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DEUTERONOMY.
CHAPTER VIII.

enjoyed by An exhortation to obedience from a consideration of God's past mercies, 1, 2. Man is not to live by bread only, but by every word of God, 3. How God provided for them in the wilderness, 4. The Lord chastened them, that they might be obedient, 5, 6. A description of the land into which they were going, 7-9. Cautions lest they should forget God in their prosperity, 10-16, and lest they should attribute that prosperity to themselves, and not to God, 17, 18. The terrible judgments that shall fall upon them, should they prove unfaithful, 19, 20.

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commandments | 4 Thy raiment waxed not ALL the which I command thee this old upon thee, neither did thy An. Ex. Isr. 40. day "shall ye observe to do, that foot swell, these forty years. ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.

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2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. 3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and 'fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

a Ch. iv. 1. v. 32, 33. vi. 1, 2, 3. b Ch. i. 3. ii. 7. xxix. 5. Ps. cxxxvi. 16. Amos ii. 10. e Exod. xvi. 4. Ch. xiii. 3. d2 Chron. xxxii. 31. John ii. 25.- e Exod. xvi. 2, 3.- f Exod. xvi. 12, 14, 35.- -5 Ps. civ. 29. Matt. iv. 4.

The

NOTES ON CHAP. VIII. Verse 2. Thou shalt remember all the way] various dealings of God with you; the dangers and difficulties to which ye were exposed, and from which God delivered you; together with the various miracles which he wrought for you, and his long-suffering towards you.

Verse 3. He-suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee] God never permits any tribulation to befall his followers, which he does not design to turn to their advantage. When he permits us to hunger, it is that his mercy may be the more observable in providing us with the necessaries of life. Privations, in the way of providence, are the forerunners of mercy and goodness abundant.

Verse 4. Thy raiment waxed not old, &c.] The plain meaning of this much-tortured text appears to me to be this: "God so amply provided for them all the necessaries of life, that they never were obliged to wear tattered garments, nor were their feet injured for lack of shoes or sandals." If they had carvers, engravers, silversmiths, and jewellers among them, as plainly appears from the account we have of the tabernacle and its utensils, is it to be wondered at if they also had habit and sandal makers, &c., &c., as we are certain they had weavers, embroiderers, and such like? And the traffic which we may suppose they carried on with the Moabites, or with travelling hordes of Arabians, doubtless supplied them with the

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5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.

6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing

Luke iv. 4.- h Ch. xxix. 5. Neh. ix. 21.- -12 Sam. Vil. 14. Ps. lxxxix. 32. Prov. iii. 12. Hebr. xii. 5, 6. Re. - Ch. xi. 10, 11, 12. ---Heb, of

| iií. 19.- Ch. v. 33.olive-tree of oil.

materials; though, as they had abundance of sheep and neat cattle, they must have had much of the msterials within themselves. It is generally supposed that God, by a miracle, preserved their clothes from wearing out: but if this sense be admitted, it will require, not one miracle, but a chain of the most suecessive and astonishing miracles ever wrought, to account for the thing; for as there were not less that 600,000 males born in the wilderness, it would imply, that the clothes of the infant grew up with the icrease of his body to manhood, which would require a miracle to be continually wrought on every thread, and on every particle of matter of which that thread was composed. And this is not all; it would imply that the clothes of the parent became miraculously lessened to fit the body of the child, with whise growth they were again to stretch and grow, &c. No such miraculous interference was necessary.

Verse 8. A land of wheat, &c.] On the subject of this verse I shall introduce the following remarks which I find in Mr. Harmer's Observations on the Fertility of the Land of Judea, vol. iii., p. 243.

Hasselquist tells us that he ate olives at Joppa (upon his first arrival in the Holy Land) which were said to grow on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem; and that, independently of their oiliness, they were of the best kind he had tasted in the Levant. As olives are frequently eaten in their repasts, the delcacy of this fruit in Judea ought not to be forgotten;

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and the oil that is gotten from these trees much less, because still more often made use of. In the progress of his journey he found several fine vales, abounding with olive-trees. He saw also olive-trees in Galilee ; | but none farther, he says, than the mountain where it is supposed our Lord preached his sermon.

"The fig-trees in the neighbourhood of Joppa, Hasselquist goes on to inform us, were as beautiful as any he had seen in the Levant.

The reason why pomegranates are distinctly mentioned, in this description of the productions of the land of promise, may be their great usefulness in forming cooling drinks, for they are used among the Asiatics nearly in the same way that we use lemons; see vol. ii., 145.

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Honey is used in large quantities in these countries; and Egypt was celebrated for the assiduous care with which the people there managed their bees. Maillet's account of it is very amusing. There are,' says he, abundance of bees in that country; and a singular manner of feeding them, introduced by the Egyptians of ancient times, still continues there. Towards the end of October, when the Nile, upon its decrease, gives the peasants an opportunity of sowing the lands, sainfoin is one of the first things sown, and one of the most profitable. As the Upper Egypt is hotter than the Lower, and the inundation there goes sooner off the lands, the sainfoin appears there first. The knowledge they have of this causes them to send their bee-hives from all parts of Egypt, that the bees may enjoy, as soon as may be, the richness of the flowers, which grow in this part of the country sooner than in any other district of the kingdom. The hives, upon their arrival at the farther end of Egypt, are placed one upon another in the form of pyramids, in boats prepared for their reception, after having been numbered by the people who place them in the boats. The bees feed in the fields there for some days: afterwards, when it is believed they have nearly collected the honey and wax, which were to be found for two or three leagues round, they cause the boats to go down the stream, two or three leagues lower, and leave them there, in like manner, such a propor - | tion of time as they think to be necessary for the gathering up the riches of that canton. At length, about the beginning of February, after having gone the whole length of Egypt, they arrive at the sea, from whence they are conducted, each of them, to their usual place of abode; for they take care to set down exactly, in a register, each district from whence the hives were carried in the beginning of the season, their number and the names of the persons that sent them, as well as the number of the boats, where they are ranged according to the places they are brought from. What is astonishing in this affair is, that with the greatest fidelity of memory that can be imagined, each bee finds its own hive, and never makes any

10 b When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God, for

b Ch. vi. 11, 12.

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mistake. That which is still more amazing to me is, that the Egyptians of old should be so attentive to all the advantages deducible from the situation of their country; that after having observed that all things came to maturity sooner in Upper Egypt, and much later in Lower, which made a difference of above six weeks between the two extremities of their country, they thought of collecting the wax and the honey so as to lose none of them, and hit upon this ingenious method of making the bees do it successively, according to the blossoming of the flowers, and the arrangement of Nature.""

If this solicitude were as ancient as the dwelling of Israel in Egypt, they must have been anxious to know whether honey, about which they took such care in Egypt, was plentiful in the land of promise; and they must have been pleased to have been assured it was. It continues to be produced there in large quantities: Hasselquist, in the progress of his journey from Acra to Nazareth, tells us that he found "great numbers of bees, bred thereabouts, to the great advantage of the inhabitants." He adds, "they make their bee-hives, with little trouble, of clay, four feet long, and half a foot in diameter, as in Egypt. They lay ten or twelve of them, one on another, on the bare ground, and build over every ten a little roof." Mr. Maundrell, observing also many bees in the Holy Land, takes notice that by their means the most barren places, in other respects, of that country become useful, perceiving in many places of the great salt-plain near Jericho a smell of honey and wax as strong as if he had been in an apiary.

By Hasselquist's account it appears, that the present inhabitants of Palestine are not strangers to the use of hives. They are constructed of very different materials from ours, but just the same with the Egyptian hives. They seem to be an ancient contrivance; and indeed so simple an invention must be supposed to be as old as the days of Moses, when arts, as appears from his writings, of a much more elevated nature were known in Egypt. I cannot then well persuade myself to adopt the opinion of some of the learned, that those words of Moses, in Deut. xxxii. 13: He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, are to be understood of his causing Israel to dwell in a country where sometimes they might find honey-comb in holes of the rock. It is very possible that in that hot country these insects, when not taken due care of, may get into hollow places of the rocks, and form combs there, as they sometimes construct them in ours in hollow trees, though I do not remember to have met with any traveller that has made such an observation. But would this have been mentioned with so much triumph by Moses in this place? The quantities of honey produced after this manner could be but small, compared with what would be collected in hives pro

Cautions against ingratitude

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DEUTERONOMY.

the good land which he hath

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11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: 12 Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; 13 And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;

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15 Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

a Ch. xxviii. 47. xxxii. 15. Prov. xxx. 9. Hos. xiii, 6. Jer. ii. 6.- b1 Cor. vi.7.- -c Ps.cvi. 21. d Isai. Ixiii. 12, 13, 14. e Numb. xxi. 6. Hos. xiii. 5. f Numb. xx. 11. Ps. lxxviii. 15. cxiv. 8.- - Ver. 3. Exod. xvi. 15. ——h Jer. perly managed; when found, it must often cost a great deal of pains to get the honey out of these little cavities in the hard stone, and much the greatest part must be absolutely lost to the inhabitants. The interpretation is the more strange, because when it is said in the next clause, "and oil out of the flinty rock," it is evidently meant that they should have oil produced in abundance by olive-trees growing on flinty rocks; and consequently, the sucking honey out of the rock should only mean their enjoying great quantities of honey, produced by bees that collected it from flowers growing among the rocks: the rocky mountains of this country, it is well known, produce an abundance of aromatic plants proper for the purpose. Nor does Asaph, in the close of the eighty-first Psalm, speak, I apprehend, of honey found in cavities of rocks; nor yet is he there describing it as collected from the odoriferous plants that grow in the rocky hills of those countries, if the reading of our present Hebrew copies be right: but the prophet tells Israel that, had they been obedient, God would have fed them with the fat of wheat, and with the rock of honey would he have satisfied them, that is, with the most delicious wheat, and with the richest, most invigorating honey, in large quantities, both for cating and making agreeable drink. Its reviving, strengthening quality appears in the story of Jonathan, Saul's son, 1 Sam. xix. 27; as the using the term rock to signify strength, &c., appears in a multitude of places. The rock of a sword, Ps. lxxxix. 43, for the edge of the sword, in which its energy lies, is, perhaps, as strange an expression to western ears. I shall have occasion to speak of the excellence of the grapes of Judea in a succeeding chapter; I may therefore be excused from pursuing the further

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16 Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which An. Ex. Isr. 40. thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end; 17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.

18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that 'he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. 19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, "I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. 20 As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face," so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.

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examination of the productions of this country, upon giving my reader a remark of Dr. Shaw's to this purpose, that it is impossible for pulse, wheat, or grain of any kind, to be richer or better tasted than what is sold at Jerusalem. Only it may not be amiss to add, with respect to this country's being well watered, that the depth, □ tehom, spoken of in this passage, scems to mean reservoirs of water filled by the rains of winter, and of great use to make their lands fertile; as the second word byn tealotkeiks seems to mean wells, or some such sort of conveniences, supplied by springs; and the first word naharotheiha rivers or running streams, whether carrying a larger or smaller body of water. What an important part of this pleasing description, es pecially in the ears of those that had wandered near forty years in a most dry and parched wilderness! I will only add, without entering into particulars, that the present face of the country answers this description.

Verse 9. A land whose stones are iron] Not only meaning that there were iron mines throughout the land, but that the loose stones were strongly impregnated with iron, ores of this metal (the most useful of all the products of the mineral kingdom) being every where in great plenty.

Out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.] As there is no such thing in nature as a brass mine, the word

nechosheth should be translated copper; of which, by the addition of the lapis calaminaris, brass is made. See on Exod. xxv. 3.

Verse 15. Who led thee through that—terrible wil derness] See the account of their journeying in the notes on Exod. xvi. 1, &c.; Numb. xxi., &c.

Fiery serpents] Serpents whose bite occasioned a most violent inflammation, accompanied with an

Moses informs the people that they

CHAP. IX.

shall shortly pass over Jordan. unquenchable thirst, and which terminated in death. is providence? Who gives fertility to the earth? See on Numb. xxi. 6. And who brings every proper purpose to a right Verse 16. Who fed thee-with manna] See this issue? Is it not God? And without these also can miracle described Exod. xvi. 13, &c.

Verse 18. God-giveth thee power to get wealth] Who among the rich and wealthy believes this saying? Who gives wisdom, understanding, skill, bodily strength, and health? Is it not God? And without these, how can wealth be acquired? Whose

wealth be acquired? No. Then the proposition in the text is self-evident: it is God that giveth power to get wealth, and to God the wealthy man must account for the manner in which he has expended the riches which God hath given him.

CHAPTER IX.

The people are informed that they shall shortly pass over Jordan, and that God shall go over before them, to expel the ancient inhabitants, 1-3. They are cautioned not to suppose that it is on account of their righteousness that God is to give them that land, 4—6. They are exhorted to remember their various provocations of the Divine Majesty, especially at Horeb, 7-14; and how Moses interceded for them, and destroyed the golden calf, 15-21. How they murmured at Taberah, 22; and rebelled at Kadesh-barnea, 23; and had been perverse from the beginning, 24. An account of the intercession of Moses in their behalf, 25-29.

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HEAR, O Israel: Thou art

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to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations b greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven;

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2 A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!

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3 Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a 'consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: " so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee. 4 Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.

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a Ch. xi. 31. Josh. iii. 16. iv. 19. b Ch. iv. 38. vii. 1. xi. 23. Ch. i. 28.- d Numb. xiii. 22, 28, 32, 33.- e Ch. xxxi. 3. Josh. iii. 11. f Ch. iv. 24. Hebr. xii. 29. Ch. vii. 23. h Exod. xxiii. 31. Ch. vii. 24. - Ch. viii. 17. Rom. xi. 6, 20. 1 Cor. iv. 4, 7..--k Gen. xv. 16. Lev.

NOTES ON CHAP. IX.

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7 Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD.

8 Also Pin Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.

| xviii. 24, 25. Ch. xviii. 12. Tit. iii. 5.- m Gen. xii. 7. xiii. 15. xv. 7. xvii. 8. xxvi. 4. xxviii. 13.-—n Ver. 13. Exod. xxxii. 9. xxxiii. 3. xxxiv. 9. Exod. xiv. 11. xvi. 2. xvii. 2. Numb. xi. 4. xx. 2. xxv. 2. Ch. xxxi. 27. P Exod. xxxii. 4. Ps. cvi. 19.

Verse 5. For the wickedness of these nations] So then it was not by any sovereign act of God that these people were cast out, but for their wickedness;

Verse 1. Thou art to pass over Jordan this day] □ haiyom, this time; they had come thirty-eight | they had transgressed the law of their Creator; they years before this nearly to the verge of the promised land, but were not permitted at that day or time to pass over, because of their rebellions; but this time they shall certainly pass over. This was spoken about the eleventh month of the fortieth year of their journeying, and it was on the first month of the following year they passed over; and during this in-cut off, and the Israelites were grafted in; and the terim Moses died.

had resisted his Spirit, and could no longer be tolerated. The Israelites were to possess their land, not because they deserved it, but first, because they were less wicked than the others; and secondly, because God thus chose to begin the great work of his salvation among men. Thus then the Canaanites were

Israelites, because of their wickedness, were after

The various provocations and

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DEUTERONOMY.

9 When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water: 10 And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly.

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11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the

covenant.

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12 And the LORD said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image. 13 Furthermore the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, hit is a stiff-necked people:

14 Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.

15 So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you. 17 And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.

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But the LORD

199 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. hearkened unto me at that time also. 20 And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.

21 And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. 22 And at Taberah, and at "Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath.

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23 Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and * ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

24 Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you. 25 Thus I fell down before the LORD, forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you. 26 aa I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness; which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

27 Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:

28 Lest bb the land whence thou broughtest us out, say, "Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness. 29 dd Yet they are thy people, and thine in

18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy

the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

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Exod. xxiv. 12, 15. b Exod. xxiv. 18. xxxiv. 28.

c Exod. xxxi, 18.- d Exod. xix. 17. xx. 1. Ch. iv. 10. x. 4. xviii. 16.- - Exod. xxxii, 7. f Ch. xxxi. 29. Judg. h Ver. 6. Ch. x. 16. xxxi. i Exod. xxxii. 10. * Ch. xxix. -Numb. xiv. 12.- m Exod. xxxii. Ch. iv. 11. v. 23. 0 Exod. xxxii. Ps. cvi. 23.- - Exod. xxxii. 10,

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ii. 17. Exod. xxxii. 9.27. 2 Kings xvii. 14. 20. Ps. ix. 5. cix. 13. 15.- n Exod. xix. 18. -P Exod. xxxiv. 28. wards cut off, and the Gentiles grafted in. Let the latter not be high-minded, but fear; if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not

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11.

mighty power, and by thy stretched-out arm.

- Exod. xxxii. 14. xxxiii. 17. Ch. x. 10. Ps. cvi. 23. Exod. xxxii. 20. Isai. xxxi. 7.-t Numb. xi. 1, 3, 5. u Exod. xvii. 7.- - Numb. xi. 4, 34.- w Numb. xiii. 3. xiv. 1. Ps. cvi. 24, 25. 18. aa Exod. xxxii. 11, &c.xiv. 25.- cc Exod. xxxii. 12.

Ver.

y Ch. xxxi. 27.

bb Gen. xli. 57. 1 Sam. Numb. xiv. 16. dd Ch. iv. Lee Ver. 26.

20. 1 Kings viii. 51. Neh. i. 10. Ps. xcv. 7.Ch. iv. 34. Exod. vii, 8, 9. xiii. 3.

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