people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

26 If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:

27 For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious. 280Thou shalt not revile the "gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.

29 Thou shalt not delay to offer "the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: "the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.

30 Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, and with thy sheep: seven days it shall be with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it me.

31 ¶ And ye shall be holy men unto me: "neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs.

Verse 6. "If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith," &c.-This doubtless alludes to the common practice in the East of setting fire to the dry herbage, before the commencement of the autumnal rains, under the very correct impression that this operation is favourable to the next crop. The herbage is so perfectly dry by the long summer droughts, that the fire when kindled often spreads to a great extent and cannot be checked while it finds any aliment. The operation is attended with great danger, and requires to be performed with a careful reference to the direction in which the wind blows, and to local circumstances, that nothing valuable may be consumed in the course given to the destructive element. Such a fire kindled accidentally or wilfully is sometimes attended with most calamitous consequences, destroying trees, shrubs, and standing crops, and placing in considerable danger persons who happen to be abroad on a journey or otherwise. Such accidents sometimes happen through the carelessness of travellers in neglecting, when they leave their stations, to extinguish the fires they have used during the night. The dry herbage towards the end of summer is so very combustible, that a slight cause is sufficient to set it in a blaze. Dr. Chandler relates an anecdote, which sufficiently shows the necessity and propriety of the law which the text brings to our notice. When he was taking a plan of Troas, one day after dinner, a Turk came near and emptied the ashes out of his pipe. A spark fell unobserved upon the grass, and a brisk wind soon kindled a blaze, which withered in an instant the leaves of the trees and bushes in its way, seized the branches and roots, and devoured all before it with prodigious crackling and noise. Chandler and his party were much alarmed, as a general conflagration of the country seemed likely to ensue: but after an hour's exertion they were enabled to extinguish the flames. The writer of this note can himself recollect, that when one chilly night he assisted in kindling a fire, for warmth, on the western bank of the Tigris, so much alarm was exhibited by the Arabs lest the flames should catch the tamarisks and other shrubs and bushes which skirt the river, that the party were induced to forego the enjoyment which the fire afforded. The writer has often witnessed these fires, and the appearance which they present, particularly at night, was always very striking. The height of the flame depends upon the thickness and strength of its aliment; and its immediate activity, upon the force of the wind. When there is little or no wind the fire has no other food than the common herbage of the desert or steppe; the flame seldom exceeds three feet in height, and advances slowly and steadily like a vast tide of fire, backed by the smoke of the smouldering embers, and casting a strong light for a considerable height into the air, sometimes also throwing up a taller mass of flame where it meets with clumps of bushes or shrubs which afford more substantial aliment. This taller mass lingers behind to complete its work after the general body of flame has continued its destructive and conquering march. A high wind throws the flames forward with great fury, while, if the ground happens to be thickly set with clumps of bushes, the tall columns of flame which start up in the advancing fiery tide, give increased intensity to the grand and appalling effect of one of the most remarkable scenes which it falls to the lot of a traveller to witness. In the steppes of southern Russia the writer has passed over tracts of ground, the surface of which had, for fifty miles or more, been swept and blackened by the flames.

27. "It is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep ?—This passage, which describes a poor man as sleeping at night in his outer garment, exhibits one of the many unchanged customs of the East. The orientals generally, of whatever rank, do not undress at night. They merely throw off their outer and looser robes, unwind their turbans and vast waist cloth, sleeping in their caps, shirt, drawers, waistcoat, and gown. The common people very often do not sleep at all in what we should call a bed. The details of their management of course depend much on the particular costume of the country; but, speaking generally, a poor man is quite content to make his cloak and waistcloth serve for a bed, lying on one of the two and covering himself with the other, or else making the cloak or the girdle alone serve all his purposes. A mat, rug, or piece of carpet is all he desires to render his bed more luxurious. These observations particularly apply to the Bedouin Arabs, although true also of other Asiatic countries, and is not peculiar to Asia, for, while travelling in Russia, we have often, on passing through towns and villages at night or early in the morning, seen great numbers of men lying about on the ground wrapped up in their sheep-skin cloaks. The poor desert Arab, whose dress is little more than a shirt and a woollen mantle, is content to use the latter for his bed and bed-clothes when he has nothing better;-drawing it over his head-for an Arab always covers his head whether he sleeps by day or night— and gathering up his feet, he sleeps with as much apparent ease and comfort as on a down-bed, his tough frame seeming quite unconscious of the hardness of the ground and the asperities of its surface. There is no people of the East whose costume seems to have remained with so little alteration from the most ancient times as that of the inhabitants of the Arabian deserts; or which is so susceptible of being, in most cases, identified with the dress worn by the ancient Jews. We should therefore, perhaps, not be much mistaken in considering the garment of the text as nearly resembling the simple woollen mantle of the present Arabs. It is nearly square, reaching from the shoulders to the calf of the leg, or even the ancles, and about as wide as long. A square sack-having in front a slit from top to bottom, a hole at the top for the neck, and a slit on each side for the arms—would give a good idea of this shapeless but useful article of dress. Garments of the kind indicated are of various qualities and texture. Some are very light and fine, with embroidery in silk, silver, or gold on the breast and between the shoulders; but the common sort are coarse and

heavy, commonly with alternate stripes, a foot wide, of blue and white, or brown and white, but frequently all black This robe, called an abba, is commonly worn loosely on the shoulders, as the Irish peasantry wear their great coats; but when active exertion is required it is either thrown aside, or is drawn close around the body and fastened by a girdle, the arms being then necessarily thrust through the arm-holes. This article of dress is certainly as indispensable to a poor Arab, as the garment of the text could be to a poor Jew.

23 19For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.

24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their

4 Or, wilt thou cease to help him? or, and wouldest cease to leave thy business for him; Ecclus. 20. 29.

11 Deut. 16. 16.

17 Chap. 33. 2.

20 Josh. 24. 11.

works: "but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil."

27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.

28 And "I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out. before thee.

32 25Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare

29 I will not drive them out from before unto thee.

24 Josh, 24. 12.

25 Chap. 34. 15. Deut. 7.2. 26 Deut. 7. 16. Josh. 23. 13. Judg. 2. 3.

21 Deut. 7. 25. 22 Deut. 7. 14. 23 Heb. neck. Verse 17. "Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God."-These times were at the Passover, the feast of Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles, each of which continued for a week. These were the "Great Festivals" of the Jews. Every male was then obliged to repair to the place more pre-eminently consecrated to the worship of Jehovah-at first to the tabernacle, and afterwards to the Temple at Jerusalem. The women, although not required to go, frequently attended. We read of Samuel's mother going with her husband, and our Saviour's mother in after-times did the same. The design of this concourse was apparently to unite the Hebrews among themselves, and to counteract the tendency to separation which the division into distinctly marked tribes was calculated to produce. On these occasions, notwithstanding their petty differences, they must have been led to feel that they were indeed brethren and fellow-citizens; and that this was really the case, appears from the fact, that after the separation of the tribes into two kingdoms, the founder of the new kingdom (Jeroboam) became so alarmed on viewing the probable moral effect of the continued resort of his subjects to Jerusalem, the capital of the elder kingdom, that he set up golden calves in Dan and Bethel with a principal view, it would seem, of inducing the people to hold their annual meetings at places within his own dominions (1 Kings xii. 25–33). It is also not unlikely that these meetings of different tribes three times a year in the same place tended very much to promote internal commerce among the Jews, enabling the different tribes to interchange their several commodities with each other, by which these frequent journeys would be rather a profit than an expense to them. Such a procedure was at least obvious, and is at this day exemplified in the case of the Mohammedan pilgrims to Mecca. It was the more necessary in the case of the Hebrews, whose law strongly discouraged any commercial intercourse with foreigners.

Some objections have been made with reference to these frequent concourses of all the male inhabitants in one place. The first is the unreasonableness of leaving their families and homes unprotected, and exposed to the incursions of the hostile people on their borders. The answer is, that they were not unprotected. They had the very best protection. It was expressly promised by God that "no man should desire their land" during their absence (ch. xxxiv. 24); that is, that their homes should be secure from any hostile invasion. And, in fact, their enemies never did avail themselves of the apparent advantages which such occasions seemed to offer; and long experience of the efficacy of the Divine Protection, ultimately taught the Jews to repair to the appointed place, without the least apprehension for the safety of their homes.

The other objection is, how such vast multitudes could find provisions and accommodation in the town where they congregated. The best answer will be found by a reference to the existing practice of the Mohammedans who annually repair to Mecca. The account is derived from our countryman Pitt, who was there towards the end of the seventeenth century, but the statement in its general features is equally applicable at present. After describing Mecca as a mean and inconsiderable town, he observes that four caravans arrive there every year, with great numbers of people in each. The Mohammedans say that not fewer than 70,000 persons meet at Mecca on such occasions; and although he did not think the number, when he was there, so large as this, it was still very great. Now the question recurs, how this vast multitude could find food and accommodation at so small and poor a place as Mecca? The following, from our author, is a sufficient answer:-"As for house-room, the inhabitants do straiten themselves very much, in order at this time to make their market. As for such as come last after the town is filled, they pitch their tents without the town, and there abide until they remove towards home. As for provision, they all bring sufficient with them, except it be of flesh, which they may have at Mecca; but all other provision, as butter, honey, oil, olives, rice, biscuit, &c. they bring with them as much as will last through the wilderness, forward and backward, as well as the time they stay at Mecca; and so for their camels they bring store of provender, &c. with them." Ali Bey confirms this account. He says, indeed, that the pilgrims often bring to Mecca rather more food than they are likely to need, and when there, they compute how much they shall want during their stay and on their return, and, reserving that, sell the remainder to great advantage. He adds, "Every hadgi (pilgrim) carries his provisions, water, bedding, &c. with him, and usually three or four diet together, and sometimes discharge a poor man's expenses the whole journey for his attendance upon them."

These facts no doubt apply, in a great extent, to the solution of the apparent difficulty as to the management of the Hebrews in their three annual meetings at the Tabernacle or the Temple. It will also be recollected that Jerusalem was a much larger city than Mecca, and situated in an incomparably more fertile district.

1 Chap. 19. 8. Verse 7. Deut. 5. 27. 2 Verse 3. Verse 10. "Sapphire" ( Sappir).-The Greek and Latin names are obviously derived from the Hebrew, apugos, sapphirus. Next after the diamond it is the most valuable of the gems, exceeding all others in lustre and hardness. The Oriental sapphire is of a sky-blue, or fine azure colour, whence the prophets described the throne of God as being of the colour of sapphire (Ezek. i. 26, and x. 2). Pliny says, that in his time the best sapphires came from Media.

1 What the Israelites must offer for the making of shall take of them; gold, and silver, and

1 Heb. take for me. Or, heave-offering. Chap. 35. 5.

Chap. 37. 1. Or, of the matter of the mercy-seat.