sing certain arithmetical difficulties
in the Pentateuch. Thus he finds the number of Levites (in Numbers) to
differ, when summed up from the single items, from that given in
the total. Worse than that, he finds that all the gold and silver
contributed to the sanctuary is not accounted for, and, clinching his
argument, he cries, 'Is, then, your master Moses a thief or a kubiustis?
Or could he not make up his accounts properly?' The critic is then
informed of a certain difference between 'sacred' and other coins; and
he further gets a lesson in the matter of Levites and Firstborn, which
silences him. Again, the Talmud decides that, if a man have bought a
slave who turns out to be a thief or a kubiustis,--which has here been
erroneously explained to mean a 'manstealer,'--he has no redress. He
must keep him, as he bought him, or send him away; for he has bought him
with all his vices.

Regarding the translation 'sleight' in the A.V., this seems a correct
enough rendering of the term as far as the SENSE of the passage
goes, and comes very near the many ancient translations--'nequitia,'
'versutia,' 'inanis labor,' 'vana et inepta (?) subtilitas,' &c., of the
Fathers. Luther has 'Schalkheit,'--a word the meaning of which at
his time differed considerably from our acceptation of the term. The
Thesaurus takes Paul's cubeia (s.v.) more literally, to mean 'in alea
hominum, i. e., in certis illis casibus quibus jactantur homines.'(59)

(59) E. Deutseh in the Athenaeum of Sept. 28, 1867.

The ancient tali, marked and thrown as above described, were also used
in DIVINATION, just as dice are at the present day; and doubtless the
interpretations were the same among the ancients--for all superstitions
are handed down from generation to generation with wondrous fidelity.
The procedure is curious enough, termed 'the art of telling fortunes by
dice.'

Three dice are taken and well shaken in the box with the left hand, and
then cast out on a board or table on which a circle is previously
drawn with chalk; and the following are the supposed predictions of the
throws:--

Three, a pleasing surprise; four, a disagreeable one; five, a stranger
who will prove a friend; six, loss of property; seven, undeserved
scandal; eight, merited reproach; nine, a wedding; ten, a christening,
at which some important event will occur; eleven, a death that concerns
you; twelve, a letter speedily; thirteen, tears and sighs; fourteen,
beware that you are