the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it;' and what endless exertion and care are required to found even a small town and make it flourish, or to rear and educate even a single human being! In this sense God has toiled to raise Nineveh to such splendour and prosperity (comp. Job x. 3 Ty, 9), and both His 'delight' and His 'compassion' are extended to 'all His works' (Ps. civ. 31; cxlv. 9). This entire train of thought is implied in the following fine lines of the Wisdom of Solomon: "The whole world is before Thee as a drop of the morning dew; but Thou hast mercy upon all... and overlookest the sins of men, in order that they may amend; for Thou lovest all the things that are and disdainest nothing that Thou hast made... Indeed Thou sparest all, for they are Thine, O Lord, Thou lover of souls' (Wisd. xi. 22-26, peídy dè пávтwY, öti cá ésti, décñora pihópuxe).—The kikayon was and perished, that is, it was the creature or creation of a single night's growth, and rapid as its rise was its decay: for on the first day of Jonah's stay before the town, he was shielded by the booth (ver. 5); in the evening he saw its foliage withered; in the succeeding night the kikayon grew up, was in full bloom the whole of the next day, but perished the following morning even before the sun was above the horizon. Thus the author might say that the plant appeared over night and vanished over night; although possibly, not making so strict a calculation, he simply meant to describe the perishing plant also as 'the creature of a night'. The Sept. has correctly as regards the sense, ὑπὸ νύκτα ἐγενήθη καὶ ὑπὸ νύκτα ἀπώλετο; Philo (c. 49), nox prima plantam produxit istam, et nox secunda corrupit; Vulg. sub una nocte nata est et sub una nocte periit, taking perhaps as identical with ; Targum, more explicitly, 'in the one night it came up and in the other night it disappeared;' De Wette, in accordance with the latter alternative above referred to, 'der als Sohn Einer Nacht entstand und als Sohn Einer Nacht dahin war;' etc.; comp. Plaut. Pseudol. I. i. 38, 39, quasi solstitialis herba paulisper fui,

Repente exortus sum, repentino occidi.-, a rarer and shorter form of the construct state instead of - (see Gramm. § 32. 7).—The phrase is here not ana

בֶּן־שָׁנָה or בֶּן־חֹדֶשׁ logous in meaning to the frequent terms

TT

(Exod. xii. 5; Lev. xxvii. 5, etc.), which signify 'one month' or 'one year old,' for is 'to be called into existence' (Gen. i. 3; Ps. xxxiii. 9, etc.), and the sense is not that 'the plant, being strong and sound in one night, perished in another' (Michaelis), as if it had stood on the spot before; which endeavour of explaining away the miracle is as decidedly against the tenour of the text as the proposition to take the whole phrase as a bold oriental metaphor expressing uncommon rapidity of growth (comp. ver. 6, " by"···, though here is indeed by some, as Eichhorn and others, unwarrantably taken as a pluperfect, 'God had caused the kikayon to arise').-In DIN NSN the question is only conveyed by the position and the contrast, 'and I should not have pity?' (comp. Gramm. § 81. 9).-17, in later Hebrew, like (Eccl. vi. 6; xii. 12; comp. p. 236).—Ten thousand is 7 (Lev. xxvi. 8, etc.), which in the construct state of the plural is ? (Ps. iii. 7, etc.); this in the course of time was changed into a (Neh. vii. 71), and then, by throwing off the final n, into 7 (as here, Hos. viii. 12 Keth., and elsewhere), more frequently written with Notiosum (Ezra ii. 64, etc.), from which was formed the plural ni or N (Dan. xi. 12; Ezra ii. 69; comp. Gesen. Thesaur. p. 1255).- 17 is taken as a collective term, whence the verb y and the suffixes in 1 and in the singular.-Nineveh contained 'twelve myriads of persons' who had not even sufficient experience to know the difference between their right hand and their left hand, and could, therefore, certainly not distinguish between moral good and evil, that is, children of a very tender age, who, not yet responsible for their actions, cannot sin (comp.

are לשמאלו

TT

מאוס ברע ובחור 15,16 .Isa. vii ; לא ידעו טוב ורע,39 .Deut. i

; Hom. Od. xx. 309, 310, ἤδη γὰρ νοέω καὶ οἶδα ἕκαστα, Εσθλά τε καὶ τὰ χέρηα, πάρος δ ̓ ἔτι νήπιος ἦα; but in 2 Sam.

xix. 36, the same phrase y y refers to the external senses blunted by extreme old age, 'to distinguish between things pleasant and unpleasant'): what limit the author had in his mind, whether the third or seventh year, as has been surmised, it is impossible to decide; in any case, a computation, on such data, of the aggregate population of Nineveh would be precarious. So much, however, seems certain that the figure stated in the text is by no means exorbitant, considering the antiquity, wealth, and extent of the town, which, together with its district, comprised about two hundred English square miles (supra p. 224), and might, therefore, easily have contained between half a million and a million of inhabitants; though Nineveh proper had probably not more than 200,000. The Koran (Sur. xxxvii. sub fin.) observes: 'We sent Jonah to a hundred thousand persons (Ninevites), or they were more, and they believed.'-The inability of discerning between right and left does not refer to the Ninevites as 'unenlightened pagans,' since the number of twelve myriads is evidently meant to comprise only a part of the population (Rashi, Kimchi, DP, Ebn Ezra Non Nb Dop, etc.); but it is doubly fanciful to graft that invidious meaning on the concluding words. , as if these terms denoted 'grown up persons resembling brutes because devoid of intelligence and living in ignorance of their Maker' (Rashi; comp. supra p. 250); which interpretation, apart form its linguistic impossibility, is in flagrant contradiction to the generous spirit of the narrative, which does not represent the men and women of Nineveh as 'brutes,' but as most accessible to religious enlightenment and most ready to moral reformation.

APPENDIX.

UNIVERSALISM OF GREEKS AND ROMANS.

In order to exhibit the affinity of the highest minds among different civilised nations with respect to the question which forms the main subject of this volume, we subjoin a number of sentences gathered from Greek and Roman writers expressing or implying universal fellowship and the natural equality of all men. This collection, designed both to illustrate and to supplement the double series of adages and sentiments we have cited before from the Bible and the Talmud,a will, we trust, prove acceptable as a small contribution to comparative theology, and may help to confirm and strengthen the views which it has been our chief object to impress.

I. RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.

All men of whatever nation have a conception of the gods.b In the minds of all the notion of gods has been implanted by nature herself, without any instruction.c

a

b

Pp. 107-110, and 242-247. Arist. De Coelo, i. 3, § 6, πάντες ἄνθρωποι περὶ θεῶν ἔχουσιν ὑπόληψιν . . . καὶ βάρβαροι καὶ Ἕλληνες.

c Cic. Nat. Deor. i. 16, § 43, anticipationem quandam deorum, quam appellat póλn Epicurus; comp. ii. 4, § 12; Legg. i. 8,

§ 24, ipsisque in hominibus nulla gens est etc.; Tusc. Disp. i. 13, 16, §§ 30, 36; Senec. Epist. 117, § 6, deos esse inter alia hoc colligimus quod omnibus insita de dis opinio est etc.; Epictet. Disput. i. 22, προλήψεις κοιναὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις εἰσί κ.τ.λ.; ii. 11; iv. 1.

Among all men it is considered the first duty to revere gods.a

If you travel about, you may find towns without walls, without learning, without proper authorities or dwellings, towns without wealth or such as require none and know nothing of theatres and gymnastic institutions; but a city without temples and gods, one that is ignorant of prayers and oaths and oracles, and does not offer sacrifices for the sake of obtaining benefits or averting misfortunes-such a city has never yet been seen, nor will it ever be seen: for I believe that it is more possible for a town to exist without foundations than for a community to exist without a religious belief."

с

All foreign nations have in an equal manner a knowledge of the deity, though the various nations venerate their gods under various forms.d

However widely men may differ in every other respect, all, both Greeks and barbarians, agree in this that there is one God, the Ruler and Father of all.e

II. CONSCIENCE.

To all men conscience is a god.f

With respect to the chief part of our nature, the soul, we must believe that God has given it to every man as a divine guides raising us from the earth to the similitude of heaven, since we are beings not of earthly but of celestial growth.h