WE shall touch upon several Things again, in other Places, relating to the Book of Numbers. Here we shall insist only on what more particularly belongs to it.
Upon the Dwellings of the Hebrews, and Sanctuaries.
Divi Hieronymi, de 42 Mansionibus, ad Fabiolam, p. 586. tom. 2. nov. edit.
Hermanni de Schildis, de 42 Mansionibus. It is not certain that this Work has been printed. F. le Long takes no notice of it, among those of this Author, which he says are in Manuscript in the Library of Basil. He was a German of Westphalia, of the Order of St. Augustin; and died in 1357.
Georgii Rittershusii, de jure Asylorum, ad Num. 35. His Treatise was printed at Strasburg, in 1624, in 4to. and in the great Criticks, tom. 8. p. 214. He was Son to Conrad, a Lutheran; and died after 1624.
Thomas Lebner wrote upon the same Subject at Lipsick, 1673, in 4to. He too was a German Lutheran, who lived towards the close of the seventeenth Century.
Upon the Camp of the Israelites in the Wilderness.
Salom. Deylingii, de dispositione Castrorum Israelitarum in deserto, in his sacred Observations, tome 2. chap. 20.
John le Pelletier has made Remarks upon the Camp of the Israelites, which are in the Memoirs of Trevoux. This learned Man is shocked, with reason, to see Tents made of Cloth represented, where we should see only Cabbins of Leaves, or Huts formed of Branches of different sorts of Trees. For we read in the 23d chapter of Leviticus, where God regulates the Celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was a Commemoration of the Israelites sojourning forty days in the Wilderness, that this People should be obliged every Year to set up little Booths in the Fields, made of the Branches of thick Trees, the particular kinds whereof are named, and dwell there for seven days, during the continuation of this Solemnity. Sumetis vobis die primo frondes arboris pulcherrimæ, spatulasq; palmarum, & ramos ligni densarum frondium, & salices de torrente, & habitabitis, Bassuccoth בסכותin umbraculis septem diebus. Which was still practised after the Captivity of Babylon: For we see, in the 8th chapter of Nehemiah, that they made Booths of this kind with the Branches of Olive-trees, Myrtles, Palm-trees, and other thick Woods. Afferte frondes olivæ, & frondes ligni pulcherrimi, frondes myrti, & ramos palmarum, & frondes ligni numerosi, ut fiant tabernacula, sicut scriptum est. And Paul Fagius, upon the above-mentioned chapter of Leviticus, takes notice of the constant Tradition of it, attested by a great number of Rabbins, who say, that the Jews were obliged, early in the Morning, upon the first Day of this Solemnity, to carry a Bundle into the Fields made up of the Branches of the Olive-tree, Palm-tree, Myrtle and Willow, in order to build Arbours of this kind.
The Jews therefore by this constant Custom, shew visibly that the Cottages which their Fathers inhabited in the Wilderness, were made only of Branches of Trees. After all, it is scarce consistent with good Sense to run away with an imagination, that in these first Ages of the World, Stuffs were commonly used, as they are at present, in making Tents. We may add, that God would not have commanded the Israelites to make Booths of the Branches of Trees, in order to solemnize the Feast of Tabernacles, if their Tents in the Wilderness had not been Huts of the same Matter; since he says, in express Terms, that he appointed this Solemnity with no other view than to inform their Posterity, that their Ancestors had inhabited such in the Wilderness, after he had delivered them out of their Egyptian Bondage. Ut discant posteri vestri quod in tabernaculis (Bassuccoth )בסכותhabitare fecerim filios Israel, cum educerem eos de terra Ægypti. Thus the famous Rabbi Leo of Modena, in the third Part of his Book concerning the Ceremonies of the Jews, and the 7th chapter, says, that the modern Jews dwelt in Huts made of Branches, called Succoth, during the Feast of Tabernacles, in memory only of their Forefathers inhabiting such in the Wilderness at their departure out of Egypt: so that Painters, as is very evident, cannot, without the grossest Error, represent Tents made of Stuffs or Cloths, where we must expect to see Booths or Arbours made of the Branches of Trees.
Upon Balaam the Diviner, Baalpeor, and Chemosh.
See our Dissertation upon Baalpeor and Chemosh in our Comment upon Numbers, and in the Collection of our Dissertations, tome 2. p. 418.
See likewise Selden de Diis Syris, cap. 5. and Beyer’s Additions, with what we have said of him above.
Julii Bartolocci, de Balaam & Baalphegor in his Biblioth. Rabbin. tom. 1. p. 655.
Balaami Historia à Georgio Mæbio, at Lipsick, in 1675, in 4to.
Salom. Deylingii de Balaam vate, in his sacred Observations, tom. 3. ch. 10. John le Cocq has likewise Observations upon Balaam’s Prophecy, printed with those written by him upon Exodus.
John Willemer, de stella ex Jacob oriunda; a Dissertation printed at Wittemberg, in 1678, in 4to. See above. John Benedict Carpzovius has written likewise upon Balaam’s Prophecy; printed at Lipsick, in 1692.
Jerom Veller made Annotations upon Balaam’s History, which he joined with his Annotations upon Genesis. See upon this Book.
John George Salmuth, and Numidius Schroder, have likewise written upon it; printed at Heidelberg, 1659, in 4to. at Jena, 1668, in 4to. They were German Lutherans, of the seventeenth Century. William Hilliger treated of Balaam’s Ass which spake; printed at Wittemberg, in 1672, in 4to. Upon many different Subjects in Numbers.
Jac. Schalmaltrii de uxore Mosis Æthiopissa, in Thes. Th. Phil. His Dissertation was printed at Lipsick, 1675, in 4to.
Joan. Henrici Haner, de ritu Benedictionis Sacerdotalis, Num. 6. 23. Thes. Th. Phil. t. 1. This Piece was likewise printed at Jena, 1671, in 4to. He was a German Lutheran.
Mich. Bek, de uva magna Cananæa, ad Num. 13. Ibid. in the Thes. Dissert. Philol. tom. 1. He was a Lutheran of Wittemberg, and died in 1704.
Christiani Cortholt, de virga Aaronis florida, Numb. 17. at Kiel, 1676, in 4to.
John Majus has also discoursed of it, at Wittemberg, 1680, in 4to.
Christian Vonstockten made a theological and philological Dissertation upon the same Subject, at Keil, 1676, in 8vo.
Gulielmi Salderi, de aquis amaris, in his Otia Theologica, at Amsterdam, 1684, in 4to. He is called likewise Salden. He was a Flemish Calvinist. Andræe Aoluti, de iisdem.
Jo. Christoph. Wagenseil, de uxore adulterii suspecta. This Author was a Lutheran of Nuremberg, and Professor at Altorf. He died in 1706. His Dissertation was printed at Nuremberg, 1674, in 4to. See the Article concerning the Marriages of the Hebrews, and John Selden’s uxor Hebraica.
Petri Cunæi, de Regib. Hebræorum. See the Article of the Commonwealth of the Hebrews.
Georgii Mæbii, de Serpente Æneo. This Piece was printed at Lipsick, 1674, in 4to. and in 1686.
George Mæbius, in his first Dissertation, examines what the Cause was of those Murmurs for which the Jews were punished with the Bitings of fiery Serpents, whereof the brazen Serpent was the Remedy; and he endeavours to explain how the People could loath the Manna with which God fed them in so miraculous a manner. This is not to be so easily comprehended, as we may imagine; for, if it be true, that the Manna was accommodated to every one’s Taste, was not the love of Variety by this means gratified, tho it was continually the same Food?
M. Mæbius, in the next place, confutes those who say that the fiery Serpents, mentioned in the Scripture, were a kind of Disease which produced little Serpents upon the Bodies of the Israelites; this they endeavour to prove by a Passage out of Plutarch. He likewise rejects their opinion, who will have it that the Devil, disguised like a Serpent, committed this Havock: which he imputes to a sort of winged Serpents coming out of Lybia into Arabia; or that were before in Arabia, and had incommoded the Jewish People much sooner, if God had not been vigilant in preserving them. This Opinion will meet with no better quarter than that of others has from him, tho we must say, with justice. To support it, he alledges a Tradition of the Rabbins, importing, that there were seven Clouds which inclosed this People in their Incampment and March thro’ the Wilderness, and that that which was in the Van-guard killed the Serpents, and made an easy Passage for them thro’ the Mountains and Valleys.
The following Dissertation treats of the setting up the brazen Serpent. The Author maintains that the Wood which it was fixed to, was like that upon which the Romans, or even the Jews, carried their military Ensigns; namely, in the Form of a Cross: And, among other Reasons, he grounds his Opinion upon this, viz. that this Serpent was a Type of Christ’s Crucifixion; and upon its having, as he says, Wings, that it might the better resemble those Serpents which bit the Israelites. As to the quality of the Wood, if we hold with Rabbi Galli Raseicah, and not Raze Galchiach, whom Father Kircher has cited and followed in his OEdipus Egyptiacus, it was part of a Tree that grew from a Branch of the Tree of Life, brought by Angels to Adam in the Wilderness, and planted there by Seth; from which Tree likewise Moses took the Rod with which he perform’d so many Miracles, and the Wood which he threw into the bitter Waters to sweeten them. The Virtue of the brazen Serpent is the Subject of the third Dissertation. The Cabbalists, who look’d upon it as a Talisman, believ’d this Virtue to be inherent in it; and to have been communicated by such or such Constellations. John de Bustamante, Professor of Physick at Alcala, imputed it to the quality of the Brass; the natural Virtue whereof he has magnified, by a great number of Stories, in his Book de animalibus scripturæ sacræ, reptilibus verè dictis. Others alledge the force of Vision, and certain other Reasons which are rejected by Mæbius, who acknowledges only a moral Causality in this Place. The last Dissertation is taken up intirely with Controversy; which in the other three he treats of very slightly, and occasionally only. In it he disputes against certain Doctrines of the Catholicks, and Reform’d; to which, he imagines, the brazen Serpent to have some relation. He contends with the Calvinists of Geneva, among the rest, for pretending, as they do from the Example of the Adoration which was paid to the brazen Serpent, that Images ought not to be exposed in Churches: and he attacks us about the Honour which is paid them; about Justification, the Intercession of Saints, &c. They who have the Curiosity to read this Work, may observe, by this Account, that they should do so with caution. The same Author has likewise written concerning the Punishment of Dathan and Abiram, at Lipsick, 1677, in 4to.
David Constant, de Serpente Æneo. This is join’d with what he wrote on Lot’s Wife. See upon Genesis.
Caroli Imbonati, de Coturnicibus, à quibus Israelitæ perierunt, Num. 11. ver. 32. Bibl. Rabbin. tom. 4. p. 167.
John Frederick Meinhart has made three Dissertations on the Nazarens; of whom there is mention in the 6th chapter, ver. 9, 12. at Jena, 1676, in 4to. He was a German of Armstadt, and a Lutheran, towards the end of the 17th Century.
John Clode wrote concerning the Law of the Nazarens, taken from the Antiquities of the Hebrews, at Wittemberg, 1672, in 4to.
John Deutschmann has discoursed of the Jubilee of the Jews, on the 6th chapter, ver. 22, 26. at Wittemberg, 1700, in 4to.
John Christopher Ortlob has treated of the Death of Aaron upon the 20th chapter, at Lipsick, 1704, in 4to. See higher.
John Hiller has written of the Fringes of the Hebrews on the 15th chapter, ver. 27, 41. at Tubinge, 1701, in 4to.