translation of the “ Dixit Dominus,” while it removes the senilities of thq forty-seven, shows
that the composer of that ode dedicated it to some contemporary priest called Melchjse«
d e k , living at the time of its composition.
“ Said IeHOuaH to my Lord: ‘ Sit thou on my right until I make of thy foemen,
stool for thy feet’.—IeHOuaH from Zion will send the wand of thy glory: go, rule in %!
midst of thy foes.—-Thy people will behold spontaneously, when thou shalt understand thy I
powerful qualifications for the splendor .of the priesthood; from the womb, the germ of,thy I
■birth was mysterious.—IeHOuaH swore, nor does he retract his baths: ‘Thou, 0
dek, shalt be, upon my word, Priest (a Cohen) forever I ’—My Lord at thy right hand slew kings I
in the day of his furor—At the ruling amid the Gentiles, the confines haring beett passed I
by force, the chief of vastest land swooned—He will pour himself out more than a torrent 1
through (its) course; wherefore will he raise his head.” (110)
As every departure from the literal Italian entails another remove from the, original I
Hebrew, grace is here purposely sacrificed to fidelity ; but, from the general tenor of thel
context, owing tS the distinctions observed by the writer between the use of the ter« I
“ Jehovah” and “ my Lord,” one might infer, that this poetical effusion commemorate I
some conquest over foreigners, with which the, composer and his sacerdotal friend Melchi.
s e d e k were familiar; scenes in which the latter personage (named after the long-anterio:
“ King of Salem”) (111) had been an actor. We must console ourselves (under the expecW
charge that all thiB is mere conjecture) by reflecting how, if Lanci’s shaft may have missedj
the bull’s eye, the arrows of forty-seven able-bodied men flew wide of the target; - and tint
another nail has been driven into the latters’ version, which we shall have the satisfactia
of “ clinching ” under the succeeding letters.
According to Cruden’s laborious work, (112) the words “ grove” and “ groves” ui
“ authorized” to re-appear in the English Bible about thirty-six times. Theologians of tit;
lower grade naturally suppose that, in the “ original sacred tongue,” one single mm,
repeated throughout the Text,as its substitute is in our version, must be the iutter’s repit
sentative., Vain illusion!
W . — Genesis xxi. 33.
“ And Abraham planted a grove in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the eyerie
God.” .
He did nothing of the kind! He, A braham , “ set up!( 7tVtt,-ASeL) a tablet? f or »Id)
in Beersheba, and (Kip, KaBA, read; also, wrote) engraved it with the name of IeHOiil
to perpetual duration.” (113) Here, take note, the original for “ grove ” is ASeL.
X . — 2 Kings xxiii. 6.
“ And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook lit*
and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder,” &c.
A word occurs frequently in the Text, written in two ways, SSTiURTi, and ASATfBBfl
which is punctuated, by the Massora, Astbpet, and Ashtarbt. At other times, according!
the peculiar “provincialism (patois) of each biblical writer, the same word appears in th
form of ASeRA, or plural ASAeR-IM. These are all proper names of one person; »1
that person is no other than the goddess A starte of the Palestinians; Hathor of th
Egyptians; Styr of the Himyaritic Arabs ;' the VENUE; of Grasco-Roman mythology^
of our vernacular. Now, here the word for “ grove” is ASAeRaH: and our TranslaW
deed in rendering ASeL by “ grove” ,in one place, and AS/teRaH by “ grove” in anohg
(110) Paralip.; ii. p. 110. How extensively obscure is the sense of this Psalm may be seen from Cahw
•dotes, xiii. pp. 251-256, 355, 356. * M
(111) Genesis xiv. 18. “ Salem,” commentators tell us, was the name of Jerusalem—YeRuSTiaLaiM, fl«
Yerus, “ heritage,” and Shalaim, “ peace,” in the dual; literally, “ She who inherits twofold peace” (Pm
in loc.). They also tell us that M oses wrote Genesis, about the 14th—15th century b . e. Perhaps their aid*
ological ingenuity will explain how it came to pass that the old town of Jebus was called “ Salem” before it*
taken by the Jews of J o shua (Josh, xviii. 28; Judges i. 21; xix. 10,11; &c.), long after M oses’s death? ®
they do, that M o se s wrote XlVth Genesis is simply impossible; as likewise the contemporaneousness of A®
h am with a “ King of Salem.” Such anachronism« betray the modern age of this chapter; a n d ' rendertl
older M e lch is ed ek very like the Phoenicians’ “ Sadyc the -M ,” rhtre placw in history is mythological.
(112) Concordanos—from 10th Lond. edii.; Philadelphia* 1P41* r k54-
| (113) Paralip.; i. p. 97, seq.
is cecity, if not worse. We pass over, therefore, the extraordinary circumstance how
Josiah could find a “ grove in a house, unless that grove was very small, or the house
v e r y large, which .Solomon’s temple, only ninety feet by thirty, was assuredly not—and
how he could carry about and break up with facility an entire “ grove" seems inexplicable.
Not so when we read — “ And he dragged the (wooden statue of) VENUS (ASAeRaH) (114)
out of the house of I eH O u aH— a proceeding which begins to reveal to us, what some
“teologastri have ventured recently to doubt, (115) viz., the infamous atrocities of ancient
Jewish templar worship; that we propose to lay bare in another place. “ Ex abundantifi,”
we give a correct but modest restoration of verse 7 of the same chapter, which intelligent
readers can compare with the blundering performance of the forty-seven: “ And he
[(Josiah) broke down the little chapels of the shameless priests that were in the house of
, IeHOuaH, where the women spread perfumes before the niches, of VENUS ’’ — for, sgys
j»««5 — the Jews “ had burned incense to Baal, to S hems, to the Moon, and to the Signs
Iof th Zodiac, and to all the Asterisms of Heaven! ”
It was the discovery (about 620 b. c.), to say the least, of the “ Book of the Law ” of
| Moses, (116) lost and forgotten for some 700 years, which instigated the reforming J osiah
(to these vigorous measures: but pious iconoclasts had been shocked at similar abominations
(before; as the following text clearly exhibits; while it also relieves poor J oash, the
(worthy father of the valiant Gideon, from the accusation of idolatry that forty-seven men
I stimulate “ simple believers ” to hurl at his innocent head.
IY. -4- Judges vi. 25, 26.
“And ** came to P888 the 8tune night, that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father’s young bullock, even
the.second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the. altar of Baal that thy father hath, and
cut down the grove that is by it:—And build an altar nnto the Lord thy God upon the top of the
rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood
of the grove which thou shalt cut down.”
* Decency forbids that we should explain the sculptural obscenities that Gideon’s eyes
Beheld. Orientalists, whose studies may have led them into antique pornography, will com-
■prehend us and the exactitude of the venerable Lanci’s translation, (117) of which we
■submit a close but softened paraphrase: —
I , ilA?d I* ” a3„ *1 that that IeHOuaH said to him [Gideon!: ‘ Take the voung
■ w y* . i r S * r d anr°? ler bullock of seven years, and thou shalt fell, with the
■¡tar [supporter] of Baal .[the obscene God] that [bullock] which is thy father’s-
»towards thou shalt break down the VENUS [A shera, the foul goddessl which was
■a ove it. Then thou shalt build up, in regular proportion [i. e., according to Mosaie
fceles] an altar to IeHOuaH, thy Eloh,. o l the summit of that [y onto l grock and
ih v th h6 ,seco huUock, thou shalt bum it in holocaust with the wood of the VENUS
w y mee broken up. ’ *
I We may now inquire of the reader, in all good faith, whether, in every instance laid
g»tlierto before his aenmen, our emendations have not made plain sense of that which was
» t o nonsense; and whether the Bible, properly translated, is not a much loftier book, far
■render, as regards mere literary excellence, than the version, “ authorized” exactly 250
wears ago, has ever made it appear ?
I If .such be his candid opinion, he will feel a high gratification at the revisal, through
I r f w h - ° f PUr6 grammar and PMol°gy> of that imaginary text, on the authority
Which the Gopemican system was traduced by ecclesiastical ignorance; while the tele-
» Pie discoveries of the immortal Galileo, a. d. 1615, condemned, as “ absurd, false in
■rouvhT v ’ beretioa1’ beinS 0°ntrary to the express word of God,” nearly
■ ght him to those fagots wherenpon, only fifteen yeai-s before, Giordano Bruno’s living
■»towed mom nf Asi ! rl ” ™ iiS translation (™- P-190, Ac.); accurately remarking that, if the Eabbia
tetgs, but thev wmiirf10n i°n f |® l “ tllere would hot he then less respect for the sacred writ-
1(1 51 1 / 1 7 « po longer be regarded as the Pillars of Hercules of all civilization” (p. 205).
I n R ’ the P SMTHE Charleston, S. O.: TTndy; p. 112, note.
BUG) 2 Kings xxii. 8; and 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14.
| 17^ Par<aiP'>’ ii- 28-31. C a h e n : vi. p. 31, “ Aschera.”