not to have cared what became of himself or his family; and is thought
here to address his maker, offering distinguishing favors to him, as
Daniel did Belthazzar--"thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards
to another--I desire none of them for myself or mine--If Israel die in
the wilderness, let me die with them"--From angry Jonah such a reply
to the kind offers of a gracious God might not surprize us; but it was
not to have been expected from the meekest of mankind. DOCT. HUNTER,
in his biographical lectures, explodes this idea of Moses' asking to
be damned for the salvation of Israel, and shews the absurdity of that
construction of the text, but understands him as praying to die
himself, before sentence should be executed on his people, if they
were not pardoned. And in the declaration, _whosoever hath sinned
against me, him will I blot out of my book_, he discovers an
intimation, that that offending people should die short of the
promised land! A discovery without a clew. This sin of Israel was
pardoned. Sentence of death in the wilderness was occasioned by a
subsequent act of rebellion, as will be shewn in the sequel.*

* Vid. Hunter's Lect. Vol. iv. Lect. iv

Mr. Fismin considers Moses as here praying to be blotted out of
the page of history, if Israel were not pardoned; so that no record of
his name, or the part which he had acted in the station assigned him,
should he handed down to posterity. An exposition differing from the
plain language of sacred history--_Blot me, I pray thee, out of thy
book, which thou hast written_. The page of history is written by man.

Such are the constructions which have been put on this scripture. The
considerations which have been suggested, oblige us to reject them
all, as founded in mistake. Our sense of the passage, and the reasons,