led at the time when the Septuagint translation was made,
but I have no hesitation in affirming that no trace of them can be
found in the Old Testament. In proof of this, I may refer to some of
the passages which have been cited as affording the strongest
instances of this kind of "accommodation." In Exodus xxiv., 10, we
are told, "And they saw the God of Israel, and under his feet as it
were a paved work of sapphire, and as it were the heaven itself in its
clearness." This is evidently a comparison of the pavement seen under
the feet of Jehovah to a sapphire in its color, and to the heavens in
its transparency. The intention of the writer is not to give
information respecting the heavens, or to liken them either to a
pavement or a sapphire; all that we can infer is that he believed the
heavens to be clear or transparent. Job mentions the "pillars of
heaven," but the connection shows that this is merely a poetical
expression for lofty mountains. The earthquake causes these pillars of
heaven to "tremble." We are informed in the book of Job that God "ties
up his waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under
them." We are also told of the "treasures of snow and the treasures of
hail," and rain is called the "bottles of heaven," and is said to be
poured out of the "lattices of heaven." I recognize in all these mere
poetical figures, not intended to be literally understood. Some
learned writers wish us to believe that the intention of the Bible in
these places is actually to teach that the clouds are contained in
skin bottles, or something similar, and that they are emptied through
hatches in a solid firmament. To found such a belief, however, on a
few figurative statements, seems ridiculous, especially when we
consider that the writers of the Scriptures show themselves to be well
acquainted with nature, and would not be likely on any account to
deviate so far from the ordinary testimony of the senses; more
especially as by doing so they would enable every unlettered man who
has seen a cloud gather on a mountain's brow or dissolve away before
increasing heat to oppose the evidence of his senses to their
statements, and perhaps to reject them with scorn as a barefaced
imposture. But, lastly, we are triumphantly directed to the question
of Elihu in his address to Job:

"Hast thou with him stretched out the sky,
Which is firm and like a molten mirror?"

But the word translated sky here is not "_rakiah_," or "