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changed to suit the purpose of the writer, as in Num. xxii.-xxiv., where Balaam is made a prophet of Jehovah.

III. Later circumstances and events are alluded to, as it appears from the following examples: Gen. xii. 6, "The Canaanite was then in the land." Gen. xiii. 7, “The Canaanite and the Perizzite were then in the land"— a remark no one would naturally make until after these nations were driven out, that is, after the time of Joshua. Levit. xviii. 28, "That the land do not vomit you out, as it did the nations before you," who were still present in the time the book is alleged to have been written.

Deuteronomy ii. 12.

"The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime, but the children of Esau succeeded them when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead, as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them."

Ex. xxii. 20, xxiii. 9, "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt;" "For ye know the heart of a stranger, since ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Perhaps xii. 45, belongs here.)

Deuteronomy xix. 14.

"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it."

Exodus xv. 17.

"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." "

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According to Bleek, in Stud. und Krit. for 1831, p. 520, sqq., there is no reference to the temple mountain, Moriah, in Gen. xxii. 2, 14.

Here the temple mountain,-Mount Moriah, in Jerusalem, where Solomon's temple was erected, —and the sanctuary, are referred to. See, also, xxiii. 19.

[Deuteronomy xxxiii. 12.

"Of Benjamin he said,

"The beloved of Jehovah shall dwell in safety with HIM. He shall protect him every day,

And shall rest in his borders.""

Is not here an allusion to the fact that Jerusalem and the temple were within the borders of the tribe of Benjamin?]

Genesis xlviii. 5, 18-20.

"And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Ægypt, before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine: as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.

"And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father; for this is the first-born put thy right hand upon his head.' And his father re

fused, and said, 'I know it, my son, I know it; he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.' And he blessed them that day, saying, 'In thee shall Israel bless, saying, "God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh." And he set Ephraim before Manasseh."

Here the superiority of Ephraim, the chief tribe, is referred to, as a well-known fact.

Genesis xlix. 8—12.

'Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies: thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be; binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk."

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Here Judah is the royal tribe, and continual prosperity is assigned him. Contrast it with the fate appointed for the descendants of Joseph, that is, the tribe of Ephraim, or the kingdom of the ten tribes.

Genesis xlix. 22-26.

'Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; even by the God of thy father who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts and of the wombs; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren."

The song of Moses, (Deut. xxxii., especially 5-33,) and the remark, xxix. 28, presuppose a state of things not possible in the time of Moses. [The curses for disobedience in Levit. xxvi. belong to the same class.

Leviticus xxvi. 33-43.

"And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall

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they pine away with them. If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her Sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes."

The following passage will perhaps help us to the date of these curses:

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2 Chronicles xxxvi. 20, 21.

"And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the kingdom of Persia; to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years."

To the same class of curses belong the following:

Deuteronomy iv. 27.

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"And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you."

Deuteronomy xxviii. 25, 36, 37, 64.

"The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. . . . . . .

"The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee. . .

"And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone."

Deuteronomy xxix. 25, sqq.

"Then men shall say, 'Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them, when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt: for they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book: and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.""]

Sometimes later events are only faintly alluded to: Gen. xvii. 6, " And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee; and kings shall come out of thee." Verse 16, "And I will bless her, [Sarah,] and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her." And the similar passage,

XXXV. 11.

In Gen. xxxvi. 31, there is mention of kings of Israel: "And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." A similar allusion is made Deut. xxviii. 36.

Gen. xxvii. 40, Jacob, blessing Esau, says, "By thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother. But it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck." Compare the following passages:

2 Samuel viii. 14.

"And he [David] put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom put he garrisons: and all they of Edom became David's servants."

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