'the bottle' could only mean, like 'the cup of the Lord's right hand,' a vessel containing some destructive potion. But khamah had a 'figurative' use as well, and is the word so often translated fury, anger, wrath, displeasure. As 'poison' is that which disturbs or destroys the body, so God's cup of wrath is that mental poison which destroys the soul. Professor Nordheimer, in his 'Critical Grammar,' translates hay-yayin hak-khamah as the 'maddening wine' (Jer. xxv. 15), because it is that punishment which makes mad. "They shall drink, and be moved, and be mad." As yayin harekakh (spiced wine) in Canticles literally means 'wine which (is) spice,' so yayin hakhamah literally is 'wine which (is) poison.' We now direct attention to two plain texts where Tyndale seems to have been thoughtlessly and implicitly followed, and so the word 'bottle,' under the unconscious influence of prejudice, displaced the word for its poisonous contents. He who had so correctly translated the word as 'poison' before, could not do so here, simply because he could not believe in the sense it gave. We who know how literally true that sense is, why should we seek to obscure or ignore it? Hosea, vii. 5: "The princes made him sick with khamah (poison) of wine." Habakkuk, ii. 15, 16: "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy khamah (poison) to him! The cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee." Lexicons and commentators cannot make this matter plainer than does the context. Even our translators, in putting 'bottle,' say in the margin, as did Tyndale, 'heat through wine.' St Jerome's version has fel, 'poison,' 'gall.' Montanus has venenum tuum, 'thy poison.' Drusius cites others; so does Rabbi Jonah in Ben Melech. The learned Dr John Gill says, "The word is by some translated 'thy gall,' 'thy poison,' which fitly enough expresses the poisonous doctrines which men sensibly imbibe." Professor Pick translates, 'pouring out his wrath.' It is plain, beyond denial, that the prophets were not speaking of wine-vessels at all (much less of princes handing skinvessels to the king), but of the causal-quality of the liquor drank. It was the khamah which sickened and maddened; and the declaration is, that God will pour His cup (elsewhere called khamah, fury) upon the man that giveth his neighbor khamah to drink. If that drink were not poisonous, where would be the foundation for the figure? The lexicons cannot deny the facts. Parkhurst defines khamah as 'an inflammatory poison'; Archbishop Newcome has 'gall, poison.' The Arabic still retains the word in several forms, as khumat, shumum, khemah, for 'POISON,' 'fever,' etc. So we reach the old conclusion, that whenever we are willing to credit the Biblical teaching, we shall find 'armed':-"The meaning 'armed' is not only doubtful, it is improbable; first, because it does not suit the context of Exod. xiii. 18. Its suiting the three other places where the word occurs cannot outweigh the fact that it does not suit here. The testimony of the ancient versions is of no value, as the word does not occur at all after the Book of Judges, and had therefore become obsolete long before the time of the earliest of them, the LXX. Their translation is a mere conjecture." an exact accordance between Biblical language and physical truth. If men are not willing, they will go on evading, quibbling, controverting, to the end, wresting the Bible to their own destruction, and converting a volume which is the Directory of moral purity and life, into an instrument of sensual depravity, social deception, and moral death. In Lessing's beautiful book, 'On the Education of the Human Race,' after comparing the Jewish Bible to a primer, he refers to the captivity under Cyrus, when the Jews were first made conscious of the full meaning of their own Scriptures, and, through the influence of courtly fashion, first effectually taught sobriety: "Revelation had guided their reason, and now, all at once, reason gave clearness to their revelation. The child, sent abroad, saw other children who knew more-who lived more becomingly, and asked itself, in confusion, 'Why do I not know and do that too? Ought I not to have been taught and admonished of all this in my father's house?' Thereupon the child again sought its primer, which had long been thrown into a dark corner, in order to throw off the blame upon the primer. But, behold! it discovers that the blame does not rest upon the book: that the shame is solely its own, for not having long ago known this very thing, and lived in this very way." So the Christian Church has been sent abroad into the realms of science, and it has there been taught a practical lesson of physiology and dietetics, which it would never adopt on mere principles of selfdenial. Thereupon, partly in wonder, partly in doubt, and partly in opposition, it has begun to consult its primer, to confirm, to question, or to confute the truth of Science. We trust and hope, that when the investigation is completed, the shame will be confessed to be its own, for not having long ago known this very thing, and lived in this very way. F. R. L. Great pains were taken in the Preliminary Dissertation to state what we regard as the true relation of the Bible to the use of alcoholic drink, to anticipate mistakes of the issue, and to expose false principles and facts of interpreta ... It steins, however, to be in vain, for one London paper (The Athenæum) has, in its notice of the first edition of this book, grossly misrepresented the object of it as being to prove that Bible wines were mainly unfermented !—and a second paper (The Echo) has, in reference to the notes on Gen. i. 29, published a criticism which shows that the writer had not even read the second page of the Commentary He says:-"Of course this ingenious argument depends upon the assumption that the benefits derived from the alcohol do not compensate the loss of the sugar-this is the whole point in dispute, and must be settled upon other than scriptural grounds." Yes, of course, and therefore the exposition proceeds to the facts which relate to the principle. When an apostle says, 'Do good as you have opportunity '-it is reason applied to facts that must show wherein the good consists-in other words, how to fulfill the law. When the Saviour says, 'Love your neighbor,' it is not the bare text that shows who is our neighbor; and hence the very need of the exposition and of the parable. The Echo argues that because scripture-law and words do not explain themselves, but want a commentary, therefore none should be given! As the law which says, 'Thou shalt do no murder,' is to be interpreted by the judge who determines its meaning: so the law which says for what purpose God gave fruit and grain to man, must be interpreted by the rational critic, and any system which the facts in evidence show to be inconsistent with that purpose, or with the welfare of mankind, must be condemned. THE BOOK OF GENESIS. CHAPTER I. VERSE 29. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. EVERY HERB] Hebrew, kal asev. Asev, as full-grown herbage (including grain of all kinds), is distinguished from desheh, young and tender grass, and from khatzir, ripe grass, fit for mowing. The Lxx. renders asev by chorton, green plants of every species; but Aquila has chloee, young green corn or grass. The Vulgate reads herbam. EVERY TREE] Hebrew, kol hah-atz, i. e. every plant of woody fibre, in distinction from flexible sprouting plants. So the Lxx. pan xulon, every kind of wood or timber; and the V. universa ligna, all sorts of wood-growth. TO YOU IT SHALL BE FOR MEAT] Lahkem yihyeh lahkélah, "to you it shall be for eating❞—that which is to be eaten. With this agrees the Targum of Onkelos, -lé-maikal. The Lxx., Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, all read eis brósin, -for eating. The V. has in escam,—for food. This Divine saying is a Charter at once concise and all-comprehensive. Whatever produce of the earth is fit for food, it places at man's disposal. From dust was the human body formed, and out of the dust comes its sustenance. He who fashioned and animated the one, freely bestows the other. The animals that are eaten derive from the vegetable world all that renders their flesh nutritious. Men are not bound to eat everything that grows, but they can eat and assimilate nothing which has not first grown up under the power of the Highest. In regard to the food so bountifully provided, man's duty comprehends- 1, Thankfulness to his Divine Benefactor, which involves devotion; 2, Co-operation with the laws of Providence for the increase of this food, which involves industry; 3, Appropriation of this food to the end designed, the health and vigor of man, which involves frugality and temperance. All waste of food is condemnable; and waste occurs when more food is consumed than can be made use of in the body:— hence the glutton abuses both his body and the material fitted to nourish it. Waste equally accrues when food is aeprived of any of its nutritious properties; still more palpably, when food becomes transformed into any substance charged with evil to mankind. Such waste is always and inevitably connected with the vinous fermentation which converts grape-sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid. Sugar, the good creature of God, and a real food, is destroyed, and, by new chemical affinities, its elements are broken up, and fresh substances formed, of which it cannot be truly |