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tar when they should come into the promised land, because of its distance from their habitations, and are al-' lowed to kill the beafts for private ufe in all their gates, yet are they commanded not only not to eat blood, but to pour it out upon the earth as water; that is, as a common thing, and not as a thing separated to any idolatrous ufe; and to pour it upon the earth as water, which is poured upon the furface, and foon fucked in, but is not carefully collected, and put into an hole or trench of the ground. This is yet more plainly expreffed in the 13th verfe of this chapter: "He fhall even pour out the blood "thereof" (carefully and at once, and not barely let it go as water)," but" (carefully) "cover it with the earth;" that is, all the time you continue in the wilderness, where the inclination and the opportunities for this idolatry will occurr much oftner than when you come into the promised land, by the methods which I fhall in the mean time take to cure you of this wicked difpofition. And thus the author of the book Zohar, one of the most ancient of the Jewish writers, who, fpeaking of divers methods of inchantment and magic by which the Egyptians outdid all mankind, fays, in Levit. fol. 235. "And when the Egyptians had a mind to have a congregation for performing their magical rites, they went into the open "fields to a high mountain, and killed facrifices, and "made a trench in the earth, and sprinkled blood about "the trench, and got together, and offered their facri"fices to wicked and malignant spirits, and contracted "familiarities with them in the mountain. And the If"raelites,

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raelites, that were in bondage to them, went among "them, and learned from them, and erred after them ; "according as it is written, Lev, xvii, 7. And they fhall

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no more offer their facrifices unto goats, after whom "they have gone a whoring. From this tradition wę "learn, that at the time that they went after those wic"ked fpirits, and prepared the blood as aforefaid, and of"fered them facrifices, thofe wicked fpirits gathered

themselves together, and appeared to them as hairy goats, and revealed to them the things they wanted to "know from them." So likewife Jofephus Álbo, in Sepher Ikkar, Difc. iii. c. 16, fpeaking of the ceremonial or ritual law, fays, "The killing of beafts without the

tabernacle was first forbid juft after the Ifraelites were ' come out of Egypt; because they were then overrun "with the worship of devils, and eat upon the blood, and "eat the blood and the fat ;" without all doubt, according to what they had learned in Egypt, And Maimonides, who penetrated farther into the end and meaning of the ritual laws than any of the Jewish writers, fays yet more exprefsly, Mor. Nevoc, b. iii, c. 46. "That though the "Zabii counted blood a very unclean and impure thing, BC yet they eat it, because they thought it the food of the "devils, and that he that eat it acquired by that means

fome communication with the devils; fo as that the "devils converse familiarly with him, and reveal future * things to him, as the common people ufe to attribute thofe things to devils. There were however fome among them who could not eat blood without the greatest dif

culty

LEVIT. XVII.

unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congrega

PARAPHRASE.

trench in the ground, for the devils, as they fuppofed, to feed on,

NOTE S.

*ficulty and uneafinefs (for it is a thing a man naturally "abhors); these killing any beast took his blood to put "it into a veffel or little trench, and (fitting in a circle "round the blood) eat the flesh: imagining in this ma36 nagement, whilft they eat the flesh, that the devils eat "the blood, and that that was their food; and that by "these means a friendship, fraternity, and familiarity was "contracted between them, because they all eat at one "table fitting together. Befides, they were of opinion, "that the devils appeared to them in dreams, revealed "future things to them, and were very useful to them."

"To the end that the children of Ifrael may bring "their facrifices which they offer in the open field, even "that they may bring them unto the Lord." The last words intimate plainly, that the facrifices which they offered in the open field were offered unto devils, from that which is set in oppofition to them, " even that they "bring them unto the Lord;" or, as it is in the 7th verfe, "And they fhall" (or, "that they may") "no more offer "their facrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone 66 a whoring." If the facrifices that were offered in the open fields had been offered to, God, and the meaning of the law had only been that they should offer those facrifices at the tabernacle which they ufed to offer in the fields, that law would have run fo, and not as it now does ; that is, it would have run fo as to put the facrificing in the open fields in oppofition to the tabernacle, and not in oppofition to the Lord, to whom indeed for the future they are here exprefsly commanded to offer them.

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according

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PARAPHRASE.

according to an idolatrous rite then in use, especially on consulting the dead); I say, that they may bring these beasts to be flain before me; even unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, as it were, under my eye; and particularly to fome of the priests, who are now to be the only perfons that can offer upon the altar; and offer them by fome of those priests there for a peace-offering unto the Lord.

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LEVIT. XVII.

PARAPHRASE

for a sweet favour unto altar; as a thing that

the Lord.

7 And they fhall no more offer their facrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring : this fhall be a

will be well accepted of by the Lord.

Ver. 7. And by this means I will effectualites and the religious ly prevent the Ifraelprofelytes from this

NOTE S.

f Ver. 7. "After whom they have gone a whoring." This fhews that this manner of facrificing to devils had been frequently practifed among them. Mofes gives us an account of their worshiping devils, Deut. xxxii. 26. And we have the like in Joshua, Jofh. xxiv. 14. Mention is also made in the Pfalms of their " facrificing their "fons and daughters unto devils," Pfal. cvi. 37, 39. and going a whoring after their own inventions, ver. 39.

See also Zech. xx. 7. and xxiii. 2, 3. Amos v. 25. And

fo Jofephus Albo, in the place before quoted, Sepher Ikkar, Difc. iii. c. 16. fays, " that this law was made "just after the Ifraelites were come out of Egypt, overes run with the worship of devils." And Fagius fays, upon Lev. xix. 26. "There are interpreters who think "that the Ifraelites offered facrifices to devils in Egypt, "which they called Schedim: and afterwards, that they "might render themselves the more acceptable to those "devils, they eat part of the facrifice near the blood 66 poured out."

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