1 Gen 11. 31. Judith 5. 6, 7. 2 Gen. 21. 2 3 Gen. 25. 26. 8 Exod. 14. 9. Num, 21, 33. 10 Num. 22. 5. Deut. 23. 4.

strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.

24 And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.

25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

26 And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.

27 And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.

28 So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.

29 And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the ser

vant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.

30 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash.

31 And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.

32 ¶ And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred "pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.

33 And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim.

13 Chap. 19. 50. Judges 2.9. 14 Heb. prolonged their days after Joshua. 15 Gen, 50. 25. Exod. 13. 19.
Or, lambs.

16 Gen, 33, 19.

Verse 1. "Shechem."-There are many who think that here, and wherever else "Shechem" occurs in this chapter, except verse 32, we ought to read "Shiloh;" as it seems evident, from verse 26, that the convention was held at the place where the tabernacle was; and we have previously seen that it was removed from Gilgal to Shiloh. To this, however, it is answered, that although Shiloh were the fixed place of the ark, there was nothing to prevent its temporary removal to Shechem on this important occasion. This is the opinion of Kimchi and Abarbinel, as well as of many Christian commentators. The learned Joseph Mede has, however, a notion that the sanctuary here mentioned does not mean the tabernacle, but a sort of oratory or house of prayer, which the Ephraimites had erected in this placeselecting it the rather, perhaps, for such an erection, because the Lord had there appeared to Abraham, and promised to his descendants the inheritance of that land in which he was a stranger. This seems to us the least probable of the three conjectures.

2. "The flood."-The river Euphrates is intended.

"They served other gods."-From this it seems clear that Abraham's grandfather and father-and possibly himself in the first instance-worshipped the idols of the country in which they lived. By this, however, we are probably not to understand that they had no knowledge of, or reverence for, the true God, but that they did not render to him that exclusive worship which was his due. In fact, we may conclude them to have been in much the same condition as Laban, who, at a subsequent period, represented that part of the family which remained beyond the Euphrates, and who certainly reverenced Jehovah, but who also had idols which he called his gods, and the loss of which filled him with anger and consternation. The tale of the Jews on the subject is, in substance, that men began to worship images in the days of Terah; and that he himself became a chief priest, and a maker and seller of images. They add, that he went one day abroad, leaving the care of his shop to Abraham, who, suspecting the impotency of the idols, broke them all in pieces, except one. Terah, on his return, was so enraged on discovering what had been done, that he dragged his son before Nimrod, the king, who ordered him to be cast into a burning furnace, that it might be ascertained whether the God he served were able to save him. While he was in the furnace, his brother Haran was questioned concerning his belief. He said, that if Abraham came forth unhurt, he should believe in his God; but if otherwise, he should believe in Nimrod. On this, he also was thrown into the furnace, and instantly perished; whereas Abraham came forth safe and untouched before them all. This story has been adopted by the Mohammedans, with sundry amplifications and improvements; and is so common in the East, that it seemed well to notice it here. Terah, according to the same authorities, would seem to have been a sort of founder; for he was not only a manufacturer of images, but is said to have discovered the art of coining money.

12. “I sent the hornet before you.”—This expresses the fulfilment of what had been twice promised (Exod. xxiii. 28; Deut. vii. 20). There are some interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, who are disposed to understand these texts figuratively; believing them either to refer to fears and apprehensions, which led the Canaanites to flee when the Israelites approached, or else to plagues and diseases which were sent upon them, and which produced the game result. If it be so, it seems rather singular that this sort of figure should be confined strictly to this single series of texts, all referring to the same subject. We take these texts to mean literally what they express; and shall therefore confine our attention, in this note, to the insect; and, in that which follows, to the results of its operation against the enemies of Israel. First, for the insect:-the Hebrew name is (tzirah), and probably expresses its loud buzzing noise. Until the time of Bruce, interpreters were content to identify the insect with that called the hornet; but the account which that traveller has given of the zimb, or dog-fly, of Abyssinia, offers so many analogies to that terrible insect which is mentioned in Scripture under the particular name of izirah and the general one of zebub, that although we may not be able to say positively that they are the same, the statement concerning the zimb may, at the least, be taken to

furnish the best analogous illustration which it is now possible to obtain. One fact, which gives the greater weight and probability to the identification, is the certainty that the zimb was known to the Israelites; for it is difficult to suppose that Isaiah (chap. vii. 18) could have had in view any other insect when he says, "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt." Bruce himself does not fail to cite this passage. The original word, there rendered "fly," is 11 (zebub); and, as he observes, "The Chaldee version is content with calling this animal simply zebub, which signifies the fly in general, as we express it in English. The Arabs call it zimb in their translation, which has the same general signification. The Ethiopic translation calls it tsaltsalya, which is the true name of this particular fly in Geez, and was the same in Hebrew."

The traveller gives a figure of the insect in question, magnified, for the sake of distinctness, to rather more than twice the natural size, and from this our wood-cut is co

HORNET (ZIME OF BRUCE).

pied. The following is the substance of the very interesting account which Bruce gives of the Abyssinian zimb"This insect has not been described by any naturalist. It is in size very little larger than a bee, of a thicker proportion, and has wings, which are broader than those of a bee, placed separate like those of a fly; they are of pure gauze, without colour or spot upon them. The head is large; the upper jaw or lip is sharp, and has at the end of it a strong pointed hair, of about a quarter of an inch long: the lower jaw has two of these pointed hairs; and this pencil of hairs, when joined together, makes a resistance to the finger nearly equal to that of a hog's bristle. Its legs are serrated in the inside, and the whole covered with brown hair or down... He has no sting, though he seems to me to be rather of the bee kind; but his motion is more rapid and sudden than that of the bee, and resembles that of the gad-fly in England. There is something peculiar in the sound or buzzing. It is a jarring noise, together with a humming, which induces me to believe it proceeds, at least in part, from a vibration made with the three hairs at its snout." He thus speaks of the power of annoyance possessed by the insect here described: "As soon as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain till they die, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No remedy remains but to leave the black earth [where they breed], and hasten down to the sands of Atbara; and there they remain while the rains last, this cruel enemy never daring to pursue them further. Though his size is immense, as is his strength, and his body covered with a thick skin, defended with strong hair, yet even the camel is not able to sustain the violent punctures the fly makes with his pointed proboscis. He must lose no time in removing to the sands of Atbara; for when once attacked by this fly, his body, hair, and legs break out into large bosses, which swell, break, and putrefy, to the certain destruction of the creature. Even the elephant and rhinoceros, who, by reason of their enormous bulk, and the vast quantity of food and water which they daily need, cannot shift to desert and dry places, as the season may require, are obliged to roll themselves in mud and mire, which, when dry, coats them over like armour, and enables them to stand their ground against this winged assassin; yet I have seen some of these tubercles upon almost every elephant and rhinoceros that I have seen, and attribute them to this cause. All the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Melinda, down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the south coast of the Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion, and remove to the next sand, in the beginning of the rainy season, to prevent all their stock of cattle from being destroyed. This is not a partial emigration: the inhabitants of all the countries from the mountains of Abyssinia to the confluence of the Nile and Astaboras, northward, are, once a year, obliged to change their abode, and seek protection in the sands of Beja; nor is there any alternative, or means of avoiding this, though a hostile band was in the way, capable of spoiling them of half their substance, as was actually the case when we were at Sennaar."

If we compare this with the passage in Isaiah, above referred to, in which the Lord threatens to call for "the fly of Ethiopia" as an agent for the punishment of iniquity, and if this be really the insect to which the text refers, the probability seems to be, that the zimb was not then, any more than now, a native of Palestine; but that swarms of them were drawn from Ethiopia to execute the Divine will. The Canaanites would be the more terrified by the calamity from being unacquainted with its nature, and could not therefore regulate their flight by that knowledge of the insect's habits which the Abyssinians possess. It would not have availed them, however, if otherwise in their power, to have returned after the calamity had subsided, as the Israelites would of course, in the meantime, have taken possession of the country they had vacated.

"Drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites."-For "two kings," the Septuagint has "twelve kings." As there were such a multitude of kings in Canaan, the reading is not improbable, although unsupported by any other version; and, in fact, the promise in Exod. xxiii. 28, refers to the expulsion by the "hornet" of three of the seven nations, each of which seems to have contained several kingdoms. Dr. Boothroyd adopts the reading of the Septuagint. Dr. Hales, in his New Analysis of Chronology,' has an excellent article on the historical part of the present subject, the substance of which, with some additional matter, will be found in the sequel of this note, where, to his Latin quotations from Virgil, we have added Dryden's version of the same passages, for the use of the general reader.

It is commonly understood that the nations expelled by the hornet emigrated to other countries: and it seems very probable that some part of them were assisted in their emigration by the ships of their maritime neighbours, who retained possession of the coast. One of the expelled nations, according to the Jewish commentaries of R. Nachman, was "the nation of the Girgashites, who retired into Africa, fearing the power of God." In unison with this Jewish tradition is the remarkable statement of Procopius, in his work De Bello Vandalico.' He relates how the Phoenicians fled before the Hebrews into Africa, and spread themselves abroad as far as the pillars of Hercules, and thus proceeds: "There they still dwell, and speak the Phoenician language; and in Numidia, where now stands the city Tigisis, they have erected two columns, on which, in Phoenician characters, is the following inscription,- We are the Phoenicians who fled before the robber Joshua, the son of Nun.' This is probably the same story as that given by Suidas, whose copy of the inscription, however, uses the word "Canaanites" instead of "Phoenicians," and omits the "son of Nun." The cause of the difference is probably that Suidas was much better acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures than Procopius, who, like other mere Greeks, does not distinguish any ancient people of Palestine but the Phoenicians. The

Hebrew reference, as above cited, to the Girgashites, seems to be confirmed by the sacred text, in which, although the Girgashites are included in the general list of the seven devoted nations, they are omitted in the list of those to be utterly destroyed (Deut. xx. 17); and also in that of the nations among whom, in neglect of the Divine decree, the Israelites lived and intermarried (Judg. iii. 1-6).

Dr. Hales thinks that, of the fugitive tribes, some appear to have fled beyond sea to Italy, where they became the aborigines, or first colonists, as distinguished from the indigenæ, or natives, and quotes in evidence the following from that profound antiquary Virgil:—

"Hæc nemora indigenæ Fauni Nymphæque tenebant,

Gensque virûm truncis et duro robore nata:

Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, neque tangere tauros,
Aut componere opes norant, aut parcere parto:
Sed rami, atque asper victu venatus agebat.

Primus ab Etherio venit Saturnus Olympo
Arma Jovis fugiens, et regnis exul ademplis.
Is genus indocile, ac dispersum montibus altis,
Composuit, legesque dedit: Latiumque vocari
Maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris.-

Tum manus Ausonia, et gentes venere Sicanæ,

Sæpius et nomen posuit Saturnia tellus."-Æn. viii. 314-329.
"These woods were first the seat of sylvan pow'rs,
Of Nymphs and Fauns, and savage men who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak.
Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care
Of lab'ring oxen, or the shining share,
Nor arts of gain, nor what they gain'd to spare.
Their exercise the chase: the running flood
Supply'd their thirst; the trees supply'd their food
Then Saturn came, who fled the pow'r of Jove,
Robb'd of his realms, and banish'd from above.
The men, dispers'd on hills, to towns he brought,
And laws ordain'd and civil customs taught;
And Latium call'd the land, where safe he lay.
The Ausonians then, and bold Sicanians came,

And Saturn's empire often chang'd the name."-Dryden.

"From this curious passage," says Dr. Hales, "we learn that the rude native settlers lived on fruits, in the savage or hunter state. These were primitive Javanians" (from Javan, the son of Japhet), "whose leader, Janus, gave name to the hill Janiculum, and was prior to Saturn, as we learn also from Virgil. Saturn was prior to the Ausonian and Sicilian colonists, and introduced civilization and laws in the agricultural state; and his name Saturn proves his oriental extraction, being evidently derived from D (satar), latuit, which Virgil accurately expresses, and describes him as an exile, stript of his kingdom, flying from the east, from the arms of JovE; than which there cannot be a more suitable description of the expulsion of one of the kings of the Amorites before Joshua." Here Dr. Hales, of course, supposes his readers to be aware that Saturn was the great deity of the Phoenicians and Canaanites, and that what was done to his votaries is described as being done to himself. He proceeds:-" And these arms of Jove were the hornets sent by the God of Israel, IAHOH, or by contraction IO, to which Virgil's description of the Asilus exactly corresponds:

"Plurimus-volitans (cui nomen Asilo

Romanum est; ogov, Graii vertere vocantes)
Asper, acerba sonans, quo tota exterrita silvis
Diffugiunt armenta."—Georg. iii. 145.

"Of winged insects mighty swarms are seen:

This flying plague (to mark its quality)

Astros the Grecians call-Asilus, we

A fierce, loud-buzzing breeze. Their stings draw blood,

And drive the cattle gadding through the wood.”—DRYDEN.

The Latin asilus, and the Greek orrgo, were probably only different pronunciations of the same Oriental term (Ha-tsirah), as this fly is called by Moses and Joshua; and the reader will not fail to observe how exactly

Virgil's account of it coincides with that which Bruce gives of the zimb.

"That orgy was actually of Phoenician, not Latin descent," continues Dr. Hales, "appears from Eschylus, who, in his Prometheus, thus introduces Io, the daughter of Inachus, changed into a heifer, and persecuted by the hornet, through the jealousy of Juno:

Οιστρόπληξ δεγω

θεση μαστιγί, γην προ γης ελαυνομαίο

"Alas, I, hornet-struck,

By a divine scourge, from land to land am driven!"

And to this very passage Virgil alludes, after the foregoing description of the asilus :

"Hoc quondam monstro, horribiles exercuit iras
Inachia, JUNO, pestem meditata juvencæ.”
"This curse the jealous Juno did invent,

And first employ'd for Io's punishment."-DRYDEN.

29. "Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died.”—Jahn, in his 'Hebrew Commonwealth,' thus discriminates the public character of Joshua, and of his government:-" While Joshua lived, the people were obedient and prosperous. Though idolatry was secretly practised here and there" (see verse 23) "by individuals, it did not break

out openly, and the nation remained faithful to Jehovah their king" (see verse 31). To prevent future degeneracy, Joshua, in the latter part of his life, convened two general assemblies, and earnestly inculcated on the rulers fidelity to Jehovah, and a conscientious observance of his law. At the last assembly he caused a new election to be made of Jehovah for their king, and to be solemnly acknowledged by the people. He erected a permanent monument of this renewal of their homage, and recorded the whole transaction in the book of the law. Soon after, this hero died: a man who devoted his whole life to the establishment of the theocratic policy, and consequently to the preservation of the true religion-services that ought to endear his memory to all succeeding ages."

32. "And the bones of Joseph.... buried they in Shechem.”—(See the note on Gen. 1. 25.)-The bones of Joseph had probably been buried at Shechem as soon as Ephraim obtained possession of its inheritance; but the circumstance is mentioned here as a supplementary piece of information, to which the account of Joshua's death and burial naturally gave occasion. The tomb of Joseph at Shechem seems to have been at all times pointed out to travellers. It is mentioned by Jerome, Benjamin of Tudela, Maundrell, and by most travellers who have visited the place. What is now indicated as the tomb of the patriarch is a small building in a recess between two mountains (Rae Wilson); it is a Turkish oratory, with a whitened dome, like the tomb of his mother Rachel, on the road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem (Richardson). Rachel's tomb has been described in the note to Gen. xxxv. 20.