was not like the works of the magicians, a lying wonder, but a real interposition of almighty power, and an effect of divine goodness. The Egyptians were, therefore, reduced to the necessity of collecting them into heaps, which had the effect of more rapidly disengaging the putrid effluvia, and thus for a time, increasing the wretchedness of the country. Their destruction was probably followed by a pestilence, which cut off many of the people, in addition to those that died in consequence of the grievous vexations they endured from their loathsome adversaries; for, in one of the songs of Zion, it is said, "He sent frogs, which destroyed them;" laid waste their lands, and infected themselves with pestilential disorders. In another Psalm, the sweet singer of Israel brings the frogs which destroyed the Egyptians, from the land; whereas, Moses avers, they were produced by the river: "Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings;" but the difference is only apparent, and may be easily reconciled; for the Psalmist may be understood as referring, not to any kind of land, but to the miry soil on the banks, or the mud in the bottom of the river. But the truth is, he uses a term, which signifies a region or country, comprehending both land and water. His true meaning then is, Their land or country, of which the Nile is a part, brought forth frogs: for the land of Egypt certainly produces whatever the Nile contains. Were it necessary to prove so clear a position, the words of Moses might be quoted, in which he reminds the people of Israel, that they came in the course of their journeyings to Jobath, a land of rivers; and the sublime ascription of Habakkuk: "Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers." The sea itself, belongs as it were to the neighbouring countries; for it is said, that Solomon constructed a fleet" in the land of Edom;" that is, in the sea which washed the shores of Edom.

It has been inquired, why David in the same passage says, the frogs penetrated into the chambers of their kings. The answer is easy: the plural is often used for the singuar in Hebrew: thus the Psalmist himself: "We will go into his tabernacles;" although there was but one tabernacle where the people of Israel assembled for religious worship. The servants of Nebuchadnezzar accused the three children in these terms: "they do not worship thy gods," meaning only the golden image, which the king had set up in the plain of Dura. The language of David, therefore, in the text under consideration, meant no more than the king's palace. Some interpreters propose another solution: That the kingdom of Egypt was at that time divided into a number of small independent states, governed each by its own prince, and that all of them were equally subjected to the plague; but although it must be granted that | this country was in succeeding ages, divided into a number of small principalities, no evidence has been adduced in support of such a state of things in the time of Moses; on the contrary, the whole tenor of his narrative leads to the opposite conclusion. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose, that the principal grandees of Egypt, many of whom were persons of great power and influence in the state, received from the royal Psalmist the title of kings; it is certainly not more incongruous, than to give the title of princes to the merchants of Tyre; or the title of kings to the princes of Assyria. The meaning of the passage then, is briefly this the potent monarch of Egypt, in the midst of his vassal rinces, in the innermost recesses of his palace, could find no means of defence against the ceaseless intrusion of the impure vermin which covered the face of his dominions, and equally infested the palaces of the rich, and the cottages of the poor; the awful abode of the king, and the clay-built

hovel of the mendicant.-PAXTON.

Ver. 9. And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?

mentary to Pharaoh, but it would have a strong tendency to convince him that the Lord had heard the prayer of Mo. ses, because he himself had appointed the time. The Tamu translation has this, "Let the honour be to you (or over me) to appoint a time when I shall pray.”—ROBERTS.

Ver. 16. And the LORD said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throug out all the land of Egypt.

The learned have not been agreed in their opinion concerning the third of the plagues of Egypt: Exod. viii. 16, &c. Some of the ancients suppose that gnats, or some animals resembling them, were meant; whereas our translators, and many of the moderns, understand the origina. word kinneem, as signifying lice. Bishop Patrick, in his commentary, supposes that Bochart has sufficiently proved, out of the text itself, that our version is right, since gnats are bred in fenny places, he might have said with truth, and with much greater energy of argument, in water, whereas the animals Moses here speaks of, were brought out of the dust of the earth. A passage I lately 'met with, in Vinisaur's account of the expedition of ou King Richard the First into the Holy Land, may, perhaps, give a truer representation of this Egyptian plague, than those that suppose they were gnats, or those that suppose they were lice, that God used on that occasion, as the instrument of that third correction. Speaking of the march.. ing of that army of Croisaders, from Cayphas to where the ancient Cæsarea stood, that writer informs us, that each. night certain worms distressed them, commonly called tarrentes, which crept upon the ground, and occasioned a very burning heat by most painful punctures. They hurt nobody in the day time, but when night came on they extremely pestered them, being armed with stings, conveying. a poison which quickly occasioned those that were wounded by them to swell, and was attended with the most acute pains.-HARMER.

CHAP. 9. ver. 8. And the LORD said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it towards the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh.

When the magicians pronounce an imprecation on a individual, a village, or a country, they take ashes of cow's dung, (or from a common fire,) and throw them in the air, saying to the objects of their displeasure, such a sickness, or such a curse, shall surely come upon you.-ROBERTS.

Ver. 25. And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.

I do not apprehend that it is at all necessary to suppose, that all the servants, and all the cattle of the Egyptians, that were abroad at the time the hail fell, which Moses' threatened, and which was attended with thunder and lightning, died; it is sufficient to suppose they all felt the hailstones, and that several of them were killed. This was enough to justify the words of Moses, that it should be a "grievous hail, such as had not fallen before in Egypt Egypt as well as rains, as Dr. Pococke found it hailed at from its foundation." For though it hails sometimes in

Fioume, when he was there in February; and thunders too, as Thevenot says it did one night in December, when he was at Cairo; yet fatal effects are not wont to follow in that country, as appears from what Thevenot says of this thunder, which, he tells us, killed a man in the castle there, though it had never been heard before that thunder had killed anybody at Cairo. For divers people then to have, been killed by the lightning and the hail, besides cattle, was an event that Moses might well say had never happened I wil! there before, from the time it began to be innavled

⚫ Which is made from the original; and the genius of the languag: is every way more suited to the Hebrew, than ours. And nearly all the orientalisms in the marginal references of the English Bible are inserted in the text of the Tamul translation.

only add, that Moses, by representing this as an extraordinary hail supposed that it did sometimes hail there, as it is found in fact to do, though not as in other countries: the not raining in Egypt, it is well known, is to be understood in the same manner.-HARMER.

CHAP. 10. ver. 11. Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the LORD; for that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence.

Among natives of rank, when a person is very importunate or troublesome, when he presses for something which the former are not willing to grant, he is told to begone. Should he still persist, the servants are called, and the order is given, "Drive that fellow out." He is then seized by the neck, or taken by the hands, and dragged from the premises; he all the time screaming and bawling as if they were taking his life. Thus to be driven out is the greatest indignity which can be offered, and nothing but the most violent rage will induce a superior to have recourse to it.- ROBERTS.

Ver. 19. And the LORD turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt.

It was not the purpose of God to complete every punishment at once, but to carry on these judgments in a series, and by degrees to cut off all hopes, and every resource upon which the Egyptians depended. By the hail and thunder and fire mingled with rain, both the flax and barley were entirely ruined, and their pastures must have been greatly injured. The wheat and rye were not yet in ear; and such was the fertility of the soil in Egypt, that a rery short time would have sufficed for the leaves of the trees, and the grass of the field, to have been recruited. To complete, therefore, these evils, it pleased God to send a host of locusts, to devour every leaf and blade of grass, which had been left in the former devastation, and what ever was beginning to vegetate. It is hard to conceive how wide the mischief extends, when a cloud of these insects comes upon a country. They devour to the very root and bark, so that it is a long time before vegetation can be renewed. How dreadful their inroads at all times were, may be known from a variety of authors, both ancient and modern. They describe them as being brought by one wind, and carried off by another. They swarm greatly in Asia and Africa. In respect to Europe, Thevenot tells us, that the region upon the Boristhenes, and particularly that inhabited by the Cossacks, is greatly infested with locusts, especially in a dry season. They come in vast clouds, which extend fifteen and sometimes eighteen miles, and are nine to twelve in breadth. The air, by their interposition, is rendered quite obscure, however bright the day may have been before. In two hours they devour all the corn, wherever they settle, and often a famine ensues. At night, when they repose upon the earth, the ground is covered with them four inches deep, or more and if a carriage goes over them, and they are mashed under foot, the smell of them is scarcely to be borne, especially when they are reduced to a state of putrefaction. They come from Circassia, Mingrelia, and Tartary, on which account the natives rejoice in a north or northeast wind, which carries them into the Black Sea, where they perish. The vast region of Asia, especially the southern part, is liable to their depredations. China is particularly infested with them; and the natives use various means to obviate the evil, which is generally too powerful to be evaded. But the most fearful accounts are from Africa, where the heat of the climate, and the nature of the soil in many places, contribute to the production of ...ese animals in astonishing numbers.-BURDER.

Ver. 21. And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thy hand towards heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.

When the magicians deliver their predictions, they

stretch forth the right hand towards heaven, to show that they have power, and that God favours them. The Tamul translation has this, "darkness which causeth to feel;" i. e. so dark that a man is obliged to feel for his way, and unti he shall have so felt, he cannot proceed. Thus the darkness was so great, that their eyes were not of any use; they were obliged to grope for their way.-ROBERTS.

[This is probably a correct view of the passage, as a darkness consisting of thick clammy fogs, of vapours and exhalations so condensed as to be perceived by the organs of touch, would have extinguished animal life in a few moments.]-B.

Ver. 28. And Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more: for in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die.

Has a servant, an agent, or an officer, deeply offended his superior, he will say to him, "Take care never to see my face again; for on the day you do that, evil shall come upon you." Begone, and in future never look in this face," pointing to his own.-ROBERTS.

CHAP. 11. ver. 2. Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.

Dr. Boothroyd, instead of borrow, translates "ask." Dr. A. Clarke says, "request, demand, require." The Israelites wished to go three days' journey into the wilderness, that they might hold a feast unto the Lord. When the Orientals go to their sacred festivals, they always put on their best jewels. Not to appear before the gods in such a way, they consider would be disgraceful to themselves and displeasing to the deities. A person, whose clothes or jewels are indifferent, will BORROW of his richer neighbours; and nothing is more common than to see poor people standing before the temples, or engaged in sacred cercmonies, well adorned with jewels. The almost pauper bride or bridegroom at a marriage may often be seen decked with gems of the most costly kind, which have been BORROWED for the occasion. It fully accords, therefore, with the idea of what is due at a sacred or social feast, to be thus adorned in their best attire. Under these circumstances, it would be perfectly easy to BORROW of the Egyptians their jewels, as they themselves, in their festivals, would doubtless wear the same things. It is also recorded, the Lord gave them "favour in the sight of the Egyptians." It does not appear to have been fully known to the Hebrews, that they were going finally to leave Egypt: they might expect to return; and it is almost certain that, if their oppressors had known they were not to return, they would not have LENT them their jewels.

The Lord, however, did say to Moses, in chap. iii. 11., that He would "bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt," and that they should worship Him upon that mountain; but whether Moses fully understood Him is not certain. But the Lord knew!-certainly He did. And as a father, or a master, who saw his children, or slaves, deprive each other of their rightful pay, (as the Egyptians did the Israelites,) had a right to give to the injured what they had been unjustly deprived of: so the Lord, in whose hands are all things, who daily takes from one, and gives to another; and who builds up, or destroys, the families of the earth; would have an undoubted right to give to the Hebrews that property of which the Egyptians had so unjustly and cruelly deprived them.-ROBERTS.

.

Ver. 5. And all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of beasts.

In the first ages, they parched or roasted their grain; a practice which the people of Israel, as we learn from the scriptures, long continued; afterward they pounded it in a mortar, to which Solomon thus alludes: "Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat, with a pes

tle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." This was succeeded by mills, similar to the handmills formerly used in this country; of which there were two sorts: the first were large, and turned by the strength of horses or asses: the second were smaller, and wrought by men, commonly by slaves condemned to this hard labour, as a punishment for their crimes. Chardin remarks in his manuscript, that the persons employed are generally female slaves, who are least regarded, or are least fit for any thing else: for the work is extremely laborious, and esteemed the lowest employment about the house. Most of their corn is ground by these little mills, although they sometimes make use of large mills, wrought by oxen or camels. Near Ispahan, and some of the other great cities of Persia, he saw watermills; but he did not mect with a single windmill in the East. Almost every family grinds their wheat and barley at home, having two portable millstones for that purpose; of which the uppermost is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron, that is placed in the rim. When this stone is large, or expedition is required, a second person is called in to assist; and as it is usual for the women only to be concerned in this employment, who seat themselves over against each other, with the millstone between them, we may see the propriety of the expression in the declaration of Moses: "And all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh, that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant, that is behind the mill." The manner in which the handmills are worked, is well described by Dr. Clarke: "Scarcely had we reached the apartment prepared for our reception, when looking from the window, into the courtyard belonging to the house, we beheld two women grinding at the mill, in a manner most forcibly illustrating the saying of our Saviour: Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.' They were preparing flour to make our bread, as it is always customary in the country when strangers arrive. The two women, seated upon the ground opposite to each other, held between them two round flat stones, such as are seen in Lapland, and such as in Scotland are called querns. In the centre of the upper stone was a cavity for pouring in the corn; and by the side of this, an upright wooden handle for moving the stone. As this operation began, one of the women opposite received it from her companion, who pushed it towards her, who again sent it to her companion; thus communicating a rotatory motion to the upper stone, their leit hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the machine."-PAXTON.

CHAP. 12. ver. 11. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand: and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the LORD's passover. When people take a journey, they have always their loins well girded, as they believe that they can walk much faster and to a greater distance. Before the palankeen Searers take up their load, they assist each other to make tight a part of the sali or robe round the loins. When men are about to enter into an arduous undertaking, bystanders say, "Tie your loins well up." (Luke xii. 35. Eph. vi. 4. 1 Pet. i. 13.) ROBERTS.

They that travel on foot are obliged to fasten their garments at a greater height from their feet than they are wont to do at other times. This is what some have understood to be meant by the girding their loins: not simply their having girdles about them, but the wearing their garments at a greater height than usual. There are two ways of doing this, Sir J. Chardin remarks, after having informed us that the dress of the eastern people is a long vest, reaching down the calf of the leg, more or less fitted to the body, and fastened upon the loins by a girdle, which goes three or four times round them. "This dress is fastened higher up two ways: the one, which is not much used, is to draw up the vest above the girdle, just as the monks do when they travel on foot; the other, which is the common way, is to tuck up the foreparts of their vest into the girdle, and so fasten them. All persons in the East that journey on foot always gather up their vest, by which they walk more commodiously, having the leg and knee unburdened and unembarrassed by the vest, which they are not when

that hangs over them." And after this manner he supposes the Israelites were prepared for their going out of Egypt, when they ate the first passover, Exod. xii. 11. He takes notice, in the same passage, of the singularity of their hav ing shoes cn their feet at that repast. They in common, h observes, put off their shoes when they eat, for which h assigns two reasons: the one, that as they do not use tables and chairs in the East, as in Europe, but cover their floors with carpets, they might not soil those beautiful pieces of furniture; the other, because it would be troublesome to keep their shoes upon their feet, they sitting crosslegged on the floor, and having no hinder quarters to their shoes, which are made like slippers. He takes no notice in this note, of their having to eat this passover with a staff in their hand; but he elsewhere observes, that the eastern people very universally make use of a staff when they journey on foot; and this passage plainly supposes it.—HARMER. Ver. 34. And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. The dough, we are told, which the Israelites had prepared for baking, and on which it should seem they subsisted after they left Egypt for a month, was carried away by them in their kneading-troughs on their shoulders, Exod. xii. 34. Now, an honest thoughtful countryman, who knows how cumbersome our kneading-troughs are, and how much less important they are than many other utensils, may be ready to wonder at this, and find a difficulty in accounting for it. But this wonder perhaps may cease, when he comes to understand, that the vessels which the Arabs of that country make use of, for kneading the unleavened cakes they prepare for those that travel in this very desert, are only small wooden bowls; and that they seem to use no other in their own tents for that purpose, or any other, these bowls being used by them for kneading their bread, and afterward serving up their provisions when cooked: for then it will appear, that nothing could be more convenient than kneading-troughs of this sort for the Israelites, in their journey. I am, however, a little doubtful, whether these were the things that Moses meant by that word which our version renders kneading-troughs; since it seems to me, that the Israelites had made a provision of corn sufficient for their consumption for about a month, and that they were preparing to bake all this at once: now their own little wooden bowls, in which they were wont to knead the bread they wanted for a single day, could not contain all this dough, nor could they well carry a number of these with them. That they had furnished themselves with corn things, borrowed of the Egyptians for the present occasion, sufficient for a month, appears from their not wanting bread till they came into the wilderness of Sin; that the eastern people commonly bake their bread daily, as they want it, appears from an observation I have already made, and from the history of the patriarch Abraham; and that they were preparing to bake bread sufficient for this purpose at once, seems most probable, from the universal bustle they were in, and from the much greater conveniences for baking in Egypt than in the wilderness, which are such, that though Dr. Shaw's attendant sometimes baked in the desert, he thought fit, notwithstanding, to carry biscuit with him, and Thevenot the same. They could not well carry such a quantity of dough in those wooden bowls, which they used for kneading their bread in common. What is more, Dr. Pococke tells us, that the Arabs actually carry their dough in something else: for, after having spoken of their copper dishes put one within another, and their wooden bowls, in which they make their bread, and which make up all the kitchen furniture of an Arab, even where he is settled; he gives us a description of a round leather coverlet, which they lay on the ground, and serves them to eat off, which, he says, has rings round it, by which it is drawn together with a chain that has a hook to it to hang it by. This is drawn together, he says, and sometimes they carry in it their meal made into dough; and in this manner they bring it full of bread, and, when the repast is over, carry it away at once, with all that is left.

Whether this utensil is rather to be understood by the word me misharoth, translated kneading-troughs, than the Arab wooden bowl, I leave my reader to determine. I would only remark, that there is nothing, in the other three

places, in which the word occurs, to contradict this explanation. These places are Exod. viii. 3, Deut. xxviii. 5, 17, in the two last of which places it is translated store. It is more than a little astonishing, to find Grotius, in his comment on Exod. xii. 39, explaining that verse as signifying, that they baked no bread in their departing from Egypt, but stayed till they came to Succoth, because they had not time to stay till it was leavened in Egypt; when it is certain that they were so hurried out of Egypt, as to be desired not to stay to bake unleavened bread; nor can we imagine they would stay till leaven put into it at Succoth, had produced its effect in their dough, since travellers now in that desert often eat unleavened bread, and the precepts of Moses, relating to their commemoration of their going out of Egypt, suppose they ate unleavened bread for some time. Succoth, the first station then of the Israelites, which Dr. Shaw supposes was nothing more than some considerable encampment of Arabs, must have been a place where there was a considerable quantity of broom, or other fuel, which is not to be found in that desert everywhere.-HARMER. CHAP. 13. ver. 18. But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.

The margin of our translation remarks, that the word rendered harnessed, in Exodus xiii. 18, signifies by fives, but when it adds, five in a rank, it seems to limit the sense of the term very unnecessarily, as it may as well signify five men in a company, or their cattle tied one to another in strings of five each. If there were 600,000 footmen, besides children, and a mixed multitude, together with cattle, the marching of five only abreast, supposing only one yard for each rank to move in, would make the whole length of this enormous file of people more than sixty-eight miles. If we should suppose two such columns, and place the children, mixed multitude, and cattle between them, the length then of this body of people would be above thirty-four miles. At the same time we cannot conceive any reason for such a narrow front, on the one hand, in such a wide desert, nor, on the other, why they are described as marching five abreast, if there were many such columns. It would seem in such a case, to be a circumstance that required no particular notice. Pitts tells us, that in the march of the Mohammedan pilgrims from Egypt, through this very desert, they travel with their camels tied four in a parcel, one after the other, like so many teams. He says also that usually three or four of the pilgrims diet together. If we will allow that like circumstances naturally produce like effects, it will appear highly probable, that the meaning of the word used in the passage of Exodus is, that they went up out of Egypt with their cattle, in strings of five each; or that Moses ordered that five men with their families should form each a little company, that should keep together, and assist each other, in this difficult march. In either of these senses we may understand the term, in all the other places in which it appears; whereas it is not natural to suppose they all went out of Egypt properly armed for war, and it is idle to say, as some have done, that they were girded about the loins, that is always supposed to be done by the eastern people when they journey. Not to say that the kindred word continually signifies five, and this word should in course signify that they were, somehow or other, formed into fires, companies of five men each, or companies that had each five beasts, which carried their provisions and other necessaries, fastened to each other.-HARMER.

CHAP. 15. ver. 20. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

dance, but always in exact time, and infinitely more agreeable than any of our dances." (Letters, vol. ií. p. 45.) This gives us a different apprehension of the meaning of these words than we should otherwise form. "Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and dances." She led the dance, and they imitated her steps, which were not conducted by a set well-known form, but extemporaneous. Probably David did not dance alone before the Lord when the ark was removed, but led the dance in the same authoritative kind of way. (2 Sam vi. 14. Judges xi. 34. 1 Sam. xviii. 6.)-BURDER.

Ver. 25. And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.

This water, which was bitter or brackish, (Dr. Shaw says the latter,) was thus made sweet by the casting in of the tree. Some suppose it was a bitter wood, such as quassia, which corrected the water. Water is often brackish in the neighbourhood of salt-pans or the sea, and the natives correct it by throwing in it the wood called PerruNelli, Phylanthus Emblica. Should the water be very bad, they line the well with planks cut out of this tree. In swampy grounds, or when there has not been rain for a long time, the water is often muddy, and very unwholesome. But Providence has again been bountiful by giving to the people the Teatta Maram, Strychnos Potatorum. All who live in the neighbourhood of such water, or who have to travel where it is, always carry a supply of the nuts of this tree. They grind one or two of them on the side of an earthen vessel: the water is then poured in, and the impurities soon subside.-ROBERTS.

"El-vah is a large village or town, thick planted with palm-trees; the Oasis Parva of the ancients, the last inhabited place to the west that is under the jurisdiction of Egypt; it yields senna and coloquintida. The Arabs call El-vah, a shrub or tree, not unlike our hawthorn, either in form or flower. It was of this wood, they say, that Moses' rod was made, when he sweetened the waters of Marah. With a rod of this wood too, they say, Kaled Ibn el Waalid, the great destroyer of Christians, sweetened these waters at El-vah, once bitter, and gave it the name from this miracle. A number of very fine springs burst from the earth at El-vah, which renders this small spot verdant and beautiful, though surrounded with dreary deserts on every quarter: it is situated like an island in the midst of the ocean.' (BRUCE.)-Our colonists, who first peopled some parts of America, corrected the qualities of the water they found there, by infusing in it branches of sassafras; and it is understood that the first inducement of the Chinese to the general use of tea, was to correct the water of their rivers. That other water also stands in some need of correction, and that such correction is applied to it, appears from the custom of Egypt, in respect to the water of the Nile. "The water of the Nile," says Niebuhr, "is always somewhat muddy; but by rubbing with bitter almonds, prepared in a particular manner, the earthen jars in which it is kept, this water is rendered clear, light, and salutary." -BURDER.

Wetravelled, says Burckhardt, over uneven, hilly ground. gravelly and flinty. At one hour and three quarters, we passed the well of Howara, around which a few date-trees grow. Niebuhr travelled the same route, but his guides probably did not lead him to this well, which lies among of the well of Howara is so bitter, that men cannot drink hills about two hundred paces out of the road. The water it; and even camels, if not very thirsty, refuse to taste r. This well Burckhardt justly supposes to be the Marah of the Israelites; and in this opinion Mr. Leake, Gesenius, and Rosenmüller, concur. From Ayoun Mousa to the well of Howara we had travelled fifteen hours and a quarter. Referring to this distance, it appears probable that this is the desert of three days mentioned in the scripture to have been crossed by the Israelites immediately after their passing the Red Sea; and at the end of which they arrived at Marah. In moving with a whole nation, the march may well be supposed to have occupied three days;

and the Eter well at Marah, which was sweetened by Moses, corresponds exactly to that at Howara. This is the usual route to Mount Sinai, and was probably, therefore, that which the Israelites took on their escape from Egypt, provided it be admitted that they crossed the sea at Suez, as Niebuhr, with good reason, conjectures. There is no other road of three days' march in the way from Suez towards Sinai, nor is there any other well absolutely bitter on the whole of this coast. The complaint of the bitterness of the water by the children of Israel, who had been accustomed to the sweet water of the Nile, are such as may be daily heard from the Egyptian servants and peasants who travel in Arabia. Accustomed from their youth to the excellent water of the Nile, there is nothing which they so much regret in countries distant from Egypt; nor is there any eastern people who feel so keenly the want of good water, as the present natives of Egypt. With respect to the means employed by Moses to render the waters of the well sweet, I have frequently inquired among the Bedouins in different parts of Arabia, whether they possessed any means of effecting such a change, by throwing wood into it, or by any other process; but I never could learn that such an art was known. At the end of three hours we reached Wady Gharendel, which extends to the northeast, and is almost a mile in breadth, and full of trees. The Arabs told me that it may be traced through the whole desert, and that it begins at no great distance from El Arysh, on the Mediterranean; but I had no means of ascertaining the truth of this statement. About half an hour from the place where we halted, in a southern direction, is a copious spring, with a small rivulet, which renders the valley the principal station on this route. The water is disagreeable, and if kept for a night in the water skins, it turns bitter and spoils, as I have myself experienced, having passed this way three times. If, now, we admit Bir Howara to be the Marah of Exodus, (xv. 23,) then Wady Gharendel is probably Elim, with its well and date-trees; an opinion entertained by Niebuhr, who, however, did not see the bitter well of Howara. The non-existence, at present, of twelve wells at Gharendel, must not be considered as evidence against the just-stated conjecture; for Niebuhr says, that his companions obtained water here by digging to a very small depth, and there was great plenty of it when I passed. Water, in fact, is readily found by digging, in every fertile valley in Arabia, and wells are thus easily formed, which are filled up again by the sands.

The Wady Gharendel contains date-trees, tamarisks, acacias of different species, and the thorny shrub Gharkad, the Peganum retusum of Forskal, which is extremely common in this peninsula, and is also met with in the sands of the Delta on the coast of the Mediterranean. Its small red berry, of the size of a grain of a pomegranate, is very juicy and refreshing, much resembling a ripe gooseberry in taste, but not so sweet. The Arabs are very fond of it. The shrub Gharkad delights in a sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in the height of summer, when the ground is parched up, exciting an agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry produced in the driest soil and season. Might not the berry of this shrub have been used by Moses to sweeten the waters of Marah? [The Hebrew in Ex. xv. 25, reads: "And the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast into the waters, and they became sweet." The Arabic translates, "and he cast of it into the waters," &c.] As this conjecture did not occur to me when I was on the spot, I did not inquire of the Bedouins, whether they ever sweetened the water with the juice of berries, which would pably effect this change in the same manner as the juice of pomegranate grains expressed into it.-CALMET.

CHAP. 16. ver. 13. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.

It is evident from the history of Moses, that the demands of Israel were twice supplied with quails by the miraculous interposition of divine providence. The first instance is recorded in the book of Exodus, and is described in these words; "I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to

pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp." From these words it appears, that the quails were sent to supply the wants of the people, at the same time the manna began to be showered down from heaven, around their encampment in the desert of Sin; and it is clear, from the beginning of the chapter, that this event took place soon after their departure from Egypt, upon the fifteenth day of the second month, before they came to mount Sinai. This miracle was repeated at Kibroth-hattaavah, a place three days' journey beyond the desert of Sinai; but they struck their tents before Sinai, in the second year after their de parture from Egypt, on the twentieth day of the second month; so that a whole year intervened between the first and second supply. In the first instance, the quails were scattered about the camp only for one day; but in the second, they came up from the sea for a whole month. They only covered the camp at their first appearance; but when they came the second time, they lay round about it to the distance of a day's journey. No signs of divine wrath attended the first miracle; but the second was no sooner wrought, than the vengeance of their offended God overtook these incorrigible sinners: "While the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people; and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague." Hence it is evident, that the sacred historian records two different events; of which, the one was more stupendous than the other, and seemed to Moses so extraordinary, that on receiving the divine promise, he could not refrain from objecting: "The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them to suffice them?" Moses had seen the power of Jehovah successfully exerted in feeding his people with flesh for one day; but he could scarcely imagine, from whence supplies of the same kind could be drawn for a whole month. That eminent servant of Jehovah, astonished at the greatness of the promised favour, seemed to forget for a moment, that with God all things are possible.

The quails were scattered around the camp of Israel, in the most astonishing numbers: "He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea." The holy Psalmist had used the metaphorical word to rain, in relation to the manna, in a preceding verse, both to intimate its descent from heaven, and its prodigious abundance. And because a single metaphor is not sufficient to give us a just idea of the sudden and extraordinary supplies which descended on the tents of Israel, they are compared to the dust of the field, and to the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered. To suggest at once the countless myriads of these birds, and the ease with which they are caught, it is added: "He let it fall in the midst of their camp round about their habitations." The account of Moses is still more striking. "And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth." Hence, these birds covered the whole camp and the surrounding waste, to the distance of a day's journey on every side. The only ambiguity lies in the phrase, "a day's journey;" whether it means the space over which an individual could travel in one day, in which case it would be much greater-or the whole army could traverse, which would be much less. If the journey of an individual is intended, it might be about thirty miles; but if the sacred historian refers to the whole army, a third part of this space is as much as they could march in one day in the sandy desert, under a vertical sun. In the cpinion of Bochart, this immense cloud of quails covered a space of at least forty miles diameter; for a day's journey is at least twenty miles. Ludolf thinks, it ought to be reduced to sixteen miles; and others, to half that number, because, Moses refers to the march of Israel through the desert, encumbered with their women and children, their flocks and herds, and the baggage of the whole nation; which must have greatly retarded their movements, and rendered the short distance of eight miles more than sufficient for a journey of one day. It is equally doubtful, whether the distance mentioned by Moses, must be measured from the centre, or