Notes Critical and Practical, on the Book of Genesis. By George Bush [pp. 271-301]

Bush on Genesis.
minister punishment?" We can conceive of cases, to be
sure, in which it would be quite convenient for one imme(liately concerned to turn the tables thus, by urging a literal
interpretation, but the technicalities of Roman law could not
thus be nullified. If liberties of this kind may be taken in
one case, where no necessity requires, we see not why
the same may not be adopted elsewhere on the most trivial
grounds.
But additional violence is done to the passage before us,
by taking ar in a sense almost, if not quite, unparalleled.
We recollect of but a single case where it can be understood
of instrumental agency, viz. Mal. i. 9; and this is in an
obscure connection, where the bearing of 3zvu is not agreed
upon; and where also it occurs in construction with.n,n. The
authorized and uniform expression for "by means of" which
the author claims from arm, is i,a as in Mal. i. 1. "The burden of the Lord by (b'yadh, by the hand of) Malachi.'"
Exod. iv. 13, "Send, I pray thee, by the hand of (b'yadh,)
him whom thou wilt send." So Jer. xxxvii. 2.
But there can be no doubt respecting the force of
(t') when construed with the verb (darash), and that
especially in connection with (Di). Though the phrase is
idiomatic, no English reader familiar with the Scriptures,
fails properly to apprehend it; and it is only with an effort
that in the minds of the learned, the legitimate meaning
becomes superseded. In Ezekiel, chapter xxiii. all understand the import of the phrase, "his blood will I require at
the watchman's hand." So verse 8, "If thou dost not speak
to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die
in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand."
In Scripture usage, "Sanguinem repetere ab aliquo," is
equivalent to "c mdem ulcisci." The blood sought, is blood
already spilt. It matters greatly whether we are to consider
the person firom whom' ab aliquo,' (is vmr), it is to be recovered as one who is to obtain it, as an agent, from the
murderer, or as himself the individual upon whose person it
is to be found. And that the same language should convey
both ideas is, in the nature of things, impossible. Just so in
the Latin expression, analagous for our purpose, "petere
poenas ab aliquo," the person from whom punishment is
sought is the culprit the individual who is himself to suffer,
and not by any means, he who is to administer justice
upon the offender. To interpret these words literally, we
must understand that instead of to punish another, they
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