used, if rejecting from the priesthood had been the matter intended by the Prophet. II. Another objection to what I have offered above, may arise from the 21st and 23d verses of the xxth of Ezekiel. The Prophet may seem in them to hint, that God's anger against the children was whilst they were in the wilderness; and that it was in the wilderness, when he lifted up his hand against them, to scatter them among the heathen; and if so, their provoking God to this anger must have been before they entered Canaan, and therefore not so late as the time wherein I have fixed it. I answer, 1, The history of the Israelites contained in Moses' Books, and those which follow, was written long before Ezekiel prophesied ; and as his prophecy could not alter what had been done, so the best interpretation of what he related about them, must be that which agrees with their history; and we must not invent facts, or change their history to suit it to any thing contained in his prophecy. And according to their history, the children's provoking God was, as I have above stated it. And thus the Psalmist fixes it. After Gon had cast out the heathen before them, and divided them an inheritance by line, then it was that the children tempted and provoked the most high GOD, and kept not his testimonies, but turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers." 2, But, the threatenings of GOD against the children of the Israelites, whenever they 1 Vid. Hos. iv. 6. m Psalm Ixxviii. 55-57. should provoke him, were indeed pronounced to them by Moses in the Wilderness, before they entered Canaan." 3. Perhaps this was all that the Prophet intended to express by the word, in the Wilderness, in the verses above-cited. Then I said I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger again t them in the Wilderness. The words, in the Wilderness, do not hint the place where the anger was to be accomplished; but rather refer to anger, and suggest that the anger was as we might almost say in English, the Wilderness-anger, or the anger which GOD had threatened in the Wilderness. 4. Or, the word, be Midbar, in the Wilderness, having occurred twice before, after words the same that are used in these two verses, I suspect, that the transcribers, intent upon what they had a little before written, might insert the word again inadvertently in the 21st and 23d verses; when perhaps it was not there repeated in the original copy of the prophecy of Ezekiel. Moses having made intercession for the people, after their idolatry of the golden calf; at the oom. mand of God, made two new tables of stone, like unto those which he had broken, and went up a second time with them to Mount Sinai. He continued again on the Mount forty days and forty nights, without eating bread or drinking water;" during which time he wrote, as GoD directed him, the ten command "See Deut. xxviii, &c. . Ezek. xx. 13, 15. Ibid. ver. 28. ments upon the two tables,' and received the commands set down in the xxxivth. chapter of Exodus. After the forty days he came down from the Mount with the two tables in his hand; and gathered the congregation together, and instructed them in what had been appointed to him,' and required them to make their offerings for erecting the tabernacle. In order to erect the tabernacle, he had been commanded to tax every Israelite above twenty years old half a shekel," or about fifteen-pence of our money. The sum arising from the tax was appointed to be for the service of the tabernacle ; and we find, that Moses used it for the sockets of the sanctuary, and of the yail, and for hooks for the pillars, and for their chapiters. The number of those who were taxed, were, 603,550 men," and the sum arising from assessing them half a shekel a man, amounted to one hundred talents, and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels of Jewish money; so that a Jewish talent consisted of three thousand shekels; for from 603,550 half shekels, or 301,775 shekels deduct a hundred times three thousand, the number of talents, and the remainder will be one thousand seven hundred Exod. xxxiv. 28. ✰ xxxv. 4. ver. 11-27. u xxx. 12-16: According to Brerewood, the shekel was a silver coin of about 2s. 6d. value in our money. Dean Prideaux makes it about 3s. See his Connect. vol. i. b. iii. p. 196. y Exod. xxx, 16. ■ Ver. 26. C d and seventy-five, which is the number of remaining shekels over and above the talents, and the whole sum raised at fifteen-pence the half-shekel, amounts in English coin to, £.37,721 17 s. 6d. This sum therefore Moses first raised by the assessment, and after he had collected it, he moved the people to a voluntary contribution, as GoD had directed him; which brought in a sufficient quantity of all sorts of materials that were wanted, to the full of what they could have occasion for; so that Moses gave commandment to proclaim through the camp, that the people should make no further offerings." Bezalic and Aholiab, being nominated by a special designation from GOD himself, began the tabernacle, and in some months towards the end of the year, by their direction, and the assistance of the hands employed under them," the tabernacle and its appurtenances, the table of shew-bread, the priests' garments, the holy ointments, the golden candlestick, and all the vessels and utensils for the service of the altar, were finished.' The marginal reference in our English Bibles at Exodus xxx. 12. seems to hint, that this numbering the people for the raising the tax for the tabernacle, was the very same with that mentioned in Numbers i. 2-5. The number of the poll appears indeed in each place to be to a man the same, and this possibly m might lead those who made the reference to mistake, and think that the people had been in truth but once numbered; but it is evident, 1. That the poll mentioned in the first chapter of Numbers, was not taken until the first day of the second month of the second year after the exit from Egypt. 2. The tabernacle was finished a month carlier; for it was erected on the first day of the first month. The poll taken for raising the assessment, was before the tabernacle was finished; for the silver which the assessment raised, was applied to the making some parts of the tabernacle; so that the poll for the assessment must have preceded at least above a month earlier, than that which is mentioned in the first chapter of Numbers. 4, I imagine it was some months earlier; for surely the numbering and assessing the people preceded the free offering of those who were willing, and was therefore before the workmen began the tabernacle. For when the persons employed in the work of the tabernacle found, that the free-offerings had supplied as much of all sorts of materials as were necessary, it was proclaimed through the camp, that no one should offer any more;" and therefore had these voluntary offerings been made before the assessment, the assessment would have been superfluous; but we find that it was not so, by the use made of the silver, which came in from it. I therefore think it most probable, 'Numb. i. 1. a xxxviii. 27, 28. Ver. 6. m Exod. xl. 17. • xxxvi. 3. 4 xxxviii. 27, 28. |