ye

applied to prepare bread in a § conftruction exactly
fimilar to that in the paffage before us. Or if this
does not please, the same prefix beth, may be trans-
lated with, in the fense which with often bears when
it denotes an inftrument of action, or mean of ope-
ration, as in these forms, he wrote with a pen, he
killed with a sword, and the like. So to bake bread
with excrements, is only to do it making and feeding
a fire with the fame to dry the cake, and fit it for
ufe at the table: fuitably to which we not only read,
fhall roaft the paffover with fire, 2 Chron. xxxv.
13.
but that Elisha took a yoke of oxen, and flew
them, and boiled their flesh with the inftruments of
the oxen, 1 Kings, xix. 21.† where no one ever un-
derstood the meaning to be, though the with there
is the tranflation of the fame prefix as here, that he
boiled the utenfils of husbandry with which he had
been plowing, as well as the oxen, but that he em-
ployed them as fuel for dreffing the victuals which
he gave unto the people *. And indeed if the bread
had been either to be formed of, or spread with ex-
crements, it seems Ezekiel would have remonstrated

In Ifaiah, xliv. 19. where the words of the original are, N1

Ve aph arbithi gnal gehalao lehem. Yea אפיתי על גחליו לחם

' also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof,' viz. of the ash-tree.

As here they are, y gob na muya Ve gnafitha ethlahmecha gnalehah.

Ube ובכלי הבקר בשלם,The Hebrew in that place is + וח'א בגללי צאת האדם,sheli babbakar biblam, as here it is

My Vehi begeleli tzeeth-haadam tegnugenah; literally, Et quod ⚫ ad ipfam placentam cum cylindris, five voluminibus excrementi hu'mani coques ipfam.'

* According to this acceptation of with, though, as intimated above, it does not most readily occur to the reader, our English translation is unexceptionable.

against the injunction in stronger terms than he has done, from the antipathy and reluctance of nature to fuch diet, instead of pleading exemption from obedience to it, merely because he had never ate' things legally unclean, what had died of itfelf, or been torn in pieces, as he does, v. 14. Accordingly I find very able judges have understood no more to be intended, as Michaelis, Bochart, † Le Clerc, Dr. Taylor. Nor let any be surprised that the prophet should speak of excrements as conveying pollution, and deprecate the ufe thereof even for fuel; whoever confiders the charge given by God, Deut. xxiii. 12, 13, 14. will foon be fenfible, that uneafinefs and difquietude must have sprung up in his mind on the prescription to prepare his bread in this manner.

I conclude then, that Mr. Voltaire, after the Vulgate, hath given a falfe fenfe here. Nor is this the alone fault of which he is guilty in his profeffed re

f It is obferved by Michaelis, that the Chaldee and Syriac turn beth, in the 12. verse, upon. Thou shalt prepare thy bread upon 'it:' and himself follows it.-Bochart, in his Hierozoicon, tom. 1. P. 329, fays, 'Non exigit Deus a propheta ut panem comederet hu⚫ mano ftercore co-opertum, quomodo Hieronymus videtur accepiffe; tantum vult, ut panem pro carbonibus humano ftercore coctum comedat, quó miferi homines quandoque pro ligno utuntur, idque fymbolica de caufa.—Bubulum ftercus hodie in Frifia ad ligni materiam ⚫ ficcari teftatur Erafmus in proverbio, Boliti poenam i. e. bubuli fter'coris.' To which I add, fo did the Gallo-Graeci ufe cow's dung for fuel of old, according to Livy, xxxviii. 18. Fimo bubulo ad igneni pro lignis utuntur.' And so do the inhabitants of this country in fome corners ftill.-Though Le Clerc turns the 12th verse, ‘Eamque ster

core excrementorum humanorum coques, which is ambiguous: he renders v. 15. Panemque fuper eo parabis,' which fixes the fenfe to be what I have contended for.-Taylor, finally, in his Concordance

cital of the tranfaction from the book of Ezekiel. He hath made fuch a representation, as is not only against the original, but against all versions without exception, that he might expofe Scripture to derifion with greater fuccefs: for God doth not fay, according to either, Thus fhall the children of Ifrael eat their bread befmeared with thofe nations among ' which they shall be driven,' as he expreffes it, (upon which no reader can need a commentary) but that they should eat defiled bread among them, fignifying, that they should not have it in their power to obferve the regulations of their law about food, for all forts of which, the term, bread, is often put by the Hebrews, as in Gen. xix. 3. xliii. 31, &c. but that thro' want and other caufes, they should be constrained in Babylon, to partake of fuch meats as God by Mofes had prohibited +.-No more is God introduced allowing him the excrements of oxen in room of human, after he had eaten bread spread over with them, as our author hath it; he indulges him to substitute the one for the other, previous to his preparation and use of any bread in conformity to his first order altogether. And after all, fome think the whole was tranfacted in vifion: wherefore, though the prophet objected to the order, as Peter did to the command, Kill, and eat, when the fheet defcended in fuch a visionary scene, full of unclean animals, there was never any participation of food upon it by him, more than by the Apoftle of these creatures that

under the word was to be fuel

gnug, citing this place, fubjoins, "The dung dried put under the gridiron to heat it,' † See Hofea, ix. 1, 2, 3. and Daniel, i. 8.

were presented to him. How unfair then this writer here!‡

SECTION IV.

Of his faying in the fame chapter, that the Lord threatens by Amos, that the cows of Samaria fhall be put into the caldron.

A SIMILAR inftance of mifrepresentation fupported by the Vulgate version, we meet with, in my opinion, in this fame + chapter, when he fays, "The 'Lord, in the prophecy of Amos, threatens that the cows of Samaria fhall be put into the caldron, chap. • vi.'

As no fuch expreffion occurs in the fixth chapter, I fuppofe he intended the fourth, for it begins thus, 'Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which opprefs the poor, ' which crufh the needy, which fay to their masters, (those to whom they have fold them for filver) ' come and let us drink;' The grandees of Ifrael being thus denominated, on account of their infolence, by which they resembled fuch wanton cattle, fed in the luxuriant paftures of Baflian, according to a figure used elsewhere, Ezek. xxxix. 18. Pf. xxii. 30. Then follows the word, to which their attention was by this addrefs awaked, 'The Lord God hath fworn by his holiness, that lo the days fhall come upon

Yet thus alfo, in his Treatife on Toleration, he had set forth the matter, chap. 12. p. 181, where he says in the note, "The prophet ⚫ Ezekiel eats his bread covered with excrement.'

Page 210. Philof, of History.

<

you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fish-hooks.' In room of which the Vulgate hath, Levabunt vos in contis, et reliquias veftras in ollis ferventibus, They will lift you

⚫ on poles, (or perches) and your pofterity in boiling pots,' where every one fees the reason of his caldrons. But our tranflation appears far preferable. In other places of Scripture alfo, we find the invaders of a country compared to anglers or fishers, Jer. xvi. 16. Habak. i. 15. Then the word tzanoth by us turned hooks, in the former claufe properly fignifies thorns, as in Prov. xxii. 5. Job v. 5. From which fenfe the tranfition was eafy and natural to this, as the sharp extremities of thorns were used in fishing, in the more rude and unimproved ages of the world, inftead of the inftruments we call hooks. And though fir, is often turned, a pot or caldron, and

D firoth pots or caldrons, yet OTO firim is tranflated thorns in three different places, Ifa. xxxiv. 13. Nahum i. 10. Ecclef. vii. 6. Nor can there remain any doubt, but it should be ‡fo rendered here, when it is joined with 7 dugah, as the participle dugim is fishers, Ezek. xlvii. 10. Jerem. xvi. 16. God therefore threatens to draw the Ifraelites out of their towns, by their Affyrian enemies TiglathPilefer and Shalmanezer, as fish out of their watery element, the one removing those whom the other had left. And where is there in this image of their captivity any thing blameable or which deferves to be fcoffed at? There was no intention † here to state

I confess however the Targum hath, filher-boats, instead of, thorns of fishing.

Father Houbigant's note, who fuppofes the women of Sameris

E