40. And ye shall take you on the 1st day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before Adoni your god 7 days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto Adoni 7 days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations; ye shall celebrate it in the 7th month.

42. Ye shall dwell in booths 7 days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: that your generations may know that I made the Bene Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am Adoni your god.

And Moses declared unto the Bene Israel the feasts of Adoni. Numbers xxix. 12-40 prescribes in minute detail all the daily offerings to be made during the continuance of this festival.

Deuteronomy xvi. 13. Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles 7 days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine; and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.

15. Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto Adoni thy god in the place which Adoni shall choose: because Adoni thy god shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands; therefore thou shalt surely rejoice.

1 Kings viii. 2. And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto king Solomon at the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the 7th month.

3. And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark. And they brought up the ark of Adoni, and the tabernacle of the congregation. .

5. And king Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, that were assembled unto him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen, that could not be numbered for multitude.

63. And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto Adoni, 22,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the Bene Israel dedicated the house of Adoni.

65. And at that time Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, a great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt before Adoni our god, 7 days and 7 days, even 14 days.

Josephus says (Ant. VIII. iv. 5), For then it was that the temple did first of all taste of the victims; and all the Hebrews,

with their wives and children, feasted therein; nay, besides this, the king then observed splendidly and magnificently the feast which is called the feast of tabernacles, before the temple, for twice 7 days, and he then feasted together with all the people.

Nehemiah viii. 14-18, already extracted under title, ' Writing, reading, and teaching the law,' ante, p. 374, simply informs us that it had never been celebrated before the time of Joshua Ben Nun, and there is not an indication to be found anywhere of its having been observed in his time, or ever before.

Josephus does not inform us of the booths and branches, or other necessary accessories at this feast. Indeed there is not in Kings, or even in 2 Chronicles vii. 8, the slightest allusion to the feast of tabernacles.

The septennial sabbath. This was one of the most egregious blunders that ever found place in even theoretical legislation. It could only have entered into the imagination of a dreamy levite to suggest such an institution, under the impression that any people which would submit to it, would thereby evince their absolute resignation to priestly domination. It would seem hardly to require any evidence to show that no such sabbath had ever been observed, although Josephus talks, in and after the times of the Asmoneans, about" its being the sabbatical year." The pentateuch and prophets afford their testimony to prove that it had not been observed, and, that in the most ridiculous aspect. They describe the land as "enjoying" a compensation for the omission of its observance, by lying desolate during the captivity of the Hebrews for a period of 70 successive annual sabbaths by way of compensation, as though the corn and vine land rejoiced in bearing bushes and thistles every 7th year; during which the whole country must have lain

waste.

Exodus xxiii. 10. Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof.

11. But the 7th year thou shalt let it rest and lie still: that the poor of thy people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat.

In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thine oliveyard.

Leviticus xxv. 1. And Adoni spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the Bene Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto Adoni. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and 6

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years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but the 7th year shall be a sabbath for Adoni; thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed; for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, and for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.

20. And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the 7th year? behold we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then will I command my blessing upon you in the 6th year, and it shall bring forth fruit for 3 years. And ye shall sow the 8th year, and eat yet of old fruit until the 9th year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.

Deuteronomy xv. 1. At the end of every 7 years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor that lendeth aught unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called Adoni's release. Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again.

Leviticus xxvi. 34. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land: even then shall the land rest, and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

The chronicler, assuming the captivity to have lasted 70 years, describes the land as having lain waste and uncultivated during the whole of that period, in compensation for having been deprived of her septennial sabbaths, when they dwelt upon it.

2 Chronicles xxxvi. 21. To fulfil the word of Adoni by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil 70 years.

The 50th year sabbath.-The Jubilee. Except that it involves a 2 years' abstinence from the cultivation of the land, this sabbath is less absurd than the septennial, for a mere fanciful or Utopian system of legislation. It has the apparent object of preventing the permanent alienation of patrimonies, reducing all alienations to a term of 50 years, at the utmost, and as much shorter as the current period of jubilee had to run. But codes of legislation which contain such provisions indicate only the ignorance of those who

compose them. There is no indication of such a jubilee having been ever observed. It was intended for the new terrestrial Jerusalem.

Leviticus xxv. 8. And thou shalt number 7 sabbaths of years unto thee, 7 times 7 years; and the space of the 7 sabbaths of years shall be 49 years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the 10th day of the 7th month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

10. And ye shall hallow the 50th year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; and it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall that 50th year be unto you; ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.

12. For it is the jubilee, it shall be holy unto you; ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.

13. In the year of this jubilee, ye shall return every man unto his possession.

14. And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not oppress one another.

15. According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour. And according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee.

16. According to the multitude of years, thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.

23. And the land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine.

THE COVENANT.-So shall ye be my people, and I will be your god.Jeremiah xi. 3. Any person assuming on behalf of any mere name or idol, might say this to any people. If they chose to accept the proposal and to enter into the covenant, he would become the object of their worship, their god, and they his people by contract. A hundred different tribes might enter into similar covenants, and so a hundred different gods might be created.

But can it be conceived that any man had warrant from the God of the universe to enter into such a contract with one petty race, and to take them into exclusive favour?

This is asserted, however, as to Adoni, by the composers of the pontateuch, and by the later prophets. The priests of Baal had equal authority to make such a covenant between the Samaritans and Baal.

Moreover, the assertion is attended with this incongruity: Almost from the very moment when it is alleged that this covenant was made, for a thousand years the covenanting people were ignorant of it, as the prophets say, forgot it, forsook it, went a whoring after other gods.

During almost the whole of that time, the god of the covenant is described as rising in fits of jealousy, and "rising early" in his wrath, pouring forth denunciations of his fury-but all in vain ; they are ignorant of, they had entirely forgotten, as it is said, or they will not keep the covenant; they will worship other gods, instead of, or in association with him; he rages and he threatens, but he cannot prevent it.

They forgot; they forsook his worship; that is to say, they never adopted, or in fact, never heard of it; he never was their god; it was a name," under which in the very latest period of Hebrew history, a diminutive sect, which had increased in power and numbers, endeavoured to establish a worship of Yahaveh-originating in, but far more developed than their earlier worship, under the name of Adoni or El-Shaddai.

These names appear to have been used interchangeably with each other, and also with El Sabaoth-until at last such magical and terrible influence was attributed to Yahaveb, that they gave it its proper character, "a name."

There is a vulgar notion that the Hebrew scriptures taught, and that they alone taught, the unity and spirituality of the deity. This proposition will have to be examined in three aspects; first, the Prot-Adonite to the time of Eli; 2ndly, the Per-Adonite from the time of Eli to the time of Hezekiah; and 3rdly, the SuperAdonite, or Yahavite, from the time of Hezekiah, or rather the time when the pentateuch or some part of it had assumed its accepted form. But this examination may conveniently be postponed, as the present inquiry is limited to whether such, or any such religion as promulgated in the pentateuch existed before or in the time of David, or of his earlier successors.

It is clear from what has already been said, that the Hebrew people from their earliest history worshipped other gods. It was the subject of incessant complaint of all the prophets.