few violations of it. Achan had supposed, that he could escape the all-seeing eye of God in his sacrilege-but that pointed him out as the troubler of Israel, and devoted him, his sons and his daughters, and all that he had, to death, which was accordingly inflicted. Our translation of the passage says: "And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones:" but it ought to be" burned them with fire and heaped them up with stones." Josh. vii. 25. For though the latter word" has often the same meaning as the former; yet when they are distinguished, as here, the latter signifies stoning after death; by which a heap of stones for infamy was raised over the ashes of a person stoned to death and afterwards burnt: (Mich. Supp. ad Lex. Heb. No. 1780.) This heap raised over him, the next verse says, was very large, and remained long as a memorial of the transaction. Now even if the children were innocent of their father's crime, it cannot be said that the Almighty was unjust, who declared by so complete an excision of the family, that no stock should prosper, whose founder had grafted upon it so impious and rapacious a principle. But as the concealment could not have been effected without the knowledge of those, who inhabited the tent, and they are called sons and daugh

ters, not little children, ver. 24; and the family seems to have ended with him, 1 Chron. ii. 7. it is full as probable that they were guilty of aiding and concealing the treason, and therefore were not entitled to the benefit of the precedent of Korah's case; nor to plead the law, so striking a proof of the humanity of the Jewish code, which exempted the child from being involved in the punishment of his father's crime"*.

The case of Hiel, the rebuilder, or rather the fortifier 16 of the devoted city of Jericho, in the days of Ahab, called, if possible, still more loudly for a proof, that those, who despise him, should be lightly esteemed. He was himself an inhabitant of that city, (Bethel) 1 Kings xvi. 34,, in which one of the golden calves was set up (1 Kings xii. 29.) in opposition to the worship established at Jerusalem by that God, who had led the armies of Israel to destroy the places, where the idolatrous nations had worshipped their gods. Was it to be expected, that the Supreme King of Israel should suffer so direct a contempt of his Majesty to go unpunished, after threatening that a secret curse should consume the man, who flattered himself he should have peace, though he walked in the imagination of his own heart? Deut. xxix. 18-21. Did not the maintenance of the reverence due to himself in that nation, require him

14 Deut. xxiv. 16. 15 1 Kings xvi. 34.

* See Note 47.

16 See Michaelis, Art. 145. p. 273.

to defeat the endeavours of a presumptuous rebel to found a family on the power of a city, by him devoted to destruction? Whatever Hiel's ulterior views might be, and whether his sons would have been more or less the servants of God than himself, reason must bow down to the decision of Providence, who so remarkably executed a threat denounced six hundred years before, and confess it to have been both wise and just.

In Saul's attempt to destroy the "Gibeonites in violation of the solemn oath given them, it is probable there had been something very atrocious, and too tacitly acquiesced in by the Israelites, from the famine with which they were afflicted on that account. By this proceeding God taught them, that they should be a guard on each others conduct (which is a constitution highly celebrated in the annals of our Alfred) and therefore the family of Saul could the less complain, if they fell victims to that mischievous policy of their father's, which so troubled their countrymen, and in which their aid seems not to have been wanting; otherwise the oracle would probably not have said, it was for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites*. Probably they might be the very executioners (for the Israelites 18 had no stated ones) as we find Doeg himself slaughtering the priests,

17 2 Sam. xxi. 1. See Scott. 18 See Michael. Art. 232. *See Note 48.

1 Sam. xxii. 18.

Satisfaction was due to the

injured, and they were empowered to prescribe their own terms. If they made an unreasonable demand, it does not follow that the others could refuse to grant it; but we are not so entirely masters of the case as to say, they acted unreasonably in demanding, that the power of that house should be broken, which had shewn such enmity to them; and that the Israelites should, by delivering them up, make a public avowal, that no more violent invasions of their security should be permitted. The Gibeonites had been devoted to the service of the sanctuary; and therefore their inviolable security was a part of the reverence due to that oath, to which every other consideration, as above stated, gave way; and for the observation of which the whole nation and every individual in it were responsible. We must not always upon these points reason from the principles of jurisprudence now adopted, nor judge by the limited power, which is permitted to human legislators and judges. God is the Lord of life and death: and if for the infliction of greater terror to the survivors, he takes a life, which in common cases he would preserve, he violates no law of his own, because it rests with him to determine, whether that, which he exhibits as a punishment to the survivor, he does not also mean as a blessing to him, whom he selects as his victim.

19 Page 193. line 18.

Before this part of the subject is concluded, it will be necessary to say a word upon a case, in which, as far as appears, the crime was entirely personal, but the punishment fell also upon the posterity, who could not be partakers of the crime; the punishment of Gehazi" by a leprosy, which was to descend to his latest posterity. Now the crime of Gehazi was such a flagitious one, as under a theocracy could not be endured-the abuse of his situation as minister of the prophet to the purpose of making gain to himself. So far was the sacredness of any such character from being a ground of exemption from the punishment of sin (according to the perversions of religion which we have seen spring up since) that it always brought down a more exemplary punishment. "Moses for the neglect of the law nearly lost his life; and "afterwards for his transgression he was debarred from entering into the land of Canaan. "Eli's family, for their abuse of the priesthood, was entirely extinguished; and even the altar was not allowed to afford a sanctuary for the murderer, but he might be taken from it by force". Now the leprosy was interwoven in the Jewish theocracy, as a disease peculiarly appropriate to the 25 punish

20

2 Kings v. 27.

22 Numbers xxvii. 14.

24 Exod xxi. 14.

21 Exod. iv. 24.

23 1 Sam. iii. 14.

Even

15 Numbers xii. 10. Miriam. Lev. xiii, xiv. and Matt. viii. 4.