Verse 18. Is not this command likely to produce a repetition of the offence mentioned in chap, xxv., and for which the Israelites were so heavily punished?
Chapter xxxii., v. 40. 'Machir' must be a mistake, as he must have been dead long since (vide Genesis, chap. 1., v. 23); he could hardly have lived long enough to see his own progeny number 52,700 (vide chap, xxvi., v. 34).
Chapter xxxiii., v. 4. 'Upon their Gods also the Lord executed judgments.'. What judgments were these? and, if there is only one true God, were these judgments executed upon the mock gods of the Egyptians? If this be so, the whole is a farce upon the face of it, without deeper investigation.
Chapter xxxv., v. 14. 'On this side Jordan:' the Douay reads, 'beyond the Jordan:' the remarks on page 77 apply equally to this text.
Numbers is presented to us as a history of the wanderings of the Israelites during nearly forty years, with an account of some of the wars in which they were engaged. It professes to be the work of the same writer as the Book of Genesis; and in this respect its pretensions at once fail, for it is not at all probable that one man would make such strange variations in writing the names of the persons referred to on page 78. It cannot be revelation from God—1st. Because it contains a variety of errors, as in the names just alluded to, or in the times of service of the Levites; or in the destruction of the children of Korah, etc., etc. 2nd. Because it pictures a God of great mercy and long suffering, ordering an indiscriminate and merciless slaughter, as in the case of the Midianites. 3rd. Because it assumes that the curse or blessing of Balaam would affect the welfare of the Israelites, and represents an omniscient and immutable Deity as forgiving or punishing sinners according as they sprinkled, or neglected to sprinkle, themselves with water, in which had been mixed the ashes of a burnt red cow. 4th. Because it is wholly, or in some part, compiled from other and earlier writings, and, therefore, was not an original. As a narration of events, it must be regarded with extreme suspicion. The numberings of the Jews in chapter i., I cannot help considering as suppositious; and the account of the wholesale slaughter of the Midianites is evidently untrue. As an educational book, it is entirely without merit, and affords neither instruction nor amusement to its reader, unless, indeed, he be of a sufficiently depraved character to enable him to find amusement in adding together the thousands of Israelites slaughtered by God, or in calculating the probable number of the Midianites slain by the children of Israel.
BOOK V. DEUTERONOMY
Chapter i., vv. 1 and 5 (see page 6), 'On this side Jordan:' the Douay has i beyond the Jordan' in each instance.
Verse 10. 'Ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.' Yet we are told in chap, vii., v. 7, that God chose the Jews because they were the' fewest of all people.'
Chapter ii., v. 30. 'The Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate.' The 'hardening of heart' has been remarked upon in pages 50 and 52, in the case of Pharaoh. It is useless to fill the work with mere repetitions; but I feel bound to draw attention again to such texts as this, which clearly demonstrate, to even the most obtuse mind, that the Book cannot be a revelation from an immutable Deity. That a merciful and loving God should harden any man's heart is unreasonable in the extreme; and that he should do it for the purpose of affording an excuse for slaughter, is a blasphemous proposition, which every Theist ought to deny. Can men wonder that Atheists grow in number, when the character of the Deity is delineated in such a contradictory and absurd manner? A just God grossly unjust, a merciful God cruel in the extreme, an immutable God constantly changing; in fact, a God consistent only in the attribute of incomprehensibility!
