withstanding the attempts of ingenious though fanciful authors, I will be bold to say, without any fear of demonstrative contradiction, that no clear and undeniable allusion to events subsequent to the time of Moses can be produced from any part of the poem; that is to say, no allusion so incontrovertible as to be a basis firm enough to sustain a system, no passage which might not have been written just as well in the days of Moses or of Joshua as in the days of Ezekiel or of Ezra. The age of the book being thus brought within the narrow limits, marked out by the delivery of the Law from mount Sinai on the one hand and by the death of Moses on the other hand; we shall scarcely, I apprehend, hesitate to attribute it to the vivid and masterly pen of the highly-educated legislator of the Israelites.

With this supposition, the internal evidence, afforded by the book itself, exactly agrees. Here indeed I would have it distinctly understood, that the allusions, which I am about to produce, by no means stand on the same footing as the passage relative to the punishment of idolatry by the civil magistrate nor do I at all bring them forward as any proofs, properly so called, that Moses was the author of the poem. So far, from it, I freely allow, that they might be viewed as mere general expressions: and, consequently, I build no demonstrative argument upon them whatsoever. All, which I contend for, is this;

that, if the passages in question be allusions to particular incidents, they are precisely such as Moses, under his circumstances, might well be expected, above all other men, to have introduced.

(1.) While an infant, the very life of the Hebrew legislator had been endangered by the tyranny of the Shepherd-Kings of Egypt: and, when an adult, he had beheld their oppression of his brethren, and had himself been driven by their chief into exile. Yet he had at length witnessed, both their coërcion by many awful plagues, and the final overthrow of their power in the Red sea'. Now, as these very men had plundered Job himself during the period which elapsed between their first expulsion from Egypt, and their victorious return into that country, and as Moses was employed in writing the history of Job; nothing could be at once more natural and more congruous, than that he should take so favourable an opportunity of pointedly alluding to their varied fortunes. Hence we meet with passages, in which he may probably refer to the subjugation of Egypt and, Palestine by the Shepherds, to the great prosperity which seemed for a season to attend those robbers, and to the tremendous oppression which they exercised over the vanquished. If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the

See Orig. of Pagan Idol, book vi. chap. 5.

trial of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof. The tents of the robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly. They remove the landmarks: they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof. They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's or for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together. Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work, rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children. They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold: that they are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry. Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them. THEY ARE OF THOSE THAT REBEL AGAINST THE LIGHT: they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. The murderer, rising with the light, killeth the poor and needy; and in the night he is as a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying,

Job ix. 23, 24.

2 Job xii. 6.

No eye shall see me and disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the day-time: they know not the light'.

The persons, who perform all these deeds are marked out to us, as being members of a family celebrated for its daring opposition to divine truth: THEY ARE OF THOSE THAT REBEL AGAINST THE LIGHT. Now what family was it, which in old times was thus peculiarly characterized? I know but of one, to which the author of the book of Job can with any degree of plausibility be thought to refer. This one therefore I suppose to be the house of Cush; which, under the rebel Nimrod, introduced the first postdiluvian apostasy: and of this great house, consequently, the tyrants, so graphically described, are pronounced to be members; they are of those that rebel against the light, or they are of those that were rebels against the light. Such an account exactly corresponds with the genealogy of the ShepherdKings. They were an eminent branch of the Cuthim, who were the grand ring-leaders in the building of the tower: and, from the whole of their audacious contest with God previous to the exodus, which Moses had witnessed and in which he had been a party concerned, they might well vindicate to themselves the rebellious character of their Babylonic ancestors.

Job xxiv. 2-16.

Yet, though they might triumph for a season, their overthrow was predetermined and inevitable. The sacred writer, after detailing their multiplied acts of tyranny and after teaching us that they were members of a proverbially rebellious house, immediately goes on to allude to their final ruin and desolation.

The morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death. He passes away swift as the waters: their portion is cursed in the earth: he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat consume the snow-waters: Hades, sinners. The womb shall forget him, the worm shall feed sweetly on him he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree. They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low: they are taken out of the way as all other, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn1.

In other places, their destruction is not only spoken of generally, but even the precise mode of it is alluded to. As the chief of their host perished in the Red sea, that catastrophe is appositely touched upon, both singly and also connectedly with the overthrow of the wicked antediluvians by the agency of the boundless

ocean.

God divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. Hast

1 Job xxiv. 17—20, 24.

2 Job xxvi. 12.