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2dly, Cur, which should seem to be an assay furnace. 3dly, Tanur, which I believe resembles the broad shape of a frying pan. I conclude, that this furnace in our print, is the cabashen; as it seems very likely that the ashes which Moses threw toward heaven, should be taken from some instrument of oppression by means of which the Israelites had been ill treated.

B. The sieve. There are two words rendered "sieve" in our translation.

1st, Caburah, which I take to be the corn van, Amos ix. 9. "I will sift the house of Israel among all nations like as, corn, is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth;" the mention of grain clearly implies corn. It is evident that the matters sifted in this "sieve" did not pass through it, but the chaff was blown away by the wind, &c.

2dly, Nephah ; this word occurs [] nephat,] Isai. xxx. 28. where our translation reads, "to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity." Observe, the word to sift is different in these places, [in Amos it is yr, in Isai. it is naan] which clearly denotes a different manner of sifting; and as we have formerly considered the manner of sifting corn, we may conclude, I think, rationally, that the manner of sifting lime, gravel, stones, &c. was by no means the same. I shall give bishop Lowth's note on this passage, by way of shewing the disadvantage of considering only one manner of sifting.

"To toss the nations with the van of perdition. The word man is in its form very irregular. Kimchi says it is for . Houbigant supposes it to be a mistake, and shews the cause of it: the joining it to then, which should begin the following word.

להניף הגוים The true reading is

"The Vulgate seems to be the only one of the ancient interpreters, who has explained rightly the sense; but he has dropped the image: "ad perdendas gentes in nihilum." Kimchi's explanation is to the following effect: " is a van with which they winnow corn; and its use is to cleanse the corn from the chaff and straw but the van, with which God will winnow the nations, will be the van of emptiness, or perdition; for nothing useful shall remain behind, but all shall come to nothing and perish." So far bishop Lowth.

Now, I presume to think, that a rougher manner of sifting would best meet the prophet's idea in this pas sage; and therefore, that what would suit gravel, &c. will very expressively coincide with this sifting of the nations; not to preserve them, as corn is sifted; but to destroy them, as what passes through a screen is meant for different application, &c. from what remains behind. N.B. Though our gravel screen be nearly the article designed, yet the use of the word screen would be improper in this passage; as would

be "riddle," &c. since to screen implies to shelter, to defend, &c. in our language.

C. Is the manner of beating mortar with a wooden shovel, very different from the corn shovel, whose name in Hebrew appears to be rechat : but we read also of shovels for the ashes of the altar, Exod. xxvii. 3; xxxviii. 3. n'y', which no doubt were calculated for despatch in removing those ashes; and to this idea agrees the passage, Isai. xxvii. 7. the hail shall, ny, turn off, shovel away, sweep away, remove quickly, the refuge of lies: i.e. shall despatch it with haste. Vulgate, subvertet, shall overturn: Theodotion, Tapače, shall disturb.

D. More shovelling away of mortar. As the shovel of the figure C. seems rather adapted to beating than to shovelling, we only remark the similarity between the shovels of B. and D. which leads us upon the whole to suppose these are of the kind meant in Exodus.

E. The mortar basket, which I presume in Hebrew is called 7 DUD; and this seems to be precisely what is intended, Psalm lxxxi. 6. when Israel was in Egypt, where he heard a language he understood not. I removed his shoulder from the burden, like those of figures F. and his hands were delivered from the DUD; the mortar basket, like that of fig. E. who carries his basket with both hands: which corrects our translation, where pots is in the plural, whereas in the original the word dud is singular, 17, though "hands" is plural.

F. Mortar carried on the shoulder to those who are to employ it in raising the wall: the passage of Scripture, to which this might be applied, has been recently mentioned.

G. Workmen employed to construct the cases of boards in which the mortar is to be filled in, and to deposite the mortar, beat it, &c.

H. I. Stone hewers, and stone squarers.

K. An officer appointed to oversee the workmen, who is of some dignity, as appears by his umbrella, his guards, &c. perhaps a governor; hardly a king. L. Guards of the overseer, or governor.

M. Slaves who have been accused, awaiting their sentence from the governor. Observe, the prostration common in the East: that it extends to a very profound, &c. attitude.

N. The manner of scourging; which is by laying the sufferer on his face, extended his whole length on the ground, his limbs being held, while a person with a whip of several cords strikes him on the bare back. This whip having several lashes, I conceive is analogous to what the Jews say on the subject of whipping, that it was performed by a whip of three thongs; thirteen strokes of which made thirty-nine lashes, so that they thereby made a provision against the number of the stripes exceeding forty, according to Deut. xxv. 3; 2 Cor. xi. 24.

I would query also, whether this kind of whip

may not be the scorpion of 1 Kings, xii. 11-14; 2 Chron. x. 11-14. If so, then, seeing this instrument is employed in the castigation of slaves, there may be a stronger taunt in the words of Rehoboam than we are aware of; "My father chastised you with whips of a single thong; I will chastise you with whips of many thongs: even with scorpions; with such as are used in lashing of slaves."

O. A culprit advancing to receive his sentence, and his punishment. As this man is naked, as N is naked also, he is I suppose condemned to punishment; whereas, M not being naked, may have received a favourable hearing, and being perhaps acquitted, are returning thanks, &c. for the favour done them. Their

attitude is but in unison with such a deliverance and acknowledgment in the East.

Upon the whole, I think this print gives us a pretty accurate representation of the situation, &c. of Israel in Egypt; here is the furnace, the mortar basket, the building, the overseer, and the punishment: here seems to be the rigour also, and the slavery, with many particulars, to which we shall find allusions in the history of the posterity of Jacob, as hinted at in other passages of Scripture, besides the immediate history in Exodus, which if the reader will peruse with this print before him, he will probably perceive in it many points of allusion to the customary labours and situation of slaves, which need not to be particularized here.

THE GNAT.

We have ventured to differ from our translators in the only place where they use the word gnat, Matth. xxii. 24. by introducing another insect, more immediately referrible to the subject there intended; and we have, in conformity to the LXX, Wisdom, Philo, Origen, and Jerom, ventured to think, the plague they translate of lice, Exod. viii. 16. might rather be of gnats. It will be remarked, in loc. that we have referred these miracles to the water, and to the air; gnats would be a mixture of both. Barbut says of these creatures, "Before they turn to flying insects, they have been in some manner fishes, under two dif

ferent forms. We observe in stagnating waters, from the beginning of May till winter, small grubs, with their heads downward, their hinder parts on the surface of the water; from which part arises sideways a kind of vent hole, or small hollow tube, like a funnel, and this is the organ of respiration. The head is armed with hooks, that serve to seize insects and bits of grass, on which it feeds. On the sides are placed four small fins, by the help of which the insect swims about, and dives to the bottom. These larvæ retain their form during a fortnight or three weeks, after which period they turn to chrysalids. All the parts

of the winged insect are distinguishable through the outward robe that shrouds them. The chrysalids are rolled up into spirals. The situation and shape of the windpipe is then altered; it consists of two tubes, near the head, which occupy the place of the stigmata, through which the winged insect is one day to breathe. After three or four days strict fasting, they pass to the state of gnats. A moment before, water was its element; but now, become an aerial insect, he can no longer exist in it. He swells his head, and bursts his enclosure. The robe he lately wore turns to a ship, of which the insect is the mast and sail. If at the instant the gnat displays his wings, there arises a breeze, it proves to him a dreadful hurricane: the water gets into the ship, and the insect, who is not yet loosened from it, sinks and is lost. But in calm weather, the gnat forsakes his slough, dries himself, flies into the air, and seeks to pump the alimentary juice of leaves, or the blood of man and beasts. It is impossible to behold, and not admire the amazing structure of its sting, which is a tube, containing five or six spicula, of exquisite minuteness; some dentated at their extremity like the head of an arrow, others sharp edged like razors. These spicula, introduced into the veins, act as pump suckers, into which the blood ascends by reason of the smallness of the capillary tubes. The insect injects a small quantity of liquor into the wound, by which the blood becomes more fluid, and is seen through the microscope passing through those spicula. The animal swells, grows red, and does not quit its hold till it has gorged itself. The female deposites her eggs on the water, by the help of her moveable hinder part and her legs, placing them one by the side of another, in the form of a little boat. This vessel, composed of two or three hundred eggs, swims on the water for two or three days, after which they are hatched. If storms arise, the boats are sunk. Every month there is a fresh

progeny of these insects. Were they not devoured by swallows, by other birds, and by several carnivorous insects, the air would be darkened by them. Gnats, in this country, however troublesome, do not bite so severely, as the muscheto flies of foreign parts. Both by day and night these insects enter houses, and when people are in bed, and would sleep, they begin their disagreeable humming noise, by degrees approach the bed, and often fill themselves with blood, sucked from the suffering sleeper. Their bite causes blisters in people of any delicacy. Cold weather diminishes their activity, but after rain they gather in quantities truly astonishing. In the great heats of summer, the air seems to be full of them. In some places the inhabitants make fires before their houses, to expel these troublesome guests. Nevertheless, they accompany the cattle when driven home; and they enter in swarms wherever they can.

The reader will judge from these representations, whether the gnat does not bid fair to be the Hebrew cinnim: being winged, it would spread over a district or a country, with equal ease as over a village or a city, and would be equally terrible to cattle as to men. It seems also to precede the dogfly with great propriety.

It should be added, that the gnat is thought to undergo several transformations; being, 1st, a worm; 2dly, a nymph; 3dly, an aurelia; 4thly, a gnat. It abounds not in great rivers, but in ditches, ponds, and repositories of water. Moses therefore did not strike the river, the Nile, but clods of earth, as the word rendered dust may be understood. See Prov. viii. 26; Job xii. 24, &c.

Our plate represents the male and female gnat of the natural size; together with the male or brushhorned gnat, and the nymph, greatly magnified.

KNEADING TROUGHS.

AND the people took their dough, before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.

The following are the observations of Mr. Harmer, vol. ii. p. 447. they are so much to the purpose, that we shall add little or nothing to them.

"The dough, we are told, which the Israelites had prepared for baking, and on which it should seem they subsisted after they left Egypt for a month, was carried away by them in their kneading troughs on their shoulders, Exod. xii. 34. Now an honest, thoughtful country man, who knows how cumbersome our kneading troughs are, and how much less important they are than many other utensils, may be ready to wonder at this, and find a difficulty in accounting for it. But this wonder perhaps may cease, when he comes to understand, that the vessels which the Arabs of that country make use of, for kneading the unleavened cakes they prepare for those that travel in this very desert, are only small wooden bowls; and that they seem to use no other in their own tents for that purpose, or any other, these bowls being used by them for kneading their bread, and afterward serving up their provisions when cooked: for then it will appear, that nothing could be more convenient than kneading troughs of this sort, for the Israelites, in their journey. See Dr. Shaw's preface, p. 11, 12. Also, Travels, p. 231.

EXODUS XII. 34.

"I am, however, a little doubtful, whether these were the things that Moses meant by that word which our version renders kneading troughs; since it seems to me, that the Israelites had made a provision of corn sufficient for their consumption for about a month, and that they were preparing to bake all this at once; now their own little wooden bowls, in which they were wont to knead the bread they wanted for a single day, could not contain all this dough, nor could they well carry a number of these things, borrowed of the Egyptians for the present occasion, with them.

"That they had furnished themselves with corn sufficient for a month, appears from their not wanting bread till they came into the wilderness of Sin; that the Eastern people commonly bake their bread daily, as they want it, appears from an observation I made in the fourth chapter, and from the history of the patriarch Abraham: and that they were preparing to bake bread sufficient for this purpose at once, seems most probable, from the universal bustle they were in, and from the much greater conveniencies for baking in Egypt than in the wilderness, which are such, that though Dr. Shaw's attendants sometimes baked in the desert, he thought fit, notwithstanding, to carry biscuit with him, and Thevenot the same, part i. p. 178.

"They could not then well carry such a quantity of dough in those wooden bowls, which they used for

kneading their bread in common. What is more, Dr. Pococke tells us, that the Arabs actually carry their dough in something else: for, after having spoken of their copper dishes put one within another, and their wooden bowls, in which they make their bread, and which make up all the kitchen furniture of an Arab, even where he is settled; he gives us a description of a round leathern coverlid, which they lay on the ground, and serves them to eat off, which, he says, has rings round it, by which it is drawn together with a chain, that has a hook to it, to hang it by. This is drawn together, he says, and sometimes they carry in it their meal made into dough; and in this manner they bring it full of bread, and, when the repast is over, carry it away at once, with all that is left," vol. i. p. 182.

"Whether this utensil is rather to be understood by the word translated kneading troughs, than the Arab wooden bowl, I leave to my reader to determine. I would only remark, that there is nothing, in the other three places in which the word occurs, to contradict this explanation. These places are, Exod. viii. 3; Deut. xxviii. 5, 17. in the two last of which places it is translated store.

"It is more than a little astonishing to find Grotius, in his comment on Exod. xii. 39. explaining that verse as signifying that they baked no bread in their departing from Egypt, but staid till they came to Succoth, because they had not time to stay till it was leavened in Egypt; when it is certain they were so hurried out of Egypt, as to be desired not to stay to bake even unleavened bread; nor can we imagine they would stay till leaven put into it at Succoth had produced its effects in their dough, since travellers now in that desert often eat unleavened bread, and the precepts of Moses, relating to the commemoration of their going out of Egypt, suppose they ate unleavened bread for some time.

"Succoth, the first station then of the Israelites, which Dr. Shaw supposes was nothing more than some considerable encampment of Arabs, must have been a place where there was a considerable quantity of broom, or other fuel, which is not to be found in that desert every where," Shaw, p. 138.

We shall add, to the above remarks of Mr. Harmer, the following description of this utensil, which, together with the figure, we have copied from Dr. Pococke.

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is over, carry it away at once, with all that is left, in the same manner. It is represented here as the larger sort are made, only with a leathern thong round the rings."

We shall conclude with the description which Niebuhr gives of his travelling equipage, in which we find a piece of furniture of the same nature as that in the figure; and capable not only of the same purpose but of others also. We observe, too, that this is usually slung on the camels, in travelling: which accounts for the remark of the Israelitish writer, that the people "carried their kneading bags on their shoulders," bound up, I suppose, knapsack fashion. This may be ascribed to two coincident causes. 1st, They had not camels sufficient to transport the baggage of such a numerous host: 2dly, They were sent away with all speed, and had no time allowed them to procure travelling animals for their accommodation; they must either carry their food themselves, or relinquish it.

The following is from the English edition of Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 168.

We

"In the deserts through which we were to travel, a tent and beds were indispensably necessary. had a neat collection of kitchen utensils made of copper, and tinned without and within. Instead of glasses, which are so liable to be broken, we used also copper bowls completely tinned. A bottle of thick leather served us as a caraffe. Our butter we put up in a leathern jar. In a wooden box, covered with leather, and parted out into shelves, we stored our spiceries of all sorts; and in another similar bex, we laid our candles; in the lid of the latter, we fixed an iron socket which served us for a candlestick. We had large lanterns of folded linen, with the lid and bottom of tin. For a table, with table linen, we had a round piece of leather, with iron rings at certain distances round it, through which cords were passed, after our meals, and the table hung in the form of a purse, upon one of our camels. But we imprudently put our wine into great flasks, called in the East damasjanes, and large enough, each of them, to contain twenty ordinary bottles. These vases are very liable to be broken by the jolting of the camels, as we found by the loss of a part of our wine. It is much better to put your wine, when you are to carry it upon camels, into goat's skin bottles. This species of vessels may, at first, appear little suitable for the purpose; but they communicate no bad taste to the liquor, if the skins have been properly dressed. The same vessels answer best to carry the store of water that is requisite in travelling through dry and desert countries."

The reader has now, we presume, a much clearer idea of the article designed by the Hebrew historian, than was possible for him to have obtained from the rendering adopted in the English version, kneading trough. The notion of a kneading TROUGH, and

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