3. Reason would suggest that, to put the thing in shape to be believed by future generations, the woman should have been converted into some imperishable substance, such as granite, gold, silver, or pig-iron. A woman made of salt, or salt of a woman, would soon dissolve and disappear.
4. The Hindoos relate that a woman in India was once converted into a pillar of stone for an act of unchastity; and "the stone is there unto this day." Here is a story with a better foundation: the Egyptians have the tradition of a woman being converted into a tree for the act of plucking some fruit after it had been interdicted. How many of these stories should we credit?
CHAPTER XXXI.—CHARACTER OF THE JEWISH PROPHETS.
It is a circumstance indicative of the natural moral defects of the Jewish character, that their most "holy men," who were assumed to be familiar with the counsels of Infinite Wisdom, and on terms of daily intercourse with Jehovah, yet were, according to their own history, men of such defective moral habits and moral character as to be unreliable either as examples of moral rectitude, or with respect to their prophetic utterances. We will here present a brief sketch of the character of the principal prophets, drawn from their own "inspired writings:"—
The leading prophet Isaiah says, "The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink. They are swallowed up of wine. They are out of the way through strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment" (Isa. xxiv. 7).
Here is a sweeping charge against all the prophets,—not one of them excepted. If they err in vision (of course he means spiritual vision), then what reliance can be placed in their prophecies, especially if it is true, as he declares in chap. ix., that "the prophets teach lies"? Then we can not confide implicitly in any thing they say. This conclusion, and also the foregoing portraiture of their character, is confirmed by Hosea. 2; who says, in chap. ix., that "the Lord will punish the prophets for their sins and their iniquities;" also, "The prophet is a snare in all his ways; the prophet is a fool," &c. (Hos. ix. 7, 9). Micah says that they divined for money, and made the people err. What confidence, we ask, can be placed in men, either for truthfulness or as moral teachers, who are thus represented by their own historians and their own friends to be almost destitute of moral principle? Each one denounces all the others. The implied meaning in each case seems to be, "Take my pills, and beware of counterfeits." Zechariah, who was one of them, declared the Lord would drive them all out of the land with the unclean spirits (Zech. xiii. 2). We should not, however, be surprised to find them possessing such a character, when their God, Jehovah, is represented as being no better, and is on the same moral plane. They, in fact, make him responsible for all their moral derelictions and sinful acts by representing him as being the author or instigator. "If a prophet be deceived,... I the Lord have deceived that prophet" (Ezek. xiv. 9).
Here the word prophet is used in a general sense, so as to imply that none are excepted. Jeremiah takes God at his word when he exclaims, "O Lord, thou hast deceived me" (Jer. xx. 7).
Here, it will be observed, the moral character of Jehovah and his prophets were all cast in the same imperfect mold.