119 
33. (3.) The language of Scripture is popular, not scientific, 
and we therefore find round numbers used ; and in poetical 
passages there is, no doubt, the same poetic freedom used that 
we find in the poetry of every age and nation. The man who 
said he had seen the ceremonies of the 9th of November 
hundreds of times did not intend to tell a falsehood ; he merely 
employed the popular (and highly incorrect) mode of express- 
ing that he had seen them a greater number of times than he 
could readily reckon up. So “ hundreds/' and “ thousands," 
in poetry or quasi-poetry, simply mean large companies. 
Those philosophers who object to popular language must, as I 
have already hinted, cease to talk of sunrise and sunset, and of 
moonlight too ; they must not think of shooting game, because 
they shoot (O.E. scytan , to send forth) the shot, not the 
animal ; they must not say that they string their harps, guitars, 
or violins, with catgut, nor that they place their valuable 
papers in a tin box. If they use such phrases themselves, 
they must permit the employment of similar modes of ex- 
pression in the Book which is intended for all men and for all 
time. 
34. (4.) Besides the use of round numbers, there was a 
tendency on the part of scribes, if not of authors, to employ 
multiples of the sacred numbers 3, 7, 1 0. Seventies particu- 
larly come under this remark. Indeed, if we may reverently 
say so, we have the highest sanction for considering them mere 
symbolic numbers : it was never meant that our forgiveness 
should cease at the 490th offence. 
35. (5.) But the most fertile source of errors in the text of 
Scripture as regards numbers is the very inartificial manner 
in which those numbers were represented. There were no 
special marks to represent numbers, such as we employ; the 
numerals we call Arabic were used in India at an early period, 
but were not brought westward till considerably later. The 
letters of the alphabet were employed to signify units, tens, 
and hundreds ; two dashes or dots after a letter made it repre- 
sent so many thousands. A smear therefore, or a blot, would 
raise an authentic into a highly- exaggerated number. Again, 
numbers might be mistaken for words, and words for numbers ; 
and the letters themselves might be easily mistaken one for 
another. In the square Hebrew character which we now use, 
Resh and Daleth, He and Kheth, Teth and Mem, Ghimel and 
Nun, Zain and Nun final, Mem final and Samech, are very 
similar ; that is, 4 and 200, 5 and 8, 9 and 40, 3 and 50, 7 and 
700, 60 and 600, might readily be interchanged. In the 
Samaritan alphabet, 2, 4, 200 (Beth, Daleth, Resh), 10 and 
90 (Yod andTsade), 9 and 70 (Teth and 'Ain), 1 and 400 
