of the former owner the difference that was wanting, and leaves the land
to him; and if the fruits received, and the expenses laid out, prove
equal to one another, the present possessor relinquishes it to the
former owners. Moses would have the same law obtain as to those houses
also which were sold in villages; but he made a different law for such
as were sold in a city; for if he that sold it tendered the purchaser
his money again within a year, he was forced to restore it; but in case
a whole year had intervened, the purchaser was to enjoy what he had
bought. This was the constitution of the laws which Moses learned of God
when the camp lay under Mount Sinai, and this he delivered in writing to
the Hebrews.
4. Now when this settlement of laws seemed to be well over, Moses
thought fit at length to take a review of the host, as thinking it
proper to settle the affairs of war. So he charged the heads of the
tribes, excepting the tribe of Levi, to take an exact account of the
number of those that were able to go to war; for as to the Levites, they
were holy, and free from all such burdens. Now when the people had been
numbered, there were found six hundred thousand that were able to go to
war, from twenty to fifty years of age, besides three thousand six
hundred and fifty. Instead of Levi, Moses took Manasseh, the son of
Joseph, among the heads of tribes; and Ephraim instead of Joseph. It was
indeed the desire of Jacob himself to Joseph, that he would give him his
sons to be his own by adoption, as I have before related.
5. When they set up the tabernacle, they received it into the midst of
their camp, three of the tribes pitching their tents on each side of it;
and roads were cut through the midst of these tents. It was like a well-
appointed market; and every thing was there ready for sale in due order;
and all sorts of artificers were in the shops; and it resembled nothing
so much as a city that sometimes was movable, and sometimes fixed. The
priests had the first places about the tabernacle; then the Levites,
who, because their whole multitude was reckoned from thirty days old,
were twenty-three thousand eight hundred and eighty males; and during
the time that the cloud stood over the tabernacle, they thought proper
to stay in the same place, as supposing that God there inhabited among
them; but when that removed, they journeyed also.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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