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Shem, most of whose life passed after the deluge, has one-third of the average duration of antediluvian life struck off from his. His son Arphaxad was born two years after the flood, and therefore may be taken to represent the first generation of entire postdiluvians, whose term of life is made one-third shorter than that of the semi-antediluvians, and (in two generations) is reduced to one-half that of the pure antediluvians. A rest at this point of reduction was allowed for three generations, after which the existing term of life was again halved, reducing it to a quarter of the antediluvian term. After three more generations, another reducing process commenced, not, as before, by abrupt halving of the previous term of life, but by a gradual reduction, which in about 500 years reduced the previous term of 230-40 years to about one-half, or 120 years; and in about 500 years more, we find that this term also had been nearly halved and brought down to the present standard; for at that time it is that David said, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow." (Psa. xc. 10.) The progress of the abridgment may be illustrated by a few more figures. Abraham died at the age of 175, being 40 years less than his father's age; and yet he is said to have died "in a good old age; an old man and full of years:" in like manner Isaac, who lived to 180, is said to have been " Fold and full of days;" and if these expressions do not embody the ideas of a writer who, from living in a later day, when the term of man's life was much shortened, naturally considered these as extreme old ages, we should be entitled from them to conclude-as was probably true after all-that a man was in those days called old, with reference to the age at which his contemporaries, rather than his predecessors, died. The patriarchs were very sensible that the term of life was undergoing abridgment. Thus, when Jacob stood before the Egyptian king, and was asked his age, he replied, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years: few and full of evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." He lived to 147 years. His son Levi lived to 137 years; and another of his sons, Joseph, only to 110 years. Amram, the son of Levi, lived to exactly the same age as his father; and Moses and Aaron, the two sons of Amram, both lived to 120. Our information of the steps by which life declined to "threescore years and ten" before the time of David, is less distinct.

But we principally wish to remind the reader of the probability—or rather the moral certainty-that the seasons of life, its childhood, youth, maturity, and age, were distributed over the whole period of life, however long, in much the same proportions as at present: so that the prime and old age commenced later and ended later than under a more abridged term of life. Thus we should not suppose that when the term of life was 140 years, a man of seventy was constitutionally older than one of thirty-five is now. This seems so obvious as to require little argument; and we are not disposed to discuss the question even were argument needed. But we may just observe that there is not wanting much positive proof in favour of this view. Thus we see those whose ages when their eldest son was born is recorded, are only in one instance under thirty —and that one instance is in the case of a man (Terah's father) whose whole age little exceeded half the average of his time. We see also that none of the Hebrew patriarchs had a son before he was forty. And when we take into account the general disposition to early marriages in the East, this may show that the age of manhood was reached much later than it has been since; and the activity and vigour, mental and bodily, which these same persons evince at an age far passing the present extreme term of life, shows that constitutional old age began late in proportion. The admiration which the beauty of Sarah excited when she was near seventy years of age also affords a strong corroborative illustration. The subject is one of considerable interest, and deserves a more attentive consideration than it can here obtain.

(9) FLOCKS AND HERDS, p. 28.-We may take this opportunity of correcting some prevalent impressions respecting the flocks and herds of the Bedouin shepherds. We believe there is some such notion as that they have numerous herds of oxen as well as flocks of sheep, and that they traverse the desert with them at all seasons. This is not correct. The Arabian Bedouins have no oxen: sheep and goats are very common among them; but very ancient families among them have often only camels. The Hebrew patriarchs had oxen; and the difference requires some attention, the rather as some curious considerations are involved. In the first place, the Hebrew fathers, though nomades, and imbued with the ideas and practices of that class of people, were not desert nomades, but, for the most part, lived in the open parts of a country already settled and partly cultivated. Neither, as we have already shown, had they any occasion to cross deserts,

unless the comparatively short one between | Canaan and Egypt. They were not, thus, of the class of Bedouins who are constantly moving into and from deserts, or between places which deserts separate. Hence, we imagine, proceeds their possession of oxen, which are not animals suited to live in, or to cross, such deserts as those of Arabia, and which, therefore, form no part of the wealth of a modern Bedouin. There must, however, have been something more than this to cause the difference; for the same is true of the sheep, which is, however, conducted across deserts, by taking advantage of those times of the year when even the desert ceases to be destitute of water and green herbage.

The patriarchs, in trafficking with the people of the towns and villages near which they lived, might have found an advantage in the possession of oxen which the Bedouin of the desert wants. But as even those Bedouins, who are somewhat similarly circumstanced with the patriarchs, do not keep oxen, there must be still some further reason for the difference. Perhaps there has been some change of appetite or use as to animal food. The patriarchs ate the flesh of the ox and calf; and the same was very commonly eaten in the nation which sprung from them. To entertain a stranger, or to make a feast, 66 a calf tender and good," or "the fatted calf" was slain; whereas now a sheep or goat, a lamb or kid, serves the same purpose. In fact, the present Orientals rarely eat beef, and a calf is never killed. Seeing, therefore, that the Bedouin does not like the flesh of the ox or the calf, that his other animals supply him abundantly with milk, hair and hides, while he has no need of horn, and lacks opportunity of turning the products of the ox to profitable account; seeing also that he has no need of its labour, and that its wants and habits are not well suited to his way of life-it may appear that inducements are wanting to the care and maintenance of so large an animal. Strictly speaking, the camel is, in fact, the only domestic animal suited by nature to cross the deserts during the summer and autumnal heats, not only from its power of abstinence from water, but because desert herbs, which other animals do not like, form its choice food; and because, while other domestic herbivorous animals require herbs juicy and green, the camel delights in herbage dried and parched by the sun, such only as the deserts offer during the season of heat. Flocks of sheep and other animals must be taken into or across the deserts in the spring, before the heats have dried the vegetation which has been excited by the rains of winter and early spring,

VOL. I.

if not before the water left in pits and hollows has been absorbed by the hot air; for while the herbage remains juicy and green, all the cattle of the Bedouins can do without water, exeept the horse. Under this condition of the desert, Bedouins with flocks of sheep not only pass through it, but encamp in it during winter and spring; but in summer and autumn they seek plains and valleys unconsumed by the extreme drought which pervades the length and breadth of the desert.

In speaking of the nomades of Western Asia as not now possessing herds of oxen, it ought not to be forgotten that those of Eastern Asia, -the great Tartar races,—do possess oxen, and make much use of them. This is not the only instance in which the developments of patriarchal life, as exhibited in the books of Genesis and Job, more strongly reminds us of nomade life among the Tartarian, than among the Arabian, races. The general analogy—the practices in which all agree-are so considerable, and the proximity of language and place gives such a preponderating advantage to the Arabian Bedouins, that it is seldom necessary to go further in search of illustration of the patriarchal usages or habits of life; but when this does become necessary, one is tolerably certain to find the additional elucidations in the customs of the nomades of the Tartarian deserts. In the possession of oxen the Tartars more resemble the patriarchs than do the Bedouins: they have such uses for this animal as the patriarchs had. They eat more animal food than the Arabians, and like the flesh of the ox; they also employ it as a beast of burden; and (which is perhaps more to their purpose) they prepare from its milk, for use during winter, a sour beverage called griut, which it does not appear that they are able to obtain from the milk of any other animal.

(1) Page 29.-The information respecting the characteristics of the desert in the time of spring, which was at first designed for this place, it is now judged better to reserve for the text of a future chapter.

(") THE NAME OF JEHOVAH, p. 30.—Some of the Jewish ideas with reference to the ineffable proper name of God, are excusable on the ground of extreme reverence; but others are merely ingenious trifling, or trifling not always ingenious, nor always reverent. Our own theologians have fallen in with some of the Jewish notions on this subject. Most Christian translators of the Old Testament, including our own, generally abstain from introducing the name in their versions, putting

H

"the LORD" instead of Jehovah, in this following the example of the Jews, who, to avoid any attempt to pronounce the Name, read, Adonai, instead of it; and of the Seventy, who sat down the word Kugas in lieu of it. The Jewish notion in this matter is explained in the Talmud, on the authority of R. Nathan ben Isaac, who is reported to say, "In this world things are not as in the world to come. In this world we write the name of God with the letters MT (Jehovah), and read "】 (Adonai); but in the world to come we shall both read

* ". יהוה and write

However, as the meaning of some texts of Scripture is involved in the use of the proper name, it is well that more recent translators seem generally disposed to retain the word "Jehovah" in their versions. Although the word is now thus spelt, it does not afford the right spelling, and it is doubtful that the true pronunciation can now be recovered. For it will be observed, that while the abstinence of the Jews from pronouncing the word on any occasion was alone sufficient to occasion its loss, there is this further circumstance, that even in writing it, in the Hebrew copies of the Scriptures, the Masoretes did not attempt to give the word its original and proper vowels, but transferred to it those of the word Adonai, from which results the now usual spelling and pronunciation of JEHOVAH." The word Elohim, God, is also sometimes substituted for it, as well as Adonai.

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With all this, the Jews have rather been averse to the writing of the name at all, unless on very particular occasions; and have substituted for it various abbreviations and devices, to some of which high mystical qualities have been assigned. Thus, for instance, the mysterious name is sometimes written with two ", and sometimes with three jods inclosed within a circle, thus

: but this last very ancient

form has been relinquished, and one of the jods is often expunged in old examples, in consequence of some resort having been made to it by Christians in demonstrating the doctrine of the Trinity. The Jews are quite aware that the true pronunciation of the word is lost, and regard it as one of the mysteries to be unveiled in the days of the Messiah. They hold, however, that the knowledge of the Name does exist on earth, and he by whom the secret is acquired has, by virtue of it, the powers of the world at his command; and they account for the miracles of Jesus by telling us

⚫ T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 50; apud Edzardi tractat. Talm. Avoda Sara, sive de Idololatria.

+ Bartoloccii Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica,' pars. i. p. 643.

that he had got possession of the ineffable name. Rightly understood, they seem to mean that he who calls upon God rightly, by this his true name, cannot fail to be heard by him. In short, this word forms the famous tetragrammaton, or quadrilateral name, of which every one has heard. Some imagine that this was the same rigarus which the Pythagoreans knew, and by which they swore; and that a knowledge was abroad in the world that the true name of the true God bore some such form as JEHOVAH may be traced in the Jah, Jao, Jevo, Jove, of the heathen.

It is remarkable, and we are unable to find a reason for it, that the Jews, who so carefully abstained from the utterance of this ineffable name, yet took particular pleasure to join that name to their own in a somewhat shortened form; in the beginning of a proper name they employed it as Jeho, as in Jehoshaphet, Jehoram, &c.; and at the end, as Jah, as in Micajah, Eli-jah, &c.; and sometimes in the very same name, either form is taken indifferently, thus:-Jeho-ahaz, in 2 Chron. xxi. 17, is Ahazjah in 2 Chron. xxii. 1; and so Jehoiachin, in 2 Kings xxiv. 8, Jechon-jah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.* As a specimen of the ingenious trifling which we have mentioned, we may adduce the remark of Lightfoot, who tells us that twenty-six is the numerical value of the letters in the sacred name, and very seriously connects with this information the remark, that, when Sihon and Og were conquered, there had been twenty six generations-from Adam to Moses,-" and accordingly does Ps. cxxxvi. rehearse the durability six and twenty times over, beginning the story with the creation, and ending it in the conquest of Sihon and Og." But enough of this.

(—) ABRAHAM'S EQUIVOCATION, p. 31.—This was not a subject which the fertile fancies of Abraham's rabbinical descendants were likely to leave unimproved. Accordingly, we have a Talmudical story, which tells us that on approaching Egypt, the patriarch put Sarah in a chest which he locked up, that none might behold her dangerous beauty. “But when he was come to the place of paying custom, the collectors said, 'Pay us the custom.' And he said, I will pay the custom.' They said to him, Thou carriest clothes.' And he said, 'I will pay for the clothes.' Then they said to him, 'Thou carriest gold;' and he answered them, I will pay for my gold.' On this they said to him further, Surely thou bearest the finest silk;' and then he replied, I will pay

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Lightfoot, Harm. of the Four Evang., in Matt. i. 11.

+ Harmon. of the Old Testament,' Num. ch. xxi.

custom for the finest silk.' Then said they, 'Certainly it must be pearls that thou takest with thee;' and he only answered, 'I will pay for pearls. Seeing that they could name nothing of value for which the patriarch was not willing to pay custom, they said, 'It cannot be but that thou open the box, and let us see what is within.' So they opened the box, and the whole land of Egypt was brightly illumined by the lustre of Sarah's beauty."*

(1o) The TerebINTH-TREE OF MAMRE, p. 36. -It is generally understood now that the word usually rendered plain in our version, means a terebinth (or turpentine) tree; and as the word is plural in the present case, the text would mean that Abram encamped under the terebinth-trees of Mamre. The fact that the site in which the trees grew is actually a valley or plain enables us to combine both interpretations. The ancient celebrity of an old terebinth-tree in this valley, under the shade of which Abram was believed to have entertained the three angels, has been given in the Pictorial Bible' (note on Gen. xiii. 18). Morison says that at the time of his visit an old tree was still pointed out as that to which this statement refers; but, with his usual good sense, he indicates the improbability that the tree should have remained standing for 3500 years, and wishes his informants had been content to state that this tree occupied the same ground, and that, from age to age, care had been taken thus to mark a site so distinguished. After a long interval, the neighbourhood of Hebron begins to be again visited by European travellers; but we do not find that any of them take notice of the valley of Mamre or of the trees which may be growing there.

(13) THE HEBREW NAME, p. 38.--The name of Hebrew, on this occasion first given to Abram and afterwards borne by his descendants, has been very commonly supposed to have been derived from Heber, the fifth in descent from Noah. "But it is hardly pro

• T. Bab. Bereshith Rabba,' 40; cited in Stehelin's Traditions,' ii. 88.

bable that Abraham would call himself by this name, rather than by that of any of his ten predecessors; and we rather think that it was given him by the Canaanites, because he came thither from the other side of the Euphrates; the word y, Heber, signifying, in the original, the other side, whether of a river, sea, or any other thing; in which sense some people are called transmarine, transalpine, and the like. What seems to confirm this etymology is, that we do not find that he was called by this name, till word was brought him of his nephew Lot's misfortune, so that it is likely the messenger inquiring for Abraham of the inhabitants, might describe him by the word "y, Hibri, or one that came from the other side of the river. However, after Jacob had received the great name of ISRAEL, Abraham's descendants preferred that of Israelites to that of Hebrews, though the neighbouring nations still called them by the latter."- Ancient Universal History,' vol. iii. p. 24.

(14) HAGAR, p. 41.-The Jewish tradition (a marvellously unlikely one) is that Hagar was a daughter (by a concubine, as some say) of Pharaoh, who, seeing the wonders wrought on account of Sarai, said, "It is better that my daughter should be a handmaid in this household, than a mistress in another," and, therefore, gave her to Sarai.* The Moslems, in virtue of her being the mother of Ishmael, treat her name and memory with great respect. They allege (what in a limited sense is true) that she was the legal wife and not the concubine of Abram; and that Ishmael, by his seniority, had a great advantage over Isaac, which, say they, is indeed evinced by the difference of their inheritances-Arabia, which fell to the share of Ishmael, being a much more extensive and rich country than the land of Canaan, which became the portion of his younger brother. They believe that Hagar died at Mecca, and was buried within the outer enclosure of the temple of the Kaabah.

Targum Jonath. and Jarchi in Gen. xvi. 1; Bereshith Rabba, p. 40, 2; Pirke Eliezer, c. 26.

D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. in Hagar.

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AFTER the birth of Ishmael thirteen years passed away, during which it would seem that both Abram and Sarai were well satisfied to rest in the conclusion, that the son of Hagar was the long-promised and divinely-appointed heir of the patriarch. They had the less doubt of this, seeing that Abram was now on the verge of 100 years old, and the age of Sarai was only ten years less. It was at this time that Abram was again favoured with a manifestation of the Lord's presence; and no sooner did he hear the Divine voice, than he fell upon his face, and remained in that most reverent of postures while it continued to speak to him. He was reminded that there was a covenant of God with him, that he should be the father of many nations. And, as a sign of this, he was directed-according to a custom, which has to this day remained common in the East, of changing the name to render it significantly applicable to new developments and circumstances to call himself no longer Abram (high father), but Abraham (father of a multitude). On this occasion the Lord's communications to the patriarch were unusually full and explicit, and cleared up much which remained previously uncertain—thus corroborating an observation already made, that at every fresh appearance to him, he received, not only confirmations of what had been already promised or foretold, but an addition to his previous knowledge. So now, while the promises as to the future Hebrew race are confirmed,

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