ing them by the hands of barbarians more wicked than themselves. Cum vero tam vitiosos, tam improbos, infirmos et miserrimos esse jubeat, evidentissimè patet et aspici nos a Deo et judicari, quia hoc patimur, quod meremur. Sed mereri nos absque dubio non putamus: et hinc est quòd magis rei et criminosi sumus, quia non agnoscimus quod meremur. Maxima quippe accusatrix hominum noxiorum est usurpatrix innocentiæ adrogantia. Inter multos siquidem eorundem criminum reos nullus est criminosior quàm qui se non putat criminosum. Itaque et nos hoc solum malis nostris addere possumus, ut nos innoxios judicemus. Salvian de Gubernat. Dei. Lib. iv. p. 83. Edit. Baluz. Paris. 1669. This is too true an account of all accusations against Providence. An impartial view of his own conduct would rather dispose every one to cry out Me, me, adsum qui feci: in me convertite ferrum. NOTE 46. It is well known, that the learned world is divided in opinion respecting Jepthah's vow and subsequent conduct one party believing him actually to have sacrificed his daughter; the other, that he only dedicated her to a life of celibacy and attendance upon the tabernacle and ark. Capellus and Lightfoot maintain the former; Grotius and Le Clerc the latter. In Michaelis's Laws of Moses, Art. 145. and in Dathe's note on Judges xi. 39. together with what he says in his edition of Glasse, p. 599, in opposition to Glasse; you will find nearly all the arguments urged on both sides; which it is not necessary here to repeat. Dr. Randolph, in a sermon preached at Oxford, 1766, is supposed by some to have settled the dispute by a rendering of the words of the text, different from the usual one. Of which Dr. Kennicott, in his remarks on select passages of Scripture, gives this account: "But the chief difficulty seems happily removed by the learned Dr. Randolph, who has shewn, that the latter clause in this verse does not necessarily refer to any thing or any person to be offered up: but that it may be translated⚫ and (or) I will offer up to him (to God) a burnt offering.' The pronoun thus suffixed is often dative, just as in English:-offer him a present-do him honour. The vow therefore was, that, if what came forth to meet him, was fit to be devoted to the immediate service of God, it should be so; if not, he would offer unto God a burnt-offering. The event corresponded: the daughter of Jepthah coming forth, she voluntarily consented to withdraw from the world, and devote the remainder of her life toward assisting in such sacred matters, as were in those days transacted near the ark of the Lord and in the services of religion." He also quotes Bishop Lowth's note on Isaiah xlii. 16. The view, which the present writer takes of the above expressions, is, unfortunately for him, so different from these deservedly great authorities, that the translation. given by them appears to him even to offend against the propriety of the language. It is very true, that the pronoun affixed to many verbs may be so rendered of which examples are given in Buxtorf's Theses Grammaticæ, lib. ii. cap. 17., to which Lowth refers. the chapter concludes with this caution: But "Hæc et quæ sunt alia plura, monet Kimchi in Michlol fol. 34, diligenter ex usu observanda et notanda esse, neque quælibet promiscuè verba ad hanc syntaxin trahenda. Solet quidem lingua Hebræa hoc modo sæpè concise loqui et sermonem contrahere, quando sensus nihilominus manifestus manet: at cautè pros piciendum, ne sermo fiat durus, aut dubius, neque vis aliqua sententiæ inferatur, ut lingua nitorem ac elegantiam suam retineat." Against which caution Dr. Randolph's interpretation seems to offend : for the verb у, wherever used with the pronominal affix, always governs it as a verb transitive, particularly in the parallel passages, Gen. xxii. 2. of Isaac: ver. 13. of the ram offered up in his stead: and 2 Kings iii. 27. of the King of Moab's sacrifice of his son: neither does a sense similar to the one proposed occur in any phrase, in which that verb is used: nor is it adopted by the ancient versions. It has also the appearance of an anticlimax, to promise magnificently to sacrifice whatever should come to meet him, and then drop to a burnt offering, without specifying any thing to make it even appear an equivalent. Nothing can be more positive than the prohibitions of offering human sacrifices contained in the law of Moses; and yet, shocking as they are to us, it is very clear the Israelitish nation was addicted to them so late as Jeremiah and Ezekiel's time. Jer. vii. 31. Ezek. xvi. 21. And it is well known other nations of the ancient world were also. Our horror of the crime does not prove it improbable for at this distance of time, we cannot pretend to say how far Jepthah might have been misled by the ideas prevalent with all around him. Under any view of the subject, the vow does not appear to have been properly considered before it was made: but being made, he seems to have been hampered in his conscience by it. It is an unfortunate infirmity of human nature, that a fanatical delusion takes stronger hold of the mind than a real principle of religion. Of this we have too many proofs at the present day in an "See Michaelis, Art. 247. on Human Sacrifices. adjoining island: which has exhibited numerous instances of the power of unlawful oaths so to enslave the conscience, as to drive the unhappy victim athwart every prior obligation of mercy, duty and religion. Whether the high priest concurred with Jepthah in the performance of his vow is, as Michaelis observes, out of the question: because he was at Shiloh in the tribe of Ephraim; with which tribe Jepthah was immediately engaged in a bloody war, while his own dominion appears to have been only in Gilead. The greatest difficulty would be to reconcile the commendation which St. Paul gives of him, Heb. xi. 32. unless it were clear, that Scripture often commends a distinguished instrument of providence, for what he has done well on the particular occasion, for which he was appointed; though he be sadly faulty in other points. Jepthah appears clearly to have placed his confidence in the true God as the giver of victory; and in that confidence boldly to have faced the danger: he is therefore a very fit example for the Apostle to urge to those, whom he wished to rouse to a similar undaunted confidence, that they might not be overcome by the difficulties which surrounded them, and fall away from the profession of their faith. c. 10. v. 36. He is not proposed as an example of that faith, which produces perfect holiness, any more than Gideon or Sampson, who are no where held forth as patterns for us to follow in all respects. It was the courage and constancy with which they fought the Lord's battle, and the issue to which they brought it, for which he singled them out for examples to those, who were engaged in a more arduous warfare, and had still more evident reasons for their confidence; if they did not through the infirmity of nature fail in what they had so gloriously begun. Mais l'ecriture dit " que Jepthé fut rempli de l'esprit de Dieu, et St. Paul dans son épître aux Hebreux, chap. 11. fait l'eloge de Jepthé, et le place avec Samuel et David." (M. de Volt. Tolér.) Oui, Monsieur, l'ecriture dit que Jepthé fut rempli de l'esprit de Dieu; mais elle ne dit nulle part, que ce fut lorsqu'il voua sa fille, et qu'il accomplit son vou; et il nous paroît que les Chrétiens prouvent assez bien, que si St. Paul met Jepthé au rang des héros Israélites, ce n'est pas à raison de ce sacrifice, dont il ne dit rien, quoiqu'il parle de celui d'Abraham. Lettres de quelq. Juifs à M. de Voltaire. Tom. ii. Lett. 3. §. 4. The whole letter is worth perusing, as is indeed the whole book, not only for the matter which it contains, but for the manner in which it retorts many of the mauvaises plaisanteries of that author. NOTE 45 and 47. THE commentators are by no means unanimous in allowing that any more of Achan's family than himself were put to death. Those who think he suffered alone, maintain their opinion by the allegation, that the text here is not correct; and by the use of the singular pronoun "him" in two places, instead of " them." c. vii. v. 25. and 26. It must be allowed there is a mistake, v. 17. in the words "man by man,” instead of "by households;" which mistake is set right in six Hebrew MSS. and the Syriac version 10. There is also a difference in the man's name in the five places in this chapter, in the Hebrew he is Achan; though the valley in which he was stoned is called Achor: He is called Achar in the text and in all the versions in 1 Chron. ii. 7: He is Achar in the five places of Joshua in the Syriac version also in all the five in the Greek of the Vatican 10 Kennicott's Remarks. |