. The sign of plurality does not here, any more than in Chapter 1, necessarily imply more than one person. The crime in question is one to which men are easily tempted in certain stages of society. Abimelech, in the book of Judges (ix, 5), “slew his brethren, the sons of Jerubbaal.” Jephthah had to “flee from the face of his brethren.” Absalom had his brother Amnon assassinated[assassinated], and all the king’s sons fled in fear of sharing the same fate. Solomon put to death his elder brother Adonijah. Athaliah, the queen mother, “destroyed all the seed royal” of Judah. The annals of eastern[[118]] and even western[[119]] nations are full of such occurrences. But, in positions less exalted than that of claimants to royalty, ambition or covetousness are motives to crimes like that of the wicked uncle of ‘the Babes in the Wood.’[[120]] The reading
, which has for determinative the sign
