VII.

My next coincidence may not be thought in itself so convincing as some others, yet, as it at once furnishes an argument for the truth of Genesis and an answer to an objection, I will not pass it over. When Jacob is about to remove with his family to Beth-el, a place already consecrated in his memory by the vision of angels, and thenceforward to be distinguished by an altar to his God, he gives the following extraordinary command to his household and all that are with him: "Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments;"* or as it might be translated with perhaps more closeness, "the gods of the stranger." Had Jacob, then, hitherto tolerated the worship of idols

* Genesis, xxxv. 2.

among his own attendants? Had he connived so long at a defection from the God of his fathers, even whilst he was befriended by Him, whilst he was living under His special protection, whilst he was in frequent communication with Him? This is hard to be believed; indeed it would have seemed incredible altogether, had it not been remembered that Rachel had Images which she stole from her father Laban, and which he at least considered as his household gods. Those images, however, might be taken by Rachel as valuables, silver or gold perhaps, a fair prize as she might think, serving to balance the portion which Laban had withheld from her, and the money which he had devoured. That she used them herself as idols does not appear, but rather the contrary-and that Jacob was perfectly unconscious of their

being at all in his camp, whether as objects of worship or as objects of value, is evident from his giving Laban free leave to put to death the party on whom they should be found. He therefore was not an idolater himself; nor, as far as we know, did he wink at idolatry in those about him. Whence then this command, issued to his attendants on their approach to Beth-el, that holy ground, " to put away the strange gods that were amongst them and to make themselves clean?"

Let us only refer to an event of a former chapter, and all is plain. The sons of Jacob had been just destroying the city of the Shechemites-they had slain the males, but "all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled all that was in the house." * Genesis, xxxi. 32. + Ibid. xxxiv.

These captives, then, so lately added to the company of Jacob, were in all probability the strangers alluded to, and the idols in their possession the Gods of the strangers, which accordingly the Patriarch required them to put away forthwith before Beth-el was approached. Moreover, it may be observed, that the terms of the command extend to "all that were with him," which may well have respect to the recent augmentation of his numbers, by the addition of the Shechemite prisoners and the further injunction, that not only the idols were to be put away, but that all were to be clean and change their garments, may have a like respect to the recent slaughter of that people, whereby all who were concerned in it were polluted.

Yet surely nothing can be more incidental than the connection between the

sacking of the city and the subsequent command to put the idols of the stranger away-though nothing can be more natural and satisfactory than that connection when it is once perceived. Indeed so little solicitous is Moses to point out these two events as cause and consequence, that he has left himself open to misconstruction by the very unguarded and artless manner in which he expresses himself, and has even placed the character of Jacob, as an exclusive worshipper of the true God, unintentionally in jeopardy.

VIII.

IN the character of Jacob I see an individuality which marks it to belong to real life and this is my next argument for the veracity of the writings of Moses. The particulars we read of him are consistent