Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/189

 bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.' (Deut. xxxii. 8.) Upon which Rashi thus comments:—

"On account of the number of the children of Israel who were to proceed from the sons of Shem, and according to the number of the seventy souls of the children of Israel who descended into Egypt, he set the bounds of the people, that is, the seventy languages. That this latter clause is altogether arbitrary, and a mere gratuitous addition, is plain from an inspection of the text, where not one syllable is said about the seventy souls, nor about the number of the nations, but about the fixing the bounds of their habitations. Rashi himself did not trust in this exposition, and he has therefore given another:—"On account of the number of the children of Israel who were to proceed from the children of Shem." Aben Esra also passes by the seventy nations altogether, and says that, "According to the number of the children of Israel," means, that the bounds of the nations were so set as to leave sufficient room for the Israelites. His words are—

"The commentators have interpreted this of the generation of the dispersion, when all the earth was scattered, for then God decreed that Israel should have the land of the seven nations, which would be sufficient for them, therefore it is said, 'according to the number of the children of Israel.'" This verse, then, gives no colour to the opinion that there are only seventy nations and seventy languages. Fact proves that the number is much greater, for the Bible exists already in twice that number of languages, and the work of translation is not yet accomplished. The oral law, therefore, fails altogether in attaining the object which it had in view in telling this extraordinary story. It wished to say, that in the Sanhedrin there never was need of an interpreter, for that every member understood every language in the world, and believing that there were only seventy languages, it stated this number. But now we know that even if each member understood seventy languages, yet to be able to decide cases for all the nations of the earth, they would have required to know as many more. The oral law then, betrays here an utter ignorance of the state of the world, which shows that it is not from that God who confounded the languages