EXODUS ii, 16-21. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stocd up and helped them, and watered their flock. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said "How is it that ye are come so soon to-day?" And they said "An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock." And he said unto his daughters, "And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

Here he is plainly called Reuel, but in the 18th chapter of the same book, v. 1, he is as evidently designated by the name Jethro.

EXOD. Xviii, 1. When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' fatherin-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt; then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back &c.

In a third passsage the same individual is called Raguel. NUMBERS X, 29. And Moses said unto Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses's father-in-law, "We are journeying unto the place &c.

In the last of these quotations the name, Raguel, is not unlike the first, Reuel: but this very similarity encreases the improbability that Moses himself should have written them so. The history of the world does not furnish a parallel instance: no other book can be mentioned, in which the writer, describing a near relative of his own, has called him by three different appellations with no allusion to the identity of the individual, and giving no reason, for his being so variously named. The interpretation, which I put on this and other remarkable passages, simplifies the whole matter: the three different accounts have been taken from three separate documents, and the Pentateuch, where they meet, is consequently a compilation, and not an original work.

A similar variation will be found between those passages of the Pentateuch where the name of Joshua occurs:

EXODUS xxiv, 13. And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God.

NUMBERS xiii, 16. These are the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jeho

shua.

DEUTERONOMY XXxxii, 44. And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea the son of Nuu.

Thus four forms of the name occur in our Bibles, but in the Hebrew there are only three and in the Septuagint and Vulgate translations, there are only two. Their correspondence may be thus shewn :

10. Argument derived from the use of the expression “unto

this day."

There is a remarkable mode of expression, occurring in several parts of the Pentateuch, which excludes the possibility of Moses, or indeed of any one having written it, until long after the time of the events related in the order of the history: I mean the words "until this day," by which is of course meant the day or time when the author lived and wrote his history. As this expression occurs in some of the passages which have been already cited for other purposes, it is unnecessary to repeat them, but to refer to the places where they are given, and to cite at present the remaining passages of the Pentateuch, where the same expression is to be found. It must, however, be premised that in some of these the expression "unto this day," is appropriate as referring to the time of Moses himself, but. in others, where the principal event belongs to the age of Moses, and the result, effect, or other posterior event is

referred to a future age, we can only conclude that the writer, in whose life-time the posterior event happened, lived at a later period than the age of Moses.

1.

The first place, in which these words are found, is Genesis xix, 37.

And the first-born [i. . of the daughters of Lot] bare a son, and called his name Moab the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

Here, no inference can be drawn to ascertain the age of the writer. The whole period of time, during which Moab existed as a nation, is equally applicable to the words ' unto this day.' If, however, it could be shewn that the Moabites did not exist as a nation in the time of Moses, this passage would furnish the same proof which is drawn from others where the words occur, that Moses could not have been the writer. But, as the Moabites were probably a tribe, even in the time of the Exodus, the words before us may have been written even by Moses himself.

2.

Gen. xxii, 14. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

This verse also, as far as concerns the words 'unto this day' may have been written by Moses; but it is not equally obvious in what sense Moses could be made to say that his readers might still see the place Jehovah-jireh. He had never seen it himself, and probably knew nothing about it. Jehovah-jireh was in Canaan: and the Israelites had hitherto had no communication with the people of that country.

3.

The third place, where we find the same words 'unto this day,' [Gen. xxxii, 32] has been already cited at page 109. This instance, however, has no similarity to the two preceding. The custom of refraining from eating the sinew which hrank, is nowhere shewn in the Bible to have existed be

fore the time of Moses: it was he who instituted the custom, wherefore it would be highly inappropriate for him to advert to the length of time that the custom had lasted. It could by no possibility have lasted longer than a few years. A law-giver who alludes to a custom, of which he was himself the originator, says "Wherefore we still observe the custom at the present day," not " until this day." The word until denotes a prior date and a posterior date, "from the former until the latter," and in general implies a long interval. Such an interval cannot be traced, if Moses wrote the words "until this day."

11. Allusion to the want of a regular government.

In the 12th chapter of Deuteronomy, we find a variety of admonitions about the manner in which the Israelites should conduct their various offerings and sacrifices, when they should come into the promised land. In verse 8 we

read:

Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.

This is the very expression which occurs so often in the book of Judges, in reference to the time when there was no king in Isrcel. It is certainly curious that the same form of expression should occur in the text before us, and leads to the suspicion that it was written at the same time and by the same author who uses the same form of words elsewhere. The note in the Family Bible, to Deut. xii, 8, is from Bp Patrick :

Every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.] This does not mean that there was no good order kept among them, or that they were at liberty to sacrifice where they pleased: but that in such an uncertain state, when they were removing from place to place, many took the liberty in those matters to do as they thought good.

This annotation, like too many similar ones found in our Commentators, is grounded on the supposition that the words "every man doing what was right in his own eyes can have two different meanings. There may, no doubt

be different degrees of force attached to the words; but, in kind, their meaning is invariable: they imply a great license unrestrained by a settled and regular form of government: and this state of license certainly did not prevail in the time of Moses, whose punishments of, crime were, in all cases, prompt and severe. I therefore refer the form of speech to a later day, even to those lawless times which followed the Babylonish Captivity.

CHAPTER 14.

BOOK OF JOSHUA EXAMINED-ANACHRONISMS AND

OTHER INTERNAL

EVIDENCE, SHEWING THAT IT WAS WRITTEN IN A LATER AGE.

The book of Joshua is generally understood to have been written by the great captain whose name it bears, and who succeeded Moses in the supreme command of the Israelitish people. In support of this opinion the same arguments are usually adduced which have been cited in the previous part of this work concerning the books of Moses, GENERAL CONSENT and INTERNAL EVIDENCE. I use the