Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/169

 have therefore added that the souls of all the unborn generations were present to hear and receive the law. The comparison of this tradition with some already considered suggests several interesting topics for inquiry. For instance, whether these souls were under the mountain or not when it was turned over them—whether they performed the journey of two hundred and forty miles backwards and forwards at the giving of the ten commandments, &c.? But the authority, which this tradition confers on the oral law, demands our more immediate attention, and is particularly manifest in that version of the story, which is found in Medrash Rabba.

"'And God spake all these words, saying.' (Exod. xx. 1.) R. Isaac says, that all those things, which the prophets were to prophesy in every generation, they received from Mount Sinai, for so Moses says to Israel, 'But with him that standeth here with us this day, and also with him that is not here with us this day.' (Deut. xxix. 15.) Here in the latter clause, it is not said, 'That standeth with us this day,' but 'With him that is not here with us this day.' These are the souls that were to be created, who had no corporeal existence, and of whom therefore it could not be said they stood there. But although they did not exist in that hour, every one of them received his own, and so it is written, 'The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel in the hand of Malachi.'