410 
these fanciful emendations of Hebrew numbers— a difficulty so strangely 
overlooked by Dr. Thornton -the concord of Hebrew numerals. I would 
venture to affirm my full conviction that a closer investigation of the Hebrew 
text, combined with a fairer and more reverential study of the Divine Reve- 
lation contained in it than has hitherto been made by either German or 
English commentators, will not only establish the fact that, in the early 
copies of the Hebrew Scriptures, numeral letters or symbols for numbers were 
never employed, but will scatter all conjectural emendations to the winds. 
My complaint against modern commentators and essayists is this, that in 
the place of such investigation and such study, there is a servile submission 
to the dictum of some German. There is a general neglect among both clergy 
and laity of a thorough searching of the Scriptures, just as amongst geologists 
there is a want of deep and extensive investigation of the strata of the earth. 
(Cheers.) The day has yet to come, but I trust it will soon come, when by large 
numbers of the learned men in our universities and colleges, the Scriptures, 
both of the Old Testament and of the New, will be carefully studied, as the 
Word of God ; when they shall be diligently searched from end to end, and 
so by appointed means of comparing Scripture with Scripture, the truth be 
not barely conjectured, but found and believed. I thank you for allowing 
these few words in connection with my paper, which I am glad to find has met 
with the approval of one or two of our best lawyers and of several of our 
best divines. 
Mr. Graham. — I would mention one fact which has not yet been noticed, 
it is that in the Septuagint, the translation made about three hundred years 
before the time of our Blessed Lord, we find numbers expressed in words, 
not by numerical letters. 
Mr. R. W. Dibdin. — Several speakers have referred to the acts of Samson, 
and his killing a thousand people with the jawbone of an ass, and one or 
two seem to think that that statement cannot be borne out by the facts 
as they probably occurred. Mr. Row said we must not fall back on miracles for 
an explanation, but he did not deny that most of that story, if true, must-be 
miraculous. Samson must not be considered as an ordinary man— any one 
who could carry the gates of Gaza to the top of a hill could do more in 
slaying Philistines than any ordinary man could do,* and when it is stated 
in the Scriptures it has a large claim upon our belief. We know that the 
event made a great sensation among the Philistines, which it scarcely would 
have done if there had been only two or three of the Philistines slain. The 
narrative seems to show, apart from the fact that the number 1,000 is men- 
tioned, that there must have been a considerable number killed, and I do 
not think we are justified in saying that it was not so. 
* Josephus refers to this ; Kitto found that “ the place of the gate ” is 
still shown, though the former city has been destroyed ; Porter also, in ms 
“ Giant Cities,” mentions he found that the inhabitants show the nilD" 
which from its position he considered must have been the one up which 
the gates were carried— and had a tradition that Samson, a giant, came to 
Ghuzzeh (Gaza), and “ took the gates of the infidels ” to the top of it.— Ed. 
