queen of heaven, glory of the stars', Horace expresses it, siderum reginas, was not a regulator or director of the religious festivals of the God of Israel; rather his chosen people were led into some plainer method of computing their months, and that such a method as might so vary the beginnings of them from a determined relation to any light of heaven, as to evidence that the appointed holy-days which they kept, they did indeed keep only unto the Lord. The author of the book of Ecclesiasticus observes of the moon, that the month is called after her name; but this was not so to an ancient Israelite. In our English language the words moon and month may have this relation, and a like thought is to be supported in the Greek tongue, in which the author of Ecclesiasticus wrote his book. Mv, the month, may be a contraction from Mývn, the moon; though I think it more natural to derive Μήνη from Μην, than Μἣν from Μήνη. However, in the Hebrew, Jareach, or Lebanahk, are the words that signify moon; and Chodesh is the word for month; and these have no such affinity to one another. And indeed, 4. in the Hebrew Bible there is, I think, no one text either in the books of Moses, or in any other of the books of the Old Testament, that can intimate the Israelites to have observed the day of the new moon in any of their festivals. The Israelites were to offer their burnt-offerings unto the Lord in the beginnings, not of their moons, but [] be-Rashei Chadsheicem, on the beginnings of their months"; and the expression is the same, Numb. X. JO. The Israelites are there commanded to blow with the trumpets-on the beginnings of their months; nothing relating to the moon is suggested to them. And this is the expression which runs through all the texts of Scripture, in which the LXX have used the word νουμηνία or νεομηνία, οι we in English the new moons. When the Shunamite would have gone to the prophet, her husband said unto her, Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? It is neither, we render the place, new moon nor sabbath; the LXX say, où veoμnvía ovde σáßßarov but the Hebrew words are, loa Chodesh ve loa Shabbath", it is not the month-day, nor the sabbath. Thus again, the Psalmist directs to blow up the trumpet, not as we render it, in the new moons, nor as the LXX, èv veoμnvlą; but, ba Chodesh, upon the month-dayo. In none of the texts that suggest this festival is there any mention ha Jareach or hal Lebanah, of the moon; for not the first day of the moon, but the first day of the month, was the day observed by them. It is remarkable, that this signification of the Hebrew texts was so undeniable to the Jewish Rabbins, that they could not but own, that their observing the first days of months upon new moons did not arise from any direction of the words of the lawP: they say it was one of the matters which Moses was taught in the mount, and by tradition was brought down to them9. It is, I think, undeniable, that the Jews did admit the use of a new form of computing their year some time after the captivity, which differed in many points from their more ancient method, and which obliged them in time to make many rules for the translation of days and feasts, an account of which we may find in the writers of their antiquities: but the law, as Moses or Joshua left it to the observance of their fathers, or as it was observed until after David's times or Solomon's, seems o Psalm lxxxi. 4. The latter part of the verse is thought by some writers to intimate something contrary to what I am offering: Blow up the trumpet, says the Psalmist, on the month-day, [בכסה לים הגנו] after which follows bacceseh lejom chaggenu. The word ceseh, they say, is derived from the verb casah, to cover, so that bacceseh may signify at the covering, or when the moon is in conjunction with the sun, covered, as it were, so as to give no light. Thus these writers think this verse to intimate the new moon to have been a solemn festival: but I would observe, the expression thus taken is so singular, unlike any thing to be met with in any other place of Scripture, notwithstanding the frequent mention of the festival here intended, that I should think we cannot safely build upon it. Others derive the word ceseh from casas, to number out, and accordingly render bacceseh, upon the appointed day: but were this the sense of the place, the word would perhaps have been written not no bacceseh, but & baccesea, see Proverbs vii. 20. The reader may see what has been offered upon this text in Scalig. de Emendat. Temp. lib. iii. p. 153. ed. Proverbs vii. 20. ɔon an is the known expression for the feast of tabernacles. Deut. xvi. 13. And I have been apt to suspect that transcribers have misplaced the letter in the word caseh, and wrote D instead of non, i. e. bacceseh, for hussuccoth. In the Hebrew the letters of the one word might readily be wrote for the letters of the other. And if we may make this emendation, hasuccoth lejom haggenu, will signify on the day of our feast of tabernacles; and the Psalmist will appear to recommend the observing two solemn feasts, which fell almost together in the same month; the one the month-day, or first day of the seventh month, on which was to be a memorial of blowing of trumpets, Levit. xxiii. 24. the other the first day of the feast of tabernacles. See ver. 34. to have been a stranger to all these regulations. I might perhaps say, that the Jews in following these were in many points led contrary to Moses's directions. When our Saviour was betrayed, he was apprehended on the night of the Passover, after he had eaten the Passover with his disciples', and carried early in the evening to the high-priest's house first", and afterwards before Pilate into the judgment-hall; for the Jews who prosecuted had not then eat the Passovery, and upon this account could not go into the judgment-hall. They intended our Saviour's accusation should be capital; the law had appointed, that persons defiled with the dead body of a man should be kept back, and not eat the Passover until the fourteenth day of the second month2; they judged the persons who were to accuse our Saviour, so as to bring him unto the death, would be under the restriction of this law, and therefore they left off their prosecution until they should go home and eat the Passover. On the next morning, on the day after the Passover, they assembled, and carried him again to Pilate, and took counsel against him to put him to deatha; and in this morning passed the several matters that are related to have preceded our Saviour's crucifixion namely, Pilate's sending him to Herodb; Pilate's wife's message to Pilate, upon account of her dreams; Herod's remanding Jesus back again to Pilated; Pilate's then delivering him to the Jews to be crucifiede, upon which they immediately led him away, and crucified him, and the next day was the sabbaths; so that in this year the Jews had at least a day between the evening of eating the Passover and the sabbath; but had they at this time proceeded according to Moses's institutions, I should think the first day of unleavened bread, the day immediately following the evening of the Passover, would have been the sabbathh. ; I have now offered the reader what I have for some time t Matt. xxvi. 17-31, &c. Mark xiv. 12-27, &c. Luke xxii. 7-34, &c. u Matt. xxvi. 57. Mark xiv. 53. Luke xxii. 54. John xviii. 13. x Ibid. ver. 28. y Ibid. z Numb. ix. 10, II. a Matt. xxvii. 1. Mark xv. 1. Luke xxii. 66. b Luke xxiii. 7. c Matt. xxvii. 19. d Luke xxiii. 11. e Luke xxiii. 21-24. f Matt. xxvii. 27-35. Mark xv. 16-24. Luke xxiii. 26-33. John xix. 16-18. g Mark xv. 42. Luke xxiii. 54. John xix. 31. h According to the Jewish calculation of the year, after they used lunar years, the interval between the Passover and the sabbath following it was different in different years. For instance, there was a day between in the year of our Saviour's crucifixion, the day of the Passover falling that year as on our Thursday. But it is evident, a Jewish lunar year ordinarily containing apprehended the institutions of Moses's law do hint to have been the first and most ancient method used by the Israelites for computing and regulating their year. I have much wished to find some one learned writer directing me in this matter; but as I cannot say I do, I hope I have expressed myself with a proper diffidence. If the reader shall think what I have offered may be admitted, a small correction must be made in what I have suggested concerning the ancient Jewish year in my preface to my first volume: and if I shall find myself herein mistaken, I shall be hereafter better able to retract what I have thus attempted in a preface only, than if I had given it a place in the following books amongst the observations upon the law of Moses. I have taken no notice of a sentiment of Scaliger's, which seems to be admitted by archbishop Usher; that the ancient Israelites computed their year in twelve months of thirty days each, adding five days at the end of the twelfth month yearly, and a sixth every fourth yeari; because it is a thought for which I find no shadow of proof from any hint of Scripture or remain of antiquity. Scaliger indeed attempts to compute the year of the flood to have been reckoned up by Moses to contain 365 daysk: but, in order to give colour to his supposition, he represents the raven and the dove, sent by Noah out of the ark, to see if the waters were abated, to have been sent out at forty days interval the one from the other!: but Moses's narration intimates nothing like it; nor will any reader allow it to be probable, that collects and duly compares the particulars related by Moses of the rise and fall of the waters, and of Noah's conduct and observations. The raven and the dove here spoken of were undoubtedly sent out both upon one and the same day. As to archbishop Usher's seeming to be of opinion, that the ancient Jewish year was in this manner made up of 365 days, with an allowance for about a quarter of a day in every year; he had computed, and found that a number of years of the Israelites were capable of being made to answer to a like number of Julian years; and this led him to think they were, as to length, of much the same nature. I need only observe, that, if the Israelites computed their years in the manner above mentioned by me, a number of such years but 354 days, that the Passover in the next year would fall as on a Tuesday, and consequently there would be three days between the Passover and the sabbath, &c. iScaliger lib. de Emendat. Temp. lib. iii. p. 151. ed. 1589. Usher's Chron. Epistle to the Reader. k Scaliger supra. will not much vary in the sum of them, from the sum of a like number of Julian. I intended to attempt in this place to answer the objections of some writers, who would argue Moses not to have composed the books we ascribe to him but having in many parts both of this and the former volumes obviated the difficulties which seem to arise from some short hints and observations now interspersed in the sacred pages, which the learned are apprised not to have been inserted by the authors of the books they are now found in", I should in a great measure only repeat what I have already remarked, were I to refute at large what is offered upon this topic. If the reader has a mind to examine it, he may find the whole of what can be pretended on the one side in Spinoza", and Le Clerc's third dissertation prefixed to his comment on the Pentateuch may furnish matter for a clear and distinct answer on the other. We have indeed an hint or two upon this argument in some remains of a very great writer: "The "race of the kings of Edom, it is observed, before there "reigned any king in Israel, is set down in the Book of "Genesis; and therefore that book was not written entirely "in the form now extant before the reign of Saul." The reader may find this difficulty attempted to be cleared in its proper place; I shall therefore only refer to what is already said upon it. 66 "The history [in the Pentateuch] hath been collected, we are told, from several books, such as were the history "of the creation, composed by Moses, Gen. ii. 4. the book of "the generations of Adam, Gen. v. 1. and the book of the "wars of the Lord, Numb. xxi. 14." It is something difficult to form any notion of the force of the argument here intended: St. Matthew writes; The book of the generation of Jesus Christ: can we hence argue, that the Gospel we now have and ascribe to him, was collected from a book of the generation of Jesus Christ written by him? Spinoza indeed offers the point which may perhaps be here intimated to this purpose. The books which Moses wrote are expressly named, and sometimes cited in the Pentateuch; consequently the Pentateuch is a different work from the books cited in it9: but the fact is this; Moses has in some parts of his books told us expressly that he wrote them, and this writer would infer the direct contrary from these very intimations. m See book xii. ad fin. n Tract. Theologico-polit. in part alter. c. 8. o See vol. ii. b. vii. p Matt. i. I. q Tractat. Theologico-polit. ubi sup. |