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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, January 21, 1868

Scripture Notes.

VICARIOUS SACRIFICES OF THE HEATHEN.

Lev. xvi, 22. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

Most ancient nations had vicarious sacrifices, to which they transferred, by certain rites and ceremonies, the guilt of the community at large. The white bull sacrificed to Apis, by the Egyptians, was of this kind; they cut off the head, and after having loaded it with execrations, that “if there be any evil hanging over them, or the land of Egypt, it may be poured out upon that head,” they sold it to the Greeks or threw it into the Nile.—Herod. Petronius Arbiter says, the ancient inhabitants of Marseilles, [a colony of Phoeacans from Asia,] whenever afflicted by pestilence, took one of the poorer citizens, who offered himself for that purpose, and having fed him a whole year with the purest and best food, adorned him with vervain, then clothed him with sacred vestments, led him round their city, loading him with execrations; and having prayed that all the evils to which the city was exposed might fall upon him, they precipitated him from the top of a rock. Suidas mentions a custom, to devote a man annually to death, for the safety of the people: throwing him into the sea with the words, “Be thou our purifier.” But the custom nearest to the Hebrew is found among the Hindoos, [with whom] a horse is used for a goat. See Halhed. Dr. A. Clarke.

HOW TO COMPUTE HEBREW NUMBERS.

1 Sam. vi, 19. And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.

The Arabians, in dates and other large numbers, place the units first, then the tens, then the hundreds, then the thousands; thus, they speak of the year twelve and three hundred, which is not 1500 but 312,—and applying this method of notation to 1 Sam. vi, 19, The Lord smote 50,070 men, in the Heb. text seventy, two fifties, a thousand (in figures 70, 100, 1000,) equal 1170. As we can hardly suppose 50,070 persons had looked into the ark, the smaller number is more credible. The same method may be applied with the same success to 2 Kings, xix, 35. Perhaps, too, there were other methods of reckoning used in the sacred books, as by the abacus, &c., and if we cannot reckon their numbers properly, it follows not that they are erroneous, but that we are ignorant.

WEIGHT OF THE TABERNACLE.

Num. iv, 25. And they shall bear the curtains of the tabernacle and the tabernacle of the congregation, his covering, and the covering of the badger's skins that is above upon it, and the hanging for the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, &c.

Dr. A. Clarke computes that there were 14 tons, 266 lbs. of metal employed in this movable temple, besides the immense weight of the skins, hangings, cords, boards and posts.—Jenks.

EASTERN WRITING.

Num. v, 23. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water;

Write.] Probably with ink prepared without any calx of iron. The ink used in the East is almost all of this kind,—a wet sponge will completely efface the finest of their writings.—Clarke.

QUAILS.

Num. xi, 31. And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.

Quails.] These visit Egypt in vast quantities about this time. (March and April.) Hasselq. It should not appear absurd, that these (driven across the sea, so the Heb.) fell in such a multitude about the camp, [20 miles or so] from it on each side, waiting, as it were, for the Israelites to come out and pick them up. Forskal notices from the letters of Michael, from Constantinople, that it was there known, and a circumstance of daily occurrence, that quails were so fatigued by flying across the sea, without a chance to rest, as to fall down immediately on attaining the shore. Two cubits high upon the face of the earth.] Vulg. they flew in the air at two cubits height above the earth: which the Heb. does not seem to admit. I think rather, that the Heb. indicates that piles of two cubits high were here and there collected, leaving vacant spaces, through which the people might walk to collect them. Rosenm. Though the phrase “stood up,” v. 32, (as Dr. A. Clarke, remarks) seems to indicate that they knocked them down, with clubs perhaps, in their low flight: for if they had lain about the camp, exhausted, they need not have hurried themselves. v. 32.—Jenks.