FOUR PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE

ELUCIDATED.

(ABRIDGED FROM BRYANT.)

THE object of Bryant, in his volume entitled • Observations upon Four Passages in Scripture,' was to prevent the obloquy thrown upon them by some persons, in consequence either of their ignorance of the true purport of these narratives, or their unhappy disaffection toward the Sacred Records in general; by showing that the Miracles related in them are pointed and significant, evincing not only supernatural power, but also a uniform reference to the circumstances of the persons to whom they refer. The lateness of the discovery, arising from the depth of the proofs, leads us to infer, that there is store of additional (though unneeded) evidence still to be elicited in favour of the truth of the Scriptures; and also that there could not be any fallacy in the narrative, as no present advantage was to be expected from a scheme, of which the development was not to take place for two or three thousand years.

A

[Only 50 copies printed separately.]

The Four Passages' are,

1. BALAAM, reproved by his Ass, Numbers, xxii. &c.;

2. SAMSON, Smiting the Philistines with the. jaw-bone of an Ass, &c. Judges, xv. 15-19; 3. JOSHUA, stopping the Sun and the Moon, Joshua, v. 15; and

4. JONAH, entombed in the body of a large Fish or Whale, Jonah, i. 4—17.

1.

BALAAM.

The Midian, of which Balaam was a priest (probably, from his great reputation, Numb. xxii. 6, the High Priest) residing at Péthor, was an Edomite province of that name, to the east of the lake Asphaltites, peopled by the progeny of Abraham and Keturah, and not the similarly named region near the Red Sea, where Moses took refuge for forty years, Exod. ii, 15. Balaam indeed is said, Numb. xxiii. 7,

Called by the Greeks were, and by Tacitus, probably (Hist. v. 13.) interpreted a rock;' instead of being explained from it's Hebrew etymology "na, a place of prophecy. Peter, in the opinion of Hesychius, has this additional meaning; and Patara, anciently celebrated for it's Lycia sortes, is probably of the same extraction.

to be brought from Aram, or Syria, and is still more fully represented, Deut. xxiii. 4, as of Aram Naharaim, or Mesopotamia: but if in both these passages, by the easy and not unusual substitution of a for a 7,* for Aram we read Adam or Edom, and dismiss Naharaim as e gloss, the whole becomes consistent. This we shall not hesitate to do, if we consider:

1. That Naharaim means the C space between the rivers' (in this instance, the Euphrates and it's tributary the Aborras), whereas Balaam came from Pethor, "by the single river of the land of the children of his people ;"+

2. That he came "upon his ass, with only two servants," Numb. xxii. 22, whereas the immense desert between Mesopotamia and Moab could only be traversed by camels and caravans; ‡

* The converse of this mistake, viz. a 7 for a 7, occurs probably Ps. cxxiv. 1; and 1 Chron. xviii. 2. Compare 2 Sam. viii. 12, and 1 Chron. xviii. 2, 3, 7, &c.

+ Numb. xxii. 5. This river, so particularised, cannot (as Le Clerc supposes) mean, xar x, the Euphrates; but by changing, on the authority of many of the Versions, a single letter in the original for 'py reading or y, it becomes still more incapable of that interpretation, and signifies of the children of Omar, Oman, or Amon,' a powerful tribe in Seir and Edom.

So it was traversed by Abraham's servant, Gen. xxiv. 19, and by Jacob, Gen. xxxii. 15; whereas the armies of Crassus,

3. That he came on the joint requisition of the elders of Moab and of Midian, Numb. xxii. 7, whereas there is no Midian or Pethor in Mesopotamia;

4. That he was met by Balak, "at a city of Moab which is on the border of Arnon, which is in the utmost coast," Numb. xxii. 36, i. e. to the south of Moab, not toward the Euphrates, which was nearly north; and, lastly,

5. That on his way he was carried by his ass into "a field," and " among vineyards," Numb. xxii. 23, 24; whereas Mesopotamia, though fruitful toward Armenia, on the side of the Euphrates is a perfect desert, without any grass or trees: and that no vines were to be found even at Babylon, we have the testimony of Herodotus (i. 193), while Moab, and Midian, and Edom were in a high state of cultivation in this respect.

These arguments, conjunctively taken, prove that Pethor must have been an oracular city

Antony, Trajan, Julian, and Gordian, in their expeditions to Babylon and the east, went about by Syria north, and crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma or Cerusium, as well as the Assyrian armies on their way to Judæa and Egypt. Solomon built Tadmor, or Palmyra, near the western extremity of the desert, for the use of travellers. (2 Chron. viii. 4.)

*See Numb. xx. 17, xxi. 22. Isai. xvi. 8, 9. Jeremiah xxviii. 32, &c.

or temple in Midian (called, also, Edom) near Moab, of which Balaam was very probably the Archimage, or chief diviner. Here the worship of Baal-peor (the Peor-Apis, or Priapus, of the ancients) and, most likely, of his attendant the ass principally prevailed. This animal, in it's wild state remarkably beautiful,* and an emblem of liberty, Job xxxix. 5, was first (it may be presumed) made an object of veneration, in these thirsty regions, from it's peculiar sagacity-perhaps by snuffing up the air, and thence inhaling the moisture—in discovering springs of water. The female ass had the farther recommendation of supplying nutriment, which in these districts‡ could not

Mart. xiii. 110.

+ See Ps. civ. 2. To this faculty, we can hardly doubt, allusion is made, Gen. xxxvi. 24, where the word ', translated Mules,' should (on the authority of the Syriac Version, and the Vulgate) be translated Waters;' implying, that Anah first remarked this valuable instinct of the Ass, and what well deserved honourable record, taught it's useful application. His name, derived from vs, a fountain, appears to confirm this conjecture. Tacitus (Hist. v. 3.), with the venial mistake of a heathen and a foreigner, seems to have jumbled together the stories of Anah and of Moses (Numb. xx. 2); for it is, surely, not too refined in his rupes to trace the Pethor (pa) in question. See Note p. 430.

So in Job's stock, which would naturally be adapted to the barrenness of his situation (whether Ur was an Arabian province in the neighbourhood of Midian, or actually a part of the