Contemporary Literature.

565

with regard to the six chapters containing Elihu's speeches, i.e., Ch. xxxii. to xxxvii.

The theme of the book, according to Delitzsch, furnishes an answer to the question, Why do afflictions befal the righteous? The answer is twofold, viz., that they are on the one hand the workings of God's love and the means of discipline and purification; and on the other the means of the testing and manifestation of the righteousness of the afflicted. There is, however, in his estimation, a more radical answer underlying the whole. Many of his opinions are built on an exceedingly uncertain foundation, as will be seen by reference to any of the expositors who differ from him. The introduction is, however, very comprehensive and complete in its treatment, and will amply repay a careful perusal. The commentary is, in our opinion, one of the best of this excellent series. It contains the condensed results of the ripest lexical and grammatical knowledge, manifests a thorough mastery of all sources and subjects helpful in the elucidation of the author, and an accurate acquaintance with the latest physical, geographical, and chronological discoveries, and with such historical and anthropological traces as tend to throw light upon any portion of this book. Although the work is primarily and chiefly critical, yet it never fails to mark the bearing of each passage on the highest interests of man, and to unfold the great principles of the ethical and theological truth which it contains for his guidance and comfort. We hope to recur to a critical examination of the work when the second volume appears.

A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Exodus. With a New Translation. By J. G. MURPHY, LL.D. T.C.D. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

This volume, both as to subject and treatment, forms a befitting sequel to that on Genesis, by the same author. The writer regards the stupendous events of the nation's infancy, recorded in the second book of the Pentateuch, as embodying broad and deathless principles, deserving the attention, not simply of the theologian, but also of the student of national and social economy. The Pentateuch,' he says, 'is the light of ' revelation, shedding its salubrious beams on those questionings of the spirit of man, those themes which have been darkened and confused by the entrance of sin. And when men come to acknowledge the Divine authority and penetrate into the true meaning of the second portion of it, this book of moral resolvings, and teachings, and doings, they will find in it a safe guide to new and sound views of ethical, political, ' and educational science. The scope of Dr. Murphy's work is, therefore, wide and exhaustive. The plan is the same as that of his commentary of Genesis. First comes the general arrangement and division of the topics; next a few prominent Hebrew words, placed at the head of the section for the benefit of Hebrew scholars, accompanied with a brief explanation and exposition; then a revised rendering; and lastly, a commentary, which is the complement of the translation. The commentary is critical and exegetical, chiefly the latter. As instances of its criticisms, see iii. 14. This phrase has been variously rendered; by the Authorised Version, "I am that (= that which) I am;" by the Seventy, yo eim ó wv; by Aquila and Theodotion, ooμai ós éσoμai; by the Vulgate, Sum qui sum;" by others, ero qui ero" and "ero qui fui;" by Dr. Murphy, "I am for I am;" a rendering long ago given by Abarbanel, and adopted by

66

Dr. Boothroyd, but the reason assigned for it here is different. Dr. Murphy rejects the A. V., because it conveys no new truth respecting God, does not express the meaning of EнJEH, and does not comport as well as his own does, with the Seventy and the Vulgate The explanation he gives of EHJEH, is that it denotes an incipient stage of an action or an event, and means, therefore, I go to be, I am on the point of proving myself to be by a noticeable action. Hitherto, God had mainly promised, but now he is going to perform. He consequently takes the name JEHOVAH, to denote the self-existing and self-manifesting agent; EHJEH, the prophetic JEHOVAH, or he who is about to manifest himself; JAH, the historical JEHOVAH, or he who has manifested himself. We confess ourselves unable to understand why he should not render it, "I shall be for I shall be:" nor how his own rendering removes the tautology he objects to in the Authorised Version, nor how it harmonises with his own explanation. In the same manner he explains vi. 3, "by my name Jehovah was I not known to them," as signifying that as the performer of promises and the giver of existence to that purpose which he had expressed, He was not known, personally and practically to them. He was not known to them as Jehovah the agent, but only as El Shaddai the potent. Are we then to understand that Jehovah is identical in meaning with Ehjeh? We confess, that whatever be the right interpretation of these passages, in our opinion that of Dr. Murphy seems inconsistent and unsatisfactory. Another instance will be found in xvi. 14, where, in his explanation of Manna, he rejects the marginal rendering for reasons similar to those above, and we think equally unsatisfactory. There is evidently some blunder in the sentence on page 145, which has escaped the attention of the author. But Dr. Murphy is obviously the exegete rather than the critic, the theologian rather than the grammarian: and here we have much less fault to find, although there are some points which he has discussed somewhat hurriedly and unsatisfactorily, e.g., the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh, the miracles of the magicians, &c. As an exegetical work, however, this surpasses all that we are acquainted with upon the same subject. It embodies much searching and painstaking investigation without bewildering us with an undue parade of the processes by which the author has arrived at his conclusions. In this respect he has exercised a great amount of selfdenial. The style is terse, graphic, perspicuous; the treatment of the subjects original, suggestive, striking, e.g., the pleas of Moses, the plagues and their meaning, the law and its divisions, &c. The author has glossed over no real perplexity by a wordy superficiality. We doubt not that by some he will be regarded as too prone to detect the symbols of Christian truths and principles in the events of the Exodus, yet even in this they will find that his remarks are not a string of fancies, but fruitful suggestions, pointing out instructive analogies if nothing more. We very strongly commend this work to the attention of all theological readers, both lay and clerical, feeling assured that it will invest many portions of this old book with a new and attractive meaning.

Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature. 3rd Edition. Edited by W. L. ALEXANDER, D.D. Vol. III. Edinburgh:

A. & C. Black.

This Herculean task has just been completed. The third volume has been expanded to 1175 pages, and sustains fully the magnificent promise of the earlier volumes. The maps and woodcuts are most excel

Contemporary Literature.

567

lent, leaving nothing to be desired. A considerable element of bibliographical and biographical learning is comprised in this work, which, being omitted in other current dictionaries of the Bible, give a peculiar character to this. The numerous articles by the present editor are a great and valuable feature of the work, revealing astonishing comprehensiveness and great power of condensation. We refer particularly to those on Phoenicia, Shemitic languages, &c., &c. Dr. Ginsburg has greatly enriched the volume by the ample stores of his Rabbinical and Hebrew learning. His article on the Song of Songs' is full of deep and startling interest, and Dr. Mansell's article on Chaldean and Greek Philosophy' is well worthy of his great reputation. We hope, before long, to give some detailed examination of this noble contribution to biblical science, and meanwhile congratulate the learned and laborious editor on the successful termination of his great undertaking.

A Cyclopedia of Biblical Geography, Biography, Natural History, and General Knowledge. Div. III., IV., V. Edinburgh: Fullarton & Co.

This new competitor in the now crowded arena which it has entered holds on its way very vigorously. The arrangement, and the general quality of the articles, entitle it to an honourable place. Had not Dr. Smith and Dr. Alexander anticipated it, it would have found an instant and indispensable place in every theological library. It is worthy of note that of the four great Bible cyclopædias just now given to the public, Scotland produces three, viz., Dr. Alexander's, Dr. Fairbairn's, and the one before us.

It is not for us to question the expediency of the contemporaneous publication of so many Cyclopædias. If publishers find their account in it, the market is open, and we cannot have too many works of this class. It is a serious defect in this work that no editor's name appears on the title-page, and that no names of contributors are given. In works so multifarious and big, responsibility must necessarily be divided; not even upon an editor can the whole be fairly imposed. If anything like competence and independence are to be preserved, the name of each writer is a necessary instruction to the reader. The articles, however, so far as we can judge, are carefully done, and are fairly comprehensive and scholarly. Some of them would be improved if they were purged from the somewhat numerous Scotticisms that disfigure them. Some of the articles are expanded into elaborate treatises, and many great Biblical questions receive a full and argumentative treatment. Of these, the chief instance is the article on the Exodus, or, as the writer designates it, The alternative view of the Exode,' which occupies one hundred and thirty-eight pages. It is written with great ingenuity, and with a perfect mastery of the extensive literature of the subject; but it is a polemic for the maintenance of a theory rather than such a judicial statement of information as one expects in a cyclopædia. All the principal theories of the course and encampments of the Israelites are examined; the ordinary peninsular route is rejected, as not justified by the history, and as giving pertinence and power to the cavils of Colenso, whose speculations are brought into great prominence throughout the article. The theory maintained by the writer is substantially that put forth in 1834 by Dr. Beke in his Origines Biblica,' and adopted by a writer in The Journal of Sacred Literature,' for April, 1860.

The

present writer amplifies and illustrates the statements of these writers, by a great mass of new facts and arguments, drawn from the records of modern travellers. The conclusions affirmed are, that the Exodus is a riddle which till now has remained unsolved; the Red Sea' of Scripture is not the Gulf of Suez but the Gulf of Akabah; which, therefore, was the true scene of the passage of the Israelites.-In harmony with this, the Egypt of Scripture was not the country of the Nile, but a country more to the East, through which a sweet water channel ran, connecting the Mediterranean with the Gulf of Suez, which channel was the river of Egypt upon which Moses was exposed; Goshen was the elevated region known as Mount Casion, on the boundary between Mizraim and Palestine; Horeb was the ridge of the Tîh, and Sinai the Jebel-el-Amjah, a limestone ridge north of the Tîh, on the plateau of the desert of the wanderings. The Israelites journeyed much farther to the east, and crossed the Jordan much farther to the north than is generally supposed.

It is impossible for us to examine in detail the statements and arguments which are adduced in support of these positions, and with which the article is literally crammed. We can only say that we have read the whole with great care-in the light of such intelligence as recent travel through the greater part of the district described gives us—and that the writer has utterly failed to convince us. He has, we think, greatly magnified the difficulties of the peninsular route, and has greatly understated the far greater difficulties of the route that he advocates. If he will concede to the former the suppositions by which he relieves the latter, they will wholly disappear. Whether the numerical test be that of the ordinary thousands of our version, or that of armies' for which the writer contends, the difficulties which on the one supposition are only great, on the other are simply insuperable. There is really no difficulty in the peninsular route that has not recurred a thousand times to subsequent hordes of Bedouins. From Suez to Sinai there is not a physical obstacle to oppose the march of a multitude, while the present natural provision for sustenance is a hundred fold more than in the Tih range, which is utterly destitute of both vegetation and water, whereas both are plentifully found in the palm groves of Feiran and in the valleys of Sinai.

:

The writer is obliged to assume the former existence of both forest and river, in the region of the Tih, both of which are utterly incomprehensible to a traveller on the spot. The Tih is simply the precipitous limestone wall of the vast plateau of the desert, 4,000 feet high, and stretches in a rude semicircle right across the peninsula; the plateau having a uniform slope northwards to the Mediterranean. It is furrowed with deep water-courses, which form the system of the El Arish, -a main trunk with extensive branches: these are the means of carrying off to the Mediterranean the volumes of water which fall in the down pour of the rainy season; the rest of the year they are dry. How a river could rise on the edge of a limestone precipice, or a forest be found there, is as incomprehensible as the supposition of such on the edge of Shakspeare's cliff at Dover.

If a change in productiveness is to be assumed, it is much easier to suppose it in the peninsula than in the El Tib. In recently traversing this region, from Suez to Sinai, and across the Desert to Palestine, with a keen interest in the questions connected with the Exodus, our difficulties, instead of being increased, were almost removed, allowance being made for even a minimum of such miraculous interference as the history

Contemporary Literature.

569

records. They would be removed entirely were we to avail ourselves of the interpretations and suppositions which the writer of this article brings to the support of his theory. There is an over-ingenuity in the arguments of the article which excites suspicion, and there are an assumption and a far-fetchedness in his interpretations, especially of the miraculous incidents of the history, which we cannot admit. The whole becomes a special pleading from which the judicial interpreter of history recoils. The article, however, is a very remarkable one, and is worthy the attention of all students of the Exodus.

Sure Standards of the Faith. By the Rev. W. M. STATHAM. London: Cassell, Petter, & Galpin.

In a simple popular way, and with great conciseness and completeness, Mr. Statham puts the great arguments for Christianity, so as to furnish a manual for those who may not have access to larger works, or time for their perusal, and who may yet be perplexed by the questionings of modern scepticism. Various aspects of Christianity are discussed in seven lectures. The Characteristics of Christ's life, and the arguments for Christianity deducible therefrom, in the first; the Characteristics of the Church, in the second; of the New Testament writings, in the third; of the new life of Christian men, in the fourth, and so on. Mr. Statham's lectures make no pretensions to the scientific or elaborate treatment of those of Luthardt, Naville, or Auberlen; they are popular Sunday discourses, but they put the great points of each argument in a clear, telling way, so that the least intelligent may understand and appreciate them. If it be possible for a child to put questions which a philosopher cannot answer, it is also possible for the humblest Christian to put arguments, to which all the labour and learning of infidelity cannot reply. Such arguments for the use of the unlearned Mr. Statham has here brought together and put into popular form. His little book deserves our very warmest word of commendation.

Essays on the Irish Church. By Clergymen of the Established Church in Ireland. Oxford and London: James Parker and Co.

The Alleged Conversion of the Irish Bishops to the Reformed Religion at the Accession of Queen Elizabeth; and the Assumed Descent of the present Established Hierarchy in Ireland from the Ancient Irish Church Disproved. By W. MAZIERE BRADY, D.D. London: Longman and Co. Hardly can we imagine a more desperate advocacy than that which would vindicate the Episcopal Establishment in Ireland. All the facts are against it; and its apologists are reduced to even a more hopeless predicament, than the theorising philosopher who consoled himself by the assurance that it was all the worse for the facts: reason, righteousness, and experience, are all against the maintenance of a church, which, having for three hundred years wielded all the appliances of a wealthy establishment, is-where the Irish Church is just now; and the argument is only the more fatal, if, Dr. Brady's demonstration notwithstanding, it be maintained, as is done by the writers in this volume, that