371 
Thus Elishama would be 65 at the Exode and Joshua would 
be 29. This scheme supposes each son to become a father at 
the age of 18; an assumption surely by no means extravagant 
of the heirs of such promises. 
59. It appears then that, of four out of the twelve sons of 
Jacob, we are able to assert on the direct authority of Holy 
Scripture, that the generations from them to the Exode from 
Egypt vary from four to ten; while, of the remaining eight 
patriarchs, the records are not sufficient to enable us to deter- 
mine the point. It seems to me likely that the average was 
nearer the greater than the smaller number; that the men, 
for the most part, married early. At all events there is no 
warranty for the assertion that, characteristically and normally, 
a generation (in the sense of the word we have been assuming) 
is to be computed at fifty-four years. 
60. I venture to suggest, however, that the words of the great 
Iiomise (Gen. xv. 16), may have had a very different mean- 
ing. What Dr. Colenso confidently asserts, as a self-evident 
fact, that the four generations must be reckoned from the 
time when the seed should leave Canaan and go into Egypt, 
is a gratuitous assumption. It rather appears that the 
fourth generation'' of ver. 16, looks distinctly back to the 
four hundred years '' of ver. 13; that the two periods are 
conterminous and co-equal. How that the four hundred years 
were to begin with Abraham himself, and to be reckoned from 
the birth of the seed, de quo aqitatur, is generally admitted ; 
and even by Dr. Colenso (§ 107). He was just a hundred 
years old at the birth of his son ; and it might well be that 
Jehovah, speaking immediately with him, might take his own 
age at that then future epoch, as the standard of the genera- 
tions He foretold, announcing that, after four such generations 
as Abraham's own, the seed should come back to Canaan. 
bl. it may be said this is but a gloss, a private exegesis of 
the passage, and that Dr. Colenso's is better. But, I submit 
tins is to lose sight of the true issue. It is enough for us, the 
delenders, to give a possible, a tenable interpretation, which 
being accepted, the narrative shall be consistent. It is for 
ie opponent to show that there is no possible interpreta- 
tion, on which the narrative can be true. If he has not 
done, if he cannot do, this, he has done nothing. Here 
is the venerable Record, bearing its witness : we must 
assume its truth, until it is proved false. It will not do to say, 
• f ? ve ,, e a certa in passage in a certain prescribed sense, it 
is ialse, un ess he can compel us to admit that sense; unless 
he can absolutely drive us from every other; unless he can 
piove no other tenable. Let us only be able to suggest 
2 f2 
