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reflections upon his perceptions within: and shall we think that he had words upon his tongue sooner or faster than he acquired sentiments? Moses introduces Adam into the world in a manner far more natural: whatever Adam heard and understood from the voice of God, Moses does not hint that he attempted to speak a word, until God called him to try to name the creatures; so that here we find the first attempt Adam made to speak. We perceive likewise the manner and the process of it; for God, we are told, brought the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, unto Adam, to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. After Adam had been called to this trial, we find him able also to give a name to the woman. b But before this trial we read nothing that can induce us to think that he attempted to speak at all; rather, an attention to what was said to him by the voice of God entirely engrossed him. God brought to Adam the creatures, to see what he would call them: i. e. to put Adam upon considering how to name them. But how superfluous a thing would this have been, if Adam had had an innate word for every creature that was to be named by him? Whenever he saw a thing, the innate name for it would have readily offered itself without trial; he must have had that name for it, and he could have had no other. But the text plainly supposes that Adam, in

y Gen. ii. see to ver. 19.

z The fact here related will be more distinctly considered chap. 3. 2 Gen ii. 19.

b Ver. 23.

naming the creatures, had been more at liberty; whatsoever Adam named every living creature, that was the name thereof. He might have called them by other names than he did; he might have fixed this or that sound, just as he inclined to call this or that creature, and therefore had no innate names for any; but, having determined with himself what sound to use for the name of one, and what for another, God Almighty herein not interposing, he was left to himself, and so fixed what he determined for the name of each. But,

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I must confess, that an incident which follows may require our examination before we dismiss this point. If we consider how Eve was affected when the serpent spake to her, we see no reason to think she had any difficulty in understanding any part of what was said to her. She as readily took the meaning of what the serpent expressed to her, as either she or Adam had before apprehended what had been spoken to them by the voice of God. God doth know, said the serpent, that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. God had said nothing to them concerning their eyes being opened, nor their being as gods; and therefore, if they had no farther knowledge of the meaning of words, than of those only which the voice of God had spoken to them; here seem to have been sounds never before heard by them, and how could these be so readily received and apprehended? We

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can in no wise suppose that the serpent had God's power to make his words instantly as intelligible to Eve as he pleased.

And it will increase the difficulty, if we should consider the words here spoken as bearing not a plain but a metaphorical meaning. Their eyes were to be opened; i. e. say some, their understandings were to be enlarged open thou mine eyes, said the Psalmist, and I shall see wondrous things from thy law. The Psalmist here prays for what he elsewhere expresses in words without the figure, that God, through his commandments, would make him wiser, would give him more understanding than he should have had without them. And it may seem that, according to Moses, the event of their eyes being opened was, they knew they were naked; they had knowledge of themselves, different from what they had before; so that we may perhaps think, that Moses here used the eye of the body metaphorically, for the sense of the understanding, intending by the opening of the one the increase of the judgment of the other. Now, if this was the meaning of the words of the serpent to Eve, and if Eve thus understood them; we cannot conceive that she had been at this time a mere novice in language, just beginning to form first notions of a few original and plain words. We must rather think her an adept in the tongue which the serpent used, that she had a ready conception of all the elegance of its diction; could give its

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metaphors and figurative expression their true meaning; could receive and feel their full and real import. But to all this I answer:

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1. There was no metaphor intended by Moses in the words in which he has expressed what the serpent said to Eve. The diction of the Psalmist is indeed figurative, open thou mine eyes, and I shall see wondrous things from thy law; but the word used for open, is not the same with that of Moses; [gal nainai] says the Psalmist: the word here used is a termination of the verb galah: but Moses expresses the serpent's words to Eve, your eyes shall be opened, mp [niphkechu neincicem,'] Moses' word for shall be opened, is a termination of the verb pakach. The Hebrew language has both these verbs, and we render both by the word open; but the one only, namely galah, speaks in the metaphorical sense, means by opening the eye instructing the understanding, either by our forming a better judgment of things, or when God by vision, or in any other manner, was pleased to give an extraordinary revelation, Pakach nain signifies no more than to see, what is the object of the natural eye; and to this meaning it is confined so strictly, that although pakach nain is sometimes said of God, when he is spoken of after the manner of men ; yet it is used only where God is said to look upon such outward actions as can come under the observation of

h Psalm cxix. ubi sup.

k See Numb. xxxiv. 4.

2 Kings iv. 35. vi. 17, 20. Prov. xx. 13.

i Gen. iii. 5.

1 Gen. xxi. 9.

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the eye; wherever God is said to regard what can be matter of the attention of the mind only, the expression pakach nain is, I think, not used.

Pakach nain, therefore, carries the intention no farther than to the outward sight; signifies no more than to open the eye of the body: I might say, it has such a propriety to express this and this only, that as facere in Latin may be put as it were idiomatically for to sacrifice.

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So a participle of the verb pakach, without nain (the. word for eye) after it, may be used in the Hebrew Ianguage for one who has his eye-sight, in opposition to the being blind;" so that we use Hebrew words, not in their Hebrew or true meaning, if we take Moses, by the words he has used, to intend that the serpent had herein said any thing referring farther than to their natural eye. But,

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m See 2 Kings xix. 16. Isa. xxxvii. 17. Dan. ix. 18, &c. n Exodus iv. 11. xxiii. S. It may perhaps be here questioned, whether the words in this place used by Moses, were the very words spoken by the serpent? Indeed I apprehend they were not, as I do not conceive that Moses' Hebrew was the original unimproved language of the world. See Connect. vol. i. b. ii. But as we have all reason, whether we conceive Moses to have written by an immediate inspiration; or whether, under a divine direction, he wrote from ancient memoirs of his forefathers, which were recorded in an older, and perhaps then obsolete diction; we may and ought to allow, that he expressed in the language of his own

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