the passage in Genesis to have been referred to by the writer of Job; especially when it is considered, that the idea of hiding or concealing, is

some good observations on the word; and as it is used by Geddes in his translation of Judges xv. 4. concerning the foxes said to be caught by Sampson. But rw, the word with which we are concerned, has I am confident, never been so rendered by any writer but Bishop Stock: and in using the word Jackal, in the several passages above mentioned, the English reader will be immediately aware, on the bare perusal, how miserably the sense is degraded. But still more so will he find it, in those other parts of Scripture, where this word is to be met: viz. Psalms xci. 13. Prov. xxvi. 13. Hos. v. 14. xiii. 7 :—in all of which, a fierce and powerful animal is manifestly intended. When the slothful man through pretended terror is made to exclaim, "There is a LION in the way;" what will be thought of the change, that makes him cry out, "There is a JACKAL in the way? ?"

Bishop Pococke and Primate Newcome have both justly remarked on the word nw in Hos. v. 14. that it undoubt. edly signifies a species of Lion: and the latter has well ex. plained the word in agreement with Bochart:-"w, Leo. niger, for w; the and being often exchanged in the Eastern languages.”- [N. B. On the first of the three texts in Job above cited, there is a judicious criticism made by Pilkington, (in his Remarks, p. 183.) with respect to the true pointing of the place, which I have not seen noticed by any translator of Job, and which ought not to be over. looked.]

Having noticed Bishop Stock's treatment of that noble animal, the Lion, in reducing him, (under the term w to the low estate of the Jackal: I cannot avoid adverting to another attack made by him upon the same animal, (under the term пw,) in the third of the texts already referred to,

conveyed, in the same verse, in two other words,

and; so that when the same idea was again to be expressed, some third term would naturally be employed. Besides, independently of this consideration, the mere use of so common a word, and one which has been so frequently employed, throughout the poem, could of itself prove nothing.

We have now seen the full amount of the proofs, by which, the Bishop of Killalla per

In the common Version of Job xxviii. 8, we have, "The Lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce Lion passed by it." In the Bishop's rendering, "The sons of the splitter tread it not, neither passeth over it the Jackal.”—Will not the reader exclaim, "Hyperion to a Satyr?--But now, to discover what is meant by "sons of the splitter," or how such an expression could come to be substituted for the Lion's whelps," must surely be left to Edipus himself, did not his Lordship step in to relieve us from our difficulty, by a translation of his translation, in the following note. —“ The splitter.] The lion, who splitteth his prey in sunder."-His Lordship then proceeds to explain how the word comes to signify the splitter. The word nriw, he writes nnw, who splitteth; and so, he observes, we have another instance of the mode of tracing the meaning of words that commence with

;--a mode, to which I have already directed the reader's attention, in the note p. 154-157. To the instances there enumerated of the application of this strange and fanciful rule, he will be pleased to annex this new specimen of its use, which has changed "the whelps of the Lion," into "the sons of the splitter!"-N. B. "The daughters of screeching" (Stock's Job xxx. 29.) seem fit companions for these "sons of the splitter."

suades himself that he has established the priority of the writings of Moses to the book of Job. And whether those "notes of time," which (he adds) "have escaped the diligence of all preceding critics," be sufficient to justify the inference so confidently drawn, "that the writer of Job was junior to the jewish legislator," must be left to the reader to decide:

Indeed, were the utinost that the Bishop desires conceded to his arguments; even allow

book of Job; and as The same is to be said Lordship has advanced,

* Of the four "notes of time," that have been discussed, there is but one, (that which is founded on the Bishop's novel translation, quails,) that has not been again and again adverted to, by different writers, as supplying some ground for questioning the antiquity of the often either abandoned or confuted. of the other notes of time which his with the exception of that one which relates to the history of David, on which more hereafter. The assertion however, which his Lordship has made, as to these notes of time hav ing escaped the diligence of preceding critics, is easily ex. plained by the statement which accompanies it; namely, that his Lordship declined the trouble of acquainting himself with what 66 preceding critics" had written.-This offers, at the same time, no very satisfactory justification of the fact, of old wares being put forward for new. The general reader, would naturally, from his Lordship's language, have in, ferred, that new proofs were now adduced of the lateness of Job; and, from faith in his Lordship's authority, might imagine, that these proofs, were more potent than any that had gone before; but would little expect to find in them, nothing but the shreds and refuse of former hackneyed criticisms and exploded conjectures.

ing his Lordship's flight of quails, and the destruction of the first-born in Egypt, to hold good; the poem would not thereby, of necessity, be brought lower than the time of Moses; but might still, consistently with this admission, have been composed, during the sojourning of the Israelites in the wilderness; which (it should be observed) is one branch of the hypothesis which supports the antiquity of the poem.-See page 127 of this volume.-And yet his Lordship is not content with inferring from the fore-mentioned supposed allusions, that the writer of Job was junior to Moses, but would also deduce from them the likelihood of his having been "junior by some time."-But, since "the quail" cannot be maintained; since the mere word "night" or "midnight," is insufficient to designate the destruction of the first-born in Egypt; since the facts, of the existence of Giants before the flood (even supposing such to have been intended by the Rephaim of Job,) and of Adam's transgression and his endeavour to conceal it, (supposing these also to have been alluded to,) must have been known even to the latest date of the patriarchal age by tradition;-it seems plainly

* The great distance of time from Adam, creates no dif ficulty respecting Job's knowledge of the transaction of the fall. It should be remembered, that the patriarchal longevity diminishes the effect of that distance. In fact we can connect Adam and Abraham by two intervening links, Me

to follow, that the "sandy foundation," on which the Bishop conceives the opinion of the antiquity of this poem to be built, belongs rather to another structure, which his Lordship has, by his own confession a little too hastily, thrown up.

On the three remaining marks of time it cannot be necessary to dwell. The reader will be easily satisfied upon the bare perusal of the passages referred to, even in the Bishop's own translation of them, that they contain no indications whatever of that reduced date which he ascribes to this book. The inference from ch. xxxiii. 23.* which thuselah and Shem; Methuselah connecting Adam and Shem, as having lived concurrently with part of the lives of both and Shem again in like manner connecting Methuselah and Abraham. The history need then have passed but through three steps, to reach Abraham from Adam; and so would naturally spread through the several branches of the Abra❤ hamic family; from which, and not remotely, the three friends of Job, and Job himself, are supposed to have been descended.

h;

Blair gives the lives of the four patriarchs, above named, so as to make it appear, that Methuselah was 243 years old at the death of Adam; Shem, 97 years old at the death of Methuselah; and Abraham, 150 years old at the death of Shem,

*It is whimsical enough, that the writers, who are desi. rous to reduce the antiquity of the book of Job, discover in the same passages, resemblances to events entirely different. Bishop Stock sees clearly, in the above passage, an allusion to the destroying and interceding angels in the time of Da, vid, described in 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, and 1 Chron xxi. 15,—