Page images
PDF
EPUB

:

GEOGRAPHICAL MISTAKES.

89

Ezion-gaber and Kadesh are made to form one station, notwithstanding the distance between them, because the author did not happen to be acquainted with any intervening places. But the narrator has been guilty of blunders still more glaring at the very commencement of the journey at Succoth and at Etham the Israelites are still in Egypt, but instead of passing at once through the Red Sea, they are found immediately afterwards encamped near Magdalum (Migdol) in Lower Egypt, then at Elim1, on the east of the Red Sea, (where, in the true mythic style, there were twelve wells and seventy palm-trees,) and again once more in the desert of Pelusium 2.

To meet this difficulty, the Harenberg chart carries the people through the lake Sirbonis; to say nothing of the marches and countermarches on many other maps, whose authors have sought to solve the imaginary problem of the wandering for forty years, by the introduction of a large number of new zigzags. But no one of these critics appears to have been struck with the evident exaggeration in the number of the people, and the difficulty of understanding how more than two millions of persons could have wandered

1 "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters." -Exod. xv. 27.

2 Sin, verse 11; for it is sufficiently clear, from verse 15, that this is set down at random, and cannot be meant for Sinai :-" And they removed from the Red Sea, and encamped in the wilderness of Sin. And they took their journey out of the wilderness of Sin, and encamped in Dophkah. And they departed from Dophkah, and encamped in Alush. And they removed from Alush, and encamped at Rephidim, where was no water for the people to drink. And they departed from Rephidim, and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai. And they removed from the desert of Sinai, and pitched at Kibroth-hattaavah.”—Num. xxxiii.

[blocks in formation]

within these limits for a period of forty years, while at the present day the whole peninsula of Sinai contains, as is well known, scarcely 4000 inhabitants, and could not possibly support many more. Eichhorn, indeed, has started the strange hypothesis, that the heads only of the separate tribes may have possibly kept together, till the whole body united again at the close of their march; but this is utterly inconsistent with the text, and the difficulties which stand in the way of this final reunion would be greater even than those they are intended to remove1.

1 Compare Rosenmüller, Biblische Alterthümer (Biblical Antiquities), iii. 113.

CHAPTER IX.

ALLUSIONS TO LATER EVENTS IN THE PENTATEUCH. EXAGGERATION OF NUMBERS.

In order to obtain a correct point of view for the lists of the tribes and the tables of genealogy, which are usually attributed to Moses, it appears advisable to revert to those general historical features which betray a later origin, before we proceed to examine more closely the various numerical statements, in which we know that the Hebrews generally admitted considerable latitude. The Pentateuch contains allusions to many later events, more especially to those having reference to some of the neighbouring nations, from which all the hostile fabrications of Genesis concerning the Phoenicians, the Edomites, Moabites, and others, would seem to have been subsequently derived1. The frequent use of the phrase "unto this day2," which always relates to some very distant period, led even St.

1 "And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham begat Isaac, &c."-Gen. xxv. 19.

"And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; and by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.”—Gen. xxvii. 39, 40. 2 "And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.” -Gen. xix. 38.

“And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day."-Gen. xxvi. 33.

[ocr errors]

Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank,

92

ANTIQUARIAN REMARKS.

Jerome to admit that the Pentateuch might possibly have been revised by Ezra, while more recent critics have endeavoured, like Jahn, to soften this expression, or dispose of it entirely as a gloss. Antiquarian observations, as we have before remarked, are occasionally introduced, and Deut. iii. 111 carries, in this manner, its limitation on its face, inasmuch as we know that the city of Rabbah was only taken from the Ammonites by David3. The name of Israel, by which the author designates his people, could not have been adopted until after they were formed into a nation; and the book of Genesis, in consequence, endeavours to supply a more convenient derivation4. As we proceed, we find which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day."-Gen. xxxii. 32.

“ And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.”. -Gen. xxxv. 20.

66

And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part."-Gen. xlvii. 26.

1 “For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants ; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon?"-Deut. iii. 11.

2 <<

Terminus a quo."

3 " And Joab fought against Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and took the royal city.”—2 Sam. xii. 26.

4 “And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel : for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."-Gen. xxxii. 28.

See Note on Gen. xxxii. 29. Compare also the following passages :"And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.”—Gen. xxxvi. 31. "And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons."-Gen. xlvi. 8.

"Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.”—Gen. xlix. 7.

“Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine."-Deut. xxxiii. 28.

The legal term for sins of incontinence is " a folly in Israel" :— "The men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he

[blocks in formation]

that the Pentateuch even alludes to the Mount of the Temple in Jerusalem', and in Genesis xxii. 2, 3, and Exodus xv. 13, 17. "the mountain of Jehovah's inheritance, which he had made for himself a dwelling and a sanctuary," is so clearly described, that the attempt of Jahn to explain it by "the mountains of Palestine," can only be regarded as a weak subterfuge. In the same way, "the beloved of the Lord dwelling between the shoulders of Benjamin 2" alludes, without doubt, to the temple built by Solomon, as was evident even to Vitringa3.

The author, moreover, is familiar with kings; and in

had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter."—-Gen. xxxiv. 7.

“Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die : because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house."-Deut. xxii. 21.

[ocr errors]

"According to all the folly that they have wrought in Israel."Judges xx. 10.

[ocr errors]

They have committed villany in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives."-Jeremiah xxix. 23.

1 "And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him."-Gen. xxii. 2, 3.

:

"Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.......Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established."-Exod. xv. 13, 17.

2 Deut. xxxiii. 12.

3 De Synag. Vet. p. 306.

4 " And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee....And I will bless her [Sarah]

« PreviousContinue »