foretels future events, when it is going to be separated from the body by death.' We might produce more testimonies to this purpose from Cicero, and Eustathius upon Homer, and from other authors, if there were occasion but these are sufficient to shew the great antiquity of this opinion. And it is possible that old experience may in some cases attain to something like prophecy and divination. In some instances also God may have been pleased to comfort and enlighten departing souls with a prescience of future events. But what I conceive might principally give rise to this opinion was the tradition of some of the patriarchs being divinely inspired in their last moments, to foretel the state and condition of the people descended from them: as Jacob upon his death-bed summoned his sons together, that he might inform them of what should befal them in the latter days." NEWTON on the Prophecies, vol. i. p. 85, 2d edit. No. 652.-xlix. 3, 4. Reuben, thou art my firstborn;-thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up to thy father's bed.] In the following extract we find a similar punishment ordered for an offence similar to that of Reuben. "Notwithstanding that long continued custom there, for the eldest son to succeed the father in that great empire, (of the Mogul) Achabar Shah, father of the late king, upon high and just displeasure taken against his son, for climbing up unto the bed of Anarkalee, his father's most beloved wife, and for other base actions of his, which stirred up his father's high displeasure against him, resolved to break that ancient custom; and therefore often in his lifetime protested, that not he, but his grand-child Sultan Coobsurroo, whom he kept in his court, should succeed him in that empire." Sir THOMAS ROE'S Embassy to the Great Mogul, p. 470. No. 653. xlix. 8. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies.] This expression denotes triumph over an enemy, and that Judah should subdue his adversaries. This was fulfilled in the person of David, and acknowledged by him. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. Psalm xviii. 40. Treading on the neck of a vanquished foe has been a very common practice. Amongst the Franks it was usual to put the arm round the neck as a mark of superiority on the part of him that did it. When Chrodin, declining the office of mayor of the palace, chose a young nobleman, named Gogen, to fill that place, he immediately took the arm of that young man, and put it round his own neck, as a mark of his dependance on him, and that he acknow, ledged him for his general and chief," "When a debtor became insolvent, he gave himself up to his creditor as his slave, till he had paid all his debt and to confirm his engagement, he took the arm of his patron, and put it round his own neck. This ceremony invested, as it were, his creditor in his person." STOCKDALE's Manners of the Ancient Nations, vol. i. p. 356. See Gen. xxvii. 40. Deut. xxviii. 48. Isaiah x. 27. Jer. xxvii. 8. Joshua x. 24. Lam. v. 5, No. 654. xlix. 10. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah.] Sceptres, or staves of some kind or other, have been among almost all nations the ensigns of civil authority, as they are to this day, being in themselves very proper emblems of power extended, or acting at a distance from the person. Achilles, who was the chief of a Grecian tribe or clan, is described in Homer as holding a sceptre or staff which The delegates of Jove, dispensing laws, Il. i. 238. No. 655.-xlix. 29. And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers.] Princes and persons of quality, who died in foreign parts, were usually carried into their own country, to be buried with their fathers. That this was practised in the patriarchal times, appears from the injunction which Jacob laid upon his children respecting his interment. It was also the custom of the Greeks. Homer represents Juno as thus speaking concerning Sarpedon. Give the bold chief a glorious fate in fight; And when th' ascending soul has wing'd her flight, Il. iv. 247. No. 656.—l. 1. Joseph fell upon his father's face, and kissed him.] It is probable that he first closed his eyes, as God had promised he should do, (Gen. xlvi. 4.) and then parted from his body with a kiss. Of this custom many examples are to be found. Thus Ovid represents Niobe as kissing her slain sons: and Meleager's sister kissing him when he lay dead. Corippus represents Justin the younger falling upon Justinian, and weeping, and kissing him. Ut prius ingrediens corpus venerabile vidit, Incubuit lachrymans, atque oscula frigida carpsit Divini patris. No. 657.-1. 2. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father.] Concerning the practice of physic in Egypt, Herodotus says, that it was divided amongst the faculty in this manner. "Every distinct distemper hath its own physician, who confines himself to the study and care of that alone, and meddles with no other: so that all places are crouded with phy sicians: for one class hath the care of the eyes, another of the head, another of the teeth, another of the region of the belly, and another of occult distempers." lib. ii. c. 84. After this we shall not think it strange that Joseph's physicians are represented as a number. A body of these domestics would now appear an extravagant piece of state, even in a first minister. But then it could not be otherwise, where each distemper had its proper physician; so that every great family, as well as city, must needs, as Herodotus expresses it, swarm with the faculty. There is a remarkable passage in Jeremiah (chap. xlvi. 11.) where, foretelling the overthrow of Pharaoh's army at the Euphrates, he describes Egypt by this characteristic of her skill in medicine. Go up into Gilead, and take BALM, (or balsam) O virgin the daughter of Egypt; in vain shalt thou use MANY MediCINES, for thou shalt not be cured. WARBURTON'S Divine Legation, b. iv. sec. 3. § 3. No. 658.-1. 3. And forty days were fulfilled for him, (for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed) and the Egyptians mourned for him three-score and ten days.] We learn from two Greek historians (Herodotus, lib. ii. cap. 85, 86. Diodorus, lib. i. Bibl. p. 58.) that the time of mourning was while the body remained with the embalmers, which Herodotus says was seventy days. During this time the body lay in nitre, the use of which was to dry up all its superfluous and noxious moisture: and when, in the compass of thirty days, this was reasonably well effected, the remaining forty (the time mentioned by Diodorus) were employed in anointing it with gums and spices to preserve it, which was the proper embalming. The former circumstance explains the reason why the Egyptians mourned for Israel three-score and ten days. The latter explains the meaning of the forty days which were fulfilled for Israel, being the days of those who are embalmed. WARBURTON'S Divine Legation, b. iv. sec. 3. § 4. No. 659.-1. 13. His sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah.] That Jacob after his decease should be carried from Egypt into Canaan for interment, and Joseph also when he died, is perfectly conformable to the practice of the East. Homer represents the shade of Patroclus as thus addressing Achilles. Hear then; and as in fate and love we join, Pope, Il. xxiii. 103. No. 660.-1. 23. The children also of Machir were brought up upon Joseph's knees.] They were dandled or treated as children upon Joseph's knees. This is a pleasing picture of an old man's fondness for his descendants. So in Homer (Odyss. xix. 401.) the nurse places Ulysses, then lately born, upon his maternal grandfather Autolychus's knees. Τον ρα οἱ Ευρύκλεια φίλοις επι γενασι θηκε. And on the other hand (Il. ix. 1. 455.) Amyntor imprecates it as a curse upon his son Phoenix, that he might have no son to sit upon Amyntor's knees. No. 661.-1. 25. The children of Israel.] Though the people were very numerous, they were still called the children of Israel, as if they had been but one family; in the same manner as they said, the children of Edom, |