loquitur de iis qui non faciunt, quæ fecisse oportuit; at in Levit. de iis qui faciunt quæ non fecisse oportuit." Ainsworth apud Poole.

Verse 25." and they shall bring their offering."

,והם הביאו

," and they have brought." This is a further reason alleged for the forgiving of the crime. "It shall be forgiven them;" for, in the first place, they did the thing ignorantly, and, secondly, as such, they have made the legal atonement for it.

Verse 27. See Levit. iv, 27, and compare Levit. iv, 22, 23.

CHAP. XVI, 9. -"to minister unto them;" rather, "to perform their service. " The Levites ministered not unto the congregation, but for them. The service of the tabernacle was a service incumbent upon the whole congregation of the Israelites, which the Levites, by the special appointment of God, were to perform for their brethren. In this duty they were the deputies or proxies of the whole people,

Omit

Verse 18. -"with Moses and Aaron." the prefixed to the name of Moses, with LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, and a MS, of Kennicott's.

"And they took every man his censer, and put

fire in them, and laid incense thereon; and Moses

and Aaron stood at the door," &c.

Verses 37, 38. -"for they are hallowed. The censers of these sinners against their own souls ;'' rather, "For they are hallowed, the censers of these sinners, in their own souls:" i. e. The censers of these miscreants, the instruments of their audacious appeal to Jehovah against his chosen servants, which drew on them a miraculous destruction, are by this transaction sanctified. It is meet they should be preserved among the Kaun of the tabernacle, as monuments of the crime of their owners, and of God's vengeance.

CHAP. XVii. See this story of the rods more circumstantially related in the First Epistle of Clemens Romanus, cap. xliii.

CHAP. Xviii, 2.

-"bring thou with thee;" ra

ther, "take thou near unto thee." See LXX, and

Houbigant.

Verse 8. -"the charge;" rather, "the inalienable right."

-"by reason of the anointing;" rather, 66 as a perquisite of office." See Levit. vii, 35. is regas, LXX.

Verse 10. "In the most holy place." The most

holy place was within the vail where certainly nothing was eaten. The place appointed for eating these things was in the court of the tabernacle beside the altar of burnt-offering. In the preceding

I have מקדשי the Samaritan has ,מקדש verse, for

L

sometimes been inclined to think this the true reading, and, in this verse, for p, we should read p, and that the two verses should be thus rendered:

9. "And this shall be unto thee most holy, of things from the fire; every oblation of theirs, of meat-offering of every sort, of sin-offering of every sort, of trespass-offering of every sort, which they shall render unto me. This is most holy. It is for

10. "Among the most holy things thou shalt eat it," &c.

The precept refers to a distinction between most holy and holy things. The "most holy" were to be eaten by the males of Aaron's family only; the holy" by any of his family, male or female, who were clean.

the

Verse 16.

"according to thine estimation for

money of five shekels;" rather, " for a set value in silver of five shekels."

Verse 29. Inexplicable.

CHAP. XIX, 4. -" directly before;" rather," di

rectly towards."

resperget in aërem vultu ad tentorium converso." Houbigant. He observes in a note, "Addimus, ' in aërem,' ex sententiâ; quia non in ipsum tentorium. Nam sacerdos extra castra morabatur, nec hujus vaccæ sanguinem ad tabernaculum portabat. Cæremonia hæc omnis extra castra peragitur."

Verse 5. "And one shall burn the heifer in his

66

sight." For "", read 7. « And he [Eleazar] shall burn the heifer in thy sight.”

Verse 8. "And he that burneth her;" rather, "And he that hath burnt her," i. e. whosoever hath taken part in that business; for it could not be done by any one person.

Verse 9. -"a water of separation," or,

66 a wa

ter of sprinkling." LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, Queen Elizabeth's Bible, and Houbigant, from the Chaldee

נדה sense of the root

Verse 17.

"and running water shall be put thereto;" read with Samaritan, LXX, Vulgate, and Houbigant, 1, "and they shall put thereto running water."

Verse 21. -" unto them." For, read with

Samaritan, LXX, Syriac, some MSS. and Houbigant, "unto you."

לכם

CHAP. XX, 12. "to sanctify me;" rather, "to procure me honour." The crime of Moses and Aaron seems to have been, that, from some impatience

1

or distrust, they were not so punctually observant as they should have been of the divine injunction; which was not to strike the rock, but to speak to it. Water had been brought from the rock by a blow before. Jehovah would have now performed what might have seemed a greater wonder.

He would

have had the waters flow at the bare command of the Prophet, without any appearance of mechanical impulse. But this gracious purpose Moses and Aaron, by their impatience, turned aside; and did not so much as they were enjoined to do for God's glory.

Verse 13.

"he was sanctified in them." He maintained his glory, or, as we might say of a man, his credit among them. Here, the Samaritan copy has a long passage reciting a prayer of Moses to be permitted to pass over and see the promised land; God's refusal of the prayer, with a permission however, to Moses to take a distant prospect of the land from the top of Pisgah; and the injunction not to