utmost violence of rage, and though he hardly knows of any particular punishment for such an offence, will not, at any rate, willingly beat out his neighbour's eye, or think of giving him any such lasting mark of his revenge, as the inhabitant of a southern country, or that rare character among us, to whom, in lower Saxony, the epithet glupisch is applied, would exult in having left behind him. Except in cases of necessity, it is always a hazardous and doubtful experiment to alter laws, or to increase the severity of punishments; and with regard to uncommon crimes, a legislator will always decline taking any notice of them, or will, at any rate, make no new laws in relation to them, lest he should thus only make them known; he will think it better to let them quietly rest under the ancient national abhorrence, with which they are regarded. Thus as we are not accustomed to the law of retaliation, it would appear to us cruel, and no injured person would, for fear of the universal outcry it would raise against him, attempt commencing an action to enforce it: so that, as frequently happens in such cases, the increased severity of the punishment would prove nothing else than a sort of impunity to the person who had committed the crime. The more nearly that a people approaches to a state of nature, the more suitable to their circumstances is the law of retaliation in like manner, it agrees better with a democraey, than with any of the other forms of government: although, no doubt, to these it can accommodate itself, and did subsist in Rome under a strong mixture of aristocracy. The following distinction, likewise, which has not, perhaps, been theoretically considered, is a very striking one. Where every citizen is a soldier, and defends his country with the strength of his arm, the law in question may answer well enough; but where there is one particular class of men, who follow the profession of arms, whether as hired soldiers, according to our present system, or, according to the feudal plan in the middle ages, as gentlemen, with land given them in fee instead of pay, there, at least, if crimes were very frequent, it could not be conveniently enforced witnout many exceptions. For if the soldier had an eye dug out, or his right arm, hand, or thumb, mutilated, he would not only be punished himself, but his country would also suffer, in his being rendered unfit for its defence. Here, therefore, there would require to be one law for the protectors, and another for the protected; at least, unless soldiers could be had in more than sufficient numbers. Many other dangers of the same kind would attend an alteration of the law; which is, in every case, a very hazardous experiment. At the same time, I readily own, that in cases of personal injury, I have no great partiality for the pleasure of the judge, but would infinitely prefer the decision of laws, that should place the high and the low on an equal footing, and estimate the tooth of a peasant at the same rate with that of a lord, particularly where the former must gnaw crusts, and the latter can have crumb if he chooses.-MICHAELIS.

CHAPTER XXV.

Ver. 23. The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 24. And in all the land of your possession, ye shall grant a redemption for the land. 25. If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. 26. And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it; 27. Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession. 28. But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.

Moses declared God, who honoured the Israelites by calling himself their king, the sole lord-proprietary of all the

land of promise, in which he was about to settle them by his most special providence; while the people were to be merely his tenants, and without any right to alienate their possessions in perpetuity, Lev. xxv. 23. It was, indeed, allowable for a proprietor to sell his land for a certain period; but every fiftieth year, which Moses denominated the year of jubilee, it returned without any redemption to its ancient owner, or his heirs. Hence Moses very justly observes, that this was a sale, not of the land, but only of its crops, between the period of sale and the year of jubilee. It was reasonable that the value of a field should be estimated higher or lower, according as it came to sale at a longer or shorter period preceding that year; and Moses therefore admonished the Israelites, (Lev. xxv. 14—16,) against taking unjust advantage of the ignorant and simple in this particular on such occasions. This purchase of crops, however, must have been a very profitable speculation, because no man would lay out his money for such a length of time, and encounter all risks, (that of war not excepted,) as he was obliged to do, unless he purchased at a very cheap rate. It was not in his power to rid himself of those risks, by abandoning the bargain, as a lessee may his lease, and re-demanding the money expended, because at the year of jubilee all debts became instantly extinguished. He would, therefore, always take care to purchase on such terms, as, allowing for the very worst that could happen, might secure him from loss, and even yield him some profit-at least the interest of his money, prohibited as all usury was by the law. Hence, and as a consequence of the principle, that the lands were to feed those to whose families they belonged, there was established a law of redemption, or right of re-purchase, which put it in the power of a seller, if before the return of the year of jubilee his circumstances permitted him, to buy back the yet remaining crops, after deducting the amount of those already reaped by the purchaser, at the same price for which they were originally sold: and of this right, even the nearest relation of the seller, or, as the Hebrews termed him, his Goël, might likewise avail himself, if he had the means. Lev. xxv. 24-28.

The advantages of this law, if sacredly observed, would have been great. It served, in the first place, to perpetuate that equality among the citizens, which Moses at first established, and which was suitable to the spirit of the democracy, by putting it out of the power of any flourishing citizen to become, by the acquisition of exorbitant wealth, and the accumulation of extensive landed property, too formidable to the state, or in other words, a little prince, whose influence could carry every thing before it. In the second place, it rendered it impossible that any Israelite could be born to absolute poverty, for every one had his hereditary land; and if that was sold, or he himself from poverty compelled to become a servant, at the coming of the year of jubilee he recovered his property. And hence, perhaps, Moses might have been able with some justice to say, what we read in most of the versions of Deut. xv. 4, There will not be a poor man among you. I doubt, however, whether that be the true meaning of the original words. For in the 11th verse of this same chapter, he assures them that they should never be without poor; to prevent which, indeed, is impossible for any legislator, be- . cause, in spite of every precaution that laws can take, some people will become poor, either by misfortunes or misconduct. But here, if a man happened to be reduced to poverty, before the expiry of fifty years, either he himself, or his descendants, had their circumstances repaired by the legal recovery of their landed property, which though indeed small, then became perfectly free and unincumbered. -In the third place, it served to prevent the strength of the country from being impaired, by cutting off one, and perhaps the greatest cause of emigration, viz. poverty. No Israelite needed to leave his home on that ground. Here, to be sure, the extraordinary case of any public calamity that might make the lands lose their value, must be excepted. But it was enough that in ordinary cases the law took away the chief inducement to emigration, by such a judicious provision as made it the interest of the people to remain contented at home.-In the fourth place, as every man had his hereditary land, this law, by its manifest tendency to encourage marriage, rather served to promote the population of the country, than to impair it.-In the fifth place, the land being divided into numerous small portions,

each cultivated by the father of a family, acquainted with it from his infancy, and naturally attached to it as the inalienable property of his family, could not fail in consequence of this law, to be better managed, and more productive, than large estates in the hands of tenants and daylabourers could ever have been.-And, lastly, this institution served to attach every Israelite to his country in the strongest manner, by suggesting to him that, if he had to fight in its defence, he would at the same time be defending his own property, which it was, moreover, out of his power to convert into money, wherewith he might betake himself to a more peaceful habitation elsewhere.-MICHAELIS.

By the concurring testimony of all travellers, Judea may now be called a field of ruins. Columns, the memorials of ancient magnificence, now covered with rubbish, and buried under ruins, may be found in all Syria. From Mount Tabor is beheld an immensity of plains, interspersed with hamlets, fortresses, and heaps of ruins. The buil'ings on that mountain were destroyed and laid waste by the Sultan of Egypt in 1290, and the accumulated vestiges of successive forts and ruins are now mingled in one common and extensive desolation. Of the celebrated cities Capernaum, Bethsaida, Gadara, Tarichea, and Chorazin, nothing remains but shapeless ruins. Some vestiges of Emmaus may still be seen. Cana is a very paltry village. The ruins of Tekoa present only the foundations of some considerable buildings. The city of Nain is now a hamlet. The ruins of the ancient Sapphura announce the previous existence of a large city, and its name is still preserved in the appellation of a miserable village called Sephoury. Loudd, the ancient Lydda and Diospolis, appears like a place lately ravaged by fire and sword, and is one continued heap of rubbish and ruins. Ramla, the ancient Arimathea, is in almost as ruinous a state. Nothing but rubbish is to be found within its boundaries. In the adjacent country there are found at every step dry wells, cisterns fallen in, and vast vaulted reservoirs, which prove that in ancient times this town must have been upwards of a league and a half in circumference. Cæsarea can no longer excite the envy of a conqueror, and has long been abandoned to silent desolation. The city of Tiberias is now almost abandoned, and its subsistence precarious; of the towns that bordered on its lake there are no traces left. Zabulon, once the rival of Tyre and Sidon, is a heap of ruins. A few shapeless stones, unworthy the attention of the traveller, mark the site of the Saffre. The ruins of Jericho, covering no less than a square mile, are surrounded with complete desolation; and there is not a tree of any description, either of palm or balsam, and scarcely any verdure or bushes to be seen about the site of this abandoned city. Bethel is not to be found. The ruins of Sarepta, and of several large cities in its vicinity, are now "mere rubbish, and are only distinguishable as the sites of towns by heaps of dilapidated stones and fragments of columns." But at Djerash, (supposed to be the ruins of Gerasa,) are the magnificent remains of a splendid city. The form of streets, once lined with a double row of columns, and covered with pavement still nearly entire, in which are the marks of the chariotwheels, and on each side of which is an elevated pathwaytwo theatres and two grand temples, built of marble, and others of inferior note-baths-bridges-a cemetery with many sarcophagi, which surrounded the city-a triumphal arch-a large cistern-a picturesque tomb fronted with columns, and an aqueduct overgrown with wood-and upwards of two hundred and thirty columns still standing amid deserted ruins, without a city to adorn-all combine in presenting to the view of the traveller, in the estimation of those who were successively eyewitnesses of them both, "a much finer mass of ruins" than even that of the boasted Palmyra. But how marvellously are the predictions of their desolation verified, when in general nothing but ruined ruins form the most distinguished remnants of the cities of Israel; and when the multitude of its towns are almost all left, with many a vestige to testify of their number, but without a mark to tell their name.-KEith.

Ver. 34. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

A single reference to the Mosaic law respecting the Sabbatical year renders the full purport of this prediction perfectly intelligible and obvious. "But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land; thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard." And the land of Judea hath even thus enjoyed its Sabbaths so long as it hath lain desolate. In that country, where every spot was cultivated like a garden by its patrimonial possessor, where every little hill rejoiced in its abundance, where every steep acclivity was terraced by the labour of man, and where the very rocks were covered thick with mould, and rendered fertile; even in that selfsame land, with a climate the same, and with a soil unchanged, save only by neglect, a dire contrast is now, and has for a lengthened period of time been displayed, by fields untilled and unsown, and by waste and desolated plains. Never since the expatriated descendants of Abraham were driven from its borders, has the land of Canaan been so "plenteous in goods," or so abundant in population, as once it was; never, as it did for ages unto them, has it vindicated to any other people a right to its possession, or its own title of the land of promise-it has rested from century to century; and while that marked, and stricken, and scattered race, who possess the recorded promise of the God of Israel, as their charter to its final and everlasting possession, still "be in the land of their enemies, so long their land lieth desolate." There may thus almost be said to be the semblance of a sympathetic feeling between this bereaved country and banished people, as it the land of Israel felt the miseries of its absent children, awaited their return, and responded to the undying love they bear it by the refusal to yield to other possessors the rich harvest of those fruits, with which, in the days of their allegiance to the Most High, it abundantly blessed them. And striking and peculiar, without the shadow of even a semblance upon earth, as is this accordance between the fate of Judea and of the Jews, it assimilates as closely, and, may we not add, as miraculously, to those predictions respecting both, which Moses uttered and recorded ere the tribes of Israel had ever set a foot in Canaan. The land shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her rest while she lieth desolate without them.

To the desolate state of Judea every traveller bears witness. The prophetic malediction was addressed to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys; and the beauty of them all has been blighted. Where the inhabitants once dwelt in peace, each under his own vine and under his own fig-tree, the tyranny of the Turks, and the perpetual incursions of the Arabs, the last of a long list of oppressors, have spread one wide field of almost unmingled desolation. The plain of Esdraelon, naturally most fertile, its soil consisting of "fine rich black mould," level like a lake, except where Mount Ephraim rises in its centre, bounded by Mount Hermon, Carmel, and Mount Tabor, and so extensive as to cover about three hundred square miles, is a solitude "almost entirely deserted; the country is a complete desert." Even the vale of Sharon is a waste. In the valley of Canaan, formerly a beautiful, delicious, and fertile valley, there is not a mark or vestige of cultivation. The country is continually overrun with rebel tribes; the Arabs pasture their cattle upon the spontaneous produce of the rich plains with which it abounds. Every ancient landmark is removed. Law there is none. Lives and property are alike unprotected. The valleys are untilled, the mountains have lost their verdure, the rivers flow through a desert and cheerless land. All the beauty of Tabor that man could disfigure is defaced; immense ruins on the top of it are now the only remains of a once magnificent city; and Carmel is the habitation of wild beasts. The art of cultivation," says Volney, "is in the most deplorable state, and the countryman must sow with the musket in his hand; and no more is sown than is necessary for subsistence." "Every day I found fields abandoned by the plough." In describing his journey through Galilee, Dr. Clarke remarks, that the earth was covered with such a variety of thistles, that a complete collection of them would be a valuable acquisition to botany. Six new spe

gregation were assembled. If on such occasions every individual had had to give his vote, every thing would certainly have been democratic in the highest degree; but it is scarcely conceivable how, without very particular regulations made for the purpose, (which, however, we nowhere find,) order could have been preserved in an assembly of 600,000 men, their votes accurately numbered, and acts of violence prevented. If, however, we consider that, while Moses is said to have spoken to the whole congregation, he could not possibly be heard by 600,000 people, (for what human voice could be sufficiently strong to be so ?) all our fears and difficulties will vanish; for this circumstance alone must convince any one that Moses could only have addressed himself to a certain number of persons deputed to represent the rest of the Israelites. Accordingly, in Numb. i. 16, we find mention made of such persons. In contradistinction to the common Israelites, they are there denominated Kerüe Häeda, (y) that is, "those wont to be called to the convention." In the xvi. chapter of the same book, ver. 2, they are styled, Nesie Eda Kerüe Moëd, (ID INITY IN) that is, "chiefs of the community, that are called to the convention." I notice this passage particularly, because it appears from it, that 250 persons of this description, who rose up against Moses, became to him objects of extreme terror; which they could not have been, if their voices had not been, at the same time, the voices of their families and tribes. Still more explicit, and to the point, is the passage, Deut. xxix. 9, where Moses, in a speech to the whole people, says, "Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God, your heads, your tribes, (that is, chiefs of tribes,) your elders, your scribes, all Israel, infants, wives, strangers that are in your camp, from the hewer of wood to the drawer of water." Now as Moses could not possibly speak loud enough to be heard by two millions and a half of people, (for to so many did the Israelites amount, women and children included,) it must be manifest that the first-named persons represented the people, to whom they again repeated the word of Moses. Whether these representatives were on every occasion obliged to collect and declare the sense of their constituents, or whether, like the members of the English House of Commons, they acted in the plenitude of their own power for the general good, without taking instructions from their constituents, I find nowhere expressly determined; but methinks, from a perusal of the Bible, I can scarcely doubt that the latter was the case.

Who these representatives were, may in some measure be understood from Josh. xxiii. 2., and xxiv. 1. They would seem to have been of two sorts. To some, their office as judges gave a right to appear in the assembly; and these were not necessarily of the same family in which they exercised that office. Others, again, had a seat and a voice in the Diet, as the heads of families.-MICHAELIS. Ver. 31. And he said, Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes.

An aged father says to his son, who wishes to go to some other village, "My son, leave me not in my old age; you are now my eyes.' "You are on the look-out for me, your eyes are sharp." It is said of a good servant, "he is eyes to his master."-ROBERTS.

When Moses begged of Hobab not to leave Israel, because they were to encamp in the wilderness, and he might be to them instead of eyes, Numb. x. 31, he doubtless meant that he might be a guide to them in the difficult journeys they had to take in the wilderness: for so Job, when he would express his readiness to bring forward on their journey those that were enfeebled with sickness, or hurt by accidents, and to guide them in their way that were blind or ignorant of it, savs, "I was eyes to the blind, and feet was to the lame," Job xxix. 15. Everybody, accordingly, at all acquainted with the nature of such deserts as Israel had to pass through, must be sensible of the great importance of having some of the natives of that country for guides: they know where water is to be found, and can lead to places proper, on that account, for encampments. Without their help, travelling would be much more difficult in these deserts, and indeed often fatal. The importance of having these Arab guides appears, from such a

number of passages in books of travels, that every one whose reading has at all turned this way, must be apprized of them; for which reason I shall cite none in particular. The application then of Moses to Hobab the Midianite, that is, to a principal Arab of the tribe of Midian, would have appeared perfectly just, had it not been for this thought, that the cloud of the Divine Presence went before Israel, and directed their marches; of what consequence then could Hobab's journeying with them be? A man would take more upon himself than he ought to do, that should affirm the attendance of such a one as Hobab was of no use to Israel, in their removing from station to station it is very possible, the guidance of the cloud might not be so minute as absolutely to render his offices of no value. But I will mention another thing, that will put the propriety of this request of Moses quite out of dispute. The sacred history expressly mentions several journeys undertaken by parties of the Israelites, while the main body laid still so in Numb. xiii. we read of a party that was sent out to reconnoitre the land of Canaan; in chap. xx. of the messengers sent from Kadesh unto the king of Edom; in chap. xxxi. of an expedition against the idolatrous Midianites; of some little expeditions, in the close of chap. xxx.; and more journeys of the like kind, were without doubt undertaken, which are not particularly recounted. Now Moses, foreseeing something of this, might well beg the company of Hobab, not as a single Arab, but as a prince of one of their clans, that he might be able to apply to him from time to time, for some of his people, to be conductors to those he should have occasion to send out to different places, while the body of the people, and the cloud of the LORD, continued unmoved.

Nor was their assistance only wanted in respect to water, when any party of them was sent out upon some expedition; but the whole congregation must have had frequent need of them, for directions where to find fuel. Manna continually, and sometimes water, were given them miraculously; their clothes also were exempted from decay while in the wilderness; but fuel was wanted to warm them some part of the year, at all times to bake and seethe the manna, according to Exod. xvi. 23, and was never obtained but in a natural way, that we know of: for this then. they wanted assistance of such Arabs as were perfectly acquainted with that desert. So Thevenot, describing his travelling in this very desert, says, on the night of the 25th of January they rested in a place where was some broom, for that their guides never brought them to rest anywhere, willingly we are to suppose, but in places where they could find some fuel, not only to warm them, but to prepare their coffee and mafrouca. He complains also of their restingplace on the night of the 28th of January, on account of their not being able to find any wood there, not so much as to boil coffee. A like complaint he makes of the night able to get into Suez, he was obliged to lie without the between the eighth and ninth of February, when not being gates till it was day, suffering a great deal of cold, because they had no wood to make a fire. Moses hoped Hobab would be instead of eyes to the Israelites, both with respect to the guiding their parties to wells and springs in the desert, and the giving the people in general notice where they might find fuel: for though they frequently make use in this desert of camels' dung for fuel, this could not, we imagine, wholly supply their wants; and in fact, we find the Israelites sought about for other firing.-HARMER.

Ignorance is a kind of blindness often no less fatal than privation of sight; and partial, or deficient information, is little better than ignorance: so we find Moses saying to Hobab, "Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we ought to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes," Numb. x. 31. The necessity and propriety of such a guide, will appear from considerations easily gathered from the following extract; and the description of a person of this character will be interesting, though it cannot be equally interesting to us who travel on hedge-bounded turnpike roads, as to an individual about to take his passage across the great desert. If it be said, in the case of Moses, the angel who conducted the camp might have appointed its stations without the assistance of Hobab; we answer, it might have been so; but, as it is now the usual course of Providence to act by means, even to accomplish the most certain events; and as no man who has neglected any mean, has now the smallest right to