of the tribes made an offering consisting of six waggons and twelve oxen. These are accordingly assigned to the service of the Tabernacle:" And Moses gave them unto the Levites; Two waggons and four oxen he gave unto the sons of Gershon according to their service, and four waggons and eight oxen he gave unto the sons of Merari according to their service." Now whence this unequal division? Why twice as many waggons and oxen to Merari as to Gershon? No reason is expressly avowed. Yet if I turn to a former chapter, separated however from the one which has supplied this quotation, by sundry and divers details of other matters, I am able to make out a very good reason for myself. For there, amongst the instructions given to the families of the Levites, as to the shares they *Numbers, vii. 7, 8.

L

had severally to take in removing the Tabernacle from place to place, I find that the sons of Gershon had to bear" the curtains," and the "Tabernacle" itself, (i.e. the linen of which it was made,) and " its covering, and the covering of badger's skins that was above upon it, and the hanging for the door," and "the hangings of the court, and the hanging for the door of the gate of the court," and "their cords and all the instruments of their service;"* in a word, all the lighter part of the furniture of the Tabernacle. But the sons of Merari had to bear" the boards of the Tabernacle, and the bars thereof, and the pullies thereof, and the sockets thereof, and the pullies of the court round about, and their sockets, and their pins, and their cords, with all their instruments;"† in short, all the cum* Numbers, iv. 25. Ibid. iv. 32.

brous and heavy part of the materials of which the frame-work of the Tabernacle was constructed. And hence it is easy to see why more oxen and waggons were assigned to the one family than to the other. Is chance at the bottom of all this? or, cunning contrivance? or, truth and only truth?

XVIII.

In the tenth chapter of the Book of Numbers we have a particular account of the order of march which was observed in the Camp of Israel on one remarkable occasion, viz. when they broke up from Sinai. "In the first place went the standard of the Camp of Judah according to their armies" (v. 14). Does this precedence of Judah agree with any former account of the disposition of the armies of Israel? In

the second chapter of the same book I read, "on the East side toward the rising of the Sun, shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies" (v. 3). All that is to be gathered from this passage is, that Judah pitched East of the Tabernacle. I now turn to the tenth chapter, (v. 5,) and I there find amongst the orders given for the signals, "when ye blow an alarm, (i.e. the first alarm, for the others are mentioned successively in their turn,) then the camps that lie on the East parts shall go forward." But from the last passage it appears that Judah lay on the East parts, therefore when the first alarm was blown, Judah should be the tribe to move. Thus it is implied from two passages brought together from two chapters, separated by the intervention of eight others relating to

things indifferent, that Judah was to lead

in any march.

Now we see in the account

of a specific movement of the camp from Sinai, with which I introduced these remarks, that on that occasion Judah did in fact lead. This then is as it should be. The three passages agree together as three concurring witnesses-in the mouth of these is the word established. Yet there

is some little intricacy in the detailsenough at least to leave room for an inadvertant slip in the arrangements, whereby a fiction would have run a risk of being self-detected.

Pursue we this inquiry a little further, for the next article of it is perhaps rather more open to a blunder of this description than the last. It may be thought that the leading tribe, the van-guard of Israel, was an object too conspicuous to be overlooked