to be always told; and we might as well quarrel with Homer for making his Gods descend on the plain of Troy, as with Sanchoniatho for recording a marriage between Ouranos and Ghe, the Heavens and the Earth. It was then the custom among the orientalists in ancient times to teach lessons in morals, science, and religion, under the guise of recording events; and it was surely not less their custom to employ allegorical, symbolical, and ænigmatical language. I pretend, that many allusions are made both to the true religion and the false in the writings of Moses, which can only be discovered by an attentive perusal of the original.

2. It has been likewise objected to me, that the Masorah so fixes the meaning of words in the original, that it is impossible that they should bear a double sense, by which, while historical events are related, either religious or prophètical meanings, independent of the obvious interpretation, should be conveyed. For my own part, I must freely confess, that I conceive the Masoretic punctuation to be of no authority whatever. It was invented by the Jews several centuries after the Christian era, and consequently many centuries after the captivity, when the genuine Hebrew ceased to be a living language. There is unquestionable evidence, I think, that the Jews did not employ the Chaldaic characters in writing before the captivity; but that they used the Phoenician, or Samaritan. No points,

therefore, existed in the writings of Moses; and really, why Christians should choose to receive the decision of the Jewish Masorites upon the import of Hebrew words, is itself a curious example of docility upon one hand, and of imposition on the other. How much, indeed, the Hebrew scriptures may have suffered from the Masorites, it would now be difficult to say. The obscure origin, the long duration, and the subsequent success of this sect of medlers with the sacred text, augur nothing in their favor. Auctores masora, says Elias Levita, fuerunt centeni et milleni, unâ generatione post aliam; neque cognitum nobis tempus principii nec finis eorum. It is, however, pretty well ascertained, that their labors did not commence before the sixth century.

Now, to return to the words before us, (Exod. c. i. v. 14.) I think allusion may be here made to the idolatrous superstitions,

which the Egyptians might have compelled the Jews to observe. Let us analyse the words.

.with (בעבדה קשה

py, with hard bondage. These words may be translated with hard religious service. See Parkhurst, in

.עבד voce

pna, in mortar. may signify an ass, (see Gen. xlix. 14.) But an ass, as Plutarch and Ælian attest, was the symbol of Typhon among the Egyptians; and we find, that even down to the time of Apion Grammaticus, the Egyptians reproached the Jews with worshipping this symbol. In celebrating their religious rites in the months Payni and Phaophi, which answer to our June and October, the Egyptians, as we learn from Plutarch, baked cakes, on which the image of an ass bound was represented. In order to humiliate the Hebrews, and to pervert their minds from the true religion, it is not unlikely, that the Egyptians compelled them to observe these idolatrous practices. Scaliger (Emend. tempor.) pretends, that Пy, the name given by Pharaoh to Joseph, was no other, than that of the month Payni, when the symbol of the ass was offered up as a sacrifice.

Da, and in brick. I am much inclined to think that allusion is here made to some idolatrous rite. signifies

a brick, but it also signifies the moon, the principal Goddess of the Tsabaists; and that the Jewish idolators always connected this word with the worship of the celestial bodies I strongly suspect. The resemblance of the name for a brick could only have varied slightly in sound, if it varied at all from that given to the moon. It is made an accusation against the Jews in Isaiah, xxxv. 3. that they burned incense by, upon

the bricks, (not altars of bricks, as in our version). It was, then, because these bricks were idolatrous symbols, as groves and gardens were, that the people were called rebellious for burning incense upon them.

.and in all manner of service in the field ובכול עבדה בשדה

But the service, as the Hebrew word well authorises us to say,
was probably religious service, or rather idolatrous worship, for
ay may mean the service performed either to the true God,
or to the false ones, and it is evidently to be understood here in
the latter sense.
certainly signifies a field; but I cannot

help thinking, that this was one of the names under which the magna mater, or Dea Multimammia, was worshipped. This Goddess was no other than Isis. Hinc est quod continuatis UBERIBUS corpus Dea (Isidis) densetur, quia terra vel rerum naturæ altu nutritur universitas. Macrob. Saturnal. l. i. c. 20.

It is said in Deuteronomy, xxxii. 17. that the Jews sacrificed DT, to Shedim, and our translators seem erroneously to translate unto Devils; because I do not imagine that these false Deities derived their name from TV, to destroy, but rather from, to pour forth, or, perhaps, at once from TV, a breast, the allusion being evident to the Dea Multimammia. Now in the case before us, I think it very possible, that allusion was made to the worship of Isis, who was truly, or Multimammia, and whose idol seems to have been adored by many names, and from remote antiquity.

While then we are still to preserve the literal and historical sense, we may understand that Moses ænigmatically indicated the idolatrous rites, which the Egyptians compelled the Israelites to perform. They made their lives bitter with rigid idolatrous servitude-on account of the symbol of Typhon-on account of the types of the moon-with all idolatrous service on account of the many-breasted idol in later times called Isis by the Greeks, for we are ignorant of the real Egyptian name.

V. 19. ', for they are lively. I do not believe this to be the meaning, even if we understand full of life, or healthy, by lively. It seems to me, that we ought to translate, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women,— like wild beasts, they are delivered, ere the midwives come in unto them. The LXX manifestly abandon the original, when they translate τίκτουσι γὰρ, &c.

CHAPTER 2.

V. 4. And his sister stood afar off. From the preceding verses it is not obvious that Moses had a sister; or, indeed, that he could have had one.

seems to me rather to אחתו

signify his female attendant.

It would be equally rash and irreverent to express any doubts of the historical truths conveyed in this and in the succeeding chapter, but I cannot help considering, that there is a typical