herbs, which greatly facilitate the birth; and by an unerring instinct, he directs the hind to feed upon them, when the time of gestation draws towards a close. Whatever be in this assertion, we know from higher authority, that providence does promote the parturition of the hind, by awakening her fears, and agitating her frame by the rolling thunder; "The voice of Jehovah, (a common Hebrew phrase, denoting thunder,) maketh the hinds to calve." Nor ought we to wonder, that so timorous a creature as the hind, should be so much affected by that awfully imposing sound, when some of the proudest men that ever existed, have been made to tremble. Augustus the Roman emperor, according to Suetonius, was so terrified when it thundered, that he wrapped a seal skin round his body, with the view of defending it from the lightning, and concealed himself in some secret corner till the tempest ceased. The tyrant Caligula, who, sometimes affected to threaten Jupiter himself, covered his head, or hid himself under a bed; and Horace confesses, he was reclaimed from atheism by the terror of thunder and lightning, the effects of which he describes with his usual felicity: "Quo bruta tellus, et vaga flumina Quo Styx et invisi horrida Tænari Sedes, Atlanteusque finis B. i, Ode 34. But the hind has no sooner brought forth her fawn, than the pain she suffered is forgotten: "They bow themselves" to bring forth their young ones," they cast out their sor 8 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. viii, cap. 50. See also Cicero de Natura Deorum, lib. ii. Ælian de Nat. Animal. lib. xii, cap. 35. Psa. xxix, 9. i Page 89, Amstelodami, 1668. Caligula, p. 165. rows." These words must forcibly remind the reader of the maternal pains and joys of a higher order of beings: "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." It is added, "Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them." Though they are brought forth in sorrow, and have no human owner to provide for their wants, and to guard them from danger, yet, after being suckled a while, they become vigorous and active, and shift for themselves in the open fields. They grow up with corn, says our translation; but the fawn is not commonly fed in the corn field, because it lives in the deserts, and frequents those places which are far remote from the cultivated field. Besides, in Arabia, where Job flourished, the harvest is reaped in the months of March and April, long before the hinds bring forth their young. The fawn, therefore, does not thrive with corn, but with the few shrubs and hardy plants which grow in the wilderness or open country. But the inspired writer has committed no mistake; the original phrase is capable of an- . other translation, which perfectly corresponds with the condition of that animal in those parts of the world. In Chaldee, the word (122) babar, or (8722) babara, is evidently the same as the Hebrew (pin) bahouts. Thus in Laban's address to Jacob, when he arrived in Padanaram, "Why standest thou without," the Hebrew word is (2) bahouts; and in Jonathan and Onkelos it is (22) babara. The same remark applies to a text in the book of Exodus: "If he rise again and walk abroad J John xvi, 21. * Job xxxix, 4. upon his staff; in Hebrew (2) bahouts; in Chaldee, (22) babara. Hence, the phrase may be translated, They grow up without, or in the open field. Many other instances might be specified, but these are sufficient to establish the justice of the remark. Even the Hebrew phrase itself, is translated by Schultens," in the open field," which is indisputably the sense of the passage under consideration. Thus, when the fawn is calved, it grows up in the desert, under the watchful providence of God; it soon forsakes the spot where it was brought forth, and suckled by the dam, and returns no more. Some ancient writers allege, that the hind bestows much pains in rearing and instructing her young. She carefully hides her fawn in the thicket, or among the long grass, and corrects it with her foot, when it discovers an inclination prematurely to leave its covert. When it has acquired sufficient strength, she teaches it to run, and tỏ bound from one rock to another; till, conscious of its ability to provide for itself, it bends its rapid course into the boundless waste, and from that moment, loses the recollection of its parent and her tender care. But affectionate as is the hind to her young one, and attentive to its safety and instruction, circumstances occur at times, which diminish, which even extinguish the benignity of her nature, and render her insensible to the sufferings of her own offspring. The slightness of her connection with guilty man, and her distance from his dwelling, do not prevent her from sharing in the calamities to which all sublunary natures are subjected on account of his sin. The grievous famine which dims the fine eye of the wild ass, and compels her to take refuge 1 Gen. xxiv, 31. Exod. xxi, 19. on the summits of the mountains, where, sucking in the cooling breeze instead of water, which is no longer to be found, she lingers out a few miserable days, hardens the gentle and affectionate heart of the hind, that she forsakes her fawn in the open field, because there is no grass, without making a single effort to preserve its existence :m She forsakes it when it is newly calved, when her natural affection is commonly strongest, and when it needs most her fostering care; she forsakes it in the desert, where it must soon perish of hunger; deaf to its cries, and indif ferent to its sufferings, she leaves it in search of somewhat to prolong her own wretched existence. At such a failure of the kindest affections in the heart of a loving hind, we shall not be surprised, when the dreadful effects of severe famine on the human mind are considered. The prediction of Moses was completely fulfilled: "Thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons, and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee.". "The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground, for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward the young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things, secretly, in the siege and straitness."n The hart being a ruminating animal," and one that divides the hoof, was classed by the law of Moses among m Jer. xiv, 5. n Deut. xxviii, 53. Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. x, cap. 73. -- the clean beasts, and the use of its flesh recommended to the chosen people: "Even as the roe-buck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them: the unclean and the clean, shall eat of them alike." In a succeeding chapter, it is expressly mentioned as one of the clean animals, the flesh of which, the people of Israel were permitted to use: "These are the beasts that ye shall eat the hart, and the roe-buck, and the fallow deer." This permission was a great advantage to the Israelites; for the lofty mountains of Syria, Amana, Lebanon, and Carmel, swarmed with these animals,' which, descending into the plains to graze in the cultivated fields, invited them to the healthful exercise of the chase, and supplied their tables with a species of food, equally abundant and agreeable. The dying patriarch in his farewell benediction, compares his son Naphtali to "a hind let loose;"s the sense of which is difficult and obscure. The most probable opinion is the one which has been generally received; that this tribe, like their immediate founder, were to be more distinguished by the gentleness of their manners, their love of peace, and their eloquence, than by their skill in arms. Bochart, in attempting to explain this passage, proposes to reject the points, to place the Hebrew term (b) ayala in the state of regimine, by changing the hay into thau, to change the participle into a substantive noun, by inserting a vau, and alter the character of (x) imre, by inserting a yod between the mem and the resh. By these changes in the text, our learned author elicits a very different sense: Naphtali is a spreading tree which sendeth forth beautiful branches. But if such P Deut. xii, 15. Ælian de Nat. Animal. lib. v, in fine. • Gen. xlix, 21. |