158 LT.-COL. G. MAC KI XL AY ON BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY. 



whereas, if the earth is round, then of course the north is stretched 

 over empty space, there being an imaginary line called north which 

 touches the earth as a tangent of a circle at one point alone. 



Respecting the Hebrew word khiig, of whose employment in Isaiah 

 xl, 22, Colonel Mackinlay has spoken, and which both our A.Y. and 

 R.V. there render " circle," the same word in Prov. viii, 27, is 

 rendered by the A.V. " compass " and by the R.V. "circle," the 

 full clause in the R.V. being " He sets a circle upon the face of the 

 deep " ; and it is plain that the circular horizon of the sea is intended. 

 So, too, where in Job xxvi, 10, R.V., we read that He "described a 

 boundary upon the face of the waters," the verb khag, translated 

 " described," clearly means drew a horizontal circle. But in the 

 passage before us, " It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, 

 and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers," since God could 

 have contemplated all men only from above, not a horizontal, but a 

 vertical circle must have been signified — that is, a meridian circle 

 from zenith to nadir, which can exist only if the earth be a globe. 



I think with Colonel Mackinlay that, besides a figurative, spiritual 

 meaning that the five pillars of the tabernacle entrance probably 

 possessed, they were also designed to prevent the worship of the sun, 

 while the fact which he has further brought to light, that Solomon's 

 temple had also a central blank wall between two entrances, instead 

 of the customary and majestic central doorway of temple or palace, 

 confirms this view, for whereas the type (if it be a type) is changed, 

 the same striking departures from custom is maintained. 



Professor Ramsay has determined that the Saviour must have 

 been crucified either in 28 or 29 A.D., and almost certainly in 29 ; 

 and it is remarkable indeed, as Colonel Mackinlay has shown us, 

 that wnen we take 29 as a date, and treat the morning star as 

 alluded to in the figurative language used concerning John the 

 Baptist (the forerunner of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness), the 

 allusions all fit with the presence or absence and luminosity of 

 Venus before the dawn. As regards the last recorded testimony of 

 the Baptist (in Johniii, 27-30), it must have been uttered between 

 four and five months before the end of the year 27, when Venus was 

 just beginning to be a morning star; for what called forth the 

 testimony was the complaints of John's disciples that all men were 

 going to Jesus instead of John for baptism ; and the next thing- 

 recorded is that " therefore " when Jesus knew that this report had 



