NOTES

ON THE

EARLIER HEBREW SCRIPTURES

LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPCTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET

NOTES

ON THE

EARLIER HEBREW SCRIPTURES

BY

SIR G. B. AIRY, K. C. B.

"There seems no possible reason to be given, why we may not be in a state of
moral probation, with regard to the exercise of our understanding upon the subject
of religion, as we are with regard to our behaviour in common affairs - BUTLER

'Men's moral probation may be, whether they will take due care to inform
themselves by impartial consideration; and afterwards, whether they will act as the
case requires, upon the evidence which they have, however doubtful'

PREFACE.

THROUGH a long period, I have often been led to consider carefully the interpretation of several of the more obscure passages of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. Some notes on these have been committed to writing many years ago, but without any view to publication. Lately, however, public events have occurred, which have induced me to refer to my manuscripts, to revise them, and to make additions to them. These events are, the publication of Dr. Donaldson's 'Book of Jasher,' that of the 'Essays and Reviews,' and that of Bishop Colenso's tracts on the 'Pentateuch'; and the controversies to which these works have given rise. In the face of these polemical discussions, I have thought that there might be advantage in collecting some speculations, formed in freedom of thought, but I trust not without reverence, and which, shaped as they have been in quiet privacy, may be expected to be, in great