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made by dividing a beast, and by the parties covenanting passing between the parts of the beast so divided: intimating that so should they be cut asunder who broke the covenant. We find in Zenobius, that the people called Molotti retained something of this custom; for they confirmed their oaths, when they made their covenants, by cutting oxen into little bits. PATRICK, in loc.

No. 608.-xvi. 13. And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me.] The religion of names was a matter of great consequence in Egypt. It was one of their essential superstitions: it was one of their native inventions: and the first of them which they communicated to the Greeks. Thus when Hagar the handmaid of Sarai, who was an Egyptian woman, saw the angel of God in the wilderness, she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, ELROI, the God of vision, or the visible God: that is, according to the established custom of Egypt, she gave him a name of honour: not merely a name of distinction, for such all nations had (who worshiped local tutelary deities) before their communication with Egypt. But after that they decorated their gods with distinguished titles, indicative of their specific office and attributes. Zachariah (chap. xiv. 9.) evidently alluding to these notions, when he prophecies of the worship of the supreme God, unmixed with idolatry, says, in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one. Out of indulgence therefore to this weakness, God was pleased to give himself a name.

Exod. iii. 14.

And God said unto Moses, I am that I am.

WARBURTON'S Divine Legation, b. iv. sec. 6.

No. 609.-xvii. 10. This is my covenant.] Covenants were anciently made in the eastern countries by dipping

their weapons in blood, (as Zenophon tells us) and by prick ing the flesh, and sucking each other's blood, as we read in Tacitus: who observes (1. i. Annal.) that when kings made a league, they took each other by the hand, and their thumbs being hard tied together, they pricked them, when the blood was forced to the extreme parts, and each party licked it. This was accounted a mysterious covenant, being made sacred by their mutual blood. How old this custom had been we do not know; but it is evident God's covenant with Abraham was solemnized on Abraham's part by his own and his son Isaac's blood, and so continued through all generations, by circumcision: whereby, as they were made the select people of God, so God, in conclusion, sent his own Son, who by this very ceremony of circumcision was consecrated to be their God and Redeemer. PATRICK, in loc.

No. 610.-xviii. 1. And he sat in the tent door in the beat of the day.] Those who lead a pastoral life in the East, at this day, frequently place themselves in a similar situation. "At ten minutes after ten we had in view several fine bays, and a plain full of booths, with the Turcomans sitting by the doors, under sheds resembling porticoes; or by shady trees, surrounded by flocks of goats." CHANDLER's Travels in Asia Minor, p. 180.

No. 611.-xviii. 4. Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet.] One of the first rites of hospitality observed towards strangers amongst the ancients, was washing the feet: of this there are many instances in Homer:

Τον νυν χρη κομεεινο προς γαρ Διος εισιν άπαντες, &c.

Od. vi. 207.

By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent,
And what to those we give to Job is lent.
Then food supply, and bathe his fainting limbs,
Where waving shades obscure the mazy streams.

Your other task, ye menial tribe, forbear;
Now wash the stranger, and the bed prepare.

See also 1 Sam. xxv. 41.

POPE.

POPE.

No. 612.-xix. 1, 2. And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways.] The Eastern people have always distinguished themselves by their great hospitality. Of very many instances the following is a truly characteristic one. "We were not above a musket-shot from Anna, when we met with a comely old man, who came up to me, and taking my horse by the bridle, Friend,' said he,

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wash thy feet, and eat bread at my house.

come and Thou art a

stranger; and since I have met thee upon the road, never refuse me the favour which I desire of thee.' We could not choose but go along with him to his house, where he feasted us in the best manner he could, giving us, over and above, barley for our horses and for us he killed a lamb and some hens." Tavernier's Travels, p. 111. See also Gen. xviii. 6. Judges xvii. 7. Rom. xii. 13. 1 Tim. iii. 2. 1 Pet. iv. 9. See more in Nos. 15. 50. 513.

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No. 613. xix. 24. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire.] The curious Wormius tells of the raining of brimstone, May 16, 1646.

"Here, at Copenhagen, when the whole town was overflowed by a great fall of rain, so that the streets became impassable, the air was infected with a sulphureous smell; and when the waters were a little subsided, one might have collected in some places a sulphureous powder, of which I have preserved a part, and which im colour, smell, and every other quality, appeared to be real sulphur." Mus. Worm. 1. i. c. 11. sec. 1.

No. 614.-xix. 26. A pillar of salt.] Or, as some understand it, an everlasting monument, whence, perhaps, the Jews have given her the name of Adith (Pirke Elieser, cap. 25.) because she remained a perpetual testimony of God's just displeasure. For she standing still too long, some of that dreadful shower of brimstone and fire overtook her, and falling upon her, wrapped her body in a sheet of nitro-sulphureous matter, which congealed into a crust as hard as stone, and made her appear like a pillar of salt, her body being, as it were, candied in it. Kimchi calls it a heap of salt: which the Hebrews say continued for many ages. Their conjecture is not improbable, who think the fable of Niobe was derived hence: who, the poets feign, was turned into a stone upon her excessive grief for the death of her children.

PATRICK, in loa.

No. 615.-xx. 12. And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother: and she became my wife.] This peculiar mode of contracting marriage, appears in after ages to have become a common practice. It prevailed at Athens. It was lawful there to marry a sister by the father's side, but it was not permitted to marry a sister by the same mother. MONTESQUIEU (Spirit of Lars, vol. i. p. 54.) says, that this custom was

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originally owing to republics, whose spirit would not permit that two portions of land, and consequently two inheritances, should devolve on the same person. A man that married his sister only by his father's side, could inherit but one estate, that of his father: but by marrying his sister by the same mother, it might happen that his sister's father, having no male issue, might leave her his estate, and consequently the brother that married her might be possessed of two.

No. 616.-xxi. 10. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, cast out this bond-woman and her son; for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son.] The following extract will exhibit to the reader a striking similarity of practice with that to which the above cited passage alludes: and that amongst a race of people very remote both as to local situation and time. "The Alguoquins make a great distinction between the wife to whom they give the appellation of the entrance of the but, and those whom they term of the middle of the hut; these last are the servants of the other, and their children are considered as bastards, and of an inferior rank, to those which are born of the first and legitimate wife. Among the Carribbs also one wife possesses rank and distinction above the rest." BABIE'S Travels among Savage Nations, in Universal Magazine for Feb. 1802, p. 84.

No. 617.-xxii. 9. And bound Isaac his son.] Both his hands and his feet, as it is explained in Pirke Elieser, cap. 31. When the Gentiles offered human sacrifices, they tied both their hands behind their backs. Ovid 1. 3. PATRICK, in loc.

De Pont. Eleg. ii.

No. 618.-xxiii. 11. In the presence of the sons of my people.] Contracts, or grants, were usually made before all the people, or their representatives, till writings were invented. PATRICK, in loe.

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