Page:Cihm12428.djvu/19

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another,' they always have a plural antecedent of the things or person spoken of. Here is no such antecedent; consequently here they cannot be so translated." Page 59 of a pamphlet entitled: "The Ancient Interpretation of Leviticus xviii. 18, as received in the Church for more than 1,500 years, a Sufficient Apology for holding that, according to the Word of God, Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister is lawful." Sixteenth thousand.

DR. M'CAUL'S INTERPRETATION SUSTAINED.

Professor Robinson, the well-known oriental traveller, and most distinguished Hebraist in America, thus (in his Biblotheca Sacra) gives the reason for Dr. McCaul's interpretation:

"The phrase, 'a woman to her sister,' does indeed occur no less than eight times elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, in the general meaning, 'one to another,' but only of inanimate objects in the feminine gender—viz., of the curtains, loops and tenons of the tabernacle,—Exodus xxvi. 3, bis, 5, 6, 17; and of the wings of the living creatures, Ezekiel I. 9, 23; iii, 13. The like phrase 'a man to his brother, 'occurs in all about twenty times; mostly of men, but also in a few instances of inanimate objects or insects, of Exodus xxv, 29; Joel 11–8. But it is to be remarked that in every such instance, this phrase, whether of the masculine or feminine gender, has a reciprocal distributive power,—that is, a number of persons or things are said to do, or be so, one to another. Exodus xiv. 15 and often. 'So Abraham and Lot separated themselves one from another.' Genesis xiii. 11; Nehemiah iv. 19; Isaiah ix. 19. In the Hebrew: 'They shall not spare one another,' Haggai ii. 22. 'And the horses and their riders shall come down, each by the sword of the other,—i. e., they shall destroy one another. So of other examples. The only apparent exception as to form is Ezekiel xxxviii. 21., 'Every man's sword shall be against his brother,' here too, the idea of multitude and of reciprocal and mutual action among individuals is fully