tating limbs. Thus the injunction may have had a specific allusion. But we should also view it in connection with the strong interdiction, equally in the patriarchal times, under the law, and in the New Testament, of raw or bloody animal food. On this see the note on Gen. ix. 4.

11. With your loins girded.'-That is, as persons prepared for a journey. The inhabitants of the East usually wear long and loose dresses, which, however convenient in postures of ease and repose, would form a serious obstruction in walking or in any laborious exertion, were not some expedients resorted to, such as those which we find noticed in Scripture. Thus the Persians and Turks, when journeying on horseback, tuck their skirts into a large pair of trousers, as the poorer sort also do when travelling on foot. But the usages of the Arabs, who do not generally use trousers, is more analogous to the practice described in the Bible by girding up the loins.' It consists in drawing up the skirts of the vest and fastening them to the girdle, so as to leave the leg and knee unembarrassed when in motion. An Arab's dress consists generally of a coarse shirt and a woollen mantle. The shirt, which is very wide and loose, is compressed about the waist by a strong girdle generally of leather, the cloak being worn loose on ordinary occasions. But in journeying or other exertion, the cloak also is usually confined by a girdle to which the skirts are drawn up and fastened. When manual exertion is required, the long hanging sleeves of the shirt are also disposed of by the ends of both being tied together and thrown over the neck, the sleeves themselves being at the same time tucked high up the arm. A short passage from Antar (iv. 246), describing Jeerah's preparation for attacking a lion, will be found to illustrate this and several other passages of Scripture: He threw away his armour and corslet, till he remained in his plain clothes with short sleeves: he tucked these up to his shoulder, and twisting his skirts round his girdle, he unsheathed his broad sword, and brandished it in his hand, and stalked away towards the lion.'

Shoes on your feet.'-(See the note on chap. iii. 5.) This was another circumstance of preparation for a journey. At the present time Orientals do not, under ordinary circumstances, eat with their shoes or sandals on their feet; nor indeed do they wear them in-doors at all. This arises not only from the ceremonial politeness connected with the act of sitting unshod; but from the fear of soiling the fine carpets with which the rooms are covered. Besides, as they sit on the ground cross-legged, or on their heels, shoes or sandals on their feet would be inconvenient. To eat therefore with sandalled or shod feet is as decided a mark of preparation for a journey as could well be indicated. But perhaps a still better illustration is derived from the fact, that the ancient Egyptians, like the modern Arabs, did not ordinarily wear either shoes or sandals. In their sculptures and paintings very few figures occur with sandalled feet; and as we may presume, that in the course of 215 years, the Israelites had adopted this and other customs of the Egyptians, we may understand that (except by the priests) sandals were only used during journeys, which would render their eating the passover with sandalled feet, a still stronger mark of preparation than even the previous cir

cumstance.

15. Put away leaven out of your houses.'-This was probably to commemorate the fact that the Israelites left Egypt in such haste that they had no opportunity to leaven their dough (verse 39), and were consequently obliged, in the first instance, to eat unleavened cakes (see the notes on Lev. ii.). The present injunction is even now attended to by modern Jews with the most scrupulous precision. The master of the family searches every corner of the house with a candle, lest any crumb of leavened bread should remain, and whatever is found is committed to the fire; and after all, apprehending that some may still remain, he prays to God that, if any leaven be still in his house, it may become like the dust of the ground. Extraordinary precautions are also used in preparing the unleavened bread, lest there should be anything like leaven mixed with it, or any kind of fermentation should take place in it.

(See Jennings' Jewish Antiquities.) These particulars will be found to give more than common point to the text of 1 Cor. v. 7, 8. The exclusion of leaven for seven or eight days might, as Harmer observes, be attended with some inconvenience in Great Britain, but none at all in Palestine. The usual leaven in the East is dough kept till it becomes sour, and which is kept from one day to another for the purpose of preserving leaven in readiness. Thus, if there should be no leaven in all the country for any length of time, as much as might be required could easily be produced in twenty-four hours. Sour dough, however, is not exclusively used for leaven in the East, the lees of wine being in some parts employed as yeast.

22. Hyssop.'-The identification of the hyssop of Scripture is one of the difficulties of Biblical botany. Since we formerly annotated thereon, the subject has obtained the attention of Professor Royle, who in a paper read before the Royal Asiatic Society in 1844, and in his articles HYSSOP, YSOP, in the Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, has done much towards the settlement of this greatly disputed matter. We are now therefore enabled to return to the subject with advantages not previously possessed.

The original word is i ezov, or ezob. This in the Greek of the Old Testament is given as voownos, yssopos; which name also occurs in xix. 20. The circumstances required for the plant designated by the word, according

to the texts in which it occurs, are-that, as the present text implies that it should be found in Lower Egypt, and also in the desert of Sinai, Lev. xiv. 4, 6, 52; Num. x. 6, 18; and in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, John xix. 22; likewise that it should be a plant growing on walls, or in rocky places, 1 Kings iv. 33; and finally, that it should be possessed of some detergent properties, although it is probable that in this passage it is used in a figurative sense. It should also be large enough to yield a stick; and it ought to possess in the Arabic and cognate dialects a nanie not materially different from that which it bears in the Hebrew. No less than twenty-one different plants have been indicated by different writers as the esob of Scripture, eighteen of which are enumerated by Celsius in his Hierobotanicon. Dr. Royle was not satisfied with any of these; and he was led to suspect the existence of a plant distinct from the common hyssop, though called by the same name, by finding that the Arabian physician Rhazes, in his great work called Hawi or Continens, describes two kinds of hyssop,

one of them growing on the mountain of the temple,' that is, at Jerusalem. Celsius, indeed, mentions the same plant, Hyssopus in montibus Hierosolymorum, or in Arabic Zoofa bu jebal al Khuds. Jerusalem is now called by the Arabs El Khuds, the holy,' and by Arabian writers, Beit-elMukdis, or Beit al Mukuddus, the Sanctuary.' 'Having got thus far,' says Dr. Royle, 'I was led to what appears to me its discovery by a passage from Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, quoted by Mr. Kitto in his work on the Physical Geography and Natural History of the Holy Land, p. 253: Among trees and shrubs, known only by native names and imperfect descriptions, the aszef is spoken of by Burckhardt, while travelling during May in the Sinai peninsula. On noticing its presence in Wady Kheysey, he describes it as a tree which he had already seen in other wadys. It springs from the fissures in the rock, and its crooked stem creeps up the mountain side like a parasitical plant. According to the Arabs it produces a fruit about the size of a walnut, of a blackish colour, and very sweet to the taste. The bark of the tree is white, and the branches are thickly covered with small thorns; the leaves are heart-shaped, and of the same shade of green as those of the oak.'

This description, although apparently incorrect in some terms, as in that of tree applied to a plant creeping like a parasitical plant, struck Dr. Royle as a characteristic description of the caper-plant (Capparis spinosa), which he knew had in Arabic a name not unlike that of aszef. On this clue the learned botanist sets to work. He first makes it clear that one of the most common Arabic names of the caperplant is azuf, which is closely similar in sound, and still more similar in writing to the Hebrew ezov; and this similarity would extend equally to the writing of either of the two names in the language of the other. This similarity might certainly be accidental; but it cannot be accidental that the plant called azuf by the Arabs, answers to every particular which is required for the due elucidation not of one, but of every passage of the Bible in which esov is mentioned.' The professor then produced evidence that the azuf, or caper-plant, exists in all the required localities. This evidence may be seen at length in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. xv. It is also shewn that it grows on old walls; that detergent qualities are ascribed to it; and a curious passage in Pliny (Hist. Nat. xx. 15) proves that it was anciently of high reputation as a medicament in disorders allied to leprosy, the complaint in which the esov was employed by the Israelites. That the caper shrub also supplies a stick suited to the purpose of raising a sponge filled with vinegar to the mouth of our Saviour, as he hung upon the cross, will be shewn in the note on John xix. 22; and in this uniting every possible condition required by the hyssop of Scripture, we may expect that the claim of the caper-plant to be identified with it, will be generally regarded as sufficiently established. After the intimations which have been already given, the plant needs no particular description. It is chiefly known to us from the use of its unexpanded flower-buds, steeped in vinegar, as a condiment.

34.Kneadingtroughs.'-Some other term ought perhaps to be employed, to preclude the apparent difficulty which results from the natural habit of identifying oriental utensils with our own, when the same name is given to both. To understand the passage, we should perhaps refer to the existing usages among the Arabs who encamp in, or traverse, the very desert through which the sons of Israel are now about to pass; and then we shall find that the only utensils of analogous use, whether for kneading or for carrying dough, are such as the Israelites would naturally take with them, and which they could conveniently take as a personal burden. The kneading-troughs' of the Arabs are properly described by Shaw, as small wooden bowls, which not only serve for kneading their bread, but for serving up meat, and other uses for which a dish is required. The Arabs have few domestic utensils, and make one serve many purposes, and this is one of the most generally useful which they possess. However, as the Israelites are represented as carrying dough in their vessels, this

directs our attention to another Arabian utensil, which has equal, if not stronger claims to be identified with that to which the text refers. The Arabs use, on their journies, for a table-cloth, or rather table, a circular piece of leather, the margin of which is furnished with rings, by a string or chain run through which, it can, when necessary, be drawn up into a bag. This bag they sometimes carry full of bread, and when their meal is over, tie it up again with what is left. These utensils are not used for carrying dough; but if, when the dough happened to be kneaded, the Bedouins were suddenly obliged to decamp, they would naturally carry it away either in the kneading-bowl or in the leathern bag in which they usually carried their bread. The text, as we understand it, merely indicates an expedient to which their haste obliged the Israelites to resort, and not that the utensil in question was now applied to its customary use. The Egyptians had a kneading bowl of wicker-work or rush-work, which might as probably as the above have been the kneading trough in question. They had also a large wooden trough, in which men trod the dough with their feet: but this seems to have been only used by professed bakers, and in large establishments, and could not have been needed where every family daily baked its own bread.

EGYPTIAN KNEADING-TROUGHS.

37. The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses.'Here Rameses is assumed as the point of departure; and therefore the identification of that spot must have a material influence upon our conclusions respecting the extent and direction of the journey of the Israelites from the land of Goshen to the Red Sea. Since the French savans have fixed at Abu Keisheid the site of the ancient Heroöpolis, which the Septuagint identifies with the present Rameses (sce the note on i. 11), the most able inquirers into the subject have been disposed to adopt a different route from those which had been formerly indicated: and the views of such men as Rosenmüller, Gesenius, Winer, Stuart, Robinson, and Hengstenberg, may be regarded as sufficiently indicating the weight of modern evidence and opinion. It is to that view we feel bound to give our adhesion; and that principally for two reasons which appear to us stronger than any which have ever been urged in favour of the other alternatives. These are, that the old conclusions which place the starting point near On or Heliopolis, assume that the scene of the intercourse of Moses with Pharaoh was at Memphis, as stated by Josephus; but we are assured in Ps. lxxviii. 12, 43, that it was at the ancient royal city of Zoan or Tanis, and we prefer the authority of the Psalmist to that of Josephus. If the scene of the Lord's wonders against Pharaoh and the Egyptians was in the field of Zoan,' it is simply impossible that the point of departure should have been at so great a distance as a place near Memphis; while the determination that the point of departure was from Heroöpolis (identified with Rameses) perfectly and beautifully accords with the statement that Zoan was at that time the residence of the Egyptian court. The second reason is, that the distance from the neighbourhood of On or Heliopolis to the head of the Red Sea is far too great for a body of people so much encumbered as the Israelites with baggage, women, children, and slow-footed cattle to have made in two days, when we find them near if not at the Red Sea, or even in three days; whereas the distance from Heroöpolis is very much less, and might easily be accomplished in that time. [APPENDIX, No. 2.]

We are told in v. 37, and in Num. xxxiii. 3, that the Israelites departed from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the morrow after the Passover.' It is therefore not improbable that, in expectation of the permission of Pharaoh to depart, so often foretold by the Lord, the Israelites were already congregated at Rameses, during the continuance of the previous plague. This probability is strengthened by the fact that Pharaoh had already several times given his permission, although he always retracted it when the plague had ceased. Before the last great plague, moreover, the Israelites were directed to borrow of their neighbours jewels of gold and silver (xi. 2, 4), in order to be ready to depart at a moment's warning. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose that the people were already collected at Rameses as a rendezvous, waiting the signal of their departure from their leader, like the great Hadj caravans of modern days; that they there celebrated the passover on its first institution, slaying the lamb in the afternoon of the fourteenth, and eating it in the ensuing night, which according to the Hebrew computation, which began a new day at sunset-was the night of the fifteenth. Moses and Aaron being called to the king soon after midnight, and instantly dismissed by him, would be able, by those means of expeditious travel which Egypt supplied, to reach the waiting Israelites early the next morning; and after some time spent in starting so large a body of people, there would still be sufficient of the fifteenth day remaining to enable them to make a day's journey as long as the first day's journey of any caravan, which is always comparatively short. But this would not have been possible had the distance between Zoan, where the king held his court, and Rameses, where the Israelites were encamped, been so great as the distance between Tanis and Heliopolis, which is nearly sixty miles; and about twice the distance of Hermoöpolis from Tanis: this latter distance is itself so great, that the history must needs be embarrassed by the slightest addition to it; for we cannot avail ourselves of the extension of time which Dr. Robinson gains by supposing that the night of the Passover was the night preceding, and not that following the day of the fourteenth, whereby he gains the whole of the fourteenth day and the fifteenth night for the journey of Moses and Aaron, and the preparations for departure. This is not only an error in itself, but is wholly at variance with those impressions of haste which the narrative conveys. Another argument is that persons awaiting orders from Zoan were not likely to have their rendezvous at so great a distance from that place, away from the direction of their journey, as this would have been. Whereas Heroöpolis was not only so much nearer, but was, so far, on the nearest way from Zoan towards the desert and the Red Sea.

From Rameses, Moses had before him the choice of two roads to Palestine; the direct one, along the coast of the Mediterranean to el-Arish, and the more circuitous one by the head of the Red Sea and the desert of Sinai. The

Lord directed the latter, ch. xiii. 17, 18. This would appear to have been a known and travelled way, by which passed doubtless the commerce that must have subsisted between Egypt and Arabia, and leading probably around the present head of the Red Sea, at the same, or nearly the same point where the caravans now pass.

to Succoth.'-The Hebrew word signifies booths, being probably nothing more than a usual place of encampment. It is useless to make any attempt to identify it.

about six hundred thousand.'-We learn, from Numb. i., that the statement of males, exclusive of women and children, applies to males above twenty years of age. Now Mr. Rickman, in the Introduction to the Population Returns, shews that the number of males above twenty years of age is, as nearly as possible, one half that of the total number of males; the whole male population of Israel would then, on this principle, amount to 1,200,000; and, if we add an equal number for females, the entire male and female population of the Hebrew nation, at the time of the departure from Egypt, will not be less than 2,400,000. The only reduction of which this number seems susceptible results from the conclusion that mankind were at that period longer lived than at present; which enables us to conjecture that the males above twenty considerably exceeded those under that age. But if we make a large allowance on this account, it can scarcely be supposed that the total number falls much short of two millions, exclusive of the mixed multitude' that went up with them. This is certainly a most extraordinary increase, and can only be accounted for by a reference to the purposes of God, who designed that, while in Egypt, the Hebrews should grow into a nation. It is thought by some that there must be an error in the numbers. It might be so understood if it were an unconnected text; but the reading here is supported by a whole series of distinct enumerations in Numb. i.; the sum of which, exclusive of the tribe of Levi, amounts to 603,550. This was at the commencement of the second year from the departure, and exhibits a detailed coincidence which precludes the idea of a corruption, whether accidental or wilful, in the present text, unless we also are prepared to admit the corruption of a whole series of numbers in the census of Numb. i., and also in that of Numb. xxxvi.

40. Four hundred and thirty years.'-This is not to be literally understood; for their actual stay did not exceed 215 years. This must therefore include the whole period from the time that Abraham entered the land of Canaan to the time of the departure of his descendants from Egypt. There is, in fact, an apparent omission in the text, which the Samaritan and Septuagint supply, and by which our version ought to be corrected. It would then read thus:-' The sojourning of the children of Israel, and of their fathers which they sojourned in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.'

CHAPTER XIII.

1 The firstborn are sanctified to God. 3 The memorial of the passover is commanded. 11 The firstlings of beasts are set apart. 17 The Israelites go out of Egypt, and carry Joseph's bones with them. 20 They come to Etham. 21 God guideth them by a pillar of a cloud, and a pillar of fire.

AND the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 'Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine.

3 And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from

Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.

4 This day came ye out in the month Abib. 5 And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month.

6 Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened

2 Heb. servants.