12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Rom. 10. 6, &c.

17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them ;

18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.

19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD Sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

4 Chap. 4. 26.

CHAPTER XXXI.

1 Moses encourageth the people. 7 He encourageth Joshua. 9 He delivereth the law unto the priests, to read it in the seventh year to the people. 14 God giveth a charge to Joshua, 19 and a song to testify against the people. 24 Moses delivereth the book of the law to the Levites to keep. 28 He maketh a protestation to the elders.

AND Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel.

2 And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the LORD hath said unto me, 'Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.

3 The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, "as the LORD hath said.

4 And the LORD shall do unto them as he did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them, whom he destroyed.

5 And the LORD shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you.

6 Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

7 ¶ And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be

strong and of a good courage: for thou must LORD hath sworn unto their fathers to give go with this people unto the land which the them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. 8 And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

9 T And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.

10 And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,

11 When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

12 Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law:

13 And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua

went, and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation.

15 And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.

16 ¶ And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt 'sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall 'befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?

18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

19 Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.

20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant.

21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness;

for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed; for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.

22 Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.

23 ¶ And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, 'Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee.

24 ¶ 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,

25 That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying,

26 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.

27 For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the LORD; and how much more after my death?

28 Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.

29 For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.

30 And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.

Verse 24. Made an end of writing the words of this law in a book.'-In order to give the reader some idea of the probable form and material of this most ancient book, and the other books mentioned in the sacred volume, we shall here state a few leading facts on the general subject, accompanying the statement by such engraved illustrations, from authentic sources, as seem calculated to render more distinctly intelligible the information supplied. It will be observed that our present notice is limited to such portable writings as may more or less properly come under the denomination of 'books.' As we shall not enlarge the subject by investigating the chronological priority in the use of the different substances employed, we shall find it convenient to arrange our brief remarks under the heads of Vegetable, Metallic, and Animal Substances. Most of those we shall notice, or probably all, were, in due order of time, known to the Jews, as we either know positively from Scripture, or else may, with tolerable certainty, infer from their connections with other nations. It may be therefore more useful to view the subject connectedly, than

to take it up in fragments as the several passages bring the details under our notice.

I. VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES.-1. Wood. Inscriptions on wood are very ancient, but do not require to be here noticed. Tablets of wood were very early in use, and seem to have been generally employed much in the same way as slates among ourselves, that is, for temporary writing (see the notes on Num. v. 23). Sometimes they were single, but frequently from two to five or more leaves were done up into a sort of book, something like our slate-books. The Greeks and Romans usually coated the boards with wax, on which the letters were traced with a style, or pen, commonly of iron, but also of gold, silver, brass, and sometimes of ivory or bone. These instruments had one end pointed, to trace the letters, and the other broad and smooth, for the purpose of obliterating what had been written, by spreading back the wax, so as to render it fit to receive other words. In such books, there was in the middle of each leaf a sort of button, to prevent the pages from touching each other when closed. But the

greater warmth of their climate prevented the Jews from generally using wax: they, therefore, wrote on the tablets with a kind of ink, which could be easily sponged out when necessary. Such tablets of wood were in use long before the time of Homer, who lived 150 years before Isaiah; and Horne thinks it highly probable that several of the prophets wrote upon tablets of wood, or some similar material (compare Isa. xxx. 8, and Hab. ii. 2). Such certainly was the vanidiov, 'writing-table,' on which Zecharias wrote the name of his son, John the Baptist (Luke i. 63). They were not wholly disused in Europe until the fourteenth century; and are still employed in North Africa, Western Asia, and Greece. The leaves of these tablet-books, whether of wood, metal, or ivory, were connected together by rings at the back, through which a rod was passed, that served as a handle to carry them by.

2. Bark of trees. The fine inner bark of such trees as the lime, ash, maple, or elm, was early used as a substance for writing. As such was called in Latin liber, this name came permanently to be applied to all kinds of books, and has, in a similar connection, been adopted into most European languages. These books, like all others of flexible materials, were rolled up to render them portable, and to preserve the writing. They were usually rolled round a stick or cylinder; and if they were long, round two cylinders. Hence the name 'volume' (volumen) a thing rolled up-which continues to be applied to books very different from rolls. In using the roll, thé reader unrolled it to the place he wanted, and rolled it up again when he had done. The book of the law, written on parchment, is thus rolled and thus read in the Jewish synagogues at the present time. We do not know that rolls of bark are mentioned in the Scripture, but it does not therefore follow that they were not known to the Jews.

3. Leaves of trees. Pliny thinks that the most early substance used for writing was the leaf of the palm-tree; meaning, we presume, that this was the first flexible substance employed. Be this as it may, the process is certainly of very remote antiquity; and would be naturally suggested by its being perceived how readily particular leaves received and retained marks made by a pointed in

strument. At this day, books made with the leaves of different trees are common among the Indian nations, and specimens of them are numerous in England. The palmyra leaf is that which is most generally used, but others are preferred in some parts, as those of the talipot-tree, in Ceylon, on account of its superior breadth and thickness. The letters are written, or rather engraved, with a finepointed style, or sort of bodkin; and the writing is afterwards rubbed over with a composition of oil and pulverized charcoal, which renders the characters distinct and per

manent.

4. Papyrus. This was a vegetable tissue, the manufacture of which originated and was, in a great degree, peculiar to Egypt. It is obtained from a bulrush (Cyperus papyrus, Linn.) which grew in the swamps of the Nile to the height of ten or fifteen feet. The parts used in making the papyrus were the thin concentric coats or pellicles that surround the triangular stalk; those nearest the centre being the best and finest. A layer of these was laid out lengthwise on a board, and another layer pasted over it crosswise, and after being pressed and dried in the sun, the sheet was completed by the surface being polished with a shell, or other hard and smooth substance. A number of these sheets were glued together, to form a roll of the required dimensions. The breadth was determined by the length of the slips taken from the plant; but the length might of course be carried to almost any extent. largest which has yet been found is that which was bought, in 1836, for the British Museum, at the sale of Mr. Burton's collection of Egyptian antiquities; it consists of one entire sheet of papyrus without a single join, and measures one hundred feet in length. The writing, as in all rolls of whatever material, is not across the length or breadth of the roll, but in columns, extended in the direction of the roll's breadth, with a blank strip between them. Many such rolls have been found in Egypt, in mummy-cases and earthen vessels, and many also in the houses excavated at Herculaneum. The former, though more ancient, are better preserved and more easily unrolled than the latter, which have suffered from the action of heat. The superiority of the papyrus to all other ma

The

terials previously known, brought it speedily into general use, for books, among the western civilized nations; and it must, in the time of the Apocrypha and New Testament, have been well known to the Jews. Indeed it may probably enough have been known to the prophets; for although the common account niakes the discovery posterior to the foundation of Alexandria, this must be an error; since it was extensively used and formed an article of export from Egypt in the time of Herodotus, whose visit to that country was more than a century prior to the foundation of Alexandria: indeed papyri of the remote Pharaonic periods are still met with: and since the mode of writing on them is shewn by the sculptures to have been common in times long prior to the Exode, there is some reason to suppose that the use of the papyrus was known to Moses, and to the Hebrews who with him left Egypt. The papyrus was too dear, even in Egypt, to be employed for common uses, and as it must have been still more rare and costly when exported, this may well enough account for our not finding in the Old Testament any notice of its use among the Hebrews; although we are not thence entitled to infer that it was unknown to them. The rush itself is distinctly mentioned by Isaiah (xix. 7) in predicting the confusion of Egypt. The subjoined woodcut exhibits a portion of an Egyptian roll, and the one in the preceding page shews others from Herculaneum, one unrolled, some closed, and others in the boxes in which they were usually kept, several together, deposited ver

tically, and ticketed at the upper extremity with their titles. (See more largely in Egyptian Antiquities, ii. 7, and Pompeii, ii. 13, in Library of Entertaining Knowledge; Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, iii. 146-151.)

5. Linen. The use of linen as a substance for writing on, is allowed to have been long prior to the invention of papyrus. Indeed, it is evident that when men had invented linen cloth for dress, and afterwards began to feel the need of a flexible and durable material for writing, it would naturally occur to them, that if their linen could be so prepared as to receive and retain the characters, it would be more convenient to form a portable book with, than any substance previously known. They soon found how to adapt their tissues to this purpose by priming or | painting them all over, before they began to write, the writing itself being also rather painted than written, for the inks of antiquity were rather paints than inks, containing no mordant to give them durability; resembling. in this, the inks now used in the East. That such writing was known to the ancient Egyptians, we know from the written bandages which are sometimes found on mummies. | Linen books are mentioned by Pliny and Vopiscus; and Livy speaks of such books that were found in the temple of Moneta. The obvious character of the resource is also indicated by the fact, that the pictorial epistles of the Mexicans were painted on a cotton tissue. The use of linen was certainly known to the Jews in the time of Moses, the priestly robes being principally of that mate