375 
away. One of two things : either (1) the congregation was 
one which, while it was <e gathered to the door/' reached also 
three-quarters of a mile away ; or (2) the congregation was, 
in bulky occupying its ordinary place in the tents of the 
camp, while, in delegate , it was assembled at the tabernacle 
door. Either hypothesis consists with the text, and either 
solves the difficulty. 
70. Dr. Golenso has another chapter on this matter. “ How 
is it conceivable that a man should do what [Moses and] 
Joshua are here said to have done ? " (p. 36.) To this it may 
be replied, “ Qui facit per alium, facit per se ." In the delivery 
of the Law to the people at the close of his course, while, from 
Deut. i. 1, 5 ; iv. 44, 45 ; v. 1, &c., it would seem that Moses 
alone and individually was engaged ; yet, from xxvii. 1, we infer 
that the elders were associated with him in the work, they 
speaking as his delegates, and so lightening the labour ; while 
yet it was, essentially , in each publication, the utterance of 
Moses. Again, we learn (xxxi. 28 — 30) that the minatory 
Song of chap, xxxii., which is said to have been spoken by 
Moses in the ears of all the congregation," was actually 
spoken by him “ in the ears " of “ the elders of the tribes and 
their officers." And we may well suppose that Joshua at 
Mount Ebal (Josh, viii.) availed himself of the like resource, 
he reading personally to the elders and officers and judges," 
or else to the Levites, the words of the Law, which they then 
repeated in various parts of the assembled crowd. Of course, 
we need not understand that more than the curses and the 
blessings of Deut. xxvii. and xxviii. were read; and this 
reading had been expressly prescribed to the Levites (Deut. 
xxvii. 14). 
71. The “ impossibility " of the transaction on Mounts Ebal 
and Gerizim is so strenuously insisted on, that it comes up 
again in a later volume of the same work (iii. 539). A good 
deal of the difficulty is of the character which I call. Siamese; 
“ it is not easy to see " — u in what way " this or that was con- 
ducted. But an aspect which furnishes another thrust at the 
populousness of Israel deserves a moment's consideration. If 
two millions of persons were gathered — “ all the congregation 
of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers 
that were conversant among them " (Josh. viii. 35), how could 
they stand ? “ They would stretch for miles " (§ 774) ; no 
human voice could reach their ears" (§ 41). “ Joshua cannot 
be supposed to have read first to one party, then to another : 
• • • • the day would not have sufficed " (§ 42) . There- 
fore the account is imaginary. 
72. Now, it is admitted that the length of the valley between 
