in Canaan (v. 17), since their grandfather Asher was only forty years old at the period of the emigration, and therefore his youngest son B'riah must have been a mere boy. With so many circumstances leading to the same conclusion, we need not hesitate to adopt the explanation that the words of ver. 26, "all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt," are used in so general a sense as to embrace those grandsons and great-grandsons whose birth must have fallen in the period subsequent to the emigration.

Hengstenberg (Pentateuch vol. ii. 284 sqq. trans.) has entered thoroughly into an examination of the difficulty referred to, and solves it on the ground that the grandsons and great-grandsons of Jacob, though not yet born, were in their fathers, and therefore entered Egypt with them. Objections have been raised to this interpretation from various quarters, but we must still adhere to it. Lengerke talks about the "orthodox in lumbis," but will not affirm that the objection is sufficient to set it aside. The view referred to, which sees in the father the ensemble of his descendants, is common to the whole of the Old Testament. We find it repeatedly in the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, "I will give thee the land;" "in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed;" "thou shalt be a blessing," &c.; and in the section before us there are unmistakeable examples of it: "I will bring thee up again," ver. 4, (evidently not the individual person of Jacob, but his descendants, who were not yet in existence, and of whom Jacob was the one representative.) Why then should not the same writer, or even another, be able to say from the same point of view that the sons of Benjamin and Pharez went down in their fathers to Egypt? And, "just as Joseph's sons, though born in Egypt, are reckoned among the souls who came to Egypt, because in their father they had come thither, so also may these descendants of Jacob who came to Egypt in their fathers be regarded as having come with Jacob thither."

The reasons already assigned serve to show that such an explanation is both admissible and necessary, and the following data heighten its probability. 1. In the list of the families of Israel, which was prepared in the last year of the journey through the desert (Num. xxvi.), there are no grandsons of Jacob mentioned besides those named in Gen. xlvi. "It is difficult to

explain this if the arrival in Egypt spoken of in Gen. xlvi. is to be taken precisely as a terminus ad quem. Are we to suppose, then, that there were no children born to Jacob's sons in the land of Egypt ?" 2. In chap. xlvi. 5, where there is no question of genealogy, and the individuals emigrating are described from a historical point of view, we read, not of the grandchildren of Jacob's sons, but merely of their children, who are described as little ones. 3. In the case of Hezron and Hamuel (ver. 12) the author appears desirous of intimating that they were not born in Canaan, and that he regarded them as substitutes for Er and Onan, who had died there. Venema has expressed the same opinion. Thus he says (i. 121): "It is probable that the sons of Pharez who were born in Egypt are mentioned, because they were substituted for the two sons of Judah who died in Canaan. The historian clearly asserts as much, and when he adds that the latter died in the land of Canaan, he plainly implies that the sons of Pharez, who were put in their place, had not been born there."

Baumgarten (i. 316, 334, 350 seq.) has taken a most decided stand in opposition to Hengstenberg. In his anxiety to establish the literal historical accuracy of the genealogy in chap. xlvi. he does violence in a most unscrupulous manner to the previous history and the chronological data afforded by it, and crowds together not merely improbabilities but impossibilities also. (See the remarks in § 86). He is of opinion that with Hengstenberg's explanation "the entire list loses its objective worth and its historical importance; and if such were regarded as sufficient reasons for inserting in the catalogue those who were not born till afterwards, there was no definite limit at all, and the contrast between 70 souls who entered Egypt and 600,000 who left it, on which such stress is laid in Deut. x. 22, loses all its force."

This argument proceeds upon a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the historiographical idea and design of the document. Baumgarten overlooks the fact that we have here not really a historical account, but a genealogical table; and that whilst any looseness of expression would be inadmissible in the former, it is not so in the latter. Besides, it is not correct that the insertion of a few of those who were born in Egypt was an arbitrary proceeding, and that there were no essential limits to determine the selection. Not only were there such limits, but

they are most clearly defined; for the only grandsons or greatgrandsons of Jacob whom we find in the list are those whose descendants formed a separate family (nn) in Israel. As a general rule the sons of Jacob were the heads of tribes, and the grandsons the heads of families. The outward unity of the family of Jacob, their existence as a common household, was not disturbed by his sons; but it could not but be disturbed by his grandsons. From outward considerations this became inevitable as soon as they attained their majority; and their separate establishments formed the first step in the transition from a family to a people. Now, it was evidently the intention of the author of the book of Genesis, to trace the early history of the nation of Israel up to that point, in which the children of Israel began to lay aside their character as a family, and assume the characteristics of a people. And if we endeavour to assign some definite epoch to this change, there is none which we can fix upon but the removal to Egypt. For, as we shall afterwards show, the principal

intention of that removal was to facilitate the transition from a family to a people, and to secure it against interruption. And it was just about this time that Jacob's family reached the third stage, in which the Mishpachoth (or families) originated. A few exceptions might be found, but they could very well be sacrificed to the general validity of the rule and the great importance of the event in question. The task of the author was to trace the history of the descendants of Jacob up to that point in which they began to form separate Mishpachoth (families). And thus we have a limit, both thoroughly objective and sharply defined. It was not accident and caprice, therefore, but objective historical conditions which determined the choice.

This explanation is strikingly confirmed by a comparison of our list, which describes the state of things existing when the development of the nation began, with that contained in Num. xxvi., which describes in a similar manner the state of the Mishpachoth when it was complete. Such a comparison establishes all the suppositions which our explanation necessarily involves. In general the names mentioned are the same. Gen. xlvi. they are given as those of the grandsons and greatgrandsons of Jacob, and in Num. xxvi. as those of the heads of separate Mishpachoth; and the few deviations from this rule the altered circumstances will easily and naturally explain. Thus,

In

in Gen. xlvi. we have only two of Jacob's grandsons by Joseph mentioned, viz., Ephraim and Manasseh; whilst in Num. xxvi. we have not less than thirteen Mishpachoth assigned to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. But so long as the two sons of Joseph had not been adopted by Jacob (and that did not take place till the end of his life, seventeen years after the emigration), they could only be regarded as Jacob's grandsons, and therefore as the founders of two Mishpachoth. But when once they had been adopted, and had become the heads of distinct tribes, the Mishpachoth of the tribes were necessarily traced to their sons or grandsons. On the other hand, some names are omitted from Num. xxvi. which we find in Gen. xlvi. among the grandsons of Jacob. This, too, may be very simply explained on the ground that probably they did not increase to a sufficient extent to be able to claim the right of forming independent Mishpachoth, which they would otherwise have possessed as grandsons of Jacob, or that their families became extinct. Thus, for example, ten sons of Benjamin are named in Gen. xlvi., but in Num. xxvi. and 1 Chr. viii. 1, 2, we only read of five. This diminution, however, was most probably occasioned by the punishments so frequently inflicted upon the people in the desert.

If, then, it was the design of our author to continue his history to that point of time, in which the first foundations of the national institutions were laid in the Mishpachoth, and if, as a general rule, these Mishpachoth commenced with the grandsons of Jacob, it was necessary that he should include all the sons of Benjamin as well as the rest of Jacob's grandsons in the genealogical summary with which he closes his book. The unimportant and accidental circumstance that some of these were born in Egypt, was not in itself sufficient to prevent him from completing the lists, especially as the phrase “in lumbis,” which conveyed to his mind and to those of others in his day a sense so much at variance with modern views, would be to him both natural and ready to his hand.

And the introduction of the names of the great-grandsons of Jacob through Judah and Asher may undoubtedly be explained in a similar way. From Num. xxvi. we learn that in their case there was an exception to the general rule, that the Mishpachoth should be founded by Jacob's grandsons. With Judah's grandsons, Hezron and Hamuel, the sons of Pharez, this is very

apparent. As the two sons of Judah, Er and Onan, who died in Canaan, had failed to become the founders of Mishpachoth, the two first-born sons of Pharez, the son of their widow Tamar, through a Levirate marriage with Judah, entered as a matter of right into the vacant places of the deceased sons. Their father Pharez also became the founder of another Mishpachah through the remainder of his sons; and this Mishpachah was called by his name. This may likewise have been the case with the grandsons of Asher, Heber, and Malchiel, who founded families of their own in addition to that of which their father B'riah was the head (see Num. xxvi. 44 seq.), but we have not the necessary genealogical data for establishing the fact.

Thus we differ from Hengstenberg, inasmuch as we do not consider that the ideal importance of the number 70 would be a sufficient explanation of that want of objective truth which Baumgarten finds in the verse before us, but trace it, as the latter also does, to an objective historical fact. We are not, however, inclined on that account to give up the importance of the number 70. We regard it as a seal impressed upon the first step in the progress of Israel towards a national existence, for the purpose of distinguishing it as the holy nation to which salvation was entrusted for all the nations of the earth. Seven is the covenant-number, Kar' çoxny, the sacred number, and therefore the sign of separation from the world. Ten, again, is the mark of completeness and universality. In seventy we have seven multiplied by ten, and this multiplication is the symbol of the peculiar position of the people of Israel. For the two things which distinguished the nation of Israel were just its particular call and separation on the one hand, and its universal relation, as the bearer of promises, on the other. And this universalism was not a mere abstract idea slightly associated with the history of the people, but a concrete potential fact, which entered truly and deeply into the very first stages of that history. The nation of Israel was a blessing to the nations even before the advent of Christ. In proportion to its age and the measure of its development it was so in the person of Abraham, when he led his pilgrim-life among the people of Canaan. In a still higher degree it became so in Joseph. In the highest sense it is so in Christ.

It appears strange that in the genealogical list there are only