Vere. 26-29.-We now pass from the twenty-five of the present text. On the ICohath familv to that of Merari. For the other hand, Bertheau retains the present oft-repeated Mahli and Mnshi, they belonged reading, and accepts Ja.aziah as a thircl to the time of Mosca (Exod. vi. 19; Numb. branch of the family of Merari. If this iii. 33). The elder of these, Mahli, as were so, it is surprising that nowhere else already seen in eh. xxiii. 21, 22, had two is room found for the slightest mention of sons, Eleazar and Kish, the sons of the Jaaziah, •nor any other mention of these latter of whom took the daughters of supposed descendants. Eleazar, who had no sons, and thus kept Ver. 30.-The three sons of Mushi here only one house surviving, the head of given agree with eh. xxiii. 23. It is to be which was (ver. 29) Jerahmeel This would observed that, in the foregoing verses, we seem to complete all that needs to be said have no expressed sum of the families or of the Mahli line. Meantime, however, we heads to which they add up. Hence Ber- are confronted by the contents of the latter theau finds twenty-five in all, which he half of our ver. 26 o.nd ver. 27. These would reduce to the twenty-four he wants purport to give, amid some confusion of ex- by omitting, without any 11dequate justifica- pression, sons of Merari by Jaa.zia.h his cation, the Mahli of ver. 30. Others, omit- son (Beno). No anterior authority, how- ting the three names of Shoham, Zaccur, ever, c11n be found for this Jaa.zia.h. Neither Tori, bring the twenty-five to twenty-two. of him nor of any of the three names Keil finds only fifteen " heads" or" classes," (omitting Beno, which is evidently to be but surmises that the Hebronite and translated "bis son") hne linked on to his, Mushite "fathers' houses" may have been is anything known. While we accept the numerous enough to find more than one text as it at present is, we have an ad- " class ; " e.ud thereby to make up the ditional branch with three families to add twenty-four classes which he desires as well to the account of Merari-the br11nch of for symmetry's sake e.a for the patent sug- Jaaziah, the three families of Bhoham, gestions of ver. 31. Zaccur, Ibri. Even so we have in ver. 27 Ver. 31.-0ver against , , , over against. to obliterate arbitrarily the conjunction vau, This translation of the Hebrew (nr::11~) is prefixed to the name Shoham. Under these obscure o.nrl awkward. The me1ming is circumstances, Keil impatiently rejects these "equally with," or" correspondingly with" clauses altogether, ns an interpolation, (eh. xxvi. 12, 16, etc.). The root means though one of which he can give no 110- "communion," 11ud the word is found only count, and adds up, in consequence, the in the constructive state. The Vulgate families of Levi (exclusive of the priests) shows the translation, Omnes ears zqualiter to twenty-two instead of the unexplained dividebat; tam majoree quam minores.
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS,
Ver, 2.-Principles in a parenthesis, This verse is p1.1renthetical; we may let it BU)?gest to us some valuable principles. I. THAT SIN REAPPEARS IN ITS EFFECTS, DOTH IN LIFE AND IN Il!STORY, After the full stntemeut of the sin committed by these young men (Lev. x.), nnd the allusion made to it in the Book of Numbers (iii. 4), we might have supposed that we had heard the last of it in the sacred narrative. But here it comes up again; once more we are reminded how Aaron's sons provoked the Lord, and brought down his displeasure. So now are there sins against God and crimes against men which history will not let alone; it records them on its page, and, further on, it writes them down again, that the o.ttention of another generation may be called thereto. Some iniquities there are which o.re of such significance that no writer of his country's story will leave them out of his recQrd. But this is as pathetically true of individual life. Too often it happens that men cannot shake themselves free from the sins of earlier days. '!'hey think tbey have done with them, hut some way further on they present themselves again, a.nu look them in the face. How many a. ma.n is called upon to say, ago.in and o.gnin, as the miserable effects of past sin come up to reproach, or to enfeeble, or to baulk him, "Ah! that tho.t word had been left unspoken, that deed undone, that habit unformed, tho.t course unchosen ! " If such is sin in its resurgent powers, (1) what e. compensatory fact we have in the truth that it may be wholly forgiven by the mercy of God in Ghrist JesuH, so that it does not continue to interpose between our souls and his Divine favour I antl (2) how wise to bring our life at its very commencement under the law 392 TRE FIRST BOOK OF TRE CHRONICLES. [CH. xxrv. 1-31.
of holiness, so that those sins may be avoided which would, if incurred dog our steps and haunt our spirits! ' II. THAT SIN INVERTS THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS IN THE LIFE OF MAN. So far as the word can be used appropriately in such a case, we may say that it is the natural thing for the sons to close the eyes of their father (see Gen. xlvi. 4), to carry him to the grave, to cherish his memory, to follow his last directions. There is something strikingly unnatural when it has to be written that "they died before their father." But it is the constant consequence of sin. Sin is the great overturnina, confusina inverting power in the world; putting that before which should be behi~d, and th:t below which should be above, disordering and disarranging everything in the world which God made beautiful and blessed. Illustrations abound in every sphere of human activity. III. THAT sm CUTS OFF THE GOOD WHICH IT IS IN GoD'e THOUGHT TO GIVE UB. These young men died, and " had no children." In the common course of providence they would have had the deep, full joy of parents, and their children and descendants would have carried down their lineage to the distant future. But that one "pre- sumptuous sin" cut all this off. In how many ways does human guilt shut the hand of beneficence, impoverishing itself and all whom it can affect! IV. THAT IT IS WISE TO BE PREPARED FOB EARLY DEATH OB FOR LONELY A.GE. These words may be written of those who are not sinful but unfortunate. In the families of the holy and tbe faithful it is often the painful record-the young men, the young women, "die before their parents." No one who is wise will risk anything on the assurance of continued life. Youth in all its vigour may be but a step or two distant from the grave. Strong manhood, rejoicing motherhood, may be about to enter on a life of clouded loneliness. Be ready for early death, and for the long dark shadow of bereavement.-C.