In the works of a famed commentator, no less a fine gentleman than a finished scholar, I find there was somebody, where or when we are not told, who maintained that the fire and smoke preceding the Israelites in the wilderness, was the sacred inextinguishable fire carried on the altar for burnt offerings and other sacrifices. The falsity of this opinion appears at first sight. There is no mention of such a sacred inextinguishable fire among the first Egyptians, or the Hebrews their inmates and slaves, nor yet among the antediluvian or post diluvian patriarchs: every thing that can be offered to this purpose being palpably groundless and precarious. As for the ordinary fire, whether for dressing of meat, or other necessary uses, it could not be wanting in an army of more than six hundred thousand men, and instances without number we could produce to show they had it, should any require, what all men, without such proofs, will suppose. A portable altar the Israelites had none, on their coming out of Egypt. The first mention of any altar among them, is a direction to raise one of earth or of unhewn stones, neither sort portable, most certainly, and only to be used on transient occasions, Exod. xx. 24, 25, 26. The first altar we read of, erected by Moses himself, Exod. xxiv. 4. was of unhewn stones; which had been a needless labour, were there a portable one then, as afterward, in the camp. Neither did Aaron, who was not yet a priest, nor any other priests, bring sacred fire from Egypt, for they were some of the firstborn that offered sacrifice on this first altar of Moses, he himself officiating with them, and not the least mention of sacred or extraordinary fire. Hear the very words. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord; and Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar, &c. When the tabernacle with its furniture was ordered to be built, two portable altars were likewise directed to be made; besides which they never used any other, till they came into the land of Canaan. To begin with the last, Exod. xxx. 1, &c. the one was the altar of incense, covered with gold, and placed before the ark in the sanctuary. But this is not that in question. The other was the altar of burnt offering, xxvii. 1-6. five cubits square, and covered with brass, with its rings and staves on each side to carry it. On this there was to be a perpetual fire, which was first kindled a little after Aaron had been constituted high priest. Now, that the fire of this altar was not the fire that should guide the Israelites, is manifest from various considerations, of which I shall only allege a few. In the first place, these fires were for different uses, the one for offering sacrifice, the other for showing the way. Or if it should be said, that one and the same fire might serve for both these purposes; I answer, that in Egypt, in the wilderness on the other side of the Red Sea, they had the fire for showing the way whereas the perpetual fire for sacrifice was instituted on this side, at the foot of mount Sinai in Arabia; and no mention made of any other use, but the contrary strongly implied. In the next place, the sacred fire was in the court of the tabernacle, the guiding fire on the top of the tabernacle, on the top of it; as, on a march, the one was often carried in the middle of the camp, the other was always aloft before it. The altar, in the third place, was not, from the description of it, made to be hoisted up on the top of the tabernacle, or on a long pole before the army; nor could it conveniently, if at all, be set up or let down at pleasure: whereas an iron pot, or any such machine still used for the same end, may be easily hoisted to the top of a pole, where it is to hang on a crook; as such a pole might be no less readily fixed on the tabernacle, than a flag staff on a castle or the stern of a ship. Notwithstanding the present use of the compass, such a guidance by fire is still practised among the caravans of the East, about which all travellers agree. The fires, which go before the numerous host of pilgrims, yearly travelling from Grand Cairo in Egypt to Mecca in Arabia, are called shamalars; being carried in iron pots on long poles, the most obvious method of ordering fire and smoke to such a purpose. So natural is this way, that it looks superfluous in the moderns to have expressed it; and it is for this reason that neither the author of the Pentateuch, nor the historians of Darius and Alexander, have specified the fuel of their fires for signals or guidance. After having demonstrated, that the pillar of cloud and fire was not miraculous, this fancy of the sacred fire could not take up much of my time; and therefore I think it now fit to discharge the promise I made above, of showing that the angel of the Lord, which carried the pillar behind the Israelites, or between them and the Egyptians, was a mere mortal man, the overseer or director of the portable fire, and the guide of the Israelites in the wilderness. Perhaps I may further acquaint you with his family before I have done, which I suppose is a secret about angels hitherto unknown; and therefore, if made out, will not only spoil a world of quaint allegories and typical observations: but, to the great mortification of a thousand booksellers, turn many entire treatises to waste paper. This will probably occasion certain people to make a noise: but so long as I am persuaded truth is on my side, I shall be as much pleased as they are sure to be angry. To know then, whether it was a real and proper angel that guided the Israelites, and managed the cloud, this must be either gathered from the word angel, or from the phrase the angel of the Lord, or from the person's actions, who is called an angel. As for his actions in the government of the pillar or cloud, I have already explained them all, and shown that not only they might be done by natural and ordinary means; but that other nations did the like in every respect, without needing or pretending the assistance of any supernatural or extraordinary power. This I have so copiously performed, that I may well supersede repetition; not having overlooked, to the best of my remembrance, any one text where the cloud or fire is mentioned. It cannot simply and peremptorily be concluded from the word angel, that the director of the guiding pillar was other than a man; for the Hebrew word is not less general than the Greek word, from which we have formed angel. It signifies any messenger whatsoever, mortal or immortal; so that circumstances alone can determine, what kind of messenger is meant. This is the reason that our translators, to avoid ambiguity, render it messenger, or ambassador, when betokening a man; and angel, when they think it is put for a spirit. The rule is good, were it accurately observed. In Gen. xxxii. 1, 3. it is written, And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him; and Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother; here it is the self same word that in the first verse is rendered angels, and in the third verse messengers: but circumstances determined the translators. Thus in Gen. xvi. 7. as in a world of other places, it signifies an angel or angels, properly so called; and in certain places of the books of Kings, Chronicles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Nahum, to name no more, it signifies messengers and ambassadors. The original word therefore denotes men as well as angels, and always the former when human actions are only described: since we must never have recourse to miracles, except where nature falls short, and is visibly defective. But the translators have not always scrupulously followed the rule they so happily proposed to themselves; for sometimes they translate the word messenger, when they do not understand it of a mere man, whatever others may do; as in Mal. iii. 1. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple; even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. In the preceding chapter, verse 7. the priest is properly called a messenger, where I wonder they have not, after the vulgar, translated angel. This they might as consistently have done as the seven angels of the churches of Asia, whom they do not only contend to have been men, but bishops, say they, of the church of England: presbyters, say they, of the church of Scotland; and messengers, say the Independents, more agreeably to the text and their peculiar system. It is acknowledged, however, that these angels were men, and some of them none of the best; so that, comparing this with the other places I have cited, the word angel of itself imports nothing extraordinary, much less supernatural. But perhaps it will be urged that the phrase angel of the Lord signifies more than a man; to which I answer, that it does no more so than the prophet of the Lord, the servant of the Lord, or any other such expression, except where circumstances enforce the contrary; and this is the reason why I conclude, that the angel of the Lord, who directed the pillar, was a mere man; because all that he did might be done by man, and has been actually done by many men. He was Jehovah the king of Israel's ambassador or messenger, to guide his subjects through the wilderness, to the land where it was intended they should set up the theocracy. It should have been rendered the messenger of the Lord, as his priests and prophets are in many places called. In Judg. ii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. it is said, the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you and ye shall make no league : with the inhabitants of this land; you shall thron down their altars. But ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done all this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lift up their voice and wept: and they called the name of that place Bochim, and they sacrificed there unto the Lord. Here, notwithstanding the phrase of the angel of the Lord, the best interpreters have been ashamed to understand it of any other than a prophet, travelling a good way, probably on foot, who spoke in the name of the Lord, and only repeated the words of the Pentateuch, to a people that had already begun to forget them, but upon his remonstrance showed some signs of repentance. Yet for all this there are those, who, wherever they meet with the words Lord or angel, conceive no longer any thing human, nothing less than miraculous. It is not to them, I own it, that I particularly address myself in this discourse; but to such as understand, or are willing to learn, the style of the Old Testament. These will find, that as the Lord was the king of the Israelites, he was said to go before them; because of the ark, and other symbols of his presence, as well as that his generals Moses and Joshua did lead them and indeed all the actions of these and such others, as of the high priests and of the prophets, if agreeable to his laws, are called his actions, those of all ministers being ever attributed to the prince whom they serve and obey. : The same is as true of the chief guide of the Israelites, no mean officer, and subject only to the general himself; such an institution as this being as ancient as it is natural. Vegetius, with great judgment,* observes, that "from all antiquity every nation bas * Antiquus omnium gentium usus invenit, quomodo, quod solus Dux utile judicasset, per signa totus agnosceret et sequeretur exerci. tus. Lib. 3. cap. 5. discovered this truth; that the whole army should know by signals, and obey, whatever the general alone should judge convenient." But even the general, when ignorant of the way, must rely on the guide, who then properly directs the signal: or, as the same Vegetius* has it, "whithersoever the leader or ders the ensigns to move, that way the soldiers must necessarily march along with their colours," to use our English expression. These things thusexplained, it remains only to know, who was this gide and director? Not that the question is of very ruch im portance, or that any thing we have hitherto said about the main point would be the less tre, should we not be able to resolve it; but that a loer of truth is pleased with the unriddling of the meanst circumstances, though purely incidental, as stil reflecting more light and certitude on the subject I answer then, that the greatest part of the time, if not during the whole time, this guide was no other han Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses; who was born and bred in the wilderness, and consequently wel acquainted with the several parts of it. This appears out of the book of Numbers, where Hobab expressing a design of returning back to his own country of Midian, as his father Jethro did before, for we shal prove Jethro was his father, and Raguel his grandfather, Moses said unto Hobab, Numb. x. 29-34, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses's father-in-law, we are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel. And he, Hobab, said unto him, I will not go; but I will depart to mine own land, and to my kindred. And he, Moses, said, Leave us not I pray thee; for as much as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us INSTEAD OF EYES: and it shall be, if thou goest with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee. And they departed from the mount of the Lord, Sinai, three days journey; and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days journey, to search out a resting place for them: and the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp. The things to be briefly remarked here, are, that Hobab signifying his desire of returning to his own. country and kindred, particularly to his father Jethro, who had departed before, Exod. xviii. 27. Moses is earnest with him to stay, for two weighty reasons. The first of these is, that Hobab knew how they were to encamp in the wilderness, which shows that he was already employed in this matter: and the second is that in the rest of their way, to the land they were going to conquer, he might serve them instead of eyes, or be their guide. The more effec Quocunque enim hæc ferri jusserit Ductor, eo necesse est, sig num suum comitantes, milites pergant. Ibid. tually to determine Hobab to his choice, Moses promises him a share in the good fortune of the Israelites, who were likely to get possession of a much better territory than Midian, a barren part of the wilderness; in comparison of which Judea flowed with milk and honey, or abounded with all things. Then it is immediately added, without any mention of Hobab's persisting in his resolution, but a plain implication of his accepting such advantageous conditions, which will presently appear he did, that they marched forward three days journey; the ark borne before them representing the presence of Jehovah their king, and the cloud of Jehovah showing them the way. though it be not impossible that Hobab might continue in the post forty years, and that it is probable he went to join Moses, as soon as ever the Israelitish expedition was begun; yet it is likewise as possible, that he might not be the first guide in the wilderness of Etham, nor live till the passage of Jordan, when the pillar became useless for the future. AI To crown our work, I shall here be at some small pains to solve the difficulties that have been started by not a few commentators, about this same Hobab; who is sometimes confounded with his father, sometimes with his grandfather, and at other times with both. There have not been wanting therefore, who made Raguel or Rehuel, according to the different pronunciation of the letter y OIN, I say Raguel, Jethro, and Hobab, to be all one and the same person: though it be manifest, from our last citation out of Numbers, that at least Raguel and Hobab were not the same, since Hobab is there expressly called the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses's father-in-law. But which of them was the father-in-law is another doubt; because, by reason of an ambiguity very common in the Hebrew language, the place may be so construed, as to make either Raguel or Hobab the father-in-law, which nothing but circumstances can decide: and by these circumstances it will be evident, that neither of them was literally and properly Moses's father-inlaw; though either of them might be figuratively and customarily so styled. While the grandfather lives, he is still head of the family, and called father by all his descendants. This was a common usage in the East, of which there are manifold examples in the Old Testament, where even a deceased grandfather is called father by his grand child. Except the God of my father, says Jacob to Laban, the God of Abraham, and the terror of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now emply. Thus Laban calls Jacob's children his own, because they were born of his daughters. Now Raguel was the grandfather of Zipporah, Moses's wife, Jethro's daughter; notwithstanding that she and the rest are, after the Oriental manner, named the children of Raguel, who for the same reason was called Moses's fatherthe name of the common stock; hence some are called in-law. [The Arabs of the Bedouin tribes assume e fa Ben Halet, or the children of Halet," De Pages. Halet is the father of them all. Abraham is likewise the father of every individual Jew.] This account will be very easy to any one, that carefully compares together the second, third, fourth, and eighteenth chapters of Exodus, where Raguel is mentioned the first time, and Jethro ever after, as being more nearly concerned in the affairs of his daughter. He was not a little proud, we may easily imagine, to have so great a man for his son-in-law as Moses became ; and therefore he not only waited on him at mount Sinai, Raguel being probably too old for a journey, but assisted him with excellent advice toward settling the government of the Israelites. That Raguel was ther of Jethro is the opinion of Aben-E and Drusius: but things themselves weigh more with me than all subsequent authority. As Raguel and Jethro, so this last and his son Hobab have been confounded together, by reason of the equivoque I have remarked before in Numb. x. 26. yet, setting aside all considerations about the multiplicity of names, a thing very uncertain, and subject to perpetual wrangling, we are helped out here by obvious circumstances, to prove that Jethro and Hobab were not the same person, Exod. xviii. 27. and Jethro had actually departed to his own country, long before Moses made it his request to Hobab to direct the encampments and marches of the Israelites in the wilderness. As Hobab was called the son of his grandfather, there is no impropriety in calling him Moses's father-in-law, brothers standing instead of fathers to their sisters; especially if the father be dead or absent. Theodoret did not only maintain Hobab to be in reality Moses's brother-inlaw, though customarily, or by an ellipsis, called his father-in-law; but says that, in his own time, brothers-in-law used to be styled fathers-in-law. However that were, the circumstances I have instanced do sufficiently prove that this was the case of Hobab, over and above his going up with the children of Israel, and obtaining large possessions among them, for his pains and service. Ere I make out this last point, it will not be amiss to give an example, into what intricacies and labyrinths the most learned critics are apt sometimes to throw themselves, by taking any thing for granted; or being borne away, as by a violent stream, with popular prejudices. Passing over the dotages of bigots, and the subterfuges of hypocrites, I shall pitch upon a great man indeed, and one that I shall always reckon such, though he differs from me in this whole affair. But I shall never make an agreement with my own notions to be the measure of other men's abilities: being likewise fully persuaded, that whoever is guilty of this mean and envious practice, pleases none but the like narrow souled creatures with himself. Monsieur Le Clerc, whose critical commentaries I have justly commended above, believes the cloud to have been miraculous, contrary to the heretical disposition im a puted by his adversaries, and takes it for granted that Jethro and Hobab, if not Raguel, were one and the same man. This involves him in great difficulties, out of which he finds no issue, but by saying that the request of Moses to Hobab for guiding the Israelites, evidently inconsistent with the miraculous pillar, is not only misplaced in the book of Numbers, but ought even to be carried back from Leviticus, and placed between the 26th and 27th verses of the xviiith chapter of Exodus. I shall not insist on what he formerly objeced himself, with so much wit, to the loose scrolls ofather Simon: but barely say, that, by indulging tis practice, every thing may be made of any thingin the most senseless book in the world; and the catents of the best book be rendered on a level with he worst. I take this transposing to be well meantteal in others, who are sincere in thus proceeding, as Monsieur Le Clerc in particular; but in me I own would be both criminal and profane : criminal, in using any book so, where I was certain it did not need it, but purposely to serve turn; and pofane, in jumbling a sacred book after a manner I should esteem ridiculous in the most trivial performance. The words of this learned man, lest I should be thought to charge him wrongfully, are as follow: "These circumstances, had the series of times and things been observed, should be joined with those that are contained in the xviiith chapter of Exodus, and be inserted after the 26th verse: for it does not seem probable that old Hobab, or Rehuel, came twice to the camp of the Hebrews, and departed twice from thence. Besides that Moses seems to have spoken these things to him, before he knew that the cloud was to be a perpetual guide to the Israelites: for the contents of the 31st verse can no way consist with the guidance of the cloud. Indeed if God had not showed the way to the Israelites through the Arabian deserts, the help of a man, well acquainted with those places, must have proved very useful to them: but seeing the cloud did regularly mark the places fit for pitching their camps, the Israelites stood in need of no other guide to point out the way to them." Our system is subject to none of these difficulties. Raguel never came to the camp of the Israelites, Jethro came once, and Hobab always accompanied Moses. But leaving the excuse Monsieur Le Clerc makes for the aforesaid passage, supposing it originally part of the book of Numbers, to the reader's judgment; I come now to show, that Hobab and his family proceeded with the Israelites toward the land of Canaan. The offer that Moses made him was too tempting to be refused, and we have all imaginable reason to suppose, that he gladly accepted the favour. I grant there is no further occasion of mentioning him on the way; but, after the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan, we find, according to the engagement of Moses, ample provision made for the family of Hobab by name: a family in high repute, enjoying large territories, and eminently zealous for the Jewish law. They were called Kenites, but not to be confounded with the old Cananean Kenites, Gen. xv. 19. to some of whose possessions, Numb. xxiv. 21. it may be they succeed ed. The first time we meet with the Midianitish Kenites, is in Judg. i. 16. and in these words. The children of the Kenite, Moses's father-in-law, went up out of the city of palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad, and they went and dwelt among the people. The diverse acceptations of father-in-law having been examined before, the question now turns upon this: Who was the immediate stock of the flourishing branches of the Kenites? and this is fully an swered in the same book of Judges, chap. iv. 11. Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is Kedesh. A little after, verse 17. you read, that there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Kenite: whereby it appears how potent the posterity of Hobab became, in consequence of the rewards promised him by Moses; when one branch of them was so considerable, as to enter into treaty with a prince who had nine hundred chariots of iron, verse 3. By the way, it was the wife of this Heber, by name Jael, who murdered Sisera, the general, in his sleep; notwithstanding he came for shelter to her tent on her own invitation, that she had refreshed him with food, and that he ought to expect all security from the peace established between his master Jabin, and her husband Heber. See p. 519. Judg. iv. 17. Some of these Kenites lived among the Amalekites, which last, when Saul had resolved to root out, 1 Sam. xv. 6. he said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. The obligation of showing the way through the wilderness was never to be forgotten, as certainly it ought not. They are mentioned again twice in the first book of Samuel, xxvii. 30. and xxx. 29. from which I have taken this passage. They were so heartily addicted to the law of Moses, notwithstanding their progenitors, Raguel and Jethro, were priests of Midian, which is never said of Hobab, that when Jehu would persuade the nation of their idolatry, he chose for his most credible witness, Jonadab the son of Rechab, an illustrious man of this family. man of this family. After inquiring, 1 Chron. ii. 55; 2 Kings, viii. 15, 36. if his heart was right, he took him up into his chariot; aud he said, Come with me; see my zeal for the Lord. This Jonadab instituted in his own family and posterity the memorable sect of the Rechabites, denominated from his father, and living in the nearest conformity of all mortals to the dictates of nature, both for the preservation of health, and the avoiding of vanity, ambition, carking cares, and endless toil. An account of them will best sound from their own mouths. I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites, says Jeremiah, xxxv. 10. pots full of wine, and cups; and I said unto them, Drink ye wine. But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father, commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons, for ever. Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days ye shall dwell in tents, that ye may live many days in the land wherein ye be strangers. Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, in all that he has charged us; to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters: not to build houses for us to dwell in; neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed, but we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed, and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us. These Rechabites might furnish us with abundance of useful reflections: but this dissertation, wherein I have endeavoured that precision should reign next to perspicuity, is long enough already. I could easily enlarge it, especially in this latter part, would I produce all the shifts of the commentators, each to serve his own hypothesis, concerning Raguel, Jethro, and Hobab. They come nearest the point, who make Hobab to have been Jethro's brother. But I shall never tempt the reader's patience, where I have no prospect of instructing him: besides that the main subject of the cloud's not being miraculous can suffer nothing from wrangling about names, by those who would rather have any portion of the sacred writings to pass for nonsense, than that I should demonstrate it to be sense. In this, however, lies my comfort, that the Bible will ever preserve its dignity, notwithstanding the efforts of designing and interested men. EXODUS XI. 2, 3. Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold. "LET the whole of this fact, according to the exact narration, be fairly and calmly considered, and it will appear that as to THE EVENT of the spoiling of the Egyptians, it was even to Moses at first declared as a mere prophecy, delivered on mount Sinai, Exod. iii. 21, 22. and without his being himself at all able to know or imagine how it was to come to pass. And as |