On this assumption, which is obviously correct, Lord A. Hervey has approached the text with a bold and skilful hand. The first two descendants of Shuthelah's line, Bered and Tahath, he makes sons of Ephraim, corresponding and identical with the Becher and Tahan of Numbers, instead of being his grandson and great-grandson. He then sliews that the name of the great-great-grandfathei of Joshua, as given in Chronicles (Laadan), bears, when written in the Hebrew character, so strong a resemblance to that of Ephraim's grandson by Shuthelah as given in Numbers (Eran), that the names may be considered identical with one another, vdiile they are also nearly identical as written in Hebrew with Eladah (who appears as Shuthelah's son in Chronicles, when Bered and Tahath are made, as above, sons of Ephraim), and with Elead the hero, slain by the men of Gath. He inakes the two Shuthelah's of the first line of descent from Ephraim, and the Telah of the second, stand for one and the same individual, Ephraim's eldest son, according both to Numbers and to Chronicles, while Eran, Shuthelah's son, according to Numbers, is the Eladah, the Elead, and Laadan of Chronicles, and consequently at one and the same time the great-great-grandfather of Joshua, the grandson of Ephraim, and the indivi dual after whose death by the hands of the men of Gath, Ephraim had another son whom in memory of the event he named Beriah. On a remark by
Dr. Lepsius, that the march of the men of Ephraim to Gath could not have been from Egypt, since they went a'aum, he grounds the important sugges tion, which is perfectly consistent with the text, that the attack was made, not upon, hut by the men of Gath, who came down from Palestine to Egypt to steal the cattle of the Ephraimites as they fed their flocks in Goshen. This would account for the terror felt for the Philistines by the people of Israel at the time of the Exodus, their long circuitous jouiney to avoid them, and the dismay which was spread by the unfavourable report of the spies. Thus, by the aid of some very reason able conjectures, a little displacement of names, and a few bold alterations of a text manifestly corrupt, he brings out of its obscurity a most interesting fact of the early history of Israel, and gives to Joshua his natural place among his con temporaries, instead of making him live some hundreds of years after his true time.
(Dr. Hales's Ana/pis of Chronology; Dr. Adam Clarke's Continental)/ on the Bible ; Bochart's Geographia Sacra ; Lord Aithur Hervey's Genea log-ies of our Lord ; Rawlinson's Eanzpton Lecture ; Rawlinson's Herodotus).—M. H.