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    foot might pass safely over it * This conjecture is founded an the expressions in Exodus xiv . 24 , 25 , " In the morning " -watch , the Lord looked into the host of the Egyptians , and troubled it , and took off the chariot

    wheels * and made them to go heavily ; " and , Ch . xv . 10 , " Thou didst blow with thy wind } the sea covered them . They sunk as lead in the mighty waters / 7 This latter wind which brought the sea upon the Egyptians must be different from that which drove the sea back from the

    Hebrews ; and as the first is said to rise at the motion of the " arm and rod of Moses , " on one side of the passage ; the other followed from the like motion , when Moses was on the other side . The Egyptians might be well acquainted with the passage , and with

    the usual ebbing and flowing of the $ ea at that place , yet have no conception of so unusual , and indeed miraculous , conspiration of the winds at that juncture , to favour the passage of the Israelites , and obstruct their own pursuit , in a manner so

    singular and destructive . It is readily acknowledged that the expressions in scripture describing that wonderful event , may appear to many readers * as implying something greater and more astonishing than is consistent with the preceding account . But if this be admitted , we are still under

    a necessity , either of allowing at the same time a very great reduction of the number mentioned , or of supposing a second miracle wrought , to Enable so vast a multitude with their flocks , herds , &c \ to pass in so short

    a time . But this would be weakening instead of supporting the credit of one miracle , by adding another to it , unnecessary , unwarranted by the scripture narration , and therefore not credible . If the reader will errant

    only that the expression of the " water being a wall unto them , on the right hand and on the left , ' is poetical or figurative , and means wo more

    than the protection , which the sea on one hand and the bay on the other afforded them , the above representation corresponds exactly with the original narration .

    VJ . All the territories which they conquered and got possession of , during the lives of Moses and Joshua * on both sidles of the river Jordan , were very fur from being of an extent suffi-

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    cient for the habitation and maintenance of so prodigious a number of people . After the death of Joshua , though some of the tribes made some little conquests , the rest made none , and all lived intermixed with the very

    people or nations , whom they had in part subdued 5 and whose territories they had possessed ; viz . the Canaanites , Hittites , Amorites , Perrizites , Hivites and Jebusites , with whom they intermarried and by whom they

    were seduced to idolatry . They were also surrounded and hemmed in by the Hivites on the north , by the Sidonians , Tyrians and Philistines on the west , and by theAmorites , Moabites , Ammonites , Midianites and Edomites 011 the south-east and

    south ; who made frequent and successful incursions upon them . Even the Canaanites , with whom they were partly intermixed , became so powerful as to subdue them , and hold the whole nation in a state of great oppression for twenty years . They could

    possess therefore , or inhabit at that time , but a small part of all the territories comprehended afterward in the kingdom of David and of Solomon , who not only completed their conquest over the nations with whom the Israelites were partly intermixed ,

    but extended their dominion largel y on every side . In the reigns of those kings there still remained a great number of strangers scattered among them ; for the laws frequently and expressly referred to the strangers within their gates . These were commonly

    domestic servants or field-labourers , or like the " Cibeonites , hewers of wood and drawers of water 3 " though some are mentioned as promoted by David , and serving him with honour and fidelity ; as for instance , Uriah the Kittite . Solomon , in his book of

    Proverbs , warns the young men of the nation against having any commerce with the women stranger . % whom he describes as subtle , treacherous and rapacious , as well us lew *? , which might be their true general character , as the descendants of those who had , in former times , corrupted the Israelites and seduced them to

    idolatry . What number of strangers might remain intermixed with the Hebrews in Solomon ' s time is uncertain ; but probably it was very considerable . We find it said , 1 Kings ix . 20 , " All the people that were left

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    On the number of the Hebrew People at different periods . 45

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 45, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/45/