vanity by finding out the places where their great ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had formerly resided, and naming the places in memory of the remarkable events which had happened at each of them.

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4. Eshcol.

NUMBERS Xiii, 23. And they came unto the brcok of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs. The place was called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence.

Bishop Patrick's note on this verse is highly sensible and becoming :

The place was called the brook Eshcol.] That is, when the Israelites got possession of the land, they called this brook, or valley, "Eshcol," in memory of this bunch of grapes, for so Eshcol siguifies.

But the book, which relates that the place was called Eshcol, cannot have been written until the act of naming had taken place.

5. Bethlehem.

GEN. XXXV, 19. And Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.

This form of speech implies that the place once called Ephrath was better known in the time of the writer by the name of Bethlehem. This is natural and consistent if we consider it as coming from a later writer, but it is difficult to conceive Moses writing in such a manner. Neither he nor the people, for whom he wrote, had ever been in the promised land, and could not have understood such a description.

The names again occur in the 48th chapter of Genesis, v. 7.

"And as for me,"-Jacob is speaking-" when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath;" the same is Bethlehem.

The concluding words the same is Bethlehem, if not meant to explain the obsolete name, Ephrath, by one that was more intelligible, can have no meaning at all. It will be observed that many of these second names given to places in Palestine, are compounds of the word Beth.' They were mostly given to these places, after the Israelites expelled the original inhabitants, and took possession of the country for themselves. An exception may be taken in the case of a few places whose names are said to have been changed by Abraham, Isaac or Jacob; of which there are several examples.

6. BETHEL.

In Genesis xii, 8, we read the following passage concerning Abram;

And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Rethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upou the name of the Lord.

It is an obvious comment to make on this verse that there was no such place as Bethel in the days of Abraham : for in Genesis xxviii, 18, 19, we find that Jacob gave the name of Bethel, which means "the house of God," to the place before called Luz. The words are these:

Aud Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

7. BEERSHEBA.

In Genesis xxi, 31, we read the origin of the name Beersheba; namely the oath or covenant made between Abraham and Abimelech :

Wherefore he called that place Beer-sheba; because there they sware both of them.

The place had been already mentioned in the 14th verse of the same chapter :

She [Hagar] departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. But in Genesis xxvi, vv. 26-31, we find the same story of the oath told of Isaac and Abimelech with a variation concerning the name Beer-sheba:

vv. 32. 33. And it came to pass the same day that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him "We have found water." And he called it Sheba: therefore the name of the city is called Beer-sheba unto this day.

The comment, given on this text in the Family Bible, is from Dr Wells:

Isaac renewed the well dug by his father at this place, where in later times a city was built.

This account of the matter is probable, so far as concerns Abraham, Isaac, and Abimelech, but the words of the text are, 'Therefore the name of the city &c.' It is sufficient to remark that no city of Beersheba existed in the time of Moses consequently the book in which it is mentioned could not have been written by Moses or any of his contemporaries.

8. HORMAH,

NUMBERS XIV, 44. But they presumed to go up unto the hill-top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of the camp. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them even unto Hormah.

xxi, 1—3. And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners. And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities and the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities, and he called the name of the place Hormah.

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This," [says Dr Shuckford, as quoted in the Family Bible,]

was effected in the days of Joshua, Jos. xii 14,* or a little after his death. Judges i, 17.†

Yet Dr Shuckford did not perceive that the relation of an event, which happened in the days of Joshua, could not be made by the pen of Moses. The second of the passages above quoted, namely the first three verses of Numbers xxi, describes the fulfilment of Israel's vow, not in a mere word or short sentence, such as others which the commentators explain by saying that they are interpolations The present text is too full for us to suppose so: it is evidently an integral portion of the main narrative, and cannot be separated from it. The whole of this part of the history, therefore, is liable to the same observation which has been so often made, that it was written by some one who lived long after the time of Moses.

9. GILEAD.

When Jacob fled from Laban, he is said, in Gen. xxxi, 21, to have "set his face toward the mount Gilead :" But in verses 46, 47, 48, of the same chapter we read :

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And Jacob said unto his brethren, "Gather stones" and they took stones, and made an heap and they did eat there upon the heap. And Laban called it Jegarsahdutha: but Jacob called it Galeed. And Laban said, "this heap is a witness between me and thee this day." Therefore was the name of it called Galeed.

The Hebrew word in these verses is the same, formed of the four consonants GLYD, but the vowel points are different, for which reason our English translation renders the word Gilead in the one case and Galeed in the other. But, whatever was the name of the place whether it was

* Jos. xii, 7-14. And these are the kings of the country which Joshua and the children of Israel smote &c. v. 14. The king of Hormah, one; &c.

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† JUD. i, 17. And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. And the name of the city was called Hormah.

called so by Jacob or by Abraham, the word might properly be used by Moses, who lived later than both of them. This instance then furnishes a contrast to the other passages, already cited, of which Moses could not have been the writer.

NUMBERS XXXii, 34-42. And the children of Gad built Dibon and Ataroth, and Aroer, and Atroih, Shophan and Jaazer, and Jogbebah, and Beth-nimrab, and Bethhacan, fenced cities: and folds for sheep.

And the children of Reuben built Heshbon, and Elealeb, and Kirjathaim, and Nebo, and Baal-meon, (their names being chauged), and Shibmah and gave other names unto the cities which they builded.

And the children of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead, and took it, and dispossessed the Amorite which was in it. And Moses gave Gilead unto Machir* the son of Manasseh; and he dwelt therein.

And Jair the son of Manasseh went and took the small towns thereof, and called them Havoth-Jair.

And Nobah went and took Kenath, and the villages thereof and called it Nobah, after his own name.

The foundation of all these towns, with the other events there related, could not be effected in the two years which passed between the first invasion of Bashan by those tribes, and the death of Moses. The account of these things, therefore, must be considered as proceeding not from him, but some later writer, who describes not only the settling of those tribes which had obtained their allotments beyond Jordan, in the life-time of Moses, but also the erection of towns and cities, which occupied them many years.

VI. Allusion to events thai are known to have happened after the death of Moses.

Under this head will be placed certain passages which bear a sort of negative or indirect testimony to the argument which we are pursuing. Such are the following:

* In Deuteronomy iii, 15. we read this in the first person, coming directly from Moses" And I gave Gilead unto Machir."