every seventh sabbatical year, at the end of forty-nine years, or the fiftieth current, Levit. xxv. 8—10.

It was to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet, throughout the whole land, on the great day of atonement. All debts were to be abolished, all captives or slaves released, and every man authorized to return to his possession, that had been sold or mortgaged; and religious instruction to be given to the people, during the ensuing feast of Tabernacles, by the Priests and Levites.

That OUR LORD began his public ministry on a Jubilee, we may collect from his declaration; "THE LORD hath anointed me, (as THE CHRIST,) to preach the Gospel to the poor: He hath sent me (as SHILOH, "THE APOSTLE,") to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and restoration of sight to the blind; to set at liberty the bruised: to proclaim the acceptable year of THE LORD," Luke iv. 18, 19.

And it appears to have been a jubilee from the following chronological argument.

To the first general sabbatical year, B.C. 1589, add the year of our Lord's public ministry, A.D. 28; and divide the sum 1617 years, by the jubilee period, 49 years, it leaves no remainder. Therefore, A.D. 28, was the last year OF THE PERIOD, or a jubilee itself.

Great care was taken to prevent the probable operation of the laws of the sabbatical year, and of the jubilee, to check the feelings of compassion towards the indigent.

"If there be a poor man among you, or one of thy brethren within any of thy gates, in the land which the Lord thy God is to give thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother.-Beware lest there be a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, the year of release is at hand, and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought, and he cry unto the Lord, and it be sin against thee: Thou shalt surely give, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him, because that for this thing THE LORD will bless thee in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. For the poor shall never depart out of thy land, therefore I command thee saying, Thou shalt open thy hand wide to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land," Deut. xv. 7-11.

By this most humane law, the poor are represented as always

to continue in the land, in order to exercise the liberality of the rich, who are promised to be rewarded, in proportion to their liberality, with temporal blessings, by GOD himself, the supreme proprietor of their lands; while, on the other hand, by a necessary inference, the churlish or the niggardly were to be punished with a temporal curse. Never were municipal laws and institutions fenced with so complete and certain sanctions, both of reward and punishments, in this life.

Those also of the future, though not expressly enacted, are plainly understood or pre-supposed. The chief design of their gracious Lawgiver, was "to humble them, to prove them, and to do them good, at their end,"-that "they might live," or "inherit eternal life," Deut. viii. 16, xxx. 6; Luke x. 25. This is expressly intimated in Moses' last solemn appeal:

"I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live," Deut. Xxx. 19. "The blessing and cursing" include the temporal, and "life and death," the spiritual sanctions of the law.

THE DEATH OF MOSES.

The faculties of this illustrious legislator, both of mind and body, were not impaired at the age of 120 years, when he died. "His eye was not dim, nor his natural strength abated," Deut. xxxiv. 7. And the noblest of all his compositions was his Song, or the Divine Ode, which Bishop Lowth elegantly styles, Cycnea Oratio,-" the Dying Swan's Oration."

His death took place after THE LORD had shewn him, from the top of Pisgah, a distant view of the promised land, throughout its whole extent. "HE then buried his body in a valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Moab; but no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day," observes the sacred historian, who annexed the circumstances of his death to the book of Deuteronomy, xxxiv. 6. From an obscure passage in the NEW TESTAMENT, in which " Michael the archangel is said to have contended with the Devil about the body of Moses,” Jude 9, we may collect, that he was buried by the ministry of angels, near the scene of the idolatry of the Israelites; but that the spot was purposely concealed, lest his tomb might also be converted into an object of idolatrous worship among the Israelites, like the

Brazen Serpent. Beth-peor lay in the lot of the Reubenites, Josh. xiii. 20.

Josephus, who frequently attempts to embellish the simple narrative of Holy Writ, represents Moses as attended to the top of Pisgah by Joshua, his successor, Eleazar the high priest, and the whole senate; and that after he had dismissed the senate, while he was conversing with Joshua and Eleazar, and embracing them, a cloud suddenly came over and enveloped him, and he vanished from their sight, and was taken away to a certain valley. "In the sacred books," says he, "it is written, that he died: fearing to say, that on account of his transcendant virtue, he had departed to THE DEITY." Ant. IV. 8, 48.

The Jewish historian has here perhaps, imitated the account of OUR LORD's ascension, furnished by the evangelist, Luke xxiv. 50, 51, Acts i. 9, wishing to raise Moses to a level with CHRIST. According to him, Moses departed on the new moon, or first day of the last month Adar. His death was announced by THE LORD himself to Joshua, " Moses, my servant, is dead," &c. Josh. i. 2, which decides the point, that there was no human witness of his decease; the account of which was probably added by Joshua from revelation.

The pre-eminence of his character is briefly described by the sacred historian, Samuel or Ezra: "And there arose not a prophet since, in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face; in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and all his servants, and all his land; and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror, which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel," Deut. xxxiv. 10-12.

The noblest trait in his moral character, was his patriotic disinterestedness. He twice refused the tempting offer of the ag grandizement of his own family, when God threatened to reject the Israelites for their rebellions, and make of him " a great nation" in their stead. And he left his sons without rank or patrimony, as private Levites, to subsist on the national bounty, in common with their brethren!-And, melancholy to relate, his grandson," Jonathan the son of Gershom," and his family, became idolatrous priests to the Danites, until the capture of the ark by the Philistines *, Judges xviii. 30; where the Masorete

The original expression is, until "the day of the captivity of the land," which is thus paraphrased, Psalm lxxviii. 60, &c.

doctors, to hide the disgrace to his memory, changed "Moses" into "Manasses," by interpolating the letter N in the present copies of the Hebrew text. The posterity of his son Eleazar, were numerous in Solomon's time, and some of them high in office, 1 Chron. xxiii. 14-17, xxvi. 24, 25.

FOURTH PERIOD.

FROM THE RETURN OF THE ISRAELITES TO CANAAN, UNTIL THE REGAL STATE, 498 YEARS.

"So God forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He pitched among men : and delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemies hand." Compare 1 Sam. iv. 22.

VOL. II.

The correct length of this period is collected from the foregoing restoration of the Chronology of Josephus, in the General Introduction, Vol. I. p. 298. There it was shewn, that the interval from the Exode to the foundation of Solomon's temple, was 621 years from which, subtracting 123 years, (namely, 40 years from the Exode to this return, 80 years for the two reigns of Saul and David, and the three first years of Solomon) the remainder is 498 years.

But although we are indebted to Josephus for this, and for supplying some material chasms or deficiencies in the sacred annals, such as, 1. The administration of Joshua and the elders *, 25 years; 2. The ensuing anarchy, 18 years; 3. The administration of Shamgar, 1 year; and 4. of Samuel, 12 years: still. his detail of the outline there given requires correction.

For, 1. The one year assigned to Shamgar's administration is too short, as is evident from Deborah's account, Judg. v. 6; I have, therefore, included it, with David Ganz, in Ehud's enormous administration of 80 years, and transferred the one year to Joshua's, making that 26 years. 2. I have restored Abdon's administration of 8 years, omitted by Josephus, and deducted it from the 18 years he assigns to the anarchy, thereby reducing the latter to its correct length of 10 years. 3. I have dated the first division of the conquered lands in the sixth year, which Josephus reckoned in the fifth year†; because Caleb was 40 years old when Moses sent him as one of the spies from Kadesh Barnea, in the second year after the exode: consequently, he was 39 years old at the exode; and therefore, 79 years old, 40 years after, at the arrival in Canaan; but he was 85 years old when he claimed and got the hill of Hebron for an inheritance; and therefore, 85-79-6 years, after the arrival in Canaan. Compare Numb. x. 11, xiii. 6, with Josh. xiv. 6-15. 4. Josephus has omitted the date of Samuel's call to be a prophet, 1 Sam. iii. 1-19, which St. Paul reckons 450 years after the

Josephus states, that Eleazar, the high-priest, died about the same time as Joshua (Ovŋokel KAT' AUTOV TOV Kαιρov) Ant. 5. 1, 29. And it is evident, that "the elders, who survived Joshua," died shortly after him, from Josh. xxiv. 29-33. Phineas, the son of Eleazar, was high-priest during the anarchy, in the Benjamite war. Judg. xx. 28. ↑ Josephus states, that Joshua survived the first division of lands 20 years, and that his whole administration was 25 years, Antiq. v. 1. 28, 29; therefore, according to him, that division took place in his fifth year, or the fifth year of the war, Ant. v. 1. 19. The Jewish Chronology reckons his administration 27 years, Vol. I. p. 221. The mean, therefore, 26 years, is correct, agreeing with Caleb's age.