this wonderful event in his existence, his presentation at Sinai, and his reception of the law from the Lord himself. The Scripture proofs which are here given are evidently nothing to the purpose. The first proof is, “God spake all these words, saying.” (Exod. xx. 1.) But every one who will take the trouble of reading the chapter will see, that “all these words” cannot apply to the prophecies, nor to the decisions of the rabbies, but to the ten commandments and to them only. So far from delivering all the decisions and comments since taught by the rabbies, God spake only the ten commandments to the people, and when they heard these, “they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (Verse 19.) To say, therefore, that God’s speaking “all these words” includes the whole oral law and all the rabbinical comments, is gross perversion of the text, and direct contradiction of Moses’ account. The next and most usual verse adduced to prove this fable is Deut. xxix. 14, 15, where it is said, “Neither with you only do I make this covenant and oath; but with him that standeth here with us this day, before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day.” But this verse plainly proves the contrary, that the other generations of Israel were there in no sense whatever. The Hebrew words are as strong as they can be. ואת אשר איננו פה עמנו היום ׃ Those with whom the covenant is made are divided into two classes, “Him that standeth here,” and “Him that is not here.” If the word standeth had been repeated, if the verse said, “With him that standeth here, and with him that standeth not here,” there might have been some colour for this fable: the rabbies might have urged that though the unborn generations did not stand there, they stood somewhere else; but the present wording of the verse utterly excludes all possibility of existence, either corporeal or incorporeal. “With him that is not here, איננו” shows that they were there in no sense.