Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

by the expression >^\^] DJ^i, which recurs in chap. xiv. 28 and Gen. xxii. IG, and is of constant use in the predictions of the prophets; and this applies even to the few passages where a human author is mentioned instead of Jehovah, such as vers. 3, 4, and 15, 16; also 2 Sam. xxiii. 1; Prov. xxx. 1; and Ps. xxxvi. 2, where a D^53 is ascribed to the personified wickedness. Hence, when Balaam calls the following prophecy a C!^<J, this is done for the puqoose of desio;- ]iating it as a divine revelation received from the Spirit of God. lie had received it, and now proclaimed it as a man pyn Un^^ with closed eye. ori'J' does not mean to open, a meaning in support of which only one passage of the Mishnah can be adduced, but to close, like onp in Dan. viii. 2(5, and Drib* in Lam. iii. 8, with the ^ softened into D or b' (see Roediger in Ges, thes., and Dietriclis Hebrew Lexicon). " Balaam describes himself as the man with closed eye with reference to his state of ecstasy, in which the closing of the outer senses w^ent hand in hand with the opening of the inner " (Ilengstenberg). The cessation of all perception by means of the outer senses, so far as self-conscious reflection is concerned, was a feature that w^as common to both the vision and the dream, the two forms in which the prophetic gift manifested itself (chap, xii. 6), and followed from the very nature of the inward intuition. In the case of prophets w^hose spiritual life was far advanced, inspiration might take place without any closing of the outward senses. But upon men like Balaam, whose inner religious life was still very impure and undeveloped, the Spirit of God could only operate by closing their outward senses to impressions from the lower earthly world, and raising them up to visions of the higher and spiritual world.^ What Balaam heard in this ecstatic condition was ^^ ''?.P^, the sayings of God, and what he saw ''"n^ "l^D^? the vision of the Almighty. The Spirit of God came upon him with such power that he fell down (^??^), like Saul in 1 Sam. xix. 24; not merely " prostrating himself with reverential awe at seeing and hearing the things of God " {Knohel), but thrown to the ground by the Spirit of God, who " came like an armed man upon the seer," and that in such a way that as he fell his (spirit's)

^ Hence, as Hengstenherg observes (Balaam, p. 449), we have to picture Balaam as giving utterance to his prophecies with the eyes of his body closed; though we cannot argue from the fact of his being in this condition, that an Isaiah would be in precisely the same. Compare the instructive information concerning analogous phenomena in the sphere of natural niantik and ecstasy in Hengstenherg (pp. 449 sqq.), and Tholuck^s PropJcvten^ pp. 49 sqq.

eyes were opened. This introduction to his prophecy is not an utterance of boasting vanity; but, as Calvin correctly observes, "the whole preface has no other tendency than to prove that he was a true prophet of God, and had received the blessing which he uttered from a celestial oracle."

The blessing itself in vers. 5 sqq. contains two thoughts: (1) the glorious prosperity of Israel, and the exaltation of its kingdom (vers. 5-7); (2) the terrible power, so fatal to all its foes, of the people which was set to be a curse or a blessing to all the nations (vers. 8, 9). — Vers. 5-7. '^ How beautiful are thy tents, 0 Jacob! thy dwellings, 0 Israel! Like valleys are they spread out, like gardens by the stream, like aloes which Jehovah has planted, like cedars by the waters. Water will flow out of Ids buckets, and his seed is by many waters. And loftier than Agag be his king, and his kingdom will be exalted:' What Balaam had seen before his ecstasy with his bodily eyes, formed the substratum for his inward vision, in which the dwellings of Israel came before his mental eye adorned with the richest blessing from the Lord. The description starts, it is true, from the time then present, but it embraces the whole future of Israel. In the blessed land of Canaan the dwellings of Israel will spread out like valleys. D'^n^ does not mean brooks here, but valleys watered by brooks. nis:^ to extend oneself, to stretch or spread out far and wide. Yea, "like gardens by the stream," which are still more lovely than the grassy and flowery valleys with brooks. This thought is carried out still further in the two following figures. D^^n« are aloe-trees, which grow in the East Indies, in Siam, in Cochin China, and upon the Moluccas, and from which the aloe-wood was obtained, that was so highly valued in the preparation of incense, on account of its fragrance. As the aloes were valued for their fragrant smell, so the cedars were valued on account of their lofty and luxuriant growth, and the durability of their wood. The predicate, " which Jehovah hath planted," corresponds, so far as the actual meaning is concerned, to D^D ''bv, " by water; " for this was " an expression used to designate trees that, on account of their peculiar excellence, were superior to ordinary trees" {Calvin; cf. Ps. civ. 16).— Yer. 7. And not only its dwellings, but Israel itself would also prosper abundantly. It would have an abundance of water, that leading source of all blessing and prosperity in the burning East. The nation is personified as a man carrying two pails overflowing with water. ivT is the dual D^'l^'J. The dual is generally used in connection with objects

^vllicll arc arranged in pairs, cither naturally or artificially (Ges. § 88, 2). ''His seed'^ (i.e. his posterity, not his sowing corn, the introduction of which, in this connection, would, to say the least, he very feeble here) " zs," i.e. grows up, " by many waters,^^ that is to say, enjoys the richest blessings (comp. Dent. viii. 7 and xi. 10 with Isa. xliv. 4, Ixv. 23). D^J (optative), " his king he high before (higher than) Agag.^^ A gag (J^i<, the fiery) is not the proper name of the Amalckite king defeated by Saul (1 Sam. xv. 8), but the title {iiomcn dignitatis) of the Amalekitc kings in ge}ieral, just as all the Egyptian kings had the common name of Pharaoh^ and the Philistine kin^s the name of Abimelech.^ The reason for mentioning the king of the Amalekites was, that he was selected as the impersonation of the enmity of the world against the kingdom of God, which culminated in the kings of the heathen; the Amalekites having been the first heathen tribe that attacked the Israelites on their journey to Canaan (Ex. xvii. 8). The introduction of one particular king would have been neither in keeping with the context, nor reconcilable with the general character of Balaam's utterances. Both before and afterward, Balaam predicts in great general outlines the good that would come to Israel; and how is it likely that he would suddenly break off in the midst to compare the kingdom of Israel w^ith the greatness of one particular king of the Amalekites? Even his fourth and last prophecy merely announces in great general terms the destruction of the different nations that rose up in hostility against Israel, without entering into special details, which, like the conquest of the Amalekites by Saul, had no material or permanent influence upon the attitude of the heathen towards the people of God; for after the defeat inflicted upon this tribe by Saul, they very speedily invaded the Israelitish territory again, and proceeded to plunder and lay it waste in just the same

^ See Hengstenherg (Dissertations, ii. 250; and Balaam, p. 458). Even Gesenius could not help expressing some doubt about there being any reference in this prophecy to the event described in 1 Sam. xv. 8 sqq., " unless," he says, " you suppose the name Agag to have been a name that was common to the kings of the Amalekites " {tJies. p. 19). He also points to the name Ahimelech^

of which he says (p. 9): "It was the name of several kings in the land of the Philistines, as of the king of Gerar in the l^imes of Abraham (Gen. xx. 2, 3, xxi. 22, 23), and of Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 1, 2), and also of the king of Gathin the time of David (Ps. xxxiv. 1; coll. 1 Sam. xxi. 10, where the same king is called AcMsK). It seems to have been the common name and title of those kings, as Pharaoh was of the early kings of Egypt, and Caesar and Augustus of the emperors of Rome."

manner as before (cf. 1 Sam. xxvii. 8, xxx. 1 sqq.; 2 Sam. viii. 12).^ ispD, his king, is not any one particular king of Israel, but quite generally the king whom the Israelites would afterwards receive. For is^'^ is substantially the same as the parallel ^'^^pDj the kingdom of Israel, which had already been promised to the patriarchs (Gen. xvii. 6, xxxv. 11), and in which the Israelites were first of all to obtain that full development of power which corresponded to its divine appointment; just as, in fact, the development of any people generally culminates in an organized kingdom. — The king of Israel, whose greatness was celebrated by Balaam, was therefore neither the Messiah exclusively, nor the earthly kingdom without the Messiah, but the kingdom of Israel that was established by David, and was exalted in the Messiah into an everlasting kingdom, the enemies of which would all be made its footstool (Ps. ii. and ex.). In vers. 8 and 9, Balaam proclaims still further: " God leads him out of Egypt; his strength is as that of a buffalo: he will devour nations his enemies, and crush their bones, and dash them in pieces with his arrows. He has encamped, he lies down like a lion, and like a lioness: who can drive him up? Blessed be they who bless thee, and cursed they who curse thee! " The fulness of power that dwelt in the people of Israel was apparent in the force and prowess with which their God brought them out of Egypt. This fact Balaam repeats from the previous saying (chap, xxiii. 22), for the purpose of Hnking on to it the still further announcement of the manner in which the power of the nation would show itself upon its foes in time to come. The words, " he will devour nations," call up the image of a lion, which is employed in ver. 9 to depict the indomitable heroic power of Israel, in words taken from Jacob's blessing in Gen. xlix. 9. The Piel D"]?. is a denom. verb from D^3, with the meaning to destroy, crush the bones, like ^'l^, to root out (cf. Ges, § 52, 2; Ewald, § 120, e.), V^n is not the object to rn?"!; for ]m, to dash to pieces, does not apply to arrows, which may be broken in pieces, but not dashed to pieces; and the singular suffix in V^n can only apply to the singular idea in the verse, i.e, to Israel, and not to

^ Even on the supposition (which is quite at variance with the character of all the prophecies of Balaam) that in the name of Agag, the contemporary of Saul, we have a vaticinium ex eventu, the allusion to this particular king would be exceedingly strange, as the Araalekites did not perform any prominent part among the enemies of Israel in the time of Saul; and the command to exterminate them was given to Saul, not because of any special harm that they had done to Israel at that time, but on account of what they had done to Israel on their way out of Egypt (corap. 1 Sam. xv. 2 with Ex. xvii. 8).

its enemies, who are spoken of in the plural. Arrows are singled out as representing weapons in general/ Balaam closes this utterance, as he had done the previous one, with a quotation from Jacob's blessing, which he introduces to show to Balak, that, according to words addressed by Jehovah to the Israelites through their own tribe-father, they were to overcome their foes so thoroughly, that none of them should venture to rise up against them again. To this he also links on the word with which Isaac had transferred to Jacob in Gen. xxvii. 29 the blessing of Abraham in Gen. xii. 3, for the purpose of warning Balak to desist from his enmity againit the chosen people of God.

Vers. 10-14. This repeated blessing of Israel threw Balak into such a violent rage, that he smote his hands together, and advised Balaam to fly to his house: adding, " / said, I will honour thee greatly (cf. xxii. 17 and 37); hut, behold, Jehovah has kept thee hack from honour^ "Smiting the hands together" was either a sign of horror (Lam. ii. 15) or of violent rage; it is in the Litter sense that it occurs both here and in Job xxvii. 33. In the w^rds, " Jehovah hath kept thee back from honour," the irony with which Balak scoffs at Balaam's confidence in Jehovah is unmistakeable. — ^Ver. 12. But Balaam reminds him, on the other hand, of the declaration which he made to the messengers at the very outset (chap. xxii. 18), that he could not on any account speak in opposition to the command of Jehovah, and then adds, " Aiid now, heholdj I go to my people. Come, I ivill tell thee advisedly what this people will do to thy people at the end of the days." YT, to advise; here it denotes an announcement, which includes advice. The announcement of what Israel would do to the Moabites in the future, contains the advice to Balak, what attitude he should assume towards Israel, if this people was to bring a blessing upon his own people and not a curse. On " the end of the days," see at Gen. xlix. 1.

Vers. 15-24. Balaam's /owr^/i and last prophecy is distinguished from the previous ones by the fact that, according to the announcement in ver. 14, it is occupied exclusively with the future, and foretells the victorious supremacy of Israel over all its foes, and the

^ The difficulty which many feel in connection with the word VJk*n cannot be removed by alterations of the text. The only possible conjecture vAn (liis loins) is wrecked upon the singular suffix, for the dashing to pieces of the loins of Israel is not for a moment to be tlionght of. KnobeC.s- proposal, viz. to read VDp, has no support in Deut. xxxiii. ll, and is mucli too violent to reckon upon destruction of all the powers of the world. This prophecy Is divided into four different prophecies by the fourfold repetition of the words, "he took up his parable" (vers. 15, 20, 21, and 23). The first of these refers to the two nations that were related to Israel, viz. Edom and Moab (vers. 17—19); the second to Amalek, the arch-enemy of Israel (ver. 20); the third to the Kenites, who were allied to Israel (vers. 21 and 22); and the fourth proclaims the overthrow of the great powers of the world (vers. 23 and 24). — The introduction in vers. 15 and 16 is the same as that of the previous prophecy in vers. 3 and 4, except that the words, " he which knew the knowledge of the Most High^^ are added to the expression, " he that heard the words of God^^ to show that Balaam possessed the knowledge of the Most High, i.e, that the word of God about to be announced had already been communicated to him, and was not made known to him now for the first time; though without implying that he had received the divine revelation about to be uttered at tie same time as those which he had uttered before. — Ver. 17. Th< prophecy itself commences with a picture from the " end of the days," which rises up before the mental eye of the seer. " / see Hinij yet not now; I behold Uimy but not nigh, A star appears out of Jacob, and a sceptre rises out of Israel, and dashes Moab in pieces on both sides, and destroys all the sons of confusion^ The suffixes to ^3^5"^i< and 13"^35^^^ refer to the star which is mentioned afterwards, and which Balaam sees in spirit, but " not now," i.e. not as having already appeared, and " not nigh," i,e. not to appear immediately, but to come forth out of Israel in the far distant future. " A star is so natural an image and symbol of imperial greatness and splendour, that it has been employed in this sense in almost every nation. And the fact that this figure and symbol are so natural, may serve to explain the belief of the ancient world, that the birth and accession of great kings was announced by the appearance of stars" {Hengstenberg, who cites Justini hist, xxxvii. 2; Plinii h, n. ii. 23; Sueton. Jul. Cces. c. 78; and Dio Cass. xlv. p. 273). If, however, there could be any doubt that the rising star represented the appearance of a glorious ruler or king, it would be entirely removed by the parallel, " a sceptre arises out of Israel." The sceptre, which was introduced as a symbol of dominion even in Jacob's blessing (Gen. xlix. 10), is employed here as the figurative representation and symbol of the future ruler in Israel. This ruler would destroy all the enemies of Israel. 3foab and (ver. 18) Edom are the first of these that are mentioned, viz. the two nations that were related to Israel by descent, but had risen up in hostility against it at that time. Moab stands in the foremost rank, not merely because Balaam was about to announce to the king of Moab what Israel would do to his people in the future, but also because the hostility of the heathen to the people of God had appeared most strongly in Balak's desire to curse the Israelites. 2t5iD "'J[l^?Q, " the tioo corners or sides of Moab^^ equivalent to Moab on both sides, from one end to the other. For "*i?'^i?, the inf. Pilp. of 'y^p or "T'iPj the meaning to destroy is fully established by the parallel T'!'^, and by Isa. xxii. 5, whatever may be thought of its etymology and primary meaning. And neither the Samaritan text nor the passage in Isaiah (xlviii. 45), which is based upon this prophecy, at all warrants an alteration of the reading "ip^P into ^'p'^p^ (the crown of the head), since Jeremiah almost invariably uses earlier writings in this free manner, viz. by altering the expressions employed, and substituting in the place of unusual words either more common ones, or such as are similar in sound (cf. KiXper^ Jerem. libror. ss. interpres atque vindex, pp. xiii. sqq. and p. 43). — rit^"'pzi"73 does not mean " all the sons of Seth^^ i.e. all mankind, as the human race is never called by the name of Seth; and the idea that the ruler to arise out of Israel would destroy all men, would be altogether unsuitable. It signifies rather " all the sons of confusion^^ by which, according to the analogy of Jacob and Israel (ver. 17), Edom and Seir (ver. 18), the Moabites are to be understood as being men of wild, warlike confusion. ^^ is a contraction of ^^?^' (Lam. iii. 47), and derived from ni<t^; and in Jer. xlviii. 45 it is correctly rendered p5<^ ""^^.^

In the announcement of destruction which is to fall upon the enemies of Israel through the star and sceptre out of the midst of

1 On the other hand, the rendering, " all the sons of the drinker, i.e. of Lot," which Hiller proposed, and v. Hofmann and Kurtz have renewed, is evidently untenable. For, in the first place, the fact related in Gen. xix. 32 sqq. does not warrant the assumption that Lot ever received the name of the " drinker," especially as the word used in Gen. xix. is not nncs hut T]p^- Moreover, the allusion to "all the sons of Lot," i.e. the Moabites and Ammonites, neither suits the thoroughly synonymous parallelism in the saying of Balaam, nor corresponds to the general character of his prophecies, which announced destruction primarily only to those nations that rose up in hostility against Israel, viz. Moab, Edom, and Amalek, whereas hitherto the Ammonites had not assumed either a hostile or friendly attitude towards them. And lastly, all the nations doomed to destruction are mentioned by name. Now the Ammonites were not a branch of the Moabites by descent, nor was their territory enclosed within tlie Moabitish territory, so that it could be included, as Hofmann supposes, within the " four corners of Moab."

it, Moab is followed by " its southern neighbour Eclom." — Yer. 18. '^And Edom becomes a possessioriy and Seir becomes a possession, its enemies; but Israel acquires power." Whose possession Edom and Seir are to become, is not expressly stated; but it is evident from the context, and from V^^k (its enemies), which is not a genitive dependent upon Seir, but is in apposition to Edom and Seir, just as V'JV in ver. 8 is in apposition to Q)i5. Edom and Seir were his, i.e. Israel's enenaies; therefore they were to be taken by the ruler who was to arise out of Israel. Edom is the name of the people, Seir of the country, just as in Gen. xxxii. 4; so that Seir is not to be understood as relating to the prae-Edomitish population of the land, which had been subjugated by the descendants of Esau, and had lost all its independence a long time before. In Moses' days the Israelites were not allowed to fight with the Edomites, even when they refused to allow them to pass peaceably through their territory (see chap. xx. 21), but were commanded to leave them in their possessions as a brother nation (Deut. ii. 4, 5). In the future, however, their relation to one another was to be a very different one; because the hostility of Edom, already in existence, grew more and more into obstinate and daring enmity, which broke up all the ties of affection that Israel was to regard as holy, and thus brought about the destruction of the Edomites. — The fulfilment of this prophecy commenced with the subjugation of the Edomites by David (2 Sam. viii. 14; 1 Kings xi. 15, 16; 1 Chron. xviii. 12, 13), but it will not be completed till "the end of the days," when all the enemies of God and His Church will be made the footstool of Christ (Ps. ex. 1 sqq.). That David did not complete the subjugation of Edom is evident, on the one hand, from the fact that the Edomites revolted again under Solomon, though without success (1 Kings xi. 14 sqq.); that they shook off the yoke imposed upon them under Joram (2 Kings viii. 20); and notwithstanding their defeat by Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 7; 2 Chron. xxv. 11) and Uzziah (2 Kings xiv. 22; 2 Chron. xxvi. 2), invaded Judah a second time under Ahaz (2 Chron. xxviii. 17), and afterwards availed themselves of every opportunity to manifest their hostility to the kingdom of Judah and the Jews generally, — as for example at the conquest of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (Ezek. xxxv. 15, xxxvi. 5; Obad. 10 and 13), and in the wars between the Maccabees and the Syrians (1 Mace. v. 3, 65; 2 Mace. x. 15, xii. 38 sqq.), — until they were eventually conquered by John Ilyrcanus in the year B.C. 129, and compelled to submit to circumcision, and incorporated in the Jewish state (Josephus, Ant, xlii. 9, 1, xv. 7, 9; Wars of the Jews, iv. 5, 5). But notwithstanding this, they got the government over the Jews into their own hands through Antipater and Herod (Josephus, Ant. xiv. 8, 5), and only disappeared from the stage of history with the destruction of the Jewish state by the liomans. On the other hand, the declarations of the prophets (Amos ix. 12; Obad. 17 sqq.), which foretell, with an unmistakeable allusion to this prophecy, the possession of the remnant of Edom by the kingdom of Israel, and the announcements in Isa. xxxiv. and Ixiii. 1-6, Jer. xlix. 7 sqq., Ezek. xxv. 12 sqq. and 35, comp. with Ps. cxxxvii. 7 and Lam. iv. 21, 22, prove still more clearly that Edom, as the leading foe of the kingdom of God, will only be utterly destroyed when the victory of the latter over the hostile power of the world has been fully and finally secured. — Whilst Edom falls, Israel will acquire power, ^^n nb^y^ to acquire ability or power (Deut. viii. 17, 18; Ruth iv. 11), not merely to show itself brave or strong. It is rendered correctly by OnJcelos, '^ prosperahitur in opibus;^^ and Jonathan^ " prcevalehunt in opibus et possidebunt eosT — Ver. 19. '^ And a ruler shall come out of Jacob^ and destroy ivhat is left out of cities^ The subject to "^7.^. is indefinite, and to be supplied from the verb itself. We have to think of the ruler foretold as star and sceptre. The abbreviated form '^yy is not used for the future ^T)\ but is jussive in its force. One out of Jacob shall rule. ">TO is employed in a collected and general sense, as in Ps. Ixxii. 16. Out of every city in which there is a remnant of Edom, it shall be destroyed. T'")b^ is equivalent to nnx nnxK^ (Amos ix. 12). The explanation, " destroy the remnant out of the city, namely, out of the holy city of Jerusialem" {Ewald and Baur)j is forced, and cannot be sustained from the parallelism.

Ver. 20. The second saying in this prophecy relates to the Amalekites. Balaam sees them, not with the eyes of his body, but in a state of ecstasy, like the star out of Jacob. " Beginning of the heathen is Amalek, and its end is destruction^ Amalek is called the beginning of the nations, not "as belonging to the most distinguished and foremost of the nations in age, power, and celebrity" (Knobel), — for in all these respects this Bedouin tribe, which descended from a grandson of Esau, was surpassed by many other nations, — but as the first heathen nation which opened the conflict of the heathen nations against Israel as the people of God (see at Ex. xvii. 8 sqq-)* As its beginning had been enmity against Israel, its end would be "even to the perishing" (^3K ny)^ i,e. reaching the position of one who was perishing, falling into destruction, which commenced under Saul and was completed under Hezekiah (see vol. i. p. 324).

Vers. 21 and 22. The third saying relates to the Kenites, whose origin is involved in obscurity (see at Gen. xv. 19), as there are no other Kenites mentioned in the whole of the Old Testament, with the exception of Gen. xv. 19, than the Kenites who went to Canaan with Hobab the brother-in-law of Moses (chap. x. 29 sqq.: see Judg. i. 16, iv. 11; 1 Sam. xv. 6, xxvii. 10, xxx. 29); so that there are not sufficient grounds for the distinction between Canaanitlsh and Midianitish Kenites, as Michcelis, Hengstenherg^ and others suppose. The hypothesis that Balaam is speaking of Canaanitlsh Kenites, or of the Kenites as representatives of the Canaanltes, is as unfounded as the hypothesis that by the Kenites we are to understand the Midianites, or that the Kenites mentioned here and in Gen. xv. 19 are a branch of the supposed aboriginal Amalekites (Ewald). The saying concerning the Kenites runs thus: " Durable is thy dwellingplace, and thy nest laid upon the rock; for should Kain he destroyed until Asshur shall carry thee captiveV^ This saying "applies to friends and not to foes of Israel " {v, Hofmann), so that it is perfectly applicable to the Kenites, who were friendly with Israel. The antithetical association of the Amalekites and Kenites answers perfectly to the attitude assumed at Horeb towards Israel, on the one hand by the Amalekites, and on the other hand by the Kenites, in the person of Jethro the leader of their tribe (see Ex. xvii. 8 sqq., xvili., and vol. ii. p. 83). The dwelling-place of the Kenites was of lasting duration, because its nest was laid upon a rock (D^i|^ is a passive participle, as in 2 Sam. xlli. 32, and Obad. 4). This description of the dwelling-place of the Kenites cannot be taken llterallv, because it cannot be shown that either the Kenites or the Midianites dwelt in inaccessible mountains, as the Edomltes are said to have done in Obad. 3, 4; Jer. xlix. 16. The words are to be interpreted figuratively, and in all probability the figure is taken from the rocky mountains of Iloreb, in the neighbourhood of which the Kenites led a nomade life before their association with Israel (see at Ex. ill. 1). As v. Ilofmann correctly observes: " Kain, which had left its inaccessible mountain home in Iloreb, enclosed as it was by the desert, to join a people who were only wandering in search of a home, by that very act really placed its rest upon a still safer rock." This is sustained in ver. 22 by the statement that Kain would not be given up to destruction till Asshur carried it away into captivity. DK ^3 does not mean " nevertheless."

It sifrnifies " unless " after a negative clause, whether the negation be expressed directly by N^, or indirectly by a question; and "onZy" where it is not preceded by either a direct or an indirect negation, as in Gen. xl. 14; Job xlii. 8. The latter meaning, however, is not applicable here, because it is unsuitable to the '"^^'^ij (until) which follows. Consequently n)5< can only be understood in the sense of "is it that," as in 1 Kings i. 27, Isa. xxix. 16, Job xxxi. 16, etc., and as introducing an indirect query in a 7-«egative sense: " For is it (the case) that Kain shall fall into destruction until...?" — equivalent to "Kain shall not be exterminated until Asshur shall carry him away into captivity;" Kain will only be overthrown by the Assyrian imperial power. Kain^ the tribe-father, is used poetically for the Kenite, the tribe of which he was the founder. "1^3, to exterminate, the sense in which it frequently occurs, as in Deut. xiii. 6, xvii. 7, etc. (cf. 2 Sam. iv. 11; 1 Kings xxii. 47). — For the fulfilment of this prophecy we are not to look merely to the fact that one branch of the Kenites, which separated itself, according to Judg. iv. 11, from its comrades in the south of Judah, and settled in Naphtali near Kadesh, was probably carried away into captivity by Tiglath^t-Pileser along with the population of Galilee (2 Kings xv. 29); but the name Asshur, as the name of the first great kingdom of the world, which rose up from the east against the theocracy, is employed, as we may clearly see from ver. 24, to designate all the powers of the world which took their rise in Asshur, and proceeded forth from it (see also Ezra vi. 22, where the Persian kino; is still called kins; of Asshur or Assyria). Balaam did not foretell that this worldly power would oppress Israel also, and lead it into captivity, because the oppression of the Israelites was simply a transitory judgment, which served to refine the nation of God and not to destroy it, and which was even appointed according to the counsel of God to open and prepare the way for the conquest of the kingdoms of the world by the kingdom of God. To the Kenites only did the captivity become a judgment of destruction; because, although on terms of friendship with the people of Israel, and outwardly associated with them, yet, as is clearly shown by 1 Sam. xv. G, they never entered inwardly into fellowship with Israel and Jehovah's covenant of grace, but sought to maintain their own independence side by side with Israel, and thus forfeited the blessing of God which rested upon Israel.^

1 This simple but historically established intcrjiretation completely removes the objccLiou, '' that Balaam could no more foretell destructiou to the friends of

Vers. 23, 24. lll\iQ fourth saying applies to Asshur, and is introduced by an exclamation of woe: " Woe! wJio will live, when God sets this I And ships (come) /rom the side of Chittim, and press Asshur, and press Eber, and he also perishes^ The words " Woe, who will live/' point to the fearfulness of the following judgment, which went deep to the heart of the seer, because it would fall upon the sons of his own people (see at chap. xxii. 5). The meaning is, " Who will preserve his life in the universal catastrophe that is coming?" (Hengstenberg.) i^^p, either "since the setting of it," equivalent to " from the time when God sets (determines) this " (orav 6fi ravra 6 0eo9, quando faciei ista Deus; LXX., Vulg,), or " on account of the setting of it," i.e. because God determines this. Dit^, to set, applied to that which God establishes, ordains, or brings to pass, as in Isa. xliv. 7; Hab. i. 12. The suffix in ^^'^^ is not to be referred to Asshur, as Knohel supposes, because the prophecy relates not to Asshur " as the mighty power by which everything was crushed and overthrown," but to a power that would come from the far west and crush Asshur itself. The suffix refers rather to the substance of the prophecy tliat follows, and is to be understood in a neuter sense. ^^ is "God," and not an abbreviation of npi<j which is always written with the article in the Pentateuch (Pt^n, Gen. xix. 8, 25, xxvi. 3, 4; Lev. xviii. 27; Deut. iv. 42, vii. 22, xix. 11), and only occurs once without the article, viz. in 1 Chron. XX. 8. D''^, from ''^ (Isa. xxxiii. 21), signifies ships, like D^*^* in the passage in Dan. xi. 30, which is founded upon the prophecy before us. ^*p, from the side, as in Ex. ii. 5, Deut. ii. 37, etc. C)''iyi3 is Cyprus with the capital Citium (see at Gen. x. 4), which is mentioned as intervening between Greece and Phoenicia, and the principal station for the maritime commerce of Phoenicia, so that all the fleets passing from the west to the east necessarily took Cyprus in their way (Isa. xxiii. 1). The nations that would come across the sea from the side of Cyprus to humble Asshur, are not mentioned by name, because this lay beyond the range of Balaam's vision. He simply gives utterance to the thought, "A power comes from Chittim over the sea, to which Asshur and Eber, the eastern and the western Shem, will both succumb " (y. Hofmami). Eber neither refers to the Israelites merely as Hebrews (LXX.,

Israel than to Israel itself," by which Kurtz would preclude the attempt to refer this prophecy to the Kenites, who were in alliance with Israel. His further objections to v. UofmanrCs view are either inconclusive, or at any rate do not affect the explanation that we have given.

Vulg.), nor to the races beyond the Euphrates, as Onkelos and others suppose, but, like "all the sons of Eber" in Gen. x. 21, to the posterity of Abraham who descended from Eber through Peleg, and also to the descendants of Eber through Joktan: so that Asshur, as the representative of the Shemites who dwelt in the far east, included Elam within itself; whilst Eber, on the other hand, represented the western Shemites, the peoples that sprang from Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram (Gen. x. 21). " And he also shall perish for ever:'''' these words cannot relate to Asshur and Eber, for their fate is already announced in the word ^3y (afflict, press), but only to the new western power that was to come over the sea, and to which the others were to succumb. " Whatever powers might rise up in the world of peoples, the heathen prophet of Jehovah sees them all fall, one through another, and one after another; for at last he loses in the distance the power to discern whence it is that the last which he sees rise up is to receive its fatal blow" {v. Hofmami, p. 520). The overthrow of this last power of the world, concerning which tlie prophet Daniel was the first to receive and proclaim new revelations, belongs to " the end of the days," in which the star out of Jacob is to rise upon Israel as a " bright morning star " (Rev. xxii. 16).

Now if according to this the fact is firmly established, that in this last prophecy of Balaam, " the judgment of history even upon the imperial powers of the West, and the final victory of the King of the kingdom of God were proclaimed, though in fading outlines, more than a thousand years before the events themselves," as Tholuck has expressed it in his Propheten und ihre Weissagung; the announcement of the star out of Jacob, and the sceptre out of Israel, i.e. of the King and Kuler of the kingdom of God, who was to dash Moab to pieces and take possession of Edom, cannot have received its complete fulfilment in the victories of David over these enemies of Israel; but will only be fully accomplished in the future overthrow of all the enemies of the kingdom of God. By the " end of days," both here and everywhere else, we are to understand the Messianic era, and that not merely at its commencement, but in its entire development, until the final completion of the kingdom of God at the return of our Lord to judgment. In the " star out of Jacob," Balaam beholds not David as the one king of Israel, but the Messiah, in whom the royalty of Israel promised to the patriarchs (Gen. xvii. G, 16, xxxv. 11) attains its fullest realization. The star and sceptre are symbols not of " Israel's royalty personified "

(Hengstenberg), but of the real King in a concrete form, as He was to arise out of Israel at a future day. It is true that Israel received the promised King in David, who conquered and subjugated the Moabites, Edomites, and other neighbouring nations that were hostile to Israel. But in the person of David and his rule the kingly government of Israel was only realized in its first and imperfect beginnings. Its completion was not attained till the coming of the second David (Hos. iii. 5; Jer. xxx. 9; Ezek. xxxiv. 24, xxxvii. 24, 25), the Messiah Himself, who breaks in pieces all the enemies of Israel, and founds an everlasting kingdom, to which all the kingdoms and powers of this world are to be brought into subjection (2 Sam vii. 12-16; Ps. ii., Ixxii., and cx.).^

If, however, the star out of Jacob first rose upon the world in Christ, the star which showed the wise men from the east the wav to the new-born " King of the Jews," and went before them, till it stood above the manger at Bethlehem (Matt. ii. 1-11), is intimately related to our prophecy. Only we must not understand the allusion as being so direct, that Balaam beheld the very star which appeared to the wise men, and made known to them the birth of the Saviour of the world. The star of the wise men was rather an embodiment of the star seen by Balaam, which announced to them the fulfilment of Balaam's prophecy, — a visible sign by which God revealed to them the fact, that the appearance of the star which

^ The application of the star out of Jacob to the Messiah is to be found even in Onkelos; and this interpretation was so widely spread among the Jews, that the pseudo- Messiah who arose under Hadrian, and whom even R. Akiha acknowledged, took the name of Bar Cochba (son of a star), in consequence of this prophecy, from which the nickname of Bar Coziba (son of a lie) was afterwards formed, when he had submitted to the Romans, with all his followers. In the Christian Church also the Messianic explanation was the prevalent one, from the time of Justin and Irenxus onwards (see the proofs in Calovii Bihl. ad h. /.), although, according to a remark of Theodoret {qu. 44 ad Num.), there were some who did not adopt it. The exclusive application of the passage to David was so warmly defended, first of all by Grotius, and still more by Verschuir, that even Hengstenherg and Tholuck gave up the Messianic interpretation. But they both of them came back to it afterwards, the former in his " Balaam " and the second edition of his Christology, and the latter in his treatise on " the Prophets." At the present time the Messianic character of the prophecy is denied by none but the supporters of the more vulgar rationalism, such as Knobel and others; whereas G. Baur (in liis History of Old Testament Prophecy) has no doubt that the prediction of the star out of Jacob points to the exalted and glorious King, filled with the Holy Spirit, whom Isaiah (ch. ix. 6, xi. 1 sqq.) and Micah (v. 2) expected as the royal founder of the theocracy. Reinke gives a complete history of the interpretation of this passage in his Btitrtige, iv. 186 sqq.

Balaam beheld in the far distant future had been realized at Bethlehem in the birth of Christ, the King of the Jews. — The " wise men from the east," who had been made acquainted with the revelations of God to Israel by the Jews of the diaspora, might feel themselves specially attracted in their search for the salvation of the world by the predictions of Balaam, from the fact that this seer belonged to their own country, and came " out of the mountains of the east " (ch. xxili. 7); so that they made his sayings the centre of their expectations of salvation, and were also conducted through them to the Saviour of all nations by means of supernatural illumination. " God unfolded to their minds, which were already filled with a longing for the ' star out of Jacob ' foretold by Balaam, the meaning of the star which proclaimed the fulfilment of Balaam's prophecy; lie revealed to them, that is to say, the fact that it announced the birth of the ' King of the Jews.' And just as Balaam had joyously exclaimed, ' I see Him,' and ' I behold Him,' they also could say, ' We have seen Plis star'" (^Hengste7iherg).

If, in conclusion, we compare Balaam's prophecy of the star that would come out of Jacob, and the sceptre that would rise out of Israel, with the prediction of the patriarch Jacob, of the sceptre that should not depart from Judah, till the Shiloh came whom the nations would obey (Gen. xlix. 10), it is easy to observe that Balaam not only foretold more clearly the attitude of Israel to the nations of the world, and the victory of the kingdom of God over every hostile kingdom of the world; but that he also proclaimed the Bringer of Peace expected by Jacob at the end of the days to be a mighty ruler, whose sceptre would break in pieces and destroy all the enemies of the nation of God. The tribes of Israel stood before the mental eye of the patriarch in their full development into the nation in which all the families of the earth were to be blessed. From this point of view, the salvation that was to blossom in the future for the children of Israel culminated in the peaceful kingdom of the Shilohy in whom the dominion of the victorious lion out of Judah was to attain its fullest perfection. But the eye of Balaam, the seer, which had been opened by the S})lrlt of God, beheld tlie nation of Israel encamped, according to its tribes, in the face of its foes, the nations of this world. They were endeavouring to destroy Israel; but according to the counsel of the Ahnlglity God and Lord of the whole world, in their warfare against the nation that was blessed of Jehovah, they were to succumb one after the other, and be destroyed by the king that was to arise out of IsraeL This determinate counsel of the Hvino; God was to be proclaimed by Balaam, the heathen seer out of Mesopotamia the centre of the national development of the ancient world: and, first of all, to the existing representatives of the nations of the world that were hostile to Israel, that they might see what would at all times tend to their peace — might see, that is to say, that in their hostility to Israel they were rebelling against the Almighty God of heaven arid earth, and that they would assui'edly perish in the conflict, since life and salvation were only to be found with the people of Israel, whom God had blessed. And even though Balaam had to make known the purpose of the Lord concerning His people primarily, and in fact solely, to the Moabites and their neighbours, who were like-minded with them, his announcement was also intended for Israel itself, and was to be a pledge to the congregation of Israel for all time of the certain fulfilment of the promises of God; and so to fill them with strength and courage, that in all their conflicts with the powers of this world, they should rely upon the Lord their God with the firmest confidence of faith, should strive with unswerving fidelity after the end of their divine calling, and should build up the kingdom of God on earth, which is to outlast all the kingdoms of the world. — In what manner the Israelites became acquainted w^ith the prophecies of Balaam, so that Moses could incorporate them into the Thorah, we are nowhere told, but we can infer It with tolerable certainty from the subsequent fate of Balaam himself.

Yer. 25. At the close of this announcement Balaam and Balak departed from one another. " Balaam rose up, and ivent and turned towards his place^ (i.e. set out on the way to his house); " and king Balak also went his wayT i^pp? ^'^^^ does not mean, " he returned to his place," into his home beyond the Euphrates (equivalent to iDpD"?Nl ^b^^), but merely " he turned towards his place" (both here and in Gen. xvili. 33). That he really returned home, is not implied in the words themselves; and the question, whether he did so, must be determined from other circumstances. In the further course of the history, we learn that Balaam went to the MIdianites, and advised them to seduce the Israelites to unfaithfulness to Jehovah, by tempting them to join in the worship of Peor (chap. xxxi. 16). He was still with them at the time when the Israelites engaged in the war of vengeance against that people, and was slain by the Israelites along with the five princes of Midian (chap. xxxi. 8;

Josh. xlii. 22). At the tune when he fell into the liands of the Israelites, he no doubt made a full communication to the Israelitish general, or to Phinehas, who accompanied the army as priest, concerning his blessings and prophecies, probably in the hope of saving his life; though he failed to accomplish his end.^

Vers. 1-5. The Lord had defended His people Israel from Balaam's curse; but the Israelites themselves, instead of keeping the covenant of their God, fell into the snares of heathen seduction (vers. 1, 2). Whilst encamped at Shittim, in the steppes of Moab, the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab: they accepted the invitations of the latter to a sacrificial festival of their gods, took part in their sacrificial meals, and even worshipped the gods of the Moabites, and indulged in the licentious worship of Baal-Peor, As the princes of Midian, who were allied to Moab, had been the advisers and assistants of the Moabitish king in the attempt to destroy the Israelites by a curse of God; so now, after the failure of that plan, they were the soul of the new undertaking to weaken Israel and render it harmless, by seducing it to idolatry, and thus leading it into apostasy from its God. But it was Balaam, as is afterwards casually observed in chap. xxxi. 16, who first of all gave this advice. This is passed over here, because the point of chief importance in relation to the object of the narrative, was not Balaam's share in the proposal, but the carrying out of the proposal itself. The daughters of Moab, however, also took part in carrying it out, by fgrming friendly associations with the Israelites, and then inviting them to their sacrificial festival. They only are mentioned in vers. 1, 2, as being the daughters of the land. The participation of the Midianites appears first of all in the shameless licentiousness of Cozhi^ the daughter of the Midianitish prince, from which we not only see that the princes of Midian performed their

^ It is possible, however, as Hengstenherg imagines, that after Balaam's departure from Balak, he took his way into the camp of the Israehtes, and there made known his prophecies to Moses or to the elders of Israel, in the hope of obtaining from them the reward which Balak had withheld, and that it was not till after his failure to obtain full satisfaction to his ambition and covetousness here, that he went to the Midianites, to avenge himself upon the Israelites, by the proposals that he made to them. The objections made by Kurtz to this conjecture are not strong enough to prove that it is inadmissible, though the possibility of the thing does not involve either its probability or its certainty.

part, but obtain an explanation of the reason why the judgment upon the crafty destroyers of Israel was to be executed upon the Midianites.^ Shkiim, an abbreviation of AheUShittim (see at chap, xxii. 1), to which the camp of the Israelites in the steppes of Moab reached (chap, xxxiii. 49)^ is mentioned here instead of Arhoth- Moab, because it was at this northern point of the camp that the Israelites came into contact with the Moabites, and that the latter invited them to take part in their sacrificial meals; and in Josh. ii. 1 and iii. 1, because it was from this spot that the Israelites commenced the journey to Canaan, as being the nearest to the place where they were to pass through the Jordan. n:T, construed with?^y as in Ezek. xvi. 28, signifies to incline to a person, to attach one's self to him, so as to commit fornication. The word applies to carnal and spiritual whoredom. The lust of the flesh induced the Israelites to approach the daughters of Moab, and form acquaintances and friendships with them, in consequence of which they were invited by them " to the slain-offerings of their gods," i.e. to the sacrificial festivals and sacrificial meals, in connection with which they also " adored their gods," i.e. took part in the idolatrous worship connected with the sacrificial festival. These sacrificial meals were celebrated in honour of the Moabitish god Baal-Peor, so that the Israelites joined themselves to him. ^^^, in the JViphal, to bind one's self to a person. Baal-Peor is the Baal of Peor, who was worshipped in the city of Beth-Peor (Deut. iii. 29, iv. 46; see at chap, xxiii. 28), a Moabitish Priapus, in honour of whom w^omen and virgins prostituted themselves. As the god of war, he was called Chemosh (see at chap. xxi. 29). — Vers. 3-5. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people, so that Jehovah commanded Moses to fetch the heads of the people, i.e. to assemble them together, and to " hang up" the men who had joined themselves to Baal-Peor " before the Lord against the sun," that the anger of God might turn away from Israel. The burning of the wrath of God, which was to be turned away from the people by the punishment of the

^ Consequently there is no discrepancy between vers. 1-5 and 6-18, to warrant the violent hypothesis of Knobel^ that there are two different accounts mixed together in this chapter, — an Elohistic account in vers. 6-18, of which the commencement has been dropped, and a Jehovistic account in vers. 1-^5, of which the latter part has been cut off. The particular points adduced in proof of this fall to the ground, when the history is correctly explained; and such assertions as these, that the name Shittim and the allusion to the judges in ver. 6, and to the wrath of Jehovah in vers. 3 and 4, arc foreign to the Elohist, are not proofs, but empty assumptions.

guilty, as enjoined upon Moses, consisted, as we may see from vers. 8, 9, in a plague inflicted upon the nation, which carried off a great number of the people, a sudden death, as in chap. xiv. 37, xvii. 11. rpin^ from VP^, to be torn apart or torn away (Ges., Winer)^ refers to the punishment of crucifixion, a mode of capital punishment which was adopted by most of the nations of antiquity (see Winer, bibl. R. W. i. p. 680), and was carried out sometimes by driving a stake into the body, and so impaling them {ava(jKo\oiTiC,uv), the mode practised by the Assyrians and Persians (Herod, iii. 159, and Layard^s Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 374, and plate on p. 369), at other times by fastening them to a stake or nailing them to a cross (avaaravpovv). In the instance before us, however, the idolaters were not impaled or crucified alive, but, as we may see from the word ^2'^n in ver. 5, and in accordance with the custom frequently adopted by other nations (see Herzogs Encyclopsedia), they were first of all put to death, and then impaled upon a stake or fastened upon a cross, so that the impaling or crucifixion was only an aggravation of the capital punishment, like the burning in Lev. XX. 14, and the hanging (^^^) in Deut. xxi. 22. The rendering adopted by the LXX. and Vulgate is irapaSetyfjiaT l^etv, suspendere, in this ^passage, and in 2 Sam. xxi. 6, 9, e^rjXia^eiv (to expose to the sun), and crucijigere. •^P"'?, for Jehovah, as satisfaction for Him, Le, to appease His wrath. UT\S^ (them) does not refer to the heads of the nation, but to the guilty persons, upon whom the heads of the nation were to pronounce sentence. — Yer. 5. The judges were to put to death every one his men, i.e. such of the evil-doers as belonged to his forum, according to the judicial arrangements instituted in Ex-, xviii. This command of Moses to the judges was not carried out, however, because the matter took a different turn.

Vers. 6-9. Whilst the heads of the people were deliberating on the subject, and the whole congregation was assembled before the tabernacle, weeping on account of the divine wrath, there came an Israelite, a prince of the tribe of Simeon, who brought a Midianitish woman, the daughter of a Midianitish chief (ver. 14), to his brethren, i.e. into the camp of the Israelites, before the eyes of Moses and all the congregation, to commit adultery with her in his tent. This shameless wickedness, in which the depth of the corruption that had penetrated into the congregation came to light, inflamed the zeal of PhinehaSy the son of Eleazar the high priest, to such an extent, that he seized a spear, and rushing into the tent of the adulterer, pierced both of them through in the very act. ^pn, lit the arched, or arch, is applied here to the inner or hinder division of the tent, the sleeping-room and women's room in the larger tents of the upper classes. — Vers. 8, 9. Through this judgment, which was executed by Phinehas with holy zeal upon the daring sinners, the plague was restrained, so that it came to an end. The example which Phinehas had made of these sinners was an act of intercession, by which the high priest appeased the wrath of God, and averted the judgment of destruction from tlie whole congregation (" he was zealous for his God," "'S?!'!!, ver. 13). The thought upon which this expression is founded is, that the punishment which was inflicted as a purifying chastisement served as a " covering " against the exterminating judgment (see Herzog's Cyclopaedia).^ — Ver. 9. Twenty-four thousand men were killed by this plague. The Apostle Paul deviates from this statement in 1 Cor. x. 8, and gives the number of those that fell as twenty-three thousand, probably from a traditional interpretation of the schools of the scribes, according to which a thousand were deducted from the twenty-four thousand who perished, as being the number of those who were hanged by the judges, so that only twenty-three thousand would be killed by the plague; and it is to these alone that Paul refers.

Vers. 10-15. For this act of divine zeal the eternal possession of the priesthood was promised to Phinehas and his posterity as Jehovah's covenant of peace. ^^PP3, by displaying my zeal in the midst of them (viz. the Israelites). ''^^??i? is not " zeal for me," but " my zeal," the zeal of Jehovah with which Phinehas was filled, and impelled to put the daring sinners to death. By doing this he had averted destruction from the Israelites, and restrained the working of Jehovah's zeal, which had manifested itself in the plague. '^ I gave him my covenant of peace^^ (the sufhx is attached to the governing noun, as in Lev. vi. 3). H^"]^ |rij, as in Gen. xvii. 2, to give, i.e, to fulfil the covenant, to grant w^hat was promised in the covenant. The covenant granted to Phinehas consisted in the fact, that an " eternal priesthood " {i.e, the eternal possession of the

^ Upon this act of Phinehas, and the similar examples of Samuel (1 Sam. xv. 33) and Mattathias (1 Mace. ii. 24), the later Jews erected the so-called " zealot right," jus zelotarum^ according to which any one, even though not qualified by his official position, possessed the right, in cases of any daring contempt of the theocratic institutions, or any daring violation of the honour of God, to proceed with vengeance against the criminals. (See Salden, otia theol. pp. 609 sqq., and Buddeus^ de jure zelotarum apud Ilehr. 1699, and in OelricKs collect. T. i. Diss. 5.) The stoning of Stephen furnishes an example of this.

priesthood) was secured to him, not for himself alone, but for his descendants also, as a covenant, i.e. in a covenant, or irrevocable form, since God never breaks a covenant that He has made. In accordance with this promise, the high-priesthood which passed from Eleazar to Phinehas (Judg. xx. 28) continued in his family, with the exception of a brief interruption in Eli's days (see at 1 Sam. i.-iii. and xiv. 3), until the time of the last gradual dissolution of the Jewish state through the tyranny of Herod and his successors (see my Archdologie, § 38). — In vers. 14, 15, the names of the two daring sinners are given. The father of Cozbi, the Midianitish princess, was named Zur, and is described here as " head of the tribes (^i^^^, see at Gen. xxv. 16) of a father's house in Midian," i.e. as the head of several of the Midianitish tribes that were descended from one tribe-father; in chap. xxxi. 8, however, he is described as a king, and classed among the five kings of Midian who w^ere slain by the Israelites.

Vers. 16—18. The Lord now commanded Moses to show hostility C^']^) to the Midianites, and smite them, on account of the stratagem which they had practised upon the Israelites by tempting them to idolatry, " in order that the practical zeal of Phinehas against sin, by which expiation had been made for the guilt, might be adopted by all the nation" (JBaumgarten). The inf. ahs. '^i'ly, instead of the imperative^ as in Ex. xx. 8, etc. 'S '^T^pV, in consideration of Peor, and indeed, or especially, in consideration of Cozbi. The repetition is emphatic. The wickedness of the Midianites culminated in the shameless wantonness of Cozbi the Midianitish princess. " Their sister^^ i.e. one of the members of their tribe. — The 19th verse belongs to the following chapter, and forms the introduction to chap. xxvi. 1.^

Before taking vengeance upon the Midianites, as they had been commanded, the Israelites were to be mustered as the army of Jehovah, by means of a fresh numbering, since the generation that was mustered at Sinai (chap, i.-iv.) had died out in the wilderness, with the sole exception of Caleb and Joshua (vers. 64, (Sb). On this ground the command of God was issued, " after the plague," for a fresh census and muster. For with the plague the last of those who came out of Egypt, and were not to enter Canaan, had * In the English version this division is adopted. — Tr.

been swept away, and thus the sentence had been completely executed.—The object of the fresh numbering, however, was not merely to muster Israel for the war with the Midianites, and in the approaching conquest of the promised land with the Canaanites also, but was intended to serve at the same time as a preparation for their settlement in Canaan, viz. for the division of the conquered land among the tribes and families of Israel. For this reason (chap. xxvL) the families of the different tribes are enumerated here, which was not the case in chap. i.; and general instructions are 'also given in vers. 52-56, with reference to the.division of Canaan.— The numbering was simply extended, as before, to the male population of the age of 20 years and upwards, and was no doubt carried out, like the previous census at Sinai, by Moses and the high priest (Eleazar), with the assistance of the heads of the tribes, although the latter are not expressly mentioned here.— The names of the families correspond— with very few exceptions, which have been already noticed in vol. i. pp. 372-3— to the grandsons and great-grandsons of Jacob mentioned in Gen. xlvi.— With regard to the total number of the people, and the number of the different tribes, compare the remarks at pp. 4 sqq.

Vers. 1-51. Mustering of the Twelve Tribes.— Vers. 1-4. The command of God to Moses and Eleazar is the same as in chap. i., ii., and iii., except that it does not enter so much into details. — Ver. 3. '' A7id Moses and Eleazar the priest spake with them'' p3^ with the accusative, as in Gen. xxxvii. 4). The pronoun refers to "the children of Israel," or more correctly, to the heads of the nation as the representatives of the congregation, who were to carry out the numbering. On the Arhoth-Moab, see at chap. xxii. 1. Only the leading point in their words is mentioned, viz. " from twenty years old and upwards " {sc, shall ye take the number of the children of Israel), since it was very simple to supply the words "take the sum" from ver. 2.^— The words from "the

» This is, at all events, easier and simpler than the alterations of the text which have been suggested for the purpose of removing the difficulty. Knobel proposes to alter nni^^ into ^^y\ and nbX^ into TpD^: " Moses and Eleazar arranged the children of Israel" when they mustered them." But n-nnn does not mean to arrange, but simply to drive in pairs, to subjugate (Ps. xviii. 48, and xlvii 4),— an expression which, as must be immediately apparent, is altogether inapplicable to the arrangement of the people in families for the purpose of taking a census.

children of Israel " in ver. 4 onwards form the introduction to the enumeration of the different tribes (vers. 5 sqq.), and the verb ^^^^ (were) must be supplied. " And the children of Israel, who went forth out of Egypt, were ReubeJi" etc. — Vers. 5-11. The families of Reuben tally with Gen. xlvi. 9, Ex. vi. 14, and 1 Chron. v. 3. The plural '•pS (sons), in ver. 8, where only one son is mentioned, is to be explained from the fact, that several sons of this particular son (i.e. grandsons) are mentioned afterwards. On Dathan and Ahiram, see at chap. xvi. 1 and 32 sqq. See also the remark made here in vers. 106 and 11, viz. that those who were destroyed with the company of Korah were for a sign (Dp, here a warning); but that the sons of Korah were not destroyed along with their father. — Vers. 12-14. The Simeonites counted only five families, as Chad (Gen. xlvi. 10) left no family. Nemuel is called Jemuel there, as yod and nun are often interchanged (cf. Ges. thes. pp. 833 and 557); and Zerach is another name of the same signification for Zohar {Zerach, the rising of the sun; Zohar, candor, splendour). — Vers. 15-18. The Gadites are the same as in Gen. xlvi. 16, except that Ozni is' called Ezhon there. — Vers. 19-22. The sons and families of Judah agree with Gen. xlvi. 12 (cf. Gen. xxxviii. 6 sqq.); also with 1 Chron. ii. 3-5. — Vers. 23-25. The families of Issachar correspond to the sons mentioned in Gen. xlvi. 13, except that the name Job occurs there instead of Jashub, The two names have the same signification, as Job is derived from an Arabic word which signifies to return. — Vers. 26 and 27. The families of Zebulun correspond to the sons named in Gen. xlvi. 14. — Vers. 28-37. The descendants of Joseph were classified in* two leading families, according to his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim, who were born before the removal of Israel to Egypt, and were raised into founders of tribes in consequence of the patriarch Israel having adopted them as his own sons (Gen. xlviii.).— Vers. 29-34. Eight families descended from Manasseh: viz. one from his son Machir, the second from Machir's son or Manasseh's grandson Gilead, and the other six from the six sons of Gilead. The genealogical accounts in chap, xxvii. 1, xxxvi. 1, and Josh. xvii. 1 sqq., fully harmonize with this, except that lezer (ver. 30) is called Abiezer in Josh. xvii. 2; whereas only a part of the names mentioned here occur in the genealogical fragments in 1 Chron. ii. 21—24, and vii. 14-29. In ver. 33, a son of Hepher, named Zelophehad, is mentioned. He had no sons, but only daughters, whose names are given here to prepare the way for the legal regulations mentioned in chap, xxvii. and xxxvi., to which this fact gave rise.*— Yers. 35-37. There were four famihes descended from Epliraim; three from his sons, and one from his grandson. Of the descendants of Sutelah several successive links are given in 1 Chron. vii. 20 sqq. — ^Yers. 38-41. The children of Benjamin formed seven families, five of whom were founded by his sons, and two by grandsons. (On the differences which occur between the names given here and those in Gen. xlvi. 21, see vol. i. pp. 372, 373.) Some of the sons and grandsons of Benjamin mentioned here are also found in the genealogical fragments in 1 Chron. vii. 6-18, and viii. 1 sqq. — Vers. 42 and 43. The descendants of Dan formed only one family, named from a son of Dan, who is called ShuJiam here, but Hushim in Gen. xlvi. 23; though this family no doubt branched out into several smaller families, which are not named here, simply because this list contains only the leading families into which the tribes were divided. — Yers. 44-47. The families of AsJier aorree with the sons of Asher mentioned in Gen. xlvi. 17 and 1 Chron. vii. 30, except that Ishuah is omitted here, because he founded no family. — Yers. 48-50. The families of Naphtali tally with the sons of Naphtali in Gen. xlvi. 24 and 1 Chron. vii. 30. — ^Yer. 51. The total number of the persons mustered was 601,730.

Yers. 52-56. Instructions concerning the Distribution OF THE Land. — In vers. 53, 54, the command is given to distribute the land as an inheritance among the twelve tribes (" unto these "), according to the number of the names (chap. i. 2-18), Le. of the persons counted by name in each of their families. To a numerous tribe they were to make the inheritance great; to the littleness, Le, to the tribes and families that contained only a few persons, they were to make it small; to every one according to the measure of its mustered persons (p must be repeated before ^^^^, In vers, bb, bQ>j it is still further commanded that the distribution should take place by lot. " According to the names of their paternal tribes shall they (the children of Israel) receive it (the land) for an inheritance^ The meaning of these words can only be, that every tribe was to receive a province of its own for an inheritance, which should be called by its name for ever. The other regulation in ver. 56, " according to the measure of the lot shall its inheritance (the inheritance of every tribe) he divided between the 7iumerous and the small (tribe)," is no doubt to be understood as signifying, that in the division of the tribe territories, according to the comparative sizes of the different tribes, they were to adhere to that portion of land which fell to every tribe in the casting of the lots. The magnitude and limits of the possessions of the different tribes could not be determined by the lot according to the magnitude of the tribes themselves: all that could possibly be determined was the situation to be occupied by the tribe; so that R, Becliai is quite correct in observing that " the casting of the lot took place for the more convenient distribution of the different portions, whether of better or inferior condition, that there might be no occasion for strife and covetousness," though the motive assigned is too partial in its character. The lot was to determine the portion of every tribe, not merely to prevent all occasion for dissatisfaction and complaining, but in order that every tribe might receive with gratitude the possession that fell to its lot as the inheritance assigned it by God, the result of the lot being regarded by almost all nations as determined by God Himself (cf. Prov. xvi. 33, xviii. 18). On this ground not only was the lot resorted to by the Greeks and Romans in the distribution of conquered lands (see the proofs in Clericus, EosenmuUer, and Knohel), but it is still employed in the division of lands. (For further remarks, see at Josh. xiv. 1 sqq.)

Vers. 57-62. Mustering of the Levites. — The enumeration of the different Levitical families into which the three leading families of Levi, that were founded by his three sons Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, were divided, is not complete, but is broken off in ver. 58 after the notice of five different families, for the purpose of tracing once more the descent of Moses and Aaron, the heads not of this tribe only, but of the whole nation, and also of giving the names of the sons of the latter (vers. 59-61). And after this the whole is concluded with a notice of the total number of those who were mustered of the tribe of Levi (ver. 62). — Of the different families mentioned, Lihni belonged to Gershon (cf. chap, iii. 21), Hehroni to Kohath (chap. iii. 27), Maclili and Muslii to Merari (chap. iii. 33), and Korchi, i.e. the family of Korah (according to chap. xvi. 1; cf. Ex. vi. 21 and 24), to Kohath. Moses and Aaron were descendants of Kohath (see at Ex. vi. 20 and ii. 1). Some difficulty is caused by the relative clause, " ivhom (one) had horn to Levi in E(ji/pt** (ver. 59), on account of the subject being left indefinite. It cannot be Levi's wife, as Jarchij Ahenezra^ and others suppose; for JocJiehedy the mother of Moses, was not a daughter of Levi in the strict sense of the word, but only a Levitess or descendant of Levi, who lived about 300 years after Levi; just as her husband Amram was not actually the son of Amram, who bore that name (Ex. vi. 18), but a later descendant of this older Amram (see vol. i. pp. 469 sqq.). GPhe missing subject must be derived from the verb itself, viz. either ri^p^n or HDN (her mother), as in 1 Kings i. 6, another passage in which " his mother " is to be supplied (cf. Ewald, § 294, b.). — Vers. 60, 61. Sons of Aaron: cf. chap. iii. 2 and 4; Ex. vi. 23; Lev. x. 1, 2. — Ver. 62. The Levites were not mustered along with the rest of the tribes of Israel, because the mustering took place with especial reference to the conqtiest of Canaan, and the Levites were not to receive any territory as a tribe (see at chap, xviii. 20). — Vers. 63-65. Concluding formula with the remark in ver. 65, that the penal sentence which God had pronounced in chap. xiv. 29 and 38 upon the generation which came out of Eg}^pt, had been completely carried out.

THE DAUGHTERS OF ZELOPHEHAD CLAIM TO INHERIT. THE DEATH OF MOSES FORETOLD: CONSECRATION OF JOSHUA AS HIS SUCCESSOR. — CHAP. XXVII.

Vers. 1-11. Claims of Zelophehad's Daughters to an Inheritance in the Promised Land. — Vers. 1-4. The divine instructions which were given at the mustering of the tribes, to the effect that the lapd was to be divided among the tribes in proportion to the larger or smaller number of their families (chap. xxvi. 52-56), induced the daughters of Zelophehad the Manassite of the family of Gilead, the son of Machir, to appear before the princes of the congregation, who were assembled with Moses and Eleazar at the tabernacle, with a request that they would assign them an inheritance in the family of the father, as he had died in the desert without leaving any sons, and had not taken part in the rebellion of the company of Korah, which might have occasioned his exclusion from any participation in the promised land, but had simply died " through his (own) sin," i.e. on account of such a sin as every one commits, and such as all who died in the wilderness had committed as well as he. " Why should the name of our father be cut off (ce2ise) from the midst of his family?^* This would have been the case, for example, if no inheritance had been assigned him in the land, because he left no son. In that case his family would have become extinct, if his daughters had married into other famiHes or tribes. On the other hand, if his daughters received a possession of their own among the brethren of their father, the name of their father would be preserved by it, since they could tlien marry husbands who would enter upon their landed property, and their father's name and possession would be perpetuated through their children. This wish on the part of the daughters w^as founded upon an assumption which rested no doubt upon an ancient custom, namely, that in the case of marriages where the wives had brought landed property as their dowry, the sons who inherited the maternal property were received through this inheritance into the family of their mother, i.e. of their grandfather on the mother's side. We have an example of this in the case of Jarha, who belonged to the pre- Mosaic times (1 Chron. ii. 34, 35). In all probability this took place in every instance in which daughters received a portion of the paternal possessions as their dowry, even though there might be sons alive. This would explain the introduction of Jair among the Manassites in chap, xxxii. 41, Deut. iii. 14. His father Segub was the son of Hezron of the tribe of Judah, but his mother was the daughter of Macliir the Manassite (1 Chron. ii. 21, 22). We find another similar instance in Ezra ii. 61 and Neh. vii. 63, wdiere the sons of a priest who had married one of the daughters of Barzillai the rich Gileadite, are called sons of Barzillai. — Vers. 5-7. This question of right (mishpat) Moses brought before God, and received instructions in reply to give the daughters of Zelophehad an inheritance among the brethren of their father, as they had spoken right. Further instructions were added afterwards in chap, xxxvi. in relation to the marriage of heiresses. — Vers. 8-11. On this occasion God issued a general law of inheritance, which was to apply to all cases as " a statute of judgment •" (or right), i.e. a statute determining right. If any one died without leaving a son, his landed property was to pass to his daughter (or daughters); in default of daughters, to his brothers; in the absence of brothers, to his paternal uncles; and if there were none of them, to his next of kin. — On the intention of this law, see my Archaeol. § 142 (ii. pp. 212, 213); and on the law of inheritance generally, see J. Selden, de success, ad leges Hehr. in bona defunctorum^ Fkft. a. 0. 1695.

Vers. 12-14. The Death of Moses foketold. — After these instructions concerning the division of the land, the Lord announced to Moses his approaching end. From the mountains of Abarini he was to see the land which the Israehtes would receive, and then like Aaron to be gathered to his people, because like him he also had sinned at the water of strife at Kadesh. This announcement was made, ^' that he might go forward to his death with the fullest consciousness, and might set his house in order, that is to say, might finish as mucK as he could while still alive, and provide as much as possible what would make up after his death for the absence of his own person, upon which the whole house of Israel was now so dependent" (Baumgarten), The fulfilment of this announcement is described in Deut. xxxii. 48-52. The particular spot upon the mountains of Abarim from which Moses saw the land of Canaan, is also minutely described there. It was Mount Neho, upon which he also died. The mountains of Abarim (cf. chap, xxxiii. 47) are the mountain range forming the Moabitish table-land, which slope off into the steppes of!Moab. It is upon this range, the northern portion of which opposite to Jericho bore the name of Pisgah, that we are to look for Mount A^eho, which is sometimes described as one of the mountains of Abarim (Deut. xxxii. 49), and at other times as the top of Pisgah (Deut. iii. 27, xxxiv. 1; see at chap. xxi. 20). Nebo is not to be identified with Jebel Attarus, but to be sought for much farther to the north, since, according to Eusebius (s. v. ^Afiapei/ji), it was opposite to Jericho, between LiviaSj which was in the valley of the Jordan nearly opposite to Jericho, and Heshbon; consequently very near to the point which is marked as the " Heights of Nebo " on Van de Veldes map. The prospect from the heights of Nebo must have been a very extensive one. According to Burckhardt {Syr, ii. pp. 106-7), "even the city of Heshbon (Hhuzban) itself stood upon so commanding an eminence, that the view extended at least thirty English miles in all directions, and towards the south probably as far as sixty miles." On the expression, " gathered unto thy people," see at Gen. xxv. 8, and on Aaron's death see Num. XX. 28. Q^np 1t^^^53: " as ye transgressed My commandment^ By the double use of '^'^^^ (quomodo, "as"), the death of Aaron, and also that of Moses, are placed in a definite relation to the sin of these two heads of Israel. As they both sinned at Kadesh* against the commandment of the Lord, so they were both of them to die without entering the land of Canaan. On the sin, see at chap. xx. 12, 13, and on the desert of Zin, at chap. xiii. 21.

Vers. 15-23. Consecuation of Joshua as the Successor OF Moses. — Vers. 15-17. The announcement thus made to

Moses led liim to entreat the Lord to appoint a leader of His people, that the congregation might not be like a flock without a shepherd. As " God of the spirits of all flesh/' i.e. as the giver of life and breath to all creatures (see at chap. xvi. 22), he asks Jehovah to appoint a man over the congregation, who should go out and in before them, and should lead them out and in, i.e. preside over and direct them in all their affairs. &5i^^^ rii^)f (" go out," and " go in ") is a description of the conduct of men in every-day life (Deut. xxviii. 6, xxxi. 2; Josh. xiv. 11). i^'^T}] K^^^n (" lead out," and " bring in ") signifies the superintendence of the affairs of the nation, and is founded upon the figure of a shepherd. — Vers. 18-21. The Lord then appointed Joshua to this office as a man " who had spirit." nn (^spirit) does not mean " insight and wisdom" {Kiiobel), but the higher power inspired by God into the soul, which quickens the moral and religious life, and determines its development; in this case, therefore, it was the spiritual endowment requisite for the office he was called to fill. Moses was to consecrate him for entering upon this office by the laying on of hands, or, as is more fully explained in vers. 19 and 20, he was to set him before Eleazar the high priest and the congregation, to command ("^^^V) him, i.e. instruct him with regard to his office before their eyes, and to lay -of his eminence (nin) upon him, i.e. to transfer a portion of his own dignity and majesty to him by the imposition of hands, that the whole congregation might hearken to him, or trust to his guidance. The object to ^VDK'^ (hearken) must be supplied from the context, viz. Ivfc^ (to him), as Deut. xxxiv. 9 clearly shows. The p (of) in ver. 20 is partitive, as in Gen. iv. 4, etc. The eminence and authority of Moses were not to be entirely transferred to Joshua, for they were bound up with his own person alone (cf. chap. xii. 6-8), but only so much of it as he needed for the discharge of the duties of his office. Joshua was to be neither the lawgiver nor the absolute governor of Israel, but to be placed under the judgment of the Urim, with which Eleazar was entrusted, so far as the supreme decision of the affairs of Israel was concerned. This is the meaning of ver. 21: " Eleazar shall ask to 1dm (for him) the judgment of the Urim before Jelwvahr Urim is an abbreviation for Urim and Thummim (Ex. xxviii. 30), and denotes the means with which tlie high priest was entrusted of ascertaining the divine will and counsel in all the important business of the congregation. " After his mouth^^ (i.e. according to the decision of the high priest, by virtue of the right of Urim and Tiiummim entrusted to him), Joshua and the whole congregation were to go out and in, i.e. to regulate their conduct and decide upon their undertakings. " All the congregation," in distinction from " all the children of Israel," denotes the whole body of heads of the people, or the college of elders, which represented the congregation and administered its affairs.-^ Vers. 22, 23. Execution of the divine command.

ORDER OF THE DAILY AND FESTAL OFFERINGS OF THE CONGREGATION. — CHAP. XXVIII. AND XXIX.

When Israel was prepared for the conquest of the promised land by the fresh numbering and mustering of its men, and by the appointment of Joshua as commander, its relation to the Lord was regulated by a law which determined the sacrifices through which it was to maintain its fellowship with its God from day to day, and serve Him as His people (chap, xxviii. and xxix.)., Through this order of sacrifice, the object of which was to form and sanctify the whole life of the congregation into a continuous worship, the sacrificial and festal laws already given in Ex. xxiii. 14-17, xxix. 38-42, xxxi. 12-17, Lev. xxiii., and Num. xxv. 1-12, were completed and arranged into a united and well-ordered whole. " It was very fitting that this law should be issued a short time before the advance into Canaan; for it was there first that the Israelites were in a position to carry out the sacrificial worship in all its full extent, and to observe all the sacrificial and festal laws" {Knohel), The law commences with the daily morning and evening burntoffering (vers. 3-8), which was instituted at Sinai at the dedication of the altar. It is not merely for the sake of completeness that it is introduced here, or for the purpose of including all the national sacrifices that were to be offered during the whole year in one general survey; but also for an internal reason, viz. that the daily sacrifice was also to be offered on the Sabbaths and feast-days, to accompany the general and special festal sacrifices, and to form the common substratum for the whole of these. Then follow in vers. 9-15 the sacrifices to be offered on the Sabbath and at the new moon; and in ver. 16— chap. xxix. 38 the general sacrifices for the different yearly feasts, which were to be added to the sacrifices that were peculiar to each particular festival, having been appointed at the time of its first institution, and being specially adapted to give expression to its specific character, so that, at the yearly feasts, the congregation had to offer their different kinds of sacrifices: (a) the daily morning and evening sacrifice; (b) the general sacrifices that were offered on every feast-day; and (c) the festal sacrifices that were peculiar to each particular feast. This cumulative arrangement is to be explained from the significance of the daily and of the festal sacrifices. In the daily burnt-offering the congregation of Israel, as a congregation of Jehovah, was to sanctify its life, body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord its- God; and on the Lord's feastdays it w^as to give expression to this sanctification in an intensified form. This stronger practical exhibition of the sanctification of the life was embodied in the worship by the elevation and graduation of the daily sacrifice, through the addition of a second and much more considerable burnt-offering, meat-offering, and drink-offering. The graduation was regulated by the significance of the festivals. On the Sabbaths the daily sacrifice was doubled, by the presentation of a burnt-offering consisting of two lambs. On the other feast-days it was increased by a burnt-offering composed of oxen, rams, and yearling lambs, which was always preceded by a sinoffering. — As the seventh day of the week, being a Sabbath, was distinguished above the other days of the week, as a day that was sanctified to the Lord in a higher degree than the rest, by an enlarged burnt-offering, meat-offering, and drink-offering; so the seventh month, being a Sabbath-month, was raised above the other months of the year, and sanctified as a festal month, by the fact that, in addition to the ordinary new moon sacrifices of two bullocks, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, a special festal sacrifice was also offered, consisting of one bullock, one ram, and seven yearling lambs (chap. xxix. 2), v/hich was also repeated on the day of atonement, and at the close of the feast of Tabernacles (chap. xxix. 8, 36); and also that the feast of Tabernacles, which fell in this month, was to be celebrated by a much larger number of burnt-offerings, as the largest and holiest feast of the congregation of Israel.^

^ KnoheVs remarks as to the difference in the sacrifices are not only erroneous, but likely to mislead, and tending to obscure and distort the actual facts.

'' On those feast-days," he says, " which were intended as a general festival to Jehovah, viz. the sabbatical portion of the seventh new moon, the day of atonement, and the closing day of the y(!arly feasts, the sacrifices consisted of one bullock, one ram, and seven yearling lambs (chap. xxix. 2, 8, 36); whereas at the older festivals which had a reference to nature, such as the new moons, the days of unleavened bread, and the feast of AVeeks, they consisted of two bullocks, one ram, and seven yearling lambs (chap, xxviii. 11, 19, 21, 27; xxix. G), and at the feast of Tabernacles of even a larger number, especially of bullocks (chap. xxix. 12 sqq.). In the last, Jehovah was especially honoured, as having poured

All the feasts of the whole year, for example, formed a cycle of feast-days, arranged according to the number seven, which had its starting-point and centre in the Sabbath, and was regulated according to the division of time established at the creation, into weeks, months, years, and periods of years, ascending from the weekly Sabbath to the monthly Sabbath, the sabbatical year, and the year of jubilee. In this cycle of holy periods, regulated as it was by the number seven, and ever expanding into larger and larger circles, there was embodied the whole revolution of annually recurring festivals, established to commemorate the mighty works of the Lord for the preservation and inspiration of His people. And this was done in the following manner: in the first place, the number of yearly feasts amounted to exactly severij of which the two leading feasts {Mazzoth and the feast of labernacles) lasted seven days; in the second place, in all the feasts, some of which were of only one day's duration, whilst others lasted seven days, there were only seveii days that were to be observed with sabbatical rest and a holy meeting; and in the tJiii^d place, the seven feasts were formed into two large festal circles, each of which consisted of an introductory feast, the main feast of severi days, and a closing feast of one day. The first of these festal circles was commemorative of the elevation of Israel into the nation of God, and its subsequent preservation. It commenced on the 14th Abib (Nisan) with the Passover, which was appointed to commemorate the deliverance of Israel from the destroying angel who smote the firstborn of Egypt, as the introductory festival. It culminated in the seven days' feast of unleavened bread, as the feast of the deliverance of Israel from bondage, and its elevation into the nation of

out His blessing upon nature, and granted a plentiful harvest to the cultivation of the soil. The ox was the beast of agriculture." It was not the so-called

" older festivals which had reference to nature " that were distinguished by a larger number of sacrificial animals, above those feast-days which were intended as general festivals to Jehovah, but the feasts of the seventh month alone. Thus the seventh new moon's day was celebrated by a double new moon's sacrifice, viz. with three bullocks, two rams, and fourteen yearling lambs; tlie feast of atonement, as the introductory festival of the feast of Tabernacles, by a special festal sacrifice, whilst the day of Passover, which corresponded to it in the first festal cycle, as the introductory festival of the feast of unleavened bread, had no general festal sacrifices; and, lastly, the feast of Tabernacles, not only by a very considerable increase in the number of the festal sacrifices on every one of the seven days, but also by the addition of an eighth day, as the octave of the feast, and a festal sacrifice answering to those of the first and seventh days of this month.

God; and closed with the feast of Weeks, Pentecost, or the feast of Harvest, which was kept seven weeks after the offering of the sheaf of first-fruits, on the second day of Mazzoth. This festal circle contained only three days that were to be kept with sabbatical rest and a holy meeting (viz. the first and seventh days of Mazzoth and the day of Pentecost). The second festal circle fell entirely in the seventh month, and its main object was to inspire the Israelites in their enjoyment of the blessings of their God: for this reason it was celebrated by the presentation of a large number of burnt-offerings. This festal circle opened with the day of atonement, which was appointed for the tenth day of the seventh month, as the introductory feast, culminated in the seven days feast of Tabernacles, and closed with the eighth day, which was added to the seven feastdays as the octave of this festive circle, or the solemn close of all the feasts of the year. This also included only three days that were to he commemorated with sabbatical rest and a holy meeting (the 10th, 15th, and 22d of the month); but to these we have to add the day of trumpets, with which the month commenced, which was also a Sabbath of rest with a holy meeting; and this completes the seven days of rest (see my Archceologie, i. § 76).

Chap, xxviii. Yer. 2 contains the general instruction to offer to the Lord His sacrificial gift " at the time appointed by Him." On corban, see at Lev. i. 2 (vol. ii. p. 282, comp. with p. 271); on " the bread of Jehovah^^ at Lev. iii. 11; on the " sacrifice made by fire ^^ and " a sweet savour j^ at Lev. i. 9; and on ''moed^'^ at Lev. xxiii. 2, 4. — Vers. 3-8. The daily sacrifice: as it had already been instituted at Sinai (Ex. xxix. 38-42). — Ver. 7. " In the sanctuary, ^^ i.e, Trepl top ficofjLov (round about the altar), as Josephus paraphrases it (Ant. iii. 10); not " with (in) holy vessels," as Jonathan and others interpret it. " Pour out a drink-offering, as ^^^ for Jehovah^ Shecar does not mean intoxicating drink here (see at Lev. x. 9), but strong drink, in distinction from water as simple drink. The drink-offering consisted of wine only (see at chap. xv. 5 sqq.); and hence Onkelos paraphrases it, " of old wine." — Vers. 9, 10. The Sabbath-offering, which was to be added to the daily sacrifice (pV, upon it), consisted of two yearling lambs as a burnt-offering, with the corresponding meat-offering and drink-offering, according to the general rule laid down in chap. xv. 3 sqq., and is appointed here for the first time; whereas the sabbatical feast had already been instituted at Ex. xx. 8-11 and Lev. xxiii. 3. " The burht-off^ering of the Sabbath on its Sabbath,^ i.e. as often as the Sabbath occurred, every Sabbath. —

Vers. 11-15. At the beginnings of the month, i.e. at the new moonSj a larger burnt-offering was to be added to the daily or continual burnt-offering, consisting of two bullocks (3^oung oxen), one ram, and seven yearling lambs, with the corresponding meat and drink-offerings, as the " month's burnt-offering in its (i.e. every) month with regard to the months of the year," i.e. corresponding to them. To this there was also to be added a sin-offering of a shaggy goat (see at Lev. iv. 23). The custom of distinguishing the beginnings of the months or new moon's days by a peculiar festal sacrifice, without their being, strictly speaking, festal days, with sabbatical rest and a holy meeting/ arose from the relation in which the month stood to the single day. " If the congregation was to sanctify its life and labour to the Lord every day by a burntoffering, it could not well be omitted at the commencement of the larger division of time formed by the month; on the contrary, it was only right that the commencement of a new month should be sanctified by a special sacrifice. Whilst, then, a burnt-offering, in which the idea of expiation w^as subordinate to that of consecrating surrender to the Lord, was sufficient for the single day; for the whole month it was necessary that, in consideration of the sins that had been committed in the course of the past month, and had remained without expiation, a special sin-offering should be offered for their expiation, in order that, upon the ground of the forgiveness and reconciliation with God which had been therebv obtained, the lives of the people might be sanctified afresh to the Lord in the burntoffering. This significance of the new moon sacrifice was still further intensified by the fact, that during the presentation of the sacrifice the priests sounded the silver trumpets, in order that it might be to the congregation for a memorial before God (chap. x. 10). The trumpet blast was intended to bring before God the prayers of the congregation embodied in the sacrifice, that God might remember them in mercy, granting them the forgiveness of their sins and power for sanctification, and quickening them again in the fellowship of His saving grace" (see my Archceologie, i.

^ In later times, however, the new moon grew more and more into a feastday, trade was suspended (Amos viii. 5), the pious Israelite sought instruction from the prophets (2 Kings iv. 23), many families and households presented yearly thank-ofTerings (1 Sam. xx. G, 29), and at a still later period the most devout abstained from fasting (Judith viii. G); consequently it is frequently referred to by the prophets as a feast resembling the Sabbath (Isa. i. 13; Hos. ii. 13; Ezek. xlvi. 1).

p. 369). — Vers. 16-25. The same number of sacrifices as at the new moon were to be offered on every one of the seven days of the feast of unleavened bread (^Mazzoth), from the 15th to the 21st of the month, whereas there was no general festal offering on the day of the Passover, or the 14th of the month (Ex. xii. 3-14). With regard to the feast of Mazzoth, the rule is repeated from Ex. xii. 15-20 and Lev. xxiii. 6-8, that on the first and seventh day there was to be a Sabbath rest and holy meeting. — Vers. 23, 24. The festal sacrifices of the seven days were to be prepared " in addition to the morning burnt-offering, which served as the continual burntoffering." This implies that the festal sacrifices commanded were to be prepared and offered every day after the morning sacrifice. — Vers. 26-31. The same number of sacrifices is appointed for the day of the first-fruits, i.e. for the feast of Weeks or Harvest feast (cf. Lev. xxiii. 15-22). The festal burnt-offering and sin-offering of this one day was independent of the supplementary burnt-offering and sin-offering of the wave-loaves appointed in Lev. xxiii. 18, and was to be offered before these and after the daily morning sacrifice. Chap. xxix. 1-6. The festal sacrifice for the neio moon of the seventh month consisted of a burnt-offering of one bullock, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, with the corresponding meat-offerings and drink-offerings, and a sin-offering of a he-goat, " besides" (i.e. in addition to) the monthly and daily burnt-offering, meat-offering, and drink-offering. Consequently the sacrifices presented on the seventh new moon's day were, (1) a yearling lamb in the morning and evening, with their meat-offering and drink-offering; (2) in the morning, after the daily sacrifice, the ordinary new moon's sacrifice, consisting of two bullocks, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, with their corresponding meat-offerings and drink-offerings (see at ver. 11); (3) the sin-offering of the he-goat, together with the burnt-offering of one bullock, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, with their proper meat-offerings and drink-offerings, the meaning of which has been pointed out at Lev. xxiii. 23 sqq. — Vers. 7—11. On the day of atonement, on the tenth of the seventh month, a similar festal sacrifice was to be offered to tlic one presented on the seventh new moon's day (a burnt-offering and sin-offering), in addition to the sin-offering of atonement prescribed at Lev. xvi., and the daily burnt-offerings. For a more minute description of this festival, see at Lev. xvi. and xxiii. 26-32. — Vers. 12-34. The feast of Tabernacles, the special regulations for the celebration of which are contained in Lev. xxiii. 34-36 and 39-43, was distinguished above all the other feasts of the year by the great nnmber of burnt-offerings, which raised it into the greatest festival of joy. On the seven feast-days, the first of which was to be celebrated with sabbatical rest and a holy meeting, there were to be offered, in addition to the daily burnt-offering, every day a he-goat for a sinoffering, and seventy oxen in all for a burnt-offering during the seven days, as well as every day two rams and fourteen yearling lambs, with the requisite meat-offerings and drink-offerings. Whilst, therefore, the number of rams and lambs was double the number offered at the Passover and feast of Pentecost, the number of oxen was fivefold; for, instead of fourteen, there were seventy offered during the seven days. This multiplication of the oxen was distributed in such a way, that instead of there being ten offered every day, there were thirteen on the first day, twelve on the second, and so on, deducting one every day, so that on the seventh day there were exactly seven offered; the arrangement being probably made for the purpose of securing the holy number seven for this last day, and indicating at the same time, through the gradual diminution in the number of sacrificial oxen, the gradual decrease in the festal character of the seven festal days. The reason for this multiplication in the numb<^r of burnt-offerings is to be sought for in the nature of the feast itself. Their living in booths had already visibly represented to the people the defence and blessing of their God; and the foliage of these booths pointed out the glorious advantages of the inheritance received from the Lord. But this festival followed the completion of the ingathering of the fruits of the orchard and vineyard, and therefore was still more adapted, on account of the rich harvest of splendid and costly fruits which their inheritance had yielded, and which they were about to enjoy in peace now that the labour of agriculture was over, to fill their hearts with the greatest joy and gratitude tow-ards the Lord and Giver of them all, and to make this festival a speaking representation of the blessedness of the people of God when resting from their labours. This blessedness which the Lord had prepared for His people, was also expressed in the numerous burnt-offerings that were sacrificed on every one of the seven days, and in which the congregation presented itself soul and body to the Lord, upon the basis of a sin-offering, as a living and holy sacrifice, to be more and more sanctified, transformed, and perfected by the fire of His holy love (see my A rchdoL i. p. 416). — Vers. 35-38. The eighth day was to be azereth, a closing feast, and only belonged to the feast of Tabernacles so far as the

Sabbath rest and holy meeting of the seventh feast-day were transferred to it; whilst, so far as its sacrifices were concerned, it resembled the seventh new moon's day and the day of atonement, and was thus shown to be the octave or close of the second festal circle (see at Lev. xxiii. 36). — Yer. 39. The sacrifices already mentioned were to be presented to the Lord on the part of the congregation, in addition to the burnt-oiferings, meat-offerings, drink-offerings, and peace-offerings which individuals or families might desire to offer either spontaneously or in consequence of vows. On the vowing of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, see chap. xv. 3, 8; Lev. xxii. 18, 21. — Yer. 40 forms the conclusion of the list of sacrifices in chap, xxviii. and xxix.

The rules by which vows were to be legally regulated, so fur as their objects and their discharge were concerned, has been air iady laid down in Lev. xxvii.; but the chapter before us contain:; instructions with reference to the force of vows and renunciations. These are so far in place in connection with the general rules of sacrifice, that vows related for the most part to the presentation of sacrifices; and even vows of renunciation partook of the character of worship. The instructions in question were addressed (ver. 1) to " the heads of the tribes," because they entered into the sphere of civil rights, namely, into that of family life. — Yer. 2. At the head there stands the general rule, ^^ If any one vovj a vow to Jehovah, or swear an oath, to hind his soul to abstinence, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that has gone out of his mouth i^"* i.e. he shall keep or fulfil the vow, and the promise of abstinence, in perfect accordance with his word. "i^p. is a positive vow, or promise to give or sanctify any part of one's property to the Lord. "iDi<, from "iDijj to bind or fetter, the negative vow, or vow of abstinence. i^D^"7y "iDK "ibXj to take an abstinence upon his soul. In what such abstinence consisted is not explained, because it was well understood from traditional customs; in all probability it consisted chiefly in fasting and other similar abstinence from lawful things. The Nazarite's vow, which is generally reckoned among the vows of abstinence, is called neder in chap. vi. 2 sqq., not issar, because it consisted not merely in abstinence from the fruit of the vine, but also in the positive act of permitting the hair to grow freely in honour of the Lord. The expression " swear an oath" (ver. 2; cf.