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that all the creatures had been convened for Adam to name them. I believe our translators had this sentiment; and they who divided the bible into verses, were probably of the same opinion. This thought may easily take the unwary; though I am surprised that the difficulty of conceiving how it could be, has not occasioned a more strict examination. However, as I have shewn that Moses' text says no such thing; I may as clearly prove, that in the words of Moses, which we improperly add to the 20th verse, no such insinuation was really intended.

For, 1; these words, but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him, ought not to have been made a part of the 20th verse; because they are the beginning of the relation of a new transaction, and having no reference to any thing going before, they should have begun a new period absolutely independent of, and detached from, the former. Agreeably hereto we may observe, 2. That the particle 1 [ve], which we here translate but, ought to be in this place rendered and. It is often so rendered in the first and in this second chapter of Genesis; it is not here a discretive particle, disjoining and distinguishing two parts of one period; but the particle often used by Moses when, having finished his narration of one fact, he passes on from that to quite another. 3. If we suppose that the words above cited belong to the 20th verse, we shall find it difficult to make out their grammatical construction; it will be difficult to ascertain a nominative case to the verb

► Gen. i, 6, 9, 14, 20, &c. ii. 7, 15, 18, 20, 21.

found; for the word which we translate was found, is not passive, as we render it. The words are NY S [loa matza], he did not find, in the active voice; and

the nominative case to this verb follows after the next verb in the next verse, and is Jehovah Elohim, the Lord God. This is a construction very clear and frequent in many languages, and in the Hebrew tongue amongst others; and our translators ought to have been carefully attentive to it. 4. I would farther observe, that the Hebrew verb matza does not always signify to find a thing, after having looked for it; but when used with a noun to which is prefixed, it makes an idiom of the Hebrew tongue, to which we have something similar in a particular use of our word find in English, Buxtorf remarks,' that the verb matza with a dative case by the prefix le signifies to suffice: I should rather say, sufficiently to supply: thus Numbers xi. 22. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them ?

bar, [ve matza lehem,] and will it suffice them; i. c. will it sufficiently supply them? Thus again, Judges xxi. 14. And Benjamin came again at that time, and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead: but the Hebrew words are

niy-bi, [ve loa matzaeu lehem ken,] and yet so they sufficed them not, they did not sufficiently supply them so. I would, more closely to the Hebrew,

9 The words are, Gen. ii. 20.

ויפל

כנגדו

עזר
לא מצא
ולאדם

at cadere fecit judicium ejus adjutorium non invenerat et homini

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translate both these places by our English word find: Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them? I should say, will it find them? In the passage in the Book of Numbers, They gave them wives, which they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead, but (I should render the place) they did not find them so. The expression to find a person, is still used in some parts of England, to signify to supply that person with such things as we undertake to procure for him; and in this sense I take the word matza to be here used by Moses. God had promised to find Adam with a person or helper, that should be his likeness: Moses, now going to relate in what manner God made this person, introduces his narration very properly with observing, that God had not yet found or supplied Adam with this companion and having suggested this observation, he proceeds to relate in what manner God now supplied him. And the Lord God had not supplied or found the man with the help meet for him but caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, &c.*·

CHAP. IV.

Concerning the formation of Eve, and the further transactions of Adam's first day; together with some observations upon the whole.

THE account given by Moses of the formation of Eve, is in words as follow: And the Lord God caused

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a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam': the Hebrew word for a deep sleep is [tardemah]:

it is a word used in divers places in the Old Testament in some it signifies no more than what we in English call a sound sleep; a sleep from which we awake, not having dreamed, or been sensible of any thing that bas passed during the time of it. It is thus used in the Book of Proverbs; slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep" and more emphatically in the first Book of Samuel, where David and Abishai went by night into Saul's camp, and took away the spear and cruse of water from his bolster, without awaking him or any the soldiery, that lay asleep round about him; for, says the text, tardemah Jehovah, a deep sleep of or from the Lord was fallen upon them; hereby meaning, that they were in a most exceeding sound sleep; so sound, that we might, using the Hebrew idiom,* speak

of

* Prov. xix. 5.

* 1 Sam. xxvi. 12.

* It is a solemn, but not unusual expression in the Hebrew tongue, to say of a thing beyond measure great, that it is of the Lord; not always meaning hereby, that God himself is the immediate cause of it, but signifying it to be such, that naturally no account is easy to be given of it. So great was the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, that God is thus said to have hardened it, though Pharaoh really hardened his own heart, Exod. vii. 13, 22. viii. 15, 19, 32. ix. 7, 34. See Connect. b. ix. Thus it is said, that it was " of the Lord to harden

as if God himself had been the cause of it. But although this is the general signification of the word tardemah; yet it is farther used sometimes to denote that kind of sleep in which God, in the earlier ages of the world, was pleased in divers manners to give revelations unto men. When sound asleep, their natural sensations made no impressions on them; but, by internal visions and movements of their minds, they had strong and lively sentiments raised of what God was thus pleased to shew them. Daniel says of himself, using the verb from which the noun tardemah is derived, nirdampti, I was in a deep sleep, on my face towards the ground, but he touched me, and set me upright.

In a

the hearts of the Canaanites," that they should “ come out against the Israelites in battle," Joshua ix. 19.. Not that we are to say, that God actually prevented the Canaanites from It was securing themselves from ruin. See Connect. b, xii. the obstinacy of their own hearts that brought them to destruction; which obstinacy being so great, as that we in English would call it a fatal obstinacy; the Hebrew expression for it was, an obstinacy from the Lord; not meaning hereby, that he was 66 tempted when any man was tempted he should of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempt eth he any man," James i. 13. Their obstinacy was their own wilfulness, great, and indeed beyond all common expression, and therefore said to be of the Lord. In this sense I understand what is said of the sound sleep of Saul and his army: not taking the text to mean any more, than that it was so deep a sleep, as might be hard to say how it could be, that they were not awaked out of it.

y Daniel viii. 18.

say

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