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    He then makes large quotations from the Targum , of which the following specimen is sufficient : 4 < Moses their leader ascended to the ^ firmament , and made peace between them and their king—Moses the chief scribe of Israel answered and spoke thus , I will ascend to the heavens on high , and I will pray before Jah , if perhaps he may be propitiated on account of your offences . " No doubt the reference is to ascending the mount , but why is it called ascending to heaven ? Not , assuredly , as Dr . S . suggests , because the word for heaven is sometimes applied to a moderate elevation in the atmosphere ,

    but because God peculiarly manifested himself on the mount , because Moses was admitted to peculiar intercourse with him , the great purpose of which was that he might learn and communicate his will . We think therefore that , notwithstanding our author ' s hasty censure of others , and somewhat affected display of his own accurate learning , he has not shewn Whitby to have been in error ; Moses' ascending certainly meant his going

    up into the mount , but its being called the heavens on high , as certainly meant that it was the immediate presence of Jehovah , admission to his counsels , the power of learning his will , and addressing him with a peculiar assurance of being attended to . The surprise of our author " that Schoettgenius and the other learned persons should not have perceived that they were putting the result for the operation , the consequent for the antecedent , the end for the means to which that end was attributed , " is also ,

    we think , much misplaced . To be in heaven is to be where we have the opportunity of attaining to the wonders of Divine knowledge , and is hence put for the possession of that knowledge by a figure of a kind than which none can be more common or natural : and it follows of course that to

    ascend into heaven , must mean to be admitted to the means of acquiring such knowledge . Our Lord in using the phrase most probably had the application of it to Moses in his thoughts , meaning to affirm that no prophet or messenger of God , not even the great lawgiver , had been admitted to that complete knowledge of God's purposes and will which he possessed , and which it was the object of his mission to communicate . The figure

    was the less liable to be misunderstood , as the contrast of heavenly and earthly things , in the preceding verse , for things familiar , which might be expected to be known , and those which were new , having hitherto

    remained mysteries , would almost preclude the possibility of mistake . Accordingly there is , as Mr . Belsham observes , a remarkable agreement of commentators of all parties in the interpretation of this first clause , and we cannot anticipate that Dr . S . ' s remarks will interrupt its continuance . The second clause being correlate to the first , it is very harsh to take , as many do , the one figuratively , the other literally $ they should certainly be interpreted in reference to one another , and on the same principle . If

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    Dr . J . P . Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah . 599

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 599, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/23/