72 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



sensual gratification which luxury could suggest, and riches 

 procure. 



In times of primeval simplicity, when mankind in general, 

 almost constantly engaged in hazardous pursuits, or toilsome occu- 

 pations, required for their sustenance a very large quantity of solid 

 and nutritious food, the full grown ox himself was forced to con- 

 tribute a principal part of every public entertainment. When 

 Adonijah seized the sceptre of Israel, he slew sheep and oxen, and 

 fat cattle; and called ali his brethren the king's sons, and all the 

 men of Israel the king's servants, 1 Kings i. 9. The son of Sha- 

 phat made a feast equally substantial, when he was invested with 

 the prophetic office (1 Kings xix. 2J .); and abundance of oxen 

 and sheep' were provided for the great and splendid entertainment 

 at the coronation of David, 1 Chron. xii. 40. When Jehoshaphat, 

 the king of Judah, went down to visit Ahab, the king of Israel, at 

 Samaria, the latter killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance 

 and for the people that were with him, 2 Chron. xviii. 2. This 

 was the kind offcast in which they chiefly delighted ; from which 

 they could be deterred, neither by the denunciations of Divine 

 judgment, nor the terrors of immediate invasion : ' And in that day 

 did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping and mourning, and to 

 baldness, and to girding with sackcloth ; and behold, joy and glad- 

 ness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking 

 wine,' Isa. xxii. 12, 13. The same custom seems to have continu- 

 ed to the very close of their national state ; for, in the parable of 

 the marriage feast, the invitation runs : ' Behold, I have prepared 

 my dinner; my oxen and my fallings are killed, and all things are 

 ready ; come unto the marriage,' Matt. xxii. 4. 



It has generally been thought that the Israelites, in making the 

 golden calf which they worshipped in the wilderness (Exodus, 

 xxxii.), were imitating the Egyptians in the worship of Apis, whom 

 they intended to represent by the image which they constructed ; 

 as did Jeroboam, also, in setting up the calves at Bethel, 1 Kings 

 xii. 27 30. It must be confessed, however, that this opinion is 

 involved in considerable difficulty, and several expressions in the 

 course of the narrative leave much room to question whether such 

 were really the case, in either instance. It is hardly credible, that 

 not only should thejoeop/e, but JJaron, also, at so short an interval 

 after those astonishing displays of the divine majesty and power 

 which they had witnessed, so utterly divest their minds of the occur- 

 rence as this opinion would seem to imply. Besides, it should not be 

 Jost sight of, that it attributes to them the adoption of an Egyptian 

 deity, whom, from past circumstances, if they could really believs 

 in his existence, they must have regarded as a most implacable 

 enemy. But what seems still more decisive against this notion, is 

 the fact, that after the calf was formed, and recognised by the peo- 

 ple, as 'the gods' who had 'brought them up out of the land of 

 Egypt,' (ver. 4), Aaron ' built an altor before it, and made proclama- 

 tion, and said, To-morrow is a feast to JEHOVAH' not to APIS. 



