tle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." This was succeeded by mills, similar to the handmills formerly used in this country; of which there were two sorts: the first were large, and turned by the strength of horses or asses: the second were smaller, and wrought by men, commonly by slaves condemned to this hard labour, as a punishment for their crimes. Chardin remarks in his manuscript, that the persons employed are generally female slaves, who are least regarded, or are least fit for any thing else: for the work is extremely laborious, and esteemed the lowest employment about the house. Most of their corn is ground by these little mills, although they sometimes make use of large mills, wrought by oxen or camels. Near Ispahan, and some of the other great cities of Persia, he saw watermills; but he did not meet with a single windmill in the East. Almost every family grinds their wheat and barley at home, having two portable millstones for that purpose; of which the uppermost is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron, that is placed in the rim. When this stone is large, or expedition is required, a second person is called in to assist; and as it is usual for the women only to be concerned in this employment, who seat themselves over against each other, with the millstone between them, we may see the propriety of the expression in the declaration of Moses: "And all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh, that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant, that is behind the mill.". The manner in which the handmills are worked, is well described by Dr. Clarke: "Scarcely had we reached the apartment prepared for our recep tion, when looking from the window, into the courtyard belonging to the house, we beheld two women grinding at the mill, in a manner most forcibly illustrating the saying of our Saviour: Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.' They were preparing flour to make our bread, as it is always customary in the country when strangers arrive. The two women, seated upon the ground opposite to each other, held between them two round flat stones, such as are seen in Lapland, and such as in Scotland are called querns. In the centre of the upper stone was a cavity for pouring in the corn; and by the side of this, an upright wooden handle for moving the stone. As this operation began, one of the women opposite received it from her companion, who pushed it towards her, who again sent it to her companion; thus communicating a rotatory motion to the upper stone, their leit hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the machine."-PAXTON.

CHAP. 12. ver. 11. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the LORD's passover. When people take a journey, they have always their loins well girded, as they believe that they can walk much faster and to a greater distance. Before the palankeen bearers take up their load, they assist each other to make tight a part of the săli or robe round the loins. When men are about to enter into an arduous undertaking, bystanders say, "The your loins well up." (Luke xii. 35. Eph. vi. 4. 1 Pet. i. 13.) ROBERTS.

They that travel on foot are obliged to fasten their garments at a greater height from their feet than they are wont to do at other times. This is what some have understood to be meant by the girding their loins: not simply their having girdles about them, but the wearing their garments at a greater height than usual. There are two ways of doing this, Sir J. Chardin remarks, after having informed us that the dress of the eastern people is a long vest, reaching down the calf of the leg, more or less fitted to the body, and fastened upon the loins by a girdle, which goes three or four times round them. "This dress is fastened higher up two ways: the one, which is not much used, is to draw up the vest above the girdle, just as the monks do when they travel on foot; the other, which is the common way, is to tuck up the foreparts of their vest into the girdle, and so fasten them. All persons in the East that journey on foot always gather up their vest, by which they walk more commodiously, having the leg and knee unburdened and unembarrassed by the vest, which they are not when

that hangs over them." And after this manner he supposes the Israelites were prepared for their going out of Egypt, when they ate the first passover, Exod. xii. 11. He takes notice, in the same passage, of the singularity of their having shoes on their feet at that repast. They in common, he observes, put off their shoes when they eat, for which he assigns two reasons: the one, that as they do not use tables and chairs in the East, as in Europe, but cover their floors with carpets, they might not soil those beautiful pieces of furniture; the other, because it would be troublesome to keep their shoes upon their feet, they sitting crosslegged on the floor, and having no hinder quarters to their shoes, which are made like slippers. He takes no notice in this note, of their having to eat this passover with a staff in their hand; but he elsewhere observes, that the eastern people very universally make use of a staff when they journey on foot; and this passage plainly supposes it.-HARMER. Ver. 34. And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. The dough, we are told, which the Israelites had prepared for baking, and on which it should seem they subsisted after they left Egypt for a month, was carried away by them in their kneading-troughs on their shoulders, Exod. xii. 34. Now, an honest thoughtful countryman, who knows how cumbersome our kneading-troughs are, and how much less important they are than many other utensils, may be ready to wonder at this, and find a difficulty in accounting for it. But this wonder perhaps may cease, when he comes to understand, that the vessels which the Arabs of that country make use of, for kneading the unleavened cakes they prepare for those that travel in this very desert, are only small wooden bowls; and that they seem to use no other in their own tents for that purpose, or any other, these bowls being used by them for kneading their bread, and afterward serving up their provisions when cooked: for then it will appear, that nothing could be more convenient than kneading-tronghs of this sort for the Israelites, in their journey. I am, however, a little doubtful, whether these were the things that Moses meant by that word which our version renders kneading-troughs; since it seems to me, that the Israelites had made a provision of corn sufficient for their consumption for about a month, and that they were preparing to bake all this at once: now their own little wooden bowls, in which they were wont to knead the bread they wanted for a single day, could not contain all this dough, nor could they well carry a number of these with them. That they had furnished themselves with corn things, borrowed of the Egyptians for the present occasion, sufficient for a month, appears from their not wanting bread till they came into the wilderness of Sin; that the eastern people commonly bake their bread daily, as they want it, appears from an observation I have already made, and from the history of the patriarch Abraham; and that they were preparing to bake bread sufficient for this purpose at once, seems most probable, from the universal bustle they were in, and from the much greater conveniences for baking in Egypt than in the wilderness, which are such, that though Dr. Shaw's attendant sometimes baked in the desert, he thought fit, notwithstanding, to carry biscuit with him, and Thevenot the same. They could not well carry such a quantity of dough in those wooden bowls, which they used for kneading their bread in common. What is more, Dr. Pococke tells us, that the Arabs actually carry their dough in something else for, after having spoken of their copper dishes put one within another, and their wooden bowls, in which they make their bread, and which make up all the kitchen furniture of an Arab, even where he is settled; he gives us a description of a round leather coverlet, which they lay on the ground, and serves them to eat off, which, he says, has rings round it, by which it is drawn together with a chain that has a hook to it to hang it by. This is drawn together, he says, and sometimes they carry in it their meal made into dough; and in this manner they bring it full of bread, and, when the repast is over, carry it away at once, with all that is left.

Whether this utensil is rather to be understood by the word en misharoth, translated kneading-troughs, than the Arab wooden bowl, I leave my reader to determine. I would only remark, that there is nothing, in the other three

places, in which the word occurs, to contradict this explanation. These places are Exod. viii. 3, Deut. xxviii. 5, 17, in the two last of which places it is translated store. It is more than a little astonishing, to find Grotius, in his comment on Exod. xii. 39, explaining that verse as signifying, that they baked no bread in their departing from Egypt, but stayed till they came to Succoth, because they had not time to stay till it was leavened in Egypt; when it is certain that they were so hurried out of Egypt, as to be desired not to stay to bake unleavened bread; nor can we imagine they would stay till leaven put into it at Succoth, had produced its effect in their dough, since travellers now in that desert often eat unleavened bread, and the precepts of Moses, relating to their commemoration of their going out of Egypt, suppose they ate unleavened bread for some time. Succoth, the first station then of the Israelites, which Dr. Shaw supposes was nothing more than some considerable encampment of Arabs, must have been a place where there was a considerable quantity of broom, or other fuel, which is not to be found in that desert everywhere.-HARMER.

way

CHAP. 13. ver. 18. But God led the people about, through the of the wilderness of the Red Sea and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.

The margin of our translation remarks, that the word rendered harnessed, in Exodus xiii. 18, signifies by fives, but when it adds, five in a rank, it seems to limit the sense of the term very unnecessarily, as it may as well signify five men in a company, or their cattle tied one to another in strings of five each. If there were 600,000 footmen, besides children, and a mixed multitude, together with cattle, the marching of five only abreast, supposing only one yard for each rank to move in, would make the whole length of this enormous file of people more than sixty-eight miles. If we should suppose two such columns, and place the children, mixed multitude, and cattle between them, the length then of this body of people would be above thirty-four

miles. At the same time we cannot conceive any reason for such a narrow front, on the one hand, in such a wide desert, nor, on the other, why they are described as marching five abreast, if there were many such columns. It would seem in such a case, to be a circumstance that required no particular notice. Pitts tells us, that in the march of the Mohammedan pilgrims from Egypt, through this very desert, they travel with their camels tied four in a parcel, one after the other, like so many teams. He says also that usually three or four of the pilgrims diet together. If we will allow that like circumstances naturally produce like effects, it will appear highly probable, that the meaning of the word used in the passage of Exodus is, that they went up out of Egypt with their cattle, in strings of five each; or that Moses ordered that five men with their families should form each a little company, that should keep together, and assist each other, in this difficult march. In either of these senses we may understand the term, in all the other places in which it appears; whereas it is not natural to suppose they all went out of Egypt properly armed for war, and it is idle to say, as some have done, that they were girded about the loins, that is always supposed to be done by the eastern people when they journey. Not to say that the kindred word continually signifies five, and this word should in course-signify that they were, somehow or other, formed into fires, companies of five men each, or companies that had each five beasts, which carried their provisions and other necessaries, fastened to each other.-HARMER.

CHAP. 15. ver. 20. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

Lady M. W. Montague, speaking of the eastern dances, says, "Their manner is certainly the same that Diana is said to have danced on the banks of Eurotas. The great lady still leads the dance, and is followed by a troop of young girls, who imitate her steps, and if she sings, make up the chorus. The tunes are extremely gay and lively, yet with something in them wonderfully soft. Their steps are varied according to the pleasure of her that leads the

dance, but always in exact time, and infinitely more agreeable than any of our dances." (Letters, vol. ií. p. 45.) This gives us a different apprehension of the meaning of these words than we should otherwise form. "Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and dances:" She led the dance, and they imitated her steps, which were not conducted by a set well-known form, but extemporaneous. Probably David did not dance alone before the Lord when the ark was removed, but led the dance in the same authoritative kind of way. (2 Sam. vi. 14. Judges xi. 34. 1 Sam. xviii. 6.)-BURDER.

Ver. 25. And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.

This water, which was bitter or brackish, (Dr. Shaw says the latter,) was thus made sweet by the casting in of the tree. Some suppose it was a bitter wood, such as quassia, which corrected the water. Water is often brackish in the neighbourhood of salt-pans or the sea, and the natives correct it by throwing in it the wood called PerruNelli, Phylanthus Emblica. Should the water be very bad, they line the well with planks cut out of this tree. In swampy grounds, or when there has not been rain for a long time, the water is often muddy, and very unwholesome. But Providence has again been bountiful by giving to the people the Teatta Maram, Strychnos Potatorum. All who live in the neighbourhood of such water, or who have to travel where is, always carry a supply of the nuts of this tree. They grind one or two of them on the side of an earthen vessel: the water is then poured in, and the impurities soon subside.-ROBERTS.

"El-vah is a large village or town, thick planted with palm-trees; the Oasis Parva of the ancients, the last inhabited place to the west that is under the jurisdiction of Egypt; it yields senna and coloquintida. The Arabs call El-vah, a shrub or tree, not unlike our hawthorn, either in form or flower. It was of this wood, they say, that Moses' rod was made, when he sweetened the waters of Marah. With a rod of this wood too, they say, Kaled Ibn el Waalid, the great destroyer of Christians, sweetened these waters at El-vah, once bitter, and gave it the name from this miracle. A number of very fine springs burst from the earth at El-vah, which renders this small spot verdant and beautiful, though surrounded with dreary deserts on every quarter: it is situated like an island in the midst of the ocean." (BRUCE.)—Our colonists, who first peopled some parts of America, corrected the qualities of the water they found there, by infusing in it branches of sassafras; and it is understood that the first inducement of the Chinese to the general use of tea, was to correct the water of their rivers. That other water also stands in some need of cor

rection, and that such correction is applied to it, appears from the custom of Egypt, in respect to the water of the somewhat muddy; but by rubbing with bitter almonds, Nile. "The water of the Nile," says Niebuhr, "is always prepared in a particular manner, the earthen jars in which is kept, this water is rendered clear, light, and salutary." -BURDER.

We travelled, says Burckhardt, over uneven, hilly ground, gravelly and flinty. At one hour and three quarters, we passed the well of Howara, around which a few date-trees grow. Niebuhr travelled the same route, but his guides probably did not lead him to this well, which lies among hills about two hundred paces out of the road. The water of the well of Howara is so bitter, that men cannot drink it; and even camels, if not very thirsty, refuse to taste it. This well Burckhardt justly supposes to be the Marah of the Israelites; and in this opinion Mr. Leake, Gesenius, and Rosenmüller, concur. From Ayoun Mousa to the well of Howara we had travelled fifteen hours and a quarter. Referring to this distance, it appears probable that this is the desert of three days mentioned in the scriptures to have been crossed by the Israelites immediately after their passing the Red Sea; and at the end of which they arrived at Marah. In moving with a whole nation, the march may well be supposed to have occupied three days;

and the bitter well at Marah, which was sweetened by Moses, corresponds exactly to that at Howara. This is the usual route to Mount Sinai, and was probably, therefore, that which the Israelites took on their escape from Egypt, provided it be admitted that they crossed the sea at Suez, as Niebuhr, with good reason, conjectures. There is no other road of three days' march in the way from Suez towards Sinai, nor is there any other well absolutely bitter on the whole of this coast. The complaint of the bitterness of the water by the children of Israel, who had been accustomed to the sweet water of the Nile, are such as may be daily heard from the Egyptian servants and peasants who travel in Arabia. Accustomed from their youth to the excellent water of the Nile, there is nothing which they so much regret in countries distant from Egypt; nor is there any eastern people who feel so keenly the want of good water, as the present natives of Egypt. With respect to the means employed by Moses to render the waters of the well sweet, I have frequently inquired among the Bedouins in different parts of Arabia, whether they possessed any means of effecting such a change, by throwing wood into it, or by any other process; but I never could learn that such an art was known. At the end of three hours we reached Wady Gharendel, which extends to the northeast, and is almost a mile in breadth, and full of trees. The Arabs told me that it may be traced through the whole desert, and that it begins at no great distance from El Arysh, on the Mediterranean; but I had no means of ascertaining the truth of this statement. About half an hour from the place where we halted, in a southern direction, is a copious spring, with a small rivulet, which renders the valley the principal station on this route. The water is disagreeable, and if kept for a night in the water skins, it turns bitter and spoils, as I have myself experienced, having passed this way three times. If, now, we admit Bir Howara to be the Marah of Exodus, (xv. 23,) then Wady Gharendel is probably Elim, with its well and date-trees; an opinion entertained by Niebuhr, who, however, did not see the bitter well of Howara. The non-existence, at present, of twelve wells at Gharendel, must not be considered as evidence against the just-stated conjecture; for Niebuhr says, that his companions obtained water here by digging to a very small depth, and there was great plenty of it when I passed. Water, in fact, is readily found by digging, in every fertile valley in Arabia, and wells are thus easily formed, which are filled up again by the sands.

The Wady Gharendel contains date-trees, tamarisks, acacias of different species, and the thorny shrub Gharkad, the Peganum retusum of Forskal, which is extremely common in this peninsula, and is also met with in the sands of the Delta on the coast of the Mediterranean. Its small red berry, of the size of a grain of a pomegranate, is very juicy and refreshing, much resembling a ripe gooseberry in taste, but not so sweet. The Arabs are very fond of it. The shrub Gharkad delights in a sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in the height of summer, when the ground is parched up, exciting an agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry produced in the driest soil and season. Might not the berry of this shrub have been used by Moses to sweeten the waters of Marah? [The Hebrew in Ex. xv. 25, reads: "And the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast into the waters, and they became sweet." The Arabic translates, "and he cast of it into the waters," &c.] As this conjecture did not occur to me when I was on the spot, I did not inquire of the Bedouins, whether they ever sweetened the water with the juice of berries, which would probably effect this change in the same manner as the juice of pomegranate grains expressed into it.-CALMET. CHAP. 16. ver. 13. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about

the host.

It is evident from the history of Moses, that the demands of Israel were twice supplied with quails by the miraculous interposition of divine providence. The first instance is recorded in the book of Exodus, and is described in these words; "I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to

pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp." From these words it appears, that the quails were sent to supply the wants of the people, at the same time the manna began to be showered down from heaven, around their encampment in the desert of Sin; and it is clear, from the beginning of the chapter, that this event took place soon after their departure from Egypt, upon the fifteenth day of the second month, before they came to mount Sinai. This miracle was repeated at Kibroth-hattaavah, a place three days' journey beyond the desert of Sinai; but they struck their tents before Sinai, in the second year after their departure from Egypt, on the twentieth day of the second month; so that a whole year intervened between the first and second supply. In the first instance, the quails were scattered about the camp only for one day; but in the second, they came up from the sea for a whole month. They only covered the camp at their first appearance; but when they came the second time, they lay round about it to the distance of a day's journey. No signs of divine wrath attended the first miracle; but the second was no sooner wrought, than the vengeance of their offended God overtook these incorrigible sinners: "While the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people; and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague." Hence it is evident, that the sacred historian records two different events; of which, the one was more stupendous than the other, and seemed to Moses so extraordinary, that on receiving the divine promise, he could not refrain from objecting: "The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them to suffice them?" Moses had seen the power of Jehovah successfully exerted in feeding his people with flesh for one day; but he could scarcely imagine, from whence supplies of the same kind could be drawn for a whole month. That eminent servant of Jehovah, astonished at the greatness of the promised favour, seemed to forget for a moment, that with God all things are possible.

The quails were scattered around the camp of Israel, in the most astonishing numbers: "He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea." The holy Psalmist had used the metaphorical word to rain, in relation to the manna, in a preceding verse, both to intimate its descent from heaven, and its prodigious abundance. And because a single metaphor is not sufficient to give us a just idea of the sudden and extraordinary supplies which descended on the tents of Israel, they are compared to the dust of the field, and to the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered. To suggest at once the countless myriads of these birds, and the ease with which they are caught, it is added: "He let it fall in the midst of their camp round about their habitations." The account of Moses is still more striking. "And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth." Hence, these birds covered the whole camp and the surrounding waste, to the distance of a day's journey on every side. The only ambiguity lies in the phrase, "a day's journey;" whether it means the space over which an individual could travel in one day, in which case it would be much greater-or the whole army could traverse, which would be much less. If the journey of an individual is intended, it might be about thirty miles; but if the sacred historian refers to the whole army, a third part of this space is as much as they could march in one day in the sandy desert, under a vertical sun. In the opinion of Bochart, this immense cloud of quails covered a space of at least forty miles diameter; for a day's journey is at least twenty miles. Ludolf thinks, it ought to be reduced to sixteen miles; and others, to half that number, because, Moses refers to the march of Israel through the desert, encumbered with their women and children, their flocks and herds, and the baggage of the whole nation; which must have greatly retarded their movements, and rendered the short distance of eight miles more than sufficient for a journey of one day. It is equally doubtful, whether the distance mentioned by Moses, must be measured from the centre, or

from the extremities of the encampment; it is certain, however, that he intends to state the countless numbers of these birds which fell around the tents of Israel.

Some interpreters have doubted, whether the next clause refer to the amazing multitude of these birds which strewed the desert, or to the facility with which they were caught; the wind let them fall by the camp-" as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth." The Seventy, and after them the Vulgate, render it, They flew, as it were two cubits high above the earth. Others imagine, the quails were piled one above another over all that space, to the height of two cubits; while others suppose, that the heaps which were scattered on the desert with vacant spaces between, for the convenience of those that went forth to collect them, rose to the height of two cubits. The second opinion seems entitled to the preference; for the phrase "to rain," evidently refers to these birds after they had fallen to the ground, upon which they lay numerous as the drops of rain from the dense cloud. Besides, the people could scarcely have gathered ten homers a piece, in two days, if they had not found the quails lying upon the ground; for a homer is the largest measure among the Jews, and contains nearly six pints; according to some Hebrew writers, the load of an ass, from whose name the term is supposed to be derived.-PAXTON.

Ver. 15. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.

We cannot mistake in this description the natural production which is called, in all the European languages, manna. Manna is the common name for the thick, clammy, and sweet juice, which in the southern countries oozes from certain trees and shrubs, partly by the rays of the sun, partly by the puncture of some kinds of insects, and partly by artificial means. The manna common in our druggists' shops, comes from Calabria and Sicily, where it oozes out of a kind of ash-tree, from the end of June to the end of July, when the bicada appears, an insect at first sight resembling the locust, but is distinguished from it by a thorn under the belly, with which it punctures this tree. The juice issuing from this wound, is in the night fluid, and looks like dew, but in the morning it begins to harden. But the European manna is not so good as the oriental, which is gathered in particular in Syria, Arabia, and Persia; partly from the oriental oak, and partly from a shrub, which is called in Persia, Terengabin or Terendschabin. Rauwolf says, that the manna grains resemble coriander seeds, as mentioned in the Mosaic account; and this is confirmed by several modern travellers. Gmelin remarks, that the manna is as white as snow, and consists of grains like coriander seeds. The peasants about Ispahan gather it at sunrise, holding a sieve under the branch, into which the grains fall when the branches are struck with a stick; if the gathering it be put off till after sunrise, no manna can be obtained, because it melts.-BURDER.

The Wady el Sheikh, the great valley of western Sinai, is in many parts thickly overgrown with the tamarisk or tarfa, (Hedysarun Alhagi of Linn.) It is the only valley in the peninsula of Sinai where this tree grows, at present, in any great quantity; though small bushes of it are here and there met with in other parts. It is from the tarfa that the manna is obtained. This substance is called by the Bedouins mann, and accurately resembles the description of manna given in the scriptures. In the month of June, it drops from the thorns of the tamarisk upon the fallen twigs, leaves, and thorns which always cover the ground beneath that tree in the natural state; the manna is collected before sunrise, when it is coagulated; but it dissolves as soon as the sun shines upon it. The Arabs clean away the leaves, dirt, etc. which adhere to it, boil it, strain it through a coarse piece of cloth, and put it in leathern skins: in this way they preserve it till the following year, and use it as they do honey, to pour over unleavened bread, or to dip their bread into. I could not learn that they ever made it into cakes or loaves. The manna is found only in years when copious rains have fallen; sometimes it is not produced at all. I saw none of it among the Arabs, but I obtained a small piece of the last year's produce, in the convent (of Mount Sinai,) where,

having been kept in the cool shade and moderate tempera ture of that place, it had become quite solid, and formed a small cake; it became soft when kept some time in the hand; if placed in the sun for five minutes, it dissolved; but when restored to a cool place, it became solid again in a quarter of an hour. In the season at which the Arabs gather it, it never acquires that state of hardness which will allow of its being pounded, as the Israelites are said to have done, in Num. xi. 8. Its colour is a dirty yellow, and the piece which I saw was still mixed with bits of tamarisk leaves; its taste is agreeable, somewhat aromatic, and as sweet as honey. If eaten in any considerable quantity, it is said to be slightly purgative.

The quantity of manna collected at present, even in seasons when the most copious rains fall, is trifling, perhaps not amounting to more than five or six hundred pounds. It is entirely consumed among the Bedouins, who consider it the greatest dainty which their country affords. The harvest is usually in June, and lasts for about six weeks. In Nubia, and in every part of Arabia, the tamarisk is one of the most common trees; on the Euphrates, on the Astaboras, in all the valleys of the Hedjaz and the Bedja, it grows in great plenty. It is remarked by Niebuhr, that in Mesopotamia, manna is produced by several trees of the oak species; a similar fact was confirmed to me by the son of a Turkish lady, who had passed the greater part of his youth at Erzerum in Asia Minor; he told me that at Moush, a town three or four days distant from Erzerum, a substance is collected from the tree which produces the galls, exactly similar to the manna of the peninsula in taste and consistence, and that it is used by the inhabitants instead of honey. BURCKHARDT.

The notion, however, that any species of vegetable gum is the manna of the scriptures, appears so totally irreconcilable with the Mosaic narrative, that, notwithstanding the learned names which may be cited in support of the conjecture, it cannot be safely admitted as any explanation of the miracle. It is expressly said, that the manna was rained from heaven; that when the dew was exhaled, it appeared lying on the surface of the ground,-" a small, round thing, as small as the hoar-frost," "like coriander seed, and its colour like a pearl;" that it fell but six days in the week, and that a double quantity fell on the sixth day; that what was gathered on the first five days became offensive and bred worms if kept above one day, while that which was gathered on the sixth day kept sweet for two days; that the people had never seen it before, which could not possibly be the case with either wild-honey or gumarabic; that it was a substance which admitted of being ground in a handmill or pounded in a mortar, of being made into cakes and baked, and that it tasted like wafers made with honey; lastly, that it continued falling for the forty years that the Israelites abode in the wilderness, but ceased on their arriving at the borders of Canaan. To perpetuate the remembrance of the miracle, a pot of the manna was to be laid up by the side of the ark, which clearly indicates the extraordinary nature of the production. In no one respect does it correspond to the modern manna. The latter does not fall from heaven, it is not deposited with the dew, but exudes from the trees when punctured, and is to be found only in the particular spots where those trees abound; it could not, therefore, have supplied the Israelites with food in the more arid parts of the desert, where they most required it. The gums, moreover, flow only for about a month in the year; they neither admit of being ground, pounded, or baked; they do not melt in the sun; they do not breed worms; and they are not peculiar to the Arabian wilderness. Others have supposed the manna to have been a fat and thick honey-dew, and that this was the wild-honey which John the Baptist lived upon, a supposition worthy of being ranked with the monkish legend of St. John's bread, or the locust-tree, and equally showing an entire ignorance of the nature of the country. It requires the Israelites to have been constantly in the neighbourhood of trees, in the midst of a wilderness often bare of all vegetation. Whatever the manna was, it was clearly a substitute for bread, and it is expressly called meat, or food. The abundant supply, the periodical suspension of it, and the peculiarity attaching to the sixth day's supply, it must at all events be admitted, were preternatural facts, and facts not less extraordinary than that the substance also should be of an unknown and peculiar de

scription. The credibility of the sacred narrative cannot receive the slightest addition of evidence from any attempt to explain the miracle by natural causes. That narrative would lead any plain reader to expect that the manna should no longer be found to exist, having ceased to fall upwards of 3,000 years. As to the fact that the Arabs give that name to the juice of the tarfa, the value of their authority may be estimated by the pulpit of Moses and the footstep of Mohammed's camel. The cause of Revelation has less to fear from the assaults of open infidels, than from such ill-judged attempts of skeptical philosophers, to square the sacred narrative by their notions of probability. The giving of the inanna was either a miracle or a fable. The proposed explanation makes it a mixture of both. It admits the fact of a Divine interposition, yet insinuates that Moses gives an incorrect or embellished account of it. It requires us to believe, that the scripture history is at once true and a complete misrepresentation, and that the golden vase of manna was designed to perpetuate the simple fact, that the Israelites lived for forty years upon gum-arabic! The miracle, as related by Moses, is surely more credible than the explanation.-MODERN TRAVELLER.

Ver. 16. Gather of it every man according to his eating; an omer for every man, (Heb. a head,) according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents.

A man, when offering money to the people to induce them to do something for him, says, "To every head, I will give one fanam." In time of sickness or sorrow, it is said, "Ah! to every head there is now trouble." "Alas! there is nothing left for any head." "Yes, yes, he is a good master: to every head he has given a cow." "What did you pay your coolies?"-" To every head one fanam."ROBERTS.

CHAP. 17. ver. 1. And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim and there was no water for the people to drink.

At twenty minutes' walk from the convent of El Erbayn, a block of granite is shown as the rock out of which the water issued when struck by the rod of Moses. It is thus described by Burckhardt: "It lies quite insulated by the side of the path, which is about ten feet higher than the lower bottom of the valley. The rock is about twelve feet in height, of an irregular shape, approaching to a cube. There are some apertures upon its surface, through which the water is said to have burst out; they are about twenty in number, and lie nearly in a straight line round the three sides of the stone. They are for the most part ten or twelve inches long, two or three inches broad, and from one to two inches deep, but a few of them are as deep as four inches. Every observer must be convinced, on the slightest examination, that most of these fissures are the work of art; but three or four perhaps are natural, and these may have first drawn the attention of the monks to the stone, and have induced them to call it the rock of the miraculous supply of water. Besides the marks of art evident in the holes themselves, the spaces between them have been chiselled, so as to make it appear as if the stone had been worn in those parts by the action of the water; though it cannot be doubted, that if water had flowed from the fissures, it must generally have taken quite a different direction. One traveller saw on this stone twelve openings, answering to the number of the tribes of Israel; another describes the holes as a foot deep. They were probably told so by the monks, and believed what they heard, rather than what they saw. About 150 paces farther on in the valley, lies another piece of rock, upon which it seems that the work of deception was first begun, there being four or five apertures cut in it, similar to those on the other block, but in a less finished state. As it is somewhat smaller than the former, and lies in a less conspicuous part of the valley, removed from the public path, the monks thought proper, in process of time, to assign the miracle to the other. As the rock of Moses

has been described by travellers of the fifteenth century, the deception must have originated among the monks of an earlier period. As to the present inhabitants of the convent and of the peninsula, they must be acquitted of any fraud respecting it, for they conscientiously believe that it is the very rock from whence the water gushed forth. In this part of the peninsula, the Israelites could not have suffered from thirst. The upper Sinai is full of wells and springs, the greater part of which are perennial; and on whichever side the pretended rock of Moses is approached, copious sources are found within an hour of it.' The fact, that this part of the peninsula abounds with perennial springs, which is attested by every traveller, proves decidedly that this cannot be the vale of Rephidim. It is astonishing to find such travellers as Shaw and Pococke credulously adopting this imbecile legend. "Here," says the former, "we still see that extraordinary antiquity, the rock of Meribah, which hath continued down to this day, without the least injury from time or accident. It is a block of granite marble, about six yards square, lying tottering as it were, and loose in the middle of the valley, and seems to have formerly belonged to Mount Sinai, which hangs in a variety of precipices all over this plain. The waters which gushed out, and the stream which flowed, (Psalm 1xxviii. 20,) have hollowed, across one corner of this rock, a channel about two inches

deep and twenty wide, appearing to be incrustated all over, like the inside of a teakettle that hath been long in use. Besides several mossy productions that are still preserved by the dew, we see all over this channel a great number of holes, some of them four or five inches deep, and one or two in diameter, the lively and demonstrative tokens of their having been formerly so many fountains. It likewise may be further observed, that art or chance could by no means be concerned in the contrivance, for every circumstance points out to us a miracle, and, in the same manner with the rent in the rock of Mount Calvary, at Jerusalem, never fails to produce a religious surprise in all who see it.'

That this rock is as truly the Rock of Meribah, as the spot alluded to is Mount Calvary, may be freely admitted; but the surprise which they are adapted to awaken in an intelligent observer, is at the credulity of travellers. "These supernatural mouths," says Sir F. Henniker, "appear to me common crevices in the rock: they are only two inches in depth, and their length is not confined to the watercourse. That the incrustation is the effect of water, I have not the slightest doubt, for the rocks close at hand, where water is still dripping, are marked in the same manner : and if a fragment of the cliff were to fall down, we should scarcely distinguish between the two. I therefore doubt the identity of the stone, and also the locality; for, in this place, the miracle would be that a mountain so lofty as Mount Sinai should be without water!"-MODERN TRAV

ELLER.

Ver. 16. For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

Literally, "Because the hand of the Lord is upon the throne." These words are susceptible of a very different meaning, which has not escaped the notice of some valuable commentators: "For he said, Because his hand hath been against the throne of the Lord, therefore, will he have war with Amalek from generation to generation." The prophet is there giving a reason of the perpetual war which Jehovah had just proclaimed against that devoted race; their hand had been against the throne of the Lord, that is, they had attacked the people whom he had chosen, and among whom he had planted his throne; disregarding, or probably treating with contempt, the miraculous signs of the divine presence which led the way, and warranted the operations of Israel; they attempted to stop their progress, and defeat the promise of Heaven; therefore they dared to lift their hand against the throne of God himself, and were for their presumption, doomed to the destruction which they intended for others. Hence, the custom of laying the hand upon the gospels, as an appeal to God, if not the contrivance of modern superstition, is derived from the practice of some obscure Gentile nation, and has no claim whatever to a more reputable origin.-Paxton.

CHAP. 19. ver. 1. In the third month, when the