memory. I shall omit other far-fetched and arbitrary explications (which may be seen in De Dieu, Wolf, and Heuman, on this passage), and now proceed to detail what I regard as the true solution of the difficulty; namely, that brought forward by Michaelis, Krauser, Morus, Rosenmuller, and others, who maintain that Stephen here also followed the tradition of the Jews, that Abraham, after the death (i. e. the moral and allegorical death) of his father, migrated into the land of Canaan. So Philo de Migr. Abrah. p. 463, 47. οὐδένα τοίνυν τῶν ἐντετυχηκότων τοῖς νόμοις ἀγνοεῖν εἰκὸς, ὅτι πρότερον μὲν ἐκ τῆς Χαλδαϊκῆς ἀναστὰς γῆς ̓Αβραὰμ ᾤκησεν εἰς Χαῤῥάν· τελευτήσαντος δὲ αὐτῷ τοῦ πατρὸς, ἐκεῖθε κακ ταύτης μετανίσταται, ὡς δυοῖν ἤδη τόπων ἀπόλειψιν πεποιῆσθαι. For the Jews, in order to clear Abraham from the charge of neglecting his father in his old age, maintained that the death of Terah Moses has related by anticipation, because, from being a worshipper of God, he now became an idolater (see Josh. 24, 2. Judith 5, 6 & 7): and thus, since all sinners are, as the Apostle says, dead while they live, Terah might be accounted dead, on the migration of Abraham into Canaan.* (Kuin.) See some remarkable passages adduced from the Rabbinical writers by Lightfoot in his Hor. Heb., Wetstein, and Michaelis. Kuinoel also refers to Hieron. Opp. t. 4. p. 94. METOIKI?e is rarely used Μετοικίζειν in a transitive sense; as here, and infra, ver. 43. - 5. καὶ οὐκ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ. It has been rightly observed that owkey is to be rendered dederat, and ou is put for ourw. (See the note on Joh. 7, 8.) The sense, then, of the passage may be thus expressed: "And had not yet given him any possession in this land, not a foot of it, and yet he promised the pos

*Bp. Lloyd, however, in his Chronological Index to the Bible, is of opinion, that what is said of Gen. 11, 26, of Terah's being séventy years old, relates only to the birth of Haran; and that Terah was one hundred and thirty years old when he begat Abraham. If so, then Abraham was seventy-five years old, and Terah (who died at two hundred and five) might have been dead when Abraham left Charran. (Bp. Pearce.)

session of it to him, namely to his posterity, although he had as yet no offspring." Now Abraham is commended because he had faith in the Divine promise, that his posterity should occupy Palestine, &c. Kanpovouía, like the Hebr. 2, properly denotes the thing heired, or acquired by heirship. (See Matt. 21, 38. and Mark 12, 7.) But it is also used of any possession, especially that of Canaan, granted by God to the Israelites. Here it signifies possession, landed property; as in Josh. 13, 23 & 28. (Kuin.)

5. Oude Bâμa пodós, "not even a foot of land." A proverbial expression, by which is signified none at all; as in Deut. 2, 5. Gen. 8, 1. examples of which are adduced by Wetstein from Liban. Or. 312 D. μηδὲν ἔξω καταλελοιπὸς αὐτῷ, μηδ ̓ ὅσον δοῦναι χώραν Todi. Cic. ad Attic. 13, 2. Quomodo nunc est, pedem ubi ponat in suo, non habet. So Agapet. C. 16. (cited by Pricæus): καὶ οἱ μὲν (πλούσιοι) κατέχουσι τοῦ κόσμου τὰ πέρατα, οἱ δὲ (πένητες) οὐκ ἔχουσι ποῦ στῆσαι τὰ πέλματα.

5. Εἰς κατάσχεσιν, subaud αὐτῆς, for ὥστε κατέχειν aury. Nor is this a Hellenistical use. I remember to have met with the same idiom in Thucydides. Karáσxeris, which, in the Sept. answers to the Heb.

אחזה נחלה

na and ns, indicates "occupancy, possession." So Joseph. Ant. 9, 1, 2. οἱ τὴν ὑπ ̓ αὐτου δοθεῖσαν γὴν ἐς κατάσχεσιν ἀφελέσθαι πάρεισιν αὐτοὺς. And κατέXew, in the sense of inhabit, occurs in Joseph. Ant. 1, 11, 4. 2, 7, 2. Philo, 1014 c. Kal here means nempe, scilicet.

χειν,

6. ἔσται τὸ σπέρμα. The passage is quoted from the Sept. version of Gen. 15, 13; but from memory. Compare the Hebrew and Greek. By Tάpakos the Alexandrian Jews expressed the Hebrew, a stranger; and Tagokey occurs in Isocr. Paneg. C. 43. Kakoûv, ill-treat, afflict. The verb is used in this sense by the best Greek writers, from whom examples are adduced by Wetstein. I add Eschyl, P. V. 1012. It very frequently occurs in Thucydides.

6. TεTρakóσiα, four hundred. Or rather (as it seems from Joseph. 2, 15, 2.) four hundred and thirty. But Stephen uses a round number; which is often found in historians, and is still more admissible in an oration like this. Thus Josephus himself, Ant. 9, 1. and Bell. 5, 9, 4. limits it to four hundred. (See Krebs on this passage.) Many Commentators, however, as Hammond, De Dieu, and Wolf, maintain that the Israelites only abode in Egypt two hundred and fifteen years; and thus the space of four hundred, or four hundred and thirty years, must be reckoned not only up to the end of the Egyptian bondage, but also to the peregrination of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in Egypt. This opinion rests chiefly on a passage of Gal. 3, 17. where mention is made of the promise given to Abraham, and where the Law is said to have been promulgated four hundred and thirty years after. An appeal is also made to the Samaritan text of Ex. 12, 40. and the Sept. Version. In the former we have:

מצרים ומושב כני ישראל ואבותם

.אשר ישבו בארץ כנען ובארץ

In the latter : ἡ δὲ κατοίκησις τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ ἦν κατώ κησαν ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ ἐν τῇ Χαναάν (in the Alexandrine MSS. there is added, αὐτοὶ καὶ οἱ πατέρες αὐτ τῶν) ἔτη τετρακόσια τριάκοντα. [Hence there have been those who propose to alter the Hebrew text after the Samaritan or Septuagint. But, as Deyling observes, this would be cutting, not untying, the knot. Edit.] Finally, they quote Joseph. Ant. 2, 15, 2. where he mentions two hundred and fifteen years as the space of time during which the Israelites continued in Egypt. But to these arguments it has been opposed, 1st, that as to the passage of Galatians, since no fuller computation of the years before Jacob's departure into Egypt existed in the Old Testament, and it was not St. Paul's intention to adjust this chronological difficulty; he therefore used the common and generally received period

of time between Abraham and Moses, little solicitous whether it might be more agreeable to chronological computations to refer the beginnings of those years to the times of Abraham or to those of Jacob. (See Kopke supra.) 2dly, that the argument drawn from the consent of the Samaritan text with the Sept. is not of much weight; since either the Sept. acted the part of paraphrasts, and inserted a gloss into their text, which came from thence into our Samaritan MSS., or the Sept. translated from a Samaritan MS. (as Hassenkamp has endeavoured to prove in an express Dissertation): and moreover, in matters of chronology, the Samaritan text and the Sept. are not to be much relied on, since (as Michaelis observes) the more recent scribes used to alter the text according to a particular system. 3dly, that if the four hundred be referred also to the peregrination of the Patriarchs, the word κal douλεύσουσι αὐτούς καὶ κακώσουσιν will not be apposite. 4thly, that if the abode of the Israelites in Egypt be maintained to have comprehended only two hundred and fifteen years, one does not easily see how, in so short a time, they could have increased to so considerable a number.* 5thly, that the passage of Joseph. Ant. 2, 15, 2. was corrupted by the scribes, who had been accustomed to the Greek Bible, and was emended according to the chronology of the Sept.; which has been done in other places, as we learn from Ernesti, in his Exerc. Flav. 1.

Hence, to any unprejudiced person, it will easily appear that the opinion of those Commentators is to be preferred who think that the Israelites abode in Egypt two hundred and forty-three years; in proof of which see Koppe's Dissert. published in 1777. (Kuin.)

7. Kgww, I will punish: a sense frequent in the

* And yet the rate of increase in population ascertained to have taken place in some parts of North America would seem to fully justify it.

Old and New Testament. Λατρεύσουσι μοι ἐν τῷ TÓT TOUTW, i. e. in Palestine, where Abraham then was. Tóros, it must be observed, is often used of countries. (See the note on Joh. 14, 2.) So Xen. An. 4, 4, 2. ὁ τόπος οὗτος ̓Αρμενία ἐκαλεῖτο ἡ πρὸς Tépay. To which we may add Herodot. 3, 14, 2. and Isocr. Evag. 9, 12. These words, however, are not found in Gen. 15, 13 seqq. Krebs and others observe that we have them in substance in Gen. 15, 18. But some Commentators, more justly, suppose them to be taken from Exod. 3, 12. For it was a custom with the Jewish Doctors, (followed also by the writers of the New Testament,) when they cited any oracle of the Old Testament, to add some words elsewhere employed on the same subject, and those sometimes a little changed, and this in order to amplify the thing. (See Surenhus. on the quotations.) Now this Stephen has here done. Besides, he does not say that the words were spoken to Abraham, but simply ἐλάλησε δὲ οὕτως ὁ Θεός. (Kuin.) - 8. ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ διαθήκην περιτομῆς. Διαθήκη is used generally of any constitution or " disposition;" and hence of a covenant or compact, which is founded on promises and conditions. Thus it may, like the Hebr., denote promises (see the note on Acts 3, 25.) and laws, or precepts. (See Ex. 19, 5. Hos. 6, 8.) Now the sense covenant is utterly unsuitable to the passage, since circumcision cannot be called a covenant, but circumcision might be said to be a sign of a covenant, i. e. something which attests it, and by which it may be known that we have a covenant with any one. Thus circumcision is, in Gen. 17, 11. said to be a sign of a covenant, and, in 13., simply a covenant, i. e. a sign of the covenant by which Abraham and his posterity were bound to the worship of the true God, or by which it was known that God had given promises which he would keep and observe. This signification, however, of dialńkn is rather uncommon, and it seems better to give it here the sense of mandate, law, &c.; and thus the