*Chapter ii., v. 30. 'The Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate.' The 'hardening of heart' has been remarked upon in pages 50 and 52, in the case of Pharaoh. It is useless to fill the work with mere repetitions; but I feel bound to draw attention again to such texts as this, which clearly demonstrate, to even the most obtuse mind, that the Book cannot be a revelation from an immutable Deity. That a merciful and loving God should harden any man's heart is unreasonable in the extreme; and that he should do it for the purpose of affording an excuse for slaughter, is a blasphemous proposition, which every Theist ought to deny. Can men wonder that Atheists grow in number, when the character of the Deity is delineated in such a contradictory and absurd manner? A just God grossly unjust, a merciful God cruel in the extreme, an immutable God constantly changing; in fact, a God consistent only in the attribute of incomprehensibility! {81} *Chapter iii., v. 11. '"For only Og, King of Bashan, remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron: is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and five cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." 'Dr. Pyle (in the Family Bible) remarks on this passage:-- '"It is probable that either Og conveyed his iron bedstead, with other furniture of his palace, into the country of the Ammonites, to prevent their falling into the hands of the Israelites; or else the Ammonites had taken it from him in some former conquest, and kept it as a monument of their victory." 'Either of these cases would be probable, if it could be first proved that Moses wrote this verse, and that he knew of Og's bed being kept in Rabbath. But as Rabbath was not taken by the Israelites until the time of David, as we read in 2 Samuel, xii., 26, '"And Joab fought against Rabbah, of the children of Ammon, and took the royal city." 'It is very unlikely that the Israelites knew anything about the bedstead of King Og until then. In the reign of David, five hundred years had passed since Og lived, and his bedstead had consequently become an object of curiosity; like the great bed of Ware, which is still shown in that town, though only three hundred years old. It is hardly possible that Moses knew anything about this bedstead of King Og, afterwards so famous.' Verse 11. 'Is it not in Rabbath, of the children of Ammon?' This could scarcely have been written by Moses, for the reasons just stated. Verse 24. 'What God is there in heaven, or in earth, that can do according to thy work?' This is a strange phrase from the lips of a man who only believed in one God. *Chapter iv., vv. 21 and 22. The Lord said, that not one of the Israelites, except Caleb, and his seed, should enter the promised land (_vide_ Numbers, chap, xiv., v. 24). Yet here Moses says, 'I must not go over Jordan, but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.'