The number 600,000 does not stand alone. In the first two chapters of Numbers we have all the constituents of that number. Twice over the number of fighting men in each tribe is mentioned, and the second time they are arranged in four camps, the camp of Judah, the camp of Reuben, the camp of Ephraim, the camp of Dan: the number in each camp is given, and in both cases the sum is 603,550 fighting men above twenty years of age. All the way through the history, the numbers, more or less, correspond; and yet it is not the simple recurrence of one figure, which might have suffered equally in every place from error of transcription.

After writing the above, I cannot, I must confess, understand how Bishop BROWNE could have allowed himself to spend several pages in arguing that my objections would only show

that there had not been a miraculous protection of them [the Mosaic writings] from slight corruptions in the text, which in various ways might have affected, most probably and most easily, the numbers in the Pentateuch.

I shall refrain from making any remarks on the above, except to repeat that, when Bishop BROWNE wrote, p.29—

Without miraculous intervention, the numbers in the writings of Moses were a thousand-fold more liable to have become corrupted than those in the writings of the great Greek historians

he knew, as we have seen, that the main numbers of the Pentateuch have not been corrupted, that they are checked and counterchecked in so many ways, that there is really no pretence for speaking of 'corruption' in their case.

X. I venture to say that much greater difficulties than inaccuracy in numerals would not invalidate the general truth of the Persian history of Herodotus, or the Athenian history of Thucydides, or the retreat of the 10,000 related by Xenophon. Confusion or exaggeration of numbers, if such can be proved against it, would not justify us in rejecting the general correctness of any ordinary history of the extremely remote antiquity of the history of the Exodus. p.29.

I answer that the cases supposed have nothing whatever in common with the case in the Pentateuch. What credit should we give to the details of Xenophon's narrative, if, starting with 10,000, he had gone on to describe his doings as that of a general of a million of men, sending 50,000 here and there, losing tens of thousands by plagues and other accidents,

and, beside all this, deliberately and systematically falsifying the numbers of his troops throughout, even when professing to give the exact results of two different marshallings, which he himself had superintended?

Yet this is just what Moses, if he was really the writer of the Pentateuch, must be supposed to have done. For the '70 souls' of Jacob's house might fairly have produced 5,000 warriors at the time of the Exodus (as I have shown in I.118): yet they are stated as amounting to 600,000. And this number, 600,000, is part of the very framework of the story of the Exodus, and is certainly due to Moses himself, if that story in the main was written by him. He must have known the correct numbers of the Israelites, if he himself numbered them twice,-under Sinai, in N.i,ii, and in the plains of Moab, N.xxvi,-besides taking their capitation-fees, E.xxxviii.25–28, for the building of the Tabernacle. If, therefore, these numbers are enormously exaggerated, they must have been falsified-Bishop BROWNE would say 'forged' by Moses himself throughout,—which it is impossible for a moment to suppose. It seems to me far more respectful and reverent for the character of Moses-and also for the character of the Bible-record itself to conclude, as I have done, that the story of the Exodus, if for this very reason only, must have been written by later hands-of men who were not even eye-witnesses of the facts which they record.

XI. It has been observed by critics, as a proof that Deuteronomy was not written by Moses, that the writer speaks freely of places in the land of Canaan, as if he was quite familiar with them-in fact, had long lived in Canaan :

"Thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal. Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites which dwell in the plain over against Gilgal, beside the terebinths of Moreh?' D.xi.29,30.

Bishop BROWNE accounts for this by saying, p.79

Moses must surely have had much knowledge of the geography from his intimate acquaintance with the lives and wanderings of the patriarchs of his race. But, moreover, when for forty years he fed the flocks of Jethro in the wilderness of Sinai, it is almost a matter of course that he should have become familiar with the neighbouring plains of Palestine, which not only his habits as a Bedouin herdman, but his patriotic remembrance of his forefathers, must inevitably have prompted him to visit.

But how did the Israelites before the Exodus acquire this familiarity with the minute details of the geography of Canaan, -so that such words as the above might have been addressed to them by word of mouth, in a speech of Moses, not merely recorded by way of reference in a book?

XII. Again, it has been observed that the Deuteronomist, writing in a later age, in the land of Canaan, speaks very naturally of the plains of Moab, in which he supposes Moses to have delivered the addresses in Deuteronomy, as the land on the other side of Jordan'; whereas Moses, standing in the transJordanic land itself, could not possibly have used such an expression in describing it. But Bishop BROWNE says, p.80:

It is but likely, and it may have been most wisely permitted, that copyists or revisers should have replaced the original expressions (of 'the other side Jordan,' for instance) by those which afterwards would have been more intelligible (as 'on this side Jordan'-i.e. in the land of the promised inheritance).

Bishop BROWNE meant probably to say just the reverse of what he has really said, viz. that copyists may have changed the original' on this side,' which Moses wrote, into the expression which would afterwards be more intelligible, viz. ‘on the other side,' as it is in Hebrew, though not in the E.V. But how should Moses, himself stationed in the plains of Moab, have written in D.i.1, 'These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, &c.?' What possible reason could he have had for saying on this side Jordan,' when they had never yet crossed to the other side? Or, if it

be said that a later writer may have inserted this introductory passage, D.i.1-5, in which he tells us―

'These be the words which Moses spake on the other side of Jordan,' v.1,— 'On the other side of Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses, &c.,' v.5— (though the language of this passage agrees exactly with that of the whole Book), yet what later writer could have been so absurd as to make utter nonsense for later readers out of words, which originally, as Moses wrote them, stood correct and intelligible? Thus in D.iii.8 Moses is supposed by Bishop BROWNE to have written originally-

'And we took at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites the land that was on this side Jordan'

but a later writer altered the expression to the land that was on the other side of Jordan ;-just as if, supposing that Cæsar had said, in an address to his troops when in Gaul, 'We have conquered the countries on this side the Alps,' a later editor could by any possibility have altered his words, and made him say, 'We have conquered the country on the other side of the Alps,' because in later days it was called Trans-Alpine Gaul!

I will now examine Bishop BROWNE's principal arguments in his Third Lecture, where he treats of the question of Elohism and Jehovism in Genesis.'

I. It seems; if the history of Exodus be true, that the Israelites either had never known the name of 'Jehovah,' or had forgotten it, until it was revealed by Divine teaching to Moses. p.38.

Then, how does Bishop BROWNE account for the fact that the mother of Moses was called Jo-chebed, E.vi.20, N.xxvi.59? Or what is to be said of the many names compounded with Jehovah, which are recorded by the Chronicler, as the names of persons who lived during the time of the sojourn in Egypt,Azariah and Reaiah, Judah's grandsons, 1Ch.ii.8,iv.2, Hezron's wife, Abiah, ii.24, and grandson, Ahijah, ii.25, Issachar's

grandson, Rephaiah, vii.2, and great-grandson, Izrahiah, and great-great-grandsons, Obadiah, Joel, Ishiah, vii.3, Benjamin's grandson, Abiah, vii.8, &c. &c.? Will it be said, these are only modern versions of the old names, with Jah inserted instead of El? But in one of them, Joel, we have both names: what is to be made of this? Is it not plain that, if the history of Exodus be true,' then the notices about this name 'Jochebed,' and the statements of the Chronicler, cannot be historically true -in fact, Bishop BROWNE would say, must be 'forgeries'?

II. It is difficult, indeed, to gather whether he does really suppose the name of 'Jochebed' to be a 'forgery' or not. In one sentence, p.47, he says:

That these [names compounded with Jehovah] should have been rare before the days of Moses, perhaps unknown till then, is but what we might expect;

in the next he says:

Jochebed, the name of Moses' mother, is almost the only name of a person,Moriah, which is of doubtful etymology, the only name of a place,-formed upon this principle before the Exodus.

Here, then, we have Bishop BROWNE declaring that Jochebed is almost the only name of a person' compounded with Jehovah 'before the Exodus.' He would seem, therefore, to have been aware of the existence of some other names of this kind, viz. those in the Chronicles, such as those quoted above, since there are no others to which he could have referred by the expression almost.' Yet of these names I have given as many as fifteen (II.306), of persons who lived, according to the Chronicler, before the Exodus. When, therefore, Bishop BROWNE says that Jochebed is almost' the only name of this kind, does he mean that these numerous names of the Chronicler are mostly forgeries'? Or, rather, does he brand with the stamp of forgery' the name 'Jochebed' itself, when he says. that such names were 'perhaps unknown till the days of Moses'?

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