Verse 13. "Quails."-Shelaw, Heb. Quails (Coturnix dactylisonans) are remarkable for their migratory habits. These birds remove in prodigious flocks from place to place, having previously remained solitary during the period of incubation. They are often seen crossing the Mediterranean in their passage to and from Africa, and it is said that on some occasions more than a hundred thousand have been killed about Naples at one time. There can be no doubt' that the bird of passage of the Levant is the Shelaw of the sacred writer; and though quails might settle in countless swarms around the tents of the Israelites without a miracle, yet nothing but the fiat of the Almighty could have sent them thither at an appointed time. 15. "They said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was."-This passage in our translation is incorrect and contradictory; for how could the Hebrews be ignorant what it was, if they at once declared it to be manna? Josephus says expressly, that man is a particle of interrogation; and so the Septuagint understands it. Hence Dr. Boothroyd consistently and properly renders the clause, "They said one to another, What is it? [man-hu?] for they knew not what it was." We shall abstain from perplexing our readers with a statement of the various attempts which have been made to identify this manna with the natural condensed juices or gums from certain shrubs or trees to which the name has been applied: for the manna of Scripture has been sought for not merely in the produce of one gum-exuding plant, but of many. The strongest claim to identity applies to the substance, still called by the Arabs mann, which is produced in the peninsula of Sinai; but we have already stated, that Arab identifications, whether of sites or products, or any thing else, are not of the least value, unless supported by other and strong corroborations. We take this, however, because if it be not the manna of Scripture, no other natural product can pretend to the distinction. The best and most complete account of it is given by Burckhardt. Speaking of the Wady el Sheikh, to the north of Mount Serbal, he says, "In many parts it was thickly overgrown with the tamarisk or tarfa; it is the only valley in the peninsula where this tree grows, at present, in any great quantity, though some small bushes are here and there met with in other parts. It is from the tarfa that the manna is obtained; and it is very strange that the fact should have remained unknown in Europe till M. Seetzen mentioned it in a brief notice of his tour to Sinai, published in the 'Mines de l'Orient.' This substance is called by the Arabs mann, and accurately resembles the description of the manna given in Scripture. In the month of June it drops from the thorns of the tamarisk upon the fallen twigs, leaves and thorns, which always cover the ground beneath the tree in the natural state: the manna is collected before sunrise, when it is coagulated, but it dissolves as soon as the sun shines upon it. The Arabs clean away the leaves, dirt, &c. which adhere to it, boil it, strain it through a coarse piece of cloth, and put it into leathern skins; in this way they preserve it till the following year, and use it, as they do honey, to pour over their unleavened bread, or to dip their bread into. I could not learn that they ever made it into cakes or loaves. The manna is found only in years when copious rains have fallen; sometimes it is not produced at all. I saw none of it among the Arabs, but I obtained a piece of last year's produce at the convent; where, having been kept in the cool shade and moderate temperature of that place, it had become quite solid, and formed a small cake: it became soft when kept some time in the hand, if placed in the sun for five minutes, but when restored to a cool place it became solid again in a quarter of an hour. In the season at which the Arabs gather it, it never acquires that degree of hardness which will allow of its being pounded, as the Israelites are said to have done, in Num. xi. 8. Its colour is dirty yellow, and the piece which I saw was still mixed with bits of tamarisk leaves; its taste is agreeable, somewhat aromatic, and as sweet as honey. If eaten in any considerable quantity, it is said to be slightly purgative. The quantity of manna collected at present, even in seasons when the most copious rains fall, is very trifling, perhaps not amounting to more than five or six hundred pounds. It is entirely consumed among the Bedouins, who consider it the greatest dainty which their country affords. The harvest is usually in June, and lasts six weeks; sometimes it begins in July." (Tour in the Peninsula of Mount Sinai.") If, for a moment, we allow this to be the manna of Scripture, let us see to what extent a miracle is still required to account for the phenomena recorded there. This mann is only yielded six weeks in the year; but the manna of Scripture was supplied at all times of the year during forty years, and a double supply came regularly every Friday, to compensate for its being intermitted on Saturday. It fell also in the Hebrew encampment, wherever it happened to be, in all the country between Sinai and Palestine. The mann of Sinai may be kept from one year to another; but the manna, if kept till the day after that on which it was gathered, bred maggots, became noisome, and was unfit for useexcept once a week, when its freshness was preserved for two days; and except also in the instance of the vessel full of it, which was directed to be preserved as a standing memorial of this wonderful provision. The mann is found, under the shrubs which produce it, in adhesive particles, whereas the manna was showered down around the Hebrew encampment. If, therefore, so many miraculous circumstances must be allowed; if the identity of the mann and manna be conceded, we really do not see how the believer can do other than consider the supply as altogether miraculous; or how the unbeliever can do better for his bad cause than reject the account as a whole. There is no middle path. In attempting to account for it on natural principles, so much that is miraculous must be admitted that it does not seem worth while to contend about the remainder. As to the substance itself, the identity, or even resemblance, does not seem to us so well established as Burckhardt conceives. Besides the differences, involving a miracle, to which we have alluded, its appearance and colour do not correspond with the description of manna, as "a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost.... like coriander seed, and its colour like a pearl." Besides, the mann dissolves in heat, after it has been kept for a long time in a solid state: but the manna was found in a solid state, and although it dissolved in the sun if not gathered early in the morning, yet if collected it might be pounded into meal, and baked as bread. Burckhardt's manna could not be powdered into meal, and would melt in the attempt to bake it. Moreover, if it was a natural or common product, how is it that the Israelites did not know what it was? (verse 15, and Deut. viii. 16); and how, in that case, could it have been worth while, after the supply had ceased, to preserve a quantity of the manna in the tabernacle and temple as an evidence of the miracle to future generations? 31. "Coriander."-The Coriandrum sativum, or coriander, is an umbelliferous plant akin to the parsley in family characteristics. The flowers grow in an umbel, and are individually small and white. The leaves are much divided, and smooth. The seeds are employed, from their aromatic nature, in culinary purposes, and hence their round and finished shape is well known. In the umbelliferous plants the fruit uniformly separates into two similar halves, which are the seeds; but in the coriander they continue united after they are ripe. If we examine the seed we shall perceive very readily that it is compounded of two, while a reference to the parsley, or any other example of the umbelliferous family, will illustrate the peculiarity of the coriandrum in this respect. The word xogov, employed by the Septuagint, is evidently the parent of xogavvov of Theophrastus, whence the Latin coriandrum. It is diffused over all the regions of the old world, hence the simile is intelligible to the inhabitants of the greater portion of the globe. CORIANDER (Coriandrum sativum). 33. "Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein."-There have been very different opinions as to the material and form of this vessel. The Rabbins disagree among themselves on the subject, some describing it as of earthenware; while others think it was glass, and others still contend for brass or copper. But the Septuagint says it was of gold; and St. Paul, whose authority is final, says the same (Heb. ix. 4). As to its form, it is generally understood as of an urn-like figure. Reland thinks that it had a lid or cover like the pots in which wine was kept, and corroborates his conclusions on the subject generally by giving figures of the manna-pot, as represented on some Samaritan medals, which must be allowed to furnish the best authority on the subject that we are now able to obtain. These medals represent it as having two long handles or ears; and Reland shows that vessels of this form were called "asses,” both by the Greeks and Romans; perhaps on account of the ears: and he very ingeniously traces to this circumstance the origin of a calumny which Josephus confutes without explaining how it arose:-this was, that when Antiochus plundered the Temple, he found there the figure of an ass's head, all of gold, which was worshipped by the Jews. Others, however, account for this scandalous charge in a different way. SAMARITAN COINS, FROM SAURIN'S DISSERTATIONS, SHOWING THE PROBABLE FORM OF THE GOLDEN POT OF MANNA. CHAPTER XVII. 1 The people murmur for water at Rephidim. 5 God sendeth him for water to the rock in Horeb. 8 Amalek is overcome by the holding up of Moses hands. 15 Moses buildeth the altar JEHOVAH-nissi. AND all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the LORD? 3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? 4 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. 5 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod wherewith 2thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before thee there 1 Num. 20. 4. 2 Chap. 7. 20. 3 Num. 20. 9. upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place Massah, and 'Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not? 8 Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim. 9 And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. 10 So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses' hands were heavy'; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. 13 And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Psal. 78. 15, and 105. 41. Wisd. 11. 4. 1 Cor. 10. 4. 4 That is, tentation. 14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for "I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. 15 And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it 'JEHOVAH-nissi : 16 For he said, 10Because "the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. 3 Num. 24. 20. 1 Sam. 15. 3. That is, the LORD my banner. 10 Or, because the hand of Amalek is against the throne of the LORD, therefore, &c. 11 Heb. the hand upon the throne of the LORD. Verse 1. "The children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin...and pitched in Rephidim."-A chain of mountains called El Tyh stretches across the peninsula of Sinai, from the Gulf of Akaba, to near the coast of the Gulf of Suez. The common road, which we suppose the Israelites to have taken-and which they most obviously would take wherever they might have crossed between Suez and Birket Faroun-turns off from the shores of the gulf, south-east towards Sinai, after the extremity of these mountains towards the west has been rounded. We understand the desert of Sin to comprehend most of the space to be traversed between the point where the road turns off to within a few miles of Mount Serbal, which is the first of the larger mountains of the Sinai group. This is of course, from its situation, not a flat and uniform desert; but it is still a desolate wilderness, but more or less hilly and rocky, with valleys of various dimensions, but generally sandy or stony, strewed with the bones of camels, generally without plants or herbage, and also without water, except in the rainy season, when the valleys are traversed by the torrents that descend from the mountains. Burckhardt, who however says nothing about the identity of this region with the desert of Sin, relates that while traversing it from Sinai, his party met several Arabs, who had started in the morning from the well of Morkha, and had ventured on the journey without water, or the hope of finding any till the following day, when they would reach Wady Feiran. Now Morkha is near the gulf at one extremity of this desert region, and Wady Feiran near Mount Serbal at the other, the distance between the two points being about thirty miles; and we suppose this to have been nearly the route of the Israelites. We do not mean to say that the desert of Sin was limited to the district we mention; we only attempt to define its limit in the direction of the journey, at the same time not denying that the term might be applicable to all the country between the shore of the gulf on the west, and the Sinai group on the east. Pursuing this view, we would fix Rephidim as the part of this region which approaches to Mount Serbal not far from Wady Feiran. It is true that none have attempted to place Rephidim here, but have adopted without question the report of the monks of Sinai and the neighbouring Arabs, who fix it among the higher summits of Sinai. In altering the position, however, we feel we are not only illustrating the consistency and truth of the narrative, but are also assisting to obviate a doubt which has been cast upon the miracle performed at Rephidim. If we take the place commonly indicated, at the very foot of Mount St. Catherine, as the true scene of the miracle, how happens it that, after leaving Rephidim, the Israelites made a stage to Sinai, when the place locally indicated is at Sinai? and besides, here in the higher regions of the mountains water naturally abounds in every direction, and the miracle would not have been necessary; whereas near the spot we indicate no water is to be found, and the Hebrew host must have suffered so much in crossing the desert of Sin, as to account for their urgent need of water and their clamour for it. Where we fix Rephidim they must have wanted water, but where it is commonly fixed they would have had ample opportunity to quench their thirst, not only on their arrival, but before coming thither. It is indeed certain that water was at no great distance before them even at the Rephidim we have chosen; and it may be asked why they were not directed to advance, instead of being supplied by miracle. This question certainly conveys a less forcible objection, than to ask why they were supplied by miracle in a place where water was already abundant. The answer to the former question however might be that the Hebrews were at the last extremity of thirst, and too much exhausted by their journey through the desert to proceed farther. But we have a still stronger answer, which to our minds is conclusive in favour of the position we have assigned, and which is also of importance for the incidental elucidation it affords of the attack of the Amalekites, which has hitherto only formed the foundation for random conjectures. The fact is, that their progress from the region of drought to that of water was cut off by the Amalekites, who occupied the outskirts of the watered region at Wady Feiran. We gather this fact from a passage, quoted for another purpose, from the Egyptian geographer Makrizi, by Burckhardt, who does not himself seem to have perceived its important bearing on the present subject. Makrizi, in speaking of the town of Feiran here, in the valley of the same name, says it was one of the towns of the Amalekites. The ruins of this and other towns, with towers, aqueducts, and sepulchral excavations, still appear in the valley and the mountains on each side. The valley was evidently then once occupied by a settled people, and as the sacred text mentions an attack from the Amalekites at Rephidim, it is satisfactory and reasonable to conclude that Makrizi is right in saying that the valley was occupied by this people, and it is safe to infer that they did not care to admit the further progress of the Hebrews, and perhaps, having also their cupidity excited by the rich spoils which the Israelites had gathered from the Egyptians, ventured to attack them, probably promising themselves an easy victory over such an undisciplined and mixed multitude. The valley now called El Ledja, which is locally indicated as the Rephidim of the text, occurs in the very highest region of the Sinai group, between the two peaks which respectively bear the name of Mount Mousa, regarded as the Sinai of Scripture, and Mount St. Catherine, which is identified with Horeb. It is therefore so elevated a valley that it would be indeed miraculous were there no water in or near it. This valley is very narrow, and exceedingly stony, many large blocks having rolled down from the mountains which overhang it. Upon the whole, there is not in the entire neighbourhood of the mountains a spot more unlikely to have been the scene of the miracle. However, in a place where the valley is about two hundred yards broad, there is an insulated block of granite, about twelve feet high, and of an irregular shape, approaching to a cube, which the monks in the neighbouring convent concur with the Arabs in pointing out as the rock which Moses struck with his rod, and from which the water gushed forth. There are some apertures upon its surface from which the water is said to have issued; they are about twenty in number, and lie nearly in a straight line around the three sides of the stone, and are for the most part ten or twelve inches long, two or three inches broad, and from one to two inches deep; but a few are as deep as four inches. Burckhardt, to whom we are indebted for this account of the valley and its rock, adds,-"Every observer must be convinced, on the slightest examination, that most of these fissures are the work of art, but three or four perhaps are natural, and these may first have drawn the attention of the monks to the stone, and have induced them to call it the rock of miraculous supply of water. Besides the marks of art evident in the holes themselves, the spaces between them have been chiselled, so as to make it appear that the stone had been worn in those parts by the action of the water: though it cannot be doubted that if water had flowed from the fissures, it must generally have taken quite a different direction.” As, however, travellers even of the fifteenth century mention this stone, the deception must have originated at an earlier period, and Burckhardt entirely acquits the present inhabitants of the convent and peninsula of any fraud on the subject. They conscientiously believe that this is indeed the very rock from which the waters gushed forth. The neighbouring Arabs venerate it highly. "They put grass into the fissures," says Burckhardt, "as offerings to the memory of Moses, in the same way as they place grass upon the tombs of their saints, because grass is to them the most precious gift of nature, and that upon which their existence chiefly depends. They also bring hither their female camels, for they believe that, by making the animal crouch down before the rock, while they recite some prayers, and by putting fresh grass into the fissures of stone, the camels will become fertile, and yield an abundance of milk. This superstition is much encouraged by the monks, who rejoice to see the infidel Arabs venerating the same object with themselves." CHAPTER XVIII. 1 Jethro bringeth to Moses his wife and two sons. 7 Moses entertaineth him. 13 Jethro's counsel is accepted. 27 Jethro departeth. WHEN 'Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt; 2 Then Jethro, Moses' father in law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back, 3 And her two sons; of which the 'name of the one was "Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land. zer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh : 5 And Jethro, Moses' father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God: 6 And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her. 7 And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their 'welfare; and they came into the tent. 8 And Moses told his father in law all that the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and all 1 Chap. 2. 16, 2 Chap. 2, 22. 3 That is, a stranger there. 4 That is, my God is an help. 5 Heb. peace. 4 And the name of the other was 'Elic |