. is more and more emptied of itself that it may be filled with Christ. The moon grows darker and darker in her approach to the sun; so the soul sees more and more of its own sinfulness, and vileness, and misery, that it may be swallowed up in the rays of the Sun of righteousness. 3. The change of the moon at her conjunction with the sun, signifies the change of the state and administration of the church at the coming of Christ.

The sun is sometimes eclipsed in his conjunction with the moon, which signifies two things: viz 1. The veiling of his glory by his incarnation; for as the sun has his light veiled by his conjunction with the moon in its darkness, so Christ had his glory veiled by his conjunction or union with our nature in its low and broken state: as the moon proves a veil to hide the glory of the sun, so the flesh of Christ was a veil that hid his divine glory. 2. It signifies his death. The sun is sometimes totally eclipsed by the moon at her change; so Christ died at the time of the change of the church, from the old dispensation to the new. The sun is eclipsed at his conjunction with the moon in her darkness; so Christ, taking our nature upon him in his low and broken state, died in it. Christ assumed his church and people, in their guilt and misery, and in their condemned, cursed, dying state, into a very close union with him, so as to become one with him; and hereby he takes their guilt on himself, and becomes subject to their sin, their curse, their death, yea, is made a curse for them; as the sun as it were assumes the moon in her total darkness into a close union with himself, so as to become one with her, they become concentred, and become as it were one body circumscribed by the same circumference, and thereby he takes her darkness on himself, and becomes himself dark with her darkness, and is extinct in his union with her. The moon, that receives all her light from the sun, eclipses the sun, and takes away his light. So Christ was put to death by those that he came to save; he is put to death by the iniquities of those that he came to give life to, and he was immediately crucified by the hands of some of them, and all of them have pierced him in the disposition and tendency of that sin that they have been guilty of; for all have manifested and expressed a mortal enmity against him, It is an argument that the eclipse of the sun is a type of Christ’s death, because the sin suffered a total eclipse miraculously at that time that Christ died.

The sun can be in a total eclipse but a very little while, much less than the moon, though neither of them can always be in an eclipse; so Christ could not, by reason of his divine glory and worthiness, be long held of dead, in no measure so long as the saints may be, though it is not possible that either of them should always be held of it.

The sun’s coming out of his eclipse is a figure of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. As the sun is restored to light, so the moon, that eclipsed him, begins to receive light from him, and so to partake of his restored light. So the church, for whose sins Christ died, and who has pierced Christ, rises with Christ, is begotten again to a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, is made partaker of the life and power of his resurrection, and of the glory of his exaltation, is raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in him. They live; yet not they, but Christ lives in them, and they are married to him that is risen from the dead. God having raised Christ, Christ quickens them who were totally dark and dead in trespasses and sins, and they are revived by God’s power, according to the exceeding greatness of his power that wrought in Christ Jesus, when he raised him from the dead.

The moon is eclipsed when at its full in its greatest glory, which may signify several things. 1. That God is wont to bring some great calamity on his visible church, when in its greatest glory and prosperity, as he did in the Old-Testament church, in the height of its glory in David and Solomon’s times, by David’s adultery and murder, and those sore calamities that followed in his family, and to all Israel, in the affairs of Ammon, and especially Absalom, and in the idolatry of Solomon, and the sore calamities that followed, and particularly the dividing the kingdom of Israel. So he did also on’ the church of the New Testament after Constantine, by the Arian heresy, etc.

God doth thus to stain the pride of all glory, and that his people may not lift up themselves against him, that he a I one may be exalted. 2. That it is often God’s manner to bring some grievous calamity on his saints, at times when they have received the greatest light and joys, and have been most exalted with smiles of heaven upon them as Jacob was made lame at the same time that he was admitted to so extraordinary a privilege as wrestling with God, and overcoming him, and so obtaining the blessing. And so Paul, when he was received up to the third heaven, received a thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure, he had a messenger of Satan to buffet him; so grievous a calamity it was that he laboured under, that he besought the Lord thrice that it might be taken from him. Sometimes extraordinary light and comfort is given to fit for great calamities, and sometimes for death, which God brings soon after such things; so when God gives his own people great temporal prosperity, he is wont to bring with it some calamity to eclipse it, to keep them from being exalted in their prosperity, and trusting in it. [337] Numbers 11:10,11,12, etc. “Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. Moses also was displeased; and Moses said unto the Lord, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant, and wherefore have I not found favour in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of this people upon me? Have I conceived all this people; have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?” Ver. 15. “If thou deal thus with me, kill me out of hand, and let me not see my wretchedness.” Moses, though God gives this testimony concerning him, that he was very meek above all men upon the face of the earth, yet could not bear the perverseness of the congregation of God’s people. How much therefore does Christ’s meekness go beyond that of Moses! Moses was not willing to bear the burden of all that people upon him; but Christ, the angel of God’s presence, is willing to bear them all with all their frowardness and perverseness. Moses said, “Have I conceived this people, have I begotten them that thou shouldest say, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth a sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?” But Christ willingly thus carries his people in his bosom unto the promised land, for they are his children; he has begotten them, and he never casts them off for their frowardness; he willingly obeys his Father when he commands him, saving, Carry this people, etc. Isaiah 63:8,9. “For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie; so he was their Saviour. In all their affliction, he was afflicted; and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them, and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Deuteronomy 1:31. “And in the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son in all the way that he went, until ye came into this place.” Isaiah 40:11. “He shall feed his flock like a she p herd; he shall gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead., those that are with young.” Moses said, Wherefore host thou afflicted thy servant? but Christ was willingly afflicted and tormented for the sake of a perverse people, ‘his enemies. Moses desired to be killed, to be delivered from the burden of bearing the people to the land of promise, rather than bear it. But such was Christ’s love to them, that he desired to be killed that he might bear them to the land of promise. [118] Numbers 12:6,7,8.” If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make known myself to him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream: my servant Moses is not so; with him will I speak apparently, and not in dark speeches.” It is evident from this that it was God’s common manner to speak to the prophets in words that they did not understand themselves. Therefore, in reading the prophets, we read not such an interpretation as would be natural for the prophets themselves to put upon the prophecy; for the Holy Ghost spake in what words he pleased to employ, and meant what he pleased, without revealing his meaning to the prophets. The prophecy of Scripture is not of a private interpretation, but they spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. [307] Numbers 19 The ashes of the red heifer of which was made the water of separation for the purification of those that were legally unclean. This heifer, being a female, doubtless does more directly signify the church of Christ, than Christ himself. She was a heifer, without spot, having no blemish, because it was the church of saints that are pure and upright ones, those that are not defiled with any pollution, showing hypocrisy, or want of evangelical perfection; they are Israelites indeed in whom is no guile, and those in whom God does not behold iniquity or see perverseness. The slaying and burning of this heifer signifies the sufferings and persecutions of the church of Christ, and the fiery trial which she was to undergo. The persecutions of the church of Christ have mainly been carried on by burning. The purifying with the ashes of this heifer, signifies that the church and people of God should be purified by her sufferings, and as it were by the ashes of the martyrs. The purifying of God’s people and taking away their sins, and refining them as silver, and making them which is often declared to be the end of the suffering and persecutions of God’s people, and it is the way in which it pleased God to lay the foundation of the purity of his church, viz. by continuing it for many ages under extreme persecutions, first under the tyranny of Rome heathen, and nextly under antichrist, and so to fill up, as the apostle expresses himself, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ: for Christ does as it were suffer in his members, in all their affliction he is afflicted; the church is his body, and in this sense the slaying and burning this heifer represents the sufferings of Christ, as they represent the sufferings of his people, whereby they are made conformable to Christ’s death, and partakers of his sufferings. It pleases God to lay the foundation of the spiritual purity and prosperity of his church, in the first place, in his eldest Son, even Jesus Christ, and secondly in the blood of the martyrs, Christ’s younger brethren, that are as it were God’s youngest son. See Notes on Joshua’s prophecy concerning the rebuilding of Jericho.

This was not to be a cow, but a heifer, and 2150 without spot or blemish, which is very agreeable to the description that is given of the church of Christ in Revelation, in the time of their persecution. Revelation 14:4,5. “These are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins- And in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God.

And it must be a red heifer, which signifies the militant state the church is in under those sufferings, conflicting with her enemies. The colour red, is often so used in Scripture. So Christ, while he is warring with his enemies, is represented as being red in his apparel, Isaiah 63 and as being clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, Revelation 19:3. So God’s saints are clothed in red until they have got through their sufferings, and are in a triumphant state; then they are represented as having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, Revelation 7:14.

It was to be a heifer on which never had come yoke; which most fitly represents the Spirit and practice of God’s true church in ‘the time of persecution from her enemies, which refuses to submit to the yoke, that they would oppose whatever cruelties they exercise them with. She will not call any man on earth master or lord-will not be subject to their impositions-will not forsake the commands of God, nor be subject to the commandments of men-will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth-will not worship the beast, nor his image, nor receive his mark in their forehead, nor in their hand. They stand fist in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free, not submitting to the yoke of bondage, Galatians 5:1.

This heifer was sacrificed to God; so are the martyrs represented as sacrificed. They offer up themselves a sacrifice to God through the Holy Spirit, and the souls of the martyrs are represented as souls under the altar.

She was to be burnt without the camp, as the martyrs, especially those suffering under antichrist, are rejected and cast out of the communion of their persecutors, as not being of the church of Christ.

Her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with the dung, were to be burnt: the suffering of the martyrs burns up their carnality and corruption, and cleanses all their filthiness.

The peculiar use of the ashes of the red heifer was to purge from pollutions by dead bodies. So the use for which God designs the suffering and persecutions of his church, is to rouse his people from coldness and deadness in religion, and from carnality, and worldly or fleshly mindedness, whereby some become as dead carcasses; for he or she that liveth in pleasure, is dead while he liveth. Carnal things are well compared to dead carcasses, for they are fleshly, and they are filthy and loathsome like stinking flesh. [73] Numbers 23:23. “According to this time shall it be said of Jacob, and of Israel, What hath God wrought?” That is, God shall do a very strange and wonderful thing for Jacob and for Israel. Such interrogations denote the wonderfulness of the thing about which the interrogation is, as Isaiah 63 “Who is this that cometh from Edom?” etc. And Psalm 25 “Who is this King of glory?” See Notes on that Psalm. “According to this time;” that is, what he hath done at this time, is a shadow and representation of it. He hath now redeemed out of Egypt, with the strength of an unicorn, and there is no enchantment against him, as in the words immediately foregoing; and hereafter he shall send Jesus Christ to redeem them out of spiritual Egypt; with a greater strength shall he redeem them from the power of the devil. [418] Numbers 24:17. “And shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.” It would be unreasonable on many accounts to suppose that this Sheth is the same with, Seth the son of Adam, and so that by the children of Sheth is meant all mankind, But the Sheth here mentioned is a founder of one of the chief families of the Moabites; probably one of the sons of Moab. The father of the people cal led from him Shittam, as the posterity of Heth are in Scripture from him called Hittim, which we translate Hittites; whence that part of the land where those people dwelt was called Shittim, which was the part of that land in which the people now were, where Balaam beheld them when he blessed them; he beheld them in the inheritance of the people of Sheth, or the land of the Shittim, or Shittites, as appears by the first verse of the next chapter, and Joshua 2:1. and 3:1. and Micah 6:1. All that renders this doubtful is, that the radical letters in Seth and Shittim are not the same, as in one is t , and the other f . [468] Deuteronomy 6:13. “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and swear by his name.” It might have been rendered swearing in the name, or into the name, in the original Bishmo, And the thing chiefly intended here by it seems to be, the making that public, solemn profession of faith in the name of God, of being the Lord’s, and being dedicated to his honour and glory, and that covenanting and avowing to be the Lord’s, and serve him, that is very often in Scripture called by the name of swearing. A public profession of religion has respect to two things.

It has respect to something present, viz, their belief, or faith: this is the profession God’s people make of their faith. It has respect also to something future, viz, their future behaviour in the promises or vows that are made in a public profession.

It is evident that the profession that is made in the latter, viz, in the promises and vows of the covenant, is often called swearing; but the profession that is made in the former, which relates to their faith, is a no less solemn profession, In the public profession they make of religion, they profess what is present with the same solemnity as they promise what is future. They declare what their faith is with the same solemnity with which they declare their intentions. Both are declared with an oath-one an assertory oath, and the other a promissory oath; and the whole profession is called swearing in, or into, the name of the Lord. In the former part of it, they swear their faith in the name of the Lord, and swear that they are God’s; that their hearts are his, and for him. In the latter part they swear to live to his honour and glory, which is often called his name. And by the whole they appear by their profession to be God’s people, which in Scripture is often expressed by being called by God’s name; and so by this swearing they come into the name of God, as persons when they make profession of religion by baptism, are said to be baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The former part of this profession of religion, viz. the profession of faith in God, is called saying, or swearing, the Lord liveth. Jeremiah 5:2. “And though they say, The Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely.” They have sworn by them that are no God, i.e. had openly professed idol worship.

Chap. 4:2. “And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.” That this saying that the Lord liveth was in their profession of faith in the true God in the public profession they made of his name, is confirmed by Jeremiah 44:26. “Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the Lord, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, The Lord liveth:” i. e, they shall never any more make any profession of the true God, and true religion, but shall be wholly given up to heathenism. And Jeremiah 12:16. “And it shall come to pass if they will diligently learn the way of my people, to swear by my name, The Lord liveth, as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then shall they be built in the midst of my people.”

Here is a promise to the heathen, that if they would forsake their heathenism and turn to the true God, and the true religion, and make an open and good profession of that, they should be received into the visible church of God. Jeremiah 16:14,15. “Therefore, behold the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of the north:” i.e. God’s people, in their public profession of their faith, shall not so much insist on the redemption out of Egypt, as on a much greater redemption that shall hereafter be accomplished. We have the same again. Jeremiah 23:7,8.

Hosea 4:15. “Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye into Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven, nor swear, The Lord liveth.”

This has respect to that public profession of religion which the ten tribes made at Bethel, (here called Bethaven,) the place of their public worship before the calf that was set up there, by which they pretended to worship Jehovah. Amos 8:14. “They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beersheba liveth.” They had also places of public worship at Dan (where was one of their calves) and at Beersheba. See chap. 5:5.

The words, Jehovah liveth, summarily comprehended that which they professed in their public profession of religion. They signified hereby their belief of a dependence upon that all-sufficiency and faithfulness that is implied in the name Jehovah, which, will appear by the consideration of the following places, Joshua 3:10. “Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you.” 1 Samuel 17:26. “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” Ver. 36. “ Seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.” 2 Kings 19:4. “ It may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria hath sent to reproach the living God.” Also ver. 16. and Isaiah 37:4. ler. 10:8, 9, 10. “The stock is a doctrine of vanities--But the Lord is the true God (Hebrews the God of truth). He is the living God.” Daniel 6:26. “ He is the living God, and stedfast for ever.” Psalm 18:46. “The Lord liveth and blessed he my Rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.” So Samuel 22:47. Other places showing that by Jehovah’s living and being the living God, is meant his being all-sufficient and immutable, and faithful.

Genesis 16:49. Deuteronomy 5:26. Joshua 3:10. compared with Exodus 3:14. and 6:3. with the context. 1 Samuel 17:26,36. 2 Kings 19:4,16.

Psalm 42:2. and 84:2. Isaiah 37:4. Jeremiah 10:10. with the context.

Jeremiah 23:36. Hosea 1:10. 2 Samuel 22:47. Psalm 18:46. Job 19:25.

Matthew 16:16. John 6:69. Acts 14:15. Romans 9:26. 2 Corinthians 3:3. and 6:16. 1 Timothy 3:15. and 4:10. and 6:17. Hebrews 10:31.and 12:22.

The things professed in a public profession of religion are two, faith and obedience. The faith that was professed, was called believing in God and believing in the name of God (Beshem, with the prefix Beth). Genesis 15:6. “And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

Exodus 14:31. “And the people believed the Lord” (in the original believed in the Lord). 2 Kings 17:14. “Did not believe in the Lord their God.” Chronicles 20:20. “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established.” Psalm 78:22. “they believe not in God.” Daniel 6:23. “Because he believed in his God.” The other thing is a believing obedience.

This is called a walking in the name of God (still with the same prefix Beth). Micah 4:5. “All people will walk every one in the name of his God, and we will walk in the name (Beshem) of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” And that solemn professing or swearing wherein both these were professed by a like idiom of speech, was called a swearing in the name (Beshem) of the Lord.

Agreeably to this way of speaking, in the New Testament, when persons solemnly profess the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and are devoted to them in their baptism, they are said to be baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Making a public profession of religion or of faith in God, is often called making mention (Zakar) of the Lord, or of the name of the Lord; and this in the original commonly is making mention in the Lord, or in the name of the Lord, with the prefix Beth, as they are said to swear in the name of the Lord. Thus, Amos 6:10. “Hold thy tongue, for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord,” (in the original Beshem, in the name,) i.e. we may not make profession of our God, being under the dominion of the heathen. Psalm 20:7. “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God;” in the original, we will remember or make mention (for the word is the same as before) in the name of the Lord our God, with the prefix Beth, i.e. we will openly profess and declare our faith and trust in the Lord, etc. Isaiah 26:13. “O Lord, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us, but by thee (Beka, in thee) only will we make mention of thy name, i.e. we will forsake all other lords, and renounce our profession of idolatry, and profess and worship thee alone, They that professed the worship of false gods, are said to make mention in their name. Hosea 2:17. “I will take shall the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered (or mentioned, for still the word is the same) by their name,” (Bishmain, in their name,) i.e. their name and worship shall no more be professed. So Joshua 23:7. neither make mention of the name (in the original, in the name) of their gods, nor swear by them.

This abundantly confirms that swearing by or in a God, signifies what was done in the public profession of his name and worship, which is signified by making mention in his name. This also may evidently appear in Isaiah 48:5 1, 2. “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name (Beshem, in the name) of the Lord, and make mention of the God (Belohei, in the God) of Israel, but not in truth and in righteousness, for they call themselves of the holy city.” By their profession they were visibly of the church of God, were called by the name of Israel, and called themselves of the church.

That profession which in the law of Moses and many other places, is called swearing by the name or in the name of the Lord, with the prefix XXX, is evidently the same with swearing to the Lord, with the prefix XXX, Isaiah 19:18. “In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of hosts.” (Laihovah.) In I Kings 18:32. it is said that Elijah built an altar in the name of the Lord, Beshem, that is, to the name of the Lord. Here the prefix Beth is evidently of the same force with Lamed in 1 Kings 8:44. “The house that I have built for thy name,” or to thy name. Here Leshem is plainly of the same signification, in speaking of building a house to God, with Beshem in the other place, that speaks of building an altar to God.

In and to, or the prefixes Beth and Lamed, are manifestly used as of the same signification in the case of swearing to a God, or an object of religious worship, in the same sentence in Zephaniah 1:5. “That swear by the Lord, and that swear by Malcham.” The words are thus, that swear to the Lord, (Laihovah,) and that swear in Malcam (Bemalcam). In Genesis 23:8. “Entreat for me to Ephron, the son of Zoar. To Ephron, in the orignial, is Be Ephron, with the prefix Beta.

What is meant by swearing to the Lord, (Laihovah,) we learn by Chronicles 15:12, 13, 14. with the context, viz. publicly and solemnly acknowledging God, and devoting themselves to God by covenant.. “And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul-and they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice.” Deuteronomy 29:10-15. We also may learn what is meant by swearing to the Lord, by Isaiah 45:”Unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength;” together with the apostle’s citation and explication of this place, which instead of the word swear, uses confess, in Romans 14:11. and Philippians 2:10. which, in the apostle’s language, signifies the same as making open and solemn profession of Christianity.

Romans 10:9,10. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth’ the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe with thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved; for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” In that place in the 45th of Isaiah ver. 23. it is said, “Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength.” This is the profession of their faith in Christ, and is the same with what is called making mention of God’s righteousness. Psalm 71:16. “I will go in the strength of the Lord God, I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.” The phrase make mention, as was observed before, is used for making a public profession; and here in this place in Isaiah glorying in God, and blessing themselves in him, (or in his righteousness and strength,) are joined with swearing to him, as they are in Jeremiah 4:2. “And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness, and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory;” and Isaiah 63:11. “The king shall rejoice in God, every one that sweareth by him shall glory.’

The prefix Beth is put for into as well as in. See innumerable instances of this in places referred to in the Concordance, under these words, enter, put, brought, Judg 9:26. went over to Shechem, in the Hebrew Besliechem. To choose other gods, is in Judges 10:14. expressed by choosing in them, with a prefix Beth. Agreeably to the manner of speaking among the Hebrews, confessing Christ before men, Matthew 10:32. is, in the original, confessing in him. “he that shall confess in me, XXX before men, I will confess in him, before my Father, and before his angels.”

Judges 17:”Ask counsel now of God,” Belohim, with the prefix Beth. [144] Deuteronomy 12:20. “When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy borders-and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh, thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.” That is, thou mayest so eat it at home, without carrying it to be sacrificed; as appears from the context. [121] Deuteronomy 21:23. “For he that is hanged is accursed by God.”

The instances we have of those that were hanged, are agreeable to this.

Thus the heads of the people that joined themselves to Baalpeor were hung up before the sun, that the fierce anger of God might cease. Numbers 25:3,4. So the seven sons of Saul were hanged, to remove God’s wrath from the land. Ahithophel, who was cursed by David in God’s name, hanged himself. Absalom was hanged in an oak for his rebellion against his father: “For it is written, Cursed is every one that setteth light by father or by mother.” The kings of the cursed cities of Canaan were hanged. Haman was hanged, for he was a type of antichrist. Judas hanged himself, having been declared accursed by Christ before. [113] Deuteronomy 32:50. “And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people.” God ordered that Aaron and Moses should go up to the tops of mountains to die, to signify that the death of godly men is but an entrance into a heavenly state. It is evident that heaven is sometimes typified by the tops of the mount by Hebrews 8:5. compared with 12:22. So Christ was transfigured in the mount, and appeared in glory with both Old-Testament and New-Testament saints, and the glory of God in a cloud, to be a type of the heavenly state. Vide Note on Exodus 24:18.

No. 71. 1173] Joshua 6:26. and 1 Kings 16:34. “And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.” Jericho herein was a remarkable type of the church of the elect. Jericho was a devoted cursed city, it was devoted to perfect and to eternal destruction. To perfect destruction, in that every man, woman, and child, ox, sheep, and ass, were destroyed by God’s command, and it was forbidden ever to be built again.

So the elect are naturally under the curse of the law, which devotes those that have broke it to perfect and eternal destruction. However, this city was one very capable of being redeemed from that curse; but that was only by the curse being transferred upon him that built it. So the church of the elect could have the curse removed no other way but by its being laid upon Christ, who undertook to restore it. So Hiel the Bet elite represented Christ, who is from the true Bethel, or house of God, even heaven. He was to lay the foundation of it in his first-born, and in his youngest son to set up the gates of it. So his eldest son represented Christ who is the first-born of every creature, and is our elder brother. The foundation of the redeemed and restored church is laid in the blood of the first and only-begotten Son of God. The gates of it were to be set up in his youngest son; so after the church is redeemed by Christ, the gates of it are to be set up in the blood of the martyrs, It is in that way the church is to be erected and finished, and brought to its determined glory and prosperity in the world, even through the sufferings and persecutions of believers. Jericho, though once an accursed city of the Canaanites; yet, after it was thus redeemed from the curse, became a school of the prophets. 2 Kings 2:and 4:38. vi. 1, 2. [209] Joshua 10:12,13,14. Concerning the sun and moon’s standing still, This great event was doubtless typical; and as the sun was made to be a type of Christ, and is the most eminent type of him in all the inanimate creation, and is used as a type of Christ in Scripture, for he is the “ Sun of righteousness,” and “the light of the world,” etc.;-so doubtless the sun here, when it stands still to give the children of Israel light to help them against their enemies, is a type of Christ. The sun did as it were fight for the Israelites by his light; so Christ fights for his people; and the way that he does it, is chiefly by giving them light. Hereby he helps them against the powers of darkness, and overthrows the kingdom of darkness. Christ was at that time actually fighting for Israel as the captain of the host; he had a little before appeared in a visible shape with a sword drawn in his hand and told Joshua that as the Captain of the host of the Lord he was come, Joshua 5:13,14. And there was now a double type of Christ’s fighting for his people against their spiritual enemies; Joshua was then fighting as the captain of the host of Israel, who bore the name of Christ; for Joshua is the same with Jesus, and he was an eminent type of him; and at the same time the sun stood over Joshua fighting for Israel against their enemies. While Joshua or Jesus thus fought, the sun appeared also fighting in the same battle, being a type of the true Joshua or Jesus. It was a great thing for the sun to stand still to fight for Israel, and to help them to obtain the possession of Canaan, but not so great a thing as for Christ, who is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of his person, the Creator and upholder of the sun, to appear as he did, to deliver his people from their spiritual enemies, and to make way for their obtaining the heavenly Canaan. The sun, though so great and glorious a heavenly body, and though so high above the earth, yet did forego its natural course-was greatly put out of the way, and deprived of that which naturally belonged to it, for the sake of Israel, laid aside its glory as the king of heaven, was as it were divested of the glory of its dominion over heaven and earth, which it has by its course through all heaven and round the earth. For it is by its course that nothing is hid from its light and heat, by which it has influence over all, and as it were rules over all. Psalm 19:6. The influence of the heavenly bodies is called in Scripture their dominion. Job 38:32,33. But this glory as king of heaven and earth was laid aside to serve and minister unto Israel. But this was not so great a thing as for the eternal Son of God, the infinite fountain of all light, who is infinitely above all creatures, the Sun of righteousness, in comparison of whose brightness the sun is but darkness, and therefore will be turned into darkness when he appears. I say it was not so great a thing as for him to lay aside his glory as King of heaven and earth, and appear in the form of a servant to serve men, and came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and should even give his life to destroy and confound our enemies, and obtain for us the possession of the heavenly Canaan. The sun, who by its course was wont to fill heaven and earth, now confined itself to the land of Canaan, for the sake of Israel, so Christ, who, being in heaven filled all things, Ephesians 4:10. by his incarnation confined himself to the land of Canaan, and to a tabernacle of flesh. Hence it is not any way incredible, not at all to be wondered at, that God should cause such a miracle for the sake of the Israelites, or that nature in so great an instance should be made to yield and give place to Israel’s interest, when the God of nature did as it were deprive himself of the glory that he had from the beginning of the world, yea, before the world was, even from all eternity, (John 17:5.) the glory that naturally belonged to him, and as it were give up all for man, that he should become incarnate, and deliver up himself to death for the spiritual Israel.

The moon, which is a type of the church, also stood still at that time to fight against the Amorites for the church; for the church fights with Christ against the spiritual Amorites. The church militant is Christ’s army, they go forth with Christ, and under Christ, to fight the good fight of faith, and are soldiers of Jesus Christ. Christ and the church are represented going forth together in battle. Revelation 19:11, etc. Both the sun and moon stood still at that time, that there might there be a representation of the same thing in heaven that there was on the earth: there was Joshua and Israel fighting God’s enemies on earth, and there the sun and moon fighting against them in heaven, and both represented Jesus and his church fighting against their spiritual enemies. [209] Joshua 10:12,13,14. Concerning the sun’s standing still, This is supposed to give occasion to the story of Phaeton the son of Sol and Clymene, who, desiring his father to let him guide the chariot of the sun for one day, set the world on fire. So we read that it was about the space of one day that the sun stood still, and this in all probability caused an extraordinary scorching and distressing heat in many parts of the world.

And Mr. Bedford, in his Scripture Chronology, observes that mention is made of it in the Chinese history, that in the reign of their seventh Emperor Yao, the sun did not set for ten days together, and that the inhabitants of the earth were afraid that the earth would be burnt, for there were great fires at that time. This happened in the sixty-seventh year of that emperor’s reign, and so the time of it Mr. Bedford observes, according to their account, exactly agrees with scripture history. Scripture Chronology, p. 489. And he observes that it is natural for men in things of great antiquity to enlarge beyond the truth. And what the Chinese history mentions about great fires in many places, agrees with the story of Phaeton’s setting the world on fire. And indeed to have the day more than twenty-four hours, for besides the twelve hours that the sun stood still, the time of the sun’s course above the horizon was probably more than twelve hours, for it was probably later in the year than the vernal equinox: I say to have the sun so long above the horizon, and twelve hours of it together, so extraordinarily near the meridian, shining down with a perpendicular ray all that time, must needs cause exceeding heat in many places. [169] Joshua 10:13. “And the sun stood still and the moon stayed.” God thereby showed that all things were for his church, all was theirs, the whole earth, and the sun, moon, and stars, were made for them. [117] Joshua 10:13. “The sun stood still and the moon stayed.” The moon stayed; not that the moon’s staying helped them, but it was because the earth was stopped, and so all the heavenly bodies were stopped, that is, they kept their position with respect to the horizon. [224] Joshua 11:8. “And the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel, who smote them, and chased them even unto great Zidon.” Bedford, in his Scripture Chronology, p. 195, and 493 supposes that great numbers of them made their escape from thence, and from neighbouring sea-ports, by shipping, to all the shores which lay round the Mediterianean and Egean seas, and even to other parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, of which, says he, the learned Bochart hath given us a large account, in his incomparable Canaan, and particularly shown that the names of most places are of Phoenician or Hebrew extraction. About this time they set u p their two pillars at Tangier, with this inscription in the Phoenician language, “We are they who fled from the face of Joshua the robber, the son of Nun.” About this time they built the city of Carthage, which at first they called Carthada, which in the Chaldee and Syriac languages signifies The New City. This building of Carthage, says he, p. 195. not only appears from the common consent of all historians, but also from the remains of the Carthaginian language, which we have in Plautus, where he brings in a youth from thence, speaking in such a manner that many learned men have proved it to be the Hebrew, or language of Canaan, and the Carthaginians are frequently called Phoenicians and Tyrians, because they came from this country. Being thus used to sailing and merchandise, they soon carried on a larger trade, and settled other colonies near Gibraltar, both in Europe and Africa. The learned Bochart thus tells us, that these expeditions were computed to he in the times of the heroes. And Bedford says, p. 493. that hence the story of Dido and Eneas, as mentioned in Virgil, must be false and groundless. Neither is it probable, says he, that the widow of a priest flying the country unknown to the king, could carry with her so great a number of men to a new colony, as should undertake to build so great a city. So she brought not inhabitants there, but found them there, and did not so properly build, as repair and enlarge, the town to which she came.

She built the tower which was called Bozrah, or A Fort, in Hebrew, and from thence called Byraa, or A Hide, in Greek, and so occasioned the fabulous story that Dido bought the place to build the city on with little bits of leather marked, which was anciently used instead of money. But others tell us that when she arrived on the coast of Africa she was forbidden to tarry there by Hiarbas, king of the country, lest she, with her company, might seize on a great part of his dominion, and therefore she craftily desired of him only to buy so much ground as might be compassed with an ox hide; which, when she had obtained, she cut it into small thongs, and therewith compassed two and twenty furlongs, on which she built the city afterward named Carthage, and called the castle Byrsa, or Hide. All this we owe to the fertile invention of the Greeks, to make every thing derived from them: whereas Dido, coming from Tyre, knew nothing of that language; and besides, the old Carthaginian language was the Phoenician or Hebrew, as appears by the old remains thereof, which we have in Plautus’s Poenulus.

It looks exceedingly probable, that when Joshua had smitten the vast army of Hazor, and the kings that were with him, and chased them into Zidon, that all that could, would flee by ship; for that was a great sea-port, and therefore they had opportunity to escape this way, and they had enough to terrify them to it, for they had heard how Jehovah, the God of Israel, with a strong hand had brought off the people from Egypt, and had divided the Red sea, and drowned the Egyptians there, and fear and dread had fallen upon them, and their hearts had melted at the news, Exodus 15:14,15,16.

And they had heard how that God was among the people in the wilderness, and how he was seen face to face, and how that his cloud stood over them, and how he went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Numbers 14:14. And their dread and astonishment was renewed by hearing how they had destroyed Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, the king of Bashan; they had trembled, and anguish had taken hold on them, at the news. Deuteronomy 2:25. As Rahab told the spies that terror was fallen upon them, and all the inhabitants of the land did faint, and even melt, neither was there any more courage left in any man because of them.

Joshua 2:9,10,11. God did as he promised. Exodus 23:27. “I will send my fear before thee, and I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.” Their terror was greatly increased by God’s drying up the Jordan, Joshua 5:1. and then causing the walls of Jericho to fall down flat, and after that his causing the sun to stand still, and so miraculously destroying the five kings of the Amorites in a storm of thunder, and lightning, and hail, and their utterly destroying their cities in all the southern parts of Canaan, and they had heard how that Joshua was positively commanded to smite them, and utterly destroy them, and make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them, and how that Joshua had given no quarters to their neighbours.

And now when the king and people in all the northern parts of Canaan had gathered together such a vast strength of people, as the sands upon the sea-shore, with innumerable horses and chariots, as Joshua 11:4. And yet they were suddenly vanquished. Joshua was still pursuing with a design utterly to destroy them according to his order, and had pursued them even to great Zidon. When they therefore came there, they must needs be in the utmost consternation, and if there were any ships there it could be no otherwise, but that all that could fled in them; and that they would not trust to the walls of Zidon, for they did not know but they would fall down flat, as the walls of Jericho had done; and that not only multitudes should be slain, but many of them driven away to the ends of the earth, agrees best with the expression so often used of God’s driving them out before the children of Israel.

And besides there could be no room for such multitudes in Zidon, and a few neighbouring cities; for they, with those that Joshua had slain of them, had before filled all the land of Canaan, north of the tribe of Ephraim, even to mount Hermon, and to Zidon, and they were under a necessity to seek new seats abroad where they could find them. [360] Joshua 7 Concerning Achan, the trouble” of Israel. Achan was that to the congregation of Israel, that some lust or way of iniquity indulged and allowed, is to particular professors. Sinful enjoyments are accursed things: wherever they are entertained God’s curse attends them. The cursed things that Achan took, were a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge fifty shekels weight, that when he saw he coveted. So the objects of men’s lusts, which they take and indulge themselves in the enjoyment of, are very.tempting and alluring, appearing very beautiful, and seeming very precious. Achan took those and hid them in his tent under-ground, so that there was no sign or appearance of them above-ground, they were concealed with the utmost secrecy. So very commonly the sins that chiefly trouble professors, and provoke G is leasure, and bring both spiritual and temporal calamities upon them, are secret sins, as David calls them, hidden by some lust, as Achan’s, as it were under-ground. Lust is exceedingly deceitful, and will hide iniquity, and cover it over with such fair pretemices and excuses, that it is exceedingly difficult for persons to discover them, and to be brought fully to see and own their fault in them. The silver and gold was covered over with the goodly Babylonish garment; (as it is said the silver was under it;) so persons are wont to cover their secret wickedness with a very fair hypocritical profession: an hypocritical profession is a Babylonish or antichristian garment. It is the robe of the false church. God charges Israel not only with stealing, but dissembling, when Israel had transgressed in the accursed thing; and God was not among them; they were carnally secure and self-confident, they thought a few of them enough to subdue the inhabitants of Ai; which represents the frame that professors are commonly in when they indulge some secret iniquity, But they could not stand before their enemies, they were smitten down before them; so, when professors secretly indulge some one lust, it makes them universally weak-they lie dreadfully exposed to their spiritual enemies, and easily fall before them.

The congregation seem to wonder what is the matter that God hides himself from them; so Christians oftentimes, when they are going on in some evil way that the deceitfulness of sin hides from them, wonder what is the reason that God hides himself from them. They lay long upon their faces, crying to God without receiving any answer. So when persons harbour any iniquity, it is wont to prevent any gracious answer to their prayers: their prayers are hindered, their iniquity is a cloud through which their prayers cannot pass. When they were troubled and destroyed, they took a wrong course--they betook themselves to prayer and crying to God as though they had nothing else to do, whereas their first and principal work ought to have been diligently to have inquired whether there was not some iniquity to be found among them, as implied, ver. 10. So Christians, when God greatly afflicts them, and hides his face from them, and manifests his anger towards them, are commonly wont to do: they cry, and cry to God, as if they had nothing else to do, but still secretly entertain the troubler, and it never comes into their hearts to inquire, am I not greatly guilty with respect to such a practice or way that I allow myself in, in my covetousness, or in my proud, or contentious, or sensual, or peevish and froward behaviour? God mentions it as an aggravation of the sin of the congregation in Achan, that they had even put the accursed thing among their own stuff; so, when professors allow themselves in any unlawful gain, or enjoyment, they commonly put it among those things that are theirs, that they may lawfully enjoy or make use of. If men continue in such evil ways, and do not depart from them, they are ruinous to the soul, however they may plead that they think there is no hurt in them. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. So God says to Israel, ver. 12. “ Neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing from among you.” God directed the congregation of Israel to make diligent search in order to find out the troubler: all were to be examined, tribe by tribe, and family by family, and man by man. So when God hides his face from us and frowns upon us, we ought diligently and thoroughly to examine all our ways, and to take effectual care that none escape thorough examination; to examine them first in their several kinds, as they may be classed with respect to their objects, views, and otherwise, and then to proceed to a more special examination and inquiry, and never leave until we have thoroughly examined every particular way and practice; yea, to examine act by act, and to bring all before God, to be tried by him, by his word and Spirit, as all Israel was brought before the Lord to be tried by him. By this means Achan was thoroughly discovered, and brought to confess his wickedness; so, if we be thorough in trying our ways, and bringing all to the test of God’s word, seeking the direction of his Spirit also with his word, it is the way to discover the sin that troubles us, and thoroughly to convince the conscience, and make it plainly to confess the iniquity. The congregation after they had found out the accursed thing, they brought it out of the earth and out of the tent, and spread it before the Lord. So persons, when they have found out the sin that has troubled them, should confess their sins and spread them before the Lord. And we must not content ourselves only with confessing the sin to God, but must deal with it as the children of Israel did with Achan; we must treat it as a mortal, and most hateful, and pernicious enemy; we must turn inveterate, implacable enemies to it; must have no mercy on it; must not spare it at all, or be afraid of being too cruel to it; must aim at nothing short of the life of it, and must resolve utterly to destroy and extirpate it; we must as it were stone with stones, and burn it with fire. So Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord. (See Notes on I Sam. 15:32, 33. See also 2 Corinthians 7:11.) And we must not only destroy that sin, but all its offspring, its whole family, and its oxen and asses, and all that belongs to it, every thing that springs from it, every evil that has attended or sprung from it; we must serve them all alike, and as this was done to Achan, not only by a particular individual, but by all Israel, so we must do it with all our hearts and souls; we must be full in it; there must be nothing in our hearts that is favourable to the troubler, or that has not a hand iii its death. Israel, after they had thus slain the troubler, raised over him a great heap of stones, as a monument of what had been.

So when we have slain the troubler, we must keep a record of the mischief we received by the sin, to be a constant everlasting warning to us to avoid it, and every thing of that nature, for the future. This is the way to have the Lord turn from the fierceness of his anger. [116] Joshua 20:6. “And ye shall dwell in that city until ye stand before the congregation.” The seventy elders are here called the congregation or church, which are words of the same signification. So the elders of the church, they are called the church in the New Testament. [352] Judges 1:12,13,14,15. Concerning Othniel and Caleb’s daughter.

Othniel in this story is a type of Christ. As Othniel, Caleb’s nephew, obtained Caleb’s daughter, his first cousin, to wife, by war, and the victory he obtained over Caleb’s enemies, and taking a city from them to be a possession for Caleb and his heirs; so Christ, who, as hated to both God and us, is fit to be a Mediator between God and us, has obtained the church, God’s daughter, by war with God’s enemies, and the victory he has obtained over them, and by his redeeming a city, the spiritual Jerusalem, or Zion, out of their hands, to be a possession for God and his heirs. Achsah, Othniel’s wife, moves her husband to ask of her father a blessing, and an inheritance. So it is by the intercession of Christ that the church obtains of God the blessings and the inheritance she needs. She complains to her father that she inherited a south, i.e. a dry, desert land; she asks of him springs of water, and Caleb granted her request; he gave her freely and abundantly; he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs. And if men, being evil, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more shall our heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him I When Caleb’s daughter inhabited a south land, and dwelt in the quenched places of the wilderness, she asked springs of water, both the upper and the nether springs. So, when the souls of God’s people are in a drought, pining, languishing condition, it is not a new thing for them to go to their heavenly Father through the mediation of Christ, for all such supplies as they need; he will give them springs of water like the upper and the nether springs. Godliness hath the promise of the things of this life, and that which is to come. God will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from those that walk uprightly. Achsah improved that time to move her husband to intercede for her, when she came to him; which should teach us, when we are brought especially nigh to Christ, and have specially seasons of communion with him, to be careful then to improve our interest in him, and to seek his intercession for us with the Father for such blessings as we need.

But this probably has a special respect to some particular seasons of God’s blessings on the church, and the accomplishing a glorious alteration in the state of things for her sake; and particularly two seasons. 1. That glorious change that was made at and after Christ’s first coming.

The church before that did as it were inhabit a south land, was held under weak and beggarly elements, was under the ministration of death the and not the spirit, But when Christ came nigh to the church, he took her nature upon him; he came and dwelt with us, and received his church into a much greater nearness to himself; and through his mediation was obtained of God a far more glorious dispensation, springs of water in abundance, a ministration of the Spirit, the Spirit was abundantly poured out upon her, and her inheritance was greatly enlarged. Instead of being confined only to the land of Canaan, she had the Roman empire given with all its wealth and glory, and so had the nether springs, as well as the upper. 2. That glorious change that will be accomplished in favour of the church at the fall of antichrist. Now the church of Christ does as it were inherit a dry land, and has so done for a long time-dry both upon spiritual and temporal accounts; both as to the upper and nether springs, and is much straitened in her inheritance. But the days will soon come wherein Christ will come in a spiritual sense, and the church shall forsake worldly vanities, and her own righteousness, and shall come to Christ, and then God will gloriously enlarge her inheritance, and will bestow both spiritual and temporal blessings upon her in abundance. [211] Judges 5:20. “They fought from heaven, the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.” The learned Bedford, in his Scripture Chronology, p. 510. supposes that Sisera, with his army, had passed the river Kishon, and that when Barak came to engage him, God appeared against Sisera in a dreadful storm of thunder and lightning; and the battle continuing all day, and Sisera and his host being at last put to flight, the Israelites pursued in the night; and that the way that the stars fought for them was by shining with an extraordinary brightness to help the Israelites in their pursuing the enemy, who, when they came to the river Kishon, went in; but the storm having swelled the river, the swift stream carried them away; and that there was thunder and lightning. Then he argues from the 15th verse of the foregoing chapter, where it is said that the Lord discomfited Sisera and all his chariots, and all his hosts. He says the word in the original signifies to strike a terror by the noise of thunder and lightning, and the truth is, it is no where said that God discomfited the enemies of God’s people where this word was used, but that it appears that God fought against them with thunder and lightning. So i Sam. 7:10. and Joshua 10:10. (vide Notes on Hebrews 3:2.) and 2 Samuel 22:15. Psalm 18:4.

There are several things that make this opinion of Mr. Bedford probable.

This was an instance wherein God had extraordinarily appeared against the enemies of Israel, as appears by this song; and this verse of this song seems to intimate something miraculous of God’s appearing in it, and it was the more probable that there was something miraculous for a prophetess being at the head of the army of Israel, and then God had in this manner appeared from time to time fighting against the enemies of his people. So he fought against the Egyptians at the Red sea; so he terrified his enemies in all the neighbouring countries with amazing thunders and lightning, when he entered into covenant with his people at Sinai. So God fought against the Amorites before Joshua. So God fought against the Phihistines in Samuel’s time. I Sam. 7:10. So God fought for David. (See Notes on Psalm 18:7, etc.) So God seems to have fought against Sennacherib’s army in Hezekiah’s time, Isaiah 30:30. “And so Hezekiak prophesied that God would appear against the enemies of his people.” 1 Samuel 2:10, And the reason why Deborah begins this song with taking notice that God appeared with thunder and rain for his people in the wilderness, ver. 4, 5. as he had done at the Red sea and at mount Sinai, probably is because God never had so appeared for them in the deliverance that she celebrates in this song.

God appeared so for his people when he took them first into covenant and made them his people; and now he had appeared in like manner again, and so appears to be still the same God; she therefore mentions it as celebrating his covenant faithfulness: and then it is in no wise to be supposed that the river Kishon, that is elsewhere called a brook, Psalm 83:9. was by any means sufficient to sweep away and drown an army, unless extraordinarily swelled by rain. Again, it is probable, because the great battle in which the enemies of the church shall be destroyed, and that shall usher in the glorious times of the church that we read of in the 16th chap. of Revelation is represented as being accompanied with thunder, and lightning, and hail; but it is compared to this battle at Megiddo, and therefore the place where it is fought, is said to be in the Hebrew tongue, Ar-Megeddon, a. e. the mount of Megiddo, and it is probable that the way Mr. Bedford mentions was the way in which the stars fought against Sisera: it is most likely that the stars fought against Sisera the same way that the sum fought against the Amorites, viz, by giving light to Israel, that they might be avenged of their enemies Joshua 10:13. As this that God wrought now was parallel with that in Joshua’s time, in that God fought against the enemies of Israel in a storm of thunder and lightning; so if we suppose the stars shone at night with miraculous brightness to help Israel against their enemies, it will in a good degree be parallel to another instance; for then the day was lengthened for them by the sun’s standing still, and’ now the day is as it were lengthened by causing the stars to shine in a miraculous manner to supply in a great measure the want of daylight; the sun fought then, and the stars now, and both by giving light, but only there is this difference, the sun fought standing still, but the stars fought in their courses or paths, as it is in the original. This instance is very parallel with that at the Red sea; for there God fought against their enemies with thunder and lightning, and drowned them in the Red sea; and here God fought against them with thunder and lightning, and drowned them with their horses and chariots in the river Kishon. Hence we may possibly see a reason why the great destruction of God’s enemies before the glorious times of the church is compared to this influence, rather than to either of those two great influences of God’s wonderfully destroying his enemies, viz, because this is parallel to both, and what is peculiar to both, is here comprised, viz, the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red sea, which is peculiar to the first, has here an equivalent the drowning of the host of Sisera in Kishon; and the sun’s standing still and fighting, is here answered by the stars fighting in their courses; and the Holy Ghost might rather choose to compare it to this, because the sun’s standing still was a representation of Christ’s humiliation. (Vide Note on Josh 10:12, 13, 14.) But Christ will be for them fighting as in a state of humiliation at that time when introducing the glorious times of the church, and Christ will not then personally appear fighting as he did in his state of humiliation, but he will fight by his Spirit in his saints, which are called the stars of heaven.

Christ will fight by increasing their light, and so their enemies shall be destroyed, and they shall fight in their courses, and in running the race that God hath appointed them; and it is compared to this rather than the instance at the Red sea, for the children of Israel, and Moses, and the pillar of cloud, being in the Red sea, was a type of Christ’s humiliation.

That there should be such things at the battle with Sisera, and yet not mentioned particularly in the history, is not strange; for so there was thunder and lightning at the Red sea, and in the day when the sun and moon stood still, and at Baal-Perazirn, and yet it is not mentioned in the history. [364] Judges 6:37,38,39,40. Concerning Gideon’s fleece. There being first dew on the fleece, when it was dry upon all the earth besides, and then dew on all the ground, but dry upon the fleece, was a type of the Jews being in the first place the peculiar people of God, and favoured with spiritual blessings alone when all the world besides were destitute, and then the Jews being rejected, and remaining destitute of spiritual blessings when the Gentile nations all around them were favoured with them. Gideon was a type of Christ; his overcoming that innumerable multitude of Gentile nations with trumpets, and lamps, and earthen vessels, typifies Christ’s conquering the Gentile world by the sound of the trumpet of the gospel, and by carrying the light of the gospel to them by ministers that are as earthen vessels; this event was accompanied with what was typified by the fleece. A sheep is a creature often used to typify Christ. The Jewish nation was as it were Christ’s clothing they are sometimes represented as such; first they only had the word and ordinances, and the blessing of the Holy Spirit. It was remarkably poured out on them in the day of Pentecost: there was that plenty of dew, that was a bowl full of water, when the Gentile nations were destitute; but afterwards the Gentile nations received the gospel, and God’s Spirit was poured out on them, and the Jews were rejected, and have now remained dry for many ages. [223] Judges 11:30, to the end. Concerning Jephthah’s vow and his offering up his daughter. That Jephthah did not put his daughter to death and burn her in sacrifice, the following things evince.

I. The tenor of his vow, if we suppose it to be a lawful vow, did not oblige him to it; he promised that whatsoever came forth of the doors of his house to meet him, should surely be the Lord’s, and he would offer it up for a burnt-offering. He was obliged no more by this vow than only to deal with whatsoever came forth of the doors of his house to meet him, as those things that were holy to the Lord; and by right burnt-offerings to God, were to be dealt with by God’s own law, and the rules that he had given.

Supposing it had been an ass, or some unclean beast, that had come forth to meet him, as Jephthah did not know but it would, his vow would not have obliged him to have offered it in sacrifice, or actually to have made a burnt-offering of it, but he must have dealt with it as the law of God directed to deal with an unclean beast that was not holy to the Lord, and that otherwise must have been actually a burnt-offering to the Lord, had it not been for that legal incapacity of the impurity of its nature. All living things that were consecrated were to be as it were burnt-offerings to God, i.e. they were actually to be offered up a burnt-sacrifice, if not of a nature that rendered it incapable of this, and then in that case something else was to be done that God would accept instead of offering it up a burntsacrifice.

The direction we have in Leviticus 27:11,12,13. “And if it be any unclean beast of which they do not offer a sacrifice unto the Lord, then he shall present the beast before the priest, and the priest shall value it whether it be good or bad as thou valuest it who art the priest, so shall it be. But if he will at all redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part thereunto of the estimation,” i.e. it should be valued by the priest, and the man should, after it was valued, determine whether he would redeem it, or no, and if not he was to break its neck, if an ass; Exodus 14:12,13. or if other unclean beast, it must be sold according to the priest’s estimation; Leviticus 27:27. (as is elsewhere directed to be done to unclean beasts that were holy to the Lord, Exodus 34:20.) but if he would redeem it, if it were an ass, he was to redeem it with a lamb; Exodus 14:12,13. if other un clean beast he was to add the fifth part to the priest’s estimation, that is, he was to give the value of the beast, and a fifth part more. And if Jephthah had done this in case an unclean beast had met him, he would have done according to his vow. If he had in such a case gone about to have offered an unclean beast a burnt-sacrifice, he would dreadfully have provoked God, his vow could be supposed to oblige him to no other than only to deal with the unclean beast that was consecrated as the law of God directed to deal with it instead of offering it a burnt offering. And so when it was his daughter that met him, he might do to her according to his vow without making her a burnt-sacrifice, if he did that to her which the law of God directed to be done to a dedicated person, instead of actually making them a burnt-sacrifice, by reason of the incapacity which, by the mercy of God, attends a human person to be a burnt-sacrifice. For to offer either a man or an unclean beast in sacrifice to God, are both mentioned as a great abomination to God, and as what were universally known so to be. “He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood.”( Isaiah 66:3.)

But the more fully to clear up the difficulties that attend this matter, I will particularly observe some things concerning the laws that related to persons that were consecrated, so as to become holy to the Lord. 1. Every living thing that was holy to the Lord, whether of men or beasts, was by right a burnt-offering to God, and must be either actually made a burnt-sacrifice, or something else must be done to it that God appointed to be in lieu of burning it in a sacrifice. Thus the first-born of men and beasts, they were all holy to the Lord, and must either be offered up a burnt- sacrifice, or be redeemed, the first-born of men and of unclean beasts were to be redeemed. 2. Persons that were devoted to God by a singular vow, unless they were those that were devoted to be accursed, (of which Leviticus 27:28,29.) were to be brought and presented before the Lord, that the priest might estimate them, and they were to redeem according to the priest’s estimation. But beasts that might be sacrificed were to be sacrificed.

Leviticus 27:7-9. 3. Persons that were thus devoted to God by the vow of their parents, were yet to remain persons separate, and set apart for God after they were redeemed. This may appear from several things.

First . The redemption was only to redeem them from being slain in sacrifice; it was not to redeem them from being holy to the Lord, or persons set apart, and sanctified to him.

Secondly . The first-born were appointed to be given or consecrated to God. Exodus 13:2. and 22:19. And they were by God’s law holy to the Lord, in the very same manner as persons devoted to him by a singular vow, as is evident, because they were to be redeemed in the same manner, and at the same p rice, as is evident by comparing the beginning of the 27th chapter of Leviticus with Numbers 18:15,16.

God, in giving the rule for the redemption of the first-born in the latter place, evidently refers to what he had before appointed in the former place, concerning persons devoted by a singular vow, and so likewise the firstlings of unclean beasts were to be redeemed in the same manner as unclean beasts that were devoted, as appears by comparing Leviticus 27:11,12,13. with 5:27. but yet the first-born still remained separated to God as his special possession, after they were redeemed. Hence the Levites were accepted for the first-born to a tribe separated to God after the first-born were thus redeemed.

Thirdly Persons that were dedicated to God by the vow of their parents, were Nazarites, as well as those that were separated by their own vows; the word Nazarite, signifies one that is separated; they might be separated by their parents’ vows or their own This is very evident in instances that we have in Scripture. Thus Samuel was a Nazarite by the vow of his mother. 1 Samuel 1:11. “And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.” And so it was with respect to Samson, Judges 13:5. But the Nazarite was to continue separated to God, as long as he remained under the vow by which he was devoted. 4. Those that were thus devoted to God to be Nazarites, were to the utmost of their power to abstain from all legal pollutions. Lamentations 4:7. With respect to defilements by dead bodies, they were required to keep themselves pure with greater strictness than the very priests, except the high priest alone, and were obliged to as great strictness as the high priest himself. Numbers 6:6,7. compared with Leviticus 21:10,11. And though only some legal impurities are expressly mentioned, as what the Nazarite was to avoid, yet it is to he understood, that he is to his utmost to separate himself from all legal defilements, agreeable to his name, a Nazarite, or a separate person. The Nazarite was to abstain from all legal impurities in like manner as the priests, and even as the high p nest; there are like directions given to one as to the other; the high priest was on no account to defile himself with the dead, and was forbidden to drink wine, or strong drink, when he went into the tabernacle of the congregation.

Leviticus 10:9. The priests were to abstain from all manner of legal defilement as far as in them lay. Leviticus 12 at the beginning.

If it be objected against this, that the Levites who were accepted to be the Lord’s instead of the first-horn that were holy to the Lord, were not obliged to such strictness, I answer, that this may be one reason why God did not look on the first-born as being fully redeemed by the Levites being substituted in their stead, but there were still extraordinary charges required of them for the maintenance of the Levites, much more than in proportion to the bigness of the bribe; and God might accept this as an equivalent for their not being so strictly separated, as he accepted extraordinary redemption money for the odd number of the first-born, that were more than the Levites. Numbers 3:46,47. and 18:15, 16. 5. Those that were devoted to God to be Nazarites by a singular vow were to devote themselves wholly to religious exercises, and to spend their lives in the most immediate service of God for through this is not particularly expressed, but only some things are expressed that they should abstain from, yet this is implied in their being God’s, his being separated to the Lord, Numbers 6:11. his being holy to the Lord, Numbers 6:6. All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy; and ver. 8. all the days of his separation he shall be holy unto the Lord. In like manner as in the second commandment, there are only some things particularly mentioned, that we should abstain from on the sabbath, but it is only expressly said that the day should be spent in religious exercises, yet it is implied in that, that the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord our God, and that we are commanded to keep it holy. This was evidently Hannah’s intention in her vow, whereby she devoted Samuel to be a Nazarite, as was explained by her own words and practice. 1 Samuel 1:28. “Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord, as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord;” and accordingly she brought him and left him in the sanctuary, to dwell continually there, and there to spend his time in sacred business. I Sam. 2:11. “And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house, and the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest.” Ver. 18. “But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child girded with a linen ephod.” 6. It was necessary that a woman that was devoted to be a Nazarite (for a woman might be a Nazarite, Numbers 6:2.) should thenceforward avoid marrying, and refrain from all carnal intercourse with men. If she was a virgin when she was devoted, it was necessary that she should continue a virgin until her vow was ended; and if she was devoted for her whole life, she must continue a virgin for ever; and if she was a widow, she must continue in her widowhood, and that on two accounts.

First. Marrying would be contrary to the obligation that has been taken notice of, that the Nazarite was under, with the utmost strictness to avoid all legal defilements, for marrying unavoidably exposed to great legal impurities, and of long continuance. (See Leviticus xii.) There were scarcely any legal impurities to which the children of Israel were exposed, except the leprosy, that were so great as those that marriage brought women into. Being therefore devoted to God to be holy to the Lord, in the utmost possible legal purity, she must avoid marrying, and then these legal impurities rendered her incapable of those sacred offices and services that she was devoted to. It incapacitated her from conversing on holy things, or drawing near to God in ordinances, as much as being defiled by the dead body of a man incapacitated a priest from his work and office. Leviticus 12:4. “And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days: she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purifying be fulfilled;” which, in all, for a son made up forty days, and for a daughter fourscore days, which must needs be very inconsistent with the circumstances of the Nazarite that was devoted wholly to attend on God, and holy exercises, in the way of the Jewish ordinances. If the Nazarite were a male, his marrying did not expose him to such legal impurities. The Nazarite was to observe as strict a legal purity, as the high priest himself, as has been observed; but he for the greater purity was allowed to marry none but a virgin: therefore doubtless the woman herself that was a Nazarite was obliged to continue a virgin.

Secondly. Marrying would utterly destroy the main design of her being dedicated in the vow of a Nazarite, which was, that she might be wholly devoted to the more immediate service of God in sacred things. If she was married, her time must unavoidably be exceedingly taken up in secular business and cares, in tending and bringing up children, and in providing for and taking care of a family, which exceedingly fills married women’s hands and hearts, and is as inconsistent as possible with the design of the vow of the Nazarite. Hence the woman that was devoted to the special service of God’s house in the primitive church though not devoted to God so solemnly, nor in so great a degree as the Nazarite) must be one that was not married, and never like to marry, and it was looked upon and spoken of by the apostles as sinful in such to marry. 1 Timothy 5:11.; “But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;” and the reason that is given why they should be widows that were like ever to continue so, and free from all worldly care, was that they might be the more entirely at liberty for religious duties. Ver. 3, 4, 5. “Honour widows that are widows indeed. But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents; for that is good and acceptable before God. Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.” Those widows in the primitive church, seem to be in some degree in imitation of the Nazarites in the Jewish church. Anna the prophetess was in all probability a Nazarite, or one that after her husband’s death had devoted herself to the service of God, by such a vow as that we have been speaking of, and therefore continued in widowhood to so great an age, because her vow obliged her to it, and therefore she, throwing by all worldly care, devoted herself wholly to the immediate service of God. Luke 2:36,37. “And there was one Anna a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.” The like expression with that the apostle uses, concerning widows, 1 Timothy 5:5.

And therefore when we have an account that after Jephthab’s daughter had been let alone two months, to go tip and down the mountains with her companions to bewail her virginity, we are told that she returned to her father, who did to her according to his vow. That which Jephthiah did was, that he took her lip to the sanctuary be ore the Lord, and presented her before the priest, that he might estimate her, then paid according to her estimation. Thus the Jews that came out of the captivity vowed that they would offer the first-born of their sons. Nehemiah. 10:35. Whereby she was redeemed from being made a burnt sacrifice, according to the law; and by thus p resenting her in the sanctuary, and offering up that which is accepted instead of her blood, she was actually separated according to the vow; her separation began from that time, and thenceforward she was to begin her strict abstinence from all legal impurities, and to spend her time in sacred offices; and it is probable that Jephthah thenceforward left her in the sanctuary to be there as long as she lived, as Hannah did to her son Samuel, whom she had devoted to be a Nazarite. 1 Samuel 1:22. “I will not go up till the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever; and as the other Hannah, or Anna, did with herself after she had devoted herself to perpetual widowhood as a Nazarite, of whom we read, “That she was a widow of fourscore years old, and departed not from the temple.” (Luke 2:37.)

And there probably Jephthah’s daughter continued in supplications and prayers, night and day, for she was eminently disposed and prepared for such duties by that remarkable spirit of piety that appeared in her resignation, with respect to the vow her father had made concerning her, and what time she did not spend in duties of immediate devotion, she might spend in making of priests garments; Exodus 35:25,26. in other business subsequent to the work of the sanctuary, as there might be enough found that a woman might do.

II. The nature of the case will not allow us to suppose that that was done that was so horrid and so contrary to the mind and will of God, as putting of her to death, and offering her as a burnt-sacrifice God took great care that never any human sacrifice should be offered to him; though he commanded Abraham to offer up his son, yet he would by no means suffer it to be actually done, but appointed something else with which he should be redeemed; and though God challenged the fist-born of all living things to be his, yet he appointed that the first-born of men should be redeemed, and so in all cases wherein persons were holy to the Lord, the law makes provision that they should not be slain, but redeemed. It is particularly forbidden in the law of Moses in the strictest manner, that the children of Israel should not worship God by offering tip their children in sacrifice to him. Deuteronomy 12:30,31. There God charges them not to worship him in the manner that the inhabitants of Canaan had worshipped their gods; and then mentions, as the most abominable thing in their worship, that they had offered up their children for burnt offerings. And God, by the prophet Isaiah, declares such sacrifices to be abominable to him in the forementioned, Isaiah 66:3. See also Jeremiah 7:31. with my note on that text, It would have been symbolizing with the abominable customs of the heathen nations around, especially that of offering human sacrifices to the idol Moloch, which God ever manifested a peculiar detestation of. Here particularly observe, Deuteronomy 12:29, to the end; and the nature of the case will not allow us to think that Jephthah in this instance committed such abomination, It is not likely but that he, being a pious person, as he is spoken of by the apostle, would have been restrained from it by God, and then what was done was doubtless agreeable to the mind and will of God, for God otherwise would not in so extraordinary a manner have assisted her so quickly and readily to resign herself to it; there seems most evidently an extraordinary divine influence on her mind in the affair, for her resignation did not arise from insensibility or indifference of spirit, as is evident, because she desired time so to bewail what was to be done to her; and upon the supposition that she was to be slain, it would be impossible, without an extraordinary influence on her mind, for bet’ to be so resigned.

Her resignation was from pious considerations, and holy and excellent principles; as is evident from what she says to her father, when she sees him passionately lamenting the issue of his vow, of which we have an account in the 36th verse. “ And she said unto him, Mv father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth, forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.”

If what he had vowed to do was so abominable a thing as to kill her in sacrifice, it would not have been her duty to say as she does, Do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; butt site seemed to be influenced to express herself as she did, by the Spirit of God, and her resignation is recorded of her, as a very excellent thing in her.

III. Her being to be slain in sacrifice seems inconsistent with her request; to go up and down the mountains to bewail her virginity: it would have been rather to bewail her untimely end.

IV. It seems evident that she was not slain, by the 39th verse, where it is said that it came to that at the end of two months she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow, which he had vowed, and the consequence of it is immediately added, and she knew no man. This clause seems evidently to be exegetical of the foregoing, viz, that he did to her according to his vow, or to explain what that was that he did, viz, devote her to God in a perpetual virginity.

If she had been slain it is not at all likely that it would have been mentioned that she knew no man, for that she had known no man before this, had been already expressed in her going up and down the mountains to bewail her virginity; and nobody would suppose that she would marry and have children after she was devoted to death, and it had been determined both by herself and her father that it should be put in execution; and besides, there would have been no occasion to mention her not knowing man as soon as the two months were out wherein she bewailed her virginity, and she had returned from going up and down the mountains; the vow was immediately executed.

V. It is no argument that Jephthah thought himself obliged to put her to death, that he so lamented when his daughter met him, as in verse 35. “ And it came to pass when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas! my daughter, thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me, for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back;” for she being his only child, by her being devoted to be a Nazarite, his family was entirely extinct, he had no issue to inherit his estate or keep his name in remembrance, which in those days was looked upon as an exceedingly great calamity. Thou hast brought me very low, i.e. thou hast quenched my coal, and brought Perpetual barrenness on thyself. (See Pool’s Synopsis, at the end of Judges chap. 11.) [139] Judges 13:20. “For it came to pass when the flame went up toward heaven frorn off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. Christ, by thus going into the flame in which the kid was sacrificed, and ascending in it, signified that he was the great sacrifice that was to be offered up to God, and was to ascend as a sweet savour to God from off the altar in the flame of his holy wrath. That was the substance represented by these shadows, the sacrifices of kids and lambs, etc. [377] Judges 13:14, 15:The History of Samson. Samson was charmed with the daughters of the uncircumcised Philistines, and, as it were, bewitched with them. These daughters represent those lusts, or objects of their lusts, with which men are charmed and infatuated. Samson s uniting himself with these daughters of the Philistines, proved his ruin, he had warning enough to beware of them before he was utterly destroyed by them. First, he was deceived by one of them, and suffered great damage by her falseness, by the woman of Timnath; though he loved her, she proved an enemy to him, and treacherously deprived him of thirty sheets, and thirty changes of garments, and then she was taken from him; she proved false to him, and left him. So she served him as the objects of men’s lusts often serve them; they promise them a great deal, but never afford them any thing; they are like a pleasing shadow at a distance, that does us a great deal of damage in the pursuit, and when we come nigh them and hope to embrace them, and to be paid for our damages, they afford us nothing but disappointment.