righteous, and so make it to signify a righteous people. Montanus renders it rectitudo, and so does the Samaritan version. But it seems a considerable objection against this sense, that Israel is called Jeshurun at the very time that they are upbraided with their sins and their rebellion, “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked," &c. Deut. xxxii, 15. It is replied, Jeshurun is the diminutive of jashar (for nomen auctum in fine est nomen diminutivum), and so imports, that though, in general and on the whole, they were a righteous people, yet they were not without great faults. Perhaps Cocceius has given as probable an interpretation as any. He derives the word from shur, which signifies to see, behold, or discover; from whence, in the future tense plural, comes jashuru, which, with the addition of Nun paragogicum, makes Jeshurun; that is, the people who had the vision of God*. This makes the name Jeshurun to be properly applied to Israel, not only when Moses is called their king, but when they are upbraided with their rebellion against God; since the peculiar manifestation, which God had made of himself to them, was a great aggravation of their ingratitude and rebellion. We now proceed to the Second period of the Hebrew history; which commences with their entrance into Canaan under the command of Joshua, and expires at the long captivity. and captain general of His original name was Joshua, the successor of Moses, Israel, was of the tribe of Ephraim. www Hosheang, Numb. xiii, 8. It was changed by Moses, no doubt by God's command, into w Jehoshuang, ver. 16. Now since both these names signify the same, namely, a Saviour, from yu jashang, salvavit, he hath saved; it is inquired, for what reason his name was thus changed? To account for this, two conjectures are offered. First, that it was in order to put an honour upon him, by adding one of the letters of the name of Jehovah to his name; as God changed Abram's name into s Abraham; adding to it, from his own name, say the Jews, Gen. xvii, 5. Thus www Jehoshuang may signify salvator Dei; and he was made even in his name a more eminent type of Christ, who bore * Ultima Mosis, sect. 973. the same name with him, Jesus, or Joshua; and who is called, Luke iii, 6, σωτήριον το θε8, "the salvation of God*." But if this reason for the change of Joshua's name be thought too cabalistical, The second may, perhaps, be more satisfactory; viz. that the name yл Hosheang comes from the imperative of hiphil, and signifies, save; and perhaps his parents, by giving it, meant to express their wish, that he might prove a Saviour to Israel. But v Jehoshuang comes from the future tense, and signifies salvabit, will save. So that Moses, by making this change, predicted and promised what his parents had wished. Joshua had been Moses's minister, Josh. i, 1, and had attended upon him in his highest employments. When he was called up by Jehovah into the mount, to receive the two tables of the law; it is said, that "Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua," Exod. xxiv, 13. And he is said "to stand before Moses,” Deut. i, 38, not surely as a menial servant, but as his first minister; for Joshua was one of the heads of the children of Israel, and a ruler in his tribe; as were all the twelve spies, whom Moses sent to search out the land of Canaan, of which number Joshua was, Numb. xiii, 2, 3, 8. He only and Caleb brought a good and true report of that land, encouraging the people to invade it, and assuring them of success, Numb. xiv, 6-9; while the other ten gave such a discouraging account of the gigantic stature and valour of the inhabitants, of the number and strength of their fortified towns, and perhaps also of the unhealthiness of their country (which seems to be their meaning in saying, that "the land eateth up the inhabitants thereof"), Numb. xiii, 32, that the people were disheartened, and inclined to make themselves a captain, and return into Egypt, Numb. xiv, 2-4. God was, hereupon, so much displeased because they showed such ingratitude and infidelity, notwithstanding the many wonders he had wrought for them in Egypt, and in the desart, and notwithstanding the repeated assurances he had given them of the conquest of Canaan, that he sentenced all of them who were twenty years of age and upwards, except Caleb and Joshua, to wander in the wilderness for forty years, till they were con * Vid. Alting. de Cabalist. sumed; that none of them might enter into the promised land. And as for those, to whose false reports this rebellion was owing, they were all destroyed by a sudden death, ver. 36, 37. But as for Joshua, he not only lived till the Israelites entered into the land of Canaan, but had the honour, as their captain-general, to conduct them. He had before been appointed Moses's successor by the oracle, or by Jehovah himself; and had been solemnly ordained to that office, while Moses was living, Numb. xxvii, 15-23. And after his death the people acknowledged him for his successor, promising to pay him the same obedience which they had paid to Moses, Josh. i, 16, 17. However, though he succeeded Moses, as God's viceroy or lieutenant, and had the same authority, military and civil, which his predecessor had; yet, in some respects, he was much inferior to him; and therefore he could not be "that prophet, like unto Moses, whom God had promised to raise up unto his brethren," Deut. xviii, 15, as the modern Jews affirm, and some Christians have too easily granted, he was. For, besides that he had not the honour of being a lawgiver, as Moses had (by whom the whole body of laws, which God intended for his people, was delivered), I say, besides this, he was never admitted to that immediate and familiar manner of conversing with God, with which Moses was favoured; for "with him the Lord spake face to face, as a man speaks to his friend," Exod. xxxiii, 11; whereas when Joshua wanted to consult the oracle, he was to stand before the "priest, who should ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim," Numb. xxvii, 21. In both these respects, neither Joshua, nor any other prophet, was "like unto Moses;" except he to whom that prophecy is applied by the apostle Peter, Acts iii, 20-22, and in whom alone it was accomplished, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Our author says, that after Joshua succeeded Judges. But it may be questioned, whether the judges were properly successors to Joshua, in the same office, as he had been to Moses. For, as the law had been given by Moses, and as the land of Canaan had been conquered, and the tribes of Israel settled in the peaceable possession of their inheritances, by Joshua; there seems to have been no further occasion for "6 a man to be set over the congregation, who might go out before them, and who might go in before them, and who might lead them out, and who might bring them in;" which was the office of Joshua, Numb. xxvii, 16, 17. As therefore the legislative office, which Moses had possessed, expired at his death, so did the office of Joshua, as præfectus ordinarius, and captain-general for life, at his. Hereupon the Hebrew government became aristocratical; excepting that, in respect to the peculiar supremacy of Jehovah, it was monarchical*. In the Hebrew commonwealth every city had its elders, who formed a court of judicature, with a power of determining lesser matters in their respective districts. The rabbies say, there were three such elders, or judges, in each lesser city, and twenty-three in greater. But Josephus speaks of seven judges in each, without any such distinction of greater or less †. We often read, in scripture, of the elders of the cities; but the number of them is not determined; probably that was left discretional. For instance, we read of the elders of Gilead, who went to fetch Jephthah and make him their captain, Judg. xi, 5, 6; of the elders of Succoth, Judg. viii, 14; and of the elders of Bethlehem, where Boaz lived, Ruth iv, 2, 4, 9, compared with chap. i, 1. In short, that there were elders in every city appears from the law, directing and regulating the conduct of the elders of any city, on occasion of a person's being found dead in or near it, Deut. xxi, 1-9. Sigonius supposes, these elders and judges of cities were the original constitution settled in the wilderness by Moses, upon the advice which Jethro gave him, Exod. xviii, 21, 22; and continued by Divine appointment after the settlement in the land of Canaan. Whereas others imagine the Jethronian pre Aristocracy (so called from apiros, optimus, and xparew, impero), imports, that the supreme government is lodged in the optimates, or nobles. Such is the present form of government in Venice, and in Holland. Democracy (from ônuos, populus, and xpatεw, impero), means, that the supreme authority is in the people, who exercise it by persons of their own order. Such is the government of Basil, and of some of the free cities of Germany. Monarchy (from movos, solus, and apyn, imperium, is when the supreme authority is lodged in a single person, as in France and Spain. The English constitution is plainly a mixture of all three, inasmuch as the supreme authority is lodged jointly in the king, the lords, and the commons. Antiq. lib. iv, cap. viii, sect. xiv, edit. Haverc. fectures were a peculiar constitution, suited to their condition while encamped in the wilderness, but laid aside after they came into Canaan. However that be, it is certain there was a court of judges and officers, appointed in every city by the law of Moses, Deut. xvi, 18. How far, and in what respects, these judges differed from the elders of the city is not easily determined; and whether they were different persons, or the same. Perhaps the title, elders, may denote their seniority and dignity; and that of judges, the office they sustained. As for the officers, now shoterim, mentioned along with the judges, they were, according to the account given of them by Maimonides and the rabbins, much like those whom the Roman law calls officiales et executores, and the New Testament πрaxтopas, Luke xii, 58, who attended the court, to keep the people in order, with a staff and a whip; and to execute the orders and decrees of the judges. Josephus styles them bailiffs or officers under the judges; and we find them, on some occasions, employed as public cryers, Deut. xx, 5, 8, 9; Josh. i, 10, 11. However, the rabbies place them next under their wise men and doctors, and above their scribes or clerks. And indeed they seem to have been persons of some consideration, by Joshua's assembling them along with the elders, heads, and judges; not to hold any court of justice, but to hear his farewell charge and exhortation before his death, Josh. xxiii, 2; xxiv, 1. The lower courts of justice, in their several cities, were held in their gates: "Judges and officers shalt thou make in all thy gates," Deut. xvi, 18. The gate among the Hebrews seems to answer to the forum among the Romans, and to the ayopa among the Greeks, which was the name given to any common place of resort, whether for the keeping of markets or the holding courts of judicature. In the former sense the word gate is used, when Elisha foretels at what low rates provisions would be sold, on the morrow, in the gate of Samaria, 2 Kings vii, 1. According to the latter sense, Israel is exhorted to "execute the judgment of truth and peace in her gates," Zech. viii, 16; and so in the law we are now explaining, they * See Patrick on the text last cited. + Ubi supra. See also Matth. v, 25, where unpens is used in the same sense as it is by Josephus. |