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The seventy-eighth Psalm is a rapid summary of the transactions in Egypt and the wilderness, with the apparent object of magnifying the mercies of God, by showing that often as his people did turn away from him and murmur against him, as often on their repentance was he appeased, and again and again had pity upon them. After the facts are related we meet with the following striking reflections upon them :

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For all this they sinned still,

And believed not for his wondrous works.
Therefore their days did he consume in vanity,
And their years in trouble.

When he slew them, then they sought him;
And they returned and inquired early after God:
And they remembered that God was their Rock,
And the high God their Redeemer.

Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth,
And they lied unto him with their tongues;
For their heart was not right with him,

Neither were they stedfast in his covenant.

But he, being full of compassion,

Forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not:
Yea, many a time turned he his anger away,
And did not stir up all his wrath:

For he remembered they were but flesh;

A wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.’—

lxxviii. 32-39.

In the 105th Psalm is another survey of the same history, with a varied selection of circumstances, the object being to point out the Lord's faithfulness to the covenant which he made with Abraham, to give the land of Canaan to his seed for a possession. The whole history is thus viewed as a series of operations for the accomplishment of that promise. David seldom mentions persons in his Psalms; but in this one he names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron. They are all, however, but passingly mentioned, save one, on whose history he dwells for six verses. And who is this one? It is no other than Joseph, whose history presented, as we can easily see, points which must have been in the highest degree interesting to such a mind as David's. It must have ministered the highest encouragement to him in his youth, and must have tended in no small degree to the formation of that resolute confidence in the purposes of God which he so constantly expresses. We might be assured of this, knowing he possessed the history, even were the name of Joseph not to be found in his writings. But since it is found, the manner in which the facts struck the mind of a man like David, who must

have seen in that history some analogies to his own career, comes a matter of no common interest.

'He sent a man before them,

Even Joseph, who was sold for a servant :
Whose feet they hurt with fetters:

He was laid in iron.

Until the time that his word came,

The word of the Lord tried him.
The king sent and loosed him;

Even the ruler of the people, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,

And ruler of all his substance;

To bind his princes at his pleasure,

And teach his senators wisdom.'-cv. 17-22.

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David sees that it was God who in the course of his providence, and to work out the fulfilment of his designs, sent Joseph down into Egypt, where he suffered his integrity to be exposed to many trials, until the appointed hour came when He, who has the hearts of all men and the course of all human events in his hand, changed the state of affairs in a moment, causing the imprisoned slave to be brought forth from his dungeon, and his seat to be set but a little lower than the throne of kings.

It is very certain that David must have been conversant with this history in his youth; and there can be no doubt that we may count it among the sources of that confidence which he felt that God would in his own good time relieve him also from all his troubles and bring to pass all his purposes concerning him. Hence the disposition which he manifested to await God's own time for the accomplishment of his promises, and his constant refusal, even when opportunities offered, to hasten the accomplishment of the great destinies which lay before him by any doubtful or unrighteous deed.

REMARKS

REMARKS ON GENESIS, CHAPTER XIV."

By Professor FREDERICK TUCH, D.D., of Leipzig.

Translated from the German by the Rev. SAMUEL DAVIDSON, LL.D.

ALTHOUGH it cannot escape the observation of any that the historical narrative in Genesis xiv., as it now lies before us, has been principally made use of only in so far as it tends to exalt the heroic spirit of Abraham, its original object being not to furnish an account of Canaanitish affairs in relation to the inhabitants of the country and foreign rulers; yet this very old historical document contains a number of allusions which lead us to cast a willing glance into a time whose memory is almost extinguished. It is not the purport of these lines to bring them all together, after what we have adduced in our commentary on Genesis has received further confirmation, corrections, and enlargements, from Bertheau,b and especially from Ewald. But perhaps there still remain a number of questions partly relating to the geographical considerations that come before us. The discussion of these, and, as far as we are able, their solution, shall now be briefly attempted.

If we inquire first of all into the historical event which occasioned the march of Abraham's army, it was owing to the dominion possessed by upper-Asiatic rulers over the five cities and the surrounding territories (v. 9), which they do not now acquire for the first time, but, according to verse 4, establish anew; being thus, on the whole, a prelude to what appears in succeeding centuries in manifold ways as the common effort of the most diverse dynasties. The fact of our finding such a state of things even at this ancient period cannot, however, rest on the transference of later occurrences to antiquity, because, on the one hand, a similar fact -judge as we will regarding the Assyrian name-runs through historical tradition, when Ctesias, in Diodorus Sic., ii. 2, represents Ninus as subjecting to himself Egypt, Phoenicia, Cole-Syria, &c., or Manetho in Josephus c. Ap. i. 14, makes the Hykshos that had fled out of Egypt for fear of the Assyrians, the rulers of

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a Translated from Heft ii. of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, a new publication which we introduced to the reader's notice in our first Number. This able and elaborate paper, which throws some new light on the very difficult chapter of which it treats, will be of great interest to those who take pleasure in the class of inquiries to which it belongs. A few unimportant notes have been alone omitted by the translator.

b Bertheau, Geschichte d. Israel.

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Asia at that time' entrench themselves within a fortified city: while, on the other hand, the narrative itself contains particulars which, agreeing well with one another, manifest a completely individual relation. It is true that, as the history lies before us (v 4, sq.), the revolt of the hitherto dependent Pentapolis is put into the fore-ground; but it is easy to understand the reason of this, inasmuch as Lot, on whose captivity the whole representation turns, had taken up his habitation in the midst of them. The question then arises here, whether the affair really concerned only the Pentapolis. The thing itself, as well as the narrative, is decidedly against an affirmative reply. For even if we were to presuppose that the limited tract in question presented no discoverable interest to rulers so far remote as those mentioned in v. 1; and were we to assume still further, that the way to it had to be forcibly opened by the subjugation of the free inhabitants of Basan, Gilead, and Moab (v. 5); yet verses 6 and 7 annihilate every such assumption by the fact, that the confederated troops surround the revolted Pentapolis, conquer the southern mountain and the wilderness bordering it on the west, and do not put to total rout, apparently without much trouble, the united army of the five cities (v. 10), till their return (v. 8, sqq.). In all this the territory to the west of Jordan, of whose dominion no trace can be discovered in the narrative, continues completely untouched both on the march and the return; so that Abraham (v. 13) at Hebron, not far distant from the scene of war (comp. xix. 27 sq.), had first to be informed of what took place; while (v. 7) the Amorites who oppose the invading foe, certainly at the southern declivity of what was subsequently the mountain of Judah, where they are defeated, are designated by the addition that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar (comp. 2 Chron. xx. 2), as being located near the Dead Sea, and must therefore have been in the closest relation to the tribes on whom war is here made. According to this, the entire expedition was aimed at the great valley-depression north and south of the Dead Sea, or the Arabah (in the Old Testament sense), with its eastern mountains and western deserts, and there need scarcely be a dispute about the matter when we find it intimated in the course of the narrative, that all the tribes of that territory, which the same fate overtakes, stood in the same relation to those tyrants, and revolted from them in common.

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This being correctly apprehended, we are in a position to understand the object, for which the rulers of lands so remote seized on the district in question. For them the rich pastures of Bashan and Gilead (Jer. 1. 19), or the once well watered meadows of the Jordan territory (Gen. xiii. 10), which might indeed have had the power of alluring nomades (Numb. xxxii. 1; Gen. xiii. 11),

VOL. II.-NO. III.

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could not possibly possess sufficient attraction to induce them to maintain the mastery for the sake of the locality itself, while the more blessed land to the west of Jordan remained unheeded. Still less can we believe that the inhospitable Edomite mountains, the desert of deserts, could furnish a motive strong enough to prompt such efforts by reason of their soil, which was regarded, even in the Old Testament, as unblest (Gen. xxvii. 39).

If we are compelled to explain this phenomenon by other circumstances, the true reason cannot be doubtful when we remember, of what importance that extensive valley was at all times in regard to the intercourse of tribes with one another. It always formed (comp. Strabo xvi. 4, 18, sq.) the road marked out by nature itself, which, from the Ælanitic gulf, divides the boundless wilderness watered by the Nile and Euphrates; the medium of intercourse between Arabia and Damascus, to which, it is worthy of notice that even the allied troops smitten by Abraham (Gen. xiv. 15) march back. To this may be added, that not far from the southernmost borders of Canaan, and near the Edomite mountains, we meet with the point of intersection of the roads which lead from the coast of the Mediterranean to Arabia, from central Egypt to Canaan, and accordingly we find those allied warriors establishing themselves at this very place (v. 7). To have dominion over the whole of this important locality must have appeared of the greater consequence since, by the possession of it, the great sea of sand composing the wilderness could be converted, so to speak, into an inland sea. What shows this decisively is the circumstance, that (v. 1) Chedorlaomer of Elam, and Amraphel of Shinar, i. e., the rulers of the coast of the Persian Gulf, and of the highways made by the Euphrates and Tigris, appear as the very persons who also secure to themselves possession of the more western road. By this occupation Arabia in particular, with its choice productions (comp. Ezek. xxvii. 19, sqq.), was completely enclosed; and all commerce with the southern coast, and the bazaars in Western and Eastern Asia, came into the hands of one and the same power; which was a sufficient reason for procuring these advantages by conquest, and for maintaining them against revolt by the putting forth of force.

We pass over here, as having no necessary connection with the historical document before us, other inferences from what has been advanced, such as the necessary relation to Damascus, which was the point of egress to the great continental highways to Nineveh and Babylon, and other things relating to the nature and antiquity of commercial intercourse. But we cannot refrain from once again directing attention to the circumstance, that, by this antique frag

ment,

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