dress, which merely bespoke a certain partiality on the part of a parent, would have been likely to inspire. They strip him of it, when they put him in the pit; they dip it in the blood of the goat, when they want to persuade Jacob that a wild beast had devoured him. Reuben, Jacob's first-born, and naturally therefore the Priest of the family, had forfeited his father's affection and disgraced his station by his conduct towards Bilhah. Jacob might feel that the priesthood was open under the circumstances; and his fondness for Joseph might suggest to him, that he might in justice be considered his firstborn: for that he supposed Rachel, Joseph's mother, to be his wife, when Leah, Reuben's mother, had been deceitfully substituted for her. He might give him, therefore, "this coat of many colours" as a token of his future office. Hannah brought Samuel "a little coat" from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer his yearly sacrifice': and, though Aaron's coat is not called a coat of many colours, it was so in fact; "and of the blue and purple and scarlet they made cloths of service, to do service in the holy place, and made the holy garments for Aaron." On the whole, therefore, I think there was a meaning in this "coat of many colours" beyond the obvious one; and that it was emblematical of priestly functions which Jacob was anxious to devolve upon Joseph. 4. Furthermore, the Patriarchal Church seems not to have been without its forms. Thus Jacob consecrates the foundation of a place of worship with oil; the incident here alluded to being apparently a much more detailed and emphatic one than it seems at first sight; for we find him, by anticipation, calling "this the house of God, and this the gate of heaven," and promising eventually to 1 1 Sam. ii. 19. 3 Gen. xxviii. 18. 4 Ibid. xxviii. 17. "2 endow it with tithes': and we hear God reminding him of this solemn act long afterwards, when he was in Syria, and appropriating to Himself the very title of this Temple: "I am the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me." And accordingly we are told at much length, and with several of the circumstances of the case described, that Jacob, after his return from Haran, actually fulfilled his pious intentions, and "built an altar," and "set up a pillar," and "poured a drink-offering thereon." Then there appears to have been the rite of imposition of hands existing in the Patriarchal Church; and when Jacob blessed Joseph's children, he is very careful about the due observance of it; the narrative, succinct as on the whole it is, dwelling upon this point with much amplification*. Again, the shoes of those who trod upon holy ground, or who entered consecrated places, were to be put off their feet; the injunction to this effect, of which we read in the case of Moses at the bush, implies a usage already established; and this usage, though nowhere expressly commanded in the Levitical Law, appears to have continued amongst the Israelites by tradition from the Patriarchal times; and is that which a passage in Ecclesiastes probably contemplates in its primary sense, "Look to thy foot when thou comest to the House of God."" And finally, the Patriarchal Church had its posture of worship, and men bowed themselves to the ground when they addressed God3. But if there were Patriarchal Places for worship-if there were Priests to conduct the worship-if there were Tithes paid them-if there were decent Robes wherein those priests ministered at the worship-if there were Forms connected with that worship-so do I think there were stated Seasons set apart for it; though here again we have nothing but hints to guide us to a conclusion. 5. I confess that the Divine institution of the Sabbath as a day of religious duties, seems to me to have been from the beginning; and though we have but glimpses of such a fact, still to my eye they present themselves as parts of that one harmonious whole which I am now endeavouring to develope and draw out-even of a Patriarchal Church, whereof we see scarcely anything but by glimpse. "And it came to pass that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man, and all the rulers of the congregation came, and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none." And again, in a few verses after, "And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days." Now the transaction here recorded is by some argued to be the first institution of the Sabbath. The inference I draw from it, I confess, is different; I see in it, that a Sabbath had already been appointed-that the Lord had already given it; and that, in accommodation to that institution already understood, He had doubled the manna on the sixth day. But even supposing the Institution of the Sabbath to be Exod. xvi. 22. here formally proclaimed, or supposing (as others would have it, and as the Jews themselves pretend) that it was not now promulgated, strictly speaking, but was actually one of the two precepts given a little earlier at Marah', still it is not uncommon in the writings of Moses, nor indeed in other parts of Scripture, for an event to be mentioned as then occurring for the first time, which had in fact occurred, and which had been reported to have occurred, long before. For instance, Isaac and Abimelech meet, and swear to do each other no injury. "And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water: and he called it Shebah; therefore the name of the city is Beer-Sheba unto this day." Now, who would not say that the name was then given to the place by Isaac, and for the first time? Yet it had been undoubtedly given by Abraham long before, in commemoration of a similar covenant which he had struck with the Abimelech of his day. "These seven ewe-lambs," said he to that Prince, "shalt thou take at my hand, that they may be a witness unto thee that I have digged this well; wherefore he called the place Beer-Sheba, because they sware both of them."3 Again, "So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Beth-el, he and all his people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El-Beth-el, because there God appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his brother."4 Who would not conclude that the new name was given to Luz now for the first time? Yet Jacob had in fact changed the name a great many years before, when he was on his journey to Haran. "And Jacob rose up early in the 1 Exod. xv. 25, and compare Deut. v. 12. 2 Gen. xxvi. 32. 3 Gen. xxi. 31. 4 Ibid. xxxv. 6, 7. morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of the city was called Luz at the first."1 Or, as another instance :-" And God appeared unto Jacob again when he came out of Padan-Aram, and blessed him: and God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob, thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name, and he called his name Israel." 2 Who would not suppose that the name of Israel was now given to Jacob for the first time! Yet, several chapters before this, when Jacob had wrestled with the angel (not at Beth-el, which was the former scene, but at Peniel), we read, that "the angel said, What is thy name? and he said, Jacob: and he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God, and with man, and hast prevailed.” Thus again, to add one example more, we are told in the Book of Judges, that a certain Jair, a Gileadite, a successor of Abimelech in the government of Israel, "had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-Jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead." Who would not conclude that the cities were then called by this name for the first time, and that this Jair was the person from whom they derived it? Yet we read in the Book of Numbers, that another Jair, who lived nearly three hundred years earlier, "went and took the small towns of Gilead" (apparently these very same), "and called them Havoth-Jair." So that the name had been given nearly three centuries already. Why, then, should it be thought strange that the institution of the Sabbath should be mentioned as if 1 Gen. xxviii. 18, 19. 2 Ibid. xxxv. 10. 3 Ibid. xxxii. 28. 4 Judges x. 4. 3 |