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(^74) Among the Spartans a double, among the Cretans a fourfold portion was set before
princes and rulers. In Egypt the proportion seems to have been five times.
(^75) The Greek version of the LXX gives the number at seventy-five, and from it, as
best known among the Jews at the time, St. Stephen quotes (Acts 7:14). This number
results, of course, from a slightly different arrangement of the table. That in the
Hebrew text names of Leah: Six sons, twenty-five grandsons, and two great-
grandsons, besides Dinah; of Zilpah: Two sons, eleven grandsons, two great-
grandsons, and one daughter; of Rachel: Two sons, and twelve grandsons; and of
Bilhah: Two sons and five grandsons. The two "daughter" are inserted for special
reasons.
(^76) Mr. Grove, in Smith' Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1, p. 711.
(^77) It is well known that one of the Egyptian monuments exhibits so striking an
illustration of this entrance of the children of Israel into Egypt, that some have
regarded it, though on insufficient grounds, as an actual representation of the event.
The strangers are evidently of Semitic race, and came with their wives and children.
(^78) It is most instructive to notice in this history the frequent change of the names of
Jacob and Israel.
(^79) We translate literally. The Greek translators, or LXX, from whom the quotation is
made in Hebrews 11:21, have, by the slightest change in the Hebrew word, rendered
it, "worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff." The meaning is substantially the
same.
(^80) The laying on of hands formed also an essential part in offering sacrifices. The
offerer laid his hands on the victim, and confessed his sins, - thus transferring them,
and constituting the sacrifice his substitute.
(^81) The Hebrew puts it with the article - not merely God, but the God.
(^82) Or "shepherded," like Psalms 23:1; 28:9. See also its fullness in John 10:11.
(^83) The tense in verse 22 is the prophetic past, in which the future is seen as already
achieved.
(^84) We always translate literally.
(^)