54

CRITICAL INQUIRY INTO THE

of astronomy was cultivated, since the stars had been identified and named, and were probably assembled into constellations'; and that unquestionably mankind were not living in the simple patriarchal state, since different ranks of society are in several instances familiarly mentioned', as is also

having been weighed, for, even at the present day, "the practice "of weighing money" (as is justly observed by the editor of Bagster's Comprehensive Bible, in loc. cit.) "is general in Syria, "Egypt, and throughout Turkey," and it is, indeed, not unfrequent in the banking-houses of this country also;-that in the time of Abraham money was reckoned by tale as well as by weight, Abimelech having made a gift to that patriarch of “a thousand (pieces) of silver" (Gen. xx. 16.);—and, lastly, that as in the time both of Abraham (Gen. xxiv. 22.) and of Job (chap. xlii. 11.), the precious metals were wrought into trinkets and ornaments for the person, there seems no substantial ground for arguing that they may not also have been coined into money.

The foundation of the opinion thus advocated by the Archbishop appears to be, that the word (kesitáh) has generally (though erroneously) been considered to mean a lamb; and that "in order to force the word to the signification of a piece of

money, it has been pretended that the coin bore the impress of 66 а lamb." But this "conjecture" (as he himself styles it) will be entirely unnecessary, if we adopt the suggestion of Gesenius, in his Hebrew Lexicon, Art. ', that the original meaning of this word may be "a certain weight made use of in

reckoning, (comp. Arab. b a balance, also a certain mea"sure; conj. V., to divide equally ;)" which suggestion appears to be most reasonable, since we find in all countries that

1 ch. ix. ver. 9.; ch. xxxviii. ver. 31, 32.

2 See particularly ch. xii. ver. 17—21.

MEANING OF THE WORD "KESITAH."

55

war-not the mere disputes between neighbouring shepherds, but organized war, (unfortunately too sure a sign of an advanced social state,) with separate leaders, and with the accompaniments of weapons of offence and defence, and of musical instruments'; whilst it is at the same time quite evi

the names of moneys have related, in the first instance, to some certain weight, from which they have afterwards varied, so as, in most cases, to become entirely arbitrary.

"

To Dr. Magee's observations, that "if keschita must signify

a piece of money, the only age, beside that of Job, in which we "find the word applied in Scripture, is the age of Jacob," and that “no such coin was known of under the Mosaic dispensation,” it may be replied, that there is no reason whatever for imagining that the Hebrew word was intended to represent the name of an Israelitish coin, since it is in both cases referrible to a time long anterior to the existence of the Israelites as a people; and that, on the contrary, it should rather be understood to express the name of some metallic measure of value, (whether a coined piece of money, or simply a stamped ingot, seems immaterial,) which was, not improbably, current in the country of "the people of the "east" (bené-kédem), from which Jacob had just arrived, and which country, as I hope to show in a subsequent chapter, was that of Job himself.

With respect to the expression in Gen. xlii. 35.

(tzeroróth-késeph), which, in the received Translation, is rendered bundles of money, but which, the Archbishop contends, means strictly "bundles of silver, an expression," as he adds, "not likely "to be applied to coined pieces of money;" I apprehend that the correct translation is simply bags of silver, i. e. of money, as, in fact, the identical expression in Prov. vii. 20. is rendered in our authorized Version.

1 ch. xxxix. ver. 21-25.

56

DEFICIENCY OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

dent that the degree of intellectual acquirement and of refinement which would allow of the composition of the Work itself, could not have been low in the scale of human cultivation.

If such were the condition of society in the time of Job, about 1200 years subsequent to the Flood, -at which period, or shortly afterwards, we learn from Scripture the existence of caravans of merchants crossing the desert', and of the kingdom of the Pharaohs, with all the accompaniments of a highly artificial state of society,-captains of the guard, keepers of the prison3, chief butlers and chief bakers, magicians and wise men who were interpreters of dreams', and priests",-there is, according to the line of argument here pursued, ample reason for affirming that the civilization of Noah and his immediate descendants was, at the lowest, of equal degree with that of this subsequent period; and we can thus at once understand how the various nations, in the earliest periods of the postdiluvian era, should have been possessed of that high culture and civilization of which we have evidence in their histories and in their remains; and we shall also be able to form far more correct ideas of the social state of mankind, generally, as recorded in the earliest portions of the Hebrew Scriptures, than if we place them at any lower point in the scale of civilization.

1 Gen. xxxvii. 28.

3 ch. xxxix. ver. 21.

ch. xli. ver. 8.

2 ch. xxxix. ver. 1,

4 ch. xl. ver. 2.

6 ch. xli. ver. 45.; xlvii. ver. 22.

AMONG THE NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY.

57

With all these acquirements, however, it is not improbable that in scientific knowledge, (according to the present usual acceptation of the term,) Noah and his immediate descendants may have been comparatively uninformed. The general deficiency of the various nations of antiquity in this respect, has, in fact, tended more than any other circumstance, to leave us in ignorance regarding the real state of the acquirements of the earlier ages of the world. So long as a nation remained in union and in peace, the arts handed down from one generation to another, would have been perpetuated, and might even have existed in a state of progressive improvement; but the moment when, from separation, from war, or from any other extrinsic or accidental cause, the knowledge thus acquired and preserved became destroyed or impeded in its progress, there would be no means of at once restoring what was thus lost, and partial or total ignorance would consequently ensue'.

1 The following observations of Mr. Brayley, jun., on the condition of the arts and of the physical sciences among the ancient Egyptians, which seem equally applicable to the state of the first ages of antiquity generally, may be cited in illustration of the general remarks in the text: "From all that we know of the Egyptians, "whether as derived from the Greek authors, or from modern "discoveries in the antiquities of Egypt, it would appear, that, as "regarded the cultivation of the Arts and the Physical Sciences, they were a nation of practised manipulators, mechanics and workmen, experienced in the sensible effects upon each other "of the materials with which they operated, and empirically acquainted with their properties; but being, at the same time, "entirely ignorant of their intimate nature and relations. In

58

THEORY OF THE GRADUAL DECLENSION

Whilst the utmost ingenuity of philosophers of the highest rank of talent and knowledge has been required, in order to show (though with little substantial success) how the social state might progressively advance from the lowest to the highest degree of civilization, the labour of demonstrating how the contrary progression may have taken place is, on the other hand, quite unattended with difficulty. When mankind first began to disperse from the focus of all human wisdom, and whilst knowledge thus continued to be merely traditive, it is manifest that the practical knowledge of every department of pursuit must have diminished at every step that was taken from the centre, unless each "other words, that the Science of nature was unknown to them. They appear, in short, to have pursued the arts in

a manner altogether empirical and without principles; a conclusion which is confirmed by what Diodorus Siculus and other "historians have related of their mode of practising medicine, "and some branches of the arts also, which are all, in our own 'times, intimately connected with scientific knowledge. It is 'probable, indeed, that this was at once originally the cause, " and eventually, in an aggravated form, the consequence also, of "the division of the Egyptian people into six hereditary ranks, "each of which was confined, from generation to generation, to "the exercise of the same general function in society as had been originally performed by it, whilst the individuals of whom it was composed, and their posterity, were equally restricted to the particular occupations of their respective progenitors. Whatever knowledge might be possessed by each class, was thus entirely traditive, and confined to itself, and never contributed to form a common stock of information. For arts pursued without "principles, and without some degree of scientific knowledge of