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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 Excerpt: ...in its character as an ethical treatise, is almost unique--there being no other lengthy portion of Holy Scripture occupied with a geographical description similar to that contained in Joshua 15 to 19. Yet there is one short passage (not later but earlier than Joshua) with which, in this matter, and consequently in respect of Tense, Joshua 15-19 may be compared. That passage, namely Numbers 21. 15, occurs not in an address pointing forward to the future like Numbers 34. 1-12, just discussed, but in a narrative of past events in the history of the children of Israel:: asm ih jyew-ij; razh no:/-mt ubran new And the stream of the brooks, which stretcheth to the dwelling of Ar, And Leaneth to the border of Moab. Here the bare preterite ntM corresponds exactly to 12V and WB in Joshua 19. 13, 34, while, with equal exactness, corresponds to nijn, WB1, KV1, 3DJ1 in the immediate context of-OV and WB and throughout the geographical parts of Joshua 15-19. 270 Language adapted to its Subject. Now although, in respect of subject-matter, there is a wide and obvious difference between the geography of these five chapters and the autobiography of Ecclesiastes, yet the Book of Ecclesiastes and the geographical portions of the Book of Joshua are alike in respect of the rareness of that peculiar sequence for the expression of which vau conversive of the imperfect is specially adapted. There was very little occasion for the use of the historic imperfect either in the geographical outlines recorded by the ancient historian or in the ethical discussions of Koheleth. Hence the frequency of the preterite with simple vau in Ecclesiastes, and its much greater frequency in Joshua 15-19, are to be explained and accounted for on one and the same common principle, that 'language must be...