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

Bush on Genesis.
mean "to seek the execution of judgment upon one's owrn
head." Ideas radically opposite we should think; and that
they may be interchanged at pleasure, or that by the same
phrase both may be conveyed in any one connection, will
not, we presume, be contended.
But there need be no difficulty in accurately rendering the
first clause of vs. 5. The English version reads, *' and surely
your blood of your lives will I require." Our author's paraphrase is, "I will require your blood in return for the lifeblood which you have shed," understanding =:n w'n, "to
require one's blood" as to slay one, in face of its established signification "to avenge one's blood as already
slain."
This latter sense we consider the genuine and only proper
one of which the phrase is capable.
The Notes before us adduce references which determine
this material difference" against themselves. Gen. xlii. 22.
"Therefore behold also his blood is required." Joseph's
brethren by this language, surely did not mean that the life
of their brother was to be taken. They supposed alas! that
he had already fallen a sacrifice, and stood in fearful expectancy of an inquisition for his blood. Ps. ix. 12.
A strict adherence to the "forms of words" is our best
security for arriving at "substance of doctrine."
The blood even of beasts must be held sacred, (vs. 4.) And
surely (vs. 5,) your life-blood I will avenge. Taking the
author's meaning of vin, the sentiment runs thus, "To the
blood even of beasts there must be attached peculiar sacredness. And, surely, your blood will I shed; an incongruity
which he seeks to relieve by turning the essential idea upon
the force ofa and assigning to it a very unusual bearing.
But allowving for this all that the author claims, we have,
"Your blood will I shed in return for your lives (i. e. the
lives of your brethren); I will shed it, by means of every
beast-b.y means of man-by means of every man's brother will I seek the life of man. In this last clause, we
see not how he avoids the idiomatic force of (darash), except he would have us consider it as covertly involving the
curse of Ishmael's posterity. This indeed, would seem
quite as legitimate as "a tacit reference to Goelism."
Again.-There appears no evidence in the actual state of
things eitherthen, or since, of a divine'provisional expedient,'
by which every beast was charged with the destruction of a
murderer. The quotation from Job, simply embodies in
1839.]
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