this account had been first published when all the generation who could be supposed to witness this fact had disappeared? Another circumstance still more remarkable occurs in this exhortation. The Midianites had seduced the Israelites to join in their idolatry to Baal Peor. The original narrative relates the manner in which this took place ;* and states, that a plague from the Lord destroyed 24,000 Jews, and that it was stayed by the zeal of Phinehas, in putting two of the highest rank amongst the offenders to death. The legislator, in order to deter the Jews from idolatry, alludes to this fact; but he notices no circumstance of it but one, which, though in the original narrative not stated, was infinitely the most important to advert to on this occasion; but which no persons but spectators of the fact, and perfectly acquainted with every individual concerned in it, could possibly feel the truth of. "Your eyes," says he,† “have 66 seen what the Lord did because of Baal Peor; for all the "men that followed Baal Peor, the Lord thy God hath destroy"ed them from amongst you. But ye that did cleave unto the "Lord your God, are alive every one of you this day." It was extremely natural for Moses himself to use this argument; but I confess it seems to me improbable in the extreme, that it should be used when nobody who had been witness of the fact remained alive; or if a compiler had resolved to make this assertion at hazard, and put it in the mouth of Moses it seems very strange, that it is the only circumstance he should forget to notice in the direct narrative, and the only one he should notice in his reference to it. I add some few instances of incidental allusions to miracles, to show how naturally they are introduced, and how exactly the manner in which they are spoken of, suits the situation of Moses himself addressing the eye-witnesses of the fact. The Ten Commandments had been the only precepts of the Law, which God had distinctly proclaimed from mount Horeb to the assembled nation of the Jews; the rest of it had been promulgated by Moses himself, as the divine command. Now how does he argue with the people, in order to induce them to receive what he announced as the divine will, equally with that How decidedly does this statement justify the punishment extending to such a multitude; a circumstance so often objected to. 66 * which God himself had directly proclaimed? He might have urged that the miracles which God had wrought by him, established his divine authority; that the Ten Commandments, being of pre-eminent importance, God had himself proclaimed them to impress them the more deeply, and chosen to employ him as the medium of conveying the rest of the Law. He might have urged the severe punishments which God had inflicted on those who had contested against his divine mission (as he does in another passage,) and rested the point on these arguments; but he chooses a quite different ground. He states, that the people had declined hearing the rest of the Law directly from God himself, and had entreated that it should be conveyed to them through him. He recites the Ten Commandments, and adds, "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, and he added no more; "and he wrote them on two tables of stone, and delivered them 66 unto me. And ye came near unto me, even all the heads of "your tribes, and your elders; and ye said, This great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die. Go thou near, and hear all that the "Lord our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the "Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it, and "do it." Such is the ground on which Moses claims the obedience of the people to the statutes and judgments which he asserts the Lord commanded him to teach them. Now if this argument had never been used by the legislator, if the fact had never occurred, if the Pentateuch had been the invention of fancy, or even the compilation of some historian long subsequent to the events, what could lead him to clog his narrative with such a circumstance as this? In short, what but truth and reality could suggest such an argument, or gain it the slightest credit from the people to whom it was addressed? 66 Sometimes the allusions to the miracles are so brief, that their application to the topic which it is meant to enforce cannot be made without an intimate knowledge of the facts. Exhorting the people to love and obey God, it is said, "If ye hearken to “these judgments, the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt (which thou knowest) upon thee." Commanding the people, that in the * Deut. xi. 6. + Ibid. v. 22, &c. Deut. vii. 12 and 15; and Exod. xv. 26. plague of leprosy they should do according to all that the Priests and the Levites should teach them-to confirm this injunction it is added, "Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Mi"riam by the way, after that ye were come forth out of Egypt. Threatening the people with punishment, if they should" at all "forget the Lord their God, and walk after other gods," it is said, if ye do so, "I testify against you this day, that ye shall "surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroyed be"fore your face, so shall ye perish."+ Commanding the Jews to take care lest in their prosperity they forget their God, it is added. 66 'God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, "the house of bondage, and led thee through that great and ter"rible wilderness, where were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and "drought, where there was no water: who brought thee forth "water out of the rock of flint; who fed thee in the wilderness "with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might hum"ble thee. Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he "that giveth thee power to get wealth." And again, "Love the "Lord, and keep his charge; for I speak not with your children "which have not known, and which have not seen the chastise"ment of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, "and his stretched-out arm, and his miracles, and his acts, which “he did in the midst of Egypt, unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, "and all his land; and what he did unto the army of Egypt, "unto their horses, and to their chariots, how he made the water "of the Red Sea to overflow them, as they pursued after you, "and how the Lord had destroyed them unto this day; and "what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came unto "this place; and what he did unto Dathan and Abiram the sons "of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth "and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, "and all the substance that was in their possession in the midst "of all Israel. But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the "Lord, which he did. Therefore shall ye keep all the command"ments which I command you this day."s Is not this brief allusion to all the miracles which God had wrought, this more full statement of two, calculated, the one to inspire gratitude, and both to strike terror? Is not resting the credit of the facts on * Compare Numbers, xii. with Deut. xiv. 9. Deut. viii. 14-18. Deut. viii. 19, 20. the persons addressed, being themselves spectators of these facts, and not merely the children of those who had been spectators: is not all this natural in Moses addressing his cotemporaries? Would it not be most unnatural in any body else, addressing the Jews at any subsequent period? In the promises of divine assistance which Moses announces to the people, I meet with one circumstance of a very singular nature. When he encourages the people not to be afraid of the nations of Canaan, as mightier than themselves, and declares God shall deliver them unto thee, and destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed, he interposes this limitation: "I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the "land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply "against thee; by little and little I will drive them out from be"fore thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land."* Here is a remarkable instance of miraculous interference being extended no further than was absolutely necessary, and combined with a regard to the general analogy of nature and the regular course of Providence. Would the author of a fictitious narrative, the compiler of fugitive and uncertain traditions have thought of such a limitation, when his whole object must have been to exalt the divine power, whose interference he described as immediate and resistless? 66 In the account of the return of Moses from Mount Sinai, after having received the tables of the Ten Commandments, a second time, a remarkable fact is related. "When he came "down from the mount, Moses wist not that the skin of his "face shone. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel "saw it, they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called "unto them; and till he had done speaking with them, he put 66 a vail on his face. But when he went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the vail off until he came out."+ This divine splendour caught, as it were, from the near approach to the glory of the divine presence, with which the inspired legislator had just been honoured, was admirably calculated to impress the Jewish people (ever strongly affected by sensible objects) with reverence for the Lawgiver and his Laws. But surely it was such a circumstance as no dealer in fiction, no compiler of traditions, can be supposed to have thought of. We + Exod. xxxiv. 29, &c. * Deut. vii. 22. may further remark, that this circumstance is never again alluded to, either in the direct narrative or the recapitulation in Deuteronomy; though every other fact connected with it is repeatedly noticed. Now supposing the fact true, and Moses the writer of the Pentateuch, this silence is perfectly natural; it suited not the modesty of his character, who was the meekest of men, to dwell on such a circumstance. But if any one else had been the author of the narrative, supposing so singular a fiction to have suggested itself at all, is it likely he would notice it but once? 66 One miracle, and only one, occurs in the last exhortation of Moses, to the assembled nations of the Jews, of which no mention is made in the direct narrative. "Thou shalt remember," says he, "all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty "years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee. "He suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna (which "thou knewest not) that thou mightest know that man doth "not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth "out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." He adds, "Thy "raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell "these forty years;" or (as it is expressed in another subsequent passage) "I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not "waxen old upon thy foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither "have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know "that I am the Lord your God."* If Moses was really the author of the Pentateuch, he could not have noticed this miracle one day before he is said to have first mentioned it, even on the border of the land of Canaan, when the Jews were just preparing to enter it, and when natural means of procuring food and raiment being afforded them, all supernatural aid in these points was to cease. Their being fed with manna, is indeed frequently mentioned, because this was a miracle which, though constantly repeated, was in each particular instance plain and distinct. But the circumstance, of the raiment of the whole nation not waxing old for forty years, was a continued supernatural operation, which at no one period could have had its commencement distinctly marked: and therefore never could be noticed with such clear certainty and full effect when it was no * Deut. viii. 2-4 ; and xxix. 5 and 6. |