SECOND DIVISION. Up to the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt under Joseph, the genealogical records of their ancestry, and of mankind in gene ral, are very complete. The descent from father to son is fully given, and the chronology of the several descents, if not minutely stated, may be easily inferred. But at the settlement in Egypt there is a great break in the continuity of these records, a cir cumstance not unlikely to occur among a people who so soon fell into a state of oppression and servi tude, and continued in it so long.
We are not, however, to suppose, because these records are not inserted in the sacred volume, that the knowledge of their descent was not committed to memory or to writing, and transmitted either orally or in written documents from father to son in their respective tribes and families, both during their servitude in Egypt and during the heroic period of their history after they had settled in Canaan. Indeed we may imagine such details to have formed the chief subject-matter of their tradi tional knowledge. And we have an interesting example of the careful maintenance of such genea logical records in modem times amon,g the New Zealanders, whose chiefs to this day can each trace their descent to the commander of one of the canoes which brought their ancestors from Hawaiki about 40o years ago, and who in the social system, and in the geographical distribution of their tribes, bear a considerable resemblance to the condition of the children of Israel after their settlement in Canaan. But interesting as these documents would be to the several tribes and families of Israel, and important as they would be for civil use, as registers of rights of inheritance, they would, except in the particular instance of the genealog,y of the Messiah, have little bearing on that grcat scheme for the regeneration and salvation of mankind which is revealed to us in the Bible.
The first instance, indeed, of anything like a genealogical sketch of the whole people is that hich occurs in the first chapters of the Book of Chronicles, and it has every appearance of being a collection of fragments more or less perfect, gathered together from a great variety of different sources, public and private,* portions of records easily intelligible perhaps at the time when they were written, and when the names which they recorded were household words in the mouths of their contemporaries, but now, and probably also at the time when they were collected, presenting the appearance of a mass of fossil remains, which it has baffled the skill of the ablest genealogical analysts, from the earliest times, to arrange in perfect form.
Nor is it very surprising that this should be the case when we consider the time and circumstances under which this collection was made. The com plete dissolution of the whole social system which had taken place in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel at the time of their respective captivities, the national ruin which had preceded them, and the evident design of their conquerors utterly to destroy and blot out their nationality (a design attended with such complete success in the case of the king dom of Israel), makes it surprising that even these fragments of tribal history should have remained, while their collection and embodiment in a portion of sacred history immediately after the return of the Jews from their captivity, indicates the high importance which was attached to them, as testify ing their connection with the patriarchs, and was probably the beginning of that perfect system of genealogical registration which, according to the testimony of Josephus, prevailed at the time of our Lord's nativity. In this collection we find here a pedigree of seven or eight individuals without any visible connection with the ancestors of their tribe, there a few great names designated as the heads or chiefs of their respective houses, in some instances individuals named as the fathers, not of men and families, but of towns and districts, and vety plainly suggesting the inference that enrolment in the sacred genealogy did not in all cases involve a blood relationship between the individual named and the ancestor of the house among whose members he was classed. Thus a resemblance is established between Bible genealogy and the principle which prevails among the Highland clans and in the New Zealand Hapus. Many, it is well known use the name, and are reckoned in the clan of the High land chief, who are not actually descended from his stock, so in New Zealand the captives taken in war enter as slaves into the victorious tribe, and are in corporated with it ; nor can it be doubted that many English names are more widely spread than they would be had not nameless retainers assumcd in early times the names of the lords of whom they held. And, besides all this, there are evident mis takes and inconsistencies,—mistakes and inconsis tencies which a very little more knowledge of facts and of the style and manner of the genealogist might enable us to rectify and reconcile, but which leave the modern commentator in a state of hope less uncertainty.