custom of the writer, who tells the reason why Abraham, Sarai, Isaac, Jacob, and his twelve children, received their respective names in the same manner that he relates those already mentioned. The conclusion is very plain; and shortly this; either the Hebrew language was the language of Paradise, or reason cannot be employed in forming any scriptural criticism.”—BRUCE's Travels, vol. ii, book 2. appen. No. 2.

E.

“All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt—were threescore and six.”—Gen. xlvi. 26.—“ threescore and fifteen.”—Acts vii. 14.

The wives of Jacob's sons, originally twelve, were reduced, at the period of their going to Egypt, to nine: Judah's wife being dead, Gen. xxxviii. 12. and Simeon's also, (according to an opinion founded on his youngest child Shaui's being called the son of a Canaanitish woman) and Joseph's wife being already in Egypt. These wives, who are expressly excepted, Gen. xlvi. 26. being added to sixty-six, make seventy-five, agreeable to Acts vii. 14. But from these calculations Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph's two sons are excluded.

F.

"The daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in a year.”—Judg. xi. 10.

The practice of lamenting the dead, as related here, and in other parts of scripture, once common to almost every nation in the world, still continues in the east. Dr. E. D. CLARKE and his party, when at Grand Cairo, being surprised by a very extraordinary noise, found upon inquiry that some female mourners were performing the usual ceremony of lamentation for a deceased person. Eager to obtain information relative to this ancient practice, they sent the interpreter to the house whence the sound proceeded, to ascertain particulars relative

to it. “He told us upon his return,” says Dr. CLARKE, “that we might have the ceremony performed in our own apartments; that the singers were women, hired to sing and lament in this manner; the wealthier the family, the more numerous were the persons hired, and, of course, the louder the lamentations; that those singers exhibited the most frightful distortions; having their hair dishevelled, their clothes torn, and their features disfigured with paint and dirt; that they were relieved at intervals by other women similarly employed; and thus the ceremony may be continued for any length of time. A principal part of their art consists in mingling with their Ululation such affecting expressions of praise and pity, such a pathetic narrative of the employments, possessions, and characteristics of the deceased, and such inquiries as to his reasons for leaving those whom he professed to love during life, as may excite the tears and sighs of the relations and friends collected about the corpse. It is therefore evident that this custom (like the caoineadh of the Irish) and the funeral cry of other nations, are remains of ceremonies practised in honour of the dead in almost every country in the world. They are the same that Homer describes at the death of Hector; (Iliad) and they are frequently alluded to in the scriptures, but especially so in the following passage of Jeremiah ix. 17 18. "Call for the mourning women that they may come; and send for cunning women that they may come; and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters."-Dr. CLARKE's Travels, vol. v.

G.

"Tomorrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast; and they shall cover the face of the earth.”—Exod. x. 4, 5.

Locusts are termed by the prophet Joel, ii. 11. "the army of the Lord,” from the military order they appear to observe ;

"disbanding themselves and encamping in the evening, and in the morning resuming their flight in the direction of the wind, unless they meet with food. Nah. iii. 17. Prov. xxx. 27. They fly in countless hosts, Jerem. xlvi. 23. Judg. vi. 5. occupying, it is said, a space of two or three miles in length, by a mile, or a mile and a half in breadth; so as to obscure the sun, and produce darkness upon the earth. Joel ii. 10. Exod. x. 15. The noise made by them is compared to the noise of chariots, Joel ii. 5. and wherever they settle they darken the land. Exod. x. 15. If the weather be cold, they encamp in the hedges until the sun rises, when they resume their progress, Nah. iii. 17. climbing or creeping in perfect order. Regardless of every obstacle they mount the walls of cities and houses, and enter the very apartments. Joel ii. 7-9. They devour every green herb, and strip the bark off every tree, Exod. x. 12. 15. Joel 1. 4, 7, 10, 12, 16, 18, 20. so as to render the land which before was as the garden of Eden, a desolate wilderness, as if it had been laid waste by fire. Joel ii. 3. The noise made by them, when committing their ravages, is compared to the crackling noise of fire among the dry stubble, or a mighty host set in battle array, ib. 5. so fearful are the effects of their devastations, that every one was filled with dismay, ib. 6. and vainly attempted to prevent them from settling on their grounds, by making loud shouts, Jer. li. 14. as the Persian husbandmen, the inhabitants of Egypt, and the Nogai Tartars do to this day. What aggravates this tremendous calamity is, that when one host is departed, it is succeeded by a second, and sometimes even by a third or a fourth, by which every thing that has escaped the ravages of the preceding, is inevitably consumed by the last company. As Arabia is generally considered as the native country of these depredators, they were carried thence into Egypt by an east wind, Exod. x. 13. and were removed by a westerly wind, v. 19. which blew from the Mediterranean Sea, (that lay to the north-west of that country) and wafted

G G

them into the Red Sea, where they perished. On their departure from a country, they leave their fetid excrements behind them, which pollute the air, and myriads of their eggs deposited in the ground, whence issues in the following year a new and more numerous army.

"They are generally carried off into the sea by the winds, where they perish, and their dead bodies putrifying on the shore, emit a most offensive, and, (it is said) sometimes even a fatal smell.-These predatory locusts are larger than those which sometimes visit the southern parts of Europe, being two or three inches long, and as thick as a man's finger. From their heads being shaped like that of a horse, the prophet Joel says that they have the appearance of horses; and, on account of their celerity, they are compared to horsemen on full gallop, Joel ii. 4. and also to horses prepared for battle, Rev. ix. 7. The locust has a large open mouth; and in its jaws it has four incisive teeth, which traverse each other like scissors, and from their mechanism are calculated to grasp and cut every thing of which they lay hold. These teeth are so sharp and strong, that the prophet, by a bold figure, terms them the the teeth of a great lion. Joel i. 6. In order to mark the certainty, variety, and extent of the depredations of the locusts, not fewer than eight or nine different appellations, expressive of their nature, are given to them in the sacred writings.

"Such are the Scripture accounts of this tremendous Scourge, which are corroborated by every traveller who has visited the east. The quantity of these insects, (to whose devastations Syria, Egypt, and Persia, together with the whole middle part of Asia are subject) is incredible to any person who has not himself witnessed their astonishing numbers.Should the wind blow briskly,-they afford a lively idea of that similitude of the psalmist, cix. 23. of being tossed up and down as the locusts. Wherever they alight the land is covered with them for the space of several leagues, and sometimes they form a bed six or seven inches thick,-the verdure of the country

disappears, as if a covering had been removed; trees and plants stripped of their leaves, and reduced to their naked boughs and stems, cause the dreary image of winter to succeed, in an instant, to the rich scenery of the spring. Should the inhabitants dig pits and trenches, and fill them with water, or kindle fires of stubble therein, to destroy them, rank presses on rank, fills up the trenches and extinguishes the fires. Where these swarms are extremely numerous they climb over every thing in their way, entering the inmost recesses of the houses, adhering to the very clothes of the inhabitants, and infesting their food. Pliny relates that in some parts of Ethiopia, the inhabitants lived upon nothing but locusts salted, and dried in the smoke; and that the Parthians also accounted them a pleasant article of food. The modern Arabs catch great quantities of locusts of which they prepare a dish by boiling them with salt, and mixing a little oil, butter or fat; sometimes they toast them before a fire, or soak them in warm water, and without any other culinary process, devour almost every part except the wings. They are also said to be sometimes pickled in vinegar. The locusts which formed part of John the Baptist's food, Mark i. 6. were these insects, and not the fruit of the locust tree."-Rev. T. H. HORNE'S Introd. vol. iii. part 1. c. 2.

H.

"He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in him.”—Psl. lxvi. 6.

The waters in the northern part of the Arabian Gulf appear to have been anciently denominated the Sea of Edom, because the children of Esau, called also Edom, or Red, Gen. xxv. 30. settled upon its shores. This appellation the Greeks translated Thalassa Erythra, and from them the Latins termed it