162
THE VOICE OF JACOB.
that year which waa called the 6th according to H- G.> waa
ye
callea the 3rd accordin th«*JC|(«fctattiint\i R-P.,5rak*cajed tjb llthi The ldAehrihi>% ails
or the Mfh according to er the 17th yffcr mdsprding to jpg to R. E., ofKhi6* accord- ■ ggen from th^nljjjiicd table.
Intervals; equal in all cases.
R. G.
R. E.
Chach
Commencement of R. G.
3
3
19
11
“ R. E.
3
6
3
14
2
8
5
16
3
11
8
19
“ Ch.
3
14
U
3
3
17
14
6
2
19
16
8
Hence no dispute could have arisen relativeto the year itself, as to whether it should be kept aa a common or an embolismic year.
The opinion of the Chachamim, viz., that the creation was eight years before our assumed era, appears more likely to be correct, because a similar opinion may be found in D*3*H 3WTO ch.,35.
" Also Rabbi Moses Latiph of Jerusalem, in the lectures which he first publicly delivered, the MS. of which 1 have seen, adds eight years more to the captivity of Egypt; which nearly agrees with the JOOI (Kabbi Moses bar Nachmanl, who considers the beginning of the 400 years foretold by God to Abram, (Gen. xv. 13.) to have commenced from 0*31133 {*3 n*33—the covenant of the pieces, which, according to his own opinion, took place several years after Abram’s departure from Haran ; thus making the redemption from Egypt about eight or ten years after 2148 of creation. ( Many men of integrity have alto seen in the books o/qD13* ,3 Rabbi Jthosscph, that the year of creation is quite uncertain, and that according to historians of repute, the nuatlbr of years from the creation, is greater than that usually reckonea by our nation.) R. Latiph adds, that the redemption did not take place in the year 2448, but in 2430 from the creation, which he symbolically expressed by the phrase U3^m 1133 DK UHpVl. making the 3 in the word «n3 to signify 2000, and the rest of the word un 456. Stating that TTt 210 (the assumed number of years for the captivity of Egypt), is uot a prophetical tradition, as contended in HJtSk *3 *jflB ch. xlviii. where R. Elozor ben Azaryah says YTt 210, and k. Klozor ben Arach says 1333 215. Likewise in the chronicles of Moses, our pastor, (frequently alluded to in the Dtf^*) is found 1*3 216, with which opinion the above Rabbi M. Latiph coincides, believing the very number 1*3 (216) to be symbolically and prophetically represented by both the initials and final letters in the phrase 3131 1318* '5T33, foretelling the redemption, (Gen. xv. 16.) numerically equivalent to 1*3 (216); the word “Till itself also represents 1*3 (216.) Rabbi M. Latiph further says, that the 430 years of affliction commenced in the 76th year of Abram, and concluded in the said vear —1333 (2456). The general belief that the day of deliverance from Egypt, i. e. Nison 15th, occurred on a Thursday,* which, according to our present calculations he found incorrect, gave additional strength to his argument, as by computation he found that neither in the year 2448 nor 2449, •• did the 15th of Nisan occur on Thursday, whereas it actually fell so in the year 2456.”
I am surprised that the above ttn**33 has not been noticed by 3313 K 3 3*3 TV *3, as it would have served him as a formidable weapon against those who murmured at his throwing a doubt on the generally received number of the years of creation. He could have easily proved to them, that the very same controversy had existed amongst the most eminent Rabbis. Consequently, the charges ought not to be brought against Rabbi Azaryah Haadotni only, but against the Talmudists equally; otherwise, they must be wholly withdrawn. H. Philippowski.
Religious Meditations suggested hy the Maflorahs.
No. 18. 333 *D 338* Jeremiah xxxii. 6—-27.
The passages in this Haftorah, parallel to others in the Se- drah to which it is an appendage, are those which contain the injunction to Jeremiah to purchase his kinsman’s land, in accordance with the prescriptions laid down in the Divine law,
-M> J*B *)3 roe* *003 pi , D^ip 33D3 *
** 8oa>e maintained the redemption to here been in the year 3449: as ;iKJ 3'3JfO *3 etc.
for the tMsntenance of landed, property in the family to l it had been originakk-allotted. This narrative f ' r j - 1 n,| i ’ >s Ue«sn»ner in which ♦he tymsier ’ 1<?ad * u » ** * SontempUfoVt
wb» that system «u» lised. ThTgL”! is the-tendency to accumulation few, to the impoverishment of the many, whose smaller ten ments are necessarily absorbed by the large proprietor All the appetites of man require restraint, and the wisest of kines aptly observed— ”
“ He tkatjoveth silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he ih: loreth abundance with increase.”
Indeed, the mere possession of abundance is enough not merely, to engender the desire for more, but to supply th e ’ opportunity and the power for its acquisition. It was therefore a merciful dispensation, which made it impossible for an iuiprovi. dent or profligate man to effect any perpetual estrangement of his patrimony from his descendants, and which provided for the reversion of property, at the arrival of the Jubilee to the family of the original owner. This check upon the natural impulses of human selfishness was indeed mercifully devised - and he who sought to evade it, occasioned evil to himself and to the community at large. The disposition to covet that which is our neighbour's, has never been wholly subdued; and it was for transgression in that particular, that the eloquent Isaiah denounced—
“ Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be isolated (placed alone) in tueinUUi of the earth
For such indeed is the inevitable consequence of all unrestricted territorial accumulations. To be placed “ alone in the midst of the earth,” aloof from the sympathies, as well as apart from the fellowship, of those who have lost their stake in the soil, is the position of too many of those around us, who. though they acknowledge the perfection of the moral code it which Israel is the guardian, have yet to recognize the Supreme wisdom of that system of political economy of which Israel was made the model state. Happily, however, for the interests of mankind, the legislative systems of civilized states, if they are not yet assimilated to the Divine model, have nevertheless become approximated to it in many particulars; and already do they exhibit premonitory evidences of that era, when the whole world shall he of one accord.
It b interesting to trace, how scrupulously regular the contracts for the sale and transfer of real estate were managed at that remote period. The somewhat stiff rendering of the Anglican version, affords but an inadequate notion of the for- * mat instrument, or letter of sale, sealed, witnesses!, and publicly deposited in another’s custody; and of the attested copy, unsealed, which was also executed (in duplicate) at the same time. AH this was avowedly done •** according to the law: exhibiting thereby the advanced state of social polity m that age, as it is closely followed in our own.
But there was a purpose in the formal purchase at that juncture, which was not without its leaaon both for that period anu for this. The prophet was in prison for having dared to de- nunciate the approaching doom of the Holy Land; and yet he was instructed to expend money on a new purchase, and so to give evidence of his faith—that what was to be taken awar should he restored in God’s set time. The unthinking crowd, probably then as now, could see no worldly wisdom in the expenditure of capital on what was likely to yield no immediate retnm, and too few were to be found ready to feel interest in a formal covenant, purporting to sign, serf, and deliver the deeds of an inheritance, which most infallibly revert to c family to whom God has alloted it as a possession for ever.
Alas! how, hi the lauguage of the Prophet, has thesin<> our fathers been visited home to the bosoms of their cbiwrr . in that we also ate unmindful of the
“ Eye which is open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to gi’e e,c ^ one according to his waya, and according to the fruit of his worts.
This last passage is an emphatic enunciation of the accountability of man, and of the vanity of the hope, tha