£.5 §rom f0e £»6rarg of (professor HWfiam ^enrg (Bireen QSequeaf 0eo 6g 0tm fo f0e £t6rarg of (princefon £#eofogtcaf ^etninarg >-P w^A ^u ■X ^*y>>3^j-f 0' Vr"n X4-V «* *> ~ ^ 0 % ILLUSTRATIONS HOLY SCRIPTURES, THRIVED PRINCIPALLY FROM THE MANNERS. CUSTOMS, RITES, TRADITIONS, FORMS OF SPEECH ANTIQUITIES CLIMATE, AND WORKS OF ART AND LITERATURE, EASTERN NATIONS; EMEODT1NG ALL THAT IS VALUABLE IN THE WORKS OF HARMER, BURDER, PAXTON, AND ROBERTS, AND TEE MOST CELEBRATED ORIENTAL TRAVELLERS; EMBRACING ALSO THE SUBJECT OP THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY, AS EXHIBITED BY KEITH AND OTHERS ; * WITH DESCRIPTIONS OP THE PRESENT S TATE OF COUNTRIES AND PLACES MENTIONED IN THE SACRED WRITINGS, ILLUSTR/TED BY NUMEROUS LANDSCAPE ENGRAVINGS, FROM SKETCHES TAKEN ON THE SPOT. EDITED BY REV. GEORGE BUSH, EBREW AND ORIENTAL LITERATURE IN THE NEW YOI PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1856. Entered, according to Act ot t unurtss in the year 1S3G, by JOHN C. MOLBKOOTC, in the Clerk's Office of 'he District . r*ourt of Vermont. PREFACE. Next in wcrlh and importance to the possession, is doubtless to be estimated the correct interpretation of the sacred rolume. Indeed, it is the latter which gives its value to the former. A revelation not understood, or not intelligible, is no revelation, as far as its recipients are concerned. The position, therefore, that the meaning of the Bible is the Bible, we consider as unquestionably true, and consequently any new accession of light, which goes to clear up its obscurities, and cause its genuine sense to stand forth in bolder relief upon the inspired page, is in reality enriching us with a larget amount of its treasures, and virtually bestowing upon us added communications of the Divine will. In this view, the progressive elucidation of the scriptures, whether by the expository labours of critics, the researches of travellers, or the fulfilments of prophecy, may be compared to the gradual rolling away of the morning mist from a splendid landscape. As the sun advances, the shades retire, and new and interesting features of the scenery are continually opening upon the delighted eye of the spectator. Or, it may be said to resemble the slow, but momentous process of unfolding the ancient papyri, which the ravages of time and fire have spared among the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Here, as every successive word and letter, which can be redeemed from the crisp and crumbling texture of the blackened parchment, is noted down with the most scrupulous care, as forming a part of the continuous record, and going to make out its entire sense ; so the sense of the sacred volume is gradually elicited, item by item, and needs only to be collected and treasured up with equal solicitude, in order to constitute a possession of infinitely more value than the choicest literary relics of antiquity. Perhaps it may be safely affirmed, that the materials are at this moment in existence, for the satisfactory solution of nearly every doubtful passage of holy writ ; but the great desideratum is to have them brought together— to collect them from their wide dispersion over a countless multitude of writings, in various languages, which the great majority of Christians can neither procure nor understand. It is only in this way that they can be made really available to the great end which they are calculated to subserve ; and far from idle are the claims of any one who professes to bring from scattered sources a new quota to the general stock of biblical illustration. As the Bible, in its structure, spirit, and costume, is essentially an Eastern book, it is obvious that the natural phenomena, and the moral condition of the East, should be made largely tributary to its elucidation. In order to appreciate fully the truth of its descriptions, and the accuracy, force, and beauty of its various allusions, it is indispensable that the reader, as far as possible, separate himself from his ordinary associations, and put himself, by a kind of mental transmi- gration, into the very circumstances of the writers. He must set himself down in the midst of oriental scenery— gaze upon the sun, sky, mountains, and rivers of Asia— go forth with the nomade tribes of the desert— follow their flocks- travel with their caravans— rest in their tents— lodge in their khans— load and unload their camels— drink at theit watering-places— pause during the heat of the day under the shade of their palms— cultivate the fields with their own rude implements— gather in or glean after their harvests— beat out and ventilate the grain in their open thrashing-floors- dress in their costume— note their proverbial or idiomatic forms of speech, and listen to the strain of song or story, with which they beguile the vacant hours. In a word, he must surround himself with, and transfuse himself into, all the forms, habitudes, and usages of oriental life. In this way only can he catch the sources of their imagery, or enter into full communion with the genius of the sacred penmen. While, therefore, we readily concede the very high importance of critical and philological research in dissipating the obscurities of the scriptures, and fixing their exact sense, we cannot, at the same time, but think that the collatera. illustrations derived from this source, are deserving of at least equal attention from the student of revelation. The truth is, the providence of God, which is never more worthily employed than about his Word, seems now to be directing the eves of his servants, as with pointed finger, to the immense stores of elucidation constantly accumulating from this quarter. The tide of travel within a few years, has turned remarkably to the East. Animated either by the noble spirit of missionary enterprise, of commercial speculation, of military adventure, or laudable curiosity, men of intelligence and observation have made their way into every region on which the light of revelation originally shone; exploring its antiquities, mingling with its inhabitants, detailing its manners and customs, and displaying its physical, moral, and political circumstances. Prom these expeditions they have returned laden with the rich results of their industry, and the labours of the pen and the pencil have made thousands partakers of the benefit. Somewhat more than half a century ago, when the justly celebrated Observations of Harmer were given to the public, the range of materials to which he had access was comparatively limited. The travels of Chardin, Pococke, Shaw, Maundrell, Pitts, DArvieux. with Russel's Natural History of Aleppo, were his principal authorities— authorities, it is true, which have not yet been wholly superseded. But since his time, what an immense accession has the department of oriental travels received' The names of Volney, Niebuhr, Mariti, Clarke, Chateaubriand, Porter, Bnrckhardt, Buckingham, Morier, Seetzcn. De Lamartine, Laborde, exhaust but a small part of the list of eastern tourists, whose labours have gone to make us familiarly acquainted with the land of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. How desirable that the scattered gleams of illustrative light, which shine in their works, should be concentrated into'one focus of illumination ! This is the task which we have essayed in the present volume. 6 PREFACE. In entering upon and advancing in this task, we have been more and more impressed with tie remarket le fact of the permanence of eastern usages. True to the traditions of their ancestors, and impenetrable thus far to the spirit of innovation, their manners and customs, opinions and institutions, retain all the fixedness of their mountains, and flow on as unvarying as the course of their streams. To the question, therefore, whether the stale of things in the East, as described by modern travellers, really coincides with that which existed at the time the scriptures were written, so that one may be cited as conveying a correct idea of the other ; we may reply, in the words of Sir John Chardin, one of the most respectable and authentic of the number:— "I have written nothing," says he, " of the Indies, because I lived but five years there, and understood only the vulgar languages, which are the Indian and Persian, without the knowledge of that of the Brahmins; but, nevertheless, I did not spend my time there in idleness : on the contrary, as the winters in that country will not permit one to travel, I employed that time in a work which I had long in my thoughts, and which I may call my favourite design, by the pleasure wherewith I laboured in it, and the profit which I hope the public will receive thereby; which is certain notes upon very many passages of holy scripture, whereof the explication depends on the knowledge of the customs of the eastern countries; for the East is the scene of all the historical facts mentioned in the Bible. The language of that divine book (especially of the Old Testament) being oriental, and very often figurative and hyperbolical, those parts of scripture which are written in verse, and in the prophecies, are full of figures and hyperboles, which, as it is manifest, cannot be well understood without a knowledge of things from whence such figures are taken, which are natural properties and particular manners of the countries to which they refer. I discerned this in my first voyage to the Indies: for I gradually found a greater sense and beauty in divers passages of scripture than I haa before, by having in my view the things, either natural or moral, which explained them to me : ana in perusing the different translations which the greatest part of the translators of the Bible had made, I observed that every one of them (to render the expositions, as they thought, more intelligible) used such expressions as would accommodate the phrase to the places where they writ ; and which did not only many times pervert the text, but often rendered the sense obscure, and sometimes absurd also. In fine, consulting the commentators upon such kind of passages, I found very strange mistakes in them, and that they had long guessed at the sense, and did but grope (as in the dark) in search of it. And from these reflections I took a resolution to make my remarks upon many passages of the scriptures ; persuading myself that they would be equally agreeable and profitable for use. And the learned, lo whom I communicated my design, encouraged me very much, by their commendations, to proceed in it ; and more especially when I informed Ihem, that it is not in Asia, as in our Europe, where there are frequent changes, more or less, in the form of things, as the habits, huiltiinits, z'-rnlrus, and the like. In the East they are constant in all things; the habits are at this day in the same manner as in the precedent ages ; so that one may reasonably believe, that in that part of the world, the exterior form ol things (as their manners and customs) are the same now as they were two thousand years since, except in such changes as have been introduced by religion, which are, nevertheless, very inconsiderable." — (Preface to Travels in Persia, p. 6.) Morier, an eastern traveller, says, " The manners of the East, amid all the changes of government and religion, are stilt, the same; they are living impressions from an original mould; and at every step, some object, some idiom, some dress, or some custom of common life, reminds the traveller of ancient times, and coy-firms, above all, the beauty, the accuracy, and the propriety of the language and the history of the Bible." This very striking testimony to the conformity, or rather identity, of the modern with the ancient usages of the East, is abundantly confirmed from other sources, as scarcely -a traveller has set foot upon oriental soil, without professing himself to be at once struck with the remarkable coincidence between the picture of ancient manners, as drawn in the sacred writings, and the state of things which actually meets his eye. This steadfast resistance'to the spirit of innovation and change, which thus remarkably distinguishes the nations of the East, will probably, in the providence of God, remain unsubdued, till it shall have answered all the important purposes of biblical elucidation, when it will give way to the all-pervading, all-regenerating influence of the Bible itself, borne upon the bosom of a new tide of civilization and improvement, which shall, ere long, set in upon the East from the nations of Europe, and the great continent of the West. " By a wonderful provision of Providence," says De Lamanine, " who never creates wants without at the same time creating the means of satisfying them, it happens, that at the moment when the great crisis of civilization takes place in Europe, and when the new necessities resulting from it are revealing themselves, both to governments and people, a great crisis of an inverse order takes place in the East, and a vast void is there offered for the redundancy of European population and faculties. The excess of life which is overflowing here, may and must find an outlet in that part of the world; the excess of force which overstrains us, may and must find employment in those countries, where the human powers are in a state of exhaustion and torpidity, where the stream of population is stagnant or drying up, where the vitality of the human race is expiring." In the mean lime, while the inevitable doom of revolution and transformation that awaits the East, lingers, it behooves us to make the most, for useful purposes, of that state of society which still exists, but which, ere long, will have passed away. With this view, we have endeavoured to imbody in the present volume a large mass of oriental illustration. The work is strictly of an eclectic character. Postponing the claims of originality to those of practical utility, the Editor, after arraying before him the amplest store of materials which he could command, set himself to the task uf selecting and arranging the most valuable portions which he could bring within the limits of his plan. The kindred works of Harmer, Burder, Paxton, Taylor's edition of Calmet, scarcely any of which are in common accessible to the majority of biblical students, have been diligently gleaned, and all iheir important contents transferred to our pages. As these works are not likely ever to be reprinted in this country, there appeared no other way to arrest their progress 10 oblivion, and to secure a larger and wider circulation to the valuable matter which ihey contain. But the range of selection has been by no means confined to the works now mentioned. So prolific has been ihe press within the last twenty or thirty years, of books of eastern travels, illustrative of manners, customs, and religion, that our resources in thi' department have been almost indefinitely multiplied. But to one work in particular— Roberts' Oriental PREFACE. 1 Illustrations of the Sacred Scriptures, collected during a residence of nearly fourteen years among the Hindoos— the Editor desires, as an act of justice, to which he is sure the reader will most heartily respond, to express his very deep obligations. He considers himself peculiarly fortunate in meeting with this work just as he was entering upon his own undertaking, so that he has been able to incorporate it nearly entire in the present volume. Though abounding chiefly in illustrations drawn from the parabolical, idiomatical, and proverbial phraseolgy common in the East, yet his notes are so pointed and pertinent in their scope, so felicitous and graphic in their turn of expression, and so remarkable for the vividness with which the leading idea is exhibited, that we doubt not the reader will find in this part alone an ample equivalent for the cost of the whole volume. The Rev. T. H. Home says he feels himself "justified in recommending Mr. Roberts' ' Illustrations,' as supplying an important desideratum in biblical literature. They furnish to very many difficult or obscure passages satisfactory explanations, which are not more original than they are entertaining and instructive." " Mr. Roberts' work," says the British Critic, " is replete with interesting matter, and, in a condensed form, contains more illustrations of Holy Writ than any other book we know of. He richly deserves our thanks, and the thanks especially of those who are not able to possess many volumes illustrative of the oriental riles and customs to be found in the Bible. We have only to add, that this volume is worth all the twopenny trash which the last half dozen years have given birth to." As the present work is designed to be marked by somewhat of the same Comprehensive character which distinguishes the other biblical works lately issued from the press of the Publishers, the illustrations bear upon numerous other points than those relating to manners and customs. Every thing of a purely doctrinal character, about which the different denominations of Christians might be supposed to disagree, has been studiously excluded; at least such has been the Editor's intention, and if any thing should be met with that seems to gainsay this declaration, he begs it maybe set down to the account of a momentary inadvertence, rather than of a determinate purpose. But with this exception, he has given himself as much latitude in the selection of matter, as was consistent with a prevailing unity of design in the structure of the whole. The subject of the Fulfilment of Prophecy, cannot well be lost sight of by any one conversant at once with the scriptures and the reports of modern travellers. The topographical descriptions of many of the most noted places of scripture, a department to which particular attention has been given in the ensuing pages, suggests at once the divine predictions bearing upon their future doom. The researches of tourists, both skeptics and Christians, have poured a flood of light upon this subject. It is perfectly astonishing, to one who has never examined the subject, to find how literally and minutely the prophetic declarations of scripture have been fulfilled, so that even infidel travellers and historians, as Volney and jibbon, in their accounts of nations and countries, have unwittingly used for description, almost the words of scripture in which the events are foretold. Volney, particularly, (one of the bitterest opposers of Christianity,) in his published travels in the East, has afforded, unwillingly and unthinkingly, a wonderful attestation to the truth of the Bible, in the •elation of facts which came under his own eye. There needs no better witness. Indeed, it is impossible for the most cetermined infidel carefully to examine and weigh this subject, and not be forced to feel that the Bible is divine ; or, in the ■words of Bishop Newton, " he is reduced to the necessity, either to renounce his senses, deny what he reads in the Bible, and what he sees and observes in the world, or acknowledge the truth of prophecy, and consequently, of divine revelation." Tie researches of travellers in Palestine have been abundant, and the prophecies thereby verified are numerous and disinct, so that the facts may be related literally in the language of the prophecy. To use the words of a late writer in the London Quarterly Review, " we confess that we have felt more surprise, delight, and conviction, in examining the acctunts which the travels of Burckhardt, Mangles, Irby, Leigh, and Laborde, have so recently given of Judea, Edom, &c. thanwe have ever derived from any similar inquiry. It seems like a miracle in our own times. Twenty years ago we readcertain portions of the prophetic scriptures, with a belief that they were true, because other similar passages had, in thi course of ages, been proved to be so, and we had an indistinct notion, that all these (to us) obscure and indefinite denuiciations had been — we knew not very well when or how — accomplished : but to have graphic descriptions, ground plans and elevations, showing the actual existence of all the heretofore vague and shadowy denunciations of God against Edon, does, we confess, excite our feelings, and exalt our confidence in prophecy, to a height that no external evidence has hilierto done Here we have — bursting upon our age of incredulity, by the labours of accidental, impartial, and sometimes incredulous" (infidel) " witnesses— the certainty of existing facts, which fulfil what were considered hitherto the most vague and least intelligible of the prophecies. The value of one such contemporaneous proof is immeise." Indeed, it would seem that in regard to such places as Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre, Moab, Edom, and others, tbe providence of God was no less conspicuous in bringing to light, in these latter ages, the evidence of the accomplishment 01 those prophecies, than formerly in working the accomplishment itself. The valuable labours of Keith in this depart- uent, arranged in accordance with our general plan, so as to exhibit the commentary under its appropriate text, will be iiund to have added much to the interest and profit of the reader in perusing our pages. The numerous highly finished engravings, executed by distinguished artists, from sketches taken on the spot, and accompanied, for the most part, with letter-press descriptions by the Rev. T. H. Home, originally published in Finden'; Lmdscape Illustrations, will go also greatly to enhance the value of this portion of the illustrations. A critical note is occasionally thrown in, where the point of a passage seemed capable of a happy explication, especially Iron a more exact analysis of the import of the original terms. Those bearing the signature of the Editor will perhaps usually be found of this character, and for any seeming infraction in this of his general plan, he solicits the indulgence jotunreasonably claimed for a favourite mode of scripture exposition. They are, however, for the most part, " few and far between." As a prominent object aimed at throughout has been.'not only to increase the facilities for a complete understanding of the inspired volume, but also to multiply the evidences, and vindicate the claims of its divine original, a portion of our pages has been allotted to the direct consideration of irlfidel objections and cavils. The most important extracts of this b PREFACE. descriptioa tiave Deen taken from the valuable and now rare " Life of David," by Chandler, in which the insinuations of Bayle against the character of David, are canvassed and refuted with distinguished ability, though perhaps somewhat more verbosely than is consistent with the taste either of modern writers or readers. The original and acute remarks of Michaelis, on many points of the Mosaic laws ana ritual, though sometimes bordering upon the fanciful, disclose a profound acquaintance with the genius of the East, and are generally entitled to deep attention. As the authorities employed in the preparation of the ensuing pages are usually quoted in a very general way — for 'he most part merely by citing the writer's name— it will probably be rendering an important service to many of our readers, to give a more ample view of the sources upon which we have drawn for materials. The list is by no means complete, nor, as many have served us at second hand, is it perhaps practicable or necessary that it should be; but *he most important and valuable will be found here grouped together, and ordinarily, by turning to this catalogue, the entire title, including edition and date, of any work cited in the ensuing pages simply by the author's name, will be found. Such a catalogue may be of service for other purposes than those connected with the present volume. HaRmer's Observations an Various Paeaie.ro oh Soioplo,,. a,:', ad ditaaisby Adam tStarke, I.L. II , i vols, -vo. "Charlestown, 1S11. Paxton's 'Must rations, 3 vols- Svo. Edinburgh, 1825. Burder's Oriental Customs. 2 vols. 6vo. London, 1816. " Oriental Literature, icith Rosenmuller's Additions, 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1822. Roberts' Oriental Illustrations, Svo. London, 1835. Calmet's Dictionary, Tuvlm's Kdilion. 5 vols 41". London. 1;29. Shaw's Travels through Barbary and the Levant, folio Lnn. 1738. Maundrell's Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, 8vo. Oxford 1710. Volnev's Travih: thriingh Egypt a,al Syria. Svo, Now York, 1703. Travels through Cyprus, Syria, and Palestine, 2 void. Svo. 1 the Turks and Tartars, 3 vols. 12ino. Dublin, 1793. Baron I)e Tott's Memoirs Dublin, 1785. Russell's Nalu: til history of Aleppo. 2 vols llo. London, 1791. I'larke's Travels in the Italy Land, 12mo. Philadelphia, 1817. Toi'RNEFORT's Voyage to the Levant. 3 vols Svo. London. 1741. Buckingham's 'ft a eels in M, sopotamia, 2 vols. Svo. London, 1527. " Travels among the Arab Tribes, 4to. London, 1S25. Bct.ckhardt's Travels in Arabia, 4lo. London, 1S29. " Travels in Nubia and Egypt, 410. London, 1822. Madden's Travels in Turku/, Egypt, and Pah s'ine, 2 vols. 12mo. Philadelphia, 1830. Madox's Excursions in the Holy Land, Egypt, Nubia, Syria, §€., 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1834. i'allaway's Oriental Oi.s.- rvatiotts. 12mn. London, 1825. Campeell's Atiiean Light. 1 :mn. London, 1835. Anderson's four through Urreee, 12iijo. Boston, 1S31. IIardt's Notices of l.'ie II, ly Land. 12ino London, 1S35. i Travels, 8vo. New York, 1814. sppel's Narrative of a Journey from India to England. -v Philadelphia, 1827. Morier's Journey through Pi nia, -vo Philadelphia. 1516. ' Re and Dwight's Researches ; Researches in Syria and the Holy Land, Bw>. Jowett's Christ London, 1825. Modern Traveller, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor, 3 vols. 12mo. Boston, 1830. Heeren's Asiatic Nations. 3 vols. Svo. Oxford, 1S33. Waddinoton's Travels 1 a Ethiopia, 410. London, 1827. Hoskins' Travels in Ethiopia, 410. London, 1835. Bdrnes's Travels in Bokhara. 2 vols, l'.'uio. Philadelphia, 1835. Monroe's Sinnna 1 Ran. Ids in Syria, 2 vols. Svo. London, 1835. Hogg's Visit to Alexandria, Damascus, and Jerusalem, 2 vols. 12ina London, 1835. Wilkinson's Thebes, and General Vieiv of Egypt, Svo. London. 1S35. Arttndell's Discoveries in Asia Mm, a. ■> vols. Svo London, 1834. De Lamartinb's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 2 vols. 12ino. Phila- delphia. 1 ; Commentaries on t Londcn, 1755 , 1766. : Laics of Moses, 4 vols. Svo. PocOCKE's Theological Wo l ,'; ;. 2 VoN folio. London, 1710. New*come's Minor Prophets. Svo. rouoiract, 1809. Keiths End, no, of P. .y.h.eey. Via,.,. Now Y/ork. 1833. Good's Translation of Job, 8vo. London, 1812. Finden's Landscape lilustral'wns. London, 1835. Theimportance of the present work must be obvious, and being altogether illustrative, without reference to docmns, or other points in which Christians differ, it is hoped it will meet with favour from all who love the sacred volume, aid that it will be sufficiently interesting and attractive to recommend itself, not only to professed Christians of all denomiia- tions, but also to the general reader. The arrangement of the texts illustrated with the notes, in the order of the chapers and verses of the authorized version of the Bible, will render it convenient for reference to particular passages, while the copious Index at the end, will at once enable the reader to turn to every subject discussed in the volume. It only remains for the Editor to remark, that he would by no means be held responsible for the truth or justice of (very sentiment advanced by way of interpretation or illustration in the present work. He hopes not to be considers! as adopting himself all the various explications of scriplure which he has yet felt it his duty to propound. Many ofthem are proposed by their authors themselves merely as conjectures, and though he may occasionally have enterainet. doubts of their correctness, yet, as they involved only points of minor importance, he has seldom felt himself caller, upon to turn aside to question or confute them. A very large mass of obviously true or highly probable illustration, i' here presented to the reader. As to the pertinency or verisimilitude of particular portions, he will of course exercisea due discrimination ; he cannot be expected to forego his own judgment, nor will he find it necessary to presume upon hat cf him who has thus endeavoured, however feebly, to minister, by so great a variety of provision, to his instruction and pleasure. C. B Nev> York, May 1st, 1836. ILLUSTRATIONS HOLY SCRIPTURES GENESIS. Chap. 1. Ver. 1. In the beginning- GoJ created the heavens and the earth. Notwithstanding the industrious attempts of many skep- tical writers to array the evidence deducible from" geolo- gical discoveries against the Mosaic account of the cre- ation, nothing has yet been advanced to invalidate the testimony of the inspired record, as nothing has yet been brought to show that its statements, when righlli/ under- stood, are at all at variance with any of the clear and un- doubted results of scientific research. We say, when rightly understood ; for that the conclusions of the geolo- gist, even the most legitimate and demonstrable, may be inconsistent with the popular interpretation of the sacred narrative, we by no means deny ; but it is obvious that such interpretation may be erroneous, and that all that is requisite to bring the two departments into perfect har- mony, may be the fixing of the genuine sense of the writer by a purely philological process. Until, therefore, it is es- tablished beyond controversy that the language of Moses cannot, by any possibility of fair construction, be made to tally with, or at least not to contradict, the admitted truths of geological science, it is vain to charge revelation with uttering oracles at variance with the irrefragable teach- ings of nature. But this, it is to be remembered, never has been, and we are confident never will be, done. The ma i ial fabric of the universe and the book of inspira- tion are the works of the same author, and we may be sure that the truths pertaining to the one cannot be at war with those belonging to the other. The following remarks of the Rev. Bartholomew Lloyd, Provost of Trinity Col- lege, Dublin, on the drift of the sacred penman in the first chapter of Genesis, cannot but commend themselves to every enlightened reader: "The sacred writer pre- faces his history of God's government over his chosen people, by informing us, that ' in the beginning God created the n L veils and the earth,' and it seems equally certain that he here speaks of the original creation of all tilings out of nothing. This, indeed, is a great subject, and though nothing circumstantial is here revealed to us concerning it, yet the sacred importance of the truth, assured to us by this simple expression, is every way suitable to the prom- inent place assigned to it; for'it is 'nothing less than the authoritative statement of the first and fundamental article of all true religious faith. Bv it we are taught that self- existence is an attribute of the one supreme Bein?, and that all things besides owe their existence to His unlimited power. How necessary it was to mankind to have an authoritative declaration on this subject, we may readily convince ourselves by adverting to the errors into which the most celebrated men of all antiquity had fallen, who presumed to speculate on these matters,' so far beyond the reach of human reason, without other guidances. " Among these erroneous opinions, or rather among those wild con- jectures, we find the following: — that matter was eternal; that the Deity was the soul "of the world; agreeably to which, the material frame of nature was to be regarded as his body, and not as his work. Now, in this his first sentence, the inspired writer settles definitively what we are to believe on this subject, bv stating the primarv rela- 2 tion which all things in common bear to the supreme Be- ing; and with this information he forbears from mixing up any other matter. For it will be perceived that the state- ment is made without any specification of time or other cir- cumstance; seemingly, because no addition of this kind could be of use in aiding our conceptions of a truth purely religious, or in strengthening our faith in the authority on which it was proposed; but chiefly because it was the sole object of the writer, in this first sentence, to claim for God the creation of all things whatsoever, and that this claim must remain unshaken, however we may decide on other questions which may be raised about the creation ; such as that relative to the time when it occurred; how long before the origin of the human race; whether all the parts of the universe were brought into existence simultaneous- ly, or at different and widely distant epochs. It is plain, then, that in this place the sacred writer furnishes no helps for the decision of such questions. Let us look to what follows. In proceeding to those arrangements by which the earth was to he fitted for the residence and SU] | I of man, and the other inferior tribes by which it was then to be tenanted, we find him describing its preceding condi- tion; informing us that it was then 'without form and void,' and that ' darkness was upon the face of the deep.' Now, I confess that this always seemed to me very like the description of a ruined world: and if such was the earth at that time, it would be difficult to suppose that it had not existed long before. But this is not all. When he does come to the work of the six days, we find the_ de- scription of each day's work introduced by an expression of a particular form,' and concluded by another, by which it appears that the original work of creation, spoken o( in the first verse, is excluded from the series of pevform- ances belonging to those days;— and, if excluded, then. perhaps, removed to an indefinite distance; for had it immediately preceded, we might naturally expect to find it spoken of, either as the work of the first of a series ot seven days, or as part of the work of the first of the six- days. This, then, would seem to remove the work of the original creation far bevond that of the reconstruction ot the globe. It is true, that nothing is exhibited to our ima- ginations to mark the interval between these perform- ances; but to deny that there was such an interval, and for that reason, would be to conclude about as wisely as the peasant, who supposes the clouds to be contiguous to the stars, because when looking up he discerns nothing between them." Dr. Chalmers, in his treatise on the Evidences of Chris- tianity, speaks to the same effect. " Does Moses ever say, that when God created the heavens and the earth, he did more, at the time alluded to, than transform them out of previously existing materials'! Or does he ever say, that there was not an intervalof many ages between the first act of creation, described in the first verse of the book of Gen- esis, and said to have been performed in the beginning, and those more detailed operations, the account of which commences at the second verse, and which are described to us as having been performed in so many days'? Or. finally, does he ever make us understand, that the ecner ations of man went further than to fix the antiquity ot ihc GENESIS. Chap. 1. species, and of consequence that they left the antiquity of tne globe a free subject for the speculations of philoso- phers V " We do not know," says Sharon Turner, " and we have no means of knowin*, at what point of the ever-llowing eternity of that which is alone eternal — the Divine subsist- ence— the creation of our earth, -or of any part of the uni- verse began, nor in what section of it we are living now. All that we can learn explicitly from revelation is, that nearly b'000 years have passed since our tirst parent began to be. Our chronology, that of Scripture, is dated from the period of his creation ; and almost 6000 years have elapsed since he moved and breathed a full-formed man. But what seres of '.ime had preceded his formation, or in what portion of the anteceding succession of time this was effect- ed, has not been disclosed, and cannot by any effort of hu- man ingenuity be now explored. — Creation must have be- gun at some early part of anteceding eternity; and our earth may have had its commencement in such' a primeval era, as well as in a later one." Professor Hitchcock, in an elaborate and very able essay on the connexion between Geology and the Mosaic History, (Biblic. Reposit. Oct. 1835,) undertakes to establi-h, and we think with entire success, the following positions, which we give in his own words: — " In the first place, we main- tain that between geology and revelation there are several unexpected and remarkable coincidences, such as could have resulted inly from Veracity on the part of the sacted historian ; and that the points of agreement are far more numerous than the points of apparent collision; and, there- fore, even geology alone furnishes a strong presumptive evidence in favour of the truth of the Mosaic history. We maintain, secondly, that the first chapter of Genesis is a por- tion of Scripture that has always occasioned much difficulty in its interpretation, apart from geology, and that those por- tions of it about which commentators have differed most, are the very ones with which geology is supposed to come into collision; so that in fact scarcely any new interpreta- tion has been proposed to meet the geological difficulty. We admit, thirdly, that the geological difficulty is real; that is, the established facts of geology do teach us that the earth has existed through a vastly longer period, anterior to the creation of man, than the common interpretation of Genesis allows. We maintain, fourthly, that most of the methods that have been proposed to avoid or reconcile the geological difficulty are entirely inadequate, and irrecon- cilably at variance either with geology or revelation. We maintain, fifthly, that at least one or two of these proposed modes of reconciling geology and Scripture, although not free from objections, are yet so probable, that without any auxiliary considerations, they would be sufficient, in the view of' every reasonable man, to vindicate the Mosaic history from the charge of collision with the principles of geology. And finally, we maintain, that though all these modes of reconciliation should be unsatisfactory, it would lie premature and unreasonable to infer that there exists any real discrepance : first, because we are by no means certain that we fully understand every parbof the Mosaic account cf the creation ; secondly, because geology is so recent a science, and is making so rapid advances, that we mav expect from its future discoveries that some more light will be thrown upon cosmogony : and thirdly, be- cause, as geology has been more and more thoroughly un- derstood, the apparent discrepances between it and reve- lation have become less numerous." — B. Ver. 9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered tog-ether unto one place, and et the dry land appear : and it was so. We have before remarked, that, during the first and sec- ond days of the creation, the earth must have presented :o the view, (had any human eye existed to look upon it,) a solid globe of spheroidal form, covered with a thin coat of aqueous fluid, and already revolving on its axis as a mem- 4>er of the solar system. We are fully authorized in coming to this latter conclusion, from the distinct mention made in the record, of the days, comprising, like our present days, the evening anA. the morning, with the darkness and the light following each other in regular succession. The ii pure Hebrew. It deserves also to lie remarked, that the reason assign- ed for these names will not correspond with any other lan- gnaga The garden of Paradise wa- called' Eden; be- .ni-'- a a mg the Hebrews it signifies pleasure or delight. Tlie place of Cain's exile was for this reason called the land of Nod, from a root which signifies to wander. Adam received his name because he was taken out of the ground; but if the term for ground in the first language had been terra, or yn, or earth, there had been no proprie- ty in the designation. Eve was called by this name, be- cause she was the mother of all living; hut it is derived f om a pure Hebrew verb which signifies to live; and to this relation the name owes all its propriety and signifi- :aace. Cain was named from the Hebrew verb Kana, pisse -, because his mother had got him from the Lord; :;:: i :.i ;!.i< i:i-;a;:-e also, the name is inseparably connect- -■ I v i h the Hem- iw root. The proper name Seth is de- al the Hebrew verb Shooth. to appoint; because, - ■ id "it- first mother, God hath appointed me another seed ' ea of Abel, whom Cain slew The same mode of ! might be carried through all the names of the A '■ i-io n. age; but ilie-e in-'an - a-..- -a- a.-tit to show tin near athnitv. if not the posi ive identity, of the lan- ig - which Adam spoke, with ,he Hebrew of the Old • to the found- names ascribed by the inspired • ISIS. Chap. 4. ers of our race, are not interpretations of primitive terms; for he declares they are the very names which were given at first ; and as they are derivatives from pure Hebrew verbs, the language'then spoken must have been the same in substance and structure. Had they been translations, we have reason to think the same method would have been followed as in several instances in the New Testament, where the original term is used, and the interpretation avowedly subjoined. But Moses gives not a single hint of his translating these terms ; he asserts, on the contrary, that they are the original words employed ; and the truth of his assertion is rendered indubitable by the reasons assigned for their imposition, which are inseparably con- nected with the Hebrew language. Nor does Moses, in the whole course of his history, when speaking of the names of persons and places, utter a single word from which we can infer the existence of an earlier language. When the minute and extensive acquaintance with the natural character and temper of the numerous animals to which our first father gave names in Paradise, which he certainly had not time to acquire by his own industry, and which we have no reason to believe he owed to intuition, is considered, we must admit, that the language in which he conversed was not his own contrivance, but the imme- diate gift of Heaven. When Jehovah breathed into Adam and Eve the breath of life, he inspired them in the same moment with the knowledge of the tongue in which they were to express their thoughts. A similar favour was be- stowed at the beginning of the New Testament dispensa- tion, on the apostles and other ministers of the gospel ; who were inspired in a moment with the perfect knowledge of many different languages. — P.ixton. Chap. 4. ver. 3. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. The margin* reads, " at the end of days;" and this is truly Oriental. " When the days are ended, I will fulfil my promise." " After those days are ended, I shall have peace." " When the days come round, (in their circle.) I will do that for you."— Roberts. Ver. 7. If thou docst well, shalt thou not be ac- cepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire. and thou shalt rule over him. D'Oylv and Main interpret this, " Your sin will find you out." ""'Thy punishment is not far off." They also say sin may be rendered sim-offering ; and several other ccm- mentators; lake the same view, and think this is its true and only meaning. The victim proper for a sin-offering was lying at the door, and therefore was within his reach. There are some who affect to smile at the idea of sin lying at the door: it K however, an Eastern figure. Ask a man who is unacquainted with Scripture, what he un- hold f the door; he will immediately speak of it as the guilt of some great crime which the 'owner had committed. A man recused of having murdered a child, would he accosted in the follow- ing language: — " If you have done this, think not to es- cape; no! for sin will ever lie at your door: it will descend from generation to generation." To a man accused of having committed any other dreadful crime, it would be said, " Ah! if I had done it, do I not know -in v, niM i-vi 1 lie at my door 1" The idea is sin personified in the shape of some "fierce animal crouched at the door. Its criminality and punishment remain. If Cain had done well, would there noi ha-. - excellency }" (see margin ;) but if not well, then sin, like a monster, was crouching at his door. Taking thi other view of it, seems to amount to this; now, Cain, if thou doest well, that will be thv excellency, thou -halt be accept- ed : but if thou doest not well, it is a matter of ne very great consequence, because there is a sin-offering at thy door. *I would here observe, once for ail, that I have gwe regularly ttiroush lit*1 niaremal readings, and hav, loiiii'l. wiitt !.w exceptions. that lliey literally amor with Fasti rn larmua^p in I'li'Hil and figure. In the course oi" Itns work, most of ihem will he illustrated; and ! think few readers « ill doubt thai they are the correct t Chap. 4— 8. GEN Guil's design appears to have been to induce Cain to do well, by speak i n;; of the reward .it' righteousness, and to make him afraid of doing evil, by showing him the punish- ment of sin. — Huberts. Ver 13. Ami Cain said unto the Lord, My punish- ment '< greater than I can boar. The margin has, "Mine iniquity is greater than be forgiven. This form of speech is very common. Has a pi t- .hi . mimitteda greatcrime; lie will go to the offend- ed miliviiliial, and piie.uislv plead lor mercy; and at in- tervals keep crying, " Ah ! my guilt is too great to be for- given. My hopes are gone." — Roberts. Ver. 14. And it shall come to pass, that every one that findoth me shall slay me. It has been tauntingly asked, How could every one slay Cam! Has a man escaped from prison; the people say, '■Ah! all men will catch and bring that fellow back." Has a man committed murder; "Ah! all men will kill that murderer." This means, the feeling will be univer- sal ; all will desire to have that individual punished — Roberts. Chap. 7. ver. 11. The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. The margin has, the " flood-gates of heaven were open- ed." In the East, when the rain falls in torrents, the peo- ple say, " the heavens are broken." — Roberts. Ver. 21. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping- thing thatcreepeth upon the earth, and every man. We have some reason to doubt, from the fossil remains of animals now discovered, which have not yet been found alive upon the present earth, whether every living creature was included in this strong expression; arid though, from the remarkable circumstance of the similarity of all lan- guages in certain common expressions, and in the uni- versal tradition of the deluge found among the most dis- tant and savage nations, we feel assured that the whole existing race of man on the whole earth, has sprung from Noah and his family ; we have no evidence to lead us to the same conclusion with respect to quadrupeds, or birds. It appears probable, that we ought to consider the strong ex- pression used in the record, "of every living thing of all flesh" in the same sense as we find it in various other parts of Scripture; and, indeed, as such expressions are often used in our own, and in other languages, that is, not as lite- rally meaning every created being over the whole globe, but merely a great number. — Fairholme. Ver. 22. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. What a scene of terrific and awful desolation does this narrative of the Bible convey ! If the reader be affected as the writer was, when he first contemplated the Scrip- tural character of this sad transaction, he will literally tremble when he meditates on the dread catastrophe. He will, moreover, discover how inadequate, how puerile, and infinitely below the facts of the real case, are all those representations of the deluge to which we have been ac- customed; and those comments which exhibit animals and men as escaping to the highest grounds and hills, as the flood advanced. Even Mr. Buckland supposes that animals, when the waters began to enter their caves under ground, -might have rushed out and fled for safety to hills. The impossibility of any such escape may be immediately seen. Neither man nor beast, under such circumstances, could either advance* or flee to anv distance. Anv ani- mal found in the plain when the flood began, would thus be merged in water seven or eight feet deep in a quarter of an hour! independent of the overwhelming torrents. dashing upon his head. And were he to attempt ad vancing SIS. 13 up the rising grounds, a cataract or sheet of water, several leei deep, would be gushing all the way in his face, besides impending waterfromthe " tl I gates of heaven, momen- tarily rushing over him; he would instantly I toe a prey lo those mighty waters.— Scrip. Geology, Lond. 1828. Chap. 8. ver. 4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. We walked into the fi. Ids to gaze upon Mount Ararat, and reflect upon the time vhen Noah in this very valley btulded an altar unto the Lord, and offered that acceptable sacrifice of a sweet savour, which procured for himself and his posterity a divine title to the earth and its productions, and the solemn covenant that " while the earth remaineth, seed-lime anil harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." V e that mountain the morning we entered Nakhchevan, and during the three weeks we were in the valley of the A ra , nothing but cloudy weather during a few days obscured it from our sight. It was nearer at any point between here and Erivan, but perhaps nowhere did we have a better view of it than from this place. The natives know it un- der no other name than Musis in Armenian, and Aghur- dagh (heavy mountain) in Turkish. The name of Ararat, by which it is called among Europeans, is applied in Scrip- ture only to a country, which is in one instance called a kingdom. The similar name of Ararad was given by the Armenians, long before they had received the Scrip- ture account of the flood by their conversion to Christiani- ty, to the central, largest, and most fertile province of their country, the one which, with the doubtful exception of some 230 years, was the residence of their kings or gov- ernors from the commencement to the termination of their political existence, and nearly in the centre of which this mountain stands. The singular coincidence, consid- ering the ease with which so distinguished a province might be named by foreigners for the kingdom itself, ar- gues much for the identity of the Ararat of Scripture with fhe Ararad of Armenia. It was on the mountains of Ararat that the ark rested after the flood; and certainly not among the mountains of Ararad, or of Armenia gener- ally, or of any part of the world, have I seen one, the majesty of whose appearance could plead half so power- fully as this, a claim to the honour of having once been the stepping-stone between the old world and the new. It lies N. 57= W. of Nakhichevan and S. 25D W. of Erivan, on the opposite side of the Aras ; and iiom almost ever) point between the two places, the traveller has only to look across the valley, to take into one distinct field of vision, without a single intervening obstacle, the mighty mass from its base to its summit. At Erivan it presents two peaks, one much lower than the other, and appears to be connected with a range of mountains extending towards the northwest, which, though really elevated, are in com- parison so low, as only to give distinctness to the impres- sion of its lonely majesty. From Nakbchevan, not far from a hundred miles distant, and also from our present point of observation, it appears like an immense isolated cone of extreme regularity, rising out of the low valley of the Aras; and the absence of all intervening objects to show its distance or its size, leaves the spectator at liberty to indulge the most sublime conceptions his imagination may form of its vaslness. At all seasons of the year, it is covered- far below its summit with snow and ice, w Inch occasionally form avalanches, that are precipitated down its sides with the sound of an earthquake, and. with the steepness of its declivities, have allowed none of the pos- terity of Noah to ascend it. It was now white to its very base with the same hoary covering; and in gazing upon it, we gave ourselves up to the impression, that i n its top were once congregated the only inhabitants of the earth, and that, while travelling in the vallev beneath, we were paving a visit to the second cradle of the human race. Two objections are made to the supposition that Scrip- ture refers to this mountain when it speaks of " i lie" moun- tains of Ararat." One is. that there are now no olive-trees in its vicinity, from which Noah's dove could have pluck- ed her leaf. And it is hue. so far as we could learn, that that tree exists neither m the vallev of the Koor nor of the Aras, nor on the c< ast of the Caspian, nor anywhere GENESIS. Chap. 8. nearer than Batoom and other parts of the eastern coast of the Black sea, a distance of seven days journey of a caravan, or about 130 miles in the circuitous route that would thus be taken. But might not a dove make this tourney in a day 1 Or might not the climate then have been warmer than it is now f The second objection is drawn from the fact that some of the old versions and paraphra- ses, particularly the Chaldee and the Syriac, refer " the mountains of Ararat" to the mountains of Kurdistan, where there is, not far from Jezeereh, a high mountain called Joody, on which the moslems suppose the ark to have rested. But if the ark rested on that, the posterity of Noah would, most likely, have descended at once into Mesopotamia, and have reached Shinar from the north ; while, from the vafley of the Aras, they would naturally have kept along on the eastern side of the mountains of Media, until they reached the neighbourhood of Hamadan or Kermanshah, which is nearly east of Babylon. Such is the route now taken every day by all the caravans from this region to Bagdad. The Armenians believe, not only that this is the mountain on which the ark rested after the flood, but that the ark still exists upon its top; though, ra- ther from supernatural than from physical obstacles, no One has yet been able to visit it. A devout Yartab.d, their legends relate, once attempted, for this purpose, to ascend the mountain. While yet far from the top, drowsiness came upon him, and he awoke at the bottom, in the very spot whence he had started. Another attempt resulted only in the same miraculous failure. He then betook himself more fervently to prayer, and started the third time. Again he slept, and awoke at the bottom ; but now an angel stood before him with a fragment of the ark, as a token that his pious purpose was approved and his prayer answered, though he could never be allowed to reach the summit of the mountain. The precious gift was thankfully received, and is to this day carefully preserved, as a sacred relic, in the convent of Echmiadzin. — Smith & Dwight. Ararat forms the angle of an immense chain of moun- tains, on the loftiest pinnacles of which the natives of the country believe that part of the ark yet remains. It is a most sublime and stupendous object, which excites in the mind of the beholder the mingled emotions of admiration and terror. One of the great features of this mountain is the immense chasm which extends nearly half-way down, over which Impends a cliff, discernible at a great distance, whose enormous masses of ice are from time to time precip- itated into the abyss with a noise resembling the loudest thunder. " Nothing," says Mr. Morier, " can be more beautiful than its shape ; more awful than its height. Compared with it, all the other mountains sink into insig- nificance. It is perfect in all its parts : no hard rugged features : no unnatural prominences ; every thing is in har- mony; and all combines to lender it one of the most sub- lime objects in nature. Spreading originally from an im- mense base, its slope towards the summit is gradual, until it reaches the regions of the snows, when it becomes more abrupt. The cone is surmounted with a crown of ice, which glitters in the sun with a peculiar and dazzling brightness. As a foil to this stupendous work, a smaller hill rises from the same base, near the original mass, simi- lar to it in shape and proportion, and in any other situation entitled to rank among the high mountains. The moun- tain is divided into three regions of different breadths. The first, composed of a short and slippery grass, or sand as troublesome as the quicksands of Africa, is occupied by the shepherds; the second, by tigers and crows: the re- mainder, which is half the mountain, is covered with snow which has been accumulating ever since the ark rested upon it j and these snows are concealed during one half of the year in very dense clouds." This stupendous moun- tain, Mr. Morier and his parly endeavoured to scale ; and .-liter excessive fatigue arrived on the margin of eternal snow. But they found it impossible to proceed and pen- etrate the highest region ; and not easy to go back. At length, utterlv exhausted, Ihev reached the bottom, and gave thanks to God for their safe return.— Paxton. [The remarkable achievement of the ascent of Mount Ararat, has at lengh, it appears, been accomplished bv Professor Parrot of England. Taking with him Mr. Behagel as mineralogist, Messrs. Helm and Schiemann, medical students of Moscow, and Mr. Federow, astron- omer of St. Petersburg, he commenced his jou/ney on the 20th of March, 1829, and arrived at Tiflis on the 6th of June. Owing to peculiar circumstances they were un- able to leave Titlis till the first of September, the distance to Mount Ararat being by the road about 2iS0 wasts (say 200 miles.) The following account of the ascent, extracted from a work recently published by Professor Parrot, at Berlin, is from the Foreign Quarterly Review for June, 1835.] At seven o'clock in the morning of the 12th September, I set out on my journey, [from the Convent of St. James " near the foot of the mountain,] accompanied by Mr. Schie maun. We took with us one of our Cossacks and a pea- san»of Arguri, who was a good huntsman, and our route was first in the bottom of the valley, then up its right ac- clivity towards the spot where there are two small stone houses standing close to each other ; the one formerly a chapel, and the other built as a protection for a spring which is considered sacred. From the chapel we crossed the grassy elevation, which forms the right declivity of the cleft : we suffered so much from the heat of the day, that our Cossack, who would prob- ably have much rather been seated on horseback and gal- loping about on the steppes for three days than scrambling over the rocks for a couple of hours, was ready to sink from fatigue, and we were obliged to send him back. At about six o'clock in the evening, when we also were much tired, and had almost reached the snowy region, we chose our night's lodgings in the clefts of the rocks. We had at- tained a height of 11,075 Paris feet; in the sheltered places about us lay some new-fallen snow, and the temperature of the air was at the freezingpoint. Mr. Schiemann and I had provided ourselves tolerably well for such an undertaking; besides, the pleasure of the expedition warmed us; but our athletic Jagar,Schak of Arguri, (Isaac,) was quite dejected from the cold, for he had nothing but his summer clothing; his whole neck and also his legs, from the knee to the san- dal, were quite bare, and his head was only covered with an old handkerchief. I had neglected to think about his wardrobe before setting out, and, therefore, it was my duty to help him as well as I could: but as neither of us had much clothing to spare, I wrapped up his neck and his bare limbs in sheets of blotting-paper which I had taken with me for drying plants, and this was a great relief to him. At daybreak we pursued our journey towards the eastern side of the mountain, and soon reached the declivity which runs immediately from the summit; it consists en- tirely of pointed rocky ridges coming down from above, and leaving between them ravines of considerable depth, in which the icy mantle of the summit loses itself, and gla- ciers of great extent. There were several of these rocky ridges and clefts of ice lying between us and the side of the mountain which we were endeavouring to reach. When we had happily surmounted the first crest and the adjoining beautiful glacier, and reached the second crest, Schak had no courage to proceed. His benumbed limbs had not yet recovered their warmth, and the icy region towards which he saw us hastening, did not hold out much prospect of relief; thus one remained behind from heat and the other from cold— only Mr. Schiemann, though un- accustomed to these hardships, did not for an instant lose his courage or his desire to accompany me, but shared with alacrity and perseverance all the difficulties and dangers we had to encounter. Leaving the Jager behind us, we crossed the second glacier, and gained the third rocky ridge. Then immediately turning off in an oblique direc- tion, we reached the lower edge of the icy crest, at a height of 13, ISO Paris feet, and which from this place runs with- out interruption to the summit. We had now to ascend this declivffy covered with perpetual snow. Though the inclination was barely 30 deg., this was a sheer impossi- bility for two men to accomplish in a direct line. We there- fore determined to advance diagonally towards a long pointed ridge which runs far up towards the summit. We succeeded in this bv making w ith our ice-poles deep holes in the ice of the glacier, which was covered wiih a thin laver of new-fallen snow, too slight to afford the requisite firmness lo our steps. We thus reached the ridge, and ad- vanced directly towards the summit by a track where the new snow was rather deeper. Though we might by great exertions have this time reached the goal of our wishes, yet the fatigue of the day had been considerate, and as it was already three o'clock in the afternoon, we were Chap. GENESIS obliged to ihink of providing a Ifidgmg f»r the approaching night. We had attained the cxueme upper ridge ol the rocky crest, an elevation of 11,500 Pans leet above the level' of the sea, (the height of the top of Mount Blanc,) and yet the summit of Ararat lay far above us. 1 do not think that any insurmountable obstacle could have impeded our farther progress, but to spend the few remaining hours of day light in reaching this point would have been worse than madness, as we had not seen any rock on the summit which could have afforded us protection during the night ; independently of which, our stock of provisions was not calculated to last so long. Having made our barometrical observations, we turned back, satisfied from the result that the mountain on this side was not inaccessible, In descending, however, we met with a danger which we had not anticipated; for if in the descent of every mountain you tread less safely than in going up, it is still more difti- eull to tread firmly, when you look down upon such a sur- face of ice and snow as that over.which we had to pass for more than a werst, and where, if we slipped and fell, there was nothing to stop us but the sharp-pointed masses of stone in which the region of eternal ice loses itself. The danger here is perhaps rather in the want of habit than in real difficulties. Mv young friend, whose courage had probably been proof against severer trials, lost his presence of mind here— his foot slipped, and he fell; but, as he was about twenty paces behind me, I had time to thrust my pole firmly in the ice. to take a sure footing in my capital snow-shoes, and while I held the pole in my right hand, to cp.tch him in passing with my left. My position was well chosen, but the straps which fastened my ice-shoes broke, and, instead of being able to stop my friend, I was carried with him in his fall. He was so fortunate as to be stopped by some stones, but I rolled on for half a werst, till I reached some fragments of lava near the *ower gla- cier. The tube of my barometer was dashed to pieces — my chronometer burst open, and covered with blood — every thing had fallen out of my pockets, but I escaped without severe injury. As soon as we had recovered from our fright, and thanked God for our providential escape, we collected the most important of our effects, and con- tinued our journey. We were soon afterward delighted to hear the voice of our good Schak, who had very pru- dently waited for our return. Having made a fire, we passed the night in the grassy region, and on the third day reached the convent, where we 'were regaled with an ex- cellent breakfast. We however took care not to tell the Armenians any thing about our accident, as they would certainly not have failed to ascribe it to a judgment from Heaven for our presumptuous attempt to reach the summit, which thev say has been prohibited to mortals by a divine decree since the time of Noah. All the Armenians are firmly persuaded that Noah's ark exists to the present day on the summit of Mount Ararat, and that, in order to fireserve it, no person is permitted to approach it. We earn the grounds of this tradition from the Armenian chronicles in the legend of a monk of the name of James, who was afterward Patriarch of Nissibus, and a contempo- rarv and relative of St. Gregorv. It is said that this monk, in order to settle the disputes which had arisen respecting the credibility of the sacred books, especially with refer- ence to their account of Noah, resolved to ascend to the top of Ararat to convince himself of the existence of the ark. At the declivity of the mountain, however, he had several times fallen asleep from exhaustion, and found on awaking that he had been unconsciously carried down to the point from which he first set out. God at length had compassion on his unwearied though fruitless exertions, and during his sleep sent an angel with the message, that his exertions were unavailing, as the summit was inaccessible ; but as a reward for his indefatigable zeal, he sent him a piece of the ark, the very same which is new preserved as.the most valuable relic in the cathedral Of Etschmaidsin. The belief in the impossibility of as- cending Mount Ararat has, in consequence of this tradi- tion, which is sanctioned by the church, almost become an article of faith, which an Armenian would not renounce even if he were placed in his own proper person upon the summit of the mountain. [After recovering in some measure from the effects of his fall and an attack of fever which ensued, the profes- lor set out on the 18th September to make a second at- tempt to gain the summit, taking with him a cross ten feel high, which it was proposed to set up on the top of the mountain, with an inscription in honour of Field Marsha. Count Paskewilsch, by whose victories the Russian do- minions had been extended to tins point. They chose this time the northeast side of the mountain, by which the way was much longer, but not so sleep. But as this second attempt also tailed, we pass over the account of it, and pro- ceed without further preface to the thud, w hich Bttcceeni d. They however erected the cross on an almost Inn i/ontal surface covered with snow, at the height of 15,138 Puns feet above the level of the Euxine, or about 350 feet higher than the summit of Mount Blanc.] In the meantime the sky cleared up, the air became serene and calm, the mountain too was more quiet, the noise occasioned by the falling of the masses of ice and snow grew less frequent— in short, every thing seemed to indicate that a favourable turn was about to take place in the weather, and 1 hastened to embrace it for a third at- tempt to ascend the mountain. On the 25th September 1 sent to ask Slepan whether he would join us, but he de- clined, saying that he had suffered loo much from the for- mer excursion to venture again so soon ; he however promised to send us four stout peasants with three oxen and a driver. Early the next morning, four peasants made their appearance at the camp to join our expedition, and soon after a fifth, who offered himself voluntarily. To them I added two of our soldiers. The deacon again ac- companied us, as well as Mr. Hehn, who wished to explore the vegetation at a greater elevation ; but he did not intend to proceed beyond the line of snow. The experience of the preceding attempt had convinced me that every thing depended on our parsing the first night as closely as possi- ble to this boundary, in order to be able to ascend and re- turn from the summit in one day, and to confine our bag- gage to what was absolutely necessary. We therefote took with usonly three oxen, laden with the clothing, wood, and provisions. I also took a cross carved in oak We chose our route towards the same side as before, ai.d, in order to spare ourselves, Abowiam and I rode on lmi.-i ■- back, wherever the rockv nature of the soil permitted i!, as far as the grassv plain' Kip-Giholl, whence we sent the horses back. Here Mr. Hehn parted from us. It \v:is scarcely twelve o'clock when we reached this point, ami, after taking our breakfast, we proceeded in a direction rather more oblique than on our former attempt. The cattle were, however, unable to follow us so quickly. We therefore halted at some rocks which it would be impossi- ble for them to pass— took each our own share of clothing and wood, and sent back the oxen. At half-past five in the evening we were not far from the snow line, and con- siderably higher than the place where we passed the night on our previous excursion. The elevation at this point was 13,036 Paris feet above the level of the sea, and the large masses of rock determined me to take up our quar- ters here. A fire was soon made, and a warm supper pre- pared. I had some onion broth, a dish which 1 would recommend to all mountain travellers in preference to meat broth, as being extremely warm and invigorating. This being a fast-dav, poor Abowiam was not able to enjoy it. The other Armenians, who strictly adhered to their rules of fasting, contented themselves with bread and the brandy which I distributed among them in a limited quan- tity, as this cordial must be taken withgieat caution, espe- cially where the strength has been previously much tried, as it 'otherwise produces a sense of exhaustion and inclina- tion to sleep. It was a magnificent evening, and, with my eves fixed on the clear skv, and the lofty summit which projected against it, and then again on the dark night which was gathering far below and around me, I experi- enced all those delightful sensations of tranquillity, love, and devotion, that silent reminiscence of the past, that sub- dued glance into the futnre, which a traveller never fails to experience when on lofty elevations, and under pleasing circumstances. I laid myself down under an overhanging rock of lava, the temperature of #ic air at 4 1-2 degrees, which was tolerably warm, considering our great heidit. At daybreak we rose, and began our journey at hall past six. We crossed the last broken declivities in half an hour, and entered the boundary of eternal snow nearly at the same place as in our-preceding ascent. In consequence of the increased warmth of the weather, the new-fallen 16 GENESIS. Chap. 8 suow, which had facilitated our progress on our previous ascent, had melted away, and again frozen, so that, in spite of the still inconsiderable slope, we were compelled to cut steps in the ice. This very much embarrassed our ad- vance, and added greatly to our fatigue. One of the pea- sants had remained behind in our resting-place, as he felt unwell ; two others became exhausted in ascending the side of the glacier. They at first lay down, but soon re- treated to our quarters. Without being disheartened by these difficulties, we proceeded, and soon reached the great cleft whicli marks the upper edge of the declivity of the large glacier, and at ten o'clock we arrived at the great plain of snow which marks the first break on the icy head of Ararat. At the distance of a werst, we saw the cross which we had reared on the 19th of September, but it ap- peared to me so extremely small, probably on account of its black colour, that I almost doubted whether I should be able to find it again with an ordinary telescope from the plain of the A. axes/ In the direction towards the summit, a shorter but at the same time a steeper declivity than the one we had passed lay before us ; and between this and the extreme summit there appeared to be only one small hill. After a short repose we passed the first precipice, which was the steepest of all, by hewing out steps in the rock, and after this the next elevation. But here, instead of seeing the ultimate goal of all our difficulties, immediately before us appeared a series of hills, which even concealed the summit from our sight. This rather abated our courage, which had never yielded for a moment so long as we had all our difficulties in view, and our strength, exhausted by the labour of hewing the rock, seemed scarcely commen- surate with the attainment of the now invisible object of our wishes. But a review of what had been already accom- plished, and of that which might still remain to" be done, the proximity of the series of projecting elevations, and a glance at my brave companions, banished my fears, and we boldly advanced. We crossed two more hills, and the cold air of the summit blew towards us. I stepped from behind one of the glaciers, and the extreme cone of Ara- rat lay distinctly before my enraptured eves. But one more effort was necessary. Only one other icy plain was to be ascended, and at a quarter past three on the '27th of Septem- ber, O. S., 1829, we stood on the summit of Mount Ararat ! [Having thus happily accomplished his fatiguing and per- ilous enterprise, says the Review, our author's first wish and enjoyment was repose; he spread his cloak on the ground, and sitting down, contemplated the boundless but desolate prospect around him. He was on a slight con- vex, almost circular, platform, about 200 Paris feet in di- ameter, which at the extremitv declines pretty steeply on all sides, particularly towards the S. E. and N. E. ; it .was the silver crest of Ararat, composed of eternal ice, unbro- ken by a rock or stone. Towards the east, the summit de- clined more gently than in any other direction, and was connected by a hollow, likewise covered with perpetual ice, with another rather lower summit, which by Mr. Fede- row's trigonometrical measurement was found to be 187 toises distant from the principal summit. On account of the immense distances nothing could be seen distinctlv. The whole valley of the Araxes was covered with a gray mist, through which Erivan and Sardarabad appeared as small dark spots; to the south were seen more distinctly the hills behind which lies Bayazeed; to the N. W. the ragged top of Alaghes, covered 'with vast masses of snow, probably an inaccessible summit ; near to Ararat, espe- cially to the S. E. and at a great distance towards the west, are numerous small conical hills, which look like extinct volcanoes; to the E. S. E. was little Ararat, whose head did not appear like a cone, as it does from the plain, but like the top of a square truncated pvramid, with larger and smaller rocky elevations on the edges and in the middle; but what very much surprised Professor Parrot was to see a large portion of Lake Goklscha* which appeared in the N. E. like a beautiful shining dark blue patch, behind the lofty chain of mountains which encloses it on the south, ind which is so high that he never could have believed that he should have been able from the top of Ararat to see over its summit into the lake behind it. Mr. Parrot, having allowed himself time to enjov this prospect, pro- ceeded to observe his barometer, which he placed precisely in the middle of the summit. The mercury was no higher than 15 inches 3 i of a line Paris measure, the tempera- ture being 3 7-10ths below the freezing point of the centri- grade thermometer. By comparing this observation with that which Mr. Federow made at the same time at the con- vent of St. James, the elevation of the summit apDears to be 10,272 Paris feet above the convent, and, adding to that the height of the latter, the top of Ararat is 16,254 Paris feet, nearly five wersts, above the level of the sea. While the professor was engaged in 1iis observations, the dea- con planted the cross, not precisely on the summit, where it could not have been seen from the plain, as it was only five feet high, but on the N. E. edge, about thirty feet lower than the centre of the summit. The professor and his five companions, viz. the deacon, two Russian soldiers, and two Armenian peasants, having remained three quarters of an hour on the summit, commenced their descent, which was very fatiguing; but they hastened, as the sun was go- ing down, and before they reached the place where the great cross was erected, it had already sunk below the horizon.] It was a glorious sight to behold the dark shadows which the mountains in the west cast upon the plain, and then the profound darkness which covered all the valleys, and gradually rose higher and higher on the sides of Ara- rat, whose icy summit was still illuminated bv the beams of the setting sun. But the shadows soon passed over that also, and would have covered our path with a gloom that would have rendered our descent dangerous, had not the sacred lamp of night, opportunely rising above the eastern horizon, cheered us with its welcome beams. [Having passed the night on the same spot as on their ascent, where they found their companions, they arrived the next day at noon, at the Convent of St. James, and on the following day, Sundav, the 28ih of September, O. S., they offered their grateful'thanksgiving to Heaven for the success of flieir arduous enterprise, perhaps not far from the spot where " Noah built an altar to the Lord."] Ver. 11. And the dove came in to him in the evening-, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off So Noah knew that the wa- ters were abated from off the earth. The olive may be justly considered as one of the most valuable gifts which the beneficent Creator has bestowed on the human family. The oil which it yields, forms an important article of food ; it imparts a greater degree ot pliancy to the limbs, and agility to the whole body; it assuages the agonizing pain, and promotes, by its sanative influence, the cure of wounds; it alleviates the internal sufferings produced by disease; it illumines, at once, the cottage and the palace ; it cheers, by the splendour of its combustion, the festive meeting; it serves to expel the deadly poison of venomous reptiles ; it was used in conse- crating a thing to the service of God; and it mingled, perhaps, from the first of time, bv the command of Heaven, with many of the bloodless oblations which the worshipper presented at his altar. In these various and important uses, we may, perhaps, discover the true reason that the dove of Noah was directed, by God himself, to select the olive leaf from the countless varietv which floated on the subsiding waters of the deluge, or bestrewed the slimy tops and declivities of Ararat, as the chosen symbol of return- ing peace and favour. From the creation of the world, the fatness of this tree signallv displaved the divine good- ness and benignitv< and since the fall of man, it svmbolizes the grace and kindness of our heavenly Father, and the precious influences of the Holy Ghost, in healing the spir- itual diseases of our degenerate race, and in counteracting the deadly poison of moral corruption. Hence, the people of Israel were commanded to construct their booths, at the feast of tabernacles, partly with branches of olive; and all the nations of the civilized world were secretlv directed, bv the overruling providence of Heaven, to bear them in their hands as emblems of peace and amity. The olive is men- tioned as the sign of peace, by both Livy and Virgi: The celebrated navigator, Captain Cook, found that green branches, carried in the hands, or stuck in the GENESIS. 17 ground, were the emblems of peace, universally employed and understood by ilie numerous and untutored inhabitants of the South Sea islands. Thi gin ol a custom, lira received and religiously observed, by nations dwelling on opposite sides of the globe, who never had the smallest intercourse with one another, must be sought lb] near the beginning of time, when the inhabitants of our earth, form ing but one family, lived under the gentle sway of their common parenl. Dr. (' handle i iml.-i-ii . is . I o|nn mil. 1 1 mi the idea or reconciliation and peace was i the olive braneh till ages long posterior to the deluge Thi olive groves, he argues, are the usual resort ol di i other birds, th sj ai to them foi I I ; and thus endi .1 1 - ours to find a natural eonnexion between, the d eol M th ^and the olive leaf. The olive might, he thinks, be the only tree which had raised its head above ihe sub- id in g w air 1 . near the place where the aik was floating, all] only of a middling height; Inn if the dove saw a peal number ol ■ ■ ihe water, the habits oil the bird naturally led it to the olive plantation for shelter and food, in preference to all othei B eater part of this reasoning avowedly rests upon men' assump although the olive grove maybe the favourite the dove, how are we to account for the olive branch being chosen by almost every nation, from the remotest limes, for the symbol of reconciliation and peace ! It is far more probable, that the dove was directed by the finger of God to prefer the olive leaf, or a sprig of olive lea\ es, as being the symbol of peace with which Noah was already acquaint- ed, or that it might, 111 future, be the token of reconciliation between God and his offending creatures, and between one nation and another. — PaXto.n. Chap. 9. ver. 4. But flesh, with the life thereof, which is the Wood thereof, shall ye not eat. Mr. Bruce has given a very extraordinary account of the practice of eating blood in Abyssinia, This custom, so prevalent in several places, is toi hidden in the scriptures. A recital of the narrative will probably suggest 10 the reader the reasons of Ihe prohibition. Air. Bruce tells us, fliat, "not long after our losing sight of ihe ruins of 'his ancient capital of Abyssinia, we overtook three travellers driving a cow before them : they had black goatskins upon their shoulders, and lances and shields in their hands; in other respects they were but thinly clothed; they appeared to be soldiers. The cow did not seem to be lattened for killing, and it occurred to us all, that it had been stolen. This, however, was not our business, nor was such an occurrence at all remarkable in a country so long engaged in war. We saw that our attendants attached themselves, in a particular manner, to the three soldiers that weri; driving the cow, and held a short con- versation with them. Soon afier, we arrived at the hither- most bank of the river, where 1 thought we were to pitch our tent: the drivers suddenly tripped up the cow, and gave the poor animal a very rude fall upon the ground, which was but the beginning'of her sufferings. One of them sat across her neck, holding down her head by the horns, the other twisted the halter about her fore feet, while .he third, who had a knife in his hand, to my very great surprise, in place of taking her by the throat, got astride upon her belly, before her hind legs, and gave her a very deep wound in the upper part of the buttock. From the time I had seen them throw the beast upon the ground, .1 had rejoiced, thinking that when three people were killing a cow, thev must have agreed to sell part of her to us; and I was much disappointed upon hearing the Abyssinians say. that we were to pass the river to the other side, and not encamp where I intended. Upon my proposing they should bar- gain for part of the cow, my men answered, what they had already learned in conversation, that they were not then to kill her: that she was not wholly theirs, and they could not sell her. This awakened niy curiosity; I let my people go forward, and stayed myself, till I saw, with the utmost astonishment, two pieces, thicker and longer than our ordinary beef steaks, cut out of the higher part of the buttock of the beast : how it was done I cannot positively say, because, judging the cow was to be killed from the moment I saw the knife drawn, I was not anxious to view that catastrophe, which was by no means an object of cu- riosity: whatever way it was done, it surely was adroitly, 3 and the two pieces were spread upon the outside of one of then shields. One oi them still continued holding the head, while ihe othei tw.i were bu j in curing 1! This, too, was done not in an ordinary manner. which bad covered ihe flesh that was' taken away, was left entire, and flapped over the wound, and was fastened to e snail skewers or 1 111s. Whether they had put any thing under the skm, between thai and the wounded flesh, I know not: but, at the river-side where they were, they had pre] area a • ata- .:'. , VI llll W llilli ill' \ , ,.\ e|r ,| ami 1I1 ' >\ e 11 1 n before them, to furni b thi m « ilh a fulli 1 mi al n lies ll ej hi 1 Id mi at us ;:, iheei ening ('/Van I iii. p 1 18.) ■ ce, in [he life 1 f Saul, tl al shi « ll a propensity of the Israelites to this erime: Saul's army, after a battle Hew, tha 1- fell voraciously upon the cattle they had taken, and threw then: U] < n tl id 1 tiff their flesh, and eat then: law; hi thai the am y was defiled ea ■ ■■ bl I, or living animals. 1 Sam. riv. 33. To Saul caused to be n lied to 1 1 1 em! 1 'den .! 1I1.1- 1 that killed then oxen, to ''III tl upon that stone. This was the only lawful waj ol killing animals for food; the tying of il x, and thrown 2 il round, were notpermitted as equivalent The 1 id probably, in ilia' case, as ihe Abyssinians do at this day; thev cut a 1 art ol its tin. at, so I hat bloi d mighl Ihe ground, hut nothing mortal to the ai m al followed from that wound : but, after laying his head upon e. and cutting his throat, the lib oil fell from 'n high, or was poured on the ground like water, and suffi- cient evidence appeared thai the creature w as dead, before it was attempted to eat it. We have seen thai the Al ysi i- nians came liom Fales'ine a very few years alter this, and we are not to doubt, that they then cariiod with them this, with many other Jewish customs, which they have con- tinued to this day.'' (Brcce's Travels, vol. ihi. p. 299 1 To e the account given by Mr. Jlrece, in these extracts, it may he sa;i: lac: my to aliix what Mr. Antes has said upon the subject, in Ins Observations on the Man- ners and Customs of the Egyptians, p. 17. ''When Mr. Bruce returned from Abyssinia, 1 was at Grand Cairo. I had the pleasure of his company for three months almost every day, and having, at that time, myself an idea of penetrating into Abyssinia, 1 wan very imjuis , that country, on hearing many tilings from him which seemed almost incredible to me ; 1 used to ask his Greek servant Michael, (a simple fellow, incapable of any inven- tion.) about the same circumstance, and must say. that he commonly agreed with his master, as to the chief points. The description Mr. Bruce makes e"iieon:ing the bloi dv banquet of live oxen among the natives, he happened never to mention to me. else I could have made the same inquiry; but I heard not only ilns servant, but many eye- witnesses, often speak of the Abyssinians eating raw meat." On the general veracity of Bruce as a traveller observes, "Whatever have been the petty jealousy aid egotism of Bruce, he was an enterprising "and intelligent traveller; and his general descriptions a' e better entitled to credit than those of the travellers who have reviled him. Mr. Coffin has just arrived here after a residence of eighteen years in Abyssinia: this gentleman assures me, that tbosr points in his travels which are most disputed in England, are the points which are most coned : he showed me how the flesh was taken from the glutsei muscles of the living sected out without wounding the bloodvessels. Mr. Coffin performed this operation here upon the riving animal, in presence of Lord Prudhoe, and Mr. Burn 0, - ne of our most intelligent travellers." — Mxdden's Tha\ i ls, Vi r. 29. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years', and he died. In asking the age of a child or a man, the inquiry is Dl t how many years, but, "Days how manyl" — In s) eaking of a man who will die soon—" Ah ! in five years his days will be gone. That young man has gray hairs: to him how many days ? he has'seen twenty-six years." — Roberts Chap. 1 1. ver. 1. And the whole earth was of on>: language, and of one speech. See on ver. 4, and on chap. 2. 20. Ver. 3. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. The soil of ancient Assyria and Babylonia consists of a fine clay, mixed with sand, with which, as the waters of the river retire, the shores are covered. This compost, when dried by the heat of the sun, becomes a hard and solid mass, and forms the finest material for the beautiful bricks for which Babylon was so celebrated. We all put to the test the adaptation of this mud for pottery, by taking some of it while wet from the bank of the river, and then moulding it into any form we pleased. Having been exposed to the sun for half an hour, it became as hard as stone. These remarks are important, as the indications of buildings throughout this region are different from those of other countries, the universal substitution of brick for stone being observable in all the numerous ruins we visit- ed, including those of the great cities of Seleucia, Ctesi- phon, and of the mighty Babylon herself, for which we have the authority of Scripture, that her builders " had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar." In' con- sequence of this circumstance, the ruins now before us, which our guide called Mumliheh, instead of showing fragments of pillars, or any marks bv which we might con- jecture the order of architecture, exhibit an accumulation of mounds, which, on a dead flat, soon attract the eye of a traveller, and have at first sight the appearance of sandy hillocks. On a nearer inspection they prove to be square masses of brick, facing the caidinal points, and, though sometimes much worn bv the weather, built with much reg- ularity; the neighbourhood of these large mounds is strewed with fragments of tile, broken pottery, and manu- factured vitreous substances. Coins, the incontestible proofs of former population, are generally to be found. In this' place, thev are so abundant, that many persons come from Bagdad in the dry season to search for them. Aboo Nasir told us, that some time ago he found a pot full of coins, and Mr. Hart picked up two, with apparently Cufic inscriptions, but their characters were not vry de- cipherable. Near the place where they were found, was the fragment of a vessel which had possibly contained them. — Keppel. Ver. 4. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lost we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole The words in which they couched their daring resolu- tion, " Let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven," mean no more than a tower of ex- traordinary height. Such phrases may be found in every language ; and their meaning can scarcely be misunder- stood. When the messengers whom Moses employed to examine the land of Canaan, returned and made their report, they described the cities which they had visited, as great and walled up to heaven: and Moses himself, in his farewell address to the congregation, repeats it; "Hear, O IsrEel, thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations ^euier and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven." The meaning of these phrases plainlv is, that the walls of those cities were un- commonly strong and lofty. That the buildeTs of Babel meant no more, is further evident from the words of Jeho- vah, recorded by Moses. "Now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." It is here plainly admitted, that the design was practicable, and had been accomplished, if God had not thought proper to interrupt their operations. But to build a tower, the top of which should actually reach unto heaven, is beyond the power of mortals. The opinion of Josephus is not much mere reasonable ; that their design was to raise a tower higher far than the summits of the highest mountains, to defend them from the waters of a second flood, of which they were afraid. Had this been their design, they would r,". hav commenced their operations on the level plain, !•■:: on me top of Ararat, where the ark rested. They had the v.'cmn promise of Jehovah, that he would no more .SIS Chap. 11. destroy the earth by water ; and beheld the ratification of it in the radiant bow of heaven, placed in the cloud to quiet the fears of guilty mortals. If the Noacliidse had distrusted the promise and sign of heaven, they had not descended from the mountains, where only they could hope for safety from the strength and height of their tower, into the plains of Babylonia, and fixed their abode between two mighty rivers, to whose frequent inundations that province is exposed. Nor could they be so infatuated as to imagine, that a tower constructed of bricks, whether hardened in the sun, or burnt in the fire, could resist the waters of a general deluge, whose impetuous assault, as they must have well known, the strong barriers of nature could hardly endure. Equally inadmissible is the notion, that they constructed this tower to defend them from the general conflagration, of which thev are supposed to have received some obscure and imperfect notices; for in the destruction of the world, who could hope to find safety in the recesses of a tower, or on the summit of the mountains 1 they would rather seek for refuge from the devouring element, in the profound caverns of the earth. But it is vain to indulge in conjectures, when the true reason is clearly stated in the page of inspiration : " Let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we" be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." These words clearly show, that their object in building the tower was, to transmit a name illustiious for sublime conception and bold undertaking, to succeeding generations. In this sense, the phrase, to make one's self a name, is used in other parts of Scripture. Thus, " David gat him a name when he returned from smiting of the Syrians in the valley of salt ;" and the prophet informs us, that. the God of Israel "led them by the ri^ht hand of Moses, with his glorious arm dividing the waters before them, to make himself an ever- lasting name." They seem also to have intended it as a beacon or rallying point, to their increasing and naturally diverging families, to prevent them from separating in the boundless wilderness into independent and hostile societies. This may be inferred from these words, in which they further explain the motive of their undertaking: ' lest we be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth." They seem to have anticipated the necessity, and dreaded the consequences of dispersion; and, like all who seek to avert evil by unlawful means, they hastened, by the rash and impious measure which they adopted, the very mischicl they sought to avoid. To build a city and a tower was certainly no crime ; but to do this with a view merely to transmit an illustrious name to posterity, or to thwait'the counsels of heaven, was both foolish and wicked, and justly excited the displeasure of the supreme Judge, who requires his rational creatures to acknowledge and to glorifv him in all their undertakings. It is by no means improbable that this tower was also intended for idolatrous purposes. The worship of fire began in a very remote age, and most probably under the direction and among the "rebellious followers of Nimrod. This idea receives no small confirmation from the numer- ous fire towers which in succeeding ages were built in Chaldea, where the sacred fire was kept, and the religious rites in honour of the sun were celebrated. If this r jecture be well founded, it accounts in the most satisfactory manner, for the sudden and effectual dispersion of the builders, visibly and strongly marking the first combined of idolatrv after the flood, of which we have any notice, with the displeasure of the true God. Guilty of the same crime which procured the sudden dispersion of the first settlers at Babel, was the restorer of that great city, when he proudly boasted, " Is not this great Babvlon which I have builded for the house of the kingdom, by the might of mv power, and for the honour of mv majesty:" and he was in-rnntly visited with a similar punishment, but proportioned to the greater enormitv of his transgression; for the place should have reminded him of the sin and punishment of his fore- fathers, and taught him to guard against the pride and vanity of his heart. Nebuchadnezzar was, for his wiced- ness, driven from his throne and kingdom, to dwell with the beasts of the field, and eat grass like oxen, " till seven times passed over him;" till the sun had seven limes passed over his appointed circuit, and he had learned " that the most High rnleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." But his irreligious ancestors were CM 13. punished with dknemoBj by confounding their language. Till this memorat.1". event, lln> inspired wtitei assures us, the whole earth was of one l&Oguage and one speech. When Jehovah came down to see r In- l.mrr which the Babylonians were building, lie said," Behold the people i one/and they have all one language." They formed one great societv. and convened is the tongue which they had leal ned from those who lived before the Hood ; and which was the only language spoken on earth from the beginning of the world: lor no !rnl of any eord'usion til" language, or eren material diversity of speech, before the building of Babel, is given in the sacred volume. It is exceedingly natural to suppose, ilia* Ihe rfe.'o'it Selh, and his religions descendants, would preserve with care the family tongue in which God conversed with their renowned father; in which the first promise was given to sinners, and many subsequent revelations were made. The language ol am fathers is not easily charged, if we. were so dU no man is willing to change il ; and a religious man will he yet more averse to relinquish a lniguage which contains the only grounds of his hope, ami that of the whole human race. We may therefore conclude, Ihal since I his language had so many claims on the affectionate care of Selh, he would certainly hand it down, with the gospel it contained, to his children,' that they might teach it to succeeding gener- ations, till it was received by his celebrated descendant Noah, the second father of our family. For Ihe same reasons, which were dailv receiving additional strength, Shein would preserve with pious care the sacred deposit, till he delivered it into the hands of Abraham, with whom he lived about two hundred years. The line of descent, by which the primitive language might be transmitted from Adam to Abraham, and from this patriarch to Moses, is short and straight; for between Adam and Noah were only eight persons, and the father of Noah was fifty-six years old when Adam died. The only interruption is the confusion of tongues, which happened after the flood. But though God confounded the speech of mankind at Babel, it is not said he extinguished the general language; nor that he confounded the speech of any but the colony at Babel. These only were in the transgression, and. therefore, these only were'liable to the punishment. Noah, and the rest of his'family, persevering in their dutiful obedience to God, undoubtedly retained their language, together with their ancient habitations. It may be urged that, by the testimo- ny of Moses, the Lord confounded at Babel, "the language of all the earth." But the plain of Shinar could, with no propriety, be called the whole earth; nor could the inhabit- ants of Shinar, by any figure of speech, be entitled to that name. If mankind were in possession of a great part of the globe when the tower was built, by what rule of justice could thev be punished for a crime in which thev had no share, and of which multitudes of the distant settlers could not even have heard 1 " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 1" The truth of this historv depends upon two terms," which admit of different senses. In the first verse of the eleventh chapter of Genesis, the sacred histo- rian says. The whole earth was of one language and of one speech. The word (V=) Col, signifies the whole, and also every; by(r-*N) Arets, is often meant the earth, it also signi- fies aland or province ; and occurs frequently in this latter acceptation. In this very chapter, the region of Shinar is called Arets Shinar, the'land or province of Shinar; and the land of Canaan. Arets Canaan, the country of Canaan. The psalmist uses both terms in precisely the same sense : "Their sound is gone out into every land," Col Arets. The words of Moses, then, ought to be 'rendered, Therefi ire is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of the whole land. If this/view of the text be just, "the dispersion was a partial event, and related chiefly to the sons of Cush, whose intention was to found a great, if not a universal empire ; but by this judgment their purpose was defeated. The language of the whole country, Mr. Bryant thinks, was confounded, by causing a labial failure, so that the people could not articulate. It was not an aberration, in words or language, but a failure and incapacity in labial utterance; for God said, "Go to, let us go down and confound, n»«r, their lip, that they may not understand one another's speech." By this, their speech was confounded, but not altered; for, as soon as they separated, they recovered the true tenor of pronunciation; and the language of the earth continued, 10 . 88, nearly Ihe same. This ap; K art . Ii. a DlBBy interviews between the Hebrews, and otbei t which thej spoke without an interpreter. Thus, when Ai'ialiain icii his native country to sojourn in the landol promise, he conversed with the natives in their own lai- witi >iii difficult; . though they were the di oi ( ianaan, who, i.,i i,; ■ian.-ie-.ion ai Babel, was driven, b] the divine judgments, from the chosen residence < t lo . lamiiv. The Hebrew language, indeed, seems to have been the vernacular tongue of all the nations in those pans of the world ; for ihe patriarchs, and their descendant , so late e the days of Moses and Joshua, conversed familiarly with the inhabitants of Midian and Canaan, without the help of interpreters. — Paxton. Chap. 13. ver. o. And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, be- tween Beth-el and Hai. Abraham, and the other patriarchs, led a wandering shepherd's life in tents, such as the Arabs, Turcomans, and numerous tribes of eastern Asia, lead to this day in the same countries. Divided into tribes, they traverse immense tracts with their numerous herds, consisting of camels, oxen, and especially sheep and goals; and when ihe pasture of a distiicl is exhausted, the tents are taken down, and the whole family, or the whole tribe, removes to anothei spot. "Each of these tribes," says Volney, "of the Bedouin Arabs appropriates to itself a certain tract, which it consid- ers as its property. They differ from agricultural nations only so far. as such tracts must be far more extensive to procure subsistence for their flocks all the year round. One man's camps distributed over such a tract, form a tribe ; they traverse the whole in succession, as they have consumed with iheir flocks the pastures in ol The following account by Parsons (Travels from Alep- po to Bagdad.p. 100) of the movement of an Arab horde, is illustrative of the manners of the old patriarchs. " It «a- eniertaining enough to see the horde of Arabs decamp, as nothing could be more regular. First went the sheep and goatherds, each with their flocks in divisions, accord- ing as the chief of each family directed ; then followed the camels and asses, loaded with the tents, furniture, and kitchen utensils ; these were followed by ihe old men, women, boys, and girls, on foot. The children that cannot walk are carried on the backs of the young women, or the boys and girls ; and the smallest of the lambs and kids are carried under the arms of the children. To each tent belong many dogs, among which are some greyhounds ■ some tents have from ten to fourteen dogs, and from twentj- to thirty men, women, and children, belonging to it. The procession is closed by the chief of the tribe, whom they call emir and father", (emir means prince,) mounted oh the very best horse, and surrounded by the heads of each family, all on horses, with many servants on foot. Be- tween each family is a division or space of one hundred yards, or more, when they migrate : and such great regu- larity is observed, that neither camels, asses, sheep, nor dogs, mix, but each keeps to the division to which it be- longs, without the least trouble. They had been here eight days, and were going four hours journey to the norlh- west, to another spring of water. This tribe consisted r>f about eight hundred and fifty men. women, and children. Their flocks of sheep and goats were about five thousand, besides a great number of camels, horses, and asses. Horses and greyhounds they breed and train up for sale : they neither kill nor sell their ewe lambs. At set times a chapter in the Koran is read by the chief of each family, either in or near each tent, the whole family being gather- ed round, and very attentive." The Compte de Ff.rrieres Sauveboeuf describes the manner of an Arab horde moving to a fresh pasturage. "Their wandering life, without ambition, brings to the mind of the traveller that of the ancient patriarchs. No- thing is more interesting than their manner of changing their abode. Numerous flocks, which precede the caravan, express by their bleating, their joy at returning to their ok! pastures. Some beasts of burden, guided by Ihe young men, bear the liule ones just dropped, and not able to trav- el ; then come the camels carrying the baggage, ar-d tba GENESIS. Chap. 1* old or sick women. The rest go on foot, carrying their infants on theirbacks or in their arms; and the men, mount- ed on the horses, armed with lances, ride rpund, or bring up the march of the cattle, which loiter behind, browsing 1 jo long a time. In this manner the Arabs journey, and find their homes, their hearths, and their country, in every lace."— Buhder. Ver. 7. And there was a strife between the herd- men of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle. ' How often have I been reminded of the strife of the herd- men of the scriptures, by seeing, on a distant plain, a num- ber of shepherds or husbandmen struggling together re- specting some of the same causes which promoted strife in the patriarchal age. The fields are not, as in England, enclosed by fences; there is simplv a ridge which divides one from another. Hence the cattle belonging to one per- son find no difficulty in straying into the field of another, and the shepherds themselves have so little principle, that they gladly take advantage of it. Nothing is more com- mon than for a man, when the sun has gone down, thus to injure his neighbour. The time when most dispuies take place, is when the paddy, or rice, has been newly cut, as the grass left among the stubble is then long and green. The herdmen at that time become very tenacious, and wo to the ox, if within reach of stick or stone, until he shall get into his own field. Then the men of the other party start up on seeing their cattle beaten, and begin to swear and decla'e r.woilen the others have done thesame thing. They now approach each other, vociferating the most op- ibout in ev spits pi Minions epithets: the hands swiftly direction ; one pretends to take up a s ground in token of contempt ; and tin — the long hair is soon dishevelled, mid the weaker fall be- neath their antagonists. Then begins the I eating, biting, and scratching, till in their cruefrage thev have nearly- destroyed some of tie party. The next business. is with (lie magistrate: all are clamorous for justice; and great must be his patience, and great his discernment, to" find out the truth. Another common cause of strife is that which took place between the herdmen of Gerar and those of Isaac. Water is at all times very precious in the East, but especially in the dry season ; as the tanks are then nearly exhausted, and what remains is scarcely fit for use. At that time recourse must be had to the wells; which are often made at the ex- pense or labour of five, ten, or twenty people. Here, then, is the cause of contention. One man has numerous herds ; he gets there first, and almost exhausts the well ; the others come, and, seeing what is done, begin the affray. But the most common cause of quarrel is when the owners of the well have to irrigate their lands from the same source. To prevent these contests, they have generally each an ap- pointed time for watering their lands; or, it mav be, that those who get there first, shall have the privilege : but where there is so little integrity, it is no wonder there should be so much strife. — Roberts. Ver. 10. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. The Jordan flows from the Lake of Genesareth to the Dead Sea, between two ridges of moderatelv high moun- tains, in a valley that may be about twelve miles in breadth. This valley opens at Jericho, and encloses within it the Dead Sea, which is surrounded bv a circle of mountains. Before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah there was, however, no lake here ; but all this was a vallev, which Moses calls the vale of Siddim. It is probable, that even at that time there was a lake under this valley, in which the Jordan discharged itself, which otherwise could have had no vent. This subterraneous lake was covered with a thick coat of earth, on which, besides Sodom and Gomor- rah, other cities stood. This being the nature of the ground, it could never be deficient in the requisite moist- ure, and besides it was doubtless watered bv canals sup- plied from the Jordan. In this view Moses" compares i: with Egypt, which was watered by innumerable canals led from the Nile, and cultivated like a garden.— Birder. Chap. 14. ver. 3. All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea. The lake Asphaltites, or the Dead Sea, is enclosed on the east and west with exceeding high mountains ; on the north it is bounded with the plain of Jericho, on which side it receives the waters of the Jordan ; on the south it is open, and extends beyond the reach of the eye. It is said tabe twenty-four leagues long, and sixorseven bread; and is fringed with a kind of coppice of bushes and reeds. In the midst of this border, not a fuilong from the sea, rises a fountain of brackish water, which was pointed out to Maundrell by his Arab conductor ; a sure proof that the soil is not equally impregnated with salme particles. The ground, to the distance of half an hour from the sea, is uneven and broken into hillocks, which Mr. Maundrell compares to ruinous lime-kilns ; but whether these might be the pits at which the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown by the four kings who invaded their country, he could not determine.— Rsxton. . As it has no outlet, Reland, Pococke, and other trav- ellers, have supposed that it must throw off its superfluous waters by some subterraneous channel; but, although it has been calculated that the Jordan daily discharges into it 6,090,000 tons of water, besides what it receives from the Anion and several smaller streams, it is now known, that the loss by evaporation is adequate to explain the absorption of the waters. Its occasional rise and fall at certain sea- sons, is doubtless owing to the greater or less volume ai Inch the Jordan and the other streams bring down from the mountains.— Modern Traveller. The water of the lake is intensely salf, extremely bitter and nauseous, and so heavy, that the most impetuous winds can scarcely ruffle its surface. It is called by common writers the Dead Sea, because it nourishes neither animal nor vegetable life. No verdure is to be seen on its banks, nor fish to be found within its waters; but it is not true, that its exhalations are so pestiferous as to kill birds that attempt to fly over it. Mr. Maundrell saw several birds flying about, and skimming the surface of its waters, with- out any visible harm. The same fact is attested by Vol- ney, who states it as no uncommon thing to see swallows dipping for the water necessary to build their nests. The true cause that deprives it of vegetables and animals, is the extreme saltness of the water, which is vastly stronger than that of the sea. The soil around it, impregnated also with salt, produces no plants; and the air itself, which becomes loaded with saline particles from evaporation, and which receives also the sulphureous and bituminous vapours, can- not be favourable to vegetation : hence the deadly aspect which reigns around this lake. The ground about it, how- ever, is not marshv, and its waters are limpid and incor- ruptible, as must be the case with a dissolution of salt. Mr Maundrell questions the truth of the common tradition, which is admitted by Volney in all its extent, that the waters of the Dead Sea are destructive to animal existence, having observed among the pebbles on the shore two or , three shells of fish, lesembling oyster-shells. [Mr. Mad- den, however, says, Travels, vol. 2, p. 210, " I found seve- ral fresh water shells on the beach, such as I before noticed on the Lake of Tiberias; and also the putrid remains of two small fish, of the t-ize of mullet ; which no doubt had been carried down from the Jordan, as well as the shells; for I am well convinced, both from my own observation and from the accounts of the Arabs, that no living creature is to be found in the Dead Sea."] That respectable travel- ler, willing to make an experiment of its strength, went into it, and found it bore up his body in swimming, with an uncommon force ; but the relation of some authors, that men wading in it are buoyed up to the top as soon as the water reaches to the middle, he found upon experiment un- true. Pococke, however, says : " I was much pleased with what I observed of this extraordinary water, and stayed in it near a quarter of an hour. I found I could lay on it in any posture, without motion, and without sinking. It bore me up in such a manner, that, when I struck in swimming, my legs were above the water, and I found it difficult tc Uhap. 14. GEN recover my feet. I did not care to venture where it was deep, though these effects would probably have been more remarkable farther in. They have a aotionthat if any one attempted to swim over, it would burn up the body; and they say ilie same of boats, for there are none on the lake." Van l-'.gniont and lieyinan Mate, that on Swimming : i r n-f iv.. in the shore, they found themselves, to iii).hm', lifted up by the water. " When I had. sw am to mini.1 distance, 1 endeavoured to sink perpendicu- larly to the bottom, but could not; fur the water kept me continually up, ami would certainly bave thrown me upon my face, had 1 not put forth all the strength I was master of, to keep myself in a perpendicular posture; so that 1 walked in the sea as if I had trod on firm ground, without having occa ion to make an;, of th'' mo: - necessary in t reading fresh water; and when 1 was swimming, 1 was obliged to keep my legs i lie greatest pan ol the time out of the water. My fcliou -traveller was agreeably surpi ised to mid that he could sw [iii here, ha\ in- never" learned. But his case and mine proceeded from the gravity of the water, as this certainly does from the extraordinary quantity of salt in it." —Modern Traveller. About six in the morning, says Mr. Madden, I reached he shore, and much against the advice of DM guide, I resolved on having a bath. I was desirous of Ascertaining the truth of the assertion, that " nothing sinks in the Dead Sea." 1 swam a considerable distance from the shore; and about four yards from the beach I was Beyond my depth: the water was the coldest I ever felt, and the taste of it most detestable ; it was that of a solution of nitre, mixed with an infusion of quassia. Its buoyancy I found to be far greater than that of any sea 1 ever swam in, not excepting the Euxine, which is 'extremely salt. I could lie like a log of wood on the surface, without stirring hand or foot, as long as I chose; but with a good deal of exertion I could just dive sufficiently deep to cover all mv body, hut I was again thrown on the surface, in spite of my endeavours to descend lower. On coining out, the wounds in my feet pained me excessively; the poisonous quality of the waters irritated the abraded skin, and ulti- mately made an ulcer of every wound, which confined me fifteen days in Jerusalem; and became so troublesome in Alexandria, that my medical attendant was apprehensive of gangrene. — M uide.v. The question of its specific gravity, indeed, has been set to rest by the chyniical analysis of the waters made bv Dr. Marcel", and published in the London Philosophical Transactions tor lsOT. In 177si. Messrs. Lavoisier, Mac- quer, and Le Sage, had concluded, by experiment, that a hundred pounds of the water contain forty-five pounds six ounces of salt ; that is. six pounds four ounces of common marine salt, and thirty-eight pounds two ounces of marine salt with an earthy base. But Dr. Marcet's more accurate analysis has determined the specific gravity to be 1,211, (that of the fresh water being 1000.) a degree of density not to be mel with in any oilier natural water ; and it holds in solution the following sail 100 grains of the water :— Muriate of lime Mm i.i.- ..f inannesia offeoda Sulphate oflime . the stated proportions to 10316 10.360 lt,054 24,5S0 So that the water of the lake contains about one fourth of its weight of salts, supposed in a state of perfect desicca- tion : or if they be desiccated at the temperature of ISO' on Fahrenheit's scale, they will amount to forty-one per cent, of the water. Its other general properties "are, that, 1. As staled by all travellers, it is perfectly transparent. 2. Its taste is extremely bitter, saline, and pungent. 3. Re- age.-t ; demonstrate in it the presence of the marine and sulphuric acids. 4. It contains no alumine. 5. It is not sanitated with common salt. (i. It did not change the col- ours of the infusions commonly used .o ascertain the prev- alence of an acid or an alkali", such as litmus, violet, and tumeric. Mr. Maundrell neither saw nor heard of the apples of Sodom, so frequently mentioned by the ancients ; nor did he discover any tree near the lake, from which a fruit of that kind might be expected. It is a production which ex- ists only in the imagination and song of the poet ; and has :sis. -2i perhaps been kept up so long, because it furni whh a good allusion, or helped him to a beautiful simile. Several travellers, however, claim the honi U! i 1 having discovered that far-famed apple. I la apple of Sodom i- n, ii the frnii eithei ol a tree oi but the production of the solanum melongcna of Liuiurus. It is found in great abundance round Jei icho. in the vales near the Jordan, and in the neighbourh I of the Dead Sea. lis apples are sometimes full of dust ; but this appi when the fruit is attacked by an insect, which converts the whole of the inside into dust , leaving nothing but the rind entire, without causing it to lose any of its colour. hi. Seetzen supposes il is ihc fruit of a tree which grows i D the plain ol El Gor, near the southern extremity ol the Dead Sea. The nee resen/bles a fig-tree, and the filth is like the pomegranate : it struck him, that this fruit, which has no pulp or llesh in the inside, but only a spec, resembling silk, and is unknown in the rest ol Pale lini . might be the celebrated apple of Sodom. Chateaubriand imagines that he has made the interesting discovery. The shrub which bears, in his opinion, the true apple oi Sodom, glows two or three leagues from tl»e mouth of the Jordan ; it is thorny, and lias small taper leaves; its tie: like the little Egyptian lemon, both in size and coli or : be- fore it is ripe, it is oiled with a corrosive and saline juice ; when dried, it yields a blackish seed, which may be em- paled to ashes," and which resembles bitter pe| | i He gathered half a dozen of these fruits, bui has no name for them, either popular or botanical. Next comes Mr. Jolliffe. He found in a thicket of brushwood, about half a mile from the plain of Jericho, a shrub of five or six let I high, on which grew clusters of fruit, about the size if a small apricot, of a bright yellow colour, "which ing with the delicate verdure of the foliage union of gold and emeralds. Possibly, when ripe, they may crumble into dust upon any violent pressure." These which ihis gentleman gathered did not crumble, nor ever, retain the slightest mark of indenture from the ti mch : thi v would seem to want, therefore, the most essential character- istic of thefruit in question. But they were not ripe, 'i his shrub is probably the same as that described by ( 'hatcau- briand. Lastly, Captains Irby and Mangles have i oilonbl that they have discovered it in the oskar plant, v. hi. h they noticed on the shores of the Dead Sea, grown to the sta- ture of a tree ; its trunk measuring, in many instances, iv o feet or more in circumference, anil the boughs at least fif- teen feet high. The filaments enclosed in the 1 1 what resemble the down of a thistle, and are used by the natives as a stuffing for their cushions; "they likewise twist them, like thin rope, into matches for their guns, which, they assured us, required no application ofsul] hur to render them combustible." This is probably the same tree that M. Seetzen refers to. But still, the correspondence to the ancient description is by no means perfect; thete being little resemblance between cotton and thistle-down, and ashes or dust. M. Chateaubriand's golden fruit, full of bitler seed, comes the nearest to what is told us of the deceitful apple. If it be any thing more than a fable, it must have been a production peculiar to this part of Pales- tine, or it would not have excited such general attention. On this account, the oskar and the solanum seem alike unentitled to the distinction; and for the same reason, the pomegranate must altogether be excluded from considera- tion. The fruit of the solanvm mclonzenn, which belongs to the same genus as the common potato, is white, resen - Ming a large egg, and is said to impart an agreeable acid flavour to soups and sauces, for the sake of which it is cultivated in the south of Europe. This could hardly be what Tacitus and Josephus referred to. It is possible, indeed, that what they describe, may have originated, like the oak-galls in this country, in the work of some insect : for these remarkable productions sometimes acquire a con- siderable size and beauty of colour. Future travellers will be inexcusable if they leave this question tindecid sd. —Modern Traveller. The far-famed fruit of the tree of Sodom, " which tempts the eye and turns to ashes on the lips," is n. v found on the western shore: and Burckhardt appears to favour the opinion of its having only an imaginary exist- ence: but it does exist in the vicinity of I'l Ghor. I saw- one of the apples at Mar Saba; and, perhaps, the only plant in Egypt producing this fruit I discovered at Km m 22 Omios, in Upper Egypt, growing in a corner of the small temple of Isis, facing the Nile; the plant was not quite the height of the Palma Christi, the fruit was the size of the pomegranate ; indeed, from the similarity of the fruit and leaves, I consider the Dead Sea apple as a spurious pome- granate. It was, indeed, tempting to the eye, but deceitful to the sense ; on opening it, it was quite empty, the surface of the rind having only a light floculent sort of cotton attached to it, which was destroyed by the lightest touch; thu was the true Dead Sea apple which I saw in Egypt, and which I also found in Mar Saba; albeit Shaw and Pococke doubt its existence. — Madden. The extreme sallness of this lake, has been ascribed by Volney to mines of fossil salt in the side of the mountains, which extend along the western shore, and from time im- memorial have supplied the Arabs in the neighbourhood, and even the city of Jerusalem. He does not attempt to invalidate the credit of the Mosaic narrative; but only insinuates, that these saline depositions were either coeval with the mountains in which they are foimd, or entered into their original conformation. The extraordinary fruit- fulness of the vale of Siddim, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, is asserted by Moses in terms so clear and precise, that the veracity of the sacred writer must be overthrown, before a reasonable doubt can be entertained of the fact. No disproportionate quantity of saline matter, could then have been present, either in the soil or in the surrounding mountains. That it abounded with bitumen, some have inferred from the assertion of Moses, that the vale of Siddim was full of slime pits: w-here the Hebrew word chemar, which we render slime, others, and particularly the Seventy interpreters, render bitumen. But gnphrith, and not chemar, is the word that Moses employs to denote brimstone, in his account of the judgment which overwhelmed the cities of the plain ; and by consequence, brimstone is not meant, when chemar is used, but bitumen, a very different substance. Hence the brimstone which now impregnates the soil of the salt sea, and banishes almost every kind of vegetation from its shores, must be regarded, not as an original, but an accidental ingredient, remaining from the destruction of the vale by fire and brimstone from heaven. The same remark applies to the mines of fossil salt, on the surround- ing mountains; the saline matter was deposited in the cavities which it now occupies at the same time, else the vale of Siddim, instead of verdant pastures, and abundant harvests, had exhibited the same frightful sterility from tlvfe beginning, for which it is so (ymiarkable in modern times: Bitumen, if the Hebrew word chemar denotes that substance, abounds in the richest soils; for in the vale of Shinar, whose soil, by the agreement of all writers, is fer- tile in the highest decree, the builders of the tower of Babel used it for mortar. The ark of bulrushes in which Moses was embarked on the Nile, was in like manner daubed with bitumen (chemar) and pitch ; but the mother of Mo- ses, considering the poverty of her house, cannot be sup- posed to have procured it from a distance, nor at any great expense: she must therefore have found it in the" soil of Egypt, near the Nile, on whose borders she lived. It is therefore reasonable to suppose, that bitumen abounded in Goshen, a region famed for the richness of its pastures. Hence it maybe fairly concluded, that the vale of Siddim, before its destruction, in respect of natural fertility, re- sembled the plain of Shinar, and the land of Egypt along the»Nile. But it is well known, that wherever brimstone and saline matter abound, there sterility and desolation reign. Is it not then reasonable to infer, that the sulphu- reous and saline matters, discovered in the waters and on die shores of the Asphaltites, are the relics of the divine vengeance executed on the cities of the plain, and not original ingredients in the soil. If we listen to the testi- mony of the sacred writers, what was reasonable hypothe- sis rises into absolute certainty. Moses expressly ascribes the brimstone, the salt, and the burning in the overthrow of Sodom, to the immediate vengeance of Heaven ; " When they see the plagues of that land, . . . that the whole land i= briur'one, and salt, and burning; that it is not sown, norbeareth. nor any grass groweth thereon, (like the over- 'hrow i r Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, .vhich the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath;) '■ven all nations shall sav, Wherefore has the Lord done hus un'n this land \ What meaneth the heat of this great SIS. Chap. 14 anger?" In this passage, the brimstone, salt, and burning, are mentioned as true and proper effects of the divine wrath; and since this fearful destruction is compared to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, the brimstone and salt into which the vale of Siddim was turned, must also be the true and proper effects of divine anger. This, in- deed, Moses asserts in the plainest terms : " Then the Lord rained upon Sodom, and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and lire from the Lord out of heaven ; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of. the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." But since the brimstone and the fire were rained from heaven, so must the salt, with which they are connected in the former quotation : and this is the opinion received bv the Jewish doctors. The frightful sterility which followed the brim- stone, salt, and burning, in the first quotation, is in the same manner represented as an effect of the divine judg- ment upon the vale of Siddim ; " it is not sown, nor bear- eth, nor any grass groweth thereon." — Paxton. Chateaubriand says: "Several travellers, and, among others, Troilo and 'd'Arvieux, assert, that thev remark- ed fragments of walls and palaces in the Dead Sea. This statement seems to be confirmed by Maundrell and Fa- ther Nau. The ancients speak more positively on this subject. Josephus, employing a poetic expression, says, that he perceived on the. banks of the lake, the shades" of the overwhelming cities. Strabo gives a circumference of sixty stadia to the ruins of Sodom, which are mentioned also by Tacitus. I know not whether they still exist ; but, as the lake rises and falls at certain seasons, it is possible that it may alternately cover and expose the skeletons of the reprobate cities." Mr. Jollifie mentions the same story. " We have even," he says, " heard it asserted with confidence, that broken columns and other architectural ruins are visible at certain seasons, when the water is much retired below its usual level ; but of this statement our informers, when closely pressed, could not adduce any satisfactory confirmation." We are afraid that, notwith- standing the authority of Strabo, we must class this legend with the dreams of imagination ; or perhaps its origin may be referred to some such optical delusion as led to the mis- take respecting the supposed island. In the travels oj Egmont and Heyman, however, there is a statement which may throw some light on the subject. They say : "We also saw here a kind ofjutty or prominence, which appears to have been a heap of stones from time to time thrown up by the sea; but it is a current opinion here, that thev are part of the ruins of one of the towns which are buried under it." The bare possibility, that any wreck of the guilty cities should be brought to light, is sufficient to ex- cite an intense curiosity to explore this mysterious flood, which, so far as appears from any records, no bark has ever ploughed, no plummet ever sounded. Should permis- sion ever be obtained from the Turks, to launch a v.-s>el on the lake, its navigation, if practicable, would probably lead to some interesting results. — Modern Traveller. Ver. 10. And the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits ; and the kings of Sodom and Go- morrah fled, and fell there : and they that re- mained fled to the mountain. People retired to the mountains ancientlv when defeat- ed in war: they do so still. Dr. Shaw indeed seems to sup- pose, that there was no greater safety in the hills than in the plains of this country : that there were few or no places of difficult access ; and that both of them lay equal- ly exposed to the insults and outrages of an enemy. But in this point this ingenious writer seems to br since, as we find that those that remained of the armies of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled to the mount- ains, in the days of Abraham, Gen. xiv. 10; so d' ' rvieui tells us, that the rebel peasants of the Holy Lai. J, who were defeated while they were in that eountr bv the Arabs, in the plain of Gohin, fled towards thi i whither the Arabs could not pursae them at that time So, in like manner, the Archbishop of Tyre tells us. thai Baldwin IV. of the croisade kings of Jerusalem, rava- ging a place called the valley of Bacar, a country remark- ably fruitful, the inhabitants fled to the mountains, whither our troops could not easily follow them. This dying to Chap. 14. GENESIS. •j:> hills anil mountains fur safety, is frequently alluded to in Scripture.— II.himkei.. Vet. 1 1. Ami when Abram heard that his brothel was token captive, lie armed his trained ser- vants bom in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. If we should turn our thoughts to the strength of an m the number of men they command, we ball find it isnot very great, and that were Abraham now alive. id oi ill" same degree of strength thi in Ins time, lie would still be considered as a prime aim hilt tliem, and niighi, pel hap-, even be called a mighty prince, he having three hundred and eighteen servants able to b;ar arms, Gen. xiv. 11, especially in the Ka plimental stvle : for this is nmeh like the strength of those Arab emirs of Palestine d'Arvieuz visited. There were, according to him, eighteen emirs or princes thai governed the Arabs of Mount Carmel ; the grand emir, or chief of these princes, encamped in the middle, the rest round aboul him, at one or two leagues distance from him. and from each other; each of these emirs had a number of Arabs particularly attached to him, who called themselves bis servants, and were properly the troops each emir com- manded when they fought; and when all these divisions were united, they made up between tour and five thousand lighting men. Had each of these emirs been equal in Strength to Abraham, their number of lighting men must have been near six thousand, for three hundred and eighteen, the number of his servants, multiplied by eighteen, the number of those emirs, make five thousand seven hun- dred and twenty-four ; but they were but between four and dvc thousand, so that they had but about two hundred and fifty each, upon an average. Abraham then was superior in force to one of these emirs. But though Abraham was a man oi power, and did upon occasion make war. yet I hope a remark I before made concerning him will be re- rneir.be re, I here, that is, that he was a pacific emir not- withstanding, at least, that he by no means resembled the modern Arabs in their acts of depredation and violence. — Habmer. Ver. 15. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the ■ left hand of Damascus. The manner in which the Arabs harass the caravans of the East, is described in the same page. Chardin tells us, " that the manner of their making war, and pillaging the caravans, is, i0 keep by the side of them, or to follow them in the rear, nearer or farther off, according to their forces, which it is very easy to do in Arabia, which is one great plain, and in the night they silently fall upon the camp, and carry off one'part of it before "the rest are got under arms." He supposes that Abraham fell upon the camp of the four kings, that had carried away Lot, pre- cisely in the same Arab manner, and by that means, with unequal' forces, accomplished his design, and rescued Lot. Gen. xiv. 15, he thinks, shows this; "and he adds, that it is to be remembered, that the combats of the age of Abraham more resembled a fight among the mob, than the bloody and destructive wars'of Europe.— Harmer. Ver. 17. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him. The conduct of this king, of Abraham, of Lot, of Saul, ol the father of the prodigal, and of many others, is beauti- fully illustrated bv the manners of the East, at this day. Not to meet a friend, or an expected guest, would be con- sidered as rude in the extreme. So soon as the host hears of the approach of his visitant, lie and his attendants go forth in courtly stvle; and when they meet him, the host addresses him.' " Ah ! this is a happy day for me : bv vour favour I am found in health." He will then, perhaps, put his arm round his waist, or gently tap him on the shoulder, as thev proceed towards the house. When at the door, he again'makes his bow. and politely ushers him in; and the rest joyfnllv follow, congratulating each other on the hap- py meeting' -Roberts. * Ver. 22, And Abram said to the king cf Sodom, 1 have lifted up mj hand imto the Lord, the mosl high God, the possessor of Leaven and earth, 23 That I will not take ftom a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou ahouldest say, I have made Abram rich. i shoes may be traced to the patriarchal age; Abraham protested to the king of Sodom, after his victory over Anirapliel and his associates, "I have lifted up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of : ink thai 1 will not take from a thread even toa shoe-lati he;." And when the Lord appeared n, M in t! e I i h, he commanded him to put oti his shoes from the place on which he stood was holy ground, in iiintati fthis memorable example, the priests officiated m the temple barefoot; and all the orientals, under the i nadiiion, put off their shoes when they enter their holy places. The learned Bochart is of opinion, that the Israelites used no shoes in Egypt ; but being to take a long journey, through a rough and barren wilderness, God commanded them to eat the passovcr with shoes on their feet ; and those very shoes which they put on at thai festi- val, when they were ready to inarch, he suffered not to decay during' the whole 'forty years they traversed the desert; and to increase the miracle, Grotius adopts the idle conceit of some Jewish writers, that their clothes en- larged as they grew up to maturity, and their shoes also undei went a' similar enlargement. This was not impos- sible with Jehovah, but it seems to have been quite unne- cessary, for the clothes and shoes of those that oil serve "their children when they grew up; and it was suf- ficiently wonderful, without such an addition, that then clothes should not decay, nor their shoes wear, nor their feet swell, by travelling over hot and sandy deserts for the long period of forty years. It only remains to b. , on this part ot the 'subject, that no'eovering for the foot can exclude the dust in those parched regions; and by con- sequence, the custom of washing and anointing the feet, which is, perhaps, coeval with the existence of the human race, is not to be ascribed to the use of sandals. "What- ever covering for the foot may be used, Chardin declares, it is still necessary to wash and anoint the feet alter a journey. It is also the custom everywhere among the Asiatics, to carry a staff in their hand, and a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from their face. The handkerchiefs are wrought with a needle ; and to embroider and adorn them, is one ofthe elegant amusements otihe other sex.— Paxton. To lift up the right hand with the fingers towards heav- en is equivalent to an oath. Hence Dr. Boothiovd has rendered the passage, ,: I sircar to Jehovah." To lift up the hand in confirmation of any thing is considered a mosl sacred way of swearing. In Isaiah lxii. 8. it is wiitten. " The Lord hath sworn by his right hand." It is an in- teresting fact, that many of the images of the gods of the heathen have the right hand lifted up, which to the under- standing of the people, says, " I am God ; Tom truth ; Imy- sclf; lam. Fear not." Does a man make a solemn prom- ise, and should the person to whom it is made express « doubt; he will say, " Lift up your hand ,-" which means, swear that you will perform it. — Roeerts. Ver. 23. That I will not take from a thread e\en to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich. This may refer to the red thread worn round the neck or the arm,' and which binds on the amulet ; or the string with which females tie up their hair. The latchet I sup- pose to mean the thong ol the sandal, which goes ove- the top of the foot, and betwixt the great and little toes. It is proverbial to say, should a man be accused of taking away some valuable article, which belongs to another, " I have not taken away even a piece of the thong of your worn-out sandals." — Roberts. Chap. 15. ver. 3. And Abram said. Behold, to mc thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born if ray house is mine heir 24 GEN Though ;he slaves in the oriental regions were treated with more severity than hired servants, their condition was by no means reckoned so degrading as in modern times, among lhe civilized nations of the west. The slave- master in the East, when he has no son to inherit his wealth, and even when the fortune he has to bequeath is very considerable, frequently gives his daughter to one of his slaves. The wealthy people of Barbary, when they have no children, purchase young slaves, educate them in their own faith, and sometimes adopt them for their own children. This custom, so strange and unnatural, accord- ing to our modes of thinking, may be traced to a very remote anliquitv; it seems to have prevailed so early as the days of Abraham, who says of one of his slaves, " One born in mine house is mine heir :" although Lot, his bro- ther's son, resided in his neighbourhood, and he had besides many relations in Mesopotamia. In the courts of eastern monarchs, it is well known, that slaves frequently rise to the highest honours of the state. The greatest men in the Turkish empire ate originally slaves, reared and educated in the seraglio. When Maillet was in Egypt, there was a eunuch who had raised three of his slaves to the rank of princes; and he mentions a Bey who exalted five or six of his slaves to the same office with himself. With these facts before us, we have no reason to question the veracity of the inspired writers, who record the extraor- dinary "advancement of Joseph in the house of Pharaoh, of Babylon. These vest stations in society, from n- the horrors of a dungeon, able offices of state, are quite I manners and customs of and of Daniel, under tin sudden elevations, from tl the abject condi onol isl to the highest ;.:. consistent with the Cab those countries.— Paxton. Vcr. 17. And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed be- tween those pieces. Several eminent critics believe the lamp of fire was an emblem of the Divine presence, and thai i' /•.■'■'//■ ,/ tin- cov- enant with Abram. It is an interesting fact that the burn- ing lamp or fire is still used in the East in cn„fi ! m of a covenant. Should a person in the e\ ening make a solemn promise to pel foi n something foi at tatter doubt his w jrd, the for "That isrt greater importance, when two should the fidelity invoke the lamp of any be qi say, '" We if the' Tern dc'"(a a w ties .) " When an agreement of this kind has been 1 roken it u ill be said, Who would hat e thought ll is^ for the/,, f the Tern- pie was invoked. That Jf re was a svmbo of he Divine presence, no one acquainted with he sa -red scriptures can deny ; and in the literatu re and custo ns o f the East, the same thing i still assert ed. In the ai cier t writings, where the main s are des- . And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabit- ants of tho cities, and that which grew upon the ground. With regard to the agents employed in this cat&stri phe, Jiere might seem reason to suppose that vulcanic phe- nomena had some share in producing it; bin Chateau- briand's remark is deserving of attention. " 1 cannot,'' lie jays, "coincide in opinion with those who suppose the Dead Sea to be the crater of a volcano. I have sees Vesuvius, Solfulara, Monte Nnovo in the lake of Fusino, the peak of the Azores, the Mamahf opposite to Carthage, the extinguished volcanoes of Auvergne; and remarked in all of ihemthe same characters; that is to say, moun- tains excavated in the form of a tunnel, lava, and ashes, which exhibited incoatestible proofs of the agency of Bre." After noticing the verv different shape and position of the Dead Sea, he adds: " Bitumen, warm springs, and phos- phoric stones, are found, it is true, id the mountains of Arabia ; but then, the presence of hot springs, sulphur, and asphaltos, is not sntticient to attest the anterior existence of a volcano." The learned Frenchman inclines to adopt tin' idea of Professors Michaehs and Busching, that Sod- om and Gomorrah were built upon a mine of bitumen ; that lightning kindled the combustible mass, and that the cities sank in the subterraneous conflagration. M. Malte Brim in:;. mi slv suggests, that the cities might themselves have been built of bituminous stones, and thus have been set in ilames bv the fire of heaven. We learn from the Mosaic account, thai the Vale of Siddim, winch is now occupied bv the Dead Sea, was full of '• slnne-pits," or nits of bitu- men. Pococke saw : " It is observed, that the bitumen floats on the water, and comes ashore after windy weather ; the Arabs gather it up, and it serves as pitch for all uses, goes into the composition of medicines, and is thought to have been a verv great ingredient in the bitumen used in embalming the "bodies in Egypt: it has been much used for cerecloths, and has an ill smell when burnt. It is prob- able that there are subterraneous tires that throw up this bitumen at the bottom of the sea. where it may form itself into a mass, which may be broken by the motion of the miter occasioned by high winds; and it is very remarkable, that the stone called the stone of Moses, found about two or three leagues from the sea, which burns like a coal, and turns onlv to a white stone, and not to ashes, has the same smell, when burnt, as this pitch; so that it is probable, a stratum of the stone under the Dead Sea is one part of the matter that feeds the subterraneous fires, and that this bitumen boils up out of it." To give force to this last con- jecture, however, it would be requisite to ascertain, whe- ther bitumen is capable of being detached from this stone, in a liquid state, by the action of fire. The stone in ques- tion is the black fetid limestone, used at Jerusalem in the manufacture of rosaries and amulets, and worn as a charm against the plague. The effluvia which it emits on friction, is owing to a strong impregnation of sulphureted hydro- gen. If the buildings were constructed of materials of this description, with quarries of which the neighbouring moun- tains abound, they would be easily susceptible of ignition by lightning. The scriptural account, however, is ex- plicit, that "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Go- morrah brimstone and fire from heaven;" which we may safely interpret as implying a shower of inflamed sulphur, or nitre. At the same time it is evident, that the whole plain underwent a simultaneous convulsion, which seems referable to the consequences of a bituminous explosion. In perfect accordance with this view of the catastrophe, we rind the very materials, as it were, of this awful vis- itation still at" hand in the neighbouring hills; from which they might have been poured down by the agency of a thunder-storm, without excluding a supernatural cause from the explanation of the phenomena. Captains Irby and Mangles collected on the southern coast lumps of nitre and fine sulphur, from the size of a nutmeg up to that of a small hen's egg, which, it was evident from their situation, had been brought down by the rain: their great deposite must be sought for," they say, " in the cliff." Dr. Shaw supposes that the bitumen, as it rises, is accompanied with sulphur, " inasmuch as both of them are found pro- miscuously upon the wash of the shore." Hut his conjec- ture is ii.'.t louiuled on observation. The statement he gives, is founded on hearsay evidence; we cannot, there- fore, admit him as (in this case) an original authority. " 1 was informed," he says, "that the bitumen, for winch tins lake hath been always ivmaikable, is raised, at certain times, from the bottom, 'in large hemispheres; which, as Soon as they touch the surface, and so are acted upon by th( external air, bUISt at once with great smoke and noise, like the pulvis fulminant of the chymists, and disperse themselves round about ill a thousand pieces. But this happens only near the shore; for, in greater depths, the eruptions are supposed to discover themselves only in such columns of smoke as are now and then observed to arise from the lake." Chateaubriand sneaks of the pull's of smoke " which announce or follow the emersion of asphal- tos, and of fogs that are really unwholesome like all other fogs." These he considers as the supposed pestilential vapours said to arise from the bosom of the lake. But it admits of question, in the deficiency of more specific infor- mation, whether what has been taken for columns of smoke, may not be the effect of evaporation. — Modern Traveller. Ver. 26. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. " From behind him." This seems to imply that she was following her husband, as is the custom at this day. When men, or women, leave their house, they never look back, as " it would be verv unfortunate." Should a husband have left any thing which his wife knows he will require, she- will not call on him to turn or look back; but will ehher take the article herself, or send it by another. Should a man have to look back on some great emergency, he will not then proceed on the business he was about to transact. When a person goes along the road, (especially in tht evening.) he will fake great care not to look bark, "becaust the evil spirits would assuredly seize him." When they go on a journey, they will not look behind, though the palankeen, or bandy, should be close upon them ; they step a little on one side, 'and then look at you. Should a person have to leave the house of a friend after sunset, he will be advised in going home not to look back: " as much as pos- sible keep vour eves closed ; fear not." Has a person made an offering to the evil spirits, he must take particular care when he leaves the place not to look back. A female known to me is believed to have got her crooked neck by look i ii u hark. Such observations as the following may be often heard in private conversation. "Have you heard that Cnmaran is verv ill ?"— ;' No, what is the matter with him?" — "Matter! why he has looked back, and the evil spirit has caught him." — Roeerts. Chap. 21. ver. 6. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. A woman advanced in years, under the same circum- stances, would make a similar observation : " I am made to laugh." But this fisure of speech is also used on any wonderful occasion. Has a man sained anv thing he did not expect, he will ask, " What is this 1 I am made to laugh. Has a person lost any thing which the moment before he had in his hand, he says, " I am made to laugh." Has he obtained health, or honour, or wealth, or a wife, or a child, it is said, "He is made to laugh." "Ah, hi? mouth is now full of laughter; his mouth cannot contain a'd that laughter." (Ps. exxvi. 2.)— Roberts. Ver. 8. And the child grew, and was weaned : and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. When Ihe time has come to wean a child, a fortunate day is looked for, and the event is accompanied with feasi ing and religious ceremonies. Rice is given to the child in a formal" wav, and the relations are invited to join in the festivities. For almost everv event of life the Hindoo: have a fixed rule from which they seldom deviate. They wean a female child within the year, " because, if they die' not, it would become steril ;" but boys are often alloweu the breast till they are three years of age.— Roberts GENESIS. Chap. 21 Ver. 9. And Sarah saw the snn of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham. __It is not uncommon for a man of property to keep a con- cubine in the same house with his wife; and, strange as it may appear, it is sometimes at the wife's request* Per- haps she has not had any children, or they may have died, and they both wish to have one, to perform their funeral ceremonies. By the laws of Menu, should a wife, during the first eight years of her marriage, prove unfruitful ; or should the children she has borne be all dead in the tenth year after marriage ; or should she have a daughter only in the eleventh year ; he may, without her consent, put her away, and take a concubine into the house. He must, however, continue to support her. — Roberts. Ver. 14. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, (putting it on her shoulder,) and the child, and sent her away ; and she departed, and wandered in the wilder- ness of Beer-sheba. 15. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. 16. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off as it were a bow-shot ; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. these bottles, which, therefore, I would here set down. After observing that the bottle given to Hagar was a lea- ther one, he goes on thus: " The Arabs, and all those that lead a wandering kind of life, keep their water, milk, and other kind of liquors in these bottles. They keep in them more fresh than otherwise they would do. These lea- ther bottles are made of goat skins. When the animal is killed, they cut off its feet and its head, and they draw it in this manner out of the skin, without opening its bellv. They afterward sew up the places where the legs were cut off, and the tail, and when it is filled, they tie it about the neck. These nations, and the country people of Per- sia, never go a journey without a small leather bottle of water hanging by their side like a scrip. The great leather bottles are made of the skin of a he-goat, and the small ones, that serve instead of a bottle of water i m the road, are made of a kid's skin. Mons. Dandilly, for want of ob- serving this, in his beautiful translation of Josephus, has put goat skin in the chapter of Hagar and Ishmael, instead of a kid's skin bottle, which, for the reasons assigned above, must have been meant." He reassumes the subject jn ano- ther part of the same volume, in which he tells us, "that they put into these goat-skin and kid-skin vessels every thing which they want to carry to a distance in the East, whether dry or liquid, and very rarely make use of boxes and pots, unless it be to preserve such things as are lia- ble to be broken. The reason is, their making use of beasts of carriage for conveying these things, who often fall down under their loading, or throw it down, and also because it is in pretty thin woollen sacks that they enclose what they carry. There is another advantage, too, in put- ting the necessaries of life in these skin vessels, they are preserved fresher ; the ants and other insects cannot make their wnv to them; nor can the dust get in, of which there are such quantities in the hot countries of Asia, and so fine, that there is no such thing as a coffer impenetrable to it ; therefore it is that butter, honey, cheese, and other like aliments, are enclosed in vessels made of the skins of this species of animals." According to this, the things that were carried to Joseph for a present, were probably en- closed in little vessels made of kid skins; not only the balm and the honev, which were somewhat liquid; but the nuts and the almonds too, that they might be preserved fresh, and the whole put into slight woollen sacks. — Harmer. That Ishmael should, when just ready to faint, and un- able to proceed onward in his journey, desire to lie down under some tree, where he might be in the shade, -was quite natural : in such a situation Thevenot (Travels, p. 164) fell in with a poor Arab in this wilderness, just ready to expire. " Passing by the side of a bush," says this writer, " we heard a voice that called to us, and being come to the place, we found a poor languishing Arab, who told us that he had not eaten a bit for five days; we gave him some victuals and drink, with a provision of bread for two days more, and so went on our way." Ishmael was, with- out debate, fourteen years old when Isaac was born, (com- pare Gen. xvi. l(i, with chap. xxi. 5,) and probably seven- teen when Isaac was weaned, for it was anciently the custom in these countries to suckle children till they were three years old, and it still continues so; the translation then of the Septuagint is very amazing, for instead of representing Abraham as giving Hagar bread, and a skin bottle of water, and putting them upon Hagar's shoulder, that version represents Abraham as putting his son Ishmael on the shouldeis of his mother. How droll the represent- ation ! Young children indeed are wont to be carried so; but how ridiculous to describe a youth of seventeen, or even fourteen, as riding upon his mother's shoulders, when sent upon a journey into the wilderness, and she loaded at the same lime with the provisions. Vet unnatural and odd as this representation is, our version approaches too near to it, when it describes Hagar as casting the youth under one of the shrubs: which term agrees well enough with the getting rid of a half grown man from her shoulders, but by no means with the maternal affectionate letting go her hold of him, when she found he could go no farther, and desired to lie down and die under that bush: for that undoubtedly was the idea of the sacred writer; she left off supporting him, and let him gently drop on the ground, where he desired to lie. In a succeeding verse, the angel of the Lord bade her lift up Ishmael, and hold him in her hand, support him under his extreme weakness; she had doubtless done this before, and her quitting her hold, upon his lying down, is the meaning of the word (T-:- ) rhalak, translated casting, that word sometimes, indeed, signify- ing a sudden and rather violent quitting hold of a thing, but at other times a parting with it in a gentle manner. It may also be wondered at, how Hagar came to give way to despair at that time, as she certainly did ; for since there were several shrubs in that place, we may suppose it was a sure indication of water, and that therefore maternal anxiety would rather have engaged her to endeavour to find out the spring which gave this spot its verdure. But it is to be remembeied, that though Irwin found many shrubs in that part of the wilderness through which he travelled, yet the fountains or wells there were by no means equal in number to the spots of ground covered with shrubs, a latent moisture in the earth favouring their growth, where there were no streams of water above ground: she might, therefore, having found her preceding searches vain, very naturally be supposed to have given up all hope of relief, when the angel made her observe where there was water to be found, upon drinking which Ishmael revived. — Harmer. Ver. 16. And she went, and sat her down over against him, a good way off, as it were a bow- shot. This is a common figure of speech in their ancient writings, " The distance of an arrow. — So far as the arrow flies." The common way of measuring a short distance is to say, "It is a call off," i. e. so far as a man's voice can reach. " How far is he off"!" " O, not more than three calls," i. e. were three men stationed within the reach of each other's voices, the voice of the one farthest off would reach to that distance. — Roeerts. Ver. 10. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water : and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. Few European readers are, probably, able to form an adequate idea jf the horrors of such a situation as is here described. The following description may serve to paint to us the terrors of the desert, and the danger of perishing in it with thirst. "The desert of Mesopotamia now pre- sents to our eyes its melancholy uniformity. It is a con- Chap. '21—23. GENESIS. «nuation, and, as it were, a branch of the Great Arabian desert on the other side of the Euphrates. Saline plants cover, ai large uilcivals, I lie burning sand or the dry gyp- sum. Wormwood spreads here, as the furze in I'm ] i , over immense tracts, from which it excludes every other plant. Agile herds of gazelles traverse those plains, where many wild asses formerly roved. The lion con- cealed in Che rushes along the rivers lies in wait for these animals; bu: when he is unable to seize them, to appease his hunger, be sallies forth with fury, and his terrible roar- ing rolls like thunder from desert to desert. The water of the desert is, lor the mosl pari, bitter and brackish. The atmosphere, as is usual in Arabia, is pure and dry; fre- quently it is burning in the naked and sandy plains: the corrupt vapours of siagnanl waters are diluted there; the exhalations of the sulphureous and sal pestilential matter. Whenever any interruption of equilib- rium sets a column of such infected air into rapid motion, that poisonous wind arises, which is called Samum or Samyel, which is dreaded less in the interior of Arabia than on the frontiers, and especially in Syria and Mesopo- tamia. As soon as this dangerous wind arises, the air im- mediately loses its purity, the sun is covered with a bloody veil, all animals fall alarmed to the earth, to avoid this burning blast, which slides every living being that is hold enough to expose itself to it. The caravans which convey goods backward and forward from Aleppo to Bagdad, and have to traverse these deserts, pay a tribute to the Arabs, who consider themselves as masters of these soli- tudes. They have also to dread the suffocating wind, the swarms of locusts, and the want of water, as soon as they leave the Euphrates." A French traveller affirms, that he was witness to a scene occasioned by the want of water, the most terrible that can be imagined for a man of feel- ing. It was between Anah and Dryjeh. The locusts, af- ter they had devoured every thing, at last perished. The immense numbers of dead locusts corrupted the pools, from which, for want of springs, they were obliged to draw water. The traveller observed a Turk, who, with despair in his countenance, ran down a hill, and came towards him. " I am," cried he, "the most unfortunate man in the world! I have purchased, at a prodigious expense, two hundred girls, the most beautiful of Greece and Georgia. 1 have educated them with care; and now that they are marriageable. I am taking them to Bagdad to sell them to advantage. Ah! they perish in this desert for thirst, but I feel greater tortures than they." The traveller immedi- ately ascended the hill; a dreadful spectacle here present- ed itself to him. In the midst of twelve eunuchs and about a hundred camels he sa\v these beautiful girls, of the age of twelve to fifteen, stretched upon the ground, exposed to the torments of a burning thirst and inevitable death. Some were already buried in a pit which had just been made; a great number had dropped down dead by the side of their leaders, who had no more strength to bury them. On all sides were heard the sighs of the dying: and the cries of those who, having still some breath" remaining, demanded in vain a drop of water. The French traveller hastened to open his leathern bottle, in which there was a little water. He was already going to present it to one ol'tlio,,. unhappy victim*. '" Madman!" cried his Arabian guide, " would'st thou also have us die from thirst !" He immedi- ately killed the girl with an arrow, seized the bottle, and threatened to kill any one who should venture to touch it. He advised the slave-merchant to go to Drvjeh, where he would find water. " No," replied the Turk, " at Dryjeh the robbers would take away all my slaves." The Arab dragged the traveller away. The moment they were re- tiring, these unhappy victims, seeing the last ray of hope vanish, raised a dreadful cry. The Arab was moved with compassion; he took one of them, poured a drop of water or. her burning lips, and set her upon his camel, with the intention of making his wife a present of her. The poor girl fainted several times, when she passed the bodi s of her companions, who had fallen down dead in the way. Our traveller's small stock of water was nearly exhausted, when they found a fine well of fresh and pure water; hut the rope was so short, that the pail would not reach the surface of the water. They cut their cloaks in strips, tied them together, and drew up but little water at a time, be- cause they trembled at the idea of breaking their weak rope, and leaving their pail in the well. After such dan- Ver. 21. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Pa- run : and his mother took him ;i wife out of the land of Egypt When a father dies, the mother begins to look out for a wife for her son, though he may be very young ; and her arrangements will generally be acceded to. — Roberts. Ver. 28. And Abraham set seven ewe-lambs o( the flocks by themselves. 29. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe-lambs, which thou hast set by themselves 1 30. And he said, For these, seven ewe-lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well. 31. Wherefore he called that place Beer-she- ba ; because there they sware both of them. Mr. Bruce, (Travels, vol. i. p. 10fl,) relating the manner in which a compact was made between his party and some shepherds in Abyssinia, says, " Medicines and advice being given on my part, faith and protection pledged on thefts, two bushels 01 wheat and seven sheep were carried down to the boat." — Busker. Chap. 22. ver. 3. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young- men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. There is no ground for supposing that the ancient eastern saddles were like our modern ones. Such were not known to the Greeks and Romans till many ages alter the Hebrew judees. " No nation of antiquity knew the use of either saddles or stirrups," (Gogcet ;) and even in our own times, Ha.ssclquist, when at Alexandria, says, " I procured an equipage which I had never used before; it was an ass with an Arabian saddle, which consisted only of a cushion, on which I could sit, and' a handsome bridle." But even the cushion seems an improvement upon the ancient east- ern saddl s, which were probably nothing more than a kind of rug girded to the beast. — Blrder. Chap. 23. ver. 2. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba ; the same is* Hebron in the land of Canaan : and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. The ancient Greeks were accustomed to lay out the body after it was shrouded in its grave-clothes; sometimes upon a bier, which they bedecked with various sorts of flowers. The place where the bodies were laid out, was near the door of the house: there the friends of the deceased attend- ed them with loud laiaentations; a custom which still continues to be observed among that people. Dr. Chandler, when travelling in Greece, saw a woman at Megara, sitting with the door of her cottage open, lamenting her dead hus- band aloud ; and at Zanie, a woman in a house with the door open, bewailing her little son, whose body lay by her dressed, the hair powdered, the face painted and bedecked with gold leaf. This custom of mourning for the dead, near the door of the house, was probably borrowed from the Syrians; and if so, it will serve to illustrate an obscure expression of Moses, relative to Abraham : " And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her." He came out of his own separate tent, and seating himself on the ground near the door of her tent, where her corpse was placed, that he might perforin those public solemn rites of mourning, that were required, as well bv decency as affection, lamented with many tears the loss he had sustained— Paxton. GENESIS. Chap. 24. Ver. 7. And Abraham stood up, and bowed him- self to the people of the land, even to the chil- dren of Heth. The politeness of Abraham may be seen exemplified among the highest and the lowest of the people of the East : in this respect, nature seems to have done for them, what art has done for others. With what grace do all classes bow on receiving a favour, or in paying their respects to a superior ! Sometimes they bow down to the ground, ; at other times they put their hands on their bosoms, and gently incline the head; they also put the right hand on the face in a longitudinal position; and sometimes give a long and graceful sweep with the right hand, from me forehead to the ground. — Roberts. Ver. 9. That he may give me the cave of Mach- pelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field : for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me, for a possession of a burying- place among you. This is the most ancient example of a family vault or an hereditary sepulchre in a cave. In the southern mountain- ous part of Palestine, there are many natural caves in the rocks, which may easily be formed into spacious burying- places. There are still found in Syria, Palestine, and Egvpt, many such sepulchral caves, which have been fre- quently described by travellers who have visited those countries. These sepulchres are differently contrived. Sometimes they descend ; only those which are made in the declivities of the mountains, often go horizontally into the rock. In Egypt, also, there are many open sepulchres, which run horizontally into the rock, but most of the mum- my-pits are open perpendicularly, and you must let your- self down through this opening. In Palestine and Syria, on the contrary, the sepulchres which descend, are provided with steps, which are now for the most part covered with heaps of rubbish. Many of them consist in the inside of many chambers which are united by passages ; in some of them the back chambers are deeper than the front ones, and you are obliged to descend some more steps to come to them. There chambers, as they are still found, are pretty spacious ; in most of them recesses, six or seven feet long, are made in. he walls all round, to receive the dead bodies; in others stole slabs of the same length are fixed against the walls ; sometimes several, one above another, on which the dead bodies were laid; in some few there are stone- coffins, which are provided with a lid. It is nearly in this manner that i he arrangement of graves is prescribed in the Talmud; on1 vthereisalwaystobe an antechamber and re- cesses made in the walls of the square sepulchres, the num- ber of which maybe different.— Burder. Ver. 15. My lord, hearken unto me : the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee ? bury therefore thy dead. Respectable people are always saluted with the dignified title, " Mil lord " hence English gentlemen on their arrival, are apt to suppose they are taken for those of very high rank. The man of whom Abraham offered to purchase Machpelah, affected to give the land. " Nay, my lord, hear me, the field I give thee." And this fully agrees with the conduct of those, who are requested to dispose of a thing to a person of superior rank. Let the latter go and ask the price, and the owner will say, " Mv lord, it will be a great favour if you will take it." "Ah, let me have that pleasure, my lord." Should the possessor believe he will one day need a favour from the great man, nothing will induce him to sell the article, and he will take good care (through ihe servants or a friend) it shall soon be in his house. Should he, however, have no expectation of a favour in fiture, he will say as Ephron, " The thing is worth so much ; your pleasure, my lord." — Roberts. Chap. 24. ver. 2. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh : 3. And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. The present mode of swearing among the Mohammedan Arabs, that live in tents as the patriarchs did, according to de la Roque, is by laying their hands on the Koran. They cause those who swear to wash their hands before they give them the book; they put their left hand underneath, and the right over it. Whether, among the patriarchs, one hand was under, and the other upon the thigh, is not certain; possibly Abraham's servant might swear with one hand under his master's thigh, and the other stretched out to Heaven. As the posterity of the patriarchs are described as coming out of the thigh, it has been supposed, this cere- mony had some relation to their believing the promise of God, to bless all the nations of the earth, by means of one that was to descend from Abraham. — H.irmer. Ver. 1 1. And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water, at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. It is the work of females in the East to draw water both morning and evening; and they may be seen going in , groups to the wells, with their vessels on the hip or the shoulder. In the morning they talk about the events oi the past night, and in the evening about those of the day: many a time would the story of Abraham's servant ami Re- becca, the daughter of Bethuel, be repeated by the women of Mesopotamia in their visits to the well. — Roberts. The women among the orientals, are reduced to a stau of great subjection. In Barbary they regard the civility and respect which the politer nations of Europe pay to the weaker sex, as extravagance, and so many infringements of that law of nature, which assigns to man the pre-emi- nence. The matrons of that country, though they are considered indeed as servants of better station, yet have the greatest share of toil and business upon their hand-. While the lazy husband reposes under some neighbouring shade, and the young people of both sexes tend the flocks, the wives are occupied all the day long, either in toiling on their looms, or in grinding at the mill, or in preparing bread or other kind of farinaceous food. Nor is this all ; for to finish the day, " at the time of evening," to use the words of the sacred historian, " even at the time that women go out to draw water," they must equip themselves with a pitcher or goat's skin, and tying their sucking children behind them, trudge out in this manner, two or three miles, to fetch water.— Paxton. Ver. 16. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin ; neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher and came up. The vessel that the Eastern women frequently make use of, for the purpose of carrying water, is described as like our jars, and is, it seems, of earth. Bishop Pococke, in his journey from Acre to Nazareth, observed a well, where oxen were drawing up water, from whence women carried water up a hill, in earthen jars, to water some plantations of tobacco. In the next page he mentions the same thing in general, and speaks of their carrying the jars on their heads. There is no reason to suppose this kind of vessel was appropriated to the carrying water for the purposes of agriculture, it might do equally well when they carried it for domestic uses. Such seems to have been the sort of vessels in which the women of ancient times fetched water, for it is called a lad in the history ol Rebecca, Gen. xxiv. 14, &c. and I have elsewhere shown, that the word signifies a jar of considerable size, in whic^i thev keep their corn, and in which, at least sometimes, their fetched their water. Since the above was written, I have observed a nassag( GENESIS. in Dr. Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, that confirms anil illustrates the preceding account: "The women," says the Doctor, " resort to lie fountains by their houses, each with a latge two-handled earthen jar, on the back, or thrown over the shoulder, for water." This account of the jars made use of by the Greek women of the island af , naturally, be i understood to be e> mod- ern, but accurate comment on what is said concerning Rebecca's fetching water. The Eastern women, according to Dr. Pococke, sometimes cany their jars upon their heads; but Rebecca's was carried on her shoulder, In such a case, the jar is not to be supposed to have I upright on the shoulder, bu< held by one of the handles, with the hand over the shoulder, and suspended in tins manner on the hack. Held, I should imagine hand over the left shoulder. Consequently, when it was to be presented to Abraham's servant, that he might drink out of it. it was to be gently moved over the left arm, suspended by one hand, while the other, probably, was placed under the bottom of the jar, it was in thai position presented to Abraham's servant, and his attendants, to drink out of. She soul. I>r,nl , mi /» ./: and : lit down her pitcher upon her hand, and gaee him drink. Ver. 18. — Harmer. Ver. 18. And she said, Drink, my lord : and site hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. . We met on this road (from Orfa to Bir) with several wells, at which the voting women of the neighbouring villages, or of the tribes of the Curds and Turkomans, who were wandering in these parts, watered their flocks. They were not veiled like those in the towns. They were well made and beautiful, though tanned by the sun. As soon as we accosted them, and alighted from our horses, they brought us water to drink, and likewise watered our -niilar civilities had indeed been shown to me in other parts. But here it appeared to me particularly remarkable, because Rebecca, who was certainly brought up in these parts, showed herself equally obliging to trav- ellers. Perhaps I have even drank at the same well from which she drew water. For Haran, now a small place, two days' journey to the south-south-east of Orfa, which is still visited by Jews, was probably the town which Abraham left to remove to the land of Canaan, and his brother Nahor's familv probably remained in these parts. Leonard Racwolf, a German traveller, who visited these countries about two hundred vears before, observes, in his Travels, (part i. p. •259,) " This town (Orfa) is supposed by some to have been formerly called Haran, from which the holy patriarch Abra- ham, with Sarah, and Lot, his brother's 'son, removed by the command of God; so that the abundant well is still called Abraham's well, at which his servant first recog- nised Rebecca, when she gave him and his camels water to drink from it. The water of this well has more of a whitish colour than others, and also, as I drank it from the well in the middle of the great Khan, had a peculiar yet sweet and pleasant taste." — Burder. Ver. 22. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden ear- ring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold. The weight of the ornaments that the servant of Abra- ham put upon Rebecca appears to us rather extraordinary. Sir J. Chardin assures us as heavy, and even heavier, were worn by the women of the East when he was there. The ear-ring, or jewel for the face, weighed half a shekel, and the bracelets for her hands ten shekels, Gen. xxiv. 22, which, as he justly ohserves, is about five ounces. T'pon which he tells us, " the women wear rings and bracelets of as great weight as this, through all Asia, and even much heavier. Thev are rather manacles than bracelets. There »re some as large as the finger. The women wear sev- eral of them, one above the other, in such a manner as sometimes to have the arm covered with them from the wrist to the elbow. Poor people wear as many of glass or horn. Thev hardly ever take them off: they are their riches." — Hjsmer. Ver. 43. Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that when the virgin cometh forth to draw looter, and 1 say to her, Give me, I pray tl pitcher to drink. It is still the proper bnsine family with water. Prom Be, a little water of thv eftiie fi stales >■■ ' is drudgery, however, the married women are exempted, unless when single women are wanting. The proper time foi draw in g water in those burning climates, is in the morning, or when the sun i going down; then they go forth to perform thai humble ollice, adorned with their trinkets, some oi n huh are often of glial value, Agreeably to this custom, Rebecca went in- stead of her mother to letch water from the well, and the servant of Abraham expected to meel aim trriedfemali there who might prove a suitable match for his masters son. In the East Indies, the women also draw water at the public wells, as Rebecca did, on that occasion, foi travellers, their servants and their cattle; and women ol no mean rank literally illustrate the conduct of an unfor- tunatc princess in the Jewish History, by performing the services of a menial. The young women of Guzei at daily draw water from the wells', and carry the jars upon the head; but those of high rank cany them upon lit e shoulder. In the same way Rebecca carried her pitcher; and proba- bly for the same reason, because she was the daughter ol an eastern prince. — Paxton. Ver. 47. And I put the ear-ring upon her face. and the bracelets upon her hand. Nothing is more common than for heathen females tr have a ring in ihe nose; and this has led some to suppose, that the jewel here alluded to was put into that member! and not on the face. "I put a jewel on thy forehead;" Ez. xv. 11. The margin has, for forehead, "nose." It does not appear to be generally known, that there is an ornament which is worn by females in the East on the forehead. It is made of thin gold, and is studded with "precious stones, and called Pattam, which signifies dig- nity. Thus, to tie on the Pattam, is to " invest with high dignity." Patta-Istere, "is the name of the first lawful wife of the king." In the Salhur-Agaraathe, this ornament is called u the ornament of tie forehead." Tyennau ami Bennet sav of a bride thev saw in China, " Her Headdress sparkled with jewels, and was most elegantly headed w nl< rows of pearls encircling it like a coronet ; from which a brilliant angular ornament hung over her forehead, and between her eyebrows." — Roberts. Ver. 57. And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. Do people wish to know the truth of any thing which has been reported of another, they say, " Let us go and inquire of his mouth." — " Let us' hear the birth of his mouth." Do servants ask a favour of their mistress, she will say. " I know not what will be the birth of the master's mouth; I will inquire at his mouth." So the mother and brother of Rebecca inquired at the mouth of the damsel, whether she felt willing to go with the man. "And she said, I will go." — Roberts. Ver. .ri9. And they sent away Rebecca their sis- ter, and her nurso, and Abraham's servant, and his men. How often have scenes like this led my mind to the patriarchal age I The daughter is about for the first time to leave the paternal roof: the servants are all in confu- sion ; each refers to things long gone by, each wishes to dc something to attract the attention of his young mistress One says, " Ah ! do not forget him who nursed yon when an infant :" another. " How often did I bring yon the beau- tiful lotus from the distant tank ! Did I not always conceal your faults V The mother comes to take leave. Shr weeps, and tenderly embraces her, saying. " My daughter I shall see you no more ;— Forget not your mother." Tl,t brother infolds his sister in his arms, and promises sooi to come and see her. The father is aDsorbed in though', GENESIS. and is only aroused by the sobs of the party. He then affectionately embraces his daughter, and tells her not to Tear. The female domestics must each smell of the poor girl, and the men touch her feet. As Rebecca had her nurse tc accompany her, so, at this day, the Aya (the nurse) who has from infancy hruught up the bride, goes with her to the new scene. She is her adviser, her assistant, and friend; and to her will she tell all her hopes, and all her fears. — Roberts. Ver. 60. And they- blessed Rebecca, and said unto her, Thou art our sister ; be thou the mother of thousands of millions. From the numerous instances which are recorded in the scriptures, of those who were aged, or holy, giving their blessing, may be seen the importance which was attached to such benedictions. Has a son, or a daughter, to leave a father, an aged friend, or a priest, a blessing is always given. To be the mother of a numerous progeny is con- sidered a great honour. Hence parents otien say to their daughters, " Be thou the mother of thousands." Beggars, also, when relieved, say to the mistress of the house, " Ah ! madam, millions will come from you." — Roberts. Ver 64. And Rebecca lifted up her eyes ; and when she saw Isaac, she lighted ofl" the camel. It was always customary, in all the East, on perceiving a superior, to alight from the animal upon which they were riding. Anderson and Iverson relate, that " when the governor of Mossul and his suite passed our caravan, we were obliged to alight from our horses, mules, and asses, and lead the animals till they had gone by." Even now, women show this mark of respect to men. Niebchr says, " that an Arabian lady who met them in a broad valley in the desert of Mount Sinai, retired from the road, and let her servant lead the camel till they had passed." — Burder. Ver. 65. For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet vis 1 And the servant had said, It is my master : therefore she took a veil, and covered herself. Rebecca's covering herself with a veil, when Isaac came to meetfliher, which is mentioned Gen. xxiv. 65, is to be considered rather as a part of the ceremonial belonging to the presenting a bride to her intended husband, tnan an effect either of female delicacy, or desire to appear in the most attractive form. The eastern brides are wont to be veiled in a particular manner, when presented to the bride- groom. Those that give us an account of their customs, at such times, take notice of their being veiled all over. Dr. Russell gives us this circumstance in his account of a Maronite wedding, which, lie says, may serve as a speci- men of all the rest, there being nothing materially different in the ceremonies of the different sects. — Harmer. Chap. 25. ver. 21. And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. Under similar circumstances, the husband and the wife fast and pray, and make a vow before the temple, that, should their desire be granted, they will make certain gifts, (specifying their kind,) or they will repair the walls, or add a new wing to the temple ; or that the child shall be dedicated to the deity of the place, and be called by the same name. Or they go to a distant temple which has obtained notoriety by "granting the favours they require. I have heard of husbands and wives remaining for a year togetner at such sacred places, to gain the desire of their hearts ! — Roberts. Ver. 28. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison ; but Rebecca loved Jacob. Margin, " Venison was in his mouth." Has a man been supported by another, and is it asked, "Why does Kandan love Muttoo V the reply is, " Because Muttoo's rice is in his mouth." " Why have you such a regard for that man V ■ -" Is not his rice in my mouth?" — Roeests. Ver. 30. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same led pottage. The people of the East are exceedingly fond of pottage, which they call Kool. It is something like gruel, and" is made of various kinds of grain, which are first beaten in a mortar. The red pottage is made of Kurahan, and other grains, but is not superior to the other. For such a con- temptible mess, then, did Esau sell his birthright. When a man has sold his fields or gardens for an insignificant sum, the people say, " The fellow has sold his land foi pottage." Does a father give his daughter in marriage to a low caste man, it is observed, " He has given her for pot- tage." Does a person by base means seek for some paltry enjoyment, it is said, " For one leaf* of pottage, he will do nine days' work." Has a learned man stooped to any thing which was not expected from him, it is said, " The learned one has fallen into the pottage pot." Has he given instruction or advice to others — " The Lizard, which gave warning to the people, has fallen into the pottage pot" Of a man in great poverty, it is remarked, " Alas ! he cannot get pottage" A beggar asks, " Sir, will you give me a little pottage ?" Does a man seek to acquire great things by small means — " He is trying to procure rubies by pot- tage." When a person greatly natters another, it is common to" say, " He praises him only for his pottage." Does a king greatly oppress his subjects, it is said, " He only governs for the pottage." Has an individual lost much money by trade — " The speculation has broken his pottace pot." Does a rich man threaten to ruin a poor man, the latter will ask, "Will the lightning strike my pottage pot?" — Roberts. Ver. 41. And Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand. When the father (or the mother) has become aged, the children say, " The day for the lamentation of our father is at hand." " The sorrowful time for our mother is fast approaching." If requested to go to another part of the country, the son will ask, " How can I go 7 the day of sorrow for my father is fast approaching." When" the aged parents are seriously ill, it is said, " Ah! the days ot mourning have come." — Roberts. Chap. 26. ver. 15. For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth. To stop the wells, is justly reckoned an act of hostility. The Canaanites, envying the prosperity of Abraham arid Isaac, and fearing their power, endeavoured to drive them out of the country, by stopping "up all the wells % hich their servants had digged, and filling them with earth." The same mode of taking vengeance on enemies, mentioned in this passage, has been practised in more recent times. The Turkish emperors give annually to every Arab tribe near the road, by which the Mohammedan pilgrim's travel to Mecca, a certain sum of money, and a certain number of vestments, to keep them from destroying the wells which lie on that route, and to escort the pilgrims across their country. D'Herbelot records an incident exactly in point, which seems to be quite common among the Arabs. Gia- nabi, a famous rebel in the tenth century, gathered a num- ber of people together, seized on Bassorah, and Caufa ; and afterward insulted the reigning caliph, by presenting him- self boldly before Bagdad, his capital; after which he re- tired bv little and little, filling up all the pits with sand, which "had been dug on the road to Mecca, for the benefit of the pilgrims. Near the fountains and well?, the robber and assassin commonly took his station; and in time of war. the enemy placed their ambush, because the flocks and herds, in which the wealth of the country chiefly consisted, were twice every day collected to those places, and might be. seized with less danger when the shepherds were busily engaged in drawing water. This circumstance, which must have been familiar to the inhabitants of those countries, is mentioned by Deborah in her triumphal song: " They fold a large leaf so i Chap. 27. GEN hat are delivered from the noise of archers in the place oi the draw tag of water, Lhereshalllhcy rehearse [ho n, 'hi cms acts of the Lord." But a still more perfect eommi 'it on these words is furnished by an historian of the croi ades, n ho complains, that during the siege of Jerusalem by the ( 'In i -ii.in ;i runt--., [lumbers of I lie ir men were daily cut off, and their cattle driven away by the S. nr., »ii..j,n m ambush for this purpose near all the fountains and water- ing places. — Pax ton. Ver. 18. And Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had diyovd i" the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham : and he railed their names after the names by which his father had called them. This would appear a trifle among us, because water is so abundant, that it is scarcely valued, and nob idy thinks of perpetuating his name in the name of a well. Bnl in those deserts, where water is so scarce, and wells and springs are valued more, and as they arc there the general permanent monuments ot geography, it is also an honour to have given them names. — Buhdeh. Ver. 20. And the herdmen of Gexar did strive with Isaac's herdmen. See on chap. 13. 7. Ver. 31. And they rose up betimes in the morn- ing', and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from them in peace. In the same manner, family alliances are frequent anion™ the Arabian shepherds, and indeed rendered necessary, by the state of continual warfare in which they live with" the neighbouring tribes. The eighteen Arab emirs of the fam- ily which d'Arvieux visited, kept near one another, en- camping at no greater distance from their chief than a league or two. and all removing together every month, some- times every fortnight, as their entile wanted fresh pasture, i.ng',1 be able to assemble with ease. But while Abraham and Isaac cultivated the friendship of theirneigh- bours, entered into treaties of peace and amity with the kings and princes of Canaan, and entertained them in their tents, — Ishinael, animated by different principles and views, commenced a course of action, after leaving his father's house, s. . new and unprecedented, that it was made the subject of a distinct prediction. Standing on the verge of a burning desert, which he claimed as his proper inherit- ance, he assumed from the beginning a hostile attitude, spurned the ties of peace and friendship, and laid all the surrounding tribes under contribution. When he drew upon himself and his adherents the resentment of the fixed inhabitants, and was afraid to risk their attack, he with- drew into the depths of the great wilderness, where none could follow him with hopes of success. In the same man- ner have his descendants lived ; when threatened with an unequal contest, they will strike their tents upon less than two hours' warning, and retire immediately, with all their effects, into the deserts, with whose wells and forage they only are acquainted. Within those impenetrable barriers, which are for ever guarded bv hunger and thirst, the Ara- bians regard with utter contempt, the warlike array of the most powerful nations.— Paxton. Chap. 27. ver. 4. And make me savoury meat, such as I love, and briny it to me, that I may eat ; that my soul may bless thee before I die. Our version of Gen. xxvii. 4. 7, 9, 14, 17, 31, may be presumed to have given us the true sense there of the word translated savoury, though it is undoubtedly of a more large and less determinate signification. That'it is of a more large signification, is evident from hence, that a kindred word expresses the tasting of hovey, 1 Sam. xiv. 43 ; and the taste of mnnna, which tasted like fresh nil. Numb. xi. 8, and like wafers made with honey, Exod. xvi. 31. These 5 :sis. 3* two las) passages are easily reconciled, though honey and fresh oil are by no means liVe each other in taste, when " Sidet the cakes ol" the ancient- were frequently a eomposiii.ii, ■n-cquenlly, in lasting hke one of these wafers di thin i be said to resemble 'In- ;, .• of both, of oil ming honey. The word = i— l-: muU'tmmniit, then, Iran lnv,| ..,.• II -e. Iglilhe- •■eiieialb V ' easing 1 1 the taste, whether by being salt and spicy, which the Kngli-h u.ud suruinii means, or pleasant by i ' or I ,'. i [owever, it is '•'">'■ prol ible, thai in this ac It of what Isaac desired, il means «r«i .. ;i-- rh -| eakmg, since though one might imagil e, U al in - i I ul a i iimate, and among people wont to observe so much abstemiousness in their diet food highly seasoned should not be in request ; yel the contrary is known lobe fact. Almost all the di bes i f the people ol Ueppo, Dr. Russell informs us, " areeithei ■■• fat, or butter, | high ea oned •.>. ith sail at many of them made s with verjuice pomegronati e : and onions ami garlic often com] lete the seasoning." As it ■• . . the venison kind Isaac desired. 'I j- yen- pi. .buhl. •, ihe dish he wished foi was of the savoury sort. Some of their dishes of meat. however, are of a sweet nature. "A whole lamb -n.iii-d with rice, almonds, rai-ins, pi-tnchc-', &c. and stewed, is a favourite dish with them." It was very jusi then, in our translators, to render this void bv a more extensive teim in Prov. xxiii. 3. " When thou fittest to eal with.a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee,-' v. 1. " Be n,,| de- sirous of his dainties, for they aie deceilful meat," V. 3. It is translated in mm h the si me manner in v. 6, dainty meats. I would observe further, as to this subject, thai there is a great propriety in Solomon's describing these dainty meats as very much appropriated to the tables of rulers, or a l\'\v others of the great, since the food of the common people of Aleppo, a large and rich commercial city, is very simple and plain : for Russell tells us, -hnn,} diSbs, the juice of grapes thickened to the consistence of honey, Irban, coagulated sour milk, butler, rice, and a very little mutton, make the chief of their food in winter: as rice, bread, cheese, and fruits, do in the summer." De la Roque gives much the same account of the manner of living of the Arabs, whose way of life very much resem- bles that of the patriarchs; " roast meat being almost pecu- liar to the tables of their emirs or princes, and lambs or kids slewed whole, and stuffed with bread, flour, mutton fat, raisins, salt, pepper, saffron, mint, and other an matic herbs." I would only add further, vilh respect to the meat Isaac desired, that perhaps his desiring Esau to take his bow and arrows, and to kill him some venison, — an ante- lope, or some such wild animal, when a kid from bl- own flock would, as appears from the event, have done rjs well,— might as much arise from the sparingness natural to those thai live this kind of life, together with the pleasure he proposed to himself from this testimony of filial auc- tion from a beloved son, as from the recollection of some peculiar poignant flavour he had formerly perceived in eating the flesh of wild animals, though now his organs of taste weie so much iuq aiied a- not to perceive the "differ- ence. So Dr. Shaw observes, that "the Arabs rarelv di rninish their flocks, bv using them for food, but live chief!;, upon bread, milk, butter, dates, or what they receive in exchange for their wool."— Habmeh. Ver. 19. And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thv first-born : I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. The ancient Greeks and Romans sat at meals. Ho- mer's heroes were ranged on separate seats along the wall, with a small table before each, on which the meat and drink were placed. This custom is still observed in China, and perhaps some other parts of the greater Asia. When Ulysses arrived at the palace of Alcinous, the king dis placed his son Laodamas, in order to seat Ulysses" in a. magnificent chair. The same posture was preferred bj the Egyptians and [he ancient Israelites. But, afterward when men became soft and effeminate, they exchanged their seats for beds, in order to drink with more ease ; yd 34 GENESIS. Chap. 27—29. even then, the heroes who drank sitting were still thought entitled to praise ; and those who accustomed themselves to a primitive and severe way of living, retained the ancient posture. The custom of reclining was introduced from the nations of the east, and particularly from Persia, where it seems to have been adopted at a very remote period. The Old Testament scnptuics allude to both customs : but they furnish undeniable proofs of the sitting posture, long before common authors took notice of the other. It was the cus- tom in Isaac's family to sit at meat ; for Jacob thus address- ed his aged father: " Arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me." At the entertain- ment which Joseph gave his brethren, on their return to Egypt, they seem to have followed the custom of their fa- thers; for " they sat before him, the first-born according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth." In the court of Saul, many ages after this, Abner sat at ta- ble by his master's side ; and David also had his place al- lotted to him, which is emphatically called his seat. As this is undoubtedly the most natural and dignified posture, so it seems to have been universallv adopted by the first generations of men ; and it was not' till after the lapse of many ages, and degenerate man had lost much of the firm- ness of his primitive character, that he began to lie flat up- on his belly. — Paxton. Ver. 27. And he came near, and kissed him : and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed. The Orientals endeavour to perfume their clothes in various ways. They sprinkle them with sweet-scented oils, extracted from spices, they fumigate them with the most valuable incense or scented wood, and also sew the wood of the aloe in their clothes. By some of these means, Jacob's clothes were perfumed. Pliny observes, ( \„l. Hi ft. b. xvii. chap. 5,) " that the land, after a long drought, moistened by the rain, exhales a delightful odour, with which nothing can be compared :" and soon after, he adds, 'that it is a sign of a fruitful soil, when it emits an agreeable smell, when it has been ploughed."— Burder. The natives are universally fond of having their gar- ments strongly perfumed : so much so, that Europeans can scarcely bear the smell. They use camphor, civet, sandal wood or sandal oil, and a great variety of strongly scented waters. It is not common to salute as in England: they simply smell each other; and it is said that some people know' their children by the smell. It is common for a mother ©r father to say, " Ah ! child, thy smell is like the Sen-Paga-Poo." The' crown of the head is the principal place for smelling. Of an amiable man, it is said. " How sweet is the smell of that man ! the smeU of his goodness is universal" — Riheerts. Chap. 23. vct. 18. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, nnd poured oil upon the top of it One of the idols in the pagoda of Juggernaut is described by Captain Hamilton as a k> black static, of a pyramidal form, and the sommona eodom among the Siamese is of the same complexion. The ayeen Akberv mentions an octago- nal pillar of black stone fifty cubits high. Tavernier ob- served an idol of black stone in the pagoda of Benares, and that the statue of Creeshna, in his celebrated temple if Mathura, is of black marble. It is very remarkable, that one of the principal ceremonies incumbent upon the •priests of these stone deities, according to Tavernier, is to anoint them daily with odoriferous oils: a circumstance which immediately brings to our remembrance the similar •practice of Jacob, who, after the famous vision of the celes- tial ladder, look the stone mkich he had put for his pillow, and sit i't vp for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. It is added, that he called the name of that place Beth-el, that is, the house of God. This passage evinces of how great antiquity is the custom of considering stones in a sacred light, as: well as the anointing them with consecrated oil. From this cuf.dTyt of Jacob, and this Hebrew appellative, th'- learned Bochart, with great ingenuity and reason, insists that the name and veneration of the sacred stones, called baetyti, so celebrated in all pagan antiquity, were derived. These bnctuli were stones of a round form ; they were supposed to be animated, by means of magical incan- tations, with a portion of the deity: they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency, as a kind of divine oracles, and were suspended, either found the neck, or some other part of the body. Thus the setting up of a ' stone by this holy person, in grateful memory of the celestial vision, probably became the occasion of the idolatry in suc- ceeding ages, to these shapeless masses of unhewn stone, of which so many astonishing remains are scattered up ar.ri down the Asiatic and the European world. — Burdeh. Chap. 29. ver. 1. Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east. The margin has, " lifted up his feet ;" which, in Eastern language, signifies to walk quickly— to reach out— to be in good earnest— not to hesitate. Thus Jacob journeyed to the East, he lifted up his feet, and stretched forth in good Ver. 2. And he looked, and behold, a well in the field, and lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it ; for out of that well they watered the flocks: and a great stone iras urion the well's mouth. great stone. In Arabia, and in other places, they are wont to close and cover up their wells of water, lest the sand, which is put into motion by the winds there, like the water of a pond, should fill them, and quite stop them up. This is the account Sir J. Chardin gives us m a note on Ps. Ixix. 15. I very much question the apphcableness of iln- cus- tom to that passage, but it will serve to explain, I think. extremely well, the view of keeping that well covered with a sione, from which Laban's sheep were wont to be watered ; and their care not to leave it open any time, but to stay till the flocks were all gathered together, before they opened it, and then, having drawn as much water as was requisite, to cover it up again immediately, Gen. xxix. 2,8. Bishop Patrick supposes it was done" to keep the water clean and cool. Few people, I imagine, will long hesitate in determining which most probably was the view in keeping the well covered with so much care. All this care of their water is certainly very requisite, since they have so little, that Chardin supposes, "that the strife be- tween Abraham's herdmen and Lot's was rather about water, than pasturage;" and immediately after observes, " that when they are forced to draw the water for very large flocks, out of one well, or two, it must take up a great deal of time." — Harmer. Ver. 2. And he looked, and behold, a well in the field, and lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks : and a great stone was upon the well's mouth. 3. And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well's mouth in his place. To prevent the sand, which is raised from the parched surface of the ground by the winds, from filling up their wells, they were obliged' to cover them with a stone. In this manner the well was covered, from which the flocks of Laban were commonly watered: and the shepheids, careful not to leave them open at any time, patient. y wait ed till all the flocks were gathered together, before they removed the covering, and then having drawn a sufficient quantity of water, they replaced the stone immediately. The extreme scarcity of water in these arid regions, en- tirely justifies such vigilant and parsimonious care in the management of this precious fluid; and accounts for the fierce contentions about the possession < frequently happened between the shepherds a iiccouiiis lor me of a well, which so pherds of different Chap. 29. Uk« masters. But after the question of right, or of possession, was decided, it would seem the shepherds were often de- tected in fraudulently watering their flocks and herds from their neighbour's well. To prevent this, they se- cured the cover with a lock, which continued in use so late as the days of Chardin, who frequently saw suchpre- caulions used in different pans of Asia, on account of the real scarcity of water there. According to that intelli- gent traveller, when the wells and cisterns were nut Inekrd up, some person was bo far the proprietor, that no one dared to open a well, or a cistern, but in his presence This was probably the reason, that the shepherds of I'a- danaram declined the invitation of Jacob to water the flocks, before they were all assembled; either they had nut the key of the lock which secured the stone, or if they had. they durst not open it, but in the presence of Rachel, In r the well belonged. It is ridiculous to sup- pose the stone was so heavy that the united strength of several Mesopotamia!! shepherds could not roll it from the mouth of the well, when Jacob had strength, or address, to remove it alone; or, that though a stranger, he ventured to break a standing rule for watering the Hocks, which the natives did not dare to do, and that without opposition. The oriental shepherds were not on other occasions so passive; as the violent conduct of the men of Gcrar suffi- ciently proves.— Pixtoh. Ver. 7. And he said, Lo, it is yet high day. Heb. " Yet the day is great." Are people travelling through places where are wild beasts, those who are timid will keep troubling the parly bv saying, " Let us seek for a place of safety :" but the others "reply, " Not yet ;" for •' the dav is grail." " Why should I be in such haste'! the day is yet great." When tired of working, it is remarked, " Why", the dav is yet grail." — " Yes, yes, you manage to leave oil' while the day is yet great."— Roberts. Ver. 10. And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother. Twice in the day they led their flocks to the wells ; at noon, and when the sun was going down. To water the flocks, was an operation of much labour, and occupied a considerable space of time. It was, therefore, an office of great kindness with which Jacob introduced himself to the notice of his relations, to roll back the stone which lay upon the mouth of the well, and draw water for the flocks which Rachel tended. Some of these wells are furnished with troughs and flights of steps down to the water, and other contrivances, to facilitate the labour of watering the cattle. It is evident the well to which Rebecca went to draw water, near the city of Nahor, had some convenience of this kind; for it is 'written, "Rebecca hastened and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and raa again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels." A '.rough WJB alsn placed by the well, from which the daugh- ters of Jethro watered his flocks; and if we may judge from circumstances, was a usual contrivance in every part of the east. In modern times, Mr. Park found a trough near the well, from which the Moors watered their cattle, in the sandy deserts of Sahara. As the wells are often very deep, from a hundred and sixty to a hundred and seventy feet, the water is drawn up with small leathern buckets, and a cord, which travellers are often obliged to carry along with them, in their journey, because they meet with more cisterns and wells than springs. Dr. Richardson saw one of these buckets lying beside a deep well near a Christian church in Egypt to draw water for the congregation. And Buckingham found a parly of twelve or fifteen Arabs drawing water in leathern buckets by cords and pulleys. To this custom, which they are forced to submit to by the scantiness of the population in those regions, the woman of Samaria refers in her answer lo our Lord : " Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with ;" thou bast no bucket and cord, as travellers commonly have; "and the well is deep; from whence then hast ihou that living water 1"— Paxton. Ver. 18. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, 1 will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. Because he had no money or other goods which he could give to the father lor" his daughter. For among many people of the East, in ancient and modern limes, we find it customary, not for the bride to bring a down- to Ihe bridegroom, but" the bridegi n must, in a manner, pur- chase ili' girl whom he intends to marry, from the father. Therefore Shechem says, (ch. xxxiv. 12,) to Dinah's father and brothers, "Ask me never SO much dowry and gift, and I w ill give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife." In'lhe same manner Tacitus relai. s. that among the ancient Germans, the wife did not bring the dowry to the man, but the man to the woman. " The parents and relations are present, who examine the gifts, and choose, not such as are adapted to female dress, or to adorn the bride, but oxen, and a harnessed horse, a shield, and a sword. In return for these presents he receives the wife." This custom still prevails among the Bedouins. " When a young man meets with a girl to his taste, he asks her of her father through one of his relations: they now treat about the number of camels, sheep, or horses, that the son-in-law will give to the father for his daughter; for the Bedouins never save any money, and their wealth consists only in cattle. A man that marries must therefoie literally purchase his wife, and the fathers are most fortu- nate who have many daughters. They are the principal riches of the family. When, therefore, a young man negotiates with the 'father whose daughter he intends to marry, he says, 'Will you give me your daughter foi fifty sheep, six camels, or twelve cowsl' If he is not rich enough to give so much, he offers a mare or foal. The qualities of the girl, the family, and the fortune of him that intends to marry her, are the principal considerations in making the bargain." (Customs of Ihc Bedovin Arabs, by 1 1' An ii a. r. p. 110.) This is confirmed by Seetzen, in his account of trie Arab tribes whom he visited in 1808. The eerein. lines at the marriage of a wandering Arab are remarkable ; a young Arab knows a girl who pleases him: he goes to her father, and makes his wishes known to him. The latter speaks to his daughter. " Daughter," says he, " there is one who asks you for his wife: the man is'good, and it depends upon yourself if you will become his wife ; you have my consent." If the g'nl refuses, there is an end of the.matter ; if she is contented, the father returns to his guest, and informs him of the happy intelligence. " But,'' he adds, " I demand the price of the girl." This consists of five camels ; but generally, by the intervention of others, a couple more are added, and' those given are frequently miserable enough. — Burder. Ver. 19. And Laban said, // is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man : abide with me. So said Laban, in reference to his daughter Rachel ; ami so say fat hers in the East, under. similar circumstances. The whole affair is managed in a lnisiness-likeu-ay, without any thing like a consultation with the maiden. Her likes and dislikes are out of the question. The father understands the matter perfectly, and the mother is very knowing: therefore they manage the transaction. This system, how- ever, is the fruitful source of that general absence of do- mestic happiness which prevails there. She has. perhaps, never seen the man with whom she is to spend her days. He may be young ; he may be aged ; he may be repulsive or attractive. The whole is a lottery to her. Have the servants or others whispered to her something about the match 1 she will make her inquiries; but the result will never alter the arrangements : for though her soul abhoi the thoughts of meeting him, yet it must be done.— Roberts. Ver. 23. And it came to pass, in the evening, that he took Leah his datio-hter, and brought her to him ; and he went in unto her. .56 This deceit of giving Leah to Jacob instead of Rachel was the more easy, because the bride was introduced veil- ed to the bridegroom. The following passage from Olea- nus (Travels in Persia) is particularly applicable here. '■ If they are people of any consideration, they bring up their daughters, locked up 'in their chambers, to' hide them from view, and they cannot be seen by the bridegroom till they are received in the chamber. In this manner many a one is deceived, and receives, instead of a handsome, a deformed and ugly girl, nay, instead of the daughter, some other relation, or even a maid. Also, when the bridegroom has sot down, the bride is seated by his side veiled, and magnificently dressed, and that neither may see the other, a piece of red silk is drawn between them, which is held by tWO boyS."— RoSENMULLER. Ver. 24. And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah, Zilpah his maid for a handmaid. Chardin observes, that none but very poor people marry a daughter in the East, without giving her a female slave for a handmaid, there being no hired servants there as in Europe. So Solomon supposes they were extremely poor that had not a servant. Prov. xii. 9. — H.\rmer. Ver. 26. And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the first-born. The existence of this rule, and its application to practice, in those parts of the world, is confirmed by the Hindoo law, which makes it criminal to give the younger daughter in marriage before the elder ; or for a younger son to marry while his elder brother remains unmarried. — Paxton. It has been said, (and with much truth,) that could Alex- ander revisit India, he would find the same customs and manners that prevailed in his day. From age to age the fashions and usages are carefully and reverently adhered to. When the eldest daughter is deformed, or blind, or deaf, or dumb, then the younger may be given first: but under other circumstances it would be disgraceful in the extreme. Should any one wish to alter the order of things, the answer of Laban is given. Should a father, however, have a verv advantageous offer for a younger daughter, he will exert all his powers to get Off the" elder; but until this -an be accomplished, the younger will not be married. Vounger brothers are sometimes manied first, but even this lakes place but very seldom. — Roberts. Ver. 30. And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. Polygamy was productive of many evils ; and particu- larly gave occasion for jealousy and contention. It re- quired, indeed, the utmost exertion of prudence on the pan of the husband so to conduct himself towards his wives, as to prevent continual strife and discord. Wherever the practice obtains, the same care will always be requisite. Thus a late traveller, (Sir R. K. Porter's Travels in Per- sia, vol. ii. p. 8,) speaking of the number of wives a Per- sian keeps, savs, " To preserve amity between these ladies, which had so'exeited my admiration, our communicative host told me, that himself, in common with all husbands, who preferred peace to passion, adhered to a certain rule, of each wife claiming, in regular rotation, the connubial attentions of her spouse : something of this kind is intima- ted in the domestic history of the ancient Jewish patriarchs, as a prevailing usage in the East, after men fell from the order of nature and of God, into the vice of polygamy." — BlSDER. Ver. 35. And she conceived again, and bare a son ; and she said, Now will I praise the Lord : therefore she called his name Judah, and left bearing. Margin, " She called his name Praise,"— " and left bear- ing.'' Heb. " stood from bearing." Scriptural name; have generally a meaning. Thus, Didymus, means a twin; Boanerges, a son of thunder; and Peter, a stone. The names of the Orientals have always a distinct meaning. Thus, Ani Muttoo, the precious pearl; Pun Amma, the golden ladv ; Perrya Amma, the great lady ; Chinny Tamby, the little friend; Kanneyar, the gentleman for the eye. Vast numbers of their children are named after their gods. " Stood from bearing." When a mother has ceased to bear children, should a person say it is not so, others will reply, " She stood from bearing at such a time."— Roberts. Chap. 30. ver. 14. And Reuben went, in the days of wheat-harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. This plant is a species of melon, of which there are two sorts, the male and the female. The female mandrake is black, and puts out leaves resembling lettuce, though smaller and narrower, which spread on the ground, and have a disagreeable scent. It bears berries something like services, pale and of a strong smell, having kernels within like those of pears. It has two or three very large roots, twisted together, white within, black without, and coverfd with a thick rind. The male mandrake is called Morion, or folly, because it suspends tl ries twice as large as those of and of a colour approaching n the colour is while, lis lcav and smooth, like the leaves o resembles that of the female, descending six or, eight feet mses. It produces ber- femalc, of a good scent, iffron. f liny says, ire huge, while, broad, : beech-tree. The root is thicker and bigger, the ground. Both the smell and the taste are pleasant; but it stupifies those that use it, and often produces phrensy, vertigo, and lethargy, which, if timely assistance is not given, terminate in con- vulsions and death. It is said to be a provocative, and is used in the east as filters. The Orientals cultivate this plant in their gardens, for the sake of its smell ; but those which Reuben found were in the field, in some small copse of wood perhaps, or shade, where they had come to maturity before they were found. If they resemble thosj of Persia rather than those of Egypt, which are of a ver) inferior quality, then we see their value, their superiority and perhaps their rarity, which induced Rachel to pui chase them from the son of Leah. — Paxton. Ver. 20. And Leah said, God hath endowed me with a good dowry ; now will my husband dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons. Should it be reported of a husband, that he is going to forsake his wife, after she has borne him children, people will say, " She has borne him sons; he will never, never leave her." To have children is a powerful tie upon a husband. Should she, however, not have any, he is almost certain to forsake her. — Roberts. Ver. 30. And the Lord hath blessed thee since my coming. Heb. " at my foot." By the labour of Jacob's foot, the cattle of Laban had increased to a multitude. Of a man who has become rich by his own industry, it is said, " Ah ! by the labour of his, feet these treasures have been acquired." " How have you gained this prosperity'?" " By the favour of the gods, and the labour of my feet." " How is it the king is so prosperous 1" " By the labour of the feel of his ministers.'— Roberts. Chap. 31. ver. 2. And Jacob beheld the counte- nance of Laban, and, behold, it was not towards him as before. Heb. " as vesterday and the dav be 'ore." See also mar- ginal reading of Isa. xxx. 33. Of old, " from yesterday." The latter form of speech is truly Oriental, and means time gone by. Has a person lost the friendship of another, he will say to him, " Thy face is not to me as yesterday and the day before." Is a man reduced in his circumstances. he says, " The face of God is not upon me as yesterday and GENESIS. 37 //<- day h, fori ' '1 1"' future is spoken of as to-day and to- morrow; " His lace will be ujttui me In-day and to morrow. ' which mcaix, alu-mis. " I u ill hive lliee to-day ami to-mor- row." "Ho yon think of me !"— " Yes, to-day and to-mor- row." " Mndeliar, have von heard that Tamban is trying lo injure you I"— " Ves; and go and tell him that neither o-day not to-morrow will he succeed." Our Saviour says, " Behold, 1 easl OUl devils, and 1 do cures to-day and to- morrow." A messenger came to in form him Herod would lull him; lull this was his reply, intimating thai the power could never lie taken from him, Jacob said to Laban, " My \ i i.'lii s. less answers lor me in time to come;" but the I lebreu has loi this, ■■ ;,i mnrrnir ;" Ins righteousness would be perpetual. In Eastern language, therefore, "yesterday and the dav before" signify tone /«/,v/ ; but " to-day and to- 1 lime to come. (See Ex. xiii. 14. Jos. iv. G., also uii. 34. margin.) — Roberts. Ver, 4. And Jacob sent and called Rachel and L-ah to the field unto his flock. Besides those that live wholly in tents, numbers of the Eastet ii people spend part of the year in them. 1 have ob- served ii particularly in the accounts of Mesopotamia. In that country Bishop Pococke tells us, he fell in wiihasuin- mer village of country people, -whose huts were made of loose stones covered with reeds and boughs ; their winter tillage being on the side of a hill at some distance, consist- . low houses; and that they chose this place for n lence of being with their cattle, and out of the huh road. Five pages af.er, he observes, that many of the Curdeens live honestlyin Mesopotamia as well as Syria, removing in summer to some places at a distance iioin their village, where they live under tents, generally i | I.., es reared from the road, to avoid the injuries of the soldiery, and of, the people of the paeha. May not this encuiiisianee serve to explain a passage of the Old Testa- ment, relating to this country ? In Gcn.xxxi.it is said, iaai Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to his flock, that he there told them of his design of returning from ma to his native country, and that upon their - to go with him, he set out upon this journey so silently, that Laban had no notice of it, until the third day I it appears, that he had all his effects with him, and lenis for the accommodation of his family; and that Laban. v ho pursued him, had tents also for his company. Here one is surprised to find both parties so suddenly equipped wilh tents for their accommodation in travelling, and is naturally led to inquire, why Jacob sent for his wives to his thick ! Bishop Patrick's account of the last cireiims'ance, that it was tor greater secrecy, and perhaps to avoid the dangerofbeing seized upon by' Laban and his sons, will hardly be thought satisfactory. Could not a husband speak to his wives with sufficient privacy in La- ban's house? Were matters come to such an extremity, that Jacob durst not venture himself within the doors of hi- ancle's house, for fear of being seized upon, and made ! And in fact Jacob seems actually to have com- municated his intention to Rachel in her fathei's house : for when he sent for his wives, she brought her father's teiaphiui with her, which she would by no means have done, had she been unapprized of the design. The case seems to have been thus. While Laban and his daughters dwell in a house, they that tended the flocks had tails for their accommodation. Laban's flocks were in two parcels, one under the care of Jacob, the other committed to the care of Laban's sons, three days' journey off; Jacob's own afterward were also, for the same reason, probably at an equal distance. At the time of shearing sheep, it is •rea- sonable to suppose, lhat more and better tents were erected for the reception and entertainment of their friends, it be- ing a time of great feasting, 1 Sam. xiv. 4, 8, 3fi ; to which thev were wont to invite their friends, 2 Sam. xiii.25; and the feasts being held at a distance from theirown houses, in the places where the sheep were fed, as appears from the passag ■■ last cited, and also from Gen. xxxviii. 12. Laban went then with his relations at the time of sheep-shearing to his flocks ; Jacob at the same time shore his own sheep, and sent to his wives to come to the entertainment, with all th jse utensils that they had with them of his. which would te wanted, having before communicated his intention to Rachel his beloved wife. This was a fair pretence for the having all his household stuff brought to him, which according to the present Eastern mode, we ma\ believe was very portable,' beds not excepted; and having told Leah then his views, in the company of Rachel, and both consenting to go with him, he had everything his journey, and could decamp immediately, taking hi- llocks and herds along wilh linn. Somebody, upon this, went to inform Laban of Jacob's departure, who bi ing at a considerable distance, did not receive the news nil the third day. Tins accounts at once, m the most simple and natural way, for Jacob's sending for his wives to his flock; for his being able to get his goods together without jeal- ousy ; and for his and Ins father-in-law's being furnished with tents for the journey. — EUrmeb. Ver. 7. And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times: but Ciod suffer- ed him not to hurt me. 8. If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled: and if he said thus, The ring- Streaked siall be thy hire ; then bare all the cattle ring-streaked. The flocks which ranged the fertile pastures of Mesopo- tamia, seem also to have generally produced twins every year. Laban, who lived in that country, is said to have changed the wages of Jacob ten times in the space of six years ; but since the wages of Jacob consisted of the lambs "and the kids, thev could not have been changed more than six limes in six years, if his flock had brought forth only one a-year. Should it be thought that, according to this rule, the wages of Jacob must have been change. I i\\ • !\ e times, let it be remembered, that the flocks of Laban had brought forth their first lambs before the bargain was ci in- cluded between him and Jacob, and by conseque«ce, the latter had only the lambs of one yeaning lhat year ; and again, the flocks had yeaned only once in the last year of his abode with Laban, because he was compelled to leai e the service of his envious relative before the close of the season, and consequently, before the second yeaning. Thus the flocks yeaned only ten times from the dale of il en- agreement, till the departure of Jacob to his own country. Or, we may consider the phrase " ten tunes," as a definite for an indefinite number ; in which sense it is often used by the sacred writers. Thus, Jehovah complains of his an- cient people whom he had brought out of Egypt, that they had tempted him " now these ten limes," that is. many limes, " and had not hearkened to his voice." Job uses it in the same sense: " These ten times have ye reproached me," that is, ye have often reproached me. In the same man- ner, when Jacob complained that Laban had changed his wages ten times, he might only mean that he had ch ne so frequently. Had we therefore" no stronger proof, thai the sheep of 'Laban yeaned twice in the year, the fact might seem to rest merely on the state of the flocks in the adjacent regions, which, it cannot be doubted, generally yeaned twins, and for the most part twice in the year. A stronger proof, therefore, may be drawn from these words: " And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gut- ters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in ; so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's." Two ycanings are supposed to be suggested in this passage, by the teims stronger and feebler; "the lambs of the first were always stronger than those of the second : and consequently, they fell to Jacob by the special bounty of Heaven, causing the cattle, not by anv law of nature, but by an act ol Almighty power, to conceive among the rods, the use of which was merely the test of Jacob's faith in the divine promise. This isevid'ent, by the sense in which the Syriac interpreter, and the Chaldee Paraphrast understood the text ; for, instcu of the term "feebler," they use the word "later," rendtnr.g the clause, "so the later were Laban's." Jerome, A jnila, and other expositors, interpret the clause in the same man- ner. Kimchi and other Jewish writers often speak of .he first and second yeanings ; referringtheformertothe iru n.h Nisan, which corresponds to our March : and the laUer '.o the month Tisri. which nearly corresponds to September; and they assert, that the lambs of the first yeaning are called cjvwp, ieskorim, or bound, because they'had a irnp 38 GENESIS. Chap. 31 compact body; and those of the second, D^tay, aetophim, or deficient, because they were feebler. The autumnal lambs, however, were preferred by many before the vernal, and the winter before the summer lambs, as being more vigorous and healthy. But it must be confessed, that no certi.n trace of two yeanings in the year can be discover- ed in the sacred volume. The fact is attested by many c >mmon authors, and seems necessary to account for the rapid increase of oriental stock, and the prodigious num- bers of which the Syrian flocks consisted. The words of Moses may refer, at least with equal probability, to the vig- orous and healthy constitution of the ewes which Jacob se- duced robust lambs, and feeble mothers a weak and spirit- less offspring. Aware of the advantages of a vigorous and especia '■ Jacob laid the stronger ewes in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods; but when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in ; so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's." —Paxton. Ver. 27. Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, and with tabret, and with harp ? The Easterns used to set out, at least on their longer jour- neys, with music. When the prefetto of Egypt was pre- paring for his journey, he complains of his being incom- moded by the sun^ of his friends, who in this manner took leave of their relations and acquaintance. These valedic- tory songs were often extemporary. If we consider them, as they probably were used not oh common but more sol- emn occasions, there appears peculiar propriety in the com- plaint of Laban. — Harmer. Ver. 34. Now Rachel had taken the images, and , put them in the camel's furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent, but found them not. Mounted on this mild and persevering animal, (the camel,) the traveller pursues his journey over the sandy deserts of the east, with speed and safety. For his con- venience, a sort of round basket is slung on each side with a cover, which holds all his necessaries, between which he is seated on the back of the animal. Sometimes two long chairs, like cradles, are hung on each side with a covering, in which he sits, or, stretched at his ease, re- signs himself to sleep, without interrupting his journey. These covered baskets, or chairs, are the camel's furni- ture, where Rachel put the images which she stole from her father.— Paxton. Ver. 35. And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee ; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched, but found not the images. In Persia, a son never sits in the presence of his father or his mother; even the king's son always stands before him; and is regarded only as the first of his servants. This is the reason that Rachel addressed her father in these words: " Let it not displease my lord, that I cannot rise up before thee." — Paxton. Ver. 38. This twenty years have I been with thee ; thy ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. 39. That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee ; I bare the loss of it : of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. The shepherds of the East were accountable for the flocks lnder their charge. Of this fact, the following extract from Ihe Gentoo laws, furnishes a remarkable proof: "Cattle shall be delivered over to the cow-herd in the morning; 'he cow-herd s- i_. end them the whole day with grass and water; and^in the evening, shall re-deliver them to the master, in the same manner as they were intrusted to him; if, by the fault of the cow-herd, any of the cattle be lost or stolen, that cow-herd shall make it good. When a cow-herd has led cattle to any distant place to feed, il any die of some distemper, notwithstanding the cow-herd applied the proper remedy, the cow-herd shall carry the head, the tail, the fore-foot, or .some such convincing prool taken from that animal's body, to the owner of the cattle ; having done this, he shall be no further answerable; if he neglects to act thus, he shall make good the loss." In this very situation was Jacob with Laban, his father-in-law, as we learn from his memorable expostulation, addressed to that deceitful and envious relation. — Paxton. Ver. 40. Thus I was ; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night ; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. See on Jeremiah 30. 30. Does a master reprove his servant for being idle, he will ask, " What can I do 1 the heat eats me up by day, and the cold eats me up by night : how can I gain strength 1 I am like the trees of the held: the sun isTon my head by day, and the dew by night." — Roberts. In the midst of the burning deserts, where the heat is increased tenfold by the sandy surface on which it beats, the traveller encounters much inconvenience, and even distress, from the chilling cold of the night. Mr. Bruce, the justly celebrated Abyssinian traveller, lost all his camels in one night by the cold, in the deserts of Senaar. In the year 1779, the Bedouin Arabs plundered an Eng- lish caravan in the desert, between Suez and Cairo. Seven of the Europeans, stripped entirely naked by their inhu- man spoilers, in the hope of reaching Cairo, pushed for- ward into the desert. Fatigue, thirst, hunger, and the heat of the sun, destroyed one after another; one alone survived all these horrors. During three days and two nights, he wandered in this parched and sandv desert, frozen at night by the north wind, (it being in the month of January,) and burnt by the sun during the day, with- out any o'ther shade but 'a single bush, into which he thrust his head among the thorns, or any drink but his own urine. At length, on the third day, he was descried by an Arab, who conducted him to his tent, and took care of him for three days, with the utmost humanity. At the expiration of that time, the merchants of Cairo, apprized of his situation, procured him a conveyance to that city, where he arrived in the most deplorable condi- tion. From these important facts we may conclude, that even in those parched countries, a fire in the night, in the middle of May, might be very requisite, and highly ac- ceptable. The hapless wanderer, whose affecting storv Volney records, was frozen at night by the north wind, and burnt by the dreadful heat of the stin during the day; and the patriarch Jacob complains, that he was for many years exposed to similar hardships in the plains of Meso- potamia; " In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night." Nothing assuredly was remoter from the design of Volney, a proud and insolent enemy of revela- tion, than to confirm the truth of Scriptura history; his statement clearly proves, that Jacob's complaint was not hastily made, but strictly agreeable to truth. — Paxton. Ver. 46. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made a heap: and they did eat there upon the heap. Oiir version of Genesis xxxi. 411, represents Jacob a> sitting, with his relations and friends, when he held a solemn feast, on I present reconcilia- i engagement to preserve peace and aim y in future umes-. but their actual sitting on this heap ii -i mi. what less improbable, as the following passage of Niebuhi relating to Ins being admitted to an audience of the Iman i my lodgings indisposed, and ° si long, found myself so faint, that I was - ask permission to quit the room. I found near the principal officers of the court, who 02 m a scattered manner, in the shade, upon the side of the wall. Among them v. a . the nakib, the general, or rather master of the horse, Gheir Allah, with whom I had some acquaintance before. I Ie immediately resigned his place to me, and applied himself t.i draw together stones into a heap, m order to build him- self a new seat." This management to us aj Strange ; il might possibly be owing to the extreme heat of thai time ol the year in that country, which made silting on the ground very disagreeable ; It can hardly however I that th'ev sat upon the heap of stones that had b-en g ithered together on Mount Gilead, for tins reason, sine.' high grounds are cooler than those that lie low; since it was in spring time, when the heat is more mod- erate, for it was at the time of sheep-shearing: but it might be wet, and disagreeable sitting on the ground, especially as they were not furnished with sufficient number of carpet-, pursuing after Jacob in a great hurry; and sev- eral countries furnishing stones so flat as to be capable of being fbl tned into a pavement, or seat, not so uneasy as we Imagined. Mount Gilead might be such a country. It might also be thought to tend more strongly to impress the mind, when this feast of reconciliation was eaten upon that very heap that was designed to be the ...orial of this renewed friendship. As for the making use of heaps of ftoncs for a memorial, many are found to this day in these countries, and not merely by land, for they have been used for sea marks too; So Nie- buhr, in the' same volume, tells us of a heap of stones in a rock in the Red Sea, which was designed to warn them that sailed there of the danger of the place, that they might be upon their guard. — Harmer. Ver. 55. And early in the morning, Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them : and Laban departed, and return- ed unto his place. Early rising is a universal custom. Thus, in every season of the vear, the people may be seen at sunrise, . strolling in all directions. At the time of the heavy dews, they hind a part of the robe round the head, which also fall's on the shoulders. When a journey has to be taken, were they not to rise earhi, they would be unable to travel far before the sun had gained its meridian height. They therefore start a little before daylight, and rest under the shade during the heat of the dav. Here also we have another instance of the interesting' custom of blessing those who were about to be separated. A more pleasing scene than that of a father blessing his sons and daughters can scarcely be conceived. The fervour of the language, the expression of the countenance, and the affection of their embraces, all excite our strongest sympathy. " My child, may God keep thy hands and thv feet !'' " May the beasts of the forest keep' far from thee !" " May thv wife and thy children be preserved !" " May riches and happiness ever be thy pcrtioii !" — Roberts. Chap. 32. ver. 7. Then Jacob was greatly afraid, and distressed: and he divided the people thai was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands. This plan seems not to have been first invented by Ja- «ob : but it may be conjectured that large caravans used at that time to take this precaution aca.n.-l hostile a'tacks. Sir 11. Blount relates in Ins Travels, thai he traveled with a caravan which had divided ii-clf in like manner into two troops; one of which that went before, being attacked bv robbers, had an action with them, and were plundered, whereas the other escaped uninjured. — Rosenmulleh. Ver. 15. Thirty milch-camels with their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foals. Milch-camels, among the Arabs, constitute a principal pan of their riches; the creature being every way so ser- viceable, that the providence of God appears peculiarly kind and wise in providing such a beast tm n .- n i.-s. ■wherenoother animal could be of equal use. Niebuhr re- lates, " thai among other dishes presented to him by the Arabs at Menavre, there was also camels' milk. That it was indeed considered cooling and healthy in these hot countries, but that it was so clammy, that when a dipped into it, and drawn up again, the milk hangs down from it like a thread." Host, in his Arnmnl of Morocco anil l'i -., says, " thai the Moors also drink camels' milk j and when they have milked them for a short time, Ihey suffei the young camels to suck, and then begin to milk again. partly to share ii with the young camels, and partly to make the camels give the milk better.'' Pallas, in bis Rus- siiin Travels, savs, that it is customary among the Ivngise to milk the camels: " their milk is said to In- bluish, thick, and of an agreeable taste. The Kirgisc consider it to be very wholes.. me : and it is also -aid thai a in. I ting beverage is drawn from it than from mares' milk.' In fact, the camel is of such multifariou tals, and of such importance, that among the Bedouins, wealth is not estimated by money, bul by the number of camels. These observations are confirmed by Seelzen, in his Account of the Arab Tribes. "'No animal among the Arabs surpasses the camel in utility; besides the whole- some diet which his flesh, his milk, and their products. afford them, they turn every part of it to account. Out of its hair, they manufacture carpets, large strong sacks for corn, &c. Out of its skin, soles (serbul,) large w a', i K - ties (raw ijch,) two of which are a load for a camel, and large leather sacks (karpha,) in which they transport and preserve butter, corn, and similar articles; they die them red on the outside; and two of these also are a load for a camel. They likewise cut straps out of the skin, and out of live or six such straps they prepare long, tough thongs, which they employ in drawing up water fr m deep wells. They also stitch the skin over a frame of bent slicks, and thus form large vessels, which they use to water the camels. and which are calied Hhod. The two smews of the neck of the camel (aelba) serve instead of ropes, and are ex- tremelv strong. Their dung is used for fuel. Even the urine of this animal is of utility: all tin- Arabs, Nomades of both sexes, and likewise many Arab peasants, wash the head every two or three days with the mine of the female camel, and considerthis to be very healthy.'' — Robenmi u er From the present which Jacob made io his brother Esau, consisting of five hundred and eighty head of diffei ml sons, we mav form some idea of the countless mnnbeis of great and small cattle, which he had acquired in the ser- vice of Laban. In modern times, the numbi is of cattle in the Turcoman flocks which feed on the fertile plains ol Syria, are almost incredible. They sometimes occupy three or four days in passing from one part of the country to another. Ch'ardin had an opportunity of seeing a clan of Turcoman shepherds on their march, about two .lavs' distance from Aleppo. The whole country was covered with them. Manv of their principal people, with whom he conversed on the' road, assured him, that there were four hundred thousand beasts of carriage, camels, horses, oxen, cows, and asses, and three millions of sheep and goats. This astonishing account of Chardin. is confirmed by Dr. Shaw, who states that several Arabian tribes, who .an bring no more than three or tour hundred horses inio the field, are possessed of more than so many thousat d camels, and triple the number of sheep and black cattle. Russel.in his history of Aleppo, speaks of vast Bocks which pass thai city every vear. of which manv sheep aresold to supply the inhabitants. The flocks and herds which belonged to the Jewish patriarchs, were not more numerous — Paston. GENESIS. Chap. 32—34 \ei. 19. And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, say- ing, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him. I almost think I hear Jacob telling his servants what they were to say to Esau. He would repeat it manv times over, and then ask, " What did I say 1" until he had com- pletely schooled them into the story. They would be most attentive ; and at every interval, some of the most officious would be repeating the tale. The head servant, however, would be specially charged with the delivery of the mes- sage. When they went into the presence of Esau, they would be very particular in placing much stress on Jacob's saying, " the present is sent unto my lord!" and this would touch his feelings. Servants who see the earnestness of their master, imitate him in this when they stand before the person to whom they are sent. They repeat a number of little things respecting him; his great sorrow for his offence, his weeping, his throwing himself into the dust, and his fearful expressions. Should the occasion, how- ever, be of a pleasing nature, they mention his great joy, and his anxiety for an interview. The dependants of Esau, also, would hear the story, and every now and then be making exclamations at the humility of Jacob, and the value of his present. They would also put their hands together in a siypplicating posture, for Esau to attend to the request. He, feeling himself thus acknowledged as lord, seeing the servants of his brother before him, and knowing that all his people had witnessed the scene, would consider himself greatly honoured. In this way many a culprit in the East gains a pardon, when nothing else could purchase it. Should the offender be loo poor io send a present, he simply despatches his wife and children to plead for him; and they seldom plead in vain. — Roberts. Chap. 33. ver. 3. And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. There is something very touching, and, to an Eastern mind, very nabwal, m thisaetion of Jacob's. His arrange- ments, also, may be seen to the life, at this day. His wives and children were placed behind him: they would be in a separate group, in order that Esau might the more easily see them. He would then walk forward, and cast himself on the earth, and rise again, till he had bowed seven times ; after which, (as he would walk a short distance every time he arose,) he would be near to his brother. Esau could not bear it any longer, and ran to meet him, and, fell on his neck, and kissed him, and wept. Then came the hand- maids and their children. (I think I see them,) and bowed themselves before Esau ; the wives, also, according to their age, and their children, prostrated themselves before him. What with the looks of the little ones, joined with those of the mothers, Esau could not help being moved. — Roberts. Ver. 10. And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then re- ceive my present at my hand. It is the custom of the East, when one invites a superior, to make him a present after the repast, as an acknowledg- ment of his trouble. Frequently it is done before it, as it is uo augmentation of honour to go to the house of an in- ferior. They make no presents to equals, or those who are below themselves. — Burder. Not to receive a present, is at once to show that the thing desired will not be granted. Hence, nothing can be more repulsive, nothing m ire distressing, than to return the gifts to the giver. Jacob evidently laboured under this impres- sion, and therefore pres«d his brpther to receive the gifts, if he had found favour in his sight. — Roberts. Ver. 13. And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young arc with me ; and if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die. " Their flocks," says Chardin, speaking of (hose who now live in the East after the patriarchal manner, " feed down the places of their encampments so quick, by the great numbers which they have, thai they are obliged to remove them too often, which is very destructive to their flocks, on account of the young ones, which have not strength enough to follow." — Harmer. Ver. 14. Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over be- fore his servant ; and I will lead on softly, ac- k cording as the cattle that goeth before me, and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir. People having taken a journey, say, " We came to tnis place according to the walking of our feet." '' It was done according to the foot of the children ;" which means, they did not come in a palankeen, or any other vehicle, but on foot. From this it appears, that "the females, and the children, performed their journey on foot, and that, accord- ing to their strength. — Roeerts. Ver. 15. And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee sow c of the folk that are with me. And he said, What needeth it ? let me find grace in the sight of my lord. As Esau had received valuable gifts from his brother, he wished to make some present in return ; and having received cattle, it would not have looked well to have giv- en the same kind of gift that he had received; he therefore offered some of his people, (who were no doubt born in his house,) as a kind of recompense for what he had received, and as a proof of his attachment. — Roberts. Ver. 19. And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the chil- dren of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundrtd pieces of money. There is very great reason to believe that the ek' iest coins struck were used both as weights and money and indeed this circumstance is in part proved by the -eiy names of certain of the Greek and Roman coins. . Thus the Attic mina and the Roman libra equally signify a pound ; and the nrarnf (staler) of the Greeks, so called from weighing, is decisive as to this point. The Jewish shekel, was also a weight as well as a coin : three thousand she- kels, according to Arbuthnot, being equal in weight and value to one talent. This is the oldest coin of which we anywhere read, for it occurs Gen. xxiii. lti, and exhibits direct evidence against those who date the liist coinage of money so low as the time of Croesus or Darius, it being there expressly said, that Abraham weighed to Ephron four hundred shekels of silver, cur rent moneii with the merchant. . Having considered the origin and high antiquity of coined money, we proceed to consider the stamp or impression which the first money bore. The primitive race of men being shepherds, and their wealth consisting in their cattle, in which Abraham is said to have been rich, for greater convenience metals were substituted for the commodity it- self. It was natural for the representative sign to bear im- pressed the object which it represented ; and thus accord- ingly the earliest coins were stamped with the figure of an ox .or a sheep: for proof that they actually did thus impress them, we can again appeal to the high authority of scrip- ture : for there we are informed that Jacob bovght a parcel of a field far a kmdred pieces of money. The original Hebrew translated pieces of money, is kcsitolh, which sig- nifies lambs, wiih the figure of which the metal was doubt- less stamped.— Maurice's Indian Antiquities. Chap. 34. ver. 1. And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. Chap. 34. GENESI! II Voltaire objects, in like manner, to the probability of the Old Tesiameut history, in the account given us there of the dishonour done iJ Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, by a Unite prince in Canaan, Lien. xxxiv. 1, 'J, who he sup- poses was too young to have suffered such an injury, or to have excited the>anecuons oi Shechem. The two following ii, prove there was nothing incredible in it, and thai on ardent young Eastern prince ma] be sup posed i" hai.' ii th :iuii, .if .such a fact. The first cita- tion shall be lioin Micbuhr's account of Arabia: "1 have heard speak in Persia of one that was a mother at thir- teen: they there marry girls at nine yean of age; and 1 knew a man u ln.se wile was no mole than ten years old when the marriage was consummated." The other is from Dr. S td ob ervations. bpcakmg of the inhabitants of Barbary, he says, "The men, indeed, by we i in- only the tiara, or a scull cap, are i much to the sun, that they quickly attain the swailhiness of the Arab; but the women, keeping more at home, pre- serve [heir beauty until they are thirty: at which age they begin to be wrinkled, and are usually past childbeanng. It sometimes happens that one of these' girls is a mother at eleven, and a grandmother at two-and-iwenty." If they be- come mothers at eleven, thej might easily become the ob- ■ i iimeut ai ten, or thereabouts; and tins cannot be supposed to be very extraordinary, when the daughter of sucn a one is supposed to become a mother too by eleven. Ii cannot then be incredible that Shechem should cast Ins eyes on Dinah al ten years of age, and should dy-ne to marry her at that age; if human nature in the East then was similar, in that respect, to what rt is now. But she inigin b e.'iiMileiably older than ten when this af- fair happen. a n is said in the book of Genesis relative to this matter. — Harmer. Ver. 11. And Shechem said unto her father, and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. 12. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife. In the remote ages of antiquity, women were literally purchased by their husbands; and the presents made to their parents or other relations were called their dowry. The practice still continues in the country of Shecheni; for when a young Arab wishes to marry, he must purchase ins wife; and for this reason, fathers, among the Arabs, are never more happy than when they have many daugh- ters. They are reckoned the principal riches of a house. An Arabian sui;or will offer fifty sheep, six camels, or a dozen of c jws ; if he be not rich enough to make such of- fers, he proposes to give a mare or a colt, considering in the oiler, the merit of the young woman, the rank of her family, and his own circumstances. In the primitive times of Greece, a well-educated lady was valued at four oxen. When they agree on both sides, the contract is drawn up by him that acts as cadi or judge among these Arabs. In some pans pf the East, a measure of corn is formally men- tioned in contracts for their concubines, or temporary les the sum of money which is stipulated by way of dowry. This custom is probably as ancient as concubinage, with which it is connected; and if so, it will perhaps account for the prophet Hosea's purchasing a wife of tins kind for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley. — Paxton. Ver. 21. These men a re peaceable with us, there- fore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them : let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. The shepherds of Syria and the East have, from the re- motest antiquity, carried on a considerable trade with the circumjacent cities. The people of Aleppo are still sup- plied with the greater part of their butter, their cheese, and their cattle for slaughter, by the Arabs, Kushwans, or Turcomans, who travel about the country with their flocks and herds, as did the patriarchs of old. It was un- doubtedly by trading with the ancienl cities of Canaan in such articles of provision, thai Abraham became so rid in silver and gold. The lucrative commerce w In I. ,i.. . I Ins grandson earned on with the inhabitants of Sheehem, i mentioned by Hamor their prince, and urged as a lea- son of alliance and union : " these men are peaceable with us; therefore, let them dwell in the land, and trade there- in; for the land, behold it is large enough for them." While the wealth of the country, where they tended tfaeil flocks and herds; flowed into the coffers of these shepherd princes, in a steady and copious stream, their simple and frugal manner of living, required but little expense forth* support of their numerous households; and their nomadic state prevented them from contracting' alliances, or form- ing connexions of an expensive nature. Hence, in a lew- years tiny amassed large quantities of the precious metals : they multiplied their docks and their herds, nil they cov- ered the lace of the country for many miles; they en- gaged a numerous train of servants from the surround- ing towns and villages, and had .servants bom in then houses, of the slaves whom they had purchased, or taken prisoners in war. When Abraham heard thai his brother Lot was taken captive by the king of Shinar and his confederates, he armed his trained servants born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them onto Dan. The truth of the scripture accounts is verified by the present state of the Arabian chieftains in those very places w here Abraham and his descendants forme) ly wan- dered. By the unimpeachable tesiii v of Russet, they are equally rich, and powerful, and independent, as were in.- ■ i uned patriarchs; thev are surrounded with ser- ants and retainers, eqnallv numerous, resolute, and faith- coman shepherds, their chiefs appear with a great tram of servants, richly clothed and mounted. Chardin fell in with one of these pastoral chief'ains between Parthia aiid Hyreania, whose train tilled him at once with surprise and alarm. The Turcoman had more than ten led horses, with harness all of solid gold and silver. He was accom] allied by many shepherds on horseback-, and well armed. Thev treated the traveller civilly, and answered all the questions his curiosity prompted him to put to them, upon their manner of life. The whole country, for ten leagues, was full of their flocks. An hour after, the chieftain's wires, and those of his principal attendants, passed along in a line: four of them rode in great square baskets, carried two upon a camel, which were not close covered. The rest were on camels, on asses, and on horseback; most of them with their faces unveiled, among whom were some very beautiful women. From this display of pastoral mag- nificence, which Chardin had an opportunity of contem- plating, we are enabled to form a very clear idea of the splendour and elegance in which Abraham and other pa- triarchs lived ; and of the beauty which the sacred histo- rian ascribes to Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, who had very fair complexions. — Paxton. Ver. 24. When they were sore. Circumcision in infants is easy and soon healed, and some have thought, that in adult's, it was -worst the third day; but Sir John Chardin says, that he had heard from divers renegadoes in the East, who had been circumcised, some at thirty and some at forty years of age, that the cir- cumcision had occasioned them a great deal of pain, and that they were obliged to keep their bed at least twenty or twenty-two days, during which time they could not walk without feeling very severe pain ; but thai they applied no- thing to the wound to make it cicatrize, except burnt paper. — Burder. Ver. 27. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister. Among the Bedouin Arabs, the brother finds himself more dishonoured by the seduction of his sister, than a man by the infidelity of his wife. As a reason, they allege. '■ that a wife is not of the -family, and that they are" obliged to keep a wife only as long as she is chaste ; and if she is not she may be sent away, and is no longer a member of the family ; but tha*. i sister constantly remains a m? -^er 42 of the family ; «nd even if bis sister became dissolute, and was defiled, r.rbody could hinder her from slill being his sister." (D'Ar/ieux.) This is confirmed by Niebuhr. "I learnt at Basra, that a man is not allowed to kill his wife, even on account of adultery; but that her father, brother, or any of her relations, were suffered to do it without being punished, or at least paying a small sum as an atonement, because her relations had been dishonoured by her bad be- haviour; but that after this satisfaction, nobody is permitted to reproach the family. They remembered examples of it in Basra and Bagdad'; in this latter place, a rich merchant, a few years since, had found a young man with a relation of his, and not only hewed her in pieces on the spot, but also, by witnesses and money, caused the young man, who was the son of a respectable citizen, to be hanged the same night by the magistrates." — Rosenmuller. Ver. 30. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me, to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land. So said Jacob to Simeon and Levi. Of a man who has lost his honour, whose fame has entirely gone, it is said, " Ah ! he has lost his smell— where is the sweet smell of former years V " Alas !" says an old man, " my smell is for ever gone." — Roberts. Chap. 35. ver. 2. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments. The household of Jacob had strange gods among them, and he ordered them to put them away, and to make them- selves clean, and to change their garments in token of their purity. When people have been to any unholy place, they always on returning wash their persons and change their garments. No man can go to the temple, wearing a dirty cloth ; he must either put it on clean, or go himself to a lank and wash it; or put on one which is quite new. Hence, near temples, men may be seen washing their clothes, in order to prepare themselves for some ceremony. (Exodus xix. 10.)— Roberts. Ver. 4. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all. iheir ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. The nose-jewel is another ornament peculiar to the East, which the Jewish females were accustomed to wear, and of which the Asiatic ladies are extremely fond. It is men- tioned in several parts of scripture; thus the prophet Ezekiel : " And I put a jewel on thy foreheaa," or, as it should have been rendered, on thy nose. This ornament was one of the presents which the servant of Abraham gave to Rebecca,' in the name of his master: " I put," said tie, " the ear-ring upon her face ;" more literally, I put the ring on her nose. They wore ear-rings besides; for the household of Jacob at his request, when they were prepar- ing to go up to Bethel, gave him all the ear-rings which were in their ears, and he hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. The difference between these orna- ments is clearly stated by the prophet : " I put a jewt? on thv nose, and ear-rings in thine ears." The nose-jewel, therefore, was different from the ear-ring, and actually worn bvthe females as an ornament in the East. This is confirmed by the testimony of Sir John Chardin, who says, "It is the custom in almost all the East, for the women' to wearrings in their noses, in the left nostril, which is bored low down in the middle. These rings are of gold, and have commonly two pearls and one ruby between them, placed in the ring ; I never saw a girl or young woman in Arabia, or in all Persia, who did not wear a ring after this man- ner in her nostril." Some writers con'end. that bvthe nose- jewel, we are to understand rings, which women attached to their forehead, and let them fall down upon their nose; but Chardin, wh . certainlv was a diligent observer of East- ern customs, nowhere saw this frontal ring in the East, but everywhere the ring in the nose. His testimony is sup- ported by Dr Russel who describes the women in some of IS IS. Chap. 34—36 the villages about Aleppo, and all the Arabs and Chinga- nas, (a sort of gipsies,) as wearing a large ring of silver or gold, through the external caitilage of their right nus- tril. It is worn, by the testimony of Egmont, in the,, same manner by the women of Egypt. The difference m the statements of these travellers is of little importance, and may be reconciled by supposing, what is not improbable, that in some eastern countries they wear the ring in the left, and in others in the right nostril ; all agree that it is worn in the nose, and not upon the forehead. Some re- mains of this custom have been discovered among the Indians in North America, where Clark and Lewis, in their travels to the sources of the Missouri, fell in with some tribes that wore a long tapering piece of shell, or bead, put through the cartilage of the nose. — Paxton. Ver. 8. But Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, died, and she was buried beneath Beth-el, under an oak : and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth. Savary, speaking of the Egyptian women, and their manner of nursing their children, says, " When circum- stances compel them to have recourse to a nurse, she is not looked upon as a stranger. She becomes pan of the family, and passes the rest of her life in the midst of the children she has suckled. She is honoured and cherished like a second mother." So the Syrian nurse continued until her death with Rebecca, and was buried with gnat solemnity of mourning : since that oak was from that time distinguished by the name of the Oak of Weeping. — Har- med. Ver. 19. And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Beth.-leb.em." '20. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave, that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day. The following account from the recent and valuable Travels in Palestine, by Mr. Buckingham, on the subject of Rachel's tomb, will" be found highly interesting. " In the way, on the right, at a little distance from the road, is hewn the reputed tomb of Rachel, to which we turned off, to enter. This maybe near the spot of Rachel's inter- ment, as it is not far from Ephrath, and may correspond well enough with the place assigned for her sepulchre by Moses, who savs, in describing her death in childbirth of Benjamin, 'and Rachel died,~and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem ; and Jacob set a pillar upon he' grave, that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.' Gen. xxxv. 19. Instead of a pillar, the spot is now covered by a Mohammedan building, resembling in its exterior the tombs of saints and scheiks in Arabia and Egypt, being small, square, and surmounted by a dome. We entered it on the south side by an aperture, through which it was difficult to crawl, as i't has no doorway ; and found on the inside a square mass of masonry in the cen- tre, built up from the floor nearly to the roof, and of such a size as to leave barelv a narrow passage for walking around it. It is plastere'd with while stucco on the outer surface, and is sufficiently large and high to enclose with- in it any ancient pillar that might have been found on the grave of Rachel. This central mass is certainly different from any thing that I have ever observed in Arabian tombs; and it struck me on the spot, as bv no means im- piobable, that its intention might have originally been to enclose either a pillar, or fragment of one, which tradition had pointed out as the pillar of Rachel's grave ; and that as the place is held in canal veneration by Jews, bv Chris- tians, ami bv Mohammedans, the last, as lords oft! e coun- try, might have subsequently built the present structure over it in their own style, and plastered the high seoare pillar within. Around the interior face of the Avails, is an arched recess on each side, and over every part of the stucco are written and engraved a profusion of names in Hebrew, Arabic, and Roman characters; the first execu- ted incurious devices, as if a sort of abracadabra." P. 01G. —Birder. {See Engrafting.) Chap. 36. ver. 6. And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house. Chap. 36. lit. IN The Margin has, for persons, " souls." Has n man gone to a dislanl place, it is said, " Viravan, and all the souls of his house, have gone 10 the far country." ■' Have you heard that the old man and thirty souls have gone OH ■ pilgrim- age 1" " Sir, I can never' gel rich, because 1 have lifteen souls who daily look to me for their rice." — Roberts. Yer. 24. And those arc the children of Zibeon ; both Ajtih, and Anah : this was thai Anah that found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father. The Hebrews ascribe the invention of mules to Anah, the sun of Zibeon, whose daughter, Aholibamah, was given in marriage to Esau. "This was that Anah, that found tin' mules m the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his lather." In this text, Moses evidently ceUSUIW the misguided and preposterous industry of Anah, who, not satisfied with the numerous thicks and herds which the bounty of Providence had bestowed on his family, or, per- haps, actuated by impure and licentious motives, contrived a new and spurious breed of annuals unknown to nature, and contrary to the laws which regulate her operations. Whatever might be the motive, the conduct of this Horite prince was certainly criminal. We cannot, on any other supposition, account for the peculiar and cinphatical phrase which Moses employs: " This was that Anah, that found the mules in the wilderness." In opposition to this idea, Bochart contends, that if Anah had found out the method of procreating mules, the sacred historian would not have said he found them ; because the verb (n;o) malsa, among the Hebrews, does not signify to invent, but to find some- thing already in existence. Nor to strengthen this con- jecture, is it 'sufficient, that Anah is said at the time to have ii'ii.ied the asses of Zibeon his father; for mules are not procreated of asses only, but of an ass and a mare, or of a horse and a female ass. But of horses or wild asses, by whose union with the domestic ass a mule is generated, no mention is made in this passage. In addition to these arguments, our author insists on the improbability, that the method of generating mules was discovered in Idumea at that early period ; because, the use of these animals does BOl seem to have become common in Judea, till the reign of David, about five hundred years after the death of Anah. No mention is made, of mules in the flocks and herds of Abraham, of Isaac, of Job, and other shepherd princes of the East. In the various enumerations, horses, camels, asses, oxen, sheep, and goats, are expressly mentioned, but in relation to mules, the profoundest silence is uniformly observed; hence, Bochart argues, that the origin of mule's is involved in great uncertainty. But the assertion of that celebrated writer, that the Hebrew verb (nsc) multn, sig- nifies only to find, not to invent, is incorrect. In Leigh's Cntiea Sacra, it signifies also to procure for himself by labour and industry; and in Parkhurst, the seventh sense is, to obtain, to procure. According to these respectable authors, the text may be rendered, This was that Anah, who, by labour and industry, procured for himself mules in the wilderness, which is 'quite consistent with the com- mon exposition. If Anah did not invent the method of procreating mules, but only found them already existing, what can the sacred writer mean by the emphatical phrase, He, Anah; or, as in our version, This was that Anah 1 What was so remarkable or important in a person merely finding a knot of mules in the wilderness, that Moses should reckon it necessary to use such emphatical terms % And what reason can be given, that he takes not the smallest notice of those who found horses, or camels, or as-.es in the wilderness, although some individual must have found and reduced them to a state of servitude 1 Something unusual and peculiar is certainly intended in the phrase which Moses employs: and what can that be, but the invention of a new breed of animals. The want of mules in the numer- ous herds of the patriarchs, and the late period at which thev came into general use among the Jews, will not prove that Anah was not the inventer of that spurious breed, but only, that it was not in much request till the reign of David. That the procreation of mules was actually discouraged among the holy people, we have the highest authority for assenmj. The God of Israel, who is a God of order" and not of confusion, enacted a law, which he introduces with more than usual solemnity, not indeed to prohibit the use ISIS. 43 of mules when procreated, but the rearing of them : " Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shah pot lei thy cattle gender with a diverse kind." The mules which David and the nobles of his kingdom rode, were thi " fore, in all probability, imported from other countries where they abounded", long before the nine of thai illu ' i ■ ueh Bochart oilers another interpretation, which |„- tin , ,ur I,; to be preferred; that the original tern « hich translators rendei mules, is in reality the name ol e peo the same asthe gigantic K'niim, mentioned in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. The Samaritan Pentateuch, accord- ingly reads here, (o-i-nh) the Kmun ; and the Tai'.'inn in Genesis, renders the term by («'?;:) giants; and Aquila and Symmachus retain the Hebrew name, Kmun; so, that the passage should be rendered : This is that Anah, who found, or lighted upon, the Emim in the desert. The verb (nio) malsa, when spoken of enemies, i- used for lighting upon them, or even attacking them suddenly : several ex- amples of which, are quoted by Parkhurst." Thus, Anah is said to have found the Emim, or to have fallen upon them, or attacked them suddenly. By lliis daring exploit, which was greatly celebrated' at the time it happened, whether he discomfited these gigantic enemies by his valour, or eluded the snare they had prepared for him b. his address, he transmitted his fame to sneer, ilm- liga- tions; and by this criterion the historian distinguishes him from others of the same name. — Paxton. [But for this interpretation there is no evidence in his- tory, and we shall exhibit as more plausible, though by no means conclusive, the opinion of Mr. Bryant, ( Obsi n atii.ns ■ttjicin some Passages in Scripture, p. 26.) Then' to think, that the nature of these thirsty regions above mentioned is alluded to in the history ol Anah, who was of the family of Seir the Horite, into which Esau had married. "And these are the children of Zibeon" (ihe son of Seir) " both Aiah and Anah : this was that Anah, who found mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon, his father." Gen. chap, xxxvi. ver. 24. Why the word no-, Ytimim, is here rendered mules, I know not ; and why in some other versions it is expressed giants. It manifes'tlv denotes waters; and is so translated in the Syriac version ; and bv aquas calidas in the Vulgate. The translations of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, retain the original word, which they express in Greek characters iapuv, or lapcin, as if it were a proper name. The word, I make no doubt, was in common use among the Edomites, and Horites of Mount Seir. It is the same as aw of the scriptures, and as the word Hammim, by which baths and waters are denoted at this day by the Arabians, Persians, and other nations in the east. The account given in scripture is short, and was well understood by the persons to whom it is addressed, and undoubtedly related to water. The circumstance mentioned must have been of conse- quence, otherwise there would have been no necessity to specify the person, by whom it was effected. We should therefore read, that instead of mules Anah found out water in the wilderness: but to what does the history amount 1 Every known spring must have had somebody to have dis- covered it ; so that Anah, if this be all, did no more than hundreds had done before. But to me there seems to be something of more importance in the account than at first appears ; and for that reason the name of the person is recorded, as being of moment to those who lived in the vicinity of Edom, and were acquainted with the rites of Midian. It is to be observed, that the sacred writer, in speaking of Anah's first discovery of these waters, does not inform us, when, or where, he "was feeding his father's asses ; but only that the event took place, as he was feeding them. This "may be found of some moment. I imagine, that the latent purport of the history is this. As Anah was attending these animals, in the desert, he observed that faculty with which they were endued, of snuffing tin; moisture of the air, and being by these means led to latent waters. Accordingly, either by the intimation of thos* which he fed, or bv the traces of the wild brood, he «• brought to the knowledge of tho«e resources. And as ihos-> animals, which had been beneficial, were entitled in mam countries to a particular regard, SO these among others met with uncommon reverence smon; the Horiles ol Mount Hor, and the people of Seir: for they were looked upon a_s the instruments of Heaven, towards the finding out in those banen wilds the greatest blessing Hence 44 GENESIS. Chap. 37, 33. arose a .town, and temple, where the divinity was wor- shipped under this emblem. They stood in a valley be- neath Mount Hot, which was a part of the mountains Kiddim, upon the skirts ofEdom. Thus, as I have before mentioned, what was natural sagacity, they looked upon as a supernatural impulse, an intimation from Heaven. And the animal, like the Apis and Mnevis in Egypt, was es- teemed a living emblem of the Deity, and oracular. From the situation of Petora, which was very recluse, the place being almost surrounded by high mountains, we may sup- pose, that the water was first lound out in the manner above: in consequence of which the animal was looked upon as an oracle, and accordingly reverenced. And when the false prophet proved disobedient, and was going to utter his curses against God's people, he was terrified by an angel, and rebuked by the beast he strode. Instead of that divine energy, which it was at limes supposed to enjoy, and for which at Petora it was in an idolatrous manner reverenced, God gave the ass a human voice, a far supe- rior and more surprising gift. Hence his power was shown above that of the gods of Edom and Midian ; and the miracle was well calculated, in respect to the person on whose account it \vas exhibited. That the history did not relate either to mules, or to the Emims, but on the con- trary, to water ami fountains, mar be seen in the name of the person. This was nay, Anah," directly from pi', A in, a fountain; and is analogous to Unyaios in Greek, and Fon- tanus, or Fonteius, in Latin. It is what the Greeks called a»f-'...i-M, and was bestowed in consequence of the discovery -r and is applicable to nothing else.] — B. Chap. 37. ver. 3. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age : and he made him a coat of many colours. Rauwolf says, " that Turks of rank at Aleppo dress their sons, when they are a little grown, and can walk, in loose coats of a fine texture, in which various colours are woven, and which look very handsome." — Rosf.n.mli.i.er. The margin has, instead of colours, "pieces;" and it is probable the coat was patch-work of different colours. For beautiful or favourite children, precisely the same thing is done at this day. Crimson, and purple', an ogelher. Someti r co nor evil spi i, will inii-,r,. hii'i. !■■ ■ ■nu-e tin' a'ti-nimn 1- taken from the beauty of the person, to that of thegarment. Children seldom wear them after they are eight years of age ; though it must have been the custom among the an- cients referred to in the Bible to wear them longer, as we read of Tamar having " a garment of divers colours upon her ; for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled." — Roberts. Ver. 10. Shall I, and thy mother, and thy brethren, indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth. The Hebrew word here translated bow down, (by Lu- ther, anhden, i. c. worship,) means the manner customary in all Asia of testifying respect to kings and princes, by falling on the knee, and stooping till the forehead touches the ground. Ovington says, " The mark of respect which is paid to kings in the East approaches very near to ado- ration. The manner of saluting the Great Mogul is, to touch with the hand first the earth, then the breast, and then to lift it above, which is repeated three times in succession as you approach him." — Burder. Ver. 24. And tney took him, and cast him into a pit : and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. What is here meant by a pit is an empty cistern or re- servoir dug in the ground, in which the rain-water is col- .ected, of which there are many in the Arabian deserts. Rauwolf, in the account of his Journey through the Desert of Mesopotamia, says, " That the camels, besides other necessaries^, were chiefly laden with water to refresh them selves and their cattle in the sultry heat of the sun, as they do not easily meet with springs or brooks in crossing the desert: though they may by chance meet with pits or cis terns, which arc jar the most pad without water, which only runs into them from the rain."— Rosen.s.uller. Ver. 34. And Jacob rent his clothes. This ceremony is very ancient, and is frequently men- tioned in scripture. Levi (Rites and Ceremonies of the Jews, p. 174) says, it was performed in the following manner: "they take a knife, and holding the blade downwaid, do give the upper gaiment a cut on the right side, and then rend it- a hand's-bieadth. This is done for the five fol- lowing relations, brother, sister, son, or daughter, or wife; but for father or mother, the rent is on the left side, and in all the garments, as coat, waistcoat, &c." — Burder. Chap. 38. ver. 14. And she put her widow's garments oft" from her, and covered her with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath : for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife. The habit of eastern females was also suited to their station ; and women of all ages and conditions, appeared in dresses of the same fashion ; only a married woman wore a veil upon her head, in token of subjection ; and a widow had a garment which indicated her widowed state. The daughters of a king, and ladies of high rank, who were virgins, wore a garment of many colours, reaching, as is supposed, to the heels or ankles, with long sleeves down to the wrists, which had a border at the bottom, and a facing at the hands, of a colour different from the gar- ment : it was likewise embroidered with flowers, which in ancient times, was reckoned both splendid and beautiful. Before the Jews were carried captives to Babylon, their wives and daughters had arrived at the greatest degree of extravagance in dress. The prophet Isaiah gives a long list of the vestments, trinkets, and ornaments in use among the ladies of Israel, in that remote age ; the greater pari of w hich, it is extremely difficult to describe. A common prostitute among the Jews was known, as well by the pe- culiar vesture she wore, as by having no covering upon her head, and her eyebrows painted with stibium, which dilated the hair, and'made the eyes look black and beauti- ful. In the days of Jacob, the harlot seemed to have been distinguished by her veil, and by wrapping herself in some peculiar manner ; for these are the circumstances that in- duced Judah to consider Tamar his daughter-in-law as a woman of this character. When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot, because she had covered her face. Il may be justly inferred from this passage, that modest wo- men did not constantly wear a veil in those days. Rebecca, indeed, put a veil upon her face when she met Isaac in the field : but it was a part of Ihe marriage ceremony to de- liver the bride covered with a veil, from head to foot ; and Rebecca, in this instance, only followed the established custom of her country. Had it been the practice of modest women in that age to cover their faces, in the presence ol the other sex, she would not have needed to veil herself when her future husband met her in the field. She seems tc ha re had no veil when Abraham's servant accosted her at the well ; nor, for any thing that can be discovered, was Rachel veiled at her first interview with Jacob; or if they did ap- pear in veils, these prevented not a part of the face fiom being seen. The practice of wearing veils, except at the marriage ceremony, must, therefore, be referred to a later period, and was perhaps not introduced till after the lapse of several ages. These observations may serve to illus- trate the address of Abimelech to Sarah: "Behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee; and with all other." Sarah, you have not been used to wear the veil constantly when at home, as a person of your beauty and accomplishments should do, and by that cir- cumstance we were tempted ; but now I insist that you wear a covering, which, by concealing your beautiful counte- nance, may prevent such desires; and henceforth be comet, (as the word may be rendered, that is, circumspect,') and do Chap. 38— 41. GEN not show yourself; or, as in our translation, thus she was corrected, reproved, by a very hajiflsnma compliment paid to her beauty, and a very handsome present paid to her brother, as Abraham is sarcastically termed by Abimelech. — PiXTUN. Ver. 1 8. And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? and she said. Thy signet, and thy brace- lets, and thy staff that m in thy hand : and he gave it her, and came in unto her : and she conceived by him. The signet used by kings and persons of rank in the East was a ring which served all the purposes of sealing. All the Orientals, instead of signature by sign manual, use the impression of a seal on which their name and title (if they have one) is engraved. Among intriguing and mali- cious people, it is so ea'sy to turn the possession of a man's seal to his disgrace, by making out lalse documents, that the loss of it always produces great concern. Tins shows how much Judah put himself in the power of Tamar, when he gave her his signet: and one reason of his anxiety, " Let her take it to her, lest we be ashamed," may therefore mean something beyond the mere discovery of the im- moral action i ""Lest by some undue advantage taken of the signet, I maybe endangered." In an Indian court, the monarch still takes the ring from his finger, and affixes it to the decree, and orders the posts to be despatched to the provinces, as in the reign of Ahasuerus. When an eastern prince delivers the seal of empire to a royal guest, he treats him as a superior; but when he delivers it to a subject, it is only a sign of investiture with office. Thus the king of Egypt took off his ring from his hand and put it upon Joseph's hand, when he made him ruler over all his dominions ; and the king of Persia took off the ring which he had taken from Haman and gave it unto Mor- decai. — Paxton. Chap. 39. ver. 6. And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand ; and he knew not aught he had, save the bread which he did eat. All respectable men have a head servant called a Kani- ka-l'ulli, i. e. an accountant, in whose hands they often place all they possess. Such a man is more like a rela- tion or a friend, than a servant; tor, on all important subjects, he is regularly consulted, and his opinion will have great weight with the family. When a native gen- tleman has such a servant, it is common to say of him, "Ah ! he has nothing — all is in the hand of his Kanita- Pulli."—" Yes, yes. he is the treasure pot." " He knows of nothing but the food he eats." — Roberts. Chap. 40. ver. 13. Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head, and restore thee unto thy place : and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler. The ancients, in keeping their reckonings or accounts of time, or their list of domestic officers or servants, made use of tables with holes bored in them, in which they put a sort of pegs, or nails with broad heads, exhibiting the particulars/either number or name, or whatever it was. These nails or pegs the Jews call heads, and the sockets of the heads they call bases. The meaning therefore of Pharaoh's lifting up his head is, that Pharaoh would take out the peg, which had the cup-bearer's name on the top of it, to read it, i. e. would sit in judgment, and make ex- amination into his accounts ; for it seems very probable that both he and the baker had been either suspected or accused of having cheated the king, and that, when their accounts were examined and cast up, the one was acquit- ted, while the other was found guilty. And though Joseph uses the same expression in both cases, yet we may observe that, speaking to the baker, he adds, that Pharaoh shall lift up thy head from of thee, i. e. shall order thy name to be struck out of the list of his servants, by takins thy peg out of the socket. — Eibliothf.ca Biblica, cited by Stackiiocse. Chap. 41. ver. 40. Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my peo- ple be ruled ; only in the throne will I bo- greater than thou. Pococke, when he describes the Egyptian compliments, tells us, that upon their taking any thing from the hand of a superior, or that is sent from such a one, they kis^ it, and as the highest respect put it to their foreheads. Tins is not peculiar to those of that country: for the editor of the Ruins of Bull".' uli-, 'i i id, that the'Arab governor of that city respectlully applied the firman of the Grand Seignior to his forehead', w Inch was presented to him when he and his fellow-travellers first wailed on him, and then kissed it, declaring himself the Sultan's slave's slave. Is nut this what Pharaoh refers to in Gen. xli. 401 "Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word," (or on ac- count of thy word,) " shall all my people Hst," (tor so it is in the original;) " only in the throne will I be greater than thou :" that is, 1 imagine, the orders of Joseph were to be received with the greatest respect by all, and kissed by the most illustrious of the princes of Egypt. Drusius might well denv the sense that Kimehi and Grotius put on these words, the appointing that all the people should kiss his mouth. That would certainly be reckoned in the West, in every pari of the earth, as well a.s in the ( East, so remarkable for keeping up dignity and state, a most strange war of commanding the second man in the kingdom to be honoured. It is very strange then that these commentators should propose such a thought; and the more so, as the Hebrew word 'd pec is well known to signify word, or commandment, as well as ■mouth. A.s this is apparent from Gen. xlv. 21 ; so also that the prepo- sition hy dl, often signifies according to, or on account of, is put out of the question by that passage, as well as By Sam. iv. 12, Ezra x. 9, &c. These are determinations that establish the exposition I have been giving. " Upon thy commandment," or when thou sendest out orders, " my people, from the highest to the lowest, shall kiss, :' receiving them with the profoundest respect and obedience.— Harmer. In Psalm ii. 12, it is written, " Kiss the son, lest he be angrv, and ve perish from the way." Bishop Patrick says on'this, "Kiss the son; that is, 'submit to him, and . bey him." Bishop Pococke says, " The Egyptians, on taking any thing from the hand of a superior, or that is sent from him, kiss it; and, as the highest respect, put it to their foreheads." It is therefore probable that Pharaoh meant, that all should submit to Joseph, that all should obey him, and pay him reverence, and that only on the throDe he himself would be greatest. When a great man causes a gift to be handed to an inferior, the latter will take it, and put it on the right cheek, so as to cover the eyes ; then on the left; after which he will kiss it. This is done to show the great superiority of the donor, and that he on whom the gift is bestowed is his dependant, and greatly reverences him. When a man of rank is angry with an inferior, the latter will be advised to go and kiss his feet; which he does bv touching his feet with his hands, and then kissing them. When the Mohammedans meet each other after a long ab- sence, the inferior will touch the hand of the superior, and then kiss it. All, then, were to kiss Joseph, and acknow- ledge him as their ruler. — Roberts. Ver. 42. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand. That is, his signet. In the ring there is generally a seal, on which the name of the sovereign is engraved. This sisnet is dipped in a coloured matter, and impressed over the royal orders, instead of the king's title. Whoever is in possession of this seal, can issue commands in the name of the king. What is said in this text, would be expressed in modern languace bv, " Pharach raised, Joseph to the d le- nity of grand vizier." The symbol of power and authority given to the grand vizier, is the seal of the sultan with his cipher, which is intrusted to his care. The signet was considered, in the East, from the most ancient times, as the sign of delegated power. That given to the grand vizier is so great, that no officer of state, no minister, dares to resist, or even to contradict his orders, without risking hi; head, because every one of his commands is obeved, as f *6 GENESIS. it had proceeded from the throne, or from the mouth of the sultan. He likewise receives almost royal honours; all about him bears the stamp of the highest honour, power, and splendour. Liidecke, in his Description of the Turkish Empire, says, " The grand vizier is the principal of all the officers of state, and his dignity is similar to that with which Pharaoh invested Joseph. He is called Your High- ness. The emperor scarcely differs from him except in name. There is nothing at the European courts similar to his dignity, and the premiers ministres, as they are called, are nothing to him. Being keeper of the imperial signet, he always has it suspended round his neck. The investing him with it, is the sign of his elevation to office, and the taking it off, of his discharge. Without further orders or responsibility, he issues all orders for the em- pire." In like manner, when Alexander the Great, on his death-bed, delivered his signet to Perdiccas, it was concluded that he had also given to him his royal powers, and intended him for his successor. (Curtius.) — The ar- raying of Joseph in fine linen, was probably a part of the ceremony of investing him with his high dignity. Thus the grand vizier on the day of his appointment is invested with a double golden caftan, or robe of honour. — Rosen- muller. This practice is still common, but was much more so in former times. " Aruchananan, a king, once became greatly enamoured with a princess called Alii, and desired to have her in marriage ; but being in doubt whether he should be able to have her, he sent for a woman who was well skilled in palmistry! She looked carefully into his hand, and declared, ' You will marry a princess called Alii — you shall have heV The king was so delighted, that lie took his ring off his finger, and put it upon that of the fortuneteller." Should a rich man be greatly pleased with a performer at a comedy, he will call him to" him, and take off the ring from his finger, and present it to him. Does a poet please a man of rank ; he will take the ring off his finger, and put it on his. A father gives his son-in- law elect? rng from off his finger. When the bridegroom g fs to the ho:;'e of his bride, her brother meets him, and p^urs water on his feet ; then the former takes a ring from off his finger, and puts it on that of the latter. Does one man send to another for any particular article, or to solicit a favour, and should he not have time to write, he will give his ring to the messenger, and say, " Show this in proof of my having sent you to make this request." Is a master at a distance, and does he wish to introduce a per- son to the notice of another; he says, "Take this ring, and vou will be received." Pharaoh's ring carried with it the highest mark of favour towards Joseph, and was a proof of the authority conferred on him.— Roberts. Ver. 43. And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had ; and they cried hefore him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. As to magnificent riding, chariots are not now made use of in the East, either by men, or even the fair sex. It may be difficult to say what this is owing to : whether to the dif- ficulty of their roads, or to the clumsy and unmechanical manner of constructing their carriages ; or to a junction of both causes. Certain it is, that they are not now used in these countries : and the magnificence of the furniture of their horses makes up the want of pompous chariots. Anciently, however, chariots were used by the great : they were thought most deadly machines of" war; it was courage in war that in those ruder times gave dignity, and seems to have been chiefly looked at in conferring" royal honours ; it was natural then for their kings to ride in chariots, as their great warriors at that time in common did ; which royal chariots were without doubt most highly ornamented. In th*e most magnificent of all that Pharaoh had, but one, Joseph was made to ride. But when chariots were laid aside in war, their princes laid aside the use of them by degrees, and betook themselves to horses, as upon the whole most agreeable, and they endeavoured to transfer die pomp of their chariots to them, and richly indeed they do adorn them.— Harmer. The Hebrew has for bow the knee, " Tender Father" which I believe to be the true meaning. Dr. Adam Clarke Chap. 41 — 43. abrec, which we translate bow the knee. right as well be translated any thing else. In chapter xlv. 8, Joseph says himself, " God" hath made me a father to Pharaoh." A younger brother is_called the little father ; he says the word ' t as well ;eph savs being the next in authority. The king's minister (if a good man) is called the little father. There are fixe per- sons who have a right to this parental title. The father himself, a king, a priest, a gooroo or teacher, and a bene- factor. Joseph was indeed the father of the Egyptians. — Roberts. Chap. 42. ver. 15. Hereby ye shall be proved: by the life of Pharaoh, ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. Extraordinary as the kind of oath which Joseph made use of may appear to us, it still continues in the East. Mr. Hanway says, the most sacred oath among the Persians is " by the king's head;" and among other instances of it we read in the Travels of the Ambassadors, that " there were but sixty horses for ninety-four persons. The mchimandcr (or conductor) swore by the head of the king, (which is the greatest oath among the Persians,) that he could not possi- bly find any more." And Thevenot says, " his subjects never look upon him but with fear and trembling ; and they have such respect for him, and pay so blind an obedi- ence to a . ms orders, that how unjust soever his commands might be, :^.ey perform them, though against the law both of God and nature. Nay, if they swear by the king's head, their oath is more authentic, and of greater credit, than if they swore by all that is most sacred in heaven and upon earth."— Border. Ver. 37. And Reuben spake unto his father, sav- ing, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not "to thee : deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. Is a man placed in great difficulty, and does he make a solemn promise, in which another person is also involved; he will sav, " Ah ! if I do not this thing, then kill my chil- dren." "Yes, my lord, my children shall die if 1 do not accomplish this object." " Ah ! my children, your lives are concerned in this matter." — Roberts. Chap. 43. ver. 3. And Judah spake unto him, saying, The man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. See on 2 Sain, 14. 24. Ver. 7. And we told him according to the tenor of these words. The margin has, for words, " mouth." Send a messenger with a message to deliver, and ask him, on his return, what he said, he will reply, " According to your mouth!"— Roberts. Ver. 1 8. Seek occasion against us, and fall upon us. The margin has this, " Roll himself upon us." (Job xxx. 14. Psa.xxii. 8. xxxvii. 5. Prov. xvi. 3.) For to say a man rolls himself upon another, is the eastern way of saying he falls upon him. Is a person beaten or injured by another": he says of the other, " He rolled himself upon me." Of the individual who is always trying to live upon another, who is continually endeavouring to get something out of him, it is said, " That fellow is for ever rolling him- self upon him." So, also, " I will not submit to his conduct any longer; I will beat him, and roll myself upon him." Has a man committed an offence, he is advised to go to the offended, and roll, himself upon him. A person in great sorrow, who is almost destitute of friends, asks in his dis- tress, " Upon whom shall I roll myself?" When men or women are in great misery, they wring their hands and roll themselves on the earth. Devotees roll themselves round the temple, or after the sacred car. — Roberts. Chap. 44. GEN Ver. 19. And they came near to the steward of Joseph's house, and they communed with him at the door of the house. Who, in India, has not seen similar scenes to this 1 When people come from a distance to do business, or to have an interview with a person, they do not (if it can be avoided) go to him at once, but try to find out the bead ser- vant, and after having made him some little present, try to ascertain the disposition of his master, what are his habits, his possessions and his family. Every thin? connected with the object of their visit is thoroughly sifted, so that when thev have to meet the individual, they are complete- ly prepared for him!— Roberts. Ver. 25. And they made ready the present against Joseph came at noon : (or they heard that they should eat bread there. Presents are commonly sent, even to persons in private station, with great parade. The money which the bride- grooms of Syria pay for their brides, is laid out in furni- ture for a chamber, in clothes, jewels, and ornaments of gold for the bride, which are sent with great pomp to, the Bridegroom's house, three days before the wedding. In Egypt they are not less ostentatious; every article of fur- niture, dress, and ornament is displayed, and they never fail to load upon four or five horses, what Blight easily be carried bv one : in like manner, they place in fifteen dishes, the jewels, trinkets, and other things of value, which a angle plate would very well contain. The sacred writer seems to allude to some pompous arrangement of this kind, in the history of Joseph : " And they made ready the pres- ent against Joseph came at noon." They probably sepa- rated into distinct parcels, and committed to so many bearers, the balm, the honev, the spices, the myrrh, the nuts, and the almonds, of which their present consisted. — Paxton. Ver. 29. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, 7s this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me? And he said, God be gra- cious unto thee, my son. The forms of salutation in the East wear a much more serious and religious air than those in use among the na- tions of Europe. " God be gracious unto thee, my son," were the words which Joseph addressed to his brother Benjamin. In this country, it would be called a benedic- tion; but Chardin asserts, that in Asia, it is a simple salu- tation, and used there instead of those offers and assu- rances of service which it is the custom to use in the West. The Orientals, indeed, are exceedingly eloquent in wishing good and the mercy of God on all occasions to one another, even to those they scarcely know ; and yet their compli- ments are as hollow and deceitful as those of any other people. This appears from scripture, to have been always their character : " They bless with their mouths, but they curse inwardly." These benedictory forms explain the reason, why the sacred writers so frequently call the salu- tation and farewell of the East, by the name of blessing. -Pax-ton:. "God be gracious unto thee, my son," was the address of Joseph to his brother Benjamin; and in this way do people jf respectability or years address their inferiors or juniors. " Srm: give me a little water." " The sun is very hot ; I will rest under your shade, my son." — Roberts. Ver. 32. And thev set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did" eat with him, by themselves : be- cause the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews ; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. 33- And they sat before him, the first-born according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men" marvelled one. at another. 34. And ho SIS. 47 took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin's mcSB was live times so much as any of theirs. And they drank, and were merry with him. Public entertainments in the East, are not all conducted in the same wav. At Aleppo, the several dishes are brought in one by one ; and after the company has eaten a little of each, they are removed; but among the Art ba the whole provisions are set on the table at once. In Pel sia, where the last custom is followed, the viands are dis- tributed by a domestic, who takes portions of different kinds out of the large dishes in which they are served up, and bus four or five different kinds of meat in one smaller dish ; these are .set, furnished after this manner, before the company; one of these smaller dish.-, Ik before two persons only, or at most three. The same practice obtains at the royal table itself. It isnot improba- ble that the ancient Egyptians treated their guests is a similar way ; and in the entertainment given by Joseph to his brethren, we may discover many points of resemblance. The Persians were placed in a row on one side of the room, without anv person before them ; a distinct dish, with dif- ferent kind's of food, was set before every guest ; circum- stances which entirely correspond with the arrangement of Joseph's entertainment. — Paxton. Ver. 34. And he took and sent messes unto them from before him : but Benjamin's mess was five times so much as any of theirs. Ami they drank, and were merry with him. The manner of eating among the ancients was not for all the company to" eat out of one and the same dish, but for every one to have one or more dishes to himself. The whole of these dishes were set before the master of the feast, and he distributed to every one his portion. As Jo- seph, however, is here said to have had a table to himself. we may suppose that he had a great variety of little dishes or plales set before him; and as it was a custom for great men to honour those who were in their favour, by sending such dishes to them as were first served up to themselves, Jo- seph showed that token of respect to his brethren ; but tc express a particular value for Benjamin, he sent him five dishes to their one, which disproportion could not but be marvellous and astonishing to them, if what Hcrodhtna tells us be true, that the distinction in this case, even to Egyp- tian kings themselves, in all public feasts and banquets, was no more than a double mess. — Stackhocse. Chap. 44. ver. 1. And he commanded the stew- ard of his house, saying, Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man's money in his sack's mouth. There are two sorts of sacks taken notice of in the his- tory of Joseph, which ought not to be confounded ; one for the corn, the other for the baggage. There are no wag- ons almost through all Asia as far as to the Indies ; every thing is carried upon beasts of burden, in sacks ol wool, covered in the middle with leather, the better to mane re- sistance to water. Sacks of this sort are called tambellit; thev enclose in them their things done up in large parcels. It is of this kind of sacks we are to understand ^hat .is said here and all through this history, and not of their sacu< in which they carry their corn.— Harmer. Ver. 18. Then Judah came near unto him, and said, 0 my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant : for thcu art even as Pharaoh. A company of people have always some one among them, who is known and acknowledged to be the (Met speaker; thus, should they fall into trouble, he will be the person to come forward1 and plead with the superior. He will sav, " My lord, I am indeed a very ignorant person, and am not worthv to speak to vou : were I of high caste, perhaps 43 GENESIS. Chap. 44—46. my lord would hear me May I say two or three words V (some of the party will then say, "'Yes, yes, our lord will hear you.") He then proceeds, — " Ah, my lord, your mercy is known to all ; great is your wisdom ; you are even as a sight." He tht getting no circumstance which has a tendency to exculpate him and his companions ; and every thing which can touch the feelings of his judge will be gently brought before him. As he draws to a conclusion, his pathos increases, his com- panions put out their hands in a supplicating manner, ac- companied by other gesticulations ; their tears begin to flow, and with one voice they cry, " Forgive us, this time, and we will never offend you more."— Roberts. Ver. 21. And thou saidst unto thy servant. Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. Has a beloved son been long absent, does the father anx- iously desire to see him, he says, " Bring him, bring him, that the course of my eyes may be upon him." " Ah, my eyes, do you again see my son 1 Oh, my eyes, is not this pleasure for you V'— Roberts. Chap. 45. ver. 2. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. Hebrew, " gave forth his voice in weeping." In this way do they speak of a person who thus conducts himself: " How loudly did he give forth his voice and weep." " That child 'is for ever giving forth its voice." The vio- lence of their sorrow is very great, and their voice may be heard at a considerable distance. — Roberts. '■ This," says Chardin, " is exactly the genius of the peo- ple of Asia, especially of the women. Their sentiments of joy or of grief are properly transports; and their trans- ports are ungovenied, excessive, and truly outrageous. When any one returns from a long journey, or dies, his family burst into cries, that maybe heard twenty doors off; and this is renewed at different times, and continues many days, according to the vigour of the passion. Especially are these cries long in the case of death, and frightful, for 'he mourning is right down despair, and an image of hell. I was lodged in the year 1676, at Ispahan, near the Royal square ; the mistress of the next house to mine died at that time. The moment she expired, all the family, to the num- ber of twenty-five or thirty people, set up such a furious cry, that I was quite startled, and was above two hours before I could recover myself. These cries continue a long time, then cease all at once; they begin again as sud- denly, at daybreak, and in concert. It is this suddenness which is so terrifying, together with a greater shrillness and loudness than one could easily imagine. This enraged kind of mourning, if I may call it so, continued forty days ; not equally violent, but with diminution from day to day. The longest and most violent acts were when they washed the body, when they perfumed it, when they carried it out to be interred, at making the inventory, and when they di- vided the effects. You are not to suppose that those'that were ready to split their throats with crying out, wept as much ; the greatest part of them did not shed a single tear through the whole tragedy." This is a very distinct de- scription of eastern mourning for the dead: they cry out too, it seems, on other occasions ; no wonder then the house of Pharaoh heard, when Joseph wept at making himself known to his brethren.— Harmer. Ver. 1 4. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept ; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them ; and after that his brethren talked with him. When people meet, after long absence, they fall on each other s shoulder or neck, and kiss or smell the part. A husband, after long absence, kisses or smells the fore- head, the eves, the right and left cheeks, and the bosom, of Ms wife. — Roberts. Ver. 17. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thv brethren, This do ye ; lade your beasts. Nearly all the merchandise, which goes by land, is car- ried by beasts of burden ; and, no doubt, will continue to be so till regular roads are constructed. Hence may be seen hundreds of bullocks, or camels, carrying rice, salt, spices, and other wares, traversing the forests and deserts to dis- tant countries. Some of the buffaloes cany immense bur- dens, and though they only make little progress, yet they are patient and regular in their pace. Bells are lied round the necks of some of the animals, the sound of "which pro- duces a pleasing effect on the feelings of a traveller, now knows that he is not far from some of his fellows. The sound Of the bells also keepsthe cattle together, and frightens off the wild beasts.— Roberts. Chap. 46. ver. 4. I will go down with thee into Egypt ; and I will also surely bring thee up again : and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. A father, at the point of death, is always very desirous that his wife, children, and grandchildren should be with him. Should there be one at a distance, he will be imme- diately sent for, and until he arrives the father will mourn and complain, " My son, will you not come 1 I cannot die without you." When he arrives, he will take the hands of his son, and kiss them, and place them on his eyes, his face, and mouth, and say, " Now I die." — Roberts. Ver. 6. And came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him. In this way descendants are spoken of. Has a man been deceived by another, he will be asked, " How could you trust him 1' did you not know him to be bad (rcethe) seed." " That fellow is of the seed of fiends." " The reason you see such good things in that youth is, that he is of good seed." " The old man and his seed have all left this village many years ago."— Roberts. Ver. 24. For every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians. Cunteus, with great plausibility, ascribes this detestation on the part of the Egyptians, to the ferocious dispositions and rebellious conduct of the shepherds who tended their flocks in the plains and marshes of lower Egypt. " These," savs that writer, "were active and able men, but execrable to 'all the Egyptians, because they would not suffer them to lead their idle course of life in security. These- men often excited great commotions, and sometimes created kings for themselves. It was on this account, that the Romans, in succeeding times, when they easily held the rest of Egypt in obedience, placed a strong garrison in all these parts. When you have taken the most exact survey of all circum- stances, you will find this was the reason that made the Egyptians, even from the first, so ill affected to shepherds ; because these sedentary men and handicrafts could not endure their fierce and active spirits. Pharaoh himself, when he had determined to abate and depress the growing numbers of the Israelites, spake to his subjects in this man- ner : ' The Israelites are stronger than wo ; let us deal wisely, that they increase not, lest, when war arises, they join themselves to our enemies, and take up arms against us.' But this view does not account for the use of the term which is properly rendered abomination, and which indicates, not a ferocious and turbulent character, which is properly an object of dread and hatred, but a mean and despicable person, that excites the scorn and contempt of his neighbours. It is readily admitted, that the detestation in which shepherds were held in Egypt, could not arise from their employment in the breeding of cattle ; for the king himself, in the days of Joseph, had very numerous flocks and herds, in the management of which he did not think it unbecoming his dignity to take a lively interest. This is proved by the command to his favourite minister ; ' If thou knowest anv men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.' Nor were his numer- ous subjects less attentive to this branch of industry ; every one seems to have lived upon his paternal farm, part of which was converted into pasture. Hence, when money failed in the vears of famine, 'all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, Give us bread ; for why should we die it. Cat 47—49. 2K thy presence 1 for the money faileth. And Jot eph said, Give your cattle, anil will give you bread foi > a money fail." limit Pharaoh and all his subject .were ruined in llie rearing of sloclc, a shepherd could not be to iliem an object of general abhorrence. Be- sides, it was in. I unlawful in Kg> pi to depnve an ox or a Sheep of life, and fea-l upon the llesh ; for, in the temples, il, v.eir i .11". -i . -i 1 in -a.-nlire every day; and for what purpose did the Eg] ptians rear them on their farms, bin to use them as food I The contempt in which th - dor of men w ere held, could not then be owing to the super- stition of the nationjn general. It may even be inferred from the command of Pharaoh to Joseph, requiring him to appoint the most active of his brethren rulers over his cat- tle, that the office of a shepherd was honourable among the Egyptians; for il could not be his design to degrade the ,,,- t.i\,,iuite minister. This idea is confirmed I,, l'i.. lorn-, who as-erts that husbandmen and shepherds were held in very great estimation in that country. But that writer states a fact, which furnishes the true solution of the difficulty— that in some pans of Egypt, shepherds were not suffered. The contempt of shepherds seems, therefore, to have been confined to some parts of the king- bably to the royal city, and the principal towns in r Egypt, w here the luxury of a court, or the wealth splendour of the inhabitants, taught them to look down with contempt and loathing upon those humble peasants. But the true reason seems to be stated by Herodotus, who informs us that those who worship in the temple of the The- ban Jupiter, or belong to the district of Thebes, ihe ancient capital of Eg\ | ' al>- .nn.-.l from sheep and sacrificed goats, liui sheep and oxen were the animals which the shepherds usually killed for general use. It was natural, therefore, for that superstitious people to regard with abhorrence those who were in the daily practice of slaughtering the objects of their religious veneration. But this custom was con- fined to the district of Thebes; for, according to the same writer, " in the temple of Mendes, and in the whole Men- desiau district, goals were preserved and sheep sacrificed." Shepherds, therefore, might be abhorred in one part of Egypt and honoured in another. The sagacious prime minister of Egypt, desirous to remove his brethren from the fascinations of wealth and power, directed ihemto give such an account of themselves, that the counsellors of Pharaoh, from their dislike of the mean employment in which they had been educated, might grant their request, and suffer them to settle in Goshen, a land of shepherds, far removed from the dangerous blandishments of a court. — Paxton. Chap. 47. ver. 29. And the time drew nigh that Israel must die : and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sioht. put, I prav thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury mu not, I pray thee, in Egypt. See on chap. 24. 2, 3. Chap. 49. ver. 3. Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. It is generally believed that the first-born son is the strongest, and he is always placed over his brethren. To him the others must give great honour, and they must not sit in his presence without his permission, and then only behind him. When the younger visits the elder, he goes with great respect, and the conversation is soon closed. Should there be anything of a particular nature, on which the sentiments of his elder brother, he sends a friend to converse with him. The younger brother will not enter the door at the same time with the elder; he must al- ways follow. Should thev be invited to a marriage,- care will be taken that the oldest shall go in the first. The younger will never approach him wilh his wooden sandals on, he must lake them off. He will not speak to the wife of the elder, except on some special occasion. When the father thinks his ead is approaching, he calls his children, and, addressing himself to the elder, says, " My strength, my glory, my all is in thee." From this may be' gained an idea of Ihe importance which was attached to the "birth- right."—Roberts. ^ Vei. 8, Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be in the in el; of thine enemies. The oriental conqueror ollen addressed his unfortunaH captives in the most insulting language, of which the pro- phet Isaiah has left us a specimen: " But I will put ii [the cup of Jehovah's fury) into the hand of them that afflii I thee ; which have said to thy soul, bow down thai v. ,,,; , go over." And their actions were as harsh as their words were haughty; they made them bow down to the very ground, and put their feet upon their necks, and tram] i d them in the mire. This indignity the chosen pi i were obliged to suffer: "Thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went over." Conquer- ors of a milder and more humane disposition put their hand upon the neck of their captives, as a mark of their superior- ity. This custom may be traced as high as the age in which Jacob nourished; for in his farewell blessing to Judah, he thus alludes to it: "Judah, thou art he whom the victorious career of that warlike tribe, and suggested the propriety of treating their prisoners with moderation and Kindness, was fulfilled in the person of David, and ac- knowledged by him: " Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me." Traces of this custom may be discovered in the manners Of other nations. Among the Franks it was usual to put the arm round the neck, as a mark of superiority on the part of him by whom it was done. When Chrodin, decli- ning the office of mayor of the palace, chose a young nobleman named Gogan, to fill that place, he immediately to. k the arm of the young man, and put it round his own neck, as a mark of his dependance on him, and that he acknowledged him for his general and chief. — Pjixton. Ver. 9. Judah is a lion's whelp ; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up : he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion : who shall rouse him up ? curately expressed by A yminn lion is Judah, From prey, niy son. art thon berome ereat; He bends Lis i, , I mil. r liiin and couches Like a lion aiiil like a lioness; Who shall rouse him upt Judah is compared to a young lion, which becomes great by prey, and which, when grown up and satiated with boolv, is found reposing with his feet bent under his breast. The lion does this when he has eaten sufficiently; he then does not attack passengers, but if any one would venture to rouse him out of wantonness, he would repent of his temerity. The meaning of the image is, that the tribe of Judah would at first be very warlike and valiant, but in the sequel, satia- ted by conquests and victories, would cease to attack its neighbours, yet had made itself so terrible that nobody would venture to attack it. Among the eastern nations, the lion was always the emblem of warlike valour and might. BURDER. Ver. 11. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine. " One species of vine is not less distinguishfM by the luxuriance of its growth, than by the richness and delicacy of its fruit. This is the Sorek of the Hebrews, which the prophet Isaiah has chosen to represent the founders of bid nation — men renowned for almost every virtue which can adorn the human character: "My well-beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill, and he planted it with Sorek, or the choicest vine." It is to this valuable species that Jacob refers, in his prophetic benediction addressed to Judah ; and the manner in which he speaks of it is remark- able: "Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine." In some parts of Persia it was formerly the custom to turn their cattle into the vineyard* 00 GENESIS. after the vintage, to browse on the vines, some of which are so large, that a man can hardly compass their trunks ill his arms. These facts clearly show, that agreeably to the prediction of Jacob, the ass might be securely bound to the vine, and without damaging the tree by browsing on its leaves and branches. The same custom appears, from the narrative- of several travellers, to have generally nre- vaile.l ,„ ;h,. [,r.rr;U,a, Chandler observed, that in the vii.'...i 'i- ai < ; d Smyrna, the leaves of the vines were decayed or shipped by the camels, or herds of goats, whii a are ; ■ i.i i id to browse upon them after the vin- tage. When he left Smyrna on the thirtieth of September, the vineyards we.e already bare; but when he arrived at Phygela, on the fifth or sixth of October, he found its terri- tory still green with vines; which is a proof, that the vineyards at Sm /ma must have been stripped by the cattle, which delight to feed upon the foliage. This custom fur- nishes a satisfactory reason for a regulation in the laws of Moses, the meaning of which has been very imperfectly understood, which forbids a man to introduce his beast into the vineyard of his neighbour. It was destructive to the vineyard before the fruit was gathered ; and after the vintage, it was still a serious injury, because it deprived flocks and herd-, and perhaps abs ihitely requisite for their subsistence lung ihe winter. These things considered, we discern in this enactment, the justice, wisdom, and kindness of the great legislator: and the same traits of excellence might no doubt be discovered in the most ob- scure and minute regulation, could we detect the reason On which it is founded. — Paxton. Ver. 14. Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens: 15. And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant ; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute. The ass is not more remarkable for his power to sustain, '.han for his patience and tranquillity when oppressed by an unequal load. Lake the camel, 'he quietly submits to the heavies' burden ; he bear- it peaceably, tili he can pro- cee 1 ': ■ t'.i I. md when lus strength fails him, instead ifre ■ i or endeavouring to throw off the oppressive weigh', he i-oii'i-n'edly lies down, and rests himself under it, recruits hi, vigour with the provender that may be of- fered him, and then, at the call of his master, proceeds on his journey. To this trait in the character of that useful animal, the dying patriarch evidently refers, when, under the afflatus of inspiration, he predicts the future lot and con- duct of Issachar and his descendants. " Issachar is a strong ass, .couching down between two burdens. And he saw that rest yyas good, and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto trib- ute." This tribe, naturally dull and stupid, should, like he creature by which they were characterized, readily .ubniit to the vilest master and the meanest service. Al- nough, like the ass, possessed of ability, if properly exert- ed and rightly directed, to shake oft'the inglorious "yoke of servitude, they would baselv submit to the insults' of the Phenicians on the one hand, and the Samaritans on the other. Issachar was a strong ass, " able," says a sprightly writer, " to refuse a load, as well as to bear it ; but" like the passive drudge which symbolized him, he preferred inglorious ease to the resolute vindication of his liberty; a burden of tribute, to the gains of a just and well-regulated freedom ; and a yoke of bondage, to the doubtful issues of war." — P%xton. " Pouching down between two burdens." The original word rendered" burdens," we believe, after careful investi- gation, properly signifies the double partition forming the sides of a stall for cattle or asses, or the bars and timbers of which they were made. A similar structure was erect- ed about the dwellings of the Jews, in which their pots, kettles, and other kitchen utensils, were hung, and there- lore rendered by Gusset, in Ps. 68. 14, " pot-ranges." This expression, as applied to a region of country, would natu- lallv be supposed to imply two very marked and conspicu- ous limils, as for in-tance two ranges of mountains enclo- sing a valley, and by a very remarkable coincidence the 'line of I-sa- har received for its lot, in the distribution of the land, the fertile and delightful vale of Esdraelon, lyirc be: ween ranges of hills, in the peaceful and industrn us oc- cupancy of which they might very justly be likened to an gben ass reposing plain,'' says Dr. Clarke ides of his stall. " Here, on thi: the most fertile part of all the land ot i. anaan, which, though a solitude, we found like one vast meadow covered with the richest pasture, the tribe of Issachar ' rejoiced in their tents.' " There is no authority whatever for rendering it "burdens," which seems to have been suggested solely by the words " couching between," as it was unnatural to suppose that if an ass couched between any two objects, it would of course be between two bur- dens. But as the blessings of several of the other sons have respect to 'he geographical features of their destined in- heritance, it is natural to look for something of the same kind in that of Issachar, and viewed in this light the words yield a clear and striking sense, the appro]' ria' chess of which to the matter of fact is obvious to fcvery eve. Chal. " Is- sachar rich in substance, and his possession shall be be- tween the bounds;" Svr. " Issachar. a gigantic man. lying down between the paths;" Targ. Jon. " He shall he down beiween the limits of his brethren ;" Jems. Targ. "and his boundary shall be situated between two limits."—" He saw that rest was good." Instead of interpreting this prediction with many commentators to the dispaiagement ol Issachar, as though he were to be addicted to ignominious ease, we understand it in a sense directly the reverse, as intimating that he should have so high an esteem of Ihe promisee! " rest" in another life, that he should give himself to unre- mitting labour in this; that he should be so intent upon " inheriting the earth" after the resurrection, the reversion of the saints, that he should willingly subject himself to toil, privation, and every species of endurance, v. ith a view to secure the exceeding great reward. Thus his character would correspond with his name, the import of which is; " he shall bear or carry a reward." — Bush. Ver. 17. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. The only allusion to this species of serpent, (ihe Cerastes, or horned snake,) in the sacred volume, occurs in the valedictory predictions of Jacob, where he describes the character and actions of Dan and his posterity : " Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder (p;-;-- .v///>,ve,i) in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, s0 that his rider shall fall backward." It is indisputably clear, that the pa- triarch intended some kind of serpent ; for the circum- stances will not apply to a freebooter watching for his prev. It only remains to investigate the speciesto which it be- .longs. The principal care of the Jewish writers, is to as- certain the etymologyiof the name, about which their sen- timents are much divided. The Arabian authors quoted by Bochart, inform us, that the Sephiphon is a most perni- cious reptile, and very dangerous to man. It is of a sandy colour, variegated with black and white spots. The par- ticulars in the character cf Dan, however, agree better with the Cerastes, or horned snake, than with any other species of serpent. It lies in wait for passengers in the sand, or in the rut of the wheels on the highway. From its lurking-place, it treacherously bites the horse's heels, so that the rider falls backward, in consequence of ihe animal's hinder legs becoming almost immediately toipid by the dreadful activity of the poison. The Cerastes is equally formidable to man and the lower animals; and the more dangerous, because it is not easy to distinguish him from the sand in which he lies ; and he never spares the helpless traveller who unwarily comes within his reach. " He moves," says Mr. Bruce, " with great rapidity, and in all directions, forward, backward, and sidewi-e. When he inclines to surprise any one who is too far from him. he creeps with his side towards the person, and his head avert- ed, till, judging his distance, he turns round, springs upon him, and fastens upon the part next to him ; for it is no' true, what is said, that the Cerastesdoes not leap or spring I saw one of them at Cairo, crawl up the side of n box, ii which there were many, and there lie still as if hiding himself, till one of the people who brought them to its. came near him, and though in a very disadvantageous posture. slicking, as it were, perpendicular to the side of the box, he leaped near the distance of three feet, and fastened betw een Chap. 40. GENESIS. r,l the man's fore-finger and thumb, so as to bring the blood. The fellow showed no mlt- ot t-nh.-i pain or tear: and we kept him wuh us full four hours, without applyinganysoTt . or Ins seeming inclined to do so. To make myself assured thai the animal was in us perfect state, I in ide i ii man bold him by the neck, so as to force him to op. -n hi - nth, and lacerate the 1 1 1 1 •_■ 1 1 of a pelican, a bird I had lamed, as big as a swan. The bud died in about thirteen .Miie.h n was apparently allceted m fifty seconds ; .ml", i mnot thmk it was a fair trial, because a very few minutes before, ii had bit, and so discharged a part of its virus, and it was made to scratch the pelican by force, my irritation or action of its own." These scr- alwaVS been considered as extremely cunning, ■ aping their enemies and seizing their prey : they hem called insidious; a character which, from the preceding statement, they seem to deserve. The Orien- tals call him the Her in ambush ; for, in this manner, both i Sei entyand Samaritan render the text in Genesis; and Obis appellation well agrees with his habits. Pliny says, that the Cerastes hides its whole body in the sand, leaving onlv its horns exposed, which attract birds, who suppose them to be grains of barley, till they are undeceived, too late, by the darting of the serpent upon them. Ephraim, the s( i mi,, also mentions a kind of serpents whose heads only are seen above the ground. Like the Cerastes, Dan was to excel in cunning and in artifice, to prevail against rather bv Ins policy in the cabinet than by his valour in the field. Hut all the" Jewish expositors refer the. words of Jacob to Samson, who belonged to that tribe, and was undoubtedly the most illustrious personage of whom they could boast. This remarkable man, Jehovah raised Up i di liver his chosen people, not so much by his valour, although his actions clearly showed, that he was by no means deficient in personal courage, as by his artful and 1 stratagems. This interpretation has been ad ipted by several Christian expositors; while it has been opposed by others as a needless refinement. It is unneces- sary, and perhaps improper, to restrict the prediction to Samson, when il can with equal propriety be applied to the v. hole tribe. Whether the words of Jacob, in this instance, " i in -ant to express praise or blame, it may be difficult to determine ; but, if the deceitful and dangerous character of the Cerastes, to which Dan is compared, be duly con- sidered, the latter is more probable. — Paxton. Ver. 22. Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. To the northward and westward are several villages, interspersed wilh extensive orchards and vineyards, the latter of which are generally enclosed by high walls. The Persian vine-dressers do all in their power to make the vine run up the walls, and curl over on the other side, which they do by tying stones to the extremity of the ten- dril. The vine, particularly in Turkey and Greece, is fre- quently made to intwine on trellises, around a well, where, in the heat of the day, whole families collect themselves, and sit under the shade — Mower. All this falls very naturally on an eastern ear. Joseph was the fruitful bough of Jacob, and being planted near a if would not wither, and he would bring forth his fruit in his season. Great delight is taken in all kinds if creepers, which bear edible fruits, and the natives allow ihem to run over the walls and roofs of their houses. The term " branches" in the verse is in the margin rendered " daughters ;" and it is an interesting fact, (and one which trill thiow light on-some other passages,) that the same term is used here to denote the same thing. " That man has only one Chcdc, i. c. branch, daughter." " The voungest inch) has got married this day." " Where are your branches 1" " They are all married." " What a young branch to be in this state ! — how soon it has given fruit !" When a mother has had a large family, " That branch has borne plenty of fruit." A husband will say to his wife, who is steril, " Of what use is a branch which bears not fruit 1" The figure is much used in poetry. — Roberts. The people of Israel, and other oriental nations of those days, appear to have bestowed particular attention on the cultivation of the vine. The site of the vineyard was care- fully chosen in f.elds of a loose crumbling soil, on a rich plain, or on a sh ping lull rising wuh a gentle asnil ; or, where the acclivity was very steep, on ten apporfed bj masonry, and turned as much as possible from the setting sun.' The plot was enclosed v, it h a wall ; the stones and other encumbrances were removed, and the choices) pi, mis were selected to form the plantation. Within the vineyard, low walls were sometimes raised for the purpose of supporting the vines; a practice which seems to Save been adopted before the days of Jacob; for in the deseine of Joseph, lie speaks of n in a manner which shows that it was quite familiar to the vine-dresser: "Joseph is a fruit- tiil bough, oven a fruitful bough by a well ; whosetnmohes urn over the wall." By this beautiful toage then itapj ears, that while the dying patrinn !, i md highl) praised the admirable qualities ol hi, hch.\ed -on, he inti- mated to his family in the most delicate but manner, their obligation to Joseph for the protection and comfort they enjoyed under his government— Paxton. Ver. 22. Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, v/mse branches run over the wall : 23. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him. I have shown, in preceding observations, that vines in Judea sometimes grow against low stonewalls; but 1 do not apprehend the ingenious Mr. Harrington .■an In- right, when he supposes, in a paper of bison the] atriaichal customs and manners, that Joseph is compared to a vine growing against the wall, Gen. xlix. i-'-J. As vines are sometimes planted against a low wall, ihcy lnivht possibly be planted against a low wall surrounding a well : though it is difficult to guess, why a wall should be hiiili round a well, in a vineyard, of such a height as to be propi r for the support of a vine ; and if it were, why archers direct their arrows against it, when it would be so cosy to gather the fruit by hand, without injury. But 1 suppose this is not an exact representation. In the first place, a vine is not mentioned; it is only a. fruitful tree, in general, to which Joseph is compared. Secondly, The being situated near water, is extremely conducive, in that dry and hot country, to the flourishing of vegetables in general; and trees among the rest. "We came," says Maundrell, " to the fountain of Elisha. Close by the" fountain grows a large tree, spreading into boughs over the water, and here in the shade we look a collation." A tree, we find, planted near plenty of water, grows there to a large size. Thirdly, the wild Arabs of those countries are great plunderers of fruit. Maillet assigns that as the reason why the fruit oi the land of Egvpt, in these later times, is not better, namely, that they are wont to gather it before it is properly ripened. on account of the Arabs, who would otherwise rob them of it. Fourthly, It is very well known, that walls easily stop Arabs, who are continually on horseback in their roving about, and do not care to quit them, nor arc used to climb walls. They had no better way then to get the fruit of those trees, whose luxuriant boughs ran over the walls of their enclosures, than by throwing their bludgeons at them, and gathering up the fruit that fell on the outside of the wall. To these things should be added, Fifthly, That the word translated arrows, means, not only those things that we are wont to call arrows, but such slicks as arc thrown by the hand, as well as those missile weapon thai are darted bv means of a bow: for we find the word is made use of to express the staff of a spear, 1 Sam. xvii. 7, and consequently any piece of wood long m pro] ion to its diameter, especially if used a« a missile instrument. The lords of arrows c-'sn 52 GENESIS. miah, " that iney had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered," Jer. xi. 19. But the envious brethren of Joseph did not imbrue their hands in his blood, they did not destroy him as men destroy a tree when they cut it do«'n, but they terribly distressed him; they sold him for a slave into Egypt: he had nourished in the favour of his father and of his God, like a tree by a reservoir of water; but they for a time dishonoured him, as a tree is disgraced by the breaking its boughs, and knocking off its leaves, by the wild Arabs, who want to derive some advantage from battering it alter this manner, when they cannot come at it to destroy it. — Harmer. Ver. 27. Benjamin shall raven as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. The wolf is weaker than the lion or the bear, and less courageous than the leopard ; but he scarcely yields to them in cruelty and rapaciousness. So Benjamin, although not destitute of courage and address, nor disinclined to war, possessed neither the strength, nor the manly spirit of Judah, whose symbol was the lion's whelp; but yet he was greedy of blood, and delighted in rapine; and in the early periods of Jewish history, he distinguished himself by ah active and restless spirit, which commonly, like the wolf among lambs and kids, spent itself in petty or inglorious warfare, although it sometimes blazed forth in deeds of heroic valour, and general utility. He had the honour of giving the second judge to the nation of Israel, who deliv- ered them from the oppressive yoke of Moab ; and the first king who sat on the throne of' that chosen people, whose valour saved them from the iron sceptre of Amnion, and more than once revenged the barbarities of the uncircum- cised Philistines upon their discomfited hosts. In the de- cline of the Jewish commonwealth, Esther and Mordecai, who were both of this tribe, successfully interposed with the King of Persia, for the deliverance of their brethren, and took their station in the first rank of public benefactors. But the tribe of Benjamin ravened like wolves, that are so ferociois as to d. /our one another, when they desperately espoused the cruse of Gibeah, and in the dishonourable and bloody feud, reduced their own tribe to the very brink of ruin, and inflicted a deep wound on the other members of the state. — Paxton. Chap. 50. ver. 10. And they came to the thresh- ing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan ; and tSere they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. See on chap. 45. 2. Ver. 26. So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put -in a coffin in Egypt. The people of the East do not in general put their dead in a coffin; they simply fold up the corpse in a mat. "When dying, the head is always placed towards the south, and in the grave also in the same direction. When a person is very ill, should another ask how he is, he will reply, "Ah! his head is towards the south ;" meaning there is iio hope. — Roberts. When Joseph died, he was not only embalmed, but put in a coffin. This was an honour appropriated to persons of distinction, coffins not being universally used in Egypt. Maillet, speaking of the Egyptian repositories of the dead, having given an account of several niches that are found there, says, "it must not be imagined that the bodies deposited in these gloomy apartments were all enclosed in chests, and placed in niches; the greatest part were simply embalmed and swathed after that manner that everv one hath some notion of; after which they laid them one by the side of another without any ceremony : some were even put into these tombs without any embalming at all, or such a slight one, that there remains nothing of them in the linen in which they were wrapped but the bones, and those half rotten." Antique coffins ot stone, and sycamore wood, are still to be seen in Egvpt. It is said that some were formerly made of a kind of pasteboard, formed by folding and gluing cloth together a great number of times; these were curiously plastered and painted with hieroglyphics. — Thevenot. EXODUS. Chap. 1. ver. 14. And they made their lives hit- ter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, ami in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, leas with rigOUT. Of a bad man it is said, in the East, " He makes the lives of his servants bitter." Also, "Ah! the fellow: the heart .it" his wit.- is made bitter." "My soul is bitter." "My heart is like the bitter tree." — Roberts. Ver. 1G. And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hehrew women, and see them upon the stools, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him ; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. There have been great difficulties started in the nature and ttseofthe instruments here rendered stools, { [1,-b.ftnni-s.) Ac- cording to the rendering of the established version, it would seem that they were designed for procuring a more easy delivery for women in labour. But besides that stone seats were obviously verv unfit for such a purpose, the Hebrew word plainly signifies a vessel of stone ior holding water, (Ex. vii. 19.) Afar more probable interpretation, we think, is made out bv referring the pronoun them, not to the moth- ers, but to the children. The sense of the passage would then be this:— " When ye see the new-born children, for the purpose of being washed, laid in the [roughs or vessels of stone for holding water, ye shall destroy the boys." A passage from Thevenot seems to confirm this construction. " The kings of Persia are so afraid of being deprived of that power which they abuse, and are so apprehensive of being dethroned, that they destroy the children of their female relations, when they are brought to bed of boys, by putting them into on earthen trough, where they sutler them to starve ;" that is. probably, under pretence of preparing to wash them, they let them pine away or destroy them in the water. — B. Ver. 19. And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women arc not as the Egyptian women ; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Oriental women suffer little from parturition ; for those of better condition are frequently on foot the day after de- livery, ami out of all confinement on the third day. They seldom call midwives, and when thev do, they are some- times delivered before they come to their assistance; the punier soil, while they are labouring or planting, go aside, deliver themselves, wash the child, lay it in a cloth, and return to work again. The same facility attended the He- brew womeji in Egypt; and the assertion of the midwives seems to have been literally true. — Paxton. Chap. 2. ver. 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh :ame down to wash herself at the river ; and her maidens walked along by the river's side. All this is very natural. Wherever there is a river, or a tank, which is known to be free from alligators, there fe- males go in companies to some retired place to bathe. There are so many ceremonies, and so many causes for defile- ment, among the Hindoos, that the duty has often to be at- tended to. In the Scanda Purana, the' beautiful daughter of Mongaly is described as going to the river with her maidens to bathe. — Roberts. Chap. 3. ver. 5. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet ; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. See on Gen. 14. 23. No heathen would presume to go on holy ground, or en- ter a temple, or any other sacred place, without first taking oil his sandals. Even native Christians, on entering a church or chapel, generally do the same thing. No res- pectable man would enter the house of another without having first taken off his sandals, which are generally left at the door, or taken inside by a servant.— Roberts. Chap. 7. ver. 1. And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. A man who is afraid to go into the presence of a king, or a governor, or a great man, will seek an interview with the minister, or some principal character; and should he be much alarmed, it will be said, " Fear not, friend ; I will ].-' yon ,:<. o rod to the king." "What! are you afraid of the "collector'! fear not; you will be os a god to him." "Yes, yes, that upstart was once much afraid of the great ones ; but now he is like a god among them." — Roberts. Ver. 12. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. The rods of the magicians were hardly travelling staves, but doubtless such as they bore by virtue of their office as priests anil servants Of God. The Roman augurs were, in the like manner, accustomed to carry a '-tail failed li- tnres, which was crooked at the top, as described by Cice- ro (on Divivation, b. i. chap. 17.) That these staves were a Roman invention, is improbable ; they were derived, like others of their sacred customs, from the religion of older nations. — Birder. Ver. 18. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink ; and the Egyp- tians shall loathe to drink of the water of the river. There are few wells in Egypt, but their waters are not drank, being unpleasant and unwholesome; the water of the Nile is what they universally make use of in this coun- try, which is looked upon to "be extraordinarily whole- some, and at the same time, extremely delicious. " The water of Egvpt," says the Abbe. Mascrier, " is so delicious, that one would not wish the heat should be less, nor to be delivered from the sensation of thirst. The Turks find it so exquisitely charming, that they excite themselves to drink of it bv eating salt. It is a common saying among them, that if Mohammed had drank of it, he would have begged of God not to have died, that he might always have done it. They add, that whoever has once drank of if, he ought to drink of it a second time. This is what the peo- ple of the country told me, when they saw me return from ten years' absence. When the Egyptians undertake the pilgrimage of Mecca, or go out of 'their country on any other account, thev speak of nothing but the pleasure they shall find at their return in drinking the Nile water. There is nothing to be compared to this satisfaction; it surpasses in their esteem that of seeing their relations again, and their families. Agreeably to this, all those that have tasted of this water allow that they never met with the like in any other place. In truth, when one drinks of it the first time, it seems to be some water prepare;, by art. It has something in it inexpressibly agreeable a:.;, phasing to the taste ; and we ought to give it perhaps &£ same rank among waters, which champaigne has among wines. I must confess, however, it has, to ray taste, too much sweet- ness. But its most valuable quality is, that it is infinitely salutary. Drink it in what quantities you will, it never in 54 EXODUS. Chap. 8. the least incommodes you. This is so true, that it is no un- common thing to see some persons drink three buckets of it in a day, without finding the least inconvenience. . . When I give such encomiums to the water of Egypt, it is right to observe, that I speak only of that of the Nile, which indeed is the only water there which is drinkable. Well- water is detestable and unwholesome ; fountains are so rare, that they are a kind of prodigy in that country; and as for the rain-water, it would be in vain to alicmpt preserving that, since scarce any falls in Egypt." The embellishments of a Frenchman may be seen here, but the fact, however, in general is indubitable. A person that never before heard of this delicacy of the water of the Nile, and the large quantities that on that account, are drank of it, will, I am very sure, find an energy in those words of Moses to Pha- raoh, Exod. vii. 18, The" Egyptian .*//US. 5.i mentary to Pharaoh, but it would have a Hon;' teadeaoj to convince him that the Lord had In jiJ 'he | n .-. . i . i Mo- ses, because he lniii-.lt had «, , i lie Tamn, lias this, " Let the honour be to you (or over me) to appoint a lime when I shall pray."— Roberts. Ver. 10. And the Lord said unto Moses. Say unto Aaron Stretch but tayrod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throng out all the land of Egypt. The learned have not been agreed in then opinion con- cerning the third of the plagues of Egypt : Exod. viu. 1(1, &c 5 oi the ancient suppose thai gnats, or -one- an- imal- resembling them, v ere mean! ; u heiea- our transla- tors, and mam of the moderns, understand the origina. word o»w /i i a a r, in. a- signifying lice. Bishop Patrick, ir. his commentary, suppose- that Boehart ha- siillieientU proved, out of the text itself, that our version is i gnats are bred in fenny places, he might have said with truth, and with much greater energy of argument, in wa- ter, whereas the animals Moses here speaks of, were brought out of the dusl of the earth. A passage I lately met with, in Vinisaur's account of the expedition of ou." King Riehard the First into the Holy Land, may, perhaps, give a truer representation of this Egyptian plague, than those that suppose they were gnats, or those t) a they were tier, that God used on that occa-ion, as the in- strument of that third correction. Speaking of the man in ing of that army of Croisaders, from ( Sayphas to where the ancient Ctrsare'a stood, that writer informs us, that each night certain worm- distressed them, commonly called tar- rcn/ct, which crept upon the ground, and occasioned^ very burning heat by most painful punctures. They hurt no- body in the day time, but when night came oh they ex- tremely pestered them, being armed with slings, conveying a poison which quickly occasioned those that were wound- ed by them to swell, and was attended with the most acute pains. — HiRMER. Chap. 9. ver. 8. And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it tor ■wards the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. When the magicians pronounce an imprecation on a? individual, a village, or a country, they take ashes of cow's dung, (or from a common fire,-) and throw them in the air. saying to the objects of their di-pleasure, such' a sickness, or such a curse, shall surely come upon you. — Roberts. Ver. 25. And the hail 'smote throughout ail the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast ; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. I do not apprehend that it is at all necessary to suppose, that all the servants, and all the cattle of tjie Egyptians, that were abroad at the time the hail fell, which Moses threatened, and which was attended with thunder and lightning, died ; it is sufficient to suppose tliev all felt the hailstones, anil that several of them were killed. This was enough to justify the words of Moses, that it should be a " grievous hail, such as had not fallen before in Egypt from its foundation." For though it hails sometimes in Egypt as well as rains, as Dr. Pococke found it hailed at Fioume, when he was there in February; and thunders too, as Thevenot says it did one night in December, when he was at Cairo; yet fatal effects are not wont that country, as appeals from what Thevenot says of this thunder, which, he tells us, killed a man in the castle there, though it had never been heard before that thunder had killed anybody aHI'airo. For divers people then to have been killed by the lightning and the hail, besides cattle, was an event that Moses might well say had never happened there before, from, the time it be%an to be innamtcd I will * Which is car].- I'mm Ihe oricinal : am! tli<- L'entn nf fhetanpiai! • is every wav move suited to ihe Hebrew. lhan ours. Arid nearly all the orientalisms in the mnvcir.al ref> n rices <,f the English Uibli ire in- serted ID the text of the Tamul tr.'rsiatkn. en.y add, lhat Moses, by representing this as an extraordi- nary hail supposed that it did sometimes hail there, as it is found in fact to do, though not as in other countries : the not raining in Egypt, it is well known, is to be understood in the same manner. — Harmee. Chap. 10. ver. 11. Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord ; for that ye did de- sire. And they were driven out from Pha- raoh's presence. Among natives of rank, when a person is very impor- tunate or troublesome, when he presses for something which the former are nof willing to grant, he is told to begone. Should he still persist, the servants are called, and the order is given, " Drive that fellow out." He is then seized by the neck, or taken by the hands, and dragged from the premises ; he all the time screaming and bawling as if they were taking his life. Thus to be driven out is the greatest indignity which can be offered, and nothing but the most violent rage will induce a superior to have recourse to if. — Roberts. Ver. 19. And the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea ; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt. It was not the purpose of God to complete every punish- ment at once, but to carry on these judgments in a series, and by degrees to cut off all hopes, and every resource upon "which the Egyptians depended. By the hail and thunder and fire mingled with rain, both the flax and barley were entirely ruined, and their pastures must have been greatly injured. The wheat and rye were not yet in ear; and such was the fertility of the soil in Egvpt, that a rery short time would have sufficed for the leaves of the trees, and the grass of the field, to have been recruited. To complete, therefore, these evils, it pleased God to send a host of locusts, to devour every leaf and blade of grass, which had been left in the former devastation, and what- ever was beginning to vegetate. It is hard to conceive how wide the mischief extends, when a cloud of these insects comes upon a country. They devour to the very root and bark, so that it is a long time before vegetation can be renewed. How dreadful their inroads at all times were, may be known from a variety of authors, both ancient and modern. They describe them as being brought by one wind, and carried off by another. They swarm greatly in Asia and Africa. In respect to Europe, Theve- not tells us, that the region upon the Boristhenes, and particularly that inhabited bv the Cossacks, is greatly infested with locusts, especially in a dry season. They come in vast clouds, which extend fifteen and sometimes eighteen miles, and are nine to twelve in breadth. The air, by their interposition, is rendered quite obscure, how- ever bright the day may have been before. In two hours they devour all the corn, wherever they settle, and often a famine ensues. At night, when they repose upon the earth, the ground is covered with them four inches deep, or more : and if a carriage goes over them, and they are mashed under foot, the smell of them is scarcely to be borne, especially when they are reduced to a state of putrefaction. They come from Circassia, Mingrelia, and Tartary, on which account the natives rejoice in a north or northeast wind, which carries them into the Black Sea, where they perish. The vast region of Asia, especially the southern part, is liable to their depredations. China is particularly infested with them ; and the natives use various means to obviate the evil, which is generally too powerful to be evaded. But the most fearful accounts are from Africa, where the heat of the climate, and the nature of the soil in many places, contribute to the production of ■ l.ese animals in astonishing numbers.— Burder. Ver. 21. And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thy hand towards heaven, that there maybe darkness over the land of Egypt, even dark- ness tchich may be felt. When the magicians deliver their predictions, they 3US. Chap. 10—11. stretch forth the right hand towards heaven, to show that they have power, and that God favours them. The Tamul translation has this, " darkness which causeth to feel :" i. e. so dark that a man is obliged to feel, for his way, and until he shall have so felt, he cannot proceed. Thus the dark- ness was so great, that their eyes were not of &;,) use ; they were obliged to grope for their way. — Roberts. [This is probably a correct view of the passage, as a darkness consisting of thick clammy fogs, of vapours and exhalations so condensed as lo be perceived bv the organs of touch, would have extinguished animal life in a few Ver. 28. And Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more : , for in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die. Has a servant, an agent, or an officer, deeply offended his superior, he will say to him," Take care never to see my face again ; for on the day you do that, evil shall come up- on you." " Begone, and in future never look in this face," pointing to his own.— Roberts. Chap. 11. ver. 2. Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neigh- bour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold. Dr. Boothroyd, instead of borrow, translates " ask." Dr. A. Clarke says, " request, demand, require." The Israel- ites wished to go three days' journey into the wilderness, that they might hold a feast unto the Lord. When the Orientals go to their sacred festivals, they always put on their best jewels. Not to appear before the gods in such a way, they consider would be disgraceful to themselves and displeasing to the deities. A person, whose clothes or jewels are indifferent, will borrow of his richer neigh- bours; and nothing is more common than to see poor peo- ple standing before the temples, or engaged in sacred cere- monies, well adorned with jewels. "" The almost pauper bride or bridegroom at a marriage may often be seen deck- ed with gems of the most costly kind, which have been borrowed for the occasion. It fully accords, therefore, with the idea of what is due at a sacred or social feast, to -be thus adorned in their best attire. Under these circum- stances, it would be perfectly easy to borrow of the Egyp- tians their jewels, as they themselves, in their festivals, would doubtless wear the same things. It is also recorded, the Lord gave them " favour in the sight of the Egyptians." It does not appear to have been ftdly known to the He- brews, that they were going finally to leave Egypt : they might expect to return; and it is almost certain that, if their oppressors had known they were not to return, they would not have lent them their jewels. The Lord, however, did say to Moses, in chap. iii. 11., that He would "bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt," and that they should worship Him upon that moun- tain ; but whether Moses fully understood Him is not cer- tain. But the Lord knew ! — certainly He did. And as a father, or a master, who saw his children, or slaves, de- prive each other of their rightful pay, (as the Egyptians did the Israelites,) had a right to give to the injured what they had been unjustly deprived of: so the Lord, in whose hand's are all things, -who daily takes from one, and gives to an- other; and who builds up, or destroys, the families of the earth; would have an undoubted right to give to the He- brews that property of which the Egyptians had so unjustly and cruelly deprived them. — Roberts. Ver. 5. And all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of beasts. In the first ages, they parched or roasted their grain ; a practice which the people of Israel, as we learn from the scriptures, long continued ; afterward they pounded it in a mortar, to which Solomon thus alludes: " Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat, with a pes- Chap. 12. EXODUS. lie, yet will no! hi- foolishness depart from him.'' This was SUC led by mills, similar to the hamliiiills tumidly used in this country ; of which there were two suns: the first were large, and turned by the strength of hoi se the second were smaller, and wrought by men, commonly by slaves condemned to this hard labour, as a punishment for their crimes. Chardin remarks in his manuscript, thai ■ Deployed are generally female slaves, » bo are (east regarded, or are least fit for any thing else: for the work is extremely laborious, and esteemed the lowest em- ployment about The house. Most df their corn is ground by 'these Utile mills, although they sometimes make use of large mills, wrought by oxen or camels. Near Ispahan, and some of the other great cities of Persia, he saw water- mills; but he did not meet with a single windmill in the East. Almost every family grinds their wheat and barley at home, having two portable millstones for thai purpose; of which the uppermost is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron, that is placed in the rim. When this stone is large, or expedition is Manned, a I pei -.'ii is called into assist; and as it is usual for the women only to he concerned in this employment, who seat themselves over against each other, with" the millstone between them, we mav see the propriety of the expression in the declaration of 'Moses: " And all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh, that siltelh upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant, that is behind the mill." The manner in which the hand- mills are worked, is well described by Dr. Clarke: "Scarce- ly had we reached the apartment prepared for our recep- tion, when looking from the window, into the courtyard belonging to the house, we beheld two women grinding at the mill, in a manner most forcibly illustrating the -aving of our Saviour: 'Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.' They were preparing flour to make our bread, as it is always custom- ary in the country when strangers arrive. The two women, seated upon the ground opposite to each other, held between them two round flat stone-, such as are seen in Lapland, and such as in Scotland are called querns. In the centre of the upper stone was a cavity for pouring in the corn; and by the side of this, an upright wooden handle for mov- ing the Stone. As this operation began, one of the women opposite received it from her companion, who pushed it towards her, who again sent it to her companion; thus communicating a rotatory motion to the upper stone, thei* left hands being all ihe while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the niachine/'-PixTON. Chap. 12. vcr. 11. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins gilded, your shoes on your feet, anil your staff in your hand: and ye shall eat it in haste ; it is the Lord's passover. When people take a journey, they have always their toins well girded, as they believe that thev can walk much faster and" to a greater' distance. Before the palankeen Nearers take up their load, they assist each other to make tight a part of the salt or robe round the loins. When men are about to enter into an arduous undertaking, bystanders sav, " Tie notir loins u-cll up." (Luke xii. 35. Eph. vi. 4. 1 Pet. i. 13 )— Roberts. They that travel on foot are obliged to fasten their gar- ments'at a greater height from their feet than they are wont to do at other times. This is what some have under- stood to be meant by the girding their loins : not simplv their having girdles about them, but the wearing their gar- ments at a greater height than usual. There are two ways of doing this, Sir J. Chardin remarks, after having inform- ed us that the dress of the eastern people is a long vest, reaching down the calf of the leg, more or less fitted lo the bidy, and fastened upon the loins bv a-girdle, which goes thre'e or four times round them. " This dress is fastened higher up two ways: the one, which is not much used, is to draw up the vest above the girdle, just as the monks do when they travel on foot ; the other, which is the common way, is to tuck up the foreparts of their vest into the girdle, and s > fasten them. All persons in the East that journey on foot always gather up their vest, bv which thev walk- more commodiouslv, having the leg and knee unburdened and unembarrassed bv the vest, which thev are not when that lianpr; over them." And after this mannei he the Israelii .s were prepared foi Ihen :■ ni.J I ■'■ ■■, pi. te the first passover, Exod. xii. 11. I [e take notice, in the imera ularity of their hav- ing shoes in i he 1 1 feet at that repast. They is common, b» observes, put oil' their shoes when they eat, for which b" assigns two reasons: the one, thai as lie J do UOl and chaii- in the East, a: in Euro] e.but cover their doors with carpets, they might not soil those beautiful pieces ol furniture; the other, because it would be troublesome to keep thei si s upon their fi •■■. thi j itting cro I on the floor and ba\ ing no l.u ' n : ... i which are made like sli] pers. fle tak< do notii in thi note.ol theii ; avij i i ■ ■ p.: ■ < : v.. ; a- an in their hand ; bll1 hi elsi » In ■' !■■:.■ i ■' the ea a i u | eople very univci all) make use oi a :i:i when they journey on foot; and this passage plainly supposes it. — Habmbb. Ver. 34. Ami the people took their dough befo e it was leavened, th ;ir kneading-trougJ i being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders The dough, we arc told, which the Israelites had pre] ao i' for bakmg, and on which it should seem they subsisted ni- ter they left Egypt for a month, was carried away by them in their kneadiiig-troughs on their -ho'ddeis. Exod. xii. 34. Now, an honest thoughtful countryman, who knows how cumbersome our kneading-troughs'are, and how n important they are than im-uh o de-r en n il-. maybe b to wonder at this, and find a ditliculty in ai tin But this wonder perhaps may ca'a-e, w hen he comi i to un- derstand, that the vessels wl'ich the Arabs of that country make use of, for kneading the unleat ened cakes they pre- pare for those that travel in this very de ert, are i c.b. small wooden bowds ; and that they seem to use no othei in their own ten's for that purpose, or any other, these bowls being used by them for kneading their bread, and afterward serving up their provisions when cooked: for then it will appear, that nothing could be more ci nvenient than kneading-troughs of this sort for the Israelites, in their journev. I am, however, a little doubtful, whether these were the things that Moses meant by that word which our version renders knciuUvs-lrmiphs; since it seem- lo v,v, that the Israelites had made- a provision of coin sufficient for their consumption for about a month, and that they were preparing to bake all this at once: now their own little wooden bowls, in which thev were wont to knead the bread thev wanted for a single day, could not contain all this dough, nor could they well cany a number of these things, borrowed of the Egyptians for'the pre-ent occasion, with them. That thev had furnished themselves with corn sufficient for a month, appears from their not wanting bread till they came into the wilderness of Sin; thai the eastern people commonly bake their bo ad daily, as thi v want it, appears from an observation I have alri a and from the history of the patriarch Abraham ; and that they were preparing to bake bread sufficient for this pur- pose at once, seems mosi probable, from the univer al bus- lie they were in, and from the much greater conveniences for baking in Egypt than in the wilderness, which are such, that though Dr. Shaw's attendant sometimes baked in the desert, he thought fit, notwithstanding, to carrv bis- cuit with him, and Theyenol the same. They could not well carrv such a quantity of dough in those wooden bowl-, which thev used for kneading their bread in com- mon. What is more, Dr. Pococke tells us, that Ihe Arabs actually carry their dough in something else: for, after having' spoken of their copper dishes pul one within an- other, and their wooden bowls, in which they make their bread, and which make up all the kitchen furniture of an Arab, even where he is settled ; he gives us a description of a round leather coverlet, wdiich they lay on the ground, and serves them to eat off, which, he says, has rings round it, bv which it is drawn together with a chain that has a hook to it lo hang it by. This is drawn together, he savs, and sometimes they carry in it their meal made into dough; and in this manner they bring it full of bread, and, when the repast is over, carrv it awav at once, with all that is left. Whether this utensil is rather to be understood by the word p^-kt-z tnishnrnth, translated Jnuading-froughs, than Ihe Arab wooden bowl, I leave my reader todeletmine. I would only remark, that there is nothing, in the other thrcp EXODUS. Chap. 13—15. places, in which the word occurs, to contradict this expla- nation. These places are Exod. viii. 3, Dent, xxviii. 5, 17, in the two last of which places it is translated store. It is more than a little astonishing, to find Grotius, in his com- ment on Exod. xii. 30, explaining that verse as signifying, that they baked no bread in their departing from Egypt, but stayed till they came to Succoih, because they had not time to" stay till it was leavened in Egypt ; when it is cer- tain that they were so hurried out of Egypt, as to be desired not to stay to bake unleavened bread ; nor can we imagine they would stay till leaven put into it at Suceoth, had pro- duced its effect in their dough, since travellers now in that desert often eat unleavened bread, and the precepts of Mo- ses, relating to their commemoration of their going out of Shaw supposes was nothing more than some considerable encampment of Arabs, must have been a place where there was a considerable quantity of broom, or other fuel, which is not to be found in that desert everywhere.— Haemer. Chap. 13. ver. 18. But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea : and the children of Israel went up har- nessed out of the land of Egypt. The margin of our translation remarks, that the word rendered harnessed, in Exodus xni. 18, signifies by fives, but when it adds, five in a rank, it seems to limit the sense of the term very unnecessarily, as it may as well signify five men in a company, or their cattle tied one to another in strings of five each. If there were 600.000 footmen, be- sides children, and a mixed multitude, together with cattle, the marching of five onlv abreast, supposing only one yard for each rank to move in, would make the whole length of this enormous file of people more than sixty-eight miles. If we should suppose two such columns, and place the chil- dren, mixed multitude, and cattle between them, the length then of this body of people would be above thirty-four miles. At the same time we cannot conceive any reason for such a narrow front, on the one hand, in such a wide desert, nor, on the other, why they are described as march- ing five abreast, if there were many such columns. It would seem in such a case, to be a circumstance that re- quired no particular notice. Pitts tells its, that in the inarch of the Mohammedan pilgrims from Egvpt, through this very desert, Ihey travel with their camels lied tour in a parcel, one after the other, like so many teams. He says also that usually three or four of the pilgrims diet together. If we will allow that like circumstances naturally produce like effects, it will appear highly probable, that the meaning of the word used in the passage of Exodus is, that they went up out of Egypt with their cattle, in strings of five each ; or that Moses ordered that five men with their families should form each a little company, that should keep together, and assist each other, in this difficult march. In either of these senses we may understand the term, in all the other places in which it appears; whereas it is not natural to suppose they all went out of Egypt properly armed for war, and it is idle to say, as some have done, that they were girded about the loins, that is always supposed to be done by the eastern people when thev journey. Not to say that the kindred word continually signifies five, and this word should in course signify that they were, somehow or other, formed into fives, companies of five men each, or companies that had each five beasts, which carried their provisions and other necessaries, fastened to each other. — Harmer. Chap. 15. ver. 20. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women (vent out after her with tim- brels and v-ith dances. Lady M. W. Montague, speaking of the eastern dances, ,-: ■_ the stream whieh fioiretl , (Psalm Ixxviii. 'JO ) h;r. c h.,ll,,v. . .i across one corner of this rock, a channel about Wo inches deep and twenty wide, appearing to be lncrtistatcd all over, like the inside' of a teakettle that hath been long in use. Besides several mossy productions that are still preserved by the dew, we see all over this channel a great number of holes, some of them four or five inches deep, and one or two in diameter, the lively and demonstrative tokens of their having been formerly so many fountains. It likewise may be further observed, that art or chance could by no means be concemed in the contrivance, for every circum- stance points out to us a miracle, and, in the same manner with the rent in the rock of Mount Calvary, at Jerusalem, never fails to produce a religious surprise in all who see it." That this rock is as truly the Rock of Meribah, as the spot alluded to is Mount Calvary, may be freely admitted ; but the surprise which they are' adapted to awaken in an intelligent observer, is at the credulity of travellers. " These supernatural mouths," says Sir F. Henniker, "appear to me common crevices in tlie rock : they are only two inches in depth, and their length is not confined to the water- course. That the incrustation is the effect of water, I have not the slightest doubt, for the rocks close at hand, where water is still dripping, are marked in the same manner; and if a fragment of the cliff were to fall down, we should scarcely distinguish between the two. I therefore doubt the identity of the stone, and also the locality ; for, in this place, the miracle would be that a mountain so lofty as Mount Sinai should be without water !"— Modern Trav- Ver. 16. For he said, Because the Lop.d hath sworn that the Lord will hare war with Amalek from generation to generation. Literally, " Because the hand of the Lord is upon the throne." These words are susceptible of a very different meaning, which has not escaped the notice of some valua- ble commentators: "For he said. Because his hand hath been against the throne of the Lord, therefore, will behave war with Amalek from generation to generation." The prophet is there giving a reason of the perpetual wai which Jehovah had just proclaimed against that devoted race; their hand had been agai.-.si the throne of the Lord, that is, they had attacked the people whom he bai and among whom he had planted histhrone; disregarding, or probablv treating with contempt, the miraculous signs of the divine presence which led the way, and warranted the operations of Israel ; they attempted 10 stop their progress, and defeat the promise of Heaven ; therefore they dared to lift their hand against the throne of God himself, and were for their presumption, doomed to the destruction which Ihey intended for others. Hence, the custom of laying the hand upon the gospels, as an appeal to God, if not the contrivance of modern superstition, is derived from the practice of some obscure Gentile nation, and has no claim whatever to a more reputable origin. — Paxton. Chap. 19. ver. 1. In the third month, when the 62 EXO children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. We were near twelve hours in passing ihe many wind- ings and difficult ways which lie betwixt the deserts of Sin and Sinai. The latter is a beautiful plain, more than a league in breadth, and nearly three in length, lying open towards the N.E., where we entered it, but is closed up to the southward by some of the lower eminences of Mount Sinai, in this direction, likewise, the higher parts of it make such encroachments on the ptein, that they divide it into two, each of them capacious enough to receive the whole en- campment of the Israelites. That which lieth to the east- ward of the mount, may be the desert of Sinai, -properly so called, where Moses sate Ike angel of Ike Lord in tke burning busk, when he was guarding the flocks of Jethro. The con- vent of St. Catharine is built over the place of this divine appearance: it is near three hundred feet square, and more than forty in height, being partly built with stone, partly with mud only and mortar mixed together. The more immediate place of the Shekinah is honoured with a little chapel, which this old fraternity of St. Basil hath in such esteem and veneration, that, in imitation of Moses, they put off their shoes from oft" their feet, when they enter or approach it. This, with several other chapels, dedica- ted to particular saints, are included within the church, as they call it, of the Transfiguration, which is a large beau- tiful structure, covered with lead, and supported by two rows of marble columns. The floor is very elegantly laid out in a variety of devices in Mosaic work ; of the same workmanship, "likewise, are both the floor and the walls of the presbyterium, upon the latter whereof is represented the figure of the Emperor Justinian, together with the his- tory of the transfiguration. On the partition, which sepa- rates the presbyterium from the body of the church, there is placed a small marble shrine, whereon are preserved the scull and one of the hands of St. Catharine. Mount Sinai hangs over this convent, being called by the Arabs, Jebbel Mousa, the mountain of Moses, and sometimes only, by way of eminence, El Tor, the mountain. St. Helena" was at the expense of the stone staircase, that was formerly car- ried up entirely to the top of it ; but, at present, as most of these steps*are either removed, washed out of their places, or defaced, the ascent up to it is very fatiguing, and entire- ly imposed on their votaries as a severe penance. How- ever, at certain distances, the fathers have erected, as so many breathing places, several little chapels, dedicated to one or otner of tlieir saints, who ate always invoked on these occasions ; ana, after some small oblation, are en- gaged to lend their assistance. The summit of Mount Sinai is somewhat conical, and not very spacious, where the Mohammedans, as well as the Christians, have a small chapel for public worship. Here we were shown the place where Moses tasted forty days ; where he received the law ; where he hid himself 'from the face of God; where his hand was supported by Aaron and Hur, at the battle with Amalek. After we had descended, with no small difficul- ty, down the western side of this mountain, we came into the other plain formed bvit, which is Rephidim. — Shaw. The Arabs call Jebbel'Musa, the mount of Moses, all that range of mountains at the exterior extremity of the valley ol Paran ; and to that part of the range on which the eon- v.tit of St. Catharine stands, they give the name of Tur Sina. This similarity of name, owing most probably to tradition, affords ground for presuming, that the hill which we had now reached was the Sinai of the Jews, on which Moses received the law. It is, indeed, not easy to compre- hend how such a multitude of people as the Jews, who ac- companied Moses out of Egypt, could encamp in those narrow gullies, amid frightful and precipitous rocks. But, perhaps, there are plains on the other side of the moun- '.ain, that we know not of. Two German miles and a half up the mountain stands the convent of St. Catharine. The body of this monastery is a building one hundred and twen- ty feet in length, and almost as many in breadth. Before it stands another small building, in which is the only gate of the convent, which remains always shut, except when the bishop is here. At other times, whatever is introduced within the convent, whether men or provisions, is drawn up to the roof, in a basket, with a cord and a pulley. The whole building is of hewn stone, which, in such a desert, 3US. Chap. 19. must have cost prodigious expense and pains. Next day our scheichs brought me an Arab, whom they qualified with the title of scheich of Mount Sinai. Under the con- duct of this newly-created lord of Sinai, with our scheichs, I attempted to clamber to the summit of that mountain. It is so steep, that Moses cannot have ascended on the side which I viewed. The Greeks have cut a flight of steps up the rock. Pococke reckons three thousand of these steps to the top of the mountain, or, rather, bare-pointed rock. Five hundred steps above the convent we found a charm- ing spring, which, by a little pains, might be improved into a very agreeable spot. A thousand steps higher, a chapel, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; and live hundred above this, two other chapels, situated in a plain, which travellers enter by two small gates of mason work. Upon this plain are two trees, under which, at high festivals, the Arabs are regaled at the expense 01 the Greeks. Mv Mohammedan guides, imitating the practice which thev had seen the pil- grims observe, kissed the images, and repeated their pray- ers in the chapels. They would accompany me no farther, but maintained this to be the highest accessible peak of the mountain ; whereas, according to Pococke, I had yet a thousand steps to ascend. I was, therelore, obliged to re- turn, and content myself with viewing the hill of St. Catha- rine at a distance. — Niebuhr. After reposing in the convent and its delightful garden, the first duty of a pilgrim is, to climb the summit of the Djcbel Mousa, or mountain of Moses, the road to which be- gins to ascend immediately behind the walls of the convent. Regular steps (it is said, to the number of 15,000) have been cut all the way up; but they are now either entirely de- stroyed, or so much damaged by the winter torrents, as to be of very little use. They are ascribed to the munificence of the Empress Helena. "'After ascending for about twen- ty-five minutes," says Burckhardt, "we breathed a short time under a large impending rock, close by which is a small well of water, as cold as ice. At the end of three quarters of an hour's steep ascent, we came to a small plain, the entrance to which from below is through a stone gate- way, which in former .times was probably closed : a little beneath it, stands, amid the rocks, a small church dedica- ted to the Virgin. On the plain is a larger building of rude construction, which bears the name of the convent of St. Elias: it was lately inhabited, but is now abandoned, the monks repairing here only at certain times of the year to read mass. Pilgrims usually halt on this spot, where a tall cypress-tree grows by the side of a stone tank, which re- ceives the winter rains. On a large rock in the plain are several Arabic inscriptions, engraved by pilgrims three or four hundred years ago ; I saw one also in the Syriac lan- guage. According to the Koran and Moslem traditions, it was in this part of the mountain, which is called Djebel Oreb, or Horeb, that Moses communicated with the Lord. From hence a still steeper ascent of half an hour, the steps of which are also in ruins, lends to the summit of Djebel Mousa, where stands the church which forms the principal object of the pilgrimage : it is built on the very peak of the mountain, the plane of which is at most sixty paces in circumference. The church, though strongly built with granite, is now greatly dilapidated by the unremitted at- tempts of the Arabs to destroy it ; the'door, roof, and wal's are greatly injured. Some ruins round the church indicate that a much larger and more solid building once stood here ; and the rockap- pears to have been cut perpendicularly with great labour, to prevent any other approach to it thari by the southern side. The view from this summit must be "very grand, but a thick fog prevented me from seeing even the nearest moun- tains. About thirty paces from the church, on a some- what lower peak, stands a poor mosque, without any orna- ments, held in great veneration by the Moslems, and the place of their pilgrimage. It is frequently visited by the Bedouins, who slaughter sheep in honour of Moses', and who make vows to him, and entreat his intercession in heaven in their favour. There is a feast-day on which the Bedouins come hither in a mass, and offer their sacrifices. I was told that formerly they never approached the place without being dressed in the Ihram, or sacred mantle, with which the Moslems cover their naked bodies on visiting Mecca, and which then consisted only of a napkin tied round the middle ; but this custom hasbeen abandoned for the last forty years. Foreign Moslem pilgTims often repair Chap. 19—21. EXODUS. 60 to the spot ; and even Mohamfru d A 1 1 Pasha, and liis son Tnusoun Pasha, gave notice that they intended to visit it, but they aid not keep their promise. Close bythe footpath, In the ascent from St. Elias to this summit, and at a small n it, a place is shown in the rock, which some- what resembles the printof the forepart ol the loot; it is stated to have been made by Mohammed's foot when he We umnd tlje adjacent part of the led with blood, in consequence of an accident ened a fe« days before to a Turkish lady of rank, who was on her way IVom Cairo to Me.. a, with her lio had resided for some weeks in the convent, daring which she had made the tour of the sacred [daces, although she was old and decrepit, In attempt- ; the mark of Mohammed's foot, she fell, and mounded her head, but not so severely as to pi event her from pursuing her pilgrimage. Somewhat below the mosque is a fine reservoir, cut very deep in the granite rock, for the reception of rain-water. Mr. Fazakerley says, it is difficult to imagine a scene I. ite and terrific then that winch is discovered from the summit of Sinai. A haze limited the prospect, and, except a glimpse of the sea in one direction, nothing was within sight but snow, and huge peaks and crags of naked granite. Sir F. Henniker describes it as a "sea of desolation." " It would seem,'' he says, " as if Arabia Pe- tr.va had once been an ocean of lava, and that while its nir- were running literally mountains high, it Mas com- manded suddenly to stand still." He did not ascend the D j but the former traveller did, and speaks of it in the following terms; " The view from hence is of the same kind, only much more extensive than from the top of Sinai: it commands the two seas (gulfs) of Akaba and Suez ; the island of Tiraan and the village of Tor were pointed out to us: Sinai was far below us; clouds prevent- ed .uir Seeing the high ground near Suez: all the rest, wherever the eye could reach, was a vast wilderness, and a confusion of granite mountains and valleys destitute of verdure." Burckhardt thus describes the country as seen from this same summit: " From this elevated peak, a very extensive view opened before us, and the direction of the different surrounding chains of mountains could be dis- tinctly traced. The upper nucleus of the Sinai, composed almost entirely of granite, forms a rocky wilderness of an irregular circular shape, intersected by many narrow val- leys, and from thirty to forty miles in diameter. It con- tains the highest mountains of the peninsula, whose shag- gy and pointed peaks, and steep and shattered sides, ren- der it clearlv distinguishable from all the rest of the coun- try in view." It is upon this highest region of the peninsu- la, that the fertile valleys are found, which produce fruit- trees ■. they are principally to the west and southwest of the convent, at three or four hours' distance. "Water, too, is always found in plenty in this district, on which account it is the" place of refuge of all the Bedouins, when the low country is parched up."-MomcRN Traveller. Vef. 13. There shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through. "To pe stoned to death was a most grievous and terrible infliction. "When the offender came within four cubits of the place of execution, he was stripped naked, only leaving a covering before, and his hands being bound, he was led up to the fatal place, which was an eminence twice a man's heiirht. The first executioners of the sentence were the ■ < ho generally pulled off their clothes for the purpose: one of them threw him down with great violence upon his loins: if he rolled upon his breast, he was turned' upon his loins again, and if he died by the fall there was an end ; but if not, the other witness took a great stone, and dashed upon his breast, as he lay upon his back; and then, if he was not despatched, all the people that stood by threw stones at him till he died." — Lewis's Uridines Hcbrtza:. Chap. 20. ver. 5. Thou shalt not bow down thy- self to them, nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. ive you not heard ' 1 !a . e '..ii heard bom! 1 id ."—"I of the ins of a b tl ai \ t tfferin "Evil havj iron no pity i mi ,., ,,.,g for the many blessings, it they an- enjoying It is universally believed that children suffer for the iniquities of their an.. ,, : , n .,,,:■■ |, many generations. " 1 wonder why Tai.d'.i..' on u .1 - boin a crip] wonder! why, thai is a strange thing ; ' « bai 8 \ ile man his grandfa ben thai Valen has had a si a, and thai he did not hear of It, bui this loiiner birth." " Whai s « [1 ked n 1 alas foi his posterity, greal h ill 1 1 thi one, why are \ .b^ lappeed, winch our translators sometimes render firebrand, sometimes lamp, very distinct, and which 1 would remark further, Ixod. xx. 18, and a very ghti ing in the Hebrew", lould render it Lightning id, 1 a] prehend, of the uai. on that memorable thus confounding things are expressed by different w. that as this word is made list different word is used to exp it is unfortunate that our ver: there, when it is to be uni flaming of the trees on Mot occasion, whole trees flaming around the Divine presence, bearing some resemblance to the torches made of splinters of wood, which Mere made use of on less august occasions: "All the people saw the thundeiings, and the trees flaming like so many torches, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they re- moved and stood afar off." Lightning is understood here without doubt, and that the trees were set on fire by the lightning will hardly be contested ; on the other hand, if the word directly meant lightning, still it is evidently sup- posed the trees and shrubs were fired by it; from whence else would have come the smoke 1 But as the word signi- fies torches, not flfishes of lightning, it should not have been translated here lightning, differently from what it properly signifies. Agreeable to this account is the descrip- tion given us, Exod. xix. IS, " And Mount Sinai was alto- gether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." — IIai.mer. Chap. 21. ver. 10. If he take him another wife : her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. Though flesh meat is not wont to be eaten by these nations so frequi nt'ly as w iih us in the West, or in such quantities, yel people of rank, who often have ii in their repasts, are fond of it. and even those in lower life, when it can be pro- cured. Our translation then does nol express the spjrj, 0f the Mosaic precept, relating to the superinducing a second G4 EXODUS. Chap. 22. wife in [he lifetime cf the first, Exod. xxi. 10. " Her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not dimin- ish ; in the original it is, 'hrr flesh, her raiment, &c. meaning that he should not only afford her a sufficient quantity of food as before, but of the same quality The feeding her with bread, with herbs, with milk, &c. in quantities not only sufficient to maintain life, but as much as numbers of poor people contented themselves with, would not do, if he Ver. 20. And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand ; he shall surely be punished. 21. Notwith- standing-, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished : for he is his money. The people of Israel, like all the nations of antiquity, had the power of lite and death over their slaves; for sla- very proceeded from the right of conquest, when the vic- tors, instead of putting their enemies to death, chose i ather to give them their lives, that they might have the benefit of their services. Hence it was supposed that the conqueror always reserved the power of taking away their lives, if they committed any thing worthy of death ; and that he ac- quired the same power over their children, because they had never been born, if he had not spared the father, and transmitted it when he alienated his slave. Such is the foundation of the absolute power claimed by the Orientals over the unhappv persons whom they detained in slavery. It must be granted, I lint such reasons never can justify the exorbitant power of a slaveholder, or even his right to deprive his fellow-creature of his liberty, who has been guilty of no adequate crime. The claims of Israel rested upon different grounds, the positive grant of Jehovah him- self, who certainly has a right to dispose of his creatures as he pleases. But among that people, the power of the master was limited by laws, which secured the safety and comfort of the slave, perhaps as much as that condition could possibly admit. Though the Israelitish master had the power of life and death, it has been alleged by some wri- ters, that he seldom abused it; for his interest obliged him :o preserve his slave, who made a part of his riches. This is the reason of the law, That he should not be punished who had smitten a servant, if he continued alive a day or two after. He is his money, says the lawgiver, to show that the loss of his property was deemed a sufficient punish- ment ; and it may be presumed, in this case, that the mas- ter only intended bis correction. But if the slave died un- be punished. But considerations of interest ate too feeble a barrier to resist the impulse of passions, inflamed by the consciousness and exercise of nl 'solute power over a fellow- mortal. The wise and benevolent restraints imposed upon a master of slaves, by the law of Moses, clearly prove that he very often abused his power, or was in extreme danger of doing so ; for laws are not made for the good, but for the evil-doer. — Paxtom. Chap. 22. ver. 5. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man's field ; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution. See on Gen. 40. 11. Chandler observes, {Trarch in Asia IWinnr,) that the tame cattle were very fond of vine leaves, and were per- mitted to eat them in the autumn. " We remarked,"' he says, " about Smyrna, the leaves were decayed, or stripped by 'he camels and herds of goats, -*'hich are admitted to browse after the vintage." If those animals are so fond of vine leaves, it is no wonder that Moses, by an express law, forbad a man's causing another man's vineyard to be eaten by i»itthis in his beast. * The turning any of them in before ihe fruit was gathered, must have occasioned much mis- chief; and even after it must have been an injury, as it would have been eating up another's feed. — Harmgk. Ver. 6. If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith ; he that kindleth the fire shall surely make restitution. It is a common management in the East, to set the dry herbage on fire before the autumnal rains, which fires, for want of care, often do great damage. Moses has taken notice of fires of this kind, and by an express law haspro-- vided, that reparation shall be made for the damage clone by those who either malici rusly or negligently occasioned it. Chandler, speaking of the neighbourhood of Smyrna, says, " In the latter end of July, clouds began to appear from the south; the air was repeatedly cooled by showers which had fallen elsewhere, and it was easy to foretell the approach- ing rain. This was the season for consuming the dry herbage and undergrowth on the mountains : and we often saw the fire blazing in the wind, and spreading a thick smoke along their sides." He also relates an incident to which he was an eyewitness. Having been employed the latter end of August, in taking a plan at Troas, one day after dinner, says he, a Turk coming to us, " emptied the ashes from his pipe, and a spark of fire fell unobserved in the grass, which was long, parched by the sun, and inflamma- ble like tinder. A brisk wind soon kindled a blaze, which withered in an instant the leaves of the bushes and trees in its way, seized the branches and roots, and devoured all before it with prodigious crackling and noise. We were much alarmed, as a general conflagration of the country seemed likely to ensue." After exerting themselves for an hour, they at length extinguished it. It is an im- propriety worth correcting in this passage, where the word stacks of corn is used rather than shocks, which is more con- formable to custom, as the heaps of the East are only the' disposing of corn into a proper form to be immediately trodden out. The stacking of corn, in our agricultural lan- guage means, the collecting corn in the straw into heaps, larger or smaller as it happens, designed to continue for some considerable space of time. They are not wont to stack corn, in our sense of the word, in those countries. The term shock, by which the word »■>-« gadecsh is translated in two other places, is less exceptionable, but not perfectly expressive of the original idea. We put together, or heap up our corn, not fully ripe, in parcels which are called shocks, that it may more perfectly ripen after being cut, but the original word s"i> gadecsh, means a heap of corn, fully ripe, see Job v. 26; means, in a word, the heaps of the eastern threshing-floors, ready to be trodden out. — Hakmer. Ver. 26. If thou at all take thy neighbour's rai- ment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down : 27. For that is his covering only ; it is his raiment for his skin : wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear : for I am gracious. The clothes which the Orientals wear by day, serve them as bed-clothes for the night. Does a man wish to retire to rest, he needs not to trouble himself about the curtains, he requires not the bed-steps, he does not examine whether his bolsters or pillows are in order, he is not very particu- lar about the adjustment of his sheets and counterpane; he throws a mat on the floor, places his little travelling bag or turban for a pillow, takes offhis cloth, (which is generally about nine yards long,) puts one end under him; then covers his feet, and folds ihe rest round his body, leaving the upper end to cover his face. Thus may lie seen coolies in the morning, stretched side by side, having, during the night, defied all the stings of their foes, the moschetoes. — Roberts. The upper garment of the Israelites was a large square cloth which folded round the whole body, and served the poor as a bed-covering during the night. Less altera- tion than could have been expected has taken place in Ihe dress of Ihe eastern people. This garment was still found bv Shaw in the eighteenth century, among the Be- douin Arabs in the north of Africa, under the Arabian name of Hyke, i. c. texture, covering. In fair weathet this cloth is therefore mostly worn on the shoulders, as Chap. 23—24. EXODUS. Niebuhr observes in his Description of Arabia. " It will not, perhaps, he imagined," says he, "thai the ah lioneil Inn- n hole bedding of a gammon Arab. He. spreads out bis great girdlek ami so he has a bed to Lie down upon : with the cloth whici on his shouldei , he covers his whole body and face, and sleeps naked between these two cloths, quite happy and contented." — Rokenmi r.f.mt. In all parts of Southern Africa, the skin cloak is tin- covering of males and females by day, and thai in which they sleep by night ; they have no other bed-clothes. The Hottentot cloak is composed of sheep skins, retaining the wool on the inside of it. in which be Bleeps comfortably under a bush or tree wherever he goes Deprive him of that covering, and he would find himself most i ably placed. It would be a cruel act. The nations farther in the interior, have cloaks made from bides of oxen or cows, which they have a method of rendering soft and pliable, ami use exactly for the viz. for cloth ■ ng in 1 he I raelites leep ing in the wilderness in this simple manner, would In.1 always ready to remove when the trumpet intimated ihe moving of the pillar of fire; like the dogs, when they shook thenwlves. ihc\ mighi li--,.ud i.. 1 1 . ■ .'.:.-- .-.I ami ready to march. The God who save such a humane, considerate law to the Israelites, might well be called a gracious God. —African Light. Chap. 23. ver. 4. If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass Lf' >inur astray, thou shah sttrely bring it back to him again. Among the Hindoos, malice often finds its victim in a dumb animal. If the wretch cannot revenge himself on the man, he will on his beast. The miscreant watches till the cattle go astray, or the owner shall be out of the way, when he pounces upon the innocent ox or cow, and cuts off the tail. Hence may be seen, in every village, cattle which thus proclaim thediab ilioal passions of man— Roberts. Ver 17. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God. To those that may wonder how Jerusalem could receive such multitudes, as' were obliged by the Jewish law to at- tend there three times a-vear. and as we know did some- times actually appear in it, I would recite the account that Pitts gives of Mecca, the sacred city of the Mohammedans, and the number he found collc'ed toge:her there, for the celebration of their religious solemnities, in the close of the 17lh century. This city, he tells us, he thought he might safely say, had not one thousand families in it of constant inhabitants, and the buildings very mean and ordinaiy. That four caravans arrive there even- vear, with great numbers of people in each, and the Mohammedans say, there meet not fewer than seventy thousand souls at these solemnities; and that though he could not think the num- ber quite so large,. vet that it is very great. How such numbers of people, with their beasts, 'could be lodged and entertained in such a little town as Mecca, is a question he thus answers. " As for house-room, the inhabitants do straiten themselves very much, in order at this time to make their market. As for such as come last, after the town is filled, they pitch their tents without the town, and there abide until they remove towards home. As for pro- vision, thev all bring sufficient with them, except it be of flesh, which they may have at Mecca: but all other provi- sions, as butter* honey, oil, olives, rice, biscuit. &c. they bring with them, as much as will last through the wilder- ness, forward and backward, as well as the time thev stay at Mecca; and so for their camels they bring store of prov- ender, &e. with them." The number' of Jews that assem- bled at Jerusalem at their passover was much greater: but had not Jerusalem been a much larger city than Mecca is, as in truth it was, yet the present Mohammedan practice of abiding under tents, ami carrying their provisions and bedding with them, will easily explain how they might be accommodated. — Edkdes. Ver. 19. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. ''seethe a kid in his mothi .'■ mill " i Ian has bei d greatlj di i I al hough I hi term n is c hed, arc ml . i. i.tly el. mi ami precise opinion oi so. ■ he | rohilii ii t, refers toa ku in the womb ot us ther, v. bii h in tl at tale . aoorishec only with milk; bin the opinion of Clemens, the of Israel had h in in the practice oi eating the foetus oi a goat, which this precept was inti i ded to i rohibit, is sup- ported bv no proof. The disgusting en limns of a sow . is indi ed mentioned b have no proof that it was known to epicures ia tb i.t expositors imagine, t hat the Jews were by ■ lorbidden t.. tnkeawaj the life of a kid, before i' was eight days old, when, accotiimg to them, it may sub- sist without the aid of in inothei's milk. The ■ is supposed to he i firmed by another precept: " When a i- brought forth, then it shall be M'vi'ii dav- under lie1 dam; and from the eighth day and thenceforth, it - by fire unto the Lord. " Bol since the law, which peoj le ol l-iael to otl'ei ill sael ili. e. ■• the \ ..... herd, or of the flock," before the eighth day, is ■ the precept eonce n ol the in h line fruits, and i he first-bin n, m the luenu mm . .ml el.a| ter 01 Exodus; so, in the twentv- i ..uith chap- ters, the law which forbids to seethe a kid in his mothers milk, follows the same precept; and bj consequence, not ed. bul also the common ui Int. iied before the eighth day. Such is il pinion, and - the reasoning by which it is supported; but it must be evi- dent to every reader, that a kid IS as much in his mother's milk all the time. he is suckled, ae during the I days: nor can any reason he imagined, why he mav r>n be said to be in his mother's milk on the seventh day frjm his birth, rather than on the eighth or the ninth. Otjers are of opinion, that, according to this precept, a sinking kid was at no time to be slain, either for sacred or common u^e. The she-goat suckles her young about three ninths: and till this period, i: was not to 1 e subjected to lie sacri- ficing knife. But it is very improbable, lhal the .Jews were forbidden the use of a kid for so long a lime: for that which the law permits to be offered in sacrifice to GooVaaaysurei] he eaten by his people. Nor was any species of lbod pro- hibited by the law. but fur ee But ihai cannot be reckoned legallv unclean, which the law permits to be offered in sacrifice at the altar. He permitted asuck- ing kid or lamb, to be offered on the eighth dar; a sure proof they were not reckoned unclean, while they remained under the dam. The prophet Samuel otieied asuekiBg lamb as a burnt-offering to the Lord on a day of public humiliation; and God condescended to ghre them a strong proof of his acceplance, in utterly discomfiting their ene- mies, by a furious tempest of thunder and lightning. It. therefore, a sucking kid might be offered in sacrifice to God, it might be used as food by his people. Nor is their opinion more tenable, who say. that bv this law the dam and her suckling were not to be slain at the same lime. To cherish kind and humane feelings among the chosen seed, Jehovah forbade them to kill a cow, a sheep, or a goat, on Ihe same day with their young; but the precept under consideration cannot naturally bear such a meaning. Had this been the design of Mo-es, whv did he not say in plain terms. Thou shall Dot seethe a kid and his mother at the same time? He must, therefore, have meant what the words naturally suggest, that a kid is not to be seethed in the milk of his mother. The barbarous custom to which the lawgiver alludes, probable existed in some neigl bmir- ing countries, and parii.e.lailv in I'.gvpt. from whose iroi yoke ihev had just been delivered ; either because the fiesl dressed in this manner was more tender and juicy, than when roasled with fire, or boiled in water; or, which is more probable, while al the feast of ingathering, thev gave thanks to God for the mercies thev had received, and ex- pressed their dependanee upon him for future blessings, lliev were not to expect his favour bv imitating the super- stitious rites of the heathens, among whom they had lived so long, who at the end of their harvest seethed a Kid in his mother's milk, and sprinkled the broth in a magical wav upon their gardens and fields, to render them more fruitful next season.— IV\ton. Chap. 24. ver. 28. And I will se.id hornets be- fore thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hiltite, 4Vom before thee. Another insect which Heaven has sometimes employed to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, is the hornet ; which is a larger species of wasp. The irascible temper and poi- sonous sting of the wasp, are too well known to require de- scription ; they have been mentioned by the natural histo- rians, and celebrated by the poets of every age and coun- try. In three parallel places of scripture, the sacred wri- ter mentions the hornet which Jehovah sent before his people, to expel the Canaaniles from their habitations : " And I will send hornets before thee, winch shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee." This promise was afterward renewed a short time before that people passed the Jordan : " Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, till they that are "left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed." Boih these promises, we learn from Joshua, were punctu- ally fultilled : " And I sent the hornet before yon, which drave them out from Defore you, even the two kings of the Amorites, but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow." At what particular time during the wars of Joshua, the Lord, in fulfilment of his promise, sent the hornet against the in- habitants of Canaan, and what impression its attack made upon the enemies of Israel, we are nowhere informed in scripture. On this account, several writers of great emi- nence consider the words of Moses as a metaphor, denoting the terror of the Lord, or some remarkable disease which he commissioned to lay waste the country before the armies of Israel. But neither the words of Moses nor Joshua, be- tray the smallest indication of metaphor: and in a plain narration, we are never, without the most obvious neces- sity, to depart from the literal sense. The inspired histo- rian could not mean the terror of the Lord, as Augustine is inclined to suppose; for he had mentioned this in the verse immediately preceding : " I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all trie people to whom thou shall come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." Upon which it is added, " And I will send home's before thee." .Nor could any particular disease be intended ; for no disease was ever called by this name. Junius gives a different version: I will send before thee fear or disease as a hornet; but the comparative particle as, is not in the text, and must not be supplied by the ca- price of translators. The words of Joshua are express, without either metaphor or comparison : " I have sent the hornet before you." It is no valid objection to the literal sense, that the circumstances of time and place are not 'mentioned by the sacred writer, for this is by no means an unusual omission in the rapid narrative of an inspired his- torian. To mention but one example : the patriarch Ja- cob gave to his son Joseph a portion of land, which he took from the Amorite by force of arms; but when or in what place this battle was fought, we are not informed. The hornet, l1 is probable, inarched before the armies of Israel, till the five nations that had been doomed for their numer- ous and long-continued crimes to destruction, were sub- due-iS-, which rendered such a circumstantial detail unne- cessary and improper. But who can believe, say they, that tKe hornets of Canaan were so vexatious to the inhab- itants, that they were forced to abandon their dwellings, and seek for other habitations 1 The teslimonv of an in- spired writer ought to silence all such objections ; but, in reality, the same thing lias not unfrequontlv happened in the history of the world. Both Alhenrrus and Eustalheus in- form us, that the people about Pieonia and Dardania were .compelled by fro?s to forsake their native country, and fix their abode in a distant region. If Plinv mav be credited, rtie ancient city of Troy was forced to open her gates, after a war of ten years, not' so much bv the victorious arms of the Greeks, as by an innumerable host of mic?, which compelled the Trojans to desert their houses, nivl retire to the neighbouring mountains; and in Italy, whole nations were driven from their possession by the same destructive creature, which in« immense numbers overran their fields, devoured every green thing, and, grubbing up the roots, converted some of the fairest regions of that country into an inhospitable waste. The Myusians, according to Pau- Mnias, were forced, by swarms of gnats, to desert their -Uv: and the Scythians beyond the Ister, are recorded to Inrt e been expelled from their country by countless my- J US. Chap. 24—25. riads ( ! Dees. But, since the wasp is more vexatious than the bee, its sting more severe, and its hostility more viru- lent— it is by no means incredible, that many of the Ca- naaniles were fo 'ced, by so formidable an enemy, to re- move beyond the reach 'of their attack. — Paxton. Chap. 25. ver. 5. And rams' skins died red, and badgers' skins, and shittim-wood. To enter into the history of this animal is unnecessary, as it is mentioned in scripture only on account of its skin. This part of the animal seems to have been in great re- quest among the people of Israel, for it is mentioned among the valuable articles which they were permitted to offer for the tabernacle: "Rams' skins died red, and badgers' skins." These last formed the exterior covering of that splendid structure, and of all the sacred utensils, which the Levites was richly adorned for the marriage. Jehovah had chosen Israel to be his peculiar people, and had bestowed upon them innumerable favours, but they had become ungrate- ful and perfidious, like a woman who proves inconstanl and unfaithful to her husband, who had raised her from the meanest condition, to the greatest affluence and splen- dour : " Thou becamest mine. Then I washed thee with water ; yes, I thoroughly washed aw ay thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin ; and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk." In this passage, badgers' skin is mentioned as a very precious and splendid substance, such as might be made into shoes for ladies of the highest rank, and" worn on their marriage day ; while, in the book of Exodus, it is represented as very coarse and homely, fit only to be made a covering for the tabernacle, arid its furniture, during the journeys bf the tribes. These very different representa- tions cannot easily be reconciled, and involve the subject in doubt and uncertainty. And indeed the original word (i»nn) lahash, which our translators render badgers' skins, is of very uncertain meaning. It is evident from scripture, that it was a kind of skin which, being capable of resisting rain, was manufactured by the people of Israel into cover- ings for the tabernacle and its furniture, and into shoes for persons of the highest rank in the state. But the inspir- ed writers furnish no details from which it can be infened, to what animal it originally belonged ; it is even extremely doubtful, whether the word rendered badger, denotes an animal at all. The Seventy interpreters considered it merely as the name of a colour, and uniformly tran>late it hyacinth, or hyacinthine. In this opinion, they were fol- lowed by all the ancient translators of the scripture, with- out one exception ; and the same idea has been adopted by the learned Bochart, and other eminent modems. The reasons on which their interpretation is founded, seem to be quite conclusive. In the>*rst place, no evidence can be found that the badger ever existed in Palestine, Arabia, or Egypt. Dr. Shaw made particular inquiry, but could hear of no such animal in Barbary. Harme'r was unable to discover in modern travellers, the smallest traces of the badger in Egypt, or in any of the adjacent countries ; Buf- fon represents it as unknown in that part of Asia. So little was the badger known to the ancients, that the Greeks had not a word in their language by which to express it ; and the Latin term which is supposed to denote this animal, is extremely doubtful. But if the badger is not a native of the East, if it is not to be found m those countries, from whence could the people of Israel in the wilderness, pro- cure its skin to cover the tabernacle t It is an animal of small size, and is nowhere found in great numbers ; and, by consequence, its skin could not, in remote times, more than at present, constitute an article of commerce in the ports of Egvpt, and come at last into the possession of that people. The exterior covering of the tabernacle, and its milky utensils, must have required a greater number of skins than could be procured even in the native country of the badger; and therefore, it must have been formed of leather, fabricated from the skin of some other animal, which not only existed, but also abounded in Egypt, and the adjacent countries. The coarseness of the leather, fabricated of badgers' skin, which in the East is reluctantly Chap. 2G. EXU employed for the meanest purposes of life, forbids as to consider it as the material of which the elegant shoes of an oriental lady are formed. Winn the prophet says in Jie name of the Lord, •' 1 clothed thee also with broidcred certainly meant, that the shoes, corresponding to the other parts of the dress, were formed of costly materials. The Targum accordingly translates the passage, " I pt* prc- !•■ • ii;...ii tny' feel;" but this could he said wilh no propriety of shoes made of badgers' skins. Nor can it be supposed, that the skin of an animal, which 'the law of Moses pronounce:! unclean, strictly enjoins the people of Israel not to lunch, or if they did happen to touch it, not to worship at thetabernacle, till the ceremonial pollution which they accidentally contracted was removed according to the would be employed to cover that sacred struc- ture, and its consecrated 'utensils, and that the Levites should be obliged t ften to handle it in performing the du- ties ul their office. The sacred implements of Jewish wor- thily were defended from the injuries of the wea- ther by the skins of clean beasts, which were easily pro- cured, and that in sufficient numbers, even in the wilder- ness. This idea, so conformable to the spotless purity re- quired in the ceremonial law, has been adopted and main- tained by all the earlier Jewish writers, whose authority in matters of this kind is entitled to great respect. Many disputes indeed have been agitated among them, in relation to the particular animal employed; but none of them be- fore the time of Jarchi, who flourished about the middle of the eleventh century, supposed that it was the skin of the badger. These considerations leave no room for doubt in the mind of the writer, that the original term denotes neither the badger, nor any other animal, bnt merely a cqlour. What particular colour is meant, it may not be easy to ascertain ; but when it is considered, that the peo- ple of rank and fashion in the East, were accustomed to appear in purple shoes, it is extremely probable, that pur- ple was the colour intended by the sacred w-riter. The Chaldee Paraphrast accordingly, expounds the words of the Song, " How beautiful are thy feet with shoes," how beautiful are the feet of Israel, when they go up to appear three .imes before the Lord in purple sandals ! The Ro- man empetors, and the kings ol Persia, reserved by a for- mal edict, shoes of a purple colour for their own use ; and it is said, red shoes were among the insignia of the an- cient kingdom of Bulgaria. Hence, Isaac'Comnenus, the Roman emperor, deprived the patriarch of Constantinople of his dignity, because he presumed to put on shoes of a crimson colour, although these were formerly worn at Rome by persons of the senatorial order. — Paxton. Ver. 10. And they shall make an ark ofshittim- wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. Concerning the shitta tree, mentioned by the prophet Isninh with the cedar and ihe myrtle, different opinions are entertained by commentators. The name is derived from the Hebrew verb Shata, to decline or turn to and fro, hav- ing for ih ■ plural Shitlim. It is remarkable for being the wood of which the sacred vessels of the tabernacle were made. The Seventy interpreters generally render it by the term anrpia, incorruptible. Theodotion, and after him the Vulgate, translate it by Spina, a thorn. The shittim- wood, says Jerome, resembles the white thorn in its colour and leaves, but not in its size ; for the tree is so large, that it affords very long planks. Hasselquist also savs it grows in Upper Egypt, to the size of a large tree. The wood is hard, tough, smooth, without knots, and extremely beauti- ful. This iind of wood grows only in the deserts of Ara- bia ; but in no other part of the Roman empire. In another place he remarks, it is of an admirable beauty, solidity, strength, and smoothness. It is thought he means the black acacia, the onlv tree found in the deserts of Arabia. This plant is so hard and solid, as to become almost incor- ruptible. Its wood has the colour of the Lotus tree ; and so large, that it furnishes plank twelve cubits long. It is very thorny, and even its bark is covered with very sharp thorns ; and hence it perhaps had the Hebrew name inn ts, even in our days, are distin- guished by most beautiful colours. Olearius, accompany- ing the amba sadoreol 11 Istein Gottcrf, who were invited by the Persia. 1 monarch to a hunting party, found in an Ar- menian village many tents, ready for the reception of the company, which afforded a pleasing sight on account of their manifold colours. Over the under curtain a cover- ing of goats' hair was spread, which is the usual covering of the Arabian tents, commonly coarse, but here of the finest texture; and, that these coverings might not be in- jured by the sand or dust, two others, made of skins, were laid over them. The portable temple of the Israelites had, indeed, in its whole arrangement, a resemblance with the ■emples of other nations of antiquity. As they had spacious torecourts, so had the tabernacle an oblong quadrangular forecourt, two hundred feet long, and one hundred broad, which was formed by the hangings or curtains which hung on pillars. The tabernacle itself was divided into two parts, the holy and the most holy; in the latter was the ark of the covenant, with the symbols of the divine qualities, the cherubims; and no human being dared to enter this especially sanctified place, except the high-priest, once a year, (on the feast of reconciliation.) Thus, also, in many Grecian temples, the back part was not 'to be entered by anybody. (Lackemaeher's Antiq. Gra?cor. Sacr.) This part, where, in the heathen temples, the statue of the deity was placed, was generally towards the west, and the en- trance towards the east. (Spencer de Leg. Hebrceor. Ritual.) In the same manner the entrance of "the tabernacle was towards the east, and, consequently, the most holy place to the west. In the most holy, a solemn darkness reigned, as in most of the ancient temples. A richlv-worked cur- tain divided the most holy from the holy, and thus, in the Egyptian temples, the back part, where the sacred animal to which the temple was dedicated, was kept, was divided from the front part by a curtain embroidered with gold. — ROSENMULLER. Ver. 36. And thou shalt make a hanging for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scar- let, and fine twined linen, wrought with needle- work. We passed Lahar, close to a small vallev, where we found several snug encampments of the Eelauts, at one of which we stopped to examine the tent of the chief of the obai, or family. It was composed of a wooden frame of circu- lar laths, which were fixed on the ground, and then cover- ed over with large felts, that were fastened down by a cord, ornamented by tassels of various colours. A curtain, cu- riously worked by the women, with coarse needle-work of various colours, was suspended over the door. In the king of Persia's tents, magnificent perdahs, or hangings of nee- dle-work, are suspended, as well as on the doors of the great mosques in Turkey; and these circumstances com- bined, will, perhaps, illustrate Exodus xxvi. 36. — Morieb. Chap. 27. ver. 20. And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten Jpr the light, to cause the lamp to burn always. Bv the expression oil-olive, this oil is distinguished from other kinds. The addition beaten, indicates that it is that oil obtained from olives pounded in a mortar, and not pressed from olives in the oil-mill. The oil obtained from pounded olives is, according to Columella's observation, much purer and better tasted, does not emit much smoke, and has no offensive smell. — Burder. Chap. 28. ver. 33. And beneath, upon the hem of it. thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and DUS. Chap. 26—29 of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about. The bell seems to have been a sacred utensil of very ancient use in Asia. Golden bells formed a part of the orna- ments of the pontifical robe of the Jewish high-priest, with which he invested himself upon those grand and peculiar festivals, when he entered into the sai.ctuai v. That robe was very magnificent, it was ordained to be of sky-blue, and the border of it, at the bottom, was adorned with pomegranates and gold bells intermixed equally, and at equal distances. The use and intent of these bells is evident from these words: " And it shall be upon Aaron to minister, and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, and when he cometh out, that he die not." The sound of the numerous bells that covered the hem ol his garment, gave notice to the assembled people that the most awful ceremony of their religion had commenced. When arrayed in this garb, he bore into the sanctuary the vessel of incense; it was the signal to prostrate themselves before the Deity, and to commence those fervent ejacula- tions which were to ascend with the column of that incense to the throne of heaven. ''One indispensable ceremony in the Indian Pooja is the ringing of a small bell by the officiating brahmin. The women of the idol, or dancing girls of the pagoda, have little golden bells fastened to their feet, the soft harmonious tinkling of which vibrates in unison with the exquisite melody of their voices." (Mau- rice's Indian Antiquities.) " The ancient kings of Persia, who, in fact, united in their own persons the regal and sacerdotal office, were accustomed to have the fringes of their robes adorned with pomegranates and golden bells. The Arabian courtesans, like "the Indian women, have little golden bells fastened round their legs, neck, and elbows, to the sound of which they dance before the king. The Arabian princesses wear golden rings on their fingers, to which little bells are suspended, as well as in the flowing tresses of their hair, that their superior rank may be known, and they themselves, in passing, receive the homage due to their exalted station."-CALMET. Ver. 41. And thou shalt put them upon Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him ; and shalt anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. The Hebrew has for " consecrate," "fill their hands.' See also Judges xvii. 5, 12, and 1 Kings xiii. 33, and many other places where the word " consecrate" is in the margir rendered "fill the hand." Is it not a remarkable fact that the word Kai-Reppi, which signifies, in Tamul, to conse- crate a priest, also means to Jilt tie iand ? When a layman meets a priest, he puts his hands together as an act of reverence, and the priest stretches out his right hand, as if full of something, and says, " Blessings." — Roberts. Chap. 29. ver. 22. Also thou shalt take of the ram the fat and the rump. Or the large tail of one species of the eastern sheep. Russell, (Hist, of Aleppo, p. 51,) after observing that they are in that country much more numerous than those with smaller tails, adds, " this tail is very broad and large, ter- minating in a small appendix that turns back upon it. It is of a substance between fat and marrow, and is not eaten separately, but mixed with the lean meat in many of their dishes, arid also often used instead of butter. A common sheep of this sort, without the head, feet, skin, and entrails weighs about twelve or fourteen Aleppo rotoloes, of which the tail is usually three rotoloes or upwards ; but sucl. as are of the largest breed, and have been fattened, will some- times weigh above thirty rotoloes, and the tail of these ten. These very large sheep, being about Aleppo kept up in yards, are in no danger of injuting their tails : but in some other places, where "they feed in "the fields, the shepherds are obliged to fix a piece of thin board tc the under part of their tail, to prevent its being torn bv bushes and thistles, as it is not covered underneath with thick wool like the EXODUS. 60 upper part. Some have small wheels to facilitate the dragging of this board after them." A rotoloe of Aleppo is in-.; ]i lands. With this agrees the account given by the Abbe Mann, ( Travelt through Cyprus.) " The mutton is 'uicv and tender. The tails of slime of the sheep, which \re remarkably line, weigh upward- nf liliy p. mads." This huivs us the ir tvni «liy, in the levitical sacrifices-, (be tail vas always ordered to be consumed by lire.— Border. Ver. 2 I. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders : neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appeal before the Lord thy God thrice in the year. I find in Exod. xxxiv. 24, a very remarkable promise of God, which could hardly have beeii fulfilled in the common course of providence, and without a miracle, uuless the Israelites, and other heighb mis had in their (TOTS observed a o i, .mi law of truce, quite strange to us, and which I only know from the customs of the Arabs. Moses com- mands all the males of Israel to leave their homes thrice a year, and celebrate a festival for a week at the place where the tabernacle should be erected; assuring them, withal, that during this period, «« man should desire their Itiuil ; and that, therefore, however distant their abodes might be i > the -ancillary, they might undertake this journey with perfect safety.' According to the present course* of things in the world, this is quite incomprehensi- ble. Were all the males to leave certain parts of the country, and still more, the fortified cities, the greatest of all wonders would be, the enemy with whom the nation happened to be at war, refraining from seizing the oppor- tunity to occupy the fortresses,— to plunder and burn the open country,— and to forage the corn-fields. And it is most obvious, that the danger of all this will be still greater among nations who do not maintain settled peace with each other; of which description were the marauding Arabs: or who carry on war rather by incursions than regular campaigns, a'nd have no other object than to make boolv in rnonevj produce, women, and children. Shall we then' venture so to expound the words of Moses, as if he had promised a periodical miracle from God, which should, f ir three weeks every year, convert all the enemies of the Israelites into statues 1 A promise so incredible, will, perhaps, not appear to be necessary, when, to illus- trate this point, we call in the aid of the customs of the Arabs, who are Abraham's descendants, and the immediate brethren of the Israelites. In all their wars, and even amid their family feuds, during the holy month, in which they solemnized the festival at Mecca, they had a truce. Mohammed's greatest transgression i-,ihat he is said to have broken this truce. Yet, in the Koran, he has commanded his followers to keep it only when their adversaries keep it ; and he permits them to fight against the enemy during the holy month, only when he makes the first attack. Thus we see, in like manner, from 1 Kings xii. 27, that among the -Israelites, during the high festivals, a suspension of arms took place ; and the ten tribes who had revolted from the family of David, might, without hinderance, have kept the feast'at Jerusalem, and would have done so, had not Jeroboam, for political reasons, endeavoured to prevent them. The Judahites, Iherefore, did not put any obstacle in their way ; and they would then have been in as perfect security at Jerusalem,' as, before Mohammed's time, every Arab during the holy month was at Mecca. It would ap- pear, then, that the nations related to the Israelites, paid equal respect to the worship of God, and made a truce (taring war, whenever the people celebrated a festival. But probably the Canaanites were, both in religiou and manoers, so "different from the Israelites, that they did not observe any such truce ; for Moses expressly says on this occasion, that God would destroy the Canaanites; and then, no other people would conceive any desire to attack the land of Israel during the seasons ol the fe Now such a law of nations once introduced, God might fulfil Ins promise m the common course ofprot idfnce, and « n In. ut i lie aid of a miracle. This sacred 11 , which is, however, quite unsuitable to the more connected operations of modern warfare, was likewise, probably the cause, wherefore the commandment respecting the .Sabbath could be given without any particular limitation. For on thai day, all labour was "prohibited. Moses does not, indeed, expressly specify fighting, marching, intrenching; but ' he c'xpiesslj except them. Now although, in a rational consideration" of the mailer, the justice of these exceptions, m cases of necessity, is manifest ; it seems, nevertheless, to be a delect in the law ; and a nation who in this point had even the smallest scruple o| con- science, would make but a poor figure in war. We see in fact, that after the Babylonish captivity, wheo, as St Paul says, (Heh. vni. 7— 13,) the law began to be n-cles- from its antiquity, the observance of the Sabbath became very prejudicial to the Jews in their wars with the Syrians and Romans. For the former on the Sabbath attacked them, and burnt thousands of them in a cave, without their making any resistance: and the latter, in their first siege of Jerusalem under Pompey, carried on the works of in- vestment undisturbed, and only guarded against attempt- ing to storm the city, because against a storm the Jews de- fended themselves even on the Sabbath. Bui since, before the captivity, we never find, that in their numerous wars, the Sabbath' had been detrimental to the Jews, or thai any of their enemies availed himself of the advantage it gave him; the Israelites must either, from ancient and undoubt- ed usage, have known that the commandment concerning the Sabbath did not extend to the operations of war ; or else, betwixt them and all the neighbouring nations there must on this day have been asacred'truce. Among the latter, this day, which the Israelites dedicated to the Creator oft he heavens and the earth, was probably sacred to Saturn, to whom the Phoenicians paid the highest veneration; be- cause, before his being raised to divine honours, or num- bered among the stars, he is said to have been king of their country. According to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus, they accounted him the chief of the planets ; and the Ara- bians had, in like manner, dedicated to him their national temple, the Caaba at Mecca. — Michaelis. Chap. 38. ver. 8. And he made the laver of brass and the foot of it of brass, of the looking-glasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. The eastern mirrors were made ofpolishcd steel, and for the most part convex. If they were thus made in the country of Elihu, the image made use of by him will appear very lively. " Hast thou with him spread out the skv, which is strong, and as a molten looking-glass V (Job xxxvii. 18.) Shaw informs us, that " in the Levant looking-glasses are a part of female dress. The Moorish women in Barbarv are so fond of their ornaments, and particularly of their looking-glasses, which they hang upon their breasts, that thev will not lay them aside, even when, after the drudgery of'the day, they are obliged to go two or three miles with a pitcher, o'ra goat's skin.to fetch water." The Israelitish women used to carry their mirrors with them, even to their most solemn place of worship. The word mirror should be used in the passages here referred to, rather than those which are inserted in the present translation of the Bible. To speak of looking glasses made of steel, aud glasses molten, is palpably absurd; whereas the term mfrror'obviates every difficulty, and expresses t'le true meaning of'the original. — Busder. LEVITICUS. CHAPTER if. Vcr. 4. And if thou bring an oblation of a meat- offering- baken in the oven, it shall be unleaven- ed cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or un- leavened wafers anointed with oil. What attracted our attention most this stormy day, was the apparatus for warming us. It was the species of oven called tannoor, common throughout Armenia and also in Syria, but converted here for purposes of warmth into what is called a tandoor. A cylindrical hole is stmk about three feet in the ground in some part of the room, with a flue en- tering it at the bottom to convey a current of atr to the fire which heats it. For the emission of smoke no other pro- vision is made than the open sky-light in the terrace. When used for baking bread, the dough, being flattened to the thickness of common pasteboard, perhaps a foot and a half long by a foot broad, is stuck to its smooth sides by means of a cushion, upon which it is first spread. It indicates, by cleaving off, when it is done, and being then packed down in the family chest, it lasts at least a month in the winter, and ten days in the summer. Such is the only bread known in the villages of Armenia ; and even the cities of Erivan and Tebriz offer no other variety than a species perhaps only twice as thick, and so long that it might almost be sold by the yard. To bake it, the bottom of a large oven is covered with pebbles, (except one corner, where a fire is kept constantly burning,) and upon them when heated, the sheets of dough are spread. The convenience of such thin bread, where knives and forks arc not used, and spoons are rare, is, that a piece of it doubled enables you to take hold of a mouthful of meat more delicately than with your bare fingers; or, when properly folded, helps you to convey a spoonful safely to your mouth, to be eaten with the spoon itself. When needed for purposes of warmth, the tannoor is easily transfoimed into a tandoor. A round stone is laid upon the mouth of the oven, when well heated, to stop the draught ; a square frame, about a foot in height, is then placed above it; and a thick coverlet, spread over the whole, lies upon the ground around it, to confine the warmth. The family squat upon the floor, and warm themselves by extending their legs and hands into the heated air beneath it, while the frame holds, as occasion requires, their lamp or their food. Its economy is evidentlv great. So full of crevices are the houses, that an open fireplace must con- sume a great quantity of fuel, and then almost fail of warming even the air in its immediate vicinity. The tan- door heated once, or at the most twice in twenty-four hours, by a small quantity of fuel, keeps one spot continually warm for the relief of all numb fingers and frozen toes. The house, apparently the best in the village, was built throughout, floor, walls, and terrace, of mud. Fortunately, as its owner had two wives, it had two rooms. The one assigned us, being the principal familv apartment, was of course filled with every species of dirt,' vermin, and litter; and withal, as they were in the midst of the process of bak- ing, the insufferable smoke of the dried cow-dung which heated their tannoor, or cylindrical oven, detained us a long time before we could take possession. Persuaded at last by impatience that the bread must be done, I entered, nnd found our host and chief muleteer shaking their shirts' in the oven, to dislodge the "crawling creatures" that in- habited them. Though new to us then, we afterward found reason to believe that this use of the tannoor is common, ind for it alone we have known it to be heated. In such .wens was our bread baked, by being stuck upon their sides, ™d though we would fain have quieted our fastidiousness by imagining that they were purified by fire, the nature of Ine fuel of which that was almost invariably made, left liule room upon which to found such a conception. And j as for the loathsome company of which our host and mule, teer had thus attempted to rid themselves, we found them too constantly affecting our senses to think of 'imagining them away; for the traveller can hardly journey "a day here, or in any part of Turkey, without their annoying him, and his only relief is in a constant change of his linen. The apartment was finally cleared and swept, but the old man could give us neither carpet nor mat, and our own painted canvass and travelling carpets were all that cover- ed the ground on which we sat and slept. — Smith and Dwight. Mr. Jackson, in his Journey over land from India, gives an account of an eastern oven, equally instructive and amusing, as it confirms the statements of ancient travellers, and shows the surprising expertness of the Arabian women in baking their bread. " They have a small place built with clay, between two and three feet high, having a hole at the bottom for the convenience of drawing out the ashes, something similar to a lime-kiln." The oven, (which he thinks the most proper name for this place,) is usually about fifteen inches wide at top, and gradually widening to the bottom. It is heated with wood; and when suffi- ciently hot, and perfectly clear from the smoke, having nothing but clear embers at the bottom, which continue to reflect great heat, they prepare the dough in a large bowl, and mould the cakes to the desired size on a board, or ,stone, placed near the oven. After they have kneaded the cake to a proper consistence, they pat it a little, then toss it about with great dexterity in one hand, till it is as thin as they choose to make it. They then wet one side of it with water, at the same time wetting the hand and arm with which they put it into the oven. The side of the cake adheres fast to the side of the oven, till it is sufficiently baked, when, if not paid proper attention to, it would fall down among the embers. If they were not exceedingly quick at this work, the heat of the oven would burn their arms; but they perform it with such an amazing dexterity, that one woman will continue keeping three or four cakes in the oven at once, till she has done baking. This mode, he adds, requires not half the fuel that is consumed in Eu- rope.— Paxton. CHAPTER VII Ver. 9. And the meat-offering that is baken in the oven, and all that is dressed in the frying- pan, and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offereth it. Our translation of this passage, presents a confusion more easily perceived than regulated bv the general read- er:—" And all the meat-offering that is baken in the oven, and all that is dressed in the fryingpan, and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offers it." It is evident that Ikm- are three terms used, implying three different manners of dressing food.— Do we understand them? The term. " meat-offering" is certainly unfortunate here, as it raises the idea of flesh-meat, without just reason, to say ihe least, especially as it stands connected with baking in the oven' ■tan. Passing this, the following sentence, also, as 11 stands connected, expresses a meat-offering, dressed in a frying- pan, ntrmn ; and then we have another kind of meai-utlr-f ing, dressed in the pan, nafiD. Of what nature is this pan ? To answer this question, we must dismiss the flesh-meat. Whether the following extract from Denon may contribute assistance on this subject, is submitted with great defer- ence. It is his explanation of his plate lxxxv. " The manner of making macaroni, in Eeypt.— The mannfaciorv, and the shop for selling it, are both at once in the street ;— an oven, over which a great plate of copper is heated ; the. maker sheds on it a thin and liquid paste, winch is strain- ed through the holes in a kind of cup which hepasses uj Chap. 7- LEVITICUS. 71 and down on the plalc : after a few minutes, the threads of paste a iv hardened, dried, and naked, by a uniform de- cree of heal, maintained without intei mission, l>y an equal quantity of branches of palm-tree, by winch the oven is kepi constantly healed. Tin' same degn I Ileal is -riven 0 the same space of lime to an equal quantity of Ver. 12. If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and un- leavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried. With the exception of two rare cases, oil was order- ed to accompany every meal-offering, in order to its being therewith prepared, and baked into cakes. With this law, in so lar as it is perhaps tvpical, and regards a holy ceremony, I have here nothing to do, because I consider it merely with respect to its political influence in the state; and t:t"'. among a people brought out of Egypt into Pales- tine, andsiill always hankering after Egypt, was important. k imperceptibly attached them to their new country, and served to lender even the idea of a future residence in Egypt, irksome ; while it also imperceptibly gave them an inclination to cultivate the olive-tree, for which nature seems to have pfe-eminently adapted Palestine. In the greatest part of Egvpt, according to Strabo, no olives were cultivated. It was only in the Heracleotic canton, that they came to such perfection as that oil could be made from them. Ii the gardens around Alexandria, (which, how- ever, did not exist in the time of the ancient kings, that part of the country being an uncultivated waste till the reign of Alexander the Great,) there were olive-trees, but no oil was made. The consequence of this want of oil was, (as it still is,) that in Egypt they made use of butter, as we do, and also of honey, in their pastry : and even at this day, travellers, going from Egvpt into Arabia, carry butter along wi h them ; although, indeed, it is not very tempting to the appetite, because, in consequence of the great heat, it generally mells in the jars by the way. In those parts of Arabia likewise, which the Israelites traversed, and in which they might, perhaps, have ihoitght of settling as wan- dering herdsmen, scarcely any olives were produced. The oil of Palestine, on the other hand, was not only most abundant, but also peculiarly excellent; and Hasselquist prefers it even to that of Provence. By this gilt of na- ture, stony places and mountains, which Would otherwise have been barren, became not onlv useful, but even metre productive, than the best fields could be made. The only part of Palestine which Strabo, that much misquoted au- thor, describes as unfruitful, is that about Jerusalem; ami it reallv is so, in regard to the production of grain: but still the Jews say, that an acre about Jerusalem was for- merly of much more value that in any other part of Pales- tine. This I should not believe on their word, if any de- gree of improbability attached to it; for Jewish accounts from hearsay and oral tradition, have little weight with me. But as long as Palestine was properly cultivated, an acre near Jerusalem, from its produce in wine and oil, must nam rally have been more profitable, than as a corn- field. We need only call to mind the Mnunt of Olives, which lay to the east of the citv. An acre planted with olives or vines, however rocky and arid the soil may be, will voir easily be made worth ten times as much as an acre of the richest corn-land. — The account given by Abul- feda. in his Description of Syria, confirms this statement ; for he sap, that the country about Jerusalem is one of the most fertile in Palestine. Let us now representto ourselves the effects of a law which enjoir.ed. that the pastry of of- ferings should be baked with oil, (and, therefore, not wiih butter.) and that to every meal-offering so much oil should be added. The priests, who, among the Hebrews, were persons of distinction bv birth, were accustomed to oil-pas- try; and a-s their entertainments were generally offering- feasts, the people thus became acquainted with it. Now. what people have once tasted as a luxury at a feast, and found savoury, or heard of as eaten bv the great, they begin first to imitate sparingly, and then, if they can, mere and more frequently in their daily meals. This was an infallible means to accustom the Israelites to oil pastry with which, whoever is once acquainted, will always pre- fer ii to that made with batter. Poi il the oil i good, it tastes much better; to which add, that as butter is very liable to spoil, it then communicates to pastry, ana every other sort of meat, a' disagreeable by-taste.— The worst faults in cookery arise from bad butter. This is a general maxim with our German housewives, particularly in Southern Germany. The natural consequences, then, of the use of oil-pastry, as now mentioned. Here, m the first place, that the olive-tree, which formed so principal a source of the riches of the new country of the Israelites, came to be more carefully cultivated, and thus its natural treasures properly improved; and, in the next place, that the people ai length losl their desire of returning back to Egypt. That in the tune of Moses, they often thought of Egypt wiih regret, and wen- even inclined to return to their ancient bondage, we know from Ins own accounts. Indeed, their penchant for this their ancient country was so strong and permanent, that he found it necessary to intro- duce into the fundamental and unalterable laws of the gov- ernment, as affecting the king, an expressordinanee.igainsi all return to Egypt, Deut. xvii. 10. No sooner, however, Mould the Israel He become rightly acquainted with the chief of nature's gills to his new country, and accustomed to the use of wine and oil, than his longing after a country, which produced neither, would totally cease. In fact, the object which the statutes, now considered, most probably had in view, was so completely attained, lhal, 1. Butter was entirely disused among the Israelites. In the whole Hebrew Bible, which contains so many other economical terms, we do not once find the word for battel ; for nMan, which in Job xx. 17. xxix. 6. Deut. xxxii. 11. Judg. v. 35. Isa. vii. 15, It'., 22, is commonly so translated, does not mean butler, but thick milk. It would therefore appear, that butter had been as rarely to be seen in Pale* tine, as it now is in Spain ; and that the people had made use of nothing but oil in their cookery, as being more de- licious. The reason why the LXX. have impropei Iv ren- dered it butler, was this; that their Greek version was made by Egyptian Jews, who, from the want of oil in their new country, were accustomed to the use of butter only. 2. From the time of Joshua until the destruction of their nezzar had destroyed Jerusalem, and when the remnant of the people no longer thought themselves secure against similar disasters within Palestine, that, contrary to the di- vine prohibition, the Jews took refuge in Egvpt, Jer. xlii. xliv. ; and when the kingdom of the len tribes was destroy- ed, and Samaria conquered by the Assyrians, many of the Israelites, as we must infer 'from Hosea, in' like manner withdrew thither. — Michjeus. Ver. 26. Moreover, ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl, or of beast, in any of your dwellings. With the prohibition of fat, we find in two passages (Lev. iii. 17, and vii. 2fi, 27.) another prohibition joined, that of eating blood; which, however, occurs also in Jive other passages, (Lev. xvii. 10 — 14. xix. 26. Deut. xii." lfi, 23, 24. xv. 23;) and was binding, not only on the Israelites themselves, but also on all foreigners living among them, under the penalty of death : Lev. xvii. 10. This unusually frequent recurrence of the prohibition, together with the punishment of extirpaiion from among the people, annexed to the transgression of it : and the denunciation of God's peculiar vengeance against every man who should eat blood, is quite sufficient to show, that the legislator mus have been more interested in this, than in the other prohi bitions relative to unclean meats, and likewise that the Israelites had had peculiar temptations to transgress it These we reallv should not have, were blood forbidden to us; and one should think that the person who had not, from infancy, eaten blood, would rather have an antipathy at it. Bloodpuddings. it is true, (like goose and hare,) boiled black, we eat with great relish; but I cannot reci ilecl to have found any person pre-eminently fend of them, but in the single case' of their being quite fresh ; and thai would be the precise case, in which, to a person not pieviouslv accustomed to eat them, they would at first be mist likely r:> LEVITICUS. Chap. 11. to cause sensations of abhorrence. Add to this, that blood- puddings of ox-blood are by no means so savaury, as ours made of swine's blood are ; which cannot, however, be here in question. For they have something of a mealy taste ; wh;ch, indeed, is very perceptible, when ox-blood is fraud- ulently mixed with swine's blood. The temptation, there- lore, which the Israelites had had to violate this law, must have proceeded from another cause, than from an appetite for blood ; and so much the more so, as the eating of blood would appear to have never been a custom of their ances- tors; for even the Arabs, who are descended from Abraham, do not eat blood; and Mohammed (as we have seen,) has forbidden them to taste of idol-olferings and blood of beasts strangled, torn, or dead, and of swine's flesh. But before I proceed to state the cause of this so remarkably rigid prohibition of blood, 1 hhim . !.-.-i \ ,-. i hat it only extended to the blood of quadrupeds and bads; for the blood of fishes was, on the contrary, pi rmi ted to be eaten ; Lev. vii. 26 xvii. 13. This point i, so clear, that even our modern Jews, who in most things overstretch the law of Moses, make no conscience of eating carp stewed in their own blood. I now come to notice the reason of this prohibition, which we find so urgently repeated. It is connected \\ nli one of the grand objects, which the Hebrew legislator always had in view, namely, the exclusion of all manner of idolatry from among his people. Eating of blood, or rather drinking it, was quite customary among the pagan nations of Asia, in their sacrifices to idols, and in the taking of oaths. This, indeed, was so much an Asiatic, and in a particular manner, a Phoenician usage, that we find the Roman writers taking notice of it, as something outlandish at Rome, and peculiar to these nations; and as in the Roman persecutions, the Christians were compelled to burn incense, so were they, in the Persian, to eat blood. In the West the one, and in the East the other, was re- garded as expressive of conversion to heathenism ; because both were idolatrous practices. It was for this very reason, that Moses now prohibited blood so rigidlv, and under the pain of death, not only among the Israelites themselves, but among all foreigners that lived within their land; and in order to render the prohibition the more sacred, and the more revered, bv connecting with it a moral implication, God declared, (Lev. xvii. 11—14,) Thai the Israelites, on account of the sins which thru dailu committed, and which could never he tullu opiated hn ■■/!'■ rings on the altar, owed to him all thehlood of the beasts whirl, then slaughtered, and were not to eat of it, because it was destined as an atonement for their sins. But for this very reason also, because it was'an idolatrous usage among the neighbouring nations, were the Israelites in the greater danger of being led, by eating blood, into idolatry, from their groat propensity to that universally-prevalent crime, and not from mere 'fondness for blood as a desirable article of food. In regard to man v other heathenish customs, Moses acted quite otherwise, oonsecrating, instead of prohibiting them, by commanding that they should be kept up, tinder an altered signification, in honour of the true God; but it is not to be wondered that he should not have done so with regard to the drink- ing of blood in sacrifices and oaths, but rather have forbidden the it-; ,,( i> altogether. The eating of blood is a matteroi tnt ifference hi a moral new, and, if not carried cient to kill him ; which others might also do from inad- vertence, or from superstitious zeai. This was sufficient reason to keep Moses irom making the drinking of blood a part of religious worship ; and this being the case, it was, as a heathen rite, on his principles, necessanly prohibited i. Nor need we, after this, be surprised ithe ill no m di: ■usi.m. an ape •h- l. and ml i blood ; and certainly religion should not sv. ., have the appearance of giving, anv such direction "to the manners of a nation. Add to this, that it is actually dangerous to drink blood; for if taken Warm, and in large quantity, it may prove fatal; particularly ox-blood, which, h'V coagulating in the stomach, causes convulsions and sudden death, and was with this view given to criminals in Greece, as a poisoned draught. It is true, the blood of other animals mav not always produce the same effects; hut still, if it is not in very small quantity, its effects will be hurtful. At anv rate, the custom of drinking blood in sacrifice, and in taking oaths, may, from imprudence, sometimes have the same offer;* which Valerius Maximums' ascribes to it, in the case of Themistocles; only that he purposely drank as much during a sacrifice, as was suffi- to find the eating of blood forbidden, not only in the Acts of the Apostles, (chap. xv. 20—29,) but also among the Arabs, and in the Koran, and classed with the olienngs made to idols : lor it actually was a part of idolatrous worship very common in the East. — Michaelis. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 2. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Those are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth. Of the laws relative to clean and unclean beasts, which are recorded in Lev. xi. and Deut. xiv., the following may, perhaps, serve as an abstract, sufficient lor a reader who has not to observe them, but means only to contemplate them philosophically. In regard to quadrupeds, Moses reduces the previous cus- toms of the Israelites, together with the additional ordi- nances which he found it necessary to make, into a very simple and natural system. According to him, All beasts that have their feet completely cloven, above as well as below, and at the same time chew the cud, are clean. Those which have neither, or indeed want one of these distinguishing marks, are unclean. That in so early an age of the worlcf, we should find a systematic divisional' quadrupeds so ex- cellent, as never yet, after all the improvements in natural history, to have become obsolete, but, on the contrary, to be still considered as useful by the greatest masters of the science, cannot but be, looked upon as truly wonderful. In the case of certain quadrupeds, however, a doubt may arise, whether they do fully divide the hoof, or ruminate. For example, whether the hare ruminates or not, is so un- decided, that if we put the question to any two sportsmen, we shall rarely receive the same answer. In such cases, to prevent difficulties, a legislator must authoritatively de- cide; by which I do not mean, that he is to piescribeto naturalists what their belief should be, but only to deter- mine, for the sake of expounders or judges of the'law, what animals are to be regarded as ruminating or parting the hoof. The camel ruminates, but whether it fully parts the hoof, is a question so undecided, that we do not, even in the Memoirs of the Academy of Paris, find a satisfactory answer to it on all points. ' The foot of the camel is actu- ally divided into two toes, and the division even below is complete, so that the animal might be accounted clean; but then it does not extend the whole length of the foot, but only to the forepart; for behind it is not parted, and we find, besides, under it, and connected with it, a ball on which the camel goes. Now, in this dubious state of cir- cumstances, Moses authoritatively declares, (Lev. xi. 4,) that the camel has not the hoof fully divided. It would ap- pear as if he had meant that this' animal, heretofore ac- counted clean by the Ishmaelites, Midianites, and all the rest of Abraham's Arabian descendants, should not be eaten by the Israelites; probably with a view to keep them, by this means, the more separate from these nations, with whom their connexion, and their coincidence in manners, was otherwise so close; and perhaps too, to prevent them from conceiving any desire to continue in Arabia, or to devote themselves again to their favourite occupation of wandering herdsmen. For in Arabia, a people will always be in an uncomfortable situation, if they dare not eat the Wi in like manner made a All that have scales and jn any systematic distr.DU i sorts as foi bidden, thereby i; but what the prohibited _ Of hints, without fo'umti: tion, he meirlv specifies cei permitting all oiiers to be e birds are, it is, from our ignorance of the language, in some instances impossible to ascertain; and the Jews, who still consider the Mosaic law as obligatory, are here placed in the awkward predicament of not understanding a statute which they have to observe, and of expounding it merely by guess. ' Insects, serpents, worms, &c. are prohibited; and Moses LEVITICUS. is especially lizards; which, of course, must have been eaten in some , I ti •- people i" the adjacent countiies; but concerning which. 1 must admit, thai 1 have not met with anv a. L'h'ere is, indeed, as we find I'rom llli — .[.(n i-.t '- 'li;i\. I- in rule-line, (tiuder the class 1 ,i I ,in. ■ -|iei i, - of lizard in thai country, viz. ilie <;, ,,. which is poi-oiious; mi nine -h so, thai us poi-on ■alls when it happens to he anions meal. This is not the ease wiih ihe poison of serpents, which i- only noxious in i wound, and may, as widl as the animals themselves, which are edible, lie safely taken into the stomaeh, if only I lie mouth be perfectly sound, and f ee from bloody spols. tnusl certainly uol have been eaten by anv of the neighb airing nations, and Mo-es had iherefoie o casioo to prolnliii n. Willi regard, however, to those ■ringed insects, which besides fenr walking leg , (Pedes saUatorii,) Moses makes an exception, and under the de- nomination ot locusts, declares them clean in all then foui -taures of exi- -euee, and under as many different degrees of iii Palestine, Arabia, and the adjoining coun- i.-es, locusts are one of the ino-t common articles of food. ana the people would be very ill off if they durst not eat them. Forwhena swarm of them desolates the fields, they prove, in some measure, themselves an antidote to the famine which they occasion; so much so, indeed, that poor 1 with anxiety to the arrival of a swarm .i - vichling t ln-iii sustenance without any trouble. They are not only eaten fresh, immediately on "their ap- but the people collect them, and know a method if preserving them for a long time for food, after (hey have ln«d them i i oven The law further prohibited Ihe touching the carcass of Any unclean beast, Lev. .\i. 8, 24, 25, 27, ft. This, how- ever, does noi mean that a carea-s was, in a literal sense, never lo be touched, (for then it must always have been in ihe way, and we shall see in the sequel that it was expressly ordered to be buried ;) but only, that the person who touch- ed it, was to be deemed unclean until the evening. To Grangers who dwelt among the Israelites, unclean beasts were not forbidden: for "certainly the legislator never thought of making his prohibition of certain meats a moral law, by which every man, of whatever nation, was to be bound to regulate hi- conduct. If his design in these sta- tutes was to separate the Israelites from other nations, it must have been his wi-h and intention to prohibit the for- mer from the use of those very meats which were eaten by the latter; and had the people in any of the surrounding countries deemed all such meats unclean, Moses would probably have given a set oflaws on this subject quite dif- ferent from those which he did give. WThen a commander gives hi- soldiers a cockade to distinguish Ihem from other troop-, he by no means wishes that everybody should in- discriminately wear it, but would rather have it taken from anv foreigner who should mount it. The law relative to clean and unclean beasts was never, not even under the i ; ienl, a precept of religion whichevery individual, to whatever nation he belonged, was bound to observe for the sake of his eternal salvation; it was only, if I may so term it, a cockade for the Israelites; but still one that they could not omit wearing without committing a trespass of a divine commandment; and indeed it was so firmly pinned upon them bv their earliest education, that it must certainly have been difficult for them ever to lay it aside. — Michaelis. Ver. 33. And every earthen vessel whereinto any of them fulleth, whatsoever is in it shall be un- clean ; and ve shall break it. This refers to any unclean or dead animal falling into or touching an earthen vessel. Most of the cooking uten- sils of the Hindoos are of earthen ware. Should an un- clean, or dead animal, or insect, touch or fall into them, they must be broken; Nay, should a person of low caste get a look at the cooking vessels of a Brahmin, or one of the Saiva sect, they will immediately be broken ; and no small poriion of abtrSe be poured upon the offending indi- vidual. Should an unfortunate dog, in his prowlings, find his way into ihe kitchen, and begin to lick the vessels, wo be to him ! for he will not onlv have hard words, but hard blows; and then follows the breaking of the vessels. On 10 Ver. 35. And? every thing whereupon any part of their carcass fulleth shall be unclean ; whither it be oven, or ranges for pots, they shall be broken down ; for they are unclean, and shall be unclean unto you. The scarcity of fuel in the East induces the people to be veiy lineal m using it. Rauwolff gives the following ac- eouiil of their management: "They make in iheir tents or houses a hole about a foot and a half deep, wherein they put their earthen pipkins or pots, with the meat in them, closed up, so that they are in the half above the middle. Three fourth parts thereof they lay about with -t the fourth part is left open, through which they fling in their dried dung, which burns immediately, and give- so great a heat that the pot groweth so hoi as if u had stood in the middle of a lighted coal heap, so that they boil their meat with a little fire, quicker ihan we do our- wilh a great one on our hearths." As the Israelites must have had as much occasion to be sparing of their fuel as any people, and especially when journeying in the wilderness, Mr Harmer considers this quotation as a more satisfactory commentary on this passage than any which has been giv- en.— Border. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 3. And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh : and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy : and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean. The leprosy, a contagious and dreadful disorder, which slowly consumes Ihe human body, which is common, par- ticularly in Egypt and Syria, but is also met with in other hot countries, generally manifests itself first in ihe manner described in the text. Peysonnel, a French physician, who was sent by his government, in the year 1756, to the island of Gaudaloupe, to examine the leprosy which had appeared there, writes in his report of 3d February, 1757, (in Michaelis Masaic Law, part iv. p. k->-!4 :) " The commence- ment of the leprosy is imperceptible ; there appear only a few dark reddish spots on the skin of the whiles; in the blacks they are of a coppery red. These spols are at first not attended with pain, or aliy other symptom, but they can- not be removed by any means. The disease increases im- perceptibly, and continues for some years lo be more and more manifest. The spots become larger, and spread in- discriminately over the skin of the whole body : they are rather raised, though fiat ; when "the disease I, the upper part of the nose swells, the nostrils dis- tend, and the nose itself becomes soft. Swellings appear on the jaw-bones, the eyebrows are elevated, the ears grow thick, the ends of the fingers, as well as the feet and toes, swell, the nails grow scaly, the joints on the hands and feet separate and die off; 'on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet there are deep dry ulcers, which rapid- ly increase, and then vanish again." In short, when the disease reaches its last stage, the patient becomes horrible, and falls to pieces. All these circumstances come on very slowly, for many years are often required before thev all occur; the patient has no severe pain, but he feels a kind of numbness in his hands and feet. These persons are not hindered, during the lime, in any of the functions of na- ture, they eat and drink as usual, and even when some of their fingers and toes die off, the loss of the member is Ihe only consequence, for the wound heals of itself without at- tention or medicine. But when the poor people reach this last period of the disease, they are horribly disfigured and most worthy of pity. It has been observed, that this dis- ease has other dreadful properties, such, in fact, that it is hereditary, and, therefore, some families are more afflicted with it than others; secondly, that it is infectious, and that it is propagated bv persons sleeping together, or even hav- ing long-continued intercourse ; thirdly, that it is incurable, or, at least, that no means to cure it have been discovered n LEVITICUS. A very well-grounded fear of being infected with this cruel disease, the difficulty of recognising the persons attacked with it, before the disorder has attained its height ; the length of time that it remains secret, from the care of the patients to conceal it; the uncertainty of the symptoms at the beginning, which should distinguish it from other dis- orders, excited extraordinary claiu^ among all the inhabit- ants of this island. They were suspicious of each, because / virtue and rank were no protection agair.-5t this cruel scourge. They called this disease the leprosy, and pre- sented to the commander and governor several petitions, in which they represented all the above circumstances ; the general food, the uneasiness caused in this newlv-settled country ; the inconveniences and the hatred which'such in- culpations produced among them ; the laws which had been made against lepers, and their exclusion from civil society. They demanded a general inspection of all those who were suspected of having this disease, in order that those who were found to be. infected might be removed into a particular hospital, or some separate place." All that these people required, and which was also granted them, we find to be prescribed in the laws relative to the leprosy, contained in the thirteenth chapter. — Rosenmuller. Ver. 38. If a man also or a woman have in the skin of their flesh bright spots, even white bright spots ; 39. Then the priest shall look : and, be- hold, i/ the bright spots in the skin of their flesh be darkish white : it is a freckled spot that groweth in the skin : he is clean.t The Hebrew word here translated " freckled spot," is Bohak, and the Arabs still use the same word to denote a kind of leprosy, of which Niebuhr savs, " Bohak is neither contagious no'r dangerous. A black boy at Mocha, who was. affected with this eruption, had here and there on his body while spots. We lieved this boy for /ere told that the use of sulphur or a time, but had not entirely had removed the disease." He adds, subsequently, from For's- kaVs papers, the following particulars: "On the 15th of May, 1765, I myself first saw the eruption called bohak in a Jew at Mocha. The spots of this eruption are of unequal size; they do not shine, are imperceptibly higher than the skin, and do not change the colour of the hair. Their colour is a dirty white, or rather reddish. The rest of the skin of the patient I saw was darker than the inhabitants of the country usually were, but the spots were not so white as the skin of a European when it is not tanned by the sun. The spots of this eruption do not appear on the' hands or near the navel, but on the neck and face, yet not that part of the face where the hair grows thick. They spread gradually. Sometimes they remain only two months, sometimes one or two years, and go away by degrees of themselves. This disorder is neither contagious nor he- reditary, and does not cause any bodily inconvenience." Hence it appears why a person a'ffected'with the bohak is declared in the above law not to be unclean.— Rosen- muller. Ver. 45. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and ho shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. Thf prophet Ezekiel, in reference to the death oMvis wife, was ordered not to " cry," neither to cover the lips ; (the margin has, " upper lip.") The prophet Micah (iii. 7) describes the confusion and sorrow of those who had by their wickedness offended the Lord. " Then shall the seers be ashamed, anfl the diviners confounded : vea, they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer of God." Margin again has, " upper lip." All these passages refer to the sorrow of those concerned. A person in deep distress puts his hand over his mouth, and hangs down his head, as if looking on the ground. When a man suddenly claps his hand on his mouth, it denotes great sorrow or surprise. To put the fingers in a line with the no->\ ci.nveys the idea of silence and submission. "Why is youi hand on your mouth. T— " Not for joy." "But why V— " Mv son, my son, my wicked son ! He has gone with the evil ones to the distant country." " Ah, friend, why is your hand there 1" — " Alas, the tigers got among my cattle last night, and great is the slaughter." " The king is angry with Raman — his hand is now on his mouth." l: I mav well put Ver. 47. The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, rohether it be a woollen garment, or a linen garment ; 48. Whether it be in the the warp, or woof, of linen, or of woollen, whether in a skin, or in any thing made of skin; 49. And if the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin-; it is a plague of leprosy, and shall be showed unto the priest: 50. And the, priest shall look upon the plague, and shut up it that hath the plague seven days. The two statutes of Moses relative to the leprosy of clothes and houses, may appear to us at first view very strange, because in Europe we have never heard of any such leprosy, and the name immediately suggests to us the idea of something akin to human leprosy. Learned men who write upon the Bible in their closets,' sometimes know nothing but hooks; being quite unacquainted with nature, and often with their own houses, m which, perha] s, the Mosaic leprosy may actually be ; and they are too much wrapped up in'themselves to think of asking: the unlearned about such things. Perhaps the leprosy in question does not, properly speaking, fall to be treated under the present head, but under the statutes of police respecting buildings, manufactures, and clothes. Here, however, it will be looked for; and although it were not, I must nevertheless offer some general remarks on both the laws given by Mo- ses respecting it, which would lose their effect, were I to separate the one from the other. In the Jirsi place then, when we hear of the leprosy of clothes and houses, we must not be so simple as to imagine it the very same disease which is termed leprosy in man. Men, clothes, and stones, have not the same sort of diseases ; but the names of hu- man diseases are, by analogy, or as the grammarian terms it, by a figure of speech, applied to the disea.^esof other things. In Berne, for instance, they speak of the cancer of build- ings, but then that is not the distemper so called in the hu- man body. The cancer of buildings, is with equal proprie- ty a Swiss, as the leprosi/ <>l hviljin^s is a Hebrew, expres- sion. The late Dr. Forskal wrote me from Egypt, that two sorts of diseases of certain trees proceeding from in- sects, are there termed leprosy ; but I do not print the words of his letter, because I am aware that a fuller account of this matter will be found in the Diary of his Travels, which is very soon to be published, and which I should not wi-h to anticipate. Hasselquist likewise, has, in p. 221 c( his Travels in the Holy Land, spoken of a leprosy in the fig- trees. In the second place, although Moses gives laws relative to the leprosy in clothes and houses, we must not imagine, considering that he lets not fall a single word on the -ul>- ject, that any such leprosy could infect man. Of this Mo- ses is so far from being afraid, that we find him. on the contrarv.when a house lies under the suspicion of leprosy, commanding all the articles of furniture to be removed oil of it, previous to its inspection, that The priest may not be obliged to pronounce them unclean. If there adhered tc the walls anv poisonous matter that could pa<-s to lir.mar beings, and infect them. with leprosy, this would be a ven strange injunction indeed. Let us only conceive, in the case of a house infected with the plague, orders gm n tc bring out every article within it previous to its being exam ined, that it might not be declared infected. What else would the consequence be, than the 3irect propagation ol the infection 1 It would be the ven' same, though in a less degree, if the house-leprosy infected man. But will those who have alreadv any knowledge of Moses as a legislator, suppose him capable of committing such an oversight 1. The leprosy of clothes is described in Lev. xiii.47 — 59, as consis ing of green or reddish spots that remain in spite of washing,'' and still spread ; and by which the cloth become." Chap. 14. bald, or bare, sometimes on the one side, sometimes on the other. This Moses terms dropping n losing the hair; that is, if we are to rive the literal truth of the Hebrew text, in a ii have itsdilhcul.iesloamanofleaiiiiiig, if he knew nothing of the manufacture of woollen. These symptoms too, of leprosy .are said to be found sometimes only in the warp, and at other limes only in the woof. To a per- son who has nothing to do with the manufactures of woollen, linen, or leather, but with books only, this must doulu less be ii. at most, he will be led to think of specks of rot- tiiiM.-s.biit still without being rightly satisfied, lhave not been able to obiain complete information on this subject ; but in regard to wool, and woollen stuffs, I h:ive consulted i ■ . . .1 ■ ■. i.nooi I lanover; and he informs me, that what he has read in my German Bible, at this passage, will be found to bold good, at any rale with regard to woollen articles; and that it proceeds from what is called dead wool, that is, the wool of sheep that have died .. di I e not bj the knife; that such wool, if the disease has been but of short duration, is not altogether useless, but in a -In , i ; : i . i ■ hi been 1 1 ■,' . i iseased, becomes extremely bad, and loses the points; and that, according to the estab- lished usage of honest manufacturers, it is unfair to man-' ufacture (tend wool into any article worn by man ; because vermin are so apt to establish themselves in it, particular- ly when u is worn close to the body and warmed thereby. When I told him, that in the countries, with a view to which 1 questioned him, the people, for want of linen and from poverty, had always worn, and still wear, woollen studs next the skin, he stated it as his opinion that there the disagreeable effect just mentioned, must take place in a still higher degree than in countries where, according to our German fashion, which would there be a luxury, a linen shirt is worn between the woollen cloihes and the body. He added, that dead wool was usually manufactur- ed into sacks and horse-cloths ; and he expressed his wish for a statute, in the style of Moses, which should discour- age the use of dead wool, or inflict a punishment on those who either sold it, or knowingly manufactured it into hu- man ^lothing.— I am likewise informed by Hamburghers, that in their neighbourhood, many frauds are committed with dead wool, from its being sold for good wool ; in con- sequence of which, the stuflVmade of it not only become very soon bare, but full first of little depressions, and then of holes. These accounts serve to render this law pretty intelligi- ble, as far as regards wool and woollen studs. We see how the disease may appear sometimes only in the warp, and sometimes only in the woof, from good wool being used for the one, and dead wool for the other. Whether "this dead wool will, in process of time, infect good wool, I do not know; but to bring into complete discredit and disuse, stuffs, which so soon become threadbare, and burst out in holes, and at the same time so readily shelter vermin, al- though they cannot proceed from the wool itself, but only find it a very suitable breeding-place, unquestionably be- comes the duty of legislative policy. How this end could be attained, without destroying stuffs thus manufactured contrary to law, our present system of police can scarcely conceive; and in that early age of the world, when every thing was yet in its infancy, — when merchants were not so knowing as now, — and when among the petty independent tribes, there was no police established for manufactures, nor any boards of inspection, the trick of using dead wool was probably more frequent than at present ; while yet the cause of its effects was but imperfectly known; and these effects in those climates must have been still worse than with us, particularly in Egypt, which breeds such abun- dance of vermin. The best remedy was, in the language Of Moses, to destroy the leprous article: for that would soon make every, one careful to manufacture nothing either for himself, or fofeale, that might be pronounced leprous ; and people would soon observe where the fault lay, when they were losers, and found no sale for their goods, in conse- quence of former purchasers having suffered by them. The prohibition of dead wool, although the legislator be ever so fully satisfied that it is entirely to blame for the ef- fects in question, is not sufficient of itself; for it will still be privately manufactured and then denied, particularly where there is no board of survey. But where the stuff, in which leprous symptoms make their appearance, is destroy- ed in spite of the owner, every one will become attentive LEVITICUS. 75 to guard against such a loss. Moses therefore enjoined, first, that the place on which there were mark: c that no washing could obliterate, should be torn out ; and then, if the leprosy- slill recurred a second time, that the whole piece should be burnt. Willi regard to leather and linen, 1 can say nothing with historical certainty ; because I know no great wholesale manufacturer or merchant in either line, and 1 do not choose to trouble my reader with conjectures, because they may oeeur to himself, just as well as to me. Perhaps, however, my book may find some readers better acquainted whh such persons tlian 1 can be here in Gotlingen, and who may hereafter communicate with me on the subject; for which purpose, 1 particularly request ihe alleniioii of my renders in Holland, where 1 am inclined to think the best radges may be found. Now that the origin of the evil has been traced in wool, there will be no great difficulty in carrying on tin' investigation further. Only I must deprecate closet-accounts, and learned con- jectures. It is only from those who arc acquainted with the manufacture or sale of linen, leather, and furriery, on a large scale, that I look for any useful information. — Mi- CHAELIS. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 4. Then shall the priest command to take for hint that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. Interpreters have not been able to determine in what pa Us of s, | jjiiure, the Hebrew term (-«8s) tsippor, ought to be translated sparrow. Some suppose that Moses intends this bird in the law concerning the purification of the lep- rosy: "Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds alive." One of these birds was to be killed over running water; and the living bird, after certain ceremonies described in the law, was ordered to be let loose into the open field. The same ceremonies were commanded to be observed in cleansing the leprous house. Jerome and many succeeding interpreters, render the word cni£s used in the law, sparrows. But it is evident from an attentive perusal of the fourth verse, that it signi- fies birds in general. " Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds alive and clean." Now, if the sparrow was a clean bird, there could be no use in commanding a clean one to be taken, since every one of the species was ceremonially clean ; bui if it was unclean by law, then it could not be called clean. The term here must therefore signify birds in general, of w hich some were ceremonially clean, and some unclean ; which rendered the specification in the command, proper anrt necessary. From the terms of the law it appears, that any species of clean birds might be taken on such occasions. domestic or wild ; provided only they were clean, and the use of them conceded by the laws of Moses to the people. — PiXTON. Ver. 33. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 34. When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land ofyonr possession : 35. And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house. The house-leprosy is said in Lev. xiv. 3:i — 57, to eon.-ist of greenish or reddish dimples, which appear on the walls, and continually spread wider and wider; and its nature would probably have been understood long ago, but lot the prevalence of the notion of its being a disease communica- ble to man, which notion arose from taking the wool lepro- sy in too literal a sense. The bare description of n given by Moses is so clear, that, I have known more than one example of children, who, shortly after reading it, having had occasion to go into the cellar, where, with terror, thev thought they had observed it on the walls, on their return, described it distinctly or figuratively to their parents, and were laughed at for their pains. Laughed at they certainly ought not to have been, but instructed. Their acute vision 76 LEVITICUS. Chap. 14 had shown them what many a learned man has in vain sought to find out. In short, what we usually term the Salt- petre, tha. appears on walls, has much the same symptoms as the Mosaic house-leprosy, and is at the same time attend- ed with such noxious efl'ects as require the attention of a well-regulated police. I expressed this idea first in my 12th Question to the Arabian Travellers; but I did so very briefly, and as addressing men of sense and skill. I have riot yet, however, received any answer, because Forskal, the person to whose province the question belonged, is dead, and his journal is not yet printed. The oftener, how- ever, I consider the matter, I am the more impressed with the probability of this idea being the true one, and here is the place to expatiate more fully upon it. Our walls and houses are often attacked with something that corrodes and consumes them, and which we commonly denominate Saltpetre. Its appearances are nearly as Moses describes them, only that we seldom find the spots greenish or red- dish, although I think I have met with them of the latter colour. As, however, I cannot exactly recollect where, I must appeal to the testimony of Mr. Professor Bekmann, who, on my asking him, informed me that he had seen an instance of reddish ones at Lubeck. With us, this disease of walls is most frequently found in cellars, but it also as- cends into the higher parts of buildings, particularly in the case of a privy being directly under the wall, or where any other sort of filth can affect it. In my native city, Halle, it is extremely common, because the soil of all the country 'around is full of what is called saltpetre ; which is scraped oil" from the turf walls of the cottages, by people who make it their business to collect it. Properly" speaking, it is not saltpetre, but it contains the acid from which saltpetre is prepared. Wherever any part of these walls, that is preg- nant with this substance, is suffered to remain, it always effloresces anew ; and such parts the collectors take care to leave, when they repair the cottages with new earth, that after a few years they may find a fresh crop on the walls. But I have never seen" it to such a degree as at Eisleben, in the church in which Luther was baptized. In the year 1757, I observed, on the left side of the choir of that" church, a gravestone, I think ( f marble, and dated in the present century, in which the inscription, though deeply cut, was m many places, by reason of numberless dimples, scarcely legible, while I read with perfect ease o'her two inscriptions, four times as old. On my asking the sexton the reason of this, he said, the saltpetre had come into the stone, and told me a great deal more about it, which I did not sufficiently attend to, because I had no idea of its ever being useful to me in explaining the Bible. In Bern, Mr. Apothecary Andrea heard the people complain of a disease that in an especial manner attacked sandstone, so as to make it exfoliate, and become as it were cancerous. They call it the Gall, and, in like manner, ascribe it to the saltpetre contained in the stone. The Society of Natural- ists at Dantzig some time ago proposed a prize question on the Causes of Ihe Ikst rurt i re Corrosion of Walls bu Saltpetre, and on the Means, not only of 'preventing it in Xar Buildings, but of curing it in, Old. It was answered, among others, by Mr. Pastor Luther, who ob:ained the prize : but his essay, although, as the best, it might meiit that distinction, has nevertheless given but little 'satisfaction to those who are versed in the subject, and particularly to Mr. Professor Bekmann, as we see from the third volume of his Physical and (Economical Library, p. 574. It is not, properly speaking, saltpetre that is in these walls and buildings, but" an acid of nitre, from which, by the ad- dition of a fixed alkali, we can make saltpetre. But the disease is likewise owing sometimes to other acids, to the acid of sea-salt, for instance, as Professor Bekmann informs me ; and, from other experiments, Mr. Andrea has found the component parts of the efflorescence, to approach very near to those of Epsom salt, that is, vitriolic acid and mag- nesia.—See Bekmann's Biblioth. above quoted, vol. iv. p. 250. The detrimental effects of this efflorescence in walls, or, if I may use the common name, of this saltpetre, are the following: — 1. The walls become mouldy, and that to such a degree, as, in consequence of the corrosion spreading farther and farther, at least to occasion their tumbling down. Perhaps, however, this, at least in most parts of Germany, is the most tolerable evil attending the disease ; for it is certain, lhat many houses affected with it last to a great age ; only that the plaster of them requires very frequent repairing, because the lime with which they are coaled, blisters, astl is called, that is, detaches ilsel* from the wall, swells, and then falls oft'. I myself lived in a house at Halle, that was more than a hundred years old, and may probably stand a hundred years longer; in which, nevertheless, the saltpe- tre had on one side, at a period beyond all remembrance, penetrated as far as the second story. The walls, however! were from three to four feel thick, and really of excellent stone; for which, indeed, Halle is remarkable. In other -places, this evil may no doubt be more serious ; and I very- much suspect, that such may have been the case in the damp parts of Egypt, where the Israelites dwelt. When I figure to myself those marshes, which the Greeks called Bucolia, at the mouth of the Nile, and the great quantity of saltpetre, or at any rate, of salt akin thereto, which Egypt produces, I cannot help thinking, that the saltpetre in build- ings, must have been much more destructive there, than with us. Only our travellers very seldom go into the mar- shy districts, but rather to Alexandria, Cairo, and along the Nile as far as Assouan, where the soil is quite different ; and, of course, we can expect from them no information relative to the matter. Even the way along the coast, from Damietta to Alexandria, of which Abulfeda gives such a beautiful description, is, as far as I recollect, described by- no other traveller. As my work has had the good fortune to find numerous readers' in Holland, of whom, perhaps, some have it in their pow-er to obtain more particular in- formation concerning those parts, I have to request, that they will take some pains for that purpose, and have the goodness to communicate to me whatever accounts they may procure, that are authentic, and illustrative of the subject. 2. Many things that lie near walls affected with saltpetre, thereby suffer damage, and are spoiled. I have myself seen gnat piles of books nearly ruined from this cause, and it is the same with other articles that cannot bear dampness, and acids. The loss here may often be greater and more considerable, than by the slow-decay of the building itself; for il shows itself veiy perceptibly in the course of a few- years, by rendering such articles often perfectly useless. 3. If the saltpetre be strong in those apartments wherein people live, it is pernicious'to health, particularly where they sleep close to the wall. Of this, I had long ago a general notion, at Halle, from observing that such apart- ments were not usually inhabited ; but Professor Bekmann has just informed me of a remarkable case of a person, who, bv occupying a room infected by saltpetre, was seized with (Salzflussr) saline drjluctions, which the physicians ascribed to'the apartment alone. This unfortunate patient, who could not procure himself any better abode, he had often visited in company with a physician, whose attend- ance he had procured for him. Those people among us, who are in good circumstances, or not quite poor, may- avoid the effects of the saltpetre corrosion, which seldom ascends higher than the lowest story, by living in the sec- ond floor, which is not so apt to be affected by it, and using the ground-floor for kitchen, waiting-parlour, &c. &c. But in a country where there was but little knowledge of archi- tecture, and where they were obliged to be satisfied, in general, with houses of but one story, the pernicious effects of the house-leprosy could not be thiis averted. The consideration of these circumstances will render the Mosaic ordinances on this subject easily intelligible. Their object was to check the evil in the very bud ; to extirpate it while it was yet extirpable, by making every one, from the loss to which it would subject him, careful, to prevent his house from becoming affected with leprosy, which he could easily be, where the houses had no damp stone cellars below ground; and thus also, to place not only himself in perfect security, but his neighbours also, who might very reasonably dread having their houses contaminated by the infection. For this purpose, Moses proceeded in the following manner : — 1. In the first place, he ordained that the owner of a house, when anv suspicious spots or dimples appeared on the walls, should be bound to give notice of it, in order that the house might be inspected by a person of skill ; and that person, as in the case of human leprosy, was to be the priest, whose dnty it was to apply himself to Ihe study of such things. Now this would serve to check the mischief in its very origin, and to make every one attentive to ob- Chap. 16. LEVITICUS. serve it. If we had any such regulations in onr newly- founded cities, it is probable thai the saltpetre would never acquire sue h .1 footing as it does. The cause of its estab- lisluni'iil ;tm v. h.Ti- v, . m 1. 1 soon be. discovered and roinov- eil, instead of its being', as it now is, in our cities, suffered to increase to such a degree as to vitiate the whole atmo- sphers, ■J. On notice being given, the priest was to inspect the boose, luit the occupant had lil.ru., m i.-m.ne every thing previously out of it ; and that this might be done, the priest was empowered to older U ex officio; for whatever was found within a bouse declared unclean, became unclean along with it. Thus much is clear, that the legislator did not suppose that the furniture of an infected house could contaminate any other place, else would he not have al- lowed its removal, while the matter was doubtful ; but here firobably he yielded to the fears of the people, (as every egislator should do in such cases, instead of saying. There can be no infcdion here, anil lie must belieee so ; for the dread of infection, whethcrwell founded or not, is an evil against which we are fain to be secure ; and if a legislator neglects to make us so, we will either take forcible measures to ef- fect security, or else take fright, and shut ourselves up :) or perhaps he only meant to compel the possessor of a house, to a more honest intimation of the veiy first suspi- cious symptoms of the evil. For if he gave no such inti- mation', and his house, on being broke into, either at the re- quest of a neighbour, or any other informer, interested in making a discovery, happened to be found unclean, its whole contents became unclean of course. 3. If, on the first inspection, the complaint did not ap- pear wholly without foundation, but suspicious spots or dimples weie actually lo be seen, the house was to continue shut up for eight days, and then to be inspected anew. If, in this interval, the evil did not spread, it was considered as having been a circumstance merely accidental, and I lie house was not polluted ; but if it had spread, it was not ac- counted a harmless accident, but the real house-leprosy ; and the stones affected with it, were to be broken out of the wall, and carried to an unclean place without the citv ; and the walls of the whole house were scraped and plaster- , ed anew. These are the very same things that must be done at this day, if we want to clear a house of the saltpe- tre-evil. The stone or spot which produces it, must be ab- solutely removed: and the scraping, and fresh plastering, is also 'necessary ; for it is in the very lime that the saltpe- tre, (or, to speak more properly, the acid of nitre,') estab- lishes itself most firmly. In our large buildings, indeed, it is not just necessary to new-plaster the whole house ; but the houses of the Hebrews were very small ; and even the temple of Solomon itself, built some centuries posterior to the rime of Moses, notwithstanding all the fame of its mag- nificence, was by no means nearly so large as many a house inGottingeti; although certainly we cannot boast of palaces, and have onlv good bourgeois houses. 4. If, after 'this, the leprosy broke out afresh, the whole house was to be pulled down, and the materials carried to an unclean place without the city. Moses, therefore, it would appear, never suffered a leprous house to stand. The injury which such houses might do to the health of the inhabitants, or to the articles they contained, was of more consequence in his estimation, than the buildings them- selves. Those to whom this appears strange, and who la- ment the fate of a house pulled down by legal authority, probably think of large and magnificent houses like ours, of many stories high, which cost a great deal of money, and in the second storv of which, the people are generally se- cure from all danger of the saltpetre; but I have already mentioned, that the houses of those days were low, and of very little value. 5. If, on the other hand, the house, being inspected a se;ond time, was found clean, it was solemnly so declared, and an offering made on the occasion ; in order that even* one might know for certain, that it was not infected, and the public he freed from all fears on that score. By this law many evils were actually prevented, — the spreading of the saltpetre-infection, and even i'sbeginning; for the people would guard against those impurities whence it arose, from its being so strictly inquired into ; — the dan- ger of their allowing their property or their health to suf- fer in an infected house, from mere carelessness; — thedif- Sculty of making (amoqg the Hebrews it would have been, their slaves, but among us it would be) our hired servants, or perhaps our children's preceptor, occupy an infected that was fot I iher use, and sleep close to an unwholi some wall. With such a law, no man can have ;m\ jiM ground of dissatisfaction ; and we might nt all events ask, why w haw 11 601 pal m force in newly-built Cities 1 It is certainly vrrv singular, that in this country, or, at any rate, in some places of it, we have a law, which is a most complete counterpart to it. No doubt our btmse- leprosy is not attended with the same evils as it was among the Hebrews, by reason of the change of circumstances, and because tne saltpetre, being necessary for the manu- facture of gunpowder, is often scraped off; and herein we have a strong example of the diversity occasioned in legis- lative policy^ by difference of time and climate. We have occasion for great quantities of saltpetre, in consequence of the invention of gunpowder; and, as in some parts of Ger- many where the soil abounds w ith it, such as the circle of the Saal", in the diitchy of Magdeburg, the cottages of the peas- ants have, from t'ime immemorial, had their walls built only of earth, in which, bv reason of that want of cleanli- ness, in many respects, which prevails in country villages, the saltpetre establishes itself, and effloresces j there is an ancient consuetudinary law, that the collectors of this sub- stance may scrape it off; which they can do without any damage whatever to (he houses; only they take care never to scrape it off to the very roots, nor dare the occupants of the houses extirpate it altogether. The walls are so thick, and so often cleaned by this operation, that, for my part at least, I never heard that the health of the people was affect- ed by the saltpetre; and in the houses themselves, though inhabited by very substantial tenants, there is not much to spoil. — At the same time, I should be glad to be more fully informed by any physician of that country, whether he had ever traced any pernicious effects to the cause in question 1 — MlCHJELlS. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 10. But the print on which the lot fell to be the scape-goat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scape-goat. When a person is sick he vows on his recovery to set a goat at liberty, in honour of his deity. Having selected a suitable one from his flocks, he makes a slit in the ear, or ties a yellow string round its neck, and lets it go whitherso- ever it pleases. Whoever sees the animal knows it to be a Nate-kadi, the vowed goat, and no person will molest it. Sometimes two goats are thus made sacred; but one of them will be offered soon, and the other kept for a fvtvre sacrifice. But it is not merely in time of sickness that they have recourse to this practice: for does a man wish to procure a situation, he makes a similar vow. Has a per- son heard that there are treasures concealed in any place, he vows to Virava (should he find the prize) to set a goat at liberty, in honour of his name. When a person has committed what he considers a great sin, he does the same thing ; but in addition to other ceremonies, he sprinkles the animal with water, puts his hands upon it, and prays to be forgiven.— Roberts. The Aswamedha Jug is an ancient Indian custom, in which a horse was brought and sacrificed, with some rites similar to those prescribed in the Mosaic law. " The horse so sacrificed is in place of the sacrificer, bears his sins with him into the wilderness, into which he is turned adrift, (for, from this particular instance, it seems that the sacrificing knife was not always emnloved.) and becomes the expiatory vict' .1 of those sins." Mr. Halhed observes, that this ceremony reminds us of the scapc-soat of the Israelites; and indeed it is not the onlv one in which a particular coincidence between the Hindoo and Mosaic systems of theology may be traced. To this account may be subjoined a narrative in some measure similar from Mr. Brnce. "We found, that upon some dissension, the garrison and townsmen had been fighting for several days, in which disorders the greatest part of the ammunition 'in the town had been expended, but it had since been agreed on bv the old men of both parties, that nobody had been to blame on either side, but the whole wrong was the woik of a camel. A eamtl, therefore, was seized, and brought leilhovt, the tenrn, and there a number on both sides ha\ >ng 78 LEVITICUS. Chap. 17, 18 met, they upbraided the camel with every tiling that had been either said or done. The camel had killed men ; he had threatened to set the town on fire; the camel had threatened to burn the aga's house and the castle; he had cursed the grand seignior and the sheriff of Mecca, the sovereigns of the two parties; and, the onlv thing the poor animal was interested in, he had threatened to destroy the wheat that was going to Mecca. After having spent great part of the afternoon in upbraiding the camel, whose mea- sure of iniquity, it seems, was near full, each man thrust him through with a lance, devoting him diis manibus et diris, by a kind of prayer, and with a thousand curses upon his head, after which every man retired, fully satisfied as to the wrongs he had received faun the camel!" — T CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 7. And they shall no more offer their sacri- fices unto devils, after whom they have gone a-whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations. The Hebrew w-ord Seirim, here translated devils, (field devils,) properly signifies woolly, hairy, in general; whence it is used as well for he-goats, as also for certain fabulous beings or sylvan gods, to whom, as to the satyrs, the popu- lar belief ascribed the form of goats. But, in the abdVe passage, he-goals are probably meant, which were ob- jects of divine honour among the Egyptians, under the name of Mcndcs, as emblems of the fructifying power of nature, or of the fructifying power of the sun. "From this divinity, which the Greeks compared with their Pan, a province in Egypt had its name. Goats and he-goats, says Herodotus, are not slaughtered by the Egyptians whom we have mentioned, because they consider Pan as one of the oldest gods. But painters as well as statuaries represent this deity with the face and the legs of a goat, as the Gref ks used to represent Pan. The Mandescans pav divine honour to he-goats and she-goats ; but more to the former than to I he latter. — Rosenmuller. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 6. None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, (Heb. remnant of flesh.) to uncover their nakedness. In his statutes relative to marriage, and sometimes, also, in other parts of his law, Moses expresses near relationship, either by the single word, ik», (Sheer) pars, scil. carnis, or more fully by the two words, i»a -m, Sheer-basar, pars carnis, (part or remainder of flesh.) The meaning of these terms has been the subject of much controversy. Some would translate them flesh offesh ; others, remnant of flesh. But those that say most of their etymology, are in general not so much oriental philologists, as divines and lawvers; and yet we should rather like to have an illustration of any obscure etymological question, from those who unite with the knowledge of Hebrew, an acquaintance with its kin- dred eastern languages. There are some also, who would .make this, distinction between Sheer, and Shecr-basar, that the former means only persons immediatelii connected with us, such as children, parents, grandchildren, grandparents, and husbands or wires ; and the latter, those who are related to us only mediately, but in the nearest degree, such as, our brothers and sisters, who are, properly speaking, our father's flesh. Others again think, that Shecr-basar means nothing but children and grandchildren. These conjectures, how- ever, are by no means consonant to the real usage of the language, in the Mosaic laws themselves ; for in Levit. xxv. 48, 49, Sheer-basar follows as the name of a more remote relation, after brother, paternal uncle, or paternal uncle's son ; and in Num. xxvii. 8—11, it is commanded, that " if a man die without sons, his inheritance shall be given to his daughters; if he 'have no daughters, it shall pass to his brothers, of whom, if he has none, then to his paternal uncles; and if these are also wanting, it shall then be given unto his nearest Sheer in his family." It is manifest that, in this passage, Sheer includes 'those relations that follow in succession to a father's brotner. If the reader wishes to know what these words etymological ly signify, I shall here just state to him my opinion, but with- iiut repeating the grounds on which it rests. Sheer means, 1. a remnant; 2. the remnant of a meal; 3. a piece of any thing eatable, such as flesh ; 4. a piece of any thing in gen- eral. Hence we find it subsequently transferred" to rela- tionship in the Arabic language; ir. which, though with a slight orthographical variation, that nearest relation it- called Tatr or Thsair, whom the Hebrews denominate Goel. In this way, Sheer, even by itself, would signify i relation.— Basar, commonly rendered flesh, is among th- Hebrews equivalent to body ; and may thence have been applied to signify relationship. Thus, thou art my flesh, or body, (Gen. xxix. 14,) means, thou art my near 'kinsman When both words are put together, Shecr-basar, thev may be rendered literally, corporeal relation, or by a half He brew phrase, kinsman after the flesh. In their derivation, there are no further mysteries concealed, nor any thing that can bring the point in question to a decision ; ami what marriages Moses has permitted or commanded, we cannot ascertain from Sheer-basar, frequent and extensive as is its use in his marriage-laws : but must determine, from his own ordinances, in which he distinellv mentions what Sheer-basar, that is, what relations, are forbidden to marry. — Michaelis. Ver. 16. Thou shalt not uncover the' nakedness of thy brother's wife : it is thy brother's naked- ness. 1 8. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, be- sides the other in her life-time. With regard to the marriages mentioned in this chapter, there arises the question, whether Moses onlyprohibits the marriages which he expressly mentions, or others besides, not mentioned, where the degree of relationship is the same 1 This question, which is of so great importance in the mar- riage laws of Christian nations, and which, from our im- perfect knowledge of oriental customs, has been the sub- ject of so much controversy, properly regards the following marriages never mentioned by Moses, viz. 1. With a brother's daughter. 2. With a sister's daughter. 3. With a maternal uncle's widow. 4. With a brother's son's widow. 5. With a sister's son's widow. 6. With a deceased wife's sister. These marriages we may, perhaps, for brevity's sake, be allowed to denominate the six marriages, or the consequen- tial marriages. They are as near as those mentioned in fhe foregoing article, and prohibited. Moses never men- tions them in his marriage statutes; yet the ground of bis prohibitions is nearness of relationship. The question, therefore, is, Are these marriages to be, or not to be, con- sidered as prohibited, by just inference from the letter of his laws I In my opinion, they are not; and in proving this. 1 will most willingly concede to those of a contrary opinion, a multitude of objections against their consequences, as de- duced from the letter of the Mosaic statutes ; such, for in- stance, as this, that accordiirg to the principle of judicial hcrmcncutics, prohibitions arc not to be extended beyond the letter of the law ; for I readily acknowledge that this rule, how valid soever in our law, is nevertheless not universal and not always safely applicable to very ancient laws, if we wish to ascertain the true meaning and opinion of the law- giver: Or this, again, that in these maninges there is no violation of Respect ns paccnlrlce ; for I have already admit- ted that that principle, to which the Roman lawyers appeal, was not the foundation of the Mosaic prohibitions. I will go yet one step further in courtesy, and promise to appeal on no occasion whatever to the common opinion of the Jews, or to those examples of ancient Jewish usage, whereby the marriages here mentioned are permitted; for all the Jewish expositors, and all the examples they can produce, are much too modern for me to found upon, where the question is concerning the true meaning of a law given some hun- dred, or rather thousand years before them. So much generosity on my part, many readers would, perhaps, not have anticipated ; but I owe nothing less to impartiality, and the love of truth. My reasons, then, for denying, arid protesting against the conclusions in question, a.'* ii ;d) lowing: — 1. Moses does not appear to have framed or given hi? I marriage laws with any view to our deducing, or acting Chap. 10, 20 LEVITICUS. 7 0 upon, conclusions which we might think fit to dcdncefrom them: tot if this was his view, hehasmadeseveralrepetitions in them, '1m' ii iv i .-.i 1 1 \ ii'iv useless. What reason bad he, for example, after forbidding man mge with a father's sis- ter, to forbid ii also with a mother's, if this second prohibi- tion was included in the first, and if he meant, without say- ing a word on the subject, to be understood as speaking, not of particular marriages, but of degrees! 9. Mo.e- ha- en en Ins marriage laws m two do,, inn places oi the Pentateuch, viz. in both the xriii. and ex, ihaptersol Leriticus; but in the latter of these passages «'■ find onU th ' 7i ry -a ases spec i lied, which had been specified in the farmer. Now, baa they been meant mere. ly as examples m decrees of relationship, it would have been more rational lo hate varied them; and if u bad been .-aid, for instance, on the firsl occasion. Thou sAali not mar- ry thy/ether's sister, lo have introduced, on the second, the converse case, and said, 7Vic« shalt net nn/mi thy bra/tier's 4aughitT. This, however, is not done by Moses, who, in the see. .mi ciiactiiieiit, just spceilies the father's sisti r. as be- fore; and seem , therefore, to have intended that he should be understood as having in his view no other marriages than those which he expressly names; unless we choose to interpret his laws in a manner foreign to his own meaning and design. :i. If, in opposition to this, the advocates of the contrary ■_"■. that the six eaiisci/itrnlial marriages are just as near as those expressly prohibited ; my answer is, that though here they may seem to be in the right, these is yet, according to the customs of the Hebrews, so great a clis- iiiieiion between these two classes of marriages, that any . onclusion drawn from the one to the other, is entirely nu- gatory. For, (I.) In the first, place, among the oriental nations, the niece was regarded ns a more distant relation than the aunt. The latter, whether fathers' or mothers' sister, her nephew might see unveiled, in other words, had much nearer access to her; whereas the former, whether bro- thers' or sisters' daughter, could not be seen by her uncle without a veil. Now, tins distinction refers to the very essence of the prohibitions ; for it is not the natural degree of relationship, but the right of familiar intercourse, that constitutes the danger of corruption. If, therefore, these laws were given for the purpose of preventing early de- bauchery under the hope of marriage, with an aunt] and with a niece, they are by no means on the same footing ; for to the former, by the law of relationship, an Israelite had a degree of access, which in the case of the latter was not per- mitted. Both stood in the same degree of affinity accord- ing lo the genealogical tree, but not so by the intimacy of intercourse permitted with them. ("2.) In the second place, there was a difference equally -'.a . oi even greater, made between the paternal uncle's widow on the one hand, and the widow of the maternal ancle, oi of the brother's or sister's son, on the other. For if by that ancient law, of which the Levirate-marriage may he a relic, the widow was regarded as part of the in- heritance,— I, in the event of my father being dead, receiv- ed his hrotlier's widow by inheritance, but not mv mother's brother's. I. vail-.- he belonged toa different family ; nor yet could I thus receive the widow of my brother or sister's son, because inheritances do not usually ascend; or, at any rate, an inheritance of this kind ; to make use of which, a man must necessarily not be old, if the person who has left it was young. In the case, therefore, of the prohibited marriages -Moses, there was bv the ancient law an expec- tancy, and bv the Levirate-law'it become a duty, to marry the widow of a paternal uncle, who had died childless, anil to raise up seed to him; but in the case of the marriages not prohibited bv Mo-es, there could be no room for either. It, bv reason of this distinction, there be, in regard to the l,.-o hei's sun's v. nlow.as 1., longing lo one family, the least doubt remaining in the mind of the reader, I hope to re- move it likewise, into the bargain. Were I to receive her by inheritance, it must be presupposed that she would have lirst fallen naturally to my father, and only in consequence of his being no longer alive, have devolved upon me, one degree more distant. But anv inheritance so abominable as that of a son's widow devolving to his father, we can scarcely figure to ourselves; although Thamar, from re- sentment and despair, conceived the idea of her having rucha claim, and contrived by secret artifice to enforce it, Gen. xxxviii. Rather would she fall to her husband's bro- ther, arid were he"fiot alive, natut ally devolve lo Ins son. It is therefore manifest, that the fathers brother could ;ievei have had that expectancy of ins brother's son- widow, which might be attended with such pi in. n u . . n .■.,,. n- ces as I have already remarked. •1. The strongest and mo-t decisive argument against the ' or./, m, and the reckoning by degrees, is drawn lo.in ih. . a e of marriage with a deceased wile's sister; The relationship here is as near as that of a bro hi widow; and yel Moses prohibits the marriage of a bro- ther's widow, and permits that of a decee ed wife's i tei or rather ( w had ,i., ■- il,. proof Still stronger,) he presup- poses it in his laws as permitted ; and consequently, wished to be understood as foiluddmg only llm- .• • .an . ig. v. In. h he expressly specifies, and lmi others ol the like | P \imiiy. though unnoticed. The reader who is not satisfied wiih these remarks, may consult the 7:h chapter of my Treatise on the Marriage Laws, when? he will find many particu- lars more fully detailed. But here I cannot saj mote, without dwelling too long on one part of my subject.— Mi- CHAELIS. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 9. And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the glean- ings of thy harvest. The right of the poor in Israel to glean after the reapers, was thus secured by a positive law. It is the opinion of ' some writers, that although the poor were allowed the lib- erty of gleaning, the Israelitish proprietors were not oblig- ed to admit them immediately into the field, as soon as the reapers had cut down the corn, and bound it up in sheaves, but when it was carried off; they might choose also among the poor, whom they thought m'osl deserving or most ne- cessitous. These opinions receive some countenance, from , the request which Ruth presented to the servant of Boaz, to permit her to glean " among the sheaves;" and from the charge of Boaz to his young men, " let her glean even among the sheaves ;" a mode of speaking which seems to insinuate, that though they could not legally hinder Ruth from gleaning in the field, they had a. right, if lh%y chose to exercise it, to prohibit her from gleaning rmong the sheaves, 6r immediately after the reapers.— Paxton. Ver. 28. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon vou: I am the Lord. the skin,) so as to represent birds, trees, and the gods they serve. Some also, especially the sacred females, of' the tem- ples, have representations on their arms of a highly offen- sive nature. All Hindoos have a black spot, or some other mark, on their foreheads. And the true followers of Siva rub holy ashes every morning on the knees, loins, navel, arms, shoulders, brow, and crown of the head. — Roberts. Ver. 20. Do not prostitute thy daughter; to cause her to be a whore ; lest the land fall to whore- dom, and the land become full of wickedness. Parents, in consequence of a vow or some other circum- stance, often dedicate their daughters to the geds. They. arc sent lo the temple, at the age of eight or ten years, to be initiated into the art of dancing before the deities, and of singing songs in honour of their exploits. From that pe- riod these dancing girls remain in some sacred building neai the temple ; and when thev arrive al maturity, (the parents being made acquainted with the fact,) a feast is made, and the poor girl is given into the embraces of some influential man of the establishment. Practices of the most disgusting nature then take place, and the young victim becomes a prostitute for life. — Roberts. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 2. Again thou shalt say to the children oi . Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Is- LEVITICUS. lp. 20. rael, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death : the people of the land shall stone him with stones. One of the most common punishments in use among the Jews, was stoning, which appears to have been* a most grievous and terrible infliction: "when the criminal ar- rived within four cubils 01 the place of execution, he was stripped naked, only leaving a covering before ; and his hands being bound, he was led up to the fatal spot, which was an eminence about twice the height of a man. The first executioners of the sentence, were the witnesses, who generally pulled off their clothes for that purpose :. one of them threw him down with great violence upon his loins; if he rolled upon his breast, he was turned upon his loins again : and if he died by the fall, the sentence of the law was executed ; but if not, the other witness took a great stone and dashed it on his breast as he lay upon his back ; and then, if he was not despatched, all the people that stood by, threw stones at him till he died."— Lewis. Ver. 25. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as uncfban. The Mosaic ordinances respecting clean and unclean beasts, other authors refer to the head of Ecclesiastical Laws; but as they relate, not to any ceremonies of religious worship, but merely to matters of a secular nature, I choose rather to treat of them under the head of Police Law, as one would naturally do in the case of any other laws, that prohibited the use of certain meats. And first of all, I must illustrate the terms clean and unclean, as applied to beasts; because we are apt to consider them as implying a division of animals wnh which ice are entirely unacquaint- ed, and then to wonder that Moses, as an historian, in describing the circumstances of the deluge, which took place many centuries before the era of his own laws, should mention clean and unclean beasts, and, by so doing, presuppose that there icas such a distinction made at that early period. The fact however is, that we ourselves, and indeed almost all nations, make this very distinction, although we do not express it in these terms. Clean and unclean beasts is precisely tantamount to beasts usual and not usual for food. And "how many animals are there not. poisonous", but perfectly edible, which yet we do not eat, and at the flesh of which, many among us would feel a strong abhorrence, just because we have not been accus- tomed to it from infancy 1 What Moses did in regard to this matter, was, in the main, nothing more than converting ancient national cus- tom into positive law. The very same animals had, for the most part, previously been to the Israelites or their ancestors, clean or unclean, that is, usual or unusual for fond ; and we find that even in Joseph's time, the Egyp- tians, who had ditferent customs with regard to meats, and observed them very rigidly, could not so much as eat at the same table with the Israelitish patriarchs, Gen. xliii. 32. These ancestorial usages Moses now prescribed as express laws; excluding, perhaps, some animals formerly made ' use of for food, and reducing the whole into what, upon the principles of physiology, was actually a very easy and nat- ural system ; concerning which, as I shall have to speak in the sequel, I only observe at present, that its limits were, perhaps.^before trespassed, both on the side of prohibition and permission. As soon as we know what is the real meaning of clean mad unclean beasts, many errors, some of them ludicrous, and from which, even men of great learn- ing have not been wholly exempt, instantly vanish. The word unclean, applied to animals, is no epithet of degrada- tion : of all animals, man was the most unclea,n, that is, numan flesh was least of all things to be eaten ; and such is the case, in every nation not reckoned among cannibals. The lion and the horse are unclean beasts, but were to the Hebrews just as little the objects of contempt as they are to us. It is another mistake to imagine that the Jews durst not have any unclean anftnals in their houses, nor have any thing to do with them ; and hence has arisen our strange German proverb, Lite a sou- in u Jen's house. But let us only recollect the instances of the ass and camel, the common beasts of burden among the Hebrews, in addition to which, in later times, we have the horse. All the three species were unclean. Even the keeping of swine, as arti- cles of trade, was as little forbidden to the Jews as dealing in horses, which they carried on very commonly. The main design of Moses, in convening the ancient national customs of the Hebrews into immutable laws, might, no doubt, be, to keep them more perfectly separate from other nations. They were to continue a distinct people by themselves, to dwell altogether in Palestine, without spreading into other countries, or having too much intercourse with their inhabitants; in order to prevent their being infected, either with that idolatry, winch was then the sensus communis of all mankind, or with the vices of the neighbouring nations, among whom the C'anaanites were particularly specified. The first of these objects, the pre- vention of idolatry, and the maintenance of the worship of one only God, was the fundamental maxim of the Mosaic legislation, and the second, namely, the preservation of his people from the contagion of various vices, previously un- common among them, such as bestiality, sodomy, incest, incestuous marriages, which aie always destructive to the happiness of a country, divinations, human saenfices, &c. &c. ; together with the maintaining among them their present morals, if but tolerably good, must be an object of great importance with every legislator, if a profligatt race, such as Moses and the Ronran writers describe the Canaanites to have been, happen to live in their vicinity And this Moses himself seems to point out as his object, in the xxth chapter of Leviticus, ver. 25, 26, and that-too after warning the Israelites against imitating the Canaanites in the vices now mentioned: "\e shall," says he, '"dist:l- guish beasts clean and unclean, and birds clean and un- clean, from each other, and not defile yourselves by four-footed, flying, or creeping creatures, 'which I have separated as unclean ; ye shall be holy to me, for I Jeho- vah am holy, and have'separated you from other peoples to be mine own." The distinction of clean and unclean meats may be s very effectual means of separating one nation from another Intimate friendships are, in most .cases, formed at table ; and with the man, with whom I can neither eat or drink, let our intercourse in business be what it may, I shall sel- dom become so familiar, as with him whose guest I am, and he mine. If we have, besides, from education, an -abhorrence of the food which others eat, this forms a new obstacle to closer intimacy. Now, all the neighbours of the Israelites did make use of meats, which were forbidden to them from their infancy. The Egyptians differed most from them in this respect : for they had fjom immemorial ages, a still more rigorous system of national laws on this point, which restrained them even more strongly from intercourse with foreigners. Some of the animals which the Israelites ate, were among them not indeed unclear, but yet sacred, being so expressly consecrated to a deity, that'they durst not be slaughtered ; because, according to the Egyptian doctrine of the transmigration of souls, a man could not but be afraid of devouring his own forefathers, if he tasted the flesh of those beasts, in which the souls of the best of men usually resided. Even before the ancestors of the Israelites descended into Egypt, this had proceeded so far, that the Egyptians not only could not eat the same sort of food, but could not even so much as sit at the same table with Hebrews, Gen. xliii. 32; and these wandering herdsmen, who ate the flesh of goats, sheep, and oxen, which were all forbidden in one or other of the provinces of Egypt, were so obnoxious to them, that they would not allow them to live among them, but assigned them a sepa- rate part of the country for a residence, Gen. xlvi. 33, 34. An Egyptian durst not so much as use a vessel, in which a foreigner ate his impure victuals; still less durst he kiss a foreigner: although I will not venture to assert, that this last command was, in all cases, inviolably observed, where a tawny Egyptian found a fair Grecian alone, how impure soever her food rendered her.— We may therefore conjec- ture, that Moses here borrowed somewhat from the legis- lative poliey of the Egyptians, and with a view to a mora Chap. 21 — 2 LEVITICUS. 81 complete and permanent separation of the two peoples, maile thai a law among the Israelites, winch before was nothing else than a enstqn of their lathers. Besides this main object, there might, no doubt, ill the case of certain animals, interfere dletetica] considerations to in tint nee Moirs ; only we are not to seek for them in all the prohibitions relative to unelean beasts. In regard to that respecting swine's flesh, they ;ue pretty obvious.: and every prudent legislator must endeavour either to divert by fair means a people in the circumstances and climate of the Israelites, from the use of that food, or else express- ly interdict it. For whoever is affected with any cutane- ous disease, were u but iic common itch, it' he wishes to must abstain from swme's flesh. It has likewise been long ago observed, thai the use of this food produces a peculiar susceptibility of itchy disorders. Now, throughout the whole climate under which Palestine is situated, and for a certain extent b >th south and north, the leprosy is an endemic disease; and with this disease, which is pre-emi- nently an Egyptian one, the Israelites left Egypt so terribly overrun, that Moses found it necessary 10 enact a variety of laws respecting ii ; and thai i lie contagion might be weakened, and the people tolerably guarded against iis in- fluence, it became requisite to prohibit them from eating swine's flesh altogether. This prohibition, however, is suf- ficiently distinguished, from all others of the kind, in these : in the first place, the Arabs, who eat other SorLs of food I'o i bidden the Jew s, yet hold swine's flesh to be unclean; and, in conformity with their ideas, Mohammed forbade the use of it in the Koran : in the second place, every physician will interdict a person labouring under any cutaneous disease, from eating pork : and it has been remarked of our Germany — a country otherwise in gener- al pretty clear of them, — that such diseases are in a pecu- liar manner to be met with in those places where a great deal of pork is eaten. Some have been inclined to discover moral reasons for the laws in question, and to ascribe to the eating of certain animals a specific influence on the moral temperament. Thus the camel is extremely revengeful ; and it has been pretended, that it is their eating camels' flesh so frequently, that makes the Arabs so prone to revenge. But of this there is too little proof. Other nations in the south of Eu- rope, charged with the same national passion, and who either, as in the case with the Italians, have a pleasure in revenge, even in secret revenge, oi, like the Portuguese, are, by a strange point of honour, necessitated to the ex- ercise of implacable revenge, neither eat the flesh nor drink the milk of camels. Perhaps the vindictive propen- sity of the Arabs is rather an e.Tect of climate, or of their point of honour in regard to blood-avengement, than of eating camels' flesh. At the same time, 1 do not entirely deny the influence of food on the moral temperament; but I am by no means yet convinced, that the daily use of cer- tain kinds of aniirml food will ever so far alter it, as to give a legislator reason to prohibit them ; nor yet can I believe, that eating the flesh of any animal directly in- spires us with the passions of that animal, although it "may operate upon us in other respects. — Michaelis. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 13. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach ; a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous. Among the heathen, persons of the most respectable appearance were appointed to the priesthood ; and the emperor, both among the Greeks and Romans, was both king and priest. Considering the object of religious wor- ship, it is not possible that too much circumspection can he maintained in every part of it. If great men deem it re- proachful to have things imperfect presented to them, it may most reasonablv be supposed that such offerings would be rejected with anger by God. The general opinion was, that a priest who was defective in anv member was to he avoided as ominous. At Elis, in Greece, the in the finest looking man to carry the sacred vessels of the deity: he that was next him in beauty and elegance led the ox; and the third in personal beauty carried the gar- lands, ribands, wine, and the other things used in sacrifice. Among most nations of antiquity, persons who ha/3 bodilv '■ exclude, i from the pi iesthi od Among the Greeks-" it w.is required, that whoever was admitted to ■ raid I una and perfect in all his members, it being thought a dishonour to the gods to be served bj any one that was lame, maimed, or anv other way imperfect; and therefore at Athens, before inert 1 ' perfi d lither having any de- feci, nor any thing superfluous." Potter. Set "thai Metelliis, who had the misfortune to become blind, when he saved the Palladium from the flames, on the burn- ing of the temple el Ve t ■■■■■ obliged to lay down the priesthood Every priest tt hose body is not faultless, is to be avoided like' a thing of bad omen." Sacerdos ,,.'■.,,., est vitamins •■si. M. Seigiiis. w|„, i,,st his right hand in defence of his country, could not remain a priest for that reason. The bodily delects which disenabled a virgin from becoming a vestal are named by A. Gellms, Ned. Alt. i. chap. 12. ROSENMULLER. Even those of the seed of Aaron who had anv personal defect, were not allowed to lake a part in the of the I. 1. The priesthood among the Hindoos is hereditary, but a deformed person cannot perform a cere- mony in the temple ; he may, however, prepare the (lowers, fruits, oils, and cakes, for 'the offerings, and also si, ,,i,ie the premises with holy water. The child of a priest being deformed a: the birth will not be consecrated. A priest having lost an eye or a ih. 01 1" ing defii ienl mi any memb ir or organ, or « ho has not a wile, cannot per- form the ceremony called Toevasani, I'm llie manes ,,f de- parted friends. Neither will his incantations, OT prayers, or magical ceremjnies, have any effect.— Roberts. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 22. And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shah not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, nei- ther shah thou gather any "-leaning- of thy har- vest : thou shall leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your Clod. Fields in the East, instead of hedges, have rii'zrs. In the corners they cannot easily w ork with the plough, and there- fore prepare that part with a mnn-vdln, i. c. an earth-cutter, or large kind of hoe. The corn in these comers is seldom very productive, as the ridge for some time conceals it from the sun and other sources of nourishment, and the rice also, in the vicinity, soon springing up, injures il bv the shade. Under these circnmsianc's, the j eople think but little of the corners, and were a person to be very particular, he would have the name of a stingy fellow." From this view, it appears probable, that the command was given, in order to induce the owner to leave the little which was produced in the corners for the poor. No farmer will allow any of his family to glean in the fields, the pittance left is always considered the properly of the poor. In car- . rying the sheaves, all that falls is taken up by the gleaners. Roberts. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 16. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him; as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death. Among most nations blasphemy is regarded as one ot the greatest crimes, and punished capitally. "Whether in this they act rationally, and what force there is in the ob- jection, that blasphemy does not hurt God, I shall not here stop to inquire ; as, perhaps, some notice of these points will be taken in my proposed essay on the Intention ot Punishments; and, therefore, I proceed to observe, that in the Mosaic polity, whereby God became both King ana Lawgiver of the Israelites, and where, of course, blasphe- my was a crime against the state, we find it, in like man- ner, considered as a capital crime, and ihe punishment o' stoning annexed to it; Lev. xxi-- 10 — 14. Nor was the 62 LEVITICUS. Chap. 24. circumstance of the blasphemer being a foreigner, to make any difference in the punishment. Indeed, this was actually the case, on the occasion of the punishment of this crime being first settled. A man, whose father was an Egyptian, but his mother a woman of Israel, had, in a quarrel with an Israelite, blasphemed Jehovah. He was, after an inquiry into the mind of God, adjudged to be stoned ; and the edict published on this occasion, concludes with these words, " One uniform law shall you all have, foreigners as well as natives ; for I am Jehovah your God." Allowing that a foreigner does not believe in our God, although, indeed, with regard to the God of Israel this was not likely to hap- pen, because paganism was synergistic, and did not deny the divinity of other gods; arid, besides, the Israelites be- lieved in the God who created the world, and whom we know, and acknowledge from reason, without revelation; but allowing, I say, a foreigner to be an infidel, still he has no right to insult the people, under whose protection he lives, by blaspheming the object of their veneration, and whose name they hold supremely sacred. It is with hesitation, and not without danger, that I venture to adopt a Jewish explanation, which has been commonly ridiculed as a piece of mere superstition, in regard to this law, in Lev. xxiv. Ill, which declares, that whoever shall utter the name Jkhovah shall die ; the whole congregation shall stone him: foreigner as well as native shall die, if he u'ler the name Jf.h llf/rr noVAH. Instead of cbrew word Nakab ave the blasphemer slation there seems would thus be no- eceding one. Thus period, long be- Op:) signifies both, and then we spoken of a second lime ; but to t to be this objection, that the 16tl thing but a needless repetition o much is certain, that at a very fore the birth of Christ, the Jews understood tlie law be fore us, as if it prohibited them from uttering the name Jjhovah, which the true God had given himself as his ii-jnicn proprinm, on any other than solemnly-sacred, or at any rate sacred, occasions; and, of course, from ever naming him at all in common life. The Greek version ascribed to the persons called the Seventy Interpreters, and which was made at least '250 years before Christ, here ren- ders, " Whoever nameth the name of the Lord shall die ;" and we see that, by this time, the Jews were accustomed, wherever they found the word Jehovah in the Bible, to pro- nounce, instead of it, the name Adonai, (ts i or Lord : for, in place at Jehovah, (-m-) the Seventy alv. i • at, 5 K , s. Philo, who lived in the time of Christ', explains the pa silt. connecting it with the preceding verse, in the following terms, " Strange gods are not to be bias] :d, lesl men should be accustomed to think meanly oi the I leil : But if auiy one, (I do not say blaspheme, fu :!.,i .■■:,■ m question, but) even so much as inter nn«ea- nallv ■lie name of the Lord of men and gods, he shall die." "We may, therefore, approve of this explanation, or not, as we please ; but we must not look upon it as a piece of superstition originating with the Jews, who lived after the destruction of Jerusalem, and whose opinions, in regard to the Mosaic law, I do mot, for the most part, so much as notice. This " prohibition of uttering the name of God, whether it please us or not, does not, by any means, appear altogether im- probable; for it is in conformity with the customs and legislative policy of the Egyptians, who had secret names for their gods, which it was lawful for the priests alone to .pronounce; no man being permitted to do so in common ilife. And, in like manner, Rhadamanthns, who herein wished to imitate the Egyptians, would not, on occasions of taking oaths, allow the names of the gods to be mention- ed, bat only those of the animals consecrated to them, such as dogs, rams, geese, &c. Nor would I be disposed to maintain, that no advantage could flow from such a prohibition. For in the first place, that name of the Deity, which was considered as his proper name, would be, at any rate, thereby guarded from profa- nations and misapplications, which sometimes leave behind them ludicrous and contemptuous impressions, that can never be effaeed; and, in an age when polytheism was so prevalent, this wasa matter of much more importance than at present; for then God was not, as with us in Germany, equivalent to a nomen proprium, but every god, whether true or false had his own peculiar name;'and hence we Snd Moses addressing the God who appeared to him, and •who declared himself the " God of his fathers" and, of course, the creator of heaven and earth, and the only true God ; and asking him what answer he should return to the Israelites, if thev wished to know what was his name Exod. iii. 13. In the second place, a name of the deity, which is never mentioned in common life, will have something extremely solemn in it, particularly where it is so significant, as was the word Jehovah. It will, of course, in worship, in prayer, and in the ease of an oath, make so much the deeper im- pression ; and that, with respect to the last of these, may serve to prevent perjury, or, at least, to make it but rare": for whateveris unknown' and uncommon, affects the human heart with terror and with awe. In fact, I myself believed that this law ought to be understood in this way, when I was translating the book of Leviticus, about three years ago ; but since that time, the consideration of the great severity of the punishment has raised a doubt in my mind on this point. Moses prohibits naming the name" Jehovah'; but was that to be a capital crime 1 If so, where was there any gradation of punishments; stoning being thus the punishment of the blasphemer of God, and of the man also who but uttered his name 1— Eut this doubt becomes still weightier, when we read both verses, namely, verses 15 and 1G of Lev. xxiv. together. And here I must acknow- ledge a mistake in my translation : for the words in vcr. 15, " he shall bear his sin," I rendered periphrastieally, " he shall atone for his c.rime," because I adhered to the com mon opinion, that they related to the stoning, which was adjudged as the punish'ment of the blasphemer. If, how- ever, 1 translate the passage quite literally thus, "Whoever blasphemeth his God, shall bear his sin. Whoever utters the name Jehovah, shall die; the whole congregation shall stone him;" it looks 'as if the utterer of the name was to be punished differently from, and more severely than, the blasphemer; as, indeed, Philo has remarked, though with quite another view. But then, it is to be considered, fur- ther, that the crime is not so much as distinctly expressed unless we explain the lGth verse bv, and, in some measure, include it in, the one before it. 'The verb Nakab may as well mean to write, as to uttci ; and, therefore, even wri- ting the name Jehovah, might seern to have been prohibit- ed; and yet Moses has done that in every page of his wri- tings. Let it, however, be rendered utter; was then all ut- terance of the name Jehovah forbidden 1 How then was it to be used, and for what purpose did God assume itl This law, then, is surely to be understood with some limi- tation 1 But with what' limitation < Was the priest alone to utter the name, as the Jews think 1 or durst laymen also utter it, if they only did so in a holy manner 1 Durst it be mention,. -! in an oath, or in prayer"? Was it permitted in m- : .-tit • .-hililren 1 or was only the inconsiderate use oi it pnihihiicil ? With regard to all this, we find nothing in this law, and yet it is the only one that treats on this sub- ject; nor is it like other laws", illustrated by usage ; for the name Jehovah was new, and it was Moses who first dis- tinguished the God who sent him, by this philosophically sublime and expressive title. Here, then, we should have some crime, to which the punishment of death was annexed, and yet it was not rightly understood what it was, nor wherein it consisted. These doubts have prompted me to connect the 16tr, verse more closely with the 15th; so that to viler the nam, Jehovah, becomes equivalent to uttering it in blasphe- my ; and this explanation is the more probable, because in the story which gave occasion tothe law, we find, ver. 11. that the Egyptian had vttered the name, and blasphemed. The meaning then of the words, of which Ishall..firstgiv* a literal translation thus, — A man, a man, (that is, any man whatever, whether native or stranger,) who blasphemeth his God, shall bear his sin, and vhoevcr vttercth the name Jf.ho- - x.\a sholldie ; the whole congregation shall stone him — will be the following: "If any man blaspheme God, the God whom he deems his God, (the Israelite, the true, and the heathrn a false God,) it is a heinous sin. It is a sin even in the hea then, to blaspheme what, according to his own opinion, b god. Such a person shall not escape his judge; although the magistrate has no right to interfere in the matter, but must leave it to the true" or false God, that he may be his own judge.- It is, besides, uncertain whom the man may have meant, when he cursed God, and here the law as- sumes the milder supposition. But if any one, in blasphe- ming, expressly mention the name Jehovah, so that no Chap. 24. LEVITICUS. 88 doubt can remain, whether he meant to blaspheme the true or H false God, he shall be stoned to death." In tins way the criminal law, with respect to blasphe- mers, would undergo a very material alteration ; nor would blaphemy, but only that which was distinguish- miii specific aggravation, that incurred capital nt ; all other cases being left to the judgment of God, because the blasphemer ca i he convicted of having I the true God, and because God is certainly elf, it' he think tit, without having oc- ■ >'ii aidj Judg. vi. 30, 31. And this appears quite suitable to the spirit of those times, and is a great mil- the rigour of the law. In our Limes, a legislator would, perhaps, grant to the blasphemer the salvo of not being in his right mind.— At any rate, blasphemy, inferred merely bv deductions, or what is called blasphemous doc- trine, could not be punished by the law. In later times, the Jews were extremely prone to construe every thing that did not' please theni, at once into blasphemy; and their they were called, arrogated to themselves the ■inisfiing on the spot, and without the smallest juHicifl inquiry, any supposed blasphemy ; although per- haps they had slopped their ears against it, ami ■■■ fore, but' bad judges of its real nature. Both the one and the other of these measures are repugnant to the Mosaic statute. Even the utterer of aggravated blasphemy was not put to death on the spot, but taken into custody, until God could be consulted as o his fate. We must not, there- fore, charge the Mosaic law with those illegal outrages, to which the zeal of the later Jews prompted them to resort. — MlCHAEUS. Ver. 19. And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him ; 20. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. In cases of corporal injuries done to free persons, (for the same rule did not extend to servants, they being less pro- tected members of the community,) that far severer law of retaliation- operated, whose language is, " Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth;" and upon that law I must here expatiate more fully, because it is so far removed from our laws, that it sometimes appears to us really barbarous, or, as others would sav, unchristian. Barbarous, however, it was not; for those very nations of antiquity whom we look upon as most civilize'd, viz. the Athenians and Romans, had this law in the days of their freedom. But the singular cir- cumstance respecting it is, that it is, strictly speaking, only suited to a free people, and where the poorest citizen has equal rights with the greatest man that can injure him ; al- though, ho doubt, it may subsist under an aristocracy and a monarchy also, as long as no infringement is made on liberty, and on the equality of the lowest with the highest, in point of rights. Where, however, the eye of a nobleman is of more value than that of a peasant, it' would be a very preposterous and inconvenient law ; and where, for the benefit of the great, attempts might out of friendship be made to pervert justice, it is much more consonant to equity, in the case of such corporal injuries, to leave the determi- nation of the punishment to the decision of the judge. It would seem that Moses retained the law of retaliation, from a more ancient, and a verv natural, law of usage. It will be well worlh our while to hear what he himself says on the subject of a law, so strange to us, and yet so common among ancient free nations. His first statuie respecting it, clearly presupposes retaliation as consuetudinary, and only applies it to the very special case of a pregnant woman be- ing pushed, by two men quarrelling with each other, and therebv receiving an injury ; the man who pushed her, be- ing adjudged to pay " life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, brand for brand, wound for wound, bruise for bruise," Exod. xxi. 23— 86. The second statute likewise occurs but incidentally; when, on occasion of blasphemy uttered by an Egyptian, it was or- dained that both Israelites and strangers should have one and the same criminal law; and it is .added, byway of ex- ample, " Whoever shall injure his neighbour in his'person, shall receive even as he hath given : eye for eye, wound for wound, tooth for tooth; even as he hath injured another, so shall ii be done to himself in return;" Lev. xxiv. 19,20. What Moses then says (incidentally, in fact, ai posing a more ancient law of usage) concerning thi pun- ishment of retaliation, I understand under the two follow* nig limitations:— 1 ii injury is either deliberate, or at a sequence t>J tmr fault ; (an instance of which last is that mentioned above, from Exod. xxi. 33, where a woman is hurt by two men fighting; an act of outrage of which they ought not to have been guilty:) but not where there either no fault, or at any rate but an inanverti where one man pushes out another's eye undi This limitation every one wilt admil. u ho reieombers tliif. Moses was so far from meaning to punish unpremeditated homicide by the law of retaliation, that he established ah asylum for ihe unfortunate manslayer, to secure him from the fury ofthe Goel. 9. The person « ho suffered any personal injury, retained (for he is nowhere deprived of it) the natural right of ab- staining, if he chose, from all complaint, and even Of re- traeiinga complaint already made, and remitting the pun- ishment, if the other compounded with him for what we should call a pecuniary indemnity, or, to use the Hebrew expression, a ransom.' Not to mention that this right is quite natural and obvious, and scarcely requires to be no- ticed in a penal statute, it maybe observed, that among the Israelites such pecuniary expiations had been | revion common, even in the case of deliberate murder, as they still are among the Orientals, and that in this case alone did Moses tine, it necessary to prohibit the acceptance of any such compensation; Numb. xxxv. 31. If it was cus- tomary in cases of deliberate murder, we may conclude with certainty, that it would frequently be accepted for the loss of a tooth or an eye; but as Muses did not prohibit this, we must suppose that the ancient usage still continued ill. But is not the punishment of retaliation extremely rude ? Does it not savour strongly of ancient barbarism'? and must not every legislator, who out of philanthropy wishes the nobleman to preserve his own eyes, though he may pre- viously have beaten out those of the worthless] 'easant,nai or- ally keep at as great a distance here as possible lrom the bi ui a I law of ancient" times 1 And was not Moses then very much to blame, I will not say in giving such a law, for that can- not he laid to his charge, but in retaining it from ancient usage 1 Let us listen with candour, to what maybe said both for and against this species of punishment. I. In favour of it, then, we may observe — 1. That it is the first punishment that will naturally oc- cur to every legislator when left to himself; nor can' any one justly complain, that that should happen to himself, which he has done to another: for he has certainly cause to be thankful, that he does not suffer more: since not only self-revenge, as authorized by ihe jvs naturet, but also pun- ishments in civil society generally go much greater lengths, and retaliate for evils that have been suffertd. perhaps tenfold. 2. That it has a more powerful effect than any other punishment in deterring (rom personal injuries ; and is, indeed, almost the only adequate means of attaining this end of punishment. Pecuniar}" punishments will not be very formidable to the man of opulence, particularly if they are regulated by the rank of the person injured ; nor will they, of course, do much to promote the security of the poor : nay, even though corporal punishments be legal, if thev onlv rest vi/h He discretion of the judge, (and here, that is a 'very alarming and despotically-sounding expres- sion.) not only is not the security of the'poor man thereby promoted, because the judge's discretion is generally pretty favourable to the great, but his humiliation becomes,' in fact, only the greater. Should the nobleman, for instance, put out the eve of a peasant, and the judge estimate the loss at 1000 rix-dollars, which, though a sum pretty considerable in itself, can give the former but little concern ; but the peasant, on the other hand, who puts out a nobleman's eye, be dragged to the gallows in a cart, though quite ready to pay him the same sum, which indeed many a peasant, in some countries, could very easily raise; such an inequality in the law would, to a man of spirit, who feels his hands, and who is both able and willing to defend his country with them, prove rather intolerable. Under such a law, can the 84 LEVITICUS. Chap. 24. man in an humble station possibly have that security for sound limbs, that he must wish, and has a right to demand, from the community 1 When, on the contrary, the greatest and richest man in the land knows, that if he puts out the eye of a peasant, th: latter has a right to insist that his eye be put out in return, that a sentence to that effect will actu- ally be pronounced, and the said punishment inflicted, with- out the least respect to his rank, or his noble eye being con- sidered as one whit better than the peasant's ; and that he lias no possible way of saving it, but by humbling himself before the other, as deeply as may be necessary to work upon his compassion, and make him relent, besides paying bun as much money as he deems a satisfactory compensa- tions for his loss; every one will be convinced (without my swearing to prove it) that the nobleman will bethink him- self, before he put out any one's eye. The argument is precisely the same in the case of other injuries, down to the loss of a tooth ; concerning which the ancient jus ta- lionis came at last to teach so differeul a doctrine. If here it be objected, (and no djubt the objection has weight.) that notwithstanding the .'Xclusion of the jus ta- lionis, from our law, and its'suporior mildness in all re- spects, we scarcely ever see an ;nstance of an eye put out m deliberate malice ; I beg leave to observe in answer, that tli is is, in fact, to be ast.ibed in a great measure, to the superior mildness and refinement of our manners: but such manners are not found in all nations; they certainly were not found in the ancient nations that approached nearer to the state of nature; nor yet do we find them among the people of southern countries ; whose rage is more ma- licious, and loves to leave a lasting memorial behind it, in those on whom it is vented. By the gradually refined man- ners, therefore, of our more northerly regions, we can hardly expect that the ancient law of retaliation, should in southern nations have been regulated. Add to this, that among us, since the introduction of luxury and more effemi- nate education, or in consequence of hereditary disease, the nobleman has very seldom such bodily strength as to be a match for a peasant ; and if it came'to the driving out of teeth or eyes, would run the risk of losing two of eilner, before the latter lost one. There are, besides, to be taken into consideration several other fortunate circum- stances, which though not, properly speakmir, connected with our law, serve nevertheless to remedy its defects. For in- stance, most of the people of distinction among us are at the same time servants to the sovereign, and as such have both honour and revenues, and would sink into a sort of nothing- ness if they lost their posts ; but such are the humane ideas of many sovereigns, that thev would no longer retain in their service the person who had put out a poor man's eye, unless circumstances appeared that were highly alleviative of the outrage, or that he made a satisfactory compensation for it. But the advantage which vc thus derive from our mannersisnottobemet with in every democracy or aristoc- racy for there, as p, ,st< . conferred either by laws, or by s, of which no individual is ashamed, so neither are thev taken away without legal authority. 3. That in the state of nature every' man has a right to take revenge at his own hand for any deliberate personal injury, such as the loss of an eye, &c. is perhaps undenia- ble. In fact, by the law of nature such revenge might be carried still further : but if it be confined within the limits of strict retaliation, the law of nature at anv rate (for of morality I do not now speak) can certainly have nothing to object against it. Now, in the state of civil society, every man divests himself of the right in question; but'then he lastly expects, in return, that society will, after proper in- quiry, dulv exercise revenge in his room. Morality may say •vhat it wil. to our revenge, (and certainly it does not abso- ll tety condemn it,) but we are all naturally vindictive, and Li at to such a degree, that when we are grossly injured we feel a most irksome sort of disquietude and feverish heat, until we have gratified our revenge. Now, when creatures, thus constituted, are the citizens of any government, can we imagine that they will ever give up the prerogative of re- /enge, jvithout looking fnr some equivalent in return 1 If he s'a'e means to withhold that equivalent, and yet pro- hibit the exercise of revenge, itmustbesdn by regenerating human nature: or, if it be said, that God and his grace can alone effect such a change, and that whoever lays open his heart to grace, will never desire revenge, I can only say, thai we must then figure to ourselves a stale consisting of none but people all truly regenerated ; but such a state the world has never yet seen. 4. If the law of retaliation were abrogated, nothing could be more natural, if the lower classes had not, by long con- straint and oppression, become too much humbled, than for the poor man, who had received any personal injury, still to revenge it at his own hand, and more especially to lie in wail for his rich oppressor, at whom he could not come with open force, and put out his eye, wiih as little warning and ceremony as he had done his. And what could in such a case be done ; were justice to be observed, and the poor man who only requited the injurv he had re- ceived, to experience no severer punishment than he who set him the example 1 It might, no doubt, be said, that his conduct, in thus lying in wait, and in deliberately avenging his own quarrel, in contempt of a tc^al prohibition, aggra- vated his guilt in every respect; but where the injured person, aware that the laws gave him no reparation, only did;')! instanti, what every man of spirit would very natu- rally do, and what, if he did not gi i beyond blows, even our laws would excuse him for doing — if he only flew- with all possible fury upon the person who had put out his eye, and tried to put out his in return ; we should not, perhaps, think him deserving of so severe a punishment tor having thus requited like for like, as the person who had begun the quarrel. Now this immediate self-revenge would, among a people who retained any feeling of their dignity, anil their natural equality with even ihe most distinguished of their fellow-citizens, be the usual plan: and if no one at- tempts any such thing, we can scarcely impute it to the re- fined manners of the brawny peasantry, and even of the very lowest of the people, but rather to the melancholy cir- cumstance, of their having become too tame, and having forgotten that they are not slaves, but, in point of rights, on a footing of equality with the rest of their countrymen. 5. Even our own laws admit the right of retaliation, and that too, in rather an equivocal case, and where an injury is not actually done, but only intended, and perhaps not even that. They allow us, in the case of having been ca- lumniated, to sue the person who has falsely and mali- ciously charged us with any crime, for the same penalty, which the crime itself incurs according to the laws. No doubt, judgment is rarely pronounced in terms of our com- plaint, and much here depends on the discretion of the judge ; but still it is clear, that the laws, in authorizing any such suit, presuppose the equity of the jus talionis. , II. The chief arguments against the law in question may, perhaps, be found comprehended under the following objections, which are usually urged against it. 1. There are many injuries, where it would be absurd to give the sufferer a. right to retaliation : in the case of adultery, for instance, to permit the injured husband to sleep with the wife of the adulterer in return. In regard to this objection, however, some misconception seems to lie at bottom. It is not every description of injuries that w-e here speak of, but only of personal injuries : nor yet of any retaliation that the sufferer himself may choose to exact, such, for instance, as thrusting out another's eyes or teeth ; but only of a punishment that depends upon, and is to be inflicted by the magistrate. Were any person to deduce all sorts of punishments from the jus talionis, this objec- tion would hold : but it does not hold in the case of a legis- lator appointing the putflshment of retaliation for ■personal injuries. " 2. In many cases it is difficult to requite just as much, and no more, than has been suffered; for instance, where a man has thrust out one of another man's teeth, he may, in suffering retaliation, very easily lose two teeth by one stroke. In like manner, it would be difficult to inflict a wound of exactly the same size and depth with that given, and neither larger nor deeper. And what shall be done, where a man, having but one eye, happens to thrust out one of his neighbour's 1 Shall he lose his only eye by way of retaliation f This would be to make him suffer a 'much more serious injury than he had caused : for now he would be quite blind, whereas he had only made the other one- eyed, like himself. Here I will make much greater con- cessions than the opponents of the law of retaliation are wont to demand. For had they known human nature, they would have stated in addition, and I, for my own part, read- ily grant them, that punishment by retaliation is in almost every case, a much more sensible evil, than the original Chap. 24. LEVITICUS. -5 injury: for every pain and every evil to which we look brward, is, by mere anticipation ami (ear, aggravated ■ n.i re ill. mi :i iiiMiili.-.l fold : the pang of a moment isex- cu.h-.l i.i li.mrs days, weeks, &.<:.; and when it actually ak.es place, every individual pari oftheevi] is fell in the in both soul and body, in consequence ,.' i , I,,-,,,- expected. Tin- adversaries ni lie lis w.'iv Ii.i.I |ilnli is. i pliers, when, Willi all their beuevo- ruee, tins observation escaped thein. — Bui after all. H ..■.ii.i ei conjum ■ i. iii with what went before, form 10 objection lo the law in question \ for this, in fact, is oo- lung more than what commonly takes place in all pun- sin, i in-, and in all the variety of revenue that we dread, sven in the state of nature. If I had, in that state, beat out .he eye of one of mv neighbours, I should always be afraid .hat he, or his son, or his father, or Ins brother, or some I, or, perhaps some person hired for the purpose, might lie in wait for me, and beal out one of mine in re- turn; and, under this unnecessary (ear, I should really and Irulj I. ■ much m ire unhappy, ih'.v.i the man whose eye I beat out; in my very dreams, i should, who knows how of- ten, lose an eve with pain and l.orror; and although, when uii, I found my beif possessed of it, 1 should, at first, be uncertain, perhaps, whether it had been a dream or not; and, slupitied v.i'.n tear, in the darkness of the night, I should be anxious to try whether it could S « not. Nay, not only should I be afraid of tins, but well aware thai revenue, always studies in retaliate beyond what it sutlers, 1 should r.n.ictpa'e a more serious injury than I had caused, ihe loss of an eye perhaps for a tooth.'or even the hiss of life iisc.f, in short, every I him; that is bad: and, inil-i the .e continual apprehensions, 1 should be extremely miserable, even though the injured person might never ac- tually retaliate the injury. Should he ever get me into his hands, and repay me merely according to the jus talionis, this would be a" fresh addition to my "misery; unless, in- deed, it might be said, that I ought to look upon it as good luck, because I should no longer have to live in perpetual terror. Now these are nothing more than the terrors of conscience, that natural and awful avenger of all the crimes we commit, and, in the mythologies of the Greeks and Ro- mans, represented under the image of the Furies ; and thus, for wise ends, hath nature constituted our minds, to prevent us from injuring one another. Even in the case of murder, it is precisely the same. Whoever, in the state of nature, has perpetrated that crime, will continually be m fear of the son or friend of the deceased, as his Gael ; Will, while awake, fancy a hundred times that he sees him, and tremble at the thoughts of him, how distant so- ever he may bej and will be as often disturbed when asleep, bv seeing him in his dreams, and thinking that he feels him giving him the fatal stab. In a word, he will, both sleeping and waking, die a thousand deaths. If he think this unjust, and too severe, let him blame God and nature, for having annexed such variety of wretchedness to the commission o' guilt; and blame himself for being such a fool as to lei such stuff come into his imagination. If, again, it is committed by a member of civil society, and if (which is the mildest punishment of all those now in use) it costs him his head, he certainly, in suffering even this retaliation, surfers much more than the person whom he murdered ; who had only a few minutes agony, which his rage, in self-defence, would scarcely let him feel; whereas he, in his prison, anticipates his death for weeks, and feels in imagination, which aggravates every evil, the sword of jiistice every moment on his neck ; and at last, When he is actually brought out to execution, is so much overwhelmed bv the previous feelings of death, that there have been instances of malefactors, who, having a pardon given them on the scaffold, were already so near death, that they could not be saved even by blood-letting, but died as thoroughly as if thev had actually been beheaded. But thus to die of agony, is a much more terrible death than to die of mere wounds by the hand of a murderer. This ob- jection, therefore, amounts to nothing at all ; only there is another, which ii is understood lo implv, viz. Ihnl the inju- rious party is under rw obligation lo suffer more eril Ihin he Ins done; and this was actually the reasoning of the phi- losopher Farorinus, whom A. Gellius in*M luces as speak- ing on this subject, in his Xoelrs A'lirr. But what igno- rance doth such reasoning show of all the laws tha' have been introduced into all nations, and above all, that any man may, from his own feelings, know of tht nature of re- ■ pay but ever so little attention to what passes within him. 'l'he injurious parly has no right to demand that Ihe retaliation lo which he 'subjects himself shall not exceed the injury; for upon the sane principle on which he did an injin v'to anniher, « iili.nil any precedent or prov- ocation, may the sufferer, loll., wing his example, requite bim. 111 terms of his own law, with ten limes, ,,r ten thou- sand times, as great an injury. The relations between no- thing and somelhiiig, and between something and nijuniu, arealike: they both surpass all numeration. As to the morality of such a procedure, and whether God a] piw e of evils being thus infinitely increased, 1 am not here con- cerned with deciding. The present question relates not to an evil infinitely augmented, but only of one requited « iih some addition.' If, however, the injurious party have it requited him even in an infinite degree, he can 'have no- tion.; more to say, than that as he had done, so had he suf- fered, wrong. But putting this infinity entirely out of the question ; in all the circumstances wherein human be- ings can be placed together, proceeding from the rudest stale of nature, and what is a relic of it, the consuetudinary law of duelling, through every stage of society, until w'e arrive at the best-regulated commonwealth, it 'holds as a fundamental principle, lhat the man who has caused evil to another, has no reason to complain if he should surfer a greater evil in return. In the state of nature, sell-revenge goes certainly much beyond ihe offence, and would go infi- nite lengths, "if not resirained at last by pity, or by con- tempt of iis victim, or by the suggestions of magnanimity. In the old German proverb, which is strongly expressive of a national idea, it is said, (An) ''cine Mnuhchcllc "chart tin, Dolch,) " Every blow has its dagger." The point of honour, in duelling, insists on revenge with ihe sword; and the whip, with the pistol ; but where people's ideas are not so artificial, they find a satisfaction in, and plume them- selves on, having given for one blow, two or more in return. — In the state of civil society, the design of punishment is to deter from crimes; for which purpose, a bare requital in kind will not be sufficient, because the criminal may hope to escape detection, orto escape from justice, and of course his fear of punishment is by its uncertainly materially lessened: and hence punishments are here much more severe, and by one example, many thousands are deterred from a repetition of the crime: so, tTiat unless a man choose; to take the consequences, and to serve the public as an example in terrorem, he must abstain from injuring his neighbour. In the case of theft, restitution, with considera- ble additions, would not be accounted too severe, but on the contrary a very mild punishment for the crime; and vet here more is given back than was taken away— But I here stop short, because I mean to offer some general remarks on the relation of punishments to crimes, in the Essay which I have already mentioned my intention of adding as an Appendix to this work. This observation only shall I yet offer in the meantime. The objection ar- gues not only against the retaliation of personal injuries, now the subject of dispute, but against all punishments whatever, which consist of any evil that is at all a matter of feeling, or which, bv fear arid anticipation, may become aggravations of such evils; and many inferences flow from it. which to the objector himself must appear very strange, and would go at any rate to destroy all the security of hu man life. Assassination, for instance, and child-murdei, would on this principle he mere trifles, and by no means worthy of being punished with death. The assassin might say, "The person, whom I murdered, did not know what befell him. He was no sooner stabbed than he fell; and he died, without knowing it. altogether unexpectedly, and in the midst of joy ; and if I must die on his account, let my death be equally easy and unexpected. I only beg that people may not take it into their heads to declare me an om- •law, else shall I at every step be accompanied with the dread of death, and, in imagination, die a hundred thou sand times instead of once."— The child-murderer, again, might say all this, and thus much more: " The child whom I despatched, knew nothing of the worth and enjoyment cf life, and hail been in a state of such obscure sensibilities that his pain was next to nothing;" thus insinuating, thai whenever he himself should happen to come into the same state, that is, to re'urn to his mother's womb find be bom again, by a sort of Pythagorean Metempsychosis he migh. 86 LEVITICUS. Chap. 24 then be punished for the crime in question ; but that, till then, justice required his punishment to be delayed, because to make him die at present, would be doing him very great injustice. 3. The law of retaliation is barbarous. I do not see w;hy it should be considered as more barbarous than hanging or beheading; and with the very same justice with which this assertion is made, it may in like manner be asserted, thai to demand payment of a debt is base and avaricious, or that every punishment which is less severe than that of like for like", is fit only for a state where the people are op- pressed and enslaved. The one assertion is just like the other, and neither of them proves any thing. The latter indeed would, in these times, manifest a stronger tone of sympathy, and perhaps more truth, than in former ages. 4. The sight of so many mutilated persons who, by the law of retaliation, had had an eye beat out, or a hand chop- ped oft", or a nose bitten away, &c. &c, would be extremely disagreeable; and would not only be a punishment to the cul- prits themselves, but to every person of the least degree of sensibility, and especially to the fair sex at the time of con- ception, when they are afraid of having their imaginations aflected by disgusting objects. This I readily grant; but I believe, at the same time, that where other circumstances, and the character of the people are the same, these are sights that will be much more rarely seen where the lex talionis is established, than where it is not. For everyone will then be the more careful to avoid wounding or maim- ing his neighbour, in a quarrel, or in a passion; and cer- tainly nobody will attempt any such thing after deliberate premeditation, when he knows that he must himself lose the same member of his body, of which he deprives his neighbour. Besides, it is certain that the law of retaliation will be but seldom enforced, and be chiefly confined to threatenings, and measures in In rorem. The man who has beat out the eye or tooth of another, or cut off his arm, will be at all possible pains to obtain his forgiveness, and a remis- sion of the legal punishment. He will humble himself be- fore him, and beg his pardon ; not as tee see sometimes done, with an air of proud contempt ; but even the man of highest rank will heartily do so before the meanest of his dependants; will ever after honour him as his forgiver, and at the same time gladly make him any pecuniary re- compense in his power. In such a case, the sufferer of the injury will be compassionate and generous, or, if not sufficiently either the one or the other, at any rate he will have as much U>ve of money as, when the violence of his revenge has been a little mitigated by the humiliation and entreaties of his adversary, lo accept the proffered peace-offering, and let self-interest settle the account be- tween them. Men are naturally vindictive ; but whenever we meet with humble apologies, and the injurious person throws himself on our mercy, we are in general sufficiently inclined to forget our wrongs ; so much so, indeed, that to some people it is nothing less limn intolerable punishment lo hear such apologies, and they forget the injuries they have suffered, merely when they know that their author regrets them. ■ Even those whose sentiments are not so re- fined, will still, when their fury is abated, yield to the power of gold. It was thus that at Rome the lex talionis came gradually into perfect desuetude, and gave place to a pecuniary compensation, depending or. the discretion of the prator ; and that, though there had been nothing else, was one bad consequence of the change; for to a free man, the discretion 'of a judge is a term that sounds very sus- piciously. 5. Sound morality cannot approve of that revenge, which nothing short of a repetition of the same injury will satisfy, and which insists on beating out the eye of another, if lie has beaten out ours. This too I readily admit ; but then morality and civil law are not one and the same thing; and the latter, as long as it has to do with people who are not all paragons of perfect virtue, must tolerate many ihings on account of hardness of heart, to avoid greater evils. Thus, for instance, as long as the greatest, or the greater part of the people are still prone to revenge, the law must give injured persons the means of obtaining sat- isfaction for their wrongs, else will the consequence be, that they will take revenge at their own hands; and thus, instead of authoritative punishments, none other will be known than that of personal revenge, which is always J uigerous, by being carried beyond due bounds, and often affects the -innocent, and provokes to fresh acts of ven- geance. To this, however, we must add what has been already observed, that although those, who are in the least injured, will inexorably abide by the law of retaliation, they wiJl still be satisfied with professions of repentance, with apologies, and with pecuniary compensations. The law does not peremptorily command an injured person tc avail himself of the right of retaliation, without any alter- native. It only fixes the punishment to which the authoi of an injury must submit, if he cannot compound matter! with the injured party. It thus deters from outrages, be- cause even,* one must be afraid, lest the sufferer insist upon his right, and in the case of personal mutilation, compel the person who has caused it, to agiee to such terms o: compensation, as he would otherwise have refused to offer 6. Christ, in his sermon on the mount, condemns thai revenge which requires eye for eye, and tooth forjooth, (Matt. v. 38, 39;) and consequently'the law of retaliation is unchristian. This is, in fact, the same objection with the preceding, and therefore already answered. Christ does not find fault with the Mosaic statute of eye for eye, and tooth for tooth ;— Un he has throughout his whole sermon nothing to do with Moses, and neither expounds nor controverts his doctrines— he only condemns the bad morality of the Pharisees, which they thought fit to propound in his words. In the present instance, these expositors, confounded, a; on many other occasions, civil law and morality together; and when the moral question was, How far may I be al- lowed to carry mv resentment, and gratify my thirst for revenge '. they answered, in the words which Moses ad- dtesscd, not to the injured, bin to the injuria? parly, or to the judge, and said, cue for eye, tooth for' tooth. That Christ has no intention of controverting, or censuring the laws ol Moses, but merely the expositions of the Pharisees, is manifest, from comparing his own doctrine with that ol Moses. Moses addresses the magistrate, or thedelinqnenl who has mutilated his neighbour, and says. Thou, delin- quent, art bound to give cue for cue, tooth for tooth ; and them, judge, to pronovnre sentence to that effect. Christ, on the other hand, manifestly addresses the person injured, and foibids him to be vindictive; Ye have heard, that it is said, (ye for eye, tooth for tooth ; but I command you vol to requite evil ; but irhot n r strikes you on the right cheel:. offer to him also the left. How this last clause is to be un- derstood ; whether it prohibits suing for revenge, and whether one should actually hold up the left cheek to the person who has slapped the right, it is not my business here to decide, because I am not explaining the sermon on the mount. But as long as a people is not composed of citi- zens, whose temper and conduct are altogether in conform- ity to the doctrine of the sermon on the mount, en il laws, which do not, as Christ himself savs. permit many things, on account of the hardness of the ft '■ kearts, and which presuppose 'such an exalted pitch of perfect virtue, will be improper and unwise. I am far lii'in neiniii g. I v what I have now said in defence of the lex talionis, to afeert that it is the only proper punishment in the case of personal injuries, or that'it ought to be introduced into every state, in which it is not yet in use ; but only that where it already operates, and especially in the Mosaic policy, it does not merit censure. Here also it ought to be considered, that the same style of law is not equally suitable to every state. To southern countries the law of retaliation appears to be better adapted, and, in some respects, more necessary, than to northern : because in southern countries, such as Italy, Portugal, Palestine, and Arabia, the desire of revenge is generally more violent, and of longer duration, than with us in the 50th degree of latitude, who sooner forgive and forget injuries, and are reallymagnanimous in our revenge. Where it is once established, as where Moses found :• already in force, it is dangerous to attempt its abrogation because the people accustomed to it might not.be willing to give it up, and would, of course, enforce it themselves. But to introduce it among us would appear to be needless , because we hear of or see so few instances of personal in- juries; for though we have people among us who want an eye, there are none who owe the loss of it to deliberate malice, nor is it by any means a trait of our national char- acter, that we delight in inflicting permanent injuries on one another. A German is commonly too magnanimous to think of any such thing. Blows he will give, and show his superiority over his enemy ; but even the peasant in the Chap. 2.1 LEVITICUS. ugh he hardly knows of any particular punishment fur such an oltoneo. \\ ill not. al any rale, willingly beal oul his neighbour's eye, or think of giving him any such lasting mark of his revi tnhabitanl of a southern country, or that rare character i whom, in lower Saxony, the epithet slo/'isrh is applied, would exult in haying ten behind him, Ex- . ol necessity, it is always a hazardous and ! lubtful experiment to alter laws, or to increase the se- \ ii v ol punishments; and with regard to uncommon i will always decline taking any notice i will, at any rate, make no new laws in relation to them, lest he should thus only make them known; he will think it better to let them quietly rest under the an- cient national abhorrence, with which they are regarded. Thus as we are not accustomed to the law of retaliation, it would appear to US cruel, and no injured person would. for feat of the universal outcry it would raise against him, attempt commencing an action to enforce it : so that, as frequently happens in.sucli cases, the increased severity of the punishment would prove nothing else than a sort of impunity to the person who had commuted the crime. The more nearly thai a people approaches to a state of nature, the more suitable to their circumstances is the law of re- taliation: in like manner, it agrees better with a democra- cy, than with any of the oilier forms of government : al- though, no doubt, to these it can accommodate itself, and in Etomeundei a strong mixture of aristocracy. The following distinction, likewise, which has not, per- heototioallv considered, is a very striking one. v citizen is a soldier, and defends I wilh the strength of his arm, the law in question may an- swer well enough; but where there is one particular class of num. who follow the profession of arms, whether as hired soldiers, according to our present system, or, accord- ing to the feudal plan in the middle ages, as gentlemen, with land given them in fee instead of pay, there, at least, if crimes Were very frequent, it could not be conveniently enforced without many exceptions. For if the soldier had an eve dug out, or his right arm. hand, or thumb, mutilated, he would not only he punished himself, but his country would also sutler, in his being rendered unfit for its defence. Here, therefore, there would require to be one law for the protectors, and another for the protected ; at least, unless soldiers could be had in more than sufficient numbers. Many oUier dangers of the same kind would attend an alteration of the law; which is, in every case, a very hazardous experiment. At the same time', I readily own, that in cases of personal injury, I have no great partiality for the pleasure of the judge, but would infinitely prefer the decision of laws, that should place the high and the low on an equal footing, and estimate the tooth of a peasant at the same rate with that of a lord, particularly where the former must gnaw crusts, and the latter can 'have crumb if he chooses.— Michaeus. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 23. The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and so- journers with me. 24. And in all the land of your possession, ye shall grant a redemption for the land. 25. If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. 26. And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it ; 27. Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it : that he may return unto his possession. 28. But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath boug-ht it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession. Moses declared God, who honoured the Israelites bv call- ing himself their king, the sole lord-proprietary of all the land "I : i' mi e, in which he was about to settle them by, i:ii rial p'o\ idence; « bile the people were to be iii'" !'. t i tl i ants, and With any right to alienate their posse -"is ii> perpetuity, Lev. xxv. 'S.l It was, indeed, allowable foi a pi. prieUj] to sell his land for a ceitain pe- riod; but every fiftieth year, which .Moms denominated the .'.ii "i jubilee, ii returned withoul any redemption to its ancient owner, oi his hens. II, ni e M( e ly observes, that this was a sale, not of the land, but only o! estimated higher or lower, according as ii came to sale at horler period pieced, ng lhat year ; and Moses ii.. nt — M'liiioiiished the Israelites, (Liv. xxv. 11 — lb,) against taking unjust advantage of the ignorant and simple in this particular on such occasions, 'bins purchase of crops, however, must have been a very | rofitable specula- tion, because no man would lay out bis n I i IBJ I i SUCh a length of time, and encounter all risks, (that .1 war not excepted,) as he was obliged to do, unless he purchased at a very cheap rate. It was not in his power toridhimselt of those risks, by abandoning the bargain, as a le.ee may his lease, and re-demandnig ihe money expended, because at the year of jubilee alf debts became instantly extin- guished. He would, therefore, always take care to pur- chase on such terms, as, allowing for the very worst that could happen, might secure him from loss, and cm ii yield him some profit — at least the interested' his money, pre hih- iled as all usury was by the law. Hence, and as a eon- sequence of ihe' principle, that the lanes, m u < Hies tin ,i beUnigt d, there « as established a law of redemption, or right of 're-purchase, which put it in the power of a seller, if before the retain of the year of jubilee his circumstances permitted him, to bar back ihe yet re- maining crops, after deducting the amotfht of those already reaped by the purchaser, at the same plice for which they were originally sold : and of this light, even the nearest relation of the seller, or, as the Hebrews termed him, his Gm I, might likewise avail himself, if he had the means. Lev. xxv. 2-1—28. The advantages of this law, if sacredly observed, would have been great. It served, in the first place, to perpetuate lhat equality among the ciiizens, which Moses at first es- tablished, and which was suitable to the spirit of the democ- racy, by putting it out of the power of any flourishing citi- zen to become, by the acquisition of exorbitant wealth, and the accumulation of extensive landed property, too formidable to the stale, or in oilier words, a little prince, whose influence could carry every thing before it.— In the second, place, it rendered it impossible that any Israelite could be born to absolute pover'y. for every one had his hereditary land ; and if that was 'sold, or he himself from poverty compelled to become a servant, at the coming of the year of jubilee he recovered his property. And hence, perhaps, Moses might have been able with" some justice to say, what we read in most of the versions of Dent. XV. 4, There trill not be a poor vtan among you. I doubt, how- ever, whether that be the true meaning of the original words. For in the 11th verse of this same chapter, he as- sures them that then should never be vilhovt poor; to pre- vent which, indeed, is impossible for any legislator, be- cause, in spite of every precaution that laws can take, some people will become poor, either by misfortunes or mis- conduct. But here, if a man happened to be reduced to poverty, before the expiry of fifty years, either he himself, or his descendants, had their circumstances repaired by the legal recovery of their landed property, which though in- deed small, then became perfectly free and unincumbered — In the third place, il served to prevent the strenglh of the country from being impaired, by cutting off one, and per- haps the greatest cause of emigration, viz. poverty. No Israelite needed to leave his home on that ground. Here, to be sure, the extraordinary case of any public calamity that might make the lands lose their value, must be except- ed. But it was enough lhat in ordinary cases the law took away the chief inducement to emigration, by such a judi- cious provision as made it the interest of the jieople to re- main contented at home. — In ihe fourth place, as every man had his hereditary land, this law, bv its manifest len- deney to encourage marriage, rather -en ed to promote ,ne populate n of the country, than to impair ib— In the fifih place, the land being divided "Vo numerous small portions 53 LEVITICUS. Chap. 26. each cultivated by the father of a family, acquainted with it from his infancy, and naturally attached to it as the in- alienable property of his family, could not fail in conse- quence of this law, to be better managed, and more produc- tive, than large estates in the hands of tenants and day- labourers could ever have been. — And, lastly, this institu- tion served to attach every Israelite to his country in the strongest manner, by suggesting to him that, if lie had to light in its defence, he would at the same time be defending his own property, which it was, moreover, out of his power to convert into money, wherewith he might betake himself to a more peaceful habitation elsewhere. — Michaelis. CHAPTER XXVI. Vev. 33. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword alter you ; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. By the concurring testimony of all travellers, Judea may now be called a field of ruins. Columns, the memorials of ancient magnificence, now covered with rubbish, and buried tinder rums, may be found in all Syria. From Mount Tabor is beheld an immensity of plains, interspersed with hamlets, fortresses, and heaps of ruins. The buil'.ings on that mountain were destroyed and laid waste bv the Sultan of Egvpt in 1390, and the accumulated vestiges of succes- sive forts and rums are now mingled in one. common and extensive desolation. Of the celebrated cities Capernaum, Bet'isaida, Gadara, Tarichea, and Chorazin, nothing re- mains but shapeless ruins. Some vestigesof Einmaus may still b3 seen. Cana is a very paltry village. The ruins of Te.koa present only the foundations of some considerable buildings. The city of Nain is now a hamlet. The ruins r.f the ancient Sapphura announce the previous existence of a large city, and its name is still preserved in the appel- lation of a miserable village called Sephoury. Loudd, the ancifnt Lydcla and Diospolis, appears like a place lately ravaged by fire and sword, and is one continued heap of .rubbish and ruins. Ramla, the ancient Arimathea, is in almost as ruinous a state. Nothing but rubbish is to be found within its boundaries. In the adjacent country there are found at every step dry wells, cisterns fallen in, and Jast vaulted reservoirs, which prove that in ancient times lis town must have been upwards of a league and a half in c.rcumference. Ccesarea can no longer excite the envy of a conqueror, and has long been abandoned to silent deso- lation. The city of Tiberias is now almost abandoned, and its subsistence precarious; of the towns that bordered on Its lake there are no traces left. Zabulon, once the rival of Tyre and Sidon, is a heap of ruins. A few shapeless stones, unworthy the attention of the traveller, mark the site of the Satfre. The ruins of Jericho, covering no less than a square mile, are surrounded with complete desola- tion; and there is not a tree of any description, either of palm or balsam, and scarcely any verdure or bushes to be seen about the site of this abandoned city. Bethel is not to be found. The ruins of Sarepta, and of several large cities in its vicinity, are now " mere rubbish, and are only dis- tinguishable as the sites of towns by heaps of dilapidated stones and fragments of columns." But at Djerash, (sup- posed to be the ruins of Gerasa.) are the magnificent re- mains of a splendid city. The form of streets, once lined with a double row of columns, and covered with pavement still nearly entire, in which are the marks of the chariot- wheels, and on each side of which is an elevated pathway — two theatres and two grand temples, built of marble, and others of inferior note — baths — bridges — a cemetery with many sarcophagi, which surrounded the city — a triumphal arch—a large cistern— a picturesque tomb fronted with columns, and an aqueduct overgrown with wood — and up- wards of two hundred and thirty columns still standing amid deserted ruins, without a city to adorn — all combine in*presenting to the view of the traveller, in the estimation of those who were successively eyewitnesses of them both, " a much finer mass of ruins" than even that of the boasted Palmyra. But how marvellously are the predictions of their desolation verified, when in general nothingbut ruin- ed ruins form the most distinguished remnants of the cities oi Israel ; and when the multitude of its towns are almost .ill left, with inaiiv a vestige to testifv of their number, but •vithiut a mar1' to tell their name. — Keith. Ver. 34. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land ; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. A single reference to the Mosaic law respecting the Sab- batical year renders the full purport of this prediction per- fectly intelligible and obvious. "But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land; thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard." And the land of Judea hath even thus enjoyed its Sabbaths so long as it hath lain desolate. In that country, where every spot was cultivated like a garden by its patrimonial possessor, where every little hill rejoiced in its abundance, where every steep acclivity was terraced by the labour of man, and where the very rocks were covered thick with mould, and rendered fertile; even in that selfsame land, with a climate the same, and with a soil unchanged, save only bv neglect, a dire contrast is now, and has for a lengthened period of time been displayed, by fields unfilled and unsown, and by waste and desolated plains. Never since the expatriated descend- ants of Abraham were driven from its borders, has the land of Canaan been so " plenteous in goods," or so abundant in population, as once it was ; never, as it did for ages unto them, has it vindicated to any other people a right to its possession, or its own title of the. land of promise — it has rested from century to century ; and while that marked, jind stricken, and scattered race, who possess the recorded promise of the God of Israel, as their charter to its final and everlasting possession, still " be in the In ml of their ene- mies, solans their land lieth desolate." There may thus al- most be said to be the semblance of a sympathetic feeling between this bereaved country and banished people, as il the land of Israel felt the miseries of its absent children, awaited their return, and responded to the undying love they bear it by the refusal to yield to other possessors the rich harvest of those fruits, with which, in the days of their allegiance to the Most High, it abundantly blessed them. And striking and peculiar, without the shadow of even a semblance upon earth, as is this accordance between the fate of Judea and of the Jews, it assimilates as closely, and, may we not add, as miraculously, to those predictions re- specting both, which Moses uttered and recorded ere the tribes of Israel had ever set a foot in Canaan. The land shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her rest while she lieth desolate without them. To the desolate state of Judea every traveller bears wit- ness. The prophetic malediction was addressed to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys; and the beauty of them all has been blighted. Where the inhabitants once dwelt in peace, each under his own vine and under his own fig-tree, the tyranny of the Turks, and the perpetual incursions of the Arab*, the last of a long list of oppressors, have spread one wide field of almost un- mingled desolation. The plain of Esdraelon, naturally most fertile, its soil consisting of "fine rich black mould," level like a lake, except where Mount Ephraim rises in its centre, bounded by Mount Hermon, Carmel, and Mount Tabor, and so extensive as to cover about three hundred square miles, is a solitude "almost entirely deserted ; the country is a complete desert." Even the vale of Sharon is a waste. In the valley of Canaan, formerly a beautiful, delicious, and fertile valley, there is not a mark or vestige of cultivation. The country is continually overrun with rebel tribes; the Arabs pasture their cattle upon the spon- taneous produce of the rich plains with which it abounds. Every ancient landmark is removed. Law there is none Lives and property are alike unprotected. The valleys are untilled, the mountains have lost their verdure, the rivers (1 «w through a desert and cheerless land. AH the beauty of Tabor that man could disfigure is defaced ; im- mense ruins on the top of it are now the only remains of a once magnificent ci'v; and Carmel is the habitation of wild beasts. " The art of cultivation," says Volney, " is in the most deplorable state, and the countryman must sow with the musket in his hand : and no more is sown than is neces- sary for subsistence." " Every day I found fields abandoned bv the plough." In describing his journey through Galilee, Dr. Clarke remarks, that the earth was covered with such a variety of thistles, that a complete collection of them would be a valuable acquisition Id bctany. Six new spe- NUMBERS. .ties of that plant, so significant of wildness, were discovered by himself in a scanty selection. " From Kune-Lcban tor Beer, amid the mins of cities, the country, as far as the eye of the traveller can reach, presents nothing to his view but ks, mountain--, and precipices, at the sight of which pilgrims are astonished, balked in their expectations, tartled Le their faith." "From the centre of the neighbouring elevations (around Jerusalem) is seen a wild, rugged, an rri , n,i h.-rd .1, pasturing on ests clothing the acclivities, no waters Bowing through the valleys; but one rude scene in fiie midst of which the ancient glory of Judea bows her head in widowed desolation." It is needless to multiply quotations to prove the desolation of a country which the Turks have possessed, and which the e plundered for ages, Bnoughha: been said to prove thai lbs land mmtrns unil is l 1 .•..' .•;:■.. igh to be heard bytwomiilions the members of the English House of Commons, they acted in the plenitude of their own power for the general good, without taking instructions from their constituents, I find nowhere expressly determined ; but meihinks, from a pe- rusal of the Bible, I can scarcely doubt that the latter was the case. Who these representatives were, may in some measure be understood from Josh, xxiii. 2., and xxiv. 1. They would seem to have been of two sorts. To some, their otiic.i as judges gave a right to appear in the assembly, andth.'-e we... not necessarily of the same family in which they exercised that office. Others, again, had a seat and a voice in the Diet, as the heads of families. — Michaelis. Ver. 31. And he said, Leave us not, I pray thee ; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be •to us instead of eyes. An aged father says to his son, who wishes to go to some other village, "My son, leave me not in my old age; you aie now my eyes." "You are on the look-out forme, your eves are sharp." It is said of a good servant, "he iseyesto When Moses begged of Hobab not to leave Israel, be- en.. ■ ' ■ wr... to em amp in the wilderness, and he might be to them nstead of eyes, Numb. x. 31, he doubtless meant that he might be a guide to them in the difficult journevs thev had to take in the wilderness: for so Job, when he wou.d express his readiness to bring forward on their journey those that were enfeebled with sickness, or hurt by accidents, and to guide them in their wav that were blind or ignorant of ;' savs, " I ••■- s to 'he blind, and feet was I to the lame," Job xxix. 15. Everybody, accord- ingly, at all a guainted v. ith the nature of such deserts as Israel had toyiass through, must be sensible of the great I .' ■ ': v know where water is to be found, and can I^a.l to places proper, on that account, for encampments. Will. ...it their help, travelling would be much more diffi- :'..ii in these deserts, and indeed often fatal. The import- ance D7) omcr, a much smaller measure,' and from (iinn) humor, an ass, or the load which is commonly laid upon that animal. But some writers make it equal to the cor, which is more than dou- ble the weight, and is the common load of a camel. But it was not necessary that every one should gather ten camel loads of quails; for God had promised his people flesh for a month, and would have fulfilled his promise by bestowing on every individual the third part of a cor, or camel's bur- den. The truth of this assertion will appear, when it is considered, that every Israelite received for his daily sub- sistence, an omer of manna, which is the tenth part of an epha. But an epha is the tenth part of a cor ; and by con- sequence, a cor contains a hundred omers. If then an uncr is sufficient for one dav, a cor must be sufficient for a hundred days, that is, for more than three months. Hence, if every Israelite gathered ten cors of quails, they collected thirty' times more than Gcd had promised. Bo- chart endeavours to remove this difficulty, by observing, .hat Moses, in this verse, speaks only of the heads of fami- lies, leaving out of his enumeration,' the women, children, md slaves. But it is evident that Moses did not use the word people in this restricted sense ; for "he states, that the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the pe< pic that gathered the quails, "and the Lord smote them with ave«r great plagtie. And the people journeyed from Kibroui- hatlaavah; but these things are surely said Of the whole people. Dissatisfied with this solution, lloehart proposes another, with winch he is better pleased : 'i he ten homers are not ten cors, but ten heaps; lor in this sense, the word is sometimes used. Thus, m the prophecies oi I labakkuk, homer signifies a heap of many waters; and in the book Of Exodus, a heap of lie gs. ( inkelos and Other iiilcipic- lers, aecoidmgly lender it m this passage ten heaps. If this be admitted, Moses has not determined the quantity of these birds which every one gathered ; but only says, that every one at least gathered ten heajis, that is, by a familiar phrase among the Hebrews, a very great number; for ten is often used in scripture for many. This version ought to be preferred, both on account of what has been already stated, and because the cor is a measure of corn, not of flesh. The view now given is of some value; for if every Israelite gathered ten cors of quails, the number of these binls must have been so great as to exceed all belief. But it has been shown, that instead often cors, an Israelite did not collect and use the third part of one. It is not meant to limit the power of God ; but surely no violence should be offered to human belief, by requiring more from it than God has revealed in his word. The vast multitude of these birds, appears also from the long time that the many thousands of Israel subsisted upon them in the desert. Jehovah promises, with uncommon emphasis, " Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days ; but ev«n a whole month." The complete fulfilment of this promise, although not recorded by Moses, may be justly inferred from the great quantity which the people gathered and laid up in store, after drying them in the sun, for their subsist- ence. The Psalmist distinctly alludes to it in ihese words: " So they did eat and were filled; for he gave them their own desire." Thus were six hundred thousand footmen, besides women and children, supplied with quails for a whole month, by the power and goodness of Jehovah. In the colder regions of Europe, where the quail is less fre- quent, this could not have been done without a new crea- tion ; but in warm climates, the case is very different. There these birds are found in immense numbers. From Aristophanes it appears that no bird was more common in Greece ; and Juvenal asserts, that none were of less value at Rome. Nor will that appear wonderful, when the as- sertion of some writers is considered, that, in the beginning of spring, within the space of live miles, a hune'red thou- sand of these birds are sometimes caught in one cny ; and this astonishing number continues tc be taken for nearly a whole month. Varro asserts, that turtles and quails return from their migrations into Italy, in immense numbers. Hence, their flight, when they approach the land, is alleged by Pliny, to be" "attended w:ith danger to mariners; for these birds, wearied with their journey, alight upon the sails, and this always in the night, and sink their frail ves- sels." The same fact is stated by Solinus, as quoted by Bo- chart : " When they come within sight of land, they nisi, forward in large bodies, and with so great impetuosity as often to endanger the safety of navigators ; for they alight upon the sails in the night, and by their weight overset the vessels." Many places also have borne the name of Orty- gia, from the multitude of quails which crowded their fields. Thus, Delus was called Ortygia ; the island of Syracuse was know7n by the same name ; also the city of Ephesus, as well as a grove very near it, and another in the vicinity of Miletus. For the same reason, the whole country of Libya, received from the ancients the name ol Ortygia. But quails abounded nowhere in greater num- bers than in Egypt, and the surroundingcouniries, whither they were allured by the intense heat of the climate, or the great fertility of the soil. Hence, the remark of Jo- sephus, that the Arabic gulf is peculiarly favourable to the breeding of these birds. We have also heard the tes- timony of Diodorus, concerning the countless number of quails about Rhinocolura; and the ancients mention a species of quail peculiar to Egypt, which is so numerous at a certain season of the year, that the inhabitants, un able to consume them all, are compelled to salt them for future use. This was done in times when, according to Theocritus, the vale of Egypt contained more \han thirrv 91 NUMBERS. Ckap. 12, 13. thousand cities ; and by the testimony of Josephus, seven hundred and fifty myriads of people, without including tlie inhabitants of Alexandria. From this statement it must be evident, that in order to supply the many thou- sands of Israel with quails for a whole month, no act of creation was necessary ; but only a strong breeze, to direct the flight of those innumerable flocks, which encumber the African continent, to the camp of Israel. We read that our- Lord multiplied the loaves and the fishes, when he fed the attending multitudes; but no inspired writer insin- uates, that Jehovah created or multiplied the quails with which he sustained his people in the wilderness. He had only 4o transport them on the wings of the wind, from the vale of Egypt, and the shores of the Red Sea. It was in- deed a stupendous miracle, to collect such immense num- bers, to bring them into the desert precisely at the time which he had appointed, and to let them fall about the camp, that they might be gathered by his people ; but the provision itself existed already in the stores of common providence, and required only to be conveyed to the spot where it was needed. — Paxton. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 14. And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had hut spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days 1 Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. • Miriam had greatly offended God, and, therefore, she was to be as a daughter, whose father had spit in her face. In Deuteronomy xxv. 9, the widow was to spit in the face of her late husband's brother, if he refused to marry her. And Job (xxx. 10) in his great misery says of his ene- mies, " they spare not to spit in my face ;" and in ref- erence to our Saviour, they did " spit in his face." The most contemptuous, the most exasperating and degrading action, which one man can do to another, is to spit in his face. A person receiving this insult is at once worked up to the highest pitch of anger, and nothing but the rank or power of the individual will prevent him from seeking instant revenge. Indeed, such is the enormity attached to this offence, that it is seldom had recourse to, except in extreme cases. A master, whose slave has deeply offended him, will not beat him, (for that would defile him,) but he spits in his face. When his anger is at the greatest height, he will not even condescend to do that, but order a fellow-servant, or some one near, to spit in his face. Is a person too respectable for this indignity ; then the offended individual will spit upon the ground. Schoolmasters, also, when very angry with a scholar, do not, as in England, be- gin to beat him, but spit in his face, or order some one else to do it. To a person making use of offensive language, bystanders say, " Spit in his face." — Roberts. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 23. And they came unto the brook of Esh- col, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff: and they brought of the pome- granates, and of the figs. It appears that the cultivation of the vine was never abandoned in this country. The grapes, which are white, and pretty large, arp, however, not much superior in size to those of Europe. This peculiarity seems to be confined to those in this neighbourhood, for at the distance of only six miles to the south, is the rivulet and valley called Escohol, celebrated in scripture for its fertility, and for producing very large grapes. In other parts of Syria, also, I have seen grapes of such an extraordinary size, that a bunch of them would be a sufficient burden for one man. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that when the spies, sent by Moses to reconnoitre the promised land, returned to give him an account of its fertility, it required two of them to carry a bunch of grapes, which they brought with them suspended from a pole placed upon their shoulders. (Mar.li.) Many eyewitnesses assure us, that in Pales- line .he vines, and bunches of srapes, are almost of an in- r! edible size. Stephen Schultz relates, " At Beitdjin, a village near Ptolemais, we took our supper under a large vine, the stem of which was nearly a foot and a half in di- ameter, the height about thirty feet, and covered with its branches and shoots (for the shoots must be supported) a hut more than fifty feet long and broad. The bunches ol these grapes are so large that they weigh from ten to twelve pounds, and the grapes may be compared to our plums. Such a bunch is cut off and laid on a board, round which they seat themselves, and each helps himself lo as many as he pleases." Forster, in his Hebrew Dictionary, (under the word Eshcol,) says, " that he knew at Nuruburg, a monk of the name of Acacius, who had resided eight years in Palestine, and had also preached at Hebron, where he had seen bunches of grapes which were as much as twe men could conveniently carry." Christopher Neitzsehulz, who travelled through Palestine in the year 1634, speaking of his excursions on the Jewish mountains, says, " Thest mountains are pretty high on the right, and most beautifully situated ; and I can say with truth, that I saw and ale ol bunches of grapes which were each half an ell long, and the grapes two joints of a finger in length." Roland says, " that a merchant, who lived several years at Rama, as- sured him that he had there seen bunches of grapes which weighed len pounds each." Vines and grapes of an extra- ordinary size are found in oilier parts of the East. Strabo says, " that in the Margiana, a country southwest of the Caspian sea, now called Ghilan, there are vines which two men can scarcely span, the bunches of which are of extra- ordinary length!" Olearius, in 1H37, saw in this part vines, tlie stem of which was as thick as a man's body. At Iran, he states, there is a kind of grapes called Enkuri ali deresi, which are of a brown red colour, and as large as Spanish plums. The carrying of a bunch of grapes be- tween two men was not merely for its weight, but that it might be brought uninjured, and without being crushed, into the Israeliie camp. — Rosenmtjller. The pomegranate, the mains punica of the Romans, the pna or poia of the Greeks, and the Rimon of the Hebrews, is a kind of apple-tree, whose fruit is covered without, with a rind of a reddish colour, and which, opening lengthwise, shows red grains full of juice resembling wine, with little kernels. The Hebrew term Rimon, which expresses both the tree and the fruit, from Rama, to project, seems to have its name from the strong projection or reflection of light either from the fruit or from the starlike flower wilh six leaves, or rays, at the top of the apple. The Greek name p.i, which denotes the tree, and fied by that rebellious people as one of the greatest luxuries they enjoyed in Egypt, the want of which they felt so se- verely in'lhe sandy desert. The pomegranate, classed by Moses with wheat and barley, vines and figs, oil olive and honey, was, in his account, one principal recommendation of the promised land. But no circumstance more clearly proves the value which the Orientals put upon this fruit, than the choice w^hich Solomon makes of it to represent certain graces of the church : " Thy temples are like a piece ol pomegranate within thy locks ;" .and in the thirteenlh verse, the children of God are compared to an orchard of pome- granates with pleasant fruits. Three sorts of pomegranates are used in Syria, the sour, the sweet, and another of pi. intermediate taste, for the purpose of giving a grateful acid- ity to their sauces or liquids. A very refreshing draught, such as the Syrians use in hot weather, compost d of wine mixed with the juice of the pomegranate, it would seem, the spouse proposed to make for her beloved : " I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my poir.egra- Chap. 13—13. NUMBERS. 95 late ," a delicious and cooling beverage to the parched in- habitant of the equa ilnyi-Mv. ,,i |n-ihiips she means a species ol wine made of pomegranate pure, which we learn from Chanlm, i- drank in considerable quantities in the East, and particularly in Persia. Which"! these is really intended, il is not easy to determine. Liquors of ihis kind are slill very c million in the East. Sheibei, which is a syrup, chiefly that of lemons mixed with water, i ii eil I. p. , vm.N of all ranks. •'1 think, 'say- Mr. 1 firmer in a note, "it is highly prob- able, thai in the time Of remote antiquity, pom.".' am ; 'ii :e was used in those countries where lemon pi. i^ed. wiili Hen meat, aiul in their drinks; and, that it was ii r el aioiv, aril, that lemons came among them. 1 know n ii I, o\v elN.- loaeeiiunt forihc mention of pomegranates, in the fruitfulness of the Holy [.and: they would noi aow, f think, occur in such descriptions; the juice of lemons and oranges have at present almost superseded the live of that of pomegranates. But the opinion oi ihi- re- spectable writer, is opposed by no less an ant Inn try than Dl h -pent many years in Syria, and wrote the mi- tral bjsto y of that country. According to that able his- e , 01, i mi -us have by no 'means superseded the pomegra- i lor is more easily presoi veil through the win- preferred to the lemon, [n desTjhmg the fruitfulness of a country, the pomegranate would he iiieuii ,1: and it is diligently cult: ins are plenty. What Chardm calls Itoiihnar, he would not understand to be wine ; Rab-al-nar is the in- spissated juice of the pomegranate, or the juice of grapes I with sugar. — Paxton. \ bt 32 The land, through which we havegone to search it. is a land that eateth up the inhabit- . ants thereof. Of a very unhealthy place it is said, " That evil country eais up all the pepple." ''We cannot remain in these parts, the laud is eating us up." "/goto thai place' never! it will eat me up." Of England it is said, ill reference to i , ■■ she has eaten up all countries." — Roberts. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 9. Only rebel not ye against the Loup, neither tear ye the people of the land: for they are bread fonts: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not. Hebrew, " shadow." A poor man says of his rich friend, He my : my defence. " My sha- dow is -one;'' meaning, he has lost his defence. "Alas people have lost their shadow."— Roberts. Literally. Ihrir shmloir, a metaphor highly expressive of i nd support in the sultry eastern countries. The Arabs ami Persians have the same word to denote the snme thing: using these expressions, ".May the shadow of thv prosperity he extended.'' " May the 'shadow of thy bespread over the heads of thy well-wishers." "Mm- ilis- [Hens' lien never be removed iVuin my head; U l) i." I exti ii i thj shadow eternally. V At court, when mention is made of the sultan, the anpella- n t'.' ■ lefuge of the world, is usually added to I. ol .1 padisha, or emperor. His loftiest title, and the most esteem id, 1 ause given to hnn by the kings of Per- sia, is zil-ullah, shadow of God. — Burder. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 6 An 1 Moses spake unto the children of Israel, and every one of their princes pave him a rod apiece, for each prince one, according to their lathers' houses, even twelve rods: and the rod of Aaron tens among- their rods. 7. And Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness. ■ 8. And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the taber- nacle of witness ; and, behold, the rod of Aaron, for the house of Levi, was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. See on Jer. 1. 11, 12. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 16. And those that tire to be redeemed, from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five after the shekel of the sanctuary, which it twenty gerahs. According to Leo of Modena, this v ■ following manner. When the child is thirty days old, the father send: for one oi the desi endants ol Itaroi poisons beiii"- assembled on the occasion, the fathi a cup, containing several pieces of gold and silver coin. The priest then fakes the child into his arms, and addn - ing himself to the mother, says, "Is this thy SOD \1o- Ificr. " Yes." Priest. " Hast thou never had another child, male or female, a miscarriage or untimel] birth ' w t/ier. "No." Priest. "This being the case, this child, as first-born, belongs to me." Then turning to the father, la- says, " If it be thy desire to have this child, thou must ie- de'em it." Father. " I present thee with this gold and sil- ver for this purpose." Priest. " Thou dost wish, lie-, dole, to redeem the child I" Father. " 1 do wish SO to do." The priest then turning himself to the assembly, says, Very well: this child, as first-born, is mine, as it is un'ton m Bemidbar, Numb. xvni. 1(1. Tft»M Shalt redeem the first -horn of a month old for fire shekels} but 1 shall content myself with this in exchange " He then takes two eo!.' thereabouts, and returns the child to his parents.— Burder. Ver. 19. All the heave-offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the Lord unto thee, and to thy seed with thee. Among other descriptions of a covenant, there is one which demands explanation, Numb, xviii. 1!>, "The offer- ings I have given to thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever; it is a eon mint «) .-alt, far crcr, before the Lord." 2 Chr. xiii. 5, " Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the km Israel to David, for ever, to him, and to his sons, by a eove- nanl of salt .'" It is very properly, as we suppose, in answer to the inquiry. What means this covenant . I salt, that salt preserves from decay and putrefaction; it maintains a firmness and durability. There is a kind of salt so hard, that it is used as money, and passes fioni hand to hand no more injured than a stone would be, says Mr. Bruce. Salt may therefore very properly be made an em- blem of perpetuity. But the covenant of salt seems to refer to an agreement made, in which salt' was used as a token of conl'iimam n. We shall give an instance from Baron du Tott " He. (Moldovanji Pacha.) was desirous of an acquaintance with me, and seeming to regret that his business would not per- mit him to stay long, he departed, promising in a short time to return. I had already attended him half way down the staircase, when stopping," and turning briskly to one of my domestics who followed me, 'Bring me directly,' said he, 'some bread and salt.' I was not less surprised at this fancy, than at the haste which Tvas made to obey him. What he requested was brought : when, taking a little salt between bis lingers, and puttine it with a mysterious air on a bit of bread, he ate it with a devout gravity, assuring me thai I might now relv on him. I soon procured an expla- nation of this significant ceremony; but this same man, when become vizier, was tempted to violate this oath thus taken in my favour. Yet if this solemn contract be not aln-aiis religiously observed, it serves, al least, to moderate the spirit of vengeance so natural to the Turks." The Ba- ron adds in a note : " The Turks think it the blackest in- gratitude, to forget the man from whom we hai i food : which is signified by t/te bread and salt in this cere- mony."— (Baron du Tott, 'part i. page -Ml.) The Baioli alludes to this incident in part iii. pa'_rc 36. Pacha, b-ing ordered to obev the Baron, was ,,. at it. "I did not imagine I' ought to put an. dence in the mysterious covenant of the linad I which this man had formerly vowed inviolable friendship h NUMBERS. Chap. 20. me." Yet lie "dissembled his discontent," and "his pee- vishness only showed itself in his first letters to the Porte." It will now, we suppose, appear credible, that the phrase "a covenant of sail" alludes to some custom in ancient times ; and without meaning to symbolize very deeply, we take the liberty of asking, whether the precept, Lev. ii. 13, " With all thine offerings thou shalt ofler salt," may have any ref- erence to ideas of a similar nature 1 Dia the custom of feasting at a . oveiinnt-making include the same? accord- ing to the sentiment of the Turks hinted at in the Baron's note. We ought tu notice the readiness of the Baron's do- mestics, in proof iliat they, knowing the usages of their country, well understood 'what was about to lake place. Also, that this covenant is usually punctually observed, and where it is not punctually observed, yet it has a re- straining influence on the parly who has made it; and his non-observance of it disgraces him. We proceed to give a remarkable instance of the power of this covenant of salt over the mind: it seems to imply a something attributed to salt, which it is very difficult for us completely lo explain, but which is not the less real on that account : " Jacoub ben Lai'h, the founder of a dynasty of Persian princes called the Saffarides, rising, like many others of the ancestors of the princes of the East, from a very low state to royal power, being in his first setting out in the use of arms, no better than a freebooter or robber, is yet said to have maintained some regard to decency in his depredations, and never to have entirely stripped those that he robbed, always leaving them something to soften their affliction. Among other exploits that are recorded of him, he is said to have broken into the palace of the prince of that country, and having collected a very large boot] which he «as on the point of carrying away, he found his foot kicked something which made him stumble; he 1 1 1 1 ; i l: : ; i i ■ i ! i i:i"_rht be something of value, and pulling it to his mouth, the belter to distinguish what it was, his tongue soon informed him it was a lump of salt. Upon this, according to ihe morality, or ralher superstition, of the country, where the people considered sail as a symbol and pledgc'of hospitality, he was so touched, that he left all his booty, retiring without taking away any thing with him. The next morning, the risk they had riin of losing many valuable things being perceived, great was the surprise, and strict the inquiry, what could be the occasion of their being left. At length Jacoub was found to be the person concerned ; who having given an account, very sincerely, of the whole transaction to the prince, he gained his es- teem so effectually, that it might be said, with truth, thai it was his regard for salt that laid the foundation of his after fortune. The prince employing him as a man of courage and genius in many enterprises, and finding him successful in all of them, he raised him, by little and little, to the chief posts among his troops; so that, at that prince's death, he found himself possessed of the command in chief, and had such interest in their affections, that they pre- ferred his interests to those of the children of the deceased prince, and he became absolute master of that province, frorn whence he afterward spread his conquests far and wide." — (D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient, p. 4GG. Also.Harmer's _ Obs.) — Taylor in Calmet. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 19. And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the highway ; and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it: I will only (without doing any thing else) go through on my feet The scarcity of water, and the great labourand expense cf digging away so much earth, in order to reach it, ren- der a well extremely valuable. As the water is often sold at a yery high price, a number of good wells yield to the proprietor a large revenue. Pitts was obliged to purchase water at sixpence a gallon ; a fact which illustrates the force of the offer made by Moses to Edom ; " IIT, and my t ittle, drink of thy water,' then will I pay for it." It is prop- erly meniioned as a very aggravating circumstance in the' overthrow of Jerusalem," that the "ruthless conqueror forced the Jews to purchase with money, the water of iheir own wells and the wood of theft- own trees: " We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unlo us." Even a cup of cold water cannot always be obtained in Syria, without paying a certain price, "it is partly on this account our Lord promises, "Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of those little ones, a cup of cold water, in the name of a disciple, should in no wise lose his reward " — Paxton. How little do the people of England understand feelingly those passages of scripture which speak of want of water, of paying for that necessary fluid, and of the strife for such a valuable article as a well ! So we read, " Abraham re- proved Abimelech, because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away." Gen.xxi. 25. So, chap. xxvi. 20 : " The herdsmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdsmen ; and he called the well Esck, contention." — To whal extremities contention about a sup- ply of water may proceed, we learn from the following ex- tracts : — " Our course lay along shore, betwixt Ihe main- land and a chain of little islands, with which, as likewise with rocks and shoals, the sea abounds in this part; and for that reason, it is the practice with all these vessels to anchor every evening : we generally brought up close to the shore, and the land-breeze springing up about midnight, walled lo us the perfumes of Arabia, with which it was strongly impregnated, and very fragrant ; ihe latter part of it carried us off in the morning, and continued till eight, when it generally fell calm for two or three hours, and after that Ihe northerly wind set in, after obliging us to anchor under the lee of the land by noon ; it happened thai one morning, when we had been driven by stress of wealher into a small" bay, called Birk Bay, the country around it being inhabited by ihe Budoes, [Bedoweens] Ihe Noquedah sent his people on shore to gel water, for which it is always ciis/oniani to pay.'' if I, and my cattle, drink of thy water, then will 1 pay for t'/."— This 'is always expected; and though Edom might in friendship have let" his brother Israel drink gratis, had he recollected their consanguinity, yet Israel did not insist on such accommodation. How strange would it sound in England, if a person in travelling, should propose to pay for drinking water from the wells by the road-side ! Never- theless, still stronger is the expression, Lam. v. 4 ; " We have drank our own water for money:" we bought it of oui foreign rulers; although we were the natural proprietor? of the wells which furnished it.— Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 22. And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor. 23. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, 24. Aaron shall be gathered unto his people : for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. 25. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor : 2G. And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son ; and Aaron shall be gathered vnto his people, and shall die there. 27. And Moses did as the Lord commanded: and they went up into mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. 28. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son ; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount : and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount. The evidence already adduced leaves unquestionable the possibility that excavations in rocks may continue unim- paired for manv ages. That monuments so extremely an- cient as the days of Moses and Aaron should still bear their testimony to facts of other times, is too wonderful to be received without due circumspection. — If they were re- ferred to buildings, to structures erected by human power, they would be something more than dubious : but this Chap. 21. NUMBERS. hesitation does not apply to chambers cut in rocks, or on i lie sules oi rocky mountains : if the identity of such place- can be established, their antiquity need occasion no difticul- ty ; it" (lie lonil) nf Anion lie not the tomb Of any oilier per- son, it may be admitted to all the honours of the distant age to which it is ascribed. The rock and the mountainorigi- nated with the world, and will endure to the end of tune. At least, it is proper that what is said of the tomb of Aaron, should lind lis place m a work like the present. Our travellers left Petra, and inking a south-westerly direction, arrived at the tool of Mount Hor, by three o'clock in the afternoon. Thev climbed the rugg and found "a crippled Arab hermit, about eighty years ot' age, the one half of which time he had spent on t lie io]n i i In- mountain, living on the donations of the few Mohammedan pilgrims who resort thither, and the charity of the name i w ho supply him with water and 'milk. He con- ducted us into the small white building, crowned by a cupola, that contains the tomb of Aaron. The monument is of stone, about three feet high, and the venerable Arab, having lighted a lamp, led us down some steps to a chamber ■ u out of the rock, but containing nothing ex- i. Against the walls of the upper apartment, where stood the tomb, were suspended beads, bits of cloth and leather, votive offerings left by the devotees; on one Bide, let into the wall, we were shown a dark looking stone, that was reputed to possess considerable virtues in the cure of diseases, and to have formerly served as a seat to the prophet."— Tatlob is Calmet. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people : and much people of Israel died. The seraph, to a biblical student, is one of the most inter- esting creatures that has vet fallen under our notice. It bears the name of an order among the hosts of heaven, whom Isaiah beheld in vision, placed above the throne of Jehovah in the temple ; the brazen figure of this serpent, is supposed to be a type of our blessed Redeemer, who was for our salvation lifted up upon the cross, as the serpent was elevated in the camp of Israel, for the preservation of that people. It is the only species of serpent which the al- mighty Creator has provided with wings, by means of which', instead of creeping or leaping, it rises from the ground, and, leaning upon the extremity of its tail, moves with great velocity. It is a native of Egypt, and the des- erts of Arabia; and receives its name from the Hebrew verb saraph, which signifies to burn, in allusion to the vio- lent inflammation which its poison produces, or rather its fiery colour, which the brazen serpent was intended to rep- resent. Bochart is of opinion, that the seraph is the same as the hydras, or, as Cicero calls it, the serpent of the wa- ters. For, in the book of Isaiah, the land of Egypt is call- ed the region from whence come the viper and flying ser- aph, or burning serpent. /Elian says, they come from the deserts of Libya and Arabia, to inhabit the streams of the Nile ; and that they have the form of the hydros. The existence of winged serpents is attested by many writers of modern times. A kind of snakes were discover- ed among the Pyrenees, from whose sides proceeded carti- lages in the form of wings; and Scaliger mentions a peas- ant who killed a serpent of the same species which attack- ed him, and presented it to the king of France. Le Blanc, as quoted by Bochart, says, at the head of the lake Chia- may, are extensive woods and vast marshes, which it is very dangerous to approach, because tbey are infested by very- large serpents, which, raised from the ground on wings re- sembling those of bats, and leaning on the extremity of move with great rapidity. They exist, it is re- ported, about these places in so great numbers, that thev have almost laid waste the neighbouring province. And, in the same work, Le Blanc affirms thaf he has seen some of them of immense size, which, when hungry, rushed im- petuou-ly on sheep and other tame animals. But the origi- nal term ijsnyn Moopheph, does not always signify flying with wings; it often expresses Vibration, swinging back- ward and forward, a tremulous motion. & fluttering; and this is precisely the motion of a serpent, when he springs from one tree to another. Niebuhr mentions a sort of ser- pents at Bassorah. which thev call Hcie thiare. "Thev 13 commonly keep upon the date trees ; and as it would be la- borious for them to come down from a very high tree, in order to ascend another, they twist tin mselves by the tail to a branch of the former; which making a spring bj the motion they give it, throws them to the luanc he- ,,| il.c m. - ond. Hence it is, that the modern Arabs call them fly- ing serpents, Hcic thiare. Admiral Anson also speaks of rpenls, that he met with at the island ot Cluibo; but, which wore without Prom this account it may be inferred, that the flying serpent mentioned in the prophet, was of that species of serpents which, from their swift darting motion, the Greeks call Aeontias. and the Ro- mans, Jacvius. The seraph is classed by the Hebrev among those animals which emit an offensive odoui ; which Corresponds with the character given of the In ill us by the poet:' graviter spirantibtis hydiis." Tin stance is confirmed by /Elian, who states, that in Corcyra, the hydra- turn upon 'their pursuers, and exhale from tbeil lungs" an air so noisome, that they are compelled to desist from the attack. It is an obvious objection to thi ments, that the hvdra? are produced, and reared in marshy places; not in burning and thirsty deserts, where the peo- ple of Isiael murmured because ihey could find no water. But, although that people might find no water to drink, it will not follow, that the desert contained no marshy place, or muddy pool, where the hydra might luik. Besides, it is well known, that when water fails, these serpents do not perish, but become chersydri, that is, seraphim or burners. .Elian savs thev live a long time in the parched wilder- ness, and lie in wait for all kinds of animals. These cher- svdri, it is extremelv probable, were the serpents which bit the rebellious Israelites: and in this state they were more terrible instruments of divine vengeance ; for, exasperated by the want of water, and the intense heat of the season, thev injected a deadlier poison, and occasioned to the mis- erable sufferer more agonizing torments. The lime of the year when Jehovah sent these serpents among his people, proves that this is no vain conjecture. According to Ni- cander, the hydrce become chersydri, and beset the path ol the traveller about the do? days.' Now, Aaron died on the first day of the fifth month, tliat is, the month Abib, which corresponds with the nineteenth day of July. The Israelites mourned lor him thirty days; immediately after which, they fought a battle with Ara'd, the Canaanit'e, and destroy- ed his country: then recommencing their journey, they murmured for' want of water, and the serpents were sent. This, then, must have happened about the end of August; the season when the hydra become seraphim, and inflict the most cruel wounds.' Nor is it a fact, that the frightful solitudes which Israel traversed, were totally destitute if water; for, in their fourth journey thev came to the river Arnon ; in the fifth, to Beer, a well greatly celebrated in scripture; and soon after the death of Aaron, they arrived at a region watered by numerous streams. In these in ig- uous places, which were at no great distance from the camp of Israel, the hvdra; might be produced, and sent to chastise the rebellious tribes. The words of Moses also seem to countenance the idea, that the hydra employed on this occasion, were not generated on the spot, but sent from a distance: "And the Lord sent fiery serpents, or sera- phim, among the people." From these words it is natural to conclude, that they came from that "land of rivers," through which the congregation had lately passed. Nor will this be reckoned too long a journey, when it is recol- lected that they travelled from both the Libyan and Arabian deserts, to the streams of the Nile. They inflicted on this memorable occasion, an appropriate chastisement on the perverse tribes. That rebellious people had opened their mouth against the heavens; they had sharpened their tongues like serpents; and the poison of asps was under their lips: therefore thev were made to suffer, by the bum- ins poison of a creature which they so nearly resembled. — Paxton. Ver. 18. The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digcred it. by the direction o/the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah. Michaelis observes on this passage, that Moses seems to have promised the Israelites that they would discover in this neighbourhood, and that by ordinary human industry NUMBERS. Chap. 22—24. and skill, a spring hitherto unknown ; and that this promise was fulfilled. The discovery of springs, which often flow at a considerable depth below the surface of the earth, is of great importance to a country so poor in water as Arabia. Often a spot that is dry above'has even subterraneous lakes, to reach which it is necessary to dig to some depth. We have a remarkable instance hi a part of Africa which Shaw The villages of Wadreag are supplied in a particular manner with water: they have, properly speaking, neither fountains nor rivulets ; but by digging wells to the depth of a hundred, and sometimes two hundred fathoms, they never want a plentiful stream. In order, therefore, to obtain it, they dig through different layers of sand and gravel till they come to a flaky stone, "like sla'e, which is known to lie immediately above the bahar taht el erd, or the sea below the ground, as they call the abyss. This is easilv broken through, and the f.ux of wa- ter, which follows the stroke, rises generally so suddenly, and in such abundance, that the person let down for this purpose has sometimes, though raised up with the greatest dexterity, been overtaken and suffocated by it." In some parts of Arabia, as at Faranard in the valley of Dscbiron- del, water is found, according to Niebuhr, on digging only a foot and a half deep. — Rosenmlller. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 4. And Moab said unto the ciders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. A native gentleman, who has many people depending upon him, says, " Yes, they are all grazing upon me." " If I am not careful, thev will soon graze up all I have." Of people who have got all they can out of one rich man, and who are seeking after another, " Yes, yes, they have done grazing there,- and are now looking out for another place." " These bulls are grazing in every direction." — Roberts. Ver. 6. Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people ; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed. The Orientals, in their wars, have always their magi- cians with them to curse their enemies, and to mutter in- cantations for their destruction. Sometimes they secretly convey a potent charm among the opposing troops, to cause 'their destruction. In our late war with the Burmese, the generals had several magicians, who were much en- gaged in cursing our troops ; "but, as they did not succeed, a number of witches were brought for the same purpose. — ROBEBTS. Ver. 21. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. We learn from Niebuhr, that in Egypt the asses are very handsome, and are used for riding bv the greater part of the Mohammedans, and by the most distinguished women of that country. The same variety serves for the saddle in Persia and Arabia; and must therefore have been com- mon in Palestine. They are descended from tamed ima- gers, which are taken young, and sold for a high price to the nobles of Persia, and the adjacent countries, for their studs. They cost seventy-five ducats; and Tavernier says, that fine ones are sold in Persia dearer than horses, even to a hundred crowns each. He distinguishes them properly from the baser race of ordinary asses, which are employed in carrying loads. These saddle asses, the issue of onagers, are highly commended by all travellers into the Levant. Like the wild ass, they are extremely swift and rapid in their course ; of a slender form, and animated gait. They have vigorous faculties, and can discern ob- stacles readily ; at the sight of danger they emit a kind or when- they are put out of their way, or when I are made to control them .against their will: they are also familiar and attached to their master. These particulars exactly correspond with several incidents in the history of Balaam's ass-; from whence it may be inferred, that he rode one of the superior breed, and by consequence, was a person of considerable wealth and eminence in his own country. The high value which people of rank and fashion in the East set upon that noble race of asses, excludes them from the purchase of the commonalty, and restricts the possession of them to the great, or the affluent. This fact is confirmed by the manner in which the sacred writers express themselves on this subject.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 21. The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. When people pass along the road, if they hear a great noise of joy or triumph, they say, " This is like the shout of a king." "What a noise there was in your village last evening ! why, it was like the shout of a king." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 6. As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side; as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar-trees beside the waters. Gabriel Sionita, a learned Syrian Maronite, thus describes the cedars of Mount Lebanon, which he had examined on the spot. " The cedar-tree grows on the most elevated part ' of the mountain; is taller than the pine, and so thick, that five men together could scarce fathom one. It shoots out its branches at ten or twelve feet from the ground; they are large, and distant from each other, and are perpetually green. The cedar distils a kind of sum, to which different effects are attributed. The wood of it is of a brown colour, very solid, and incorruptible if preserved from wet ; it bears a small apple, like that of the pine. De la Roque re- lates some cm ii his particulars concerning this tree, which he learned from the Maroniles of Mount Libanus : " The branches grow in parallel rows round the tree, but lessen gradually from the bottom to the top, shooting out parallel to the horizon, so that the tree is, in appearance, similar to a cone. As the snows, which fall in vast quantities on this mountain, must necessarily, by their weight on such a vast surface, break down these" branches, nature, or rather the God of nature, has so ordered it, that at the approach of winter, and during the snowy season, the branches erect themselves, and cling close to the body of the tree, and thus prevent any body of snow from lodging on them." Maun- drell, who visited Mount Libanus in 1G97, gives the follow- ing description of the cedars still growing there : " These noble trees grow among the snow, near the highest part of Lebanon, and are remarkable, as well for their own age and largeness, as for those frequent allusions to them in the word of God. Some of them are very old, and of a prodigious bulk ; others younger, and of a smaller size. Of the former I could reckon only sixteen, but the latter are very numerous. I measured one of the largest, and found it 'twelve yards and six inches in girth, and yet sound; and thirty-seven yards in the spread of its branches. At about five or six );ards from the ground it was divided into five limbs, each of which was equal to a great tree." The aloe-tree here meant is the aloe which grows in the East Indies, to the height of eight or ten feet, and (not to be confounded with the aloe-plant originally from Amer- ica) its stem is the thickness of a thigh. At the top grows a tuft of jagged and thick leaves, which is broad at the bottom, but becomes gradually narrower towards the point, and is about fourfeet long; the blossom is red, intermingled with vellow, and double like cloves. From this blossom comes a red and white fruit, of the size of a pea. This tree has a very beautiful appearance, and the wood has so fine a smell, that it is used for perfume. The Indians con- sider this tree as sacred, and are used to fell it with various religious ceremonies. The Orientals consider this aloe as a tree of Paradise, on which account the Dutch call it the tree of Paradise. Therefore, Rabbi Solomon Jarchi Chap. 31 -35. NUMBERS. 0': explains the Hebrew word as 'myrrh ami sai which ( tod planted in the garden of Eden." — Rosenmullbb. CHAPTER XXXI. Ver. 50. We bare therefore brought an oblation for the Lord, what every man hath soften, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, ear-rings, and tablets, to make an atonement tor our souls before the Lord. not a man in a thousand who does not wear an ear-ring or a finger-ring, for without such an ornament a person would be classed among the most unfortunate of his ran-. Souie time ago a large sacr e uas made for the purpose of removing the cholera morbus, when vast IHllIll.CI'S eumc togetliel with tilc'ir ohiolio'lS. 'I'll.- people seemed to take the greatest pleasure in presenting then ear- j/irj.. In irrl,-!t, and ni :i, i ,ir ■!./ mrnts, because they were dearer to them than money, and consequently were believed to be more efficacious in appeasing the gods. When people are sick, they vow to give a valuable jewel to their god on being restored.— Robbe™. CHAPTER XXXII.' Ver. 55. Then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of thorn shall he pricks in your eyes, ami thorns in your sides, and shall rex you in the land wherein ye dwell. People in the East, in consequence of their light clothing, of the expo-cd state of their feet, andthe narrowness of the paths, have a great dread of thorns. Those who carry the palankeen, or who travel in groups, often cry aloud, .Yfullii, mitUu : A thorn, a thorn ! The sufferer soon throws him- self on the earth, and some one, famous for his skill, ex- tracts the thorn. Does aperson see something of a distress- ing nature, lie savs, " That was a thon in my eyes." A father savs of his bad son, " He is to me as a thorn." " His vile expressions were like thorns in my body." A person going to live in an unhealthy place, or where there are quarrels >me people, is said to be going " to the thorny des- ert."— Roberts. CHAPTER XXXV. Ver. 10. The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer : when he meeteth him he shall slay him. The interest of the common safety has for ages estab- lished a law among the Arabians, which decrees that the blood of every man who is slain must be avenged by that of his murderer. This vengeance is called tar, or retalia- tion, and the right of exacting it devolves on the nearest a-kin to the deceased. So nice are the Arabs on this point of honour, that if one neglects to seek his retaliation, he is disgraced for ever. He therefore watches every opportu- nity of revenge ; if his enemy perish from any other cause, still he is not satislie 1, and his vengeance is directed against the nearest relation. These animosities are transmitted as an inheritance from father to children, and never cease but by the extinction of one of the families: unless they agree to sacrifice the criminal, or purchase the blood for a stated price in money or in docks. Without this satisfaction, there is neither peace, nor truce, nor alliance between them, nor sometimes even between whole tribes. There ^s bloo 1 between us. sav they, on every occasion ; and this 'Ypression is an insurmountable barrier.— Voi.ney. " Among the Bedouin Arabs," says D'Arvieux, " the re- venge of blood is implacable. If one man has killed an- other, the friendship between the two families and their descendants is dissolved. If an opportunity should occur to join in some common interest, or if one family propose a marriage to the other, they answer quite coolly, ' You know that there is blood between us, we cannot accept your proposal, and must consider our honour.' They do not forgive each other till they have had their revenge, with which, however, they are not m haste, but wait for time and opportunity." Thisisconfirmedbv Niehuhr, Descrip- tion of Arabia. " The Arabs seldom wish to see the mur- derer put to death by the magistrates, or lake his life them- selves, because they would deliver bis family loan ;i bad in her, and, consequently, frpm a great burden. The family of the prison mm. Lard vrn.i.ally reserve to them- selves the right to declare war, as it 'were, against the murderer and his relations. I'm an hoi able Arab must observe some equality of strength ; it would b», con- sidered disgraceful ii a strong person should attack one old or sick, or many, a single individual. They are, how- ever, permitted to kill even the most distinguished, and, as it were, the support of the family: for thev require that he in particular, who is cciiisidnei! as the chief, and who acknowledges himself as such, should have a watchful eye on the conduct of all the members. The murderer IS, however, arrested by the magistiaies, and released ,,» nn. after paving a certain sum, for instance, two hundred dol- lars. Tins is, probably, the reason why the law is not abolished. Ail i this, every member of both families must live in constant t ar ol anj v. here i :ting till at length one of the family of the murderer is killed. There have been instances that similar family lends have lasted fifty years, or more, because thev do not challenge each other "to single combat, but light only when opportu- nity oilers. A man of consequence at Lioheia, who used to visit us frequently, besides the usual Arabian weapon, that is, a broad and sharp-pointed knife, always carried a small lance, which he hardly ever put out 01 his hands, even in the company of his friends, As we were DOI ac- customed lo see Mich a weapon in the hands of the other Arabs, and inquired about it, he complained that some vr.n before he had had the misfortune to have one of his family killed. The injured family had then reserved to revenge themselves in single combat, of the murderer or his relations. One of his enemies, and the very one whom he principally feared, was also in this town. He once met him in our house also, armed with a lance. They might have terminated their quarrel immediately, but they did nol speak one « ed to each other, and much less did any combat ensue. Our friend assured us, that if he should me'et his enemy in the open country, he must necessarily fight him ; but" he owned at the same lime, that, he strove to avoid this opportunity, and that he could not sleep in peace for fear of being surprised." After the bombardment of Mocha bv the French, and when peace was already concluded, the captain of a French ship was stabbed before his own door, where he sat a-hep, by an Arab soldier, one of whose relations had been killed" by a bomb.— R JSEN- MULLER. I I must now speak of a person quite unknown in our law, but very conspicuous in the Hebrew law, and in regard to whom Moses has left us, I might almost say, an inimitable, but, at anyrate.an unexampled proof of legislative wisdom. In German, we may call him by the name which Luther so happily employs; in his version of the Bible, Der Blut- richer, the blood-avenger; and by this name we must here understand "the nearest relation of a person mur- dered, whose right and duty it was to seek after and kill the murderer with his own hand ; so much so, indeed, that the neglect thereof drew after it the greatest possible infa- my, and subjected the man who avenged not the death of his relation, to unceasing reproaches of cowardice or avarice." If, instead of this description, the reader pre- fers a short definition, it may be to this effect; "the nearest relation of a person murdered, whose right and duty it was to avenge the kinsman's death with his own hand." Among the Hebrews, this person was called kKi, Gael, according, at least, to the pronunciation adopted from the pointed Bibles. The etymology of this word, like most forensic terms, is as yet unknown. Yet we cannot but be curious to find out whence the Hebrews had derived the name, which they applied to a person so peculiar to their own law, and so totally unknown to ours. Unquestionably the verb Ski, Can], means lobiiyoff, ransom, redeem; hut this signification it has derived from the noun ; for originally it meant to pollute, or stain. If I (flight here mention a conjecture of my own, Goil afhloml, (for that is the term at full length,) implies blood-stained ; and the nearest kins man of a murdered person was considered as stained will- his blood, until he had. as it were, washed away the star-; and revenged the death of his relation. The name, thei- fore, indicated a person who continued ir; a state of di.- honour, until he again ren lered himself honourable, bj 100 NUMBERS. Ch « the exercise and accomplishment of revenue ; and in this very light do the Arabs regard the kinsman of a person murdered. It was no doubt afterward used in a more ex- tensive sense, to signify the nearest relation in general, and although there was no murder in the case; just as in all languages, words are gradually extended far beyond their etymological meaning. Etymology may show the circum- stances from which they may have received their signifi- cation ; but it is by no means, a definition suited to all their derivative meanings, else would it be prophetic. In Arabic, this personage is called Taw, or according to another pro- nunciation, Thsair. Were this Arabic word to be written Hebraically, il wronld be w. | £» » ,| that is, the survivor. It appears, therefore, according to its derivation, to be equivalent lot/u surviving n lotion, who was bound to avenge the death, of a murdered pt rson. The Latin word, Svpcrslcs, expresses this idea exactly. In Arabic writings, this word occurs tea times for once that we meet with GoH in He- brew; for the Arabs, among whom the point of honour and heroic celebrity, consists entirely in the revenge of blood, have much more to say of their blood-avenger than the Hebrews ; am mg whom,' Moses, by the wisdom of his law-, brought this character in a great measure into obliv- ion. The Syrians have no proper name for the blood- avenger, and are of coarse obliged to make use of a circumlocution, when he is mentioned in the Bible. Hence they must either not have been acquainted with the office itself, or have lost their knowledge of it at an early period, daring their long subjection to the Greeks, after the time of Alexander the Great. If this character, with which the Hebrews and Arabs were so well acquainted, be unknown to us, this great dis- similarity is probably not to be ascribed to the "effects of difference of climate, but rather to the great antiquity of these nations. Nations, how remote soever in their" situa- tion, yet resemble each other while in their infancy, much in the same way as children in every country have certain resemblances in figure and manners, proceeding from their age, by which we can distinguish them from adults and old people ; and of this infancy of mankind, or, to speak more properly, of that state of nature, whence they soon pass into the state of civil society, the blood-avenger seems to me to be a relic. Let ns figure to ourselves a people without magistrates, and where every fa1 her of a family is still his own master. In such a slate, men's lives would ofnecesjitj be in the highest degree insecure, were there no such blood-avenger as we have above described. Ma- gistrate, or public judicial tribunal, to punish murder, there is none; of course acts of murder might be daily perpe- trated, were there no reason to dread punishment of ano- ther description. For their own security, the people would be forced to constitute the avengement 'of blood an indis- pen-aMe duty, and not only to consider a murderer as an outlaw, but actually to endeavour to put him to death, and whithersoever he might flee, never to cease pursuing him, until he became the victim of vengeance. As. however, every one would not choose to undertake the dangerous of- fice of thus avenging a murder, the nearest relations of the unfortunate sufferer would find it necessary to undertake it themselves. It would naturally be deemed a noble deed, and the neglect of it, of course, highly disgracefn!, and just- ly productive of such infamy and reproach as blood alone could wash away. Nor would any one obstruct, but lather aid them, in the prosecution of their revenge, if he had a proper regard to his own security. Allowing, however, that the murderer's relations were to protect him against the blood-avenger, or lo revenge his death by a fresh murder in their turn, this would still be a proof that they regarded such revenge as an honourable duty, and that they would have looked upon the family of the murdered person as despicable cowards, if they had left his death unrevenged. And this is in fact the language of nature. among nations who have not even the most remole connexion With the Hebrews and Arabs. I remember to have read r omewhere in Labafs Voyages, that the Camifcs practise the same sort of revenge, and that it gives rise to family contests of long duration, because the friends of the murderer take his part, and revenge his death on the relatives of the first vic- tim. We can scarcely conceive the human race in a more perfect state of nature than immediately after the deluge, when only Noah and his three sons were on the face of the ^ariJi. Each of them was independent of the other; the father was too old to be able to enforce obedience, had any of them been refractory; and besides, a father is not expect- ed to inflict capital punishment on his sons or grandsons. Add to this, that Noah's sons and their families were not to continue all together, and to form one commonwealth, but to spread themselves in perfect independence over the whole earth. In order, therefore, to secure their lives, God himself gave this command, Gen. ix. 5, 6: " Man's blood shall not" remain unrevenged ; but whoever killeth a man, be it man or beast, shall in his turn be put to death by other men." If the reader wishes to know more of this passage, which has been 'jenernlly misunderstood, and held out as containing a precept still obligatory on magistrates, let him consult my Comment) ' ma ad leges divinas de pane. Hmni- cidii, in Part I. of my Syntagma Commentatiowum. Here, the only difference from" the law now under consideration is, that God imposes this duty, not upon the nearest relation, but on mankind in general] as bound to provide for their common security, and that he gives every individual a right lo put a murderer to death, although we have no connex- ion with the person murdered — a law which remained in force, until mankind introduced civil relations, made laws, nominated magistrates, and thus established a better secu- rity to the lives as^well as the properly of individuals.— MlCHAELlS. Ver. .25. And the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refvtge, whither he was fled : and he. shall abide in it unto the death of the high- priest, which was anointed with the holy oil. Moses found the Goil already instituted, and speaks of him in his laws as a character perfectly known, and there- fore unnecessary to be described ; at the same time that he expresses his fear of Ins frequently shedding innocent blood. But long before he has occasion to mention him as the avenger of murder, he introduces his name in his laws relating to land, as in Lev. xx v. Co, 2fi, where he gives him the right of redeeming a mortgaged field; and also in the law relative to the restoration of any thing iniquitously acquired, Num. v. 8. The only book that is'possibly more ancient than the Mosaic law," namely, the book of Job. compares God, who will re-demand our ashes from the earth, with the Goil, chap. xix. 25. From this term, the verb ln:, which otherwise signifies properly lo pollute, had already acquired the si cnifieti lion of .■•>,'/. i.i.ol' .:■ !>< marry a wo- man born a heathen : although this also is denied by those who press upon Moses a law "of their own. The statute id Deut. xxi. 10—14, already illustrated, puts this liberty be- yond a doubt : and he who disputes it, confounds two terms of very different import and extent, heathen and Co- naaniic. An Israelite might certainly marry a heatheD woman, provided she no longer continued an idolatress ; which, however, she could not, as a captive and slave with- in Palestine, have been even previously suffered to be ; but all marriages with Canaanitish women was, by the statute Exod. xxxiv. 16, prohibited. In that statute, Moses had it particularly in view to prevent the Canaaniies, who were both an idolatrous, and a very wicked race, from continu- ing to dwell in Palestine, and by intermarriages with Is- raelites, at last becoming one people with them : for he dreaded lest they should infect them with their vices and superstitions. Should I here be asked, " Wherein then did Solomon sin, who, in 1 Kings, xi. 1, 2, is certainly censured for mar ruing heathens?" my answer would be, (1.)' that among the wives and concubines whom he took, there were Sidonians, who belonged to the race of Canaanites, and these were expresslv forbidden; (2.) that, contrary to the positive prohibition of Moses, he kept a great seraglio; (3.) that he permitted his wives to practise idolatry; and, (4.) that he was himself led into it also : as we have only to read down to verse 8, to be convinced. I have only further to observe, what I remarked before, that the peo- ple of Israel must, in consequence of the toleration of po- lygamy, have been in a state of continual decrease, had riot marriages with foreigners, and particularly with the captive daughters of the neighbouring people, been per- mitted.—Miciiaelis. DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER I. Ver. 19. Ami when wo departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilder- ness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the Lord our God com- manded us ; and we came to Kadesh-barnea. The divine blessing has not bestowed the same degree of Iruitfulness on every part of Canaan. This ferule country is surrounded by deserts of immense extent, exhibiting a dreary waste of loose and barren sand, on which the skill ftnd industry of man are able to make no impression, The only vegetable productions which occasionally meet the eye of the traveller in these frightful solitudes, are a . . i ,,lv grass, thinlv sprinkled on the sand; a plot of senna, or other saline or bitter herb, or an acacia bush; even these but rarely present themselves to his notice, and afford him little satisfaction when they do, because they warn him that he is yet far distant from a place of abun- dance and repose. Moses, who knew these deserts well, calls them " great and terrible," " a desert land," " the waste howling wilderness." But the completes! picture of the sandy desert is drawn by the pencil of Jeremiah, in which, with surprising force and brevity, he has exhibited every circumstance of terror, which the modern traveller details with so much pathos and minuteness; " Neither say they. Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt"?" — Paxton. Ver. 44. And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah. It is said of numerous armies, that they are like bees; and of a multitude, who go to chastise a few, " Yes, they came upon us as bees." To a person who has proved a man of numerous connexions, " Yes, you will have them as bees upon you." Of any thing which has come sud- denly, and in great numbers, " Alas, these things come as bees upon us." — Rohkhts. The bee is represented by the ancients, as a vexatious, and even a formidable adversary; and the experience of every person who turns his attention to the temper and habits of that valuable insect, attests the truth of their asser- tion. They were so troublesome in some districts of Crete, that, if we may believe Pliny, the inhabitants were actually compelled to forsake their habitations. And, according to ./Elian, some places in Scythia, beyond the Ister, were for- merlv inaccessible, on account of the numerous swarms of bees bv which they were infested. The statements of these ancient writers is confirmed by Mr. Park, in the second volume of his Travels. Some of his associates imprudently attempted to rob a numerous hive, which they found in their way. The exasperated little animals rushed out to defend their property, and attacked the spoilers with so much furv, that they quickly compelled the whole com- pany, men, horses, and asses, to scamper off in all direc- tions. The horses were never recovered, and a number of the asses were so severely stung that they died next day: and so great was the loss our intrepid traveller sustained in the engagement, that he despondingly concluded his jouriiey was at an end. The allusion of Moses, therefore, to th.'ir fierce hostility, in the beginning of his last words to Israel, is both just' and beautiful : " And the Amorites which dwelt in that mountain came out against you, and chased you as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah." The Amorites, it appears, were the most bitter adversaries to I>racl, of all the nations of Canaan ; like bees that are easily irritated, that attack with great fury, and increasing numbers, the person that dares to molest their hive, and persecute him in his flight, to a con- siderable distance — the incensed Amorites had collected their hostile bands, and chased, with considerable slaughter, the chosen tribes from their territory. The Psalmist also complains, that his enemies compassed him about like bees; fiercely attacking him on every side. The bee, when called to defend "her hive, assails with fearless in- trepidity the largest and the most ferocious animal ; and the Psalmist found from experience, that neither the purity of his character, the splendour of his rank, nor the great- ness of his power, were sufficient to shield him from the covered machinations, or open assaults, of his cruel and numerous enemies. — Paxton. CHAPTER III. Ver. 11. For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants ; behold, his bedstead ira.< a bedstead of iron: is it not in Rahbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits teas the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth ot it, after the cubit of a man. This is a very curious account of a giant king: his bed- stead was made of iron, and we are able to ascertain its exact length, nine cubits, i. c. " after the cubit of a man." This alludes to the eastern mode of measuring from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow, which will be found to be in general eighteen inches. Thus his bedstead was thirteen feet six inches in length, and six feet in breadth. The hawkers of cloth very seldom carry with them a yard wand ; they simply measure from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, counting two lengths of that for a yard. — Roberts. Ver. 25. I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. The beauties of Lebanon seem to have left a deeper impression in the mind of D'Arvieux. " After travelling six hours in pleasant valleys," says that writer, "and over mountains covered with different species of trees, we entered a small plain, on a fertile hill wholly covered with walnut-trees and olives, in the middle of which is the vil- lage of Eden. — In spite of my weariness, I could not but incessantly admire this beautiful country. It is truly an epitome of the terrestrial paradise, of which it bears the name. Eden is rather a hamlet *an a village. The houses are scattered, and separated from each other by gardens, which are enclosed by walls made of stones piled up without mortar. We quitted Eden about eight o'clock in the morning, and advanced to mountains so extremely high, that we seemed to be travelling in the middle region; of the atmosphere. Here the sky was clear and serent above us, while we saw below us thick clouds dissolving in rain, and watering the plains. After three hours of la borious travelling, we arrived at the famous cedars about eleven o'clock. We counted twenty-three of them. The circumference of these trees is thirty-six feet. The bark of the cedar resembles that of the pine ; the leaves and cone also bear considerable resemblance. The stem is upright, the wood is hard, and has the reputation of being incorruptible. The leaves are long, narrow, rough, very green, ranged in tufts along: 'he branches; they shoot in spring, and fall in the beginning of winter. Its flowers and fruit resemble those of the pine. From the full giowp 104 DEUTERONOMY. Chap. 4—6 trees, a fluid trickles naturally, and without incision -, this is clear, transparent, whitish, and after a time dries and hardens : it is supposed to possess great virtues. — The place where these great trees are stationed, is in a plain of nearly a league in circumference, on the summit of a mount which is environed on almost all sides by other mounts, so high that their summits are always covered with snow. This plain is level, the air is pure', the heav- ens always serene. On one side of this plain is a fright- ful precipice, from whence flows a copious stream, which, descending into the valley, forms a considerable part of the Holy River, or Nahar Kadislia. The view along this valley is interesting; and the crevices of the rocks are filled with earth of so excellent a quality, that trees grow in them; and being continually refreshed with the vapours rising from the streams below, attain to considerable di- mensions. Nor is the sense of smelling less gratified than that of sight, by the fragrance diffused from the odoriferous plants around." He afterward says, "the banks of the river appeared enchanted. This stream is principally formed by the source which issues below the cedars, but is contin- ually augmented by a prodigious number of rills and fountains, which fall from the mountain, gliding along the clefts of the rocks, and forming many charming natural cascades, which communicate cooling breez s, and banish the idea of being in a country subject" to extreme heat. If to these enjoyments we add that of the nightingale's song, it must be granted that these places are infinitely agree- able." The cedars which he visited, encircle the region of perpetual snow. Lebanon is in this part free from rocks, and only rises and falls with small easy uneven- nesses, but is perfectly barren and desolate. The ground, where not concealed by the snow, for several hours' riding appeared to be covered with a sort of white slate, thin and smooth. Yet these dreary summits are not without their use ; they serve as a conservatory for abundance of snow, which, thawing in the heat of summer, furnishes ample supplies of water to the rivers and fountains in the valleys below. In the snow, he saw the prints of the feet of sev- eral wild beasts, which are the sole proprietors of these upper parts of the mountain. Marradrell found onlv six- teen cedars of large growth, and a natural plantation of smaller ones, which were verv numerous. One of the largest was twelve yards six inches in girth, and thirty- seven yards in the spread of its boughs. At six yards from the ground, it was divided into five limbs, each equal to a great tree. Dr. Richardson visited them in 1818, and found a small clump of large and tall and beautiful trees, which he pronounces the most picturesque productions of the vege- table world that he had ever seen. In this clump are two generations of trees; the oldest are large and massy, rear- ing their heads to an enormous height, and spreading their branches to a great extent. He measured one, not the largest in the clump, and found it thirty-two feet in cir- cumference. Seven of these trees appeared to be very old, the rest younger, though, for want of space, their branches are not so spreading. This statement sheds a clear and steady light on those passages of scripture which refer to Lebanon ; and enables us to reconcile with ease several apparent contradictions. So famous was this stupendous mountain in the days of Moses, that to be permitted to see it. was the object of his earnest desires and repeated prayers; and as the strongest expression of his admiration, he connects it in his addresses to the throne of his God, with Zion, the future seat of the divine glory. "I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan ; that goodly mountain and Lebanon." — Paxton. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 20. But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of in- heritance, as ye are this day. It has been observed by chymical writers, not only that iron melts slowly even in the most violent fire, but also that it ignites, or becomes red-hot, long before it fuses: and any one mav observe the excessive brightness of iron when red, or rather while hot. Since, therefore, it requires the strongest fire of all metals to fuse it, there is a peculiar propriety in the expression, a furnace for iron, or an iron f't mace, for violent and sharp afflictions. — Bltrder. CHAPTER V. Ver. 14. But the seventh day is the sabbath ol the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates ; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may resf as well as thou. In order to render the situation of slaves more tolerable, Moses made the three following decrees for their benefit. 1. On the sabbath day they were to be exempted from all manner of work. Of course every week they enjoyed one day of that rest which is so suitable to the nature of the human frame, and so requisite to the preservation of health and strength, Exod. xx. 10. Deut. v. 14, 15. In the latter of these passages it is expressly mentioned, that one design of the sabbath was to give a day of rest to slaves, and the Israelites are reminded of their own servitude in Egypt, when they longed in vain for days of repose. 2. The fruits growing spontaneously during the sab- batical year, and declared the property of none, were des- tined by Moses for the slaves and the indigent. 3. The Israelites were wont, at their high festivals, to make feasts of their tithes, firstlings, and sacrifices; indeed almost all the great entertainments were offering-feasts. To these, by the statutes of Deut. xii. 17, 18 and xvi. 11, the slaves were to be invited. Such occasions were there- fore a sort of saturnalia to them: and we cannot but exto< the clemency and humanity of that law, which procured them twice or thrice a-vear a few days1 enjoyment of those luxuries, which they would doubtless relish the more, the poorer their ordinary food might be. It was a part of the good treatment due to domestic ani- mals, that they were to be allowed to share the enjoyment of the sabbatical rest. On the people's own account this was no doubt necessary; because in general beasts can perform no work without man's assistance : but still Moses expressly declares that his commandment respecting the sabbath ha'e, a direct reference to the rest and refreshment of beasts as well as of man. His words are, " On the seventh day thou shalt rest from thy labour; that thine ox and thine ass may also rest, and thy servant and stranger may be refreshed," Exod. xxiii. 12. xx. 10. Deut. v. li. In fact, some such alternation of labour and rest seems necessary to the pres- ervation of beasts : for those that perforin the same kind of work day after day, without any interruption, soon be- come stupid and useless. At least, we see this the case with horses: and the reader will not take it amiss, that a town-bred writer, having better access to observe the effects of labour on them, than on oxen, should prefer taking an example from the former. A horse that has to travel three German miles every day will not hold out long: but, wi h intervening days of rest, in the same time, he will be able to go over a miich greater space without injury. He will^ for example, in ten days navel thirty-live German miles, with three resting days, that is. at the rate of five miles each day of the other seven. This fact is so well known, that in riding schools, one or two days of rest, besides Sun- day, are usually allowed to the horses, in order to preserve their spirit and activity; whereas the post-horses, which are constantly at work, soon become stiff and unserviceable. The case is probably the same with other beasts of burden. although they do not require sj many intervals of rest as horses. And hence the good treatment of beasts enjoined in the Mosaic law, and the sabbatical rest ordained for their refreshment, was highly expedient, even in an eco- CHAPTER VI. Ver. 7. And thou shalt teach them diligently ur.tc thy children. If you inquire how a good schoolmaster teaches his pu- pils, the answer will be, very koormeyina, i. e. " sharply, makes sharp, they are full of points." A man of a keen Chap. G-^S. DEUTERONOMY. 106 and cultivated mind, is said to be full of points. " He is well sharpened."— Roberts. Ver. 8. And thou shah bind them for a Bign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets be- tween thine eyea I Look upon the words in Dent. vi. 8, as not properly a law, bin an admonition; because they merely occur in an harangue which Moses addressed to the | pie. The ( Irientals make greal us,- of amulets;— a snbjecl on which [ cannot here expatiate, but of which I generally treat un- der Art. 36, of lay Hebrew Antiquities. These amulets consist soineiimes of jewels and other ornaments, and some- i ol certain sentences, or unintelligible lines, and Abra- cadabra, written on billets, or embroidered on pieces of linen. Some such things the Israelites, in those days, seem lo h;ne worn on their foreheads, and on their hands; and i lie Mohammedans do so still. For how often do we find on iheii breasts a passage from the Koran, which is said to make them invulnerable, or rather actually docs so; for this 1 know for certain, that no Turk, wearing any such billet, was ever vet slam or wounded in battle, excepting 1 i case | which, indeed, ihey themselves except) hour being come, according to the decree of God It .. old appear, that with regard to these embroi- dered pli\ l.i. i-i i.--. the Israelites, in the days of Moses, did not entertain such superstitious ideas, (,<■)--.<■ would he prob- ■il.lv 1 . . i . . ■ liiibidden them.) hat only wore them as orna- ments, and lor fashion's sake. As Moses, therefore, wished toexhorl the Israelites to maintain the remembrance of hi. laws in every possible way, and, in a particular man- ner, to impress it on the hearts of their children, he SUg- ..iii a variety of expedients for the purpose; and this among others, that if they chose to wear any embroi- dered ornament on the hand or forehead, it should not con- Sis! of any thin? useless, and still less of any superstitious nonsense, but rather of sentences out of the laws, -which their children would thus be in the way of learning. If, however, the fashion changed, and embroidery was no more worn, the Israelites were no longer bound to wear embroidered linen, or billets inscribed with sentences from ih Mosaic law; and that the Jews, during the time of prayer, still use them under the name of Thrjillin, pro- ceeds from a misconception of the statute in question. A further detail on this subject, with the proofs that the words of Moes in this passage are not to be understood as only figurative, I cannot here give: but I give it, as I have Bald, in my Hebrew Antiquities. To most of the read- ers of the "present work, who may be desirous of having a philosophical glance at the ancient laws of mankind, researches merely antiquarian would not afford much gtatification. — Mjchaelis. Ver. 9. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. The observation made in the beginning of the preceding article is equally applicable to the subject of the present one. The words of Moses in Deut. vi. 9, immediately fol- lowing those just illustrated, are in like manner to be under- stood, nol as a positive injunction, but as an exhortation to inscribe his laws on the door-posts of their houses. In Syria and the adjacent countries, it is usual at this day to place inscriptions above the doors of the houses, not, as the vulgar among ih do, in doggerel rhyme, but consisting of passages from the Koran, or from the best poets ; and some of them, that are quoted in books of travels, are truly elegant This must now be a very ancient practice, as ii existed in ihe time of Moses. For when he exhorts the Israelites to take every opportunity in inculcating his lnws on their children, we" find him suggesting to them this as one means of doing so ; " Write them on the doors of your houses, and on the gates of your cities." In these words we have not properly a statute; for if the Israelite did not choose to have an inscription over his door, he had no oc- casi ml i make one; butlheyaremerelyintroducedinanex- hortatorv discourse to the people, as furnishing an instance of the means which they might take, to impress the laws npon the minds of their posterity in their earliest years. Among us, where, bv the aid of printing, books are so abundantly multiplied, and may be pui into the hands of 14 every child, such measures would be quite superfluous; Inn it we would enter into the ideas of Mo-.'-, «e must place ourselves in an age, « ben the I k ol Ihe l. ■« could Only come into the hands of a lew opulent people.— Mi- di IKI. IS. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 20. Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the In .i in t among them, until they that are left, ami bide themselves from thee, I e dt stroyed. ppear a puerile pil.-l lie hal the To the people of England tbi way of punishing men, but t! ■■', natives of the East wear scan civ any <-l< I c, ha erally speaking, only a piece of .1 ill d then loins. They are, therefore, much nunc exposed than we are to the sting of insects. The sting ol Ihe hoi oel and wasp of those regions is much more poisonous than in Europe, and the insect is larger in size. I have heard of several who died from having a single sting: and not many days ago, as a woman was going lothe well "to draw water," a hor- net stung her in the cheek, and she died the next day. I have manv times seen Ihe hoi net attack aid kill the taran- tula. Under large verandahs the former may be si i a fly- ing near the roof, searching in every direction for his foe, and never will he leave them, till he has amm ; destruction. Sometimes they both fall from the roi I to- gether, when the hornet maybe seen thiusling his Ming most furiously in the tarantula, and it is surpi i with what dexterity the former eludes ihe bite of the latter. The people often curse each other by saying. lTii-iittar- Aniverum-Kullive Kutlani, ?'. c. " May all around thee be stung by ihe hornet!'' (meaning the person and his rela- tions.) The toddy drawers Use this imprecation more than other people, because the hornet's nest is generally found in the top of the palmirah or cocoa-nut tree, whence they pro- cure the toddy. When thev ascend, their hands and feet being engaged, they cannot defend themselves against their attacks. " The god' Siva is described as having destroyed many giants by hornets. — Roberts. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 7. For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a crood land ; a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring; out of valleys and hills. The account which has been now given of the soil and productions of Canaan, will enable the reader to perceive with greater clearness, the force and justice of the prom- ise made by Moses to his nation, a little before he died: " The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land; a land of brooksof water, of fountains and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil olive, and honey." If to the natural fertility of this highly-favoured country be added, Ihe manner in which itwasdh ided among the tribes of Israel, it will furnish an easy and satisfactory answer to the question which the infidel has often put : " How could so small a country as Canaan maintain so immense a popu- lation, as we find in thewrilings of the Old Testament %" That rich and fertile region was divided into s, ,,;,]] mini ,- lances, on which the respective proprietors lived and reared their families. Necessity, not less than a spilit of industry, required that no part of the surface callable of cultivation shouldbe suffered toliewaste. The husbandman carried his improvements up the sides of the steepest and most rugged mountains, to the very top; he converted every patch of earth intoavineyard,oro!ivepbntaiion ; hecovered tbebare rocks with soil, and thus turned them into frui lid Gelds; where the steep was too great to admit of an inclined plane, he cut away the face of the precipice, and built walls around the mountain to support ihe earth, and planted his terraces with the vine and the olive. These circles of i soil were seen rising gradually from the bottom lo the top - of the mountains, where the vine and the olive, shading the intermediate rocks with the liveliest v. i dine, end lend. ing under the load of their valuable produce, amply reward- ed the toils of the cultivator. The remains of those hang ing gardens, those terrace plantations, after the lapse of so many centuries, the revolutions of empire, anil the long d<*- .'Or, DEUTERONOMY. HAP. clinc of industry among the miserable slaves that now oc- cupy that once highly-favoured land, may still be distinctly traced on the hills and mountains of Judea. Every spot of ground was in this manner brought into a stale of cultiva- tion ; every particle of soil was rendered productive; and by taming n stream of water into every field where it was practicable, and leading the little rills into which they di- vide it, to every plantation, every tree, and every plant, "they secured, for the most part, a constant succession of crops. " Thus much is certain," says Volney, " and it is the ad- vantage of hot over cold countries, that in the former, wherever there is water, vegetation may be perpetually maintained, and made to produce an uninterrupted suc- cession of fruits to flowers, and flowers to fruits. In cold, nay even in temperate climates, on the contrary, nature, benumbed for several months, loses in a steril slumber the third part, or even half the year. The soil which has produced gram, has not time before the decline of sum- mer heat to mature vegetables ; a second crop is not to be expected; and the husbandman sees himselt condemned to a Ions and fatal repose. Syria is exempt from these in- conveniences ; if, therefore, it so happens, that its produc- tions are 'not such as its natural advantages would lead us to expect, it is less owing to its ■physical than to its political slate."— Paxton. Ver. 8. A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates : a land of oil- olive, and-honey. If Palestine were now cultivated and inhabited as much as it was formerly, it would not be inferior in fertility and agreeableness to any other country. The situation and nature of the country favour agriculture, and amply re- ward the farmer. Between the" 31st and 32d degrees of north latitude, it is sheltered towards the south by lofty mountains, which separate it from the sandy deserts of Arabia ; breezes from the Mediterranean cool it from the west side ; the high Mount Lebanon keeps off the north wind, and Mount Hermon the northeast. Mountains which decline into hills, are favourable for the cultivation of the vine and olive, and the breeding of cattle ; the plains and valleys are watered by innumerable streams. The fame of the fertility of Palestine, and its former riches in corn, wine, and dates, is even immortalized by ancient coins which are still in existence. But since the land has been several times devastated, greatly depopulated, and come under the Turkish dominion, and the Arab tribes, who rove about it, not only make it insecure for natives and straniers, but also have continual feuds among each other, agriculture has decreased, and the country has ac- quired its present desert appearance, particularly near the roads; but the traces of its original fertility and beauty are not even now wholly obliterated. As a proof, we may ad- duce the following passage from D'Arvieux. "We left the road to avoid the Arabs, whom it is always disagreea- ble to meet with, and reached, by a side path, the summit of a mountain, where we found a" beautiful plain. It must be confessed, that if one could live secure in this country, it would be the most agreeable residence in the world, part- ly on account of the pleasing diversity of mountains and valleys, partly on account of the salubrious air which we breathe there, and which is at all times filled with balsam- ic odours from the wild flowers of these valleys, and from the aromatic herbs on the hills. Most of the mountains are dry and arid, and more rock than mould adapted for cultivation ; but the industry of its old inhabitants had tri- umphed over the defects of "the soil. They had hewn these rocks from the foot to the summit into terraces, carried mould there, as on the coast of Genoa, planted on them the fig, olive, and vine; sowed corn and all kinds of pulse, which, favoured by the usual spring and autumnal rains, by the dew which never fails, by the warmth of the sun and the mild climate, produced' the finest fruit, and most excellent corn. Here and there you still see such terraces, which the Arabs, who live in the neighbouring villages, keep up, and cultivate with industry. We then came through a valley about six hundred feet long ; and, to judge from the fineness and fresh verdure of the grass, it appear- ed to be an excellent pasture ; at the end of which we found a deeper, longer, broader, and by far more agreeable val- ry than the former, in which the soil was so rich and fer- tile, and so covered with plants and fruit-trees, that it seemed to be a garden cultivated by art." Remains of the practice of making terraces on the hills for the purpose of cultivation, were also found by Maundrell, as he states in the account of his journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem. The produce of Palestine is still considerable, not only serving for the supply of the inhabitants, but also affording an over- plus for exportation. Corn and pulse are excellent in their kind, and much corn is annually sent from Jaffa to Con- stantinople. Though the Mohammedan religion does not favour the cultivation of the vine, there is no want of vine- yards in Palestine. Besides the large quantities of grapes and raisins which are daily sent to the markets of Jerusa- lem and other neighbouring places, Hebron alone, in the first half of the eighteenth century, annually sent three hundred camel loads, that is, nearly three hundred thou- sand weight of grape-juice or honey of raisins to Egypt. The cotton which is grown on the plains of Ramie and Esdraelon, is superior to the Syrian, and is exported partly raw and partly spun. Numerous herds of oxen and sheep graze on the verdant hills of Galilee, and on the well-wa- tered pastures of the northern valley of the Jordan. Count- less swarms of wild bees collect honey in the trees and clefts of the rock; and it is still literally true that Palestine abounds in milk and honey. — Rosenmuller. It is, I think, highly probable, that in the time of the most remote antiquity, pomegranate juice was used, in those countries where lemon juice is now used, with their meat, and in their drinks, and that it was not till afterward, that lemons came among them : I know not .how else to account for the mention of pomegranates m describing the fruitful- ness of the Holy Land, Deut. viii. 7, 8 ; Numb. xx. 5. They would not now, I think, occur in such descriptions : the juice of lemons and oranges have, at present, almost super- seded the use of that of pomegranates. Sir John Chardrn supposes that this pomegranate wine means, wine made of that fruit; which he informs us is made use of in consid- erable quantities, in several places of the East, and particu- larly in Persia: his words are, On fait, en diverses parts de 1'Orient, du vin de grenade, nomine roubnar, qu'on transporte par tout. II y en a sur tout en Perse. ■ My reader must determine for himself, whether pomegranate wine, or wine commonly so called mixed with pomegranate juice, was most probably meant here. The making the first ol these was a fact unknown to me, till I saw this manuscript, I confess, though it seems it is made in such large quanti- ties as to be transported. — Harmer. Hasselquist, in the progress of his journey from Acre to Nazareth, tells us, that he found "great numbers of bees, bred thereabouts, to the great advantage of the inhabitants. They make their bee-hives, with little trouble, of clay, four feet long, and half a foot in diameter, as in Egypt. They lay ten or twelve of them, one on another, on the bare ground, and build over every ten a little roof." Mr. Maundrell, (observing also many bees in the Holy Land,) takes notice, " that by their means the most barren places of that country in other respects became useful, perceiving in many places of the great salt-plain near Jericho, a smell of honey and wax, as strong as if he had been in an apia- ry." Hasselquist also tells us, that he ate olives at Joppa, (upon his first arrival in the Holy Land,) which were said to grow on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem ; and that, independent of their oiliness. they were of>' irrigation, are to this day more prized in the East lhan those which must be watered by means of dikes and canals ; both because it re- quires no labour, which in the low country is necessary, to watch the progress of the water through the channels, in order to give it a proper direction, and because every ele- vation produces an agreeable change of temperature, where the hills display the loveliness ul' paradise, while the plains me burnt up with insufferable heat. — Paxton. Ver. 19. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, u hen thou liest down, and when thou risest up. When a heathen si:s down, he makes mention of the name of his god. Thus, the worshippers of Siva say, when they sit down, 'Siva, Siva;" and when they airs'e, they repeat the same name. At night, when they retire to rest, also when they arise in the morning, or when they stumble in the way, they utter, " Siva, Siva." They have a proverb to the same purport, " When 1 stumble in the way, I know only to mention thy holy name." — Roberts. CHAPTER XII Ver. 31. Thou shah not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods ; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. See on chap. 18. 10. Some have doubted whether parents could be so cruel as to compel their offspring to pass through the fire, or to be burnt as a sacrifice to the gods ; but we have only to look at modern India, at the numerous infants thrown into ihe sacred waters, and at the burning alive of widows on the funeral pile of their husbands, to see what human nature is capable of doing. There is reason to believe that, though the British legislature has covered itself with un- fading honour in abolishing, by law, these fiendish practi- ces, there are still those of a private nature. Not longago there were two children offered to the cruel goddess K: ii : and one of the supposed perpetrators was arraigned and tried before the Supreme Court, but escaped for want of evidence. — Roberts. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 5. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death ; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in : so shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. The Hindoos may be called a nation of dreamers; they are often elevated or depressed by the gay or sorrowful scenes of their sleeping hours. The morning is ihe lime for the young and the old to tell their wondrous stories, and many a sage prognostication is then delivered to ihe atten- tive hearers. Men and women often take Ions? journeys perform arduous penances, and go through expensive cere- monies, from no other cause than a dream. The crafty Bramin finds this to be a powerful medium of access to the superstition and purses of the people. How many a splendid temple has been built or repaired ; how many a rest-house erected ; how many a costly present has been the result of a real or pretended dream ! Mendicants, pandarams, priests, and devotees, have all had their profitable revelations from the gods. Does a needy impostor wish to have a good berth and a settled place of abode, he buries an idol in some lone- ly place, and at the expiration of about twelve months he has a dream, and a vision into the bargain, for the god a dai- ly appears to him when he is not asleep, and says, "(Jo to such a place, and you will find my image: there long, lung has it been in disgrace ; but now you must build a lemj !c to my glory." The knave affects to be greatly excited, and relales the'whole as a profound secret lo a few of his se- lect friends. The story soon gets abroad, and numbers i I people beg of him logo* to the sacred place in seaich of ihe deity. At lasl he consents ; but expresses many a fear, as they proceed, tha( he has been deceived, or dial 'his dr their unbelief will hinder him from finding out the place. It approaching the scene of operalion, he hesitates, thinks he- cannot be far off—" the country had just such an appear- ance in his dream:" he then says, " Dig;" and numbers of the people fall to work in good earnest. After some time, he snakes his bead, repeats his incantations, and says, " It is not here." He then points to the real spot, and again his gulled attendants commence their meritorious operations. At last the god is found, and the multitude make the wel- Chap. 13—15. DEUTI'.liuMi.M V. kin ring with their shoots of joy. Theyfall before the grave impostor, and worship at his feet. His object is gained ; money and materials come in on every hand ; and shortly after a'temple and its 'goodly courts arise, in \\ Inch he dwells for life. Tha g i oi evil of dreams is minutely described in som ' of their scientific works: and it is not a little amusing to see thai some of their notions agrov with the English, illj u h thdse Mt' the inhabitants of North Brit- ain. Does a'man dream about the sun. moon, the gods, a mountain, river, well, gold, precious stones, father rim, I, mother, elephant, horse, ear, tempi.-, Bramin, lotus, flesh of animals, flowers, fruits, swan, row, fowl, toddy; or that In- has his hands tied, or is travelling in a palanquin; that die gods are making eereiiionies; that he sees a beautiful and fair ■woman, arrayed in white rubes, coming into his house; that his house' is on lire; tha? he sees a ehank, or lamp, or full water-pot; that he roasts and eats ln~ own flesh;— he will be a king: that he wears new cloth; that he plavs in the mud; that he climbs trees; that swarms of ants creep Over his body ;— these are all good — " he will have great felicity." Bin to dream the gods laugh, dai , run, sing, weep, or clap their hands, is for the country very r\ il That you see a crow, eagle, hawk, ass, black' cobra eapella, pig, monkey, jackal, or salt, curds, milk, sandals, butter, lime, cotton', mud, red flowers, firewood, a bhu-k dog, a devil, a giant, a water-melon, jack-fruit, pumpkin, a hare, an alligator, a bear, a tiger, a ghost; tha' von go from, the sea ; that the teeth fall out; that the hand is broken ; that you wear dirty clothes ; that the walls of the temple fall ; that you miss your wav; that von travel towards the south ; that yon fall into a nil ; or that von see a company of serpents';— these are all evil tokens. To avert the evil implied by those dreams, (and a thousand ' enumerated.) a person must make offerings to th,- Bramins, and give articles of food. Alms must he besMwn! on the poor, and on the Pandarams and other religious mendicants, and the person must bathe in holy water. Let him also listen to the song of P.iratham, and all the malignity of his nightly visitations shall be removed. — Roberts. Ver. 6. If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy dautrhter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers. These, and many other passages, show how much the lermAottim is used in the scriptures, and that it generally denotes something of great value or security, aileetion and happiness. Any thing which is valuable or dear to a per- son is -all to be madeyilla, i. e. in his bosom. When a lies to express himself a fleet innately to his wife, he savs, "C .me hither, thou wile of my bosom." Is she Pad, " Ah ! I have lost the wife of my bosom." In the Scanda Pur ma, the goddess of Vishnoo is said to rest in i'tlie god " Vishnoo, whose bosom is the abode " To a father it is said respecting a bad son, indmg this, you press him to your bosom :'— an i of a :]a''.'rer, "He would cause the Child to fall from a of its mother." (See on Luke xvi.22.)— Roberts. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. I. Ye are the children of the Lord your God. Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldn -ss between your eyes for the dead. No: or.lv common readers, but even the learned them- selves appear to be perplexed about the meaning of that prohibition of the law of Moses, contained in the latter part of the first verse of the 14ih of Deuteronomy, Ye shall not cxd uoursclf, nor make any baldness hrttrrrn your eyes for the dr„j ,■ dm it seems to be clearly explained by a passage of Sir John Chardin. as to its expressing sorrow, though it is probable the idolatrousness of the practice may. at this distance of time, be irrecoverably lost. Sir John tells us, "that black hair is most esteemed among the Persians, as well on the head, as on the eyebrows, and in the beard. That the largest and thickest eyebrows are the most beav- il!\ \\ hen ill. V III'' "I -II h ;i s|/e ,|- l,i loll. || one another. 'Tie Ami- women have ihe most beautiful eyebrows of this Bort. The Pel ian women, ■■■ have them not of 'ins colour, tinge them and rub them with black to make them the larger. They also make in i rei i rtot i i' el 1, a little below the eyebrows. a blacks] t, in ii.un <>i a h./enge, not cjuite o lat nail of the Utile I'mgei." This i, probably not c»l a ]:i-i ng nature, but quickly wears off. These notions of beauty differ very much from those or the ladies of Eui pe. None of them. I think, are fond of having [heir eyebn ws meet; but, on the contrary, take pains to keep the between them very distinct. Bui if the eastern people are of a different opinion, it i- not at till surpi isinv, i same time that they laid aside the hair of their heads, with their more artificial ornaments, in a lime of mourning, they should make a space bald between their eyes i, was their pride to have them meet when in a joyful slate, and even to join them with a black perishable spot, laihet than have an interruption appear between thi But as the sacred writers admitted the making their heads bald in mourning, while Moses, fin bids not only idolaliotts cuttings of the flesh, but this making the space bald between Ihe v\ eb lows, it appears there was something of idolatry in this too, as well as in those cuttings, though it is not easily made out. After this circumstance, relating to eastern beauty, is known, the addition to bishop Patrick's account of the heathens being wont to shave the eyebrows, m turns of mourning, will, I presume, give no pleasure: "Oi says this worthy writer, " (which some think is the meaning of between the eyes,) the hair in the forepart of the I ■• ad 01 near the temples, as R. Solomon interprets it. \\ hndi rem- n. ho the meaning of the Hierusalem Targum, which translates it, 'Ye shall not make any baldness in the house of your countenance.'" — Hasher, Ver. 4. These are the beasts which ye shall cat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat. See on Lev. 11. 2. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 6. For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shall lend unto many nations, but thou shah not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. From the numerous allusions in the sacred writings, tc the subject of lending and of usury, it is easy to perceive that this was a very common practice among the ancients of the East. There are thousands at this day who live in the interest of a very small capital, and thousands who make immense fortunes by nothing but lending. So soon as a man has saved a small sum, instead oi locking it up in his box, it goes out to interest at the rate of twelve, and sometimes twenty, per cent. People of great property, on, aecolint of their' anxiety to put out every farthing, often leave themselves in considerable difficulty. Children are taught, in early life, the importance of. this plan : hence, striplings may' be heard to boast that Aey have such and such sums out at interest. This propensity often" places government in circumstances of great loss in reference to their shroffs, or native treasurers. They lend out money from the chest to a great amount, merely to gain the inter- est. "Ah! von shall lend money to many people." is one of the blessings pronounced on a youthful' pair. When a person acquires a new situation, when a man is prosperous. it is said, " He will lend to many people;" which means. v.- will be rich, and have much influence. — Roberts. Ver. 8. But thou shalt open thy hand wide mno him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient : t his need, in that which he wanteth. Of a liberal man, it is said, "He has an open hand.' " That man's hand is so open, all will soon be gone." When a poor man asks a favour of a rich man, in the of another, the bystanders will say, " Op°n ; :ur ham! wide to him." A person " !;. has been refused a favour, says, on his return, " Alas! he would not open his hand no, not a little." Roberts. DEUTERONOMY. Chap. Ver. 16. And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee, (because he loveth thee and thy house, because he is well with thee,) 17. Then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever : and also unto thy maid-servant thou shalt do likewise. 18. It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee ; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest. Moses specifies two periods, at which the Hebrew ser- vant was lo regain his freedom ; the seventh year, Exod. xxi. and Deut. xv ; and the fiftieth, or year of jubilee, Lev. xxv. How these periods are reconciled with each other, considering that the year of jubilee must always have immediately followed a sabbatical year, and that of course the servants must have been already free, before its arrival, deserves inquiry. Here then all depends upon the sense in which Moses understands the seventh year; whether as the sabbatical year, in which the land lay fallow, or as the seventh year from the time when the servant was oougln ! Maimonides was of the latter opinion, and to me also it appears the more probable. For Moses uni- formly calls it the seventh year.vwithout using the term sab- batical year. What then is more natural than to under- stand the .seventh year of servitude 1 And besides, when he describes the sabbatical year in Lev. xxv. 1—7) we find not a word of the manumission of servants. The ap- parent inconsistency of the two laws thus ceases. The servant was regularly restored to freedom after six years' service ; but supposing him bought in the forty-sixth year of the Jewish calculation, that is, four years before the jubi- lee, he did not, in that ease, wail seven years, but received his freedom in the year of jubilee, and with it the land he might have sold. In this way Moses took-care that too great a proportion of the people should not be slaves at one time, and thus the slate, instead of free citizens to defend it with arms in their hands, have only the protection of a number of unarmed servants. There might still be other cases in which a slave only recovered his freedom in the fiftieth year. For instance, if a man was sold for debt, or for theft, and the sum which he had to pay exceeded what a servant sold for six years was worth, it is certainly con- formable to reason that the said debtor or thief should have been sold for a longer period, at least for twice six years : but still, in that case, his servitude would cease on the coming of the jubilee, when every thing reverted to its former state. It has been generally supposed, that those servants who did not choose to accept their freedom in the seventh year, and of whom I shall immediately speak, be- came free at the year of jubilee. Here, however, a doubt has occurred to me, whether any such servant could, after he had become so much older, have ventured to accept freedom in the fiftieth year; and whether he would not rather wish and expect, that the master to whose service he had, from attachment, generously sacrificed his best days, should keep and maintain him in his old age? At the same time, it occurs to me to observe, on the other hand, that in the fiftieth year every Israelite received the land he had sold : so that the servant, who before refused his freedom, because he had nothing to live on, might now accept it with joy, when his paternal inheritance returned to him quite unincumbered. Moses, as I have just remarked by the way, presupposes it a possible and probable case, that a servant, who had a goou Tipster, might wish to remain with him constantly dur:n. , ife, without seeking to be free ; particularly if he had lived in conlitbernio with one of his master's female slaves, and had children by her, from whom, as well as from him?' 'f, he must separate, if he left his master's house. In such a ease, he permits the servant to bind himself for ever to the service of the master, with whose disposition he had by six years' experience become acquainted. But, in order 'to guard against all abuse of this permission, it wan necessarv that the transaction should be gone about 'udi'-ially, and that the magistrateshould know of it. The servant was therefore brought before the magistrate, ant, had his ear bored at his master's door. It does not belon'g to my present subject, but to that of Hebrew antiquities, to enter into a particular illustration of this custom, which, in Asia, where men generally wear ear-rings, was not un- common, and was, besides, among the other Asiatic nations a mark of slavery; and. therefore, I here merely remark, that it was the intention ol'Moses, that every Hebrew who wished to continue a servant for life, should, with the magistrate s previous knowledge, bear a given token thereof in his own body. He thus guarded against the risk of a master hav- ing it in his power either to pretend that his servant had promised to serve him during life, when he had not ; or, by ill usage, during the period that he had him in his ser- vice, to extort any such promise from him. I may further observe, en passant, that the statute of Moses made boring the ears in some degfte ignominious lo a free man ; be- ] cause it became the sign w hereby a perpetual slave was to be known. And if the Israelites had, for this reason, abandoned the practice, Moses would not have been dis- pleased. Indeed, this was probably the very object vt hich I he had in view to get imperceptibly effected by his law ; for in the wearing of ear-rings, superstition was deeply | concerned. They were very frequently consecrated to some of the gods, and were thus considered as amulets to prevent the sounds of enchantment from entering the ear and proving hurtful. If, however, the servant was willing i to accept his freedom, not only was it necessarily granted him, but Moses besides ordained in one of his latter laws, as an additional benefit, that the master, instead of send- ing him empty away, should make him a present of sheep, fruits, oil, and wine, to enable him to begin housekeeping anew, Deut. xv. 13 — 15. On this occasion he observes, that such a servant does his master twice as much service as a servant hired by the day ; which I thus understand. If a man bought a servant for six years, he only paid half as much as a hireling would in that period have .received besides his maintenance : because the purchase money was necessarily paid down on the snot, and the purchaser had to run the risk of his servant dying before the term of his service was expired. But when this risk was passed, and the servant had actually earned him his daily hire, his master was bound, in recompense of the advantages he thus brought him, to grant him some little gratification. At the same time, Moses reminds the Israelites th%t their forefathers had all been slaves in Egypt, and that thereforex it was their duty to act with kindness towards those of their brethren, whose fate it was to feel the hardships of bondage. ■ — MlCHAELlS. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 16. Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose ; in the feast of unleav- ened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles : and they shall not ap- pear before the Lord empty. Moses instituted other festivals besides the Sabbath; and three of them, which we usually denominate High Festivals, were distinguished from the" Sabbath and all other holy- days, by this remarkable difference, that they lasted for seven, one of them, indeed, for eight, successive days; and that all the males in Israel werethen obliged to assemble at the place where the sanctuary stood. That every peo- ple interested in the preservation of their religion! must set apart, I will not sav a day, but certainly a specific time for divine worship, is obvious. This is a point, the proofs of which I willinglv leave to theology, or even to philo- sophical ethics, from which I may here assume it as well understood. But besides this, (and here I must beg leave, as it is more agreeable to present usage, to employ the worj days for times, without meaning, by day, either the precise period of 24 hours, or that from sunrise to sunset,) there is a necessity for davsof rest and pleasure. By ur.intermitted labour, the body becomes weakened, loses that activity and vigour which the alternations of labour, rest, and amuse- ment, produce, and grows soon old. Bodily labour other- wise, no doubt, increases strength ; and the peasant who works with his hands, will always be a stronger man than the person who folds the— across his breast, or only writes DEUTERONOMY. Ill with them; but then it must not be unceasing labour, and without repose, or else it mil hare the contrary effect. The man who is obliged to toil day after day without in- termission, and especially if he has done so from infancy, becomes in a manner cramped, still; and awkward, at all other bodily exercises ; continues, as it were naturally, of small stature, and, like a horse daily hacked, is premature- ly worn out. Alternation is the grand maxim of dietet- ICSj which, indeed, holds good so universally, that the very best rules of diet prescribed by the ablest" physician, will be found in most cases detrimental, if too strictly ob- served. Even ihe exercises which serve to strengthen and refresh US, if we constantly use any one of them without variation, such as walking or riding, will become irksome and hurtful, if we are obliged to take it every day without intermission. The daily runner, who knows no intervals of rest, will not, it is true, be affected with hypochondria, but will, nevertheless, feel his health otherwise impaired. The postillion, who rides every day, Sunday not excepted, commonly grows old before his tinie ; and his whole figure shows, that he has not had a healthy occupation. We see this, even in countries where posts travel so intolerably slow, that the violence of the motion can certainly not be ' ihe injury which incessant riding occasions to their health. The trooper in the field, and the sportsman in the chase, ride perhaps more and harder, and thai too in all weather-;, but yet we do not remark m them the appear- ances of premature old age and decrepitude, visible in the postillion, who sits on horseback day after day, and must soon be discharged in consequence of his infirmities, rut- ting all this, however, out -of the question, that man can have no enjoyment of life, who is obliged to toil perpetual- ly, and in' the same irksome uniformity of employment. man ought to have some enjoyment of life, were it only for a single day of recreation occasionally : w ho re- fore else is he in the world ! If he never tastes'the pleas- ures of life, he soon dwindles into wrinkled insignificance. Nor is it merely rest from his daily toil that he ought, in justice, to enjoy on such occasions; but he should have it i in his power to sport away the time in social enjoyment, in feasting, dancing, or whatever else is most agreeable to his taste, if not contrary to good morals. By this variety of pleasure, the mind is roused from its usual dull uni- formity, enlivened, and restored; the powers of_the body are renovated ; and it becomes more supple, and fitted for greater exertion. In short, the common man throws off the slave, the porter, the hind, the tailor ; and the man of learning the dull pedant. It were cruel to deprive even the slave of a share in such enjoyments, for thev are, as it *ere, a recompense for the hardships of his life;' and every man who lives, manifestly has a right to partake in them : and it were no less foolish than cruel ; for his health, viva- city, and bodily vigour will suffer in consequence of such privations. It is, therefore, prudent to allow him seasons of recreation : although selfish and tyrannical masters, who only look to immediate advantages, are, from their igno- rance of human nature, and the effects of unceasing labour, sometimes inclined to be of a different opinion. In this way, the three annual festivals were, in fact, so many additional and prolonged seasons of pleasure, in which the people were to indulse themselves, exclusive of the weekly enjoyment of the Sabbath. Seven successive days spent in such a manner, serve as a recreation bolh to body and mind, and we think ourselves after them, as it were, regenerated. To bodily health, such relaxations undoubt- edly contribute; for that man will always have more strength and activity, who. from his youth" has occasion- ally mingled in the' cheerful dance, than the person who has been subjected to unvaried and uninterrupted labour. For that particular sort of labour, the latter may, no doubt, manifest great strength ; but he will become stiff ami in nil other applications of his bodily powers, awkward, and al- most as if lamed. This is a dieteii. al remark, in regard to which, we find a coincidence of opinion, between learned physicians and those officers who have to enlist or select soldiers. And as to the mind, by festivities of this nature, it likewise becomes better humoured, and more cheerful : We return to our ordinary labours with more spirit and Kttvity, after spending a whole week in the enjoyment of the pleasures of such extraordinary occasions ; which, how- ever, certainly must not be the constant business of our whole lives, but mlv that of festal seasons. Hence it seems to have been one of the great objects of the Mosaic polity, tint every individual, without exception, should, along wilh the evils, occasionally taste also the pleasures of hie; the legislator having taken care, thai nol even ll persons, not even the very slaves, should sharing in these, during the festivals. The words which, without once thinking of any thing learned, or of the sub- ject of the present work, 1 have, in the poem entitled Mates, and annexed to the see., ml edition of my "Poetical Sketch of the Ecclesiastes of Solomon," put into the mouth of Mo- ses, when he is estreating Pharaoh for a three-days festival to the Israelites, will, perhaps, be found to express, with tolerable accuracy, his real ideas on this point, as far as the tenor of his laws enables us to portray them. Hill time ilays rest they ask, to keep Ihe feast ~ '- ' by their ':•> tiling, have to carry the ipsa corpora of their tithes, hat were to be consumed during the festivals ; not to men- tion other articles necessary to their accommodation, and which would require means of conveyance (or, as I might perhaps more properly term them, voitvrcs) expensive in the regions of the East; for they consist, not as with us, ol wagons and horses, but of asses and camels ; beasts oi burden which are highly serviceable in promoting the commerce of Arabia^ and the neighbouring country of Palestine. There never could be any want of buyers, when the whole people were convened; and the wholesale merchants would soon find it for their advantage to attend and purchase the commodities offered to sale by individ- uals, especially manufactured articles ; nor would the owners of goods, as they must require money to make good cheer on such occasions, hold them at unreasonable rates. Whoever wished to buy any particular articles, would wait the festivals, in order to have a choice ; and this too would lead great merchants to attend with all manner of goods for sale, tor which they could hope to find purchasers. That Moses was by no means anxious to engage the Israelites actively in foreign commerce, I have already admitted. The most important species of com- merce, however — that whereby every man has it in his power to convert at a particular place whatever he can spare, that is at all portable, into money, and wiih that money to buy, at first hand, whatever he 'wants from any other quarter — must have been, by means of their festivals, much brisker among the Israelites, than we could ever hope to see it in Europe on such occasions. That people, having a national religion from God, and having God himself for their king, enjoyed, in this respect, an advan- tage, which no other people can enjoy : for if it is not God, but only the sovereign, who enjoins a pilgrimage to a fes- tival, every one who can, will endeavour to get quit of the trouble of'the journey, or, at best, to make it with reluc- tance; and if religious imposture is resorted to, in order to enforce attendance, the fraud will soon be discovered, and the political artifice thereby come to naught. — Michaelis. Ver. 18. Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment. Among the persons that appear in the Isiaelitish Diet, besides those already mentioned, we find the Schoterim. fcnm*) or scribes. They were different from the judges; lor Moses had expressly ordained (Dent. xvi. 18) that original among the people while in Egypt. For when the l*ra did not deliver the required tale of bricks, the Schc. were called to account, and punished ; Exod. v. 6 — 11. Now, as satai in Arabic, signifies to write ; and its deriva- tive, Ma stir, a person whose dvtij it is to keep accounts, and collect debts, I am almost persuaded that these Schoterim must have been the officers who kept the genealogical tables of the Israelites, with a faithful record of births, marriages, and deaths ; and, as they kept the rolls of fam- ilies, had, moreover, the duty of apportioning the public burdens and services on the people individually. An office exactly similar, we have not in our governments, because they are not so genealogically regulated; at least we do not' institute enumerations of the people by families. B;it among a people whose notions were completely clannish. and among whom all hereditary succession, and even all posthumous fame, depended on genealogical registers, this must have been an office fully as important as that of a judge. In Egypt, the Levites had not yet been consecrated and set apart from the rest of the tribes; there, of course, the Schoterim must have been chosen either out of every family, or, perhaps, merely according to the opinion enter- tained of their fitness for fhe office. In the lime of the- kings, however, we find them generally taken frcm the tribe of Levi; 1 Chron. xxiii. 4. 2 Chron. six. 8—11- xxxiv. 13. This was a very rational procedure, as the Levites devoted themselves particularly to study; and among husbandmen and unlearned people, few were likely to be so expert at writing, as to be intrusted with the keep- ing of registers so important. Add to this, that in later times, the genealogical tables were kept in the temple. We find these Schoterim mentioned in many other pas. Chap. 17, 13. DEUTERONo.MV les those qaoted above. In NQmbTxi. 16, they ersons of respectability from among wl i the 70 is chosen, in I >eut. i, 15, me d i made of Sch although the people had previously had Mich magistrates in Egy] . most probably 1 aly ailed the places of those dead. In Dent. xx. 5, we see them charged with orders to those of the people thai were selei led U eo <■' '■■..'. .- w Inch is perfectly suited to inv explanation of the nature of their office. In Dent, xxix." in, xxxi. 28, Josh, iriii 33, xxiii. 2, we find them as repre r the people in the Diets, or when a covenant with God is en- tered into, in Josh. i. Ki, they appear a; the Communicated to th, icspcciing military affairs; ami this, again, corresponds to the prov- i iter-masters. In -J I Jhron on i 11,-we as e in ler « tiose command the « hole army i the general, if indeed he himself he not SO. In 1 Chron. xxvit. 1, the name of the oliiee alone is men- tioned.— Micbaeus. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 16. Buthe shall not multiply horses to him- self, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should tnultipy horses; for- asmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. The long was not to keep a strong body of cavalry, nor irate number of horses. As Palestine was a country, and on the m ire level side bounded by the Arabian deserts, in which an enemy's cavalry could not advance for want of forage, a powerful cavalry was ^arv for its defence : and ootl ii spirit of conquest could prompt any king to I prohibition of Moses. But how little such a spirit accord- ed with the views of their divine lawgiver, we have already seen, m treating oi the boundaries of the land. altura) purposes, the Israelites made no use of only (which in an economical point of view is far more profitable) of oxen and asses. The latter were also most commonly employed as beasts of burden in trav- elling; but the people made most of their journeys on foot. A king, therefore, could have no occasion for a great number of horses, unless he had it in view to carry on foreign wars. — Michaelis. Ver I 7. Neither shall he multiply wives to him- self, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. The king was not to take many wives, ver. 17. This law stands most in need of illustration ; for as Moses did not forbid polygamy to the Israelites in general, it could not be his intention to confine the king within narrower limits, in this respect, than the citizen. Most probably, therefore, Moses had no objection to his having four wives, as seems to have been allowed to every Israelite. Even the high-priest, Jehoiada, of whom the Bible always gives a good character, gave tiro wives to Kins Joa«h:'nor did he think that in this he was trespa-uig tic M. , of which he was by his office the authentic expounder; •2 Chron. xxiv. 3.— But the oriental seraglio now g tar beyond this moderate polygamy. There, more for state than for connubial purposes, great multitudes of women are brought together, and compelled to be Now ii is only this excessive polygamy, this seraglio, as a part of royal state, that Jlws appears to have forbidden. The nature of the thing itself shows, that it tends to make kmgs effeminate; and history confirms this to a much greater extent than could have been presupposed. That it exposes a reigning family to the danger of becoming ex- tinct, w-e have at present a proof in the Turkish empire; for ot the house of Othman there are so few heirs remain- ing, that now (1771) while I am adding this remark for the second edition, they are apprehensive of losing the very last of them in infancy.— The imitation of the practice too, by people of rank and opulence, carries polygam a pitch, that, as contributing to the depopulation of a coun- tiv, it is much more destructive than even the pestilence. lo the Mosaic polity it was peculiarly unsuitable, for this special reason, that the most beautiful women of all nations '"''' collected for a si iticlio . and M s. as I mentions, was all aid lest such foreign beauties -.fun Id u in the heart of ihc king, andOnake luin » 1'io-idvc t, id. hut v and that his fears v. en- not l' i oui, dies, o , , ■ ,.h . ;, . i >,,].' om.in i. a sii iking 1 1 1 ... r . .Nil ! hi n| \i, , , ... .'. .... |, served than this. It would appear that > mi I:... oil' 'i. ! 1 1 ii i as kiiiL". tiir D;n id I -J Sam. '■ M - ; i ■ id i . I .n i |. ceded to it. David \i dial, other two w ives, Abigail and Ahiiioa' i. •_' S,i,i, ,,. '.' His Inst wife, Michal, had indeed been la Ken from him by his father-in-law; but he received her again while king of Judah. But aftei he had e MMI Ml I f'iii „,, v, e Hud 1)1111. In" l,|i- ihos,.. "i i'i- " -lull ot i, mi ii-H wives, Maachii. iiic'1-i'h, Abital, and Kgl.ih. 2 Sam. iii. 2—8. Tins, however, was but a ' tee for the king of a single n |..- . sidering.t il seven years after, when he could less plead v.'uiti ,1,,-i pas-iMii in excuse, we find him, as kit Israel, w Uh still more wives and n i.eubines, -J Sam. \ . Id the latter, indeed, in such numbers, that on his flight In in Absalom, he lefl ten of them to look after the pal;,. . XV. 16. — To what excess Solomon, the father of bul one son, carried polygamy, is known to every one w ' heard of the Bible. It is difficult to believe thai he ■■ -id have knmrn all the inmates of his seraglio ; indeed it re- quired a g.md memory to have been able to call them bv their names. After his time, we have, in the books of the Chronicles, accounts of the polygamy of the king,, not indeed in such an immoderate and magnificent scale, bul still far exceeding the degree permitted bv Moses. — .Mi- chaelis. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 10. There shall not be found anions; you imi/ our that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. All idolatrous ceremonies, and even some which, though innocent in themselves, might excite suspicions of idolatry, were prohibited. Of these, human sacrifices are so con- spicuous, as really the most abominable of all the crimes to which superstition is capable of burn uig its votaries, in de- fiance of the strongest feelings of humanity, that I must expatiate a little upon them. For this species of cruelty is so unnatural, that to many readers of the laws of Mo-e's, ,t has appeared incredible. Against no other sort of idola- try, are the Mosaic prohibitions so rigorous, as against this; and yet we find that it continued among the Israelites to a very late period; for even the prophets Jeremiah and Eze- kiel, who survived the ruin of the state, and wrote in the beginning of the Babylonish captivity, take notice of it, and describe it.notasan antiquated or obsolete abomination, but as what iv as actually in use but a little before, during their own times. For a father to see his children suffering, is in the highest degree painful; but that he should ever throw them to the flames, appears so utterly improbable, that we can hardly resist the temptation of de- claring any narrative of such inhuman cruelty an absolute falsehood. But it is nevertheless an undoubted fact, thai the miration of the neighbouiing nations, of which Moses 'leli anxious apprehensions in his laws, had. in spite of all the punishments denounced against it, kept up the abominable custom of offering children in sacrifice : and hence we see how necessary it was to enacl rigorous laws against the idolatry, which required sacrifi- ces of such a nature. The lives "of children were lo be se- cured against the fUry of avaricious priests, and the fears of silly fools; and if 'the punishments of the law did no) completely produce that effect, we can hardly avoid think- ing, how much it is to be regretted that thev were not more severe. To many, both Jewish and Christian expositors, it has appeared so incredible that the Israelites should bavi sacrificed their own children, that wherever, in the law«, or in the history, they find the expression, making their $ortt pass through the fire in Moloch, (for it was chiefly to that go^ that human sacrifices were offered.) thev are fain toeitplain it on the more humane principle of their merely , their sons to Moloch, and in token thereof, making thrm pass behrccn two sacrifice-fires. In confirmation of this idi 4, Ill DEUTERONOMY. Chap. 1& the Vulgate version of Deut. xviii. 10, may be adduced ; Qui luslrcl filitnn situm ant Jiliam, ducats per igncm. In this way, the incredible barbarity of human sacrifices would appear'to have no foundation in truth ; and I very readily admit, that of some other passages, such as Lev. xviii. SO. ■3 Kings xxi.6. xxiii. 10. Jer.xxxii. 36, an explanation on the same principle may be given with some show of truth. — More especially with regard to the first of these passages, I may remark, as Le Clerc has done before me, that we find a variety of lection which makes a material alteration of the sense ; for instead of (-cayn) Ilaobir, to cause to pass through, the Samaritan text, and the LXX., read (-rnyn) HaoMd, to cause to scire, or. to dedicate to the service of. In my German version, I have, on account of this uncertain- ty, here made use of the general term Weihcm, to dedicate, as the Vulgate had already set me the example, in render- ing the clause, De scmiuc iua nan dabis, ul consccretur idolo Moloch. I was the less inclined to employ the term burn here, because no mention is made of fire, transire facere per igncm, as in other passages ; but it is merely said, tran- sire facere. At the same time I really believe, from the strain of other passages to be' mentioned immediately, that burning is here meant.— With regard, in like manner, to 2 Chron. xxviii 3, where it is expressly said, that Ahaz „,.,/ tl : ,,,/„ /,„,, ,:t /;„. „/„, :,j „,:>,',■ .practice of the nations a various reading, and that, instead of (-.y^) Vcihor, he burnt, almost all the ancient versions, such as the LXX., Syriac, Chaldee, and Vulgate, had read (-oyi) Yeiobcr, he made to pass through, by the mere transposition of the sec- ond radical into the place of the first. The following passages, however, are decisive of the reality of sacrifi- cing their children. 1. Ezek. xvi. 21, (where we find the first-mentioned ex- pression,) Thou hast slain mo sons, and aim, them, to cause 'hem pass through to them. Here it is evident that, to pass through, or to cause to pass through the fire, can be nothing else than burning, because the sons were previously slain. 2. The passages where the word (*\~' Ah ! he has washed his hands of all his relations." which means, he will not haveanv thing more to do with them ; he is entirelv free, and will not be accountable for them. Hence the Tamul proverb, Avon dlulihivi ];n> kaliiri nilkeran, i. e. " He has washed his hands of all."— Roberts. Ver. 12. Then thou shalt bring her home to thy house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; 13. And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thy house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. The margin has, instead of pare her nails, " or shfff.r •; r cmnv ;" which is. I doubt nut, the true meaning. This wo- man was a prisoner of war, and was about to become the wife of the man who had taken her captive. 1 1 been taken from her native land, having had to leave her earliest and dearest connexions, and now to become the n ife of a foreigner, and an enemy, she would naturally be overwhelmed with grief. To acquire a better view ol In i state, let any woman consider herself in similar circum- stances. She accompanies her husband, or father, to the battle; the enemv becomes victorious, and she is earned od' by the hand of a ruthless stranger, and obliged to sub- mit to his desires. Poignant indeed would be the sorrow of her mind. The poor captive was to " !/wn- Iter head" in token of her distress, which is a custom in all parts of the East at this day. A son on the death of his father, or a woman on the decease of her husband, has the nt..\n sinvr.n in token of sorrow. To shave the head also, is a punish- ment inflicted on females for cerlain crimes. The fail captive, then, as a sign of her misery, was to shave her head, because her father or mother was among the slain, or in consequence of having become a prisoner of war. It showed her sorrow ; and was a token of her submission. (See also Job i. 20. See on 2 Chronicles xvi. 11. Isa. vn. 30, and xviii. 2.) But this poor woman was to suffer her nails to grow, as an additional emblem of her distress. That it does not mean she was to tare her nails, as the text has it, is established by the custom in the East, of al- lowing them to grow, when in sorrow. The marginal reading, therefore, would have been much better for the text. When people, either in the church or state, are per- forming penance, or a;-e in captivity, or disgrace, or pris- on, or are devotees, they suffer their nails to grow: and some may be seen, as were those of the monarch of Baby- lon, in his sorrow, "like birds' claws," literally folding round the ends of the fingers, or shooting through the backs of their hands. But when men fast, which is sometimes done for one or two vears, or when husbands fast during their wives' first pregnancy, thev suffer their nails to grow ; also a female, when in sorrow from other causes, di es not " pare her nails" until she has performed the ceremony call- ed Antherette. — Roberts. There is a passage in Deuteronomy xxi. 12. about the sense of which our translators appea r to'have been extreme- Iv uncertain: translating one clause of the 12th verse, and pare her nails, in the text ; and the margin giving the clause a quite opposite sense, " suffer to grow." So that, according to them, the words signify, that the caplived woman should be obliged, in the case referred to by Moses, to pare her nails, or, to suffer them to grow, hut they could not tell which of these two contradictory things the "Jewish legislator re- quired; the Jewish doctors are, in like manner, divided in their opinion o(| this subject. To me it seems very plain, that it was not a management of affliction and mourning that was enjoined; such an interpretation agrees not with the putting off the raiment of her captivity ; but then I very much question whether the paring her 'nails takes in the whole of the intention of Moses. The precept of the law- was, that she should make her nails: so the Hebrew words literally signify. Making her nails, signifies making her nails neat, beautifying them, making them pleasing to the sight, or something of that sort : dressing them is the word our translators have chosen, according to the margin. The 2 Sam. xix. 24, which the critics have cited on this occa- sion, plainly proves this : " Mephiboshelh, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king, and had neither made his feet, nor made his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the kingdeparted, until the day he came a sain in peace." It is the same word with that in the text, and our translators have rendered it in one clause dressed, in the margin of Pent. xxi. dressed his feet: and in the other trimmed, nor trimmed his beard. Making the feet, seems here to n.eaii washing the feet, paring their nails, perhaps anointing, or otherwise perfuming them, as he was a prince; see Luke vii. 46. As making his beard mav mean combing, curling, DEUTERONOMY. Chap. 2- perfuming it ; every thing, in a word, that those that -were people of distinction, and in a state of joy, were wont to do. Making her nails, undoubtedly means paring them ; but it must mean too every thing else relating to them, that was wont to be d.me for the beautifying them, and rendering them beautiful. We have scarcely any notion of any thing eKe but paring them ; but the modern eastern women have ; they statu them with the leaves of an odoriferous ptent, which they call Al-henna, of a red, or, as others express it, a tawny saffron colour. But it may be thought, that is only ;i modern mode of adorning their nails : Hasselquist, how- ever, assures us, it was an ancient oriental practice. " The Al-henna," he tells us, "grows in India, and in Upper and L . iv>.'i lv_'V]it, (lowering from May to August. The leaves are pulverized, and made into a paste with water : they bind this paste on the nails of their hands and feet, and keep it on all night. This gives them a deep yellow, which is greatly admired by the eastern nations. The colour lasts for three or four weeks, before there is occasion to re- new it. The custom is so ancient in Egypt, that I have seen the nails of mummies died in this manner. The pow- der is exported in large quantities yearly, and may be reckoned a valuable commodity.'' It appears by this to be a very ancient practice; and since mummies were before the time of Moses, this custom of dying the nails might be as ancient too; though we do not suppose the mummies Has- selquist saw, with their nails thus coloured, were so old as his time. If it was practised in Egypt before the law was given, we may believe the Israelites adopted it, since it appears to be a most universal custom now in the eastern coun- tries : Dr. Shaw observing that all the African ladies that can purchase it, make use of it, reckoning it a great beauty, as we learn from Rauwoltf, it appears also to the Asiatic females. I cannot but think it most probable then, that making the nails, signifies tinging as well as paring them. Paring alone, one would imagine too trilling a circum- stance to be intended here. No commentator, however, that I know of, has taken any notice of ornamenting the nails by colouring them. As for shaving the head, which is joined with making the nails, it was a rite 0/ cleansing, as appears from Lev. xiv. 8, 9, and Num. vi. 9, and used by those who, after having been in an afflicted and squalid state, appeared before persons to whom they desired to render themselves acceptable, and who were "also wont to change their raiment on the same occasion. See Gen. xli. 14. — Harmer. Ver. 17. But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the first-bom, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath : for he is the beginning of his strength ; the right of the first-born is his. Next to the father, the first-born of a family possessed the greatest rights. There were not, however, in a family as many first-born as mothers ; in other words, to be so called, it was not enough that a man should be the first fruit of the mother, or, as the Hebrews term it, Pheter Re- chem, (=n-> 10s) but that he should, at the same time, be the first son of his father, who was called Becor, (11=2) ai.d the beginning of his strength. The law of Deut. xxi. 15—17, places this beyond doubt, and the familv history of Jacob confirms it. For though Jacob had four wives, and chil- dren bv them all, vet he save the birthright to one son only, 1 Chron. v. 1, 2. That right Reuben had forfeited by a great crime ; but if he had not done so, he would certainly have been considered as the only first-born, as he alone is indeed called so in the history, Gen. xlix. 3. If, instead of this, the first son of every mother had been denominated the first-born, it would have been impossible that, among a people consisting of 600,000 adult males, and where there must have been at least 300,000 males above 20 years of age, there could be numbered /10 more than 22,000 first- born of a month old, and above it; because this would have required that every mother, one with another, had brought 40 (but because it is so incredible I will write the word at length, forty') children into the world. In my Dissertation, Oe Ccnsibus Ilebrteorum., to which I here refer the reader, I have illustrated thispoint at greater length. How the mat- tor was settled when a father had his first-born son by a widow, that had had children by her former marriage, 1 do not historically know ; but this'much is certain, that sueh son could not be called Pheter liechem, the first- fruit of the mother; and, therefore, could be none of the first-born who, by the Levitical law, (Exod. xiii. 12. Numb. iii. 40 — 51,) were consecrated to the Lord ; but still he probably enjoyed the rights of a first-born in 1 elation to his brothers. This, however, was a case that could rarely occur, because it appears that the Hebrews seldom man led widows who had been mothers ; although I do find one example of such a marriage. Besides his double shaie of the inheritance, the first-born in patriarchal families had great privileges, and a sort of authority over his brethren ; just as at present an Arab emir is, for' the most part, only the first-born 0] the first-born of his family, and, as such, rules a horde, com- posed merely of his kinsmen. Th'i> \\ a- also the case under the Mosaic polity, though with .-.nine limitation in point of authority; and hence we find in '1 ■• .■ : 1 .•., . - of the first book of Chronicles, the liisi-binn is often likewise termed that a father constituted one, who was not a first-born, the head. How much further these rights extended, I know not, excepting onlv in this particular, that the first-born was only the head of the lesser family. — Michaelis. Ver. 19. Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of the city, and unto the gate of his place. The gates of cities, in these days, and for many ages af- ter, were the places of judicature and common resort. Here the governors and elders of the city went to hear complaints, administer justice, make conveyances of titles and estates, and, in short, to transact all the public affairs of the place. And from hence is that passage in the Psalmist, " They shall not be ashamed when they speak to their ene- mies in the gate." (Ps. exxvii. 5.) It is probable that the room, or hall, where the magistrates sat, was over the gate because Boa: is said to go up to the gate ; and the reason of having it built there, seems to have been for the con- venience of the inhabitants, who, being all husbandmen, and forced to pass and repass every morning and evening as they went and came from their labour, might be more easily called, as they went by, whenever they were wanted to appear in any business. — Burder. Ver. 23. His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou slialt in anywise bury him that day. An Englishman is astonished in the East, to see how soon after death the corpse is buried. Hence a new-comer, on hearing' of the death of a servant, or native officer, who died in the morning, and who is to be interred in the even- ing, is almost disposed to interfere with what is to him ap- parently a barbarous practice. When the cholera prevails, it is truly appalling to see a man in one hour in health, and the next carried to his long-home. The reason assigned for this haste is the heat of the climate. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 4. Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift. them up again. Whoever saw a beast tottering or lying under the weight of his burden, was bound to help him; and that with the same exertion and perseverance as the owner himself was doing, or would have done. Nor durst he (for this the words of Moses seem to imply") desist, but u-ith the owner ; that is, until the owner himself left the beast, seeing him past relief, Exod. xxiii. 5. Both these were incumbent du- ties even when the beast belonged to an enemy ; and the passages above referred to, expressly mention the ox find ass of an enemy. This is reasonable ; for we expect that even our enemy will be humane enough to foreget his en- mity, and give us his aid in a time of need, or, at any rate, that he will not be so little as to extend his enmity to a beast quite innocent of our quarrel, and that lies in distress Chap. 22. DEUTERONOMY. 17 bef re his eyes. What we expect, we should do in our I urn; and it we will not listen 10 the suggestions of moral obligation, still we most see, that among a nation of hus- bandmen and herdsmen, it was a matter of great import- ance to preserve the lives of work-beasts. And upon the same principle, we Blight perhaps be enjoined t.i extinguish, ii i, tea were, a lire in our enemy's house, as if it were our own. How humane soever this law of Moses may appear, the same time recollect, that it was aol gives |o a people like ourselves, but to a peopleumong whom every individual generally had cattle; so that they could not hut be mil !■• I I', the gi'eat duty of reciprocity, which among us, ai I.ms! in towns, d ies not here hold, because but few have cattle— Among the Israelites, none almost could be so unac- i heir management, or to their relict in distress, as eurtown's-people are. This last circumstance ispeculiarlj deserving of notice. I grant that such a law would, in Ger- man v, be, i vi v -tran g>- niie, if accompanied with DO limita- tion to certain classes of the community; for he who is not from his infancy conversant with beasts, seldom acquires the confidence or dexterity requisite for their aid when in dan- ger. wiih.ni: hurting himself. He, perhaps, sits perfectly well n Ii irscback, ami can do all that belongs to a good rider, when mounted; but to help up with a horse fallen down under his load, or to slop one that has run off, would not —Add to this, that among us, neither the ox, nor the ass, but the horse alone, is 'so honourable, thai a gentleman could hclnun with him, without demeaning him- self, and being laughed at. But among a nation of farm- er-, who ploughed with oxen and asses, and where there such a foolish idea, v lneh a legislator must have attended to, could have no place. We shall find that Moses, throughout his laws, mani- fests even towards animals a spirit of justice and kind- ness, and inculcates the avoidance, not only of actual cruelty, but even of its appearance. A code of civil law does not, indeed, necessarily provide for the rights of ani- mals, because they are not citizens ; but still, the way in which animals are treated, so strongly influences the man- ners and sentiments of a people even towards their fellow- r be who habitually acts with cruelty and want of feeling to beasts, will soon be'eome cruel and hard-heart- ed to men,) thai a legislator will sometimes find it necessary to attend to it, to prevent his people from becoming savage. — jMlCIIAEI.IS. Ver. 6. If a bird's-nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or 'on the ground, whether they be young; ones or eggs, anil the dam sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young. 7. But thou shalt in anywise let the dam go, and take the young to thee ; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong tin/ days. It is the command of Moses, that if a person find a bird's-nest in the way, whether on a tree or on the ground, though he may take the eggs, or the young, he shall not take the mother, but always allow hef to escape. Ii is clear that he here speaks, not of those birds which nestle upon people's .property ; in other words, that he does not, for in- stance, prohibit an Israelite from totally destroying a spar- row's or a swallow's nest, that might happen to be trouble- some to him. or to extirpate to the utmost of his power the buds that infested his field or vineyard. He merely en- joins what one was to do on finding such nests on the vaii. that is, without one's property : thus guarding against ei'lwr extinction, or too great diminution of any species of bird indigenous to the country. And this in some coun- tries isst ill, with respect to partridges, an established rule : which, without a special law, is observed by even- real sportsman, and the breach of which subjects him to the re- proaches of his brethren. Nor would anv further illustra- tion be necessary, if Moses spoke only of edible birds, and as if merely concerned for their preservation. But this is ire most destructive, besides what are properly birds of arey. And here many readers may think it strange, that Moses should be represented as providing for the preser- vation of noxious birds; yet, in fact, nothing can be more conformable to legislative wisdom, especially on the intro- duction of colonies into a new country. To extirpate, or even to persecute, to too great an extent, any species oi birds in such a country, from an idea, often too hastily en- tertained, of its being hostile to the interests of the inhabit- ants, is a measure of very doubtful policy. It ought, in general, to be considered as a part of Ni stowed for seme important purpose; but what thai IS) we certainly discover too late, when it has been exti 1 1 8 the evil consequences of thai measure are begun to be felt. In this matter, the legislator should take a lesson from the naturalist. Linnaeus, whom all will allow to be a perfect master in the science of natural history, has made the above remark in his Dissertation, entitled, llr-tu,;.: ,\ Bono ? and gives two remarkable examples to confirm it : the one, in the case of the Little Crow of Virginia, (Cmcu- hi Qiiiscula,) extirpated, at great expense, on account of its supposed destructive effects, and which the inhabitants would soon gladly have re-nitroduccd at double expense; the other, in that oi the F.iiuption Vulture, or ltorhom, ( Vultur Peronopterus, Linn.) In the city of Cairo, everyplace is so full of dead carcasses, that the stench of them would not fail to produce putrid diseases; and where the caravans travel dead asses and camels are always lying. The Itacham, which molests no living thing, consumes these carcasses, ;.n,l clears the country of them ; and it even follows the track of the caravan to Mecca, for the same purpose ; and so grate- ful are the people for the serviced thuscfoesthe country. that devout and opulent Mohammedans are wont to establish foundations for its support, byproviding for the expense ol a certain numbefof beasts to be daily killed, and given every morning and evening to the immense flocks of Raehoins that resort to the place where criminals are executed, ana rid the city, as it would seem, of their carcasses in like man- ner. These eleemosynary institutions, and the sacred re- gard shown to these birds' by the Mohammedans, are like- wise testified by Dr. Shaw, "in his Trave.'s. These exam- ples serve pretty strongly to show, that in respect, at least, to birds, we ought to place as much confidence in the wis- dom and kindness of Nature, as not rashly to extirpate any species which she has established in a country. . and, perhaps, indispensable blessing. Limit its numbers we certainly may, if thev incommode us ; but still so as that the race shall not become extinct. Of quadrupeds and insee's I say nothing, because, with regard to them, we have not such experience to guide us. No inconvenience has arisen in England, nor even in thr>. populous part of Ger- many between the Weser and the Oder, from the loss of the wolves; although I cannot understand, but must leave it to naturalists to find out, how it should happen, that, in any country, beasts of prey can be extirpated with less in- convenience than birds; wild eats, for instance, and to bring that parallel closer, than owls, both of which live upon mice 1 There are yet three peculiar circunis'ai.ees to»be noted, which would naturally make the Israelitish legislator singularly attentive to the' preservation of buds. 1. He was conducting a colony of people into a coun- try with which they were unacquainted, and where they might very probably attempt to extirpate any species of bird that seemed troublesome, without adverting to its real importance ; just as the Virginian colonists did, in the case of their crow. 2. Palestine is situated in a climate producing poisonous snakes and scorpions, and between deserts and mountains, from which it would be inundated with those snakes, if the birds that lived on them were extirpated. 3. From the same deserts too, it would be overwhelmed with immense multitudes of locusts and mice, if it were des- titute of those birds, that resort thither to feed on them ; not to mention the formidable swarms of flies in the East, and particularly in Palestine, of which I have taken notice in my Dissertation on this law. — Micu.ielis. Ver. 8. When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any man fall from thence. The roof is always flat, and often composed of branches of wood laid across rude beams, and to defend it from the injuries of the weather, to which it is peculiarly exposed 15 DEUTERONOMY in the rainy season, it is covered with a strong plaster of terrace, ft is surrounded by a wall breast high, which forms the partition with the contiguous houses, and pre- vents one from falling into the street on the one side, or into the court on the other. This answers to the battlements which Moses commanded the people of Israel to make for the roof of their houses, for the same reason. "When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battle- ment (np<;n) for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any man fall from thence." Instead of the parapet wall, some terraces are guarded, like the galleries, with balustrades only, or latticed work. Of the same kind, probably, was the lattice or net, as the term (raiv skebaca) seems to import, through which Ahaziah, the king of Samaria, fell down into the court. This incident proves the necessity of the law which Jehovah graciously dictated from Sinai, and furnishes a beautiful example of his paternal care and goodness ; for the terrace was a place where many offices of the family were performed, and bu- siness of no little importance was occasionally transacted. Rahab concealed the spies on the roof, with the stalks of flax which she had laid in order to dry; the king of Israel, according to the custom of his country, rose from his bed, and walked upon the roof of his house, to enjoy the refresh- ing breezes of the evening; upon the top of the house, the prophet conversed with Saul, about the gracious designs of God, respecting him and his family; to the same place, Peter retired to offer up his devotions; and in the feast of tabernacles, under the government of Nehemiah, booths were erected, as well upon the terraces of their houses, as in their courts, and in the streets of the city. In Judea, the inhabitants sleep upon the tops of their houses during the heats of summer, in arbours made of the branches of trees, or in tents of rushes. When Dr. Pococke was at Tiberias in Galilee, he was entertained by the sheik's steward, and with his company supped upon the top of the house for coolness, according to their custom, and lodged there like- wi >e, in a sort of closet of about eight feet square, formed of wicker-work, plastered round towards the bottom, but without any door, each person having his cell. In like manner, the Persians take refuge during the day in sub- terraneous chambers, and pass the night on the flat roofs of lh=ir houses. — Paxton. We have repeated intimations in scripture, of a custom which would be extremely inconvenient in England ; — that of sleeping on the top of the house, exposed to the open air, and sky : so we read, " Samuel came to call Saul about the spring of the day, not to — but on— the top of the house ; and communed w'ith him on the house-top." So S.domon observes, " It is better to dwell in a corner on the house-top, than with a brawling woman in a wide street." The same idea may be noticed elsewhere. " It has ever f>een a custom with them, [the Arabs in the East,] equally connected with health and pleasure, to pass the nights in summer upon the house-tops, which for this very purpose arc made flat, and divided from each other by walls. We found this way of sleeping extremely agreeable ; as we thereby enjoyed the cool air, above the reach of gnats and vapours, without any other covering than the canopy of the heavens, which unavoidably presents itself in different pleasing forms, upon every interruption of rest, when si- lence and solitude strongly dispose the mind to contempla- tion." (Wood's Balbec, Introduction.) " I determined he should lodge in a kiosque, on the top of my house, where I kept him till his exaltation to the patriarchate, which, after a long negotiation, my wife's brother obtained, for a pretty large sum of money, to be paid in new sequins." (Baron du Toft.) The propriety of the Mosaic precept (Deut. xxii. 8,) which orders a kind of balustrade, or parapet, to sur- round the roof, lest any man should fall from thence, is strongly enforced by this relation ; for, if we suppose a per- son to rise in the night, without being fully awake, he inignt easily kill himself by falling from the roof. Some- thing of the kind appears in the history of Amaziah, 2 Kings i. 2. In several places scripture hints at grass growing on the house-tops, but which comes to nothing. The following quotation will show the nature of this : " In the morning the mastei of the house laid in a stock of earth; which was carried up, and spread evenly on the top oj the house, which is flat. The whole roof is thus form?-! of mere earth, laid on, and rolled hard and flat. Oe i of a people. Hunger, or ap- " Ian lies a man of the most honourable princi- ple, i '.oui grapes and other eatables that are not watched; if his conscience make this theft, the great boundary that distinguishes the man of honour from the thief, is in a manner ovoi-lcppo !, and it this happen often, he will at last become a thief in a higher sense, having lost all conscience and regard to character. It is, therefore, certainly belter, if it can be done without any material in- jury to property, to allow him the liberty of eating a little of such things, in order to keep him a conscientious, hon- ourable man. Legislators sometimes attend but too Utile to moral niceties oj^this nature; and yet it is possible there- by to corrupt a whole people, and rob them of their honesty. Moses, on the other nand, would gi\-£ no sanction lo the practice of free pasturage, although he gave his laws to a people sprung from wandering heidsmcn, to whose cattle the whole country where they lived was a common; and herein he is a most perfect antipode to our laws of indis- criminate pasturage, which prove so great a misfortune to Germany. Whoever drove his cattle into another's field or vineyard, and fed therein, was obliged \o ya\ a grazing rent ; but whether for ihe whole year, or only for the pre- ' use time of occupation, I am unce'rlain, Exod.'xxii. How- ever favourable, therefore, he may have been to the poor, in authorizing them to pluck a few ears of corn, or to glean m hat was left in the fields, he by no means thought it just that, by any law of free pasturage, a man should I ed in using his field as his own properly solely, and in turning it to the best account, even after harvest. Whoever has heard the complaints of economists against commons, which with us, without injustice to individuals, it is so difficult to abolish, while yet they so effectually obstruct the full improvement of the fields, will perceive the importance and the wisdom of this law, the enforcing of which was attended wilh no difficulty after the conquest of a new country. — Micuaelis. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 10. When thou dost lend thy brother anv thing, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. 11. Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee. 12. And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge : 13. In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God. Among the Israelites in the time of Moses, it must have been very common to lend on pledge — and thai, according to the meaning of the word, in natural law, which allows the creditor, in the case of non-payment, to appropriate the pledge to his own behoof, without any authoritative inter- position of a magistrate, and to keep it just as rightfully as if it had been bought with the sum which has been lent for it, and which remains unpaid. But while pledges are un- der no judicial regulation, much extortion and villany may be practised, when the poor man who wishes to bor- row is in straits, and must of course submit to all the terms imposed by the opulent lender. This we know from daily experience: the persons who lend money extrajudicially on pledge, being generally odious or contemptible usurers. Among a poor people, such as we must suppose everv people to be in their infancy, the evils of pledging are still more oppressive. The poor man ofen finds himself under a far greater necessity of borrowing, than we can easily imagine, because there is nothing to be earned: and the husbandman, who has had a bad harvest, or his nop destroyed by hail, or lociisis. must often borrow, not money, but bread, or else starve. In such cases, he Rill give in 1:20 DEUTERONOMY. Chap. 25 pledge, whatever the rich lender requires, however greatly it may be to his loss. Nor has he, like borrowers in our days, many articles which he can dispense wilh, and pledge ; such as superfluous apparel, numerous shirts, and changes of linen, household furniture, and various little luxuries, that are become fashionable among our poorest people ; but he must instantly surrender things of indispen- sable use and comfort, such as the clothes necessary to keep him warm, his implements of husbandry, his cattle, and (who could suppose it ?) his very children. Here the avaricious lender on pledge cannot' but be most heartily detested, and incur the universal execration of the people. And hence, in the book of Job, which gives us some views Of Arabian manners, such as they were a little before the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, when the picture of a villain is drawn, the author does not forget, as one trait of his character, to represent him as a lender upon fledge. Thus in chap. xxii. 6, xxiv, 7. He < riorts pledges without 'uti-ing lent, (an act of extreme injustice, which, however, may take place when the pledge is given, before the loan is paid down.) and nwf.es /lis debtors go naked ; probably be- cause he has taken their most necessary clothes in pledge, and as unfeelingly a^ illegally detained them.— In chap. Xiiv. 3. He totes' I he widow's ox for a pledge ; so that she cannot plough her land, to gain the needful for clearing off the debt; and the ox, thus pledged perhaps for a trifle, tf it cannot be redeemed on the day of payment, becomes the certain property of the greedy creditor. 'But the poor widow thus loses ten times as much" as he unjustly gains, unless he yet think fit to repair the injury done to her land; for she can now no more cultivate it, and must be every day plunging deeper in debt and misery.— At ver. 9. He talcs even the infant of the needy for a. pledge, and, of course, if not duly redeemed, keeps it, for bond-service, however disproportioned to its value the loan may have been. Mo- ses by no means attempts to abolish the practice of extra- judicial pledging, or to make such regulations, as we have in our laws, whereby the pledge, under what agreement soever given, may be sold to the highest bidder, while of the price the creditor can only receive the real amount of his debt. These are inventions to be found only in the more elaborate laws of nations further advanced in opu- lence and refinement; and which, in the present situation of the Israelites, would have been impracticable-and una- vailing. Indeed, among a people so poor, they must have proved detrimental, had it been possible to put them in practice: for no one would have been inclined to lend a trifle (and to a poor borrower even trifles are important) on pledge, under so many formalities, and when the way to arrive at payment, instead of being short and simple, was through the interference of a magistrate. In this way a needy person must always have found it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a lo'an, particularly a small one : which, among a poor people, is just as great an evil, as can arise from fraudulent practices in pledging. It will not, therefore, be imputed to Moses as a fault, that his statutes contain not those legal refinements, which probably were not then invented, and which even yet may be said rather to be in record in one statute books, than In be in our prac- tice. They would have been danger ius to his people, and peculiarly oppressive to the poor. He let pledge remain in its proper sense, pledge : and thus facilitated the obtain- ing of loans : satisfying himself with making laws against some of the chief abuses of pledging. — Michaeus. Ver. 13. la any ense thou shalt deliver him the pledge ao-run when the sun o'oeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee : and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God. The Talmudists enumerate eighteen several garments, which belonged to the full dress of an ancient Jew. A woollen shirt was worn next the skin, although some had shirts of linen in which they slept, because these were more cleanly and wholesome. But this part of their dress is to be distinguished from the caffetan or shirt, which the oridegroom and the bride sent to each other ; which they wore over their clothes at their solemn festivals ; and in which they were at last buried. Next to it was the coat, Thich reached to their fee', and was accounted a modest and honourable article of dress. This greatly aggravated the indignity which the king of Amnion offered iothe am- bassadors of David, by cutting off their garments in the middle to their bullock's; he insulted them b\ spoiling the most esteemed part of their dress ; he exposed them tc shame, by uncovering their nakedness, as they seem to have worn no breeches under their upper garments. The tunic was the principal part of the Jewish dress; it was made nearly in the form of our present .shirt. A round hole was cut at top, merely to permit the head to pass* through. Sometimes it had long sleeves, which reached down to the wrists; at other times short sleeves, which reached to the elbow ; some had very short sleeves, which reached only to the middle of the upper arm, and some had no sleeves at ali. The tunic was nearly the same with the Roman stola ; and was, in general, girded round the waist, or under the breast, with the zona of girdle. Descending to the ground, and floating round the feet, it was, in the days of our Lord, a distinguishing badge of the proud Pharisee: " Beware of the scribes," said he, " who love to walk in long robes," in tunics at full length, and reaching to the ground. These coats were collared at the neck, and fringed at the bottom. Over the tunic ihey wore a blanket, which the Arabs call a hvke, and is the very same with the plaid of the Scotch Highlanders. These h'ykes are of dif- ferent sizes, and of different quality and fineness. They are commonly six yards long, and five or six feet broad ; serving the Kabyle and Arab for a complete dress in the day ; and " as they sleep in raiment," like the Israelites ol old, it serves likewise for their bed and covering by night. It is a loose but troublesome garment, frequently discom- posed, and falling upon the ground ; so that the person who wears it, is every moment obliged to tuck it up, and fold it anew about his body. This shows the great use of a girdle whenever they are concerned in any active employment, and by consequence the force of the scripture injunction, alluding to that part of the dress, to have our loins girded, in order to set about it with any reasonable prospect of success. The method of wearing these garments, and the use they are put to at other times in serving as coverlets to their beds, should induce us to take the finer sorts of them, at least such as are worn by the ladies and persons of dis- tinction, to be the pepfois of primitive times. Ruth's veil, which held six measures of barley, might be of a similar fashion, and have served, upon extraordinary occasions, for the same use ; as were also the clothes, or upper gar- ments, worn by the Israelites, in which they folded up their kneading troughs, as the Arabs and others do to this day, things of similar burden and encumbrance, in their . hykes. It is very probable, likewise, thai the loose folding garment, the toga of the Romans, was of this kind ; for if we may form our opinion from the drapery of their statues, this is no other than the dress of the Arabs, when they ap- pear in their hykes. — Paxton. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 4. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth cut the con. The custom of thrashing corn by the trampling of bul- locks, still prevails in the East. The floor is made in the open air, of cows' dung and clay. In its centre a post is driven into the ground, and (he" corn is placed in order around it; and the bullocks, being fastened to the post, begin to move in the circle, enjoying themselves, as they work, by eating the corn. — Roberts. This "statute, which has been seldom sufficiently under- stood, establishes, in the first place, certain rights, as belong- ing even to the blasts which man uses for the purpose o'. labour. We must not here think of our mode of thrashing, but on that used in the East, where the corn being iaid oli the thrashing-floor, is trodden out by oxen or asses, or by thrashing-wagons and thrashing-planks drawn over it by oxen. Here, then, Moses commands that no muzzle beptit on the ox. but that he be allowed, as long as he is employed in thrashing, to eat both of the grain and straw. It appears that an ancient consuetudinary usage which Moses adopted in his writ'en law. had established this as nothing more than equitable ; for we find it still observed in places ol the East, where the Mosaic law is not in force ; as, for in- stance, according to Dr. Russet's testimony, at Aleppo, among the Arabs that dwell in that neighbourhood ; am1 Chap. 25. DEUTERONOMY. 121 likewise, even anion.; the inhabitants ofthe coast of Mala- bar Etas ell, in in- Natural History of Aleppo, says, that Ihi'iv h ■■■! i-ph-n go .il at all sim-miis, hill |i.-i i-I ■■- 1 1 1 .i rl \ ex- cellent in summer, because, lo this day, the inhabitant!! lai i :l adhere tu the ancient custom of allowing the oat, \vhii.- thrashing, to eai as much as he chooses. In the pe- n nil. -a I ;n -r.i mi's i.l' i In- \ 1. 1 la liar in i "inn, in- are tokl that a proverb to this effect, " What an ox ihrashe.s, is Ins profit." The people of the most ancient ages, in gen- eral, gave iln- n\ a high preference above other beasts, on a.-. -.him: of ins great ami indispensable usefulness in agri- culture, an. I conferred upon him, a- man's assistant, many privileges, insomuch thai mythology speaks of a time when U was Unlawful to kill him. 1 believe, however, that the Statute before us does aoi extend lo oxen only,bul includes also other beasts employed by man in thrashing ; for Moses is wont to represent general principles, by pan well-known examples. This point, however, is too ineon- oi-i-upy more room in its illustration, else might 1 quote Isa. xxx. -J-L in proof thai the ass had the same right as the ox; foi ih lo the horse, he was not then used in hus- bandry. The origin ol'ilns benevolent law with regard to beasts, ■ | deducible from certain moral feelings or sen- e alenl among the people ofthe eat Iv ages. They thought ii hard that a person should be employed in the collection and preparation- of edible and savour; things-, a:i i have them continually before his eyes, without being li ted to tasie them; and there "is in fa. ot'i-rii'-iiv in i'l.i. in.' ii person in such a situation; for the i .Unities i- 1. -I menling, and the desiri 01 them increases with the risk of the prohibition. If any l.-i-s lias a hear! so devoid of sensibility Inwards - of his inferiors, thai he can form no idea of any . n- in such circumstances, let him endeavour to recollect from the heathen mythology, the representations v. hi.ii i lie Greek and Roman poets gave ofthe torments of hell; such as lalics spread wiih the most costly dainties, and placed!) -f.ue the , yes of the damned, without their be- ing permitted - 1 much as to touch them; or again, the water in which thirsy Tantalus was immersed to his lips, and which lied from him whenever he bowed to taste it. Add to this, that by prohibitions of this nature, the moral char- acter of servant* and day-labourers, to the certain injury of their master's interest, seldom fails to become corrupted; ! .1- .I-..- | o.-aii-m of appetite at the sight of forbidden grat- ilicaiion will, with the greater number, undoubtedly over- power all moral suggestions a- to right and wrong. They will learn lo help themselves without leave, that is, in other words, (for although not in civil, vet in moral law, it is theft,) they will learn to steal; and if the attempt is frequent- ly repe I --1. the wall of partition between right and wrong, which wis at first so formidable to conscience, is at length broken through : they soon learn to go greater and greater lengths, and thus in this school are bred arrant thieves. Our laws, i: is true, pay no attention to such things; but Still, the voice of nature, if we will but listen to it, will leach us, that in every country, servants imagine, that to Steal ea ibles is no crime; or, as the saying is in Upper Saxony, that " what goes into the mouth, brings no sin with it." Hen- tinware certainly quite in the wrong : andamong a people that had already a taste for foreign and expensive luxuries, such a benevolent law as that now under consid- eration, could not be introduced, without the complete de- struction of domestic economy ; although indeed, after all, cooks and bailers cannot well be prohibited from tasting the dishes and the wine of which they have the charge. Bin wiih. in- dw -lling on what our modern luxury renders accessary in this matter, I only say, that to the people of i those limes of ancient simplicity, it appeared very in- 1. i to debar a slave or a hireling from tasting of the fi el which he had under his hand. When Job wishes to il -scribe a perfect monster of insensibility and hardhearled- ness, he says, " The hungry carry his sheaves; immured in workhois-s they prepare his oil : they tread his wine- presses, and yet thev thirst." Job xxiv. 10, 11. I seldom appeal to Jewish testimonies, or, to speak mire accurately, to the Talmud and Rabbins, because they are loo recent for illustration of the Mosaic statutes; but here I cannot altogether overlook the following Jewish doctrine, laid down in the Baha Mc;ia. fol, S3. " The workman may law- fully ea: of what he works among; in the vintage he may 16 eat of grapes; when gathering figs, he may partake of them; and in harvest he may cat of the cars ol corn. Oi gourds and dates he uiayeat the value of a ilciiaiiu , :h;,i is, of four groschen, or one fourth of a florin. The mention .he -inn, « hi.h was, perhaps, rather Ii , ill Iowa n.-e. sei-i 1 1- to have proceeded tin mi I he c ileum inure ..I the J.-ws reckoning a denarius the price of a day - la- bour, because it was introduced so lately before the de'struc- tion of Jerusalem. 1 quote the passage, however, not for proof, but merely as a relic oi ancient manners among the Jews. This kindness, then, the Hebrews and Arabs extended unto oxen, to which, by reason of their great utility in agri- culture, they conceived that thev wen- bound i ninle i a certain degree of gratitude. And therefore when Moses, in terms of Ibis benevolent custom ordained, that the ox was not to be muzzled while thrashing, u would seem that it was not merely his intention lo provide for the welfare of that animal, but to enjoin wiih the greater force and effect, that ;i similar right should be allowed to human labourers, whether hirelings or slaves. He specified the OX, as the lowest example, and whal held good in reference to him, was to be considered as so much the more obligatory in reference to man. That he wished to be understood in this way, we have the less reason to doubt, from this con- sideration, that in the sequel we shall meet with other stat- utes, in which he carries his attention to the calls of hunger so far, as to allow the eating of fruits and grapes m other people's gardens and vineyards, without restraint. It would appear, therefore, that not only servants, but also day-la- bourers, might eat ofthe fruits they gathered, and diiiik of the mtuf which thev pressed. The wages of the latter seems to have been given them over and above their meat, and, in consideration nli In- pi n i l.-ge. io inn e l.i-eii so much the less ; for with a labourer, who found hi- own victuals, and yet had ihe right of eating and drinking of whatever came under his hands, a master would have stood on a very disadvantageous footing. In fact, if they did not afford food to day-labourers, it would be impossible to understand how the value of a servant could be compared with the hire of a labourer, Deut. xv. 18, and found double ; for' that a master maintained his servants, is unquestionable. But it they likewise gave the labourer his victuals, the value of a servant, and the wages of a labourer, might be compared. — Michaelis. Ver. 9. Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence ofthe elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house. The last mark of disrespect, which is by no means con- fined to the East, is to spit in the face of another. Chardin observes, that spitting before any one, or spitting upon the ground in speaking of any one's actions, is, through the East, an expression of extreme detestation. It is, there- fore, prescribed by the law of Moses, as a mark of great disgrace to be fixed on the man who failed in his duty to the house of his brother. To such contemptuous treat- ment, it will be recollected, our blessed Redeemer sub- mitted injhe hall of the high-priest, for the sake of hi: has descended to modern times ; foi a rebel prisoner was brought before Nadir Shah's general, Ihe soldiers were ordered lo spit in his face ; which proves that the savage conduct of the Jews corresponded with a custom which had been long establish- ed over all the East. — Paxtos. Ver. 13. Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. The prophet Micah also speaks ofthe bag of deceitful weights." As in former times, so now, much of the busi- ness" in the* East is transacted by travelling merchants. Hence all kinds of spices, and other articles, are taken from one village to another by the Moors, who are in those regions, what Ihe Jews are in the West. The pedler comes to your door, and vociferates ihe names of his waies ; and, so soon as he catches your eye, begins to exhibit his very DEUTERONOMY. Chap. 2?'. cheap, and valuable articles. Have you agreed as to the price, he then produces the eac of "divers weights," and after fumbling some time in it, he draws forth the weight by which he has to sell; but, should he have to purchase anv tiling of you, he will select a heavier weight. The man who 'is not cheated by this trader, and his " bag of divers weights," must be blessed with more keenness than most of his fellows.— Roberts. CHAPTER XXVII. Ver. 2. And it shall be, on the day when you shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster: 3. And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with' milk and honey ; as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee. The book of the law, in order to render it the more sa- cred, was deposited beside the ark of the covenant, Deut. xxxi. 26; and we find the same procedure likewise ob- served afterward with regard to other laws, such as that which was made on the first establishment of regal author- ity, or, in other words, the compact between the king and the estates, 1 Sam. x. 26; but I cannot precisely determine whether that was kept in the holy of holies beside the ark, or only in the holy place. The guardians of the law, to whom was intrusted the duty of making I'ailhful transcripts of it, were the priests, Deut. xxvii. It). But Moses did not account even this precaution sufficient for Ihe due preser- vation of his law in its original purity ; for he commanded that it should besides be engraven on stones, and these stones kept on a mountain near Siehem, in order that a genuine exemplar of it might be transmitted even to the latest generations, Deut. xxvii. 1 — 8. In his ordinance for this purpose, there are one or two particulars that require illustration. He commanded that the stones should be coated with lime ; but this command would have been quite absurd hail his meaning only been, that the laws should bt cut through this coaling ; for after this unnecessary trou- ble, they could by no means have* been thus perpetuated with such certainty, nor have nearly so long resisted the effects of wind and weather, as if at once engraven in the stones themselves. Kennicolt, in his Second, Dissertation on the printed Hebrew Text, p. 77, supposes that they might have been cut out in black marble, with the letters raised, and the hollow intervals between the black letters filled up with a body of white lime, to render them more distinct and conspicuous. But even this would not have been a good plan for eternizing them: because lime cannot long withstand the weather, and whenever it began to fall off in any particular place, the raised characters would, by a variety of accidents, to which writing deeply engraved is not liable, soon be mjured, and become illegible. No one that wishes to write any thing in stone, that shall descend to the most remote periods of time, will ever think of giving a preference to characters thus in relief. And besides, Moses, if this was'his meaning, has expressed himself very indistinctly ; for he says not a word of the colour of the stone, on which, however, the whole idea turns. I rather suppose, therefore, that Moses acted in this matter with the same view to future ages, as is related of Sostratus, the ar- chitect of the Pharos, who, while he cut the name of the then king of Egypt in the outer coat of lime, took care to engrave his own name secretly in the stone below, in order that it might come to light in after times, when the plaster with the king's name should have fallen off. In like man- ner, Moses, in my opinion, commanded that his laws should be cut in the stones themselves, and these coated with a thick crust of lime, that the engraving might continue for many ages secure from all the injuries of ihe weather and atmosphere, and then, when by the decay of its covering it should, atier hundreds or thousands of yqars, first come to light, serve to show to the latest posterity whether they had suffered any change. And was not the idea of thus,.pre- serving an inscription, not merely for hundreds, but for thousands of years, a conception exceedingly sublime 1 It is by no means impossible thai these stones, if again dis- covered, might be found still lo conlain the whole engra- ving perfectly legible. Let us only figure to ourselves what must have happened to them amid the successive devas- tations of the country in which they were erected. The lime would gradually become irregularly covered with moss and earth ; and now, perhaps, the stones, by the soil increasing around and over them, many resemble a little mount ^ and were they accidentally disclosed to our view, and the lime cleared away, all that was inscribed on IhC'B 3500 years ago would at once become visible. Probably, however, this discovery, highly desirable though it would be both to literature and religion, being in the present slate of things, and particularly of the Mosaic law, now so long abrogated, not indispensably necessary, it is reserved for some future age of the worid. What Moses commanded, merely out of legislative prudence, and for the sake^f his laws, as laws, God, who sent him, may have destined lo answer likewise another purpose ; and may choose tobring these stones to light at a lime when the laws of Moses aie no longer of any authority in any community whatever. Thus much is certain, that nowhere in the Bible, is any mention made of the discovery of these stones, nor indeed any further notice taken of them, than in Josh. viii. 30 — 35, where their erection is described; so that we may hope they will yet be one day discovered. Moses' whole procedure in this matter, is precisely in the style of ancient nations, who generally took the precaution, now rendered unneces- sary by the invention of printing, to engrave their lavs in stones; only that ho studied, by a new contrivance, to give to his stony archives a higher degree of durability fhan was ever thought of by any other legislator. AVhat was to be inscribed on the stones, whether the whole Pentateuch, or only the book of Deuteronomy, or but the blessings and curses pronounced in Deut. chap, xxvii, or merely the ten commandments alone, has been the subject of a controver- sy, for particulars concerning which, I again refer the reader to Kennicott's Second Dissertation. In my judg- ment, the expression, all the icords of this lav, implies, at least, that all the statutory part of the Mosaic books was to be engraved on the stones, which is far from being impos- sible, if we make but a distinction between the stones and the altar, which must, no doubt, have been too small for that purpose. is well known that in very ancient times, were wont to engrave their laws in stones ; and the Egyptians had recourse lo stone ] illars (c-mXais) for perpetuating their discoveries in science, and the history of their country. All these circumstances considered, to- gether with this above all, that the Israelites had just come out of Egypt, where writing in stone was employed for so many further purposes, (although, indeed, liiemglvphic characters were used which Moses prohibited, 1 in-v when not understood, they might give a handle to idi dairy,') I do not see why the phrase, all the uords ofthislaw, should not be left in its full force, nor what should oblige us to limit it, with Dr. Kennicott, merely to the decalogue — Michaelis. Ver. 15. Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto The Lord, the work of the hands of the crafts- man, and putleth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen. The images of the Hindoos are generally made of cop- per or stone, but some are of silver or gold. It is not easy to find out the difference betwixt the graven am\ molten im- age, except the first mean that which has been produced bv the chisel from stone, and the second that which has- been cast in a mould by the action of fire. These images, however, have all of them to be graven, or filed, before they are consecrated. — Roberts. Ver. 17. Cursed be he that removeth his neigh- bour's land-mark : and all the people shalfsay. Amen. Fields in the East have not fences or hedges, as in Eng- land, but a ridge, a stone, or a post; and, consequently, it is not very difficult to encroach on the property of another Should a man not be very careful, his neighbour will take Chap. 23, 29. DEUTERONOMY. 128 away a little every year, and keep pushing his ridge into the other's ground. Disputes of the most serions nature often occur on this account, and call lor the greatest dili- gence and activity of the authorities. An injured man re- peals tO 1,1 . ' ' | ' !.. I'l .-,■:; 1,1 kill in r him who sieps over the ridge," i. c. he who goes beyond the landmark.— Roberts. CHAPTER XXVIII. Vef. 5. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Heb. " dough orlcntading-trough." Eastern farmers have large baskets made of Palmirah leaves, or other materials, for the purpose of keeping their grain : they will contain from one huudred to one hundred and fifty pa'rrahs. These baskets, then, were to be blessed ; they were not to be injur- ed by animals, nor robbed by man. ' But corn is also kept in a store which is made of sticks and clay, in a circular form. This little building is always elevated, to keep the grain from the damp, and is situated near to the house. When beggars have been relieved, they often say, " Ah ! may the place where you make ready your food ever be blessed." " May the rice-pot ever prosper." Thus, that which corresponds with the " kneading-trough" of the He- brews, has also its benediction. — Roberts. Basselquisl informs us, that baskets made of the leaves of the palm-tree are used by the people of the East on jour- neys, and in their houses. Harraer conjectures that such baskets are referred to in these words, and that the store signifies their leathern bags, in both which they used to carry things in travelling.— Birder. Ver. 13. And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail ; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them. The prophet Isaiah, chap. ix. 14, says, " The Lord will cut otf from Israel head and tail:" meaning, no doubt, those who were high, and those who were low. It is amusing to hear men of rank in the East speak of their dependants as tails. Has a servant not obeyed his master, the former asks, " Who are you 1 are you the head or tail %" Should a person begin to partake of food before those of high caste, it is asked, " What ! is the tail to begin to wag be- fore the head 1" A husband, when angry "with his wife, inquires, " What are you 1 are you the head or the tail V -Roberts. Ver. 24 The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust : from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed. It may be of use to inquire a little into the nature and properties of such a kind of rain; in which the following extracts may assist us. " Sometimes there [in India] the. wind blows very high in those hot and dry seasons— rais- ing up into the air a very great height, thick clouds of dust and sand. . . .These dry showers most grievouslv annov all those among whom they fall j enough to smile them all with a present blindness ; filling their eyes, ears, nostrils ; and their mouths are not free, if they be "not also well guarded : searching everv place, as well within, as without, our tents ^othat, there is not a little keyhole of anv trunk. or cabinet, if it be not covered, but receives some of that dust into it; the dust forced to find a lodging anvwhere, everywhere, being so driven and foreed as it is by the ex- treme violence of the wind. " (Sir T. Roe's Embassy.) To the same purpose speaks Herbert. " And now the danger is past, let me tell you, most part of the last night we crossed over an inhospitable sandv desert, where here and there we beheld the ground covered with a loose and flying sand, which by the fury of the winter weather is accumulated in- to such heaps, as upon any great wind the track is lost ; and passengers (too ofO overwhelmed and stifled; yea. camels, horses, mules, and other beasts, though strong, swift, and steady in their going, are not able to shift for themselves, but perish without recovery : those rolling sands, when agita- ted by the winds, move and remove more like sea than land, and render the way very dreadful lo passengers. Indeed in this plaee I thought that curse fulfilled, (Kent, xxviii. 21,) where the Lord, by Muses, threatens instead of lam lo give showers of dust. ' Tin m Persia: but such storms might be known to the Israelites; as, no doubt, they occur, also, on the sandy ,1,-nk - i east of Ju'dea: and to this agrees Tourncfort, who men- tions the same thing—" At Uhetsci there arose a tempest i i sand : in the same memrn r at it haj jh tu sometimes in Arabia, ami in Egypt, especially in the spring. It was raised by a very hot south wind, which drove so much sand, that on" of the gates of the Caravansary Mas half stopped up with it ; and the way could not be found, being covered over. ahoven lout deep, the sand lying on all hands. This sand was extremely fine, and salt; and was very troublesome to our eyes, even in the Caravansary, where all our baggage was covered over with it. The storm lasted from m mi n sunset; and it was so very hot the night following, without any wind, that one could hardly fetch breath, which in mv opinion was partly oecasioned'by the reflection of the hot sand. Next day' I felt a great' pain in one eve, which made it smart, as if salt had been melted into it," &c. This may give us a lively idea of the penetrating powers of the dust of the land of Egypt ; which (Exod. viii. 1(11 was converted into lice :— also', chap. ix. 8, of the effect of the ashes of the furnace, which Moses took, and sprinkled " up towards heaven, and it became a bile, breaking forth in blains upon man and beast." — Taylor in Calmet." Ver. 27. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. This is a complaint which is far more common, and more formidable in the East, than in Englsnd. Those who live on bad food, or reside in the vicinity ol a swamp, are the most subject lo it. See the poor object with a small piece of cloth round his loins, a staff in his hand, his body " from the sole of his foot unto his crown" literally cover- ed with sores, an imploring piteous look, a weak tremu- lous voice, and bowing to the earth to excite your charity. — Roberts. Ver. 39. Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. This threatening has often been fulfilled to (he great disappointment and injury of the inhabitants of those coun- tries where wine is produced or consumed. An insect, called the vine weevil, which is a small beautiful beetle, is extremely hurtful to the vines. The caterpillar, which mines or cuts the leaves of the vine, has no feet; and yet, hv a singular expedient, can make a progressive motion in all positions, and even over the smoothest and most polished bodies. It advances its body out of its oval pod, (constructed of the two outer skins of a vine leaf,) forms a kind of hil- lock of silk, and, by means of a thread which attaches it to it, draws its pod or case to the hillock. It continually re- peats the same operation, and in this (laborious) rr inner advances progressively. The traces of its progre.s are inai ked by hillocks of silk at the distance of half a luic from ' each other. Its food is the parenchyma or pith of the vine leaf, between the two epidermes, of which it eats out its oval habitation or pod. When it is taken cut of its habita- tion, it never attempts to make a new one : it writhes about * very much, but can make no progressive motion: and aftet having overspread the place in which it is with threads of silk, in an irregular manner, it dies at the end jf twenty- four hours.— Birder. CHAPTER XXIX. Ver. 23. And that the whole land thereof is brim- stone, and salt, and burning;. When a place is noted for being unhealthy, or the land very unfruitful, it is called a kenthaza momy, a place or country of brimstone. Tri jcomalee," and some other pla- .24 DEUTERONOMY. Chap. 30—32 ces, have gained this appellation on account of the heat and sterility of the soils. — Roberts. The effect of salt, where it abounds, on vegetation, is de- scribed 1)3' burning. Thus Volney, speaking of the borders of the Asphallic Lake, or Dead Sea, says, "the true cause of the absence of vegetables and animals, is the acrid salt- ness of its waters, which is infinitely greater than that of the sea. The land surrounding the lake being equally im- pregnated with that saltness, refuses to produce plants ; the air itself, which is by evaporation loaded with it, and which moreover receives vapours of sulphur and bitumen, cannot suit vegeta'ion ; whence the dead appearance which reigns around the lake.'' Hence the ancient custom of sowing an enemy's city, when taken, with salt, in token of perpetual desolation. ' Judges tx. 45. And thus in aftertimes, the city of Milan was burnt, razed, sown with salt, and plough- ed, by the exasperated emperor Frederick Barbarossa. — BuKDER. CHAPTER XXX. Ver. 14. But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do" it. T^ca.a person pretend that he cannot understand an- other, that he must make additional inquiries, it will be said, "Do you not understand! Iu^ thy mouth are the words," Should a child at school be troublesome to the mas- ter, he will peevishly exclaim, In thy mouth are the words; meaning the inquiry was unnecessary, that the subject was well understood. — Roberts. Ver. 19. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life an 1 de.ith, blessing- and cursing : therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. In solemn oaths, people point to the clouds, to the earth, to the grass, to the herbs, to the trees, as witnesses to the truth i .if what they have said. " O ye clouds above ! have I not said the truth? Ah! well do you know it: speak to this, unbeliever." "Ah! these trees can bear testimony to my veracity." When mariners are at sea, they appeal to it, or to Varuna the god. In storms, they say to the water, " 0 mother! be calm." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXXII. Ver. 2. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Oriental writers often speak of beautiful language as dropping upon the hearers. The Hebrew has for " proph- esy," in Micah ii. 6, " drop." The same word is used for drops of rain, for tears, or for the dew dropping from flowers. When a man has received consolation from an- o:her, he says, " His words were like rain upon the scorch- ed corn." Of a beautiful speaker, and an appropriate sub- ject, " Ah ! his speech is like the honey rain, upon the p an- ial bower of sugar." — Roberts. Ver. 5. Their spot is not the spot of his children. There may be here an allusion to the marks which the worshippers of particular idols had on different parts of '.heir bodies, particularly on their foreheads. The differ- ant sects of idolaters in the East are distinguished by Lheir sectarian marks, the stigma of their respective idols. These sectarian marks, particularly on the forehead, amount to nearly one hundred among the Hindoos, and es- pecially among the two sects, the worshippers of Siva and the worshippers of Vishnoo. In many cases these marks are renewed daily; for they account it irreligious to perform any sacred rite to their god without his mark on the forehead. The marks are generally horizontal and perpendicular lines, crescents, circles, leaves, eyes, &c. in led, black, white, and yellow. It is pleasing to see the Hindoos every morning perform their ablutions in the sa- cred lakes, and offer an innocent sacrifice under the solemn grove. After having gone through their religious cere- monies, they are sealed by the olliciating Biainin with the mark either of Vishnoo or Siva, the lollow^ers of whom respectively form the two great sects among the Hindoos. The mark is impressed on the forehead with a composition of sandal-wood dust and oil, or the ashes of cow-dung and turmeric : this is a holy ceremony, which has been adopted in all ages by the eastern nations, however differing in re- ligious profession. — Forbes. Ver. 10. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. Where the wild beasts are, is called the place of howl- ing. Thus relations, when their friends are on a journey, say, "Ah! they are now in the place of howling." "My friend, go not through the howling desert." Precious things arc spoken of as being the apple of the eye. Aflec- tionate husbands say to their wives, " En kan mul/i," i. e. " apple of my eye." Of a beloved child, in relation to his parents, it is said, " He is the apple of their eye." — Rob- erts. Ver. 11. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, flut- tereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, takwh them, beareth them on her wings. It is pretended by some writers, that when the eaglets are somewhat grown, the mother kills the weakest or the most voracious of them; but were the fact admitted, it is no satisfactory proof that she is without natural affection. It is well known that several animals of the mildest dispo- sitions forsake their young, when they find it impossible | to provide for their subsistence. The parent eagles, says Buft'un, not having sufficient for themselves, seek to reduce their family ; and as soon as the young ones are strong enough to fly and provide for themselves, they chase them from the nest, and never permit them to return. The ac- count of this celebrated naturalist so far agrees with the statement of the sacred writer; according to whom, the eagle stirreth up her nest, that is, rouses her young from their sloth and inactivity, and provokes them to try their wings by fluttering about her nest. When she sees them indiffer- ent to her admonitions, or afraid to follow her example, " she spreadeth abroad her wings ; taketh them, and bear- eth them upon her wings." The remarkable circumstance of bearing them upon her wings, is alluded to in another part of scripture : " Ye have seen," said Jehovah to Israel. " what I did unto Egypt, and how I bare yen on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself." Many passages in the writings of ancient authors countenance ihe idea, that the eagle actually takes up her timid young ones, and bears them on her wings till tnev venture to fly. ./Elian says, that when Tilgamus, a Babylonian hoy, fell from the fop of a tower, before he reached the ground, an eagle received and bore him up on her back. A similar story is recorded in the writings of Pausanias, who tells us, that an eagle flew under Arislimenes, who was cast by the Lacedemo- nians from the top of a tower, and carried him on her wings till he reached the ground in safetv. These stories, although the mere creatures of imagination, show that the idea of the eagle bearing a considerable weight on her wintrs, was familiar to the ancients. It is not to be supposed, that she wafts her unfledged young through the void of heaven, or to distant places; the meaning probably is, that she aids with her wings their feeble and imperfect attempts to fly. till, imboldened by her example, and their own success, they fearlessly commit themselves to the air. So did Jehtn vah for his chosen people: when they were slumbering in Goshen, or groaning in despair of recovering their free- dom, he sent his servant Moses to rouse them from their inglorious sloth, to assert their liberty, and to break theii chains upon the heads of their oppressors. He carried them out of Egypt, and led them through the wilderness into their promised inheritance. He taught them to know their strength : he instructed them in the art of war ; he led them to battle, and by his almighty arm routed theil enemies. — Paxton. Chap. 32—34. DEUTERONOMY 125 Ver. 13. He made him ride on the high places of tin' earth) that ho tnigi.t eat the increase of the fields: and ho made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. This must mean the procuring of i! from the olive-trees :■!■■ im ing 1 1 Maundrell, speaking of the ancient fertil- ity and cultivation of Judea, says, " the mosl rocky parts of all, which could not well be adjusted for the >! c might yet serve for the plantation of vines and olivo-tree«, which delight to extract, the one its fatness, the other its sprightly juice, chiefly out of such dry and flinty places."— BciinER. In Africa the bees deposite their honey on the trunks of trees and on rocks. Trees in some countries being scarce, the honey in most parts is found upon the front of rocks or eliti's, plastered on the outside, bavins a covering of wax- to protect it from intruders. This outside coating, after a short exposure to the weather, assumes nearly the same colour as the rock, which, at a little distance, cannot easily do distinguished from the rock, so that a person making an incision with a knife, and putting Ins mou'h to it to SUCK it, were a person a little way off to notice some of the honey dropping from his chin, would believe that he saw a man sucking honey from a rock; so that the scripture method of expressing it is very beautiful. — African Light. Vet. 15. But Jeshnmn waxed fat, and kicked: fhou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art coveted with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and Lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. This does not appear to mean that Jeshnrun had become fat in person, but fat or proud in spirit. Thus, of people who have risen from obscurity, and who conduct them- selves proudly, it is said, " Thev have become fat." To hear, "how fat that man is now,1' might lead a stranger to suppose it was meant so literally; whereas the individual alluded to may be as meagre as one of Pharaoh's lean cattle. — Roberts. Ver. 25. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass. The Hebrew word here translated shoes, signifies bolts. The proper translation of this word is. thu bolls shall be iron and brass: that is, thy cities must be strong and secure against your enemies. To understand the force of these words, we must know that in the East, and even in modern times, the locks and bolts of houses, and even of city gates, wereofwood. " Their doors and houses," says Rauwoln". " are mostly closed with wooden bolts, which are hollow within; to open which they have wooden keys, which are a span long, and a thumb thick, and have on one side, 5, R, 7, 8, 9, &c. short nails or strong wires, so placed as to catch in others that fit into them, and thus move the bolt back- ward and forward." Thevenot observes, " all their locks and keys are made of wood; they have none of iron, not evgn those of the city gates, which are, therefore, also opened without keys." He describes the kevs like Rau- ' wolfT, and adds, that the door may be opened without the key, by smearing the finger with clay.— RosENMtn.t.ER. CHAPTER XXXIII. Ver. 22. And of D.m he said, Dan is a lion's whelp ; he shall leap from Bashan. Although the lion fearlessly meets his antagoni-t in the ipen field, in this respect differing from leopards mid some Jtber beasts of prey, that never openly attack the fated vic- tim, yet this bold and noble anjmal often descends to strat- agem and ambuscade: " He couches in his den, and abides in the covert to lie in wait." He watches the approach of his victim with cautions attention, carefully avoiding the east noise, lest he should give warning of his presence and designs. Such has the glowing pencil of Divid painted the insidious conduct of the murderer: " He lieth in wait secretlv as a lion in his den ; he lieth in wait to catch the poor— he croucheth and humhleth himself, t.iat the poor may fill by his strong ones." " Like as a lion t.iat is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lien lurking in secret places. From his lurking-place, he commonly leaps upon the victim at one spring. So, in the farewell prediction ■f Moses, it is foretold, "Dan is a lion's whelp, he shall leap from Bashan." This fact is attested by all the ancient historians: Aristotle asserts, that when the lion judges him- self within reach, he throws himself upon his prey : Plinj says, he leaps with a bound ; and Sohnus, when he is m full pursuit, he springs forward upon the game. When he leaps on his prev, says Uuflbn, he makes a spring of twelve or fifteen feet. In the same manner acted Dan ; proceeding, as it were, bv a single bouncT, from the one extremity of Canaan to the other, he invaded the city ot Laish, which, after its reduction, he called by his own name.— Paxton. Ver. 24. And of Asher he said. Lei Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. The juice of the grape, it is well known, is expressed in the East by treading, an operation which Dr. Chandler had an opportunity of seeing near Smyrna. Black grapes were spread on the ground in beds, and exposed to the sun to dry for raisins; while in another part, the juice was ex- it me, a man with feet and legs bare, treading the fruit in a kind of cistern, with a hole or vent near the bottom, and a vessel beneath it to receive the liquor. When a few clusters of grapes are to be squeezed, it may be done commodiously enough by the hand ; in this way, Pharaoh's butler supposed lie took the grapes and pressed them into his master's cup. This, it is true, was only a visionary scene, but we must suppose it was agreeable to the custom of the country. But when a large quantity of juice was required, the grapes were subjected in the wine-press to the feet of a treauer. Oil of olives was expressed in the same way, before the invention of mills. The existence of this practice in Palestine, is ascertained by that threatening in the prophecies of'Micah: " Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shall not drink- wine." But unequivocal traces of it may be discovered in ages long anterior to the days of that prophet ; for in tie blessing of Asher. we find Moses praying: " Let Asher dip his foot in oil." "Whether any preparation was used in those ancient times to facilitate' the expression of the juice. we are not informed ; but it is certain that mills are now used for pressing and grinding the olives which grow in the neighbourhood of Athens, and probably in other eastern countries. These mills are in the town, and not in the spot where the olives grow; and seem to be used in consequence of its being found, that the mere weight of the human body is insufficient for the purpose of effectually extracting the oil. — Paxton. CHAPTER XXXIV. Ver. 1. And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho : and the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan. Mr. Buckingham, travelling through the mountains of Gilead, says, "We were now in a land of extraordinary richness, abounding with the most beautiful prospects, clothed with thick forests, varied with verdant slopes, and possessing extensive plains of a fine red soil, now covered with thistles as the best proof of its fertility, and yielding in nothing to the celebrated plains of Zabnlon andEsdrae- lon, in Galilee and Samaria. We continued our way to the northeast, through a country, the beauty of which so surprised us, that we often asked'each other, what were I BT sensations; as if to ascertain the reality of what we saw, and persuade each other, by mutual confession of our de- light, that the picture before us was not an optical illusion. The landscape alone, which varied at every turn, and. gave us new beauties from very different points of view, was, of itself, worth all the pains of an excursion to the eastward of Jordan to obtain a sight of; and the park-like scenes, that sometimes softened the romantic wildness of the general character as a whole, reminded us of similar spots in less neglected Ian is." JOSHUA. • CHAPTER I. P -r. 1. Now, after the death of Moses, the ser- vant of the Lord, it came to pass, that the Lor d spake unto' Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, 2. Moses my servant is dead ; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. The conquest of Canaan, by the Israelites, having so oft- en been the subject of cavil among the enemies of revela- tion, and being adverted to in terms of approbation above, may properly be considered in this place. Their conduct in this affair' is satisfactorily vindicated by Mr. Townsend, in his " Old Testament historically and chronologically ar- ranged," from which we transcribe the following pas- sages : — God, the great governor, who possesses all power over his creatures, and may justlv punish those who vio- late his laws, in that manner which to his wisdom may seem most impressive and useful, commanded the Israel- ites to exterminate the Canaanites, as the just retribution for their crimes and idolatries. God might have destroyed them by famine, by earthquake, by pestilence : He might have drowned by a local deluge, or consumed them by fire from heaven; instead of these, he commissioned the people of Israel to root them out by the sword. In so doing, the Almighty not only demonstrated to the whole world his hatred of the corruptions and pollutions of superstition, but he more particularly enforced on the Israelites the purity of his law, the certainty of their own punishment if they apostatized, and the freedom from temporal evil which they should consequently enjoy if they persevered in their allegiance to him, their sovereign. Lest this invasion of Canaan by the Israelites, however, should be drawn into precedent by other nations, for ambition or religious perse- cution : they were assured by continued and powerful mira- cles, that their cause was just, that they should be successful, and that thev were not subject at that period to the common laws of nations. The people of Israel was the sword of God, the great magistrate of earth, and they were no more to be condemned in thus acting in conformity to the com- mands of God, than the executioner can be who fulfils the last sentence of the law. Before, then, other nations in- vade the territory of their neighbours on the same supposed authority as the Israelites, the same commission from heaven must be given ; and that commission must be au- thenticated by miracles equally evident, perpetual, and wonderful. Many, however, have not been satisfied with this argument ; and would discard the doctrine of the pecu- liar providence, which regulated by a visible theocracy the conduct of the chosen people : they would defend the invasion of Palestine on other grounds. They would judge of the transactions of that period, (regardless of the peculiar circumstances under which they took place,) by modern ideas, and the present law of nations. Some sup- pose that the conduct of the Israelites was solely defensi- ble, on the supposition that there had been a partition of the whole earth by the sons of Noah ; and that Canaan had been allotted to Stiem : the sons of Shem, therefore, were jus- tified in claiming their ancient inheritance from the Ca- naanites, who were descended from Ham. Others have asserted that the Canaanites commenced the war by at- tacking; the Israelites ; an assertion that cannotbe defended from the history. While others have affirmed, without any well-grounded arguments, that the Israelites, as a wan- dering people, having no certain home, were justified in forcibly invading, and taking possession of an adjoining territory. But Michael is is of opinion that the right of the Israelites originated in their being actually the proprietors of Canaan, of which they had been unjustly dispossessed by the intruding and hostile Canaanites. The laws of nations are always the same. If any na- tion, or tribe, or part of a tribe, take possession of an un- known, undiscovered, unoccupied, or uninhabited coun- try, the right of property vests in them; they are its proprie- tors and owners. After the deluge, the world might be said to be in this state ; and Michaelis has endeavoured to prove, that the ancestors of Abraham were the original occupiers of the pasture land of Canaan. Canaan, there- fore, by the law of nations, as well as by the promises of God, was the lot of Abraham's inheritance, and the right- ful land of his descendants. The Canaanite and the Periz- zite had only just established themselves in Canaan wher Abraham removed from Haran to that country ; and were so weak and few in number, that they never interfered with the right of sovereignty assumed and exerted by Abraham. The Canaanites were merchants and adven- turers who had been originally settled near the borders of the Indian Ocean; and who, having been dispossessed by the CuthicfSidonians, had migrated westward, to form es- tablishments on the seacoasts of Palestine, and carry on commerce with the herdsmen who traversed it. They were ibr some time contented with their factories on the seacoasts, but thev gradually obtained possession of the inland country. The Perizziles, too, were a warlike tribe, who now first made their appearance in Canaan ; thev had originally inhabited the northeast of Babylonia. Wheth- er they had been dispossessed of their settlements; whether they were seeking new establishments ; or for whatever purpose they were now in Palestine, they gave no inter- ruption to the progress of Abraham, although Abraham entered upon the Holy Land and continued his journey- ings with a large retinue, and as a powerful prince. He took possession of Canaan as the territory of his ances- tors; not indeed as a fixed habitation, but as a pasture land adapted to his numerous flocks and herds. He traversed the whole country as a proprietor, without a competitor. He had the power of arming three hundred and eighteen of his own servants, born in his own house; and it is most probable that he had others who are not enumerated. He declared war as an independent prince of this eountn against five neighbouring princes; and formed an alliance with Abimelech, as an equal and as a sovereign. It is true, he purchased land of the Canaanitish family of Heth. but this was because the Hittites had gradually made a more fixed settlement in that part of the country; their intrusion had not been at first prevented by the ancestors of Abraham; and by this sufferance they made that dis- trict their peculiar property. As Abraham thus traversed and possessed Canaan, with undisputed authority, so loo did Isaac and Jacob in like manner. No one Opposed' their right. They exercised, as Abraham had done be- fore them, sovereign power; they never resigned that power; nor gave up toothers the property of that land, which now, by long prescription, as -well as by the promise of God, had become entirely their own. The ancestors, then, of the Israelites, Michaelis argues, were either the sole sovereigns, or the most powerful of those princes who possessed, in early ages, the Holy Land. By the famine which occurred in the days of Joseph, thev were compelled to leave their own country, and take ref- uge in Egypt : yet thev never lost sight of the sepulchre of their fathers. "And though we do not read that acts of ownership were continued to maintain and perpetuate their right, we can have but little doubt, that something of the kind took place, for Jacob was taken from Egvpt to be buried there; Joseph assured them that they should re- turn ; and the Egvptians, their oppressors, a kindred branch of the powerful tribes which had by this time en- tirely taken possession of Palestine, kept them in bond- Chap. 2, 3. JOSHUA. 127 age, and refused 10 lei ihem go, lest they should claim the inheritance of their fathers. If this claim of the Israelites can be proved to be well founded, they would have been entitled, by the law of nations, forcibly to take possession of the Holv Land; at d it will be interesting to observe how Jie merciful provicenee of Qod afforded them the opportu- nity of successfully regaining their lawful inheritance, and at the same nine accomplishing his own divine pur- poses, to the fulfilment of his prophecies, and to the hap- piness and security of bis church. The Israelites may be considered as the servants and ministers of God, punish- ing the idolatry of the Canaanites, and iustiiuting in its place, in the midst of an apostate world, the religion of the one true God. In everv victorv thev obtained, they BMSl have admired the faithfulness of that promise which had foretold their enure possession of this land; and they must have been persuaded, that if thev served other gods, they would bring down upon themselves the punishments pre- dated bv SIom-s.— Vide iMichaelis, Comment. &e. vol. 1. hook ii." c-h. in. p. l.Vi, \e.; Horn- Mosaica?, vol. i. p. 458; Faber's Origin of Pag. Idol. vol. iii. p. 5G1, &c— Townsend's Old Testament, vol. i. pp. 444 — 146.— Criti- ia BlBLICA. CHAPTER II. Ver. 1 . And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into a harlot's house, named Rahab, and Lodged there. Most of the eastern cities contain one caravansary at least, for the reception of strangers; smaller places, called choul- tries, are erected bv charitable persons, or munificent princes, in forests, plains, and deserts, for the accommo- dation of travellers. Near them is generally a well, and a cistern for the cattle: a bramin or faquir often resides there to furnish the pilgrim with food, and the few necessa- ries he mav stand in need of. When benighted in a dreary solitude, travellers in India were thus certain, within a moderate distance, to find one of these buildings appro- priated for their accommodation, and were often supplied with the necessaries of life gratis. (Forbes.) Dr. Franklin iiavs, that among the Indians of North America, there is in everv village a vacant dwelling, called the stranger's house. Hither the traveller is led by two old men, who procure him victuals, and skins to repose on, exacting nothing for the entertainment. Among the ancients, women generally kept houses of entertainment. i: Among the Egyptians, the women carry on all commercial concerns, and keep tav- erns, while the men continue at home and weave." Herod- otus asserts, that "the men were the slaves of the women in Egvpt. and that it is stipulated in the marriage contract, that the woman shall be the ruler of her husband, and that he shall obey her in all things.''— Birder. CHAPTER III. Ver. 15. And as they that hare the ark were c mie unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that hire the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (tor Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time .of harvest.) The largest and most celebrated stream in Palestine, is the Jordan. It is much. larger, according to Dr. Shaw, than all the brooks and streams of the Holy Land united together; and. excepting the Nile, is by far the most con- Edd< cable river, either of the const of Syria or of Barbary. He computed it to be about thirty yards broad, and found it uine feet deep at the brink. Tins river, which divides the country into two unequal parts, has been commonly said to issue from two foun'ains, or to he formed by the junctiou of two rivulets, the Jor and the Dan ; but the as- ims to be totally destitute of any solid foundation. The Jewish historian, Josephus, on the contrary, places its source at Phialn.a fountain which rises about fifteen miles from Cesar a Philippi, a little on the right hand, and not much out of the way to Trachonitis. It is called Phiala, or the Vial, from its round figure ; its water is always of the same depth, the basin being brimful, without cither shrink- ing or overflowing. From Phiala to Panion, whil h was long considered as the real source of Jordan, the rivi i Sows underground. The secret of il nbterrani first discovered by Philip, the letrarch of Trachonitis, who caststrawsintothe fountain of Phiala, « bit h came out again at Panion. Leaving the cave I Pai i <■■ il i rosses the bogs and fens of the lake Sciiuch' nms and after a course ul iitii ,ii null's, passes under the < - 1 r \ . . I Julias, thi Betpsaida; then expands into a beautiful sheel of water, named the lake of Geiiuesareih ; and after flov mg a long way through the desert, empties itself into the lal lites, or Dead Sea. As the cave Panion lie? at the foot of mount Lebanon, in the northern w i mity of < lanaan, and the lake Asphaltites extends to the southern extremity, the river Jordan pursues it course through the whole extent of the country from north to south. It is evident also, from the history' of Josephus, that a wilderness or do el • I siderable extent, stretched along the river Jordan in the times of the New Testament ; which was undoubtedly the wilderness mentioned by the evangelists, where John the Baptist came preaching and baptizing. The Jordan has a considerable depth of water. Chateaubriand makes it six or seven feel deep close at the shore, and about fifty paces in breadth a considerable distance from i into the Dead Sea. According to the compulation of Vol- nev, it is hardly *fxly paces w ide at the mouth ; but the author of Letters from Palestine, states that the stream,' when it enters the lake Asphaltites, is deep and rapid, rolling a considerable volume of waters; the width ap- pears Bom two to three hundred feet, and the current is so violent, tl at a Greek servant belonging to the author who attempted to cross it, though strong, active, and an ex- cellent swimmer, found the undertaking impracticable. Il maybe said to have two banks, of which the inner marks the ordinary height of the stream; and the outer, its ancient elevation during the rainy season, or the melting of the snows on the summits of Lebanon. In the days of Joshua, and it is probable for many ages after his time, the har- vest was one of the seasons when the Jordan overflowed, his banks. This fact is distinctly recorded by the sacred historian: " And as; they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water (for Jordan overfloweth all Ins hanks all the time of harvest.") This happens in the first month of the Jewish year, which corresponds with March. But in modern times, (whether the rapidity of the current has worn the channel deeper than formerly, or whether its waters have taken some other directions the river seems to have forgotten his ancient greatness. When Manndrell visited Jordan on the thirtieth of March, the proper time for these inundations, he could discern no sign or probability of such overflowing ; nay, so far was it from overflowing, 'that it ran, says our author, at least two yards below the brink of its channel. After having descended the outer bank, he went about a furlong upon the lever strand, before he came to the immediate bank of the river. This inner bank was so thickly covered with bushes and trees, among which he observed the tamarisk, Ihe wiliow, and the oleander, that he could see no water till he had made his way through them. In ihis entangled thicket, so conveniently' planted near the cooling stream, and remote from the habitations of men, several kinds of wild beasts were accustomed to repose till the swelling of the river drove them from their retreats. This circumstance gave occasion to that beautiful allusion of the prophet : " He shall come up like a lion, from the swelling of Jordan, against the habitation of the strong." The figure is highly poetical and striking. It is not easy to present a more ter- rible image to the mind, than a lion roused from his den by the roar of the swelling river, ancf chafed and irritated by its rapid and successive encroachments on his chosen haunts, till forced to quit his last retreat, he ascends to the higher grounds and the open country, and turns the fierce- ness of his rage against the helpless sheep-cots, or the un- suspecting villages. A destroyer equally fierce, and cruel, and irresistible, "the devoted Edomites were to find in Nebu- chadnezzar and his armies. The water of the river, at the time of Mr. Maundrell's visit, was very turbid, and too rapid to allow a swimmer to stem its course. Its breadth might be aboii twenty yards ; and in depth, it far exceeded his height. The rapidity and depth of the river, which are admitted by everv traveller, although the volume of waiei 128 JOSHUA. Chap. 3. seems now to be much diminished, illustrate those parts of scripture, which mention the fords and passages of Jor- dan. It no longer indeed rolls down into the Salt Sea so majestic a stream as in the days of Joshua, yet its ordinary depth is still about ten or twelve feet, so that it cannot even at present be passed but at certain places. Of this well-known circumstance, the men of Gilcad took advan- tage in the civil war, which they were compelled to wage with their brethren: " The Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: . . . then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan." The people of Israel, under the command of Ehud, availed themselves of the same advantage in the war with Moab : " And they went down after hnn, and took the fords of Jordan towards Moab, and suffered not a man to pass over." But although the state of this river in modern times, completely justifies the incidental remarks of the sacred writers, it is evident, that Maundrell was disconcerted by the shallowness of the stream, at the time of the year when he expected to see it overflowing all its banks ; and his embarrassment seems to have increased, when he contemplated the double margin within which it flowed. This difficulty, which has perhaps occurred to some others, may be explained by a remark which Dr. Pococke has made on the river Euphrates. "The bed of the Euphrates," says that wjjjter, " was meas- ured by some English gentlemen at Beef; and found to be six hundred and thirty yards broad; but the river only two hundred and fourteen yards over; that they thought it to be nine or ten feet deep in the middle ; and were in- formed, that it sometimes rises twelve feet perpendicularly. He observed that it had an inner and outer bank; but says, it rarely overflows the inner bank : that when it does, they sow watermelons and other fruits of that kind, as soon as the water retires, and have a great produce." From this passage, Mr. Harmer argues ; " Might not the overflow- ings of the Jordan be like those (if the Euphrates, not an- nual, but much more rare V The difficulty, therefore, will be completely removed, by supposing that it does not, like the Nile, overflow every year, as some authors by mis- take had supposed, bin, like the Euphrates, only in some particular years; but when it does, it is in the time of har- vest. If it did not in ancient times annually overflow its hanks, the majesty of God in dividing its waters, to make way for Joshua and the armies of Israel, was certainly the more striking to the Canaanites ; who, when they looked upon themselves as defended in an extraordinary manner by the casual swelling of the river, its breadth and rapidity being both so extremely increased, yet, found it in these circumstances part asunder, and leave a way on dry land for the people of Jehovah. The casual overflowing of the river, in Mr. Harmer's opinion, seems to receive some confirmation from a pas- sage in Josephus, where that writer informs his readers, that the Jordan was sometimes swelled in the spring, so as to be impassable in, places where people were wont to go over in his time ; for, speaking of a transaction on the fourth of the month Dystrus, which answers to our March, or, as others reckon, to February, he gives an account of great numbers of people who perished in this river, into which they were driven by their enemies; which, hv the circumstances, appears to have happened in a few days after what was done on the fourth of Dvstrus. But the solution offered bythis respectahle author is rather strained and unsatisfactory. The inspired writer of the book of Joshua uses language on that subject, which natu- rally suggests Ihe idea of periodical inundations : "Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest." The present time certainly indicates the general habit of the subject to which it refers, and in this case, what commonly happens to the river. It may be swelled in the spring occa- sionally ; but it is not easy to discover a reason for the gen- eral remark of the sacred writer, if the inundations in the time of harvest were not annual. The causes of these in- undations, the melting of the snows on the top of Lebanon, and the former and latter rain, uniformly take place at thsir appointed seasons ; but a steady periodical cause will certainly produce a corresponding effect. But if this rea- soning be just, why did not Maundrell see the effect when he visited the river at the appointad time 1 This question may be answered by another, Why do the inundations even of the Nile sometimes fail 1 The reason is obvious ; i 'he rains in Abyssinia are not ever)- season equally copious. In the same manner, if the snows on Lebanon, and the periodical rains, are less abundant in some seasons, it will easily account for the state of the riverwhen it was visited by Maundrell. Admitting the fact, that the volume of na- ter in the Jordan is diminished, and that lie never overflows his banks as in ancient limes, that intelligent traveller him- self has sufficiently accounted for the circumstance: some of the waters mav be drained off by secret channels, which is not uncommon in those parts of the world ; and if the rapidity of the current be so great that he could not swim against it, the depth of the channel must be greatly mcrea:- ed since the days of Joshua and the Judges. To these some other causes of considerable pov.er may be added ; the present state of Lebanon, now for a long time deprived of its immense forests of cedar, which formerly exerted a powerful attraction on the humidity of ihe atmosphere, and served to accumulate the snows on the Sannin, while they screened from the burning rays of the sun, the fountains and rills that fed the Jordan and his tributary streams: and the great extent to which the declivities of that noble moun- tain have been subjected to the arts of cultivation, by the Maronites, and other nations, who hare taken refuge in it.- sequestered retreats from the intolerable oppression of the Turks, by which its numerous streams have been still further diminished, — must, it is imagined, produce a very sensible difference in the volume of water which that river, once so celebrated for its full and majestic tide, now pours into the Salt Sea. Still, however, taking the mean depth of the stream during the whole year al nine feet, and ad- mitting that it runs about two miles an hour, the Jordan will daily discharge into the Dead Sea, about b',090,000 tons of water.' But although these causes must have produced a consid- erable diminution in the swellings of Jordan, we have the authority of a recent traveller for asserting, that they still take place at the appointed season, and exhibit a scene of no inconsiderable grandeur. In winter, the river overflows its narrow channel, which between the two principal lakes is not more than sixty or eighty feet broad, and, swelled by the rains, forms a sheet of water sometimes a quarter of a league in breadth. The time of its overflowing is gener- ally in March, when the snows melt on the mountain of the' Shaik ; at which time, more than any other, its waters are troubled and of a yellow hue, and its course impetu- ous. The common receptacle into which the Jordan empties his waters, is the lake Asphaltites, from whence they are continually drained off by evaporation. Some writers, unable to find a discharge for the large body of water which is continually rushing into ihe lake, have been inclined to suspect, it had some communication with the Mediterranean ; but, besides that we know of no such gulf, it has been demonstrated by accurate calculations, that evaporation is more than sufficient to carry off the waters of the river. It is in fact very considerable, and frequently becomes sensible to the eye, by the fogs with whieh the lake is covered at the rising of the sun, and which are after- ward dispersed by the heat. How large the common receptacle of the Jordan was, before the destruction of Sodom, cannot now be determined with certainty ; but it was much smaller than at present ; the whole vale of Siddim, which, before that awful catas- trophe, was crowded with cities, or covered with rich and extensive pastures, and fields of corn, being now buried in the waters of the lake. The course of the stream, which is to the southward, seems clearly lo indicate, that the origin- al basin was in the southern part of the present sea. Bi t, although the waters of the river at first presented a much less extended surface to the action of the sun and the at- mosphere, still a secret communication between the lake and the Mediterranean, is not perhaps necessary to account for their discharge. By the admission of Volney, evapo- ration is more than sufficient to carry them off at present: and if to this be added, the great quantity of water consumed in the cities, and required by the cultivator, to refresh his plantations and corn-fields, under the burning rays of an oriental sun, it is presumed, a cause equal to the effect is provided. This is not a mere conjecture, unsupported by historical facts ; for only a very small portion of the Bar- railv, the principal river of Damascus, escapes from the gardens that environ the city, through which it is con- ducted in a thousand clear and winding streams, to main- tain their freshness and verdure.— Paxton. -8. JOSHUA. CHAPTER V. Ver. 15. And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for die pkfee whereon thou standest w holy. And Joshua did so. Every person thai approaches the royal presence in the East, is obliged to lake off his shoes, because they consider as sacred the ground on .which the king sits, 11 hum they dig- nity with the title of the Shadow of God. Allusive to this •iistoni. perhaps, is ihe command given to Joshua : "Louse hvshoe from off thy Tool; tor ihe place whereon l&oustandest is hulv. And Joshua did so.'' And so si, -icily was this cus- om observed, that the Persians look upon the omission of il as the greatest indignity that can be offered- to them. The Morier) ,s never appioa. died by his subjects with- .iut frequent mclinalious of ihe body : and \\ hen the person introduced to Ins presence has readied a certain distance, he waits until the King orders him to proceed ; upon which oi 1 walks forward with a respectful step to a second spot, until his majesty again directs him to ad- vance. The custom which is here referred to, not only constantly prevailed all over the East, from the earliest - ninnies to this day. To pull off the sandals, is used as a mark of respect, on entering a mosque or temple, or the room of any person of distinction ; in which ea-e they weir either laid aside, or given to a servant to bear. Ives ( Travels, p. 75) says, that, " at the doors of an Indian pagoda, are seen as many slippers and sandals as there are Eats hanging up in our churches." The same custom prevails among the Turks. Maundrell describes exactly the ceremonials of a Turkish visit, on which (though a European and a stranger) he was obliged lo comply with this custom. — Burder. CHAPTER VI. Voj'. 26. And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying-, Cursed 'be the man before the Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho : he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first- horn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. It appears from the following passage from Strabo's Geography of Trou, (b. xiii. chap. 1. § 42,) that it was not unu-ual in remote antiquity to pronounce a curse upon those who should rebuild a destn >yed city. " It is believed that those who might have afterward wished to rebuild Ilium, were deterred from building the citv in the same place, either by what they had suffered there, or because Agamemnon had pronounced a curse against him that should rebuild it. For this was an ancient custom. Thus Croesus, after he had destroyed Sidene, into which the ty- \ rant Glaucias haS thrown himself, uttered a curse upon him who should rebuild the walls of that place." Zonaras says, that the Romans pronounced a curse upon him who i should rebuild Carthage. Joshua's curse on the rebuilder ' of Jericho, was fulfilled, according to 1 Kings xvi. 34, on one Hiel, who lost his eldest son, Abiram, when he laid the ■ foundation, and his youngest son, Segub, when he built the ; gate. — ROSENMULLER. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 6. And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the even-tide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads. Joshua and the elders of Israel were in great distress, because they had been defeated bv the men of Ai, and be- cause they saw in that a token of the divine displeasure. They therefore fell prostrate before the ark of the Lord, and put dust on their heads as an emblem of their sorrow. (1 Sam. iv. 12. 2 Sam. i. 2. Neh. ix. 1.) How often is the mind affectingly thrown back on this ancient custom bv similar scenes at this day! See the poor object bereft of wife, children, property,' friends; or suffering under some deep affliction of body: he sits on the ground, with his «\ves fixed thereon, a dirty rag round his loins, his arms folded, his jewels laid a*ide, his hair dishevelled an 1 cov- ered with ilusl, and Ivt- ,ly bemoaning his condition, sav- .'— " A_isl alas! alas!"— Roberts. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 4. They did nork wilily, and went and made as if they had ho, n ambassadors, and took old sticks upon their asses, and wine-bottles, old, and rent, and bound up. in tonus us that the Arabs, and all those that lead a wandering life, keep theii water, milk, and other liquors, 1 lev ■• They keep in thi m more fresh than ■ • il.ey would do. T: ■ Win ii the annual is kill, d. ll.ey cut oil its feet and its head, and thej draw it in tins manner out of the ul opening its belly. They afterward sew up the places where the 1> gs w< i e cut oli, and the tail, aid when it is filled, they tie itabout the neck. Thi and the countrypeople of Persia, never go a journey without a sinall'l, -ail, em hofle ul v, a'.'T I'.iugi'o i -up. The great leathern bottles are o i eol the 'km of a he-g at, and the small ' stead of a bottle ol water on the road, are made of a kid's skin." These bottles are frequently rent, when old and and ,i'i' capable ol being repaired bv being bound up. This they do, C i ometimes by seiimg in b piece ; some Lmes by gathering up the wounde'd place in the inannci of a ) n 1 ey ] ut in a round llat piece of wood, and by that means slop die hole." Maundrell gives an account exactly similar to the above Speaking of the Greek con vent at Beilmount, near Tripoli, in Syria, he says, '■ ihe same person whom wc saw officia- ting at the altar in hi ■ dotal robe, brought us the next day, on his own back, a kid and a s wine, as a present from the convent." These bottles are still used iii Spam, and called boi rachas. Mr. Bruce gives a description ofthe girba, which seems to be a vessel of the same kind as those now mentioned, only of dimensions considerably larger. " Agiiba is an ox's skin, squared, and the edges sewed together very artificially, by a double seam, which does not let out water, much resan b upon the best English cricket balls. An opening is h 1 ai the top of the giiba, in the same manner as the bungholc of a cask ; around this the skin is gathered to the size of a large handful, which, when the gi.ba is full ef water, is tied round with whip-cord. These girbas generally ccn tain about sixty gallons each, and two of them are the load of a camel. They are then all besmeared on the outside with grease, as well to hinder the water from oozing through, as to prevent its being evaporated by the heat of the sun upon the girba. which, in fact, happi twice, so as to put us in imminent danger of perishing with thirst." — Burder. Ver. 23. Now therefore ye are cursed ; and there shall none of you be freed from being bond- men, and hewers of wood, and drawers of wa- ter, for the house of my God. In the kingdom of Algiers, the women and children are charged with the care of their flocks and their hen , v. ul. providing food for the family, cutting fuel, fetching water, and when their domestic affairs allow them, with tendire their silk worms. The daughters of the Turcomans in Palestine, are employed in the same mean and laborious offices. In Homer, Andromache fed the horses of her he- roic husband. It is probable, the cutting of wood was an- other female occupation. The very gieat antiquity of ihese customs, is confirmed by the prophet Jeremiah, who com- plains that the children "were sent to gather wood for idol- atrous purposes; and in his Lamentations, he bewails the oppressions which his people suffered from their enemies, in these terms: " They look ihe young men lo grind, and the children fell under the wood.*' Hence the sen tie o n- dition to which the Gibeonites were reduced by Joshua, for imposing upon him and the princes of the cong'regatioc, ap- pears to have been much more severe lhan we are apt at first to suppose : " Now, therefore, ye are cursed, and ihere shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hew- ers of vood, and drawers of water, for the house of my Go. ' '\0 The bitterness of their doom did not consist in being sub- jected to a laborious service, for it was the usual employ- ment of women and children ; but in their being degraded from the characteristic employment of men, that of bearing arms, and condemned with their posterity for ever to the employment of females. — Paxton. CHAPTER X. Ver. 6. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them ; for to-morrow, about this time, will I deliver them up all slain be- fore Israel: thou shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire. With the enemy's horses, the Israelites had a different procedure from other booty. For their direction, indeed, on this point, they had no general and permanent law, pre- scribed them, but merely the order from God, issued by Joshua (x. 6) before the battle at the waters of Merom; according to which order, they were naturally led to regu- late their conduct in afiertimes. In their wars before the reign of Solomon, they made no use of horses, though some of their enemies did; and this same cavalry of their enemies was wont to be very formidable, and sometimes gave them the superiority of the Israelites in the plains. At the same time, the event has often shown, that a brave, steady, close infantry, without the support of horse, will stand" the shock of hostile cavalry without the smallest dis- order; of which, although our cavalry is far more formi- dable by reason of their close charge, modern history fur- nishes examples. Indeed, on one occasion, besides more than -id, 000 infantry, David took, I know no; whether 1700, or 7000 cavalry, prisoner* ; their retreat across the Eu- phrates having' been pnbably cut off, or that they were compelled to surrender for want of subsistence. But when the Israelites did get a booty of horses, they did not know what use to make of them. Their husbandry was earned on in the ancient way, and to much more advantage, with oxen, which are not so expensive to maintain ; and to this their whole rural economy was directed. In war, they did not employ cavalry, and would have been bad horsemen ; and for travelling, thev commonly made use of the ass, to which whoever is accuslmned frmn his youth, will not wil- lingly venture to ride a mettled horse, particularly such a one as is employed in war. Horses, therefore, were to them quite a useless sort of plunder, unless they had sold them, which was not advisable, because their enemies, in a roundabout way, might have bought them again. It was far better policy for them to diminish as far as possible this race of animals, by means of which their enemies might, on some occasions," obtain a manifest advantage over them ; just as the Romans put the elephants of their enemies to death, because they had no desire to make use of this fo~- eign and dubious "expedient to help them to victory, and vet saw that elephants might sometimes be dangerous to their troops. In the first engagement which the Israelites had with an enemy whose cavalry and war-chariots made him formidable, God commanded them to hough or ham- string, that is, to cut the thigh-sinew of the horses which \ev w ik ; and thev did so, Josh. x. G— 9. From ignorance •..;' 'military affairs, most expositors have understood this command as if it meant, not that the horses should be kill- ed, but merely lamed in the hind-legs, and then let go : and into this mistake, by full >wing Bochart, as he had Kimchi, I wts led in the first edition of this work.— I have never been in war, and know just as little of the veterinary art ; nor 'have I ever seen a ham-strung horse. But a horse so treated, must, instead of running off, fall instantly back- ward, and writhe about miserably till he die, which gen- erally happens from loss of blood, bv the stroke of the sabre ( uttingahe artery of the thigh. This is still, as military penple have since informed me, the plan adopted to make those horses that are taken, but cannot be easily brought war, unserviceable to the enemv again. They ham-string them which can be done in an instant; and thev generally die of the wound, bv bleeding to death; but though they should not, the wound never heals; so that if even the en- emy recover them alive, he is forced to despatch them : and every compassionate friend of horses, who has ever seen „ne in that situation, will do so, in order to terminate his misery. There is, therefore, no foundation for Kimchi's opinion, that mere lan.ing was enjoined, because it would be wrong to put an animal unnecessarily to death. For thus to lame a horse that would still live, in my opinion, Ver. 11. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah. and they died: they were more which died with hailstones, than the;/ whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Some writers are of opinion that this was hail, larger and more violent than usual; others maintain that Joshua is to be understood literally, of a shower of stones. Such a circumstance, so far from being impossible, has several times occurred. The Romans, who looked upon showers of stones as very disastrous, have noticed many instances of them. Under the reign of Tullius Hostilius, wle.i il was known to the people of Rome that a shower of stones had fallen on the mountain of Alba, at first it seemed in- credible. They sent out proper persons to inquire into this prodigy, and it was found that stones had fallen after the same manner as a storm of hail driven by the wind. Some time after the battle at CannEe, there was seen upon the same mountain of Alba a shower of stones, which continued for two days together. In 1588, near a village in Italy called Tripergola," after some shocks of an earthquake, there was seen a shower of stones and dust, which darkened the air for two days, after which they observed thaf a mountain had risen up in the midst of the Lucrine Lake. — Burder. A similar phenomenon in modern times is thus described in Com. Porter's Letters from Constantinople and its En- virons, (vol. 1. p. 44,) as having occurred in the summei proaching rain.. In a few minutes we discovered some- thing falling from the heavens with a heavy splash, and < t a whitish appearance. I could not conceive what it was. but observing some gulls near, I supposed it to be then, darting for fish; but soon after discovered that they were large balls of ice falling. Immediately we heard a sound like rumbling thunder, or ten thousand carriages rolling furiously over the pavement. The whole Bosphoms was in a foam, as though heaven's artillery had been discha t gcd upon us and our frail machine. Our fate seemed inevita ble, our umbrellas were raised to protect us ; the lumps cl ice stripped them into ribands. We fortunately had a bul- lock's hide in the boat, under which we crawled and saved ourselves from further injury. One man, of the three oarsmen, had his hand literally smasl :d; another much injured in the shoulder; Mr. II. received a severe blow in the leg; mv right hand was somewhat disabled, and all more or less injured. A smaller kaick accompanied, with my two servants. They were both disabled, and are now in" bed with their wounds; the kaick was terribly bruised. It was the most awful and terrific scene that I ever u it massed, and God forbid that I should be ever exposed to such another. Balls of ice as large as my two fists, fen into the boat, and some of them came with such vicler.ee as certainly to have broken an arm or leg, had they struck us in those parts. One of them struck the blade of an oar and split it. The scene lasted, maybe, five minutes; but it was five minutes of the most awful feeling that I ever ex- perienced. When it passed over, we found the surround- ing hills covered with masses of ice, I cannot call it bail ; the trees stripped of their leaves and limbs, and every thing looking desolate. We proceeded on our course I and arrived at our destination, drenched and awe-struck. The ruin had not extended so far as Candalie, and il was difficult to make them comprehend the cause of the ner- vous and agitated condition in which we arrived ; the Reis Effendi asked me if I was ever so agitated when in nt lion 1 I answered no, for then I had something to excite me, and human means only to oppose. He asked the minister if he ever was so affected in a gale of wind at sea 1 He answered no, for then he could exercise his skill to disarm or rendei C.iap. 10—17. JOSHUA. LSI harmless the elements. He asked him why he shiuld be affected n.'u I He replied, ' From the awful idea of being crushed to death by the hand of God with stones from heaven, when rcsistance'wi.uld be vain, and where it would be impious to be brave.' He clasped his hand-, raised his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, 'God is great !' " Iji to tins hour, late in the afternoon, 1 have not reco- vered my composure ; my nerves are so affected as scarcely in he able I" hold my pen, or communicate my ideas. The scene was awful beyond all description. 1 have u i i.e i .! repeated earthquakes ; the lightning has played, as it were, about my head ; the wind roared, and the waves have at one moment thrown me to the sky, and the next have sunk me into a deep abyss. I have been in action, and seen death and destruction around me in every shape of horror; but 1 never before had the feeling oi awe which seized upon me hi tin- oi :i mm. m, and still haunts, and I feel will ever haunt me. 1 returned to the beautiful village of Buyucdere. The sun was out in all its splendour ; at a distance all looked smiling and charming; but a nearer approach dis- covered roofs covered with workmen repairing the bro- ken tiles; desolated vineyards, and shattered' windows. My porter, the boldest of my family, who had ventured an instant from the door, had been knocked down by a hail- stone, and had they not dragged him in by the heels, would lrave been battered to death. Of a flock'of geese in front of our house, six were killed, and the rest dreadfully man- gled. Two boatmen were killed in the upper part of ihe rillage, and I have heard of broken bones in abundance, Many oi the thick brick tiles with which my roof is cover- ed, are smashed to atoms, and my house was inundated by the rain that succeeded this visitation. It is in. convey an idea of what it was. Imagine to yourself, how- ever, the heavens suddenly froze over, lind as suddenly broken to pieces in irregular masses, of from half a pound to a pound weight, and precipitated to the earth. My own servants weighed several pieces of three quarters of a pound ; and many were found by others of upwards of a pound. There were many which fell around the boat in which I was, that appeared to me to be as large as the swell of the large sized water decanter. You may think this romance. I refer to Ihe bearer of this letter, who was with me, and witnessed the scene, for the truth of every word it contains." — Letters from Constantinople. Ver. 12. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in tb* sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. (See Engraving.) Ver. 21. And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace : none moved" his tongue against any of the children of Israel. When a person speaks of the fear to which his enemy is reduced, he says, "Ah! he dares not now to shake his tongue against 'me." "He hurt you! the fellow will not shake his tongue against you." — Roberts. Ver. 24. And said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them. See on 2 Sam. 44. 21. This in the East is a favourite way of triumphing over a fallen foe. In the history of the battles of the gods, or iiants, particular mention 'is made of the closing scene, how the conquerors went and trampled on their enemies. When people are disputing, should one be a little pressed, and the other begin to triumph, the former will say. " I will tread upon thy neck, and after that beat thee." A low- caste man insulting one who is high, is sure to hear some one say to the offended individual', " Put vour feet on his neck." (See on Isa. xviii. 2, 7.) — Roberts". CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 12. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day ; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakiuis were there, and that the cities were great and fenced : if so be the LorvwUI be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Loud said. The mountainous parts of the Holy Land are io far from being inhospitable, unfruitful, or the refuse of the land of Canaan, that in the division of this country, the mountain of Hebron was granted to Caleb as a particulat favour; "Now, therefore, give me this mountain of « In- h the Lord spake in that day." In the time of Asa, the " lull country of Judah" mustered five hundred and eighty thou- sand men of valour ; an argument beyond dispute, that the land was able to maintain them. Even in the present times, though cultiva ii q and improvement are exceedingly neg- lectel, while the plain- and valleys, although as fruitful as ever, lie almost entirely desolate, every little hill is crowded with inhabitants. If this part of the Holy Land was com- posed, n- some object, only of naked roclis and precipices, why is it better peopled than the plains of Esdraelon, Rama, Acre, or Zabulon, which are all of them extremely fertile and delightful 1 It cannot be urged that the inhabitants live with more safety on the hills and mountains, than on the plains, as there are neither walls nor fortifications to secure their villages and encampments;, and except in the range of Lebanon, and some other mountains, few or no places of difficult access ; so that both of them are equally exposed to the insults of an enemy. But the reason is ob- vious ; they find among these mountainous rocks and precipices, sufficient convenience tor themselves, and much greater for their cattle. Here they have bread to the full, while their flocks and their herds browse upon richer hetb- age, and both man and beast quench their thirst from springs of excellent water, which is but too much wanted, especially in the summer season, through all the plains ot Syria. This fertility of Canaan is fully confirmed by writers of great reputation, whose impartiality cannot be justly suspected. Tacitus calls it a fruitful soil, uber solum ; and Justin affirms, that in this country the purity of the air, and the fertility of the soil, are equally admira- ble: Sed non minor loci ejus apricitatis quam ubejtatis admiratio est. The justice of these brief accounts, Dr. Shaw, and almost every modern traveller, fully verifies. When he travelled in Syria and Phenicia, in December and January, the whole country, he remarks, looked ver- dant and cheerful; and the woods particularly, which are chiefly planted with the gall-bearing oak, were every- where bestrewed with a variety of anemonies, ranuncu- lusses, colchieas, and mandrakes. Several pieces of ground near Tripoli were full of licorice; and at the mouth of a famous grotto he saw an elegant species of the blue lily, the same with Morrison's lilium Persicum florens. In the beginning of March, the plains, particularly between Jaffa and llama, were everywhere planted with a beautiful variety of fritillaries, tulips of innumerable hues, and a profusion of the rarest and most beautiful flowers; while the hills and the mountains were covered with yellow pollium, and some varieties of thyme, sage, and rosemary. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 1G. And all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, loth they who arc of Bethshean and her towns, and they who arc of the valley of Jezreel. The warriors of primitive times were carried to the firld in chariots, drawn for the most part by two horses. The custom of riding and fighting upon horses, was not intro- duced into Greece, and the regions of Asia bordering on the Hellespont, till some time after the Trojan war; for Homer, whose authority in such cases is indisputable, always conducts his heroes to battle in chariots, never on horseback. In what age the chariot was first used n. battle, cannot now be ascertained; but by the help of the sacred volume, we can trace the practice to a very remote an- tiquity, for the aboriginal inhabitants of Canaan appear, 132 JOSI from the, number of armed chariots which they possessed, when Joshua invaded their country, to have been trained to that mode of warfare long before. " And the children of Joseph said, The hill is not enough for us; and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have char- iots of iron, both they who are of Bethehean and her towns, and they who are of the valley of Jezreel." This by no means intimates, that the chariots were made of iron, but only that they were armed with it. Such chariots were by the ancients called currusfalcati, and in Greek lpc*avo$vpai. They had a kind of scythes, of about two cubits long, fast- ened to long axle-trees on both wheels ; these being driven swiftly through a body of men, made great slaughter, mow- ing them down like grass or corn. The efficacious resist- ance which the Canaanites, from their chariots of iron, opposed to the arms of Israel, is emphatically remarked by the sacred historian : " And the Lord was with Judah, and they drave out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." The native princes of Canaan, fully aware of the great advantages to be derived from this pecits of force, in combating the armies of Israel, which consisted, as has been already observed, entirely of infantry, continued to improve it with a care and diligence propor- tioned to its importance. In the time of the judges, not long after the death of Joshua, Jabin the king of Cafaan, sent nine hundred chariots of iron into the field against the people of Israel : and in a succeeding war, between this people and their inveterate enemies the Philistines, the latter met them in the fielrl with " thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the saud which is on the seashore for multitude." — Paxton. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 25. Gibeon, and Ramah, and Beeroth. The oriental geographers speak of Ramah as the metrop- olis of Palestine ; and every appearance of its ruins even now confirms the opinion of its having been once a consid- erable city. Its situation, as lying immediately in the high road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, made it necessarily a place of great resort ; and from the fruitfulness of the country around it, it must have been equally important as a mili- tary station or a depot for supplies, and as a magazine for the collection of such articles of commerce as were export- ed from the coast. In its present state, the town of Ramah is about the size of Jaffa, in the extent actuallv occupied. The dwellings of this last, however, are crowded together around the sides of a hill, while those of Ramah are scat- tered widely over the face of the level plain on which it stands. The style of building here is that of high square houses, with flattened domes covering them ; and some of the old terraced roofs are fenced around with raised walls, in which are seen pyramids uf hollow earthenware pipes, as if to give air and light, without destroying the strength of the wall itself. The inhabitants are estimated at little more than five thousand persons, of whom about one third are Christians of the Greek and Catholic communion, and the remaining two thirds Mohammedans, chiefly Arabs; the men of power and the military being Turks, and no Jews residing there. The principal occupation of the people is husbandry, for which the surrounding country is highly favourable, and the staple commodities produced by them are corn, olives, oil, and cotton, with some soap and coarse cloth made in the town. There are still remains UA. Chap. 18—24. of some noble subterranean cisterns at Ramah, not inferior either in extent or execution to many of those at Alexan- dria: they were intended for the same purpose, namely, to serve in time of war as reservoirs of water."— Buckingham. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 7. But they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you. " What !" says a wife to her angry husband, "am I a thorn in your eyes V " Alas ! alas ! he has seen another ; I am now a thorn in his eves." " Were I not a thorn in his eyes, his anger would not burn so long." " My old friend Taniban never looks at my house now, because it gives thorns to his eyes." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 12. And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites ; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow. See on Ex. 24. 28. Ver. 32. And the bones of Joseph,^ which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of sil ver : and it became the inheritance of the chil dren of Joseph. Joseph was not interred in Shechem, but, according to the ancient custom, in a field adjoining. Probably the other children of Jacob received the like honour, each tribe taking care to bury its ancestor, either at Machpelah, or elsewhere in the land of Canaan. Josephus asserts that it was so, upon the credit of an ancient tradition. St. Ste- phen confirms the relation. Acts vii. 16. Savages consider the tombs of their ancestors as titles to the possession of the lands which they inhabit. This country is ours, say they ; the bones of our fathers are here laid to rest. When they are forced to quit it, they dig them up with tears, and carry them off with every token of respect. About thfrty miles below the falls of St. Anthony, (says Carver,) in North America, several bands of the Naudowessie Indians have a burying-place, where these people, though they have no fixed residence, living in tents, and abiding but a few months on one spot, always contrive to deposite the bones of their dead. At the spring equinox these bands annually assemble here to hold a grand council with all the othet bands ; wherein they settle their operations for the ensuing year. At this time, in particular, they bring with them their dead, for interment, bound up in buffaloes' skins. If any of these people die in the summer, at a distance from the burying-ground, and they find it impossible to remove the body before it would putrify, they burn the flesh from the bones, and preserving the latter, bur)' them in the manner described. — Bcbder. JUDGES. CHAPTER I. Ver. 7. Threescore and ton kings, baring their thumbs and their great toes cut off The Hebrew has this, " the thumbs of their hands and if their fee ." The ttindoos call the thumb the rcria-riril, the greal finger of the hand, and the large toe is named Hie great finger of the foot. This punishment was exceeding- iii ancient limes, and was inflicted principally nn tin ise wlin had committed some flagrant offence with their hands and their feet Thus, those convicted of for- gery or numerous thefts, had their thumbs cut off. The abolished, but its memory will remain, as it is now oneof the scarecrows of the nursery and domestic life : " [f too steal any more, I will cut off your thumbs." " Let me And out the thief, and I will soon have his thumbs." — CHAPTER III. Ver. 17. And he brought the present unto Eglon long ofMoab: and Eglon was a. very fat man, 18. And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that hare the present. See on Gen. 43. 45. There is often in the East a great deal of pomp and pa- rade in presenting their gifts. " Through ostentation," says Maillet, " thev never fail to load upon four or five horses what mighi easily be carried by one. In like manner as to jewels, trinkets", and other things of value, they place in fifteen dishes, what a single plate would very well hold." Something of this pomp seems to be referred to in this pas- sage, where we read of making an end of offering the pres- ent, and of a number of people who conveyed it. This re- mark also illustrates 2 Kings viii. 9. So Hazacl went to ■meet him, and took a present with him, even of eveiy good I lomasnis, forty camels' burden. — Harmer. Ver. 19. But he himself turned again from the quarries that irerc by Grilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king : who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out from him. From a circumstance mentioned by Mr. Bruce, it ap- ars that Ehud acted in s'rict conformity to the of the time and place, so that neither the suspicion of the kin? nor his attendants should be excited by his conduct. It was usual for the attendants to retire when secret mes- sages were to be delivered. " I drank a dish of coffee, and told him, that I was a bearer of a confidential message from Ali Bey of Cairo, and wished to deliver it to him without witnesses, whenever he pleased. The room was accord- inglv cleared without delay, excepting his secretary, who was'aN.i going away, when I pulled him back by the clothes, saying, stay, if vou' please; we shall need you to write the answer."— Bcrder. Ver. 20. And Ehud came unto him ; and he was sitting in a summer-parlour, which he had for himself alone. Dr. Shaw tells us, their doors are large, and their cham- bers spacious; conveniences, as he observes, very well adapted to those hotter climates. But when Eglon 'is rep- resented as receiving Ehud and Death, in a parlour of coolimr, as it is called, in the margin of Judges iii. 20, or rather in a chamber of coolins, something more seems to be meant than merely its having a large door, or being spa- cious; at least there are now other contrivances in the East, to give coolness to particular rooms, which are very com- mon ; and, though the time in which Eglon lived, is ac- knowledged In he i, f very remote antiquity, yet we are to remember he was a prince, and in the palaces of such these contrivances without doubt began. The doctor is silent upon this point, but Russell has given us the follow ioj ac count of one of their methods of cooling rooms. Their great houses at Aleppo are composed of apartments on each of the sides of a square court, all of stone; and consist of a ground door, which is generally arched, and an upper story, which is Hat on the top, and either tetraced with hard plaster, or paved stone ; above-stairs is a colonnade, if ml round the whole court, at least fronting the West, off from which are their rooms and kiosques; these latter are a sort of wooden divans, that project a little way from their other buildings, and hang over the street; they are raised about a foot and a half higher than the floor of 'the room, to which they are quite open, and by having windows in front and on each side, there is a great draught of air, which makes them cool in the summer, the advantage chiefly intended by them. They have another way of cooling their rooms in Egypt. It is done by openings at the top, which let the fresh 'air into them. 'Egmont' and Heyman, as well as Maillet, make mention of them, but the last-mentioned au- thor gives the most distinct account of these contrivances: they make, he tells us, their halls extremely large and lofty, with a dome atlhe top, which towards the North has several open windows ; these are so constructed as to throw the north wind down into these rooms, and by this means, though the country is excessively hot, they can make the coolness of these apartments such" as, oftentimes, not to be borne without being wrapped in furs. Egmont and Hey- man speak of chambers cooled after this manner, as well as halls. Eglon's appears to have been a chamber, and what Shaw calls an o/cc, which gives a propriety to the mention that is made of Ehud's passing through the porch, which no interpreter before the doctor has, that I know of, remarked: but whether it was cooled by a kiosque, as they are called at Aleppo, or by an Egyptian dome, or by some contrivancedistinct from both, is of no consequence to de- termine. That some contrivance to mitigate the extreme heat of that climate began early to obtain, in the palaces ot princes, is natural to believe ; that it began as early as the time of Eglon, this passage puts out of all doubt. It was the more necessary, as Eglon appears to have kept his court at Jericho, where the heat is so excessive, that it has proved fatal to some even in March. — Harmer. Ver. 25. And they tarried till they were ashamed; and, behold, he opened not the doors of the parlour : therefore they took a key and open- ed them ; and, behold, their lord was fallen down dead on the earth. The wood.en locks commonly used in Egypt, " consist ol a long hollow piece of wood, fixed in the door, so as to slide backward and forward, which enters a hole made for it in the doorpost, and is there fastened by small bolts of iron wire, which fall from above into little orifices made forthem in the top of the lock. The key is a long piece of wood, having at the end small pieces of iron wire of different lengths, irregularly fixed in, corresponding in number and direction with the bolts which fall into the lock; these it lilt,-, upon being ini reduced into the lock, which it then pulls back. The bolts of wire differ in number from three to fourteen or fifteen, and i: is impossible to guess at the num- ber a lock contains, or at the direction in which they arc placed." — Turner's Journal of a Ton.', in the Levant. Ver. 31. And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hun- dred men with an ox-goad: and he also de- livered Israel. Mr. Maundrell has an observation which at once ex- plains this transaction, and removes every difficulty from .he passage. He says, " the coantrypeople were now every- where at plough in the fields, in order to sow cotton. It was observable, that in ploughing they used goads of an ex- traordinary size ; upon measuring of several, I found them about eight feet long, and at the bigger end six inches in circumference. They were armed at the lesser end with a sharp prickle for driving the oxen, at the ether end with a small spade, or paddle of iron, strong and massy, for cleansing the plough from the clay that encumbers it in working. May we not from hence" conjecture, that it was with .such a goad as one of these, that Shamgar made that prodigious slaughter related of him, Judges "iii. 21. I am confident that whoever should see one of these instruments, would judge it to be a weapon not less fit, perhaps fitter, than a sword for such an execution. Goads of this sort I saw always used hereabouts, and also in Syria ; and the reason is, because the same single person both drives the oxen, and also holds and manages the plough; which makes it necessary to use such a goad as is above described, to avoid the encumbrance of two instruments."— Burder. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 0. And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh-naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the Lord God of Israel com- manded, saying, Go, and draw towards Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali, and of the children of Zebulun ? Arriving at the top, we found ourselves on an oval ( plain, of about a quarter of a mile in its greatest length, ' covered with a bed of fertile soil on the west, having at its eastern end a mass of ruins, seemingly the vestiges of churches, grottoes, strong walls, and fortifications, all deci- dedly of some antiquity, and a few appearing to be the works of a very remote age. First were pointed out to us three grottoes, two beside each other, and not far from two cisterns of excellent water; which grottoes are said to be the remains of the three tabernacles proposed to be erected by St. Peter, at the moment of the transfiguration, when Jesus, Elias, and Moses, were seen talking together. In one of these grottoes, which they call more particularly the Sanctuary, there is a square stone used as an altar ; and on the sixth 'of August in every year, the friars of the convent come from Nazareth, with their banners and the host, to sav mass here ; at which period they are accompanied by all the Catholics of the neighbourhood, who pass the night in festivity, and light large bonfires, by a succession of which they have nearly bared the southern side of the mountain of all the wood that once clothed it. Besides these grottoes, no particular history is assigned to any other of the remains, though among them there seem to have been many large religious buildings. The whole of these ap- pear to have been once enclosed with a strong wall, a large portion of which still remains entire on the north side, having its firm foundation on the solid rock. This ap- peared to me the most ancient part. Traditions here speak of a city built on the top, which sustained a five years' siege, drawing its supplies by skirmish from different parts of the fertile plains below, and being furnished with water from two excellent cisterns still above; but as no fixed period is assigned to this event, it may probably relate to the siege of Vespasian. As there still remained the frag- ments of a wall on the southeast angle, somewhat higher than the rest, we ascended it over heaps of fallen buildings, and enjoyed from thence a prospect truly magnificent, want- ing only the verdure of spring to make it beautiful as well as grand. Placing my compass before me, we had on the northwest a view of the Mediterranean sea, whose blue sur- face filled up an open space left bv a downward bend in the outline of the western hills: to west-northwest a smaller portion of its waters were seen : and on the west again the ES. Chap. 4. slender line of its distant horizon was just perceptible ovei a range of land near the seacoast. From west to south the plain of Esdraelon extended over a vast space, being bounded on the south by the range of hills, generally considered to be the Hermon, whose dews are poeti- cally celebrated, Psalm exxxiii. 3, and having in the same direction, nearer the foot of Tabor, the springs of Ain-el-Sherrar, which send a perceptible stream through its centre, and form the brook Kishon of antiquity. Psalm lxxxiii 9. From southeast to the east is the plain of Gali- lee, being almost a continuation of Esdraelon, and, like it, appearing to be highly cultivated, being now ploughed for seed throughout. Beneath the range of this supposed Hermon is seated Endor, famed for the witch who raised the ghost of Samuel, to the terror of the affrighted Saul ; and Nain, equally celebrated as the place at which Jesus raised the only son'of a widow from death to life, and restored him to his afflicted parent. The range which bounds the eastern view is thought to be the mountains of Gilboa, where the same Saul, setting an example of self-destruction to his armour-bearer and his three sons, fell on his own sword, rather than fall wounded into the hands of the un- circumcised, by whom he was defeated. The sea of Tibe- rias, or the Lake of Genr.esareth, famed as the scene of man; miracles, is seen on the northeast, filling the hollow of a deep valley, and contrasting its light blue waters with the dark brown shades of the barren hills by which it is hemmed around. Here, too, the steep is pointed out down which the herd of swine, who were possessed by the legion of devils, ran headlong into the sea. In the same direction, below, on the plain of Galilee, and about an hour's distance from the foot of Mount Tabor, there is a cluster of buildings, used as a bazar for cattle, frequented on Mondays only. Somewhat farther on is a rising ground, from which it is said that Christ delivered the long and excellent discourse called the Sermon on the Mount ; and the whole view in this quarter is bounded by the high range of Gebel-el-Telj, or the Mountain of Snow, whose summit was at this mo- ment clothed with one white sheet, without a perceptiblt breach or dark spot in it. The city of Saphet, supposed to be the ancient Bethulia, a city said to be seen far and near, and thought to be alluded to in the apophthegm which says, " a city set on a hill cannot be hid," is also pointed out in this direction : but though the day was clear, I could not distinguish it, its distance preventing its being defined from hence without a glass. To the north were the stony hills over which we had journeyed hither, and these com- pleted this truly grand and interesting panoramic view. — Buckingham. Van Egmont and Heyman give the following account of Tabor :— " This mountain, though somewhat rugged and difficult, we ascended on horseback, making several cir- cuits round it, which took w about three quarters of on hour. It is one of the high"sl in the whole country, being thirty stadia, or about four English miles, a ciicuniference that rendered it more famous. And it is the most beauti- ful I ever saw, with regard to verdure, being evcrvwheie decorated with small oak-trees, and the ground r-rjivctsal I v enamelled with a variety of plants and Mowers, except on the south side, where it is not so fully covered with verdure. On this mountain are great numbers of red partridges, and some wild-boars ; and we were so fortunate as to see the Arabs hunting them. We left, but not without reluctance, this delightful place, and found at the bottom of it a mean village, call 'd. Dehoura, or Tabour, a name said to he de- rived from the celebrated Deborah mentioned in Judges.'' Pococke notices this village, which stands on a lising ground at the foot of Mount Tabor westwaid; and tl e learned traveller thinks, that it may be the same as the Da- berath, or Paberah, mentioned in the book of Joshua, as en the borders of Zebulun and Issachar. " Any one," he adds. " who examines the fourth chapter of Judges, may see that this is probably the spot where Barak and Deborah met at Mount Tabor with their forces and went to pursue Sisera ; and on this account.it might have itsname from that great prophetess, who then judged and governed Israel ; for Jo- sepnus relates, that Deborah and Barak gathered the army together at this mountain." This point Josephus was not required to prove, as the sacred history contains explicit in- formation on this head, to which the Jewish historian was incapable of adding a single particular. The name of the village seems, however, rnon. prcbably to be derived froir C.ai.-I. JUD tin than fn ra the prophetess. Deborah, the „.i: „■ ..I ;li.' |.la.-i- where -die dwell, and u. u Inch the cbil- ih ,i mi I r .l. ) .Mm.- up >u ln'i a betv, -in Raman and Bethel in Mount Ephraira, and consequently much farther to the souih. Whereas in Debuura, or Da- bour, we nave the very Dabor or Thaboor of tin- -enp- tures, wnii only thai slight corruption which the Hebrew i i'i.- is ,-,".i. ]ii,.ihniiiri-il by ih.- Arabs. Tin- moun- tain itself they call Djtbel 'Four.— Modebs Traveller. Vor. 10. And Barak called Zebulun and Naph- tali to Keilesh; and he went up with ten thou- sand men at his feet: and Deborah went up with him. Tlte phrase " men at his feet," did not, I believe, refer to any particular class of soldiers, but applied to "all; whether n ■. i. m b harlots, on horse-, or on foot. This form of sj ech is 1 in eastern books to show ln.w many obey or i In- general. It may be taken from the action ol a slave being prostrateat the feet of his master, denoting ibi u i i ob dience. In this way devotees, when ad- ,!i i --no_' i In- -.i,|,, alwav- -[-oak of tlu-uisrlvc, as being ai When the .Orientals speak of his Britain, they often allude to the millions who are at his feet. The governors, generals, or judges in the East, are sail to have the poodle of sii'-h countries, or a runes, or dis- tricts, ai their feet. Nay, il is common tor masters, and people of small pi ."e-Moiis. to speak of their dome, ties a, being at their feet. It is therefore heard everyday, for '■ I will send my servants," cn-kdl-ailii/ila, "those at my -ROBERTS. Ver. 18. And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turn:'! in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. The Arabs are not so scrupulous as the Turks about their women ; and though ihev have their harem, or wo- men's apartment, in the~tent, they readily introduce their acquaintances into it, or those strangers whom they take under their special protection. Pococke's conductor^ in his journey to Jerusalem, led him two or three miles to his tent, where he sat with his wife and others round a fire. The faithful Arab kept him there for greater security, Hie ■rife being always with him ; no stranger ever daring to i-ii ne int.. ihe women's apartment unless introduced. We discover in this custom, the reason of Jael's invitation to Sisera, when he was defeated by Barak : -'Turn in, my lord, turn in to me, fear not." She invited him to take ref- use m her own division of the tent, into which no stran- ger might presume to enter; aDd where he naturally sup- pos.-il himself in perfect safety— Paxton. There is an apparent treachery in the conduct of Jael to Sisera ; and it appi ars from the foil. -wing account as if the inhabitants of that country were still actuated by the same principle of interested dissimulation. " It was about noon when we reached the small village of Dehorah, where we alighted in refresh, not suspecting that the treachery for which il is traditionally infamous, both in holy and profane MCOrds, was Still to he found here at so dis'ant a period. We entered into this village, and, like the unfortunate Sis- era, demanded only a little water to drink, for with every ihing else our scrip was well provided. It was furnished to us, as we de-ored. with provender for our beasts, and the offer of all that the village possessed. While the animals wer- feeding, I was desirous of a-cending to the sun, mil . .f Moini Tabor, for the enjoyment of the extensive view which it commands. Our guide from the convent offering lo a. company me. we took with ns a man from the village, who promised to facilitate our ascent by directing us to the easiest paths; and taking our arms with us, while my servant and the muleteer remained below to take care of the beasts, we all three set out together; by forced exer- tions we reached the summit in about half an hour. In our descent from Mount Tabor we entered a grotto, in which there had formerly been a church, and had scarcely got within it, before we heard the rushing of pets the outer part of the passage by which we had entered. On turning round to ascertain the cause of this noise, we ob- served five or six armed men, three of whom we recog- nised to be those who bad made such offers ol tl tality in the village ol Deborah below They called oul ions in a load voice, that if we attempted the slightest resistance we should be murdered, but that if we submit- ted to'be quietly stripped, no violence should be offered o our persons. There was no nine for parley, tl gh my companions al tiisi cried for mercy, but as I in bed oul with my musket cocked, and presented, i hey instantly fol- lowed me, and an unexpected discharge drove ourassail- an ■• lo .-ok shelter behind the masses ol' lock near the cave. A regular skirmish now commenced, in which we kepi up a retreating fire, and often exposed ourselves to then sin. I, fur ihe sake of gelling lo our mules al ihe I the hill. During a full hour of this kind of running tight, none of our parly was hurl. From Ihe first il seemed evident to us that we had been betrayed by our Deborah guide, and our notion was at length confirmed by his going over lo the assailing party, and using In a] m Fortunately, and justly loo, this man was himself wounded by a ball from my musket, and when he fell shrieking, on the side of the hill, his companions hastened to his relief, while we profiled by the alarm of the moment to continue our retreat, and rejoin our mules below. Here we drew i tf at a short distance from the village of Deborah, and, with arms in our hands, being exhausted and fatigued, refreshed ourselves beneath a tree ; but we had not yet remounted, when a large party, professing to be from the sheik of Deborah, a village "consisting only of a few huts, came lo sequeslerour heasls, for what they called the public service. We Healed this with a proper degree of warmth, and threatened death to Ihe first that should dare to lay hands on any thing belonging to us: so that ihe brave villagers kept aloof." — Buckingham. Ver. l'.l. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. The method of making butter in the East, illustrates the* conduct of Jael, the wife of Heber, described in the book of Judges: "And Sisera said unto her, Give me, I pia\ thee, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty : and she 0] cri- ed a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered Dim In the song of Deborah, the sialemeni is io] cited: " Ik- asked water, and she gave him milk, she brought forth butler in a lordly dish." The word (i-Nori hemah) which our translators rendered butler, properly signifies cream: which is undoubtedly the meaning of il in this pa-ng. , f,-r Sisera complained of thirst, and asked a little water to quench it, a purpose to which butter is but little adapled. Mr. Harmer indeed urges the same objection to cream, which, he contends, few people would think a v« beverage for one that was extremely thirsty ; and con- cludes,dhat it must have been buttermilk which Jael. w ho had just been churning, gave to Sisera. But ihe opisii n of Dr. Russell is preferable, that the hemah of ihe scrip- tures, is probably the same as ihe haymak of ihe Arabs, which is not, as Harmer supposed, simple cream, but cream produced by simmering fresh sheeps* milk for some hours over a slow fire. It could not be butler new ly churn- ed, which Jael presented to Sisera, because ihe Arab but- ter is apt to be foul, and is commonly passed through a strainer before it is used ; and Russell declares, he never saw butter offered to a stranger, but always haymak: nor did he ever observe the Orientals drink buiiermilk, but al- ways Minn, which is coagulated sour milk, diluted with water. It was khan, therefore, which Pococke mistook for buttermilk, with which the Arabs treated him in ihe Holy Land. A similar conclusion maybe drawn concerning ihe butler and milk which the wife of Heber presented to Sise- ra ; thev were forced cream or haymak, and Uban, or coag- ulated sour milk diluted with water, which is a common and refreshing beverage in those sultry regions. — Paxton. Ver. 21. Then Jael Heber' s wife took a nail ol the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into "the ground: (for he was fast asleep and weary:) so he died. JUDGES. Chap. 5. Shaw, describing the tents of the Bedouin Arabs, say?, " these tents are kept firm and steady, by bracing or stretch- ing down their eaves with curds tied down to hooked wood- ■n pins well pointed, which they drive into the ground with mallet ; one of these pins answering to the nail, as the mallet does to the hammer, which Jael used in fastening to the ground the temples of Sisera." — Burder. CHAPTER V. Ver. 6. In the ck^s of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoc- cupied, and the travellers walked through by- ways. There are roads in these countries, but it is very easy to turn out of them, and go to a place by winding about over the lands, when that is thought safer. Dr. Shaw takes no- tice of this circumstance in Barbary, where, he says, they found no hedges, or mounds, or enclosures, to retard or molest them. To this Debcrah doubtless refers, though the doctor does not apply this circumstance to that passage, when she says, " In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways," or crooked ways, ac- cording to the margin, Judges v. 6. The account Bishop Pococke gives of the manner in which that Arab, under whose care he had put himself, conducted him to Jerusa- lem, illustrates this with great liveliness, which his lordship tells us was by night, and not by the highroad, but through the fields ; " and I observed," says he, " that he avoided as much as he could going near anv village or encampment, and sometimes stood still, as I thought, to hearken." And just in that manner people were obliged to travel in Judea, in the days of Shamgar and Jael. — Harmer. Ver. 10. Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way. The ancient Israelites preferred the young ass for the •addle. It is on this account, the sacred writers so fre- quently mention riding on young asses and on ass colts. They must have found them, from experience, like the young of all animals, more tractable, lively, and active than their parents, and, bv consequence, better adapted to this employment. Buffon remarked particularly of the young ass, that it is a gay, nimble, and gentle animal, " and therefore, to he preferred for ruling to the same ani- mal, when become lazy and stubborn through age." " In- deed the Hebrew name of the young ass, •*•;," from a root which signifies to rouse or excite, " is expressive of its character for_ sprightliness and activity." On public and solemn occasions, they adorned the asses which they rode, wiih rich and splendid trappings. " In this manner," says an excellent writer of Essays on Sacred Zoology, " the magistrates in the time of the Judges, appear to have rode in sate. They proceeded to the gate of their city, where they sat to hear causes, in slow procession, mounted on asses superbly caparisoned with while cloth, which cover- ed the greater part of the animal's body. It is thus that we must interpret the words of Deborah : ' Speak, ye that ride on white asses,' 0n asses caparisoned with coverings made of white woollen cloth, 'ye that sit in judgment and walk ' or inarch in state, ' by the way.' The colour is not that of the animal, but of his hiran. or covering, for the ass is com- monly dun, and not white." No doubt can be entertained in relation to the existence of the custom alluded to in this quotation. It prevails among the Arabs to the present dav ; but it appears rather unnatural, to ascribe the colour of a .'overingto the creature that wears it. Wedonot call a man white or black, because he happens to be dressed in vest- ments of white or black cloth ; neither did the Hebrews. The expression naturallv suggests the colour of ihe animal itself, not of its trappings; and the onlv point to be ascer- tained, is, whether the ass is found of a white colour. Hullon informs us. that the colour of the ass is not dun but flaxen, and thebellvof a silverv white. In many instances the sih-erv white predominates"; for Cartwrigh't, who trav- elled into the East, affirms that he beheld on the banks of the Euphrates, great droves of wild beasts, among which were many wild asses all white. Oppian describes the ■v'M t-s, as having a coat of silvery white; and the one which professor Gmelin brought from Tartary, was of the same colour. White asses, according to Morier, come from Arabia ; their scarcity makes them valuable, and gives them consequence. The men of the law count it a dignity, and suited to their character, to ride on asses of this colour. As the Hebrews always appeared in white gatments at their public festivals arid on days of rejoicmg, or when the courts of justice were held ; so, they naturally preferred white asses, because the colour suited the occasion, and because asses of this colour being more fire and costly, , were more coveted by the great and wealthy. The same view is taken of this question by Lewis, who says, the asses in Judea " were commonly of a red colour ; and therefore white asses were highly valued, and used by per- sons of superior note and quality." In this passage, he clearly speaks of the colour of the animals themselves, not of their coverings. — Paxton. Ver. 11. They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water. Dr. Shaw mentions a beautiful rill in Barbary, which is received into a large basin, galled shrub u-e limb, drink and aw^ay, there being great danger of meeting there with rogues and assassins. If such places are proper for the lurking of murderers in times ofc peace, they must be proper for the lying in ambush in times of war : a circum- stance that Deborah takes notice of in her song, Judges v. 11. But the writer who is placed first in that collection, which is entitled Gesta Dei per Francos, gives a more perfect comment still on that passage : for, speaking of the want of water, which the Croisade army so severely felt, at the siege of Jerusalem, he complains, that besides their being forced to use water that stunk, and barley bread, their people were in continual danger from the Saracens, who, lying hid near all the fountains, and places of water, everywhere destroyed numbers of them, and carried off their cattle. To which may be added a storv from William of Tyre, relating lo Godfrey, Duke of Lorrain, afterward king 'of Jerusalem, who, stopping short of Antioch five or six miles, to which place he was returning, in order o take some refreshment in a pleasant grassy place neai a fountain, was suddenly set upon by a number of horsemen of the enemy, W'ho rushed out of a reedy fenny place near them, and attacked the duke and his people. — -Harmer. Ver. 17. Gilead abode beyond Jordan : and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the seashore, and abode in his breaches. Though the coast of that part of Syria which is denomi- nated Palestine, i- not remarkable 'for the number of its puns, y,.; l.f- j.l. s Joppa, St. John d'Acre, Caipha tinder Mount Carmel, and a few others that might be named, there arc s, me o: relcs. and small convenient places, where little vessels, and such are those that are used for fishing, may shelter themselves, and land what thev take, though there are very few rivers on all that coast. To these places Deborah seems to refer, when she says, Asher continued on the seashore, and abode in his breaches, or creeks, as it is translated in the margin.— Harmer. Ver. 21. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength. The Kishon, whose furious current swept awav the routed legions of Sisera, though mentioned in scripture as a river, is only a small stream, except when swelled bv the rain or melting snow. " That ancient river" pursues his course down the middle of the plain of Esdraelon, and then passing close bv the side of Mount Carmel, falls into the sea at a place named Caipha. When Maundrell crossed this stream, on his way to Jerusalem, its waters were low and inconsiderable ; but in passing along the side of the plain, he observed the tracts of many tributary rivulets fall- ing down into it from the mountains, by which it must be greatly swelled in the rainy season. It was undoubtedly at the season when the Kishon, replenished bv the streams of Lebanon, becomes a deep and impetuous torrent, that the bands of Sisera perished in its waters. The Kishon, like several other streams in Palestine, does not run w'/li Chap. G. ■ lull current into the sea, except in the time of ike rains, but percolates through the sands which interpose between it ana tin- Mediterranean. It has been immortalized in the sone. of Deborah and Barak: " The kings came and fought; then fought the kings of Canaan in Tanach bv the waters " M i [do; they took no gain of money. They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought' against Sisera." The confederate kings took no gain for money ; thi I were volunteers in the war, stimulated only by haired ana1 revenge. Hut they strove in vain; the hosts of heaven fought for Israel ; the' stars in their courses, against the poweiful bands of Jabin. By the malignant inlluence.s of the heavenly bodies, by the storms of hail, thunder, and ram. produced, it i- probable, by the power, and directed bv the sagacity of holy angels, the confident hopes of Sisera were blasted, and a mark of eternal infamy stamped upon his n;i From heaven, says the Chaldee Paraphrast, i en, the place where the stars go forth, war was ed against Sisera; the God of heaven shot forth his arrows, and discomfited the hostile armies; and the t iver of Kislion, swelled over all its banks by the furious tempests, engaged also in the warfare, by the 'command of 'ii Lord, and swept the fugitives away. For li ' ike of vengeance, the Kishon was ordained of old: and this is the reason the inspired bard applies to it the tting epithet in the text: "The river of Kishon swept them away; that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength." — Paxton. Ver. 25. He asked water, and she gave him milk ; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. Though the bowls and dishes of the vulgar Arabs are of nood, those of their emirs are, not unfjfequently, of copper, tinned very neatly : La Roque takes notice of this circum- stance in more places than one. I have met with a like account, I think, in other travellers. May we not believe that the vessel which Jael made use of, to present butter- milk to Sisera. and which Deborah in her hvmn calls a innUij dish, or a dish of imhli-s, was of this sort 'I Her hus- band certainly was an Arab emir; the working of metals mneh more ancient than her time, Gen. iv. 22; and the mere size of the vessel hardly could be the thing intended. La Roijue, indeed, tells us, that the fruits that were brought in at the collation, that the grand emir of the Arabs, whom he visited, treated him with, were placed in a large painted basin of wood; its being painted was, without doubt, a ■'i irk of honour set on this vessel of the grand emir, which o-il it from the wooden bowls of the commonalty; but a painted wooden vessel would have been not so proper for buttermilk, as one of copper tinned, which therefore most probably was the sort Jael used. — Harmer. Speaking of the hospitable manner in which he was received al a house in Tronyen in Norway, Dr. Clarke says, " If but a bit of butter be called for in one of these a mass is bronghl forth weighing six or eight poinds: and so highly ornamented, being turned out of moulds, with the shape* of cathedrals set off with Gothic spires, and various other devices, that, according to the language of our English farmers' wives, we should deem it almost a pity to cut it. Throughout this part of Norway, the family plate of butter seemed to be the state dish of the house: wherever we sat down to make a meal, this offer- ing was first made, as in the tents of the primeval Arabs, when Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, brought forth butter in a lordly dish." — Burder. Ver. 30. Have they not sped 1 have they not di- vided the prey j to every man a damsel or two ; to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of di- vers colours of needle-work, of divers colours of needle-work on both sides, raecjforthe necks of them that lake the spoil? See on Is. 3. 18. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 10. And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour : the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the JUDGES. 137 broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. All roasted meat is a delicacy among the Arabs, and rarely eaten by them, according to La Roque ; tit in ,i meal also is, according to him, only to be met with among them at feasts, and great tables, such as those of*princes, and consequently a delicacy also; the common diet hem:' onl\ boiled meat, with rice pottage and pillaw. This is agree- able to Dr. Pococke's account of an elegant entertainment he met with at Baalbcck, where he tells us they had for supper a roasted fowl, pillaw, stewed meat, with the soup. &c.; and of a grand supper prepared for a great man oi Egypt, where he was present, ami which consisted, he tells us, of pillaw, a small sheep boiled whole, a lamb roasted in the same manner, roasted fowls, and man-, stewed meat in soup, &c. This soup, in which the Stew ed meat is brought to table, or something very much like it, was, we believe, the broth that Gideon present angei, whom he took for a mere mortal messenger of God. Many a reader may have wondered why he should bring out his broth; they may have been ready to think it would have been better to have kept that within, and have given it to the poor after the supposed prophet, whom la ,'„■ m ,| to honour, should be withdrawn, but these passages explain it : the broth, as our translators express it, was,' I imagine, ihe stewed savoury meat he had prepared, with such son of liquor as the eastern people at this day bring their stewed meat in, to the most elegant and honourable tables, What then is meant by the flesh put into the basket, Judg. vi. 19? " And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour; the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out to him under the oak, and presented it." The preceding quotations certainlv do not decipher this perfectly; but I have been inclined to think, there is a passage in Dr. Shaw that entirely unravels this matter, and aflbids a perfect comment on this text. It is in his preface : " Besides a bowl of milk, and a basket of figs, raisins, or dates, which upon our arrival were presented to us, to stay our appetites, the master of the tent w here we lodged, fetched us from his flock, according to the number of our company, a kid or a goat, a lamb or a sheep, half of which was immediately seethed by his wife, and served with cuscasoe; the rest was made kabab, i. e. cut into pieces and roasted ; which we reserved for our breakfast or dinner next day." May we not imagine that Gideon presenting some slight refresh- ment to the supposed prophet, according to the present Arab mode, desired him to slay till he could provide some- thing more substantial for him: that he immediately killed a kid, seethed part of it, made kabab of another part of it, and when it was ready, brought the stewed meat in a pot, with unleavened cakes of bread which he had baked ; and kabab in a basket for his carrying away with him, and serving him for some after repast in his journey 1 Nothing can be more conformable to the present Arab customs, or a more easy explanation of the text ; nothing more conve- nient for the. carriage of the reserved meat than a light basket; soThevcnot informs us he carried his ready dressed meat with him in a maund. What others may think of the passage I know not, but I never could, till I met with these remarks, account for his bringing the meat out to Ihe angel in a basket. As for Gideon's leaving the supposed prophet under a tree, while he was busied in his house, instead of introducing him into some apartment of his habitation, and bringing the repast out to him there, we have seen some- thing of it under the last observation; I would here add, that not only Arabs that live in tenls, and their dependants, practise it still, but those also that live in houses, as did Gideon. Dr. Pococke frequently observed it among the Maronites, and was so struck with this conformity of their.; to ancient customs, that he could not forbear taking partic- ular notice of it: laymen of quality and ecclesiastics, the patriarchs and bishops, as well as poor obscure priests, thus treating their guests.— Harmer. Ver. 37. Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth besides, then shall I know "that thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said. In Palestine, as in Greece and Italy, the floor was for the most part in the open air. Thus the thrashing-floor of OiJeon appears to have heen an open uncovered space, upon which the dews of heaven fell without interruption. "I shall 1 kn for such ai ah the Jebii fleece ol wool in the floor, and if the de.. „. in , >e only; and, U be dry on a" ,he earth besides, then ' >u wilt save Israel by my hand as a barn, or covered space, had been xperiment. The thrashing-floor of , seems also to have heen an open area, else it had not been a proper place for erectinc an altar, and offering sacrifice. In the prophecies of Hosea, the idolaters of Israel are compared to the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor. Hence it was designed. y prepared in a place to which the wind had free access on all Sides: and from this exposed situation it de- rived its name in Hebrew. In Greece, the same kind of situation was chosen ; for Hesiod advises his farmer to thrash his corn in a place well exposed to tlie wind. From this statement, it appears ilia: a thrashing-floor (rendered in our translation a void place) might well be formed near the gate of Samaria, which was built on the summit of a hill; and afforded a very convenient place for the kings of Israel and Judah giving audience to the prophets. — Pax- Ver. 38. And it was so : for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. It may seem a little improbable to us who inhabit these northern climates, where i he dews are inconsiderable, how Gideon's fleece, in one night, should contract such a quan- li y. that when he came to wring it, a bowl full of water was produced. Irwin, in his voyage up the Red Sea. when on the Arabian shores, says, "difficult as we lind it to keep ourselves cool in the daytime, it is no easy matter to defend our bodies from the damps of the night, when the wind is loaded with the heavest dews that ever fell ; we lie exposed to the whole weight of the dews, and the cloaks in which we wrap ourselves, are as wet in the morning as if they had been lninirrsrti m the sea." — Burder. Ver. 4. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet loo many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee thero ; and it shall be, thai of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee ; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go. 5. So he brought down the peo- ple unto the water : and the Lord said unto Gideon, every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. G. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand tothpir mouth, were three hundred men : but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. The Ara'.is lap their milk and pottage, but not their water. On the contrary, D'Arvieux tells us^ that after they have eaten, they rise from table, and go and drink large draughts out of a pitcher, or, for want of that, out of a leathern Sit!,, which they hand to one atioilnr round and round. Few of the Israelites, if they did in common sup their milk and pot- tage out ot their hands, as the Arabs do, would have been disposed to lap water in the same manner, if they drank too as the Arabs now drink. Two considerations more will complete the illustration of this part of the history of Gideon. The one is that the eastern people are not wont to drink standing. Busbequius, the imperial ambassador at Con- ptaiit'nuplc. in his eeleSra'ed leters concerning the ensni affii r, i hat ds is a very exfe- y are not restrained '•• When they take J E B. Chap. 7 water with the palms of their hands, they naturally place themselves on the.r hams to lie nearer the water ; but when they drink from a pitcher, or gourd, fresh iilled, they do not sit down on purpose to drink, but drink star. ding, and very often put the sleeve of iheir shir! over the moulh of the vessel, by way of strainer, lest small leeches might have been taken up with the water. It is for the same reason they often prefer taking water with the palm of the hand, to the lapping it from the surface. D'Arvieux, in that accu- rate account of the Arabs of Mount Carmel, expressly lakes notice of this, observing that this may be ihe reason why spoons are so universally neglected among the Arabs, as a man would eat upon very unequal terms with a spoon, among those that use the palms of their hands instead of them. Until I met wiih this passage of Busbequius, I could not tell what to make of that particular circumstance of the history of the Jewish judge, that all the rest of the people. bowed down upon their knees to drink water. It appeared to me rather the putting themselves into an attitude to lay water, than any thing else: as I supposed the words signi- fied that they kneeled down by the side of some water in order to drink. But the matter is now clear : three hun- dred men, immediately upon their coming to the water, drank of it in the quickest manner they could, in order to be ready without delay to follow Gideon ; the rest took up water in pitchers, or leathern bottles, or some kind of vessel, and bending down so as to sit jointly upon their heels and knees, or with their knees placed upright before them, either of which might be called bowing their knees to drink, though the last is the posture Busbequius refers to. they handed these drinking vessels with ceremony and slowness lrom one to another, as they were wont to do in common, wbuh occasioned their dismission. So two-and -twenty thousand of those that were faint-hearted were first sent away; then all the rest, excepting three hundred men of peculiar alacrity and despatch, the most proper for the business lor which they were designed, but visibly unequa. to the task of opposing the Midianiies ; and without some miraculous interposition of God, absolutely unequal." — A dog lappeth by means of forming the end of his tongue into i he shape of a shallow spoon, by which he laves or throws up the water into his moulh. The Hottentots have a curious custom, resembling the dog and the three hun- dred chosen men of Gideon's army. On a journey, imme- diately on coming to water, they stoop, but no farther than what is sufficient to al^.w their right hand to reach the water, by which they throw it up so dexterously, that their hand seldom approaches nearer to their moulh than a toot ; yet I never observed any of the water to fall down upon their breasts. They perform it almost as quickly as the dog, and sa-isfy their thirst in half the time taken by another man. I frequently attempted to imitate this practice, but never succeeded, always spilling the water on my clothes, or throwing it against some other part of the face, instead of the mouth, which greatly amused the Hottentot spectators, who then, perhaps for the first time, perceived that there was some art in it. — African Light. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 12. And the Midianites,and the Amaletntes, and all the children of the East, lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude ; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seaside for multitude. This animal remembers an injury long, and seizes wirn great keenness a proper opportunity of revenge. A camel's anger is, among the Arabians, a proverb for an irreconci- lable enmi'y. They estimate their riches by the number of their camels. They can sustain great labour and laiigue upon the poorest means of subsistence ; travelling four or five days without water, while half a gallon of beans and barley, or a few balls made of the flour, will sustain him f >r a whole day. Dr. Shaw says, that before drinking, they disturb the water with their feet, first of all thrusting their bends a great way above the nostrils into the water, and then, after the manner of pigeons, make several successive draughts. " Nature has furnished the camel with parts and qualities adapted to the office he is employed to discharge. Chap. 7—9. J U D The dries! thistle and the barest thorn is all the food this useful quadruped requires; and even these, to save time, ■ii<- advancing on his journey, without stopping, or occasioning a moment of delay. As it is his lot to cross immense deserts, where no water is found, and countries mil even moistened with the ik-w of heaven, he is endued with the power, at one watering-place, to lay in a store, with which he supplies himself for thirty days to come. To contain this enormous Quantity of fluid, nature has formed large cisterns within him, limn which, once filled, he draws at pleasure the quantity he wants, and pours it into his stomach, with the same effect as if he .then drew it from a spring; and with this he travels patiently and rig- orously till day long; carrying a prodigious load upon him, through countries infected' with poisonous winds, and glow- ing with parching and never-cooling sands." (Bruce.)— Ver. 13. And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fel- low, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley-bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along-. Barley-bread is in some regions of Persia commonly used by the lower orders. It must not however be omitted, lha taking bread, barley was used before any other sort of corn; for it is reported, says Artemidorus, that this was tins first food which the gods imparted to mankind ; and it was, according to Pliny, the most ancient sort of pro- vision. But in more civilized ages, to use the words of the same author, barley-bread came to be the food of beasts only ; yet it was still used by the poorer sort, who were not aide to' furnish their tables with better provisions; and in the Roman camp, as Vegetius and Livy inform us, soldiers who had been guilty of any offence, were fed with barley, instead of bread corn. An example of this punishment is recorded in the history of the second Punic war. The cohorts that lost their standards, had an allowance of bar- lev assigned by Marcellus. And Augustus Cesar com- monly punished the cohorts which gave way to the enemy, by a decimation, and allowing them no provision but barley. Bo mean and contemptible, in the estimation of the numer- ous and well-appointed armies of Midian, was Gideon, with his handful of undisciplined militia ; but guided by the wisdom, and supported by the power of the living God, he inflicted a deserved and exemplary punishment on these proud oppressors. The meagre barley-cake was put into the hand of Midian by the God of armies, as a punishment for disobedience of orders, not to make a full end of his chosen people. " And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo, a cake of barley- bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel ; for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host." — Paxton. Ver. 1 6. And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers. Though it must, one would think, be much more con- venient to carry water in skins or leathern bottles, when water must be carried, and accordinglv, such we find are generally made use of in the East in travelling; yet, what- ever the cause may be, they sometimes content themselves with earthen jars. * Thus we find, in the beginning of Dr. Chandler's expeditions, in search of the antiquities of these countries, though he was equipped under the direction of a Jew of that country, of such eminence as to act as the Brit- ish consul at the Dardanelles, and was attended at first bv him, yet. the vessel in which their water was to be carried, was an earthen jar, which not only served them in the wherry in which they coasted some of the nearer parts of Asia Minor, but was carried upon the ass of a poo along with oilier luggage, when they n a.le an excursion from the seaside up inio ihe country, to visit the gnat mil. at Troas. This may serve to remove oui wonder thai Gideon should be able to collect three bundled walerjar.- from among ten thousand men, for we have no 1 i; pi e the method he was to make n ie of, to surpri e the Midianites, wa- noi -i"_'L' -:.'ii io loin !" ! . the army to the three hundred. In an nun:, of t< Israelitish peasants collected together on a sudden, there might be many goat ■! m i . - ■■!- toi v. aler,but] have nothing better than earthen jars, and three hum red water-jars, collected from the whole army, were sufficient to answer the views of divine Providence. — H.iumer. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 7. And Gideon said, Therefore, when the Lord hath delivered Zehah and Zalmunna ill tear yc less, and \ the thorns of the wilderness, and with briers. Thus did Gideon threaten the inhabitants of Succoth; and thus do masters, fathers, and schoolmasters, sweat they will punish those who have offended them. To see the force of the figure, it must be kept in mind that the people are almost in a state of nudity. To tear a man's naked body, therefore, with briers and thorns, would he no small punishment. See poor travellers sometimes, w ho, in consequence of a wild beast, or some other can rush into the thicket ; before they can get out again, ini n- sequence of thorns, they are literally covered with Mood There have been instances where a master, in his anger, has taken the jagged edge of the palmirah branch, to tear the naked body of his slave, and nothing can be more common than to threaten it shall be done to those who have given ofienee. People also often menace each other with the repetition of the old punishment of tying the naked body in a bundle of thorns, and rolling it on the ground. — Roberts. This threat probably relates to a cruel method of torture used in those times for putting captives to death, bv laying briers and thorns on their naked bodies, and then drawing over them some heavy implements of husbandry. Dru- sins thinks, that persons put to death in this manner were laid naked on thorns and briers, and then trampled on.— Burder. Ver. 18. As thou art, so icere they ; each one re- sembled the children of a king. Of a person who is beautiful or of a fair complexion, who is courageous and stately in his gait, it is said in the East, " He is like the son of a king." " He is as the son of Manmaihon (Cupid.") "He is the son of a god.''— Roberts. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 8. The trees went forth on a time to anoim a king over them ; and they said unto the oliv°- tree, Reign thou over us. The people of the East are exceedingly addicted to apo- logues, and use them to convey instruction or repri of, which with them could scarcely be done so well in any other way. Has a man been told a secret, he says, in re- peating it, for instance, " A tree told me this morning, that Kandan offered a large bribe to the Modeliar, io gel Mut- too turned out of his situation." Does a mai. of low caste wish to unite his son in marriage to the daughter of one who is high, the latter will say, "Have you heard that the pumpkin wants to be married to the plantain tree?" Is a wife steril, " The cocoa-nut tree in Viraver's garden does not bear any fruit." Has a woman had children; by im- proper intercourse, it is said of her husband's gaic.ii "Ah, the palmirah-trees are now giving cocoa-nuts.'- Has a man given his daughter in marriage to another who uses her unkindly, he says, "I have planted ihe sugar- cane by the side of the margossa (bitter) tree."— Roberts. Ver. 27. And they went out into the fields, and gathered their vineyards, and trode the grape*. JUDGES. Chap. 9—i: and made merry, and went into the house of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelsch. In the East they still tread their grapes after the ancient manner. " August 20, 1705, the vintage (near Smyrna) •.vas now begun, the juke (of the grapes) was expressed for wine; a man, with his feet and legs bare, w(as treading the fruit in a kind of cistern, with a hole or vent near the bot- tom, and a vessel beneath to receive the liquor." (Chand- ler's Travels in Greece.)— Burder. Ver. 33. Then mayest thou do to them as thou shah find occasion. The Hebrew has, " As thy hand shall find." (1 Sam. x.. 7, margin.) In asking a favour, it is common to say, '• You must not deny me, sir ; but as your hand finds op- portunity, so you must assist me." — " Well, my friend, when I have the opportunity of the hand, I will assist you." " The man has assisted me according to the opportunity of his hand ; what can he do more V — Roberts. Ver. 36. And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, Behold, there come people down from the top of the mountains. And Zebul said unto him, Thou seest the shadow of the mount- ains as if they were men. Our translation of the book of Judges, from the Hebrew, represents Zebul as savin- to Gaal, upon his being alarm- ed at seeing troops of men making to him, Thou secst the shadows of the mount* ins as if they vere men ; whereas, Josephus "represents him as telling him, he mistook the shadow of the rocks for men. A commentator might be at a loss to account for this change, that had not read Donb- dan's representation of some part of the Holy Land, in which he tells us, that in those places there are many de- tached rocks scattered up and down, some crowing out of the ground, and others are fragments, broken off from rocky precipices, the shadow of which, it appears, Jose- phus thought might be most naturally imagined to look like troops of men at a distance, rather than the shadow of the mountains.— Shaw. The dreariness of the far-stretching ruins was dismally increased by the shadowy hour of our approach; and be- ing again in the region of the Bactriani descents, our own flitting shades, as we passed between old mouldering walls and the moonlight, sometimes bore an alarming interpre- tation. Our mehmander was ready to embattle every frowning heap with a murderous legend.— Sir R. K. Por- ter. CHAPTER X. Ver. 4. And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead. To ride upon an ass was, in the days of the Judges, a ■uark of distinction, to which it is probable the vulgar might not presume to aspire. This is evident from the brief notices which the inspired historian gives of the great- ness and richness of Jair, the Gileadite, one of these judges : " he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts; and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-jair unto this day." Abdon the Pirathonite, another of these judges, " had forty sons and thirty nephews, that rode on three- score and ten ass-colts." It is reasonable to suppose, that the manners and customs of the chosen tribes underwent a change when the government became monarchical, and the fascinating pleasures of a court began to exert their usual influence; still, however, the ass kept his place in the service of the great. Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul, rode on an ass ; as did Ahithophel, the prime minister of David, and the greatest statesman of that age. Even so '.ate as the reign of* Jehoram, the son of Ahab, the services of this animal were required by the wealthy Israelite: the Shunamite, a person of high rank, saddled her ass, and "•ode to Carmel, the residence of Elisha, to announce the Ver. 8. And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel eighteen years. The Hebrew has, " crushed." Of a severe master it is said, " He crushes his servants. " " Ah ! my lord, crush me not." "When will the king cease to crush his peo- ple 1 " — Roberts. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 30. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail de- liver the children of Ammon into my hands, 31. Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when • I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering. One species of vow called C/ierem., (for which, in Ger- man, we generally use the terms Bann, Vcrbannen, &c. ; but in a thing altogether foreign to us, I rather choose to abide by the Hebrew word,) was, in mi ancient usage, more sacred and irremissible than all others. Moses nowhere mentions what Cherem was, nor by what solemnities or expressions it was distinguished from other vows; but pre- supposes all this as already well known. But from Lev. xxvii. 21, every one must see, that there was a difference between a Cherem and other vows; for if a man had vow- ed his field, and omitted to redeem it, it devolved unto God in the same way as the field of Cherem, for ever, and be- yond the power of future redemption ; and in ver. 28, 29, it is expressly ordained, that a Cherem can never be re- deemed like other vows, but continues consecrated to God ; and if it be a man, that he shall be put to death. I have al- ready stated, that of the formalities which distinguished the Cherem from common vows, we know nothing ; nor does the etymology of the term at all aid our conjectures, for the radical word in Arabic means, to consecrate ; but every thing vowed or devoted, was consecrated. The species of Cherem with which we are best acquainted, was the previ- ous devotement to God of hostile cities, against which thev intended to proceed with extreme severity ; and that with a view the more to inflame the minds of the people to war. In such cases, not only were all the inhabitants put to death, but also, according as the terms of the vow declared, no booty was made by any Israelite ; the beasts were slam; what would no! burn, as gold, silver, and other metals, was added to the treasure of the sanctuary ; and every thing else, with the whole city, burnt, and an imprecation pro- nounced upon any attempt that should ever be made to re- build it. Of this Uie history of Jericho (Josh. vi. 17—19, 21—24, and vii. 1, 12—26) furnishes the most remarkable example. In Moses' lifetime we find a similar vow against the king of Arad, Numb. xxi. 1 — 3. The meaning, how- ever, as we see from the first-mentioned example, was not, that houses might -never again be built on the accursed spot ; for to build a city, here means to fortify it. Joshua him- self seems to ex'plain it thus ; for in his curse he makes use of this expression, "Cursed be he who rebuilds this city Jericho ; for his first-born son shall he found it, and for his latest, set up its gates." The beginning, therefore, of the building of a citv, is to found it ; which can hardly be to lav the foundation stone of a single house, (for ulio, whether Hebrew or not, ever called that founding a city ?) hut of the citv walls; and its conclusion, isto set up its gates. The history still further confirms this, as the meaning of the term to build ; Jericho was so advantageously situated for all manner of trade, because near the usual passage across the Jordan, that it could not long remain a place en- tirely desolate. In fact, as early as the time of the Judges. Jericho, or, as it was then called, the city of palms, ap- peared again as a town, subdued by the Moabites; (Judg. iii. 13, compared with Deut. xxxiv. 3;) and in David's time, we have unquestionable proof of lie existence of a city of the name of Jericho. See 2 Sam. x. 5. But notwithstand- ing all this, Joshua's imprecation was not yet trespassed; but, at least 100 years after David's death, Jericho was first rebuilt (that is, fortified) by Hiel the Bethelite j and in lav- JUDGES. ing its foundation he lost his first-born son, and in setting I up the gates, his youngest, 1 Kinirs xvi. 34. If an Israelilisl'i city introduced the worship of strange gods, it was in like manner to be devuled, or consecrated to God,' and to remain unrebuilt for ever; Deut. xiii. 10— 1H. In these cases, therefore, consecrated, or devoid equivalent to the Latin phrase, ejus caput Joei sacrum csto. or sacer csio. The consecration o! the transgressor to God made the remission of his punishment impossible. It is ial this master-piece of legislative policy mii "h ver to have its importance lessened by an injudi- [ication to common crimes, that do nol affect the principles of the constitution : and therefore, so much the greater was the abuse which Saul made of the Chercm, when, in issuing an arbitrary inconsiderate order, he swore that whoever trespassed it should die; this was, in fact, making the offender against his whim, a On rem ; and ac- cording- we see, that the people did not mind the oath of ;le 'ii kmg, but insisted on saving Jonathan, whom, because he had eaten a little honey, his father had devoted to death. 1 Sam. xiv. 24—45. But a still grosser abuse of the Che- rcm, proceeding from imitation of foreign and pr.i. 'in ■!■-, \\i- shall probably find in the history of Jephlhah, Judges, chap. xi. Plus brave barbarian, an illegitimate Child, and without inheritance, who had from his youth been a robber, and was now, from being the leader of ban- ditti, transformed into a general, had vowed, if he con- quered the Ammonites, to make a burnt-offering to the Lord of whatever should first come out of his house to meet him, on his return. This vow was so absurd, and at the same tunc so contrary to the Mosaic law, that it could not possibly have been accepted of God, or obligatory. For, what if a dog, or an ass, had first met him 1 Could he have offered it! By the law of Moses no unclean beast could be brought to the altar ; nor yet even all clean ones ; but of quadrupeds, only oxen, sheep, and goats. Or, what if a man had first met him 7 Human sacrifices Moses had most rigidly prohibited, and described as the abomination ii ili.' Canaanites; of which we shall afterward say more, under criminal law ; but Jephthah, who had early been driven from his home, and had grown up to manhood anion- banditti in the land of Tob, might not know much of the laws of Moses, and probablv was but a bad lawyer, and just as bad a theologian. The neighbouring nations used human sacrifices: the Canaanites, ^specially, are by Moses and the other sacred writers often accused of this abominable idolatry, of which we find still more in the Greek and Latin authors ; and possibly, therefore, Jephthah, when he made the vow, may have thought of being met, not merely bv a beast, but by 'a slave, whom, of course, he would sacrifice, after the heathen fashion. His wordsare, " If thou givesl the Ammonites into my hands, whatever first cometh forth from my house to meet me on my happy return from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, and I will bring it to him as a burnt-offering." — Most unfortunately, his only daughter first came out to congratulate him : and the ignorant"barbarian, though extremely affected at the sight, was yet so superstitious, and so unacquainted with the religion and laws of his country, as to suppose he could not recall his vow. His daughter too was heroic enough to fulfil it, on her part ; requesting only two months respite, for the romantic purpose of going with her com- panions into lonely dales, there to lament that she must die a virgin. Then, after two months' absence, this hap- less maid, who, either from ambition or superstition, was a willing victim to her father's inconsiderate vow, actually returned; and Jephthah, it is said, did with her as he had rowed ; which cannot well mean any thing else, then that he put her to death, and burnt her body as a burnt-offering. The greater number of expositors, indeed, would fain ex- plain the passage differently, because they look upon Jeph- thah as a saint, who could not have done any thing so abom- inable. " Human sacrifices," say they, " are clearly con- trary to the law of Moses."— Very trite.— But how manv things have ignorance and superstition done in the world, that expressly contradict the law of God ! Have we not, among Christians, seen persecutions and massacres on ac- count of religion, with various other atrocities, and abom- inable proceedings, that are just as directly repugnant to the gospel, as any human sacrifice could be to the laws of Moses 1— " But would the high-priest have accepted such an offering, and brought it to the altar 1" — I certainly be- lieve not ; but we find not a word spoken of the hi-gh-i>t ii—i, but only of Jephthah. What it ho had pern cdthesacri- ftce hmi-'lt '1 This would certainly have been a trans- gressimi of the Levitical law; which i-nj. lined ihat every l.oiild be made by the hand of the priest, and at the place where the tabernacle and altar stood. Bat thai injunction had, on numbei li'-> occa-ions, been violated by the Israelites, and had, bv the opposite usage, bee al- most abrogated. Jephthah, who, from superstitious igno- rance, was, in the sacrifice of his daughter, afiei the I la naanitish fashion, about to perpetrate a most abominable act, forbidden not only by the law of his country, but also by the law of nature, might very well have been guilty of the lesser fault, now actually a very common one. ol - i. mi ■. in iiii'i nig in the country beyond Jordan, of which he was himself master. Amid' all 'the doubts that we start concerning this clearly-related story, we do not consider who Jephthah was; a fugitive from his country, who, m for- eign lands, had collected and headed a band of robbers; nor yet where he now ruled,— beyond Jordan, in the land of Gilead. And a still more important circumstance men- tioned in the chapter (xii.) immediately following our sto- ry, has been most inadvertently overlooked. Immediately a'fterhis victory over the Ammonites, Jephthah went to war with the tribe of Ephraim : but the tabernacle was at Shi- loh, within the limits of thai tube; and the high-priest, therefore, could certainly have had no concern with an of- fering that Jephthah meant to make on account of his suc- cess, nor would it have been brought to the altar at Sluloh, but made in the land where Jephthah himself ruled. It is unaccountable, that not a single expositor should have at- tended to this war with the Ephraimites : but that the one half of them should be so simple as to deny, thai Jephthah did offer up his daughter, because the high-priest would not have accepted the offering: and the other, in other respects mere correct in their opinion, so obliging, as to obviate that objection, by presuming that the high-priest must have been deposed'for making such an offering — This, however, is a controversy into which I will not enter further, because it does not deserve it. That carelessness is too gross, which forgets the end of the eleventh chapter, at the beginning of the twelfth.— Michaelis. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 3. And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Amnion. The Ephraimites had found fault with Jephthah because he did not call them to war against the Ammonites, but he vindicated himself, and addressed them in the language of the verse, as a proof of his courage, and that he had been exposed to danger. The Hindoos use the same figure ; and the idea appears to be taken from a man carrying some- thing very precious in his hands, and that under circum- stances of great danger. When a son who has been long absent returns home,' his father says, " My son has returned from the far country with his life in his hand;" which means, he has passed through many dangers. " Last night, as I went home through the place of evil spirits, I put my life in my hands." " The other da)-, in passing through the forest, I put my life in my hands, for the beasts were near to me in every direction." "Danger! truly so; I put my life in my bosom." " 0 that divine doctor I my son was at the point of death, but he brought his life in his hand."— Roberts. Ver. 14. And he had forty sons, and thirty nephews, that rode on threescore and ten ass- colts: and he judged Israel eight years. To an Englishman, this may appear almost incredible, but we have a great number of similar cases. A man ot property has as many wives as he thinks proper to support; and such is the state of morals, that he finds no difficulty in procuring them. I have known men who have had, in each of the neighbouring villages, a wife or concubine. Santherasega. Modeliar of Oodeputty, who has been dead about thirty years, had two wives and six concubines, wh" bare to him thirty children. The old man is described as being of large stature, and as having indulged in strong JUDGES. 13, 14. kinds of food. — A friend of mine in Manilla knew a man who was the father of forty children.— Lieutenant-colonel Johnson says (in his ' Travels through Persia) of the king, "The number of his children I could not exactly ascertain: it is generally agreed that he has at least sixty boys and sixty girls living; and many persons add, that there are an equal number deceased, so that their total number must have been two hundred and forty. He has already given in marriage twelve of his daughters ; and about twenty-five of the elder of his sons are governors of the principal prov- inces and cities of the empire. Preparations of fireworks, &c. were at this time making at the palace to celebrate the nnplials of one of his sons, which were to take place in about three weeks." — Roberts. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 5. For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. T'lis command was given to the wife of Manoah, the farUr of Samson, who had previously been steril. Han- nah, the mother of Samuel, was also steril, "and she vowed a v-.w, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look ol ne affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thy handmaid, but will give unto thy hand- maid a man-child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the avs of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head." (Numbers vi. 5. Acts xviii. 18.) All who are married in the East, have an intense desire for children. It is considered disgraceful, and a mark of the displeasure of the gods, to have a childless house. Under these cir- cumstances, husbands and wives perform expensive cere- monies ; and vow, that should the gods favour them \ri;h a son, "no razor shall come upon his head," (i. c. except- ing "the corners,") until he shall be ten or twelve years of age. In all schools, boys may be seen with elf-locks of ten jt twelve years standing, giving a testimony to the solicitude, superstition, and affection of the parents, and a memorial of the favour of their deities.— Roberts. Ver. I-.- So Manoah took a kid with a meat- offeriugr, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord: and the angel did wonderously; and Manoa'ti and his wife looked on. 20. For it came tc pass, when the flame went up towards heaven .W. off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar : and Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. The circumstances in the histories of Gideon and Manoah are well illustrated, by some things mentioned occasionally by Doubdan, in the account of his journey to the Holy Land, for he speaks of many rocks which he found rising up out of the enrth there, and some as parts of great rocks fallen down. Seme of them are described in such a manner, as shows they resembled altar-tombs, or altars. Speaking of his return' fiom a town called St. Samuel, to Jerusalem, by a way leading to the sepulchres of the judges of Israel, he tells iis, (p. 98, 99,) that he found them in'a great field planted with vines, in which were great rocks, which rose out of the earth; among them, one, near the wavside, was so large, as to be hollowed out into several rooms, in whose sides were long and narrow holes cut out, proper for placing the dead In, even with the floor. When he was at Joppa, waiting to embark, upon his return, he describes himself and his companion as placing them- selves, after they had walked until they were tired, on the beach, viewing some Greek pilgrims, who were also wait- ing to take ship, and who amused themselves with dancing on the shore, as placing themselves in the shade of a great ro?k, newly fallen down from the mountains, (p. 455.) Rocks appear in this country : some in their original situ- ation, rising out of the ground ; others are fragments, that have been detached from rockv eminences, and have fallen down on the ground below. Of this considerable number of rocks, some were flat or nearly flat, on the top, so as conveniently to be used for altars. There are some such now found in that country.— Burder. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 7. And he went down and talked with the woman ; and she pleased Samson well. 8. And after a time he returned to take her. Ten or twelve months commonly intervened between the ceremony of espousals, and the marriage ; during this interval, the* espoused wife continued with her parents, that she might provide herself with nuptial ornaments suitable to her station. This custom serves to explain a circumstance in Samson's marriage, which is involved in some obscurity: "He went down," savs the historian, "and talked with the woman, (whom he had seen at Timnath,) and she pleased him well." These words seem to refer to the ceremony of espousals; the following to the subsequent marriage, "And after a time he returned to take her." Hence, a considerable time intervened between the espou- sals, and their actual union.— Paxton. Ver. 8. And, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion. The bee is a gregarious insect, living in a slate of society, and subject to a regular government. From ihis circumstance, its Hebrew name mm, from a root which signifies to speak, to rule, to lead, is derived. It is an opinion commonly received among the ancients, that bees were propagated in two ways, either by those of their own species, or in the cavities of a dead carcass. Their opinion is beautifully stated by Virgil in these lines: I '■.--;■ '■ : Mir.. - i rLinjue yrhore suimna " But here they behold a sudden prodigv, and wondrous to relate, bees through all the belly, hum amid the putrid bowels of the cattle, pour forth with the fermenting juices from the burst sides, and in immense clouds roll along, then swarm together on the top of a tree, and hang down in a cluster from the bending boughs." This opinion, however, is directly contradicted by another, which was held by some writers of the greatest reputation in ancient times. Aristotle taught, that the bee will not light upon a dead carcass, nor taste the flesh. Varro asserts, that she never sits down in an unclean place, or upon any thing which emits an unpleasant smell. They are neve'r seen, like flies, feeding on blood or flesh; while wasps and hornets all delight in such food, the bee never touches a dead body. So much they dislike an impure smell, that when one of them dies, the survivors immediately carrv out the carcass from the hive, that they may not be an- noyed by the effluvia. The discovery which Samson made, when he went down to Timnath, may seem to contradict the latter, and confirm the former opinion : "And after a time, he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion ; and behold Ihere was a swarm of bees, and honey in the carcass of the lion." But it is not said the swarm was generated there, but only that Samson found them in the carcass ; nor is it said that the lion had been recently killed, and that the carcass was in a s!a!e of putrefaction': the contrary seems to be intimated by the phrase, fl/Vcr a time, literally, after days, one of the'most common expressions in scripture for a year. Hence the lion was killed a whole year before this visit to Timnath. when he discovered the swaim in the carcass. But the flesh of the carcass, which Samson left in the open field a whole year, the prey of wild beasts and ravenous birds, must have been entirely consumed long before his return, or so completely dried by the violent heat of the sun, that n. thing but the skeleton", or exsiccated frame, remained. Within the bare, or withered enclosure of the bones, which had exhaled their last putrid effluvia, the swarm, in perfect consistency with their usual delicacv, might construct their cells and deposite their honey. This conjecture is con- firmed by the testimonv of Herodotus, who declares that bees have swarmed in dry bones.— Paxton. JUDGES. 143 Ver. 12. And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle unto you: if ye can certainly declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets and thirty change of garments. It is customary for the Turks and Moors, according to Dr. Shaw, to wear shirts of linen, or cotton, or gauze, under their tunics ; but the Arabs wear nothing but wool- len. This is frcqiifiilly the case also with the Arabs of Palestine, it seems, though D Arvieux gives a contrary ac- count of the Arabs of the camp of the grand emir whom lie visited; for Egmont and Herman assure us, that they saw several Arabian inhabitants of Jaffa going along al- most naked, the greatest part of them without so much as a shirt or a pair of breeches, though some wore a kind of a mantle; as for the children there, thev ran about almost as naked as they were born, though they had all little chains about theii [i Dent, and some of silver.— Har- med. Many of the Arabian inhabitants of Palestine and Bar- bary wear no shirts, but go almost entirely naked, or with •nlv a cloth east about their bodies, or a kind of mantle. It isn'.it improbable, that the poorer inhabitants of Judea were elothed in much the same manner as the Arabs of those a modern times, having no shirts, but only a sort of mantle to cover their naked bodies. If this be just, illustrates the promise of Samson to give his companions thirty sheets, or, as it is more propei I in the margin of 'our Bibles, thirty shirts, if they could dis- cover the meaning of his riddle. It sannot easily be im- agined they were what we call sheets, for Samson might have slum' thirty Philistines near Askelon, and not have found one sheet; or if he slew them who were carrying their beds with them on their travels, as they often do in present times, the slaughter of fifteen had been sufficient, for in the East, as in other countries, every bed is provided with two sheets; but he slew just thirty, in order to obtain thirty sedinim, or shirts. If this meaning of the term be admitted, the deed of Samson must have been very provo- king to the Philistines ; for since only people of more easy circumstances wore shirts, they were' not thirty of the com- mon people that he slew, but thirty persons of figure and consequence. The same word is used by the prophet Isaiah, in his description of the splendid and costly dress in which people of rank and fashion then delighted, rcn- tered in our translation fine linen; which seems to place it beyond a doubt that they were persons o. rank that fell by the hand of Samson on that occasion. But tl i-- by no means improbable, that these sheets were the hykes or blankets already described, which are worn by persons of all ranks in Asia. (See on Deut. 24. 13.) Pococke, who gives a description of this vestment, and of the way in which it is wrapped about the body, which does from the account of it in a preceding 1 1 enlai Iv observed, that the young people, and n Fainme, had nothing on whatever, but this blanket; hence it is probable, that the young man i in this manner who followed our Saviour when be was taken, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. " When the voting man," who came to apprehend Jesus, "laid hold of1' him, "he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked :" but this language bv no means re- quires us to suppose thai he was absolutely naked, but only that he chose rather to quit his hylic or plaid, than run the tde a prisoner, although bv doing so he >-ed. This view is confil observations formerly made on the hykeand tunic; andby ither, which was so cold, that the ser- vants of the high-priest were compelled to kindle a fire in ■ ni themselves. It is very im- ;' he v. mid go into the gardenon such a night 1 < lied; :md we have no reason to think he was tl this linen cloth was the onlv article of clothing in his | ossession: But Mr. Harmer, and other expositors, considering that the apostles were generally poor men, and that the poor in those countries had often no other covering than this blanket, rather suppose, that the terrified disciple fled away in a state of absolute nudity. But if it was the apostle John, where was he furnished with clothes to appear almost immediately after in the high-priest's hall ? This difficulty Mr. Harmer endeavours to remove by sup- posing, that In in the -at den he might go to hi of residence in the city, and clothe himself anew before he went to the palace— Paxton. Ver. 15. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said to Samson's wife, Entice thy husband, that ho may declare unto us the rid- dle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have 1 is it not so ? The marriage feast was of old, frequently prt the length of seven days; for so long Samson entertained Ins friends at Tinmaih.' To this festival, Laban by many divines to refer, in his answer to Jacob's com- plaint, that he had imposed Leah upon him instead ol Rachel; "Fulfil the week of the marriage, and we will give thee this also." This feast was calico the nuptial joy, with which no other was to be intermixed; all labour ceased while it continued, and no sign of mourning or sor- row was permitted to appear. It may be only further observed, that even in modern times, none but very poor people l'H e a daughter in marriage without a female slave for a handmaid, as hired servants are scarcely known in the oriental regions. Hence Laban, who was a man of considerable property in Mesopotamia, "gave unto his daughter Leah, Zilpah his maid, for a handmaid;" and in Rachel his daughter, Bilhah his handmaid, to be her maid." In Greece aNo, the marriage solemnity lasted several days. On the third day, the bride presented her bridegroom with a robe; gifts were likewise made to the bride'and bridegroom, by the bride's father and friends; I. b' ils, couches, plates, and all sorts of necessaries for housekeeping, which were car- ried in great state to the house by women, preceded by a perssn carrying a basket, in the manner usual at proces- sions, before whom went a boy in while vestments, with n torch in his hand. It was also customary for the bride- groom and his friends to give presents to the bride, after which, the bridegroom had leave to converse freely with her, and she was permitted to appear in public without her veil. The money, says Dr. Russell, which the bridegrooms of Aleppo pay for their brides, is laid out in furniture .'"or a chamber, in clothes, jewels, or ornaments cf gold, for the bride, whose father makes seme addition, according to his circumstances: which things are sent with great pomp to the bridegroom's house three days before the wedding.— Paxton. Ver. 16. And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it mv father nor my mother, and shall I tell it thee '? In all parts of the world, I believe, people aie pretty much alike as to their capability of keeping secrets. The Hindoos, however, improperly reflec upon the female sex in their proverb, " To a -woman tell not a secret." That secret must be great indeed which will prevent a son or daughter from telling it to the father or mother. The greatest proof of confidence is to say, " I have told you what I have not revealed to my father." In proof of 'the great affection one has for another, it is said, " He has told things to him that he would not have related to his parents." "My friend, do tell me the secret." — "Tell youl yes, when I have told my parents." — Roberts. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 4. And Samson went and caught three hun- dred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst te- tween two tails. The book of Judges contains a singular anecdote, of the mischief which Samson did by menus ot this animal to the Sropertv r f his enemies. He " went and caught three hen- red foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst, between two tails ; and whm he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the stanc- | ing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, 144 JUDGES. and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives." On reading this curious statement, the infidel asks with an air of triumph, How could Samson procure so man)' foxes in so short a time 1 To this question it may be answered, the concurring testimony of travellers clearly proves, that the Ian i of promise abounded with foxes. The same fact is suggested by the prediction of David, that his enemies should become the prey of foxes ; and by the invitation of Solomon already quoted from the Song. Some districts and cities in that country, take their name from the fox ; a sure proof of their numbers in those parts: "Thus, the land of Shual, mentioned in the first book of Samuel, sig- nifies the land of the fox ;" and Hazarshual, the name of a city, belonging to the tribe of Judah, or Simeon, means the fox's habitation. Besides, the term foxes, in the opinion of Bochart, embraces the thoes, a species of wolf, which very much resemble the fox, and are extremely numerous in judea, particularly about Cesarea. Bellonius asserts, that they may be seen in troops of two or three hundred, prowling about in quest of their prey ; and Morizon, who travelled in Palestine, says, that foxes swarm in that coun- try, and that very great numbers of them lurk in hedges and in ruinous buildings. To find so many of these ani- mals, therefore, could be no great difficulty io a person ac- customed to the chase, as this renowned Israelite may be reasonably supposed to have been. Nor is it said, that Samson caught all these foxes in one, or even in two days ; a whole week, or even a month, might be spent in the cap- ture, for any thing that appears to the contrary. Add to. this, that, although Samson himself might be a most expert hunter, we have no reason to think he caught all these ani- mals alone. So eminent a personage as the chief magis- trate of Israel might employ as many people as he pleased, in accomplishing his purpose. When, for example, it is said, that Solomon built the temple at Jerusalem, no man supposes, that he executed the work with his own hands; he only caused the work to be done : and, in the same man- ner, Samson may be said to do what he only commanded to be done, or assisted in doing. Nor can it be reasonably denied, that the God who made the world, and by his spe- cial providence, watched over the prosperity of his ancient people, and intended, at this time, to deliver them from their enemies, could easily dispose matters, so as to facili- tate or secure the capture of as many foxes, as the design of Samson required. In this singular stratagem, he is thought, by some writers, to have had two things in view; at once, to deliver his country from those noxious animals, and to do tht greatest possible mischief to his enemies. No kind of animals could be more suited to his purpose, espe- cially when coupled together in this manner; for they run long' and swiftly, not in a direct line, but with many wind- ings, so that, while thev draped in opposite directions, they spread the fire over all the fields of the Philistines with the greater rapidity and success, and were at the same time prevented from getting into the woods, or holes in the rocks, where the firebrands had been extinguished, and the stratagem rendered ineffectual. — Paxton. Ver. 18. And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, Thou hast given this great deliver- ance into the hand of thy servant : and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised ? 19. But God clave a hol- low place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout ; and when he had drunk his spirit came again, and he revived : wherefore he called the name thereof En-hakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day. The impression ordinarily received from this passage hv the English reader, viz. that a fountain was opened in the jaw-bone, the instrument of Samsi m's victory, is proba- bly erroneous. From a preceding verse in this chapter it appears that the Philistines had trone up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. But as it happens Lehi is the original word for jaw, or jaw-bone, and our translators, following some of the ancient versions, have confounded the name of the place with that of the object from which it was derived. There is no good reason to tuppose that the hollow plac* was cloven in the jaw itself, for what can be understood by God's cleaving a cavity which was already in the bone ? For if he clave a cavity previously existing, would not the water naturally run through it and empty itself upon the ground t But let the word Lchi stand untranslated, and ail is plain. A certain cavity in the earth, in the place called Lchi, was miracu- lously cloven and opened, and a refreshing lountain of wa- ter gushed forth, which continued thenceforth to ilow down to the time when the history was written. This was call- ed, in memory of the circumstance which gave rise to it, " En-hakkore'/' i. e. the wcllur fountain of him that cried. — B. All that this passage affirms is, lhat'in the place where Samson then was, and which, from thistransaction, he called Lehi, or the Jaw-bone, there was a hollmu place which God clave, from whence a fountain flowed, which relieved Samson when ready to perish, and which continued lo yield a considerable supply of water, at the time this sa- cred book was written, and possibly may flow to this day. Doubdan, in one single day, when he visited the country about Jerusalem, met with two such places. On Easter Monday, the first of April, 1658, he set out, he informs us, with about twenty in company, to visit the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. They went the same road the two disciples are supposed to have taken, when our Lord joined them, when he made their hearts burn within them. A convent was afterward built in the place where our Lord is ima- gined to have met them. Only some pieces of the walls of freestone are now remaining, with some walls and half- broken arches, and heaps of rubbish, together with a great cistern full of water, derived partly from rain, and partly from the springs in the mountain there, particularly from a most beautiful and transparent fountain, a little above it, which breaks out at the farther end of the grotto, naturally hollowed out in the hard rock, and which is overhung with small trees, where they made a considerable stop to refresh themselves. The water of this spring running bv a channel into the cistern, ard afterward turning a mill which was just by the cistern, and belonged to the monas- tery, and from thence flowed, as it still does, into the *or- rent-bed of that valley, from whence David collected the five smooth stones, of which one proved fatal lo Goliath. Here we see a hollow place, a grotto, in which the God of nature had divided the rock for the passage of the water of a beautiful spring. It was a grotto in Lehi, in which God, on this occasion, made the water to gush out, and run in a stream into the adjoining country, where the exhaust- ed warrior stood. — Burder. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 6. And Delilah said to Samson, TeU me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest he bound to afflict thee. 7. And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withes that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man. That is, any kind of pliant, tough wood, twisted in the form of a cord or rope. Such are used in many countries. formed out of osiers, bazle, &c. In Ireland, very long and strong ropes are made of the fibres of bog-wood, or the larger roots of the fir, which is often dug up" in the bogs or mosses of that country. In some places, they take the skin of the horse, cut it lengthwise from the hide, into thongs about two inches broad"; and after having laid them in stilt for some time, take them out for use. This is freouentlv done in the country parts of Ireland ; and is chiefly used for agricultural purposes, particularly for drawing the plough and the harrow, instead of iron chains. — Euider. Ver. 7. And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven gTeen withes that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man. People in England would be much surprised to see what powerful ropes are made from the withes of shrubs or trees While they are in a green state, they are stronger than anv other ropes that are made in the country. Wild ele- phants, or buffaloes just caught, generally have their legs bound with green withes. — Roberts. JUDGES. I IS Ver. 10. And she made him sleep upon her knei s, Ii is verv amusing to Bee a fall -grown son, or a husband, a-l.'i-p on Ins mother's or wile's knees. The plan is as m the carpet or mat, and the man having laid himself down, pats his head in her lap, and she gently taps, strokes, sings, and sooths him to sleep.— Roberts. Ver. 21. But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and hound him with letters of brass; and he did grind in the prison-house. With the Greeks and Asiatics, the way of putting out the eves, or blinding, was in ii ng out the eyes, as soi • or holding a' red-hot iron before them. This method is still in use in Asia. According to Chardin, however, the pupils of the eves were pierced and destroyed on such occasions. But Thevenot savs, that " the eye's in these barbarous acts are taken out whole, with the point of a dagger, and carried to the king in a basin." He adds, that, "as the king sends whom he pleases to do that cruel otiice, some pi sj) butchered by unskilful hands, that it costs them their rives. " In Persia it is no unusual practice for the kirfg to punish a rebellious city or province by exacting so many pounds of i ecutioners accordingly go and sco 'p on: horn every one they meet, till they have the weight required.— Border. The custom of daily grinding their corn for the family, shows the propriety of t he law : " No man shall take the he upper millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man's life to pledge ;" because if he take either the upper or the nether millstone, he deprives him of his daily pro- vision, which cannot be prepared without them, and, by txnsequence, exposes him and all his house to utter destruc- tion. That complete and perpetual desolation which, by the jus: allotment of heaven, is ere long to overtake the mystical Babylon, is clearly signified by the same precept : "The sound of the millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.'' The meansof subsistence being entirelydestroyed, no human creature shall ever occupy the ruined habitations more. In the book of Judges, the sacred historian alludes, wih characteristic accuracy, to several circumstances im- plied in that custom, where he describes the fall of Abira- elech. A woman of Thebez, driven to desperation by his furious attack on the tower, started up from the mill at which she was grinding, seized the upper millstone, (::^-:) and rushing to the top of the gate, cast it on his head, and fractured his skull. This was the feat of a woman, for the mill is worked only by females: it is not a piece of a millstone, but the ritlcr, 'the distinguishing name of the upper millstone, which literally rides upon the other, and is a piece or division of the mill : it was a stone of " two feet broad," and therefore fully sufficient, when thrown from such a height, to produce the effect mentioned in the narrative. It displays also the vindictive contempt which suggested the punisnment of Samson, the captive ruler of Israel. The Philistines, with barbarous contumely, com- pelled him to perform the meanest service of a female slave : they sent him to grind in the prison, but not for himself alone ; this, although extremely mortifying to the hero, had been more tolerable; they made linn grinder for the prison, while the vilest malefactor was permitted to look on and join in the cruel mockery of his tormentors. Samson, the ruler and avenger of Israel, labours, as Isaiah foretold the virgin daughter of Babylon should labour: "Come down, and sil in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon ; there is no throne, (no seat for thee,) 0 daughter of the Chal- deans . . . Take the millstones and grind meal," but not with the wonted song : " Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, ' there to conceal thy vexation and disgrace. — Paxton. Ver. 25. And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said. Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. " By this time all the kaavy in that honse was exhausted, the drinkers therefore removed to another, and Staus, the 19 prisoner, was told"to follow; in- legs were then tied and he was told to jump, while they lam. i 1 1. asked it this w« where he was to die. No, his mastei replied ,i I ways done wnli foreign slaves. 1 l.i him dance, they now ordered him to sing; he hj 'in . thei bade aim interpret it. i od he said ii praise of G'od. They then reviled his God; the., mies shocked him, and he admired in his heart the won- derful indulgence and long-sufli ins irdsthem.' (Southdey's Brazil.) Don Gabriel de Cardena account nearly Miniliar of ihe n tiers by the i Mans. He describes the n Bresano, a Spanish priest, who had the uii-li f captured by them. As soon as he arrived at the ] assembly, ,'hev indicted many wounds, and Healed him n. the most ci ii he was commanded losing like I he oilier prisoners ; he« a bIso commanded to dance : in vain be excused himsell >n the plea of inability. Forced into the middle of the circ! bv these barbarians, be was by one ordered to sing, by another to dance; if he persisted in keening silence, hi was cruelly beaten, and when he attempted to comply with their requests, his treatment was nearly the same. For upward of a month during their revels, he endured thi most exquisite suifeiii _■*. v. I.ieh v. . :e to have been termi nated by his being burnt to death, had not one of the chiefs mitigated his sentence, and delivered him to an ■ in pi ii oi her grandson, who had been killed so B rder. Ver. 27. Now the bouse was full of men and women : and all the lords of the Philistines were there : and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. The method of building in the East, may assist us in ac- counting for the particular structure of the temple or bouse of Dagon, and the great number of people that were buried in its ruins, by pulling down the two principal pillars upon which it rested. About three thousand persons crowded the roof, to beheld while the captive cliampion of Israel made sport to his triumphant and unfeeling enemies. Sam- son, therefore, must have been in a court or area beneath ; and consequently, the temple will be of the same kind with the ancient rsficw), or sacred enclosures, which were onlv surrounded, either in part or on all sides, with a or cloistered "buildings. Several palaces and ilc,ii->rniins,a^ the halls of justice are called in these countries, are built in this fashion, in whose courts, wrestlers exhibit for the amusement of the peoplp, on their public festivals and re- while the roofs of these cloisters are crowded with spectators, that behold their feats of strength and agilitv. 'When Dr. Shaw was at Algiers, he frequently saw the inhabitants diverted in this manner, upon the rool of the dev's palace ; which, like many more of the s;im. quality and denomination, has an advanced cloister ovi against the sate of the palace, made in the form of a large pent-house, supported only by one or two contiguous pillars in the front, or else in the centre. In such open structures as these, the great officers of state distribute justice, and transact the public affairs of their provinces. Here, like- wise, they have their public entertainments, as the lords ot the Philistines had in the temple of their god. I therefore, that in the house of Dagon, was a eioistere.l building of this kind, the pulling down of the frootor centre pillars which supported it, would alone be attended with the catastrophe which happened to the Philistines.— Pax- ton. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 8. And he arose early in the morning- on the fifth day to depart ; and the damsel's father said. Comfort thy heart, I pray thee. And they tarried until afternoon, and they did eat both ot them. "Until afternoon." Hebrew, "till the day declined."1 In this way also do the people of the East speak, when the sun has passed the meridian; " I shall not go till the stir JUDGES. Chap. 19. ;o till the declining time." — Rob- Ver. 27. And her lord rose up in the morning-, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. 28. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going: hut none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place. 29. And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with Ker bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel. 30. And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen, from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day : consider of it, take ad- vice, and speak your minds. The interpreters say little or nothing of the real views of the Levite, in thus cutting to pieces the body of his con- cubine, and sending a part to each tribe of Israel. They only say that the Levite was induced to this seeming out- rage, merely " to excite a general indignation against the authors of so black a crime; that he committed no sin in ihus maltreating a dead body, though it was his own con- cubine's; as being so far from having any intention to offer it the least indignity, that he only considered the^eparalion of the ignominy wiih which his concubine had been treated : and that, after all, the success fully justified his action and conduct." It is certain that the Levite's motives were good and regular : he intended to unite the whole nation in vengeance of a crime in which it was interested, and which covered it with infamy; but it was not, as some have thought, the horror of the spectacle which the Levite held forth to the view of everybody, which produced this effect, and constrained their minds;' that is, it was not the sight of these human limbs, thus cut and torn to pieces, which made the Jews conspire, and obliged them to take a striking ven- geance of so black a crime. The bare relation of an outrage so enormous, was suffi- cient to put the whole nation to the necessity of exacting punishment for an infamy of this nature: natural equity spoke for the Levite; the most sacred rights were violated to the utmost; never was adultery more glaringly commit- ted, or more insolently countenanced: it had involved a whole tribe; a general and universal punishment, therefore, was indispensably necessary ; the text of scripture is ex- press m a hundred places; and the Israelites could not be ignorant. But they might be checked by the extent of the punishment ; by the great number, the credit, the forcesand powerof the offenders; bythe natural commiseration which is felt for those who are of the same blood ; in a word, by an aversion to destroy a city, and to involve it utterly in the vengeance due to it. To oblige the nation to hear none of these reasons, the Levite sought and seized a method which might bind it, and by no means allow it to avoid his pursuits; which, in short, might put them to the indispen- sable necessity of espousing his and his concubine's inter- ests, or to speak more properlv, of taking up the cause of froth. The only part, then, wnich he had to take, was to •cut in pieces either the body of his wife, as he did, or else fhat of an ox, or other like animal, which had been either devoted, or offered in sacrifice, and to send a part of it to •each tribe. In consequence of this, every tribe entered into a covenant and indissoluble engagement with them, to see justice done him, for the injury he had received. This is what the interpreters of scripture seem not to have known, and which it is necessarv to explain. The ancienls had several ways of uniting themselves together bv the strictest t ies. and these ties lasted for as long as the parties had stipu- lated. Among these, there were two principal; both ad- mivablv well described in the sacred books. The first is that sacrifice of Abraham, the circumstances of which are .leruioned, Gen. xv. 9. &c. The second is as follows: — A bullock was offered in sacrifice, or devoted: it was cut in pieces and distributed; all who had apiece of this sacrificed or devoted bullock, were from thenceforward connected, and were to concur in the carrying on the affair which had given place to the sacrifice. But this sacrifice or devoting, and this division, was variously practised, winch also pro- duced engagements somewhat different. If he who was at the expense of the sacrifice or devoting, were a public per- son, in a high office — a king, for instance, a prince, or judge — that is to say, a »hief magistrate, or had the principal authority in a "city, or stale ; he sent, of his own accord, a piece of the victim or animal devofed.toall who were sub- ject to him ; and by this act they were obliged to enter mtc his views, to obey him, and to execute his orders without examination, or pretending difficulty or incapacity. If, on the contrary, the sacrifice were offered by a private person, those only who voluntarily took a piece of the sacrificed or devoted portions, entered into a strict engagement to espouse the interest of him who sacrificed or devoted, and to em- ploy therein their fortunes and their persons. Connexions of this kind derived their force from the deities in honour of whom the sacrifice was offered, or the devotion made : from the true God, when the devotion was made by the Jews; from idols, when the sacrifice was offered by the gentiles. The devotion was adopted by the Jews, and the sacrifice by the pagans. This difference betwixt them, pro- duced a second : the Jews were content to invoke and take to witness the Lord ; whereas the pagans never failed to place in the midst of them, upon an altar of green turf, the deities who presided over their covenant ; and these kind of deities were called common, because in fact they were the common deities of all who are thus united, and receiv- ed in common the honours which they thought proper to pay them. These facts place the Levite's intents in their full light. His cutting in pieces the body of his concubine, was' an anathema, a devoting which he made to the Lord ; ar.d his sending a part of the pieces to each tribe, clearly signi- fied that he considered all the tribes as subject to the same anathema. God authorized these kinds of consecrations. The scripture is full of examples, which represent some- times persons, sometimes whole nations, whom he had him- self smitten with a curse. He would have no sacrifices, however, of human victims ; but he approved of devotions to death : and yet, to consider both in certain points of view, thev amounted nearly to the same thing. Again, devotion to death was a much stronger obligation than the promi-e of a sacrifice. A sacrifice vowed might be dispensed with, and redeemed; whereas, so soon as the anathema was pro- nounced, the party was for ever bound, and there was nc room for redemption, Lev. xxvii. 28, 29. It is certain that the Levite had a right to devote his wife to death, while she lived ; much more reasonably, then, might he devote her body when dead. It is so much the more" probable thai he really did so, as there was no other method of devotion and anathema that could induce the whole nation to be bound to declare itself in his favour. This anathema, as has been already remarked, extended not only to the body of his wife, but also to the twelve tribes, whom he involved in it, in case they took not effectual means to avenge both the indignity which the Benjamites of Gibeah would lave offered him, and the horrible outrages which they had committed upon his concubine. What confirms this opin- ion, is, that in fact the twelve tribes assembled subscribed to this devotion. First, bv taking up arms, as they did. Secondly, bv swearing before the ark, not to return to their tents or "into" their houses, till they had punished the offend- ers, Judges xx. 8, 9. Thirdly, by putting to the sword all that remained in the city of' Gibeah, both man and beast, and burning all the cities and towns of Benjamin. Judges xx. 48. Fourthlv, by swearing with an imprecation, rot to give their daughters in marriage tothe children of Ben- jamin, and by cursing him who should do so, ch. xxi. 1 — IS. Fifthly, and lastlv, bv engaging themselves by a terrible oath, to kill even- Israelite who should not lake arms against the Benjamites, "ib. ver. 5. These are all of them marks of anathema and devoting; and it would be to shut one's eyes to thelight,not to discern in them the most express anathemas and devotions. Some, perhaps, will object, that a private individual, as was this Levite, could noi, of his own authority, subject to the anath- ema his whole nation. It is true, this Levite could devote Chap. 1—2. RUTH. 147 (o death only his wives, his children, and his slaws, and submit to the anathema only his fields, vineyard-, houses, household stuff, and, in short, his goods and what 1. ■ 1 . . r , - . • , i in him. Hi- authon'v extended no further. Only a judge of the Israelites, or their king, or perhaps the high-priest, could do this. Social the Levitehad no intention to devote hi- whole nation, a- he devoted the body of his concubine. ■d hi- authority within its natural bounds; he contented himself wilh declaring, by the sending the flesh and limbs of his concubine, that the whole nation was sub- ject vo the anathema: this anathema was pronounced by G*l himself, and clearly declared in the law ; if just meas- ures were not taken to punish in a body the infamous crimes of the B^ijamites, these crimes no way yielded to those of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, so sol- emnly anathematized. A like fate, therefore, was to await them. God had expressly forbidden adultery, and had placed it in the number of those crimes, of which the simple fact rendered the offenders accursed. They were not only to be put t'i death, (Lev. xx. 10; Dent. xxii'. -2i, &c.,) but also to perish from among God's people, Lev. 19 j that is, they were to be cut otf from the synagogue ; they could no longer pretend to the promises of the covenant, or the prerogatives of true and faithful Israelites ; in a word, ihey were to be excommunicated and anathematized. The nation, there- fore, could not leave unpunished the crimes of the inhabit- ants of Gibeah, without charging themselves with the crime, and whatever was attached to it. The Levite, by announcing the crime, by declaring the obliaation which ll. 'i- lav to punish, and by placing in full view the anathe- ma which they incurred who should refuse to league, to contribute to the effectual punishment, did nothing more than he might do; nothing inconsistent with his condition, his rank, his quality, his dignity : he was even obliged to do so by his function of Levite': he explained the text of the law, 2 Esdras viij. 9. There was, properly speaking, no other method lhan that which he took, to specify the greatness of the crime of the inhabitants of Gibeah ; and he confined himself to that. The whole nation instantly understood it as a universal anathema, without I ■ in- formed of the nature, of the crime which had incurred it. Thus, it is remarkable, that all the tribes expressly assem- bled at Mizpeh, to know of the Levite what was the mat- ter. He answered, " That the Benjamites of Gibeah had threatened to kill him, unless he consented to their in- famous pa-sion; that, moreover, they had injured his con- cubine with so mad and incredible a brutality, that, in short, she had died of it." Judg. xx. 3 — 5. tJpon this, every one was convinced of the reality of the anathema, and they not only all obliged themselves by oath not to re- turn to "their houses, without chastising the inhabitants ol Gibeah, in a manner suitable to the extent and blackness of their Crime, ver. 10; but also to treat, in li»e manner, all those of the nation who should not mar;h with ihe army of the Lord against the Benjamites of Gioeah, ch. sxi. 5; which was, in fact, executed with regard to the inhabitants of JabeshGilead, who were all put to the sword, without regard to sex or age, ver. 10. Thus is the anathe- ma sufficiently made out. — Critic* Biblica. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 19. Then they said, •Behold, there is a feast of the Lord in Shiloh yearly, in a place which is on the north side of Beth-el, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah. " On the east side." The Hebrew has, " towards the sun- rising." Does a person ask the way to a place which lies towards the east, he will be told to go to the rising place, to the rising sly. If to the west, walk for the departed place, the gone down place. — Roberts. RUTH CHAPTER I. ver. 1 1. Are there any more sons in my womb? Sc said Naomi to the widows of her sons who were fol- lowing her. When a mother has lost her son, should his widow only come occasionally to see her, the mother will be displeased, and affect to be greatly surprised when she does come. " Do I again see yon!" "Is it possible!" "Are there any more sons in my womb V But the moiher-in-law also uses this form of expression when she does not wish to see the widow. — Roberts. Ver. 17. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. TV i dreadful practice of widows burning themselves on the funeral pile with the dead bodies of their husbands, has made the declaration ofthetext familiarto the naiive mind. Hence a wife, when her husband is sick, should he be in danger, will say, " Ah ! if he die, I also will die ; I will t'o with him ; yes, my body, thou also shalt be a corpse." A slave, also, to a good master, makes use of the same language. Husbands sometimes boast of the affection of their wives, and compare them to the eastern stork, which if it lose its mate in the night is said immediately to shriek and die. — Roberts. CHAPTER II. Ver. 2. And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, C4o, my daughter. The word glean comes from the French glaner, to gather cars or grains of corn. This was formerly a general cus- tom in England and Ireland : the poor went into the fields, and collected the straggling ears of corn after the reapers; and it was long supposed that this was their right, and that the law recognised it : but although it has been an old custom, it is now settled by a solemn judgment of the Court of Common* Pleas, that a right to glean in the har- ve-t-tield cannot be c.aimed by any person at common law. Any person may permit or prevent it in his own grounds. By certain acts of Henry VIII., gleaning and leasing are so restricted, as to be, in' fact, prohibited in that part of the united kingdom. — Bcrder. Ver. 4. And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee. He went Into the field to fee how his workmen pel- formed their service, and to encourage them by ha 148 presence. Though he was both rich and great, he did not think it beneath him to go into his field, and personally inspect his servants. Thus Homer represents a king among his reapers, with his sceptre in his hand, and dis- covering great cheerfulness on the occasion. Iliad, xviii. -cer. 556, 557. Amid them, stall' in hand, tin' master stood While, steeled liv an nak, apart, his train, Prepared the banquet. (.Cuwper.) — Burder. The reapers go to the field very early in the morning, and return home betimes in the afternoon. They carry provisions along with them, and leathern bottles, or dried bottle-gourds, rilled with water. They are followed by their own children, or by others, who glean with much success; for a great quantity of corn is scattered in the reaping, and in their manner of carrying it. The greater part of these circumstances, arc discernible in the manners of the ancient Israelites. Ruth had not proposed to Naomi, her mother-in-law, to go to the field, and glean after the reapers ; nor had the servant of Boaz, to whom she applied fir leave, so readily granted her request, if gleaning had not been a common practice in that country. When Boaz inquired who she was, his overseer, after 'informing him, observes, that she came out to the field in the morning ; and that the reapers left the field early in the afternoon, as Dr. Russel states, is evident from this circumstance, that Ruth had time to beat out her gleanings before evening. They carried water and provisions with tjiem; for Boaz invited her to come and drink of the water which the voting men had drawn ; and at meal-time, to eat of the bread, and dip her morsel in the vinegar. And so great was the simplicity of manners in that part of the world, ami in those times, that Boaz himself, although a prince of high rank in Judah, sat down to dinner, in the field, with his reapers, and helped Ruth with his own hand. Nor ought we to pass over in silence, the mutual salutation of lioaz and his reapers, when he came to the field, as it strongly marks the state of religious feeling in Israel at the lime, and furnishes another proof of the artless, the happy, and unsuspecting simplicity, which characterized the man- ners of that highly favoured people. " And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And 'hey answered him, The Lord bless thee." Such a mode of salutation continued among that people till the coining of Christ; for the angel saluted Mary in language of similar import: "Hail, highly fa- voured, the Lord is with thee ; blessed art thou among women." It appears from the beautiful story of Ruth, that in Palestine, the women lent their assistance in cutting down and gathering in the harvest ; for Boaz commands her to keep 'fast by his maidens :— the women in Svria shared also in the labours of the harvest ; for Dr. Russel informs us, they sang the Ziraleet, or song of thanks, when the passing stranger accepted their present of a handful of corn, and made a suitable return. — Paxton. Ver. 14. And Boaz said unto her, At meal-time come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. When Boaz is represented as having provided vinegar for his reapers, in :o which they might dip their bread, and kindly invited Ruth to share with them in the repast, we are not to understand it of simple vinegar, but vinegar mingled with a small portion of oil, if modern manage- ments in the Levant be allowed to be the most natural comment on those of antiquity. For even the Algerines indulge their miserable captives with a small portion of oil to the vinegar they allow them with their bread, according to the account Pitt gives of the treatment he and his com- panions received from them, of which he complains with some asperity. What the quality of the bread was, that the reapers of Boaz had, may be uncertain, but there is all imaginable reason to suppose the vinegar into which they lipped it was made more grateful by the addition of oil. — Harmer. Ver. 1 4. And she sat the reapers: and he H. Chap. 2. reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left. " To-day we crossed the valley of Elassar, and bathed in the hot-baths of Solomon, situated on the southern side, nearly at the bottom, near some corn-fields, where one of our Arabs plucked some green ears of corn, parched them for us, by putting them in the fire, and then, when roasted, rubbed out the grain in his hands." (Macmichel.) " After a ride of two hours from the valley of Zebulon," says Korte, " we came to a place where the disciples of the Lord are said to have plucked and eaten ears of corn on the sabbath day. The wheat in this country is not differ- ent from ours, only the grains are as hard as a stone from the heat, and therefore not so good to eat as with us. But in Egypt, in the Holy Land, and in all Syria, there grows a kind of beans, or peas, winch are superior to our peas; the stalk grows almost like the lentil: in the pod, which is very thick, and mostly hangs in bunches, there is general- ly only one grain. This kind is eaten green in the coun- try, and also in the towns, whither ihey are brought in bunches: when they are too old, they are roasted over coals, and so eaten, when they taste belter. This is doubt- less the parched com mentioned in the book of Ruth, and several other places." — Rosenmlu.er. " preparing their corn for food, id. Burgle is very commonly f Aleppo ; which is wheal boil- so as to separate it from the ed, ami laid up for use. The entioned by some writers as a sht on a remarkable 'iieralnientof his twe c< il 1 1.1 They have other w; besides making it inti used among the Christ ed, then bruised in a husk, after which it is dried, drying of burgle, though menti modern operation, seems to th passage in the history of David ; spies in a well whose mouth was covered with corn. The custom of exposing corn in this way, must have been very common in Judea, else it had rather excited suspicion in the minds of the pursuers, than diverted their attention from the spot where the spies were concealed. That the well's mouth was covered on that occasion with burgle or boiled wheal, is exceedingly probable ; for Dr. Russel observes, that in prepariicj it after it has been softened ill warm wa- ommonly laid out in the courtyard to dry. It <•■ ]!■ or or meal; for they grind it only in small quantities, and as they want it, and never are known to ex- pose it in this way. Bishop Patrick supposes it was corn newly thrashed out, she pretended to dry; but if this was practised at all, of which we have no evidence, it was by no means common, and therefore calculated rather to be- tray, than to conceal the spies. Besides, the same word is used to signify corn beaten in a mortar with a pestle, not on the barn-floor with a thrashing instrument ; now burgle is actually pounded in this manner. It was therefore bur- gle or boiled wheal, which DArvieux expressly says is dried in the sun ; adding that they prepare a whole year's provision of it at once. Wheat and barley were prepared in the same way by the ancient Romans; which renders it very probable that the custom was universal among the civilized nations of antiquity. This is the reason that nei- ther the exposure of the corn, nor the large quantity, pro- duced the least suspicion ; every circumstance accorded with the public usage of the country, and by consequenee, the preparation of this species of food is as ancient as the days of David. Sawick is a different preparation, and consists of corn parched in the ear; it is made, as well of barley and rice, as of wheat. It is never called, in the in- spired volume, parched flour or meal, but always parched corn ; and consequently, seems to remain after the roasting, and to be eaten in the state of corn. In confirmation of this idea, we may quote a fact stated by Hasselquist, that in journeying from Acre to Sidon, he saw a shepherd eating his dinner, consisting of half-ripe ears of wheat roasted, which he ate, savs the traveller, with as good an appetite as a Turk does his pillaw. The same kind of food, he says, is much used in Egypt by the poor ; they roast the ears of Turkish wheat or millet; but it is in his account far inferior to bread. Dr. Shaw is of a different opinion ; he supposes the kali, or parched corn of the scriptures, which he translates parched pulse, means parched cicers. But we frequently read in scripture of dried or parched corn ; and the word used in those passages is most natural- ly to be understood of corn, and not of pulse. Besides, Rauwolf asserts that cicers are used in the East only as J '".'ii a p. 3, 4. Ill oart of the dessert after their meals. But it cannot be rea- sonably supposed, that Boaz would entertain his reapers wiih things of this kind; or that those fruits which in mod- ern times are used only in desserts, formed the principal part of a reaper's meal, in the field of so wealthy a propri- etor. This, however, the opinion nf Mr. Shaw requires to be supposed ; for it is said in the inspired record, " He reached Ruth parched corn, and she did eat, and was suf- ficed, and left. — Paxton. CHAPTER III. Ver. 2. And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast ? Behold, he winnoweth barley to-night in the thrashing- floor. In these regions much of the agricultural labour is per- formed in the night. The sun is so hot, and so pernicious, thai the farmers endeavour, as much as possible, to avoid its power. Hence numbers plough and irrigate their fields and gardens long after the sun has gone down, or be- fore u rises in the morning. The wind i- also generally the night, which might induce Boaz to prefer that season. From the next two verses we learn that he took Ins supper there, and slept among the barley. Corn in the I'. I-' is nol kept in stacks, but alter being reaped, is, in a few days, thrashed on the spot. The thrashing-floor is a circle of about forty feet in diameter, and consists Derail] of clay, and cowdung, without wall or fence. Under these circumstances, it is necessary for some of the people to sleep near the corn, till all shall have been thrashed and taken home. — Roberts. Ver. 7. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of a heap of corn : and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down. Margin to the fourth verse, "lift up the clothes that are All inferiors, all servants, sleep at the feet of their master. It is no uncommon thing for those who have a great favour to procure, to go to the house of the rich, with the head at his door, or in the verandah. Thus, when he arises in the morning, he finds the suppliant at his door. Should a master wish to dismiss his servants, they often say, "My lord, turn us not away; how many years have we slept at your feetl" — Roberts. Ver. 9. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered. I am Ruth thy handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid ; for thou art a near kinsman. The prophet Ezekicl. in describing the Jewish church as an exposed infant, mentions the care of God in bringing her up wilh great tenderness, and then, at the proper time, marrying her; which is expressed in the same way as the lequest of Ru'h : " I spread mv skirt over thee" — ■ — "and thou becamest mine." Dr. A. Clarke says, "Even to the present day, when a Jew marries a woman, he throws the skirt or end of his talith over her, to signify that he has taken her under his protection." I have been delighted, at the marriage ceremonies of the Hindoos, to see among them the same interesting custom. The bride is seated on a throne, surrounded by matrons, having on her veil, her gayest robes, and most valuable jewels. After the thali hash sen tied round her neck, the bridegroom approaches her with a silken skirt, (purchased by himself,) and folds it round her several times over the rest of her clothes. A common way of saving he has married her, is, " he has given her the koori" has spread the skirt over her. There are. however, those who throw a long robe over the shoul- ders of the bride, instead of putting on the skirt. An angry husband sometimes says to his wife, "Give me back my skirt," meaning, he wishes to have the marriage compact dissolved. So the mother-in-law, should the daughter not treat her respectfully, savs, " My son gave this woman the koori. skirt, and has made her respectable, but she neglects me." The request of Ruth, therefore, amounted to nothing more than that Boaz should marry her. — Roberts. IH. 149 CHAPTER IV. Ver. 1. Then went Boaz up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the kinsman of whom Boaz spake came by ; unto whom he said, Ho, such a one ! turn aside, sit dow And he turned aside, and sat down. The word pate is often used in scripture, to denote the place of public assemblies where justice is administered. — This definition of the word gate, m its first Ben exactly with the usages ot tie- Hindoos. People, therefore, \\ ho ondei -land it literally, as meaning always a in the walls of the city, do not comprehend its meaning. At the entrance of every town or village, there is a public building, called a rest-house, where travellers remain, and where people assemble to hear the news, or talk over [he affairs of the place. There may be seen many a Bi B asking for the advice of his relations and friends, and many an Abraham as he sat "at the gate of his city," bar- gaining " for the field," and " the cave of Machpelah," in which to bury his beloved Sarah. — Roberts. Ver. 2. And he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, Sit ye down here. And they sat down. Among the Hebrews, and, before them, among the Ca- naanites, the purchase of any thing of consequence was concluded, and the price paid, publicly, at the gate of ihe ment, and to pass away the lime, were wont to sit in lit gates, purchases there made could always be testified by numerous wilnesses. Their care to have them so attested. might, perhaps, be a relic of the custom of the times pre- ceding the invention of the art of writing; (which, by the way, took place probably not very long before the days of Abraham ;) and it did not even after that period cease to be useful, because among the Hebrews writing not being ver) common, the memory of witnesses had often to supply the place of a document of purchase. At the same time, it would seem that such documents were not altogether unu- sual. For the xxiii. chapter of Genesis is in its style so different from that of Moses on other occasions, and has -,, much of the appearance of the record of a solemn jurid- ical procedure, that it almost seems to be a deed oj )»/ chase. From Ruth iv. 7, we learn another singular' usage on occasions of purchase, cession, and exchange, viz thai the transference of alienable property had, in earlier times, been confirmed by the proprietor plucking off Ins shoe, and handing it over to the new owner. We'see at the same time, that in the age of David this usage had become anti- quated; for the writer introduces it as an unknown custom of former times, in the days of David's great-grandfather. I have not been able to find any further trace of it in the East; noryet has the Danish travelling mission to Arabia," as Captain Niebuhr himself informs me. Byna?us, in his book, De Valeria Hrhnmrmn, treats of it at great length; but, excepting the mere conjectures of modern literati, he gives no account of the origin of t«is strange symbol of 'he transfer of property. In the time of Moses it was so famil- iar, that barefooted was a term of reproach, and probably signified a man that had sold every thing, a spendthrift, and a bankrupt; and we see from Dent. xxv. 9, 10, thai Moses allowed it to be applied to the person who would ni l marrv his brother's widow. Could it have been an Egyptian custom, as we do not find it again in the East 1 The Egyp- tians, when they adored the Deity, had no shoes on; and of this the Pythagoreans gave the following explanation : " The philosopher, who came naked from his mother's womb, should appear naked before his Creator ; for God hears those alone who are not burdened wiih any thing extrinsic." — Among the Egvptians loo, barefooted was equivalent to nnl.nl, and naked synonymous will property, but one's self. This same custom of pulling or] the shoe, and that at the gate before all who went oul an 1 in, was also usual in important cases of the exchange n resignation of propertv; as for instance, (to take the exam- ple just quoted from Ruth iv. 7, 9,) when the nearest kins- man abandoned his right of redemption to a distant rela- tion; and we may, perhaps, thence conclude, that a sjm; RUTH. Chap. 4 lar form took place in cases of great donations, when not made on a sick-bed, but by persons in health. — Michaelis. . Ver. 7. Now this was the manner in former time in Israel, concerning redeeming, and concern- ing changing, for to confirm all things ; a man plucked off" his shoe, and gave it to his neigh- bour ; and this was a testimony in Israel. 8. Therefore the kinsman said unto Boaz, Buy it for thee. So he drew off" his shoe. See on Matt. 22. 24. The simple object, therefore, in taking off the shoe, was to confirm the bargain: it was the testimony or memorial of the compact. In Deuteronomy it is mentioned that the brother of a deceased husband shall marry the widow, but should he refuse, then the widow is to." go up to the gate unto the'elders and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother." Then the elders were to call the man, and if he persisted in his re- fusal, the woman was to come forward " and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face ; was to answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house. " From that time the man was dis- graced, and whenever his person or establishment was spoken of, it was contemptuously called " the house of him that hath his shoe loosed." To be spit at in the face is the most degrading ceremony a man can submit to. This was done by the widow to her husband's brother, and she confirmed his ignominy by taking off his shoe. But this taking off the shoe (as we shall hereafter see) may also allude to the death of her husband, whose shoes were taken off and of no further use to him. And as she said, when she had taken off the shoe from her husband's brother's fool, "thus shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house," may mean, he also shall soon follow his brother, and have his shoes taken off his feel n death. When Ramar had to go to reside in the deser. for fourteen years, his brother Parathan was very unwilling for him to go; and tried, in every possible way, to dissuade him from his purpose. But Ramar persisted in his resolution, having fully made up his mind to take his departure. When the brother, seeing that his entreaties were in vain, said, " Since you are determined to go, promise me laithfully to return." Then Ramar, having made the promise, gave his shoes to Parathan as a confirmation of his vow. Does a priest, a father, or a respectable friend, resolve to go on a pilgrimage to some distant country ; some one will perhaps say, "Ah ! he will never return, he intends to remain in those holy places. " Should he deny it, then they say, " Give us your shoes as a witness of your promise," and having done "so, never will he break it. An affectionate widow never parts with her late husband's shoes: they are placed near her when she sleeps, she kisses and puts her head upon them, and nearly every time after bathing, she goes to look at them. These, therefore, are the " testimony," the melancholy confirmation of her husband's death. — Roberts. Ver. 10 Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his in- heritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place : ye arc witnesses this day. I now proceed to the explanation of a singular law, which I must however preface, with entreating, in behalf of the lawgiver, that it may not be considered as an inven- tion of his own ; as it was in fact several centuries older than his laws, and as he very much limited and mitigated its operation. The law I mean, is what has been termed the Levirate law : in obedience to which, when a man died without issue, his brother was obliged to marry the widow ne left, and that with this express view, that the first son produced from the marriage should be ascribed, not to the natu al father, but to his deceased brother, and become his heir. This has been denominated Levii ate-marriage, from the word Levir, which though it appears not in the ancient classic authors, but only in the Vulgate and the Pandects, is nevertheless really an old Latin word, and is explained by Festus to signify a husband's brother. The Hebrews had in like manner an ancient law term, which we meet not with elsewhere, (ca> Jabam,) of the very same import ; whence come nw (jebemet,) a brothers wife, and ay (Jcb- bem,) to -marry siich a person. The Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan versions of the Bible do indeed retain this word, but it is not otherwise at all current in these languages, nor can we find in them the least trace of an etymology for it, and in the Arabic tongue it is altogether unknown. This is often the case with respect to the Hebrew law terms. The Hebrew language alone has them, and with- out all etymology, while in ihe kindred languages, they are either not to be found at all, or in quite a different sense. How that happens I am ignorant, with this exception, that I frequently remark, in like manner, among ourselves, an- cient law terms, whose etymology is obscure, because old words have been retained in law, while the language has in other respects undergone alterations. The law which obliged a man to marry the widow of his childless brother, was much more ancient than the time of Moses ; having been in use in Palestine among the Canaanites, and the ancestors of the Israelites, at least more than 250 years previous to the date of his law, and indeed with such rig- our, as left a person no possible means of evading it, how- ever irksome and odious compliance with it might appear to him. The law, however, was unquestionably attended with great inconveniences : for a man cannot but think it the most unpleasant of all necessities, if he must marry a woman whom he has not chosen himself. Must, in mat- ters of love and marriage, is a fearful word, and almost quite enough to put love to flight, even where beauty ex- cites it. We see, likewise, that the brother, in some in- stances, had no inclination for any such marriage, (Gen. xxxviii. Ruth iv.) and stumbled at this, that the first son produced from it could not belong to him. Whether a second son might follow, and continue in life, was very uncertain ; and among a people who so highly prized gene- alogical immortality of name, it was a great hardship for a man to be obliged to procure it for a person already dead, and to run the risk, meanwhile, of losing it himself. Nor was this law very much in favour of the morals of the other sex ; for not to speak of Tamar, who, in reference to it, conceived herself justified in having recourse to a most infamous action, I will here only observe, that what Ruth did, (chap. iii. 6 — 9,) in order to obtain, for a husband, the person whom she accounted as the nearest kinsman of lier deceased husband, is, to say the least, by no means conform- able to that modesty and delicacy which we look for in the othersex. A wise and good legislator could scarcely have been inclined to patronise any such law. But then it is not advisable directly to attack an inveterate point of honour; because in such a case, for the most part, nothing is gain- ed ; and in the present instance, as the point of honour placed immortality of name entirely in a man's leaving de- scendants behind him, it was so favourable to the increase of population, that it merited some degree of forbearance and tenderness. Moses, therefore, left the Israelites still in possession of their established right, but at the same time he studied as much as possible to guard against its risjour and evil effects, by limiting and moderating its operation in various respects. In the first place, he expressly prohibited the marriage of a brother's widow, if there were children of his own alive. Before this time, brothers were probably in the practice of considering a brother's widow as part of the inheritance, and of appropriating her to themselves, if unable to buy a wife, as the Mongols do; so that this was a very necessary prohibition. For a successor pr!iriis in thorn, whom a wife can regard as her future husband, is rather a dan- gerous neighbour for her present one's honour; and if she happen to conceive any predilection for the younger bro- ther, her husband, particularly in a southern climate, will hardly be secure from the risk of poison. In the second place, he allowed, and indeed enjoined, the brother to marry the widow of his childless brother but if he was not disposed to do so, he did not absolutely compel him, but left him an easy means of riddance ; for he had only to declare in court, that he had no inclination to marry her, and then he was at liberty. This, it is true, Chap. 4. RU subjected I nil to a punishment which at first appears suf- ■ « idou had a i ight 10 revile* I and from his pulling oil m- -li. n-, and deluding 11 to li it- widou , lie : irhich any body might apply to ii being liable to a prosecution. A little consid- iwever, will show mat this punishment ua-. not so se I'ere in reality as in appearance. For il E once understood, according to the usage of the language, .o 1.1 ■ ui ii. . i i 1 1 1 1 _- m. ue I ha, i . no longer fell as a term oi great reproai h, ither endure it, than have In- own re edoC To be once in his lifetime solemnl) abased in a publie court by a woman, i- .ii .i inncm li'miia man, orexua- ilie cause is known, and that the court allows her this liberty, in order to give free win to ■H because the mail will not marry her according to her wish; the more violent the emotions of her rage are, the mule flattering to him must they prove; and he will -ii. hi ol court with more pride than if she had excused him. from marrying her, with much coolness, or without on at all.— I have often heard vain fops menti n in company, how many women in oiA«r places would glad- ly have married them, and were greatly enraged that they would not take them. On persons of this description, sugh a judicial punishment would indeed have been very justly But it is at worst more flattering than even the i language with « Inch a lady begs leave to de- cline an oiler of marriage, or but distantly yields lo it. A legislator, in ordaining a punishment of this nature, could naidly have had il in view to insist very particularly on i ure of a statute, that but ratified an old custom by way .it a compliment. Il it had been a point in which he was interested he would have ordained a very different punishment. 3. The person whose duty it was to marry a childless willow, was the brother of her deceased husband, in the strict sense of the word, as the stojy in Gen. xxxvin. clear- ly shows. I would not have thought it necessary to make •his remark, had not the contrary opinion been maintained in a Dissertation delivered here" at Gottingen, in which it is asserted, that the word trotter, in Deul. xxv. 5 — 10, is to be taken in a general sense, and means a relai ding the real brother. The law, however, only extended to a brother living in the same city or country, not to one re- siding at a greater distance. Nor did it affect a brother having already a wife of his own. At least, if it had its origin in this, that by reason of the dearness of young wo- l a right i..s|,ii in no ikuiijt it may signify as much : but then lliat acl in a j j indecent, that iiany olhe his /fire. The Arabs, at tins day. when tiny wish 10 affront i BpiL and cry Ft; even people ol r-'- J nle do with'us. This account we i : do so, just even in lexicons ; but I knu'w it i ili-' information furnished both by Solomon Negri, ana- .1 by travellers. 2. pi> may also mean lo revile ; proper- ly BiUmeromcrr, winch signification is familiar in Arabia; only that, according to the usual rule, the Hebrew Jwl must be changed into Vau, and the word written I'urai. il. 151 men, often only one brother could marry, and the others I to do the same, it could only affect such as were unmarried ; and in the two instances that occur in Gen. xxxviii. and llutli iv. we' find ibe brothel -in-law, have been the ease, il he had pirvnuisly had another wife, or (but thai was at leas) expensive) could have taken one of his own choice. When there was no brother alive, or when he declined the duty, the Levirate-law, as we sen b of Ruth, extended to the next nearest rela- tion of the deceased husband, as for instance, 10 nal uncle, or nephew^ so that at last, even pretty remote kinsmen, in default of nearer ones, miirht be obliged to un- dertake it. Buaz does nut appeal to have been very nearly related to Ruth, as he did not so much as know who site was, when he fell in love with her, while she . ! laned " his fields. Nor did she know that he was any relation to her, until apprized of it by her mother-in-law. ' .'. Jews ofthese days, Levi rate-marriages have entirely ceased; so much so, that in the marriage contracts of the very poorest people among them, it is generally stipulated, that the bridegroom's brothers abandon all those rights to the bride, to which they could lay claim by Deut. xxv. — Mi- Ver. 11. And all the people that u-crf in the -rate, nnd the elders, said, We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that is come into thy house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel; and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Beth- lehem. The marriage ceremony was commonly performed in a garden, or in the open air"; the bride was placed under a canopy, supported by four youths, and adorned with jewels according to the rank of the married persons; all the com- pany crying out wilh joyful acclamations, Blessed be he that comelh. It was anciently the custom, at the conclu- sion of the ceremony, for the father and mother, and kin- dred of the woman, to pray for a blessing upon the parties. Bethuel and Laban, and the other members of their family, pronounced a solemn benediction upon Rebecca I departure: " And they blessed Rebecca, and said unto her, thou art our siller, be thou the mother of thousands of mil- lions; and let thy seed possess the gate of those that hate them." And in times Ions posterior to the age of Isaac, when Ruth the Moabitess was espoused to Boaz, " All the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, we are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel ; and do thou worthily in Ephratah. and be famous in Bethlehem.'' After the benedictions, the bride is conducted, with great pomp, to the house of her husband; this is usually done in the evening; and as the precession moved along, money, sweetmeats, flowers, and other articles, were thrown among the populace, which they caught in cloths made for such occasions, stretched in a particular manner upon frames. — Pjxton. THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. CHAPTER I. Ver. 1. Now there was a certain man of Rama- thaim-zophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite : 2. And he had two wives ; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. How much soever some may have denied it, nothing is more certain, than that by the civil laws of Moses a man was allowed to have more wives than one. No doubt, all the proofs of this fact, which it is usual lo adduce, are not valid ; and to the maintainers of the opposite opin- ion, it may be an easy matter to controvert such as are weak or inaccurate; but the following arguments appear lo me to place the matter beyond all doubt. 1. It is certain that bcfore'the time of Moses, polygamy was in use among the ancestors of the Israelites, and that even Abraham and Jacob lived in it. It is also certain, that it continued in use after the time of Moses. I will not interrupt the text with a multitude of examples ; but there are two of such weight as to merit particular notice. — One of them we find in 1 Chron. vii. 4, where not only the five lathers, named in the preceding verse, but also their de- scendants, forming a tribe of 30,000 men, had lived in polyg- amy, which also shows, by the way, that it must have been more common in some families than in others. — The other i •curs in 2 Chron. xxv. 3, where we see the high-priest himself, who was of course the authentic expounder of the .Mu-aii- statutes, taking for Joash, who clave to him as a son, ' " wives, which shows that he had not at any rate looked upon bigamy as prohibited by the law of Deut. xvii. 17. As then, Moses, adhering to established usage, no- where prohibited a man's taking a second or a third wife, along with the first, it is clear that, as a civil right, it con- tinued allowable; for what has hitherto been customary, and permitted, remains so, in a civil sense, as long as no positive law is enacted against it. Therefore, the objection here made, thai Moses nau-hrre authorizes polygamy, by an ( cprc-is statute, amounts lo nothing ; more especially when it is considered, that, as we shall immediately see under Nos 2,3, 1. it is implied in three several texts, that he ac- tually did auth iri2e it. Bui although he had not done so, Ins silent acquiescence in, and non-prohibition of, the prac- tice previously held lawful, is quite enough to sanction our opinion of his having left it still allowable as a civil right. And, 2; This proof becomes still stronger, when we remark (low very common polygamy must have been at the very time when Moses lived and gave his laws. For, when Mo- ■ i-.u-e,l th. I-r-i 'li'es to Vie numbered, he found (103,550 m lies abo ■ 20 j ears of age. Now, according to political calculations, the proportion of those under 20, to those above it. is in seneral reckoned as 12 to 20, or, at any rate, as 12 to 15; but admitting, in the present case, that it was but as 10 to 20, to the above number of ndult males, we should thus have still to add a half more, or 301,775, for those under 20, be-ides 22.000 Levites that were reck- oned s-priratelv; so that (he whole number of males must have amounted to at least 927,325. Now among all this people, we find from Numb. iii. 43, that there were no more than 22,273 first-born males, of a month old and upward; that is, only one first-born among 42: so that, had the Is- raelites lived in monogamv, it would follow that every marriage had on an average given birth to 42 children, which, however, is hardly possible lo be conceived ; whereas if every Israelite had four or more wives, it was very pos- sible that of even- father on an average that number might have sprung, and, of course, of 12 Israelites, there would be but one first-born. At the same time, this being the case, polygamy must certainly have gone great lengths, and been very universally practised among them ; and if it was so, and Moses forbade it by no law, it is obvious that it con- tinued allowable as a civil right. If in this deduction there appear any thing dubious or obscure, I must refer the reader to my Dissertation, De Censibns Hebraormn, in paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 of which, I have considered this argument at greater length. 3. The law of Deut. xxi. 15 — 17, already explained, presupposes the case of a man having two wives, one of whom he peculiarly loves, while the other, whom he hates, is the mother of his first-born. Now this is the very case which occurs in Genesis, in the history of Jacob, and his wives Leah and Rachel ; and this law ordains, that m such a case the husband was not to bestow the right of primo- geniture upon the son of the favourite wife, but to acknow- ledge as his first-born the son that actually was so. 4. The law of Exod: xxi. 9, 10, in like manner already explained, expressly permits the father, who had given his son a slave for a wife, to give him, some years after, a second wife, of freer birth; and prescribes' how the first was then to be treated. The son was bound to pay her matrimonial duty as often as she could have claimed it before hi? second marriage ; and, therefore, if he did so, the marriage still subsisted. If he refused, the marriage immediately ceased, and the woman received her liberty. When Moses, in Lev. xviii. 18, prohibits a man from mar- rying the sister of his wife, to vex her while she lives, it manifestly supposes the liberty of taking another wife besides the first, and during her lifetime, provided only it was trot her sister. But because the sense of this passage has been much disputed, and others, in opposition to the plain words of Moses, consider it as a general prohibition of polygamy ; as I cannot with propriety expatiate fully on their explanation here, 1 must refer the' reader to my Dis- sertation alreadv quoted, On the Mosaic Statutes prohibitory of Marriages betwixt Near Relations. It does not appear, however, that Moses permitted po- lygamy willingly, or as a matter of indifference in either a moral or a political view, but, as Christ expresses it, merely on account of the hardness of the people's hearts. In other words, he did not approve it, but found it advisable to toler- ate it, as a point of civil expediency. His first book, which is entirely historical, includes many particulars that are by no means calculated to recommend polygamy. According to him. God, even at the very time when the rapid popula- tion of the earth was his great object, gave to the first man but one wife, although it is evident that with four wives, he could have procreated more children than with one : and when, in consequence of the flood, the earth was to be re- duced anew to its original state in this respect, and God resolved to preserve alive only Noah and his three sons, we still find that each of Ihem had but one wife with him. Now had God approved of polygamy, he would have com- manded each of Noah's sons to marry as manv wives as possible, and take them with him into the ark. From these two historical facts, the natural proportion between thesexes, which, where popula'ion isnumerous, cannot be discovered without mueh trouble, becomes at once obvious ; and this very proportion, considering that we actually find much about thi ame number of men as of women fit for the mar- i! ■ ,' .-,: ■ o e s |, :.?e-t po^iMe argument against polve- amv : ill.- ! nl'.i lie-- or unlawfulness of which, as Mon- tesquieu very justly observes, resolves itself, properlv speaking, into a question of arithmetic. Moses did n6t permit eunuchs lobe made among the Israelites. Indeed he went so far as to prohibit even the castration of catile, Lev. xxii. 21 : and besides this, a eunuch that came from another country to reside among the Israelites, was by a special Chap 1. 1 SAMUEL. statute excluded from ever becoming one of the people of Qod, that i-, was incapable of enjoying the prii rights of an Israelite, both sacred and civil, Dent, xxm. -J. This was an ordinance highly unfavourable to polygamy, inly find polygamy and eunuchism going lo- l in those countries in which the former pre- vails, Mich as Turkey, Persia, and China, there are thou- i ran niiihoiiN oi eunuchs. Where so many of : i; .11.' bom, can never become husbands and S, it is nothing less than mercifuUo place them beyond the temptation of longing for a wife; and, m early infancy, before ihey know what has befallen them, to assign them that intermediate state, in which, without propi rly I either sex, they arc to live, and earn their ire polygamy is carried to great lengths, •here is in the nature of the case an imperious necessity for itchers of their chastity. In a word, without ! -real seraglio cannot be guarded; and of biting castration imperceptibly counter- uny. This is also an observation of M. de Pre- It would appear, that in the course of time, polygamy hadverv much decreased among the Israelites, and become Solomon, in Prov. xxxi. 10—31, in his of that wife whom he accounted a blessing to her husband, represents her entirely as a mater-familias, that is, the mistress and ruler of the whole household; • ■ in the state of polygamy can never be, being destined solely for her husband's bed, and having no per- 'ii riu herself at all about domestic economy. It would therefore seem, that although Solomon himself lived in boundless polygamy, his subjects were contented witli one wife. Besides, had polygamy continued as com- mon as in the days of Moses, lhe juice of wives would have in proportion to ihe increased value of other - : but we find that in the time of the prophet Hosea, a wife was still the same as the medium rale in the time of Moses; for that was about 30 shekels; and Hosea ■iit liis for 15 shekels, and 15 ephahs of barley. ■ else had risen in price, (as I have shown in my Dissertation, Dc prcliis rervm apod Hcbnws, in the 3d Part of the Cominentaria of the Gottingen Society of Sci- ,i. wive-; and consequently, polygamy, which scarce and dear, must have been much dimin- iave ceased almost altogether among the Israel- ites. That it ceased cntirelv after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, is, indeed, certain; but with that fact we have here nothing to do, as it was neither an in effect of the Mosaic law, but proceeded from . i 'iita! causes. But how came it to pass that Moses, who certainly did of p-.'K'vainy, and counteracted its increase by various impediments, did not rather at once prohibit it al- toge.herl This is indeed an important question, and has not hitherto received a satisfactory answer. Many of Montesquieu's readers will perhaps think, that nothing can be easier than to answer it fully in the following terms : "Th- lawfulness or unlawfulness of polygamy depends entirely on lhe proportion of females born to that of males, • .uie-qiueu very properly terms it, a problem of Now in Asia there are many more females than males, and consequently, polygamy should be there ir the very same reason for which it is prohib- ited in Europe. Where the numbers of both sexes are equal, there both nature and arithmetic prescribe monoga- my ; but where the procedure of nature is different, and several girls are born for one boy, there she allows, or, I should rather say, there she authorizes polygamy." Here, however, and in' what he says of Asia, Montesquieu is un- doubtedly mistaken. For without very clear proofs, and without having accurate enumerations, and birth-lists, of :.s. who will believe either him or any other traveller, asserting that, in regard to the proportion of the sexes born, the procedure of nature in Asia, partic- ularly in Turkey, Persia, China, and Japan, is altogether different from what we find it in Europe 1 It cannot be supposed that the circumstance of these countries lying more to the east than our European regions, can have any elT id in ihis respect ; for the difference of climate depends not on the easterly or westerly, but on the southerly or northerly position of a country; in other words, not on the degree of longitude, but of latitude. Now, Minorca lies under the 39th degree of latitude, and of course, some de- grees more to the south than Constantinople, and the coun- tries between the Black and Caspian Seas, whence tin- Turks and Persians purchase young women for their se- raglios, but in the very same latitude with a great pari < t Turkey, Persia, China, and Japan; and yet this bland, according to Armstrong's account, in letter'lSth, of bis his- tory oi ii, bad, in ihe year 1712, exclusive of the English garrison, 15,000 male inhabitants, and but only 12,000 fe- male. Now, how can we believe, after this, that under the very same climate, but farther eastward, nature the contrary, produce more persons of the other sex than of ours, merely because there it is noon, when the an I I begins to rise on Minorcal The English colonies in America have, part of them at least, a still moo position; but even there, no other proportion of birlhs, in the two sexes, has been remarked, than what is found in England itself. The whole mistake, into which ertfn the venerable Montesquieu himself has been betrayed from this, that in some of the great capitals of Asia, there are a great many more women than men, owing to the residence of monarchs and people of fortune, great seraglios, for which girls are purchased in other places, and brought to the metropolis. It does not, however, thence follow, that in Asia there are more females born than males, but only that the former being more numerous in the rich cities, are in the provinces, whence they ate bought, /ess so, in the very same proportion. Mr. Porter, the British ambassador at Constantinople, makes this re- mark in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlix. art 21st; so that it is not matter of speculation, but of exj eri- ence. But the conclusion drawn from the oriental cap- itals, to the state of whole countries, in regard to the pro- portion of the sexes, is much in the same style aswould be that of the traveller, who on seeing a German army it 100,000 troops, and remarking that there was scarcely one woman with it to ten men, should go home and assert that he had discovered, that in Germany there were ten limes as many males born as females. I am therefore of opinion, that with regard to the polygamy allowed among the Is- raelites, we can say nothing else than what Christ has said on the subject of divorce. 'Moses tolerated it on account of their hardness of heart, and because it would have been found a difficult matter to deprive them of a custom al- ready so firmly established. The Egyptian monarchs en- deavoured to 'prevent the multiplication of the Israelites, and for this purpose, went so far as to order all their male children, as soon as born, to be thrown into the Nile; and yet Moses found polygamy among them, which, of course, could not have been prohibited by the Egyptian govern- ment. A people, whose children a tyrant drowned to hin- der their increase, while yet he dared not to check their polygamy, must have clung very closely to that privilege, and not have been likely to surrender it without rebelling. Whether the climate may have, in any degree, contribu- ted to produce this hardness of h'-nrt, I will neither confi- dently affirm nor deny, so long as we are destitute of what I would call a geographical history of polygamy and mo- nogamy, which a person~might survey at a short glance ; for thus much is certain, that in the most northerly regions of Siberia and Tartary, there are nations that live in po- lygamy ; and in the very warmest climates, on the contra- ry, we find Christians, and even nations, satisfied with mo- nogamy. If the former is more prevalent towards the south, we must bear in mind, that in regard to laws, though much depends on climate, yet ercry thing does not, but still more on accidental circumstances : and that ancient tisacre, or religion, may have a very powerful influence on the na- ture of the law. But should even the climate actually cause a difference in the point in question, and make it more difficult to put a stop to polygamy, by law. among southern than northern nations, because they are naturally more addicted to it; still the cause thereof would not be referable to anv inequality in the proportion of the sexes, but to the earlier puberty of southern nations, and the ear- lier violence of libidinous propensities therewith connect- ed. The natural consequence of these early and strong feelings of love, are early marriages ; the wife, in such a case, can hardly be more than two years younger, and '.he appropriated concubine is perhaps even older than the ocy that becomes her husband: and when he has reached hi's 25.-h or 30th, and still more, his 37th year, which Aristotle 154 1 SAMUEL. Chap. 1. fixed as the fittest time fcr a man to marry, his wife, or cor.cubine, particularly if shehas borne many children, has by that time become too old for him, and then he either meditates a divorce, or taking a younger wife in addition to the former. This last is indeed the least of the two evils for the unfortunate first wife ; and the legislator who wishes that she, particularly if a slave, that can have no will of her own, may experience the least possible hard- ship or injustice, will in this view tolerate polygamy. In- deed if he were to prohibit it, it is probable the people would not submit to the privation without some disturb- ance.— If what I have now said, merely by way of conjec- ture, be correct, the consideration of climate might have had some influence with Moses in his toleration of polyga- my, as a civil right; for Palestine is certainly to be num- bered among southern climates, although indeed the Israel- ites, at the time when Moses may be said to have taken them under his protection, had been accustomed to a country somewhat farther south, and much warmer. There is yet another circumstance to be taken into the account, which made polygamy in Palestine more tolerable in a political light, than among us, where it would soon depopulate ? country, because we have not, as was then the case, any opportunity of purchasing, or of carrying off as captives, the young women of other nations. The laws of war, in those days, gave the victors a right to make slaves of young women, and these they might employ for the purposes of polygamy, without thereby depriving any Is- raelite of a wife born to him among his own people. No doubt this was a very severe war law, and detrimental to the general interests' of mankind : but it was once estab- lished, and although the Israelites had not acted up to it, their neighbours would not therefore have lost anv oppor- tunity of doing so, which the fortune of war put into their power. It must also be considered that the Israelites lived in the vicinity of a poor people, whose daughters thev could purchase: for nature has been so unkind to Arabia, that most of its inhabitants must always be in a slate of indi- gence, with the exception of any particular family or city that may happen to be enriched by trade, or by singular good-fortune in rearing sheep. Mr" Wood in his Essay mi the original genius of Homer, has given a very faithful description of the natural poverty of Arabia, which, after all the improvements it can receive from fortune and art, uniformly sinks back to its original state; and Mr. Nie- buhr has orally given me an account of the poverty of the Arabs, which far exceeded even what I should have expected. Although the Mosaic laws do not prohibit more than one wife, still they did not thereby authorize polygamy in the whole extent of the word, and that a man might have as many wives as he pleased. This is not perhaps altogether the consequence of those statutes, which enjoined the hus- band to perform the conjugal rites with every wife within stated periods ; for Moses, (as we have already seen,) most expressly prohibited even the future king from hoi ins many wires, (Deut. xvii. 17:) and of course, that could not but be forbidden to the people at large. But if more than one wife was allowed, and many forbidden, the question comes to be, what is meant bv manv 1 And to that ques- tion I can only give what may be called a probable answer, and to this effect : that by many seems to be meant more than four, that number being 'permitted, but not more. This' is the doctrine of the Talmud and the Rabbins, of which the reader will find a more detailed account in Sclden . Ami lie- hail two wives; the name of the one teas Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. The names the eastern people give to women and slaves, appear to us to be oftentimes not a little odd; something of the same kind may, however, be remarked in the scrip- lures, though they are there more frequently of the devout kind. The author of the History of AU Bey mentions a female, whose name, Laal, signified i uby. One of the wives ii, the father of the prophet Samuel, seems to named in the same wav, for such was the raean- e word Peninnah. The plural word peninim ubies, or precious stones that are red. Lam. iv. 7. It l>i>:h these ladies were called bynames that in their respective languages signified a ruby, probably both one and the other were so denominated, either from the florid- leir complexion, or the contrary to a rubyteint: for it may be understood either way. — Bcrder. V r. 1 1. And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thy handmaid, but wilt give unto thy handmaid a man-child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. Among these vows of abstinence, may be classed those 0 ' Sazaritism, although they have also something in corn- iron with the first species, and are, as it were, a mixture of bc.th kinds. A JS'azarite, during the continuance of his vow, durst drink no wine nor strong drink ; nor eat of the fruit of the vine, either grapes or raisins; nor come near any dead body; or otherwise wittingly defile himself. He was also obliged to let his hair grow. At the termination of the period of his vow, he had to make certain offerings prescribed by Moses, and what other offerings he had vowed besides; as also to cut off his hair, and burn it on the altar, and then first drink wine again at the offering- feast. These ordinances, however, rather belong to the ceremonial law, than to the Mosaical jurisprudence, of which I here treat. It is only necessary to attend to this further circumstance, that vows of Nazaritism were not an original institution of Moses, but of more ancient, and probably of Egyptian, origin; and that, in his laws, be only gives certain injunctions concerning them, partly to estab- lish the ceremonies and laws of such vows, and partly to prevent people from making them to, or letting their hair grow in honour of, any other than the true God. What typical views he may have had in the ceremonies he pre- scribed, it forms no part of my present subject, in which I merely consider the Mosaic laws on the principles of juris- prudence, but rather belongs to theologv, to ascertain. Eut that before the Mosaic law was given there had been Naza- rites among the" Israelites, is manifest from the following circumstance; The ordinance of Moses concerning the Nazariles, which stands in chap. vi. of Numbers, was given in the second year after the departure from Egypt ; but in an earlier law concerning the sabbatical year, which was made in the first year, Moses adopts a figurative ex- pression from Nazaritism, calling the \ mrs, « hich in that year were not to be pruned, .%.:. The ihmg-itrlt must, therefore, have been already in use, and that lor a long period ; he, ait c I neh Icina.r i i particularly in agriculture, '-ran I, inn- and ruial do not succeed to the proper signification even of the most familiar and best-known terms, till after a lap years. The vow of Nazaritism was not neees t usually, of perpetual endurance \ and hence Moses ordain- ed what offerings should be made at its termination ,,i ,! . continuance. In latter tunes, it is true, we have, in the case of Samson, an example of a person devoted bv his parents to be a Nazarile for life ; but even here, Nazaritism was not understood in ils whole extent, as preset ibed in tie Mosaic law; for Samson plainly deviated from it, when he attacked and defeated the Philistines, from > bodies a strict Nazarile must have lied, to avoid defilement. Of such perpetual Nazaritism, however, Moses does not at all treat in his laws; and, of course, does not say whether. like other vows, it could have been redeemed, had i: proved a hardship to a son to abstain from wine all his life. Ac- cording to the analogy of the other laws of Moses on this subject, it should have been redeemable. — Micir/Et.ts. It frequently happens after the birth of a son, that if the parent be in distress, or the child sick, or that there be any other cause of grief, the mother makes a vow, that no razor shall come upon the child's head for a certain portion of time, and sometimes forall his life. 1 Sam. i. 11. If Ihe child recovers, and the cause of grief be removed, ar.d'if the vow be but for a time, so that the mother's vow be ful- filled, then she shaves his head at the end of the lime pre- scribed, makes a small entertainment, collects money and other things from her relations and friends, which are sent as nezers (offerings) to the mosque at Kerbelah, and are there consecrated. Numbers vi.— Morier. Ver. 12. And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, was steril, but she had an intense desire to be the mother of a " man-child," and she went to the " temple of the Lord" to vow, if he would give her one, that she would "give him unto the Lord all ihe days of his life— there shall no razor come upon his head.'' How often do we witness a similar scene. See the afflicted wife proslrate in the dust before the temple of her god ; she earnestly entreats the deity to give unto hera "male child." "Ah ! then will my husband love me — then will my neigh- bours cease to reproach mc — Ah ! my god, a male child, a male child— he shall be called by thy name— and sacred shall be his hair." — Roberts. CHAPTER II. Ver. 1. And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord. In this and many other parts of scripture, mention is made of the exaltation of the horn. Colonel Light thusdescribfs the dress of the Druses. " The females of both Mar^m.LS and Druses appear in a coarse blue jacket and petticoat, without stockings, their hair platted, hanging down in long tails behind. On their heads they wore a tin or silver con.- cal tube about twelve inches long, and perhaps twice the size of a common post-horn ; over which was thrown a white piece of linen, that completely enveloped their body, and gives a most singular and ghost-like appearance. Upon Mount Lebanon the wife of the emir sometimes made hei appearance in the costume of the country, adorned with A golden horn on her head, enriched with precious stones, instead of the ordinary one of the other women of the coun- try."— Bcrder. "One of the most extraordinary parts of the attite of thi, female Druses is a silver horn, sometimes studded with jewels, worn on their heads in various positions, distin- guishinz their different conditions. A married womar has it affixed on the right side of the head, a widow on it- left, and a virgin is pointed out by its being placed on thi very crown; over this silver projection the long vei, .. J 56 1 SAMUEL. Chap. 4 thrown, with which they so completely conceal their faces, as rarely to leave more than one eye visible." — MtCMICHEL. This woman, who was a Christian, wore on her head a hollow silver horn, rearing itself upward obliquely from her forehead, being four or five inches in diameter at the root, and pointed at its extreme. — Buckingham. About two years ago, some of our Indian ships brought over a number of Scpons, who did duty as marines on the voyage j these were newly clothed in England, and pre- sented to the king. Perhaps there were but few, possibly not one, who, having the opportunity of seeing these soldiers, made the same observations as the writer of this article, respecting the helmets worn on their heads. These helmets appeared to be made of stout leather, or other strong sub- stai : they were oval and nearly flat, like the trencher <:n;i~ w nn at our universities: in the centre rose a head- | i e oi crown, ornamented with feathers, &c. and on the front, directly over tke forehead, was a steel Horn, rising as it were from a short stem, and then assuming the form of one of our extinguishers, used to extinguish the light of a :andle. It appeared, also, that the comparison of such a military horn to the horn of a reem, (the unicorn of our translators,) the rhinoceros, was extremely applicable : for having seen the great rhinoceros at the menagerie at Versailles, we rec- ollected the resemblance perfectly. Whether we should be justified in referring this part of dress to the military only, may be questioned ; because Hannah, for instance, says, " Mij horn is exalted." 1 Sam. ii. 1. But women, oc- casionally, might adopt, as parts of dress, ornaments not altogether unlike this horn, even if this form of speech were not derived originally from the soldiers' dress, and trans- ferred to a notorious disposition of mind ; or to other in- stances. This also diminishes the apparent strangeness of Zedekiah's conduct, 1 Kings xxii. 11. who made himself BOiufs of iron, and said, " Thussaith the Lord, With these" military insignia, " shalt thou push the Syrians until thou hast consumed them." We are apt to conceive of these horns, as projecting, like bulls' horns, on each side of Zede- kiah's head. How different from the real fact ! Zedekiah, though he pretended to be a prophet, did not wish to be thought mad, to which imputation such an appearance would have subjected him: whereas, he only a.-ted the hero, — the hero returning in military triumph :'it was little more than a flourish with a spemtoon. In corroboration of this idea, let us hear Mr. Bruce, who first elucidated this subject by actual observation: — " Om; thing remarkable in this cavalcade, which I ob- served, was the headdress of the governors of provinces. A large broad fillet was bound upon their forehead, and tied behind their head. In the middle of this was a horn, or conical piece of silver, sill, <•'■■' ' ■'• '--s Ions, much in the shape of our common candle ' • lets. This is called kern (pp) or horn, and is only worn in reviews, or parades after victory. This I apprehend, like all other of their usages, is taken from the Hebrews, and the several allusions made in scripture to it, arises from this practice : — ' I said to the wicked, Lift not up the born,' — ' Lift not up your horn on hiffli ; speak not wilh a stiff neck.' — ' The horn of the righteous shall be exalted with honour.' "—Tay- lor in Calmet. Ver. 5. They that w ere full have hired out them- selves for bread. A man of high caste, or one who was once in affluence, will almost as soon die as work for food; and, generally speaking, such is the pity felt for those people, that there are always some who will give a trifle to supply their wants. It is a phrase indicative of great misery to sav, * The once rich man is now hiring himself out for conjee'," (gruel.)— Roberts. Ver. 8. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the be ih'-e. 24. And the cook took up the snotiid.--. and that which teas upon it, and set it before Saul. And San Behold that which is lefl ! set it before thee, and eat : for unto this time hath it he. n I . , j | for thee, since I said, I have invited th< So Saul did eat with Samuel that day. The shoulder of a lamb well roasted, and covered w ith butter and milk, is another d< \cacy, which the orientals greatly value. This explains the reason why Samuel i r- dcred it to be set before his future sovereign, as well as what that was which was upon it, the butter and milk oi which the sacred historian takes so particular notice. — This was by no means a contemptible dish for a royal enter- tainment, as some have alleged ; but on the contrary, one of the most delicious which could be set before the future anointed of Jehovah. It appears from the accounts of travellers, that lamb is, in those parts of the world, ex- tremely delicate. One, says Chardin, must have eaten of it in several places of Persia, Media, and Mesopotamia, and of their kids, to form a conception of the moisture, taste, delicacy, and fat of this animal; and as the eastern not without reason, the sacred writers often speak of the lamb and the kid, as the most agreeable food in those countries; and that the holy Psalmist celebrates the bless- ings of salvation, and particularly the spiritual comforts of the heaven-born soul, under the figure of "marrow and fatness."— Paxton. Ver. 25. And when they were come down from the hir/h place into the city, Samuel communed with Saul upon the top of the house. 26. And they arose early: and it came to pass, about the spring- of the day, that Samuel called Saul to the top of the house, saying, Up, that I may send thee away. And Saul arose, and they went out both of them, he and Samuel, abroad. Egmont and Heyman tell us, that at Caipha, at the foot of Mount Carmel, "" the houses are small and flat-roofed, where, during the summer, the inhabitants sleep in arbours made of the boughs of trees." They mention also tents of rushes on the fiat roofs of the houses at Tiberias, which are doubtless for the same purpose, though they do not say so. Dr. Poeocke in like manner tells us, "that when he was at Tiberias in Galilee, he was entertained by the sheik's steward, the sheik himself having much company with him. but sending him provisions from his own kitch- en, and that they supped on the top of the house for cool- ness, according'to their custom, and lodged there likewise, in a sort of closet, about eight feet square, of a wicker- work, plastered round towards the bottom, but without any door, each person having his cell." In Galilee then we find they lodged a stranger, whom they treated with respect, on the top of the house, and even caused him to sup there. This was the latter end of May. This writer is more distinct than the others on this point, and I have recited his ac- count at large, because it may perhaps lead to the true ex- planation of 1 Sam. ix. 25, 2(5, which verses tell us, that after they descended from the high place, Samuel con- versed with Saul («n Up dl hagnaz) on the house-top; and that at the spring of the day Samuel called Saul to the housetop; or, as it maybe equally well translated, on the housetop} that is, Samuel conversed with him for coolness on the housetop in the evening, and in the moniit g called Saul, who had lodged there all nistht, and was not got up, saying, I 'p. that 1 may send thee ateay. The Septnagint seem to have understood it very much in this light, forthev thus translate the passage, Anri thai spread a li- on the housetop, ami he slept ; which shows how suitable this explanation is to those that are acquainted with eastern customs. As it is represented in our translation, Samuel called Sattl to the housetop in the morning; but no account can be easily given for this ; it does not appear to have been for secrecy, "far he did not anoint then, but after he had left Samuel's house, for which transaction the prophet ex- 160 i sa: pressly required secrecy, " As they were going down to the end of the city, Samuel said to Saul, bid the servant pass on before us, and he passed on, but stand thou still awhile, that I may show thee the word of God." This sleeping on the terraces of their houses is only in .summer- time. By this then we may determine, in the general, that this secret inauguration of .Saul was in that part of the year. Dr. Shaw has cited this passage concerning Samuel and Saul, when mentioning the various uses to which the peo- ple of the East put the flat roofs of their houses, though without explaining it; but he has not mentioned, among the other scriptures, that relating to Nebuchadnezzar, who is described by the prophet as walking on the roof of his palace, and taking a view of Babylon, when he fell, upon surveying that mighty city, into that haughty soliloquy which brought after it' a dreadful humiliation. This is the more to be regretted, because though many have, all have not considered the passage inth is light. Our own translation in particular has not, but renders the words, " He walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon," Dan. iv. 29, and has thrown the other reading " upon the palace," into the margin, as less preferable. But to those that are acquaint- ed with eastern customs, who recollect the passage, which Dr. Shaw, it seems, did not, there cannot be any doubt how it is to be understood. "Stir la terrasse," says Sir J. Chardin, in his MS. note on this place, " pour le plaisir de ia vue, pour de la considerer la ville, et pour prendre la frais, et e'est ce que prouve, le verset suivant." That is, he walked upon the terrace, for the pleasure of the pros- pect, to take a view of the city, and to enjoy the fresh air, which the following verse proves. Nothing can be more natural than this interpretation. — Harmer. CHAPTER X. Ver. 5. When thou art come hither to the city, thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place, with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before them ; and they shall prophesy. The prophets in the ordinary modes of prophesying, were accustomed to compose their hymns to some musical instrument; and there could be but little difficulty in adapt- ing their effusions to a measure which required, probably, no great restrictions in a language so free and uncontrolled as the Hebrew. The Jews conceived that music calmed the passions, and prepared the mind for the reception of the prophetic influence. It is probable, that the prophets on these occasions did not usually perform themselves on the musical instruments, but rather accompanied the strains of the minstrel with their voice. — (Lowth.) It has been the practice of all nations to adapt their religious worship to music, which the fabulous accounts of antiquity derived from heaven. — Burder. Ver. 27. But the children of Belial said, How shall this man save us? And they despised him, and brought him no presents: but he held his peace. See on Ps. 70. 11." CHAPTER XI. Ver. 2. Then Nahash the Ammonite came up, and encamped against Jabesh-gilead : and all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, Make a covenant with us, and we will serve thee. 2. And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, On this condition will I make a covenant with you. that 1 may thrust out all your right eyes. This ciuel practice was very common, formerly, in the East, and even yet prevails in some places. Mr. Hanway gives several instances of it. "Mohammed Khan, (not long after I left Persia,) his eyes were cut out." Page 224. " The close of this hideous scene of punishment, was an order to cut out the eyes of this unhappy man : the soldiers were dragging him to this execution, while he begged, with bitter cries, that he might rather sutler death." Page ULL. Chap. 10—14. 203. " Sadoc Aga had his beard cut off, his face was rubbed with dirt, and his eyes were cut out." Page 204. " As we approached Astrabad, we met several armed horsemen, carrying home the peasants whose eyes had been put out, the blood yet running down their faces." Page 201. Chardin relates an instance of a king of lmi- retta, who lived in this condition. Page 100. — Blrler. Ver. 4. Then came the messengers to Gibeuh of Saul, and told the tidings in the ears of the people : and all the people lifted up their voices, and wept. See on Jer. G. 1. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 16. Now therefore stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. 17. Is it not wheat-harvest to-day 1 I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain ; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king. Though the summer in Syria is commonly dry, the heavens are sometimes overcast, and a smart thunder- shower suddenly rushes down to refresh the parched soil. One of these fell at Aleppo in the night between the first and second of July, 1743 ; but it was regarded as a very uncommon occurrence at that season. It is probably still more extraordinary at Jerusalem ; for Jerome, who 'lived long in Palestine, denies, in his commentary on Amos, that he had ever seen rain in those provinces, and espe- cially in Judea, in the end of June, or in the month of July. It may, however, occasionally fall, though Jerome had never seen it, as jt did at Aleppo, while Dr. Russel resided in that city. But such an occurrence by no means inval- idates the proof which the prophet Saimiel gave of his divine mission, when he called for thunder and rain from heaven in the time of wheat-harvest ; since a very rare and unusual event immediately happening without any preceding appearance of it, upon the prediction of a person professing himself to be a prophet of the Lord, and giving it as an attestation of hi> sustaining that character, is a suf- ficient proof that his affirmation is true, although a similar event has sometimes happened without any such declared interposition of God, and therefore universally understood to be casual and without design. Nor should it'be forgotten, that tin* thunder-in in in the book of Samuel, seems to have happi-i.-.-d in the daytime, while the people of Israel were celebrating the accession of Saul to the throne; a circum- stance which, from its singularity, added considerable enemy to this event, and, perhaps, was to them a sufficient proof of the miraculous interference of Jehovah. Dr. Russel informs us, that the rains in those countries usually fall in the night, as did those extraordinary thunderstorms already mentioned, which happened in the month of July — Paxton. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 18. And another company turned the way to Beth-horon: and another company turned to the way of the border that lookcth to the valley of Zeboim, towards the wilderness. See on Jer. 12. 9. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 25. And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground. See on Ps. 81. 16. Ver. 26. And when the people were come tntc the wood, behold, the honey dropped. Bees, in the East, are not, as in England, kept in hives: they are all in a wild state. The forests literally flow wi'h honey; large combs may be seen hanging on the trees as you pass along, full of honey. Hence this article is cheap and plentiful, and is much used by the Vedahs to preserve 1 SAMUEL. the flesh of animals they catch in the chase. The ancient poeis take great pleasure in speaking of the value of milk and honey.— Roberts. CHAPTER XV. . Ver. 9. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fadings, and the lambs. The margin has, instead of :' failings," of the "second sort." This canons way of designating the quality of animals finds an exact parallel among the Hindoo I do not usually compare, a- we do, by good, h."!ei, l,,M ; hut first, second, or third sort. An animal of the finest pro- portions is said to be of the first sort; the next, of ihe second and the last, the third. All the productions of axl ■ are compared, as to their value, in the same way. They tell us there are three kinds of fruit they pre- fer to all others : first, gold ; second, precious gloi 'hird, land. — Roberts. Ver. 33. And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. See on Ezra 1. 11. lis were sometimes hewed in pieces, and their >i as a prey to ravenous beasts. This piuiisi m seems to have been extremely common in Abyssinia, when Mr. Bruce was there, and was probably banded down from the founders of thai kingdom: "Coming across the market-place," says the traveller, "I had seen Za Mariam, the Ras's doorkeeper, with three men bound, •m he fell a-hacking to pieces in my presence ; and upon seeing me running across the place, stopping my i avlled me to stay till he should despatch the other two, for he wanted to speak with me, as if he had I about ordinary business ; that the soldiers, in considi ration of his baste, immediately fell upon the other two. whose cries were still remaining in my ears; that the hyenas at night would scarcely let me pass in the u I returned from the palace; and the dogs fled into my house, to eat pieces of human carcasses at their leisure." This account elucidates the mode of execution adopted by the prophet Samuel, in relation to Agag, the king of Amalek : " And Samuel said, (-psr) As (or, in the same identical mode) thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in j Gilgal." This was not a sudden and passionate act of vengeance, but a deliberate act of retributive justice. That savage chieftain had hewed many prisoners to death ; and therefore, by the command of Jehovah, the judge of all the earth, he is visited with the same punishment which he had cruelly used towards others. — Paxton. In Light's Travels, we are informed, that " Djezzar had reason to suspect fraud in the conduct of some of the officers of the seraglio : and, as he could not discover the offenders, he had between fifty and sixty of them seized, stripped naked, and laid on the ground : and to each was placed a couple of janizaries, who were ordered to hew them in pieces with their swords." — Burder. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. G. And he had crveaves of brass upon his leg?, and a target of brass between his shoulders. These were necessary to defend the legs and feet from the iron stakes placed in the way by the enemy, to gall and wound their opponents. They were a part of ancient military harness, and the artifices made use of by contend- ing parties rendered the precaution important.— Border. Ver. 7. And the staff of his spear teas like a weaver's beam : and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him. in the hour of danger, whose office it 9 a massy bnckler, behind which he avoided th weapons of his enemy. Goliath had his arm made armour-bearer to Saul ; and Jonathan had a young man « ho bore his armour before biin in the day q£ battle. Besides the large and ponderous buckler, the Philistine had another of smaller si/c called eidon, which we render latget in one part of our vers , and shield in another. It might either be held in the hand when the warrior bad o easion to use it, or, at other times, be con- veniently hung about his neck, and turned behind; and, therefore, the historian observes he had " a Hovel Ol DM i between his shoulders." — Paxton. Ver. 18. And carry these ten cheeses tint. > th • captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren la re. The art of coagulating milk, and converting it into cheese, was known among the Syrian shepherds, in m i, ■ remotest times. Instead of rminet, they turn the milk, especially in the summer season, with sour buttermilk, the flowers of the great-headed thistle, or wild artichoke : and. putting the curds afterward into small baskets made with rushes, or with the dwarf palm, they bind them up close, and press them. These cheeses are rarely above two or three pounds weigh' ; and in shape and size, re penny loaves. Oriental cheeses are sometimes I ; soft a consistence, after they are pressed, and even n 1 en they are set upon (he table, that thev bear a very near re- semblance to curds, or to coagulated milk, which forms a very considerable part of eastern diet. But the ten cheeses which David carried to the camp of Saul, seem to have been fully fumed, pressed, and sufficiently dried, to admit of their being removed from one place to another, .without the frames in which they were made. — Pjixton. The sons of Jesse were serving in the army of Sau! : and as he probably had not heard from them for some time',' he sent their brother David to take a present to the captain, to induce him to be kind to his sons; also to bring a pledge, or token, from his sons themselves, to assure him that they were well. A person in a distant country sei - •■ ' ution of David, aided by the good providence of God, ho« m in h. in, N must we suppose him to have had, u lei ai once to seize two such animals, to smite them both, and to rescue the lamb" from their jaws'! How was n possible for a single youth, for at that time he was not more than twenty years of age, to encounter with success two ol thi Strongest and fiercest beasts that range the forest 1 Or if David vanquished these terrible depredators, nol bj his own enrage and address, but by the miraculous assistance of heaven, still the difficulty is not removed ; for he could have no warrant from such a vietorv to encounter I loliath. |[ I ame him to enter the lists Willi the ''in in, 1 1, ■;,. -ii.' n Upon the ordinary assistance of God, and the usual vigour ot his own arm, not upon a miracle, which God had nol promised. To avoid these inconveniences, ii is net to admit, that David mentions two diliereiil rencounters, ime Willi a lion, and another with a bear; in both which lie succeeded in rescuing the prey from the devourer. This hypothesis has the advantage of being jxi t' , 1 1- with the text; for the panicle rendered ami, is often dis- junctive, and ought to be translated or. Thus, in the law n the passover, it is commanded, "Ye shall take it out fom the sheep or from the goats;" and in the precepl for securing reverence to parents, " He thai suiiteth hi- lather or his mother, shall surely be put to death;" "and he that cur.s,'!h his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death;" in all which, the connecting particle is the same. But by the law of Moses, only one lamb, or one kid, was to be taken for each household, not two; and if a person smote, or cursed one of his parents, he was guilty of death; in these cases, therefore, the particle is properly rendered or; and by consequence, maybe so rendered in the text under consideration. The words of David would then run thus: There came a lion or a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock. This version is also required by the verb, which, instead of being in the plural, as the conjunctive particle demands, is in the singular number, which clear- ly indicates a disjunctive sense. This is confirmed by the next verse, in which David speaks of them in the singular number : "And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth; and when he rose against me, 1 caught him bv his beard, and smote him, and slew him." If these two animals had been in company, he could with no propriety have spoken of them in this man- ner. The meaning therefore is, there came a lion on one occasion, and on another a bear, and took each a lamb out of the flock; and he went out against each of them and res- cued the lamb from his mouth. Thus, by the favour of Providence, did the future shepherd of Israel, on two dif- ferent occasions, slay both the lion and the bear. Nor ought this to be reckoned an achievement beyond the power of a single combatant ; for an ancient poet only ad- mits it to be extremely dangerous, and almost beyond the powers of man, to deliver the prey from the mouth of a hungry lion, but does not venture to" pronounce it imprac- ticable : — "Esurienti leoni ex ore exculpere pra?dam." Nor is any mistake imputable to David, when he speaks of -eizing a bear by the beard ; for the original term sometimes denotes the chili ; as in this precept of the ceremonial law : " If a man or woman have a plague upon the head or beard; then the priest shall see the plasiie." He, therefore, seized the l.jn by his beard, and the bear, that was not favoured Ver. 38. And Saul armed David with liis ar- mour, and he put a helmet of brass upon his head ; also he armed him with a coat of mail. A principal piece of defensive armour entitled to our no- tice, is the helmet, which protected the head This has been used from the remotest ages by almost every nntion of a martial spirit. The champion of the Philistines had a helmet of brass upon his head, as had also the kiog of Is- rael, who commanded the armies of the living God. This martial cap was also worn by the Persians and Ethiopians in tfie day of battle. The Grecian helmets wi i made of the skins of beast: : but the helmet ol warrior seems to have ben, uniform]) madi ol iron; and to this - I ca t seems to refer. In allusion to this piece ol defensive ar- mour, Paul directs the believei to mil on tor a helmet i alvation, which secures the head -in i test, till through him that hue,! bun, he gain a complete That well gimiiided In.] , Of eternal life, which is attended with inell'aNe satisfaction, and nevei disappoints the soul, like a helmei of brass shall guard it against fear and danger, enable it patiently to en dure every hardship, and I j it again I the mi and threatening attacks of Satan and all his confederate! Sneh :i. !i ei iii ie tins solid hope is not less calculated ti strike with dismay, than was the helmet oi an am the day of battle his mortal foes, by its its horrific devices of Gorgons and Chimera and its nodding plumes which overlooked the dreadful cone. — P.ixton. Ver. 43. And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. Men of high caste will not strike those who are of low caste with the hand, because the touch would defile them : they therefore beat them with a stick or some other weapon. Heme i Ver to strike any person with a stick is very S revoking, anil the person so struck will ask, " Am I a og !" When a man wishes to make another angry, be be looking for a sink, which will produce a similar question and feeling. Sometimes, however, they only repeal the proverb, " Take up a stick, and the dog will run off.'' As did the Philistines, so do these people curse each other bv then gods. The imprecations are generally of such a kind as it would be improper to repeal Hemes of filthiness, of sin and hell, are put under contribu- tion, to furnish epithets and allusions lor their execrations. — Roberts. Ver. 44. And the Philistine said to David, Com-; to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field of terrifying an enemy. " Begone, or I will give thy t to the jackals." " The crows shall soon have thy carcass " "Yes. the teeth of the dogs shall soon have hold of thee " " The eagles are ready."— Roberts. Ver. 51. Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philis- tines saw their champion was dead, they fled. The ancient Grecians frequently committed their cause e of a single combat, and decided their quarrels by two or more champions on each side; and their kings and great commanders were so eager in the pursuit of glory, and so tender of the lives of their subjects, that they frequently sent challenges to their rivals, to end the quar- rel by a single encounter, that by the death of one of them, !h. . iii: en of more blood might be prevented. Ancient historv ci mains many remarkable instances of such com- bat--. X.uiihiis, long of Bceotia, challenged the king of Attica, to terminate the dangerous war in which their states were engaged in this war, and lost his hie >n the contest; and Pittacns, the famous Mitylenian, Wiled Phryno the Athenian general, in a single combat. This cu.-tum was not unknown in Palestine and other eastern countries, for the champion of the Philistines challenged the armies of Israel, to give him a man to fight with bun ; and when be fell by the valour of David, his countrymen, struck with dismay, immediately deserted their standards, and endeavoured to save themselves by flight. The chal- lenge given on those occasions, was generally couched in the°most insolent language, and delivered with a very con- temptuous air. Thus. Homer makes one chief oddresn another in these I Bold as thou art, too prodigal I 1 SAMUEL. Chap. IS. ife, approach and enter the dark gates of death." his is a tame spiritless defiance, compared with the proud give thy flesh to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field;" or the bold and manly, but devout reply of the youthful warrior: " Thou comest to me with a sword, and w'.th a spear, and with a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand, and I will smite thee, and take thy head from thee, and I will give the carcasses of the hosts o'f the Philistines this dav unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth ; that all th» earth may know that there is a God in Israel." The Philistines no sooner saw their champion fallen, and his head severed from his body, than, seized with a panic fear, they fled, and the armies of Israel pursued with loud acclamations. Another instance of panic which struck the army of the Philistines, a short tune before, when Jonathan and his armour-bearer fell upon their garrison and put them to flight, is described in these terms: "And there was trembling in the host, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison and the spoilers, they m'so trembled; and the earth quaked; so it was a verv great trembling." In the Hebrew, it is a trem- bling of God; that is, a fear which God sent upon them, and consequently which the strongest mind could not reason down, nor the firmest heart resist. This fear, the Greeks and other heathen nations called a panic; because Pan, one of their gods, was believed to be the author of it. Bacchus, in his Indian expedition, led his army into some defiles, where he was surrounded by his enemies, and re- duced to the last extremity. By the advice of Pan, his lieutenant-general, he made his army give a sudden shout, which struck the enemy with so great astonishment and terror, that they fled with the utmost precipitation. Hence, it was ever afterward called a panic, and supposed to come directly from heaven. It is thus expressed by Pindar: " "When men are struck with divine terrors, even the chil- dren of the gods betake themselves to flight." The flight of the Syrians, in the reign of Jehoram, king of Israel, was produced by a panic, which so completely unmanned them, that, says the sacred historian, " all the way was full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had east away in their haste." The flight of Saladin's army, which was defeated by Baldwin" IV. near Gaza, in the time of the crusades, was marked with similar circum- stances of consternation andfterror. To flee with greater expedition, they threw away their arms and clothes, their coats of mail, their greaves, and other pieces of armour, and abandoned their bagg/ige, and fled from their pursuers, almost in a state of complete nudity. — Paxton. Yer. 55. And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth ? And Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. It is a favourite way of addressing a person by saying, " You are the son of such a person," or, " Is he not the son of such a man 1" How Saul could have forgotten David, is impossible to account for. When a person has to ask a number of questions, though he know well the name of the individual he has to address, he often begins by asking, " Whose son are you 1" Many people never go by their proper name : they are known by the son of such a person, as Nellinaderin Maggan, i. e. the son of Nellinatkr. — Rob- erts. Ver. 57. And as David returned from the slaugh- ter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand. On some occasions the victor cut off the head of his ene- mv, and carried it in triumph on the point of a spear, and presented it, if a person of inferior rank, to his prince or the commander-in-chief. Barbarossa, the dey of Algiers, returned in triumph from the conquest of the kingdom of Cucco, with the head of the king, who had lost his life in the contest, carried before him on a lance. Mr. Harmer thinks it probable that the Philistines cut off the head ot Saul, whom they found among the slain, en Gilboa, tocaT- ry it in triumph on the point of a spear to their principal city, according to the custom of those times ; and that Da- vid, in a preceding war, severed the head of Goliath from his body, for the purpose of presenting it to Saul, in the same manner, on the point of a lance. The words of the inspired historian do not determine ihe mode in which it was presented ; we must therefore endeavour to form our opinion from the general custom of the East. The words of the record are : " And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand." It is scarcely to he supposed that the youthful war- rior was introduced with the sword in the one hand, and the head of his enemy in the other, like one of our execu- tioners holding up the head of a traitor ; it is more reason- able to jmagine, says Mr. Harmer, that he appeared in a more graceful and warlike attitude, bearing on the point of a lance the head of his adversary. But it must be con fessed that the other idea, after all" that respectable writer has said, is more naturally suggested by the words of the inspired historian. It is a common practice in Turkey to cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle, and lay them in heaps before the residence of their emperor, or his princi- Eal officers. In Persia Mr. Hanway saw a pyramid of uman heads at the entrance of Astrabad. They were the heads of Persians who had rebelled against their sov- ereign. This barbarous custom may be traced up to a very remote antiquity ; and it was probably not seldom re- duced to practice in the various governments of Asia. "When Jehu conspired against Ahab, he commanded the heads of his master's children, seventy in number, to be cut off, and brought in baskets to Jezreel, and " laid in tw^o heaps at the "entering in of the gate until the morning." The renowned Xenophon says, in his Anabasis, that the same custom was practised by the Chalybes ; and Herod- otus makes the same remark in relation to the Scythians. — P.4XTON. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 4. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his*bow, and to his girdle. See on Est. 6. 7, 8. An ancient mode of ratifying an engagement, was by presenting the party with some article of their own dress; and if they were warriors, by exchanging their arms.. The greatest honour which a king of Persia can bestow upon a subject, is to cause himself to be disrobed, and his habit given to the favoured individual. The cus- tom was probably derived from the Jews ; for when Jona- than made his covenant with David, " he stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments ; even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle." — In a similar way, Julus, and the other Trojan chiefs, confirmed their solemn engagements to Nisus and Euryalus : " Thus weeping over him, he speaks ; at the same time divests his shoulders of his gilded sword— On Nisus Mnestheus bestows the skin and spoil of a grim shaggy lion ; trusty Alethes exchanges with him his hel- met." This instance proves, that among the ancients, to part with one's girdle was a token of the greatest confi- dence and affection ; in some cases it was considered as an act of adoption. The savage rribes of North America, that are certainly of Asiatic origin, ratify their covenants and leagues in the same way ; in token of perfect recon- ciliation, they present a belt of wampum. — Paxton. Ver. 6. And it came to pass, as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with in- struments of music. Has a long absent son returned, is a person coming who has performed some great exploit, are the bride and bride- Chap. 19. 1 SAMUEL. croom with their attendants expected; then, those in the forth with tabrats and pipes to meet them and greet them, and conduct diem on the way. When a "rcat man is expected, the people of the village always send the tabrets and pipes lo meet him. li is amusing i what earnestness and vehemence they blow their instru- ments, or heat their tom-toms, and stamp along the toad — Roberts. The .lancing and playing OS instruments of music, be- ol d ist in. 'Hi m, when they pass near the dwell- ofsuch as arc engaged in country business still continue in the East. When the Baron de Ton was sent by the French government, to inspect the factories of that na- tion in the Levant, having proceeded from Egypt to the maritime cities of Syria, he went from them to Aleppo and returning from thence to Alexandreita, in order lo visit < yprus, and some other places of which he has "iven an account in his memoirs, lie tells us, that between Aleppo and Alexandria, he saw, on a sudden, the troop the eov- ernorot Aleppo had sent with him, lo escort him turn back and ride towards him. " The commander of the de- tachuient then showed me the tents of the Turcomen bitched on the banks of the lake, near which we were to pass. It was no easy task to keep my company in good spin, s, wi'lnn sight ot six or seven thousand' Asiatics whose peaceable intentions were at least doubtful " " I took care to cover my escort with my small troop of Euro- peans; and we continued to march on, in this order which had no very hostile appearance, when we perceived a mo- tion in the enemy's camp, fiom which several of the Tur- comen advanced to meet us, and I soon had ihe musicians ot ihe ditlerent hordes, playing and dancing before me all the time we were passing by the side of their .amp." The translation does not determine, whether these musicians were of the male or female sex; but I doubt not but that it would appear, on consulting the original French, that thev were women that played and danced before M de Tott the French inspector, while passing along the side of that large encampment. We cannot after this wonder at the account of the sacred historian, that when Saul and David Evt!! ^SFW l>om ^slaughter of Goliath, the great hero of the Philistines Ikevmnm come out of all the cities of ■■■• <>«,!, lamina to, ncrt Kin* Saul, ,.■■ '"''? '"."• "'"' "''"' instruments of music. That is, as I ap- e women of the several villages of Israel near assed, in returning to his settled abode, univer- sal 1 1 [■-ii.l h im i he honour of Miigmg and plaviu" before hira " onsiderable wav, while lie passed alon- in the tr to them All Israel were engaged in rural em- its, as well as these Turcomen. De Tott ascribes mrs paid |,,m by these Asiatics to the hope of a re- ,,-H ',{ k e' '■' ","'',"' bv l"wn,i»? H"-m with that rewaid the hope ot which had brought them to attend us and with which they were very civil to go away contented." ) Mould remark, that the eastern princes sometimes cause money to be scattered in processions on joyful occasions according to, l„s very writer; however, the satisfaction that succeeded great terror, upon the death of Goliath was enough to engage the Israelitish women universally to ppV ■his honour to thetr own king, and an heroic youth of their "" na'"'"- "hr, had been the instrument of effecting such a great salvation fir their country, without any lucrative considerations whatever.— Harmer When leaving the city of Lattakoo, to visit the king of .he Matslaroos, on the confines of the great southern Za- bara desert, a party of men was returning from a distant expedition, after an absence of several months. The news ot their approach had reached the town, and the women were hastening to meet them. On joining the party, thev marched at their head, clapping their hands, and singing with all their might, till thev arrived at their homes in the town. On witnessing this scene, my mind was carried ■ ,i u lh0ll,and years, to the very occurrence recorded in me above passage. The occasion, no doubt, was a jov- InH.l'0 '\e fea;ales. J0me of whom had their husbands, and others their fathers and brothers, in the expedition, for wtiose safety they were interested, and had been anxiously «necUc,n?K- rThe,-Sa Te must have heen ,he ^e «ilh re- Tee, lo the Israelitish women, while Saul's army were re- •urnmg vlctonous from the Philistine war.— African Light. Vcr. 25. And Saut said, Thus shall ye say to Da- 105 road i ploy,,, the he ward : vid, The king .I.Mi.th not any dowry ],i,t a hundred foreskins of the Philistines/ lo be avenged ol the king's i aemii Bm Saul thought to make David full by the hand of the Philistines. In the remote ages of antiquity, women were literallv purchased by their husbands; and the presents made to their parens or oilier relations were ,,, the practice still continues in the country ol tor when a young Arab wishes ,o marry, he ,„,, his wife; and Srthis reason, fathers, among the Arabs are never more happy than when the; have many daugh' a^'a u -V are- reckl,ned the principal riches An Arabian suiter will offer fitly sheep, six camels , - • dozen of cows; jf he be not rich 'enough ... mak ,'.,, , ,', fers, he proposes to give a mare or a colt; considering in he offer, the merit of ihe young woman, the rank of her family and his own eireomstances. In the primitive times of Greece, a well-educated lady was valued a. four oxc-n. When they are agreed on both is drawn up by h„„ that acts as cadi or judge among these Arabs I„ some parts of the East, a „»■ formally mentioned in contracts for I heir concubines or emporarv wives, besides the sun, of money which is simu- lated by way oi dowry. This custom is probably as an- cient as concubinage, with which ,t is counected; and if so it will perhaps account for theprophet Hosea's purchasing a wife of this kind, for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley. When ihe intended husband was not able to give a dowry, he offered an equivalent. The patriarch Jacob, v with only his stall, offend 'o serve hm, Rachel ; a proposal which Laban accepted. Tbl has descended lo modern times; for in Cahiil th men who are unable to advance the required dov with their future father-in-law and earn iheirbr,.: services, without ever seeing Ihe object of tie Saul, instead of a dowry, required David to |„„ . hundred foreskins of the Philistines, under the , avenging himself of his enemies. This custom has pre- vailed in latter limes; for in some countries they "ive their daughters in marriage lo Ihe valiant men. „i should bnngthem so many heads of the people with whom they happen to be at war. It is recorded of a Caramania. that no man among them was permitted to rnarry, till he had first brought the head of an i m king. Aristotle admits, that the ancientGreciat, customed to btty tbeir wives; bill Ihey no sooner bi gan 10 lay aside their barbarous manners, than this disgusting practice ceased, and ihe custom of giving portions lo their sons-in-law. was substituted in its place. T, also, inihe first ages,,! iheir history, purchased tie but afterward, they required the wife to bring a portion lo ihe husband, that he might be able to bear the charges of the matrimonial state more easily.— Paxton. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 12. So MichaJ let David down through s window; and he went, and fled, and , 13. And Michal took- an imarre. and laid if in the bed, and put a pillow rrf goats' ha\ bolster, and covered if with a cloth, 14. And when Saul sent messengers to lake David, she said, He is sick. 15. And Saul sent the mes- sengers again to see David. Baying, Dring him up to me in the bed, that I may s.av" him 16. And when the messengers were come in behold, there iras an imarre in the bed. with a pillow of goats' hair for his bolster. 17. And Saul said unto Michal. Why hast thou ' me so, and sent away mine enemy, that he is escaped ? And Michal answered Saul, He said unto me, Let me sro; why should I kill ihee? An accident led me into a train of thought, relating tc that piece of furniture the Romans called a canopcum, and 136 which is said lo denote a canopy or pavilion made of net- work, which hung about beds; and was designed to keep away gnats, which are sometimes insupportably trouble- some to the more delicate. I recollected that it is at this time used in the East; and that if it may be supposed to have obtained so early there as the time of King Saul, it may very happily illustrate the above passage of scripture, of which our commentators have given a very unsatisfac- tory account. I should suppose a canopeum, or guard against gnats, is what is meant by the word translated a pillow of goats' hair. I cannot conceive what deception could arise from the pillow's being stuffed with goats' hair, or for making a trussof goats' hair serve for a pillow. This last must have been, on the contrary, very disagreeable to a sick man; especially one who, having married a princess, must be supposed to have been in possession of agreeable ac- commodations of life, such at least as were used at that time, and in that country. A piece of fine net-work to guard L.z? from gnats, and other troublesome insects, that might >.->"ub the repose of a sick man, was extremely natural, if ..__e use of them was as early as the days of Saul. It is in one place translated a thick cloth, in another, a sieve ; now a cloth of a nature fit to use for a sieve, is just such a thing as 1 am supposing, a fine net-work or gauze like cloth. Here it is translated a pillow, but for no other reason, but because it appeared to be something relating to the head ; but a canopeum relates to the head as well as a pillow, being a canopy suspended over the whole bed, or at least so far as to surround the head, and such upper part of the body as might be uncovered. Modern canopies of this nature may be of other materials : they may be of silk or thread, but goats' hair was in great use in those earlier ages, and may be imagined to have been put to this use in those times, as our modern sieves still continue frequently to be made of the hair of animals. After this preparatory remark, I would produce a proof, that this kind of defence against gnats is used in the East. " Among the hurtful animals that Egypt produces," says Maillet, " those that we call gnats ought not to be forgotten. If their size prevents all apprehensions of dangerous acci- dents from them, their multitudes make them insupportable. The Nile water, which remains in the canals and the lakes, into which it makes its way every year, produces such a prodigious quantity of these insects, that the air is often darkened by them. The nighttime is that in which people are most exposed to receive punctures from them; and it is with a view to guard themselves from them, that they sleep so much here on the tops of their houses, which are flat-roofed. These terraces are paved with square flat stones, very thin ; and as in this country, they have no ap- prehension's from rain or fogs, they are wont to place their beds on these roofs every night, in order to enjoy their re- pose more undisturbedly and coolly, than they could any- where else. Gnats seldom rise so high in the air. The agitation of the air at that height is loo much for them ; they cannot bear it. However, for greater precaution, pci sons of any thing of rank never fail to have a tent set up in these terraces, in the midst of which is suspended a pavilion of fine linen, or of gauze, which falls down to the ground, and encloses the mattress. Under the shelter of this pavilion, which the people of the country call na- mousie, from the word namous, which in their language signifies fly, or gnat, people are secured against these in- sects, not only on the terraces, but everywhere else. If they were to make use of them in Europe, I do not doubt hut' that people that sleep in the daytime, and above all the sick, would find the advantage of them ; for it must be acknowledged, that in summer-time those small insects, which introduce themselves into all places, are insupporta- ble to people that would take their repose, and much more so to those that are ill." No curious carved statue, which indeed one can hardly imagine was to be found in the house of David, was necessary ; any thing formed in a tolerable resemblance of the body of a man was sufficient for this deception, covered over with the coverlet belonging to the mattress on which it was laid, and where the head should have been placed, being covered all over with a pavilion of goats' hair, through which the eye could not penetrate. A second visit, with a more exact scrutiny, discovered the artifice. There is another passage in which the word occurs, and it the same sense. It is in the account the historian gives eat, dis- eof rom him UEL. Chap. 20,21 us of the real cause of the death of Benhadad, the king ol Syria, 2 Kings viii. 15 ; " And it came to pass on the mor- row, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in wate>s and spread it over his face, so that he died : and Hazael reigned in his stead." If Hazael stifled him, why all this parade 1 the drawing the pillow from under hi:: head, and clapping it over his mouth, would have been sufficient. Why the procuring a thick cloth, according to our translators 1 why the dipping it in water 1 It is the same word (1^2= kebeer) with that in Samuel, and, it is reasonable therefore to sup- pose, means the same thing, a gnat pavilion. The dipping it in water may well be supposed to be under the pretence of coolness arid refreshment. So Pitts tells us, that the people of Mecca " do usually sleep on the tops of the houses for the air, or in the streets before their doors. Some lay the small bedding they have on a thin mat on the ground ; others have a slight frame, made much like drink-stalls, on which we place barrels, standing on four legs, corded with palm cordage, on which they put their bedding. Before they bring out their bedding, they sweep the streets, and water them. As for my own part, I usually lay open with- out any bed-covering, on the top of the house ; only I took a linen cloth, dipped in the water, and after I had wrung it, covered myself with it in the night : and when I awoke, if I should find it dry, then I would wet it again ; and thus I did two or three times in a night." In like manner, Niebuhr tells us, in his description of Arabia, that :' as ii is excessively hot, in the summer-time, on the eastern shore of the Persian gulf, and they do not find that the dew there is unwholesome, they sleep commonly in the open air." He goes on, "in the island of Charedsj, I never enjoyed my repose better than when the dew moistened my bed in the night." Hazael then had a fair pretence to offer to moisten the gnat pavilion, if Benhadad did not himself desire it, on the account of his extreme heat, which might prove the occasion of his death, while the dis- temper itself was not mortal. Whether the moistu that piece of furniture proved at that time destructive fr the nature of the disease, or whether Hazael stifled _____ with it, we are not told by the historian, and therefore cannot pretend absolutely to determine. Conjecture is not likely to be very favourable to Hazael.— Harmed. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 30. Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, Thou son ol the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother's nakedness. In the East, when they are angry with a person, they abuse and vilify his parents. Saul thought of nothing bu venting his anger against Jonathan, nor had any design to reproach his wife personally ; the mention of her was only a vehicle by which, according lo oriental modes, he was to convey his resentment against Jonathan into the minds of those about him. — Harmer. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 9. And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod : if thou wilt take that, take it ; for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that ; give it me. To the jewels of silver and gold, which the Hebrew soldier was accustomed to bring as a free-will offering into the treasury of his God, must be added the armour ol some illustrious foe, which, in gratitude for his preserva- tion, he suspended in the sanctuary. The sword of Go- liath was wrapped up in a cloth, and deposited behind the ephod; and in a succeeding war, the Philistines provirg victorious, took their revenge bv depositing the armour ol Saul in the temple of Ashtaroth. The custom of dedica- ting to the gods the spoils of a conquered enemy, and placing them in their temples as trophies of victory and testimonies of gratitude, is verv ancient, and .universally received in Asia and Greece. Hector promises to dedicate his enemy's Chap. 22, 23. SAMUEL. 167 trmour in the temple of Apollo, if he would grant him the victory: " 13m it' 1 shall prove victorious, and Apollo vouchsafe the glory to strip off his annum-, and carry .1 Trov, then' will 1 suspend ii in the temple of oiing Apollo." Virgil alludes to this custom in ■■ Mull.n|iir |»r;rt. riri ? " Besides, on the sacred doorposts, many arms, captive charietS, and crooked eimeters are suspended, helmets, crested plumes, and massy bars of gates, and dans, and shields, and beaks torn from ships." Nor was it the cus- tom onlj to delicate to heaven the weapons taken from an enemy; when the soldier retired from the tumults of war to he I' isom .if his family, he frequently hum; up his own arms in the temple, as a grateful acknowledgment of the a i ,ii Ii ■ had received, and the victories lie had won. In tins custom, the Greeks and Romans imitated the Asiatic nations, and particularly the Hebrews; for when David he command of his armies to bis generals, he laid up bis arms in the tabernacle, where they continued for several ages; and there is reason to believe bis conduct in this respect, was followed by many of his compan s in arms. When Jbash, one of his descendants, was crowned, Jehoiada the high-priest, under whose care he bad been educated, delivered to the captains of hundreds, spears, and bucklers, and shields, that had been King David's, which were in the house of God. — Paxton. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 6. When Saul heard that David was dis- covered, and the men that were with him, (now Saul abode in Giheah under a tree in Rauiah, having his spear in his hand, and all his ser- vants were standing about him.) Though mean people in travelling might make use of trees for shelter from the heat, we may perhaps think it almost incredible that kings should not imagine that either proper houses would be marked out for their reception ; or if that could not be conveniently done in some of their routes, that at least they would have tents carried along with them, as persons of more than ordinary rank and condition are supposed by Dr. Shaw now to do. For these reasons we may possibly have been extremely surprised at that passage concerning Saul, 1 Sam. xxii. 6, Now Saul abode in Gibeah, under a tree in Iiamah, or, according to the margin, under a grove in a high place, having his spear in • ■•id all his servants v:crc standing about him. Yet strange as this may appear to us, it is natural enough according to the present customs of the East, where we know the solemnity and awfulness of superiority is kept up as high as ever. Thus when Dr. Pococke was travelling in the company of the governor of Faiume, who was treated with great respect as he passed along, they passed one night, he tells us, in a grove of palm-tree's. The governor might, no doubt, had he pleased, have lodged in some village; but he rather chose a place which we think- very odd for a person of figure. The position of Saul, which was on a high place according to the margin, reminds me of another passage of this author, where he gi"es us an account of the going out of the Cava, or lieu- tenant of the governor of Meloui, on a sort of Arab expe- dition, towards a place where there was an ancient temple, attended by manv people with kettledrums and other . music: the doctor visited that temple, and upon his return from it went to the cava, he says, " whose carpets and cushions were laid on a height, on which he sat with the standard by him, which is carried before him when he goes out in this manner. I sat down with him, and coffee was brought: the sadar himself, came after as incognito." San! seems, bv the description given, as well as bv the fol- lowing part of the history, to have been pursuing after David, and stopping, to have placed himself, according to the present oriental mode, in the posture of chief. AVhether the spear in his hand, or at his hand, as it might be trans- lated according to Noldius, and as appears by the use of that prefix in Ezek. x. 15, was the same thing to Saul's people that the standard was to those of the cava. I know not: if it was, there is a third thing in this text illustrated by the dw tor's accoun the stopping . and the sacred hi remark, that hi had kii ipeai by him It i certain, that when a long pike is cat i led I efor* a com] an] ol Arfibs, it is a mark that an Arab sheik, i pi in •■•, i their, which pike is carried before him; and when he alights, and the noises are fastened, the pike is fixed, a appears by a story in Not den. — Hahmkii. Ver. 18. And the king said to Do.-, Torn thou and fall upon the priests. And l)oeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon (he pie t- and slew on that day fourscore and live persons that did wear a linen ephod. Im ancient times, persons of the highest rank and slatior. were employed to execute the sentence of the law. They had not then, as we have at present, public <■■■.., but the prince laid Ins commands an any whom he chose, and probably selected the person for whom he had the greatest favour. Gideon commanded Jether, his eldest son, to execute his sentence on the kings of Midian : the king of Israel ordered the footmen « ho stood around him, and were probably a chosen body of soldiers for the defence of his person, to put to death the the Lord; and when thev refused, Doeg, an Edomite, of Ins principal officers. ' Long alter the days of Saul, the reigning monarch commanded Beniab, the chief captain of his armies, to perforin that duty. Sometimes the ehiet magistrate executed the sentence of the law with his own hands; for when Jether shrunk from the duty which hi. father required, Gideon, at that time i ! trate in Israel, did not hesitate to do it himself, In these times such a command would be reckoned equally barba- rous and unbecoming; but the ideas which in those primitive ages of honour and propriety voir in many respects extremely different fromours a Homer, the exasperated Ulysses commanded his son Tclemachui to put to death the suiters of Penelope, which v. B immc- diatelv done. The custom of employing persons ,,f hr.-\ rank to execute the sentence of the law, is still i< the principality of Senaar, where the public executioner is one of the principal nobility ; and, by virtue of his office, resides in the royal palace.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 16. And Jonathan Saul's son arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God. A passage in the Travels of Pietro delltt Valle, which bears a strong resemblance to this part of David's history, considerably illustrates it Speaking of his passin a forest or wood in Mazanderan, a province of Persia, into which thev entered on the 11th of February, and com- plaining of the moisture and heaviness of ihe" roads there, he tcIN us, "We did at length master them, but with so much difficulty that we could not get forward above two leagues that day, and night overtook us before we got through the forest. We endeavoured to find some place of retreat in different parts, to which the barkn or noise made bv other animals, seemed to gnidi at last, finding no inhabited place near us, we | night in the same forest, among the trees, under which we made a kind of intrenchment with our baggage, in a place where we found many leaves that had fallen from the trees. These served lis for a carpet and for bedding botn, without anv other tent than the branches of the great trees there, through which the moonshine reached us and made a kind of pavilion of cloth of silver. There was no want of wood for the making a great fire, any more than of pro- visions for supper, which we sent for from the nearest village in the forest, seated by the bighway-side, where. after some contest with the people, of a savage and sus- picions temper, who were ready to come to Blows with my messengers, without knowing any reason why thev should; thev, after coming to a right understanding with us, be- came very civil, would have lodged ns, and made Us presents: 'hut on our refusal on account of the the wav. the chief person of the town, with other principal inhabitants, came of their own accord to our camp, laden 1 SAMUEL. Chap. 23—25 with good meat, and other provisions, and spent the night with us with great gayety. They even brought us a coun- try musician, who regaled us during supper, and all night xmg, with certain forest songs, in the language of the country, that is, of Mazanderan, where a coarse kind of Persian is spoken, sung to the sound of a miserable violin, which was sufficiently tiresome."— Harmer. Ver. 19. Then came up the Ziphites to Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself with us in strongholds in the wood, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon? The margin has, for south, "on the right hand." " The Hebrews express the east, west, north, and south, by words which signify before, behind, ltft, and right, according to the situation of a man with his face turned towards the south." In the same way do the Hindoos speak on this subject, the north is shown by the left, the south by the right hand, the face being considered to be towards the east. When the situation of any thing is spoken of, it is always mentioned in connexion with the cardinal points. Often, when people wish to give intelligence respecting any thing, they begin by asking a question which conveys the inform- ation required. Thus the situation of poor David was described by asking a question. " Have not the elephants been ravaging the fields of Tamban last night V is a question asked wThen such a circumstance has taken place. — Roberts. Ver. 29. And David went up from thence, and dwelt in strongholds at En-gedi. The village of Engedi, situated in the neighbomhood of Jericho, derives its name from the Hebrew word (py) Ain, a fountain, and (i-ij) a kid. It is suggested by the situation icks, which, overhanging fountain of pure wal|r rises near the summit, which the inhabitants call Engeai, the fountain of the goat, because it is hardly accessible to any other creature.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 8. And when Saul looked behind him, Da- vid stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed himself. " Some time after this, the ambassador had his public audience, when we saw the king in great splendour: he was decked in all his jewels, with his crown on his head, his bazubends or armlets on his arms, seated on his throne. We approached him, bowing after our own manner ; but the Persians bowed as David did to Saul, who stooped with Us fore to the earth, and bowed himself. 1 Sam. xxiv. 8. That is, not touching the earth with the face, but bowing with their bodies at right angles, the hands placed on the knees, and the legs somewhat asunder. It is only on remarkable occasions that the prostration of the Rouee Zemeen, the face to the earth, is made, which must be the falling upon the face to the earth, and worshipping as Joshua did." — Mobier. Ver. 12. The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee : but my hand shall not be upon thee. The attitudes and expression of respect, which the rules of good-breeding require from the Oriental, are far more diversified and servile than ours ; yet he uses a freedom with his equals, and even with persons of superior condi- tion, which we are uniformly taught to regard as im- proper. It is reckoned .among us a sure mark of vulgarity, in any person to mention his own name before that of his equal ; and an instance of great arrogance to name himself refore his superior ; but in the East, it is quite customary for the speaker to name himself first. This was also the Habitual practice in Israel, and quite consistent with their notions of good-breeding: for David, who had been long at the court of Saul, and could be no stranger to the rules •if ?ood manners, addressed his sovereign in these words: 'The Lord judge between me and thee;" and this at a time too, when he treated that prince with great reverence; foi " he stooped with his face tothe earth, and bowed himself immediately before. In the same manner, Ephron ihe Hittite replied to the patriarch Abraham, who was at least his equal, more probably his superior : " My lord, hearken unto me ; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that between me and thee V Hence David was guilty of no rudeness to Saul, in naming himself first ; his conduct was quite agreeable to the modern ceremonial of eastern courts, at least to that of Persia, which seems to have been established soon after the flood. — Paxton. Ver. 14. After whom is the king of Israel come out 1 after whom dost thou pursue ? after a dead dog, after a flea ? dog. Has a servant offended his master ; he will say, " Stand there and be like a dead dog to me." Does a creditor press much for his money ; the debtor will say, " Bring your bond, and then he is a dead dog to me." "I care as much for that fellow as for a dead dog." " I will tell you what that fellow is worth ; a dead dog!" — Roberts. Ver. 16. And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. "When a man in great sorrow is spoken of, it is said, "Ah, how he did lift up his voice and weep!" " Alas, how great is their trouble, they are all lifting up the voice." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 1. And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And Da- vid arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran. While walking out one evening, a few fields' distance from Deir el Kaner, with Hanna Doomani, the son of my host, to see a detached garden belonging to his father, he pointed out to me, near it, a small solid stone building, apparently a house ; very solemnly adding, " Kabbar beily," the sepulchre of our family, ft had neither door nor window. He then directed my attention to a considerable number of similar buildings, at a distance; which to the eye are exactly like houses, but which are in fact family mansions for the dead. Perhaps this custom may have been of great antiquity; and may serve to explain some scripture phrases. The prophet' Samuel was buried in his house at Ramah: it could hardly have been his dwell- inghouse, compare 1 Kings ii. 34, Job xxx. 23. Possibly also the passages in Prov. ii. 18, 19, and vii. 27, and ix. IV, describing the house of a w-anton woman, may have drawn their imagery from this custom. — Jowett. Ver. 5. Go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. Job xxix. 8. The a°:ed arose and stood up. Acts xxviii. 10. Who also honoured me with many honours. In the Old and New Testaments we have some striking examples of what may be termed good-breeding. Look at the patriarchs and others in their renunciation of self, their anxiety to please, to show respect to the aged, and learned, the dignified, or those of the sacerdotal character; listen to their affecting eulogies and their touching appeals, and then sav, have we not in them some of the most pleasing instances of gentility and good-breeding 1 On their great anniversary festival's, the Hindoos always send to "greet" each other. Has a son or daughter got married : has a " male child" been born ; has prosperity attended the mer- chant in his pursuits ; does a traveller pass through a town or village where some of his friends or acquaintances re- side: then, those concerned send greeting expressive of their joy, and best wishes for future prosperity. See them I on receiving company. A servant, or friend, stands at the CllA.1'. 1 SAMUEL. [69 gate to watch for the approach of ihe guests, and to give he master of the house. When tbey-appi «ch the premises the bosl goes oal to meel them, and bow and ii- joy at seeing thorn ; he then pins his arm ivei thc-ir shoulders, or takes them by the band, ami con toots the. n into the house. When they reiire also, he always accompanies them to the gate, anil expresses the great joy he has had in their company. Before people take their food 'hey always wash their hands, feet, and month; and when they sit dov> n, thev lake their plai and seniority. Should any man presume to sit down " in the highest" place when he lias not a title to it, he will be lure (as in the parable) to hear the master say to him, in peel to "a more honourable man," "Give tins man ind then, " with shame," he will he compelled " to take the lowest" place. In supplving the quests, the chief nit is always served the first, and generally by the hands of the host 'himself. They are also particular a* to the order of serving up their viands and condiments ; lo s,.[ on the table certain articles first would be there con- nun h out ol place as i; i- in Kneland to set on ill'' des v>rt before the more substantial dishes. Kpn-iues -u home would smile, and pout the lip, at iher. e. of a Saiva 'nan. His first cm :on i ' ol pulse, screen . id ghee, or butter; the second, of numerous ad ickles made of half-ripe frill's, vegetables, : the third, an acid kind of broth; the fourth, ley, and rice: the fifth, a rich supply of mellow l'"iii.s. From this humble repast the guests ai ise wilh more ml at less expense of health, than the luxurious in dies from his half-medicated meal, to which science is now the footman, and a few French terms its le vocabulary. When ihc visiters have taken ivhai they require, the principal person arises from his seat, and all present follow his example. — Roberts. Ver. 10. And Xabal answered David's servants, and said. Who is David ? and who is the son of Jesse ? There be many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master. When a man has gained some ascendency over others, or when he assumes authority which is offensive to some one present, it will be inquired, by way of contempt, as Xabal did respecting David, " Who is hel and whose son IS he V— Roberts. Ver. 16. They were a wall unto us, both by nicrht and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. This was said of David and his men, who had been kind unto 'he servants of Xabal, and had probably been a defence tolhem while they had been in the wilderness tending their sheep. And the same figure is also used among us, in ref- erence to those who have been a defence to others. " Ah ! mv friend : you have been a mathil. i. c. a wall, onto me." ■' A 'as ! my wall is fallen," means, the friend is dead, or be- come weak. " What care I for that jackal 1 I have a good wall before me."— Roberts. Ver. 23. And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground. A rider was expected to dismount, when he met a person ■ )' more elevated rank. Under the influence of this ancient custom, the Egyptians dismount from their asses, when lev approach the tombsof their departed saints; and both Chris-ians and Jews are obliged to submit to the same cer- "•nony. Christians in that country must also dismount wh n thev happen to meet with officers of the army. In Palestine, the Jews, who are not permitted to ride on horse- back, are compelled to dismount from their asses and pass bv a Mohammedan on foot. This explains the reason that Achsah, the daughter of Caleb, and Abigail the wife of Xabal. alighted from their asses ; it was a mark of respect which the former owed to her father, and the latter to Da- vid, a person of high rank and growing renown. It was undoubtedlv for the same reason, that Rebecca alighted from the camel on which she rode, when the servant in- 2-2 that the stranger whom she descried at • dis- tance in the field, w,as his master; and that .N'anman, the Syrian grandee, alighted from his chariot, at tin . "' '" '. the " rvanl ol Elisha. — Pjiiton. Ver. 20. Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; and the souls of thine eneme shall he sling out, as out of the middle ol b sling. Any thing which is important or valuable is called a Lilln. i. , ■■ a bundle, a pack, a bale." A young man who is enamoured of a female, is said to be " bound up in il.e knttu, bundle, of love." Of a just judge the people say. Ib- is bound up in the bundle of justii e." When a man is very strict in reference to his caste, "he is bound up in the bui die of high caste." When a person is spoken to n the vanities or impurities oi bis system, be ol i " Talk not to me. I am bound op in the bundle of my reli- gion." " Why do those people act sol — Because they are bound up in the bundle of desire." David, therefore, was to be bound up in the bundle of life — nothing was to harm him. — Roberts. Ver. 35. So David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, < in up in peace to thy house: see, 1 have lic.ii k ened to thy voice, and have accepted thy persi o. Does a person ask a favour of his superior; it will not be. in general, said in reply. " I grant your request;" or, "You shall have your desire:" but, Ac ' tain, "I have seen thy face." Has a man greatly i another, and does he plead for mercy; the person to w hom offence has been given will Say, "I have seen ' winch means, ihat he is pardoned. Should a fi'iend in- quire, "Well, what punishment do you intend to i that fellow 1" he will reply, " 1 have seen his face." In ap- plying ftir help, should there be a denial, the applicant will ask, "In whose face shall I now look!" When a man has nearly lost all hope, he says, " For the sake of the face of God grant me my rr-quest." — Roberts. Ver. 36. And Abigail came to Nabal : and. be- hold, he held a feast in his house, like the feasl of a kins.'; and NtiLal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken : wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until tl ing light. Sheep-shearing is an operation to which allusii frequently made in the sacred volume, The wool in very remote times was not shorn with an iron instrui plucked off with the hand. From the concurrent testi- mony of several writers, the lime when it is performed in Palestine, falls in the month of March. If this be ad- mitted, it fixes the time of the year when Jacob departed from Laban on his return to hi- father'- bouse him at the time he went to shear his sheep. In ner, the sheep of Nabal were shorn in the spring; for among the presents which Abigail made to David, five measures of parched corn are mentioned. But we k low, from other passages of scripture, that they we lomed to use parched corn when it was lull _■ not ripe; for the people of Israel were c mam law not to eat parched corn nor green ears, until the se.i- same day they had made an offering to the Lord. This time seems to have been spent by the more than usual hilariiv. And it may be inli several hints in the scriptures, that the wealthier proprietors invited their friends and dependnn's tosiimpiuous cm. itain- ments. Nabal. on that jovous occasion, which the servants of David called a good, or festive da v. although a churlish and niggardly man, "held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king;" and on a similar occasion, Absalom treat jd his friends and relations in the same magnificent style ~\ he modern Arabs are more frugal and parsimonious; 170 1 SAMUEL. Chap. 2(5. yet their hearts, so little accustomed to expand wi, i joyous feelings, acknowledge the powerful influence of increasing wealth, and dispose them to indulge in greater jollity than usual. On these occasions, they perhaps kill a lamb, or a goat, and treat their relations and friends ; and at once to testily their respect for their guests, and add to the luxury of the least, crown the festive board with new cheese and milk, dates and honey. — Paxton. Ver. 41. And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thy handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. The necessity for washing the feet in the East has been attributed to their wearing sandals ; but it is very requisite, according to Sir John Chardin, let the covering of the feet be of what kind it will. " Those that travel in the hot countries of the East," he tells us, " such as Arabia is, be- gin, at their arriving at the end of their journey, with pull- ing oS'the coverings of their feet. The sweat and the dust, which penetrate all sorts of coverings for the feet, produce a filth there, which excites a very troublesome itching. And though the eastern people are extremely careful to preserve the body neat, it is more for refreshment than cleanliness, that they wash their feet at the close of their journey." According to-D'Arvieux, the little yellow morocco boots, worn by the Arabs, which are made very light, so as that they may walk in them afoot, and even run in them, are yet so tight as not to be penetrated by water ; but none of ihe eastern coverings for the foot, it seems, can guard against the dust; consequently this custom of washing the feet is not to be merely ascribed to their use of sandals; a circumstance that has not, I think, been attended to, and which therefore claims our notice. — Harmer. CHAPTER XXVI. Ver. 5. And David rose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched : and David beheld the place where Saul la}-, and Abner the son of Ner, the captain of his host : and Saul lay in the trench, and the people pitched round about him. The encampments of Israel in Canaan seem to have been opened and unguarded on all sides. When David rec- onnoitred the camp of Saul, the king " lay in the trench, and all the people pitched round about him." The Hebrew term magal never signifies a ditch and rampart, as our translators seem to have understood it, but a chariot or wag- on way, or highway, or the rut of a wheel in the ground. Nor is it to be understood of a ring of carriages, as the mar- ginal reading seems to suppose, and as Buxtorf interprets the word; for it is not probable that Saul would encumber his army with baggage in so rapid a pursuit, nor that so mountainous a country was practicable for wagons. It seems then simply to mean, the circle these troops formed, in the midst of which, as being the place of honour, Saul ieposed. .An Arab camp is always circular, when the dis- positions of the ground will permit, the chieftain being in the middle, and the troops at a respectable distance around him. Their lances are fixed near them in the ground, all the day long, ready for action. This was precisely the form and arrangement of Saul's camp, as described by the sacred historian. As it is a universal custom in the East to make the great meal at night, and consequently to fall into a deep sleep immediately after it, a handful of resolute men might easily beat up a camp of many thousands. This circumstance undoubtedly facilitated the decisive victory which Gideon obtained over the combined forces of Midian. - Paxton. Ver. 11. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed: but I pray thee, take thou now the spear that is at his bolster, and the cruse of water, and let us so. Thus did Saul sleep, with his head on the bolster, and a vessel of water Dy his side; and in this way do all east- ern travellers sleep at this day. The bolster is round, about eight inches in diameter, and twenty in length. In travel- ling, it is carried rolled up in the mat on which the owner sleeps. In a hot climate, a draught of water is very re- freshing in the night ; hencc.a vessel filled with water is always near where a person sleeps.— Roberts. Ver. 13. Then David went over to the other side, and stood on the top of a hill afar off, a great space being between them: 14. And David cried to the people, and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, Answerest thou not, Abner? Then Abner answered and said, Who art thou that criest to the king? The establishment of a colony of Jews in Abyssinia, is an event sufficiently vouched for .by history ; and among other things, it has had the effect of preserving in that country many usages of the Jews of Judea, traces of w hich we find in the historical books of scripture. The remote situation of this country, with our very imperfect knowl- edge of it, has rendered what evidence it furnishes obscure, and consequently feeble : nevertheless we find, occasionally, instances of such close conformity with scripture inci- dents, that their resemblance strikes even the least obser- vant. This has been stated in strong terms by Mr. Salt, cne of our latest travellers into Abyssinia ; and has been inurd not less remarkable by Mr. Pearce, who re ided there ."everal years. It will be elucidated by the following extracts, whi:h scarcely admit of additional remarks. "While the army emained encamped on this spot, Mr. Pearce went out on an excursion with Badjerund Tesfos and Shalaka Lafsgee, and others c: ;ne Ras'3 people, for the purpose of carrying off some cattle which were known to be secreted in ihe neighbourhood. In this object the party succeeded, getting possession of more than three hundred oxen ; but this was effected with very considera- ble loss, owing to a stratagem put in practice by Guebia Guro, and about fourteen of his best marksmen, who had E laced themselves in a recumbent position on the over- anging brow of a rock, which was completely inaccessi- ble, whence they picked off every man that approached within musketshot. At one lime Mr. Pearce was so near to this dangerous position, that he could understand every word said by Guebra Guro to ' his companions ; and he distinctly heard him ordering his men not to shoot at either him (Mr. Pearce) or Ayto Tesfos, calling out to them at the same time with a strange sort of savage politeness, to keep out of the range of his matchlocks, as he was anxious that no harm should personally happen to them; address- ing them very kindly by the appellation of friends. On Mr. Pearce's relating this incident tome, I was instantly struck with its similarity to some of the stories recorded in the Old Testament, particularly that of David, 'standing on the lop of a hill afar off, and crying to the people and to Abner, at the mouth of the cave, Answerest thou not, Abner 1 and now see where the king's spear is, and the cruse of water at his bolster.' The reader conversant in scripture cannot fail, I conceive, to mark, in the course ol this narra:ive, the general resemblance existing through- out, between the manners of this people and those of the Jews previously to the reign of Solomon; at which pe- riod the connexions entered into by the latter with for- eign princes, and the luxuries consequently introduced, seem in a great measure to have altered the Jewish char- acter. For my own part, I confess, that I was so much struck with the similarity between the two nations, during my stay in Abyssinia, that I could not help fancying at limes that I was dwelling among the Israelites, and that 1 had fallen back some thousand years upon a period when the king himself was a shepherd, and the princes of the land went out, riding on mules, with spears and slings, to combat against the Philistines. It will be scarcely neces- sary for me to observe, that the feelings of the Abyssin- ians towards theGalla partake of the same inveterate spirit of animosity which appears to have influenced the Israel- ites with regard to their hostile neighbours." Taylor in Calmet. 1 SAMUEL. 17 Vet. 19. If the Lord have stirred thee up against ine, let him accept an offering. The Hebrew has, for accept, " smell." Valuable gifls are said to haves pleasant smelL A man. also, of great property, "has an agreeable smell." "Why are you taking this small present to the great man I il has QOl a good smell." "Alas! I have been with my gifts to the Modeliar, but he will not smell of them;" which means, he will not accept them. — Roberts. Ver. 20. Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth before the face of the Lord : for the kino; of Israel is come out to seek a ilea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mount- Bins, Thus did David compare himself to a flea, to show his insignificance before the tine. When a man of rank de- votes bis time and talents to the acquirement of any thing which is not of much value, it is asked, " Why does he trouble himself so much about a flea >" In asking a favour, • should it be denied, it will be said, " Ah ! my lord, this is as a flea to you." " Our head man gave me this ring the other day, bill now he wishes to have it again; what is this I ii is but a flea." When poor relations are troublesome, the rich say, " As the flea bites the long-haired dog. so are y ii always biting me." Should an opulent man be redu- iy I i > poverty li is k-ries-ps forsake him, and the people say, " V ■-. the same day the dog dies the fleas leave him." — Roberts. We find only two allusions to the partridge in the holy scriptures. The first occurs in the history of David, where he expostulates with Saul concerning his'unjustand foolish pursuit : " The king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt" a partridge on the mountains." The other in the prophecies of Jeremiah : " Asthe partridge Mi- te'!i nn eggs, ami hatcheth them not; so he thai gettelh riches, i ight. shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool." The Hebrew name for the partridge is (nt>->) tore, from the verb kara to cry, a name by the harsh note of that bird. Bochart indeed denies that" kore signifies the partridge; he thinks the woodcock is intended, because the tore of which David speaks in the first quotation, is a mountain bird. But that excellent writer did not recollect that a species of partridge actually inhabits the mountains, and by consequence his argument is of no force. Nor is the opinion of others more tenable, that the kore hatches the eggs of a stranger, because Jeremiah observes, "she sittelh on eggs and hatcheth them not ;" for the passage only means, that the partridge often fails in her attempts to bring forth her young. To such disappointments she is greatly exposed from the position of her nest in the ground, where her eggs are often spoiled by wet, or crushed by the foot. The manner in which the Arabs hunt the partridge and other birds, affords an excel- lent comment on the complaint of David to his cruel and unrelenting sovereign; for observing that they become languid and fatigued after they have been hastily put up two or three times, they immediately rim in upon them and knock ihem down with their bludgeons. It was precisely in this manner that Saul hunted David; he came suddenly upon him, and from time to time drove him from his hiding- places, hoping at last to make him weary of life, and find an opportunity of effecting his destruction. When the prophet says the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not, the male seems to be understood ; because both ;li > verbs are masculine, and the verb yalad in the mascu- line gender cannot signify to lay eggs. The red partridges of France, says Buffon, 'appear to differ from the red par- Egypt ; because the Egyptian priests chose for the emblem of a wAl-regolated family, two partridges, the one male, the other female, sitting or brooding together. And by the text in Jeremiah, it seems that in Jndea the male partridge sat as well as the female. But while the incubation of other birds, which are by no means so atten- tive, is generally crowned with success, the hopes of the partridges are frequently disappointed by circumstances already noticed, which she can neither see nor prevent. — Paxton. CHAPTER XXVII. Ver. 2. And David said to A. lush, Surely thou shalt know wli.il thy sonant can do And Achish said to David, Then lore will 1 make thee keeper of my head for ever. ! ' i is always spoken of as the principal part of the body, and when a man places great confidence in another, he says, " I will maki An injured man expostulating with another, to whom he has been kind, asks, " v, by is lh have I 1 four life. A good brother is called, " the life- keeping brother." But any thing vale. of as being on the head. — Roberts, Ver. 10. And Achish said, Whither have ye made a road to-day 1 And David said. Against the south of Judah, and against the south of the Jerahmeelites, and against the south of the Kenites. After the expedition was over, David returns to Achish, and upon being asked where I incursion, David answers : Against the SOUlh of Judah, BI the south of the Jerahmeelites, and age m -I the SOUthi I the Kenites. Mr. Bayle.not with e this a i. IE. But, with his leave, the all true, but ambiguous: for all ile.se pe.pl.- dwelt on the south of Judah, &c. Achish, through sell-partiality, under- Stood the answer to mi i he si, ui hern borders of Judah, I he Jeralm. themselves, though David asserted no such thing. David th I. ' re « ' it any falsity; and if he was in any thing to blame, it was for giving an ambiguous au-w er to a question to which he was not obliged to give any direct reply. Mr. Bayle says, "This conducj was very unjusti- fiable, in that he deceived a king to whom he had tions." But David's answer was not such as nei to impose on Achish, and therefore il may be as truly said, that Achish put a deceit upon himself, as that David de- ceived him. I allow he intended to conceal from Achish who the people were that he invaded, and this he did, not by a lie, but by an answer true in fact. The psecise deter- mined truth was, that he had made an incursion on the south of Judah and the Kenites. The Ainalekit.-s dwelt on the south of Judah, and the Kenites lived inti with them, till they removed by Saul's order, when he was sent to destroy the Amalekites, and probably returned to ih.ui former dwellings,- after that expedition wa is certain at least, that they were much in the same situa- tion as before; viz. on the south of Judah, and a: no li. at distance from the country of the Amalekites ; and therefore Achish might as reasonably have understood David's an- swer to mean, that he invaded the Amalekites and neigh- bout ing hordes, who dwelt beyond the south parts of Judah. as that he invaded the southern parts of the very country of JUdah, For the original words will equally bear this double version: against the country south of Judah, Ac. and, against the south country of Judah. If Ai David in a wrong sense, I do not see that David, in his cir- cumstances, was obliged to undeceive him. For as he had done Achish no injury in the expedition against the Amalekites, &c. so neither did he, in permitting eilv to impose on himself. Whereas, hud he convinced Achish of his mistake, he would have endangered his own life, and the destruction of all his people. The greatest and best casuists have allowed, that ambiguou are not always criminal, but sometimes justifiable, and par- ticularly in the critical situation in which David now was. Thus Grotius: " When any word, or sentence, admits ol more significations than one, whether from common ose, 'lains it, such an interrogation, which, if we gave ,72 1 SAMUEL. Chap. 28. a simple plain answer to, would hazard our own safety, or that of other innocent persons." Of this sentiment were Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, the Stoics, Aristotle, (lumtilian, and others mentioned by Grotius ; and it may oe reasonably expected, that these who condemn David .'or hi< ambiguous answers to Achish, should fairly prove, that they are in their nature, and therefore always, crimi- nal ; or in what circumstances they are so ; or that there is r-omevvhat in this answer of David that peculiarly renders it so. Mr. Bayle thinks he says something very considera- ble, when he says, " that he deceived a king "to whom he had obligations ; others charge him with ingratitude, be- cause he deceived his patron and benefactor." This would be an objection of some weight, if it could be proved that he deceived him to his real injury or that of his country. But t iv :is hath been shown, cannot be proved. A man may lawfully conceal his sentiments, on some occasions, even from a real friend and benefactor, who asks him questions, which, if clearly answered, may be prejudicial to his in- I terest. But he had obligations to Achish, who was his patron and benefactor. What were these great obligations, and in what respects was Achish a benefactor to David 1 Why, he allowed him, and his followers, a safe retreat into h'is country from the persecutions of Saul, for about sixteen months ; first, at Galh his capital, and soon after, upon David's request, at Ziglag. But with what view did Achish allow him this retreat 1 Not with the noble gener- ous view of giving refuge to a brave man, ungratefully persecuted, and driven into exile by the unrelenting mal- ice of an arbitrary prince ; but merely from political mer- cenary considerations; to detach so great a general, and so brave a bodv of soldiers, from the interest of their coun- trv, and to prevent their joining with the Hebrew army in chedefenceof it, against that invasion whichthe Philistines were now meditating, and to engage him in actual hostili- ties with his own nation, that he might make him and them perpetual and irreconcilable enemies to each other. This appears from what Achish said, either to himself, or some of the Philistine princes, upon the invasion of the Geshurites, &c. He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him, therefore he shall be my servant for ever. Both Achish and David seem to have acted merely upon political principles in this affair, and their obligations to each otherjo be pretty equal. David fled for protection to Achish, but with no design to assist him against the He- brews. Achish received David, not out of any love and friendship to him, but to serve himself, by engaging David ami his forces against the Hebrews, and thereby to put him under a necessity of continuing in his service for ever. Thev both appear to act with great confidence in each other, without either letting the other into their secret and real views; and therefore as Achish was under no obliga- tion to David fur his re'iring to Gath, David was really under as little to Achish for the reception he gave him'; for as David would not have put himself under his pro- tection, but to serve his own purposes ; so neither would Achish have received him, had he not had his own views of advantage in doing it. David's deceiving Achish there- fore received no aggravation from any ingratitude in David towards him; but the shelter Achish gave him was upon the mean, dishonourable, perfidious principle, of making David a detestable traitorto his king and country. — Chand- ler. CHAPTER XXVIII. Ver. 1. And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered their armies tog-ether for warfare, to fight with Israel. And Achish said unto David, Know thou assuredly, that thou shalt go out with me to battle, thou and thy men. 2. And David said to Achish, Surely thou shalt know what thv servant can do. And Achish said to David, Therefore will I make the<' keeper of my head for ever. Soon alter these Transactions, while David yet remained in the territories of the Philistines, thev formed their army jj invade the Hebrews, when Achish said to David : Know thou assuredly, that thou and thy men shall go with fore thou shalt know, what thy servant will do; i.e. as some interpret the words : Achish met with a cheerful compliance from David ; and Mr. Bayle affirms, that it was not owing to David, that he did not fight under the standard of this Philistine prince, against the Israelites, in the unhappy war wherein Saul perished ; or, as he further says, that when the Philistines had assembled their forces, David and hisbrave adventuiersjoinedthe army of Achich, and would have fought like lions against their brethren, if the suspicious Philistines had not forced Achish to dis- miss them. I am extremely glad, however, that the prin- ces of the Philistines, who may reasonably be supposed to know as much of David's dispositions and views as any modern writers can do, were of a quite different opinion from Mr. Bayle and his followers ; who instead of believ- ing with Achish and Mr. Bayle, that David would have been so very fierce against his own people, made no doubt but he would have fought like a lion, or a tiger, against Achish and the Philistines. And indeed David's answer to Achish implies nothing like a cheerful compliance with him, to engage with his forces against his own people. Achish dirfnot directly ask this, and therefore David had no occasion to make the promise. The demand was only that he would go to the camp. And the answer was, that he would there make Achish witness to his conduct. But this was so far from promising that he would employ his men, as Achish promised himself, as that it seems rather to imply a kind of denial ; and would appear, I believe, very unsatisfactory to most persons in like circumstances : " You shall see what I will do. I make no promise, but I will go with you to the camp, where you yourself will be judge of my conduct." An evidently cold and evasive answer. Thus far there appears to be nothing blameablein David's conduct, and it is worthy of observation, that David's going to the camp was not his own forward officious proposal to Achish, but the order of Achish to him, which he was not then in circumstances to dispute, and which, in his situation, he was forced to obey ; and therefore it is not true, that David voluntarily offered his assistance against Saul and the He- brews, to the Philistine army. Ifhewasinanythingtoblame, it was for throwing himself in the power of the Philistines. But he thought that this was the only method left him for the preservation of his life from the power and malice of Saul, who was therefore in reality responsible for David's conduct in this instance, and the real cause of that embar- rassment, in which he now unhappily found himself. His situation was undoubtedly very delicate and difficult, and it hath been thought impossible for him to have performed an honourable part, let him have acted how he would ; and that in his circumstances, he would not have deserved a much better character, had he betraved his benefactor for the sake of his country, than he would, had he betrayed his country for the sake of his benefactor. But it hath been shownj that David owed Achish little thanks for the refuge he gave him, and that his debt of gratitude on this account was too small, to prevent him from exerting himself in his countrv's service, whenever he had an opportunity. But supposing his obligations to Achish were real, yet surely the affection and duty he owed his country were infinitely superior to any demands of friendship arid gratitude that Achish could have upon him. I will therefore suppose that David was reduced to the necessity of acting contrary to the gratitude he owed Achish, or the natural affection and duty he owed his country. And can there he a mo- ment's doubt, whether private affection should not give place to public 1 Or, whether one particular acciden- tal obligation to the avowed enemy of a man's country, and that greatly lessened bv political views of interest in him who conferred it, should not yield to innumerable obliga- tions, arising out of nature, constant and immutable, nn.l which to counteract would argue the most detestable base- ness, perfidv, and iniquity 1 Had David therefore been reduced to the hard necessitv of fighting against Achish, or his country, though the alternative would have been gra- ting to a generous mind ; yet his preferring his duty, which he owed to his country, to his personal obligations to Achish, was right in itself, would have been truly heroic, and deserved immortal applause and commendation. Such was the virtue of the ancient Romans, that they would Chap. 28. 1 SAMUEL. 173 nave sacrificed the love of father, son, brother, the nearest relations by -blood anil affinity, the obligation- of 1j .cud- ship, and even life itself, to their alU-etion to their country. And would they have scrupled, or thought it dishonour- able, to have sacrificed some personal oUigati avowed enemy of it, when such sacrifice was necessary to its preservation and safely 1 But it is ptiPible, that if David had continued with tin- Philistine arniv, he might not have been reduced to tie nece-si'v of employing his arms against either his country, or the Philistines. May we not suppose, that before the engagement, David might have proposed terms of peace, in order to prevent it 7 Might he not have told Achish, that notwithstanding his personal obligations to him, lie had none to ihe Philistines in general, and therefore could not stand still, and see his countrymen destroyi Philistine forces] That unless they would gi expedition, he should think himself obliged to join the army of Saul, and do his utmost to prevent their destruction'-! And would not this have been acting like a man oi honour, a lover of his country, and been consistent with any grati- tude that he owed to Achish for his protection ? This, I think, I may safely affirm, that it is in all views of policy impossible that, as "Mr. Bayle asserts, he could have fought under the standard of the Philistine princes against the Israelites. For as he had in immediate view the throne of Israel, had he fought in the Philistine army against his own nation, it must have irritated all the tribes of Israel against him, and according as Achish wished, made all his, people abhor him forever; whereby he would have cut off every possible prospect of succeeding to the crown. But David was too prudent a man to take such a step, and if Achish endeavoured, by forcing him into his camp, to ensnare and ruin him with his own nation ; as he well knew the intention of Achish, he had a right to guard against it, to counteract policy by policy, and though obliged to give an answer, to give him such a one, as should leave himself at liberty to act as prudence and duty Should direct him. And finally, had he turned his arms against the Philistines, he might have shown his gratitude to Achish, without injuring his country, by affording him protection in his turn, and securing his person, ami the lives of many of his people, had the Israelites been victo- rious in the engagement. However, Achish had such an opinion of his interest in David's friendship, that he took his answer in good part, and concluding that he was entirely gained over to his interest, and the more effectually to se- cure and encourage him, promises him: "I will make you keeper of my head for ever:" you shall he always near me, and have the charge of my person. David made no reply, but kept himself entirely upon the reserve, without disclosing the real sentiments of his mind. He followed Achish with his forces, who marched into the territories of the Hebrews, and encamped at Shunem. in the tribe of Naphtali; while Saul, with his army, pitched their tents on the famous mountains of Gilboa.— Chandler. Ver. 7. Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor. 8. And Saul disguised himself, and put on other rai- ment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night ; and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, "and bring me him up whom I shall name unto thee. 9. And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land : where- fore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die? 10. And Saul sware to her bvthe Lord, saying. As the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thins;. 11. Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee ? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. 12. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and tin woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast limit ivedme? for thou art Saul 13 Ami tie- king said unto her, Be not afraid . II Sawest thou f And the woman said unto Saul, I saw god- ascending out of the earth, How long the profession ol necromancy, or the art of raising up the dead, in ordet to prj into ft to be in t. ii med of the fate of the living, has obtained m the world, we have' no indications from history. We perceive no footsteps of it in the ages before the flood, and yd it is strange that a people, abandoned to all in .< manner. Id keep themselves clear of thi account of these times is very short. The to mention that we meet with of magicians and sorcerers is al st m the beginning of the book of Exodus, where Mo-os js soliciting the deliverance of the children o( Israel i out of Egypt ; and therefore Egypt, which affected to be the mother of mosl occull science: . is supposed to have been I the inventress of thi-. From Egypt it spread itself into the neighbouring countries, and soon infected all the East ; for, as it undertook to gratify man's inquisitivene - and super- stitions curiosity, n could not long want abetters. From Egypt, it is certain that the Israelites brought along with them no small inclination to these detestable practices, and were but too much addicted to them, notwithstanding all the care that the state had taken to suppress ih.-in. and the provision which God had made, by establishing a method of consulting him, to prevent their hankering after them The injunction of the law is very express:—1' When thoo art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shall not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any thai useth divir.ation, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer-, for all that dc these things are an abomination to the Lord." A fore their punishment was this : — "A man or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones, their blood shall be upon them." Nor was it only the praetisers of such '■ ile arts, but those likewise that resorted to them upon any oc- casion, that were liable to the same punishment; for " the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a-whoring after them, I wtL my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people, Saith the Lord." Such was the severity of the Jewish laws against those who either practised or encour- aged any manner of magical arts; and it must be said in Saul's commendation, that he had put the laws in execu- tion against such vile people; he had destroyed and drove away those thai had familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land ; and yet, (observe the weakness as well as wickedness of the man!) when himself fell into distress, and had abundant reason to believe that God had forsaken him, he flees to one of these creatures for relief, and rc- questsofher to raise up his old friend Samuel, as expecting, very probably, some advice from him: but, whether this was really done or not. or, if done, in what manner it was effected, are points that have so much exercised the heads both of ancient and modern, both of Jewish and Christian writers, that little or nothing new can be said upon them; and therefore all that I shall elide:. n ill be. io reduce their several sentiments into as narrow B compass, and to state them in as fair a light, as I can, by inquiring into these three particulars:— 1. Whether there was a real apparition. •2. What this apparition (if real) was; and, 3. By what means, and for what purposes, it waseftecteo. 1. It'cannot be denied, indeed, but that those who explode i if the apparition, and make it to be all nothing but a cheat and juggle of the sorceress, have found out some arguments that, at first sight, make a tolerable ap pearance. Thev tell us that the sacred history never ono makes mention of Saul's seeing Samuel with his own eye- It informs us, indeed, that Saul knew him by the descnp tion which the woman gave, and that he held, for some considerable time, a conversation with him ; but since it u. nowhere said that he really saw him, " why might not thr 1 71 IAMUEL. Chap. 28, woman counterfeit a voice, say they, and pretend it was Samuel's ? When Saul asked her to raise him up Samuel, i. e. to disturb the ghost of so great a prophet, she might think he was no common man ; and when he swore unto her by the Lord, that he would defend her from all danger, he gave her intimation enough that he was the king. The cralty woman therefore having picked up the knowledge of this, might retire into her closet, and there, having her familiar, i. e. some cunning artful man, to make proper responses, in a different voice, might easily impose upon one who was distracted with anxious thoughts, and had already shown sufficient credulity, in thinking there was any efficacy in magical operations to evocate the dead. The controversy between Saul and David every one knew ; nor was it now become a secret, that the crown was to de- volve upon the latter ; and therefore that part of the dis- course, which passed between Saul and Samuel, any man of a common genius might have hit off, without much diffi- culty. Endor was not so far distant from Gilboa or Shunem, but that the condition of the two armies might easily be known, and that the Philistines were superior both in courage and numbers ; and therefore his respondent, with- out all peradventure, might prognosticate Saul's defeat ; and though there was some hazard in the last conjecture, viz. that he and his sons would die in battle ; yet there was this advantage on the side of the guess, that "they were all men of known and experienced valour, who would rather sacrifice their lives than turn their backs upon their ene- mies." Upon the whole, therefore, the maintainers of this system conclude, that as there is no reason, so there was no necessity, for any miraculous interposition in this affair, since this is no more than what any common gipsy, with another in confederacy to assist her, might do to any credulous person who came to consult her. They who undertake to oppose this opinion lay it down for a good rule, in the interpretation of scripture, that we should, as far as we can, adhere to the primary sense of the words, and never haVe recourse to any foreign or sin- gular explications, but where the literal is inconsistent, either with the dictates of right reason, or the analogy of faith. Let any indifferent person then, say they, take into his hand the account of Saul's consulting this sorceress, and upon the first reading it he must confess, that the notion which it conveys to his mind, is that of a real apparition ; and since the passages that both precede and follow it, are confessedly to be taken in their most obvious meaning, why should a strange and forced construction be put upon this"? Apparitions indeed are not very common things; but both sacred and profane history inform us, that they are realities, as the examples of Moses and Elias, conversing with our Saviour on the mount, and the several bodies of saints, which slept, coming out of their graves after his resurrec- tion, and appearing unto many, do abundantly testify. It is owned, indeed, that accordinano the series of the nar- ration, Saul did not see the spectre (be it what it will) so soon as the woman did, because, probably, the woman's body, or some other object, might interpose between him and the first appearance; or perhaps, because the vehicle- which Samuel assumed upon this occasion, was not as yet con- densed enough to be visible to Saul, though it was to the woman: but, that he did actually see him is manifest, because, when he perceived (which word in the original signifies seeing so as to be assured of our object) that it was Samuel, he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself, which a man is not apt to do to bare ideas or im- aginations. Persons of this woman's character, who are under the displeasure of the government, generally affect obscurity, live privately, and are little acquainted with affairs of state ; but suppose her to have been ever so great a politician, and ever so intimate with what had passed between Saul and Samuel heretofore, ever so well assured that God had rejected him, and elected David in his stead ; yet how could she come to the knowledge of this, viz., that the battle should be fought the next day, the Israelites be routed, Saul and his sons slain, and their spoils fall into the ene- my's hands ; since each of these events (even in the present situation of Saul's affairs) were highly casual and uncer- tain ? For misht not this prince lose a battle without losing his life? Or if he himself fell in the action, why must his ttwee sons be all cut off in the same day ? Whatever de- monstrations of innate bravery he had given in times past, after such severe menaces as he now received from the ap- parition, prudence, one would think, would have put him upon providing for his safety, either by chicaning with the enemy, or retiring from the field of battle, without going to expose himself, his sons, and his whole army, to certain and inevitable death. These are things which no human penetration could reach, and which only he who is the ab solute and Almighty ruler of all causes and^vents, could either foresee or predict. But the truth is, those menacing predictions, how proper soever for a messenger sent from God to utter, were highly imprudent either in this witch's, or her accomplice's, mouth: for since they knew nothing of futurity, and were, at the best, but put to conjecture, it is much more reasonable to believe, that at such a juncture as this, they would have bethought themselves of (lattering the king, and giving him comfort, and promising success, and not" of thundering out such comminations against him as might probably incense him, but could do them no good. They could not but know that the temper of most kings is, to hate to hear shocking truths, and to receive with the ut- most despite those that bring them ill news: and there- fore it is natural to suppose, that had these threatening re- plies been of the woman's or her confederate's forming, they would have given them quite another turn, and not run the hazard of disobliging the king to no purpose, by laying an additional load of trouble upon him. The truth is, the woman, by her courteous entertainment of Saul, seems to be a person of no bad nature; and therefore, if she had an accomplice, who understood to make the most of his profession, his business, at this time, must have been to sooth and cajole the king, which would have both put money in his pocket, and saved the credit of his predictions. For, had he foretold him of success and victory, and a happy issue out of all his troubles, he and the woman had been sure of reputation, as well as further rewards, in case it had happened to prove so ; and if it had not (since no one was privy to their communion) the falsehood of the predic- tion upon Saul's defeat and death, must, in course, have been buiied with him. From these reasons then we may infer, that the woman, in this transaction, did not impose upon Saul, since he had a plain sight of the apparition ; what the apparition fore- told him, was above human penetration; and (upon the supposition of a juggle) the witch and her confederate would have certainly acted clean contrary to what they did. And so the next, 2. Inquiry meets us, namely, What this apparition was? Some of the ancient doctors, 'both of the Jewish and Chris- tian church, have made an evil angel the subject of this apparition, in pure regard to t. ■• honour of God. " God, sav thev, had sufficiently declared his hatred against nec- romancy, and all kinds' of witchcraft, in the severe laws which lie enacted against them; but it is certainly denying himself, and cancelling his own work, to seem in the least to countenance or abet them, as he necessarily must do, if, upon the evocation of an old hag, any messenger is permit- ted to go from him. Ear be it from us therefore to have such conceptions of God. He is holy, and just, and uni- form in all his ways; and therefore this coming at a call, and doing the witch's drudgery, must only appertain to some infernal spirit, who might possibly find his account in it at last. It was one of this wicked crew, that either assumed a phantom, or a real body, appeared in a mantle like Samuel, spake articulately, and held this conversation with Saul ; which, considering his knowledge and foresight of things, he was well enough qualified to do, notwithstand- ing the" sundry predictions relating to future contingencies, which are contained in it." How far the honour of God is concerned in this transaction, will more properly fall under our next inquiry: in the mean time, I cannot but observe, that whatever incongruity may be supposed in the real appearance of Samuel, it is not hear so much, as to find one of the apostate spirits of hell expressing so much zeal for the service of the God of heaven, and upbraiding Saul with those very crimes which he himself tempted him to commit ; as to find this wicked and impure spirit making use of the name of God (that sacred and tremen- dous name, whose very pronunciation was enough to make him quake and shiver) no less than six times, in this inter- course with Saul, without any manner of uneasiness or hesitation; as to find this an^el of darkness and fcfher of lies, prving into the womb of futurity, am determining the Chap. 28. 1 SAMUEL. 17. mo-,1 casual events positively ami precisely. We do not indeed deny but that the devil's knowledge is vastly supe- rior to that of the most accomplished human understand- irgj thai his natural penetration, joined with his long experience, is such, that the greatest philosophers, the subtlest critics, and the most refined politicians, are mere novices in comparison of him; yet what genius, (however exacted and unproved,) without a divine revelation, could fas we said before) be able to foretel things that were lodged in God's own breast, viz. the precise time of the - engaging, the sue. ess and consequence of the victory, and the very names of the persons thai were to fall in battle. This is what the apparition plainly revealed ii Saul: and yet this, we dare maintain, is more than any linile understanding, l>v its own nine capacity, could ever have been able lo find out. But (without this multi- tude of arguments) if we are to take the scripture in its plain and literal sense, read we over the slnrvof Saul and of Endor ever so often, we shall not so much as ■ c find the devil mentioned in it. And therefore it is Somewhat wonderful that he should be brought upmi the u:iv learned men. merely lo solve a difficulty n Inch, up. hi examination, appears to be none at all. But now on the other hand, it appears that through ih v. 1,1 narration, Samuel is the only thing that is mentioned. It is Samuel whom Saul desires (,, be called up; Samuel, who appeared to the woman; Samuel, whom the woman describes; Samuel, whom Saul perceives and bows him- self toj'wilh whom he converses so long, and whose words, he was afterward so sore afraid. The scripture indeed speaks sometimes according to the ap- pearance , , fihings, and may call that by the nai Del, which was only the semblance or phantom of him: bit thai this cannot be the sense of the matter here, we have the testimony of the wise son ofSirach,(an excellent interpreter of canonical scriptures,) who tell- us expressly, that Samuel, after his death, prophesied and showed the king his end ; pursuant to what we read in the version of the Septuagint, viz. that Saul asked counsel of one that had a familiar spit it, and Samuel answered him. So that, upon the whole, we may be allowed to conclude, that it was the real soul of Samuel, clothed in some visible form, which, at this time, appeared lo the king of Israel : but by what means, or for what purposes, it appeared, is the other question we are now to determine. 3. Several of the fathers of the Christian church were of opinion, that the devil had a certain limited power over ih" soul- of the saints, before Jesus Christ descended into hell, and rescued them from the tyranny of that prince of darkness, St. Austin, in particular, thinks that there is no absurdity in saying, that the devil was as able to call np Bamgel's soul, as he was to present himself among the sons o\' G id, or sel our Saviour on one of the pinnacles'of me temple: and a learned Jewish doctor supposes that devils have such a power over human souls, for the space •it a year after their departure, as to make them assume what bodies they please; and thereupon he concludes, (but isle.) ihat it was not a year from the time of Samuel's death to his appearance. But these are such mid and extravagant fancies as deserve no serious confu- te .ii, I' is absurd to sav that the souls of saints (such as we are now speaking of) were ever in hell, and mire a'x'ird to sav, that if they are in heaven it is in the power of nnv magical, nav, of anv diabolical incantation, lo call them down from thence. Great, without all doubt, is the power of apostate angels: but miserable, wi may say, would the state of the blessed be, if the other had anv license to disturb their happiness, when, and as long as thev pleased: " For Go I I'l.-bid," savs Ten nil ian, ,; that we should believe the soul of anv holv man. much less of a prophet, should be so far under his disposal, as to be brought Dp at pleasure bv the power of the devil." Sine i . oower to disturb the happiness of souls depart- ed, this apparition of Samuel could not proceed from anv magical enchantments of the sorceress, but must have been efeeted bv the sole power and appointment of God, who is the sovereign Lord, bolh of ihe living and of ihe dead : ami, accordinglv. we may observe from the surprise which the woman discovered upon Samuel's sudden appearing, that the power of her magic was not concerned therein, bul that it was the effect of some superior hand. The scripture "dates the matter thus: " When the woman saw Samuel, she cried w,ilh a loud voice, ard the woman spnke unto Saul, laving, Why ha i ihoc deceived me, 6 : she had ever raised before, and that coming had begun her enchantment could not forbear 1" a 001 with a loud voice, as being rally satisfied that the apparition came from God. " But since the scripture assures us, that I wholly withdrawn hit and would answer him, neither by prophets nor by dreams; how tan we imagine that he should, all on a sudden, become s., kind as to send Samuel to him. or that Sai any disposition to come, when it was impossible fur him to do any •'end bv Ins coming !" Now there seems to be some analogy between God's dealing with Saul in this particular, and his fbrmei treatment of the prophet Ba- laam. Balaam was for disobeying the orders which 01 d had given him lo bless the Israelites: and was searching into magical secrets for whal he could not obtain ol God viz. a power to change into curses the blessing ,. pronounced bv his i tth. In this ease there was Inn small likelihood that God would contini himself to a person so unworthy of any extraordinary rev- elation; and yet he did it: but then, it was wii h to nncal to him those very miseries from which his mer- cenary mind was so de-irons lo rescue the Midianites. The application is easy: and it further suggests tins reason why God appointed Samuel at this time lo appear unto Saul', viz. thai through him he mighl give him a meeting, where he least of all expected on.'; ami mighl show him lhat Ihe fate which his own disobedience had brought upon him was determined ; that there was no re- versing ihe decrees of heaven, no procuring aid against the Almighty's power, no fleeing (though it wen- from his presence, no hiding himself m . la i kites- ,IH1I i,,. in sped ion ; with whom darkness is mi darkness at all, but Ihe night is as clear as the dav, and the are both alike. That the souls of men departed have a capacitv, and, no doubt, an inclination to be employed in the service of men alive, as having the same t affections, and being more sensible of our infirmities lhan any pure and absiracted spirits are, can hardly I ed ; that in their absent state, they afe imbodied with aerial, or ethereal vehicles, which they can condense 01 rarify al pleasure, and so appear, or no' appear to human sight, is what some of the greate-t men. both of thi and Christian religion, have maintained: and that frequent apparitions of this kind have happened since the world began, cannot be denied bv anv one that is conversant in it- history: if therefore llie wisdom of God (for rea-ons igned) thought proper to despatch a messenge. to Saul mpon tin- i i me account given why the soul of Samuel (upon the SUpposili fell to its option) should ralher be desirous io I - that errand. For. whatever may be said in diminution ol 'mis character, it is certain that he w prince and commander; had lived in strict intiinacv wi'h Samuel; professed a great esteem for him in all things and was bv Samuel not a little lamented, when be had fallen from his obedience to God. Upon these i lions we may imagine, that the soul of Samuel might ha it such a kindness for him as to be ready to appear 10 him in Ihe depth of his distress, in order to settle his mind, by telling him the upshot of the whole matter, viz. that he should lose the battle, and he and his sons be slan : lhal so he might give a specimen (as the Jews love to speak in commendation of him) of the bravest valour thai achieved bv anv commander; tight boldly when he was sure to die; and sell his life at as dear a price as possible ; that so, in his death, he might be commemi I honour, and deserve the threnodia which his made on him; "The beauty of rsrael is slain upon th. high places: how are the mighty fallen I Froi of the slain, from -he fat of the mighty, the bow of Jon*- 1 SAMUEL. Chap. 29. than turned not back, and the sword of Saul turned not empty. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!"— Stackhoise. Ver. 14. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. In augury it seems to have been usual to represent those who were to be consulted, and whose oracular declarations were to be received, as covered with a mantle, or some garment. This certainly gave an appearance of mystery to such transactions. Thus it appears the Roman acted, according to what Plutarch says in his Life of Numa. " Taking with him the priests and augurs, he went up to the capitol, which the Romans at that time called the Tar- peian Rock. There the chief of the augurs covered the head of Numa, and turned his face towards the south." It appears from Livy that the augur covered his own head, not that of Numa. The augur always wrapped up his head, in a gown peculiar to his office, when he made his observations. — Border. Ver. 20. Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel : and there was no strength in him ; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night. When people are under the influence of great sorrow or fear, they always do the same thing, and roll themselves along, making bitter lamentations. And when men have escaped great danger, they roll themselves on the earth to the distance of a quarter of a mile, after the car of the tem- ple, in performance of tfleir vow.— Roberts. Ver, 23. But he refused, and said, I will not eat. But his servants, together with the woman, compelled him ; and he hearkened unto their voice ; so he arose from the earth, and sat upon the bed. Saul, no doubt, on account of his sorrow and fear, refused to" eat, as do others under similar circumstances at this day. But when people are angry also they decline taking their food. Should the wife not bring the dinner to her lord! at the proper time, or should it not be properly prepared, he declares he will not partake of it, and that he has made up his mind to die of hunger. She entreats him by the love she bears for him, she touches his feet with her hands, and strokes his chin, but no! he has made up his mind; die he will. " She shall have no more trouble." The afflicted woman then runs to call the mother or sisters of her inex- orable lord, who has determined to commit suicide by star- vation. They all come round him, but his eyes are fixed on the ground, and there are the viands just as left by his weeping wife. Then commeTice their tender entreaties, backed by the eloquence of tears ; the mother, the sisters, the wife, all beseech) him to take a little, and then the matron, from whose hand he has often been fed before, Euts a little into his mouth, and it is merely to please them e begins to eat. — Roberts. Ver. 24. And the woman had a fat calf in the house; and she hasted, and killed it, and took flour and kneaded it, and did bake unleavened bread thereof: 25. And she brought it before Saul, and before his servants; and they did eat. Then they rose up, and went away that night. This calf was killed, dressed, cooked, and eaten in as short a time as possible ; which might be called for from '.he necessity of the guest. But it is evident from other pas- sages that it was a custom to kill, cook, and eat an animal in a very short time. The heat of the climate certainly prevents" flesh from being kept many hours, but there is no need to put the animal on the fire while its flesh is still warm. The people affect to be disguMcd with us for keep- ing fowls six or eight hours before they are cooked, and say we are fond of eating cheltareyche, i. e. dead flesh. There are some Englishmen who become so accustomed to these things, that they have the chicken grilled, and on their table, which a quarter of an hour before was playing in their yard. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXIX. - Ver. 1. Now the Philistines gathered together all their armies to Aphek ; and the Israelites pitched by a fountain which ii in Jezreel. The Archbishop of Tyre tells us, (Gcsta dei,) that the Christian kings of Jerusalem used to assemble their forces at a fountain between Nazareth and Sepphoris, which was greatly celebrated on that account. This being looked upon to be nearly the centre of their kingdom, they could from thence, consequently, march most commodioti-lv to any place where their presence was wanted. He mentions also another fountain near a town called Little Gerimtm, which, he says, was the ancient Jezreel ; near this Saladin pitched his camp, for the benefit of its waters, while Bald- win, king of Jerusalem, had, as usual, assembled his armv at the first-mentioned place. Of the fountain Ain-el-Scandcroni, Buckingham re- marks, " This is a modern work ; the charitable gift, per- haps, of some pious Mussulman, being well built, with a cistern beneath an arch, whence issue two streams, and over which is an Arabic inscription of several lines. It has, besides, a square platform, walled in, for prayers, shelter, or refreshment, and a flight of steps ascending to it, with a dome of a sepulchre, now partly buried by the falling in of adjacent ruins." — Burder. Ver. 2. And the lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds and by thousands; but David and his men passed on in the rearward with Achish. 3. Then said the princes of the Phi- listines, What do these Hebrews here ? And Achish said unto the princes of the Philistines, Is not this Davjd, the servant of Saul the king of Israel, which hath been with me these days, or these years, and I have found no fault in him since he fell unto me unto this day? The situation of Saul's mind, after this adventure, must have been very anxious and distressed, as he received no directions from Samuel how to behave in, or extricate himself out of, the difficulties in which he found hijusell involved. Nor were David's circumstances much easier, who had been pressed into the Philistine camp and service by Achish, whereby he was reduc d to the greatest straits, and scarce knew how to behave himself, consistently with the confidence which that prince placed in him, the duty he owed to his own country, and his own interest and views, as an expectant of the crown and kingdom of Is- rael. But happilv for David, providence extricated him from this embarrassment ; for as the troops of the Philis- tines were passing in review before their principal Officers, David also with his corps marched in the rear, under the command of Achish king of Gath. This gave ereat tin- easiness to the Philistine princes, who immediately expos- tulated with Achish, and said, What business have the-* Hebrews in our armvl Achish answered: Is not this the gallant David, formerly the servant and officer of Saul the king of Israel; who, to save himself from the persecution and cruelty of his ungrateful master, hath put himself un- der my protection, and of whose fidelity and attachment to my person and service, I have had long experience 1 For though he hath been with me now a considerable time, I have" not had the least reason to suspect his integrity, or find fault with his conduct. But this was far from remov- ing the jealousy of the Philistine officers, who, highlv dis- pleased with Achish for what they judged his ill-placed confidence in David, said in great anger to him: Com- mand this man immediately to retire from the armv, and to go hack to Ziklae, the place thou hast appointed for his residence. We will not suffer him to go with us to the battle, lest in the engagement he should turn his forces 1 SAMUEL. against us. Fot wh in he take it i in .'if in In- former master, tban by lending his assi>i:ni.-,' I,, defeat and destTO) our I \ I I, this I i.ivhI whose praises were publicly eel Ami in honour of « horn th I d out in triumph : Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. Such a man is too danger- in nur present critical suuation. Achish find- ing the princes peremptorily fixed in their resolution not intermit David and Ins r..r. i's in go with them to Ihe en- v' lu-'-MiTit. immediately sent lor him, and said B ol Jehoi ah, I acknowledge thy intcgriu in the » hen i - ii.i Inn- ih. i I pi.. i. ii tirelv approve, or more sincerely wish, than thj continu ■nee in the army, and joining with us in the i ngagement, for I bare nothing to reproach thee with, from the time thou didst firsl put thysell onder myp :lion,tothe present day. Hut the lords 'uf the Philistines have i ha' n|ui,i. n of thy attachment to our interesl Bnd cause that 1 have, so that I am forced to dismiss ihee f i thy attendance. Yon must therefore return peaceably, and are allowed by them to do it m safciv, to the town I have given you, because voiir longer continuance with us is disagreeable to them, and may be attended with very dangerous consequences." David, with seeming displeasure replied. " What have I don,. io incur their displeasure, or what hast thou found in thy servant, ever since 1 have been with thee, to forfeit thy confidence and favour? However, since it is their pleas- : submit, and will not, in obedience to their order, light against Ihe enemies of my lord the kins" Achish told him, that " he was so fat from entertaining any sus- lim, that he esteemed him for his inti worth, and regarded him as an angel, or messenger from God, immediately sent to his as-i-tanee; but that as the princes of the Philistines had resolved that he should not bo with them to the battle, lie could not but order him to march awav bv daybreak with his master's servants lo ihe place he had appointed for him and his f illowers." David accordingly returned with his troops into the territories of the Philistines, while their army penetrated farther into Ihe domini ins of Saul, and encamped at .Tezreel. It appears from the answer given by David to Achish, as I have rendered the words, that David was not in ihe least displeased at his being dismissed, but gladly took Achish tit his word, and laid hold of ihe first opportunity of disengaging himself from the service in which that prince expected his assistance. However, if we take David's answer in that sense, which is given it in our ver- sion: "What have I done that I may not go fight against the enemies of my lord the king I" it will appear io b.i a very prud ;nt one, and such as became ihe circum- stances in* which he then found himself, by which be promired nothing, and laid himself under no manner of It was a general, ambiguous, and cautious one; \n which he neither denies what the Philistines sus- pected, that he would fall off to Saul in the battle, nor makes the least mention of his readiness to fight with the Philistines against Saul and the Hebrew army. He only asks, why he should be refused to fight against the enemies of the ting 1 If he had some obligations to him. to the Pbilisti.ies he had none. Against the enemie he won d- have fought, where he could have done it wilh honour; where he could not. as a man of lion >ur. he lnu-t have refused it. Against the enemies of the Philistines, neither his inclination, or dutv, or interest, would have permitted him to fight ; and the Philistines themselves did nit think his personal obligations to Achish a security for his assisting them; and even .Achish himself 'eems to have been at las; in s tine doubt, whether or not he ro'ild depend on him, when he says to him: "Rise up early in ihe morning, with thy master's servants that are cut.v with thee;" herebv more than iniimaiing. that he could not but consider Saul as David's kin™ ami masler, and all David's forces as servants to Saul: and actually urging this as a reason for their immediate departure from him. Had David made such a speech to Achish. previous to his dismission, or to the Philistine princes to prevent their dismissing him, it would have looked as though h» had been uneasy at his no! being suffered to a the engagement. But as they had determirip ' not go with them to battle, and Achish had peremp'orily ordered him to march off: David, wh . ■ highH pleased that he was now wholly extricated from t io Ail i ii in u implied a real I, in older lo give highest opinion ol ins zeal for his p. thai he was always ready to assi-t pes, though he u a ■ i the Philis.iiics in a very reproachful and di- honourable manner. I would further observe, thai if there is auv thing wrong in David's ambiguous reply to Achish at. as it is by the clearer light i I revel Uion i i many insiaiicc- Testament, that the greatest men did not think these am biguous evasive answers, in am degree, or, a.s I appre- hend, at all criminal of life depended onit. Lei it there! be allowed, wid eart, that Dai id, in his equivocal at i lit sentiments of n perfectly asn d let of ii ; he might - ill be an excellent man for the times he lived in \ ■ equivocations Mere generally allowed of, almost univei sally practised, and bj jhl inconsistent will on and virtue, bul rather in many i n sary and commendable.— Chandleb. CHAPTER XXX. Wr. 8. And David inquired at the Loki Shall I pursue after thi troop? shall 1 1 ei take them? And h<- answered him, Pursue for thou shah surely overtake Ihcm, and with- out fail recover all The chosen people of Jehovah, not less eager than others to know the issue of their miliary expeditions, or il heaven regarded their undertakings with a favourable eye, had frequent recourse to the holy oracle; tl prophet of the Lord: they offered sacrifices, and with the higb-priest who bore ihe Urim and Thummim in his breastplaie. bv means 0f „ hich he discoverer) the will ol ihe Deity, or. presenting himself at ihe altar received the desired resj onse by an audible voice from Ihe most holy place. The son of J , in a rime of gTeal di- n-ess and perplexity, m .suited the oracle by n ephod, a part of sacerdotal vestments: " And I to Abiathar the priest, i, I prav ihee, bring me hither ihe ephod: and Abiathar brought hither llie ephod t .David. And David inquired Shall Ipursucafterthistroop? shall 1 overtake thi he answered him. Pursue; for thoot shall surer; them, and without fail recover all." Here was no bright- ening of arrows, after the costira* of superstitious heathens: no consulting with images, nor inspecting of intesiir.es. from which nothing but yagne conjecture can n devout and humble p • and the answer was id every respect worthy of his charac- ter; it was clear and precise, al once aathoriz n suit, and promising complete success; or forbidd in plain terms, to prosecute I In ir designs. — P.ixton. Yer 1 I And they found an Egyptian |„ the field, p.nd brought him to David, end gave him bread, and ho did out : and they made him drink wa- ter: 12. And they gave him a piece of :i cake of fig-s, and two clusters of raisins* mid when ho had eaten, his spirit came nrrnin to him; fot he had eaten no broad, nor drunk tu>>/ water three days and three nights. Thevenot says, " At about five o'clock in the morning, when passing bv the side of a bush, we heard a voice that called^o us. and being come to the place, we found n poor languishing Arab, who told us. that he had not eaten a bit for five days: we gave him some victuals and drink, wilh re." This was on the :• Su '2 to Tor— Bchdeu. 1 SAMUEL. Chap. Ver. 16. And when lie had brought him own, behold, they vere spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing, be- cause of all the great spoil that they had taken nut of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah. This is said of the Amalekites, after they had spoiled Zildag. Parkhurst says, under an on the above, also on 1 Kings xii. 32, " It plainly denotes dancing round in cir- cles ;" and he believes the word " is applied to the celebra- tion of religious feasts, whether in honour of the true God, or of idols," and he cites several passages in support of his opinion. When the heathen worship their demon gods, they dance in circles round the sacrifices, throw themselves into the most violent contortions; the arms, head, and legs, appear as if they were in convulsions. They throw them- selves suddenly'on the ground, then jump up, and again join in the circular dance. — Roberts. Ver. 17. And David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next" day ; and I there escaped not a man of them, save four hun- dred young men which rode upon camels, and fled. There were two reasons, exclusive of all religious con- siderations, that fully justified David in this attack upon the Amalekites. He now resided among the Philistines, in whose country these Amalekites had made trreat depreda- tions, while the Philistines themselves were engaged in war with the Hebrews, and incapable of defending their own frontiers. He was their ally, obliged toad in theii favour, and behaved like a soldier of honour in avenging the in- juries that had been done them. This insult of David therefore upon the Amalekites was not unprovoked, if we '•onsider his connexion with the Philistines ; much less, if we add to this, the loss he himself and his men sustained. 1'ur surely the burning of the city where he dwelt, the lead- ing captive into slavery his own wives, and the wives and children of above six hundred persons, and the making a booty of all their substance, must have been the highest provocation to men, that had anv feeling of natural affec- tion. David and his soldiers thought it so; and if it be lawful to put to death incendiaries, women and children stealers, thieves, robbers, and vagabonds; David's execu- ting this vengeance on the Amalekites fir tln-ir " ■■•■ ,, ; i in making this invasion, and committing these unprovoked violences, while neither the Philistines mu Hi-I.tu- ,-ould defend their territories, was a deserved and necessary se- verity.— Chandler. Ver. 21. And they went forth to meet David, and to meet the people that were with him ; and when David came near to the people, he saluted them. This was a usual mode of honouring persons of dignity. ' Before any person of rank enters a cttv. it is usual for nim to be received by a deputation. If his rank is verv considerable, the Peeshwaz is sent to a great distance. A thousand men were sent to meet the prince, halfwav be- tween Ispahan and Sheeraz, a hundred miles." (Wa- nng's Tour to Sheeraz.) " At this place (Jerusalem) two Turkish officers, mounted on beautiful horses, sumptuous- ly caparisoned, came to inform us, th it the governor, hav- ing intelligence of our approach, had sent them to escort us into town." ^Clarke's Travels.)— Border. 1 Saluted them." Hebrew, " asked them how they did." It is in the East, as in England, a common mode of saluta- tion to inquire after the health. They do not, however, answer in the same unhesitating wav.' When a man has perfectly recovered from a fit of sickness, he will not say, ■' I am quite well," because he would think that like boast- ing, and be afraid of a relapse; he would, therefore, say, " I am a little better— not quite so ill as I was:" sometimes, when the question is asked, he will reply, " Can you not see for yourself? what answer can I give?" To say you look well, or have b°come stout, is very annoying. A short ttni" aff:r my arrival in Ceylon, a very "stout Brawn paid me a visit, and on my saying he looked remarkably well, he fell into a great rage and left the room. I ex- plained to him afterward that I did not mean any offence, and he said it was very unfortunate to be addressed in such language. — Roberts. Ver. 24. For who will hearken unto you in this matter 1 but as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike. In Greece, " the whole booty was brought to the general, who had the first choice, divided the remainder among those who had signalized themselves, according to their rank and merits, and allotted to the rest equal' portions ; thus in the Trojan war, when the captive ladies were to he chosen, Agamemnon, in the first place, took Astynome, the daughter of Chryses; next Achilles had Hippodamia, daughter to Brises ; then Ajax chose Tecmessa, and so of the rest; Achilles therefore complains of Agamemnon, that he had always the best part of the booty, while him- self, who sustained the burden of the war, was content with a small pittance." From the time of David, the Hebrew warriors, as well those who went to the field, as those w ho guarded the baggage, shared alike; the law is couched in these terms : " As his part is that goeth down to the bat- tle, so shall his part be that tarrieth" by the stuff." But a more satisfactory account of the mode in which the spoils of vanquished nations were divided among the Hebrews, is recorded in the book of Numbers. The whole booty taken from the Midianites, was brought before Moses, ana Eliezer the priest, and the princes of the tribes; thev, bv the divine command, divided it into two parts, between the army and the congregation ; of the army's half they took "one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and "of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep, and gave it unto Eliezer the priest, for a heave-offering of the Lord ;" and of the congregation's half they took " one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flock's, of all manner of beasts, and gave them unto the Levites." This law probably continued in force till the caplivitv ; and according to its provisions, were the spoils of succeeding wars distributed ; for the regulation which David establish- ed, referred only to this question, whether the soldiers, who from weakness were obliged to remain with the baggage, should have an equal share of the booty, with their brethren in arms who had been engaged. Before the spoils were distributed, the Greeks considered themselves obliged to dr dicate a part of them to the gods, to whose assistance the- re 2koned themselves indebted for them all. This custom", also, they borrowed from the Orientals ; for the Hebrews, in dividing the spoils of Midian, separated a portion forthe service of the tabernacle; and the practice, so reasonable in itself, being imitated by the surrounding nations, at last found its way into Greece and other countries of Europe. But besides the public offerings of the nation, the soldiers often of their own accord, consecrated a part of their spoils to *he God of battles: they had several methods of doing IhU; at cue time they collected them into a heap, and consumed .hem with fire; at another, thev suspended their offerings in the temples. Pausanias, the Spartan, is re- ported to have consecrated out of the Persian spoils, a tripod to Delphian Apollo, and a statue of brass, seven cubits long, to Olympian Jupiter. The origin of these customs is easily discernible in the manners of the Hebrews. After the rich and various spoils of Midian were divided, the officers of the army, penetrated with gratitude that they had not lost a man in the contest, " presented an oblation to the Lord, jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, ear-rings, and tablets, to make atonement," as thev piously expressed it, " for their souls before the Lord." But the "city of Jericho and all its inhabitants, except Rahah and her family, were devoted to utter destruction, as an offering to the" justice and holiness of God, whom they had incensed bv their crimes; " And the city," said Joshua, "shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord ; only Rahah the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that were sent. . . . But all the silver and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord; they shall come into the treasury of the Lord. . . . And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein ; only the silver, ana the gold, ;hap. 31. 1 SAMUEL. 178 _./of the huiis.' ,,f the 1,.. ul ." When i! gion weresatisfied.theGreciaiisiiUlHM'sciiiiiiiiciiily reserved j uticles of extraordinary value which they had obtained, as a present to their general or commander of their party. To tin- mark of respect, Deborah perhaps alludes m the winds ■Ahi.-li lie puts into the mouth of Sisera's mother and her I attendants: " Have they not sped 1 have they QOl divided i every man a damsel or two ; to Sisera, a prey ,,l dive'rs colours, a prey of divers colours of needle-work, uf divers colours of needle-work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil." "It has been, Malcom, " the invariable usage of all Asiatic conqueroi s, from the monarch who subdues kingdoms, to the chiefcthat seizes a village, to claim some fair females as the reward of his eonquest. — Paxton. CHAPTER XXXI. Ver. 8. And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa. 9. And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to pub- lish it in the house of their idols, and among the people. It was the practice of ancient warriors to strip the dead bodies of their enemies on the field of battle, after the vic- iorv was secured, and the pursuit had ceased; and not sat- I isfied with this, they often treated them in the most brutal manner, baselv revenging the injuries which they had re- ceived from them while living, by disfiguring their remains, and exposing them to scorn and ignominy. When the Philistines came to strip the dead that fell in the battle on the mountains of Gilboah, they found Saul and bis three sons among the slain. But instead of respecting bis rank and valour, they " cut off his head, and stripped off his ar- mour, which they put in the house of Ashtaroth ; and they listened his bodv, and the bodies of his sons, to the wall of Beth-shan." Capital offences were sometimes punished by throwing the criminal upon hooks, which were fixed in the wall below, where they frequently hung in the most ex- quisite tortures, thirty or forty hotfrs before they expired. It is probable that the bodies of Saul and his sons were fixed to such hooks as were placed there for the execution p£ the vilest malefactors; but whatever be in this, it was ;enainly meant as one of the greatest indignities which hey could offer to the remains of an enemy whom they both feared and detested. The ancient Greeks treated the dead bodies of their ene- mies in a manner equally indecent and inhuman. They mangled, dismembered, dragged them about the field of battle, and suffered them to lie unburied for a long time. and even to become the prey of savage beasts and raven- ous fowls. No instance of this kind is more remarkable than that of the brave, the generous, but unfortunate Hector, whose dead body suffered every indignity which the infuriate rage of Achilles, or the ferocious brutality of his myrmidons, could invent. Nay, the whole army joined in the brutish and barbarous insult ; which shows that it was their constant practice, and regarded as quite consist- ent with virtue and honour. Tydeus is not treated with more respect in Statius; and in Virgil, the body of M( zen- tius is cruelly lacerated, for though he only received two wounds Iron JEnea wi find his breastp.Ate afterward pierced through in twelve places. These instances, to which man] others might be added, prove that it was the common practice of ancient warriors. In the hi too, the conquerors compelled their enemies to pa] a large sum of money foi permission to bury then dead Hei lor body was redeemed from Achilles;' and that ol Achillea was redeemed from the Trojans for the same price he bad received for Hector. And Virgil inl suading his li iend Euryalus from acconq anymg him into danger, lest, il he v. en- slain, there should be do i i, statement* prove, that it was a common practice in i to redeem the dead body of a « lected or refused, it was frequently suffered to i buried. But, in succeeding times, it was consul ei ate i impiety, as the indubitable mark ol a savage or ungenerous temper, to deny the rites of burial to The mere civilized Grecians reckoned it a -a. aid duty b bury the slain, a debt which they owed to nature; and liej seldom or never neglected it, or refused their permission li ry it, except on extraordinary and unusual provocations. was a very aggravating circumstance in the desolation* of Jerusalem li el ibed by the pi ti that the dead bodies of her inhabitants' remained unburied, and the terms in which he mentions it, prove that the I [e- brews had the same acute feelings, relative to this subject, as the most refined nations of antiquity: " O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem-; and there was none to bury them." — Paxton. Ver, 10. And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth; and they fastened his body to the wall of Belh-shan. Three Bakhtiarees had been condemned to death by the Erince for robbery; one was beheaded, and thi lown up; the third was cut in half, and the two parts of his bodv hung on two of the most frequented gates of the citv as a warning to other thieves. The horrid spectacle was displayed for three davs. It illustrates, in some de- gree, an ancient custom exemplified in the case of Saul, 1 Sam. 31. 10, whose bodv was fastened to the wall of Beth- shan bv the Philistines. Sht!.rh-!,;-r,lrn is the technical name for this punishment, which consists in culling the body in two lengthwise, with a sword, beginnn the legs, and terminating in the side of the neck above the shoulder. — Morier. Ver. 12. All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. The Chaldeeand other versions render the words, " and they burnt or kindled a light or lamp over them there, as they are accustomed to burn over kings." Upon which a rabbi observes, that this has reference to a custom, deliver- ed down from their ancestors, of burning the beds and other utensils of the dead upon their graves, or to the burning ol spices over them. See Jer. xxxiv. 5. — Buroeb. THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. CHAPTER I. Ver. 2. It came even to pass on the third day, that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul, with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head : and so it was, when he came to David, that he fell on the earth, and did obeisance. In several passages of scripture mention is made of dust strewed on the head, as a token of mourning, or earth, or ropes carried on the head, as a token of submission. The following instance is remarkably analogous to these acts of humiliation : " He then descended the mountain, carrying, as is the custom of the country, for vanquished rebels, a stone upon his head, as confessing himself guilty of a capi- tal crime." (Bruce.)— Burder. Ver. 10. And I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that teas on his aim, and have brought them hither unto my lord. A bracelet is commonly worn by the oriental princes, as a badge of power and authority. 'When the calif Cayem Bemrillah granted the investiture of certain dominions to an eastern prince, he sent him letters patent, a crown, a :hain, and bracelets. This was probably the reason that the Amalekite brought the bracelet which he found on Saul's arm, along with his crown, to David. It was a royal ornament, and belonged to the regalia of the kingdom. The bracelet, it must be acknowledged, was worn both by men and women of different ranks ; but the original word, in the second book of Samuel, occurs only in two other places, and is quite different from the term, which is em- ployed to express the more common ornament known by that name. And besides, this ornament was wprn by kings and princes in a different manner from their 'subjects. It was fastened above the elbow ; and was commonly of great value. The people of Israel found the bracelet among the spoils of Midian. when they destroyed that nation in the time of Moses ; but it will be remembered, that they killed at the same time five of their kings. The prophet Isaiah, indeed mentions the kind of bracelet, which Mr. Harmer considers as the peculiar badge of kings, in his description of the wardrobe of a Jewish lady, which proves, that in the age when he flourished, it was not the exclusive decoration of regal personages, but had been assumed, and was often worn by persons of inferior rank ; but it is by no means improbable, that the extravagance of the female sex in his time, which seems to have arisen to an unprecedented height, might have confounded, in sump measure, the dis- tinctions of rank, by inducing the nobility of Judah to af- fect the state and ornaments of their princes. Persons of distinction in various countries of the East, wore chains of silver and gold ; and not satisfied with this, ostentatiously displayed their wealth and rank, by suspending chains of I he same precious metals about the necks of their camels. Silrer chains, according to Pococke, hung from the bridles of the seven military agas in Egypt, to the breastplates of their horses. The camels of the kings of Midian, whom Gideon discomfited, were, agreeably to this custom, adorn- ed with chains of gold. — Paxton. Margin, " My coat of mail, or my embroidered coat." The marginal reading here probably conveys the true meaning of the Hebrew. Saul, for his personal security, most likely wore a close coat, made of rings, or oilets, in the nature of a coat of mail. Montfaucon (Supplement, vol. iii. p. 397) thus represents a combat between a person on horseback and another on foot. " The horseman, repre- sented on an Etruscan vase, of Cardinal Gualtieri's, is armed in such a singular manner, that I thought it neces- sary to give the figure here. This horseman is mounted on a naked horse, with only a bridle, though the horse seeMs to have something on his neck, which passes between his two ears, but it is impossible to distinguish what it is. The armour also of this horseman is as extraordinary as that of the Sarmatian hcrsemen on Trajan's pillar. His military habit is very close, and fitted to his body, and cov- ers him even to his wrist, and below his ancles, so that 'us feet remain naked, which is very extraordinary. For, I think, both in the ancient and modern cavalry, the feet were a principal part which they guarded: excepting only the Moorish horse, who have for their whole dress only a short tunic, which reaches to the middle of the thigh : and the Numidians, who ride quite naked, upon a naked horse, ex- cept a short cloak which they have, fastened to their neck, and hanging loose behind them, in warm weather, and which they wrap about themselves in cold weather. Our Etruscan horseman here hath his feet naked, but he hath his head well covered, with a cap folded about it, and large slips of stufl' hanging down from it. He wears a collar of round stones. The close-bodied coat he wears is wrought all over with zigzags, and large points, down to the girdle, which is broad, and tied round the middle of his body : the same flourishing is continued lower down his habit, quite to his ankle, and all over his arms, to his wrist." Something similar to this might be the military dress of Saul. — Buruer. Ver. 15. And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died. Others were condemned to be slain with the sword, which was by decapitation, executed in the manner used in mod- ern times. Such was the punishment which David inflict- ed on the Amalekite, for putting Saul to death. It seems also to be the usual punishment in Abyssinia, for taking away thejife of a king: for Socinios, an Abyssinian mon- arch, being informed that one Mahardin, a Moor, had been the first to break through that respect due to a king, by wounding Za Denghel, his predecessor, at the battle of Bartcho, he ordered him to be brought at noonday before the gate of his palace, and his head to be then struck off with an axe, as a just atonement for violated majesty. The punishment of strangling, as described by the Jewish wri- ters, resembled the Turkish punishment of the bowstring, rather than the present mode of executing by the gibbet. The offender was placed up to the loins in dung, and a nap- kin was twisted about his neck, and drawn hard by the wit- nesses, till he was dead. Those who had committed great and notorious offences, and who deserved to be made pub- lic examples, were hanged upon a tree after they had actu- ally suffered the death to which they were condemned; which shows, that this punishment was not the same with the Roman crucifixion, in which the malefactors were nailed to the gibbet, and left to expire by slow and excru- ciating torments. The Hebrew custom was no more than hanging up their bodies afler they were dead, and expo- sing them for some time to open shame. For this purpose, a piece of timber was fixed in the ground, out of which came a beam, to which the hands of the sufferer were tipd, so that his body hung in the posture of a person on the cross. "When the sun set, the body was taken down : lor the law says, " He that is hanged on a tree, is aceursed ol God ;" not that the criminal was accursed because he was hanged, but he was hanged because he was accursed.— Paxton. Ver. 12. And they mourned and wept, and fasted until even for Saul, and for Jonathan his son 2 SAMUEL. l-l and for the people of the Lord, and for the house of Israel; because they were fallen by the sword. Thus did David, and those that were with him, weep and fast until the evening, because the " mighty wcie fall- en." and because "the weapons •>! war" bad perished. When a father or mother " t':'.!!s on the ground," the children have slated periods when they weep and last in memory of their dead. On the day of die lull moon, those who have lost their mothers lasi until the sun come to the mi I id ian and in the evening they take milk and fruit. For a lather, the sons fast on the new moon in the same way us lor the mother.— Roberts. Vor. IS. (Also he bade them teach the children of.ltiduh the u$e of the bow: behold, it iswrit- ten in tin' boot of Jasher.) These words have been generally understood of Jona- iii^' the children of Judali the use "I the bow. But a better interpretation "f the passage, probably is, that the bow is the name of the lamentation which David ut- tered over Jonathan ; and that it is so denominated, because he. met his death from the bow. The foil, ,win^ extract, describing a funeral procession of women, to commemorate the death of a merchant, named Mahomet, at Comic. where he was murdered by two Arabs, who attacked him with swords, will illustrate this representation. Speaking of the murder of Mahomet, Mr. Irwin, ( Travels, p. 254,) says, "The. tragedy which was lately acted near Cosire, gave birth to a mournful procession of females, which nssed through the different streets of Gmnah, and uttered dismal erics fur the death of Mahomet. In the centre was a female of his family, who carried a naked sword in her hand, to intimate the weapon by which the dee At sundry places the procession stopped, and danced round the sword to the music of timbrels and labours. Theypansed a long time before our house, and some of the « en ulade i ioc poning signs to one of our servants, which agrees with the caution we received to keep withindoors. It would be dangerous enough to face this frantic company, whose constant cl ■.motir and extravagant gestures save them all the appearance of the female bacchanals of Thrace, Ol old." From this custom of carrying in ihe fu- neral procession the weapon by which the deceased met death, it seems likery that the lamentations of David over Jonathan might have been called The Bov, and sung by the men of Judah in funeral procession.— BritmtR. Vor 21. Ye"mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon yon, nor fields of offerings : for there the shield of the mirrhty is vilely cast away. The want of rain in the East is partly compensated by the copious dews which fall in the night, to restore and re- fresh the face of nature. The sacred writers were too much alive to the beauties of nature, too keen and accurate observers of the works and operations of their God, not to avail themselves of this part of the divine arrangements to give us a visible and lively conception of the purity and in- fluence of his blessing. In the sublime benediction fl Inch the dying patriarch pronounced on the future inhei itance of Jo- seph, the dew occupies a prominent place, clearly indicating its incalculable value in the mind of an Orienial : " And of Joseph he said, blessed of the Lord be his land, for the pre- cious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that toncheth b-neath." When the holv Psalmist many aires afterward poured out the sorrows of his heart over the fall- en house of Saul, he deprived the spot where the king and ttis sons fell, of the dew, the rain, and the fields of offerings, as the greatest curse which his lacerated feelings could de- vise: " Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, nei- !her let there lie rain upon vou, nor fields cf offerings; for •here the shield of the mightv is vilely cast awav." So silent, Irresistible, and swift, is the descent of the dew on every field and on everv blade of grass, that Hashai, David's . "riend, selects ft as the most appropriate phenomenon in nature to symbolize the sudden onset of an enemy : "We will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground." When the chosen peoph were scattered among the riven ing sini ; but the favour and bn arej a- i ed to re tore them to the high estate from which they bai fallen. "For thy dew is as the dew ol herbs, ani shall cast out the dead." Although they were dried and withered as the grass, yet he promises to revive, refresh, ben them by the power of ins spun and the riches ol in- grac-. The dewdrops >>i the morning are not more pure and insinuating, more lovely and al, when they descend on the tender grass, ihan the doc- " I in pjration in the heart and coi Christian. This idea is beautifully expre id by Mo . m his dying song ; " My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small ram lender herb, and as the showers aponthi tual regard which ought to animate the people of God is compared tothe dew which moisten; the hill ol Hermon and clothes it with verdure. The drops of dew are and brilliant, glittering over all the field, cheering theheait of the husbandman, and stimulating hi abundant, illustrious, and encouraging, were the verts to the Christian faith, after the ascension i That spleiuiid manifestation of almighty gra. ages before in the song ol Zion "Thypeo- pie shall be'willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties nl holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth." But it too frequently happens that the glory of the church, as well as the attainments of her chil- dren, suilcrs a mournful decline, and passe- rapidly away: and what emblem more appropriate can be eh el o! llie dews, by the kindling rays of a vertical sun I "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee ? 0 Judah, whal shall I do unto thee ? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew'it goeth awav." The shield was more highly valued by the ancients than all theirother armour. It was their delight to adorn it With all kinds of figures, of birds and beasts, especially t ho f generous natures, as eagles and lions: t! zoned upon its capacious rwrir the effigies of their gods, I i elestial bodies, and all the works of nature. They preserved it with the most jealous care: I il in the day of battle was accounted one of tbi calamities that could befall them, worse than defeal, or even than death itself; so great was their passion for what i< termed military glory, and the estimation in which it wa held, thai they had a profound regard for all sons of arms theinsliumen'tsbv whichthey attained it ; and to leave then in the hands of their enemies, to give them foi b dispose of them in a dishonourable way, wa i an indelibl disgrace both in Greece and al II D e, for « hii b hardly ever atone. But these sentiments were not confined to Greece and Rome; among no people were they earned higher than among the-Jews. To east away the shield in the day of battle, they counted a national disgrace, and a fit subject for public mourning. This affecting circum- stance was not omitted in the beautiful elegy wl ■ I a brave and experienced solil i : ihedealhol Saul and the loss of his army : " The shield oflhe mighty was vilely cast away." On that fatal day, w hen Saul and the Bower of Israel perished on the mountains of Gilboa, many of the Jew i*h soldiers who had behaved with great bravery in former battles, forgetful of their own reputation ami their country's honour, threw away their shields, and fled from the field. The sweet singer of Frael adverts to that dishonourable conduct, with admirable and touching pathos: "Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings; for there the. shield of the mighty is vilely cast awav. the shield of San;, as though he had not been anointed with oil." The apos- tle has availed himself of this general feeling ' to the 1 leluews. to encourage them in the profession Ol the gospel, and in a courageous, firm, and constant adherence to the truth: "Cast not away therefore your confidence Abide without wavering in the profession M the faith, and in the firm belief of the truth : and aim at the full as- surance of the grace of faith, which, as a spiritual shield, should be sought with unwearied diligence, and retained with jealous care.— P.ixiov. Ver. 23. Saul and Jonathan were lovely arte 2 SAMUEL. Chap 2 pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided : they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. The military exercises of the Hebrews resembled those of other nations around them. Swiftness of foot was high- ly valued., as it gave the warrior a great advantage over his slower and more unwieldy antagonist. It is accord- ingly mentioned to the honour of Asahel, one of David's captains, that he was swifter of foot than a wild roe ; and the sweet singer of Israel, in his poetical lamentation over .hose two great captains, Saul and Jonathan, takes partic- ular notice of this warlike quality: " They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions." Nor were the ancient Greeks less attentive to a qualification which the state of the military art in those days rendered so valuable. The footraces in the Olympic games were instituted by warlike '•Heftains, for the very purpose of inuring their subjects to i..e fatigues of war, and particularly of increasing their speed, which was regarded as an excellent qualification in a warrior, both because it served for a sudden attack and a nimble retreat. Homer, fully aware of its value in an- cient warfare, says, that swiftness of foot is one of the most excellent endowments with which a man can be favoured. To invigorate the frame, on the strength and firmness of which the victory almost entirely depended in primitive times, the Hebrew captains are said to have exercised their soldiers in lifting great weights. After the defeat of SauJ, which seems to have been chiefly effected by the skill and valour of the enemy's archers, David commanded his offi- cers to instruct their troops in the use of the bow, which, though employed by the Hebrew warriors from the earliest times, appears to have been rather neglected till that terri- ble catastrophe taught them the necessity of forming a body of skilful archers, which might enable them to meet their "iiemies in the field on equal terms. The Hebrew youth were also taught to hurl the javelin, to handle the spear, and to use the sling, in which many of them greatly ex- celled.— Paxton. Ver. 26. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me : thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. Than the love of women ; or, as the word is frequently rendered, wives. This figure hath been censured, as not well chosen, and insinuations dropped highly to the dis- honour of the two noble friends. But the expression gives no countenance to it. It appears to me, that there was somewhat in the conduct of Michal, David's wife, in too hastily consenting to be married to Phalti, that gave occa- sion to this comparison. It is certain from her behaviour to him, at the bringing the ark to Jerusalem, that she had not that high esteem and affection for him, that she ought to have had, as she took this opportunity so bitterly to ■ reproach him. It is certain also, that her marriage to Phalti must have been preceded by a divorce from David; otherwise her second marriage would have been real adul- tery : and her consenting to a divorce; though by her father's order, showed great want of affection and fidelity to David. On this supposition, no comparison could be better chosen, nor more tenderly and delicately expressed. The brother's love to him, as a friend, was more generous and constant than the sister's, though a wife. The com- pliment to Jonathan was very high, and just; and the concealing the sister's name, was truly polite. He who can read this excellent composure without admiration and pleasure, must be totally destitute of all true taste. The lamentation over the slain heroes of Israel, in the beginning, and several times repeated; the manner in which he expresses his anguish, at the thought of the defeats being published in the cities of the Philistines, and the triumphs of the daughters of the uncircumeised upon account of it ; his passionately wishing that neither dews nor rains might ever fall on the mountains of Gilboa, and ■he fields surrounding them, in which the slaughter of the Israelites happened; his recounting the past victories of Saul and Jonathan, who never drew a bow, or brandished a sword, but it proved fatal to their enemies, to heighten 'he glory of their character, and set forth in a more lively manner the sad reverse of their condition ; his comparing them, the one 10 an eagle for swiftness, the other to a lion fcr strength and valour ; the honourable mention of their mutual affection while they lived, and dying bravely to- gether in the field of battle ; the exclamation to the daugh- ters of Israel to mourn over Saul, and the reasons he gives for it; his celebrating the mutual tender friendship between himself and Jonathan : in a word, this elegy, in every part of it, both in sentiment and expression, hath all the charms with which the spirit of poetry can adcrn it ; shows the richness of David's genius, and will be a monument to his praise throughout all generations. — Chandler. CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. And they told David, saying, That the men of Jabesh-gilead were they that buried Saul. 5. And David sent messengers unto the men of Jabesh-gilead, and said unto them, Blessed be ye of the Lord, that ye have show- ed this kindness unto your lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him. 6. And now the Lord show kindness and truth unto you: and I also will requite you this kindness, because ye have done this thing. 7. Therefore now let your hands be strengthened, and be ye val- iant: for your master Saul is dead, and also the house of Judah have anointed me king over them. 8. But Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, took Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim : 9. And he made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel. 1 0. Ish- bosheth, Saul's son, was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and reigned two years. But the house of Judah followed Da- vid. 11. And the time that David was king in Hebron, over the house of Judah, was seven years and six months. David was now thirty years old ; had in many •shown his courage, fortitude, moderation, and patience; had been inured by a long persecution, and series of dis- appointments and distresses, to submission to God, and trust in his power and goodness: and had experienced the care of the Almighty, in the protection afforded him, under the innumerable dangers to which the jealousy and enmity of Saul had exposed him. As he hud under all his diffi- culties strengthened himself in God, left his fate to the divine disposal, and was determined never to hasten his accession to the throne by any acts of treason and violence ; God now began to reward Ins singular virtue, and from a fugitive and exile he was made king over the most power- ful of all the tribes, bv their unsolicited and voluntary con- sent ; as an earnest of what God had in further reserve for him,— the kingdom over all his people. From hence it appears, how unreasonably it hath been alleged, that David had no pretension to the sovereignly, either by right of in- heritance, which was claimed by Ishbosheth.'a remaining son of Saul, nor by popular election, but by the clandestine appointment of an old Levite, which inspired him with hopes, of which by arms and intrigues he obtained the fruition. Mr. Bayle also censures the conduct of David in the measures he took to secure himself the crown. For he informs us, that David had gained the principal men of the tribe of Judah by presents ; and that had not Abner prevented it, there is no doubt but he would have become king over all Israel, by the same method, viz. by gaming the principal persons by presents. It is acknowledged that David had no pretension to the sovereignty bv right of in- heritance ; and in this respect Saul had no more right than David; nor Isl.nosheth tha- either of them; the hereditary : ight, if any such '.here was, being vested in Mephibosheth, Chap. 2. 2 S A M Banl's grand I on Jonathan,. And, thus.] doubt iiui, \leph sh-th himseil thought ; at least Saul's family certainly did. Foi when David asked Ziba where Mephibosheth was, Ziba answered Hi tfa lethal Jeru- salem ; for he said, to day shall the bouse ol Israel restore methekingd ol mj lather." Whether this charge was ii is evident that Mephibosheth, or Ins family, thought the righl of succession to the kingdom of Israel o him, as it must in.. i ■ In- suc- cession had been made hcredi.arv in Saul's family. l!e- iid< s, if Saul himself, as some affirm, had only Iheshow of lection, be had do real populai election ai all, and therefore no right to the crown, and therefore Ishbo- shcth could dcnve no right from inui to succeed him. Ish- her doth not appear to have had, either the show or reality of a popular election ■. no, nor the i I ol the old Levite, winch both Saul and David had. He was the mere creafure of Abi Saul's hosl ; wine ambitious of retaining the p,,u ,-r in hi , own hand, took Ishbosheth, and, by military force, made . er Israel ; without, as far as appears, the choice of the eleven tribes, and in direct opposition to he choice and consent of the tribe of Judah, the D Siderable and powerful of all, and the inclination of the whole body ol the people. Ishbosheth therefore was a usurper m' every respect, in prejudice of the righl heir ; and David, and every man in Israel, had a natural righl to oppose him, and prevent his establishment in ihe Mr. Bayle says, that David did not pretend that Ishbosheth reigned by usurpation ; for he allowed him to be a righteous inan.and'thcrclore a lawful king. But this reasoning will not hold good, if Mr. Bayle's own account of David be true. He allows David to have been one of the great! -i men in the world, commends him for his conspicuous piety, ai»d extols him as a sen of holiness in the church And >•••. he tells us, that David acted like an infidel, and most ambitious prince ; and that his policy and prudence wen • can never persuade himself to think that the strict laws of equity, and the severe morals of a good ser- vant of God can possibly approve ; and that his actions were ti it those of a saint. I therefore say, that according to Mr. Bayle, a person may have a general character for asain't and ■ a righteous man, and yet, in some particular actions, may . to the character of both ; and that: .Laih not follow, that because David allowed Ishbosheth lobe a righteous man, therefore he allowed him to be a lawful km'_'. Ishbosheth was undoubtedly a righteous man, with respect to his murderers, whom he had never injured; and probably in his private character he might be a man of virtue. But at the same time David could not but know, that he reigned in every view by usurpation, and that con- sequcii'lv lie was in this respect a very unrighteous man. The righl of David to the crown was indisputable, and the highest hv which any man could claim it. When Saul was made king, the crown was not made hereditary in his family, and the same power that made him king, be that what it will, declared, that his kingdom should not stand, or be perpetuated in his family, but be transferred to his neighbour. Upon the death of Saul therefore, the throne Oecame vacant, and the pco; le were at full liberty, under the direction of God, to choose whom they pleased. The tribe of Judah unanimously chose David for their king, and it is highly probable, that the whole body of the nation would have fallen in with him, had they not been prevented by the influence of Abner. Thi* Abner himself inure than intimates, when in order to bring over the eleven tribes lo David, he puts them in remembrance, saying: "Ye fought for David in times past to be king over yon," viz. even in Saul's time, who was abhorred and detested by man] of he principal men for his tyranny. Nay. we arc' expressly informed, that the princes', and captains of hundreds and thousands, and great parties from the Benjamites, Gib- eonites, Gadites. the tribe of Judah and Manasseh r-volied o him, even before the battle in which Saul was slain, day •jy day, till it was a great host, like the host of God. These vere voluntary in the offer of the crown to David, and no rind of bribes'or force employed by him to bring them to submission. The whole nation was in motion, and m> lung irevented their unanimously declaring for him, but the imposition of Abner in favour of Ishbosheth. But did not David gain in particular the tribe of Judah iv bribes or presents ' Mr. Bay'ie affirms he did : The whole tribe ofJudah, of which] j.rincipu be histor only says, that J, .• on< i | the elders ol Judah, as were his liiends, consisting ,.l pan , they had taken from Ziklag; ami prohahh that v,r\ pit winch the Amalekiles had taken from Judah, the south •> Which they had just invaded. Hut il these elders ,,| Judah Ii re he sen i them this present, then he in them by sending in , ami ihen . king was not because he made thi ent, but from the greatness of then ailection foi Ion, tx fore When Mr. I'.avlc adds, ihcre 1 1 no doubt, had I pri rented it, bui be would have bed, kmgoi all the same thod of presents ; I think th to doubl of it : for l>n\ id doth nut appeal lo h:i ■ ■■ such pic a, is, i, ,„■ did tin desire or want them, being led by their own in, and sei f interest and duly at last n, subm David was certainly a man ol nion, and liberal in Ins favours ; and this temper I ncvci a suspected to be criminal, unworthy a great and good prince, 01 a real saint; and if by a prudent liberality he could se- wn rights, I think he acted much .,, saint, than if he had recovered them by force, without ever first attempting to do it by the gcntler'methods of liberalitv and g luess. The true reason of the tribe of Judah', filling in with him, and the r-adiin-ss of tl ther tribes to acknowledge him a* king ...,,, his excellent charactet as a brave and generous soldier, under whom they them- selves had formerly by God lo the royal dignity, having been anointed king by Samuel, according to the express order i.fCli.il. Il was this latter consideration, that led him to ask the dii Hon upon Saul's death, what n secure his succession. The very question: "Shall [coop to any of the cities of Judah 1" would have been highh indecent, had he not had the divine pi- , t,, depend on. His claim, by virtue of Samuel's unction was his only claim, was universally known to tl Israel, and the avowed reason why they tit last advanced him to the throne. It was known to Jonathan his I: ii n-' Saul himself was no stranger lo it. 1 know, s, private persons. NabaPs wife confesses this ,- ; of God. Abner terrified Ishbosheth by putting him in mind of it. " So do God to Abner, and more also, except, ;,- the Lord hath sworn to David, even so 1 do to him. to translate the kingdom from the house of Saul, and to set up the throne or David over Israel.'' He declares the same in his message to the elders of Israel. The Lord hath spoken of David, saying. " By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel out of the hands of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies." And w hen tie--. came to make him king, this was the grand inducement to it. " In time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said to thee: Thou shah feed my people 1st,:- I shall be captain over Israel; and thev anointed i over Israel, according to the word of the Lord by Samuel.'' So that this was the foundation of his claim, was unn '-I sally known, and justified his pretcn for,' .the crown after the death of Saul. To this contest David was forced, by Ishbo hi pation, supported by the authority and influence of Abhcr, a near relation of Saul, and win, had been his g lasted above seven years, and Mr. Bayle is extremely dis- pleased wiih poor David, and censures "him very severely Mi this account. He says, " That as Abner preserved by his fidelity eleven whole tribes for Ishbosheth, the same thing happened as would have happened between two infidel and most ambitious princes. David and Ishbosheth made inces- sant war on one another, to try which of the i\\ the other's share, in order to enjoy the whole kingdom with- out division." But the real question, by which David's con- duct is to be determined, is : Did the free election of the tribe of Judah, neither bought by bribes, nor forced by pen er. give David a righ' lobe king over i: ; and did his appointment by God to sue, end Saul.; nd rule, ver : 11 I-rael. give bima just I claim to enjoy the whole kingdom, without division \ I thir.k , in both cases he had ghl, end consequcm ,P1 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 2. .y he might, consistently even with the character of a saint, clefend and maintain his right, lshbosheth therefore, by keeping David out of part of the kingdom, and endeavour- ing by arms to dispossess him of the -whole, might well enough deserve Mr. Bayle's character of an infidel and ambirjbus prince; and David, endeavouring only to secure what he had, and to recover -what he was unjustly kept out of, may still pass for a very good believer, and doth not seem to have had any more ambition in him, than what was honourable and virtuous. If wars are in their nature ..nlawful, David's character as a saint will greatly suffer by his carrying on the war with lshbosheth. But if wars are m^any case" lawful, it must be when waged for supporting those just and important rights, which cannot be secured without them. Such were certainly the rights of David, and therefore his maintaining the war against lshbosheth, was both his interest and duty, and doth not in the least di- ininishthe glory of this son of holiness in the church. The promise of God to David, that he should be king of Israel, was not a promise to make him so by extraordinary and miraculous methods, but in the use of all prudential and proper ones; and if he actually employed arms when ne- cessary to vindicate his just claims, and prudence and pol- icy to turn every event to his advantage, it only shows that he was born -for empire, worthy of a kingdom, and a man after God's own heart ; or fit" for the purposes for ■vhich God raised him to the throne. And though these incilnuls should have been, to all appearance, like those which wicked men, or infidel and most ambitious princes, make use of to obtain their ends, they may for all that be very just and honourable. For infidel and wicked princes may sometimes pursue lawful ends, and be forced to main- tain their rights by policy and arms. And therefore unless the means which'David used were base and criminal, or employed for wicked and unjustifiable purposes, they may be allowed to be, to external appearance, the same with what wicked, ambitious, infidel princes use, and yet be agreeable to the rules of justice and honour.— Chan-oler. Ver. 5. And David sent messengers unto the men of Jabesh-gilead, and said unto them, Blessed be ye of the Lord, that ye have showed this kindness unto your lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him. The bodies of Saul and his sons were butint by the men of Jabesh-gilead. Two of the thirty-two charities of the Hindoos are, to burn the bodies of those whose relations cannot do it, and to pay for the beating of the tom-toms to the place of burning. It is therefore considered a work of great merit to perform the funeral riles for a respectable stranger, or for those whose relations are not able to meet the expenses. Hence may be seen the funerals of those who have lived in poverty, or who have seen better days, conducted with great pomp, because the reward is great to him who advances the money, and because he receives great praise from the people. — Roberts. Ver. 9. And Joab said to Amasa. Art thou in health, my brother ? And Joab took Amasa by the beard 'with the right hand to kiss him. Dr. Shaw takes no notice of their taking hold of the beard in order to kiss, but Thevenot does, saying, that among the Turks it is a great affront to take one by the beard, unless it be to kiss him, in which case they often do it. Whether he means by kissing him, kissing his beard, or no I do not know; but Joab's taking Amasa by the he; n .: /riss him, 2 Sam. xx. 0, seems to be designed to ex] ress bis taking his beard to kiss it; at least this is agreeable to the customs of those that now live in that country; for D'Arvieux, describing the assembling together of several of the petty Arab princes at an entertainment, tells us, that " All the emirs came just together a little time after, accompanied by their friends and attendants, mid after the usual civilities, caresses, kissing of the beard, and of the hand, which every one gave and received ac- cording to his hand and digni'v. thev sat down upon mats." He elsewhere speaks of thew •■■■ ■' •■- •- V'ir husbands,' beards, and children those of their fathers, and friends reciprocally saluting one another in this manner ; but the doing it by their emirs more exactly answers this history of Joab and Amasa, and in this stooping posture he could much better see to direct the blow, than if he had only hel; his beard, and raised himself to kiss his face. — Harmbk. Ver. 18. And there were three sons of Zeruia] there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel : am. Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe. The name of the antelope in the Hebrew scripture, ' ' ■os(/se6i;) and in the version of the Seventy A»p>:as,(dorca& In our version, the original term is translated roe and roe buck; but Dr. Shaw, and others, have proved by seyera conclusive arguments, that it is not the roe, but the ante- lope, which the sacred writers intend. The former is extremely rare in the oriental regions, while the latter is common in every part of the Levant. But is it to be sup- posed, that the sacred writers would borrow their figures from creatures which are either not known at all in Pales- tine and the surrounding countries, or but rarely seen . while they had not even a name for an animal, which, in large herds of several thousands, fed in their fields, and around their dwellings 1 Such a supposition would con- tradict some of the strongest laws which regnlate the operations of the human mind, and is therefore qune inadmissible. It is equally absurd to suppose that tuc Jewish legislator, when he regulated by fixed laws the food of his people, would mention a creature which they probablv had never seen, of which perhaps they had not even heard, which was not to be found in the deserts ovei which they had to travel, nor in the country they were tc possess; while he omitted one of daily occurrence, which was found everywhere, in the wilderness and in the culti- vated field, on the mountains and in the plains ; whose flesh was greatly esteemed, and, by consequence, could not fail to become an important article of subsistence. These considerations are ot themselves sufficient to establish the superior claims of the antelope to a place in the sacred volume. The arguments which have been drawn from the etvmological meaning of the Hebrew terms n=s and >2x, and the authority of the Sepluagint, although of .nfe- rior importance, are not destitute of weight. The first ol these names suggests the idea of a very gregarious animal, but this is not the character of the roes, for, instead of asso- ciating in herds, they live in separate families; while the antelopes are commonly found in very large herds, some- times to the number of two or three thousand together. The second term, 'as, primarily signifies beauty ; and when put for the concrete, as in this' instance, by a very common figure of speech in Hebrew, has the force of a superlative, and signifies a thing or animal of uncommon beam v. This the land of Canaan is, in the prophet, styled oin y-N, the land of beauty; or, as it is rendered bv our translators, the glory of all lands. The tscbi, therefore, is an animal that excels in beauty ; which exactly corresponds with till the accounts that natural histonans'have given us of the ante- lope. Both the roe and the antelope, it must be admitted, are, in the general opinion of mankind, very beautiful animals; but the preference is commonly given to the latter. Buffon savs. the figure of the small antelopes is. elegant, and their members'are finely proportioned ti then size; and make prodigious bounds. The Sepluagint ur.i- formly translate the terms, was and «m, by lop-nf, and il e correctness of their translation is attested by Luke, for he mentions "a certain disciple" who resided ''at Joppa, named Tabitha, which, h\ interpretation, is called Dorcas." The name Tabitha is termed bv a slieht alteration from the Chaldce noun tcx(Tabia,) and this from the Hebrew term •-•>• (tsebi "> The Hi brew teim signifies, as has been alreadv observed, a creature of surpassing beauty : Dorcas, its divinely attested equivalent, limiting somewhat the general signification, denotes a creature remarkable fei the fineness ,,f its eves; and from this last circumstance, it is conjectured that Tabitha received Jier came. But while the eyes of the roe lave attracted no particular attention, so far as the writer has observed, the antelope has been celebrated for the fineness of its eves in all the countries of the Fast. Their beauty, according to Dr. Shaw, is pro- verbial there to this day j and it is still the greatest com- pliment which, in these countries, can be paid to a fine woman, to szx, "You have the eves of an antelope." From Bochart, and other authors, we' learn that it was equally CiiAr. 3. S A M U E L. I . ihe ancients for the acuteness of is vision; iLs eves, they" pretend, never become bleared ; il sees in ilie with both eyes open, or, as outers will hare ii, wnli one eye open and another shut. These cirenm- Btanees appeal to be much more applicable to tb winch i- a quadruped well known, than to the roe, which Is either noi known at all, or very ran-, m those pans of pie world. The natives oif Syria make a distinction be- n ■ I. .[>._■- oi ill.' mountain, and llio e ol the plain. Dr. Rassel, who gives us this information, say-, ' ihe |..niiT i- the mo-i beautifully fornied, its back are ol a dark brown colour, and it bounds with siirpnsing .mill | . the latter is of a much lighter colour, its limbs are n.it so cleanly turned, and il is aeithei ictive both, however, are so fleet, that the greyhounds, oned excellent, cannot, without the aid of the lil,. hi, come up with them, except in sofl deep ground." This is probably the reason, I ha i the sacred writers fre quently mention the " antelope upon the mountains." and not -i nply Ihe antelope, when they allude to surpassing Ii or amazing rapidity of motion. The ol this b tautiful creatine, Ik.s been i el brated b] age, in terms of high admit i ion I: cviiiim e syniinetrv, its active form, and the delicate turn ideally show, that ii is intended by us Maker i ingiiisheil place among the tleetesl aim taJs i ic doerl. Sir John Malcom says, il may lie termed the fleetest of quadrupeds. Ii seems rather to vanish, than to run from ihe pursuer, and when I losi lv pressed, b muds w ith so great agility, that it ha i til v nc to touch the ground in its career'. Oppian calls il the c.-ies of goat ; and according to /Elian, il equals Ihe whirlwind in speed. He outruns the antelope, said the Arabians, when they wished to pay the highest compliment 1,1'ul warrior. To this trait in iis character, the sacred writers often allude. The surprising agility which Asahel, the brother of Joab, displayed in his pursuit of Abner, drew this eulogium from the sacred historian: \nl \ lied was lighi of foot, as one of the antelopes that acid." Another allusion to the amazing speed of that animal, occurs in the description of the warlike maJincations which distinguished a troop of Gadites in if 1 lavid : " They were men of might, men of war, fit for the batile, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes (the antelopes) upon the mountains." — Paxton. Ver. 28. So Joab blew a trumpet, and all the peo- ple stood still, and pursued after Israel no more, neither fought they any more See on 2 Sam. 18. 16. CHAPTER III. Ver. 12. And Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, saying, Whose is the land i saying also, Mike thy league with me, and, behold, my hand shall be with thee, to bring about all Israel unto thee. Though Abner, with the eleven tribes, asserted Ishbo- Shefh's cause for several years, yet he saw that his interest greatly declined, and that he should not long be able to support him, as his forces were worsted in every rencoun- ter; while David prospered in all his affairs, his party anally increasing, and every thing seemed to con- spire to crown his wishes, and soon put him in possession of the kingdom over all Israel. This was the opportunity bad waited for, to bring about that revolution in favour of David, which he had continually in his view, and was determined to effect, upon the first occasion that presented itself. He soon found one, that he immediately closed with. Saul had a concubine, whose name was Bis- pah, and Ishbosheth, having found out that Abner had been too intimate with her, took an opportunity to reproach him or. that affair, and with an air of displeasure said to him : Why bast thou gone in unto my father's concubine'! Ab- ner,'enraged to be thus called to an account, said to Ish- bosheth with indigna'ion: "What, am I to be used is so contemptuous and disagreeable a manner, as though I vere as insignificant as a dog's bead, and thus haughtily 24 as though I had been guilty of a heiDOU c i in H-. .1 nceming this woman, whn Ii you reprove me Col d loo Gee with! What, tins t,, ,,„., ... position to the tribe of Jadah, I - u to the throne, have been so firm and faithful a I . lather, his brethren, and adherents, ami have ' ed thee, as 1 could i bauds of David I Too long have I already n appointment ol God, and may 1 fall under bi curse, e.xc.-pt I perform to Max id, what the l..»d hath swoi n to David ; cvci . Kite.-,!. mi Irom the house of Saul, and to establish his thnm. ■ »iri all I im I and Judah, from Dan even to Ueersbebah !" Thi 1 1 died the unhappy prince, thai hi ■ answer him a word, as he knew ne was absolutely in VI nor's power, and had too miiel, i ,-a on to 1 pal Ins threatening too soon in execution. Be did it with- out delay, and sent 01 i itl D I him his service-, and say to him: "To whom government over the c it i y ol Isra. I thyself. Knier there I will lend thi to bring over all the tribes ol Niael luihy interest V Da vid, in return to h sent him won!, he was willing to enter into a treaty; but would have no interview web him, bin upon condition thai he should bring Michal, Saul's daughter, with him, when he admitted huu io an audience. 1 1 n: ai the same nine messengers to Ishbosheth, to demand thai Michal, Ins wife, whom he purchased foi kins of the Philistines; 1. c. at the hazard of his life, should he imme- diately delivered to him: who had to mil man ied to Pb.i! David also falls tin. instance, a too sensual disposition; and Ms, Ba of this affair in such a manner, as shows tha disapproved it. For he says thai Michal, Saul was David's first wife, I hat she was taken from bj hisdisgrace, lhalhc-n yet demanded the first again ; adding, to enhanci I offence, that to restore her to bun, they were obliged to force her from a husband, who loved" her greatly, and followed her as far as he could, weeping like a child. 1 confess I cannot help smiling ai this last oh perceive that it is to the pui pose ; for 1 can nevei imagine. that because one man loves another man's wife vei that therefore ihe husband h. mi her; 01 should relinquish ho. because the man cries like a child at parting with her. I think David was most certainly in the right to demand I his Other wives, he hai! certainly the strongest claim to ibis; for he had purchased her for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines. And si. : disposition that influenced David in ibis instance, there might be other very substantial reasons to induce him to insisi upon bet being sent to bim. He purchased ber at the hazard of his life, and military valour and ability. She wa£ his pri daughter, and he did ici | iobal.lv choose n. lose the hon- our and advantage of the alliance. Ii might conciliate some of Saul's family and il saw one of Ins daughters owned and treated wife, and that he did not pursue his resentment the injury or disgrae There wa* also n n-..i ■ both to her and Saul; in that he received her after she had been another man's; remeniheiii g [ n.balilv h..w on - his life toher affection, ami knowing that she was partly sep- arated from him by ber father's authority: whi princes, lor much less provocations of a wife's faiher. would have turned off their i and even put them to death for having been married to another. In consequence of this demand made to Abner and Ishbosheth, she was immediately pui into Abnert hands: who. to prepare ihings for an accommodation with David, went and assembled all the elders ol 1 said to them: "You have formerly oftentimes expressed vour desire, that David might be king over you. Vou have now an opportvmitv io gratifv vour own inclinations in this respect; an I to advance him to the throne is. that God himself hath pointed out to vou the man. a- he hath declared: By the hand of my ser- vant David I will save my people Israel out of the hand oi 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 3. the Philistines, and out of me hand of all their enemies;" intimating hereby the incapacity of Ishboshelh, and that it was both dieir interest and duty to transfer the kingdom and government to David ; would be happy lor themselves, and an instance of obedience to their God. He went also and applied himself particularly to the tribe of Benjamin, to which Saul's family belonged, and persuaded them, by ihesame kind of arguments, to fall in with the general sense of all the other tribes, and concur with them in ad- vancing David to the throne. — Chandler. Ver. 21. And Abner said unto David, I will arise and go, and will gather all Israel unto my lord the king, that they may make a league with thee, and that thou mayest reign over all that thy heart desireth. And David sent Abner away ; and he went in peace. Having settled this important point to his mind, he took Michal, and wailed with heron David at Hebron, attended with twenty persons of rank in his retinue, whom David favourably' received, and for whom he made a royal enter- tainment; and having fixed the terms of accommodation between them, Abner took his leave, and al parting told the king, " I will go and assemble all Israel together to my lord wdiom I now acknowledge for my sovereign and king, that they may all of them submit to thine authority arid government, upon such terms as shall be judged hon- ourable on both sides, and that, according to the utmost wishes of thy heart, thou mayest reign over us all, and the kingdom may be established in thy house and family." Abner then took his leave, find went away pleased and happv. to bring about the revoluoon he had projected and promised. Here Mr. Bayle is out of all patience, and after having told as that Abner, being discontented with the kin-' Ins master, resolved to dispossess him of his dominions, nmf deliver them up to David, adds : " David gives ear to the trail,.!', and is willing to gain a kingdom by intrigues of this nature Can it be said, thai ,-hese are the actions of e is nothing in all this, but what is ■pts of policy, and the methods of hu- sha.ll never be persuaded, that the , and the severe morals of a good approve such conduct." There are nt 1 I own thi ;able to the pre' prudence ; but : laws of equit rvant of God, can some persons whom ii is extremely difficult to please. In a former note Mr. Bayle heavily censures David, that he had made incessant war on Ishboshelh, like a very am- bitious and even infidel prince; and now, he ceases even to be a saint, and shows he is destitute of the severe morals of n good servant of God, because he took the first oppor- tunity, and the only means that were in his power, to put a st,,p to the war, and prevent the further effusion of blood, by a general and solid peace. What, I wonder, would Mr. Bayle have had David to have done, when Abner sent his first proposals for an accommodation 7 Ought he to have immediately rejected them, reproached Abner as a traitor to his prince, told. him he would enter into no terms of pence with him, nor his master, but reduce them both, with all the eleven tubes that adhered to them, by force of arms > 1 lad David dene this, would not all the world have reproached him f ,r folly, thus to hazard, by continuing the war. what he could so certainly and easily obtain by the v ,',-, ■ , iifer of Abner 1 Would he not have been justly ,■■•;, d e I ' 'de lighting in blood, for pursuingby the sword, v i, ,i o.i secure by treaty and accommodation 1 Or, would Mr. Bavle have had David sent to Ishboshelh, and inf.in I him of Ahner's treachery, and advised him to the proper methods of preventing it 1 This, perhaps, Mr. Bavle might have commended as an act of exceeding great ,,,;,; ,.u. anc| jshbosheth might have thought himself greatly obliged to David for such an instance of friendship. But how would the tribe of Judah have stood affected to him 1 Would they not have concluded him unworthy to b ■ iheir prince who no better understood his own interest or theirs! by his rejecting a measure, which every pruden- tial consideration, whieh humanity, and the love that he O'ved to his people, obliged him immediately and thank- fully to embrace • David had no other choice left him, but e, !„ i to r-.ll in with Ahner's offer, or prolong the calam- ities of :he civil war: except Mr. Bavle thought he was obliged, upon discovering Abner's treachery, to have in- formed Ishboshelh of it, and sent him at the same time an oiler of re igning the crown of Judah to him, ;.nd all his pretensions to be king over all Israel. It is plain David was not of this sentiment, but thought his own light was belter than Ishbosheth's, and therefore made use of that method to secure it, which he was persuaded that the strict laws o equity, and the severe morals of a good servant ol God, did not in the least prohibit and condemn-. And I confess, 1 do not see any just reason for this censure of Mr. Bayle's, or in what David acted, by accepting Abner's proposals, contrary to the strictest laws of equity, or the severe morals of a good servant of God. To David be- longed the throne by the appointment of God ; and Abner, by advancing Ishboshelh, and beginning a civil war in the kingdom, aeW contrary to his duty to God, the allegiance he owed David, the laws of hereditary su peace and happiness of his tremely criminal, and every moment port Ishboshelh, he supported an unnatural rebellion, r.i.d acted contrary to his own conviction, by keeping David out of the possession of the kingdom, w hieh he knew arid confessed God had sworn to give him. Through a regaid to Saul's family, and more to his own ambition, he deter- mined to deter David's possession as long as he eould; till at length, finding that Ishbosheth was unworthy of the throne, and incapable of government ; that David would finally prevail, probably tired out with the calamities of Ibe civil 'war, and, I doubt not, willing to make some good terms for himself, he took hold of the first opportunity to break with Ishboshelh, and reconcile himself, and the whole nation, to David. In this Abner certainly acted ; s i ighi .■dual v su, , esM.,11. try. HereAbnei lid the ippol ted a and real part, as he, who ha rebellion, at length returns to his duly, deserts the pie- tender, and submits himself to his law fui prince. Though the motives to such an alteration of conduct may not be altogether quite honourable,- the conduct itself is certainly right; and the onlv possible means, by which such a per- son can atone for his past guilt, is to lay down his aims, and put an end to the usurpation, and thereby restore the public peace. Mr. Bavle, with great indignation, call Abner the traitor that the de-, 1 prince! when he was Ab- dcclares for his rightful sovereign < Is! rier's king, as Mr. Bavle tells us; but it was a king he Had treasonably made, and whom he had supported by violence, in opposition to the order of G6d, and without any pretence of right and justice. If therefore the making him king was wrong, the deserting him, and bringing over the tribes to David,' was right. And the easy me'liod by w hid, Al i.ei effected this revolution, and the cordial manner in which ihe whole nation submitted to David, is a demonstration that they approved Abner's change, and were glad to accept David for their king. For no sooner had Abner a conference with the elders of Israel, and put them in mind that they had formerly desired David for their king, and that the' Lord had resolved to deliver them from ihe Phi- listines, and the hand of their enemies, bv the hand of David ; but instantly all the tribes came to Hebron, all ihe men of war, with a perfect heart, and all Israel with one heart, to make him king, and accordingly anointed him king over Israel. In this whole affair, David's conduct, to me, seems perfectly honourable. He received a rebel general to his favour upon his submission, agrees with him that he should bring iti all the tribes to do what they desired to do, and were bound by the order of Gd to do. even to make him king over them, that hereby I e n ighl have the peaceable possession of Ihe whole kingdom. Abner had openly told Ishbosheth of his design. Abner sent messengers to David, and not David to Abnei, on the affair. It was Abner who conferred with the piineesol Israel, and came openly to David at Hebron to agree upon proper measures. David carried on no secret intrigues to bring over Abner and the eleven tribes to his party, He onlv consented to a just proposal that was made him ol recovering his own right, without invading the real right of a single person; and indeed it was the only method he could take, and he would not have acted like a saint, or a wise and just prince, had he not hereby piu an end to the civil war, secured his own rights, and restored rnd estab lished the peace and prosp.rity of his people.— -CiiANm.EU 2 SAM1 EL Ver. 31. And David raid to Joab, and to nil the people thai wert with him, Rend y -clothes, and gird you with sackcloth, and mourn before Aimer. And King David himself followed the bier. rhe word here translated the bin Lsint] ri pnalthi bed; un these, persons of quality used to bei at i ied t rth to theil mini'--, as coininon people were upon a bier K Ig wi carried out upon beds very richli adorned; as Josephus tells lis that Herod was; he says the bed »;b all gilded, set with precious stones, and that it had a purple lover curiously wrought.— Patrick. V i r 33. And the king lamented over Abner, and siid, Died Abner as a fool dieth! 34. Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fet- ters; as B man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept, again over him. be secured, some how or other, by the people of the East, when they are brought out to be punished, to which there se in- to be a plain allusion in the Old Testament. Thus when Irwin was among the Arabs of Upper Egypt, where he was very ill used, but his wrongs afterward redressed by the great sheik there, who had been absent, and who, ii seems, was a man of exemplary probity and virtue; he tells us, that upon that sheik's holding a meat court of justice, about Irwin's affairs and those of his companions, Hie bastinado was given to one of those who had injured them, which he thus describes in a note, page '271 : " The placed upright on the ground, with his hands and feet bound together, while the executioner stands be- fore him, and, with a short Stick, sluices him with a smart moi ion on the outside of his knees. The pain which arises from these strokes is exquisitely severe, and which no con- stitution can support for any continuance." As the Arabs are extremely remarkable for their retaining old customs, we have just grounds of believing, that when malefactors in the East were punished, by beating, and perhaps with death bv the sword, their hands were bound together, and also their feet. How impertinent, according to this, is the interpretation that Victorious Sirigelius gives of '2 Sam. iii. 31 ! as he is cited bv Bishop Patrick in his Commentary on those words: " The king lamented over Abner, and said, Died Abner as a fool dieth 1 Thy hands were not bound, nor thv feet put into fetters; as a man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept again over him." " Strigelins," says the Bishop, " thinks that David, in these words, distinguishes hiin from those criminals, whose hands being tied behind them, are carried to execu- tion ; and from those idle soldiers, who being taken captive in war, have fetters clapped upon their legs, to keep them from running away. He was none of these; neither a notorious offender, 'nor a coward." Patrick adds, "The plain meaning seems to be, that if his enemy had set upon him openly, he had been able to make his part good with him." How impertinent the latter part of what Strigelins says! how foreign from the thought of David, not to sav inconsistent with itself, 'he explanation of the English prelate ! What is meant appear- to be simply this : Died Abner as a fool, that is, as a bad man. as that word fre- quently signifies in the scriptures'! Died he as one found on judgment to be criminal, dietf: 1 No! Thy hands, O V'tier ' were not bound as being found such, nor thy feet confined; on the contrary, thou wert treated with honour bv him whose business it'was to judge thee, and thy attach- ment to the house of Saul esteemed rather generous than culpable ; as the best of men mav fall, so fellest thou, by he sword of treachery, not of justice!— Harmer. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 2. And Saul's son had two men that were captains of bands ; the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon a Beerothite, of the children of Benjamin. This i- added to show us thai these two regii ides wen not only on,. .,,,,,. tribe Willi Nan I, and 1 1, ere loir |i,,,l nr ii,.in ,,,,, u,„ „, them, to be honest and faithful to his family, Poi there is rea- n thai Saul, who lived - i i ufei n d moi e laron tpi a a rjbe tl u any oilier, and might therefore • Ij expe I ts i greater esteem and fidelitj fr< m those ol hit on n U from others. This pairoiivinic is ihrirlnn vrrvproperl) prefixed lothe namesof Iteehab and Baanah, to I vile ungrateful villains thr\ were, and how jnstli thej de- served the set en and i n] I trj punishment which David inflicted on them.— Stackhoi i.. Ver. 5. And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went, and came about the heat of the day to the house of Ish-bpsheth, who lay on a bed al icon 6 And they came thither into the midst of the house, although they would have fetched wheat ; andthi him under the filth rib: and Rurhnb and Una nah his brother escaped. The females engaged in this operation, endeavoured tu beguile the lingering hours of toilsome exertion with a song. We learn from an expo-- ion ,.i v rvnl In Atheiiieus, that ll i panied the sound of the millstones w nh iheir voices. This circumstance imparts an additional I, the description of the prophet : (Ka. xlvii. 1.) The Ughl ol a candle was no more to be seen in the evening : the sound of the millstones, the indication of plenty ; and the SOng Of the grinders, the natural expression of 'joy and I were no more to he heard al the dawn. The gril corn al SO early an hour, throws light on a p,i siderable obscurity : " And fhe sons of Hiinmon the Beero- thite, Rechab and Baanah, went and came about the heal of the day. to the house of Ishbosheth, who laj tine noon ; and they came thither into I lie midst of the hi as though they would have fetched wheal, and ll him under the fifth rib; and Rechab and Baanah his bro- ther escaped." It is still a custom in the East*, according toDr. Perry, lo allow their soldiers a certain cjuantii vol Yon,, with other articles of piov isions, together with and as ii was the custom alsoto carry theil corn to the mil] at break of day, these two captains very naturally went to the palace the day before, to fetch wheat, in order to distribute it to the soldiers, that it might be sent to the mill al the ac- customed hour in the morning. The princes ol in those days, as the history of David shows, lounged in their divan, or reposed on their conch, till ll I of tl I evening began to advance. RechabandBaanali, rame in the heat of the day, when they knew thai Ishbo- sheth their master would be resting os his bed: and as it was necessary, for the reason just given, to have tl dav before it was needed, their coming at that linn-, tl -I. it mighl be a little earlier than usual, created no suspicion* and atlracted no notice. — Paxton. It is exceedingly common for people to recline on their couches in the heat of the dav. Hence, often, when you call on a person at that lime, the answer is, " The master is asleep.'1 Captain Basil Hall speaks ol Ihi ol South America having the same custom. The old Ro- mish missionaries in China used lo take Iheir siesta with a metal ball in the hand, which was allowed to | the couch; beneath was a brass dish, so thai a individual was asleep the fingers naturally rels grasp, and let the ball fall, and the noise made awoke him from his slumbers. — Roberts. Ver. 12. And David commanded his young- men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish- bosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron. 2 SAMUEL. Chap. In times of tumult and disorder, they frequently cut (iff the hands and feet of people, and afterward exposed them, as well as the head. Lady M. W. Montague speaking of the Turkish ministers of "state says, " if a minister dis- please the people, in three hours' time he is dragged even from his maker's anus: they cut off his hands, head, and feet, and throw them before the palace gate, with all the respect in the world, while the sultan (to whom they all profess an unlimited adoration) sits trembling in his apart- ment." Thus were the sons of Ritnmon served for slaying Ishbosheth. — Habmer. CHAPTER V. Ver. 3. So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron ; and King David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord: and they anointed David king over Israel. 4. David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. In the foregoing history we have seen the various steps, by which providence brought David to the quiet possession of the throne of Israel; an event that, to _all human proba- bility, seemed the most unlikely, as the family of Saul, his predecessor, was very numerous, all the forces of the king- dom under his command, and large bodies of them fre- quently employed by him to accomplish David's destruc- tion. But God's purposes must stand, and he will do all his pleasure. He had assured Saul, by the mouth of Samuel his prophet, that he had sought him, a max after his own heart, and commanded him to be captain over his people. This character has been thought, by some wri- ters, to denote the highest degree of moral purity, and that therefore it could not, with truth or justice, be ascribed to David, who was certainly guilty of some very great of- fences, and hath been plentifully loaded with others, which he was entirely free from the guilt of. Everv one knows, that in a literal translation of words from one language to another, the m:j,J and the literal version may convey very different ideas; and shod I an , • i ••■ rt, that what the version pr..p'Tlv nnp"rN i- 'I, '• •-'■■II 'iti.r in. .-luri--.' !' the original, he w raid beti ; his ignorance and want of learn- in.*, and all his reasonings from such an assertion would b ■ inconclusive and fal-e .1 . ■ ' ei :h age of London, means, a resp visible and wealthy man. who is able to answer his pecumai y obligations, and whose credit is every way unexceptionable, though his character for morals may be extremely bad. But this is not the mean- ing of the Greek word uyu'V, and but seldom, or ever, of the Latin word bonus ; and should any one argue, that such a man wasnyi'i.- or bonus, according to the common ac- ceptation of those words in Greek and Latin, because in the English phrase he is called a good man, he would ex- pose himself for his ignorance and simplicity. A man af- ter God's own hra.rt, in English, if we interpret the expres- sion in the strictest and highe-t sense, undoubtedly denotes a character irreproachable am! pure, without spot or blem- ish. But doth it follow that this is the meaning of the Hebrew expression, and that David, because he is so called, was intended to be represented as a man of the highest purity 1 This is presuming on a meaning, that the expres- sion by no means necessarily conveys, and taking for grant- ed whaTought to be proved, and what every man, who un- derstands the original language, knows to be mistaken. The immediate occasion of these words of Samuel to Saul was, Saul's disobedience in sacrificing, contrary to the ex- press orders he had received from God by this great prophet, not to offer sacrifices till he should come, and give him the proper directions for his behaviour. The pretence was piety, but the real cause was impatience, pride, and eon- tempt of the prophet; who not coming just at the time Saul expected, he thought it beneath him to wait anv longer for him ; and imagined, that as king, all the rites'of religion, and the ministers of it, were to be subjected to his direction and pleasure. But when Samuel came, notwithstanding his plea of devotion, and the force he put upon himself, Samuel plainly tells him: Thou hast done foolishly, thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee; for now would the Lord have estab- lished thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue. The Lord hath sought him, 'aa^a »k, a man a fit r bis own heart j he shall be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord hath commanded thee. It is evident here, that the man after God's own heart stands in opposition to the character of Saul, who is described as acting foolishly, by breaking the commandment of God by his prophet, and rejected by him, i. e. deprived of the succession to the crown in his family, on account of his folly, presumption, and disobe- dience. And it therefore means one who should act pru- dently, and obey the commandments of God delivered him by his prophets, and whom therefore God" would thus far approve and continue to favour. Thus the expression is actually interpreted by the Chaldee paraphrase : The man who doib my will; and by St. Paul to the Jews at Antioch, who says, that when God hath removed Saul, he raised them up David to be their king ; to whom he gave testimo- ny, and said: I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who shall execute my will. There are therefore two senses, which are evidently implied iu this character of the man after God's own heart ; a man, who should faithfully execute the will of God according as he was commanded, and who on that account, and so far, should be the object of his approbation. And in one or other, or both these senses, we find the expression al- ways used. Thus David, recounting the singular favours of God towards himself, says ; For thy word's sake, 1=S;-, according to thy heart, i. e. thy will and pleasure, hast thou done all these great things. In another place God sajth to the Jews : I will give you pastors, ^aSa, according to my heart : pastors who shall answer the purposes for which I sent them, and act agreeable to their office, as the words imme- diately following explain it: Who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. Thus also the Psalmist: The Lord grant thee according to-thy heart, i. e. as the next words explain it: Fulfil all thy counsel; give thee thy wishes, and by his favour prosper all thy designs. In like manner, when Jonathan said to his armour-bearer : "Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised," his armour-bearer said to him : Do all that is in thyheart. Do whatever thou desirest and approvest. Turn thee. Be- hold. I am with thee according to thy heart ; in everything in whifli thou canst desire, or command my concurrence. These remarks may be confirmed bv some other forms ot cxwc- .,..., of the like nature. Thus God tells Eli : " I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to u-hai :■■,' <7 and my soul," i. e. what I command, and what I approve. When Jehu, king of Israel, had cut off the' whole house and family of Ahab, whom God for his nu- merous crimes had doomed to destruction, God said to him : " Thou hast done well, in executing that which is right in my eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab, according In all' that was in my heart," i. e. every thing I proposed, and commanded thee to do. And yet in the very next ver«e. Jehu is described as a very bad prince; for he took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, nor departed from the sins of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin. So Moses tells the people : " By this ye shall know, that the Lord hath said to me to do all these' things, and that they are not/mm my own heart ;" i. e. that I have not acted by my own suggestions, and according to my own pleasure; and he commands them : " Ye shall remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and not seek after your own heart, and your own eyes," what is agreeable to your passions, and pleasing to your vanity. Manvmore places might be mentioned to the same purpose; but from those already alleged, the reader will see, that David is characterized as a man after God's own heart, not to denote the utmost height of purity in his moral charac- ter, as a private man, which by no means enters into the meaning of the expression, and which in no one single in- stance is intended by it; but to represent him as one, who in his public character, as king of Israel, was fit for the pur- poses to which God advanced him, and who knew he would faithfully execute the commands he should give him by his prophets; and who on this account should be favoured and approved of God, and established, himself and family, on the throne of Israel. He was, I doubt not, upon the whole, a reallv virtuous and religious man, according to the dispen- sation he was under ; and he certainly was a wise, a just, a munificent and prosperous prince; but yet he had his faults, and those great ones, in his private character; and Chap. 5. 2 SAMUEL. 189 these faults were not inconsistent with his eh.o ing a man according to God's heart ; foi it III prince as God intended him to be, faithfully executing his orders, and bringing to pass those great events, v. hicfi tte was raised up by God to he the instrument of accom- plishing; he thus tar acted according to the heart, i. e. the ltd will of God, and thereby, in this n i ell well pleasing and acceptable to him. The p.iriieular purposes for which God advanced him to the throne vady adherence to the one true God, and tl ■ I i-ri. -ii which lie was pleased to establish by Moses, he might be an illustrious example to all Ins posterity thai should reign after him: and here he was absolutely with- out blemish, and a man, in the strictest sense of the exprcs- i in, i er God's own heart; as he never departed from his ( i.id, by introducing the deities of other nations, or permit- ting and encouraging the impious rites which they per- formed in honour of them. On this account his heart is ■aid to be perfect with the Lord his Qod, hi i an i to heart was never turned away after oilier cods; and it is spoken to the honour of the good princes of Ins house, who reigned after him, that the* did thai which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David their father; and of the idola- trous princes, it is mentioned as the greatest reproach to them, that their hearts were not perfect with the Lord their i tod, as the heart of David their father. During the reign of Saul, little regard was shown by him to the institutions af religion, and he acted as though he was independent of the God of Israel, and therefore seldom or never inquired of him, how he was to act in the affairs of government, at the ark, from whence God, as peculiarly present in it, had / promised to give the proper answers to those w ho i ightly consulted him. As the ark itself had no fixed residence, and some of the principal services of religion could not, for that reason, be regularly and statedly performed, David was raised up to be king over God's people, that he might provide a rest for his ark, where it should perpetually con- tinue, to which all the people might resort, where .ill the solemn festivals might be celebrated, and the whole wor- ship of God might be constantly performed, according to :li ■ |ir-~erjptinnsof the law of Moses. David fully answer- ed this purpose by fixing the ark at Jerusalem, settling all the necessary ceremonies and forms of worship for perpet- ual observance, and composing sacred hymns and psalms, that should be sung in honour of the true God, providing the expenses, and many of the costly materials, that were necessary to build and adorn the house of God, which he himself had proposed to erect, but which God reserved for his son and successor to raise up j and regulating the order, that was to be observed among all the various pcr.-ons. that were to be employed in the daily services of the ark and temple ; a full and ample account of which is transmitted to us in the first book of Chronicles. It must not be omit- ted also, that there was yet another end of providence, in David's appointment, to be king over Israel; that, accord- ing to God's promise concerning him, lie might save Ins people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies; and further, that by Inm he might accomplish the more ancient promises which God had made to Abraham, in their full extent, of giving to Ins seedthewholecountry,fromtheriverofEgvpi i o river, the river Euphrates. Here also David answered the intentions of providence in his advancement, as he subdued the Philistines, and made them tributary to his crown ; as he cleared- his kingdom of all the remains of the nations that had formerly possessed it, or reduced them into entire subjection, or made them proselytes to his religion ; and as the consequence of just and necessary wars, conquered all the neighbouring nati. as, garrisoned them by his victori- ous croops, and put it out of their power to disturb his peo- ple for many years, and left to his son and success! r a (1 irty years' peace, and dominion over all the kingdoms, from the river Euphrates, un'.o the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egvpt, who brought presents and served Solomon all the days of his life. And finally, God .raised him up to exalt the 'glory of his people Israel, and render them a flourishing and happv people, by the wisdom and justice of his government He chose David his servant, to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. So he fed Ibem according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands, i. e. he governed them with integrity, prudence and courage ; for he reign -d over all Israel, and executed judgment and justice ai his people. Bee here, leader, the Hue portrait of the man iijiii Ood'i oini heart, who fulfilled all Ins pleasure, who amid all the idolatries of the nations around him, never wickedly apostatized from the worship of his God, and was an amiable example of a sle; dy adherence to those forms of religion, which God had prescribed to all the princes his successors ; who, though king, subjected him the supreme king of Israel, and faithfully executed the commands he received from him; who made his people triumph in the numerous victories he obtained, by the di- rections, and under the conduct of God himself; who en- larged their dominions, and put them into possession of all the territories God had promised to their forefathers; and who amid all the successes that were granted him, the immense riches he had gathered from the spoils of Ins conquered enemies, and the sovereign power with which he was invested, never degenerated into despotism and tyranny, never oppressed his people; but governed them with integrity, ruled over them with moderation and pru- dence, impartially distributed justice, left an established durable peace, and fixed the whole administration, both civil and religious, upon the most substantial and durable foundation. In these instances he was the true vicegerent of God, on whose ihrone he sat, and all whose pleasure, m instances, he faithfully performed. If therefore David's private moral character' was worse than it will be ever proved to be, he might be still a man after God's own heart, in the proper original sense of the expression ; anil the attempt to prove that he was not possessed of the height of moral purity, is an impertinent attempt to prove David not to be, what the sacred history never asserted him to be. — Chandler. Ver. 6. And the king; and his men went to Jeru- salem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land : which spake unto David, saying-, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither : thinking;, David can- not come in hither. 7. Neverthelelfc David took the strong hold of Zion ; the same is the city of David. 8. And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said. The blind and the lame shall not come inlo the house. 1 CHRONICLES, CHAPTER XI. Ver. 5. And the inhabitants of Jebus said to Da- vid, Thou shalt not come hither. Neverthe- less David took the castle of Zion, which is the city of David. 6. And David said, Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain. So Joab the son of Zeruiah went firsl up, and was chief. The words in.'uilitants of Jcbvs, which are not in tht original of Samuel, are not" in the Vat. copy of the r.xx. in Chronicles; but the Alexandrian translates regularly ac- cording to the present Hebrew text. In Samuel there is a clause or two in the speech of the Jebusites, which is on it- ted in Chronicles for brevity; as the history in Chronicles i- regular, and the sense complete without it. But though the history be regular and very intelligible in Chronicles," yet the additional clauses in Samuel make the history there remarkably perplexed; and fas Dr. Delany observes) en camber it with more difficulties than are ordinarily to be met with. In full proportion to the difficulties has been the number of different interpretations ; and yet there seems to be very sufficient room for offering another interpretation, in some material points differing from them all. The words in Samuel, so far as the text in Chronicles coincides, are clear and determinate in their meaning, " And the inhab- itants of Jebus said to David, Thou shalt not come hither." But the succeeding words in Samuel are very difficult ; oi , 100 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 5. at least, have been variously interpreted. The present Eng- lish translation is, " Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thinking, David cannot come in hither." The chief difficulty here lies in determining who are these blind and lame; whether Jebusites,.or the Jebusite deities, called blind and lame by way of derision. The latter opinion has been maintained by some considerable writers ; but seems indefensible. For however David and the Israelites might be disposed to treat such idols with scorn and contempt, it is not at all likely the Jebusiles should revile their own dei- ties ; and we must remember, that these de'ities are sup- posed to be here called blind and lame by the Jebusites themselves. But, admitting them to be idol deities, what meaning can there be in the Jebusites telling David, "he should not come into the citadel, unless he took away the deities upon the walls'!" If he could scale the walls, so as to reach these guardian deities, he need not ask leave of the Jebusites to enter the citadel. But, (which is much more difficult to be answered,) what can possibly be the meaning of the last line, " Wherefore they said, the blind and the lame shall not come into the house V For, who xaidl Did the Jebusites say, their own deities (before ex- pressed by the blind and the lame) should not come into I he house, should not (according to some) come w-here they were, or, should not (according to others) come into the house of the Lord 1— Or, could thes.e deities say, David and his men should not come into the house 1 The absurdity of attributing such a speech, or any speech, to these idols, is too clear to need illustration; and it is a known part of their real character, that they have mouths, but speak not. But, though these deities' could not de- nounce these words, yet the Jebusites might ; and it is pos- sible (it has been said) that the blind and the lame, in this latter part of the sentence, may signify the Jebusites; riot any particular Jebusiles, so maimed; but the Jebusites in general, called blind and lame, for putting their trust in blind and lame idols. This seems too refined an interpre- tation ; and we may safely conclude — that the same expres- sion of the blind and lame means the same beings in the two different parts of the same sentence. It has been fur- ther observed, that these blind and lame are here spoken of as different from the Jebusites," Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind;" and if they were different, it requires no great skill at deduction to deter- mine tb^ey were not the same. Perhaps then these blind and lame were, in fact, a few particular wretches, who laboured under these infirmities of blindness and lameness; and therefore were different from the general body of the Jebusites. But here will it not be demanded at once — how can we then account rationally for that bitterness with which David expresses himself here against these blind and la me; and how it was possible, for a man of David's humanity, to detest men for mere unblameable, and indeed pitiable, infirmities 1 And lastly, the authors of the Uni- versal History, in their note on this transaction, mention the following, as the first plausible argument against the literal acceptation — " How could David distinguish the halt, or the lame, or the blind, from able men, when posted upon lofty walls ; since those infirmities are not discernible but near at hand 1" This, it must be allowed, would be a difficulty indeed, if David's information here had been only from his eyesight. But this objection immediately vanishes, when we reflect, that the Jchnsiies are said in the text to have told David— the blind and the lame should keep them off: for certainly David could easily conceive the men, who were placed upon the walls to insult him, were blind and lame ; when he was told so by the Jebusites themselves ; and told so, to render this insult of theirs the greater. Having thus mentioned some of the present interpreta- tions, it may be now proper to submit another to the judg- ment of the reader. I shall first give what seems to be the true interpretation of this passage ; and then subjoin the several arguments in defence of it. " And the inhabitants of Jebussaid to David, Thou shall not come hither; for the blind and the lame shall keep thee off, by saying, David shall not come hither. But David took the strong hold of Sion, which is the city of David. And David said on that day, Whosoever (first) smiteth the Jebusites, and through the subterraneous passage reachelh the lame and the blind, .hat are hated of David's soul, because the blind and the lame continued to say, he shall not come into this house"— shall be chief captain. That the connected panicles (on ■: Id im) rendered except, in Samuel, signify for in this place, is evident, because the words following are rather causal than objective; and we have several instances of this sense of the two particles given us by Noldius: thus Prov. xxiii. 18, they are rendered for in the English trans- lation; and so in the English, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic versions of Lam. v. 22. That the verb (Tren esirekj rendered to take away, is not here the infinitive, but the prefer of Hiphil, is apparent from the sense ; that it has been so considered, is certain from the Masoretie point- ing, as De Dieu and other critics have observed: and we see it is translated as such by the LXX. in the plural num- ber, amrivav. From this version, then, and from the plu- rality of the tw-o nouns, which are necessarily the nomi- natives to this verb, we may infer, that it was originally -p-ron (esisj<#) to keep off, the vau having been dropped here as in many other places. Enough having been said ol the number, let us now consider the tense of this veib ; which being preter, some have translated it by a word ex- pressive of time past. But the sense necessarily requires it to be translated as future in other languages,' though it be more expressive in the original in the preter tense, It being agreeable to the genius of the Hebrew language fre- quently to speak of events yet future, as having actually happened, when the speaker would strongly express the certainty of such event. This observation is peculiarly ap- plicable'to the case here. For this castle of mount Sion had never yet been taken by the Israelites, though they had dwelt in Canaan about four hundred fears; as we learn from the sacred history, Josh. xv. 03; Judg. i. 21 ; xix. 10; and from Josephus, lib. vii. cap. 3. The Jebusiles, then, I absolutely depending on the advantage of their high situa- tion and 'the strength of their fortification, (which had se- cured them against the Israelites so many hundred years.) looked upon this of David's as a vain attempt, which there- in].' they might safely treat with insolence and raillery. Full of'this fond notion, they placed upon the w^alls of the citadel the few blind and lame that could be found amorg them, and told David, " He should not come thither; for the blind and lame" were sufficient to keep him off": which they (these weak defenders) should effectually do, only "by their shouting, David shall not come hither." That the blind and the tame were contemptuously placed upon the walls by the Jebusites, as before described, we are as- sured not only by the words of the sacred history before us. but also by the' concurrent testimony of Josephus. No« that these blind and lame, who appear to have been placed upon the walls, were to insult and did insult David in the manner before mentioned, seems very evident from the words— Thehlindat.d the lame shall keep thee off BY SAY- ING, etc. and also from the impossibility of otherwise ac- counting for David's indignation against these (naturally pitiable) wretches. And the not attending to this remark- able circumstance seems one principal reason of the per- plexity so visible among the various interpreters of this pas- sage. It is verv remarkable, that the sense before given to ■n he can't tell where, whether in Mount Ida, or Arcadia, washed on his birth in a river of water, to cleanse him from the de- filements he brought into the world with him, had his navel string fall from him, sucked the dugs of a goat, and ate sweet honey, and so at last he grew up to be the supreme God. No despicable ballad can contain more execrable stuff than this, and some other like circumstances that he relates of him; circumstances that render utterly incredible what he says of him, as never dying, giving 'laws to the gods, obtaining heaven by his power and strength, gov- erning kings and princes, and the inspector of their actions, the giver of riches and prosperity, wisdom and virtue, strength and power. That a mortal-born baby should grow up to become the one supreme and immortal God, or an infant nursed in Crete should rise to be the ' king of heaven, or one who gloried in his adulteries, 'should be constituted lawgiver to the celestial deities, or he whose character was stained with the vilest impurities, should be the giver of virtue; are absurdities, that one would think it was impossible for anv one to digest. How free are the hymns of David from all such absurd, dishon- ourable, and impious descriptions of God! Every senti- ment he conveys of him is excellent and grand, worthy a being of infinite perfection, and the supreme Lord and governor of the universe. It would be easy to enlarge on this subject. We may further take notice of the propriety of these historical incidents, that the Psalmist takes notice of in this sacred composure, and how the whole of it is calculated to promote the true spirit of piety and rational devotion. The ark, that was now translating to its fixed seat in Jerusalem, was the same ark that accompanied the Hebrews in the wilderness, where God was in a peculiar manner present, where Moses consulted God, where he received answers from him, and whence he received hi.; directions; and who gave him manifest tokens of his spe- cial protection and favour, in the miraculous work-; lie performed for them. Hence David puts them in mind of God's going before them in the wilderness, of the terror of his majesty on mount Sinai, of the manna and quails he rained down on them as from heaven, of the victories he gave them over their enemies, and his enriching them with the spoils of their conquered forces and countries ; tn excite in them a religious hope and trust, that God Mould protect Jerusalem, which was to be the future resilience of the ark of his presence, and bless the whole nation with prosperity, if they continued firm in their allegiance to and worship of him. On this accou'it the hymn is calculated Chap. C. 2 SAMUEL. r©7 to celebrate his praises for these ancient wonders of his power and goodness wrought in their favour, as well as for that present state of national grandeur and prosperity to which he had advanced them under Dat id's government; and, on the other hand, to excite their fear of his dis- il they went on in their trespasses, and proved a corrupt and wicked people. Well might this grand asscin- fore their Ood, sing praises to his name, ascribe all power and dominion to him, whose excel his power in the clouds thereof, I would just add, that the several ascriptions of glory to God. and the frequent ex- lioi .'in' I. less him, with which the psalm abounds, ive.dilc relief In the mind, are added with great propriety, and render the whole composure more pleasing and solemn, ll was customary, as has been observed, am ing the gentiles, to celebrate the supposed advent of . at particular times, and to parin ii wiih the greatest demonstrations of joy; but David had much nobler reasons fot introducing: the ark into the tab- ii.id prepared for it al Jerusalem, with all the pomp and splendour, and public festivity and joy, that could shown on the occasion. The whole procession Was in honour of, and a national instance of homage paid to the true God. By the ark's being fixed at Jerusalem, that God, who honoured the ark with the tokens of his pres- ence, made Jerusalem his perpetual habitation, became the immediate guardian and protector of the new-built city, and thereby peculiarly concerned for its prosperity and peace. This is represented as the language of God himself. " The Lord hath chosen Si m. lie hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired il. I will abundantly bless her provis- ions. Her saints shall shout aloud for joy." — Chandler. Vet 3. And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abina- dab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drave the new cart. The 1, istory of conveyance by means of vehicles, carried ir drawn, is a subject too extensive to be treated of fully here. There can be no doubt, that afier man had accus- tomed cattle lo submil to the control of a rider, and to sup- port the incumbent weight of a person, or persons, whether the animal were ox, camel, or horse, that the next step was to load such a creature, properly trained, with a litter, or portable conveyance; balanced, perhaps, on eacli side. This might be long before l lie mechanism of the wheel was employed. a> it is still practised among pasloral people. Nevertheless, we find that wheel-carriages are of great an- tiquiiy; for we rend of wagons so early as Gen. xlv. 19, andmilitary carriages, perhaps, for chiefs and officers, first of all, in Exodus xiv. 25: " The Lord took off the chariot wheels of the Egyptians:" and as Ihese were the fighting strength of Egypt, this agrees with those ancient writers, I that Egypt was not, in its early state, intersect- ed by canals, as in later ages; after the formation of which, wheel-carriages were laid aside, and little used, if a! all. The first mention of chariots, we believe, occurs Genesis xli. 4.') : " Pharaoh caused Joseph to ride (rcrab) in the second chariot {mnicrobcth) that belonged to him." This, most likely, was a chariot of stale, not an ordinary or travelling, but a handsome equipage, becoming the rep- resentative of the monarch's person and power. We find, as already hinted, Gen. xlv. It), that Egypt had another kind of wheel-carriage, better adapted to ihe conveyance of burdens ; " Take out of the land of Egypt (rnSip oeelutk) wagons, wheel-carriages, for conveyance of your little ones and your women :" ihe-e were family vehicles, for the use of the feeble; including, if need be, Jacob himself: accord- ingly, we read (verse 27) of the wagons which Joseph had sent to carr, him, (Jacob,) and which perhaps the aired pa- triarch knew by their construction to be Egypt-built; for, so sunn as he sees them, he believes the reports from that country, though he had doubled of them before when de- livered to him by his sons. This kind of chariot deserves attention, as we find it afterward emploved on various oc- casions in scripture, anion? which are the following: first, it was intended by the princes of Israel for carrying par's of the sacred utensils; Numb. vii. 3: " They brought their offering — six covered wagons (ogclutli) and twelve oxen ;'•' —{two oxen to each wagon.) Here the e « agons are ei- presslysaid to he covered ; and ii should appear that they were so generally; beyond question those sent by Joseph for the women of Jacob's family were si ; among other pur- poses, for that of seclusion. Perhaps this is a radical idea in their name; as gal signifies rirrlr, these wagons might be covered by circular headings, spread on hoop,, like those of our own wagons ; what we call-a tilt, I able importance attaches to this heading, or lilt, in ihe his- tory of the curiosity of llw men of Bethshetnesli, 1 Sam. vi. 7, where we read that the Philistines advised to make a new covered wagon, or cart (ogclch;)— and the ark of the Lord was put into it — and, no doubt, was carefully cover- ed over — concealed — secluded by those who sent it; — it came to Belhshemesh ; and the men of that town who were reaping in the fields, perceiving the cart coming, went and examined what it contained : " and they saw the very (r,x) ark, and were joyful in seeing it." Those who first exam- ined it, instead of carefully covering it up again, as a sa- cred utensil, suffered it to lie open to common inspection, which they encouraged, in order to triumph in the votive offerings it had acquired, and to gratify profane curiosity; the Lord, therefore, punished the people, (verse 19,) "tie- cause they had inspecled— pried into (a) the ark." This affords a clear view of the transgression of these Israelites, who had treated the ark with less reverence than the Phi- listines themselves; for those heathen eonque-ors had at least behaved to Jehovah with no less respect than they did to their own deities; and being accustomed to carry ihem in covered wagons, for privacy, they maintained the same privacy as a mark of honour to the God of Israel. The Le- vites seemed to have been equally culpable wilh the com- mon people ; they ought to have conformed to the law, and not to have suffered their triumph on this victorious occasion to beguile them into a transgression so contrary to the very fust principles of the theocracy. That this word ogclch describes a covered wagon, we learn from a third instance, that of Uzzah, 2 Sam. vi. 3, for we can- not suppose, that David could so far forget the dignity of the ark of the covenant, as to suffer it to be ex; - public procession, to the eyes of all Israel; especially after the punishment of the people of Bethshemesh. "They carried the ark of God, on a new ogelch — covered cart"' —and Uzzah put forth [his hand, or some catching in- strument] to the ark of God, and laid hold of it, to slop its advancing any farther, but the oxen harnessed to the car', going on, they drew the cart away from the ark, and the whole weight "of the ark falling out of the cart unex- pectedly, on Uzzah, crushed him to death —"and he died on the spot, with the ark of God" upon him. And David called the place "the breach of Uzzah" — that is, where Uzzah was broken — crushed to death. See now the pro. portionate severity of the punishments attending profa- nation of the ark. 1. The Philistines suffered by diseases, from which they were relieved after their oblations. 2. The Bethshemites also suffered, but not fatally, by dis- eases of a different nature, which, after a lime, passed off. These were inadvertences. But, 3. Uzzah, who ought to have been fully instructed and correctly obedient, who con- ducted the procession, who was himself a Levite— this man was punished fatally for his remissness — his inattention to the law; which expressly directed that the ark should be carried on the shoulders of the priests, the Kohathites, Numb. iv. 4, 19.20, distinct from those things carried in ogclulk — covered wagons, chap. vii. 9. That Ibis kind of wagon was used for carrying considerable weights and even cumbersome goods, (and therefore was fairly analo- gous to our own wagons — tilted wagons,) we gather from the expression of the Psalmist, xlvi. 9: — He makeih wars rn cease In the end nf flip enrlh , Tim how lie le-raki'lti : ami cultelh asunder Ihe spelr ; The chaneis {uatiuth) he Imrueth in ihe fire. The writer is mentioning the instruments of war — the bow — the spear; then, he says, the wagons (plural) which used to return home loaded wilh plunder, these share the fate of th»ir companions, the bow and the spear; and are burned 'r .he fire, the very idea of the classical allegory. peace burning the implements of war, introduced herewith the happiest effect: not the general's marccabclh ; hut ihe plundering wagons. This is still more expressive, if these wagons carried captives; which we know they did in o'he» 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 6. instances, women and children. " The captive-carrying wagon is burnt." There can be no stronger description of the effect of peace ; and it closes the period with peculiar emphasis.— Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 6. And when they came to Nachon's thrash- ing-floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it ; for the oxen shook it. 7. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there for his ef ror ; and there he died by the ark of God. Happy were it for us, if we could account for the opera- tions of God, with the same facility that we can for the actions of his saints ; but his counsels are a great deep, and his judgments (just though they be) are sometimes obscure, and past finding out. For what shall we say to the fate of Uzzah i. or what tolerable cause can we assign for his sud- den and untimely end 1 It was now near seventy years since i... , Israelites had carried the ark from place to place, and s_ long a disuse had made them forget the manner of doing it. In conformity to what they had heard of the Philis- tines, they put it into a new cart, or wagon, but this was against the express direction of the law, which ordered it to be borne upon men's shoulders. It is commonly sup- posed that Uzzah was a Levile, though there is no proof of it from scripture ; but supposing he was, he had no right to attend upon the ark ; that province, by the same law, was restrained to those Levites only who were of the house of Kohath : nay, put the case he had been a Kohathite by birth, yet he had violated another command, which prohib- ited even these Levites, (though they carried it by staves upon their shoulders,) upon pain of death, to touch it with .heir hands : so that here was a threefold transgression of the divine will in this method of proceeding. The ark, (as some say,) by Uzzah's direction, was placed in a cart ; Uzzah, without any proper designation, adventures to at- tend it ; when he thought it in danger of falling, offi- .•iously he put forth his hand, and laid hold on it, (all vio- lating of th; divine commands !) and this (as is supposed) not so much out of reverence to the sacred symbol of God's presence, as out of diffidence of his providence, as unable to preserve it from overturning. The truth is, this ark had so long continued in obscurity, that the people, in a manner, had almost lost all sense of a divine power residing in it, and therefore approached it with irreverence. This is implied in David's exhortation to Zadock and Abiathar, after this misfortune upon Uzzah. " Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites, sanctify yourselves therefore, both ye and your brethren, that you may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel, unto the place thatl have pre- ] — ed for it ; for, because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order." What wonder then, if God, being minded to testify his immediate presence with the ark, to .retrieve the ancient honour of that sacred vessel, and to curb all licentious profanations of it for the future, should single out one that was the most culpable of many, one who, in three instances, was then violating his commands, to be a monument of his displeasure against either a wilful ignorance or a rude contempt of his precepts, be they ever so seemingly small ; that by such an example of terf' , lie might inspire both priests and people with a sacred dread of his majesty, and a profound veneration for his mysteries. — Stagkhovse. Ver. 13. And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. r'rom these words, some would infer, that David, having measured the ground between Obed-edom's house, and the place he had built for the reception of the ark, had altars raised, at the distance of every six paces, whereon he caused sacrifices to be offered as the ark passed by. But it is easy to imagine what a world of confusion this would create in the procession, and therefore the more rational construction is, tnat after those who carried the ark had advanced six paces, without anv such token of divine wrath as Uzzah had undergone, then did they offera sacrifice to God, which might consist of several living creatures, all sacrificed and offered up at once. But even supposing that, at set distan- ces, there were sacrifices all along the way that they went ; yet we are to know that it was no unusual thing for hea- confer on th gods, nay, even upon their empe ,ve find David here bestowing thens to comer on tneir gods, rors, the same honours that w upon the ark of the God of Israel. For in this ma (as Suetonius tells us) was Otho received— Cum per omne iter,dextra finistraque, oppidatim victimae casderentur: and the like he relates of Caligula— Ut a miseno movit, inter altaria, et victimas, ardentesque ta:das, dencissimo ac ketissimo obviorurn agmine incessit.— Stackhouse. Ver. 14. And David danced before the Lord with all his might ; and David ivas girded with a linen ephod. In the oriental dances, in which the women engage by themselves, the lady of highest rank in the company takes the lead; and is followed by her companions, who imitate her steps, and if she sings, make up the chorus. The tunes are extremely gay and lively, yet with something in them wonderlully soft. The steps are varied according to the pleasure of her who leads the dance, but always m exact time. This statement may enable us to form a correct idea of the dance, which the women of Israel performed under the direction of Miriam, on the banks of the Red Sea. The prophetess, we are told, "took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and dan- ces." She led the dance, while they imitated her steps, which were not conducted accordiug'to a set, well-known form, as in this country, but extemporaneous. The conjec- ture of Mr. Harmer is extremely probable, that David did not dance alone before the Lord, when he brought up the ark, but as being the highest in rank, and more skilful than any of the people, he led the religious dance of the males. — Paxton. Ver. 16. And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, look- ed through a window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord ; and she despised him in her heart. 17. And they brought in the ark of the Lord, and set it in his place, in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it : and David offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings before the Lord. 18. And as soon as David had made an end of offering burnt-offerings "and peace- offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. 19. And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine. So all the people de- parted every one to his house. 20. Then Da- vid returned to bless his household. And Mi- chal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to-day, who uncovered himself to-day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! When this public transaction of removing the ark was happily concluded, the pious prince retired to his palace, to bless his own family and household, and share with them the public joy. But an unexpected accident interrupted the pleasure he' promised himself, and could not him greatlv affect him, as it arose from one, from whom he had no reason to expect the contemptuous treatment that she gave him. As the ark of the Lord was just entered into the city of David, or mount Sion, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window of the palace to behold the procession, saw David dancing with great spirit and earnestness, and viewed him with contempt; or, as the text says, she de- spised him in her heart; and when, after the solemnity. Gui 2 SAMUEL. 199 D;i\ ill was returned lo his habitation, she came nut to meet him, ami, with indignation and a sneer, said lo him, " How flonoas was the king of Israel to-day, who openly showed niiself m-.lav lo the, eyes of the handmaid* of hjs servants, as one of the vain persons openly shows hnmvli : I >.r. i I'm answer toh i was severe, but jusL " Have I descended be dignity of my character, as king of Israel, by divesting myself of my royal robes, appearing publ i Ij am hi ■_; in v people, and, like them, dancing and pkH nig I rk .' ll was before the Lord, who chose me be- . te [by father, and before all Ins house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord. Therefore will 1 play p before the Lord; and if this be 10 make myself contemptible, 1 will he more so than this; and It iw high soever be my condition as king, 1 will always be humble in the judgment I form of myself; and as for Ihose maid-servants of whom thou speakest, I shall be honoured among them ; the very meanest of the people will respect me the more for my popularity, when they see nil' condescend to share in their sacred mirth, and express it in the same manner, by which they testify their own joy in the public solemnities." In this he acted as a w ise and politic, as well as a religious prince; for in ancient limes dancing itself was in use, as a religious ceremony, and in testimony of gratitude and joy, in public solemnities. Thus Miriam, the prophetess, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the womi n went out after her with timbrels and with < . lebrate their deliverance from Pharaoh, his de- struction in the Red Sea, and their own safe passage I h lough the waters of it. So also Jephlhah's daughter met her lather with timbrels and dances, to congratulate his victory over the Ammonites, and God's having taken vengeance for him of those enemies. Thus at the yearly feast of the Lord at Shilnh. the virgins of the place' came out to dance in dances. It was used also frequently among the gentiles, by the greatest personages in honour of the gods, and re- commended bj the greatest philosophers, as a thing highly •le-.ent and becoming in itself. But though David acted from a truly religious zeal, yet ae had been very severely censured for his habit and be- haviour on this occasion ; being dressed, as it hath been represented, in a linen ephod, and " dancing before the Lord, in such a frantic indecent manner, that he exposed his nakedness to the bystanders." Mr. Bayle in the first part of his remarks, expresses himself in a more cautious and temperate manner, and doth not pass his judgment, whether David discovered his nakedness or not ; but says, that " if he did discover it, his action might be deemed ill, morally speaking ; but if he did no more than make himself contemptible by his postures, and by not keeping up the majesty of his character, it was but an imprudence at most, and not a crime." He adds, that " it ought to be considered, on what occasion it was that he danced. It was when the ark was carried to Jerusalem, and conse- quently the excess of his joy and of his leaping, testified his attachment and sensibility for sacred things." I shall just remark here, that if David did really discover his naked- ness on this occasion, yet if it was merely accidental, and without any design, it could not be deemed ill, morally speaking, by any good judge of morality. I apprehend also that Mr. Bayle doth not know enough'of David's man- ner of dancing, and the postures he made use of, to be sure that he rendered himself deservedly ridiculous by the use of them ; because persons may dance in a very brisk ami lively manner, without any postures that shall deserve contempt, and because there is no word in the original, that is made use of to express David's behaviour in this pro- cession, that either implies, or will justify such a supposi- tion. The case which Mr. Bayle mentions from Ferrand of St. Francis of Assisi, is so perfectly different from that of David, as that it should not have been related by him in the article of David, at least without some mark of disap- probation. St. Francis voluntarily stripped himself stark naked, in the presence of many persons, met together to be witness to his absolute renunciation of his paternal inher- itance. This was the downright madness of enthusiasm. David, on the contrary, divested himself only of his royal dress, and put on such a habit, as effectually preserved him from even- thing of indecency and absurdity in his arment; a two gar- appearance. For he was clothed in a double g; robe of fine linen, with a linen ephod. These menfsarc expressly distinguished in the account of the vest- menlsofthe high-priests : " Thou shall take garments and put upon Aaron, (and as we well rendei it.) the ephod, and the robe of the ephod." And again ' These are the gar- ments, which they shall make, the bretistph:. ephod, and the robe." The fabric of them was different ; the epbod being made ol (told, blue, purple, and scarlet; In: ii.r ii I..- formed all of blue. The shape of them was also different; tin- ephod reaching only to the knees, but the robe (low ingdown so as to cover the feet ; called there- fore by the LXX. mtnfm, and the Vulgate version, stola. The robe also had no division in it throughout, but was made whole and round, with an opening in the middle of it, on the top. so that it was impossible that any part of the body could be seen through it ; or that David, in dancing, Could expose to view, what decency required him to con- ceal ; especially as the ephod was, on this occasion, thrown over it, and certainly lied with a girdle, as the priest's ephod always was. 'With these linen garments David clothed himself on this solemnity, both out of reveience for (oul. and for coiiveniencv ; because they were cooler, and less cumbersome than his royal habit, and would not occasion that large perspiration, which ihe exercise of dancing "mild otherwise have produced. And however impropersucha long (lowing robe, gilt round with a girdle, may be thought for a man dancing with all his might, yet it is certain that David did dance in such a one, and there is no reason to think it could be anywise inconvenient to him. For, though the robe was close, i. e. had no opening from the breast to the feet, and was girt round with the ephod, yet it was large and wide, and Bowing at the lower end; and hanging down in various folds, gave room suffi- cient for the full exercise of ihe feet in dancing. And of this every one will have full conviction, who fiequents any of our polite assemblies, in which he will see many fair ones dance, like the king of Israel, with all their might, without any great inconvenience from the flowing habits, which so greatly adorn them. It may be further observed, that this robe was worn bi- kings, their children, priests, Leviles, and prophets, when thev appeared on very solemn occasions, which also cov- ered over their other garments. Thus Samuel is repre- sented as covered with a robe or mantle, as we render it. All the Leviles, that bare the ark, and the singers ai'. Chenaniah, the master of the carriage, or of those wno carried the ark, appeared in it on this very occasion. Kings' daughters were clothed in the same habit. The princes of the sea wore them. And even God himself is repre- sented, clad with zeal, as with a robe. As David therefore dressed himself on this occasion, with a long flowing linen robe, instead of the robe of state, proper to him as king of Israel, which was made of different, and much richer ma- terials; he was scornfully insulted by Saul's daughter, not for exposing his nakedness to the spectators, which he no more did, nor could do, than all the rest of the attendants, who wore the same habit, bin for uncovering himself in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, i. e. appearing openly before the meanest of the people, in a dress, wholly unworthy, as she thought, the character and majesty of the king of Israel. Nor was this all ; for it appears, by part of David's answer to Michal.that she was particularly offend- ed with his playing publicly on the harp; and, probably, she mimicked and ridiculed him, by the attitude in which she put herself on this occasion. For, in answer to her reproach, David says to her, " It was before the Lord that I uncovered myself .... therefore I will play before the Lord." i. e. look on it with what contempt you please, yet as I openly played on my harp in the presence, and in honour of God, I glory in it, and will continue to do it, when any fair opportunity presents itself. Hi* particularly mention- ing plotting before the Lord, plainly shows, that' there was somewhat, in'the nature and manner of her reproach, that gave occasion to it. Besides, it should be remarked, thrt the eastern princes, out of affectation, and to strike the people with greater rev- erence, seldom appeared in public, and whenever they did, not without great pomp and solemnity; as is the cus- tom amongthem to this day. Michal therefore unquestion- ably thought, that David made himself too cheap, by thus discovering hittiselftopublic view, without any royal pomp, or marks of distinction, and familiarly mixing himself with the attendants on this solemnity, "as though he had 2 SAMUEL. Cm been one of them, and not the king of Israel. And the meaning of Michal's words in this view will be : How glo- rious was the king of Israel to-day, who uncovered, i. e. stripped himself of his majesty, andall the ensigns of his royal dignity, and openly exposed himself to the most public view ot the meanest of the people, as a vain thoughtless person, who, without a proper habit, or regard to character, expo- ses himself to public ridicule and scorn ! Mr. Bayle seems to be pretty much of Michal's opinion, when he says, " It would be thought very strange, in any part of Europe, if, on a day of procession of the holy sac- rament, the kings should dance in the streets with nothing but a small girdle on their bodies." It may be so, but the observation is nothing to the purpose, because David did not dance in the streets in this manner, as he insinuates. Besides, Mr. Bayle could not but know, that customs vary, and that the same customs may be thought very venerable and ridiculous, iii different nations, and at different times. However solemn and sacred the procession of the sacra- ment might have seemed here, two or three centuries ago, and may at this day appear in popish countries, it would now seem a most contemptible and absurd farce in this na- tion. "We should look with indignation and scorn, to see a crowned head holding the stirrup or bridle of a triple- mitred monk's horse, or humbly bending to kiss his toe; or emperors and princes carrying 'wax candles in their hands, in company of a set of shorn baldpated priests, or devoutly praying before a dead log oi wood, or going in pilgrimage to consecrated statues, and kiss thresholds, and venerate the relics of dead bodies; and yet, despicable as these practices are in themselves, they have been used, and some of them continue in other nations to be used to this day ; and have been, and are now, so far from being thought strange or ridiculous, as that they were, and are still es- teemed very high and laudable instances of piety and de- votion. If we examine the words themselves, by which Michal reproached David, they can never be fairly so inlerpreted, as to mean that indecency, which some writers would be glad to find in them; and as to David's answer, it is utterly inconsistent with such a meaning. David said to Michal, " It was before the Lord." What was before the Lord ? What, his discovering his nakedness 1 The very consid- eration of his being before the Lord would have prevented it, as he'knew that such an indecency, in the solemnities of divine worship, was highly offensive to God, and prohibit- ed under penalty of death. Again he says, " Therefore will I play before the Lord," i. e. play upon my harp; which must refer to her reproaching him, as appearing like a common harper ; for it would be no answer to her, had she reproached him for that scandalous appearance, which some would make him guilty of. Further he adds : " And I will be more vile than this, and will be base in my own ■ ight." I will not scruple to submit to lower services than this, in honour of God ; and notwithstanding my regal dig- nity, will not think myself above any humiliations, how great soever they may be, that may testify my gratitude and submission to Mm ;— •expressions these which evidently show, that what she called David's uncovering himself, was what he had designedly done, and not an accidental involuntary thing, without desisrn, and contrary to his in- tention. And had he designedly exposed his nakedness, or even without design, how could he have made himself more vile, or rendered himself more worthy of censure and reproach ! Upon the whole, that David danced so, as to discover what he ought to have concealed, is an invidious surmise, that no man of learning or candour will affirm, and which has nothing in the grammatical sense of the ex- pressions made use of to support it, and is in its nature im- possible, from the make and form of the garments he was clothed with. I shall only add, that when the scripture says, " There- fore Michal, Saul's daughter, had no child to the day of her death," it doth not seem to be remarked, as though i: was a punishment on her for this contempt of David, unless he voluntarily left her bed, for so heinous and trades srved an insult; b'ltas a reproach on herself for her barrenness, she having never had any children by Davi i ; barrenness being accounted as reproachful and dishonourable a circum- stance, as could befall a married woman. So that she had little reason to reproach her husband, when she was liable U> a much greater reproach herself. — Chandler. Ver. 19. And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men,, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine. So all the people departed every one to his house. The entertainer at a feast, occasionally dismissed his guests with costly presents. Lysimachus of Babylon hav- ing entertained Hemerus the tyrant of the Eaoylonians and Seleucians, with three hundred other guests, gave every man a silver cup, of four pounds weight. When Alexander made his marriage feast at Susa in Persia, he paid the debts ot all his soldiers out of his own exchequer, and pre- sented every one of his guests, who were not fewer than nine thousand, with golden cups. The master of the house among the Romans, used also to give the guests certain presents at their departure, or to send them after they were gone, to their respective habitations. It is probable that this custom, like many others which prevailed in Greece and Rome, was derived from the nations of Asia ; for the sacred writers allude repeatedly to a similar custom, which closed the religious festivals or public entertainments among the chosen people of God. When David brought up the ark from the house of Obed-edom, into the place which he had prepared for it, he offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings before the Lord. And as soon as the solemnity was finished, " he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a flag- on ol wine." — Paxton. Dr. Chandler and his associates, received presents from the Greeks of Athens, consisting of perfumed flowers, pomegranates, oranges, and lemons, pastry, and other arti- cles. The presents made by David were no doubt very different. Leavened and unleavened bread, the flesh which remained from the peace-offerings, and some of the wine then presented. (Josephus.) The rabbins suppose that the word we translate, a good piece of flesh, signifies tin:. sixth part of an animal. Without, however, admitting the propriety of this assertion, it may lead to the true explana- tion of the word. Maillet affirms, that a sheep, with a proper quantity of rice, which answers the purpose of bread very frequently in the East, will furnish a good repast for sixty people. If now the people of the Jewish army were divided into tens, as it seems they were, who might mess together, and lodge under one and the same tent, as it is highly probable, from every tenth man's being appointed to fetch or prepare provision for their fellow-soldiers, accord- ing to what we read, Judges xx. 10, then' the sixth part of a sheep would be sufficient for the men at one repast, and be sufficient for one mess or tent of soldiers ; and from this particular case it may come to signify, in general, a suffi- cient portion for each person, which, indeed, seems to be the meaning of our translators, when they render Ihe word a good piece of flesh,— enough for an ample repast. The other part of this royal and'sacred donation was a /logon of wine, perhaps a gourd full of wine is meant. The' shells of gourds are used to this day in the eastern parts of the world for holding quantities of wine for present spending-, and particularly in sacred festivals. So when Dr. Richard Chandler was about leaving Athens, he tells us, he supped at the customhouse, where "-the archon provided a gourd of choice wine, and one of the crew excelled en the lyre." And describing a panegyris, or general sacred assembly of the Greeks in the Lesser Asia, he informs us, "that "the church was only stones piled up for walls, without a roo1', and stuck on this solemnity with wax-candles lighted, and small tapers, and that after fulfilling their religious duties, it is the custom of the Greeks to indulge in festivity; at which time he found the multitude sitting under half-tents, with a store of melons and grapes, besides lambs and sheep to he killed, wine in g»irds and skins, and other necessary provision." What the size of the gourds that anciently grew in that country was, or what that of those that are now found there, may not be quite certain. But a gourd full of wine, for each person, was abundantly sufficient for a joy that required attention to temperance.— Harmer. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 18. Then went King David in, and sat be- 2 SAMUEL. fore the Lord, and he said, Who am I, OLord God? and vvhal is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? Po has riven the figure of a person half sitting; and half kiii-.liii ■_'. Ihat i-., knr. ling so as lo rest [ In- most mus- cular par: of his li.ulv on In- ln-rN. This, he observes, is '.he manner in which inferior persons sil ai this day before great nun..: i is con idi red as a very humble posture. iii this in .a ; ib, blj . Da\ id sal be! the Lord, when l,i wi'ni in ii iii" - mi-iiiary, in bless lniii I hi li is promise respecting bis family.— HarSier. CHAPTER VIII. Vet 2 An I he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive: and so tin1 Moabites became David's servants, and brought gifts. David had sc roc t-n-leil his wars with ihe Philistines, Inn he u. s ,.|,._. .■_•,-,! in a r.ni her wilh the Moabites, ,Pf « htch ihe vcnptuie liisim v gives, as I understand it, the following account. " He also smote .Moab. ami he measured them by a Inn-," i. e. in one tract of the country, to throw them down level with ihe ground. Then he measured out two tracts, one lo pul tn ..lentil, and one full tract to preserve alive; and M ' li I'l-i-anie David's servants, bringing him gifts. When he had beat the Moabites, he ordered a general survey to be made of the whole country; in one part or tract of which he levelled Moab wilh the ground, i. e. razed so many of their towns and fortresses, as he thought neces- sary to secure his conquest. He then proceeded to ani- i n the inhabitants, measuring out two tracts, or parts of the country: one line or tract for death, and the ni.ness oi a ,me, a very >arge tract ot the courtry, to keep alive, i. e. in cut oil' the inhabitants of the one, those who had been most aciive in the war against him, and to pre- serve the far larger part of them alive; and thus made the while nation tributary to his crown. Who was the ag- gressor in these two last actions, the scripture history doth no! determine. Same authors seem inclined to gave David the credit of it, though without any shadow of proof. I : the contrarv may be collected from what Ihe 1's.lmist siv-: 'That Edom. Moab, Amnion, Amalek, the Syrians, under Hadadezer, and other nations, had consult- ed together with one consent to cut off Israel from being a nation ; and that the name of Israel might be no more" in ce. This seems plainly to refer to the history of the wars wilh these very nations, related in Samuel. Ag linst such a cruel confederacy as this, David had a right to defend himself, and lo rake such a vengeance on his enemies, as was necessary to his own and his people's fu- ll' this powerful league, to extirpate the Is- IS a justifiable compact, because Israel was a common enemy, who ravaged ad libitum, not from the us' mile islanding of states, but from an insatiable H blond and murder, as some writers choose to represent them; it will certainly follow, that Ihere may be occasions that will justify this severe execution, in the utter excision of nations ; and that if ihe Moabites, Amal- ekites, Philisiines, and other nations, were common ene- mies to the Hebrews, and ravaged them, ad libitum, from an insatiable appetite for blood and murder, David had a right to extirpate them, whenever he could, without de- serving the charge of barbarity, and a blood-thirsty spirit. This was certainly the character of many of the enemies of the li-brew nation, but can never be applicable to Ihe Hebrews themselves. It is allowed, that they were to maintain a perpetual hostility with, and extirpate, if thev could, the seven nalions, because God had proscribed them, and their own prosperi'v, and almost being, depend- ed on ii. But as to the Edomiies. Moabites, and Ammon- i-e«. they were expressly forbid to meddle with them, and invade any 94' their territories, bv b»ginning hostilities ag tinst them. And from the whole history of ihe Hebrew nation, from their first settlement in Canaan, to .heir de- struction by Nebuchadnezzar, there is scarce one instance 2(3 to be produced, of their invading the neighbouring nations, without being first attacked by them, or oi their plundering them any further than as their victories over them, gained in their own defence, gave them a right to it, bv tl - ii H ages and laws of war. During the period: preceding the regal government, we read of nolhing almost bin their gri, -wins impressions by the Moabites, Amiiioiiiie-, Ainal- ekites, Midianites, Philistines, and other neighbouring nations, who forced them into dens, mountains, ,n holds, deprived them of all manner of arms for their defence, and destroyed the increase of their land-, so that there was DO .sustenance for Israel, neilhei sheep, D nor ass. But we have not a single intimation of ihe Hebrews invading, plundering, and destroying tin in. And indeed it was not possible that as a nation they could, during this lung period, make any considerable invasions upon the neighbouring stales. For they had no kings, no settled government, no generals and captains to lead ihem, nor standing armies to protect them ; God, iti a very ex- traordinary manner, and at particular season , being pleased lo raise them up proper persons, to give them some temporary relief from those who enslaved and despoiled them; which made them at last resolve 10 have a king, who might be always ready to protect and defel d Lhi m. They were in themselves' an easy quiet people, never inured lo war, employed in husbandly, and raising of cattle; and so far from being a common enemy to all ihe nations round them, as that they took every method to cul- tivate their friendship, taking "their daughters to be iheir wives, and giving their daughters to their sons, forsaking their own God, and following after the gods of every neighbouring nation. And vet they were almost perpetu- ally under oppression, and their too grcal fondness to Ic- on good terms with their oppressors, was the very reason why God sold them into their enemies' hands, ami siitb n d them so often to groan, by turns, under the yoke of every petty state, that had a mind lo enslave them. And as for David, he had hitherto been engaged in no wars against any of his neighbours, except two" defensive ones against the Philistines; who, upon his first accession to the throne of Israel, invaded his dominions, with an intention to de- prive him of his kingdom, or r wholly dependant on their powe iles joined in the confederacy with the Ammonites, Edom- ites, Philistines, and others, to extirpate ihe Hebrew nation, David treated them with comparative lenity and moderation, if he eutoffeven two thirds of ihem, whom he found in arms against him; and especially, if he put to the sword but one half of them, who intended his utter destruction, and the entire extirpation of his people. And as this is certain, that the Amalekiies, Philistines, Moabites, and other nations, were perpetual and inveterate enemies to the Hebrews, and invaded ihem whenever they were able, the Hebrews had a right lo make reprisals, to attack them on every occasion that offered, and to treat them wilh that severity, that was necessarv lo their own peace and safety for the future. I may add. what Bishop Patrick and others ob- serve, that the Jewish wrilers affirm, that David exercised this severity on the Moabites, because they had slain his parents and brethren, whom he committed to Ihe custody of the king of Moab, during his exile. But I lay no great stress on this tradition, as it is wholly unsupporti .1 by the scripture history ; and because David's treatment of them is sufficiently justified by the ancient law of nations ; as to which my reader will be abundantly satisfied bv consulting Grotius.— Chandler. The war law^s of the Israelites are detailed by Moses in the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy. I shall at present onlv take nolice of those particulars that relate to the course they were to pursue towards foreign nalions, and postpone those that regard levies. Ihe division of plunder, &c. until I come to treat of private law. Of a declaration of war, before proceeding to hostilities, Moses says nothing; and, therefore, seems not to have deemed it so indispensably necessary as the Romans did. The disputes concerning its necessity are so well known, that I shall not trouble my readers w it h anv remarks upon them. At present, we do not consider this solemnity as at^all essential to the lawfulness of a war, but commence hostilities without any previous announcement of our intention, whenever we conceive that the injuries offered us require them. Moses appears (Numb, xxxi.) to have done the same; and to have 202 2 SAMUEL. Chat. 8. attacked the .Vidinniles, without giving them line to arm; anfl hence ( ver. 49) he did not lose a single man which would otherwise have been incomprehensible. I he word K=s so often repeated in that chapter, and protably wrong pointed by the Jews, sanities in Arabic, an inroad, or attack by surprise. On the other hand, it was the injunc- tion of Moses, that a hostile city should be summoned before an attack, and if it surrendered without fighting, that its inhabitants should have their lives granted, upon the condition of becoming tributaries. If, however, a city should make resistance, then all the men m it were to be put to the sword ; and the women and children to become captives to the Israelites. The former of these particulars, viz massacring all the men, stamp- their war law with a much greater degree of seventy than is manifested in ours; for although we must take into the account, that among ancient nations all the males who could bear arms actually did so when it was necessary, and that there was no such distinction between soldier and citizen as among us ; yet even in the case of a city being taken by storm, we are wont to give quarter ; and no Frenchman will have any anxiety to be reminded that bois-le-dttc forms a solitary ex- ception to this practice. Still, however, it is not contrary to the law of nature, if we get the upper hand, to kill our enemy, who either himself bears arms in order to kill us, or hires others in his room for that purpose. The Israel- ites could not regulate their conduct bv our more merciful law of nations, "which is, by several thousand years of later date ; but they acted precisely as their vanquished foes would have done, had they been lucky enough lo have been the conquerors; and they therefore merit the praise of magnanimity, if, to lessen the evils of war, we see them refraining in Ihe smallest degree from insisting on requital of like "for like to the utmost. The enemies with whom the Israelites had to do, were wont not mere y to put the vanquished to death, but at the same time to exercise great cruelties upon them. The Bible is full of relation-; to this purport. Sometimes infants and sucklings were massacred, and their bodies collected into heaps; for which we find in Hebrew a particular term, tfoi; some- limes pregnant women were ripped up 2 Kings vin. 12. Amos i. 13; sometimes people were laid upon thorns, and put to death with thrashing wains, Judg. viii. 7— 1G. Amos i. 3. Sometimes even royal princes were burnt alive, 2 Kin^s iii. 27. I will not relate all the cruellies of those nations with whom the Israelites had to carry on war, and might, according to the law of nature, have repaid like for like. The law of nations, according to which the Israelites had to act, was made bv those nations themselves ; for this law is founded on the manners of nations, and on the permission which we have to treat others as they treat us. If we do not choose to confine our attention to the de- tails given in seripture, we may resort to profane history, where we shall find the Romans (who behaved to their enemies much more harshly than we do) complaining of the barbarous conduct of the Carthaginians towards their prisoners; and these Carthaginians were the direct de- scendants of those Canaanites, and had an Asiatic law of nations. We need not, therefore, now wonder that David (2 Sam. viii. 2) should have made the vanquished Moab- fes lie down together on the ground, and with a measuring- line have marked off two thirds of them for death, and spared the remaining third, after being thus subjected lo Ihe fear of sharing the fate of their brethren. He acted here with more clemency than the Mosaic law prescribed, by which he would have been justified in putting them all to death. For as to the assertion of some writers, that the severe law of Moses on this point did not extend beyond the Canaanites, it is contrary to the clearest evidence ; for Moses expressly says. (Deut xx. 15. 16, compared with 13,) 11 Thus shall thou do unto those cities which are far from lh»e and not ofthe cities of these nations; bin of those na- tions whose land Jehovah giveth thee, thou shalt let nothing •hat brentheth live." David acted with much greater se- venty (2 Sam. xii. 31) to the inhabitants of Rabbah, the Ammonitish capital. He put them all to death together, and that with most painful and .exquisite tortures ; which, however, were not unusual in other countries of the East. But we must consider how very different this war was from other wars. The Ammonites had not only resisted to ihe last extremity, (which alone by the Mosaic law was .sufficient to justify the victors in putting them to death,) but they had, moieover, by their gross contempt of the am- bassadors whom David had sent with the best intentions been guilty of a most outrageous breach ol the law of nations, and manifested their implacable hatred against the Israelites. They shaved half their beards, (an insult which according to the account of D Arvieux, the Arabs of the present day reckon as great an evil as death itself,) and then they cut off the lower half of their garments, ani in this ignominious plight sent them back into their own country. Nor was this so much the particular act of the Ammonitish king, as of his principal subjects, who had incited him to it, (2 Sam. x. 3,) which so much the more clearly demonstrated their universal enmity against the Israelites; and a violation of the law of nations so very unusual justly provoked them to take severer revenge, than thev were wont to exercise in common wars. If we admit the maxim, that the law both of nature ami nations allows me to treat my enemies as they, if victorious, would have treated me, the story in 1 Sam. xi. 2 furnishes a strong vindication of David's conduct. These same Am- monites had, in the beginning of his predeccssu > leign. been so extremely cruel as to grant to the Israelitish city, Jabesh, which they had invested, and which was inclined to surrender without resistance, no other terms of capitu- lation than that, by way of insult to the Israelites m general, all its inhabitants should submit to have their right eyes put out. Now to an enemy of this description, and who at last seized their ambassadors, whose persons the laws both of nations and nature hold sacred, could any punishment in use in the East, have been too cruel ?— We find, however, that the character of the Ammonites was the same in every age The prophet Amos (l. 13) speaks of them as ripping up the bellies of women with child, not in the fury of a storm, but deliberately, in order to lessen the number of the Israelites, and thus to enlarge their "wn > i ders. II these acts of David, then, appear :o js, I will not say severe. (for who will deny that"? or who that lives in our days would nDt wish to have acted differently m It is place?) but ■unjust it is owing, either to our confounding the modern with the ancient law of nations, or with the law of nature itself; and thus judging of them by quite a different rule from that which we are wont to apply to similar actions, which we know from our youth. I mav at any rate put this question, " Has a magistrate a right to proceed more severely against a band of robbers than one nation against another, that has behaved with as much hostility and cru- elly as robbers can do V— If it is answered, " \ es, lor the robbers are subjects ;"— then would robbers, particularly H natives of foreign lands, in order to escape painful deaths, have onlv to declare, that thev wish lo be considered not as subjects, but as enemies; since they do not generally desire the protection of the magistrate, but have their abode in the forests. But on such banditti we inflict, not merely capital punishment, but that punishment. aggra- vated by torture; as, for instance, breaking on the wheel. Now if this is not unjust, and if a robber, even though a foreigner, cannot with effect urge against it the plea of wishing to be treated as an enemy; certainly David s pro- cedure towards Ihe Ammonites, who had in fact been more cruel to the Israelites than most modern banditti are wont to be, should not be condemned as absolutely unjust : although, no doubt, it would have been much more laud- able if he had displayed greater clemency and magi ia in no :y. Further- as we in bur childish years read the Roman au- thors, who think and write with great partiality lor their countrymen we are commonly impressed with very fa- vourable ideas ofthe moderation and equity of ihe Roman people ill war. But these ideas are by no means just • for the Romans, except when their own interest required the contrary, were a severe people; and with so much the worse reason, that their wars, in which they mamle-tcd such inexorable severity, were tor the most part unmsi. This people, of whose war laws we are apt to tlun« so highly for a long lime, even to the days of Ca-snr, massa- cred their prisoners in cold blood, whenever they survived the disgrace of the triumph; and they very frequently put to death the magistrates and citizens of conquered cities, after making them undergo a flagellation, which, perhaps, in point of physical pain, was not different trom ihe pun- ishments inflicted by David on the Ammonites. I.orrrarr corpora vi rets is the phrase in which it is described bv Livv. who remarks, that by reason of these inexorable leveriluw, Cm 2 SAMUEL. (of which wo know nothing in our wars,) some cities de- fended themselves to the last extremity, ralner than submit. 'I'litis acted the Humans towards tliose nations that certainly were not Ammonites in cruelly, or in the malice >>l then injuries. And if, nevertheless, not contented with keeping silence on the subject, we re-echo the Latin writers in their phrases of Human justice and mercy, why should David be called an oppressor and a baibanan, because to the very scum of cruel and inhuman enemies, who from universal national hatred had so grossly and unjustly violated the sacred rights of ambassadors, he acted with rigour, and put them to painful deaths 1 There seems here to be an unfairness in our way of judging, which David dues nut deserve, merely because he is an Oriental, and because on other occasions the Bible speaks so much in his praise. This severity has, nevertheless, always been a stigma on lhe» character of David, with those who do not attend to the arbitrary and variable nature of the law of nations, and judge of it according to the very humane war laws of modern limes. Hence some friends of religion have been at pains to represent his conduct in a mure humane point of view than it is described in the Bible itself. The late Professor Danlz of Jena, published a Dissertation, De tiiili^ntii Ihn-iilis in :l'iiniiiiiiti7i Cruihlitiile, which expe- ricnee.l the highest approbation both in and out of Germany, because people could not imagine a war law so extremely different from modern manners, as that which the common interpretation of 2 Sam. xii. 31 implies. Of that passage he gives this explanation ; that David merely condemned his Ammonilish captives to severe bodilv labours; to hew- ing and sawing of wood ; to burning of' bricks, and work- ing in iron mines. But how much soever this exposition may be approved, it has but little foundation: it does great violence to the Hebrew words, of which, as this is not the place to complain philologically, I must be satisfied with observing, that it takes them in a very unusual, and till then unknown, acceptation ; and for this no other reason is assigned, than that David had previously repented of his sins of adultery and murder; and being in a slate of grace, COUld not be supposed capable of such cruelties. But a proof like this, taken from the king's being in a state of ion, is quite indecisive. We must previously solve the question, whether, considering the times in which he lived, and the character of the enemy, who had given such proofs, to what atrocities their malignant dispositions towards the Israelites would have carried them, had they been the victors, the punishment he inflicted on them was too severe 1 or else from the piety of a king, I might in like manner demonstrate, in opposition to facts, that such and such malefactors were not broken on the wheel, but that they must only have gone to the wheel, in order to draw water. But allowing even that David carried sever- ity of punishment too far, it is entirely to be ascribed to the rude manners of his age : as in the case of still more blameless characters, even of Abraham himself, we find that the customs of their times betrayed them into sins of ignorance, although some of their contemporaries ques- tioned the lawfulness of the acts which involved those sins. It is further to be remarked, that towards the most cruel foes of the Israelites, and who had besides done himself an injury altogether unparalleled, David would have been acting with more mildness than the Mosaic law authorized, even towards any common enemy, if he had only condemn- ed the Ammonites to servile labours. And besides this, those labours which Dantz alleges, are, some of them at least, not at all suited to the circumstances of either the country or the people. Firewood, for instance, is so scarce in Palestine, that a whole people certainly could not have been converted into hewers and sawyers of wood. For the sanctuary and the altar, the Gibeonites had it already in charge to provide wood; while the common people throughout the country principally made use of straw, or dried dung, for fuel. 'When Solomon, many years after, made the limber required for the temple to be felled, it was by the heads of the remnant of the Canaanites ; and there- fore the Ammonites were not employed in it.— In Pales- line, again, mines of different sorts were wrought. Now, of all mines, none are more wholesome to work in than those of iron; because that metal is very friendly to the human constitution, is actually mixed with our blood, (as experiments made with blood clearly show.) is often used in medicine, and is almost never hurtful to us, ex- cept when forged into edgciools and weapons. Hence it has been observed, that in iron-works and forges, we gen- erally find the healthiest and longest-lived p-uple. Other sorts of mines, on the contrary, by reason of the lead and arsenic which they contain, are very often unwholesome. and even fatal to life. Can it then be believed that David would have condemned a people that he wanted lo punish, to labour in iron-works, w herein they were sure to enjoy a lung hie of health and activity, while, perhaps, his own native subjects had in labour in unwholesome mines for the more precious metals 1 A king who had mines in his dominions, and washed to use them for the purposes of punishment, would probably have heard what softs of them were favourable, and what hostile to health, and not have gone so preposterously to work. The applause bestowed on this dissertation of Dantz, from the humanity it dis- played, was probably what moved the late Wanner lo write a dissertation of ft similar tendency, which was published at Gottingen in the year 1738, under the following title. David Moabitarun Victor entilclium niuin ruc.rimilur. But it could not obta.;x> equal approbation, because in the con- duct of David towards the Moabites, 2 Sam. viii.2, there is less appearance of cruelty ; inasmuch as he merely enfor- ced the Avar law as prescribed by Moses, and indeed far less rigorously. Wahner gives' three different and new explanations of the passage, according to which none of the vanquished Moabites were put to death; but they are all somewhat forced : and there was no necessity, by a dif- ferent translation of the text, to free David from the charge of cruelty ; for ill putting but two thirds of them to death, he acted unquestionably with one third more clemency than the Mosaic law required. — The war which Said car- ried on against the Amalekites, and in which to the utmost of his power he extirpated the whole people, sparing only their king, is yet blamed, not on account of its rigour, but for the conqt-irrcr's clemency to the king, 1 Sam. xv. But I will not by any means adduce this for an example; but merely appeal to 'the precepts of Moses, the rigour of which David so much relaxed, in the cases of the Moabites. — Michaelis. Ver. 13. And David gat him a name when he returned from smiting of the Syrians in the Valley of Salt, being eighteen thousand men. These great sn?ce?ses over the Syrians and Edomiles greatly heightened the reputation and character of David ; or, as the historian otserves. he got himself a name when be returned from smiting the Syrians, and Edomites, in the Valley of Salt. Hi was regarded and celebrated by all the neighbouring princes and states, as a brave command- er, and glorious prince and conqueror. To get a name, in the eastern style, doth not mean to be called by this- or the other particular nam?, which is a ridiculous interpre- tation of the words, but to be spoken of with admiration and praise, as an excellent prince, and a fortunate victo- rious soldier. Thus it is joined with praise, ■' I will make you a name, and a praise among all people." It is said of God himself, upon account of the signs and wonders he wrought in Egypt. " Thou hast made thee a name at this day;" which our version in another place renders: " Thou hast gotten thee renown at this day. Thus David got himself a name, i. e. as God tells him by Nathan the prophet: " I was with thee wheresoever ihou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth," i. e. made thee to be esteemed and reverenced in all countries round about, as a mighty prince and successful warrior; a name that he must have had even from the Syrians, and all his enemies whom he subdued by his conduct and valour. There is some difficulty in this short history of the con quest of the Edomites. In the book of Chronicles, it i> said, that Abishai, the son of '.'eruiah, smote Edom in the Valley of Salt, eighteen thousand men. 1 Chron. xviii. 12 In the GOth Psalm, Title, that when Joab returned, he smote of Edom, in the Valley of Sa't, twelve thousand men. In the book of Samuel, S Sam. nil 13, that David got himself a name, when he iiUi.un from smiling the Syrians, in the Valley of Salt. fn.1 u this difficulty is easily obviated, as the rout and r1«*sHv cf the Edomitish army, in which they lost six ticasj&i! of tbeir men, was 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 8—10. begun by David and Abishai. And as, ifter Joab's joining Ihe array, twelve thousand more of tLe Edomites were cut off, the slaughter of those twelve thousand is ascribed to Joab, which, with six thousand cut off under David and Abishai, before Joab came up with his reinforcement, make up the number eighteen thousand; the whole eighteen thousand being ascribed to David, as they were cut off by hisarmv, that fought under him; and to Abishai, who was chief commander under him in this action; so that what was done by the one, was done by the other also. But there is also another difficulty, how to reconcile the two different accounts; the one, that' David smote the Syrians, the other, that he smote the Edomites, in the Valley of Salt. The altering the pointing of the words, as we have them in Samuel, and the repeating a single word, am> roiirov from the first part of the account, will entirely remove this difficul'y ; and 1 render the passage thus: David got himself a name, when he returned from smiting the Syrians, in the Valley of Salt, by smiling eighteen thousand men. Or, he got himself a "name in the Valley of Salt, by smiting eighteen thousand men, afier he returned from smiting the Syrians. And without this repetilion of the word roD smiting, or n^n: by smiling, the construction and sense is quite imperfect. Le Clerc, F. Houbiganl, and others, add this supplement, and this alone renders all the other emendations of the learned Father quite unnecessary. - The version of the Vulg. Latin confirms the interpretation, which thus renders the place: Fecit sibi quoque David nom.cn cum reverie ret it r etipta Syria, in valle Salinarum, cafis decern el octo millibus. " David also got him a name when he returned from the capture of Syria, having slain eighteen thousand men." — Chandler. Ver. 1G. And Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was recorder. That is, as is generally believed, remembrancer or writer of chronicles, an employment of no mean estima- tion in the eastern world, where it was customary with kings to kef p daily registers of all the transactions of their reign : and a trust, which, whoever discharged to purpose, must be let into the true spring* and secrets of action, and consequently must be received into the utmost confidence. Bl'RDER. Ver. IS. And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was overbotk the Cherethites and the Pelethites: and David's sons were chief rulers. These guards are called in the text, the Cherethites and the Pelethites, but what they were is variously conjectured. That they were soldiers is evident from their being men- tioned as present at the proclamation of King Solomon against Adonijah, which could not evidently have been done without some armed force to protect the persons that proclaimed him: and that they were not common soldiers, but the constant guards of David's person, is manifest from the title of Si^aro^t'Xaw, keepers of the body, which Josephus gives them. Some are of opinion that Ihey were men of gigantic stature; but we find no ground for that, though they were doubtless proper and robust men, fas we speak,) and of known fidelilv to their prince, 2 Sam. ,xv. 18, and xx. 7. Others again think that they were "Philistines; but it is hardly supposable, that David would have any of these hated, uneireumcised people to be his bodyguard; neither can we beliere that Israelilish soldiers would have took it patienily to see foreigners of that nation put in such places of honour and trust. It is much more likely, then, that jhey were some select men of the tribe of Juda'h, which had their names from the families thev sprung from, one of which is mentioned, 1 Sam. xxx. 14, and the other, 1 Chron. ii. 33, unless we will come into the notion of others, who, as they find that there were men of this denomination among the Philistines, think that these cuards of David's, which were originally of his own tribe, had these erotic names given them from some notable exploit or signal victory gained over Ihe Philistines of this name, as (in 1 Sam. "xxx. 14) we have express menlion of one action against them. — Stackhouse. CHAPTER IX. "Ver. 1 1. Then said Ziba unto the king, Accord- ing to all that my lord the king hath command- ed his servant, so shall thy servant do. As for Mephibosheth, said the king, he shall eat at my table, as one of the king's sons. See on 2 Kings 9. 11. CHAPTER X. Ver. 4. "Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut oft' their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away. This was one of the greatest indignities that the malice of man could invent in those countries, where all people thought their hair so great an ornament, that some would have rather submitted to die, than part with it. What a foul disgrace and heavy punishment this was accounted in ancient times, we may learn from Nicholaus Damascenus, as mentioned by Stobteus, (Tit. 42.) who says, that among the Indians the" king commanded the greatest offenders to be shaven, as the heaviest punishment that he could inflict upon them; and, to the like purpose, Plutarch (in Egesil) tells us, that, whenever a soldier, among the Lacedemo- nians, was convicted of cowardice, he was obliged to go with one part of his upper lip shaved, and the other not. Nay, even at this day, no greater indignity can be offered to a man of Persia, than to cause his beard to be shaved ; and therefore, Tavernier, in his travels, relates the story, that when the Sophi caused an ambassador of Aurengzeb's to be used in this manner, telling him that he was not wor- thy to wear a beard, the emperor (even in the manner as David here did) most highly resented the affront that was done to him in the person of his ambassador. And, as shaving David's ambassadors was deservedlv accounted a grievous affront, so the cutting off half the beard (which made them look still more ridiculous) was a great addition to it, where beards were held in great veneration; and where long habits down to the heels were wont, especially by persons of distinction, without any breeches or drawers, the cutting their garments, even to the middle, thereby to expose their nakedness, was such a brutal and shameless insult, as would badlv become a man of David's martial spirit, and just sentiments of honour, to have tamely passed by. — Stackhouse. ' The customs of nations in respect to this part of the hu- man countenance, have differed, and still do differ, so wide- Iv, that it is not easy, among us, who treat the beard as an encumbrance, to conceive proper! vol' the importance which is attached to it in the East. The Levitical laws have noticed the beard, but the terms in which most of them are expressed, are somewhat obscure ; i. e. they are obscure to us, by the very reason of their being familiar to the persons towtiomthey were addressed. Perhapsthe followingquota- lions mav contribute to Ihrow a light, at least upon some of them: " The first care of an Ottoman prince, when becomes to the throne, is, to let his beard 1- si every man, as a monster of perfidy, ba ingratitude. But how was Uriah to be got rid ol I Poison, assassination, or a false charge of treason, or i way of destruction, were methods w huh Ihe e:r lei n pi ne ■ were well acquainted with. David was .'hove ihi m . II, and had a kind of generosity in his very crimes. '1 he man he was to destroy was a brave soldier, and he cause: lii ii« to fall in the bed of honour, gloriously fight it tl neinies of his king and country ; and if dying in the held of battle, by the sword of an enemy, and in a glorious action, be a more eligible and honourable death, than the being despatched by the stab of a stiletto, the tortures of poison, or as a criminal on a false accusation of treason : the causing an innocent j er-on lo die in the fori, i I though tins hath its gieat aggravation, yet is not so base and villanous an ac.ioti, as d.s'i. .ma 1,0.1 bv an) one of the latter methods; and had Da\ id I rse to any ol them to get rid of a worthy man, whom he bad i reduced himself to an almost absolute necessity of de- spatching, the crime would have been of a more horrid die, and justly excited a higher indignation and abhorrence. And though I am far from mentioning these particulars to excuse David's conduct, cr palliate his aggravated offences; yet the circumstances 1 have mentioned excite my compassion, carry in the nature of the thing some alleviation of his crimes, and should ever be remembered to soften the pen that is employed in describing them Having thus, by accumulated guilt, taken off the man that he dreaded should live, David, after Bathsheba had gone through the usual time of mourning, took her lo his palace, and made her his wife, to screen her from a prose- cution of adultery, to secure her against the penalty of death, and in some measure to repair the injury he had done her, by his criminal commerce wilh her, during her former husband's life ; which, as a plurality of w ives was not forbidden by that constitution and polity he lived undei. was the least compensation that he could make, and w hid: he was obliged in honour and justice to make her. One would have thought, that after such a complication ol ag- gravated crimes, David, upon a review of his conduct, should have been struck with remorse, voluntarily ton- fessed his sins to God, and humbly entreated from him the mercy and forgiveness he so much needed. But nothing of this appears from Ihe history. He rather seems, on Ihe contrary, to have been insensible and callous, and to have. enjoyed Ins new-acquired pleasures, without any uneasi- ness at the dreadful expense by which he purchased them. The siege of Rabbah went on successfully, he saw no appearing proofs of the divine displeasure that threatened him. the a flairs of government employed much of his time and thoughts, he esteemed himsell happy in the preserva- tion ol Bathsheba, and at full liberty to gratify the ardent passion be had conceived for her'; and probably might persuade himself, that as Uriah was a Hittile, the fakmg tie and life greatly lessened the aggravation of his sin ; or, lhat as king of Israel, he was above the laws, and that however criminal such actions might have been in others, yet that the royal prerogative and powei might : lawful in him. or at least so extenuate the .-. , of them, as that they would pass unobserved bv God, who had solemnly promised him the establishment of the throne and kingdom in his person and family. But bv whatever means he made himself easy, the hi .- tory informs us. that "the thing which David 'had done di pleased the Lord." who resolved to show his abhor- rence of the crime, 10 execute on him a vengeance pro porlionable to the heinousness and guilt of it, and hereby to rouse his conscience, and bring him to those acknowl- edgments of his sin, as might prepare him for, and reidt: 210 2 SAMUEL. Chap II. him capable of that forgiveness, which, ho* much soever he needed it, he was greatly unworthy of. He was pleased fb employ Nathan the prophet on this solemn occasion; who, by an artfully composed fable, brought the king to pronounce his own" condemnation, even without suspecting or intending it. Balhsheba had just been delivered of a son, the fruit of her adulterous commerce with David, and who was, in the strictness of the letter, conceived by his mother in sin, and shapen in iniquity. David appears to have been fond of the child, and, in the midst ol his joy on this account, Nathan demands an audience, and ad- dresses him with the following complaint. There were two men, who lived in the same city, one of whom was rich, and the other poor. The rich man had Hoc If s and herds in great abundance ; but the poor man had not any thing, save only one little ewe-lamb, which he had brought, and nourished, so that it grew up together with him, and with his children: It did eat of his morsel, and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him as a daugh- ter. And there came a certain traveller to the rich man, and he begrudged to take of his own flock and his own herd, to entertain his guest, but took the poor man's lamb, and provided for the traveller that came to him. David was extremely incensed against the man, and said to Nathan : "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this is worthy of death, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, inasmuch as he hath done this thing, and because he had no com- passion." " Then Nathan said to David : Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel : I have anointed thee to be king over Israel, and delivered thee from the hand. of Saul. I gave thee also thy master's house, and the wives of thy master into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Is- rael and of Judah; and if this be but a small matter, I have also added to thee this and the other thing, which thou well knowest. Why then hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do thi- wickedness in his sight] Thou hast smote Uriah the Hittite with the sword, ami hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him by the sword of the children of Amnion. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord : Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and will take thy wives before thine eyes, and will give them to thy neigh- bour, and he shall lie with thy wives before the sun. Though thou hast done this secretly, yet I will do what I hive now said, before all Israel, and before the sun." This dreadful sentence roused the conscience of David, and from the fullest conviction of the heinousness of his of- fence, he immediately made this acknowledgment to Na- than: 1 have sinned against the Lord." Upon this in- genuous confession, Nathan immediately replies: " The Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. However, since by this deed thou hast caused the enemies ./I the Lord contemptuously to reject him, the son also that is born unto thee shall surely die." When Nathan had thus boldly and faithfully executed his commission, he left the king, arid the lecture which he read him was worthy the dignity of a prophet's character and station, and such as became the majesty of him to whom it was given. It was grave, strong, affecting, insinuating, and polite. The parable, in which he conveyed to hiin his message from God, is dressed up with all the circum- stances of art, tenderness, end delicacy, to move compas- sion, and, at the same time, to force from him that dread- ful sentence: " As the Lord Hveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die, because he did this thing, and because he had no compassion ;" thus drawing from him the sentence of his own condemnation, even before he perceived it. But how home, how bold was the application, when Na- than said to the king: " Thou art the man .... Where- fore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? TJlion hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife." How dreadful tilso was the sentence pronounced against him by the order off God'! Such as showed the height of his abhorrence 'if tli ■ r.ime, and his displeasure and indignation against him that committed it. But how did the unhappy offender receive this bold and severe remonstrance 1 Why, no rooner was the application made, but he falls under con- ■ric ior., acknowledges his offence against God, and owns bitnself worthy of death ; and the psalms he penned on this occasion show the deep sense he had of the guilt he had contracted, and will be a memorial of l he sincerity of his repentance throughout all generations. But was not Da- vid's repentance all affectation and hypocrisy, and did he not bear the reproof, and humble himself, because he took care not to disagree with his best friends; or, in other words, to keep fair with the priests and Levites? But it the priests ami Levites were such kind of men, as some have represented them; ready to support David in all -his measures of iniquity, and when he projected any scheme, were never wanting in their assistance to him ; why should any one of them give him any trouble in this aflair 1 In what had he disobliged them, by killing a Hhiite. and debauching his wife] Or why should they diss-gn >■ will, him about a transaction that no way related to them 1 I should rather think, they should haveendeavomed to have made him compound with them for a round sum of money, or a good number of sheep and oxen for sacrifices, that they might have feasted themselves on the price of his for- giveness; especially, as we have been told, that his same prophet, "Nathan," was a great lover of this m it ol food, and very angry when he was excluded from good cheer." But indeed the insinuation itself is wholly groundless ; and let any man read through the reproof that Nathan gave him, and the direct charge of murder and adultery that ht urged to his face, and, I think, he cannot but be convinced, that David's acknowledgment, "I have sinned against the Lord," could proceed from nothing but a real and deep sense of the greatness of his crime, and that he deserved to be cutoff by the hand of God for that aggravated transgression. What further effectually refutes this suggestion is, that his bear- ing with the reproof, and humbling himself under it, did not at all reconcile Nathan to him, who left him with a threat- ening dreadful in its nature, enough to make his ears tingle, and his heart tremble within him The only favourable thing Nathan said to him was : " Thou shalt not die ;" but. SI the same time, tells him, that the murder he had been guilt) of should be revenged bythe sword's never depariii g lioiii his house, and his adultery retaliated in the most exemplaty and public manner, upon his own wives; threateningsthai were made him, before he owned his fault, and submitted himself; and therefore his submission could be with r;r view of reconciling himself to Nathan, because that prophel had already peremptorily pronounced his punishment, which David's after confession did not in the least minga e or alter ; for the punishment threatened was inflicted to the full ; and the particular nature and circumst; i ■ were such, and the events on'which it depended wcie s-o distant and various, as that no human w isdom . n.: could foresee them, or secure their futurity, and I he e- fore Nathan, who pronounced his doom, musi have been im- mediately inspired by God, who foresaw and primmed ihe means, by which his threatenings should be punctually executed," and thus brought upon David all the evils the) his prophet had foretold should certainly befall him. The nature of his repentance my reader will be the better enabled to judge of, if he carefully reads over the Elsi psalm, which he certaiuly penned on this occasion.— Chandeek. No one can read this psalm, but must see all the chi rai ■- ters of true repentance in the person who wrote it, and the marks of the deepest sorrow and huiiiiliaen tor the sins of which he had been guilty. The heart appears in every line, and the bitter anguish of a wounded conscii nCf discovers itself by the most natural and affecting symp- toms. How earnestly does he plead for mercv. and ineTi - by acknowledge his own unworthiness ! How ingenuous are the confessions he makes of his offences, and ho- heavy was the load of that griilt that oppressed him ! 'I lie smart of it pierced through his very bones and marrow. and the torture he felt was as though they had been broken, and utterly crushed to pieces. He owns his s)ns wercof too deep a die for sacrifices to expiate the guilt of, 31 d rhfi he had nothing but a broken heart and contrite spirit to of- fer to that God^, whom he had so grievously offended. Bow earnest are his prayers, that God would create in him n clean heart, and renew a right spirit w iihin him ! How doth he dread the being deserted of God ! How earnestly deprecate the being deprived of his favour, the joy of his salvation, and the aids and comforts of his holy spirit ! L«l but this psalm be read without prejudice, and with a view only to collect the real sentiments expressed in it, and th<. Chat. V. ,2 SAMI.'KI, 211 disposition of heart lhat appeals throughout '.he whole of it ; ami no man of candour, I am confident, will ever suspect lhat it was I he dictate of hypocrisy, or could bo penned from any other motive, but a strong com ii lion of the heinousness of his offence, and the earnest desire of God's forgiveness, and being restrained from tli ninni- >ion of the like transgressions for the future. And those u !,.. urn ii.ii up.'ii IVu id'- character, on a. -e, unit of Ins eon- dad in the matter of Uriah, though they cannot too hearti- ly detest the sin, and must severely censure the offender ; vet surely may find some room in their hearts for compas- sion towards him, when they consider how he was surpri- sed into the first crime, and how the fear and dread of a diseoverv, and Ins concern for the life of the woman he had seduc idj led him on, step by step, to further degrees of deceit and wickedness, till he completed his guilt by the i of a great and worthy man; especially when they see liim prostrate before God, confessing Ins sin, and ii',' forgiveness; and even exempted by God himself from the punishment of death he had incurred, up m Ins ingenuously confessing, " 1 have sinned against ilie Li ml;" an evident proof thai Ins repentance was sincere, as it secured him immediately forgiveness from clod, whom he had offended. I shall conclude this article by the remarks which Mr. Bayle makes on it. " His amour wnh the wife of Uriah, and the oMers he gave to destroy her husband, are two mosi enormous crimes. But he was so grieved for them, and expiated them by so admirable a repentance, that tins is not the passage in his life, wherein he contributes the least to the instruction and edification of the faithful. We therein learn the frailty of the saints, and it is a precept of vigilance. We therein learn in what manner we ought to lament for our sins, and it is an excellent model." Let me add, that the wisdom and equity of the law of Moses evi- dently appears, in that it appointed no sacrifices to atone for such crimes, the pardoning of which would have been inconsistent with the peace and safety of civil society; such as those which David laments in 'this psalm, murder and adultery. Here the punishment prescribed by the law was death, and David had no other way of escaping it, but by the undeserved mercy of God. This God was pleased to extend to him, to show how acceptable the sinner's un- feigned repentance will be, whatever be the nature and ag- gravat i' ins of his offences ; and if we learn from hence, what the scripture calls "the deceitfulness of sin, "to be cautious of the first beginnings of it, and not to indulge those sensual appetites, which, when given way to, draw men insensibly into crimes, they would have once trembled at the thoughts of committing; we shall make ihe best and wisest improve- ment of this melancholy part of David's history, and be real painers by his sins and sorrows.— Chandler. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 11. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, 1 will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, atul he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. 12. For thou didst i< secretly ; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the The words, I will raise up, I will take, I will do, do not denote any positive actions of God, as if he prompted wick- ed men to do the same things wherewith he threatens Da- vid, insomuch that, without such prompting, they would not have done them, but by it were necessitated to do them; such a construction as this is injurious to the divine attri- butes, and makes God the author of evil : but the true meaning is, that God, at that lime, saw the perverse dispo- sition of one of his sons, and the crafty wiliness of one of his counsellors, which, without his restraining them, would not fail to create David no small uneasiness; and therefore, because David had violated his law, and, to gratify his lust, had committed both adultery and murder, God would not interpose, but suffered the tempers of these two w ji teed per- sons to follow their own course, and have their natural swing; whereupon the one, being ambitious of a crown, en- deavours to depose his father, and the other, willing to make the breach irreparable, advised the most detested mid think of. This indeed was the very thing thai God had foretold, bat, without any imputation open Ins attributes, we may say, thai God can bo di guide a train of circumstances, lhat the wickeiln. action shall happen iq tins manner, rather than another, though he do not infuse into any man the will to do wick- edly. So that from such scripture phrases at may not inter, that God either does, Dr can do evil, but only that he permits that evil to be done, which he foreknew would be done, but might have prevented, had hi or, in other terms, that he suffers men, natural!} to follow the bent of their tempers, without any interposi- tion of his providence to restrain them. — Stackhoose. Ver. 10. David therefore besought God for the child; and David lasted, and went in and lay all night upon the earth. 17. And the elders of his house arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. is. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they Slid, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice; how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead \ 19. But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead : there- fore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead. 20. Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Loud, and worship- ped: then he came to his own house ; and, when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat. The account Sir John Chardin gives us of eastern mourning, in order to illustrate Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 17, is as follows. " The practice of the East is to leave a rela- tion of the deceased person to weep and mourn, till, on the third or fourth day at farthest, the relations and friends go to see him, cause him to eat, lead him to a bath, and cause him to put on new vestments, he hating before thrown him- self on the ground," &c. The surprise of David's servants then, who had seen his bitter anguish while the child was sick, arose apparently from this, that, when he found it was dead, he that so deeply lamented, arose of himself from the earth, without staying for his friends coming about him, and that presently'; immediately bathed and anointed him- self, instead of appearingas a mourner; and. after worship- ping God with solemnity, returned to his wonted repasts without any interposition of others; which as now, so per- haps anciently, was made use of in the East. The extrem- ity of his sorrows for tile child's illness, and his not observ- ing the common forms of grief afterward, was what sur- prised his servants. Every eye must see the genera ground of astonishment; but this passage of Chardin gives great distinctness to our apprehensions of it.— Habmer. Ver. 20. Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord and worshipped : then he came to his own house; and, when he required, they set breed before him, and he did eat. 21. Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child while it wax alive: but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. 212 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 12 cut or plucked off in the excess of his grief, tu hang dishev- elled upon the shoulders; he neither trimmed his beard, nor washed his feet, even in the hottest weather; he did not wash his shirt, nor any of the linen he wore. During the whole time of mourning, he refused to change his clothes. In this state of total negligence, it appears that David mourned for his infant son ; for after he learned from his attendants that the child was dead, the inspired historian observes, " Then David arose from the earth, and washed and anointed himself, and changed his apparel."— I'.VXTO.V. Ver. 29. And David gathered all the people together, and went to Rabbah, and fought against it, and took it. 30. And he took their king's crown from off his head, (the weight whereof was a talent of gold with the precious stones,) and it was set on David's head : and he brought forth the spoil of the city in great abundance. 31. And he brought forth the people, that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln : and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people return- ed unto Jerusalem. Josephus tells us, that the men were put to death by ex- quisite torments. And this hath been the sentiment of many learned commentators. Supposing this interpreta- tion of the passage to be true, I cannot help observing, with Mr. Le Clerc, on the place, that if thepunishmentsinflicted on this people were as severe as they are represented to be, they might be inflicted by way of reprisal. That learned commentator thinks that they were such as the Ammonites themselves used, and that when they were conquered by David, he used them in the same manner as they hail treat- ed their Hebrew prisoners. It is very certain that the Ammonites used them with great severity. Nahash, the father probably of this Hanun, in the wantonness of his cruelty, would not admit the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead, under' Saul's reign, to surrender themselves prisoners to him, but upon condition of their everv one's consenting to have their right eye thrust out, that 'he might lay it as a reproach upon all Israel ; to win. h, consistently "enough. Josephus adds, that he treated his Hebrew captives with great barbarity, by putting out their right eye. to prevent I heir being further serviceable in defence ol'iheir countrv ; because as the left eye was hid by the shield, they were rendered by the loss of the other incapable of all military duty. Besides, the Ammonites frequently used the He- brews with excessive cruelly, and are represented by the prophet, as ripping up their women with child, that they might enlarge their border, i. e. prevent the Hebrews from having any posterity ever after, to inhabit the cities that had been taken from them. Casaubon also, in his notes upon Suetonms's li:'e of Caligula, who cruelly used to saw jnen asunder, produces other examples of the same atrocious punishment, and thinks it was common among the eastern people. And if these severities were now exercised upon the Ammonites in retaliation for former cruelties of the like nature, they certainly had no right to complain; and it will greatly 'lessen the horror that may be conceived upon account of them, and, in some measure, justify David in using them. Retaliations of this kind have been prac- tised by the most civilized nations. Thus the Romans re- venged the death of the brave Regulus, by giving up the f'arllnginian captives at Rome into the power of Marcia, the wife of Regulus, who caused them to be shut up, two and two, in great chests stuck with nails, there to suffer the same torments which her husband had endured at Carthage. If to this we add, that this execution, if made at all, which however is not so very certain as some are willing to be- lieve, it was made in revenge for an infamous outrage on majesty, the violation of the law of nations, the bringing two powerful armies to invade his dominions, the great number of his subjects that must have been lost in these wr battles, while the injuries were fresh in his mind, the persons who offered them present to his view, the whole nation engaged in an unrighteous war in vindication of the insult, and some severe animadversion was in justice due to the authors and abetters of such repealed acts of violence and injustice. The character of an ambassador was held sacred and inviolable among all nations, and any injuries offered to them were thought deservii.g the most exempla- ry punishments. The Roman history atiords us many re- markable instances of this nature. When the Tareniines had affronted the Roman ambassador, Posthumius, one ol them, whose robe a drunken Tarentine, in the wantonness pf insolence, had defiled by urinating against it, said to the citizens, " It is not a little blood that must wash and purify this garment." And when the Romans were informed ol this outrage, they immediately declared war against them, took their ships from them, dismantled the citv, first made them tributaries, and at last massacred great numbers ot the inhabitants, and sold thirty thousand, who escaped the carnage, for slaves to the best bidder. In like manner, when the Roman deputies were treated with insolent lan- guage only by the Achaians, though they offered no in- jury to their persons, yet the Romans revenged it by the total destruction of Corinth, putting all the men to the sword, selling the women and children for slaves, and burning the whole city to the ground. Let me add here also, that the greatest generals, who have been remarkable for their humanity and mildness o( disposition, have sometimes thought themselves obliged to use, in terrorem, great severity towards their prisoners. Fa- bius Maximus, desirous of softening and taming the fierce and turbulent dispositions of the people of Celtiberia, now Arragon, was forced to do violence to his nature, and act with an apparent cruelty, by cutting off the hands of all those who had fled from the Roman garrisons to the enemy; that, by being thus maimed, they might terrify others from revolting. So also Lucullus used the Thra- cians, destroying many of his prisoners, some by the sword, others by fire, and as to others, cutting off their hands, which the barbarians themselves looked on as an instance of great inhumanity, as hereby they were forced to outlive their very punishments. Many more instances of the like nature may be easily produced ;" and let David's conduct, as a general, be considered with the same candour and equity, as we would consider that of a Roman or Grecian com- mander, and those executions, which he may have been supposed to have ordered on particular occasions and of- fenders, and that appear to have the character of great se- verity and cruelty, will be found capable of such an apolo- gy, as will greatly lessen the blame that hath been so liber- ally thrown on them, and no more be considered as indi- cations of a disposition naturally inhuman and barbarous. I think the punishment of crucifixion is one of the most horrid and shocking that can be inflicted, in which the hands and feet are pierced through, and the whole body is upon the stretch and rack, and the person crucified dies a lingering and exquisitely painful death ; a punishment this, equally cruel and inhuman, with David's supposed saws, and harrows, and brick-kilns. Now supposingthat David, instead of those instruments of death, had crucified the Am- monites by thousands before the gates of Rabbah ; or sup- posing, that when he took 'the city, he had condemned all above seventeen years old to mines, or distributed them by thousands and ten thousands, into the provinces of his king- dom, to be leisurely, and in cool blood, thrown to the beasts, or forced to murder each other on theatres, for the enter- tainment of his blood-thirstv people; would not Mr. Bayle and his followers have cried out: Bella, horrida bella ! and censured David's conduct herein as unworthy a saint, and a man after God's own heart. And yet this was what the gentle, the benevolent Titus, did to the Jews, whom the Romans, by their cruelty and oppressions, forced to take up arms against them ; and who may be truly said to have fought for their liberties, of which they had been unjustly deprived. Yet, during the siege, he ordered them to he scourged and crucified before the walls of Jerusalem, by hundreds at a time, and in such large numbers, as that they wanted room to place the crosses, and crosses for thebodies of those they condemned to crucifixion. And not only this, which perhaps may be thought to admit of some apology, as done in the heat and fury of the siege, but when the siege was over, and all instances of cruelty should have ceased, he murdered them wantonly, and in cool bl >od, for CiiAP. 12. 2 SAMUEL. 213 the diversion of the provinces. When lie was at Cesarea, he threw great numbers of them to the beasts, and made others of them cut each other's throats. He celebrated his brother's birthday by destroying above two thousand live hundred of them by the same methods, and with the ad- ditional cruelty of burning many of them alive; and on his father's birthday he acted with the same barbarity to- wards a large number of his captives at Beryras. The t hole of them amounted to !>7,000; and yet, would one think it, Titus thought lie was a man after God's own heart, or that he executed the divine pleasure and the Jefo Sj tor when lie viewed the city alter his conquest, said : " We have carried on the wai rill, or under Ins favour, it is God who pulled down the Jews from their fortresses, which wen- uncon- le by human arms and engines." Bat we need not these examples to justify David's con- duct] forthe more carefully 1 consider the scripture ac- in ft Ins treatment of the Ammonites, I am the more fully convinced that he did not execute these severities upon them, and that the sacred history, fairly interpreted, will warrant DO SUCh charge; and I will now venture thus lu render the original words, " He brought forth the inhab- itants of it, and put them to the saw, to iron-mines, and to iron-axes, and transported them lo ihe brick-kilns," or ra- ' thcr, to the brick frame and bed, lo make and carry bricks. 1 [e reduced them to slavery, and put them lo the mosl ser- vile employments of sawing, making iron harrows, or rather working in the mines, to the hewing of stones, and making and carrying of bricks. To these drudgeries, some to one, and some lo another, he condemned [hem, or by these means brought them into entire subjection, and put it out of their power lo give him any furlher disturbance. This interpretation is so far from being forced, as lhat it is entirely agreeable to ihe proper sense and meaning of the original words, and fully vindicates David from lhat inhu- manity, by which some have characterized the man after God's own heart. The bella, horrida bella, all here vanish in an instant. This account may also be confirmed by the parallel place in Chronicles, where the historian tells us, that David brought ihem forth, and, as I would render the words, divided or separated them to the saw, to the mines and axes; agreeable to what is said in Samuel, lhat he re- moved them from their former habitations to work in these servile employment-. ( h 'they maybe rendered: " He made "hem to cm with the saw, the harrow, and the axe," i. c. '■ indemnetl them to these -lavish employments. Or final- ly, some interpreters give this version : " He ruled over them by the saw, iht mine," Sue. kept them in a state of subjec- tion, by putting them to these hard labours. It is a further confirmation of the foregoing representa- 1 ion, what the historian adds: " Thus did David unto all the cities of the children of Amnion." What did he do? What! put them to death throughout all their cities, by those ex- guisite methods of cruelty % The thing is impossible, for then he would have totally extirpated them, and we should never have heard of them again, as a nation, in his- tory. And yet it is certain, that within a very few years after the taking of Rahoah, this very efty existed, and was inhabited, and had a tributary king or viceroy ; even Shobi, the son of Nahash, and therefore probably' the brother of Hanun, who offered this violence to David's ambassadors. For while David was at Mahnnaim.on theotherside Jordan, Waiting the event of Absalom's rebellion, this Shobi, among other of David's friends, brought him very large supplies of all sorts of necessaries, beds, basins, earthen, vessels, wheat, barley, flower, parched corn, beans, (entile, parched pulse; honey', butter, sheep, and cheese, for himself and peo- ple; for they said, the people are hungry and weary, and thirstv in the wilderness. So that the city and country were both inhabited, and the lands cultivated, abounding with plenty of all necessaries ; and therefore there could be no general massacre, or very large destruction of the inhabitants, by David. Nor is it at all probable, that had David made those cruel executions among the Ammonites, which some ascribe to him, he would have found so much friendship from Ihem in his distresses, while the barbar- ities he exercised on them were fresh in their memories; but rather, that they would have wished his destruction, and at least have waited the fortune of the war, that threat- ened David with entire ruin, and not have supplied him. for fear of their incurring the displeasure of Absalom, who aimed at his life, that he might usurp his throne, and would not have failed, had he been victorious, to have t -Te- emed a severe revenge on then, for the assistance thi | gave i.illy as they might have urged a verj pi'-. > lor their tiot assisting him; the scarcity of 'the inhab- llanls by the late executions, had that been really the case, and the impoverishment of their lands, for want of h. r.d- to cultivate them, and by the ravages committed on them, by David's army. Besides, we read of these Ammonites, and the inhab- itants of Seir, and the Moabiles, all united, an. I ! very formidable army to invade the dominions of Jehosha- phat. And though this was many years after their hi ing subdued by David, yet it is uoi lo be wondered at, that we hear little of them during llns interval, as they were t - | I in strict subjection, and curbed with garrisons by the succes- sors of David; just as Ihe Edomites, during the riod, who, together with the Moabiles, endeavoured lo shake off Ihe yoke of the Hebrew kings, but were i Ihem lo their former subjection. Now il is all- i credible, lhat if David had thus utterly extirpated the in- habitants of these countries, as some represent his conduct, they could, in one hundred and forty years afterward, under Jehoshaphal, have brought such a multitude of men against him, as forced him to acknowledge, in his prayer to God, lhat " he had no might against that great company that came against him, and that he knew not what lo do ;" even when he had above a million of men, mighty men ot valour, ready prepared for the war. When therefore Ihe history says,"" thus did David to all Ihe cities of the chil- dren of Amnion," the meaning can only be, that he con- demned lo slavery, not ihe whole nation, but i people, in their several towns and cities, as he had done to the inhabitants of Rabbah, who had been ihe advisers of Ihe outrage, or principally concerned in lhat unrighteous war, which they carried on against him in vindication of it. The rest he permitted lo dwell in their towns, and cultivate iheir possessions, and appointed overlhem Shobi, Ihe brother of Hanun, king, as a tributary to his crown ; and I doubt not in grateful remembrance of the kindness he formerly received from Nahash, Shobi's father, Which was also the real reason of the congratulatory message hesonl lo Hanun his eldest sou, upon his accession to the throne. I would further observe, lhat as David certainly had a great deal of generosity and goodness in his natural temper, the sacred writers, who have, with great freedom and i m partiality, mentioned his faults, and who have transmitted lo us this account of his treatment of the Ammonites, have pa'ssed no censure on him for having exceeded the bounds of humanity and justice, in the punishment he inflicted on them : and from hence we may, I apprehend, justly con- clude, either that it was not so severe, as it faith been gen- erally thought, or lhat there were some peculi; which demanded it, and which, if we were particularly acquainted with them, would, in a great measure, alleviate the appearing rigour of it; or lhat Ihe law of nations, and the jus belli, then subsisting, admitted such kinds of execu- tions upon very extraordinary occasions; though I think there are scarce any that can fully justify them. But if the account which I have given of ihis affair be, as I think it is, the true one, the Ammonites were treated just as they deserved, and according to what was practised by the most civilized nations, and all exclamations against the man after God's own heart, will be unreasonable and unjust. Mr. Bavie, among others, grievously complains on I li is; article, " Can this method," says he, "' of making war be denied to be blameworthy 1 Have not the Turks and Tartars a little more humanity 1 If a vast number of pamphlets daily complain of thojniliiary executions of cur own lime, which are really crueT and highly lo be blamed, though mild in comparison of David's ; what would not the authors of those pamphlets sav at this day, had that such usage to censure, as Ihe saws, the harrows', and brick-kilns, of David?" It is a pity this learned and candid critii should form his notion of the cruelty of some military ex- ecutions by a set of pamphleteers, a sort of authors not al- ways of the best information and credit. Bui what if these same pamphlet writers, should complain of the cruelty of certain military executions, that had no foundation in fact, but only in their misinterpretation of some accounts of them, which they did not understand, or could not translate rightly from the language in which they were written I •214 2 SAMUEL. Chap. Jr what if some person, assuming the character of a critic, should take upon trust his account, from these very respecta- ble pamphlet writers, of the cruelty of some military execu- tions, and censure the authors of them, as worse than Turks and Tartars, without ever searching himself the original re- laters of them, to know whether the account of the pamphlet- eers were genuine or not ; -what censure would he not de- serve from the impartial woild, for propagating such false and groundless stories'? I am confident Mr. Bayle never critically examined, in the original language, the account ot these military executions by David, for if he had, he would certainly have found reason, at least to have sus- pended his judgment, if not entirely to have altered it. I should be in no pain for David's character, if I could as well defend him, in what the truth of history obliges me now to relate, as I think he may be justified in the treat- ment of the Ammonites.— Chandler. Ver. 31. And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the chil- dren of Ammon. It seems to have been the practice of eastern kings, to / command their captives, taken in war, especially those that had, by the atrociousness of their crimes, or the stoutness of their resistance, greatly provoked their indignation, to lie down on the ground, and then put to death a certain part of them, which they measured with a line, or deter- mined by lot. This custom was not perhaps commonly practised by the people of God, in their wars with the nations around them ; one instance, however, is recorded in the life of David, who inflicted this punishment on the Moabites: " And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive ; and so the Moabites became David's servants, and brought gifts." The same warlike prince inflicted a still more terrible punishment on the inhabitants of Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon, whose ill-advised king had violated the law of nations, in offering one of the greatest possible indignities to his ambassadors: " He brought out the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln ; and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon." Some of them he sawed asunder; others he tore in pieces with harrows armed with great iron teeth ; or lacerated their bodies with sharp sickles or sharp stones ; or rather, he dragged them through the place where bricks were made, and grated their flesh upon the ragged sherds. This dreadful punish- ment was meant to operate upon the fears of other princes, and prevent them from violating the right of nations in the persons of their ambassadors. These were usually persons of great worth or eminent station, who, by their quality and deportment, might command respect and attention from their very enemies. Ambassadors were accordingly held sacred among all people, even when at war; and what in- juries and affronts soever had been committed, heaven anil earth were thought to be concerned to prosecute the injuries done to ihem, with the utmost vengeance. So deep is this impression engraved on the human rcind, that the Lacedemonians, who had inhumanly murdered the Persian ambassadors, firmly believed their gods would accept none of their oblations and sacrifices, which were all found pol- 1 u:ed with direful omens, ffll two noblemen of Sparta were suit as an expiatory sacrifice to Xerxes, to atone for the death of his ambassadors by their own. That emperor, indeed, gave them leave to return in safety, without any oher ignominy than what they suffered by a severe reflec- tion on the Spartan nation, whose barbarous cruelty he pro- fessed he would not imitate, though he had been so greatly provoked. The divine vengeance, however, suffered them not to go unpunished, but inflicted what those men had as- sumed to themselves, on their sons, who being sent on an embassy into Asia, were betraved into the hands of the Athenians, who put them to 'death : which Herodotus, who relates the story, considered as a just ijevenge from •icaven, foi the cruelty of the Lacedemonians. The char- acter of ambassadors has been invested with such inviolable sanctity, by the mutual hopes and fears of nations; for if person's of that character might be treated injuriously, the friendly relations between different stares could not be maintained ; and all hopes of peace and reconciliation among enemies, must be banished for ever out of the world. But these considerations, although they might jus- tify David in demanding satisfaction, and inflicting condign punishment on the king of Rabbah, cannot be reckoned a sufficient excuse for such severities. They may therefore be considered as a proof, that he was then in the state of his impenitence, in consequence of his illicit connexion with Bathsheba, when the mild, and gentle, and humane spirit of the gospel in his bosom, had suffered a mournful decline, and he was become cruel and furious, as well as lustful and incontinent. The captives taken by Amaziah, in his war with Edom, were also treated with uncommon severity, for " he took ten thousand of them alive, and brought them to the top of a rock, and cast them down, so that (hey were all broken in pieces." — Paxton. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 6. So Amnon lay down, and made himself sick. The Asiatics are certainly the most expert creatures I have seen in feigning themselves sick. Thus, those who wish to get off work, or any duty, complain they have a pain here, and another there : they affect to pant for breath, roll their eyes, as if in agony ; and, should you touch them, they shriek out, as if you were killing them. The sepoys, and those who are servants in the government offices, give great trouble to their superiors by ever and anon complain- ing they are sick ; and it requires great discernment to find out whether they are so, or are merely affecting it. Their general object is either to attend a marriage, or some religious festival. — Roberts. Ver. 8. So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, and he was laid down. And she took flour, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and did bake the cakes. In the most considerable houses of Persia, they kindle their fires, not under a chimney, as is usual with us in fire- places, but in a kind of oven, called tinnor, about two palms from the ground, formed of a vase of burnt clay, in which they place burning coals, charcoal, or other com- bustible matter. The smoke from the coals is conveyed by means of a pipe from the oven under ground; and by means of another, communicating with the grated biltom of the fire, it is supplied with air. Here they cook their meat, and can bake their cakes on a flat sheet of iron laid over the tinnor, in little more than an instant of lime. When the oven is not thus used, they place a plank over il in the shape of a small table, which they cover entirely, spreading over it a large cloth which extends on all sides to the ground, over a part of<)he floor of the chamber. By this contrivance, the heal being prevented from diffusing itself all at once, it is .communicated insensibly, and so pleasantly throughout the whole apartment, that it cannot be better compared than to the effect of a stove. Persons at their meals, or in conversation, and some even sleeping, lie on the carpets round this table, supporting themselves against the walls of the apartment on cushions kept fur the purpose, which likewise serve for seats in this coitniiy, the tinnor being so placed as to be equally distant from the sides of the room. Thus circumstanced, those to v horn the cold is not unpleasant, put their legs under the cloth : others, who feel it more sensiblv, their hands and the rest of their bodv. By bringing their extremities thus towards the central fire, thev receive thence a mild and peneira ing warmth, which diffuses itself agreeably over their whole bodv, without any injury to the head— Eikler. Let it not appear strange that a king's daughter in the reign of David, was emploved in this menial service ; for Dr^ Russel says, the eastern ladies often prepare cakes and other things in their own apartments: and some few par- ticular dishes are cooked bv themselves, hut not in their apartments ; on such occasions they go to some room near the kitchen. The eastern bread i; made in small, thin. Chap. 14. AMU EL. moist cakes: it must be eaten new, an.f is unfit for use when kepi I lay. Both Ru-ei and Kauwolf, however, im ! ■ ml- el bread and rake-; some which an- . ime k hicb are mixed unh c i • ■ ndei and olhei - i which are >lri'»".l \uHi!;' ami I 'it''- it — • • i ihcs a kind ol biscuits, wiiiri. iii.- i : i ■■]•_■- 1 mi- ' .11 1 \ i Bgypl to M IOC '.'■:' ni'l le. 111' li ■■ h ;.]u| I I'll. Irolj bci n accord « ith the narratives of modern trav- eller-, in' ir| .i.'-emiii',' (he oriental loaves as i hi' i (hem being required for the repast of a single person : " Wiiieh ul yuli shall dave a friend, and shall go untu him at midnight, and say onto him, Friend, lend me i loavi : I'.ir a friend of mine in his journey is come tit me, and I dave nothing to sel bi fore dim I" It appears aim from the history of Abraham, and particularly from his entertaining the three angels, thai they were generally eaten new, and baked as they were needed. Sometimes, however, they "ere made to keep several days; for the shew-breail might be eaten after ii had stood a week before the Lord. The pretence of I lie Gibeonites, that their bread had become mouldy from the length of the mad, although it was taken fresh from the oven when they left home, proves, thai dread for a journey was made to keep a con- siderable lime. In every one of those minute circumstances, the sacred volume perfectly corresponds wild the statements of modern travellers.— Paxton. Ver. 17. Then he called his servant that minister- ed unto him. Eastern masters do not keep their servants at the distance usual in England. The affairs of the family, the news of the day, and the little incidents of life, are mutually dis- cussed, as by equals. The difference between thein, in reference to property, is sometimes not great; the master has. perhaps, hi- small family estate, or some business which produces a little profit, and the servant is content with his rice, and a scanty cloth for his loins. No native who can afford it is without his servant, and manv who can scarcely procure food for themselves, lalk very largely about their "domestics See my lord seated in his verandah, chewing his beetel, and cogitating his plans: hear him at every interval say to his attendant, " What think yon of thatl" " Shall I succeed 1" " You must assist me; I know you have great sense : let this prosper, and you shall have rings for your ears, and a turban for your' head. Good: nour water on me." They go to the well, and the servant bales about a hogshead of water on his master's head. They go to the house, and then the command is, " Rub my joints and limbs." " Ah ! bring my rice and curry." That finished, " Bring water to wash my mouth ; pour it on my hands: a shroot and fire bring;' fetch mv sandals, my turban, umbrella, and beetel-box. Let us depart." Then may be seen the master stepping out with a lordly air, and the domestic at his heels, giving advice, or listening to his master's tales. — Ploberts. Ver. 19 And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her varment of divers colours that was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying. See on Mat. 11.21. Ver. 21. And when Kino- David heard of all these things, he was very wroth. Mr. Bayle. who takes everv occasion to depreciate the charactered* David, savs that "his indulgence to his children exceeded all reasonable bounds, and that had he punished, as the crime deserved, the infamous action of his son Amnon, h? would not have had the shame and uneasiness, to see another person revenge the injury done to Tamar." he means, that he should have punished Amnon with death. But Amnon was David's eldest son, and heir apparent to his throne and kingdom, and he might not think it prudent, or that it would have been well taken bv the na- tion, if he had put him to death wiihout constilting*lhem. And this would have been exposing, in the most public manner, the disgrace of his own familv, which he thought it was best to conceal, as far as he was able. That David did nol punish Amnon in some very exemplary manner, is more than Mr. Beyle could be sure of. Tnere are some circumstances that Ice il verj probable he did. The history assure: us, thai when 1 >a\ i.i heard of the affair, lie was very wroth. And it is very natural to suppo i A inn. hi feel the effects of it. He seems to nave pot him land confinement, and allowed him tog >- where without his express leave. For when Absalom in- vited i he King and all his servants to goto bit sheepsbear ml the king dei. n dr.' • ■ j . i ' i ■ In in to let A nun hi go with him; which shows, lha though all the other sons of David easily obu ined le i e Absalom, yet that Amnon was under giealei lestraini than all Ihe rest, otherwise there would have been n Ifoi him particularly to have pressed David to gram Amnon leave tn aeeiiinpany him, or reason w dy David should w nh difficulty and reluctance grant it. This was two full years after Amnon's affair with Tamar. Ho long a confinement as this in a king's eldest son, was itself a vety severe pun- ishment, and probably attended with several cncti instances, that rendered it peculiarly grievous. It is nut however consistent with candour to accuse men of faults, whicli there is no real proof of, and especially when there are some intimations, that theynevei committed them; or to aggravate them beyond the real demerit. One cannot help observing here, how David's adultery with Bathsheba was punished by his son's incest wilh his sister Tamar ; and as lie now saw the threatenings of God by Nathan beginning to lake place, he had too much reason to fear they should be all oi tlicm executed lo the full. It was a circumstance al-n that must greatly affect him, that he had been, though unwillingly, asorl of accessary lo Amnon'scrime, by yield- ing so readily to Amnon's desire, of having his sisiei sent to him; the very proposal he' made of her dressing and re- ceiving his food from her, seeming enough to create some suspicion in David, thai he had some design upon Tamar, which he ought to have been peculiarly careful to guard against. But probably Amnon had never offended him, nor given any occasion to suspect him capable of so heinous a crime, as lie was now meditating, and therefore David more easily consented, that his sister should have the liberty of attending him. — Chandler. Ver. 39. And the soul of King- David longed to go forth unto Absalom: for he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead. The Hebrew has, for longed, "was consumed." A person labouring under an intense desire fur the possession of an object, says, " My soul is consumed for it," meaning that his spirit is wasting away by the intensity of his wishes. " My life is burning away through fear." " My spirit is consuming for his safely." — Roeerts. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 2. And Joab sent to Tekoah, and feu hed tin nee a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign thyself to be a mourner, and put on now mournins: apparel, and anoint not thyself with oil, but be as a woman that had a long time mourned for the dead. It is a curious fact, that the Hindoos do not put on what is called mourning at the death of their friends. The relations take off their ear-rings and other ornaments, and neglect the dressing of their hair. A woman, on the death of her husband, takes off the lhali (equivalent to the mar- riage ring) from her neck ; and formerly she used lo shave her head ; but in all other respects she dTesses as before. Those who are sick, as ihey suppose, under the influence of Saturn, generallv wear something black, or have marks of that colour on their clothes, as they believe the indispo- sition is in this war removed. — Roberts. Ointments were in great esteem and constant use among the ancients, as the means of cleanliness, and to give a grateful odour to iheir bodies, as these ointmenis were mixed up with the richest perfumes. At iheii festivals, especially among the rich and prosperous, they used them for the refreshment of their guests, and to render the enter- tainment more acceptable and delightful. But as greai affliction and distress naturally create negligence of persci 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 14. and dress, they forbore anointing themselves at such sea- sons, as inconsistent with the condition of mourners. — Chandler. Ver. 7. And so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth. So said the woman of Tekoah, who went with a fictitious story to David, in order to induce him to recall Absalom. She affected to be a widow, and .said that one of her sons had killed the other, and that now the family demanded his life as an atonement for that of his ^brother; and she said, that if they succeeded they would quench her coal. But the life is' sometimes called the light, as in chap. xxi. 17, which in the margin is translated "candle, or lamp." Both the comparisons include the idea of fire. Formerly, and purchase their fire before they can cook their victuals. Hence it is common, when neighbours ask for a light in the morning, to be answered, by way of pleasantry, " You want fire— well, where is your money 1" Children in Ceylon are not called coals, but sparks. It is said of a man who has a large family, " He has plenty of porrekal, i. e. sparks." Those who are favoured with line children, are said to have large sparks. Of those whose children are all dead, " Alas ! their sparks are all quenched." To a person who is injuring an only child, it is said, " Ah ! leave him alone, he is the only spark." — Roberts. Ver. 1 7. Then thy handmaid said, The word of my lord the king; shall now be comfortable : for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king, to discern good and bad; therefore the Lord thy God will be with thee. Thus did the woman of Tekoah compliment David, and thus did Mephibosheth address him, when he had been slandered by Ziba. Great men are often compared to the messengers (the true meaning of angel) of the gods. Thus men of great wisdom or eloquence are said to be like the angels of the gods. " Ah ! my lord, you know all things : you are one of the angels of the gods." Sometimes the person will a it address you in a direct wayybut speak as to a third person, loud enough for you to hear. "Ah! what v. i-d.nn he has; there isnothing'concealed from him. Whence has he had his wisdom % from the gods — Yes, yes, all things are known to him." Then turning to you, they look humbly in your face, and say, " My lord, there are only two for me : God is the first ; but you are the second." —Roberts. The compliments which they addressed to their princes, and the manner in which they spoke of them, were not less hyperbolical. The address of the wise woman of Te- koah to David, furnishes a memorable example of the ex- iravagmt adulation in which they indulged, and which seems to have been received with entire satisfaction l>v one of the wisest and holiest of men: "As an angel of' God, so is my lord the king; to discern good and bad;" and again, " My lord is wise according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the' earth." Equally hyperbolical was the reply of a Persian grandee lo Chardin, who objected to the price which the king had set upon a pretty rich trinket : " Know that the kings of Persia have a general and full knowledge of matters, as sure as it is extensive ; and that equally in the greatest and in the smallest things, there is nothing more just and sure than what they pronounce." This incident admirably shows the strong prepossession of these Asiatics in favour of their kings, orralher of their own slavery ; and gives vime plausibility to the remark of Mr. Harmer, that there may be more of real persuasion in such addresses than we are ready to apprehend. In the estimation of the Persian courtier,' the knowledge of his prince was like that of an angel of God. If the ancient Egyptians supposed their princes were possessed of equal knowledge and sagacity, which is not improbable, the compliment of Judah to his brother Joseph was a very high one, and, at the same time, couched in the most artful terms: "Thou art even as Pharaoh;" knowing, and wise, and equitable as he. Rut i' cannot be inferred, with any degree of certainty, from these customs, that either the Persian grandee, or the brother of Joseph, really believed such compliments were due. The former, most probably, thought it incum- bent upon him to support the dignity of his master, espe- cially in the presence of many of his nobles, or expressed himself in such extravagant terms, merely in compliance with the etiquette of the court ; and as for Judah, it was his desire to sooth with good words and fair speeches the second ruler in Egypt, whose resentment he knew it was death to incur; and no compliment could be supposed * more acceptable to an Egyptian grandee, than the one which he paid to his unknown brother. The same remark applies, with little variation, to the woman of Tekoah ; her design was to sooth the mind of her sovereign, to mitigate, and, if possible, to extinguish his just resentment of the atrocious murder which Absalom had committed, and procure the restoration of the fratricide to his country, and the presence of his father. — Paxton. Ver. 24. And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face. So Absalom returned to his own house, and saw not the king's face. Few things are more offensive in the East than to re- fuse to show yourself to those who come to see you. Send your servant to say you are engaged, or that the individua. may go, and he "will be distressed, or enraged, and not hesitate to express his feelings. Should there, however, be any reason to hope, he will wait for hours at your door, nay, he will come day after day, till he shall have seen your face. They have an opinion, that if they once gain admission into your presence, a great point is attained, and so it is; for, what with their eloquence, and tears, and abject submissions, they seldom fail to make an impres- sion. Even low people, who have no particular business., often call upon you that they may be able to say that they have seen vour face. When a person says he has not seen the face of the great man, it means, that he has not gained his suit. See the high caste native passing along the road ; an humble suppliant is there to attract his attention : and let him turn his face another way, and it is a dagger through the poor man's soul. — Roberts. Ver. 26. And when he polled his head, (for it wns at every year's end that he polled it ; because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it :) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight. See on 1 Pet. 3. 3. The eastern ladies are remarkable for the lengih, and the great number of the tresses of their hair : the men there, on the contrary, wear very little hair on their heads now, but they do not seem always to have done so. That the eastern women now are remarkable for the quantity of the hair of their heads, and their pride in adorning it, ap-. pears from the quotation from Dr. Shaw under a precedine observation. Lady Mary Wortley Montague abund; ntly confirms it : their " hair hangs at full lengih behind," she tells us, " divided into tresses'braided with pearl or rib; in' . which is also in great quantity. I never saw in my life so many fine heads of hair. In one lady's'I have count il a hundred and ten of these tresses, all natural; but it must be owned that every kind of beauty is more common here than with us." The men there, on the contrary, shave all the hair off their heads, excepting one lock; and those that wear their hair are thought effeminate, I have met with both these particulars in Sir J. Chardin. As to the last, h- says in his note on 1 Cor. xi. 14, that what the A.pu le men ii ns there is the custom of the Easl : the mer are shaved, the women nourish their hair with great fond- ness, which tliev lengthen by tresses and tufts of silk, down to the heels. The young men who -near then hair, in the Erst, are looked upon as effeminate and infamous. Il appears from this passage of the Corinthians, that in the davs of St. Paul, the women wore their hair long, the men short, and that the Apostle thought this a natural di-.- tinetion. I; does nut however appear it was always thought so, or, at least, that the wearing longhair by the men was thought infam. us, since it was esteemed a beauty in Absa- < II V I' a SAMUEL. 217 lom, '2 Sam. xiv. 96. That passage is curious, and requires ■■:, ration, as being attended with s< difficul- ties; and, I am aliaid, somewhat improperly explained. The weight erf the hair, win -h seems in i i lously ■ in ■ ii.n -Tins to the i I. Two bon- is, ai i wo hundred anil ninety giains each, make i. .!■■■, lii i ■■■ ih. iii I mill it. lit hundred grains. 'I'ln . \- ralh'ir more than one hundred ouncesavoirdiipni.s, Ibi lour Imndn-d and I liii t\-si>vt-n grams and a half are equal to, unee. It is a very g I I luirli h li I am lo'd, that weigh-; live ounces; n \l ae hundred ounces, it was very ei i , learned men, I think, have believed a royal shekel was bill hall the weight of the sacred shekel; be> imiv ounces, ten limes the weight of a g«>d British bead of hair, seems to be too great an allowa To suppose, as some have dour, thrjt adventitious m. liters, united with the hair, are to be taken in to make up the •us to me not a little idle: what proof would this have hern of his possessing an extraordinary fine head af hair, sun.- ii would be possible to attach to the hair of a man half hah!, substances that should weigh one hundred 1 lommentators then should by no mean talk ol the oil, the fragrant SUb lances, the gold dust, with which • the hair might be powpered, as making up •his weigh;: they might as well nave added ornaments of gold, ribands, or what answered them, artificial tresses of hair, and all the matters that are now in different methods fastened to the hair: but would not this have been ridicu- lous : It is more reasonable lo say, the present reading may be faulty, as in other cases there have frequently beeu mistakes in numbers; or that we were not sure what num- ber of grams two hundred shekels, after the king's weight, was equal to ; than to attempt to remove the difficulty by such an incompetent method. It was an uncommonly fine head of b tir, nf very unusual weight, which is all that we know with certainty about it. The shivmg off all this hair, for so the original word signifies, is a second thing that seems very strange. It was this thought, I should imagine, that led our translators to render the word by the English term polled, or cut short: for n s , ins very unaccountable, that a prince who prided himself so much in the quantity of his hair, should annually shave it oil" quite close ; and for what purpose % would not nng of it have relieved him from its excessive weight I not to say, that the hair of one year's growth can, in the common course of things, he of no great length, or weigh very much. The word elsewhere signifies to shave off all the hair: is opposed to polling, or trimming the hair a little bv shortening it; and was necessary in order to gain the knowledge of the true weight of the hair. Mourners shaved themselves. Job i. 90; and those that had been in a state of bitterness when they presented themselves before Icings, as appeals from what is related of Joseph, Gen. \li. 1 I: if then "from the end of days," which is the origi- nal expression, maybe understood to mean at the end of 'he time of his returning lo his own house, and not seeing the king's face, instead of at the end of the year, then the shaving himself may be thought to express one single action, and to describe, in part, the manner in which he presented himself before the king. This would make the prophetic account very natural. Butthen the word -i=3 kabed, translated heavy, must be understood in another sense, a sense in which it is sometimes used, if we have no regard to the Masoretic points, namely, as signifying in glory, or honour, or something of that sort. And so the general meaning of the passage will he. "And when he shaved his head, .and it was in the end of the days, of the days of his disgrace, that is, at the time in which he was to shave, because it was a glory upon him, and he shaved himself and weighed the hair of his head, two hundred shekels altar the King's weight." But does not St. Paul suppose, that nature teaches us, that if a man have long hair, it is shame unto him. 1 Cor. xi. Ill He certainly does ; Ab- salom's hair however is evidently spoken of in the hook of Samuel, as what was thought to be part of his beauty, 2 Sam. xiv. 25: whether it was that they had different notions on this point in the age of David ; or that they thought it -ather effeminate, but however a beauty. — Hirmer. CHAPTER XV. Yer. 13. And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom. 14. And David said unto all his ser vauts that mere, with him at Jerusalem, A rise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape from Absalom'; make speed to depart, lest be over- take us suddenly, and bring evil upon its, and smite the city with the edge of the sword. One cannot help being surprised, at first view, how so excellent a prince as David was, who had ■ 1 dom "I I i .ill to SO high a degree of glory and power, who had subdued and rendered tributary all the neighbouring nations, which had so often oppressed them, who had made thebestand wisest regulations for the honoural1' ance of the solemnities of their public worship, who, in the whole course of his reign, had administered justice and judgment to all his people, and who certainly deserved to I..- loved i nd esteemed by all ranks and degrees i f them; for the happiness they enjoyed under Ins government; I say, one cannot help wondering at the sudden revolution that was brought about in favour of an ungrateful and pet- fidious son, who was well known to havestained his hands with the blood of his elder brother. But there were many things that concurred to bring it about. By the dei Ih ol Amnon he became heir-apparent tothecrouii.ai.il being suspicious lhat the kinghis father might exclude him from the succession, upon the account of his character and cum. s. he resolved to stick at no measures to obtain his ambitious views, and put it out of his father's power to set him aside. To accomplish this, being the handsomest man in Israel, he showed himself everywhere in public, to captivate with, his person all that beheld him. He then set up a princely equipage to attract their admiration of his splendour and magnificence. He treated all that approached him with great condescension and affability; and as any were ap- proaching the city from the other tribes of Israel, to have their causes heard before the king, he, in the most friendly manner, inquired of them, of what tribe they were, and hoped their cause was good; but reproached his father with remissness of government, and neglect of his people ; telling them, that how just soever their cause was, they could have no audience, and that there was no man depu- ted of the king to hear them ; wishing, for their sakes, that he was constituted a judge in the land, that every man, who had any suit or cause, might come to him, and have imme- diate justice done him ; and thus persuaded them to return home, without making any application for a hearing, dis- contented with the king's government, and highly pleased with Absalom's condescension and goodness; greatly dis- posed to spread disaffection and sedition in the places to which they respectively belonged. And in order to secure the popularity he courted, whoever approached him to pay their respectsto him, as the king's son, he familiarly look by the hand and embraced him. By lliese means he won the af- fections of great numbers among all the tribes; who, though probably at first they had nod. ... he king, and advancing Absalom in his room, wished tosee him intrust- ed with the principal administration of affairs under his father, and were willing to enter into any measures with him to obtain it, and to prevent his exclusion from the throne after his father. Besides this, he sent emissaries throughout all the tribes to strengthen his interest, and to secure a good body of men to join him, whenever his affairs required their assistance. Absalom did not at first open his intentions of dethroning his father, but wished only to be a judge in the land ; fol- low',ng herein the crafty counsel of Ahilhophel, who was David's chief counsellor, and treated by him as his intimate friend, and who having been admitted 'to his secrets, proba- bly informed Absalom of his father's design to exclude him from the succession, in favour of one of his younger breth- ren ; advising him, what steps he should take in order to prevent it. His appearance to countenance the rebellion allured manv to become partners in it, as he was esteemed the ablest politician in the kingdom. What added further strength to it was, Amasa, David's own nephew, joined the conspiracy, and putting himself at the head of the rebel army, who, by his relation to the king, was a man of great consequence, and an able soldier, and who therefore would be thought by manv incapable of entering into a conspiracy against his uncle to dethrone him, without some very great 218 2 SAMUEL Chap. 15. and justifiable causes. It may be added, that Absalom's carrying off with him two hundred of the principal citizens of Jerusalem, and retaining them with his followers at Hebron, where the standard of the rebellion was first set up, added to the credit of the cause, and drew in many to abet and support it, who could not know but they engaged voluntarily in Absalom', party, and were not drawn in to espouse his interesl by 6nh lety and force! Nor' must it be e providence of God permitted the con- viilini!! discovery, and to arise to that David from his throne, and thus bring !■■ had ihicatened him with by for his sin m the matter of Bathshf ha ic-se cireunis'aix. s together considered, forgot her Iher, suspected nothi and who appeal spe d v, but some of therefore made him take the resolution of retiring from Jerusalem, to prevent his he mg, su rprisedbv a superior force, that he knew himself unable to resist. But then it should be considered, that this sudden insurrection was not the effect of a genera! or national disaffection to his person and government. This is evident from many hints in the sa- cred history. The best partof the inhabitants of Jerusalem were firmly attached to him, and followed him in his retreat from the capital, and all the country through which he went, showed their affection to him bv loud acclamations. The Cherethites and Pelethites, the Citti'. s. and the ablest of his officers, continued steadfast in their attachment to him, and fallowed his fortune. The ti ibes on the other side Jordan gladly received him, and the richest persons of that coun- try supplied him and his forces with all necessary provi- sions, and he soon collected among them an army suffi- cient to check the rebels, and at one blow to crush the lebellion. And this was no sooner known, than the tribes in general were till in motion to show' their loyalty to the king, and restore him to his throne and government. The truth is, that David was surprised unawares and unprovi- ded, by a wicked and impious faction, who had, by their emissaries, drawn together a large body of men, wherever they could pick them up, among all the tribes; gaining revenge, though at the expense of the religion, liberties, and prosperity of their country. And it is therefore no won- der, that this rebellion, which was evidently contrary to the general sense and inclination of the people, was so suddenly suppressed, and David's restoration to his throne and gov- ernment was immediately resolved on by the unanimous consent of all the tribes of Israel ; whereby God was gra- ciously pleased to put an end to his troubles, bringing him in safety to his capital and palace, and preserving his life, ill he happily settled the succession on Solomon his son, .he wisest of princes, and the most prosperous monarch in ihe world. — Chandler. Ver. 30. And David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and1 wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot. Thus did David conduct himself in his sorrow, when Absalom had rebelled against him. But the Hindoos do not cover the head ;• they take a part of their robe and cover the face. In going to a funeral, the turban is gener- llly taken off, and a part of the garment is held over the face. Nor is this merely common at fu; erals, for on all occasions of deep sorrow" they observe the same thing. At lie or private, they not only stripped themselves of these t-rr.anienis, but of their very shoes, and walked barefoot. In this manner, prisoners taken in war were forced to walk, both for punishment and disgrace. — Birder. Ver. 32. And it came to pass, that when David was come to the top of the mount, where he worshipped God, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat rent, and eaitll upon his head: 33. Unto whom David said, If thou passest on with me, then thou shalt bo a burden unto me : 34. But if thou return to the city, and say unto Absalom, I will be thy servant, O king ;, as I have been thy father's « servant hitherto, so will 1 now also be thy set vant: then mayest thou for me defeal the coun- sel of Ahithopifel. Mr. Bayle calls this " the most treacherous piece of villa- ny that can be imagined." But he might have spared the reflection, for he could easily have produced instances of much greater villany than this- practised for the most crim- inal and execrable purposes. Hushai 's treachery was to prevent the effects of the most detestable treachery, and an instance of loyalty and fidelity to his king and country. His villany was the dictate of public spirit and patriotism, and to counteract the plots of a most desperate and bloody villain, who advised the murder of a father, and incest with his wives, in support of an unnatural, ambiious, and desperate son. How far these policies of princes and gieai men, are reconcileable wilh the rules of those rigid casuists of which Mr. Bayle speaks, I pretend not to determine. This I know, that without these and the like stratagen s, government cannot be frequently supported, and that fhc most nefarious attempts to destroy all that is valuable to mankind can never be defeated; and that they have been practised by the best and wisest of princes, who have been so far from being blamed on account of them, as that .they have been recorded as the proofs of their wisdom, and re- gard to the honour and interest of their country. And this Mr. Bayle himself confesses, when he says, that "strata- gems of this nature are undoubtedly very laudable, if we judge of things according to human prudence, and the pol- itics of sovereigns." If David therefore acted in this af- fair, according to the rules of human prudence, and the constant policy of sovereigns, why should he be censured more than other great and excellent princes, who have act- ed like him? Especially as he had "none of those rigid casuists about him, who' judged this conduct unworthy a saint and an honest man. Supposing this conduct not quite reconcileable with the rules of rigid casuistry, yet, if David was not acquainted with them, he might possibly be a saint and an honest man, if he did not regard them. " If Hushai had stabbed Absalom to the heart, under pretence of friend- ship, as Brutus did Cfesar, must not those who defend Eru- tus, defend Hushai tool But is it a more base and crimi- nal part, by pretences of friendship, to betray a tyrant's, a usurper's, a parricide's counsels, than, in like circumstances, to assassinate him? I leave David's censurers fairly to state this important point of casuistry : Whether it be in it- self absolutely unlawful to make use of stratagems, i. e. arts of deception, in the management of wars between princes and states: If not, in what instances they are law- ful, and reconcileable with the rigid rules of morality and virtue. When these points are settled, we shall be the bel- ter able to determine con. ■eming the morality and honesty of David and his friend Hushai in Ihe instance before us: and. till this is done, Mr. Bayle's charges will appear to be uncandid and groundless. I have only to add, that David's character, as a man after God's own heart, in the scripture sense of i'. bv no means implies, that, as a prince, he should always act according to the rules of morality laid down by rigid casuists; or, that he should not, in Ihe management of his wars, and defeating unnatural rebellions, act with the usual policy of wise and good princes, and make use of proper stratagems, when necessary to the defence of his coii'nirv, and the safety of his person. In Cicero's consulate, the conspiracy of Catiline broke | ut, and it was fully discovered by that great consul's vigi- lance, prudence, and policy. Ambassadors from the Allc- I broge's, the ancient fthatrftants of Savoy and Piedmont. I were then at Ron*. * solicit the senate for the removal of C II A IV 11) 2 SAMUEL B19 iheir grievances. Unibreuius, one of .he conspirators, at- tempted 10 in 1 1 1 •_■ hit ihese ambassado e, to engage in the 'scheme thai had been concerted for the dastrnction of Rome, hi order to tins be opened to them the nature of ■■ j . named ihe principal persons concerned in i . .-in.] ; i.niiiN.-ci them everything they desired, if they « ul. I eng tee their nation to join with them in support of i I'll,- ;, upon consul i ing tin nll'air, discov- ered the whole conspiracy to Fabius Sanga, as they had Iii-.i informed of it by Umbrenius. Sanga immediately i ill with it, and introduced the anihas-.a- ■ives to him. What doth he do'! Why, like a .1 and ungodly man, as the scrupulous and ti iteou Mr. Bay le to be sore thought him, bid them car- ry ,ui the pretence, warmly favouring the conspiracy, ga to as many of the conspirators as they could, make them fair promises) and use all their endeavours fully to discovei them. The ambassadors, as Cicero ordered, met them, inded from the chief of them an oath, to be signed iri h their own hand, that their countrymen might be more c i-ily induced, to give Ihem that assistance which they de- sired of them. They all but one, without SUspi design, signed the oath. The ambassadors discovered all I.) Cicero, who immediately seized the principal conspira- tor-, and greatly rejoiced, 'that as the conspiracy was dis- • ■ ivered, the city was delivered from the danger that im- threatCned it. The senate thought that Cicero ba I acted a noble patriotic part, for they immediately de- creed, that public thanks should be given to him in the an manner, by whose virtue, counsel, and provi- republic was delivered from the extremest dan- gers; and that a public thanksgiving should be rendered to '■i Cicero's name, for his having delivered the b ting laid in ashes, the citizens from a massacre, and Italy from a war. Now did Cicero act in this affair as a patriot and an honest man? Or did he, by this policy, damn himself, and damn the ambassadors ? by causing them to feign, that they embraced the parly of those men, they designed effectually to destroy 1 What censure would e undergone, had he suffered the conspiracy to lake place, and his country to be ruined, by refusing to in ike ii^e of that policy which was necessary to discover and defeat the conspiracy ? Of two evils, it is an old max- im) a man must choose the least, when he is under the ne- cessity of submitting t'1 one. Thus were David and Cicero circumstanced. They both chose the patriotic part; and, as Cicero is justly celebrated as the Father and Saviour of his country, from the ruin that was intended, David will deserve the like commendation, for defeating, by like meas- ures, the projects of impious conspirators, and' delivering the nation from the destruction that threatened them. — Chandler. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. I. And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Ziba the servant of Mephi- bosheth met him, with a couple of asses sad- dled, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and a hundred bunches of raisins, and a hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine. See on 2 Kings 4. 8. Ziba met David, according to the sacred hislorian,2Sam. xvi. 1, with a couple of asses, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred bunches of raisins, a hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine. These summer fruits the Septuaginl supposes were dales, but the more common opinion is that thev were figs, which it seems was that also of the Chaldee paraphrast. Grotins, however, supposes the original word signifies the fruits of trees in general. I cannot adopt any of these opinions. If the notes of distinction are not numerous enough, or sufficiently clear, to determine with precision what the fruit was, I believe thev are sufficient to salisl'v us that these authors were mistaken. We may gather three things relating to them: thzt ihrv were of some considerable size, since their quantity was estimated bv tale; that thev came before the bean season was ended, for after ihis we find that the inhab- itants of the country bevond Jordan sent to David, along with o:her provisions, quantities of beans, 2 Sam. xviii. 28, they being things, according to Dr. Shaw, that, afier they are boiled and stewed with oil and gallic, constitute the principal food, in the spring, of persons of all distinctions! and they were thought by Ziba a suit) hie n fr< shmenl to those that were travelling in a wilderness, where it was to !"■ supposed they would be thirsty as well a hungry Nothing then could be more unhappy, oi more strongly mark out the inattention of the iituislniois of tin for il cannot be imagined they urn- ignorant of these mat- ters, than the rendering ihis wold, in this place, dates, which arc Hi in summer, nor suited td allay the heat of thai season : Dr. Poeocke observing that they are not ripe till November; ami that they arc esteemed of a hot nature, Providence seeming to have designed them, as they are warm food, to roinfoit the stomach, he thinks, during the cold season, in a country w here it litis not given wine, for he is there speaking concerning Egypt. Wher then I find that wntrrmtlnns grow spontaneously in thes» hot countries, are made us,. ,,| by the Arabs of the Hoh Land in summer instead of water, to quench their thirst and are purchased as of the greatest use to travellers in thirsty deserts; and that cucumbers are very much 086(1 still in that country to mitigate the heat; 1 am very much inclined to believe these summer fruits were not the pro- duce of trees, but of this class of herbs, which creep alonsr the ground, and produce fruits of a cooling inoistnie. : ml very large in proportion to the size of the plant. They could scarcely however be udtermeUnu, I imagine, because they do not begin to gather them before June ; but mourn- bers, which come in May, and were actually eaten in Gali- lee the latter end of that month by Dr. Pococke. he ha\ ing stopped at an Arab tent, where 'they prepared him eggs and sour milk, he tells us, cutting into it raw cucumbers as a cooling diet in that season, which he found very hot cucumbers continued at Aleppo to the end of July, and an brought again to market in September and < U consequently are contemporaries with grapes and olives, according to Jer. xl. 10—12, as well as with beans and lentils. Dr. Russel also tells us that the squash comes in towards the end of September, and continues all the year: but that the orange-shaped pumpion is more common in the summer months. Of one or other of these kinds of fruit, I should think the writer of 2 Sam. designed to be under- stood: they are all more or less of considerable size; ^Jiey are contemporary with beans; and fit for them that have to travel through a dry wilderness, in the Jailer pan of the spring, when the weaiher grows hot, as Pococke found it, about which time, from the circumstance of the beans rmd the lentils, it is plain that David fled from Absalom. If this be allowed, it will appear that they were called summer fruits, from their being eaten to allay the summer heats, not from their being dried in the summer, as Vatablus strangely imagines; nor from their being produced only that time of the year; for this passage shows that they were come to maturity before beans went out, and conse- quently before summer. — I1ahmf.ii. Ver. 3. And the king; said. And where is thj master's son? And Ziba said unto the kino behold he abideth at Jerusalem : for he said, to-day shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father. 4. Then said the king to Ziba, Behold, thine are all that pertained unto Mephibosheth. And Ziba said, I humbly beseech thee that I may find grace in thy sight, my lord, O king. Not the least material exception that objectors mak< to David's conduct, in this period of time, is his making ; grant of Mephibosheth's estate to a perfidious servant without ever giving the master a fair hearing. But, how could David have leisure to send for Mephibosheth from mount Olivet to Jerusalem, and inquire into the merits of the cause depending between him and his servant, when be was in so great a hurry, and under Sight from the aims o! his rebel sonl Or how could he su] pose that Zibn could have dared to have told him so no orious a lie, when it might in a short time be disproved < Every en in short, on Ziba's side, looked well, but none on his mas- ter's. To his master, David had been extremely .rind, in restoring him to the forfeited estate of his grandfather Siul 220 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 16 and in allowing him to eat at his own table, as one of the King's sons; and now, at the general rendezvous of his friends, David might well have expected that the person to whom he had extended so many favours, should not have >een so negligent of his duty, as to absent himself, unless it had been upon some extraordinary business; and therefore, when Ziba acquaints him with the occasion of his absence, though it was a mere fiction, yet with David it might find a readier credence, because, at this time, he had reason to mistrust even-body; and seeing his own family discon- certed and broken, might think "the crown liable to fall to any new claimant that could pretend to the same right of succession that Mephibosheth might. On the contrary, every thing appeared bright and plausible on Ziba's side. He, though but a servant, came to join the king, and in- stead of adhering to his master's pretended schemes of advancement, had expressed his duty to his rightful sov- ereign, in bringing him a considerable present, enough to engage bis good opinion. The story that he told of his master likewise, though utterly false, was cunningly con- trived, and filly accommodated to the nature of the times ; so that, in this situation of affairs, as wise a man as David illicit have been induced to believe the whole to be true, and upon the presumption of its being so, might have pro- ceeded to pass a judgment of forfeiture (as in most eastern countries even- crime against the state was always attend- ed with such a forfeiture) upon Mephibosheth's estate, and to consign the pos>ession'of it to another. All that David can therefore be blamed for, in this whole transaction, is an error in judgment, even when he was imposed upon by the plausible tale of a sycophant, and had no opportunity of coming at the truth : but upon his return to Jerusalem, when Mephibosheth appears before him, and pleads his own cause, we find this the decision of it. — " Why speakest thou any more of thy matters 1 I have said, thou and Ziba divide the land :" which words must not be understood as if he appointed at the time an equal division of the estate between Mephibosheth and his servant, (for where would the justice of such a sentence be?) but rather, that lie re- voked the order he had given to Ziba, upon the supposed forfeiture of his master, and put things now upon the same establishment they were at first. " I have said," i. e. " My first grant shall stand, when I decreed that Mephibosheth should be lord of the whole estate, and Ziba his steward to manage it for him." Thus, though we are not obliged to vindicate David in every passage of his life, and think some of the crving sins he was guilty of utterly inexcusa- ble, yet (if we except these) we cannot but 'think that, although he was a very tender and indulgent parent, yet he was no encourager of vice in his own family, or tame con- niver at it in others, had he not been restrained, by reasons of state, sometimes from punishing it ; that he was true to his promises, just in his distributions, and prudent, though not crafty, in his military transactions; "of a singular presence of mind, (as Josephus speaks of him,) to make the best of what was before him, and of as sharp a foresight for improving of all advantages, and obviating all difficul- ties, that were like to happen ;" tender to all persons in distress, kind to his friends, forgiving to his enemies, and, when at any lime he was forced to use severity, was only in retaliation of what other people had done to him. — Stackhodse. Ver. 13. And as David and his men went by the way, Shimei went along- on the hill's side over arrainst him, and cursed as he went, and threw stones at him, and cast dust. Wlm, in the East, has not often witnessed a similarscene 1 Listen to the maledictions: they are of such a nature that evil spiri's onlv could have suggested them. Look at the enraged miscreant: he dares not come near for fear of punishment, but he stands at a distance, vociferates his imprecations, violently throws about his hands ; then stoops to the ground, and takes up handfuls of dust, throws it in the air, and exclaims, " Soon shalt thou be as that— thy mouth shall soon be full of it— look, look, thou cursed one, as this dust, so shall thou be." — Roberts. In the East, the right of calling an offender to account is claimed either bv the person who receives the injury, or liis nearest relation ; and the same person, with the per- mission or connivance of his people, sustains at once the character of party, judge, and executioner. In such a state of things, we are not to be surprised if the exercise of justice be 'often precipitate and tumultuary. The act of the Philistines, in burning the spouse of Samson and her father with fire, was entirely of this character; not the result of a regular sentence, but the summary vengeance of an incensed multitude. In the law of Moses, the right of the private avenger was distinctly recognised ; but to prevent the dreadful effects of sudden and personal ven- geance, cities of refuge were appointed at convenient dis- tances through the land of promise, to which the manslayer might fiee for safety, till he could be brought to a regular trial, before a court of justice. In almost every part of Asia, those who demand justice against a criminal throw dust upon him, signifying that he deserves to lose his life, and be cast into the grave; and that this is the true inter- pretation of the action, is evident from an imprecation in common use among the Turks and Persians, Be covered with earth ; Earth be upon thy head. We have two re- markable instances of casting dust recorded in scripture; the first is that of Shimei, w-ho gave vent to his secret hos- tility to David, when he fled before his rebellious son, by throwing stones at him, and casting dust. It was an an- cient custom, in those warm and arid countries, to lay the dust before a person of distinction, and particularly before kings and princes, by sprinkling the ground with water. To throw dust into the air while a person was passing, was therefore an act of great disrespect ; to do 4o before a sovereign prince, an indecent outrage. But it is clear from the explanation of the custom, that Shimei meant more than disrespect and outrage to an afflicted king, whose subject he was; lie intended to signify by that action, that David was unfit to live, and that the time was at last arrived to offer him a sacrifice to the ambition and ven- geance of the house of Saul. — Paxton. Ver. 20. Then said Absalom to Ahithophel, Give counsel among you what we shall do. 21. And Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Go in unto thy father's concubines, which he hath left to keep the house ; and all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thjr father. The wives of the conquered king w-ere always the prop- erty of the conqueror: and, in possessing these, he ap- peared to possess the right to the kingdom. Herodotus, b. iii. cap. 68. informs us, that Smerdis having seized on the Persian throne, after the death of Cambyses, espoused all the wives of his predecessor. The choosing or confirming of a new king in Guinea, seldom continues long in dispute: for the eldest son no sooner hears of the king's death, than he immediately makes his interest among his friends, to take possession of the late king's court and wives: and succeeding happily in these particulars, he need not doubt the remainder, for the commonalty will not easily consent that after that he shall be driven from the throne: this seems somewhat like Ab- salom's design on his father David. To accomplish this design, the Vonnger brother's party are always careful enough that he is near at hand, in order to take possession of the court. (Bosnian's Guinea.) The name of Quiteva is common lo the sovereign lord of the country bordering on the river Sofala in Ethiopia. He maintains a number of wives, the chief of whim are his near relations, and are denominated his queens ; the residue are regarded merely as concubines. As soon as the Guileva ceases to live, a successor is chosen, capable of governing with wis- dom and prudence; and, indeed, should he be deficient in this respect, it would be enough that a majority of the king's concubines should join in his favour, as on these the possession of the throne depends. He therefore re- pairs to the roval palace, where he meets with some of the concubines of the late king, and with their consent he seats himself on the throneVepared for him in the midst of a large hall ; when seated here, a curtain is drawn be- fore him and his wives: hence he issues orders for hi> proclamation through the streets; this is the signal for the people to flock to render him homage and swear obedience, a ceremony which is performed amid great rejoicings.— Burder. Chap. 17. 2 SAMl'EI, 221 From the polygamy of the Israelitish monarcns, fare trose a singular'law, which I can only illioti at >■ h\ f\;.iu- plee from the Bible, without finding any thing similar in profane history; which, however, only makes pies the clearer, ii consisted in this, that the suceessor 10 the crown inherited the seraglio of his predecessor; ami it was considered as a step to the throne, even to tnurry the mistresses "i the decea ed monarch. In this way, David succeeded to the concubim s of Saul, althon [h he was Ins father in-law, •.' Sam. xii. 8. And atler he had lied from Absalom, Ahiihophel, who is described as a man of the greatest abilities, as well as the greatesl wieked- ia's , eiiinsellcil this rebellions son to lie publicly Willi his lather's ten concubines, to annihilate, in hesitating minds, all hope of a reconciliation between them; 2 Sam. xvi. '21 — 23. Now incest is such an abominable crime, and so expressly contrary to the Mosaic law, that such proceedings must have been followed by the ne-si direful consequences, if these concubines had not' been considered, noi as David's, but as the king's ; and as belonging to the state, nol to the individual; so that sleeping with them formed part of the ceremony of taking possession of the throne.— After David's death, Bathsheba, the mother of his successor. Solomon, was entreated by his brother Adonijah, to obtain the royal permission to marry Abishag, the Bhunamite. But Solo- mon so fully saw through his brother's designs, and what effect the acceding to his request would have among the it he answered his mother, "Rather ask the Kingdom for him too," and immediately caused him to be put to death, 1 Kings ii. 13— -!.r>. Of the origin of this Strange law I can find no traces in the great kingdoms of the Ivist; and yet most certainly these kings of Israel, as yet but novices in royalty, must have derived it, not from Is- raelitish, but foreign usage. It could scarcely have arisen in an hereditary kingdom, in •« hieh such incestuous proce- dure would have become too notorious and disgusting. Most probably it first arose among the beggarly elective monarchies in the neighbourhood, where it was 'found too expensive to provide every new king with a new seraglio; perhaps in the kingdom of Edom, whose needy practices the Israelites were wont at first to adopt. After Solomon's lime, I find no further traces of it. — Michaelis. OHAPTER XVII. Ver. 8. For, 'said Hushai, thou knowest thy fa- ther and his men. that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people. The Hindoos are as much afraid of bears as any other animal in the forest ; hence, when the letter-carriers and others have to travel through districts infested by them, they are always armed with a crooked knife, in the shape of a sickle: thus, when the bear is preparing to give them a hug, one cut from the instrument will send it off'. When the fe- male is robbed of her whelps, she is said to be more fierce than any other animal : hence, many sayings refer to her rage, and are applied to the fury of violent men. " 1 will tear ihee-to pieces as a bear which has cubbed." " Begone, or I will jump upon thee as a bear." When a termagant goes with her children to scold, it is said, " There goes the she-bear and her whelps." — Roberts. The furious passions of the female bear never mount so high, nor burn so fiercely, as when she is deprived of her voting. When she returns to her den, and misses the ob- ject of her love and care, she becomes almost frantic wilh rage. Disregarding every consideration of danger to her- self, she attacks wilh great ferocity everyanim.il lien comes in her way; and in the bitterness of her heart will dare to attack even a band of armed men. The Russians of Kamt- schatka never venture to fire on a young bear when the mother is near: for if the cub drop, she becomes enraged to a degree little short of madness, and if she sets sight of the enemy, will only quit her revenge with her life. (Cook's Voyages.) A more desperate attempt can scarcely be per- formed than to carry off her young in her absence. Her scent enables her to track the plunderer; and unless he has reached some place of safety before the infuriated ani- mal overtake him, his only safety is in dropping one of the cubs, and continuing to flee; for the mother, attentive to iis safety, cat lies it home to her den before she renews the pursuit.— Burdkb. Ver. 12. So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall lie found, and we will light upon him as the dew liilleth on the gn This is very beautiful and expressive. The dew in Palestine, as in several cither climates, tails fast and sudden. and is therefore no unapt emblem of an active, expeditious soldiery, It was, perhaps, for this reason that the Romans called iheir light-aimed forces JRorarii. The dew falls upon every spot of the earth; not a blade of grass escapes it. A numerous army resembles it in this respect. It is able to search everywhere. — Birder. Ver. 13. Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes lo that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there be not one small stone found there. On advancing, the chopdars or heralds proclaimed the titles of this princely cow-keeper, Futty Sihng, in the usual hyperbolical style. One of the most 'insignificant looking men I ever saw, then became the destroyer of nations, the leveller of mountains, the exhauster of the ocean. After commanding every inferior mortal lo make way for this exalted prince, the' heralds called aloud to the animal cre- ation, Retire, ye serpents; fly, ye locusts; approach not, guanas, lizards, and reptiles, while your lord and master condescends to set his foot on the earth ! Arrogant as this language may appear, it is less so than the oriental pageant- ry in general'. The sacred writings afford many instances of such hyperbole. None more so than Hushai's speech te Absalom. — Forbes. Ver. 17. Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed by En-rogel ; (for they might not be seen to come into the city :) and a wench went and told them : and they went and told King David. In the East, the washing of foul linen is performed bv women by the sides of rivers and fountains. Dr. Chandler ( Travels' in Asia Minor, p. 21) says, that " the women re- sort to the fountains by the houses, each with a two-han- dled earthen jar on her back, or thrown over her shoulder, for water. They assemble at one without the village or town, if no river" be near, to wash their linen, which is al- terward spread on the ground or bushes to dry." May not this circumstance, says Mr. Harmer, serve to confirm the conjecture, that the young woman that was sent to En-rogel, went out of the city with a bundle of linen, as if she were going to wash if! Nothing was more natural, or better calculated to elude jealousy. — Burder. Ver. 19. And the woman took and spread a _> covering over the well's mouth, and spread ground com therecn ; and the. thing was not This was done to conceal Jonathan and Ahimaaz, who had gone down the well to escape frormthe servants of Ab- ■ I Wells in the East have their mouths level with the ground, hence, nothing is more easy than to put a mat or COVi ring over the opening to conceal them from the sight. Who has not seen corn or flour spread en mats in the sen to dry 1 The woman affected to have this object in view when she spread a covering over the well: her "ground corn'' was spread thereon to dry in the sun. The men were in the well, and when Absalom's servants came, and inquired, " Where is Ahimaaz and Jonathan :" she said, " They be gone over the brook of water." In the Kandian war great numbers were required to follow the army as bearers, cooks, and messengers, and such was the aversion of the people to the duty, that government was obliged to use force to compel them to go. And it was no uncommon thing, when the officers were seen to approach a cottage, for the husband or sons to be concealed as were Ahimaaz and Jonathan.— Roberts. 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 18. Ver. 28. Brought beds, and basins, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched com, and beans, and lentiles, and parch- ed pulse. Parched corn is a kind of food still retained in the East, as Hasselquist informs us : " On the road from Acre to Seide, we saw a herdsman eating his dinner, consisting of half-ripe ears of wheat, which he roasted and ate with as good an appetite as a Turk does his pillau. In Egypt such food is much eaten by the poor, being the ears of maize or Turkish wheat, and of their durra, which is a kind of millet. When this food was first invented, art was in a simple state ; yet the custom is still continued in some nations, where the inhabitants have not even at this time learned to pamper nature." The flour of parched barley is the chief provision winch the Moors of West Barbary make for travelling. It is indeed much used as a part of their diet at home. '• What is most used by travellers is zumeet, tumeet, or (lour of parched barley for limereece. They are all three made of parched barley-flour, which they carry in a leath- ern satchel. Zumeet is the flower mixed with honey, but- ter, and spice ; tumeet is the same flour done up with origan oil ; and limereece is only mixed with water, and so drank. This quenches thirst much better than water alone, satiates a hungry appetite, cools and refreshes tired and weary spirits, overcoming those ill effects which a hot sun and fatiguing journey might occasion." (Jones.) Mr. Harmer proposes this extract as an illustration of the passage now i-iied. — Burder. Ver. 29. And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people. This, perhaps, was flesh of kine, or beef, prepared in such a manner as we- call potted, by beating and bruising. The eastern people in modern times prepare potted flesh for food on a march or journey. Thus Busbequius, speak- in" of the Turkish soldiers going on an expedition into Persia, says, "Some of them rilled a leathern bag with beef dried, and reduced to a kind of meal, which they use with great advantage, as affording a strong nourishment." And Dr. Shaw mentions potted flesh as part of the provisions carried with him in his journey through the Arabian des- erts.— Burder. CHAPTER XVIIl. Ver. 8. For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country : and the wood de- voured more people that day than the sword devoured. The land of promise cannot boast, like many other coun- tries, of extensive woods; but considerable thickets of trees and of reeds sometimes arise to diversify and adorn the scene. Between the Lake Samochonites' aDd the sea of Tiberias, the river Jordan is almost concealed by shady trees from the view of the traveller. When the waters of the Jordan are low, the Lake Samochonites is only a marsh, for the most part dry and overgrown with shrubs'and reeds. The lake of Tiberias is bordered with reeds; while the banks of the river on both sides, are shaded with planes, alders, poplars, tamarisks, and reeds of different kinds. In ihese thickets, among other ferocious animals, the wild boar seeks a covert from the burning rays of the sun. Large herds of them are sometimes to be seen on the banks of the river, near the seaof Tiberias, lying among the reeds, or feeding under the trees. Such moist and shady places are in all countries the favourite haunts of these fierce and dan- gerous animals. Those marshy coverts are styled woods in the sacred scriptures ; for the wild boar of the wood is the name which that creature receives from the royal Psalmist: " The boar out of the wood doth waste it ; and the wild oeast of the field doth devour it." The wood of Ephraim, where the battle was fought between the forces of Ab- salom and the servants of David, was probably a place of the same kind ; for the sacred historian observes, that the wood devoured more people that day, than the sword devoured. Some have supposed the meaning of this pas- sage to be, that the soldiers of Absalom were "destroyed bv the wild beasts of the wood ; but it can scarcely be supposed, thai in the reign of David, when the .and of promise was crowded with inhabitants, the wild beasts could be so nu- merous in one of the woods as to cause such a destruction. But if their numbers had been so great, we know that, un- less they had been detained contrary to their natural de- positions by the miraculous interposition of Heaven, for, the purpose of executing his righteous vengeanfce on the followers of Absalom, intimidated by the approach of t«t hostile armies, and still more by the tumult of the battle, they must have sought their safety in flight, rather tlii.ii have stayed to devour the discomfited parly. Besides, we do not hear that one of David's men perished by the wood : were they miraculously preserved ; or, were the wild beasts able to distinguish between the routed army and the victors, and politic enough to side with the strongest 1 We are not without an express revelation, or at least without necessity, to suppose a miraculous interposition. The scene of the expeditions which the Turks undertook against Faccai- dine, the famous emir, in the fifteenth century, was chiefly in the woods of mount Lebanon, which all travellers agice furnish a retreat to numerous wild beasts, yet the historian says not one word of either Turk or Maron'ite being injured by them, in his whole narrative. Absalom himself was the only person who properly perished by the w . « caught by the hair of his head, of which he had been jo vain, in the branches of a large oak, where Joab found him, and thrust him through with a dart. But, supposing the wood of Ephraim to have been a morass covered with trees and bushes, like the haunts of the wild boar near the banks of Jordan, the difficulty is easily removed. It is certain that such a place has more than once proved fatal to con- tending armies, partly by suffocating those who in the hurry of flight inadvertently venture over places incapable of supporting them, and partly by retarding them till Iheir pursuers come up and cut them to pieces. In this manner a greater number of men than fell in the heat of battle mc y be destroyed. The archbishop of Tyre informs us, that one of the Christian kings of Jerusalem lost some of his troops in a marshy vale of this country, from their ignn- rance of the paths'which lead through 'it, although he h.-d no enemy to molest his march. The number of those who died was small; but in what numbers would they have perished, may we suppose, had they been forced to flee, like the men of Absalom, before a victorious and ex; sper- ated enemy 1 Lewis II., king of Hungary-, lost his lile in a bog in his own kingdom, in the sixteenth century : ar.d according to Zozimus, Decius the Roman emperor perish- ed in a fen, with his whole army. It may, therefore, be justly concluded, that Absalom's army perished neilher by the trees of the wood, like their guilty leader, nor by the wild beasts which occupied its recesses ; but by the deceit- ful quagmires with which it abounded. — Paxton. Ver. 11. And Joab said unto the man that told him. And, behold, thou sawest him ; and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground 1 and I would have given thee ten shekels of sil- ver, and a girdle. Among us, here in Europe, the distinction between hon- orary and pecuniary rewards is so great, that we often- times can hardly think of jumbling them together as an ac- knowledgment of public services; and the same person that would receive the first with emotions of great pleasure, would think himself affronted by one of a pecuniary kind ; but it is otherwise in the East, and it was so anciently. De Tott did many great services to the Turkish empire, in the time of their late war with Russia, and the Turks were disposed to acknowledge them by marks of honour. " His highness," said the first minister, speaking of the grand seignior, "has ordered me to bestow on you this public mark of his esteem," and, at the same lime, made a sign to the master of the ceremonies to invest me with the pelisse ; while the hasnadar presented me with a purse of 200 se- quins. The lively French officer was hurt by the offer ol the sequins. " I directly turned towards those who had ae companied me, and showing them my pelisse, I have re ceived, said I, with gratitude, this proof of the grand seig- nior's favour; do you return thanks to the vizier for this purse, it is his gift. This expedient, which I preferred to a discussion of our differed customs, was a sufficient Chap 1! 2 SAMUEL. 223 lesson to ihe vizier, at ihe same time that il disengaged me from the embarrassment of oriental politeness" lie then in a note adds, " This Turkish custom of giving money oc- e-isioned ihe greuest mollification to M. I > • lloiineval, that a man, like bim, could receive. Th< unba a lor extraor- dinary, from the emperor, who in the Austrian army had been in an inferior station to ihe refugee, dined, as i^ cus- tomary, with the Vizier. The Porte h .i . - r i . on Kialhaua, lor the place of this entertainment. M. De Bonneral had orders to repair thither with the corps Of I hnrdi.-r-, of which he was commander. When tie exei cise was over, ni for by the vizier, who gave him a hi adful oi sequins, which his situation obliged hiin to accept, with Jii-I thus we litul Joah would have rewarded an lsraelitish soldier of his army, in the days of Kins Da- vid, who saw Absalom hanging '" a tree: " \Vhy didst tliott tut smite him there to the ground, and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle I" -2 Sam. ivili. 11. The girdle would have been ail honorary reward, like De Toll's ermined vest ; the ten shekels, or half crowns, would have been a pecuniary recompense, like the 'J00 sequins De Toll disdained to receive. I may add, that a furred robe, in general, is no distinguishing badge of digm'v, lor it may be worn by wealthy people in private life, who can bear the expense; so that there is no ground to suppose Joab's giving a girdle to the soldier would have been conferring some military honour, s imewhat like knighting him, as, if 1 reraembei right, some have imagined : it would have been simply a v.Juable present, and enabling him in after? time to appear with such a girdle as the rich v. of the girdle of a peasant, but united with the consciousness and the reputation of its being acquired by doing some public service, and not Ihe mere effect of being from a wealthy family. The apparatus which some of the eastern people' make use of to gird themselves with is very mean. The common Arabs, according to De la Roque, use a girt adorned with leather; and their women make use. of a cord, or strip of cloth : but some of the Arab girdles are very rich, according to this writer. The girdle Joab proposed to give was doubtless designed by him to be understood to be one of such value, as to be answerable to the supposed importance of the service he wished the man had performed, as Well as his own dignilv. 3o Symon Simeonis, an Irish traveller to the Holy Land, in the year 1323, tells us, " That the Saracens of Egypt rarely, if ever, girded themselves with any thing but a towel, on which they kneeled to say their prayers, except their people of figure, who wore girdles like those of ladies, very broad, all of silk, and superbly adorned with gold and silver, in which they extremely pride themselves." I cannot well finish this article without remarking; from what the French baron says concerning himself, what strong disagreeable impressi ins of an erroneous kind may be made upon the mind of a European at ihe offering some of the Asiatic presents, which are not only not affronting in their views, but designed to do those honour to -whom they are pre- sented, since De Tott could not get the better of it, though knew the innocency of the intention, and had resided long enough, one would have thought, in the country, u> have destroyed the impression. — Harmui. To loose the girdle and give it to another, was among the Orientals, a token of great confidence and affection. Thus to ratify ihe covenant which Jonathan made with David, and to express his cordial regard for his friend, among other things he gave him his girdle. A girdle curi- ously and richly wrought was, among the ancient Hebrews, a mark of honour, and sometimes bestowed as a reward of merit; for this was ihe recompense which Joab declared he meant to bestow on the man who put Absalom to death : " Whv did-i thou not smite him there to the ground, and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle." The reward was certainly meant to correspond with the importance of the service which he expected him to per- form, and the dignly of his own station as commander-in- ?hief: we may therefore suppose it was not a common one of leather, "or plain worsted, but of costly materials and richly adorned ; for people of rank and fashion in the East wear very broad girdles, all of silk, and superbly orna- mented with gold and silver and precious stones, of which they are extremely proud, regarding them as the tokens Ver. 17. Ami they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very 'great h.ap of BtOtli S upon him : and B fled every one to his I m. To mark the spot v. here the chiefs were buried, and to remain at the same rial of the battle in n he h they fell, their surviving friends raised over them a heap of stones. This practice may be traced to the primi- tive ages of the world ; for when Absalom was defeated and slain, "they east him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of. stones upon him." This monu- mental heap was not intended to indicate that Absalom deserved to be stoned as a rebellious son, bul mark, according to a very common and a vei custom, the grave of that ambitions and unnatural prince, Il was usual in the East, indeed, to distinguish any remark- able place or event by a heap of stones. ~ All the Moham- medans that go in pilgrimage to mount Sinai, visit a rock, on which the form of a camel's fool is imprinted, which they foolishly suppose lo be Ihe animal that .Mohammed rode; and, therefore, in honour of ihcir prophet, they bring every one a stone, till, by continual accumulation, a large heap has risen near the place. Jacob, and his family too, raised a heap of stones in commemoration of ihe covenant so hap- pily concluded between him and Laban, on mount Gilead. That " heap of witness" informed every passenger that ii was raised in memory of some interesting event ; and every relation that brought a slone to the heap, made himself a witness to the agreement, as well as recommended it lo ihe attention of others. The surviving warriors, too, might bring every man his stone, in token of their respect for the deceased, to raise a monumental heap over ihe body of the hero who had led them to battle and to victory, which should arrest the notice of ihe passing traveller, and bear witness to future times of their attachment and regret. — P.1XTON. Ver. 18. Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance : and he called the pillar after his own name : and it is called unto this day Absalom's Place. On the east, we came to the reputed tomb of Absalom, resembling nearly, in the size, form, and the decoration of its square base, that of Zacharias, before described; except that it is sculptured with the metopes and triglyphs of the Doric order. This is surmounted by a sharp conical dome, of the form used in our modern parasols, having large mouldings, resembling ropes running round its base, and on the summit something like an imitation of flame. The dome is of masonry, and on the eastern side there is a square aperture in it. It is probable that this monument really occupies the place of that mentioned to have been set up by him whose name it bears. 2 Sam. xviii. 18. Jo- sephus, in relating the same circumstance, calls the pillar a marble one; he fixes its distance at two furlongs from Jerusalem, and says it was named Absalom's Hand.— Buckingham. Ver. 24. And David sat between the two gates : and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, anil looked, and behold a man running alone. The watchman, in a time of danger, seems to have taken his station in a tower, which was built over the gale of ihe city. We may form a tolerably distinct idea of the ancirtii towers in Palestine, from the description which ihe sacred historian gives us of one, in the entrance of Mahanainr: " And David sat between'ihe two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate un:o the wall, ::nd lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold a m; D rutu The watchman cried end told the king; and the king said, If he is alone, there is tidings in his mouth. And the watchman saw another man running; and the watchman called unto the porter, and said, Behold, another man run- 224 2 SAMUEL. Chap. J3. uing alone ; and the kin? said, He also brmgeth tidings." When the tidings were announced, the historian observes, "the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept." It is afterward added, " Then Ihe king arose and sat in the gate ; and the}' told unto all the people saying, Behold ill • king doth sit in the gate; and all Ihe people came before the king, for Israel had fled every man to his tent.'' From this description it appears, that ihe tower in the enirance of Mahanaim, had two pair of gales, al some distance from each other ; in a small room, which was often found by the side of these fortified gates, the door of which opened into the passage between lliem, sat the king, waiting, in fearful suspense, the issue of the contest, for it cannot be supposed he sat in the pas- sage itself, which had been at once unbecoming his dignity, and incommodious to the passengers entering or leaving ihe city. We find a watchman stationed on the top of this tower, to which he went up by a staircase from the passage, which, like the roof of their dwellinghouses, was flat, for the purpose of descrying at a distance those that were ap- proaching ihe place, or repelling Ihe attacks of an enemy. The observalions made by the watchman were not com- municated by him immediately to the king, but by the intervention of a_ warder at the ouler gate of the tower; and it appears, that a private staircase led from the lower room in which the king was silling, to the upper room over Ihe gateway; for by that communication he retired to give full vent to his sorrow. The only circumstance involved in any doubt, is in what part of this building he sat, (for it is evident he continued in some part of the gate,) when he returned his thanks to the army for their exer- tions in his favour ; or in the language of the historian, 'spake to the hearts of his servants," and received their congratulations. It is somewhat uncertain whether he give audience to his people in the upper room, where he lamented in strains so aflecting, the death of Absalom, or in the little chamber between the two gates, where he waited ihe arrival of the messengers, or in some olher part of [he building. The ancient custom of silting in the gate on solemn occasions, rather favours the opinion, that Da- ■/id went down from the apartment above the gate, to the chamber in ihe side of the passage. This custom, which may be traced to the remotest antiquity, is still observed in the East; for when Poeocke returned from viewing the lown of ancient Byblus, the sheik and the elders were silting in the gate of the city, after the manner of their ancestors. — Paxton. ' Ver. 25. And the watchman cried, and told the king. And the king- said, If he be alone, there is tidings in his mouth. And he came apace, and drew near. This was said by David when the watchman told him thai there was a man running alone. He proved to be Ahimaaz, who had escaped from the well, and had run to tell David, " All is well." Is a man seen to run fast, it is said, "Ah! there is news in his mouth." " Whv have vou come so fast V — " In my mouth there is news'." To a man in trouble it is ofien said, "Fear not, a man will soon come with tidings in his mouth."— Roberts. Ver. 32. And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young- man Absalom safe? And Cushi an- swered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man it. This was a delicate way of telling David that the rebel Absalom was dead. A person, in communicating, by letter, intelligence of the death of a friend, does not always say, in so many plain terms, " He is dead ;" but, " Would that all our enemies were how as our friend Muttoo." l: Ah ! were they all as he, we should have peace in our village." A son, in writing to an uncle concerning the dealh of his father, says, "Ah! the children of your biother are now given unto the Lord." "Would that our enemies were now as our father; they will now rejoice >ver us." — Roberts. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 13. And say ye to Amasa, Art thou not of my bone, and of my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if thou be not captain of the host before me continually in the room of Joab. 14. And he bowed the heart of all the men ol Judah, even as the heart of one man ; so thai they sent this word unto the king, Return thou, and all thy servants. Mr. LeClercand others object, that David's resolution to remove Joab from the chief command of the army, was but an unthankful return for the victory which thai officer had just gained him, and for his attachment to Ins- interest all along, and therefore David's conduct in r is instance was imprudent and unaccountable. What Jo: b's share in obtaining this victory was, the history dolh not say. Abishai and Ittai, who each commanded a ihnd pan of'the forces, might, as for anything that appears, as much contribute to the victory over the rebels, as Joab. Bui be that as it will, the imprudence of David's conduct is efleci- ually disproved by Ihe event ; and that it was not unac- countable is certain, because of the evident prndi nee of it; especially if it be true, and I think it certainly is 'rue, that Joab had now lost the favour of his master, of u Inch the murder of Abner, the killing of Absalom, in direct con- tradiction (o David's order, and lastly, his want of sympa- thy, and his indelicacy in the present instance, were the, undoubted causes. And surely il could be nothing unac- countable, nor argue any great ingratitude, to turn out an imperious general, even after he had helped to gain a vic- tory, who had stained his laurels by ihe treasonable murder of the king's own son, in defiance of his most express com- mand, and then instantly threatened him with a fresh rebel- lion, if he did not openly appear to justify and approve hi? crimes: crimes, thai a successful baltle few will think to be a sufficient atonement for, or a just reason lo exetri] t him from disgrace, and the punishment he deserved. The ancient Roman discipline was much more severe and rig- orous than this, and a victory obtainedj if contrary to the general's orders, was punished with death. When T. Manlius, Ihe son of Manlius the consul, upon a challenge of Metius, ope of the generals of the Latins, with whom the Romans were then al war, had engaged him in single combat, slain him, taken his spoils, and presented them in triumph lo his father, the consul immediately ordered him to be beheaded in sight of the whole army, because u was an express breach of his orders; telling Ins sen, "11 thou hast any thing of my blood in thee, ihou thyself will not, I think, refuse to reslore, by thy punishment, that mili- tary discipline, which hath been impaired by thy offence.'' In like manner, when Papirius, the Roman dictator, had commanded Fabius, the master of his horse, not to enlace the enemy during his absence, Fabius being informed thai the army'of Ihe Samnites were in a state of great disorder, attacked them with his forces, entirely routed them, aid slew twenty thousand of them on the field of battle. _ The dic'.alor, upon his return to the army, in a council of officers, ordered him to be beheaded, because in breach of ihe rules of war, and the ancient discipline, he had dared, contrary to his orders, lo engage with the enemy. He was however at last saved by the intercession of the Roman people. David's removing Joab from his command was a much less punishment for much more aggravated crimes. As to the promise to Amasa, of constituting him gener: 1 in Joab's room, the prudence of this maybe also easily vindicated. For Amasa stood in the same degree of con- sanguinity to David as Joab did, and the offer to him ol making him captain-general must, as it has been well ob- served, have been influenced by the personal qualities ot the man, the importance of gaining him over, he being a person of great power and authority, and a resenimeni against Joab for Ihe murder of Abner and Absalom. Be- sides, I doubt not but that David thought he should now be able to break Joab's power, and bring him lo an ac- count for his repeated assassinations and treasons, as well as fix Amasa for ever in his interest, by placing so high a degree of confidence in him, as to give hiin the com- mand of all the forces in his kingdom. This hath been frequently the method by which great men have endeav Uhap. ia 2 SAMUEL. 225 , bordering upon thatof brickdust. " Hie leaf of the indigo. I to mui over their enemies, and it argues a real gen- - ml, nf which little minds are utterly incapable, .. >■ ui an adversary to his duty, by such unexpected instaii- ■ I confidence and friendship. When Cinna, the grand- .1 I' Mil.', 1 , III, | "ill' I "1 .Ml llll-ll, .'.III |l||, 'I I -.111.1 .'. Igustus, he DOl only pardoned them, but nominated Cinna •■ i i ui lor the ensuing year; and Cresar not only spared Brutus, after he had appeared inarms against him, but look him into favour as Ins intimate friend, and intrusted •iiiu with the government of Gaul. — Chandlbb, Ve 24. And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and bad neither dressed Ii is feet, nor trimmed his beard, DOT washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day be came again in peace. They aluiosMiniversally die them black, by an operation ■ -I vfcrj pleasant, and necessary to be repeated generally once a fortnight It i- always performed in the hot bath, where the hair being well saturated, takes the colour belter. A thick paste of khenna is first made, -which is largely plastered over the beard, and which, after remaining an hour, is all completely washed off, and leaves the hair of a very strong or.-ing loin ' thick a paste is made of which previ >usly has been pounded to a fine powder, and of this also a deep layer is put upon the beard; but this second process, to be taken well, requires full two hours. During all this operation the patient lies quietly flat upon his back; while the die (more particularly the indigo, which is a great astringent) contracts the featu?es of his face in a very mournful manner, and causes all the lower parts of the visage to smart and burn. When the indigo is at last washed off, the beard is of a very dark bottle-green, and becomes a jet black only when it has met the air for twenty-four hours. Some, indeed, are content with the khenna or orange colour; others, more fastidious, prefer a beard quite bine. The people of Bokhara are famous for their blue beards. — Morier. Vet 21. And Mephihosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king de- parted until the day he came again in peace. 25. And it came to pass, when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, Wherefore wentest not thou with me, Mephihosheth? 26. And he an- swered, My lord, O king, my servant deceived me: for thy servant said, I will saddle me an ass, that I may ride thereon, and go to the king ; because thy servant is lame. 27. And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king; but my lord the king is as an angel of God : do -therefore what is good in thine eyes. 28. For all of my father's house were hut dead men before my lord the king: yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What riwn house or family in the execution. This was a noto- rious violation of the public faith, laid the nation under the guilt of perjury and murder, and subjected them to the dis- pleasure of God, who is the righteous avenger of these national crimes, but seems to have been regarded as an affair of no consequence, or rather acquiesced in as a use- ful and public-spirited measure, God, however, was pleased :o make inquisition for the blood which had been thus un- righteously shed, and sent a famine upon the land, which lasted three years, in the third of which, David, moved by >o extraordinary a calamity, inquired of the Lord the cause of it, and was answered by the oracle, that it was for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. In consequence of this, David sent for some of the principal persons who had escaped the massacre, and said to them: ' What shall I do for you, and wherewiihal shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord 1" What satisfaction 'do you require for the injuries that have been done you, that you may be induced to pray for the prosperity of my people! The Gibeonites answered him: " We will have 'no silver or gold of Saul, nor of his house ; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel." The kins then bid them ask what they would have, and promised that he would do it for them. They replied : ' The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, '.hat we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel ; let seven of his sons be delivered unto us, ind we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, who was chosen of the Lord." The king immediately replied: " I will give them;" and in consequence of it, sparing Mephibosheth. the son of Jonathan, and all the male line of Saul, who had any claim to, or were capable of contending with him for the crown, and disturbing him in the possession of it ; he delivered to them the two bastard >ons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, and the five sons of Micah, his youngest daughter, by Adriel, the son of Bar- zillai, the Meholathite, not one of whom was capable of succeeding Saul, especially while any of the male line, and particularly those by the eldest son.'were alive. Now, at this very time, Mephibosheth, Jonathan's eldest son, dwelt m David's family at Jerusalem; and though lame in liis feet, yet he was sound enough to be the father of a son, named Micah, who had a numerous posterity, the descend- ants of' whom continued down through many generations. In this account the reader will observe, that what gave rise lo this execution in the family of Saul, was a three years' famine. The famine is not denied. The cause of it, some think, was the preceding intestine commotions. But this is highly improbable ; for there is no intimation or proba- bility, that the civil war continued so long as twelve months, as it was determined by a single battle, ;:nd as that battle was certainly fought not long after the rebellion broke out. For David continued in the plain of the wil- derness, where he first retreated, and which was not far distant from Jerusalem, till he was informed what meas- ures Absalom was determined to follow. These were fixed on soon after that rebel's entrance into Jerusalem, and, as soon as the affair would admit, put in execution. Nay. so soon was the plan of operations fixed, that Hushai, David's friend, who continued with Absalom at Jerusalem, sent an express to David to acquaint him, that h> had defeated the counsel of Ahithonhel, but withal to advise him, not 10 lodge a single nignt more in the plains, but instantly to pass ovei Jordan, lest he and all his people should be swal- lowed up by a rt.'cng detachment from the rebel army. David immediately hastened loand passed the river, aw could have but a few weeks or months to troops; l'nr Absalom was soon alter him, attacked lus father, and his death put an end to the unnatural rebellion. Besides, the country in general must have been free from commotions; for, as David retreated beyond Jordan, collected his forces, and fought the rebels in the territories of the tribes on that side the nver, the principal commotions must have happened there, and could not much aneel the ten tribes, anil occasion a three* years' (amine throughout that whole country. The natural cause of thai famine was the want of the usual rains, and the violent heal and drought of the seasons during that period; font is observed ol Rizpah, thai as soon as her Iwo sons were put to death, she spread herselj a tent upon the rock where they were hung un from the beginning of harvest until water dropped on them out of i till the ram came, which had been so long withheld, and it thereby appeared that the displeasure of God towards the nation was fully appeased. But though David could account for the natural cause of the famine, vet its long continuance was so unusual and extraordinary im event, as thai he thought himself obliged to inquire of the Lord for the reasons of it, that he might prevent, if he could, Ihe further continuance of it, by averting the dis- pleasure of God, of which the famine seemed to be the im- mediate effect. Upon his inquiring, he was answered, that it was upon the account of " Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites;" after which the historian immediately informs us, that " Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah;" and the Gibeonites themselves complained to David, that Saul was the man that "consumed them, and devised against them, that they should be destroyed from remaining .in any ci the coasts of Israel." And indeed the murder of these poor people was an action suitable to Saul's sanguinary temper ; and if he was bloody enough to put to the sword, without any provocation, a whole city of his own subjects, what should hinder him from endeavouring to exterminate these Amorites out of the land, if he could hereby oblige his own people, by enriching them with their fields and vineyards, and thereby better establish himself and his family in the kingdom. Samuel indeed is not anywhere said to have charged Saul with any such slaughter. Probably that prophet was dead before" this carnage of the Gibeonites hap- pened, and therefore it was no wonder he never charged Saul with it. He lived long enough after Samuel's death to perpetrate this crime, when it would not be in Samuel's power to reproach him with it. If Samuel was alive, it is absolutely certain that he never visited Saul, and so could not reproach him for his barbarity. But to question the fact is to deny the history, which as peremptorily fastens it on Saul, as it does any other fact whatsoever. The deed itself was a perfidious and bloody one ; the destruction of many of the Gibeonites, and a determined purpose wholly to extirpate the remainder of them out of the country, in violation of the public oath and faith that had been given them for their security, without any provocation or for- feiture of life on their part. He cut them off in cold blood, defenceless and unarmed, though they were serviceable to the nation, and many of them appropriated to the service of God and of his tabernacle, merely for secular and political views, and that he might serve himself, by gratifying some of the tribes among whom they lived, and who wanted to pos- sess themselves of their cities and lands. It is probable his death prevented the full execution of this barbarous pur- pose, which therefore seems to have been begun but a very little while before it, in order to support his declining inte- rest, and ingratiate himself with the children of Israel 2nd Judah ; with Judah particularly, of which tribe David was, and in whose territories some of the Gibeomtish towns were, to whom he thought the expulsion of that people might be agreeable, and so might be a means of retaining that powerful tribe in his interest. The crime therefore was enormous in itself, and aggravated with the most heinous circumstances ; and which all civilized nations, almost in all ages, have looked upon with horror, and as highly deserving the divine displeasure and vengeance. Antiphon, one of the principal orators of Greece, pleading for the bringing a murderer to justice, against whom the evidence was not so full as was desired, but the circuiu- 230 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 21 stances exceedingly strong, urges this as a reason why the judges should not clear him; that it would be extremely dangerous 1o the public, to permit such an impure polluted wretch to enter into the temple of the gods and defile them, and to sit down at the tables of those who were innocent ; because this would produce barren and unfruitful seasons, and render the public affairs unfortunate. jElian also relates, that the Lacedemonians were punished with the entire ruin of Sparta by an earthquake, which left only five buildings in the city standing, for the murdering some of I he Helotae, who were slaves, and had fled into a temple for safety, afier they had surrendered themselves on the promise of safety. "When the noble Roman, Horatius, who, by his victory over the Curiatii, had established the supremacy of Rome over Alba, was accused by some of the principal citizens of Rome for having murdered his sister, who, upon his return from his victory had unseasonably and severely reproached him for killing her lover; they urged his being brought to justice, because he had violated the laws, and recounted several instances of the divine ven- geance on cities who had suffered such atrocious crimes to go unpunished. But may it not be asked, that if God fought vengeance for a particular act of cruelly, perpe- trated by Saul, when was vengeance demanded for David's massacre of the Geshurites, Gezrites, Amalekites, Moabites, Ammonites, Jebusites, and others, who at times became the objects of David's wrath1? The answer is, it was never de- manded, because there was no vengeance due, and the cases are by no means parallel. There was no violation of the na- tional faith, no breach of oath, that David and his people had been guilty of in any of these instances. In most of them, the people mentioned were the aggressors; and, as to the res: of them, they were the inveterate enemies of the Jews, wandering clans, who lived upon robbery and plunder, and had been long before justly devoted to destruction. Be- sides, the Gibeonites were massacred in cold blood, in times of peace, unarmed, and incapable of any self-defence; and therefore every one must see the difference between these unhapppy people, whom Saul causelessly and treach- erously destroyed, and those whom David cut off; who provoked their own ruin by unjustly making war on his subjects, whom lie was in duty and "honour bound to pro- tect and defend, or who had been proscribed by God him- self for the crimes of which they had been guilty. • The persons employed with Saul in perpetrating these murders, were those of his own house. The history here is express : " It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he," viz. by them as his instruments, "slew the Gibeonites;" for which reason they justly said to David, that they de- manded satisfaction only of the man that had consumed them. He thought the destruction of the Gibeonites so popular a thing, as that he was resolved, himself and his family and relations, should have the whole credit and merit of the affair. Whether Jonathan and his brethren, who seem to have been brave men, were concerned in it, is not said. I think it probable they were not; for as they were good soldiers, they would be ashamed to massacre they everv one refused to be employed in it, there were others of Saul's house, i. e. his family, who certainlv were; who either in person, or by the soldiery, put many of these poor people to the sword ; in which latter case they were equally guilty of the murder, as though they had" killed every one of them with their own hands; just as Saul was guilty of the murder of the priests, and the massacre at Nob, though he employed Doeg in the first, and his soldiers in the latter execution. I think it probable from the choice which David made, that the very persons he gave up to the Gibeonites, were employed by Saul in his butchery, and that for this reason he delivered them up as sacrifices to public justice. These were the two bastard sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, which she bare to Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite, It appears to me, that Michal was married to this Adriel, before she was married to David, and had five children by him, which would be all of them of age sufficient i> b? employed in this unrighteous affair. Saul was about forty years old when he came to the crown ; for his sons were all grown men, men of strength and valour, and his two daughters are spoken of as not being children at that time, but as women arrived at some maturity. From his being made king to David's marriage with Mi- chal, was, by the chronology of our Bible, thirty-two years. Allow her therefore to be ten years of age on'her fathei's advancement to the kingdom, she must be above forty years of age when David married her ; a space of time, in which she might have had manv more children than five by a former husband, that would'be of age sufficient, in the latter part of Saul's reign, to act under Ids commission m the slaughter of the Gibeonites. It is not very probf.ble that Saul's daughter should continue unmarried till she was forty years old and more, and the scripture is express, that she bare to Adriel, the son cf Barzillatyhe Meholath- ite, five children. It is indeed said, that Saul married his eldest daughter Merab, to Adriel, the Meholathite. • But this Adriel might' be a very different person from Adriel the son of Barzillai, who was the husband of Michal, whe seems to have been thus particularly described, to distin- guish him from the other Adriel, who, though a Meho- lathite, is nowhere said to be the son of Barzillai. It these remarks are just, we need no critical emendation of the text, and can defend the justice of David in giving up these persons to the vengeance of the Gibeonites. But supposing these sons of Michal, or Merab, were too young to have any hand in the guilt of this transaction, I do not see that an immediate command from God to deliver them up to death is anywise inconsistent with the rectitude of his nature, or the justice and equity of his moral providence. The judgment of Grotius on this affair is worthy our regard. "God," says that great man, " threatens in the law of Mo- ses, that he would visit the iniquity of the fathers on their posterity. But then he hath an absolute dominion and right, not only over all we have, but over life itself; so that he can take away from any one his own gift whensoever he pleases, without assigning any reason for it. And there- fore when he takes away the children of Achan, Saul, Jeroboam, and Achab, by'an untimely and violent death, he exercises his right of dominion, not cf punishment, over them ; but, at the same time, he by this means more griev- ously punishes the parents of them. For whether the parents survive them, which the law principally supposes, the parents are certainly punished by seeing their childien thus taken from them ; or whether they do not live to see their children cut off, yet the fear that "they may suffer for their crimes, is a very great punishment to the parents." He further observes, that "God does not make use of this extraordinary vengeance, except it be against crimes pecu- liarly dishonourable to him; such as idolatry, perjury, sacrilege, and the like." The crime of Saul was a wilful breach of the laws ol God and man, a perjurious violation of the national faith and honour, which it ,became God, the supreme governor of the Jewish nation, to manifest his resentment against. Suppose all who were actual perpetrators of this aggra- vated crime were dead, and out of the reach of vengeance. Yet some of their posterity were still remaining. But [Lev were innocent. Allowed. Therefore. Whatl That God was unjust in taking away their lives'! But what light had they to live longer 1 Does the gift of life convey an inalienable right to live for ever, or to any particular pe- riod of life 1 And that in bar of God's right to resume it when he pleases, and when there are valuable ends to be answered bv his resuming itl The«evident intention of God, in ordering the death of this part of Saul's family, was to be a public attestation of his abhorrence of Saul's perfidy and cruelty, to strike a terror into the princes his successors, and caution them against committing the like offences, as they would not have them avenged by the suf- ferings of their posterity, and especially to prevent all future attempts against the lives of the Gibeonites, whom God now declared to be under his protection, though they seem to have been looked on with a malignant eye by the Jewish nation ; who probably would have in time com- pleted the extirpation which Saul began, had it not been for this remarkable manifestation of God's displeasure against it. The death of these seven persons therefore, supposing them all innocent, was, in this view, no punishment at all inflicted on them by God, but an appointment of God in virtue of his sovereign right over the lives of all men, to teach princes moderation and equity, and prevent for the future the commission of those enormous crimes, which, if permitted to go with impunity, would be inconsistent with the peace and welfare, and even being, of civil gov- < HAP. 21 2 SAMUEL 231 ".. nment ; and God did these innocent persons no more | injustice, bv ordering them to die by the hands of the Gibeonites, than if be bad taken then away by any kind of natural death, which I presume no real Theist will deny his right to, because il is a right which he exercises in the laily dispensations of his providence. And as he intended l ii- 1 r d.-.nli -I M I" -'il. -I v i.-nt '.i ].i-i mi. >t.- t In- | > i i 1 » I n ■ \ ii- ..ii.l iii-tv; the milliner ot'thi'ir death, whatever it might h • in lb.- imau'iiiaiion of others, was to them much .liable than if they had been cut off I i things, when no public Utility :ould have bc-n --.. perfectly answered by it. That children do, and very frequently too, suffer and die lor the sins of their parents, in which they have had no share, and ev.-n bv ih.- . . .n-t nutioii of God himself, is evi- dent from hKoi -v.' and the eon-tant experience of all ;«'es and nations. Thus God punished David by the death of his fij -i child by Bathsheba, and Jeroboam, by the death of his eldest son, who was a religious and virtuous young prince; and for any thing thai we can tell, the death 'of both might, instead of being a punishment, be a real blessing to them | and God ever huh n in his power to compensate those whom he depiives of life for the promoting any public good. Indeed this is a case that frequently happens, ac- cording to that divine threatening, of "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth it- -tie rat ion of t hem that hate hi in;" i.e. by such punishments, of which should continue, and be felt by their children to the third and fourth generation. And if this be a difficulty, it affects natural religion as well as revealed, since the fact itself is indisputable. How frequently do p treats by their vices transmit to their innocent children a miserable corrupted constitution, and entail upon them dis- temper and death 1 In public calamities, such as pesti- lences, earthquakes, famines, and the like, by which God ch istises the sins of nations, how frequently are the guilty and innocent, parents and their children, involved in one common destruction! Why then might not God. by an immediate command, appoint some of the innocent children of Saul's bloody family to be put to death for his sins, as well as command a pestilence or an earthquake to destroy children of other families for the crimes of their parents 1 [I makes no difference in the nature of the thing, whether God takes away their lives by that course of nature which lie established, or by a command immediately given for the purpose, since, in both cases, the lots of such children's lives is equally the appointment of God, who hath a right over life supreme and inalienable. Every one can see one wise intention of providence in this constitution of things, viz. to render children a sort of security for the good beha- viour of the parents, as thev are indeed in all human gov- ernment, and thai their affection for their families may be :i powerful means to guard them against the practice of « In -a tend to involve their children in misery and ruin; or that if they will not be restrained by these motives, the distresses of their families may teach others « i -.1 mi, and show them the necessity of a more regular i- b'-haviour. Il is indeed' a constitution of the M ii taw, and founded on natural equity, that the"fa- :'i r: shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every one -'ill be put to death for his own sins." This constitution ake place in all human governments; because, as f r as these are concerned, every one hath an inalienable right to keep his life, till he forfeits it to human justice; an 1 for men to take away the life of one for the fault of an .-.her. is to take ii away without forfeiture, and is there- for ' an act of evident injustice and cruelty. But because God forbids men, who have no sovereign right over the lives of anv, to punish one person with death for the o fences if another, doth he therefore lose his own right of taking ;wav the lives of others, whensoever, and by what means sot rer he pleases !_ Or. is he guilty of injustice and in--- he resumes his own gift,' and what no one li v-n-j hatl any rishl to demand the continuance of from him, for on ■ single moment longer than he is pleased to continue it, and what every man is bound willingly to lay down when God calls him to it, in order to promote any public good, and it is necessary to answer any valuable purpose in the moral providence and government of Godl Besides we see, in the constant course of things, that infants. r-Hildren. persons of every age and stage of life, are cut off bv death, without anv peculiar guilt or forfeiture of life, either to human or divine justice, and by vinous kinds of deaths, some of them extremelj nunc/ and affecting. Will any sensible Theist da..- t. ,- ., mi-li if.- pi . itution ..1 thin--'-, ... coin] lam that God properly punishes tli.. . .n "II in the common course of nature I As for myself, 1 cannot comprehend all the reasons of providence in this dispell ation, i that 1 have a right to demand that I odi Id acquaint me with those reasons. It must be right, because il is the ci t st it i it ion of find; and ill.! .1 he had an eon I i off these seven persons ..1 Saul s t.mi.U bv the bands of the tid nit.--, as he hath to cut <>ti ..!..:,. .-. .una. m course of things, and, in taking them away, he no nan e properly punished them, it they weie wholly innocent of the murder of the Gibeonites, than he punishes any of those, who mav be esteemed mn.-ceni, and yet day taken off by distemper or accident; and Rizpah and d no inore reason to complain of the injustice of providence for the loss of their children, than any other ten- der mothers have, when providence bereaves them-of any of the valuable branches of their family, by an untimely death. It is evident from what hath been said on this article, that God's ordering these seven persons to be delivered up to the Gibeonites, is not in the least contrary to the Mosaic law. nor any true notion of justice and equity, nor making justice, when applied to God, one thing, and when applied to men, a quia- different 1 1 1 n i •_<- ; for the rights of God and man over life are infinitely different. For life is his gift, ghen bv him without claim or merit, given for that period oiilv for which he intended it. and may therefore be justly resinned, a- his gift, at any jciiod lie thinks proper to de- mand it, without doing any injustice to him from whom he takes it; because he violates no right that belongs to him, nor takes from him any property, which he hatha real claim to, as his proper inheritance. But, with regard to men, everyone hath an inalienable claim to his life, and he who takes it from another without a just forfeiture of it, violates the most sacred rights of nature, and wickedly robs himoi his most valuable "treasure, which he can never restore to him, and for the loss of which he cannot make him any possible compensation. But then it maybe asked, what equity there is in punishing a whole nation with a three years' famine, for the crimes of Saul and his bloody house 1 The equity of their punishment appears, because both Israel and Judah consented to and acquiesced in the This is plainly intimated in the history, which says, that Saul slew the Gibeonites in his zeal to thechildren of Israel and Judah, because he knew they would like it, and esteem- it, as a proof of his desire and readiness to serve them. The Israelites, as Mr. Le Clerc on the • lace observes, seem, for some cause or other, to have envied the Gibeonites, so that by extirpating them Saul thought to oblige them. And from hence it is evident, that he did not destroy them because they had formerly deceived the Israelites, and that the slaughter of them was far from being displeasing to, or opposed by the people. It hath "been asked, how we are to account for the de- ferring the punishment of Saul's crime, lor so many years after the fact was committed, and Saul's death. I do not think myself obliged to account for all the reasons by which God proceeds in the administrations of his moral provi- dence, and am content to be ignorant, whenever those reasons of divine conduct are not somehow or other re- vealed to me. However. tho'uL'h Saul was dead, yet there were some of his bloody house still remaining, and the circumstance of Saul's death could be no reason against bringing to justice those of that bloody family, that hed been employed by him as the instruments of his treachery and cruelty; or why providence should never express its disapprobation against such a notorious violation of the public faith and honour. If no satisfactory account could be given for the delay of this punishment for several yean it would bv no means follow that there was none. Had we lived in" those times, wc might have been better able to solve this difficulty. Some things^ however, offer them selves on this subject which deserve our regard. While Saul, the principal actor in this tratrcdv, "as living, and was well known for his contempt of the- prophets and the cruelty of his disposition, who was there to call him to an account, and execute the just vengeance on him and hi:: 232 SAMUEL. Chap. 21 bloody house 1 In the beginning of David's reign, his own unsettled condition for seven years and more, when Saul's family disputed the crown with him, and could none of them have been brought to justice by him ; the many neces- sary wars he was afterward engaged in, and perhaps not thinking himself obliged to take notice of Saul's conduct during his reign, or his very tenderness for the family of his predecessor and father-in-law, might all concur to pre- vent anv public inquisition into this cruel transaction, or calling any of the offenders to an account for it in the com- mon course of justice. And God permitted things to take their natural course, and not to manifest his displeasure on this account, till it could be done in such a manner, as should make his justice, as the God and king of Israel, more con- spicuous, and the execution of his vengeance more obser- vable and awful, and as should, at the same time, most effectually prevent all future attempts to injure or extirpate that unhappy people. Particular events may for a long while be delayed, and the very delay of them may, in concurrence with the opera- tions of providence, be one means at last of bringing them to pass with greater observation, and more convincing evidence of the interposition of God in bringing them about, as is frequently the case in long-concealed murders. God therefore, in a time of profound peace, when David's gov- ernment was settled, and there was nothing to interrupt the course of justice, punishes the people with a three years' famine, to let them feel his displeasure, to render them solicitous to know the cause of it, and take the proper method? to appease it. So that though no train of inter- vening and unavoidable circumstances can impede the operations of providence, or prevent what God is deter- mined to bring to pass, yet such circumstances may, for a very considerable while, impede the operations of human justice ; nevertheless, how long soever tjiat justice may be delayed, it will certainly at last take place, when God judges it the proper season to execute it, and when such execution shall most effectually demonstrate his inspection, and tend to secure the purposes of his moral providence and gcvernment over mankind. It is, I think, more than obscurely intimated, in those words of David to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for ycu, and wherewithal shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord 1" that they had loudly exclaimed against the violation of the public faith, and the perfidv and cruelty of Saul and his family, who had destroyed them ; and demanded that some satisfaction .should be made them, and had invocated the vengeance of God against their murderers. To demand satisfaction they had a right, as the tinilic.es srniguinis, the avengers of blood, or the near relations of those whom Saul had cut off; and it is probable that they took occasion, from the continuance of the famine for three years, to renew their complaints for the injuries they had suffered, and to desire that justice might be done them. This must greatly embarrass David, as Saul and his sons were killed in battle, and no satisfac- tion possibly could be obtained from them ; and therefore, in order to know the real cause of the famine, and whe- ther any, or what satisfaction was to be made to the Gibeon- ites, he determined to inquire of the oracle, and govern himself by the directions of it. The answer he received was, that the famine was sent for Saul, for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. It is true, that the oracular response did not in words dic- tate any act of expiation that was to be made to the Gibeon- ites, but only mentioned the cause of the famine. And the reason is plain, because when it was known that the famine was sent for the slaughter of these poor people by Saul and his bloody house, it was as well known they were to have some justice done them on that bloody familv, for the outrages that had been committed on them ; for David knew that, in the ordinary course of justice, the shedding of blood was only to be atoned for by the shedding of his or their blood ori whom the murder was chargeable. So that the oracle did really dictate, though not in words, the necessitv of an expiation, by pointing out the crime for which the famine was sent. And thus David understood it when sending for the Gibeonites, hesaidto them: "What shall I do for you 1 Wherewith shall I make the atone- ment?" i. e. the atonement for the blood of your people, that hath been unrighteously shed. The Gibeonites replied: " We will have no silver or gold of Saul, neither for us shall thou kill any man in Israel." No compensation could be made under the law, for wilful murder, by silver and gold, and indeed nothing could have argued a meaner and moie sordid disposition in these people, than a demand of money, in satisfaction for the massacre committed on them; and though the nation might have been, and certainlv was, in some respect criminal", for permitting Saul to cut 'them 'off, yet, as Saul was the contriver of the mischief, and his fam- ily the immediate agents who destroyed them, thev did not desire that any one person in Israefshould be put to death on their account, which was an argument of their ereat moderation and regard to justice. David then bid them name the satisfaction they demanded, and promised that he would give it them, acting herein in obedience to the pro- phet's direction, who, as Josephus rightly observes, ordered him to grant the Gibeonites whatsoever satisfaction thi-v should demand of him. We have something of a like his- tory in Herodotus, who tells us, that after the Pelasgi had murdered their Athenian wives, and the children had by them, they found that their lands became barren, their wives unfruitful, and their flocks failed of their usual in- crease. On this account they sent to the oracle at Delphos. to know by what means they might obtain deliverance from these calamities. The oracle ordered them to give the Athenians whatsoever satisfaction they should demand o! them. The Athenians demanded, that' they should deliver up their country to them, in the best condition they could. This the Pelasgi promised upon a certain condition, which they thought impossible. However, they w-ere forced in virtue of this promise, many years after, to surrender it to Miltiades, some of them making no resistance to his forces, Ver. 5. And they answered the kind;, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, 6. Let seven rerjn of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang- them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king, said, I will give them. It appears by this, that the demand of these seven per- sons, to be put to death, was by order of God, and the sac- rifice that he appointed to be made to the public justice, tr expiate the murders committed bv Saul, for they were to be hung up to the Lord ; i. e. in obedience to his will, and to appease his displeasure, because wilful murders are highly offensive to God, and are properly to be expiated by the death of those who have committed them ; in which sense every offender who is guilty of capital offences, ex- piates his guilt by suffering trie penalty of death, and there- by becomes a sacrifice to justice, human and divine. It de- serves also to be remarked, that fhe Gibeonites did not in- tend to exterminate the familr of Saul, in revenge for his intention to destroy them out of the coasts of Israel, but only demanded seven of his sons, and left the choice of these seven to David himself, hereby putting it out of their power to sacrifice the male line of Saul to their revenge, and giv- ing David a glorious opportunity to show how religiously he remembered his covenant with his friend Jonathan, "and that no policy of state should ever induce him to the viola- tion of it. It appears from hence, that David could not in- stigate the Gibeonites to make this request, that seven ot Saul's sons might be delivered to them, that they might kill them, toprevent its being said that he killed them for their sakes, and that the Gibeonites might hereby lake the blame of their destruction upon themselves, and screen David from being charged with that murder which he himseV had contrived, and by them perpetrated. For if iheGibeon- ites had acted with a determined purpose to cut off Saul's family.ithey would have named their men, and made sure work by a demand of Mephiboshelh and his family. Or if David had the same view,- he would have prompted the Gibeonites to have asked the delivery of the same persons ; or, when the choice was left to himself, would readily have seized the opportunity of giving up those that he appre- hended it was most for his interest to get rid of. Indeed nothing can be a more improbable absurd supposition than Chap. 21. 2 SAMUEL. this of David's instigating the Gibeonites to demand sevi n en Baal's family to be delivered np to death, as an expia- tiou for hi ■ 'i many ni them. Whether there was, or was not, such a massacre of iliem by Baul, must be universally known to the people ol I siiri, an execution could not have been committed in a corner, if there was not, how could the Gibeonites de- mand satisfaction ! For what could they demand it ! ' << nd it from the house of Saul, if they, and all the neople of Israel knew, that Saul and Ins house had never mjared them! Or, how could David instigate s. i M - 1 . , ion tor a massaeie.lhat he and all his people knew had never been committed on ihem ! No man i sense would openly pretend a reason foi an aci oi cruelty and injustic?, which had not the shadow of a reason in it, and which every one must know the absolute falsehood oi ; and it must have been much less exceptionable to all Da- vid's subjects, had he put Saul's family to death by an act of power, and openly avowed, that he did it to secure him- self and Ins own family on the throne, than to cut them off by such a barefaced paltry contrivance, which must see through, and which could not diminish the guilt and horroi of the fact, but only serve to heighten his own impudence and wickedness, and expose him tor Ins perfi- dy, subornation, and cruelty, to the greater abhorrence of ail his people. And indeed it is acknowledged that a more deceit was never exhibited ; such indeed as could only have been attempted amoti? the poor bigoted Jews. But I would observe, that as this transaction was carried on m an open public manner; as it was occasioned by a famine ; as the oracular response declared the famine was sent because that Saul and his bloody house had consumed the Gibeonites ; as they demanded Saul's sons for an expiation; and David delivered them up for an atonement ; stupid as the Jews wete, it was too bareiaced a deceit to pass even on them ; for if there had been no massacre of the Gibeonites at all, nor a famine of three years' continuance, the oracle would have been convicted of an immediate lie, and could never have persuaded the people into the belief of facts, which they themselves were absolutely certain never existed. If David was so vile as to attempt this deceit, and the Jews so stupid as to be deluded by it. what must the Gibeonites be, who acted in this tragedy by David's instigation, charged Saul with consu- ming and destroying them, and demanded seven of his sons as victims! For what? Why, for nothing; for destroy- ing and consuming them, when, in reality, they knew that he ill 1 not destroy and consume them, and all the nation knew that this charge against Saul was an imposture and a lie, and the demand of his sons for an expiation was the highest villany and impiety. There is, I believe, no man living who can really believe, that either David or the Gib- eonites could be thus designedly, shamelessly, and without inducement wicked, since the Gibeonites were to have neither gold nor silver for the part they acted, and since David might have cut off Saul's family, had it been in his heart to have done it, and assigned reasons for it, that would have carried some appearance of necessity and just- ice. If Saul was in reality guilty of the murder of these Gibeonites, it became the providence of God, who was su- preme king and judge in Israel, to make inquisition for the blood that was shed, and manifest his displeasure against such a notorious violation of the public faith and honour. Thus also will David be fully vindicated from the charge of instigating the request of the Gibeonites, and they from the iniquitous imputation of concerting with him so extremely childish, but wicked a scheme, of cutting off Saul's posterity. It hath been suggested to the dishonour of David, that in consequence of this request of the Gibeonites, which he himself must have instigated, David, not withheld by any motives of gratitude towards the posterity of his unhappy father-in-law, in direct violation of his oath to Saul at the cave of Engedi, granted it ; sparing only Mephibosheth, who luckily was so unfortunate as to be a cripple, and so much dependant on David, that he had no room for appre- hension from him. He therefore reserved Mephibosheth, in memorv of another oath between him and his father, Jonathan ; (or he was under obligations by two oaths, and forgot one, and remembered the other. But this charge is contrary to the most express account of the history, and David's conduct in this affair was worthy a man of probity 30 and honour, and consistent with the strictest regard to his mi. lb. both to Saul and .inn.'! ban. Thai in granting the re- quest to the (iibiMinti ■-, he directly violated Ins oal] at the ca\ e "I Kirjcdi "i ' in "ii llie r< hi. ii '.'i • I Saul'. family, in defiance of ihe solemn oath by w bich be engaged i 'inhappy race, needs no other refutation than the oath itself. Saul asked David to swear by the Lord. "thai thou will nol cut nil my seed ; It i - 1 inc. that thou wilt not destroy my name out oi my lailn-r'- im i i D !■ i v. ill i. ■■ urge here, thai had Saul's family commi « death, David's oath would nave ben mi reason against punishing them according to their di ; ■ '" '-m-li punishment, if de- served, had been no breach of his oath. But I shall on)) obsei i e, that if David did nol cut off Ins seed after him, so ih io destroy his name out of hi* lather's house, he did not ! iolt te I 'iii to Sanl, Now David did not cu single person ol Saul' whose death had the least 1 1 'mi ''in ", to destroy his n; n it of his la I her'.-, house. The sre.i is always reckoned by the i lie femi Ii of a family, and the name in a I'alliei':- hnii-o eon Id onh tn preserved by the male descendants. But Davii only the son's of Saul's concubine, who were not the legal seed of Saul, and those of his eldest daughter, who could only keep up Adriel's name, and nol Saul's; and hereby conscieni muslv observed, wit houl the least violation, his oath to Saul, or need of any mental reservation to help him out. To this it is objected, that if the seed is always reckoned by the males, an. I not the females, then Jesus Christ could not be the son of David, because he did not descend from David, by the inr.le line, but from the female. But it should be observed, that the son by a daughter is as really the son of the grandfather, as a son in the male succession, and that the only difference is, that the succession in a family is kept by the sons, and nol by the females, who by marriage enter into other families, and therefore cannot keep up the names of the families from whence they sprang. Jesus Christ therefore was the son of David, though i nly so by the mother's side; and as he was not Io keep op David's line according to the flesh, it was expressly predicted of him, by a double prophecy, that lie should be of the female line. The one, that he should be the seed of the woman; the other, that his mother should be a virgin ; so that he could not have been that son of David who was to be the Messiah. and to sit on his thrcne for ever and ever, had he been Da- vid's son by an earthly father. The same spirit of prophe- cy that declared he should be David's son, as expressly de- clared that he should be so by the mother; an exception that makes no alteration in trie general rule of familv successions, which were constantly among the Jews, and almost every nation in the world, in the male line, and not in the female. Nor is it true that he spared only Mephi- bosheth, and that he reserved only one cripple, from whom he could have no apprehensions, and who being the son of Jonathan, gave him the opportunity of making a merit of his gratitude. The history expiessly contradicts this as- sertion, for Mephibosheth had a son, whom he called Mi- cah, who was now old enough to have children, and had four sons, from whom descended a numerous posterity. See his line in the following table : — Saul, Jonathan, Mepliibosheth, or Meriu-ban!. Pinion, Melrvh.Tar.'a, Aba7, Jehoaclah, Alemcth, Zimri, Asmaveth, Man, I Rapha, Elcasali, Azel, icheru, Istimael, Shcarhli, Obadiah, Italian Esbok, I Vlaui. Jtush, Eliplielet, 150 sons and gran.Unn?. '23-1 2 SAMUEL. 0 faithless David, thus to leave Saul only one poor crip- ple ! and who, not withheld by any motives of gratitude, and in direct violation of his oath to Saul, did thus wickedly cut off all his seed after him, and wholly destroy his name, out of his father's house ! It appears from what hath been said also, that when it is insinuated that David spared Me- phibosheth, only because as a cripple, and dependant on David, he had no room for apprehension from htm, it is mere suggestion, and inconsistent with the plainest appear- ance to the contrary. For as this could not be the reason for his saving Mephibosheth's son Micah, and his family, it is not likely he acted from it in sparing Mephibosheth himself, but from a more worthy motive towards both, out if regard to his oath, and the grateful remembrance he still preserved of his former obligations to, and friendship with Jonathan, Mephibosheth's father. This the scripture inserts; that the king spa red Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 1 have one remark more to make on this part of the his- torv, which turns out to David's immortal honour. It is observed, that some certain contemplations, which are put into David's head, calling to his remembrance, that some of Saul's family were yet living, he coricluded it expedient to cut them off, lest they should hereafter prove thorns in his side; and then whenever David projected any scheme, a religious pretence, and the assistance of the priests, were never wanting. But for this charge there is not any found- ation. For Saul's bastard children, and the children by his daughter, could never be thorns in David's side, any more than other people, or the other branches of Saul's familv, because incapable of the crown; especially, while there continued a lineal descent in the male line from Saul himself. David therefore could not be guilty of all this villany and folly with which he hath been, charged, for the sake of cutting off Saul's family, lest they should be thorns in his side, because he cut off none but those who could be no thorns in his side, and suffered all those to live, who alone were capable of proving thorns in his side ; and therefore David projected no such scheme as this of cutting off Saul's family; yea, his conduct in this affair was di- rectly the reverse of- what he must have done had he pro- jected any such scheme ; and therefore I must conclude, that as no such scheme was ever projected, there was, and could be, no occasion for a religious pretence, or t'ne assist- ance of the priests, to sanctify and accomplish it. There have been, I acknowledge, commotions excited in states by illegitimate children, and by descendants m the female line. But I know of no instainv. in an.-i'-nt or iii.i.Iitii history, of any prince, who ivmi 'i:ii> ■, n.u" 'i. ' -■'.!" "I :,i i, cessor's family, who might dispute with him his ■ i by their descent, were living, and concluding il expedient \o cut theiri off, lest they should hereafter prove thorns in his side, should, to answer this end, cut off only the bastard children, and those of the daughters, and leave the son and grand.-on of his predecessor alive to propagate their de- fendants, and in them claimants to his crown, and thorns :iu his side, to all generations. Suspicious and jealous ty- rants love to make surer work ; but David, under a neces- sity of delivering up some of his predecessor's family to justice, generously preset ved the claimants to his crown a.hve, and delivered up those only from whom he could Lav.' nothing to fear, as having no kind of legal right to the government and kingdom. Illustrious prince! Be thy name and memory ever re- vered, thy generosity ever spoken of with praise ; who, when forced bv providence to give up to justice some of the guilty family of thy persecutor and sworn enemy, didst from the' greatness of thy mind, thy prevailing humanity, thy regard to thy oath to one who sought thy life, and thy pleasiag remembrance of thy once loved friend; refuse to cut off the seed of him that persecuted thee, and to destroy his name out of his father's house, but didst nourish his seed in thy besom, maintain it in thy family, suffer it to increase and prosper, and spread itself out into numerous branches, even when policy might have dictated other measures, and a wiekefi craft would certainly have pursued them. Fresh be thy .aurels to the latest posterity, and thine unexampled generosity ever be remembered with the veneration and es- teem, which it claims from all the benevolent and virtuous part of mankind. It should be further mentioned, on this <«:casi on, to David's honour, that though he was necessitated to deliver up some of Saul's family to justice, to give satis- faction to the injured Gibeonites, yet that he took the first opportunity to pay the last tokens of respect that could De to Saul and his unhappy family. For as soon as ever it appeared, that the natural cause of the famine was over, by the return of the rains, David ordered the bones of Saul and Jonathan to be fetched from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had recovered them from the Philistines, and took them, together with the bones of those that had been hanged up, and buried them honourably in the sepulchre of Kish, Saul's father ; whereby he showed, that he had no inveter- ate enmity to Saul's family, but was pleased with the op- portunity of showing respect to his name and memory. This whole account concludes with this observation of the historian: " They performed all that the king commanded, and after that God was entreated for the land." God ap- proved his generosity to the family and remains of his enemy, and as the reward of it, sent prosperity to him and his people. — Chandler. Ver. 10. And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water drop- ped upon theiri out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. Speaking of a great precipice near Bylan, Mr. PaTsons says*-" three loaded camels fell down the precipice, and were killed on the spot, in my remembrance ; and wiiat is very remarkable, in less than thirty hours after their loads were taken off, there was not left a piece of flesh, but all was devoured by the vultures in the day, and the beasts of prey, mo.-tly jackals, in the night." — Burder. By a passage of La Roque, it appears, that if the usual rains have failed in the spring, it is of great benefit to have a copious shower, though very late : for he tells us, that when he arrived at Sidon, in the end of June, it hadnct rained there for many months, and Miat the earth was so extremely dry, that the cotton plants, and the mulberry- trees, which make the principal riches of that countiy. were in a sad condition, and all other things suffered in proportion, so that a famine was feared, which is generally followed with a pestilence. He then tells us, that all the sects of religion which lived there had, in their various ways, put up'public prayers for rain, and that at length on the very day that the Mohammedans made a solemn pro- cession out "of the city, in the way of supplicating for mer- cy, all on a sudden the air thickened, and all the marks ol an approaching storm appeared, and the rain descended in such abundance, that all those that attended the procession got back to the city with considerable difficulty, and in dis- order. He adds, "that the rain continued all that day, and part of the night, which perfected the revival of the plants, and the saving of the productions of the earth. La Roque is evidently embarrassed with this fall of the rain just at the time the Mohammedans were piesenting their supplications, when neither the solemn prayers ol the Greek bishop, nor those of the Latin monks, nor even the exposing of the Host for many days, had been thus hon- oured : " At last," said he, " Heaven," which bestows its fa- vours, when and how it pleases, and who causes it to rain on the unjust and the infidel, permitted so great an abun- dance of rain to fall," &c. But there certainly was no oc- casion for any such disquietude; there w^as no dispute which religion was most excellent involved in this transaction, nor does any thing more appear in it than this, that God, the universal parent, having at length been sought to by all, showered down his mercies upon all. But the intention ol these papers leads me to remarks of a different kind. This author does not tell us when this rain fell, which is lobe regretted, and the more so, as he is often exact in less im- portant matters. However, it could not be before the end of June, N. S. for he did not arrive at Sidon until then ; and it could not be so late as the usual time of the descent oi the autumnal rains, for the cotton is ripe in September, un- til the middle of which month those rains seldom fall, often later, and this rain is supposed to have been of great service to the growing cotton; consequently, these general prayers for rain could not referto autumnal showers,but a late spring rain, which probably happened soon after his arrival, or Chap. 22. 2 SAMUEL. 235 about the time that Dr. Russel tells us those severe ihun- dershowers fell at Aleppo, which I have before taken no- •ice of, that is, about the beginning of July, O. S. And though the harvest must have been over at Sidon by the time this gentleman arrived there, and they had, therefore, nothing then to hope or to fear for as to that, yet as the people of those countries depend so much on garden stuff, ili. mi [>iv . i : . . I in.-. . I i .p.' , ii ■ , ..li , ■ . ' n.i be apprehensive of a scarcity as to these too, which they might hope to prevent by this late rain. For the like rea- son, such a rain must have been extremely acceptable in the days of David. And it must have been more so, if it fame a good deal earlier, though we must believe it to have jeen after all expectations of it in the common way were over; and such a one, 1 suppose, was granted. Dr. Dela- ny indeed, in his life of David, tells us, that the Rabbins suppose the descendants of Saul hanged from March, from the first days of the barley-harvest, to the following Octo- ber, and he seems to approve their sentiments. Dr. Shaw mentions this affair only cursorily, however, he appears to have imagined that they hanged until the rainy season C ime in course. But surely we may much better suppose ii was such a rain as La Roque speaks of, or one rather earlier. The ground Delany goes upon is a supposition, that the bodies that were hanged up before the Lord, hung until the tlesh was wasted from the bones, which he thinks is affirmed in the 13th verse of that chapter; but, I must confess, no such thing appears to be affirmed there ; the bodies nf Saul and his sons, it is certain, hanged but a very little while on the wall of Belhshan before the men of Ja- besh-gilead removed them, which yet are called bones;— ,: They took their bones and buried them," 1 Sam. xxxi. 13; the seven sons of Saul then might hang a verv little time in the davs of King David. And if it should be imagined that the tlesh of Saul was consumed by fire, verse 12, and so the word bones came to be used in the account of their interment, can any reason be assigned why we should not suppose these bodies were treated after the same manner! But it appears that the word tones frequently means the same thing with corpse, which circumstance also totally in- validates this way of reasoning: so the embalmed bodv of Joseph is called his bones, Gen. 1. 25, 2(5, and Exod. xiii. 19 ; so the lying prophet terms his body, just become breathless, his bones:"" When I am dead, then bury me in the sepul- chre wherein the man of God is buried^ lay my bones be- side his bones," 1 Kings xiii. 31. So Josephus tells us that Simon removed the bones of his brother Jonathan the high- priest, who was slain by Trvphon when he was departing out of that country, though Simon seems to have removed the body as soon as might be after Tryphon's retirement. Such'a late spring rain would have 'been attended, as the rain at Sidon was, with many advantages; and coming af- ter all hope of common rain was over, and presently fol- lowing the death of these persons on the other hand, would be a much more merciful management of Providence, and a much nobler proof that the execution was the appoint- ment of God, and not a political stratagem of David, than the passing of six months over without any rain at all, and then its falling only in the common track of things. This explanation also throws light on the closing part nf this story, " And after that God was entreated for the land." Dr. Delany seems to suppose that the performing these funeral rites was requisite to the appeasing God: bnt could that be the meaning of the clause'? Were the ignominy of a death the law of Moses pronounced accursed, and the honour of a royal funeral, both necessarv mediums of appeasing the Almighty 1 Is it not a much easier interpretation of this clause, The rain that dropped on these bodies was a great mercy to the country, and the return of the rains in due quantities afterward, in their season, proved that God had been entreated for the land % — H armer. Vcr. 12. And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of Jabesh-g-ilcad, which had stolen them from the streets of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Phi- listines had slain Saul in Gilboa. "Beth-shan." Calmet says on this, "House, or temple iff the tooth, or of ivory; from (ma) beth, a house, and (t») shen, a tooth. This title means, no doubt, simply the tem- ple of the tooth, but we have no <<■ > -■ u u> ■ < i.. iude that a to only was worshipped in any temple in Canaan ; il n.n i h n i- been the symbol of sonic deity." Calmet then '".,i thai ihi: iuaj have I n the god Ganesa of the East, who is represented with an i li phi di bean and supposes the tusks are alluded to by the tooth, [am ii. it aware, however of any such distinction being mane in that deity, and think it unlikely that his lu.sk would give the name to a temple. Is it not a curious fact, that thi tooth of Buddha is ihe most sacked and precious relic, in the opinion of the inhabitants of Siam, of the llurman em- pire, and oi < let lonl That tooth is kept in the temple of Kandy, the capital of Ceylon. Buddhism is the religion of China, and of those countries alluded to, and it was for- merly the religion of multitudes in India. — Roeerts. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 6. The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me. This is an allusion to the ancient manner of hunting, which i^ still practised in some countries, and was perform- ed by surrounding a considerable tract of ground by a circle of nets, and afterward contracting the circle by de- grees, till they had forced all the beasts of that quarter to- gether into a narrow compass, and then it was that the slaughter began. This manner of hunting was reed in Ita- ly of old, as well as all over the eastern parts of the world, and it was from this custom that the poeis sometimes repre- sented death as surrounding persons with her acts, and as encompassing them on every side.— Burder. Ver. 35. He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. The bow is the first weapon mentioned in the holy scrip- tures, and seems to have been quite familiar to the imme- diate descendants of Abraham. " Take," said Isaac, " thy quiver and thv bow, and go out to ihe field, and take me some venison." Here indeed the reference is to hunting : but we learn from the remark of Jacob to his favourite son, that the weapon which was found so useful in his art, was soon turned against our species; and it still continues to maintain its place in some countries, among ihe nstrnmen:s of human destruction. We learn from Homer, that the Grecian bow was a; first made of horn, and tipped with gold. But the material oi which it was fabricated, seems for the most part to have been wood, which the workman frequently adorned with gold and silver. One of these ornamented weapons pro- cured for Apollo, a celebrated Cretan, the significant name of ApyvpoToio;, the bearer of the silver-studded bow. But the Asiatic warrior often used a bow of steel or brass, which, on account of its great stiffness, he bent with his foot. Those that were made of horn or wood probably required to be bent in the same way; for the Hebrew always speaks of treading his bow, when he makes ready for the battle : and to tread and bend the bow are in all the writings of the Old Testament convertible phrases. The bow of steel is distinctly mentioned by the Hebrew bard : " He teaches my hand to war, so that" a bow of steel is broken by mine arms." This was a proof of great strength, and of uncom- mon success in war, which he ascribes wilh equal piety and gratitnde to the infinite power and goodness of Jehovah. To bend the bow, was frequently proposed as a trial of strength. After Ulysses had bent his bow, which all the suiters of Penelope had tried in vain, he boasted to his sou Teleinachus of the deed, because it was an undenia- ble proof that he had not lost his ancient vigour, in which he was accustomed to glory. Herodotus relates, that when Cambvses sent his spies into the territories of Ethiopia, the king of that country, well understanding the design oi their visit, thus addressed them : When the Persians can easily draw bows of this largeness, then let them invade the Ethiopians. He then unstrung the bow, and save it to them to carrv to their master. "The Persians themselves, accordingto Xenophon, carried bows three cubits in length. If these were made of steel or brass, which are both men- tioned in the sacred volume, and of a thickness propor- tioned to their length, they must have been very dangerous weapons even in close fight; and as such they are repr»- sented bv the prophet Isaiah: " Their bows also shall dasli 236 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 22—24. pieces; and they shall have no pily on shall not spare children." the young ihe fruit of the womb ; their In time of peace, or when not "engaged with the enemy, the oriental warriors carried their bow in a case, sometimes of cloth, bm more commonly of leather, hung to their girdles. When it was taken from the case, it was said, in the lan- guage of Habakkuk, to be " made quite naked." — Paxton. Ver. 41. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that The neck is often used for the whole body, and in threat- enings, it is the part mentioned. A proprietor of slaves is said to have their necks. To a person going among wicked or cruel people it is said, " Go not there, your puddara, i. e. neck, or nape, will be given to them." " De- pend upon it, government will have it out of the necks of those smugglers." £ Have you paid Chinnan the money 1" " No, nor will I pay him." "Why?' " Because he "has had it out of my neck." When two men have been fight- ing, the conqueror may be seen to seize the vanquished by the neck, and thrust him to the ground. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 16. And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Beth-lehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: never- theless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. There is an account very similiar to this in Arrian's Life of Alexander. Tunc poculo pleno, sicut oblatum est reddito : non solus, inquit bibere sustineo, nee tam exi- guum devidere omnibus possum. " When his army was greatly oppressed with heat and thirst, a soldier brought him a' cup of water; he ordered it to be carried back, say- ing, I cannot bear to drink alone, while so many are in want : and this cup is too small to be divided among the whole. Give it to the children- for whom you brought it." — Border. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 1. And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. Here arises the question, If Moses presupposed the law- fulness of this measure, and did actually twice number the people, wherein consisted David's sin when he did the samel Yet the Bible says that he actually did sin in this matter, and was punished for it by God, with a pestilence, which lessened the sum of the people numbered, by 70,000. The history of this event is given in 2 Sam. xxiv. and 1 Chron. xxi. ; and these passages I must beg the reader to peruse, if he wishes to understand what follows. The common opinion is, that David offended God by his pride, and his desire to gratify it, by knowing over how many subjects he was king. This is, perhaps, the worst expla- nation that can be given of the unlawfulness of his order. in the hearts of kings, and every sin they commit in thought, pestilences would never cease. It must, besides, appear very strange indeed, how such a man as Joab should have expressed so great an abhorrence at a sin that consisted merely in pride of heart, and have so earnestlv dissuaded David from it. Yet he thus remonstrates with him, say- ing, " May God multiply the people a hundred-fold, that the king may see it ; but wherefore will the king urge this measure 1" 'Or, as we read in Chronicles, "May God multiply the people a hundred-fold! They are entirelv devoted to the king's service. But whyseeketh the king to do this'? and why should guilt be brought upon Israeli" Notwithstanding this remonstrance, however, the king, we are told by both historians, repeated his command with so much rigour, that Joab found it necessary to carry it into execution. Now Joab was not, on other occasions, a man >>f narrow conscience. He had already deliberately plan- ned, and, in cold blood, perpetrated, two murders, merely to rid himself of rivals. , And when David gave him the hint to place Uriah in the post of danger, he was by no means squeamish, but immediately planned and com- menced an attack, in which, besides Uriah, a great num- ber of his bravest soldiers were slain. His conscience, therefore, could not be incommoded by a mandate relative to a matter in itself lawful, and where the sin, in whatever it consisted, lay altogether hid in the king's ambitious heart. If we think so, we must look upon him in the light of a court-chaplain, and a semi-pietist; and he certainly was neither. What he hesitated, tlieiefore, about doing, must have appeared in his own eyes, something more serious than bare murder. Josephus, "however, has hit upon an idea, which may, by some, be thought to account some- what more probably, than the opinion now mentioned, for the guilt which David is said to have incurred on this oc- casion. " David," says he, " made the people be numbered, without exacting for the sanctuary, the half-shekel of poll- tax enjoined by the Mosaic law." But this idea loses all its weight, if I am right in my opinion, that Moses enjoined a census, but merely on the first; and even allowing me to be wrong in this, and the common exposition of the statute, in the time of Josephus, to be the more correct one, still the notion of Josephus is certainly inadmissible here. For neither in Samuel nor Chronicles do we find the least men- tion of the half-shekel ; nor does David forbid the payment of it, but only orders the people to be numbered ; so that every conscientious person had it in his power to pay it of hims'elf, and the high-priest to demand it in virtue of his office. At any rate, David's census appears, in this re. spect, altogether as blameless as Moses' second one, in the account of which (Numb, xxvi.) not a word is said con- cerning the poll-tax. Nor do Joab and the other generals here represent to the king, that he ought to order the pay- ment of the half-shekel, but only intreat him to desist from the census itself. And finally, David, who had amassed so many millions of shekels, (IChron. xxix.) and, to the man- ifest prejudice of his own family, destined so much for building a temple, must actually have been in the delirium of a hot fever, if, contrary to all his other views, he had not had a desire to grant for the future erection of that edifice, projected by himself, the half-shekel payable on the census, which was a mere trifle compared to his own donations, and came not out of his own purse. But as far as I can understand the story, David caused the people to be numbered, neither out of that prudent solicitude which wiH always actuate a good king, nor yet out of mere curiosity, but that by means of such a census they might be enrolled for permanent military service, and to form a standing army ; the many successful wars he had already carried on, having filled his mind with the spirit of conquest. We find at least, that the enumeration was ordered to be carried on, not as had before been usual, by the priests, but by Joab and the other generals; and the ver)' term here used, Safer, (-^r) numerarit, scrijisit, in- cludes also in itself the idea of numbering for military service, and is, without any addition, equivalent lo our German military term, enrolliren, to enrol, or muster. This, indeed, is so much the case, that Hassofer, (ibcti) the scribe, is that general who-keeps the muster-rolls, and marks those called on to serve. In like manner, the of- ficers are termed (n-iso) scribes. David's sin, therefore, or rather (not to speak so theologically, but more in the language of politics) his injustice and tyranny towards a people who nad subjected themselves to him on very dif- ferent terms, and with the reservation of many liberiies consisted in this. Hitherto, the ancient and natural rule of nations, Qvot cites, tot milites, had certainly been so far valid, as that, in cases of necessity, every citizen was obliged to bear arms in defence of the state. Such emer- gences, however, occurred but very rarely; and at other times every Israelite was not obliged to become a soldier, and in peace, for instance, or even during a war not very urgent, subject himself to military discipline. David had made a regulation, that, exclusive of his lifeguards, called in the Bible, Creti and Pleti, 24,000 men should be on duly everv month by turns ; so that there were always 288,000 trained to arms' within the year; which was certainly suf- ficient for the defence of the country, and for commanding respect from the neighbouring nations, especially consid- Chap. 24. 2 SAMUEL. 237 ering the stale of the limes, ami the advantages in point of situation, which David's dominions enjoyed. It would ap- pear, however, that he did noi think this enough. Agitated, in all probability, by the desire of conquest, he aspired at the establishment of a in i 1 itary government, such as was me in afiei is, and at subjecting, with that whole people to martial regulations; that 80 ■ I hi be duly enrolled to serve under such i ■, and be obliged to perform miliary duly at staled periods, in order to acquire the use of arms. Vv"he her such a measure, if not absolutely necessary <" I ation of the state, be a hardship on the people, every man may judge from his own feelings, or even from inry of certain nations. For even in a country where the government is purely monarchical, and the people extremely martial, and the frontiers of which, from the uncumpactiie,) And the ii, viz. Joab, and the other generals to whom the task was committed, encamped rear Araer, appears to insin- uate, that this enumeration, or rather this enrolment of the ured the support of a military force. What David intended, Uzziah, his successor, in the eighth generation, may perhaps have accomplished. The martial measures of that prince ( 2 Chron. xxvi. 11 — 14) are not commended; the prophet Isaiah (chap. ii. 5 — 8) seems rather to describe them in the language of censure. It is to be observed, however, that the enrolment of the whole people by David, and by Uzziah, is by no means one and the same thing. The former ruled over a powerful nation, wherein there were nearly a million and a half of people able to bear arms, and which had a compact and secure frontier, from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean : so that, for the safety of the slate, no such oppressive meas- ure was requisite. But Uzziah had under him only two tribes, consisting probablv of about 300,000 men, and his territories were not rounded, nor the frontiers distinct and strong. Here, therefore, that measure might be necessary for self-defence, or, at any rale, admit of a sufficient apolo- gy, which, in David's time, was quite needless, and if strictly enforced, must have proved absolutely tyrannical. — MliHAF.I.IS. From several passages in the Old Testament, compared with each other, it appears that this census, or numbering of the people, was a sacred action ; as the money was to be applied to the service of the temple. It was not like that in other nations, to know the strength of the government; for God was their king in a peculiar manner, and promised to protect them from all their enemies, and to multiply them as the stars of the sky, while they obeyed his laws'.— Da- vid's crime, therefore, seems to have lain in converting a sacred action to a civil purpose. He was culpable bo'h in the thing itself, and in the manner of doing it. For where- as by the rule given to Moses, in the passages referred to above, they were to number the males from twenty years old and upward; David gave orders, that all should be numbered, who were fit for war, though under that age. This must have been highly criminal in David, now in his old ace, after so many instances of the Divine favour ex- pressed towards him. And as to the people, their offence seems to have consisted in their compliance with that order. He was culpable in giving the order, and they in obeying it. And therefore Joab. who was sensible of this, and unwil- ling to execute the command, asks David, " Why he would be the cause of trespass in Israel ?" For by that means, he reduced them to the difficulty of disobeying God, or him- self, as their prince. It was doubtless their duty to have i but we find, as it generally happens in such cases, thai the majority, at least, i hoi e to i b . 1 [owever, it appears thai Joab was weary of the offlci and did not go through it. Probablv he might find many of the people 1 a-\ , anil a\i a e to SUMO the order. Besides, ■ dv enjoined, that wln-n the people were to be numbered from twenty years old and upward, the Levites should be excepted, as being appointed for the service ol the tabernacle, And as they were not called out to war, sn they had DO share in the land of Canaan allotted tothl m, when' it was conquered by the other tribes; who were therefore ordered to give them a number of cities, each tribe out of their portion, which was accordingly done. And Josephus assigns that reason for it, when he says:— "Mo-. •-. because the tribe of Levi were exen war and expeditions, being devoted to the service of God, lest being needy and destitute of the necessaries of life, they care of their sacred function; ordered the Hebrews, that when by the will of God they the land of Canaan, they'should give to the Levites fort) - eight large and handsome cilies, with two thousand cubits 01 land round the walls." But David seems to have order- ed them likewise to be mustered, with a military view; which, perhaps, was an aggravation. For, it is said, that when Joab, by his command, numbered the people, "they were eleven hundred thousand men that drew sword." And it is added: "But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them, for the king's word was abominable lo Joab." So that it look's as if his orders were to count them with the rest. Indeed, we find them once armed upon an extraordi- nary occasion, which was to guard the temple at the coro- nation of Joash, king of Judah. For, at that time, they were ordered " to encompass the king round about, even- man with his weapons in his hand." But that was in the temple, where the rest of the people were not permitted to enter. And besides their religious function, they were sometimes employed in other civil offices. So David, when he was making preparations for building the temple, ap- pointed six thousand of them for officers and judges. Gro- tius, indeed, observes, with regard to this fact of David, that he declared the people innocent: which he seems to have concluded from what David says, 1 Chron. xxi. 17. But it does not appear, from what has been said above, that Ihey were altogether blameless, though not equally crimi- nal' wi'h himself. And in such a case, the equity of a na- tional punishment, is acknowledged both by Philo and Josephus, in the passages cited from them by Grotius. — Critica Bielica. These wars being thus happily ended, David enjoyed for some time a settled peace and prosperity, without any- foreign invasions to call him into the field, or domestic troubles to interrupt him in the affairs of government; but being at length persuaded and prevailed on to number the people, he became the cause of trespass to Israel, and brought on them the severe punishment of a pestilence. The author of the books of Samuel, in relating this affair, says: "That the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel," and he moved David against them to say, "Go number Israel and Judah." The author of the Chronicle; differently expresses it. " And Satan stood up against Is- rael, and'provoked David to number Israel;" and this is objected against as an absurd thing, that David should bt said to be moved both by God and Satan to number the people. But I apprehend this difficulty may be easily re- moved, bv observing, that these two places are capable of a more favourable turn, so as to render them perfectly rccon- cileable with each other, according to the genius of the language, and the common forms of expression in it. The text in Samuel may be thus rendered: "And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel; for he moved David," or "David was moved against them to sny. Go, number Israel and Judah ;" active verbs in the third person, being frequently to be rendered as impersonals, and not t" be referred to the nouns immediately foregoing: and thus the text will be fullv reconcileable with that in Chronicles, which says, that " Satan moved him to number the people." Or, it may reasonably be supposed, as the original words we render. "He moved David against them," are the same in Samuel and the Chronicles, Uiat the wo-d Satan halh 238 2 SAMUEL. Chap. 24. been omitted by some careless transcriber in the text in Samuel, which is expressly mentioned in, and to be sup- plied from that of Chronicles; and then the version will be, that " The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, for Satan moved David to number the people :" and very probably, had we more ancient MSS., this omission in Samuel, if such, would be rectified by them. A candid critic will make some allowances, both for defects and redundancies in books of that great antiquity, which the Old Testament books confessedly are; and where several of those books treat of the same affairs, will have the good sense, as far as he can, to supply what is defective in one, by what appears complete in the other. If there needs a supplement in Kings it is actually found in Chronicles, and therefore should be inserted from thence. This would cer- tainly be, in like instances, the case in other books, and it is injustice not to apply the same fair rules of criticism, to remove the difficulties that may occur in the writings of the Old Testament. But there is another way of rendering and understanding this passage, viz. " For he moved Da- vid," or, " David was moved against them," not, as in our version, To say, but i-n'?, dicendo, by saying, " Go number Israel and Judah ;" which last words will then be, not David's to his officers, which follow in the next verse, but his, who counselled David to this action. And thus David's numbering the people will be, neither by the instigation of God, or Satan, as that word means the Devil. It is certain, that God never instigated and said to David, " Go, number the people." For if God had commanded this, David's heart would never have smote him for it, nor would he have acknowledged to God, " I have sinned greatly in that I have done." Nor would Joab have remonstrated against it, nor have represented it to the king, as what would be a cause of trespass to Israel, if he had known that David had received such an order from God. Every circumstance in this account proves, that there was no hand or direction of God in this affair. And if the Devil had bid him do it, I suppose' he might have seen the cloven foot, and would scarce have followed the measure for the sake of the ad- viser. And yet somebody actually said to him: "Go, number the people ;" and this person seems to have been one of his courtiers, or attendants; who, to give David a higher notion of his grandeur, and of the number and strength of his forces, put it into his head, and persuaded him to take the account of them; who, in Chronicles, is therefore called Satan, or an adversary, either designedly or consequentially, both to David and his people. And this will exactly agree with what the author of the book of Chronicles says : " An adversary stood up against Israel, and provoked"," or, as the word is rendered in Samuel, " moved him against them." Thus Mr. Le Clerc under- stands this passage, and I think the expressions made use of seem to countenance and warrant the explication. But it is said, that David's numbering the people is oddly enough imputed to him as a great sin in him to require; lor he was but a passive instrument in the affair. But who doth not know, that a man may be hanged for a crime, to which his indictment says, " He was moved by the Devil ;" and because the Devil moved him, is he therefore a passive instrument, and free from guilt 1 Or doth the being per- suaded or moved by another to do a bad action, render the person so moved a passive instrument, or would it excuse him, in a court of justice, from the punishment due to his crimes 1 It is further objected, that David was but the instrument of a purpose, confessedly overruled to the execution of that purpose by supernatural influence, and that to punish one in such circumstances, would be just as if we should con- vict a knife or pistol, and discharge the criminal. If David was the mere instrument of a purpose, and overruled by supernatural influence to execute it, ihe similitude may be allowed. But who ever confessed that David was over- ruled to do it by supernatural power 1 David himself did not, but confesses directly the contrary. David's heart smote him, and he said unto God, " Is it not I that com- manded the people to be numbered ? Am not I the person who alone is accountable for it 1 Even I it is that have linned greatly, and done evil indeed, and very "foolishly." David knew it was his own act, and that, whoever advised ■3T instigated him to it, the blame was his own, and his pun- ishment deserved. A confession that would have been absurd and false, if he knew that the influence he acted under, was really supernatural, or such as he could not resist, or overrule. But as David did not know this, it is impossible any one else should know it. There is nothing in the history to support the assertion. If it was really Satan that moved him, he moved him no otherwise than as he doth all other men to that which is wrong; not by influences which he could not resist, but by those undue passions and affections which he' might and ought to have resisted. But if the measure was suggested by one of his own counsellors, as really seems to be the case, it was his duty to have overruled it, and hearkened to the better ad- vice of Joab, who told him of the danger of it, and would fain have dissuaded him from executing it. The truth is, as I apprehend, that David's prospen'iv had too much elated him, and that being advised by some rash imprudent courtiers to take the number of his people, that he might better know his strength, and be fully acquainted with the power and grandeur of his kingdom, his vanity, in this respect, got the better of his duty ; on which, 'God was pleased to check the rising presumption of his heart, by letting him see how vain his dependance on his forces was, and to punish him and them for their violation of a law, which he had ordered to be observed under the se- verest penalty. For, among other commands that were given by God to Moses, this was one : " When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his life, unto the Lord, when thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. This shall they give ; every one that passeth among them that are num- bered, half a shekel shall be the offering of the Lord; every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old, and above, shall give this offering to the Lord." David, either not thinking of this command, or thinking himself, as king of Israel, exempt from it, ordered the people to be numbered, without exacting the ransom from each of them. This was one of the highest stretches of authority, and claiming a despotic arbitrary power over the people, as seems plain from Joab's words to him : " Are they not all my lord's servants V Why then this badge of slavery, to subject them to a census contrary to the law of Hoses'! It was indeed assuming a prerogative that God reserved to himself, and a violation of one of the standing laws of the kingdom, for the capitation tax that God had appointed to be taken, whenever they were num- bered, was ordered to be paid for the service of the taber- nacle, as a memorial, that God was their supreme governor and king. But God, to support the dignity of his own con- stitution, and to put David in mind, "that" though king, he was still to limit the exercise of his power by the precepts of the law, gives him by the prophet the option of thret punishments, of which David chose the plague; recollect- ing probably, at last, that this was the very punishment threatened by God to the violation of this statute, concern- ing ihe numbering the people ; as well as for the reason he himself alleges ; " Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great." It is evident from the history, that this action of David was looked upon as a very wrong step, even by Joab, who remonstrated against it, as apprehensive of the bad conse- quences that might attend it ; for he says, " The Lord make his people a hundred times so many more as they be. But, mv lord the king, are they not all my lord's sennits? Why then doth my lord require this thing 1 Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?" And therefore Jo; b counted nol Levi and Benjamin, because the king's word was ; boni- inable to him. Probablv we do not undcrstrnd ;11 the circumstances of this affair; but Joab's censure of it, who was no scrupulous man, shows that David's conduct in ii was extremely imprudent, and might subject his people to very great inconveniences, But is it not strange, thai because David sinned in numbering the people, therefore the people should be punished ; since of the three punish- ments propounded to David for his choice, one of them must necessarily fall upon his subjects'! Possibly this dif- ficulty may be eased, when I put my reader in mind, that kings are no otherwise to be punished in their regal capa- cities, nor oftentimes to be brought to correct the errors of their administration, but by public calamities ; by fr mine, pestilence, foreign wars, domestic convulsions,' or some other like distresses that affect their people. This David thought a punishment ; and if it be right at all for Goq to Chap. 25. 2 SAAIl EL animadvert on '.he conduct of princes, or to show his dis- igainst them for the public errors of their admm- lightaodnl for him to afflict Iheirpeo- ideed this is whal continually happens in the lurse of providence, and the observation that, irAchlvj i.l a true one. And if this be a difficulty, it af- ii as well as revealed, and the same ions that will obviate (lie difficulty in one case, it also in the other. As to the thing itself, thai ■■, ise to be punished in their 1 1 lies.bu by public calamities which affect their people, it '■■nd, so sell-evident and certain, as that it can need no proof. Whether princes profit more or less, or nothing, by the misfortunes of their subjects, is nothing to this argument, S ime bad kings may not profit by it. All will. The people's welfare, however," is neces- sary to the prince's prosperity, and secures the principal blessings uf his reign, which can never be enjoyed without it. On the other hand, kings must be affected with, and deeply share in the misfortunes of their people ; because a plague or a famine, or a hostile invasion, or any national ■ nds to destroy the peace of government, or to su' it'the foundations uf ii, lessens the revenues of princes, the number of their subjects, the profits of labour and in- dustry, and interrupts the enjoyment of those advantages and pleasures, which regal porter and plenty can other- wise secure to the posses. ors of them. David was most sensibly affected with his people's sufferings under that pes- tilence which his imprudence and their neglect had brought upon them. How tenderly, how affectionately doth he plead with God in their behalf ! "Even I ii is that have sinned. But as for these sheep, what have they done I" What a noble instance of public spirit, and generous con- cern for the safety of his people, doth that moving and pa- thetic expostulation manifest, which he made when he saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand, stretched out over Jerusa- lem, and fell down with his elders, all clothed in sackcloth, upon their faces, and thus affectionately interceded for them : " Let thy hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be or. me aid on my father's house, but not on thy people, that lliry should be plagued." Here is the real la] spirit of a ge . a true shepherd ol i he peo- ple, devoting himself and family as a sacrifice to God for m of Ins subjects. Besides, in ihis case, the people were themselves very culpable: for the command was absolute: "When thou lakes', the sum of the children of Israel, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul." And therefore, as they knew or might have known, that, upon being numbered, they were to pay the prescribed ransom, which yet they neglected or refused to do; as partners in the offence, they justly shared in the penalty inflicted. It is allowed, that the tax was not at this time demanded by David; and this was his sin, in setting aside a positive command of God, to gratify Ins own \-anity and pride. The demanding this tax by his own authority might have created a national dis- turbance, and therefore should have prevented him from numbering his people. But they submitted to be numbered, and they were iherefore bound to pay the tax, whether Da- vid demanded it of them or not, for the law did not exempt them from the payment, if he who numbered them did not demand it. They were to pay it as a ransom for their lives, and to exempt themselves from the plague ; and were therefore punished with a plague for their neglect and dis- obedience. David indeed takes the guilt upon himself, and declares his people innocent of it: " As for these sheep, what have they done?" And it is true, that the order to number the people was David's, of which his people were wholly innocent. But thev should have remonstrated against the, thing, or voluntarily paid the capitation tax required of them; and as thev did neither, David was, as Joab foretold him, a cause of trespass to Israel, and they could not plead innocence, as a reason for their exemption from punishment. And even supposing they were entirely free from all blame in this affair, were they so far entirely- free from all other transgressions, as that it was injustice in God to visit them by a pestilence 1 If not, God did them no injustice by sending that pestilence ; and therefore not by sending it at that time, and as an immediate punishment of David's sin. God, by virtue of his supreme authority over mankind, may resume life whenever he i there be do sin, the resumption of life will he no punish- ment; if there be, the resumption of it will not be unjust, though the immediate reason of that resumption may be for the punishment ol anothi i espi i ially, as all such in- stances have a real tendency to promote the public good, and to preserve alive, in the minds both of princes and people, that reverence for Deity, without which neiiher public nor private virtue can subsist, w,r the prosperity of kingdoms ever he secured and established upon solid and lasting foundations. I ■ solemn humiliation of David, and intercession with God for his people, the prophet Gad was sent to him the same day, with an onlei that he should rear up an altar unto the Lord, in the thrashing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the hill -where Solomon's temple was afterward built. Da- vid accordingly purchased the ground, built an altar unto the Lord, offered bin nt- offerings and peace-offerings, where- by ihe Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague, which had raged from Dan to Beersheba, was stayed from Israel, the cily of Jerusalem being mercifully spared, and exempted from this dreadful calamity. After this, David, encouraged by the gracious token God had given him of his acceptance at this thrashing-floor of Araunah, by the fire from heaven that consumed his burnt-offering, continued to offer upon the altar he had erected in this place ; and publicly declared, " This is the house of the Lord God, this is the altar of the burnt-offering for Israel;" hereby conse- crating this place for the erection of the temple, and to be Ihe seat and centre of the public worship for all the tribes of Israel. On the whole, if they who object, credit the history of the Old Testament in this part of it, and think it true, that one of these three plagues was offered to David, as ihe punishment of his offence; that he chose the pesti- lence, thai it came accordingly, and was removed upon David's iniercession ; they are as much concerned to ac- count for the difficulties of the affair, as I or any other person can be. If they do not believe this part of the histo- ry, as the sacred writings represent it, let Ihem give us the account of it as it stands in their own imagination ; and tell us, whether there was any plague at all, how, and why it came, and how it went and disappeared so all of a sudden. In their account, whatever it be, David will stand certainly clear of every imputation; and, according to the scripture narration, he will be an offender, but only against ihe stat- ute law of the kingdom, as usurping an authority and dis- pensing power that' did not belong to him, but not against any law of God, of original, intrinsic, and immutable obli- gation, as far as we can judge by Ihe short and imperfect account that is left us of this transaction ; and so may still be the "man after God's own heart."— Chandler. Ver. 18. And Gad came that day to David, and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the thrashing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Thrashing-floors, among the ancient Jews, were only, as they are to this day in the East, iound level plots of ground in the open air, where the corn was trodden out by oxen, the hibyece area, of Horace, ode i. 1. 10. Thus Gideon's floor (Jndses vi. 37) appears to have been in the open air: as was likewisethat of Araunah thejebnsite ; else it would not have been a proper place for erecting an altar and of- fering sacrifice. In Hosca xiii. 3, we read of Me chafi which is driven bii the whirlwind from ihe floor. This circum- stance of the thrashing-floor's being exposed to the agita- tion of the wind, seems to be the principal reason of its Hebrew name; which maybe further illustrated by the direction which Hesiod gives his husbandman, to thrash his earn in a place well exposed to the Kind. From the above account it appears that a thrashing-floor (rendered in our textual translation a void place) might well be near the entrance of the gale of Samaria, and that it might afford no improper place for the kings of Israel and Judah to hearlhc prophets in.— Bcrder. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 23. And when David inquired of the Lord he said, Thou shall not go up ; but fe'.ch a coin- pass behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry-trees. 24. And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines. It is doubtful whether the mulberry-tree is once men- tioned in the scriptures. If Hasselquist may be credited, it scarcely ever grows in Judea, very little in Galilee, but abounds in Syria and mount Lebanon. Our translators have rendered the original term Baca, by mulberry, in two different passages: "And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, Thou shalt not go up, but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry-trees (Becaim ;) and let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself." And the words, "Who passing through the valley of Baca, make it a pool ; the rain also filleth the pools", — are in the margin, Who passing thnnigh the valley of mulberry-trees. The Seventy, in Chronicles, render it pear-trees j in which they are 'followed by Aquila and the Vulgate. Some think Baca, in the eighty-fourth Psalm, is the name of a rivulet, which burst out of the earth, atihe foot of a mountain, with a plaintive murmur, from which it derived its name. But it is more probable, that Baca is rGS. Chap. 1. the name of some shrub or tree. Those who translate it the mulberry-tree, to illustrate the passage in the psalm, pretend it grows best in the dry ground ; but this seems to be unfounded. Marinus imagines, that Baca signifies the mulberry-tree, because the fruit of the mulberry exudes a juice resembling tears. Parkhurst rather thinks that Baca means a kind of large shrub, which the Arabs likewise call Baca, and which probably was so named from its dis- tilling an odoriferous gum. For Baca with an alcph, seems to be related to Baca with a hay, which signifies to ooze, to1, distil in small quantities, to weep or shed tears. This idea perfectly corresponds with the description which Celsius has given of this valley. It is not, according to him, a place abounding wilh fountains and pools of water, but rugged and embarrassed wilh bushes and stones, which could not be passed through without labour and suffering; a striking emblem of that vale of thorns and tears, through which all believers must pass to the heavenly Jerusalem. The great uncertainty among interpreters concerning the real meaning of the term Becaim, has induced Mr. far- mer to hazard a conjecture, that the tree meant in this pas- sage is the weeping-willow. But this plant is not found in a dry sandy vale, where the thirsty traveller is compelled to dig for water, and to form cisterns in the eanh, to re- ceive the rain of heaven. In such a situation, we expect to find the pungent aromatic shrub distilling its fragrant gum; not the weeping-willow, the favourite situation of which is the watery plain, or the margin of the brook. — Paxton. THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS CHAPTER 1. Ver. 2. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin ; and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. This is by no means so uncommon a thing as people in England suppose. Men of seventy years of age and up- wards often take a young virgin for the same purpose as David did, and no other. It is believed to be exceedingly healthful for an aged person thus to sleep. " In the hot season, he is kept cool, and in the cold season, warm, by sleeping wilh a young pi-r^,., : K,s wrhercd body derives nourishment from the other." Thus, decrepit men may be seen having a young female in the house, (to whom, gener- ally, they are hot married,) and to whom they bequeath a considerable portion of their property. — Roberts. Ver. 9. And Adonijah slew sheep, and oxen, and fat cattle, by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En-rogel, and called all his brethren the king's sons, and all the men of Judah the king's servants. The oriental banquet, in consequence of the intense heat, h often spread upon the verdant turf, beneath the shade of a tree, where the streaming rivulet supplies the company with wholesome water, and excites a gentle breeze to cool . their burning temples. The vine and the fig, it appears from the faithful page of inspiration, are preferred on such joyous occasions: "In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, j shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and i under the fig-tree." To fountains, or rivers, says Dr. '■"handler, the Turks and the Greeks frequently repair for ; refreshment, especially the latter on their festivals, when whole families ate seen sitting on the grass, and enjoying their early or evening repast, beneath the trees by the side of a rill. And we are assured by the same author, that in such grateful retreats they often give public entertain- ments. He visited an assembly of Greeks, who, after cele- brating a religious festival, were sitting under half tents, with siore of melons and grapes, besides lambs and sheep to be killed, wine in gourds and skins, and other necessary provisions. Such appears to have been the feast which Adonijah gave his friends at En-rogel. It was held near a well or fountain of water, and there " he slew sheep, and oxen, and fat cattle, and invited his brethren" and the prin- cipal people of the kingdom. En-rogel was not chosen for secrecy, for it was in the vicinity of the royal city, but for the beauty of the surrounding scenery. It 'was not a mag- nificent cold collation ; the animals on which they feasted were, on the contrary, killed and dressed on the spot for this princely repast. 'In Hindostan feasts are "given in the open halls "and gardens, where a variety of strangers arc admitted, and much familiarity is allowed. This easily accounts for a circumstance in the history of Christ, which is attended wilh considerable difficulty; the penitent Mary coming into the apartment and anointing his feet w:th the ointment, and wiping them with the hair of her head. This familiarity is not only common, but far from being id-, n--- ' ..flier disrespectful or displeasing." More effect- ually to screen the company from the burning sunbeams, a large canopy was spread upon lofty pillars, and attached by cords of various colours : " Some of these awnings," says Forbes, " belonging to the Indian emperors, were very costly, and distinguished by various names. That which belonged to the emperor Akher was of such magnitude as to contain ten thousand persons: and the erecting of it em- ployed one thousand men for a week, with the help of ma- chines; one of these awnings, without any ornaments, cost ten thousand rupees." Similar to these were ihe sp endid Chap. 2. KINGS. 241 bankings under which Ahasuerus the king of Persia enter- tained his court. They "were while, green, and blue, fastened wilh cords of tine linen and purple, to Silvc i rings and pillars of marble."— Paxton. Siloam was a fountain under the walls of Jerusalem, east, between rtie city aid the brook Kedron; it is sup- posed to be the same as the fountain En rogel, "i trie Fuller's fountain. "The spring issues fiom . rims in a silent stream, according to the testimony of . lore miah. It has a kind of ebb and flood, souioiin., ing Us current like the fountain of Vaueluse; at others, retaining and scarcely suffering it to run at all. The | I, or rather the two pools of the same name, are quite close to the spring They are still used f>r washing linen as formerly. The water of the spring is brackish, and has a iceable taste; people still bailie their eyes, with it, in memory of the miracle performed on the man horn blind." (Chateaubriand.) — Birder. Ver. 14. Behold, while thou yet talkesi there with the king;, I also will come in after thee, and confirm thy words. The Hebrew has for confirm, " fill up." " I wish yon to go and inform Tamban, that I will gladly go into court anAfill up all his words." " My friend, do not believe that man's words." — " Not believe them ! why, his words have been filled up by many people." "Well, you say you saw Mmtoo turn his cattle last mght into your rice-fields, w hat proof have you ?"— " None, my lord, I was alone, and, therefore, have no one to fill up my words." " As Venase was coming through the cinnamon gardens, that n..'"i mis robber Kallowav met him, took from him his ear-rings, finger-rings, and five gold mohurs; but, before he got off, iple came up, who knew him well, so that there i'ill be plenty of witnesses to fill up his words." — Roberts. Ver. 16. -And Bath-sheba bowed, and did obei- sance unto the king. And the king said, What wouldest thou ? When a husband goes on a journey, or when he returns, -eeing him, puis her hands together, and pre- sents them to him as an act of obeisance. When she has an important request to make, she does the same thing ; and it is surprising to see the weakness of him who pretends to be the stronger vessel, for, under such circumstances, sin- will gain almost any thing she wants. Hence, the force of their' popular proverb, " The woman who regularly makes obeisance to her husband, can make it rain whenever she pleases." When Bathsheba made her obeisance to the king, he asked, " What wouldest thou 1" but, the Hebrew has this, " What to thee 1" This accords with the idiom of the Tamul language. Thus it will be asked of a person who stands with his hands presented to a great man, itmmal-cnna, "To thee what 1" If speaking of a third person, avanuk-enna, "To him what ?" or, literally, " Him 10 what ?" — Roberts. CHAPTER II. Ver. 5. Moreover, thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zemiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in hi.s shoes that were on his feet. 6. Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. David having settled this great affair of Solomon's suc- cession to his throne, but a little before his death sends for him, and gave him a particular charge, in reference lo two state criminals, Joab and Shimei. That to Joab in these words: " Thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the host of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was upon his loins, and in lo- sboi that were apon his feel ■ o h , i in ; under pretence of pet i e i nd fi iet i ship, bespri nk li d his girdle and wet hi shoes with the blood of these two generals, as though be had slam tbem in battle. •■ But li.. if. o I murders David mentions to Sol. in. n ; s the g round ol ihii charge, nol to li I him die a m tort i death. The one inti- mated, "thou knowesl what he did to me," viz. when he cruelly slabbed Absalom^contiary i< ■ my immcdinti !. i- the two others exprc sl\ mentioned, those of Abner and n these accui he i dt i es him lo put him lo death; audi allow David's dying advice, or rati in this instance, to be peremptory and absolute; and, if 1 trades i mI any thing of justice at d ei worthy of a vood king, ;,nd lit to be given in the last moments of his life. The reader w ill remember, that the facts are these. Upon Abnert reconciliation with David, .and bringing over the people lo his interest, Joab oni oi ret en-.- fot his brothi i Ai ahel i death v i forced to it by A-ale I'- i. ■ In. ess, had nnwill,: ■ and probably envying him the glory of s i - 1 1 1 1 1 1 •_• lV\i.i .... the throne of Israel, and afraid of bis being placed at the head of the Hebrew army, as the reward ot - service, under the pretence of a friendly salutation, in il e most base and cowardly manner, stabbed loin unt xp< ctedh to the heart. David highly resented this murder, followed Abner's corpse tothe grave, and 10 show what pari he would have acted immediately, had il been in his power, says : "I am this day weak, 'though anointed king; end these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too haul li r me The Lor< shall reward the doer of evil according to his v. ieke.ln.ss. After the rebellion under Absalom was ended, David thought this a proper opportunity to shi w bis d to Joab; and as he imagined it would be an I thing to the people of Israel, who were now zealous to restore the king to Ins throne, he ordered it to be signified lo Amasa, who had been their general in the rebellion, that he would constitute him captain-general of his armies in the room of Joab, and actually appointed him, as such, to assemble the forces of Judah, and suppress the new insur- rection under Sheba. As Amasa was returning with his troops, Joab meets him, and with a compliment and a kiss, thrust his sword through his body, and laid him at s sil gle blow dead at his feet ; and immediately usurped the com- mand of the army, quelled the insurrection, and returned lo Jerusalem. And now, reader, let me appeal to thy conscience. Were not these two execrable murders deserving of punisl mi nl ' Was the cowardly base assassin worthy lo live 1 II he was too powerful a subject for David lo bung to justice, did not David do well, and act like a righteous prince, to give ii in charge to his successor, to punish, as -.■' power, such a villain, according to his desert 1 Mr. Br vh: V judgment is, that David well knew that Joab deserved death, and that the suffering the assassinations, wilh wbieh tbt man's hands were polluted, to go unpunished, was a flagrant injury done to the laws and lo justice. With what truth then can it be said, that David delivered two murders in charge to his son Solomon ; one of them to be executed on his old faithful general, Joab? Was it charging Solomon to murder a man, to order him to put to death a criminal, for having basely committed two most execrable murders'! Or is ihr doing justice on murderers and assassins commi;- ting murder? Or is the represenlalii n jnst, that this order, viz. to murder Joab, was aileiward fulfilled in the basest manner, by the administrator to this pious t< ■■':.;. i dor, and he thyself a witness to the meant r of J. nib's execution, which is thus stigmatized wilh the epithet of basest. Solomon, in obedience lo his father's dii.~'-:nns, gives orders to Benaiah to put Joab to death in tin s words " Fall cm him, that thou mayest take away the innocen' blood which JoaD shed, from me, and from the house ol my father; and the Lord shall return his blord upon his own head,*ho fell upon two men, more righteous and belter than himself, and slew them with the sword, mv father David knowing nothing thereof" Solomi n us i < w king, firmly fixed on the throne, and had it in hit | v.. r li execute justice on the greatest offenders ; and rem nbering. I doubt not, how Saul's house was punish»d .' r the in- nocentblood of the Gibeoniteswhich he spilt, he' iswilling lo secure himself and family from a like vengi nee. He 242 1 KI would have been in some measure chargeable with Joab's guill, had he refused to punish it when it was in his power; and especially, as he had it in charge from his father to execute the vengeance on him that his crime deserved. But where shall we here fix the character of basest 1 What, on Solomon's command to take away the guilt of innocent blood from himself and his father's house; or on his ordering the execution of the man that shed it, the man that slew two men, more righteous and- better than himself; or on God's returning his own blood upon his head ; or, on his ordering Joab to be slain at the horns of the altar, and not permitting even the altar of God himself to be an asy- lum for murderers ; or, on his appointing Benaiah, the captain of his host, to execute justice on this treacherous assassin 1 This was the manner in which Solomon per- formed his father's orders, in an open public manner, appealing to God for the reasons of his conduct, and by a hand too honourable for the wretch that fell by it. And is this, what it hath been termed, putting a man to death in the basest manner'? Is not this condemning, as a piece of vil- lany, a most exemplary instance of royal justice, and exhibited in such a manner as showed a regard to religion, conscience, honour, and the prosperity of his government and people 1 But in order to show David's ingratitude to Joab in ordering Solomon to punish him for the murder of Abner, it hath been urged that it appears, that Joab, uniting his revenge with the dead, acted basely for David's service. Supposing it. Doth it follow, that David's ordering the execution of a base and treacherous assassin was baseness and ingratitude, because the assassination was intended for his service ? I do not understand this morality. I should rather raise a panegyric upon a prince, who should order a treacherous assassin to execution, notwithstanding the pre- tence of the assassin's intending to serve him by the villany ; than on one, who should protect a villain from the punishment of treachery and murder, because he in- tended to serve, or actually served him by these notorious crimes. But the supposition itself, that Joab murdered Abner for David's service is without any foundation, and contradicted by the whole history of that affair. For this asserts once and again, that Joab murdered Abner in re- venge for his brother Asahel's death. And as to his ex- postulating with David on the imprudence of trusting Abner, saying, He came to deceive thee, and to know thy going out* and thy coming in, and all that thou dost ; David had all the reason in the world to look on this charge against Abner as a mere calumny. For Abner, before ever he had wailed on David, had brought the elders oi Israel to a resolution to accept of David for their king, and he came to inform him of this transaction. Abner went also to speak in the ears of David all that seemed good to Israel, and that seemed good to the whole house of Benjamin ; i. e. all that had been agreed on between Abner and the tribes in reference to David. So that Joab's charge of treachery against Abner was contrary to the strongest evi- • dence of his integrity, and only a pretence to colour over that murder of him which lie intended. Joab knew very well the intention of Abner's interview with David; for he was informed that he had been with the king, and that he had sent him away in peace ; and he expostulated with "the king for thus dismissing him, that he came only to deceive him. And therefore his murdering Abner could he with no intention to serve David, but to execute his own re- vel ge and serve himself; for no transaction could have been at that time more directly contraryjo David's interest, as the tribes would naturally resent so cruel a breach of ll treaty with him, and with their united forces opposed ms accession to the throne of Israel. What prevented this was, David's so solemnly and publicly clearing himself of having any hand in the murder, and showing, to the fullest st, isfaetion of the people, that it was wholly the contrivance of Joab, and perpetrated by him without his privity and consent. Had Abner lived to have finished this great revolution ill favour of David, and actually settled him on the throne of Israel, Abner ought in justice to have continued in the command of the army. This Joab could not be ignorant JGS. Chap. 2 of, and therefore, uniting his revenge with his ambition, he assassinated Abner, to free himself from a rival in power and his prince's favour, and secure himself in the chief command. He acted just the same infamous part after- ward, when he assassinated Amasa, because David had promised him to make him general of the army in Joab's room; and this strengthens the probability, or rather renders it certain, that he murdered Abner, nut only out of revenge for his brother's death, but also from the same cause "of jealousy, envy, and ambition. And indeed Josephus will not so much as allow, that even the revenging Asahel's death was any thing more than a pretence for Joab's mur- dering Abner, but says, that the true cause was, his being afraid of losing the generalship, the favour of his master, and being succeeded by Abner in both. It is further objected, that Joab was reallv ill used in the affair of Amasa. But to me it appears, that he was used no otherwise than he deserved. It is true he gained the victory over the rebels ; but the merit of this "victory he destroyed by a base and infamous murder, contrary (o the express command of his sovereign. For David charged Joab and Abishai, and all his officers, before the engage- ment: Deal gentlv, for mv sake, with the young man, even with Absalom. Had Joab cut him off in the heat of the battle, he would have had somewhat to have alleged in his defence. But nothing could argue greater insolence and contempt of the king's order than Joab's conduct on this occasion. For when one of the army informed him he saw Absalom hanging by the hair in a tree, Joab re- plies: " Why didst thou not smite him there to the ground, and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver and a girdle 1" The soldier answered him with a noble spirit of loyally: "Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver, I would not put forth my hand against the king's son : for, in our hearing, the king charged thee, and Abi- shai, and Ittai, saying, Beware, that none touch the young man Absalom; otherwise I should have wrought falsehood against my own life, and thou thyself would have set thyself against me." But what doth the loyal Joab do after this warning'! He said: I may not tarry thus with thee. Tell me no more of the king's orders. I have something else to do; and immediately he took three darts in his hand, be a greater insult offered to the king than thisl Or, a more treasonable violation of his orders? Or, a more deliberate and aggravated murder committed! Would any prince have endured this 1 Or, ought he to hsve par- doned even a victorious general, after such an audacious cruel instance of disobedience'? But not content with this he carries his insolence to the king further, and keeps nr measures of decency with him. For, upon David's mourn ing over his rebel son, Joab imperiously reproaches him " Thou hast showed this day the faces of all thy s,i v.nvs whieh this day have saved thy life, and the lives ofthi sons, and daughters, and wives; in that thou lovest thin'i enemies, and hatcst thy friends. For thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither princes nor servants; for this day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well;" and then, to complete his audacious insolence, threatens -with an oath to dethrone him, if he did not do as he ordered him. "Now therefore arise, go forth, and speak comfort- ably to thy servants; for I swear by the Lord, if thou go not forth, there shall nottarry one with thee this night; I will cause the whole army to revolt from thee before morning: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now." I will appeal to all men, that know what duty or decency means, whether Joab, after such a behaviour to his sovereign, was fit to be continued general of the forces: and, whatever might be his merits in other respects, whether any prince, who consulted his own honour and safety, would not take the first opportu- nity to humble and break him'? The opportunity came. Amasa, the general of the rebel army, brought Jerusalem and Judah back to their allegiance, and, according to Da- vid's promise, was constituted captain-general in the room of Joab. In defiance of this appointment, Joab, to get rid of his rival, like a coward and poltron, under pretence of peace, and a friendly salutation, ripped open Amasa's belly, and shed out his bowels upon the ground. But it is said, to exten uate Joab's guilt, that he confined his resentment to his rival. 1 KINGS. 213 What then? Is a cowardly murder to be pard ailed on a rival? Do not the laws of God and man call for an exemplary punishment of such as atro- cious ofTendei ! Are nut such treacherous crueltie .though i .wards a rival, offences of a public breach ol thai allegiance which men owe to their prince . i \ i. .1, iik. it of the sacred laws of government I David, it is plain, thought so; and though Joab was too powerful a subject for him to call to an immediate account, yet to show thai he had never forgiven it, he orders Solo- eeahle to all the rules of honour and justice, to punish aim as he deserved for his numerous treasons and murders. Bui we are told that " it will avail nothing to plead the private faults of the man. We are now to con- sider him as relative to David in his public capacity, as his old faithful general, who powerfully assisted him on all occasions, and who adhered to him in all his extremi- ties; in which light we must loathe the master, who died meditating black ingratitude against so faithful, so useful a servant.' 1 would ask: If David had had power, and had ordered the execution of Joab, immediately upon the assassination of Abner, or of Amasa, whether his master David ought to have been loathed on that account, because Joab had been an old faithful servant 1 If it should be said, that he ought lo have been loathed for it, the doctrine is this: that whatever person hath been an old faithful servant, or general, to any prince, and powerfully assisted him upon all occasions; and murders, ; on his own power, and past services, through malice, re- ambition, by a secret stab, and under the pre- '.■i. ■•■■ of friendship, one or two of the principal officers of the kingdom; the prince, whom he serves, becomes an Object of loathing and abhorrence, and is guilty of black ingratitude, if he resolves on his death, and actually exe- cutes him, as such a base and treacherous assassination deserves. No man, I believe, will coolly assert this. If it is said, that David ought not to have been loathed, but commended, if he had then ordered his execution; I think it cannot be true, that because Joab had been an old faith- ful general, &c, we ought to loathe David for ingratitude, for meditating Joab's punishment while he lived, and ex- Ining it just before his death; for whatever it was just for him to do, it was just for him to order to be done; inasmuch as he really did himself what Solomon did by In- order; and because an act, that is just to-day, can- not become unjust merely by being deferred till to-morrow, or the most convenient opportunity of performing it. But it is said, that it will avail nothing to plead the private faults of Joab. What, were the murder of Abner, who had just brought over the eleven tribes to submit (d Dai id, and the assassination of Amasa, appointed general of the national forces, at the head of his troops, private faults'! High treason, murder, and felony, private faults! What then can be public ones, and what' faults can be aggravated wiih any more heinous circumstances than these? But i't avails nothing, it seems, to plead these private faults, in vindication of David's ordering him to be put to death by his successor; because we are to consider him as relative to David in his public capacity. Very right ; David in his public capacity was king of' Israel, and joab in his public capacity stood related to him as his general, and assisted him, and adhered to him in all extremities. David therefore, in his public capacity, was obliged, by the laws of God and man, to punish 'assassinations and murders; and Joab, in his public capacity, as general, was an assassin and murderer; and therefore David, in his public capacity, as king, was obliged to punish Joab with death, in his public capacity, as general, assassin. and murderer. If Joab had been his faithful general, and frequently assisted David in his extremities, private obli- gations are in their nature inferior, and ought to give way to public ones; and the yielding up such an offender to public justice, when personal obligations might have been pleaded by the prince in his favour, was a nobler sacrifice in its nature, and renders David's merits, as a prince, the more illustrious, and himself more worthy the character of the man after God's own heart. And this Mr. Bavle thinks David ought to have done sooner, and says, thai notwithstanding Joab deserved death, yet that he kept his place; he was brave, he served the king his master faith- fully, and to good purpose, and dangerous discontents might be apprehended if he attempted to punish him. These were the political reasons which made the law give place to utilily. But when David bad no further use h.r that general, be that he should be put lo death. s> thai Mr. Bayle blames David, not for ordering Joab to be put to death at last, but for deferring to do it so long, through .i only v, ben tl ■ if policv >i,i, 1 would here just ODsei re, that what Mr. Bayle calls politick) reasons were really reasons of necessity. Fur Joab was loo powerful a Sub- ject to bring to justice. lie attempted it twice, by turning him out 1 1.. m being general. Bin he restored himselJ lo his command by murder and treason, in spite of David, who seized the very first opportunity, after Joab's power was broken, of ordering his execution. It should be added also on this head, that whatever J..;. lis past services were to David, and however faithful he had formerly been lo him, yet he had now been engaged in a treasonable conspiracy against him, to get aside the intended succession lo the crown, and had actually pro- claimed Adonijah king of Israel during Ins lather's life; altogether without, and even contrary to his consent. And .1. that David had on tliis account justifiable cause for chagrin. And it is certain, that Joab's treason, in endeavouring to depose the good old king, and advance an ambitious youth into his throne, was just reason for chagrin. And therefore as Joab added rebellion to mur- der, David did justly, in his last moments, to order his execution by his son and successor, and he would neither have been a wise or a righteous prince, had he forgotten or refused to doit. When it is said, that Joab had not appeared against him in actual hostility, and that his defec- tion may admit of being interpreted into a paironisation of that particularplan for the succession, rather than into a re- bellion against David, it is in part not true in fact. To pro- claim any person king, in opposition lo the reigning king, is an overt "r.ct of rebellion, and therefore of real hostility. '! his Joab did, and had not the design been seasonably prevented, bv the loyalty and prudence of Nathan, further hostilities must have been immediately committed; David himself at leaat confined, and Solomon, his intended successor, actually pot to death. The plan of the succession, con- certed by Joab, in favour of Adonijah, was, m every view of it, a treasonable one. It was a plan formed without the consent of the nation, without the knowledge of David, and the appointment of God. David had, a considerable while before this, solemnly sworn to Bathsheba, that Solo- mon her son should reign after him, and sit upon his throne in his stead; and tells all the nobles and officers of his kingdom, that as the Lord God of Israel had chosen him, among the sons of his father, to be king over all Israel, so, of all his sons, God had chosen Solomon to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over all Israel. To patronise therefore any other plan of succession, and ac- tually to take measures to execute that plan, was breaking out into open rebellion ; and the favourers, abetters, pa- trons) and aiders, in such a plan, were traitors to their king and country, and in all nations would have been punished as such ; and should it be pleaded in excuse of such per- sons, that their defection to patronise such a plan of suc- cession, was not a rebellion, it would be treated with the contempt it deserved ; and as a defection from a prince is a revolt from him, and a revolt a rebellion, they would , probably be told, that they should have ihe choice of being hanged for a defection, or rebellion, just as they pleased. I shall only take notice further, on this head, that David, in his lamentation for Abner, had declared the Lord to be the rewarder of evil-doers; by this expression referring the punishment of Joab to the Lord. And the inference that hath been made from hence is, that David having en- joyed the benefit of Joab's services through his life, he having been his right hand all along, gratitude, after such an attachment, ought to have influenced David to have left him to the justice of God, and not have bequeathed him death, as a legacy for his long friendship. But David did not bequeath him death for his friendship, but for his re- peated treasons and murders; which no just principle of gratitude will ever shelter; since no services, public or private, can be a compensation for these impious violations of the laws of God and man, and ought not to hinder the progress of justice in the execution of such notorious of- fenders; and were kings and princes to act according w " , the peace, order, and safety tt this notion of gratitude, 244 1 KINGS. Chap. 2. society, could not possibly be maintained. Besides, as Da- vid declared the Lord to be the rewarder of evil-doers, so he really left it to the providence of God to reward Joah, bv not punishing him himself, but by waiting for the prop- er opportunity to give him his reward, when it could be done consistently with his own safety, and the peace of his kingdom. Joab's defection or rebellion in favour of Adoni- jah, and Solomon's establishment on the throne, furnished this opportunity, and the providence of God, by these means, brought on the punishment he had long deserved. Let Solomon explain his father's meaning in the very or- der he gives for Joab's execution. The king said to Be- naiah: "Fall upon him .... that thou mayest take away the innocent blood which Joab shed, from me and the house of my father, and the Lord shall return his blood upon his own 'head, who fell upon two men more righteous and bet- ter than himself, and slew them with the sword." David therefore left Joab to the justice of God, and God execu- ted justice on him by Solomon's order; and the hand of providence was very remarkable in this transaction; in that, had Joab's treason, in patronising Adonijah's usurpa- tion, succeeded, Joab would have escaped with impunity ; for Adonijah, no doubt, out of gratitude to Joab, would have forgiven him his murders, for the sake of his servi- ces. David's meaning, therefore, in declaring that the Lord would reward the evil-doers, could be no other than that in which Solomon understood it: That though Joabwas mo powerful for him, at that time, to punish, yet that God would not suffer him finally to escape ; but that, sooner or later, in the course of his providence, he would bring the punishment on him which he so richly deserved. And ibis Joab experienced, since the very measures he took in the close of David's reign, to secure himself from it, fixed his doom, and proved his destruction. David's conduct therefore, in this instance, is no proof that his repentance tor his sins was not sincere, nor any argument that he had not forgiven his enemies, as far as he'ought to do it, and Lid not die in charity with all mankind, as far as that charity ought to be extended. If a prince's charily influ- ences him, living or dying, to pardon repeated offences, in- consistent with the public safety and peace, such as assas- sinations and treasons, it is folly and weakness, and not virtuous charity; it is cruelty to his people, instead of real generosity and goodness. David had not this charity, and it heightens his character that he had not. His last charge to Solomon shows his inviolable regard to justice, by posi- tively ordering the execution of a murderer, who was too powerful for himself to punish ; and the order was execu- ted by Solomon, in a manner worthy a wise, a just, and a great prince; or, worthy the son of such a father. — Chand- Vei\ 7. But show kindness unto the sons of Bar- zillai the Gileadite, and let them be of those that eat at thy table : for so they came to me when I fled because of Absalom thy brother. At public entertainments in the courts of eastern kings, many of their nobles have a right to a seat, otheis are ad- mitted occasionally by special favour. In this sense Chardin understands the dying charge of David to his successor, to show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and to let them be of those that should eat at his table. He means not that thev should eat at his table at every meal, or on every day, but only on days of public festivity. In the same light, he views the conduct of the king of Babylon to t he captive monarch of Judah : " Evil-Merodach spake kindly to Jehoiakim, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon ; and changed ■us prison-garments, and he did eat bread continually be- t"re him all the days of his life." He received a daily allowance from the king suitable to his high station, and i he value which Evil-Merodach had for him; besides this, he had a seat at all the public entertainments of the court. The eastern custom explains the reason that David was not expected at Saul's table, till the day of the new moon; he did not sit at the king's table every day, but according m established usage, he had a right, and was expected to be present in his allotted seat on the day of a public and -olemn festival. In the same manner, though Mephibo- sheth was to sit at David's table on all public occasions, yet he wanted the produce of his lands for food at other times. It was therefore very proper to mention the cir- cumstances to Ziba, that he might understand it would be necessary for him to bring the produce of the lands to Jerusalem, and in sufficient quantity to support Mephibo- sheth in a style suitable to the dignity of one who had a right, by the royal grant, to appear at court, and sit at the king's table on' public occasions: "Thou, therefore, and thy sons, and thy servants, shall till the land for him; and thou shalt bring in the fruits, that thy master's son may have food to eat; but Mephibosheth thy master's son shall eat bread always at my table." — Paxton. Ver. 8. A«d, behold, thou hast with' thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamiteof Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim : but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with , the sword. 9. Now therefore hold him not guiltless ; for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him ; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood. After the charge to Solomon, to execute the due punish- ment on Joab, for his numerous and aggravated crimes, David gives him another, relative to Shimei the Ben- jamite, who, as hath been already observed, when the king was in his flight from Jerusalem, to prevent his falling into Absalom's hands, met him, railed at, and cursed David in his journey; and as he went on,/iad the further insolence to pelt him with stones, and dtist him with dust, crying out to the king, " Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial. The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned ; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son ; and behold thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man." This, as Mr. Bayle says, is a small specimen of the abuses to which David was exposed among the friends of Saul ; they accused him of being a man of blood, and looked on the rebellion of Absalom as a just punishment for the mis- chiefs which they said David had done to Saul and his whole family. But surely an abuse and insult of a more atrocious an'd insolent nature was never offered to a prince; an insult the viler, as it had no foundation in reality or truth to support it. He twice styles him a bloody man ; and tells him, that because he had reigned in the stead ol Saul, the Lord had returned on him all the blood of the house of Saul. The reader will observe, that this transac- tion was before the affair of the Gibeonites; and therefore this circumstance could not enter into Shimei's thoughts, nor be any reason for his charging David with being a bloody man, and having the blood of Saul's house re- turned on him. Now, in what other respects could David be guilty of the blood of Saul's house 1 Saul's three eldest sons were slain with him in a battle with the Philistines, in which David was not present. The only remaining son that Saul had was Ishbosheth, whom Abrier made king in Saul's room, in opposition to David, who was raised to tha throne by the house of Judah. Ishbosheth was killed by two of his captains, whom David put to death for that trea- son and murder ; and Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the only remaining one, w-as restored to his patrimony, and, in all things, treated as one of David's own sons ; and Saul's line by him, the eldest branch, continued down through manv generations. The charge therefore that David was a bloody man, because the blood of the house ol Saul was upon him, was a scandal and a lie, and uttered in the madness of the passion and malice of a man, who, being of Saul's house and family, was enraped to see thai family rejected from the throne, and David advanced to it in their stead. Mr. Bavle himself acknowledges, that the friends of Saul carried things too far in these reproaches against David. And yet, as though he had made too large a concession in his favour, he doth, in a manner, retract it, by adding: "It is true, that, by the testimony of God himself, David was a man of blood, for which reason God would not petmit him Chap. 2. 1 KI to build ihe temple." Bui, by Mr. Bayle's good leave, David was iu>l a man of blood, by any testimony of God himself; nor doth either of the places he cites in proof of it, prove tiny such thing. The expression which Shimei made use of to revile David was, win c-tt on, Thau art ,: m,i,i nf blood; an expression always used, I think, in a bad sense, to denote a cruel bloody man. But God never gave this character lo David. What God said of him was that he 1 id been a man of wars, naew anim a/id bast abed blood; or, as it is elsewhere expressed : Thou baft shed much blood, node great wars. Now the shedding of blood im- miial, except it be shed o:n sine causa, . ,.,i i.r •■au-o; innocent blood, as our version, ren- ders; and this very expression is used, in the same verse, "itial and in the good sense, to denote murder, and the justly putting the murderer to death, "Whoso is blood, by man shall his blood be shed." If i I > ii id's wars were just and necessary, the blood he shed in them was not his crime; and it is evident, that when David told his son, and afterward all the princes :rs "f his kingdom, that the reason why God wool 1 BOt permit him lo build his house, »;r- f. bad shed much blood in his wars; he did not mention it to hem as a reproach, or any crime imputed to him by God. Indeed this could not be the case, because, immediately li id assigned this reason why lie would not per- mit him to do it, vet, without in the least blaming him, he racioosly gave him a proof of his peculiar favour, by assuring him, that his son should build his house, should prosperity and peace, and that the throne of his kingdom over Israel should be established forever. Mr. Bayle urges it as a further reason of David's being a bloody in an, or else he introduces it for no' purpose at all, that, to appease the Gibeonites, he delivered up to them two sons, and five grandsons of Saul, who were all seven hanged. Had Mr. Bavle told, as he ought to have done, the reason of David's delivering them up, it would have been no proof of his delighting in blood. He did it not by choice, but by ne- ■ 's-itv, and a divine order. As therefore God never charged David with being a man of blood, this charge, as thrown on him bv Shitnei, was false and injurious; and the observa- li in. that " here an opportunity may be taken to introduce a circumstance, which is so 'far material, as it serves to show, that the sanctity of David was not quite so univer- sally assented to, as may be imagined, while he was living, and his actions not only fresh in memory, but more per- fcc.lv known, than was prudent to transmit to these dis- tant ages," is quite groundless and injudicious. For how ' i h the being reviled and cursed by one interested and disappointed person, and charged with crimes for which Ih 'i • is no foundation, but many strong concurring circum- how Ihe falseh 1 of the charge; how doth this, I say, serve to prove, that David's sanctity was not so uni- i ersally assented to, as may be imagined 7 It is no proof thai Shimei himself believed the truth iof his own reproaches; nothing being more common than for men, in the extrava- gance and fury of passion, to vent many iliings, which they well know they have not any foundation for affirming: much less doth it serve to show that David deserved these ; and, least of all, that others believed them ins', and had as bad an opinion of him, as Shimei who ru-iled him. If this be argument, then I will, to the fullest conviction, demonstrate, that David's sanctity was, while lie lived, thought as great as any body imagines. For, in the first place, Jonathan tells Saul: "He hath not sinned : g linst thee, his works have been to thee ward very good." In the next place, Saul, his professed enemy, acknowl- ■ Ig s David's innocence.and that he was a more righteous nan than himself, and that in persecuting him, " he had ■: ived the fool, and erred exceedingly." Nay, Shimei hi us. -If. upon whose railing against David this notable ''■servaiion I am remarking upon is grounded, retracts all he had said, owns himself a slanderer and a liar, and begs p -t-'lon for his abusive impudence. " Let not my lord im- ptte iniquity unto me, nor remember what his servant did perversely; for thv servant doth know that I have sinned." From hence I argiie: If Shimei's reproaching David shows his sanctity was not quite so universally assented to. as may he imagined, while be was living, therefore, a fortiori, Jonathan's, and Saul's, and Shimei's testimony, to David's innocence and righteousness, serves to show, that the sanc- tity of David was really as universally assented to, as hath been imagined, while* he was living, and all his actions fresh in memory. I must beg leave also to add, that as Shimei owned himself to be a Tying, slanderous varlet, and that Ihe charge of David's being "a man of blood, and guilty of the blood of Saul's house," was an in- iquitous, perverse calumny ; that charge destroys Us Own credit and truth; and instead of sciving to show that Da- vid's sanctity was not quite so universally assented to, as may be imagined, while he was yet living, rather serves to show that it was. For, as there are several imqnestionafa e to his integrity and virtue, of persons thai knew him well, and were his contemporaries ; as friends and enemies have given their united testimony in his favour, and there is but one evidence to the contrary, and that a lying one. upon record, who retracted his own charge pub- licly, and begged pardon for the falsehood of it; the sanctity of David's character in the opinion of the public, while he lived, stands unimpeached ; and Shimei's infamous cal- umny against him, refuted and falsified by himself, can never, with justice, be pressed into the service against David to defame his reputation. As to the suspicion here thrown in, that David's " actions, when fresh in memory, and perfectly known, were worse than have been repre- sented, or was prudent to transmit to these distant ages ;'' surely this must have been a very unreasonable one, if the actions that have been transmitted to these ages are such, as justify the charges brought against David, and the splen- did character given him, of usurper, ungrateful, perfidious, perjured, whose conscience was his slave and his drudge, a tyrant, a Nero ; in a word, a monster and a devil. Can he' be painted in worse colours than these" Or do the enemies of David suspect the representations they have made of Ihe actions recorded, as injurious and false, and want further materials to bespatter one of the greatest and best of princes 1 But they needed no further memoirs to assist them. For, in spite of Shimei, and though he had retracted all his curses and calumnies, yet the world is told, after reciting Shimei's blasphemies: "This is pathetic, and truly characteristic of the tyrant," to whom the speech was addressed. But David's real character was quite tl t reverse of a tyrant. He never oppressed his subjei :ts ; but when he reigned over Israel, executed justice and iui rnent among all his people; and, perhaps, there never w; s a prince of greater humanity and clemency, or thai :.*. ■ more shining and disinterested proofs of it, than David, though he halh been characterized as the vilest i : the worst of tyrants. Shimei himself was one illustrious proof of this. F( r when David's officers would have effectually silenced I: reproaches, by putting the brawler to death, as he re: Un- deserved, what saith this Nero of the Hebrews ' S reader, the lineaments of his blood-thirsty disposition, in his reply to Abishai : "Let him curse. For if fl ■■ Loi I hath said unto him, curse David, who shall then say, wherefore hast thou done so? Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life. How much more now may this Benjamite do it ? ' Let him alone, and let him curse, if the Lord hath bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on my affliction, and that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day*" In this grievous calamity, David could not but see the hand of God, it was now falling heavy on him for his great sin in the affair of Uriah, and therefore ascribes the curses of Shimei to his immediate permission, and, in some measure, even lo his appointment ; as he was now reduced to that low condition, through the effect of his displeasure, as that this wrelcii dared to pour out these undeserved calumnies against him. This shows the moderation and great command of hi- tem- per, who would deny himself the vengeance due to such an outrageous insult on his person and character. Oh ! bow perfect a picture doth this exhibit to us of a Nero, and who can help discerning and admiring the happy resemblance ! But it was not, it seems, piety, or humanity and go. dm>s ; of heart in David, but policy and prudence, that prompted him to preserve Shimei's life. For so we are told : " Some of his retinue were at the point of silencing this brawler with the ultima ratio regum; but David prevented it; wise- ly considering this was'not a season for proceeding to ex tremiiies." Why, what was there in the season to prevent David from punishing a treasonable reviler and brawler as he deserved? What would David's cause and interest have suffered by permitting a single person to be put l<- 240 1 KINGS. Chap. 2 death, for a crime that made him -worthy of it 1 There is but one possible mconveniency that would have attended it, and that is, there would have been wanting one noble in- stance of his generous disposition, and the government of his passions ; which is now recorded, to do honour to his memory, and heighten the glory of his truly illustrious character. But supposing that this was not a season for proceeding to extremities, vet when David recovered his throne, and had Shimei fully in his power, this surely was a season for David's coming to any just extremities that he pleased, and he did not want very powerful advisers to make use of them; for Abishai said to him: " Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he hath cursed the Lord's anointed 1" And is there any one man in the world, that would not have applauded David's justice, in ordering to execution a wretch that had cursed and pelted him with stones in his adversity? It is true, Shimei owned his fault, and, as it is expressed, reflecting on David's vindictive tem- per, came to make his submission, and petition forgiveness. This persuasion, one would think, would certainly have kept Shimei from ever coming near him, and forced him to seek safety by flight. I should rather have imagined, that, reflecting on David's merciful and forgiving temper, and the experience he had lately of it, in David's not per- mitting his officers to cut him off, when he was actually cursing and stoning him, he made his submission, and pe- titioned for mercy. If David had been the vindictive Nero, which he hath been represented to be, Shimei's owning his fault would not have been his security, and he would have paid dearly for the scurrility of his abusive tongue ; espe- cially as he was one of Saul's family, whom, it is said, lest they should hereafter prove thorns' in his side, he conclu- ded' it expedient to cut off. But notwithstanding this expe- diency, David accepted his acknowledgments, and told him with an oath: Thou shalt not die. But what shall we think, it is said, when we see this Nero of the Hebrews die in a manner uniform and consist- ent with the whole course of his lite 1 What will be our reflections, when we find him, with his last accents, deliv- ering two murders in charge to his son Solomon'? One against Joab, the other against Shimei, which we are now to consider. The eharge"that David gave to Solomon con- cerning him runs thus : " And behold thou hast with thee Shimei, the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim', which cursed me with a grievous curse, in the day when I went to Mahanaim; but I swore to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. Now therefore hold him not guiltless, for thou art a wise man, and know- est what thou oughtest to do unto him ; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood." This is the ground of the accusation brought against David ; that when he lay on his death-bed, where all mankind resign their re- sentments and animosities, his latest breath was employed in dictating this posthumous murder to his son Solomon. My reader will not forget who Shimei was; of the house and family of Saul; that he was a person of great power and influence in the tribe of Benjamin, of whom he had a thousand in his train, when he made his submission to Da- vid upon his restoration; and that the manner in which he accosted David, when fleeing from Jerusalem, discovered the inward rancour of his heart, and his readiness to join in any measures to distress and disturb his government, and cause the crown to revert to the house of Saul. There- fore David puts Solomon in mind, that Shimei cursed him v;ith a grievous curse, in the day that he went down to Ma- hanaim; that he was an implacable enemy to his person an i family, one who was not to be trusted, "and would not fail to show his hatred upon any proper occasion. It ap- pears further by the expression: "Behold thou hast with thee Shimei;" "that he was now in Jerusalem; and that therefore David thought this a proper opportunity of confi- ning him, that he might not spread disaffection to Solo- mon's government, among those of his own tribe, or of any of the other tribes of Israel ; a precaution the more neces- sary in the infancy of Solomon's reign, and as some of his brethren were inclined to dispute with him the succession to the crown; and therefore David said: " But now do not thou hold him guiltless;" i. e. though I forgave him, and swore to him that he should not die, do not thou let him go off, do not leave him at liberty, nor treat him as an inno- cen. man, that is reconciled to 'my family, and thy succes- «i»n in the throne of Israel. He is Shimei still, and wants nothing but a fair opportunity to declare it. He is now with thee. Hold him fast, keep him continually under thine eye to prevent his doing any mischief; and if thou findest him guilty of any malpractices, his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood ; cut him off as an old offender, and dangerous enemy, to secure thy own peace, and the safety of thy government. Further, David's telling Solomon that he sware to Shi- mei by the Lord, that he would not put him to death for his outrage and treason, is a demonstrative proof, that he did not advise Solomon to put him to death tor the crime that he himself had solemnly forgiven him. For can any one imagine, that David should tell Solomon, that he had sworn by the Lord not to put Shimei to death, and, in the same breath, order him, in defiance of the oath, to be put to death by Solomon ? Common decency and prudence would have made him conceal the circumstance of the oath, un- less he intended to brand himself publicly for the grossest perfidy and perjury ; or, what is the real truth, to prevent Solomon from putting Shimei to death, in resentment for a crime for which he had solemnly sworn he would never execute him ; and therefore it may be allowed Mr. Bayle, that strictly speaking, a man, who promises his enemy his life, doth not acquit himself of that promise, when he or- ders him to be put to death by his will. But this doth not affect David's inlegrity, who either never promised him ab- solutely his life, or never gave any positive orders by his will to execute him. I add therefore, that the words them- selves, when rightly rendered, imply no such order. The common rendering of them is: His hoar Acad bring thou down to the grave with blood. But it is a better interpreta- tion, and supported by parallel passages, if we render them, Bring doivn his gray hairs to the grave for blood, or for be- ing guilty of it. Shimei was a man in blood, intentionally of murdering the king, and who actually attempted it by stoning him f and, on that account, deserved to be put to death. Now, though David could not order Solomon to put him to death for this attempt, because he had forgiven him, yet he might justly urge it, as a reason why Solomon should keep a constant strict guard over him, in order to prevent him from any seditious practices, or put him to death, if he found him guilty of any. The authors of the critical remarks give another turn to the words, which may be justified also by many other places of like nature. They would have the middle'words put into a parenthesis, and the negative particle A L repeated in the last clause from the first; thus: " Now therefore do not hold him guiltless (for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do for him,) but do not bring down his hoary head with blood." I would propose a little alteration in the reading of the prefix™?;;. '"Do not hold him guiltless, (for thou art a wise man,) nor bring down his hoary head with blood." Accordingto this translation, David's direction to Solomon will be: That he should not put Shimei to death for having cursed him, because he had forgiven him upon oath ; but, at the same time, should not hold him guiltless; leaving it to Solomon's wisdom to inflict a proper punishment on him, provided it was not a capital one. If David had intended that Solomon should immediately put him to death, there would be no sense nor reason in nhat David adds: " Thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do to him ;" which is evidently the same thing as saying: I give thee no particular directions about him, only observe him. Thou art a wise man, and knowest how to manage him, and to thy prudence and care I entirely leave him. This is the natural proper meaning of the" expression, which cannot be construed into anv other sense, without doin? violence to the word*. Now," to what purpose was ii t>> t, II Solomon, that he knew how to behave to Shimei, if David's command was immediately to cut him off. and Solomon un- derstood him in this sense ? The thing is absurd in its na- ture, and there dan be no meaning in a charge of this kind, viz. giving any man an absolute order to put another to death for a crime, and, in the same breath, leaving him en- tirely to the management of his own wisdom and prudence, to put him to death or not. If he gave a positive order for his death, he did not leave him to Solomon's wisdom ; and if he left him to Solomon's wisdom, as he certainly did, he did not give him any positive order for his death. It is certain that Solomon did not understand his father in this sense, of puttina Shimei to death for his treason at Mahanaim ; but only that he fhtrnld have a watchful eye Chap. & 1 » ■ erst him, and prevent him from all seditious pi ihe future, For what rtoih Solomon do after his father's lie. n ' \\ hai, instantly put Shimei 10 death ! No, but as who knew'what h« ought to do to him, orders him to build a house for himself al Jem -:.l.-m ; w hero he .•online- aim that be might be perpetually under his inspec- md him by an oath never to go further out of ■ brook Kn'iron i telling him, that whenever he should - ly die. This is further evident i.mnci .n which Solon treat : Joi b i. Joab he immediately, on his access ,pnl because David could be understood in DO other sens;, in the charge he gave concerning him, but to cut him no intimation thai he had par- toued lorn, ot hat he left it to his son's prudence to do with him as he should think proper ; but says peremptorily, after recounting Ihe two murders he had committed: Do ti) ii according to thy wisdom. Do justice on him, and bow Ihvselfawise man, and let not his hoarhead ■ the' grave in peace. Now if the charge had been the same in reference to Shimei as it was to Joab, what should have prevenled Solomon from immediately executing Shimei as well as Joab 1 Solomon had much less to apprehend from executing Shimei, than Joab. Joab erest in the army, and had David's sons, and the high-priest of his party, which Shimei could not have, as ■ iwerfnl man of the house of Saul: a circum- stance litis, however, enough to incline a jealous prince to get lid of him if he fairly" could do it. And if Solomon had David's positive order to do it, ihe regard to his father's command, and the rules of policy, would have emem d loin to have immediately executed him. But ihi- Solomon, in his wisdom, knew he could not do ; for David told him that he had pardoned Shimei to prevent his execution, be- cause his otl'ence was personal, and David had a right to forgive it. But he had neverpardoned Joab, nor in justice could do it ; because he was guilty of death, for repeated murders, by the laws of God and man. Solomon therefore ily and justly in putting Joab to death, and show- ed his prudence in reference to Shimei. by sparing him ; but honourably confining him, that he might have the prop- er security for his future good behaviour. But to this it ' that the executing Joab, and sparing Shimei, was owing to a different cause from what I have now assigned. For Joab, by joining the party of Adonijah, had furnished the prelence for putting him to death, which Shimei doth not appear to have done. Joab therefore was assassinated, and Shimei watched. But this contradicts the history; for David, in his order to put Joab to death, mentions not one word about his being of Adonijah's party, but orders him to be cut off expressly for the treacherous assassination of Abner and Amasa.- And when Solomon ordered his execution, not a word of Adonijah ; but take away the innocenl blood which Joab shed from me, and from the house of my father. So that, as the cause of Joab's execution was not his being of Adonijah's party, so of Shimei's being spared, cannot be said to be, because he was not of Adonijah's party. The true reason of their treatment, was the different nature of their crimes, and the difference of the order relating to them. And as Joab was put to death for repeated murders, by the express order of the king, it is with great injustice that his death is censured as an assassination; especially as he was exe- cuted in the same manner as state criminals at that time generally were. Besides, if, as hath been asserted, David had, without any condition, and by a positive injunction, ordered Shimei to be put to death, then his joining, or not joining Adonijah, had been a circumstance of no weight; for, whether the one, or the other, Solomon ought not to have ordered him to he watched, but instantly to have put him to death, as he did Joab. And if, because he was not of Adonijah's party, tared him, and ordered him only to In m tched, then Solomon did not think his father's order to be an order to cut htm off, but only to have a watchful eye over him. For Da vid knew Shimei's circumstances as well as Solo- mon, and Solomon's conduct to Shimei is an abundant ex- plication of the nature of his father's command, and how he himself understood it. This is the sentiment of F. Houbi- gant, who doth not so much as give a single intimation that Shim.-i was watched, and not put to death, because he was not of Adonijah's party ; but absolutely denies that David IGS. 247 gave ■ i ', i iiier at all to Solomon to put him to death for the crimes which he had pardoned him, but only to watch bis Conduct, till he should render himself guilty hy some ■mil. And v In n upon breaking his oath, he was sent lor by Solon , the king teproai In-d him tor Ins perjury, for acting contrary to the condition of life, which lie himself acknowledged to be just and equitable, and for tin- wickedness that his heart was mivy to in his conduct to his father David; the mercy that 1 shown him, in the pardon of that offence, aggravating his liesi, crime m violating 1ns oath, and iii tran i g ihi king's command ; a crime I ha I showed lie was of a restless spirit, and incapable of being restrained within dire bounds by the most solemn oaths, oranj ense Of interest, gratitude, or duty, whatsoever. Solomon adds: "The Lord shall lettirn thy wickedness on thine own head, and King Solo- mon shall be blessed : and the Ijirone of David shall be established before the Lord forever;" plainly intimating, that Solomon now cut him off, as an act of prudence and justice, because he knew him to be a turbulent implacable enemy to his person and government, and saw it necessary for establishing the throne of David before the Lord. I would further add, that Shimei himself, sensible of Solomon's great kindness to him, approves the sentence pronounced on him, and therefore Ihe charge that David gave him, promising him upon oath obedience to Ihe con- dition, on which his life was afterward to depend. " The sentence is good. As my Lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do." Il doth not appear that Solomon mention- ed one word about Shimei's cursing David, when he or- dered him to confine himself to Jerusalem, and that there- fore this was not the immediate reason why he confined him, but as his father had forewarned him, k 'cause he thought il would be a dangerous thing to suffer a person of Shimei's family, tribe, interest, and known ra.icour to his crown and government, to be entirely at libei ty. And, upon this supposition, Shimei could not but own the justice of the sentence, and Solomon's lenity in pronouncing it. But if Shimei had any apprehension that David had vio- lated his oath of safety to him by the charge he gave Solo- mon concerning him, or that Solomon had broken il, by making his life depend on a new condition, which his la- ther had never obliged him to come under ; why did he not plead David's oath and promise, and that had no con- dition annexed to it, when he appeared before Solomon; that the annexing a new condition to it was actually re- versing it, and therefore a breach of oalh in David, if he directed il, or in Solomon, if it was his order only, and not David's? And though David, being dead, Shimei could not reproach him to his face, yet he might have reproached him, and Solomon himself to' his own face, for this breach of oalh, if there had been any. Bui Shimei urges nothing of all this in favour of himself, and instead of reproaching David or Solomon, acknowledges the king's moderation, and says: The sentence is good. It is most just and mer- ciful. As my lord the king haih said, so will ihy servant do. Shimei therefore knew, eilher that he had an" absolute pafdon from David, or that he had forfeited that pardon, or that, whatever was the purport of David's oalh to him, no injustice had been done him, either by David's charge to Solomon, or by Solomon's executing' it. The adver- saries of David may choose which they please. David's honour, and Solomon's justice, will be abundantly vindi- cated. Let me beg the candid reader's attention to another re- mark : That though it hath been positively affirmed, that David guarantied Shimei's pardon with a solemn oath, yet this is bv no means certain from the history. For let il be observed, that after Shimei's confession of his fault, Abi- shai said to David: "Shall not Shimei be put to death, be- cause he cursed the Lord's anointed V Meaning, be pill to death instantly, as appears by David's answer: "Shall there be anvm'an put to death this dav in Israel 1 Do I not know lhat I am this dav king over Israel V Therefore the kin? said to Shimei: "Thou shall not die;" and the king swore to him. viz. that he should not ihen, or that dav. or at that time, he put to the sword. And it is observable, that the Arabic version expressly mentions this circum stance: "Thou shalt nol die -"ln ttisAw." This wss certainly all that the kin? declared to Abisbai, lhat, as he was that dav restored to the exercise of his regal power, no man should that day be put to death ; and therefore he 2-1 S 1 KINGS Chap. 2. swore to Shimei, that he should not then die. So again, in David's direction to Solomon about Shimei, the same version hath the same word : " I sware to him by God: I will not put thee to the sword piVjK this day." Thus also Josephus understands the words. He assured him, says he, that he should suffer nothing at that time. And indeed nothing further can be certainly collected from ihe words, as they stand connected, but that David reprieved Shimei from immediate execution, and left him at liberty to call him to an account, at any other time, for the outrage and treason that he had been guilty of. To this it is objected, that probity is greatly wounded by such excuses. By what excuses 1 What, by excusing David from breaking a promise that he never made; or, for putting a criminal to death whom he on(y reprieved, but never pardoned 1 The question is, whether David guarantied Shimei's pardon with a solemn oath t Or, sware that he should never be put to death for cursing and stoning him 1 The history- makes it somewhat probable that David never swore this, but only that he should not be put to death at that time, as Joab and Abishai thought reasonable. If this was all that David promised, David broke no oath in afterward order- ing hi mi, fur ju-t i .;,...:,,,:[,.', ,v, fur execution ; and probi- ty is not at all wounded by thus excusing David, because it is an excuse founded in truth. Instances enough may be produced, even in our own nation, of offenders being brought to justice, after a very considerable reprieve, per- fectly consistent with the probity and equity of govern- ment. And how is this inconsistent with piety, or the advice unworthy a just and religions prince on his death-bed 1 It is true, the forgiveness of enemies is a duty, provided they cease to become our enemies ; but no man is obliged, by any law that I know of, so to forgive an enemy, continuing such, as not to take the proper methods to guard against the effects of his enmity, and bring him to justice, if no other method will prove effectual. Much less isa prince obliged so to forgive an implacable enemy to his crown and govern- ment, and one who is likely to disturb the settlement of the crown in his successor, as not to order his successor to be upon his guard against him, and punish him, when guilty, according to his demerits. Such a caution and order is what he owes to his people ; and he may die, as a private person, in charity with all mankind, and forgive every pri- vate injury against himself; and yet, as a prince, advise what is necessary to the public good, and even the execu- tion of particular persons, if, by abusing the lenity of gov- ernment, and the respite they once obtained, they should become guilty of new and capital offenees. David may iherefore still be, the man after God's own heart. I shall only add, that it is a very uncharitable and groundless sup- position of Mr. Bayle, that David only let him live, first to gain the glory of being a merciful prince, and afterward, on his death-bed, charged his son to put him to death, to avoid being reproached to his face of having broken his word. But surely David's resolution, that no man in Israel should be put to death who had been concerned in the re- bellion, and the moderation and lenity of his whole reign over his people, were much nobler evidences of his being a merciful prince, than his sparing Shimei, whose execu- tion, had it been immediately oidered, all the world would have commended as an exemplary act of justice, without the least impeachment of his goodness and mercy. Besides, if David was so faKc and unprincipled a wretch, as this supposes him, I cannot but think he would have little re- garded such reproaches, if he had had an inclination, in 1) is lifetime, out of revenge to have put him to death ; and if he was so cautious of these reproaches while he lived, I can scarce think he would have given an order that should have blasted the glory of that character, and eternally Mained his memorv with the complicated guilt of hypocrisy, perfidy, and cruelty, and subjected his- memory to them after death. Besides, whose reproaches would he have been afraid of-! What, Shimei's 1 Surely he might have put him to death by the hands of his officers, without ever permitting Shimei to reproach him to his face; and I pre- sume few of his courtiers would have cared, or dared, thus .o reproach him. The truth of the case is — the charge concerning Shimei could not be given till David had estab- lished Solomon on his throne. It Soncerned Solomon only, and he save him the caution, because necessary to the peaT and security of his future reign ; and it was of such a nature, as to deserve no reproach while he lived, and to expose him to no just reproach after his death. And if Mr. Bayle cannot prove, that David died immediately after this charge to Solomon concerning Shimei, he might have lived long enough to be reproached for it lo his lice ; and there- fore it could not be to avoid this reproach, that he § -te this charge to Solomon towards the conclusion of :.;> v5?. I cannot help theiefore thinking, that the same reasons that led him to spare Shimei, when lie cursed and stoned him, in his retreat from Jerusalem, induced him to spar. 'him npon his return to it; viz. as Mr. Bayle himself expresses it — his acknowledging and adoring 'the hand of God the reproaches with which that furious Benjamite loaded him ; and that as God had done what he scarce allowed himself to hope for, looked upon his affliction, and requited him with good for Shimei's cursing, lie was resolved, in imitation of his God, to requite Shimei with good, and io bless the man who had reviled, cursed, and despitefully used him. — Chandler. Another view of this charge to Solomon is given by Kennicott, whose remarks are well deserving attention. " David is here represented in our English version, as finishing his life with giving a command to Solomon to kill Shimei; and to kill him on account of that very crime, for which he had sworn to him by the Lord, he would not put him to death. The behaviour thus imputed to the king and prophet, should be examined very carefully, as to the ground it stands upon. When the passage is duiy considered, it will appear highly probable that an injury has been done to this illustrious character. It is not un- common in the Hebrew language to omit the negative in a second part of a sentence, and to consider it as repeated, when it has been once expressed, and is followed by the connecting particle. The necessity of so very considerable an alteration, as inserting the particle not, may be here confirmed by some other instances. Thus Psalm i. 5, ' The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor (Heb. and, signifying and not) sinners in the congregation of the righteous.' (Psalm ix. 18. Psalm xxxvjii. 1. Psalm Ixxv. 5. Prov. xxiv. 12.) If then, there are in fact many such in- stances, the question is, whether the negative, here ex- pressed in the former part of David's command, may not be understood as lo be repeated in the latter part ; and if this, may be, a strong reason will be added why it should be so interpreted. The passage will run thus: 'Behold, thou hast with thee Shimei, who cursed me, but I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death by the sword. Now therefore, hold him not guiltless, (for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou onghiest to do unto him) but bring not down his hoary head to the grave with blood.' Now, if the language itself will admit this construction, the sense thus given to the sentence derives a very strong support from the context. For, how did Solomon under- stand this charge t did he kill Shimei in consequence of it 1 Certainly he did not. For, after he had immediately com- manded Joab lo be slain, in obedience lo his father, he sends for Shimei, and knowing that Shimei ought to be well watched, confines him to a particular spot in Jerusalem foi the remainder of his life."— B. Ver. 16. And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said unto him, Say on. The Hebrew has for " deny me not," " turn not away my face." When a man has gained the attention of the person to whom he wishes to speak, he generally says oru-l-eaht-mulc- rarn. i.e. one request only, to show he is not going io give him much trouble, and to ask for many tilings. Adonijah said to Bathsheba, "turn not away my face:" under simi.sr circumstances it would be said here, " Ah ! do not make my free 2shamed — Do not put away my face — Reject not my face." — Roberts. Ver. 19. Bath-sheba therefore went unto king Sol- omon, to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king- rose up to meet her, and bowed him- self unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand. When visited by a superior, the Fersian rises hastily, and at S in Chap. 3 1 M meets liis guest nearly at tlie door of the apartment. On t .'in equal, lie just raises himself from his lea:, and stands nearly creel : but to an inferior lie makes i only of rising,)— Morier. Ver -:; Then King Solomon aware by the Lord, saying, <1 do so to me, and more also, if Adonijab bare not spoken this word against his own life, 24. Now therefore, as the Lord liv- elh, which hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my Hither, and who hath undo me a house, as fie promised, Adonijab ."hall be put to death this day. 25. And King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada; and he fell upon him that he died. Far are we from vindicating Solomon in all his actions, than David in the matter of Uriah: his severity to his brother, for a seemingly small offence, looked like revenge, and as if he had taken the first opportunity to cut ins former attempt upon the kingdom ; and yet b II imagine, from Solomon's words to his mother, that there was some further conspiracy against him. though i in holy writ, ol which he had got intelligence, and in which Joah and Aliiathar were engaged; and that li ■ lo.ik.'d upon this asking Abishag iii marriage as the prelude to it, and the first overt act, as it were, of their trea- son. It is certain, that they thought to impose upon the king, .is they had done upon his mother, and carry their point, w i i in i ■■,',■! ili,i-,.\ eiing the malevolent in lent of it. ■■- of i lie late king (according to the customs of , mge, 1 i, i hi- -iieee.sor, and were never married to any under a rrmrncd head. Abishag was, doubtless, a beautiful worn in, and by her near relation to David might have a powerful interest' at court ; Adonijab might therefore hope, by this marriage, to strengthen his pretensions to the crown, or, at least, to lay the foundation for some future attempt, upon a proper opportunity, either if Solomon and leave a young son, not able to contest the point wiih him, or if, at any time, he should happen to fall under the people's displeasure, as his lather had done before him. This might be Adonijah's desisn, and Solomon, ac- cordingly, might have information of it. But, supposing that his brother's design was entirely innocent, yet since his request, ("according to the customs then prevailing,) was con- fessedly bold and presumptuous, and had in it all the ap- pearance oflreason, it was none of Solomon's business to in ik - any further inquiry about it, or to interpret the thing in his brother's favour. "It was sufficient for him that the jeti .ii was in itself criminal, and of dangerous consequence to the state, for it is by their actions, and not intentions, that all offenders must be tried. Adomjah indeed, had he lived under our constitution, would have had*a fair hearing bet, ,re conviction. But we ought to remember, that in the king Inns n: the East the government was absolute, and the j. iw r of life or death entirely in the prince : so that Solo- mon, without the formality of any process, could pronounce : dead-, and because he conceived that in cases of this nature delays were dangerous, might send imme- diately and have him despatched, though we cannot but say, that it had been much more to his commendation had he showed more clemency, and spared his life. — Stackhocse. Ver. 26. And unto Abiathar the priest said the king, Get thee to Anathoth, unto thine own fields; for thou art worthy of death; but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou In rest the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted. 27. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being- priest unto the Lord ; that he might fulfil the word of the Lord, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh. How far the high-priest Abiathar was concerned in the plot against Solomon, the sacred history does not particu- . 4. from heaven, was more strong and intense than any com- mon fire, ami therefore, after the return from the captivity, the altar (as some observe) was made larger, because there wanted this celestial flame: without any forced solution like this, we have no reason to think: thai all these sacrifices were offered in one day. The king, we may imagine, upon turns, athoustiM btinit-olierings were consumed; and, at the conclusion of this course of devotion, he might offer tip In aii! . '..■.! God for wisdom, and God, for the con- firmation of his faith, might appear to him in a dream by night, and have that converse with him, that the scripture takes notice of. — Stackhouse. Ver. 7. And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my lather; and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. So said Solomon when he came to the kingdom of his fa- ther; and so say men here, though they be advanced in years, when they wish to speak of their incapacity for any performance. " What can I do in this affair ; lam but a boy of yesterday's birth'!" When a man pleads for for- giveness, he says, " I am but a little child, it was my igno- rance." Has a man instilled another by not bowing to him, or refusing to take off his sandals in his pre-ence, or by the use of some improper expressions; those who go to inter- cede for him, say, " Forgive him, sir, he is but an infant of yesterday." A person wishing to compliment a holy or iearned person, says, " I am but a little infant when com- pared with you." — Roberts. Ver. 25. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. This was apparently a very strange decision ; but Solo- mon saw that the only way to discover the real mother was by the affection and tenderness she would necessarilv show- to her offspring. The plan was tried, and succeeded; and it was a proof of his sound judgment, penetration, and ac- quaintance with the human heart, if not of his extraordi- nary and supernatural wisdom. There are several similar decisions recorded by heathen writers. Suetonius, in his Life of the Emperor Claudian, whom he celebrates for his wonderful sagacity and penetration, tells us, that this em- peror discovered a woman to be the real mother of a young man, whom she refused to acknowledge, by commanding her to marry him, the proofs being dottb; ful" on bulh sides ; for, rather 'than commit incest, she confessed the truth. Diodorus Sicnlus also infoims us, that Ariopharnes, king of Thrace, being appointed to decide between three voting men, each of whom professed to be the son of the deceased king of the Cimmerians, and claimed the succession, dis- covered the real son, by ordering each to shoot an arrow into the dead body of the king : two of them did this with- out hesitation; but the real son of the deceased monarch refused. — Greenfield. The great merit of the king in this matter was finding out the true moiher. " A woman who was going to bathe left her child to play on the banks of the tank, when a fe- male demon who was passing that way earned n off. They both appeared before the deity, and each declared the child was her own : the command was therefore given that each claimant was to seize the infant bv a leg and an arm, and null with all their might in opposite dir ions. Nosooner had they commenced than the child began to -cream, when .he real mother, from pilv, left off pulling, and resigned her claim io the other. The jndge therefore deeiaed, thai as she only had shown affection, the child must be hers." The derision of a Hindoo magistrate in the case of some travellers is also in point. "Two travellers once went into a rest-house to sleep ; the one had on beautiful ear- rings, the other had none. In the night the lat'er arose, 4nd while the other slept, took off one of his rings and put in his own ear. In the morning the former finding one of his rings missing, looked at his companion and saw it in his ear. He immediately charged him with the theft, but the thief retorted, and charged him with having stolen one of his rings. They disputed for some lime, i n,i at last each determined to make his complaint belore a magistrate: his wor.-h p patiently heard the case, but as each swoieihat the other was the thief, and as neilher of them could i lo- duce a witness, he was at a loss how to decide. He thtn took one of them into a private apartment, and said, I can- not find out who is guilty, but as I perceive the rings are worth one hundred rupees, I will sell them ; you shall each pay a fine ot twenty-five rupees, and the remaining fitly you may divide betwixt yourselves. The man replied, ; i will not have the twenty-five rupees; they are my uvn rings you can do as you please.' The n.aci-o, • called the other man into the room, and proposed the same thing; he replied, ' What can I do, my lord, I must sub- mit to your pleasure; I accept of the twenty-five rupee - His worship saw that the man was much pleased with Ibe prospect of getting the rupees, and therefore concluded lb J he was the thief. The ring was then given to the othei man, who was the rightful owner." — Roberts. Ver. 26. For her bowels yearned upon her son. The Hebrew has for yearned, " were hot." A mother, in lamenting over her suffering child, says, "Ah! my bowels are hot over the child." "My bowels burn in his misery." " My heart is burnt to ashes." — Roberts. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 7. And Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel, which provided victuals for the kingan 1 his household: each man his month in a year made provision. The eastern people to this day, it seems, support the expenses of government, in common, bv paving such a pro- portion of the produce oftheir lands to their princes. These are their taxes. No wonder it was so in remoter ages. Char- din gives us this account: " The revenues of princes in the East are paid in the fruits and pi oductions of theearth. There arenoolhertaxesupon the peasants." The tweive officers of Solomon then, mentioned 1 Kings iv. 7—19, a.e to be con- sidered as his general receivers. They furnished food for all that belonged to the king; and the having provisions for themselves and attendants, seems lo have been, in those times of simplicity, all the ordinary gratification his minis- ters of state, as well as his meaner servants, received. Sil- ver, gold, horses, armour, precious vestments, and other things of value, came to him from other quarters : partly a kind of tribute from the surrounding princes, partly from the merchants, whom he suffered to pass through his coun- try to and from Egypt, or elsewhere, partly from his own commerce by the Red Sea. The horses and armour he seems to have distributed among the most populous towns, who were to find horsemen and people to drive chariots to such a number when called for; and out of the silver, and other precious things that came to him, he made presents upon extraordinary occasions to those that distinguished themselves in his service. And aci^irding to this plan of conducting the expenses of civil government, the history of Solomon is to be explained. Comm ntalors have not al- ways had this present to their minds when illustrating this part of scripture. — Harmer. Ver. 23. Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the ' pastures, and a hundred sheep, besides harts, and roe-bucks, (antelopes,) and fallow-deer, and fatted fowl. " Harts." Dr. Shaw (Trav. p. 414) understands the original S-n ayil as the name of the genus, including all the species of the deer kind, whether they are distinguished by round horns, as the stag; or by flat ones, as the fallow-deer; or bv i he smallness of the branches, as the roe. "Fallow-deer." The Hebrew iinr.' yachmnr, rendered buhnlns bv the Vulgate, probably denotes the buffalo ; and though the" flesh of a buffalo doe's not seem so well tasted as beef, being harder and more coarse, yet in our times per- Chap 1. KINGS 251 sons of distinction, as well as the common people, and even .11 merchants, eat a good deal of ii in ci where thai animal abounds." (Niebuhr.)- Greenfield. ■ rateful lo the laste of an Orient I It is, in the estimation ot A r. bitin writers, .ml wholesome of all venison. They i: in ill se of any other wild adapted to the tinman constitution. The of these venerable ancients, are confirmed by .oral intelligent iinJn n authors. Dr. •■ it is in great esteem in the Easl for food, hav- ing a sweet musky taste, which is highly agreeable to their i. ling to Dr. Russel, "the antelope venir '..II, daring the winter, or sporting season, is well fla- \-. .i 1 1 .■■ 1 . hut very lean, and in the spring is fat, and of a :. !i might vie with English venison." These ..... .mi for its being daily served up on the sumptuous table of Solomon and other eastern princes. Besides, the antelope has all the marks which distinguished clean animals under the law ; it both divides the hoof and i! An Israelite, therefore, might lawfully eat of its flesh, although he was not permitted to oiler it in sacrifice. This creature belonged to the class of clean '/easts, which the people of lsraej, as well during their wanderings in the desert, as after their settlement in the and . f promts.-, wet" permitted 10 kill wherever they could find them, and use fur the subsistence of their families, al the time, thev might he i eiviiionially unclean. But the or, the sheep, and the goat, which some writers distinguished by the name of clean cattle, might both be lawfully eaten and offered in sacr fice; yet while the cho- sen people sojourned in the wilderness, they were forbid- den to kill any of these animals, although intended merely for private use, except at the door of the tabernacle; and if ceremonially unclean, even to eat of their flesh. This regulation occasioned little inconvenience to the tribes in the desert, where they lived in one vast encampment, in the midsl of which the sacred tent was pitched ; but after their settlement in Canaan, their circumstances required ei ; in' i' an alteration in the law, or that the greater part of the nation should abstain altogether from the use of flesh. The permission was accordingly enlarged: while they were still restricted to shed the blood of cattle intended for sacrifice, oikly before the national altar, they were permitted, when loo' far from the tabernacle, to kill those which they de- signed merely for common food, in any of their cities, or in their houses'; even the ceremonial regulation was abol- ished, and in private clean and unclean fared alike. This permission, which is couched in very express terms, is repeated in the course of a few verses', lest the suspicious mind of an Israelite might suppose that Jehovah envied his people the enjovment of what he had given them; and "in both instances it is illustrated by an example which must, from the use of it, have been familiar to the Israel- ites:" "The unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the (antelope,) and of the hart." — Paxtov. The great number of beasts required daily in Solomon's kitchen, will by no means be found incredible, when we compare it with the accounts of the daily consumption of oriental courts in modern times, and the prodigious num- ber of servants of an Asiatic prince. Thus Tavernier, in his description of the seraglio, says, that five hundred sheep and lambs were daily required for the persons belongingto the court of the sultan. — Rosenmuller. Vor. 25. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig- tree, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon. Plantations of trees about houses are found very useful in hot countries, to give them an agreeable coolness. The ancient Israelites seem to have made use of the same means, and probably planted fruit trees rather than other kinds, to produce that effect. " It is their manner in many places," savs Sir Thomas Row's chaplain, speaking of the country of' the Great Mogul, "to plant about, and among their buildings, trees which grow high and broad, the shadow whereof keeps their houses by far more cool: this I observed in a special manner when we were ready to en- ter Amadavar; for it appeared to us, as if we had been en- tering a wood rather than a city." The expression in the Old Testament, of pet thiir jh-ir.: e. ih .1 this method anciently obtained mui h m Judc a ; and that .... .. ry. Nor was this management at till to be wondered at ; as the an- cient patriarchs found it very agreeable lo pitch their tents under the shade ol some thick t iheii ehihiicn might naturally be disposed loph.ni .i • as it was requisite for them to raise as many eatabli could, in so very populous a country as that was, it is no wonder they planted lig-lrces, whose shade v. a- iliieken.il by vines, about their houses, under which they might sit in the open air, and yet in the cool. This w nic'i io nin '. another circumstance, in which there is an evident simi- larity between the ancient Jews and these more eastern people: "But for their houses in their aldeas, or villages, which stand very thick in that country, they arc generally very poor and base. All those country dwellings are set up close together; for I never observed any house there to stand single, and alone." The account the Baron De Tott gives of the Egyptian villages, shows thev are shaded in much the same manner. " Wherever the inundation can reach, their habitations are eve, ted on little hills, raised for that purpose, whii b sei > for the common foundation of all the houses which stand together, and which are contrived to take up as little room as possible, that they may save all the ground they can for cultivation. This precaution is necessary, to prevent the water's washing away the walls, which are only of mud. The villages are always surrounded by an infinite num- ber of pointed turrets, meant to invite. thither the pigeons, in order to collect the dung. Every village has, likewise, a small wood of palm-trees near it, the properly ol which is common: these supply the inhabitants with dates for their consumption, and leave's for fabrication of baskets, mats, and other things of that kind. Little causewi ys, rt i ed, in like manner, above the inundation, preserve a commu- nication during the time it lasts." Palm-trees.,, to this, are planted universally about the Egyptian villages; had they been as generally about the Jewish town*, Jcii- cho would hardly have been called the city q) , by way of distinction from the rest. It appears to have been, in Judea, rather a peculiarity. But the Jewish towns and houses might be wont to be surrounded by other trees, proper for their use, which probably wre vines and fig- trees, which furnished two great articles of food lor their consumption, and the cuttings of their vines must have been useful to them for fuel. That plantations of some sort of trees were common about the Jewish towns, may be de- duced even from the term im topher, used in their lan- guage for a village, which is derived from a root that sig- nifies to eovcror hide. — Harmer. Immediately on entering, I was ushered into the court- yard of the Aga, whom I found smoking under a vine, surrounded by horses, servants, and dogs, among which 1 distinguished an English pointer. — Tiuner. Ver. 28. Barley also and straw for the horses and dromedaries'brought they unto the placewhere the officers were, every man according to his charge. Besides provisions for themselves, the Orientals ate obliged to carrv food for the beasts on which thev ride, ol carry their goods. That food is of different kinds. They make little or no hay in these countries, and are therefore very careful of their straw, which they cut into small bits, by tin instrument which at the same time thrashes out lh* corn; this chopped straw, with barley, beans, and balls made of bean and barlev-meal, or of the pounded kernels of dates, are what thev 'are wont to feed them with. The officers of Solomon are accordingly said to have brought, every man in his month, barley and straw for the horse.-, and dromedaries, 1 Kings jv. 28. Not straw to litter them with, there is reason to think, for it is nol now used in those countries for that purpose: but chopped straw for them li eat alone with their barley. The litter they use for 'hem is their own dung, dried' in the sun. and bruisea between their hands, which thev heap up again in the morning, sprinkling it in the summer with fresh water to keep it 252 1 KINGS Chap. 5. from corrupting. In sorr.e other places we read of proven- der and straw, not barley and straw: because it may be, other things were used for their food anciently, as well as now, besides barley and chopped straw. y?a bclccl, one of the words translated provender, Is. xxx. 24, implies some- thing of mixture, and the participle of the verb from which it is derived is used for the mingling of flour with oil; so the verb in Judges xix. 21, may be as well translated, " he mingled (food) for the asses," CTvort s2m veyabal lechamo- reem, as, he gave them provender, signifying that he mixed some chopped straw and barley together for the asses. And thus also barley and chopped straw, as it lies just after reap- ing unseparated in the field, might naturally be expressed by the Hebrew word we translate provender, which signi- fies barley and straw that had been mingled together, and accordingly seems to be so, Job xxiv. 6, " They reap every one his corn in the field''—" Hebrew, mingled corn, or dredge," says the margin. What ideas are usually affixed to secondary translation, I do not know; but Job apparent- ly alludes to the provender, or heap of chopped straw and corn lying mingled together in the field, after having pass- ed under the thrashing instrument, to which he compares the spoils that were taken from the passengers, so early as his time, by those that lived somewhat after the present manner of the wild Arabs, which spoils are to them what the harvest and vintage were to others. To this agrees that other passage of Job where this word occurs, ch. vi. 5, " Will the ox low, in complaint, over his provender?" or fodder, as it is translated in our version ; when he has not only straw enough, but mixed with barley. The accurate Vitringa, in his commentary, has taken no- tice of that word's implying something of mixture which is translated provender in Is. xxx. 24, but for want of more nicely attending to eastern customs, though he has done it more than most commentators, he has been very unhappy in explaining the cause of it; for he supposes it signifies a mixture of straw, hay, and bran. I have nowhere observ- ed in books of travels, that they give their labouring beasts bran in the East, and hay is not made there; the mixture that is meant, if we are to explain it by the present eastern usages, is chopped straw and barley. But the additional word there translated clean, and in the margin leavened, which, Vitringa observes, is the proper meaning of the word, may be supposed to make the passage difficult. The Sep'uagint seem to have thought the words signified nothing more than straw mingled with winnowed barley: and if the word translated provender, though originally intended to ex- press mixture, might afterward come to signify uncompound- ed food, as Vitringa supposes, the passage is easily decipher- ed; for though the word translated clean does commonly signifv leavened, or made sow, yet not always; signifying sometimes mere mixing, as in Is. lxiii. 1, where it is used for staining a garment with blood, and so it may signify here, as the Septuagint seem to have understood the pas- sage, chopped straw, leavened or mixed with barley. But there is no necessity of supposing the word translated prov- ender is used in a sense different from its common and an- cient meaning, and signifying uncompounded meat for cat- tle; that single word may be understood to mean chopped straw mingled with barlev, since we find that barley, when given to beasts of labour, is sometimes mingled, or, to ex- press it poetically, leavened, with a few beans, to which therefore the prophet might refer. The wild Arabs, who are extremely nice in managing their horses, give them nc fo id but very clean barley. The Israelites were not so scrupulous, as appears from the passage I cited relating to the provision made for Solomon's horses, but they may nevertheless think the cleanness of the provender a very great recommendation of it, and seem to have done so, since Isaiah, in the above-mentioned passage, speaks of leavened provender winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. It is not the more important to them, as a good deal of earth, sand, and gravel, are wont, notwithstanding all their precautions, to be taken up with the grain, in their way of thrashing. But though the Israelites were not so scrupulous as the Arabs, giving their beasts of burden straw as well as barley, yet it must have been much more commodious for them in their journeying to have carried barley alone, or balls of bean, or barley-meal, rather than a quantity of chopped straw, with a little other provender of a better kind ; and accordingly we find no mention made bv Dr. Shaw, of any chopped straw being carried with them to Mount Sinai, but only barley, with a few beans in- termixed, or the flour of one or other of them, or both, made into balls with a little water. The Levile's mention- ing therefore his having straw, along with other proven- der, rather conveys the idea of his being a person in mean circumstances, who was not able to feed his asses with pure barley, or those other sorts of provender that eastern trav- ellers are wont to carry with them. — Harmer. In the Easi, horses are still fed with barley. Hasselquist observes, that in the plain of Jericho, the Arabians had sown barley for their horses. They are very careful of their straw, which they cut into small bits, by an instru- ment which at the same time thrashes out the corn : this chopped straw, with barley, beans, and balls made of bean and barley-meal, or of the pounded kernels of dates, are what they usually feed their beasts with. — Maillet. CHAPTER V. Ver. 6. Now therefore command thou that they hew me cedar-trees out of Lebanon ; and my servants shall be with thy servants: and untc thee will I give hire for thy servants according to all that thou shalt appoint : for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians. The Hebrew word nw aroz, whence the Chaldee and Syriac n^k arzo, and the Arabic and Ethiopic i-n arz, and Spanish alerze, unquestionably denotes the cedar; it is thus rendered by the Septuagint and other Greek versions ««>.<■, and by the Vulgate cedras; and the inhabitants of mount Lebanon still call it arz. The cedar is a large and noble evergreen tree, and according to Tournefort makes a dis- tinct genus of plants, but it is comprehended by Linnauis among the junipers.— Greenfield. The cedar grows, it is true, on the mountains of Amanus and Taurus, in Asia Minor, but it does not there attain the height and strength it acquires on mount Lebanon, on which account the cedars of Lebanon have been renowned from the most ancient times. But the cedar woods, which lor- merly covered a part of this mountain, have long ago vanished. Only on the northeast side is a small wood, consisting of an inconsiderable number of small thick cedars, and eight or nine hundred younger ones. The old- est and largest cedars are distinguished from the younger ones chiefly by this, that the latter grow up straight, and their boughs branch out horizontally from the stein, but hang down a little ; and in these two particulars, and in general in their whole form, entirely resemble our Euro- pean pines and firs ; whereas the old cedars have a short and very thick trunk, which divides not far from the root, into three, four, or five large arms, which grow straight up, and are very thick; some of them grow together for about ten feet. ""These trees," says Rauwolf, "which remain green during the whole year, have large trunks, which maybe some fathoms thick, and as high as our firs; but as they have larger arms, according to which the stem bends," this takes away so much of. their perpendicular height. The branches spread out pretty far in such a beautiful equality, that they look as if they had been clippeo above, and made even w ith particular care. It may easih be perceived before you get very near them, that there is '? great difference between these and other resinous tree Otherwise they nearly resemble larch-trees, especially ill the leaves, which are small, narrow, and shoot out as close together." The latest accounts of the cedars of Lebanon are givei. by Mr. John Henry Maver, who visited this part in the summer of the year 1813. " I counted," says he, "nine principal cedar-trees, which were distinguished from ?.ll the others by their thickness and age, but not by their heigh', for younger ones exceed them in this respect. I measured the circumference of the trunk of one of the largest with a cord, about four feet from the ground, and found it ten French ells and a half. A single branch was thirty steps in length to the end, when it divided into small twigs. The trunk of five of the largest consists of three or four divisions, each of which equals in circumference the stem of our largest oaks. The cedar itself, probably, belongs to the class of trees with acerose leaves, but is neither a pine, nor Chap. 5— 7. 1 Kl a fir, nor a larch, though the young cedars arc like the lat- ter. The broken twigs almost resemble ihe elder, and the smell puts one in mind of the arbor vine. The greatest beauty ..I these trees consists iii their shir, si rung, and far- spreading boughs; and, what no other kind of tree has, the of the wood, even of the smallest and tenderest twigs, which broke like glass, particularly the old ones. The whole w I, probably, does not contain above eight or nine hundred trees, large and small included. The young and middle-aged ones bore fruit of the size of an egg, which were bright green, with brown rings and spots, and stood upright .'ii the small twigs. This peculiarity of ihe fruit nj the cedar also distinguishes it from other trees, ,f ihe same genus: in other respects, it has an affinity and resem- blance to them, ns well by its resinous quality as its form." 1 lardlv any kind of wood unites so many good qualities for building as the cedar: its wood not only pleases ihe eve In- ns reddish stripes, and exhales an agreeable smell, but il is hard, and without knots, and is never eaten by woi ins, and lasts so long, that some persons consider it as mi Hence it was used for rafters and boards, either to cover the houses or floors: it was also employed in building the principal wall; and combined with stones, so that, for in- stance, after three layers of stones, there followed one of oedar-wood. 1 Kings vi. 36. vii. 12. Ezra vi. 3,4. Some- limes, too, each division of the wall was built alternately with cedar-wood and stones, so that first a course of wood, and then a ccurse of stones, extended from one division to the other, and so each division nearly resembled a chess- board. The temple at Jerusalem, as well as the palace of Solomon, was built of cedar; and in the latter there was such a quantity of this wood, that it was called, 1 Kings vii. 2. x. 10, The house of the forest of Lebanon. (Rosen- lnuller.) — Burder. Ver. 0. My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea; and I will convoy them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shall appoint me, and will cause them to be dis- charged there, and thou shalt receive them : and thou shalt accomplish my desire in giving food for my household. Bishop Patrick supposes, " that they conveyed the pieces of timber from the high parts of the mountains to the river Adonis, or to the plain of Biblos." " By floats is probably meant that the pieces of timber were bound together, and so drawn through the rivers and the sea." In exactly the same way, timber is conveyed in all parts of the East. The trees are cut down before the rainy season, all the branches are lopped off, and the trunks' are squared on ihe spot. Notches are then made in the logs, and they are tied together by ropes made of green withes gathered in Ihe forests. If, however, the waters of Ihe rainy season should not reach the spot where they are hewn down, they are dragged singly to the place where it is known that in J-he wet monsoon they will float. Thus, in passing through re- mote forests in the dry season, the inexperienced traveller, in seeing numerous trees felled in every direction, and then again, in another place, a large collection bound together like a raft, which is also fastened to trees that are still standing, (to prevent it from "being lost when Ihe floods came,] is at a loss to know- how it can be got to the river, or to the sea; for he sees no track or path except that which is made by the wild beast: he knows no vehicle can ap- proach the place, and is convinced that men cannot carry it. But let him go thither when the rains have fallen, and he will see in one place men in a little canoe winding through the forest, in another directing a float with some men on it moving gently along; and in the river he sees large rafts sweeping down the stream, with the dexterous steersmen making for some neighbouring town, or tie- more distant ocean ; and then may be seen in the'harbour immense collections of the finest timber, which have been brought thither " by sea in floats." Sometimes the rains come on earlier than expected ; or the logs may not have been fastened to trees still standing ; hence, when the floods come, thev naturally move towards the river; and then may be seen noble trees whirling and tumbling along till thev reach the sea. and are thus lost to man.— Roberts. Two methods of conveying wood in floats appear to have been practised. The firs inio the water, and sufl'e Ihe stream. This was c firewood. The othei •■■ to each other in regular orde 253 single ii nnks of trees l ■ ' a 1 1 led along by inrbei of planks close g ihein together, and s'eermg them down the current. This was probably the most ancient practice, The earliest ships or boats were nothing else than raits, or a collection of deals and planks bound together. Bv the Greeks llu-y were called Sehcdai, and by the Latins, Rates. The ancients ventured out to sea wiih them en piratical expeditions, as well as to carry on commerce: and after the invention of ships, they were still retained for the transportation of soldiers, and of heavy burdens. Pliny, lib. vi. cap. fit!. Strabo, lib. xvi. Scheffer, lie Militia Na'rali Yetcrum, lib. i. cap. 3. Pilisci, Lexicon Antiquitai. Rom. art. Rates. Solomon entered into a con- tract with Hiram, king of Tyre, by which the latter was to cause cedars for the use of the temple to be cut down on the western side of mount Lebanon, above Tripoli, and to be floated to Jaffa. At present no streams run from Lebanon to Jerusalem ; and the Jordan, the only river in Palestine that could bear floats, is at a great distance from the cedar- forest. The wood, therefore, must have been brought along the coast by sea to Jaffa.— Birder. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 7. And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer, nor ax, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building. This passage is illustrated by what D'Arvieux remarks of Alexandria in Egypt. " The city gates, which are still standing, have a magnificent appearance, and are so high and broad, that we may infer from them the ancient great- ness and splendour of the place. They properly consist only of four square stones ; one of which serves as the threshold, two are raised on the sides, and the fourth laid across and resting upon them. I need not say that they are of great antiquity ; for it is well known, that for many centuries past such immense stones have not been used in building. It is a matter of surprise how the ancients could raise such heavy masses from the stone quarries, remove them, and set them up. Some are of opinion that these stones were east, and, probably, only consisted of a heap of small stones, which were united by the finest cement ; that at the place where they were wanted, wooden models or moulds were made, in which the cement and stones were mixed together, and when this mass became dry and suf- ficiently firm, the mould was taken oil' by degrees, and the stones then polished." — Rose.nmili.er. Ver. 18. And the cedar of the house within was carved with Imobs and open flowers. The people of the East are exceedingly profuse in their carved work. See a temple ; it is almost lrom its founda- tion to its summit a complete mass of sculpture and carved work. Look at their sacred car in which their gods are drawn out in procession, and you are astonished at the labour, taste, and execution displayed by the workmen in carved work : nay, ihe roof and doors of private dwellings are all indebted to the chisel of the " cunning workman." The pillars that support the verandas, their chests, theii couches, (as were those of Solomon,) the handles of differ- ent instruments, their ploughs, their vessels, (however rude in other respects,) must be adorned by the skill of the carver.— Roberts. CHAPTER VII Ver. 7. Then he made a porch for the throne where he might judge, even the porch of judg ment: and it was covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other. It deserves remark, that the eastern floors and ceilings are just the reverse of ours. Their ceilings are of wood ; ours of plaster or stucco-work; their floors are of plaster or of painted tiles, ours of wood. This effectually detects a 254 1 KINGS. Chap. 7—10. mistake of Kimchi and R. Solomon, who, according to Buxtorf, supposed the floor of the porch of judgment which Solomon built was all of cedar; whereas the sacred writer, 1 Kings vii. 7, undoubtedly meant its covering a-top, its ceiling, was of cedar. Indeed here in the West, where these Jewish Rabbis lived, such places are usually built after the eastern mode, which makes their mistake so much the more strange. Westminster Hall is, I think, paved with stone and ceiled with wood ; and such without doubt was the ceiling and the pavement of the porch for judgment which Solomon built, and which was erected in a much hotter climate. — Harmer. Ver. 10. And the foundation -was of costly stones, foen great stones, stones of ten cubits, and stones of eight cubits. In the ruins of Balbec, stones of great magnitude are found. " But what is still more astonishing, is, the enor- mous stones which compose the sloping wall. To the west the second layer is formed of stones which are from twenty- eight to thirty-five feet long, by about nine in height. Over this layer, at the northwest angle, there are three stones, which 'alone occupy a space of one hundred and seventy- five feet and one half: viz. the first, fifty-eight feet seven inches; the second, fifty-eight feet eleven; and the third, exactly fifty-eight feet; and each of these are twelve feet thick. These stones are of a white granite, with large shining flakes, like gypse. There is a quarry of this kind of stone under the whole city, and in the adjoining mount- ains, which is open in several places: and, among others, on the right, as we approach the city, there is still lying there a stone, hewn on three sides, which is sixty-nine feet two inches long, twelve feet ten inches broad, and thirteen feet three in thickness." (Volney.) " The. city of Jerusalem is utterly unlike any other place I have ever seen. Its situation upon an immense rock, surrounded by valleys that seem cut out by the chisel ; the contrast exhibited between the extremcst degree of barren- ness and the extremest degree of fertility, which border upon each other here almost every yard, without one shade of mitigated character on either side; the structure of the walls, many of the stones in which are fifteen or sixteen feet long, by four high and four deep, the very size men- tioned of the hewn stones of Solomon, 1 Kings vii. 10; the houses, where almost every one is a fortress, and the streets, where almost every one is a covered way, altogether formed an appearance totally dissimilar from that of any ether town I have met with cither in Europe or Asia." (,Carlyle.)— Burder. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 31. If any man trespass against his neigh- bour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house. Bishop Patrick alleges, that it was the custom of all na- tions to touch the altar when they made a solemn oath, calling God to witness the truth of 'what they said, and to punish them if they did not speak the truth: and he sup- poses, that Solomon alludes to this practice, in his prayer at the dedication of the temple : " If any man trespass against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him, to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house." But the ro)ral suppliant says not one word about touching the altar ; but clearly refers to the general practice of standing before it, for his words literally are : And the oath come (tnsio ^sS) before the face of thine al- tar. In imitation of God's ancient people, many of the sur- rounding nations, among whom Livy and other celebrated writers of antiquity mention the Athenians, the Cartha- ginians, and the Romans, were accustomed to stand before the altar when they made oath; but it does not appear they laid their hand upon it, and by consequence, no argument from the sacred text, nor even from the customs of these nations, can be drawn for the superstitious practice of lay- ing the hand upon the gospels and kissing them, instead of the solemn form authorized by God himself, of lifting up • he 'ight hand to heaven.— Paxton. Ver. 44. If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shalt pray unto the Lord towards the city which thou hast chosen, and towards the house that I have built for thy name. " By a decree passed in the eighteenth year of the Eiu- peror Adrian, the Jews were forbidden not only to entel into the city of Jerusalem, (then called ffilia,) but even to turn their looks towards it ; which most probably had a ref- erence to this custom of turning their faces towards the Holy City at their prayers. I observed that Mecca, the country of their prophet, and from which, according to their idea, ' salvation was dispensed to them, is situated towards the south, and for this reason they pray with their faces turned towards that quarter." (Mariti.) " The Mexicans prayed generallyupon their knees, with their faces turned towan's the east, and, therefore, made their sanctuaries with the door to the west." (Cullen's Mexico.) In a description of the people of the Ganow hills, we find the same custom prevalent. " Their mode of swearing is very solemn : the oath is taken upon a stone, which they first salute, then, with their hands joined and uplifted, their eyes steadfastly fixed to the hills, they call on Mahadeva in the most solemn manner, telling him to witness what they declare, and that he knows whether they speak true or false. They then again touch the stone, with all the appearance of the utmost fear, and bow their heads to it, calling again upon Maha- deva. They also, during their relation, look steadfastly to the hills, and keep their right hand upon the stone. When the first person swore before me, the awe and reverence with which the man swore forcibly struck me : my Moher- rir could hardly write, so much was he affected by the so- lemnity. I understand their general belief to be, that their god resides in the hills ; and though this belief may seem in- consistent with an awful idea of the divinity, these people appeared to stand in the utmost awe of their deity, from the fear of his punishing them for any misconduct in their fre- quent excursions to the hills." (Asiatic Researches.) " An hour before sunrise, the coffeegee having prepared our coffee, retired into a corner of the room, and having, with- out the least reserve, performed the necessary ablution?, spread his garment on the ground, and began his prayers: he turned himself to the east, and though several persons entered and left the apartment during his devotions, he seemed quite absorbed, and rose, and knelt, and prostrated himself with as much appearance of piety as if he had been praying in the holy temple of Mecca itself." (Macmichel.) — Burder. Ver. 66. On the eighth day he sent the people away: and they blessed the king, and went unto their tents joyful and glad of heart, for all the goodness that the Lord had done for Da- vid his servant, and for Israel his people. The Hebrew has, for blessed, " thanked." The Tamul translation has, for blessed, "praised." So in Joshua xxii. 33, also in 2 Sam. xxii.47, and in all other passages where the word occurs, (when used in reference to God.) it is rendered, "praise," or "praised." The word bless, among the Hindoos, is, I think, not used, as in English, to praise, to glorifv, but to confer happiness, to convey a bene- diction, or to shoir pood-will. St. Paul says, " Without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the greater;" and this I believe, joined with greatness, is the only idea the Orientals attach to those who" bless others. Hence he who blesses another, must be a superior, either in years, rank, or sanct ity. The heathen never bless their gods. — Roberts. CHAPTER X. Ver. 1. And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. The Septuagint has, for hard questions, aimy/min, enig- mas, riddles. The Hindoos (especially their females) take great delight in riddles, apologues, and fables. By this method they convey pleasure, instruction, or reproof. See Oh.. 10. them in their marriage feasts, or in their "evenings al tn pine;" how plea-anilv I Ley pass their nine, in I bus puzzling each other, anil calling forth the talents of the young.— Roberts. Ver. 4. Anil when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, 5. And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cup-bearers, ami his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her. By these words we may understand that this ascent was I to the use of Solomon alone. Thus we arc told i iv Su ( Serge S aunton, in his account of the first pri '.ion of the British embassy, that, " on his entrance into the tnperor of China mounted immediately the thr. V the front steps, consecrated to his use alone.'' He also thai " one highway was reserved for the use of .he emperor alone ; this was rendered perfectly level, dry, •nd smooth: cisterns were contrived on the sides of the imperial road, to hold water for sprinkling it occasionally, .n order to keep down the dust ; parallel to the emperor's, ivas another road, not quite su broad! nor swept continually 'ii h so much care, but perfectly commodious and safe: his was intended for the attendants of his imperial majesty : it nl upon this the British embassv was allowed to pas-. All ither travellers were excluded from these two privileged ;i.-i) thockijim by inversion into (wre) culhijim, he tra- ces it to aCushite root, intended to denote the native coun- try of the peacock. Nor is it uncommon for an animal to de- rive its proper name from the place of its original residence. The pheasant is indebted for her name to the Phasis, a river of Colchus, on rhe banks of which she first drew the attention of the postdiluvian tribes; and African and Nu- midian birds are so called from Africa or Numidia, the country where they were hatched, and where they com- monly fixed their abode. On the same principle, the pea- cock himself is everywhere called by the ancients the bird of Media or Persia, in which the land of Cush, or Cuth, was situate, because he came originally from that -region. Aristophanes calls the peacock the bird of Persia ; Suidas, the bird of Media ; and Clemens Pa?dagogus, the bird of India. Diodorus observes, that Babylonia produces a very great number of peacocks marked with colours »of every kind. In the opinion of Bochart, India is the true native country of that bird; hut it is frequently mentioned as a native of Persia and Media, because it was first imported from India into these countries, from whence it passed into Judea, Egypt, and Greece, and gradually found its way into the olher'parts of the globe. Hence the peacocks, which were imported in the fleet of Solomon, probably came from Persia; for in that long voyage of three years, in which thev visited Taprobane, it is by no means probable they would always pursue a direct course ; hut along the vari- ous windings of the coast, search for any Ihing that suited their purpose. It is even probable that they sailed up the Persian gulf, and touched at the renowned isles of the Phoenicians, Tyrus or Tylus, and Aradus, at no great dis- tance from Persia. The elegance of the peacock's form, and the brilliancy of his plumage, seem to he the principal reasons which indu- ced the mariners of Solomon to bring him into Palestine, and that the sacred historian so distinctly mentions the circumstance. Nature, according to the remark of Var- ro, has certainly assigned the palm of beauty to the pea- cock ; but since the introduction of the ape into Palestine, an animal neither distinguished by the elegance of his form, nor the brilliancy of his colour, is mentioned at the same time, the historian might intend to direct the readefs attention, as well to the riches and splendour of Solo- mon, as to his taste for rare and curious articles of natural history. In the Lesser Asia, and in Greece, the peacock was long held in high estimation, and frequently purchased by the great and the wealthy, at a very great pi ice. We learn from Plutarch, that in'the age of Pericles, a person at Athens made a great fortune by rearing these birds, and showing them to the public, at a certain price, every new moon; and to this exhibition, the curious Greeks crowded from the remotest parts of the country. The keeper ol these birds, the same author informs us, si.ld a male end female for a thousand drachms, about thirty-six pounds o[ our money. Peacocks were very rare in Greece, even in the time "of Alexander, who, by the testimony of jElian. was struck with astonishment at' the sight of these birds on the banks of the Indus ; and from admiration of their leant v. commanded every person that killed one of them, to be severely punished". At Rome, as the same historian relates, when Hortensius first killed one for supper, he was brought to trial, and condemned to pay a fine. Their eggs, according to Varro, were sold in his time at five denarii, or more than three shillings a piece; and the birds irem- selves commonly at about two pounds of our money. The same writer affirms, that M. Auhdius Luzco derived an Chap. 10—12. 1 K I vearly revenue of more than sixty thousand pieces of silver, "Mints lo four hundred and sixty-eight pounds fitteen shillings sterling, from the sale ctf peacocks; for al- 1 hough then llesh is not better lasted than that ofa domestic fowl, ihey were sold at a much greater price on I tnl of the richness and brilliancy of their pinnies. I meats prove, that the peacock was deemed, in remote ages, a present not unworthy of.-, king.— Paxton. The last word c-rr .' ' ! ■,. .,,, r iL'raphs which J.-cl 1 1 n- tin- imports .if Sol. iihhm's n::\ y limn Tharshish, is dubious : some of the learned have thought it means parrots, I number, />r. 17. 1 I\ I dad the son of Tnbrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that ihvlt at Damascus, savins, There is a league between me and thee, and between my lather ami tliy I'athei l„ h I.I, i hare enl onto theea present oJ silver and gold; came and break thy league with Baasha, king of Israel, that he may depart from me." To us it appears strange, that a present should be though! capable or inducing one prince to break with another, and engage himself in war; but as it was anciently thought sufficient, so wi fjnd in th «■ Dei per Francos, thai an eastern nobleman, that had the custody of a castle called Hasarth, Quarrelling with his master, Lhe prince of Aleppo, and finding himself obliged M seek for foreign aid, si nl /irrsrnls to Godfrey of 1'ouillnn, to m. luce him to assist him. What they were we are not told: but gold and silver, the things Asa sent Benhadad, lently sent in those times to the crusade princes, and might probably be sent on this occasion to Godfrey. — Uabmer. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 34. In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abi- ram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun. See on Judges 11.30,31. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. I. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. The latter rain falls in the middle or towards the end of April, from which, if there be three months to the harvest, as the prophet asserts, it must fall in the middle or towards the end of July. But at present in Syria, barley-harvest commences about the beginning of May, and that, as well as the wheat-harvest, is finished by the twentieth of the same month. In Judea the harvest is still more early. The rain, therefore, which God threatens to withhold from his people, must have commonly fallen in the first part of Feb- ruarv. That a quantity of snow descends at Jerusalem at this time, which is of 'great importance to the succeeding harvest, bv making the fountains to overflow a little afler- ward, is confirmed by the authority of Dr. Shaw. It is no real objection to this view, that the prophet threatens to withhold the rain; for the great difference of temperature ;n Palestine, may be the cause that it snows in the mount- ainous districts, while it rains in other parts of the same country. Bvthe moderate quantity of rain or snow which falls in the month of February, the reservoirs of water on which the cities of Palestine chiefly depend, are filled, and the prospect of a fruitful and plentiful year is opened. Of so great importance to the subsistence and comfort of lhat people are these rains, that upon their descent, they make similar rejoicings with the Egyptians upon the cutting of the Nile. The prophet evidently refers to both these cir- cumstances; to the succeeding harvest, in these words: " the piece or field upon which it rained not, withered ;" to the state of the cisterns in these: " so two or three cities wandered into one citv to drink water, but thev were not satisfied." Hence, Mr. Harmer, who treats Jerome on this occasion with undue severity, is wrong in supposing that the inspired writer refers to the single circumstance of fill- ing their cisterns with water. He refers to both, and this Jerome distinctly notices : " God suspended the rain," says that father, " not only to punish them with want of bread, but also with thirst; for in those countries in which they then resided, excepting a few fountains, they had only cistern- water; so that if the divine anger suspended the rains, there was more danger of perishing by thirst than by famine." Terome certainly committed a mistake when he referred the words of Amos to the latter rain; but he understood as cerninlv the true extent of the threatening. The former and the latter rains were, in the days of Eli- jah, suspended for t.iree years and six months. But when the prophet said to Ahab, " As the Lord God of Israel liv- eth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain the e . ■ " bnl accordii - to my word ;" he could ool mi an, there shall be no rain at all for three years; foi I their termination, the whole population of Israel must have miserably peri- bed. It is not uncommon amongthe Ori- entals, to express a great deficiency by an absolute I a in. Thus Philo alhruis, that in F.gypl they have DO v. ii let: by Which, according to In, ..» n ex plana Men, l.e mm-; i.i no hail, no thunder, no violent storms of n ind, whicl si nine an '■;, ir n v. miei I' mi in 1. there are no rains, no thunders, no earthquakes in that earthquakes in Egypt during his resnlei.ee. His idea therefore, is very plausible, that Pliny meant only to State the rare occurrence of these phenomena; thai it sold,, in I. . , , the power of the earthquake, and when it does, suffers bul little damage; that it very seldom rains or thunders, al- though on the seacoast the rains and thunders are often very violent; but it does not rain there as in other parts ol the world. This account of lhe rain of Egypt is confirmed by the testimony of two English travellers. When Puts was at Cairo, the rain descended in torrents, and the streets having no kennels to carry off the water, it reached above the ankles, and in some places much higher. In Cppi . Egypt it rained and hailed almost a whole morning, when Dr. Pococke was there in the month of February; and the following night it also rained very hard. These authentic statements unfold the true meaning of the prophet's asser- tion, " that Egypt has no rain ;" he must be understood in the same qualified sense as Pliny and other writers. In the same manner, the words of Elijah to Ahab must be in- terpreted; they only mean, lhat the dew and the rain should not fall in the usual and necessary quantities. Such a suspension of rain and dew was sufficient to answer the corrective purposes of God, while an absolute drought of three years' continuance, must have converted the whole country into an uninhabitable waste. But such a destruc- tion is not intimated in the scriptures; and, we may con- clude from the inspired narrative, did not take place. * That guilty people were certainly reduced in the righteous judgments of God to great straits; bul still they were able to subsist until his fierce anger passed away, and mercy re- turned to bless their afflicted habitations. — Paxton. Ver. 4. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. It is a singular circumstance, lhat the raven, an unclean bird, and one too of very gross and impure dispositions, was chosen bv Jehovah to provide for his servant Elijah, when he concealed himself, by the divine command, from the fury of Ahab. So improbable is the story in the eat of reason, that morose and voracious ravens should be- come caterers for the prophet, that some interpreters have maintained lhat the original word denotes merchants or Arabians, or the inhabitants of the city Arbo: according to this interpretation, the promise would run, " I have com- manded the Arabs, or the Orebim, to nourish thee." But it is easy to show that these opinions have no foundation in scripture and reason. The prophet Ezekiel indeed de- scribes the merchants of Tyre by the phrase (-is-vc 'apy) arbi mearcbeha, "thy merchants who transact thy busi- ness;" but the word orebim, (wanpj by itself, never sig- nifies merchants. Nor had God said in general, I have commanded the merchants, but I have commanded lhe merchants of this or that place, to nourish thee. The situa- tion of the place in which lhe miracle happened, refutes the oilier opinions; for in the neighbourhood of Jordan, where Elijah concealed himself, were no Arabs, no Orebim, and no city which bore the name of Arbo. Besides, the Atabs are not called in Hebrew (c^v) orebim, but (-•:-•) arbim, and the inhabitants of Arbo, if any city of lhat name existed, according to the genius of the Hebrew lan- guage, must have been called (=*o-'y) arnbojim, net orebim. Add to this, Elijah -was commanded to hide himself there; but how could he hide himself, if the inhabitants of the citv or encampment knew of his retreat, as they must have done, if his dailv subsistence depended upon their bounty I The place of his retreat must have been discovered in a very short lime to Ahab, who sought him with g eat in- dustiy in every direction. The solemn declaration c f Oba- diah to the prophet, when he went by the divine command to show himself to the king, proves how impossible it was for him to remain concealed in the inhabited part of the country : " As the Lord thy God livelh, there is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee ; and when they said, He is not there, he took an oath of the Kingdom and" nation, that they found thee not." Hence these hairebim were not merchants, nor human beings of any station or employment, but true ravens; and so the term has been rendered by the whole Christian church, and by many Jewish writers, particularly by their celebrated historian, Josephus. These voracious and impure animals received a com- mandment from their Maker to provide for his prophet by the brook Cherith, near its confluence with the Jordan. The record is couched in these terms: "Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan: and it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ra- vens to feed thee there." In the history of providence, such commands are by no means uncommon : the locust, the serpent, and the fishes of the sea, have all in their turn received the charge to do the will of their Almighty Crea- tor. Thus he promised to Solomon at the dedication of the temple: " If I command the locusts to devour the land — if my people, which are called by my name, shall hum- ble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from (heir wickedness ; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." The marine serpent that lurks in the deepest caverns of the ocean, in like manner hears his voice, and submits to his authority; for Jehovah directed the prophet to address his guilty coun- trymen in these memorable terms : " Though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I com- mand the serpent, and he shall bite them." Nor was the great fish which he prepared to swallow up the refractory prophet, less prompt in its obedience : " And the Lord spair: unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry h.-.r. ' His providence extends its powerful influence even Id jianimate objects: "I, even my hands, have stretched :,ut the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded." And David, in the Spirit, complained of his ancestors, that ■' i hey believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation : though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven." Even the furious billows of the sea dare not pass the line which his finger has traced, without his permission : " I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." The inanimate and irrational parts of creation, properlv speaking, cannot receive and execute the commands of the Almighty; they are" only passive instruments employed by him in his provi- dential dispensations, to produce certain' effects. To com- mand the ravens then, is to make use of them in providing for the necessities of his servant; to impart for a time an instinctive care to supply him with food, to which thev were by nature entire strangers, and which thev ceased to feel when the end was accomplished. A command to sus- tain the destitute seer, after the brook of which he drank was dried up, was addressed in a very different manner to the widow of Zarephath. It was couched in words ad- dressed to her understanding and heart, while the secret power of Jehovah inclined her to yield a prompt and effi- cacious obedience. On this occasion, a number of ravens were employed, because the service of one was not suffi- cient to supply the prophet with daily food. But the cir- cumstance entirely accords with the native instincts of that bird ; for the ravens go in quest of their prey in troops, and share in common the spoils of the chase. Following, therefore, the instincts of their nature, which received for a time a peculiar direction, by the miraculous interposition of Jehovah, a number of ravens associated together, in order to supply the wants of Elijah, whom his country had abandoned to the rage of an impious and cruel monarch : " And they brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the *»rnok." The Septuagint, in many copies, read the pas- sage, ,: They brought bread in the morning, and flesh in GS. Chap. 17. the evening;" but the common reading is entitled to the preference. It gives a striking display of divine goodness, that when the whole resources of Israel were exhausted by a long and severe famine, the prophet of the Lord was miraculously and abundantly supplied with nutritious food twice everyday. The ravens brought it in the evening and in the morning, which were the stated hours of repast among the Jews and other oriental nations. The Hebrew writers eagerly inquire where the ravens found the provisions to supply the wants of Elijah; and, as may be supposed, very different are the opinions they advance; but on this question, which is of little impor- tance, no certainty can be obtained. The scriptures are silent on the subject, and we have no other means of inform- ation. It was enough for the prophet, that his winged providers regularly supplied his necessities; and it is suf- ficient to excite our admiration of the power and goodness of God, and our confidence in his providential care, with- out attempting to discover what the divine wisdom has seen meet to conceal. On another occasion, an angel was sent from heaven to supply the exhausted prophet with bread and water in the desert ; which, in the eye of rea- son, may seem to be a more becoming messenger of the King of glory, than a raven. But " the ways of God are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts ;" he did not think it beneath his dignity at this time, to employ the ravens in the same office ; and he perhaps intended to teach us, that all creatures are equally subject to his authority, and fit for his purpose. When he gives the commandment, a raven is as successful in his service, according to the range of its faculties, as an angel; and we must not pre- sume to refuse or slight his aid, how mean soever the agent he condescends to employ. The Jewish legislator pla.-ed the raven in the list of unclean birds, which imparted pol- lution to every thing they touched ; but the same God who gave the law, had a right to repeal or suspend it; and that he did suspend it for a lime in favour of his persecuted ser- vant, cannot be reasonably denied. Nor was this a singu- lar instance of divine clemency; for the observance of ceremonial institutions often yielded to urgent necessity. The Jews were forbidden to louch a dead carcass ; but Sam- son was allowed, for a special purpose, to eat of ihe honey which he found in the dead lion. The priests only were permitted by the law to eat the shew-bread; yet David and his men were justified by our Lord himself in using the consecrated loaves, when no oilier could be prof tired. Many are the reasons assigned by different writers, for the employment of ravens on this oeeasion ; but they aie so trifling," or so fanciful, that it is unnecessary to'staie them ; the true reason perhaps was to convince the deject- ed prophet, that although his nation had forsaken him, the God whom he served continued to watch over him with unceasing care ; and that he would employ the most un- promising means, and counteract the most powerful in- stincts, rather than suffer him to want the necessaries of life. And when he saw those voracious birds, the cra- vings of whose appetite are seldom entirely satisfied, part, of their own accord, ttith their favourite provision, morn- ing and evening, for many days, and bring it themselves to Ihe place of his retreat ; he could not mistake or disre- gard the secret influence under which they acted. The brook Cherith, on whose border the miracle was wrought, is supposed to be the same as the river Kann, mentioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of Joshua, which watered the confines of Ephraim and Benjamin. This brook derived its name Kana, from the reeds, which, in great abundance, clothed its banks; among which the prophet found a secure retreat from ihe persecution of his enemies. Its other name, Cherith, may be traced lo the verb Charah, which the Greek interpreters render to ford because on its margin the prophet was fed bv tl e r.iven-. Were this conjecture true, the name must have been given by anticipation; for which no satisfactory reason can be assigned. Il is, more natural to suppose, lhat. as the veih commonly signifies lo dig, aix sometimes to rush on with violence, the name Cherith alludes to the violent lapidi y of the stream at certain seasons of the year, or lo the deep pits which, like many other torrents in those regions, il excavates in its furious course. The parliculai situation of this brook is more distinctly marked bv the sacred his- torian, who says, it "is before Jordan." This phrase seems to mean, that it flowed into the Jordan ; and from Chap. 13. 1 KINGS. the second clause of the verse we may infer, thai lis course 1,-iv "ii the west side of the river, because ii is said bj I tod io Elijah, "Gel thee hence, and torn thee eastward, and bide thyself bj th i I h Cherith, that is befoi uir Elijah urn ii ■. e t n "n i he west side ol Jordan, when unanded to go eastward loa stream thai Sowed , the Jordan on that side.— Paxton. 3 inn suppose ravens io be a mistranslation, and that the i; rii id to a people who were to feed the prophet. I'll.' fnllnu ing quotation limn ihe S.-amla Parana doesnot Imi it shows, in a remote period, that .1 on sonic special occasions In depart ii lii.-ir ii-iial halms. In ihe relation ... antiquity anmn^ ihe heathen, much of fable miM be ex- l ted but there is often a glimmering ray of light in the nbseiuilv, pointing In eircuinsiances which assist ilic mind in iis attainment of truth, [n the town of Eanchi [Con jeveram) it is said, " I >f the birds, there is a sftthaka bird which takes food to the gods, a swan which jives precious Stones, a parrot which icpcat- >iic , and a cock which crows not in lime of trouble."— Robkkts. \\-r. 12. And she said, .4s the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruise: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. So said ihe widow of Zarephath to ihe prophet Elijah. How often do we see females, just before ihe time of boil- ing their rice, strolling annul m search ol' a lew slicks In make ii ready. All their tires are made of wood, (or dried COWS' diint;,) and in a country where there is 50 much jun- gle, andsn lis lie rain, ihev seldom trouble ihein-ch is he I me the moment they require it. But Ihe widow said that she was gathering two slicks; and it is not a little singular to he Hindoos often use the same number when it id'eis in m'.nv things. " Well, Venasi, what arc you look- ing fori" — " I am looking for two sticks to prepare my Child, go felch me iicndii-tnddi, Iwo sticks, Io make ready my carry." " Alas! I cannot find two sticks to make t lie waler hot.''' " My lord, i only ask for two mouthfuls of rice." " Ah! sir, if you will allow me lo re- peat two words in your ear, I shall be satisfied." " Good, have yon any thing more to say 1" " No, sir." " Then I have nut iwn words I'ur that," (meaning, he doesnot object.) Any person who has beeu in the East, will recognise, in these quotations, a figure of speech he has heard a thou- sand limes. — Roberts. The corn which they reserve for daily use, they keep in long earihen jars ; because, when kepi in sacks or barrels, il is liable to be eaten by worms. This is confirmed by Norden, who tells us, thatwhen life was travelling in Upper Egypt, one of ihe natives opened a great jar, in order to show him how they preserved their corn there. In some regions of the East Indies, ihe paddy, or rice in the husk, is also preserved in large earihen jars, that are kept in Ihe house; or in small cylindrical stores, which the potters make of clay : Ihe moulh is covered wilh an inverted pot ; and the paddy is drawn out of a hole at the bottom, as it is wanted. It seems to have been in one of these earthen jars that the woman of Zarephath kepi her corn, of which she had only enough left, when the prophet Elijah applied to her for a morsel of bread, to make a handful of meal. In our translation, Ihe original term fio) chad is rendered barrel: but a barrel, properly speaking, it could not be, because a vessel of that sort is never used for holding corn in these regions. Neither could it be a chest, although this is often used in ihe East for preserving corn ; because the Hebrew term is quite different. In the second book of Kings it is staled, that " Jehoiada the priest took (n-N ornn) a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, nn3 set it beside the altar." The same word is employed bv Moses, lo de- note a coffin; but most generally, to'signify the chest, or ark of ihe testimony, on which ihe cherubim stood, in the holy of holies. This term, among the Hebrews, therefore, properly signified a chest made of wood; never a vessel for holding water. But Qia) chad they commonly used to sig- nify a jar or pitcher for holding water; which was made M earth, neve' o"" wood. It is the same word in the origi- nal, which the sacred historian employs, to denote the vessels in which Oiidenii's aimv cmiecalcd Iheir torches, and which ihey bloke Willi a .1; -lung icinli. , they blew with their trumpets. Both these circumstances sup] ihej werei essels of earth, wliii b are en the Easl for the double purp. i pn 'Ming corn and holding water, The (isj chad was also the vessel with which Rebecca went out to fetch water from the well; which, in our translation, is rendered pitcher, Bui Ihe Orientals never carried a barrel lo ihe fountain, imi dicu water wiih a wooden vessel. Hence, the barrel in which the woman of Zarephath kept her corn, was in reality an earthen jar. The four barrels of waler, then, which Eli- jah commanded his attendants to pour on the sacrifice, should have been translated four jars nr pitchers; fol ihe original WOld is the same in all these instances.— Paxtiin. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 5. And Ahab said unto Obadiah, (io into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradvehture we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that We lose not all the beasts. G. So they divided the land between them, to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself. See on Est. 8. 10. Brooks were generally the most likely places lo find grass in a lime of drought, ihough far from being places where they might be certain of succeeding ; lor in such seasons, licrl.ii. ■..his animals generally stop near fountains of waler. and feed in ihe vicinity, till all ihe grass be consumed. Thus travellers are often greatly disappointed, who natu- rally expect to find grass where they find water; but on reaching ihe spot they find that the game has consumed every blade of grass. However, as the cattle could not graze long where there was no waler, it was the wisest method Ahab could pursue. The circumstance shows Ihe simplicity of ancient manners, that a king and one of his principal governors should go at the head of such ex- peditions. Ii is the same in Africa at this present time ; for no king there, nor any of his principal chiefs, would think they were at all lessening their dignity by engaging in an expedition either in search of waler orgrass. Indeed, it would be viewed by ihe people as one of the most im- portant affairs in which their rulers could be engaged, and, did they succeed, few things would be likely to render ihem more popular. — African Light. It appears there had not been rain for three years and six- months, which must have had a fatal effect on vegetation. What would England (silualed in a temperate ciimale) be under such circumstances ? In droughts in the Easl, which have lasted from six to ten months, how often have we seer, men. like Obadiah, going along in marshy places, or by the sides of tanks, in search of grass for iheir cattle 1 See the poor fellow with a basket, made of the leaves of Ihe pal- mirah, on hiatback. a little instrument (which works like a Dutch hoe) in his hand ; he strolls from fountain lo brook, and no sooner does he see a green patch of verdure, than he runs wilh eagerness lo the spot! Perhaps he meets an- loiher in search of the same thing, when each declares he had the first view. They set to work, snarling at each other, and dealing out all kinds of abuse, till they have cleared the place of every green blade. Wherever there is a stream or an artificial watercourse, there the eye is refreshed with delightful verdure; but look a few yards from the place, and you see the withered herbage, appa- rently gone beyond "recovery, but which, in a few hours, would start inio fresh life, if visited by showers. The ef- fect of rain is like enchantment on the scene, and the Eng- lish stranger is oflen reminded of ihe green fields of his own native land. — Roberts. Ver. 9. And he said, What have I sinned, that thou wonkiest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me ? Obadiah asked this question pf Elijah, when the prophet wished him to go and tell Ahab, his biiier enemy, " Behold, Elijah is here." Thus, a person requeslcd to do any thin? which implies danger or difficulty, asks, Ejina-polluppo- sey-thanc? "What evil or sin have I done l" The ques- tion is also asked, when a man is visiled with affliction, " What evil has he done 1" — Rt berts. Ver. 10. .4s the Lord thy God Jiveth, there is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee : and when they said, He is not there, he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. People in England would be astonished and appalled at ihe frequency and nalure of the oaths of the heathen. A man's assertion or affirmation, in common conversation, is seldom believed. Thus, men may be heard in the streets, in the fields, or bazaars, and children in the schools or the play-grounds, say, " Swear you will do this ; now take an oatli you have not done it." Then they swear by the temple, or its lamp, by their parents, or children, and* ap- peal to their deities for a confirmation of the assertion — R0E£RTS. Ver. 19. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jeze- bel's table. We are not, I apprehend, to suppose that these eight hundred and fifty prophets, or even the four hundred of the. groves, ate at the royal table, where Jezebel herself took her refection ; for though 1 am sensible it is not unusual in the East for servants to eat at the sErme table where their masters have eaten, after their masters have done ; and lhat several hundreds eat in the palaces of the eastern prin- ces ; yet it could never be thought necessary by Jezebel to have four hundred chaplains in waiting at once at court. 1 should think the words mean, that these four hundred prophets of the groves fed daily at a common table, in or near the temple of that idol which they served, and which was provided for at the expense of Jezebel, living there in a kind of collegiate way, as the prophets of Jehovah appear to have done. Their business was, I suppose, to sing the praises of the idols they worshipped ; and to watch from lime to time in their temples, under the pretence of receiv- ing oracular answers to the inquiries of those that came to consult them ; and, it may be, to teach the worshippers in what form of words to address the deity they served. — Harmer. Ver. 27. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud ; for he is a god: either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he. is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. again to active life. "The heathens," "says Mr. Blunt, "assigned all the properties and habits of man to their gods, and among the number, that of reposing at midday. Hence was it unlawful to enter the temples at that hour, lest their slumbers should be disturbed. The goatherd ventured not to play upon his pipe at noon, for fear of awakening Pan. Hence, too, ihe peculiar force of the de- 'jsion with which Elijah addressed the priests of Baal : And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked ihem, and said, Cry aloud ; for he is a god peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.' Accordingly we read that these priests did not despair of rousing their god, and indu- cing him to declare himself, ' till the time of evening sacri- fice.' At that hour the period allowed for repose had ter- minated: and when he still continued deaf to their cries, then, and not till then, their cause became altogether hope- less;"— Paxton. The margin has, for " talking." " mrdilalclh," and for "pursuing," " Hath a pursuit.'' This keen and ingenious sarcasri! relates, I doubt not, to their god, as having been accustomed sometimes to sleep, to talk, to go on a journey, una join in the pursuit. That the Baal-peor of Assyria, nrd the Siva-lingam of India, are the same, is certain. 1GS. Chap. 18. And is it not interesting to know that those things which are attributed to Baal are also attributed to Siva 1 " Either he is talking." The margin has, for " talking," meditatcth. Dr. A. Clarke says, " Perhaps the word should be inter- preted as in the margin, he meditateth, he is in a profound revery, he is making" some godlike projects, he is consider- ing how he may keep up his credit in the nation." Siva was once absorbed in a profound meditation : to him the time appeared only as a moment, but to the world as ages.^ Universal nature, for want of his attention, was about to expire. Women had ceased to bear, and all things weie out of course. The gods and men became alarmed, and their enemies began to oppress them. All were afraid to disturb him in his meditations, till Cama, the god of love, agreed to stand before him: when Siva, being ar»used from his revery, sent fire from his frontal eye, which de- stroyed the intruder. "Or he is pursuing." The Hebrew has this, "hatha pur- suit :" on which Dr. A. Clarke says, " he may be taking his pleasure in hunting." Siva is described as taking great pleasure in the chase ; and in the month of Septem- ber, his image and that of Parvati, his wife, are taken from the temple, put into a kead-agam, or car, and carried on men's shoulders to enjoy thepreasuresof the chase! " Or he is in a journey." Siva is represented as taking longjournej'S, and sometimes for very discreditable purposes. " Peradventure he sleepeth." Siva often did this, espe- cially when he took the form of a cooly; for, after he had performed his task, he fell asleep under the tree called the Konda iSIaram. Thus the prophet mentioned four things, in some of which iheir god was engaged, and consequent- ly, could not attend to their requests. But it was :nanifestly improper, if he were thus occupied, for them to disturb him : yet Elijah said, " Cry aloud," let him hear you ; he is no doubt a god. When a holy person before the temple, or in any sacred place, is meditatin'g, not one will presume to disturb him: how, then, could they interrupt their deity'? When en- gaged in pleasure, whether of the chase or any other amusement, no one dares to interfere with the great man ; and yet Baal was to be called from his pleasures. It is improper to interrupt those that are on a journey. They have an object in view, and that must first be accomplish- ed. No one will disturb a person when he is asleep — tc them it seems to be almost a sin to awake a man from his slumbers. Where is your master 1 " Niltari," asleep; and then you may walk off till another day. Yet, improper as it was to interfere with Baal in his engagements, the sarcastic prophet said, " Cry aloud." " And they cried aloud, and cm themselves with knives." Here, also, the devotees may be seen cutting themselves with knives till the blood stream from their "bodies, or suspended with hooks in their flesh from a pole, or with their tongue cut out, or practising other cruelties on themselves, for the ex- piation of their sins, or the glory of their gods.— Roberts. Ver. 28. And they cried aloud, and cut them- selves, after their manner, with knives and lan- cets, till the blood gushed out upon them. If we look into antiquity, we shall find that nothing was more common in the religious rites of several nations, than this barbarous custom. To this purpose we may observe, that (as Plutarch de Superslitione tells us) the priests of Bel- lona, when they sacrificed to that goddess, besmeared the victim with their own blood. The Persian magi vsed tc ed about the Syrian god- s with knives, till the blood actice remains in many places at the pi. -at instances of it may be met with nd travels. — Birder, i little supposition and conjecture, for us of Baal "cut themselves, after their and with lancets, till the blocd gushed out upon them." 1 Kincs xviii. 28. This seem?, by the story, to have been after Elijah had mocked them, (or, at least, while he was 'mocking them,) and had worked up their fervour and passions to the utmost height. Mr. Harmer has touched lightly on this, but has not set it in so clear a view as it seems to be capable of, nor has he given very cogent instances. It may be taken as an instance ot riiey dess, cut and slashed gushed out. This pi present lime, and free in modern voyages ai There has been m what reason the pries manner, with kn' Ciiai\ 18. 1 M earnest entreaty, ofconjaistitm, by the most powerfal marks a:g.d.' Dos thou not see, O Baal I with what i we adoi itheeT— how we give thee mosl decisive tokens of out affection ? We shrink at no pain, \vc decline no disfigurement, to demonstrate cur love tor thee: and yet ir.l, aii-tuor ..' i',\ the 1'ivrlv Mowing lil. n m I »■.■ -lie. I l'ui ill.-.-, answer ii !" ,\.:. i i their attachment to I', ui; but Baal ili.l nut testily bis r'.it.i . »al aiiailiiui-nt lo ....I .1 In- dhinitv, which was the article in 1 I.. , • between them and Elijah, observe, how readily . .i . ivould identify the priests .it' Baal at the subsequent slaughter; and how they tended to justify that slaughter; being contrary to the law that ought 10 have governed the Hebrew nation, as we shall sec pres- ernlv. As the ilcinimslration of love, by cuttings uia.lc in ill in , j 1 1 ' ; i in- it-. 'It in I i. I beat let amusing to European lovers, without fear among us. " But the most i ..ml -en-el"— in. 'ih. nl "i ."•.]. re-Mug their affec- tion, i- their singing certain amorous anil whining sung-, .ii purpose for such mail occasions; between whereof they cut and slash their naked arms n ilh daggers: each endeavouring, in their emulative mad- ■■.■-. to exceed the other by the depth and number of the .i .ill- he gives himself. [A lively picture this, of the puig, and self-slashing priests ol Baal!] Some I hive observed, when old, and past the lollies ed their youth, show their arms, all gashed ,nd scarred from wrist to elbow; and express a great eon- ■mi. but greater wonder, at their past simplicity." The i ilie -tvle united me to render some of the ni.'d -onus into English : 'Tim- w.iiii.1 I sli.'d my warm heart's I.I.....1, To draw n upward by some charin.' Another runs thus: 'O. lovely charmer, pity me ! Bee how mj blood rtoee firoin me fly ! V.i w. re I 3Ui e to conquer iher, Witness il Heave,,! l'.l d.i.llv .lie.'" (Aaron Hill's Travels.) This account is confirmed by De la Motraye, who gives a print of such a subject. Lest the reader should think* that ;i is love, and its tokens, are homages to the all-subduing and distracting power of beauty only, we add Pitts' ac- ■ .nut of Hie same procedure: "ft is common for men there to fall in love with boys, as i: is here in England to be in love with women ; and I have seen many, when they have been drunk, give. themselves deep gashes on their arms, with a > .i_'. ' It is for the love I bear to such a bov!' and .1. I have seen several, who have had their arms full of great ruts, as tokens of their love," &c. (Pitts' Ac- 1 1 ihammedism.) This custom of cutting them- selves is taken, in other places of scripture, as a mark i ■ so Jer. xlviii. 37, " Every head shall be bald, every beard clipped, and upon oil hands, cuttings; and i;. .a he h.iiis. sock. -loth:" as tokens of excessive grief for I of those t'ns rrsanlnl. So. chap. xvi. ver. 6, " Both the great and the small shall die in the land: they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor toes,"' in proof of their affection, and expression of their loss; "nor make themselves bald for them," bv tearing their hair, &c. as a token-of grief. So, chap. xli. 5, " There came from Samaria fourscore men, having their boards shaven, and their clothes rent, and having cut , with offerings to the house of the Lord." So, •hap. xlvii. 5, " Baldness is come upon Gaza : Ashkelon is . ut off with the residue of her valleys; how long wilt thou ■it Ikvself?" rather, perhaps, how deep, or to what lengti .i ilt thou rut thyself? All these places include the idea of rain I'ul absence of the party beloved. Cuttings for the dead had the same radical idea of privation. The law savs, Lev. xix. 28, and Deut. xiv. 1, "Ye are the children of the Lord your God; ye shall not rut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes, for the dead;" i. e. restrain such excessive tokens of srief: sorrow not as those without hope, if for a dead friend ; but if for a dead idol, 34 GS. 265 as Calmel always takes it, then it prohibits the idolatrous custom, of which it also manifests the antiquity. Mr. anticipated us, in referring "the wounds in the hands" of the examined prophet, Zech. xiii. «>, to this custom ;--the prophet denies that he gave himself these wounds in token of his affection to an idol ; but admits thai he had received them in token of affection to a person. It is usual to refer the expression of the apostle, Gal. \ i. 17, " I bear in my body the marks (stigmata) of the Lord Jesus," to those imprinted on soldiers by their command- ers; or to those imprinted on slaves by their ma would there be any degradation of the apostle, if we re- ferred them to tokens of affection towards Jesus 1 . But his conclusion will not follow ; because Virgil evident- ly means, that Ihe shades of evening are hurtful ; not the vhade of the juniper, except bv night, when the shade of every tree is thought by natural historians to be injurious to health. If ihe shade of the juniper were noxious, it would be noxious to every one, and not merely to singers. And how could il be hurtful to the fruits'! They do not grow under it, and are there ore not exposed to iis'deleteri- ous influence, ll is easy to see how Ihe shales ol evening are hurtful 10 the fruits'; but how the shade of the juniper should be noxious to them, is quiie mc e,\.dple. 'Ihe poet, indeed, expressly mentions the danger of reposing under the shade, of thai tree; but the true reason seems to be this: the juniper being an evergreen, and its leaves growing very close, extends m the evening a more damp and chilly shade, than p.uhaps any other tree in that part of 1 1 : 1 1 v . So little afraid were llicOi lenlals of its noxious qs 'hue , thai some of their mosl magnificent cities were imbosomed in a grove of juniper-trees. Tins is an incoii- testible proof that they did not lir.d iheir effluvia deadly, nor even injurious to health. Another commentator of considerable celebrity, supposes, on the contrary, that Elijah reposed himself under the ju- niper-tree, for the more effectual preservation of his health ; the shade of it being, according to him, a protection from serpents; .and alleges, that it was ihe custom of the people in that part of the world, to guard themselves by such pre- cautions against the bite of these venomous reptiles. But this opinion seems to be no less visionary than the allega- tion of Grotius. Travellers often recline beneath Ihe shade of a spreading tree ; but in all their narratives, Ihe reason assigned by Peter Martyr is never once mentioned. Ac- cording to Dioscorides,' ihe glowing embers of juniper wood, not Ihe shade nf the living tree, possessed Ihe (lower of driving away those unwelcome visjianls. The most ob- vious reason is'in this, as in most instances, the best: Elijah (lying into the wilderness from Ihe rage of Jezebel, became '. nil the burning heat of the day, and the length of the road, and cast himself down under the shade of the first shrub that he found. Or, if it was m Ins power to make a choice, he preferred the juniper for the ihickness of its covert, without any apprehension of its either a deleterious quality, or the power of defending him from the bile of the serpent; he chose ii merely for its shade, where, under the watchful and efficacious protection of Jehovah, his own God, and the God of his people, he sunk into quiet repose. To suppose that he repaired to the shade of the juniper with Ihe view of ruining his health, and shortening his days, is quite inconsistent with every trait in the character, and every action in the life of that holy man. So far from harbouring the horrible idea of suicide, although certainly tired of life, he prayed to his [God to remove him from the disgusting scene of idolatry fend oppression, into his immediate presence; a sure proof he neither expected nor desired that favour from the nox- ious exhalationsof the juniper. To this maybe added, that the question is not yet decided, whether it w'as a juniper, or what particular species of tree it really was, under H hose friendly covert the weary and afflicted prophet sought re- pose.— Paxton. Ver. 18. Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. Things which have been sent to the temples to be pre- sented to idols, are, wl Should a priest give which have been presented tothe gods, the person receiving i them kisses them. When a devotee has touched the leel of a priest, he kisses his hands. — Roberts. Ver. 10. So he departed thence, and found Elislia the son of Shaphat, who tens ploughing with twelve yoke of n.mi before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast ' his mantle upon him. The natives use the ox for the plough and all other agri- cultural purposes. It is no disgrace for a irrent man |o fob low the plough ; and, generally speaking, the master is the first to commence the operations of the season. The first day is always settled by a soothsayer, or a book of fate. " Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him." By this act Elisha was invested with the sacred office ; but it is probable there would be other ceremonies, and a more 268 1 KINGS. Chap. 20. pointed aldress, and extended conversation than that re- corded in the verse. When a Bramin is invested with the sacred office, both in the Jirsl. second, and third initia- tions, he is always covered with a yellow mantle, and in such a way as to prevent him from seeing any object. The sacred siring also is put over his right shoulder, (and worn like a soldier's belt,) which indicates his office. Elisha said, " Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will foflow thee." And Elijah " said unto him, Go back again ; for what have I done to thee 1" The an- swer of Elijah is certainly not very easy to be understood. The Hebrew has, instead of " go back again," " go, return;" this makes good sense, especially when the conjunction is added, " go, and return." The Tamul version has it also in that way. The same translation has, instead of " for what have I done to thee 1" "what I have done to thee think.' literally,"! to thee what have done, think." I have called thee according to the Divine command ; now thou a-lo-i i" take leave of thy father and mother: take care thou ait not led aside from thy calling; "go, and re- turn," think on what I have done to thee. — Roberts. Among the Persians, the principal khalifas or teachers consider the sacred mantle as the symbol of their spiritual jiower. Though the khirka or mantle was in general only transferred to a beloved pupil, at the death of his master, some superior saints were deemed possessed of a power, even while living, to invest others with the sacred and mysterious gaiuient. " When the khalifa or teacherof the sooffees dies, he bequeaths his patched garment, which is all his worldly wealth, to the disciple whom he esteems the most worthy to become his successor, and the moment the latter puts on the holy mantle, he is vested with the power of his predecessor." (Malcolm.) — Burder. Ver. 26. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded : they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the house-tops and as com blasted before it be grown up. " The sam wind, as described to me by an old inhabitant of the Dashtistan, commits great ravages in this district, particularly at Dashtiarjan, hurtful to vegetation. It blows at night, from about midnight tu sunrise, comes in a hot blasO and is afterward succeeded by a cold one. About six years ago there was a sam during the summer months, which so totally bu mt up all the conCthen near its maturity, that no animal would eat a blade of it, or touch any of its grain. The image of corn blasted before it be grown up, was most probably taken from the circumstance now men- tioned." (Morier.) Sir R. K. Porter however says, that the samiel, though hostile to human life, is so far from being prejudicial to the vegetable creation, that a contin- uance of it tends to ripen the fruits. These accounts may be reconciled by observing, that the former relates to the corn, and the latter to fruit, and that it may refer to its gradual approach rather than its sudden attack. If any unfortunate traveller, too far from shelter, meets the blast, he falls immediately, and in a few minutes his flesh be- comes almost black, while both it and his bones at once arrive at so extremfc a state of corruption, that the smallest movement of the body would separate the one from the other. — Burder. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 7. And Isaiah said. Take a lump of figs : and they took and laid it on the bile, and he recovered. Whatever the disorder was with which Hezekiah was afflicted, the remedy prescribed was a softening plaster, designed to ripen the bile, and to prepare it for receiving such assistance as to discharge it with ease and certainty. We have an instance of a similar proceeding, and with the •■ame design, in regard to the plague, related by Pitts of himself. " The plague reigned among us;— soon after we eot ashore at Algiers, I was seized with it, but, through the divine goodness, escaped death. It rose under my arm, and the bile which usually accompanies the plague, rose on my leg. After it was much swollen, I was desirous to have it lanced, but my patroon told me it was not. soft enough. There was a neighbour, a Spaniard slave, who advised me to roast an onion, and apply a piece of it dipped in oil to the swelling, to mollify it ; which accordingly I did. The next day it became soft, and then my patroon had it lanced, and, through the blessing of my good God, I recovered." — Birder. Ver. 10. And Ben-hadad sent unto him, and said, The gods do so unto me, and more also, if 'the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me. It is an interesting fact, that this figure of speech, in reference to the dust not being sufficient to fill the hands of the numerous hosts of Benha'dad, is in common use at this day. In the story called Asuvamca-lhaiya-kathi, it was said by the inhabitants of certain countries, who were ex- pecting an invasion from a king who had already con- quered the " eight quarters," — " We had better at once give up our possessions: why attempt to resist such hosts 7 the dust of the country will not be sufficient to furnish a hand- ful for each of the soldiers. Ovroru-pud-dc-man-lannmo ? i. e. for every one will there be a handful of dustl" The people of the village of Sandarippi ask, "Why do the in- habitants of Batticotta hate and despise us 1 If we all go against them, will their country afford a handful of earth for each of \xs1" The people o"f the two large villages of Batticotta and Sandarippi often meet to play at rude games, when the latter are generally the conquerors, which has led to great animosity. Hence the proverb, " Take up the stalk of a cocoa-nut leaf, and the Batticottians run;" and hence the saying respecting the handfuls of earth. Ben- hadad said, " The gods do so unto me, and more also." This form of imprecation or prayer is very common. " If I do not ruin that fellow, then the gods do so to me." " If I kill not that wretch, then may the gods kill me." If, there- fore, the dust of Samaria be sufficient to fill the hands of each of my soldiers, then may my dominions be subject to the same fate.— Roberts. Ver. 12. And it came to pass, when Ben-hadad, heard this message, as he was drinking, he and the kings in the pavilions, that he said unto his servants, Set yourselves in array : and they set themselves in array against the city. The word-vEr shapheer, -which we translate pavilion, may, it is very likely, excite the notion of something superior to a common tent ; so our translators use that term to express the superb tent of a king of Babylon, Jer. xliii. 10, "He (Nebucharrnezzar) shall spread his royal pavilion over them." A mere English reader will be surprised, perhaps, when he is told that the word r<~ svrcoth, translated pa- vilions, 1 Kings xx. 12, 10, signifies nothing more than booths ; and more still, if he is told that the sacred historian might, possibly, precisely design to he so understood, when describing the places in which kings were drinking. That the word signifies those slight temporary defences from the heat which are formed by the setting up the boughs of trees, is visible by what is'said Jonah iv. 5, and Nell. viii. 10 ; and we know that the common people of the East fre- quently sit under them; but it may be thought incredible that princes should make use of such, as the term, precisely taken, seems to imply. " And it came to pass, when Ben- •hadad heard this message, as he was drinking, he and the kings in the pavilions," 1 Kings xx. 12. " But Benhadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty and two kings that helped him," v. 16. In the margin our translators have put the W( rd tents ; but that there is nothing incredible in the account, if we should understand the prophetic historian as meaning booth*, prop- erly speaking, will appear, if we consider the great sim- plicity of ancient times, and the great delight the people of the East lake in verdure, and in eating and drinking under the shade of trees; especially after reading the following paragraph of Dr. Chandler's Travels in the Lesser Asia: "While we were employed on the theatre of Miletus, the Aga of Suki, son-in-law, by marriage, to Elez Oglu, crossed the plain towards us, attended by a considerable train of domestics and officers, their vests and their turbans of va- rious and lively colours, mounted on long-tailed horses, /HAP. 20. I KINGS with showy trappings and furniture. He relumed after hawking to Miletus; and we went to visit liiin, with a present of coffee and sugar; but we were told that two fa- vourite buds had flown away, and that he was vexed and tired. A conch wasprepared' for him beneath a shed, made against a cottage, and covered with green boughs, to keep off the sun. He entered as we were standing by, and fell down on it to sleep, without taking any notice of us." A very mean place, a European would think, to be prepared for the reception of an aga that made so respectable a ! m a town which, though ruinated, still had several collages, inhabited by Turkish families. It does not appear incredible then, that Benhadad, and Ihe thirty- two petty kings that attended him, might actually be drink- ing wine beneath such green sheds, as a Turkish aga, of considerable distinction, chose to sleep under, rather than in an adjoining cottage, or rather than under a tent, which he otherwise might have carried with him, to repose under when he chose to rest himself. I Iriental manners are very different from those in the West. — Harmer. Ver. 27. And the children of Israel were num- bered, and were all present, and went against them: and the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Sy- rians filled the country. A flock of goats is fewer in number than a flock of sheep, oecause the former are given to wander and separate, while the latter, more gregarious in their temper, collect into one place. This is "the reason, says Bochart, that the sacred writer compares the small army of the Israelites to a flock of goats rather than to a flock of sheep. While seven is always used by the Hebrews to denote a sufficient or com- plete number, two is constantly employed to signify a few, or very few. Thus the widow woman said to "the prophet, •' As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a litile oil in a cruise: and behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress il for me and my son, that we may eat it and die." The phrase is used in ihe same sense by the prophet con- cerning the reduced state of his people: "Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in il ; as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough." Another prophet uses it in relation to the return of a small number of the captives to their own land : " 1 will take you; one of a city and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion." And Hosea encourages his people to repent- ance with the promise, " Afier two days will he revive us : in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight," or, within a very short lime he will deliver lliem from their enemies. The sacred historian accordingly compares the armies of Israel opposed to the Syrians to "two little flocks of kids;" two, because they were few in number; little flocks, as goals from iheir roaming dispo- sition always are; flocks of kids, feeble and timid, without resources and without hope. A more complete and glowing picture of national weakness, even the pen of inspiration never drew. — Paxton. Ver. 28. And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys ; therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thy hand, and ye shall know that 1 am the Lord. That there were manv gods who had each their particu- lar charge and jurisdiction, that some presided over whole countries, while others had but particular places under iheir tuition and government, and were some of them gods of the woods, others of the rivers, and others of the mountains, was plainly the doctrine of all heathen nations. Pan was reckoned the god of the mountains, for which reason he was styled 'Onmlirm, mountain traverser ; and in like man- ner, the Syrians might have a conceit that the sod of Israel was a god of the mountains, because Canaan, they saw, was | a mountainous land: the Israelites delighted to sacrifice on high places ; their law, they might have heard, was given | on the top of a mountain ; their temple stood upon a famous eminence, as did Samai in, u here they I i:ul so lately received a signal defeat : fortheii further notion was, that the gods of ihe mountains had a power lo inject a pani any army, whenever they pleased. Nay, that they did not orfly assfst with their influence, hut actually engaged them- selves in battle in behalf of their favourites, is a sentiment as old as Homer. — Stackuouse. Ver. 30. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city ; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. And Benhadad fled, and came into the city, into an inner chamber. See on ch. 22. 25. In regard to this passage, «'e are not to suppose that this wall, or castle, or tort, (as it may be rendered,) fell upon every individual one, much less that u> had killed every man' it fell on : it is sufficient to justify the expression, that it fell upon the main body of these seven and twenty thou- sand, and that it killed some and maimed others, (for Ihe scripture does not say that it killed all,) as is usual m such eases. Lei us suppose then, that these Syrians, after their defeat on the plains of Aphek, betook themselves to this fenced city, and despairing of any quarter, mounted the walls, or 'retired into some castle, with a resolution lit defend themselves to the last ; and that the Israelilish arm? coming upon them, plied the walls or the castle on even' side so warmly with their haiterics, that down they came ai once, and killing some, wounding others, and making the rest disperse for fear, did all the execution that the text intends. Thus we may account for this event in a natural way; but it is more reasonable to think that God, upon this occa- sion, wrought a miracle ; and either by some sudden earth- quake or violent storm of wind, overturned these walls, or this fortress, upon the Syrians. And indeed, if any time was proper for his almighty arm to interpose, it was at such a time as this, when these blasphemous people had denied his sovereign power and authority in the government of the world, and thereby in some measure obliged him, in vindication of his own honour, to give them a full demon- stration of il, and to show that he was the God of the plains as well as of the mountains; that he could as effectually destroy them in strongholds as in the open field, and make the very walls, wherein they trusted for defence, the in- struments of iheir ruin. This Aphek, or Aphaca, (as it is called by profane au- thors,) was situated in Libanus, upon the river Adonis, be- tween Heliopolis and Biblos, and in all probability is the same that Paul Lucas,, in his voyage to the Levant, speaks of, as swallowed up in a lake of Mount Libanus, about nine miles in circumference, wherein there are several houses, all entire, to be seen underwater. The soil about this place (as the ancients tell us) was very bituminous, which seems to confirm their opinion, who think that subterraneous- fires consumed the solid substance of the earth, whereon the city stood, so that it wassubduedandsunkatonce.and a lake was soon formed in its place. — Stackhocse. Ver. 31. And his servants said unto him, Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings: let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads, and go out to the king of Israel : peradventure he will save thy life. The vanquished foe, in teslimony of his submission, bung his sword from his neck, when he came into the presenci of his conqueror. When Bagdat was taken by the Turks, in the year 1G3S, the governors lieutenant and principal officer was sent to the grand vizier, with a scarf abool his neck, and his sword wreathed in it, which is accounted by them a mark of deep humiliation and perfect subu.i-iMi. to beg for mercy in his own and his master's name. His request being granted, the governor came and was intro- duced to the grand seignior, and obtained, not only a con- firmation of the promise of life that had been ma'ile him, but also various presents of considerable value. Thes- 270 1 KING! Chap. 21 circumstances forcibly recall to our minds the message of Benhadad, after his signal defeat, to the king of Israel; the passage runs in '.hese terms: "And his servants said unto him Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings ; let us, I pray thee nut sackcloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads, afid go out to the king of Israel; peradventure he will save thy life. So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes en their heads, and came to the king of Israe , and said Thv servant Benhadad saith, 1 prav thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive 1 he is my brother." The servants of Benhadad succeeded in obtaining a verbal assurance that his life should be spared; but a surer pledge of pro- tection was to deliver a banner into the hand ot the sup- pliant. In the vear 1099, when Jerusalem was taken by the crusaders, about three hundred Saracens got upon the roof of a very lofty building, and earnestly begged lor quarter, but could not 'be induced bv aw promise ol safety to come down, till they had received the banner ol 1 ancred, one ut the chiefs of "the crusaders, as a pledge of life. This they reckoned a more powerful protection than the most solemn promise- although m this instance their confidence was en- tirely misplaced ; for the faithless zealots who pretended to fight for the cross, put every man of them to the sword. — Paxton. Ver. 34. And Ben-hadad said unto him, The cities which my father took from thy father I will restore ; and thou shalt make streets for thee in Damascus, as my father made in Sama- ria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, and sent him away. When the king of Syria had obtained security for his life and assurance of being restored in peace to his throne, he promised in return for such great and unexpected fa- vours to restore the cities which his father had taken from Israel' and to permit Ahab to make streets in Damascus for himself, as his father had made in Samaria. This ex- traordinary privilege of making streets in Damascus, has exceedingiv puzzled commentators. Some of them sup- pose the word houlsolh signifies market-places, where com- modities were sold, the duties on which should belong to Ahab- others imagine he meant courts of justice, where the king of Israel should have the prerogative of sitting in judgment, and exercising a jurisdiction over the Syrians; others think thev were a sort of piazzas, of which he should receive the rents; one class of interpreters understand by the word, fortifications or citadels; another class attempt to prove, that palaces are meant, which Ahab should be permitted to build a: _proof of his superiority. lieges which we know, from the faithful page of history, were actually granted to the Venetians for their aid, by the states of the kingdom of Jerusalem, during the captivity ot Baldwin II., may perhaps explain, in a more satisfactory manner, these words of Benhadad. The instrument by which these privileges were secured, is preserved in the historvof William, bishop of Tvre, the historian of the crusades, from which it appears, they were accustomed to assign churches, and to give streets in their towns and cities with very ample prerogatives in these streets, to the foreign nations who lent them the most effectual assistance. The Venetians had a street in Acre, with full jurisdiction in it; and in what this consisted, we learn from the deed of settlement just mentioned; they had aright to have in their streets an oven, a mill, a bath, weights, and measures for wine, oil, and honey; they had also a right to judge causes among themselves, together with as great a juris- diction over all those who dwelt in their street, of what Dation soever thev might be, as the kings of Jerusalem had over others The same historian informs us, that the Gen- oese also had a street in that city, with full jurisdiction in it and a church, as a reward for their services, together with a third part of the dues of the port. In the treaty of peace granted bv Bajazet, emperor of the Turks, to Eman- uel the Greek 'emperor, it was stipulated that the latter should grant free liberty to the Turks io dwell together in one street of Constantinople, with the free exercise of their own religion and laws, under a judge of their own nation This humiliating condition the Greek emperor was obliged to accept; and a great number of Turks, with their fami- lies, were sent out of Bithynia to dwell in Constantinople, where a mosque was built for their accommodation. It is not improbable, that the same kind of privileges that wete granted to the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Turks, had been granted to the father of Benhadad, by the king of Israel, and were now offered to Ahab in Damascus, in the distressed state of his affairs. The Syrian monarch prom- ised to give his conqueror a number of streets m his capital city, for "the use of his subjects, with peculiar rights and privileges, which enabled him to exercise the same juris- diction there as in his own dominions. — Paxton. Mr. Harmer has remarked, that "the proposal of Benha- dad, as to the making and possession ol' si reels in Damascus, was better relished bv Ahab, than understood by commen- tators;" some of whom have guessed that this expression meant the erection of markets, or of courts of judicature, or of piazzas, or of citadels and fortifications, &c. Mr. Harmer then proceeds to narrate the privileges granted to the Venetians, in recompense for their aid, by the states of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and he observes, that it was customary to assign churches, and to give streets, in their towns, to foreign nations, &c. His instances, however, are rather instances of rewards for services performed, than proofs of such terms as conditions of peace: proba- bly, therefore, it will not be disagreeable to the reader to see a passage still more applicable to the history of Benha- dad, than any of those are which Mr. Harmer has pro- duced; it occurs in Knolles's " History of the Turks," p. 206. " Baiazet having worthily relieued his besieged citie, returned againe to the siege of ( ionstantinople, laying more hardly vnto it than before, building forts and bulwarks against it on the one side towards the land ; and passing ouer the strait of Bosphorus, built a strong castle vpon that strait ouer against Constantinople, to impeach so much as was possible, all passage thereunto by sea. This streight siege (as most write) continued also two yeres, which I suppose by the circumstance of the historie, to hane been part ol the aforesaid eight yeres. Emanuel, the besieged Emperor, wearied with these long wars, sent an embassador to Baiazet, to intrcat with, him a peace; which Baiazet was the more willing to hearken vnto, for that he heard newes that Tamerlane, the great Tartarian Prince, intended shortly to warre upon him. Yet could this peace not be obtained, but vpon conditio,, that the Emperor should grant free liber- tie for the Tvrks to direll together in one street of Constan- tinople, with free exercise of their own religion and laves, rnder a. judge of their own nation ; and further, to pay vnto the Turkish king a yeerelv tribute of ten thousand duckats. Which dishonourable conditions the distressed Emperor was glad to accept of. So was this long siege broken vp, and presently a great sort of Turks with their Imiiilics were sent end of Bithnni". to dwell in Constantinople, and a chiirch there built for them .- which not long after was by the Em- peror pulled downe to the ground, and the Turks againe driuen out of the citie, at such time as Baiazet was by the mighty Tamerlane ouerthrowne and taken prisoner 1 he circumstances of these Two stories are so much alike, thai it merely now remains to notice the propriety with which our translators have chosen the word streets, rather than any other proposed by commentators.— Taylor in Calmet. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 2. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying. Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a o-arden of herbs," because it is near unto my house : and I will give thee for it a tetter vine- yard than it ; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. Our first parents had for their residence a beautiful gar- den which may have had some influence upon their imme- diate descendants, in giving them a predilection for such situations. People in England will scarcely be able to ap- preciate the value which Ihe Orientals place on a garden The food of many of them consists of vegetables, loots, and fruits ; their medicines, also, being indigenous, are most ol them produced in their gardens. Hence they ha. -e heir fine fruit trees, and the constant shade; and here the\ have their wells and places for bathing See the proprietor, in his undress walking around his little domain; hisfer.ee Chap. 21. 1 KINGS. n wall is so high no one can overlook him: he strolls I t,, smoke In- shrxit, io pick up ilie fruit, and cull the Bowers; he cares not for (he world; his soul is satisfied with the scenes around him. Ahab wished to have Na- hoth's garden; bat how could he part with "the inherit- ance" of his " fathers 1" Tliere was scarcely a tree which hail not some pleasing associations connected with it: one d by the hand of a beloved ancestor, another in memory of some great event; the water he drank, and the fruit he ate, were from the same sources as thus,- which refreshed his fathers. How then could he, in disobedience iininand, and in violation of all those tender in lings, give up Ins garden to Ahab \ To part Willi such to the people of the East, like parting with life tself. — Roberts. Ver. 4. Ami he laid him down upon hit bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. Thus acted the puissant monarch, because he could not i - garden. See the creature in the shape of a man pulling his lip, and throwing himself on his bed, and rein-nig lo eat food, because he could not gain his wishes. The domestics brought refreshment, bin their lord would not take it; and, therefore, they went lo queen Jezebel, to communicate the sorrowful intelligence; and she imme- diately went to his majesty and inquired, "Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest not bread 1" and he told his mournful story. How often do we see full-grown men a. -ting in a similar way, when disappointed in their wishes: go near them, and they avert their faces ; offer them food, they will not eat; and, generally speaking, Lheir friends are so weak as, at any expense, to gratify their wishes. — Rob- Vcr. 7. And Jezebel's wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thy heart be merry : I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jez- reelite. I do not find any statute that prohibited an Israelite from exchanging his inheritance ; nor was there, indeed, in such exchange, unless when it transferred a person to a different iribe, any thing contrary to the inteniion of the law, which was to prevent his latest posterity from ever being altoge- ther denuded of their land. Perhaps, therefore, it was a piece of mere, crossness in Naboth to refuse, in such un- counlv terms, not only to sell, but even to exchange his vineyard with King Ahab, 1 Kings xxi. 7. At the same lime', it is impossible to vindicate the despotic measure, to which the barbarous Wife of this too obsequious monarch had recourse in order to obtain it; for certainly Naboth was not obliged to exchange his vineyard, unless he chose. — MlCButGUS. Ver. 8. So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city dwelling with Naboth. At this day, in the East, not a female in ten thousand is acquainted with the art of writing; and I think it probable that Ahab's affectionate queen did not write the letters with her own hand, but that she caused it to be done by others. It is not unlikely that the state of female education, in modern times, is precisely the same as that of antiquity; for I do not recollect any female in the scriptures, except- ing Jezebel, who is mentioned as being concerned in the wii'ing of letters. The talented Hindoo female. Aviyur, has left wonderful memorials of her cultivated mind; and I doubt not, when female education shall become general in the East, from them will be furnished many an Aviyar, to bless and adorn the future age— Roberts. The very ancient custom of sealing despatches with a teal or signet, set in a ring, is still retained in the East. Pococke says, " in Egypt thev make the impression of their name with their seal, generally of cornelian, which they wear on their finger, and which is blacked when they have occasion to sea' with it." Hanway remarks, that " the Per- sian ink serves not onlv for writing, hut for Mihsenhins with their seal ; indeed, many of ihe I'. i-i. i,-u. high ol- fice could not write. In their rings ■..■. v which serve for a seal, on u lueh is I'requenih engi.r. "i heir name, ami some verse from the Koran." Bhaw also has a remark exactly to the same purpose— Blruer. Ver. 10. And set two men, sons of Belia him, l" hear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. Princes never want instruments to execute their pleasure ; and yet it is strange, that among all these judges ami great uieiii there should be none that abhorred sueli a villany. li must be considered, however, that for a long while they had east oil all fear and sense of God, and prostituted their consciences lo please their king: nor dare ihey disobey Jezebel's commands, who had ihe full power and govern- ment of the king, (as they well knew,) and could easily have taken away their lives, 'had they refused to condemn Na- both.— Stacks ousb. Ask any judge, any gentleman in the civil service or India, whether men may not be had in any village to swear anything for the fraction of a shilling 1 Jezebel would not find it difficult to procure agents to swear away the life of Naboth the Jezreelite — Roberts. Ver. 13. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab ; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. The Vulgate renders this clause, Delcbo Jerusalem, steal deleri Solent tabula : I will blot out Jerusalem as tablets are wont to be blotted out. It is a metaphor taken from the an- cient method of writing. They traced their letters with a stile on boards, thinly spread over with wax : for this pur- pose one end of the stile was sharp, the other end blunt and smooth ; with this they could rub out what they had written, and so smooth the. place, and spread back the wax, as io render it capable of receiving any other words. Thus the Lord had written down Jerusalem, never inlending that its name or memorial should be blotied out ; but now the stile is turned, and the name Jerusalem is no longer to be found. — Bcrder. Ver. 15. And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jez- ebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he re- fused to give thee for money : for Naboth is not alive, but dead. As Naboth, according to verse 10, was executed as a blasphemer and a traitor, his properly did not go to his re- lations, hut to the king. Even now, in the Turkish empire, and in Persia, the property of great men who are executed, falls to the public treasury, or the governors of the province seize upon it. The chans now enrich themselves with the confiscated property of criminals, and other fines, which formerly fell to the royal treasury, says Gmelin, in his Travels through Persia'and Northern Persia.— Bcrder. Ver. 19. Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. There is a great dispute among the learned, as to the ac- complishment of thisprophecy. At the first it was no doubt intended to be literally fulfilled, but upon Ahab's repent- ance, (as we find below,) the punishment was transfers d from him to his son Jehoram, ih whom it was actuallj ai complished ; for his dead body was cast into the p rtion ol the field of Naboth the Jezreelite, for ihe dogs io di foi I 2 Kings ix. 25. Since Ahab's blood therefore wi - lii '.■ •' by dogs, not at Jezreel, but at Samaria, it seems necessary that we should understand ihe Hebrew word, which i in translation renders, in the place where, not as deroting :hc 272 1 KINGS Chap. 22. place, but the manner in which the thing was done; and so the sense of the passage will be, that as dogs licked, or in like manner, as dogs licked Naboth's blood, even so shall they lick thine, observe what I say, even thme. — Sl'ACKUOUSE. Ver. 23. And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. This, to an English ear, sounds very surprising; that .luring the time of a single meal, so many dogs should be on the spot, ready to devour, and should so speedily de- spatch this business, in the very midst of a royal city, close under the royal gateway, and where a considerable train of people had so lately passed, and, no doubt, many were continually passing: this, to an English reader, appears extremely unaccountable ; but we find it well accounted for by Mr. Bruce, whose information the reader will receive with due allowance for the different manners and ideas of countries ; after which, this rapid devouring ef Jezebel will not appear so extraordinary as it has hitherto done. " The bodies of those killed by the sword were hewn to pieces, and scattered about the streets, being denied burial. 1 vras miserable, and almost driven to despair, at seeing my hunting-dogs twice let loose by the carelessness of my servants, bringing into the courtyard the heads and arms of sluuuhlc'rcd men, and which I could no way prevent, but by the destruction of the dogs themselves : the quantity of carrion, and the stench of it, brought down the hyenas in hundreds from the neighbouring mountains ; and as few people in Gondar go out after it is dark, they enjoyed the streets to themselves, and seemed ready to dispute the pos- session of the city with the inhabitants. Often, when I vent home late from the palace, and it was this time the king chose chiefly for conversation, though I had but to pass the corner of the market-place before tub palace, had lanterns with me, and was surrounded with armed men, I heard '.hem grunting by twos and threes, so near me as to be afraid thev would take some opportunity of seizing me by the leg. A pistol would have frightened them, and made them speedily run, and I constantly carried two loaded at my girdle ; lint the discharging a pistol in the night would have alarmed every one that "heard it in the town, and it was not now the time to add any thing to people's fears. I at last scarcely ever went out, and nothing occupied my thoughts but how to escape from this bloody country, by way of Sennaar, and how I could best exert my power and influence over Yasine, at Ras el Feel, to pave my way, by assisting me to pass the desert, into Atbara. The king, missing me at the palace, and hearing I had not been at Ras Michael's, began to inquire who had been with me 1 Ayto Confu soon found Yasine, who informed him of the whole matter. Upon this I was sent for to the palace, where I found the king, withoVt anybody but menial ser- vants. He immediately remarked, that I looked very ill, which, indeed, I found to be the case, as I had scarcely ate or slept since I saw him last, or even for some days before. He asked me, in a condoling tone, what ailed me 1 That besides looking sick, I seemed as if something had ruffled me, and put me out of humour. I told him, that what he observed was true : that coming across the market-place, I had seen Za Mariam, the Ras's doorkeeper, with three men bound, one of whom he fell a-hacking to pieces in my presence, and upon seeing me running across the place, stopping my nose, he called me to stay till he should come and despatch the other two, for he wanted to speak with me, as it he had been engaged about ordinary business ; ihat the soldiers, in consideration of his haste, immediately fell upon the other two, whose cries were still remaining in my ears ; that the hyenas, at night, would scarcely let me pass in the streets, when I returned from the palace ; and the dn?s fled into mil house to eat pieces of human carcasses at their leisure." (Travels, vol. iv., page 81, &c.) Without supposing that Jezreel was pestered with hye- nas, like Gondar, though that is not incredible, we may now easily admit of a sufficiency of dogs, accustomed to carnage, which had pulled the body of Jezebel to pieces, and had devoured it before the palace gate, or had with- drawn with parts of it to their hiding-places. But perhaps the mention of the head, hands, and feet, being left on the spot, indicates that it had not been removed by the dogs, but was eaten where it fell (as those parts adjoined the mem- bers most likely to be removed,) so that the prophecy ol Elijah was literally fulfilled: "In the portion of Jezreel, shall dogs eat Jezebel." This account illustrates also the readiness of the dogs to lick the blood of Ahab, 1 Kings xxii. 38, in perfect conformity to which is the expression of the prophet Jeremiah, xv. 3, " I will appoint over them the sword to slay, and the dogs lo tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the'beasts of the" earth, [the hyenas of Mr. Bruce, perhaps,] to devour and destroy." Mr. Bruce's ac- count .also explains the mode of execution adopted by the prophet Samuel, with regard to Agag, king of the Amalek- ites, whom Samuel thus addresses :— " In like manner [literally, in like procedure as—i. e. in the same identical mode of execution] as thy sword has made women barren, so shall thy mother be rendered barren [childless] among women." 1 Sam. xv. 33. If these words do not imply thai Agag had ripped up pregnant women, they at least imply that he had hewed many prisoners to death i for we find thai " Samuel caused Agag to be hewed in pieces before the face of the Lord [probably not before the residence of Saul, but before the tabernacle, &c] in Gilgal," directing that very same mode of punishment (hitherto, we suppose, unadopted in Israel) to be used towards him, which he had formerly used towards others. The character of the prophet Samuel has been vilified for cruelty on account of this history, with how little reason let the reader now judge; and compare a. similar retributive act of justice on Adonibezek, Judges i. 7. —Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 27. And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. See the man who goes into the presence of a superior : he takes off his sandals, and walks softly— he has a timid air, and 5rou cannot hear his foot tread on the ground. When a dutiful son goes to his father, or a devotee into the presence of a sacred personage, he walks in the same way. Has a proud, boasting man, been humbled, the people say, "Ah! aha! he can now walk mitha-vdka," i. e. softly. "What! the proud Mutto walk softly; whoever expected that"!" — Roberts. Going softly seems to have been one of the many expres- sions of mourning commonly used among the eastern nations. That it was in use among the Jews appears from the case of Ahab; and by mistake it has been confounded with walking barefoot. It seems to have been a very slow, solemn manner of walking, well adapted to the slate of mourners labouring under great sorrow and dejection ol mind. — Burder. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 11, And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron ; and he said, Thus saiththe Lord, With these shalt thou push the Syrians, until thou have consumed them. The Indian soldier wears a horn of steel on the front of his helmet, directly over the forehead. In Abyssinia the headdress of the provincial governors, according to Mr. Bruce, consists" of a large broad fillet bound upon their forehead, and tied behind their head. In the middle of this rises a horn, or conical piece of silver, gilt, about four inches long, much in the shape of our common candle ex- tinguishers. This is called kirn, a slight corruption of the Hebrew word keren, a horn, and is only worn in re- vieWs, or parades after victory. The crooked manner in which they hold the neck when this ornament is on theii forehead, for fear it should fall forward, seems to agret with what the Psalmist calls speaking with a stiff neck: " Lift not your horn on high ; speak not with a stiff neck ;" for it perfectly shows the meaning of speaking in this atti- tude, when the horn is held exact like the hoin of a uni- corn. An allusion is made to this custom in another pas- sage • " But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn." To raise the horn was to clothe one with au- thority, or to do him honour ; to lower it, cv,t it off, or take it away, to deprive one of power, or to treat him with dis- respect. Such were the " horns of iron" which Zedekiah Ch ip. 22 1 KINGS. 273 made for himself, when he presumed, in ihe name of Jeho- vah, lo Hatter his prime with the promise of victory over bis enemies ; "Thus saith the Lord, with these" military insignia "shall thou posh the Syrians until thou has) con- sumed them." They were military ornaments, the symbols nf strength, and courage, and power. — P.ixro.v \>; 16. And the king said onto' him, How many times shall 1 adjure thee thai thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lm:i> ' lii England, this solemn appeal is never made bin in eases of extremity; but in the East, the mosi trilling cir- . nm-Mic ,■ w ill induce .i pel -on los.iv.' n ni ■■■■ii mill ttkc rain, ■ By thy oath;" or, " I impose n upon thee." — Roberts. Vet. 25. And Micaiah said, Behold, thou shalt s le in that day, when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself " In .me of the halls of the seraglio at Constantinople," sivs IV la Moiraye, "the eunuch made us pass by several little chambers-, with doors shut, like the a Us nf monks or nuns, as far as 1 could judge by one thai anothei i much opened the only one I saw: and by the outside of others. Asa.i Firally Bashaw, being summoned by his friends, came OUI of a little house near the tower-, where ■ ■ii lung hidden iii lu- harem, which, had i l been ■i peeled in the mufti, he bad not denied Ins fetfa to the emperor, for seizing his person, even there. The harems icred and inviolable for persons pur- sued by justice for any crime, debt, &c. as the Roman Catholic churches in Italy, Spain, Portugal, &c. Though tin' grand seignior's power over his creatures is such, that be ui iv send some of his eunuchs even there to apprehend those who re isl his will. The harems of the Greeks are almost as -acred as those of the Turks; so that the officers of justice dare not enter without being sure that a man is there, contrary to the law: and if they should go in and id: find what they look for, the women may punish, and even kill them, without being molested for any infringe- ment of the law: on the contrary, the relations would have a right to make reprisal-, ami demand satisfaction for such Those who have not seen Ihe cells of monks, or nuns, in foreign countries, may conceive of a long gallery, or other -P'lcious apartment, as a large hall, &c. into which the doors of the cells open : these cells consist of one room to each person, but frequently of two rooms, one of which is used lor sleeping in; the other for less retired purposes, conversation, &c. Agreeably to this, it appears, that in the R ist also, we must first pass through a lung hall, or gallery, before we can enter the peculiar abode of any particular woman of the harem. We may first apply this mode of to a circumstance threatened by the prophet to his oppon.-nt Zedekiah, 1 Kings xxii "25, "Thou shall go into an inner chamber to hide thyself." Our translators have put in the margin, "from chamber to chamber." The Hebrew is, (-nri 3 sin rhd), , ■: -iOiin cli imber." which exactly agrees with the deseripiion extracted ; but it is new lo consider this threat as predicting that Zedekiah should flv for shelter to a harem, [as we find Assan Firally Bashaw had done;] that his fear should render him, as it'were, effeminate, and that he should seek refuge where it was not usual fora man to seek it; where the "officers of justice," nor even those of conquerors, usually penetrated. There is an additional ii igrace, a sling in these words, if this be the intention of the speaker, stronger than what has hitherto been noticed m ill. in I- not something similar related of Benhadad, 1 Kings xx. 30, " He fled," and was so overcome w ith tear, thai he hid himself in "a chamber within chamber !" As it is very characteristic of braggarts and drunkards (see verses 16, 18, &c.) to be mentally overwhelmed when in adversity may we not suppose 'that Benhadad was now concealed in the harem 1 Following circumstai militate against this supposition. That the word chedei means a woman's chamber, appears from Judges xv. 1 where Samson says, " I will go to my wife into her chant- Acr," (m-inn.)— Taylor in Cai.met. Pel 13. Ami he walked in all the ways of Asa his father; lie turned not aside from it, doing that irh'nli irns riLrht ill the eyes of the LORD nevertheless the high places were not taken away; for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places. Man) of old worshipped upon hills and on the tops ol high mountains; imagining that they thereby obtained a nearer communication with heaven. Strabo'snys that the Persians always performed their worship upon lull-. Some nations, instead of an image, -worshipped the hill as the deity. In Japan most of their temples are at this day upon eminences; and often upon the ascent of high mountain: commanding fine views, with groves and rivulet- of clear water: for they say, that the gods are extremely delighted with such high and pleasant spots. (Krj2mpl> i This practice, in early times, was almost universal : and every mountain wa- esteemed holy. The people w ho piose- culed this method of worship enjoyed a soothing infatuation, which Haltered the gloom of superstition. The eminences to which they retired xvere lonely and silent, and seemed to be happily circumstanced for contemplation and prayer. They who frequented them were raised above the lower world, and fancied that they were brought into the vicinity of the powers of the air, and of the deity who resided in the higher regions. But the chief excellence for which they were frequented was, that they were looked upon as the peculiar places where God delivered his oracles. —Burder. Ver. 48. Jehoshaphat made ships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold; but they went not: for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber. "Suez, which was the Arslnoe of the ancients, is situated at the top of the Red Sett : it stands surrounded by the desert, and i« a shabby, ill-built place : Ihe ships anchor a league from the town, to which the channel that leads is very narrow, and has only nine or len feet depth'of water ; for which reason. Ihe large ships that are built here must be towed down to the road, wifbou*mast, guns, or any thing in them; there are eighl of them lying here, which have not been to Juddah tins year ; one of them is at least twelve hundred tons burden, being as lofty as a hundred gun ship, though not longer than a frigate; so that you may judge of the good proportions they observe in the con- struction of their ships; the timber of which they are all built is brought from Syria by water, to Cairo, and from thence on camels. This fleet -ails for Juddah every year. before the Hadge ; slays there two or three months, and returns loaded with coffee: this is so material an article in the diet of d n.ussulman, that the prayers and wishes ot them all are offered up for its safety : and I believe, next to the loss of their country, the loss of their coffee would be most severely felt by them. The greatest part of ii is sent to Constantinople, and other pans of Turkey, but a small ' Italy." (J" ' THE SECOND BOOK OF KINGS. CHAPTER I. ■» Ver. 2 And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that tvas in Samaria, aud was sick : and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this In the eastern countries the roofs of the houses were flat, and surrounded with a battlement, to prevent falling from them, because it was a customary thing for people to walk upon them, in order to take the air. Now in this battle- ment we may suppose that there were some wooden latti- ces for people to look through, of equal height with the par- apet wall, and that Ahaziah negligently leaning on it, as it was rotten ard infirm it broke down, and let him fall into the court, or garden, belonging to his house. Or there is another way wherein he might fall. In these flat roofs there was generally an opening, which served instead of a sky light to the house below, and this opening might be done over with lattice-work, which the King, as he was carelessly walking, might chance to step upon and slip through. Nor is there any absurdity in supposing such lat- tice-work in a king's palace, when the world was not ar- rived to that height of art and curiosity that we find in it now. — Stackhouse. Ver. 3. Is it not because there is not a God in Is- rael, 'that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? We, perhaps, may be a good deal surprised to find, that the driving away of flats should be thought by the inhabit- ants of the country about Ekron so important, that they should give a name to the idol they worshipped, expressive of that property, (Baal-zebub, lord of the fly ;) more especially when this was not the only quality ascribed to him, but;it was supposed the power of predicting such momentous matters as the continuance of the life of great princes, or then- approaching death, did also belong to him; but pos- sibly a passage in Vinisauf may lessen this astonishment. Vinisauf, speaking 6t the army under our Richard the First, a little before he left the Holy Land, and describing them as marching on the plain not far from the seacoast, towards a place called Ybelin, which belonged to the knights hos- pitalers of St. John of Jerusalem, pretty near Hebron, says, '■ The army stopping a while there, rejoicing in the hope of speedily se'ting out for Jerusalem, were assailed bv a most minute kind of fly, riving ab mt like sparks, which they called cineinnel/re. With these the whole neighbouring region round about was filled. These most wretchedly infested the pilgrims, piercing with great smartness the hands, necks, throats, foreheads, and faces, and every part that was uncovered, a most violent burning tumour follow- ing the punctures made by them, so that all that they stung looked like lepers." He" adds, "that they could 'hardly guard themselves from this most tioublesome vexation, by covering their heads and necks with veils." What these fireflies were, and whether they shone in the dark, and fo.- that reason are compared to sparks flying about, or whether they were compared to them on the account of the burning heat they occasioned, as well as a swelling in the flesh of all they wounded, I shall not take upon me to determine. I would only observe, Richard and his people met with them in that part of the country, which seemed to be of the i-ountrv which was not verv far from Ekron, and which seemed to be of much the same general nature — a plain not far from the seacoast. Can we wonder, after this recital, that those poor hea- then who lived in and about Ekron, derived much conso- lation from the supposed power of the idol they worshipped, to drive away the cincinnellae of that country, which wete so extremely vexatious to these pilgrims of the 12;h century, and occasioned them so much pain. Lord of the fly, lord of these cincinnellae, must have appeared to them a very pleasing, a very important title. I will only add, that Sandys, in his travels in the sam- country, but more to the northward, speaks of the ail appearing as if full of sparkles of flic, borne to and lio with the wind, after much rain and a thunderstorm, v 1ml, appearance of sparkles of fire he attributes to infinite swarms of flies that shone like glow-worms ; but he gives not the least intimation of their being incommoded by them. What this difference was owing to, it is quite beside the de- sign of these papers to inquire; whether its being about two months earlier in the year, more to the northward, oi immediately after much rain and a thunderstorm, was a cause of the innoxiousness of these animals when Sandi ■ travelled, and even whether the appearance Sandys sperk- of, was really owing to insects, or to any effect of electric-] y, I leave to others to determine. — Harmer. Ver. 4. Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord, Then shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed. This expression may be illustrated by what Shaw says of the Moorish houses in Barbary, (Travels, p. 209,) where, after having observed that their chambers are spacious, of tht* same length with the square court on the sides of which they are built, he adds, " at one end of each chamber there is a little gallery raised three, four, or five, feet above tin- floor, with a balustrade in the front of it, vith a few slept likewise leading uj> to it. Here they place their beds; a turning his fur, when he pruiu 'il> his hm.l iii the IjpJachU: — but It tfriuveth him lo urinii it again to hid mouth. Meaning, he sees a dish, deep and capacious, filled with confectionary, sweetmeats, &c. whatever his appetite can desire in respect to relish and flavour ; of this he is greedy. Thus excited, he thrusts his hand— his right hand— deep into the dish, loads it with delicacies; but, alas ! the labour of lifting it up to his mouth is too great, loo excessive, too fatiguing : he therefore does not enjoy or taste what is be- fore him, though his appetite be so far allured as to desire, and his hand be so far exerted as to grasp. -[This is the customary mode of conveying food to the mouth in the East, where knives and forks are not in use.] He suffers the viands to become cold, and thereby to lose their flavour; while ho debates the important movement of his hand to his mouth, if he does not rather totally forego the enjoyment, as demanding too vast an action! Surely this picture of sluth is greatly heightened by this notion of the tjelachil. It seems to be sufficiently striking, that two words, rendered by our translators hip, or bosom. (Prov. xvi. 33, olifcand the word before us,) should both signify vases, or vessels. The first denotes, the lot-vase, used for containing the lot-peb- bles, &c. to be drawn out by the hand ; the other a dish for meat ; neither of them referring to any part of the person, as our version seems to imply ; which "reads, A slothful man hMflhhis haml in his hosom, And will not hnnii i! to his month aioun. The powerful picture of sloth, painted by Solomon, gives occasion to enlarge somewhat further on the manner of eating among the Arabs; a manner lhat seems sufficiently rude to us, but which those who praciise it insist is more natural and convenient, and not less cleanly than our own. " Extending their forefinger and thumb, (of the right hand always — ihe left hand is reserved for less honourable u«e<,) they say," observes D'Arvieux, "God made this fork before you made your steel ones." Mr. Jackson says, " The Moors are, for the most part, more cleanly in their persons than in their garments. They wash their hands before every meal, which, as they use no knives or forks, they eat with their fingers: half a dozen persons sil round a large bowl of cuscasoe, and, after the usual ejaculation (Bismil- lah !) ' In the name of God !' each person puts his hand lo the bowl, and taking up the food, throws it, by a dexlerous jerk, into his mouth, without suffering his lingers to touch his lips. However repugnant this may be to our ideas of cleanliness, yet the hand being always washed, and never touching the mouth in Ihe act of eating, these people are by no means so dirty as Europeans have sometimes hastily imagined. They have no chairs or tables in their houses, but sit crosslegged on carpels and cushions; and at meals, the dish or bowl of provisions is placed on the floor." (Ac- count of Morocco, p. 155.) That a thorough sluggard should practise Ihis " dexter- ous jerk of Ihe hand," is not likely to have entered into the contemplation of the royal sage, in the passages illustrated above : and to say truth, Ihe latter observation seems to be couched in terms much stronger than the former: " The sluggard musters up just strength enough lo plunge his hand into the bowl; but Ihis mighty effort exhausts him, he finds his weariness (™^:) too great, too excessive, to bring it up to his mouth, loaded though it be with the deli- cacies of the table." There is a force in the word rendered hide or ■plunge, which should not be disregarded. — The sluggard buries deeply his hand : — it being customary with such characters to grasp at all, and more than all, which ihey can hold. Perhaps the action of a less polite class than that principally- alluded to bv Mr. Jackson, may best illustrate this reflection. We shall therefore add the fol- .owing from Major Rooke's Travels in Arabia: " On my first going on board, I sat down with the Noquedah and his officers lo supper, the floor being both our tables and chairs, JGS.' Chap. 2. on which we seated ourselves in a circle, with a large bow\ of rice in the middle, and some fish and dates before each per- son: here I likewise found that knives and forks were useless instruments in eating, and that nature had accommodated us-ivith what answered ihe same purpose: we plunged our hands inlo the bowl, rolled up a handful of rice into a ball, and conveyed it to our mouths in that form; our repast was short, and lo that succeeded coffee and washing ; and on their parts prayer, in which they were very frequent and fervent." " -Tayl : in Calmet. Ver. 23. And he went 'up from thence unto Beth- el : and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him. Go up, thou bald-head ; go up, thou bald-head. Some suppose this alludes to the head being uncovered. I was not a little astonished in the East, when I first heard a man called a bald-head, who had a large quantity of hair on his head: and I found, upon inquiry, it was an epithet of contempt ! A man who has killed himself is called " a bald-headed suicide!" A stupid fellow, "a bald-headed dunce." Of those who are powerless, "What can those bald-heads do 1" Hence the epithet has often been applied to the missionaries. Is a man told his wife does not manage domestic matters well, he replies, as if in coniempt of him- self, "What can a bald-head do 1 must he not have a wife of the same kindl" Let -a merchant, or any other person , who is going on business, meet a man who is really bald, and he will assuredly refuse to attend to the business: and pronounce, if he dare, some imprecations on the object of his hatred. Sometimes he will repeat the proverb, " Go, thou bald-head, pilferer of a small fish, and sucker of bones cast away by the goldsmith." Call a man a molliyan, i. e. bald head, (which you may do, though he have much hair.) and then abuse, or slicks or stones, will be sure to be your portion. Thus the epithet implies great scorn, and is given to those who are weak or mean. — Roberts. Ver. 23. And he went up from thence unto Bethel, and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head : go up, thou bald-head. 24. And he turned back, and looked on thein, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. Bethel, it is well known, was one of the cities where Jeroboam had set up a golden calf, a place strangely ad- dicted to idolatry, and whose inhabitants had no small aversion lo Elisha, as being the servant and successor ol one, who had been a professed enemy to their wicked wor- ship, and himself no less an opposer of it. It is reasoneble to suppose, therefore, lhat ihe children (if they were child- ren, for Ihe word tiaarim may signify grown youths as well) who mocked Elisha, were excited and encouraged there- unto by their parents; and therefore the judgment was just, in God's punishing the wickedness of ihese parents by Ihe death of iheir children, who, though they suffered in this life, had ihe happiness to be rescued from ihe danger of an idolatrous education, which might have been of fatal ten- dency both to their present and future state. ' In the mean time'it must be acknowledged, that the insolence of these mockers (whether we suppose" them children or youths) was very provoking, forasmuch as they ridiculed, not onlv a man whose very age commanded reverence, but a prophet likewise, whose character, in all ages, was ac- counted sacred, nay, and even God himself, whose honoui was struck at in the reproaches against his servant, and that too in one of his most glorious and wonderful works, his assumption of Elijah into heaven : For, " Go up, thou bald-head, go up, thou bald-head," (besides the bitterness of the contempt expressed in the repetition of the words,) shows that ihev made a mere jest of any such translation; and therefore, 'in banter, they bid Elijah go up, whither, as he pretended, his friend and master was gone before. These provocations, one would think, were enough to Chap. 3. 2 Kl Jraw an imprecation from llie prophet; but Ihi lion did not proceed from any passion 01 pi ivale rese lenl of his own, but merely from the Command and commission of bis God; who, tor the terror and caution of oilier pro- fane persons and idolaters, as well as for the maintenance of the honour and authority of his prophets, armed the word winch had gone out of his servant's h The I :e is to be said of the destruction which Elijah called down from heaven upon the two captains and their companies, who came to apprehend him — that he did this, not out of auv hasty passion or revenue, but purely in obe- dience to the Holy Spirit, wherewith he was animated, and in zeal for the honour and glory of God, which in the per- son of his prophet, were grossly abused. — Stackbouss. Vim- 34. And there came forth two she-bears oul of the wood, and tare forty and two children of These furious animals were she-bears, which, it is prob- able, had been just deprived of their young; and now fol- lowing the impulse of their outraged feelings, tln-v rushed from the wood to revenge the loss. But it is evident their native ferocity was overruled and directed by divine prov- idence, lo execute the dreadful sentence pronounced by the prophet in his name. They must, therefore, be considered as the ministers of God, the Judge of all the earth, r n - sioaed to punish the idolatrous inhabitants of Bethel and tluir profligate offspring, who probably acted on this occa- sion with their concurrence, if not by their command. He punished in a similar way the heathen colonies planted by the king of Assyria in the cities of Samaria, after the ex- pulsion of the ten tribes: " They feared not the Lord; there- fore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them." When he punished the youths of Bethel, (for so the phrase little children signifies in Hebrew.) by directing against them the rage of the she-bears, he only did what Moses had long before predicted, and left on 'record for their warning:"" And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins. I will also send H lid bea ts among you, which shall rob you of your child- ren." Bethel had been long the principal seat of idolatry, and its attendant vices; and to all their aggravated crimes, its inhabitants now added rude and impious mockery of a person \> bom they knew to be a prophet of the Lord, revi- ling with blasphemous tongues the Lord God of Elijah, and his now glorified servant. Baldness was reckoned a very great deformityin the East; and to be reproached with it, one of the grossest insults an Oriental could receive. Cesar, who was bald, could not bear lo hear it mentioned in jest. It is one of the marks of disgrace which 1 Comer fixes upon Thersites, that he had only a few straggling hairs on his pyramidal head. Their crime, therefore, justly merited the severest punishment— Paxton. CHAPTER III. Ver. 4. And Mesha king- of Moab was a sheep- " master, and rendered unto the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred thou- sand rams, with the wool. This was a prodigious number indeed; but then we are to consider that these countries abound with sheep, inso- much that Solomon offered a hundred and twenty thou- sand at the dedication of the temple, 2 Chron. vii." 5, and the Reubenites drove from the Hagarens a hundred and fifty thousand, 1 Chron. v. 7. For, as Bochart observes, their sheep frequently brought forth two at a lime, and sometimes twice a year. The same learned mat) remarks, that in ancient times, when people's riches consisted in cattle, this was the only way of paying tribute. Ii is ob- served bv others likewise, that this great number of cattle was not a tribute, which the Moabites were obliged to pay the Lsraelites every year, but on some special occasion only. upon the accession of every new king, for instance, when they were obliged to express their homage in this manner, to make satisfaction for some damages that the Israelites should at any time suffer from their invasions or revolts.— Sr.'.CKHorsE. !GS. 277 Ver. 1 1. And of the king of Israel's servants answered ami said, Here is Kli.-hu the son o. Shaphat, which poured water on the hands o. Elijah. We read, Elisha " went after Elijah, and ministered untc him;" which simply means he was his servant. The peo- ple of the East use iheir lingers in eating, instead of a knife and fork, 01 sp I; ami consequently after, (as well as before.) thev are obliged to wash their hands. The master. having finished his meal, calls a servant to pour water on his hands. The domestic then comes with a little brass vessel tilled with water, and pours u on the hands and fin- gers till he hears the word polham, enough. — Roberts. There is a description of Elisha the prophet, by a part of his office when servant to Elijah, which appears rather strange lo us. •• Is there not here a prophet ot the Lord 1" says King Jchoshaphat; he is answered, " Here is Elisha ben Shaphat, who /mured villi r mi Ihr hands of Elijah" (3 Kings iii. 11.) i. c. who was his servant and constant attendant. So Pitts tells us: "The table being removed, before they rise (from the ground whereon they sit,) a slave, or servant, who stands attending on them with a cup ot walef to give them drink, steps into the middle with a basin, or copper pot of water, something like a coffee-pot, and a little soap, and Ids the vah r i un upon their hands one after another, in order as they sit." Such service it appears Elisha performed for Elijah : what shall we say then to the remarkable action of our Lord, " who poured water into a basin, and washed his disciples' feet," alter supper 1 Was he indeed ami ng them ,,s nm r-hu s rrelh ! < In this subject. savs D'Ohsson, " Ablution, Abdcslh, consists in washing the hands, feet, face, and a part of the head ; the law mentions them by the term — 'the three parts consecrated to ablu- tion.' The mussulman is generally seated on the edge I of a sofa, with a pewter or copper vessel lined with tin I placed before him upon a round piece of red cloth, to pre- vent the carpet or mat from being wet : a servant, kneeling ! on the ground, pours out water for his master ; another holds a cloth destined for these purifications. The person who purines himself begins by baring his arms as far as the elbow. As he washes his 'hands, mouth, nostrils, face, i arms, &c, he repeats the proper prayers It is probable that Mohammed followed on this subject the book of Le- viticus." It is well known that we have an officer among ourselves, who, at the coronation, and formerly at all public festivals, held a basin of water for the king to wash his hands in, after dinner; but it is not equally well known, that Cardinal Wolsey, one time, when the Duke of Buck- ingham held the basin for Henry VIII., after the king had washed, put his own hand into the basin: the duke re- senting this intrusion, let some of the water fall on the habit of the cardinal, who never forgave the action, but brought the duke to the block, in consequence of his re- sentment.— Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 15. But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. The music of great men in civil life, has been sometimes directed to persons of a sacred character, as an expression of respect, in the East; pethaps the playing of the minstrel befee the prophet Elisha is lo be understood, in part, at least, in something of the same manner. When Dr Richard Chandler was at Athens, the archbishop of that city was upon ill terms with its Vaiwode, and the Greeks in general siding with the Vaiwode, the archbishop was obliged to withdraw for a time: but some time after, when Chandler ami his fellow-travellers were at Corinth, they were informed that the archbishop was returned to Athens : that the Bey or Vaiwode had received him kindly, and ordered his musicians lo attend him at his palace; and that a complete revolution had happened in his favour Here we see a civil magistrate, who had been displeased with a great ecclesiastic, sent his musicians to play at his archiepiscopal palace, in honour of him to win m this ma- gistrate was now reconciled. Elisha might require that a like honour should be done to him, and through him to the God whom he served, who had been sadly neglected ami ; affronted in former times by the king of Israel. The pro- 273 2 Kl priety of it will appear in a still stronger light, if we should suppose, that Elisha commanded the minstrel to sing, along with his music, a hymn to Jehovah, setting forth his being a God that gave rai'n, that preserved such as were ready to perish, the giver of victory, and whose power was neither limited to his temple, nor to the Jewish country sacred to him, but equally operative in every place. The coming of the spirit of prophecy upon Elisha, enabling him to declare a speedy copious fall of rain in that neighbourhood, and a complete victory over their enemies, immediately upon the submissive compliance of this idolatrous prince with the requisition of the prophet, and such a hymn in praise of the God of Israel, seems to me full as natural an interpre- tation, as the supposing he desired the minstrel to come in order to play some soft composing tune, to calm his ruffled spirits, and to qualify him for the reception of the influences of the spirit of prophecy. Was a warm and pungent zeal against the idolatries of Jehoram a disqualifying disposi- tion of soul t and if it were, was mere music the happiest mode of inviting the divine influences'! Yet after this manner, I think, it has been commonly explained. Sing- ing was, and is, so frequently joined with the sound of musi- cal instruments in the East, that I apprehend no one will think it strange, that I suppose the minsyel sung as well as played in the presence of Elisha: and when it is recollect- ed that their songs are very frequently extemporaneous, it is natural to suppose the prophet required something to be sung, suitable both to his character and to the Harmer. Ver. 16. And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches: 17. For thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain ; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts. A shower of rain in the East, is often preceded by a whirlwind, which darkens the skv with immense clouds of sand from the loose surface of the desert. To this com- mon phenomenon, the prophet alludes, in his direction to the king of Israel, who was marching with his army against Moab, and was ready to perish in the wilderness for want of water: " Thus saith the Lord, Make this val- ley full of ditches. For thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; vet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink.'bolh ye, and 'your cat- | tie, and your beasts." " If a squall had not commonly pre- i ceded rain, the prophet would not have said, Ye shall not see wind. — Paxton. Ver. 10. And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones. Commentators take no pains, that I know of, to account for that part of the punishment of the king of Moab's re- bellion, Ye shall mar ei-cni gofld pica: of land with flours ; though it does not appear' very easy to 'conceive how this ' was to be done to any purpose, and' indeed without giving as much trouble, or more, to Israel, to gather these stones, and carry them on their lands, as to the Moabites to gather them up again, and carry them off. I would therefore pro- pose it to the learned to consider, whether we mav not understand this of Israel's doing that nationally, and as victors, which was done by private persons very frequently in these countries in ancient times, by wav of revenge, and which is mentioned in some of the old Roman laws, I think, cited by Egmont and Heyman, who, speaking of the contentions and vindictive temper of the Arabs, tell us, they were ignorant, however, whether they still retained the method of revenge formerly common among them, and which is called gkottcKiciws, mentioned in Lib. ff. Digest, de extraord. criminib. which contains the following account. In provincia Arabia, &c. That is, "in the province of Arabia, there is a crime called o«ot£Xio/.o{, or fixing of stones; it being a frequent practice among them, to place ftones in the grounds of those with whom they are at variance as a warning, that any person who dares to till Chap 4. that field, should infallibly be slain, by the < those who placed the stones there." This malicious prac- tice, they add, is thought to have had its origin in Arabia Petrrea. If the Israelites, as victors, who could prescribe what laws they thought proper to the conquered, placed such stones in "the best grounds of the Moabites, as inter- dicting them from tillage, on pain of their owners being destroyed, they without much trouble effectually marred such fields as long as their power over Moab lasted, which had before this continued some time, and by the suppression of this- rebellion might be supposed to continue long. As it was an ancient practice in these countries, might it not be supposed to be as ancient as the times of Elisha, and that he referred to it 1 Perhaps the time to cast away stones, and the time to gather stones together, mentioned by the royal preacher, Eccles. iii. 5, is to be understood in like manner, of giving to nations with which there had been contests, the marks of perfect reconciliation, or continuing upon them some tokens of displeasure and resentment, fl we suppose the latter part of the verse is exegetical of the former, which the learned know is very common in the Hebrew poetry, it will better agree with this explanation, than with that which supposes, that the casting away of stones, means the demolishing of houses, and the' "alhe'ritig them together, the collecting them for building; since the casting away of stones answers to embracing," in the latter part of the verse, not to the refraining from embracing. It may be supposed indeed that a transposition might be in- tended, such a one as appears in the eighth verse ; but it is to be observed, that the eighth verse finishes this catalogue of different seasons, and there is no transposition in the other particulars. To which may be added, that this ex- planation makes the casting away of stones, and gathering them together, of the fifth verse, precisely the same thing with the breaking down and building up of the third: the supposing a greater variety of thought here will be no dis- honour to the royal poet.— Harmer. Ver. 27. Then he took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel : And they departed from him, and returned to their oii'n land. In great distress, several persons, like the king of Moab, have offered their own children upon their altars. Euse- bius and Lactantius mention several nations who used these sacrifices. Cesar says of the Gauls, that when they were afflicted with grievous diseases, or in time of war, or great danger, they either offered men for sacrifices, or vowed they would offer them. For they imagined Gcd would not be appeased, unless the life of a man were ren- dered for the life of a man. — Birder. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 1. Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead: and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord : and the creditor is come to take unto him mv two sons to be bondmen. This was a case in which the Hebrews had such power over their children, that they might sell them to pay what they owe*! ; and the creditor might force them to it. Huet thinks that from the Jews this custom was propagated to the Athenians, and from them to the Romans. — Burder. The Jewish law looked upon children as the proper goods of their parents, who had power to sell them for seven years, as their creditors had to compel them ;o do it, in order to pay their debts; and from the Jews this cus- tom was propagated to the Athenians, and frcm them to the Romans. The Romans indeed had ine most absolute control over their children. By the decree of Romulus they could impr^on, beat, kill, or sell them for slaves; but Noma Pompilius first moderated this, and the emperor Diocletian made a law, that no free persons should be sold upon account of debt. The ancient Athenians had the like jurisdiction over their children, but Solon reformed this Chap. 4. erne" custom, as indeed it seemed a little hard, that the children of a poor man, who have no manner of inherit- ance lelt them, should be compelled into slavery; in order to pay their do-cased father's debts; and yet this was the custom, as appears from this passage, wherein the prophet does not pretend to reprove the creditor, but only puts the woman in a method to pay him. — Stackhoosb. Ver 1 .' Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candle; stick; audit shall he when he comcth to us, that he shall turn in thither. To most of these houses a smaller one is annexed, which sometimes rises one story higher than the house; and at other limes it consists of one or two rooms only, and a terrace; while others that are built, as they frequently are, over the porch or gateway, have, if we except the ground- floor, which they want, all the conveniences that belong to the house itself. They communicate with the gallery of the house by a door, and by another door, which opens i liately from a privy stair, with the porch or street, without giving the least disturbance to the house. In these back-houses, as they may be called, strangers are usually lodged and entertained; and to them likewise the moi an- wont to retire from the hurry and noise of their families, to be more at leisure for meditation and amusement ; and at other tunes, they are converted into wardrobes and maga- zines. This annexed building is in the holy scriptures named (^v) iilii'h ; and we have reason to behove, that the little chamber which the Shunamite built for the prophet Elisha, whither, as the text informs us. he retired at los pleasure, without breaking in upon the private affairs of the family, or being in his turn interrupted by them in his levotions, was a structure of this kind. It is thus described Dy the Shunamite herself: " Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall ; and let us set for hiin there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick; and it shall be, that when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither. The internal communication of this chamber with the Shn- namite's house, may be inferred, as well from iis being built upon the wall which enclosed her dwelling, as from her having so free access to ilvand at the second invitation, standing in the door, while the prophet announced to her the birth of a son. — Paxton. They did not then among the ancients sit universally as the modern inhabitants of the East now do, on the ground or floor, on some mat or carpet; they sometimes sal . n : seats more or less like our chairs, often raised so high as to require a footstool. But it was considered as a piece of splendour, and offered as a mark of particular respect. Ii was doubtless for this reason that a seat of this kind was pined, along with some other furniture, in the clumber which the devout Shunamitess prepared for the prophet Elisha, -2 Kings iv. 10, which our version has very unhappily translated a slnnl, by which we mean the least honourable kind of seat in an apartment; whereas the original word meant to express her respect for the prophet by the kind of seat she prepared for him. The wori is m» few, the same that is commonly translated throne. The candlestick is. in like manner, to be considered as a piece of furniture, suitable to a room that was magnificently fitted up, according to the mode of those times, a light being kepi birning all night long in such apartments. So a lamp was kept burning all night, in the apartment in which Dr. Richard Chandler slept, in the house of a Jew, who was vice-consul for the English nation, at the place where he first landed, when he proposed to visit the curious ruins of Asia Minor. Further, we are told by De la Roquc, in the account 7iyen of some French gentlemen's going to Arabia Felix, page 43, 44, that they found only mat's in the house of the captain of the port of Aden, where they were honour- ably received, which were to serve them for beds, chairs, and tables : so in the evening thev brought them tapers without candlesticks, the want" of which they were to sup- ply as well as they could, which was but indifferently. — Harmer. Ver. 20. And when he had taken him, and brought 2 KINGS. 279 him to his mother, he sat on her Knees till noon, and then died. The heat, in eastern countries, is often so excessive, as io prove fata] to many people. To this cause is to be attributed the death of the child at Shuneni. in the day! Di Eli iii Egmani and Heyman (vol. i. p. :>:i:ii found the air about Jericho extremely hot, and sav that ii destroyed several persons the year before they were mere. The army of King Baldwin IV. sutleied considerably from tin* circumstance near Tiberias. The heat at the tune was so unusually great, that as many died by that as by the sword. After the battle, in their return to their forme, encan p. ment, a certain ecclesiastic, of some distinction in the church and in the army, not being able to beaj the rehi raence of the heat, was carried in a litter, but expired under mount Tabor.— (Harmer.) The child q-f the Shu- namite here spoken of. had gone to the reapers in the field, (v. 12,) where he suddenly complained of headache, (v. I!),) and soon after died. Probably he had a sun-stroke, which was very natural in the great heat which prevails m those countries at harvest-lime. Monconys, speaking of himself, says, " Towards evening, the sun had struck with such force on my head, that 1 was seized with a violent fever, a ml ubligi d to go' to bed." Werli Von Zember relates the same of him- sell and his companions. " After we had been obliged to remain a long time in this court, exposed to the heat ol the sun, we almost all became ill, with dreadful headae he, giddi- ness, and fever, so that some even lost their senses." Von Stammer says, " When we came into the desert, between the mountains, I was seized wtth a very severe inflamma- tory* fever: I was unable to remain any longer on the camel, but was forced to lie down on the ground, and became so ill, that they scarcely thought I was alive."— RosEsna-i.LER. Ver. 22. And she called unto her husband, and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come again. The saddle ass retaining the characteristic perverseness of his kind, is apt to become restirT under his rider, which. in cases that require haste, renders it necessary to accele- rate his speed by means of the goad. This, according to Pococke, is commonly done for persons of rank by a ser- vant on foot. This method of travelling seems to have been quite common in Palestine; for the Shunamile's husband expressed neither surprise nor hesitation, when she asked for. "one of the young men, and one of the asses, that she might run to the man of God." The acknowledged inability of the ass to carry both the servant and his mistress, the custom of having an attendant, whose business it was to drive the animal forward, and the eager impatience of the bereaved mother, which required the utmost speed, sufficiently prove that she rode the ass herself, while the servant attended her on foot, or mounted perhaps on a camel, which persons in his condition often used on a journey. " And she said to her servant, Drive, (or lead.) and go forward: slack not riding forme, except I bid thee." Put him to the utmost speed, without regarding the inconveniences I may suffer. The pronoun Iky, it has been thought, is very improperly supplied in our translation, as it leads one to' suppose that the servant himself was the rider. But although no men- tion is made of the circumstance, it is not perfectly clear that the servant was not mounted on this occasion*' Trie phrase, cease not to ride. (— ^s) or cease not riding, natu- rally suggests that be was mounted. The ass which the Shunamite saddled, was a strong animal, as the name given him by the inspired writer imports; and if we may believi Maillet, the asses in Egypt and Syria have nothing of thai indolenee and heaviness which are natural to outs; there fore, if the servant was nol furnished with a camel, or »;- not a running footman by profession, of which we have no proof, the ass must have soon left him far behind, and ten- dered his services of no use. When the inspired writei says the Shunamite saddled her ass, he uses a phrase which often occurs in the sacred writings, and seems to oompre hend any requisite for the convenience f the rider and tht proper management of the animal— Paxton. Ver. 23. And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day 1 it is neither new moon nor sab- bath. And she said, It shall be well. Peler Delia Valle assures us, that it is now customary in Arabia to begin their journeys at the new moon. When the Shunamile proposed going lo Elisha, her husband dis- suaded her by observing that it was neither new moon nor sabbath.— Burder. Ver. 24. Then she saddled an ass, and said to her servant, Drive, and go forward ; slack not thy riding for me, except I bid thee. See on Judg. 10. 4. Where travellers are not so numerous as in caravans, their appearance differs a good deal from that of those who lo'irnev among us. To see a person mounted and attended by a servant on foot, would seem odd to us ; and it would he much more so to see that servant driving the beast before him, or goading it along: fkl these are eastern modes. So Dr. Pococke, in his account of Egypt, tells us that the man, the h usband, I suppose he means, always leads the lady's d if she has a servant, he goes on one side : ;i^K there; an but the ass-driver follows the man, goads oft the beast, and when he is lo turn, directs his head with a pole. The Shunamite, when she went to the prophet, did not desire so much attendance, only requesting her husband to send her an ass, and its driver, to whom she said, "Drive, and go forward, slack not thy riding for me, except I bid thee." "- Kings iv. '2-1. It appears from the eastern manner of the women's riding on asses, that the word is rightly translated drive, rather than lead; and this account of Dr. Pococke w.rl also explain why she did not desire two asses, one for herself, and the other for the servant that attended her. Solomon might refer to the same, when he says, " I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking' as servants upon the earth," Eccl. x. 7. My reader, however, will meet with a more exact illustration of this passage in its proper place. — Harskr. Ver. 29. Then he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thy hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer him not again : and lay my staff' upon the face of the child. The rod, or staff, in the scriptures, is mentioned as an emblem of authority over inanimate nature, over man, and the diseases to which he was subject, and also as an instru- ment of correction for the wicked. The Lord commanded Moses, " Take thy rod, and stretch out thy hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood." The magicians of the heathen king had their rods also, by which "they performed many wonderful things. I see no reason to doubt that the staff of of Moses. Gehazi, though he had the emblem of his mas- ter's office, could not perform the miracle : and no wonder; for the moment before he received the command from Elisha, he showed his evil disposition to the mother of the dead child ; for when she caught the prophet " by the feet," lo stale her case, he went " near to thrust her away." The orou-mullr-pinimhii (/. e. a cane with one knot) is IHieved to possess miraculous power, whether in the hand of a magician or a private individual. It is about the size of the middle finger, and must have only one knot in its whole length. " A man bitten by a serpent will be assu- redly cured, if the cane or rod be placed upon him : nay, -h-iuld he be dead, it will restore him to life !" " Yes, sir, tin' man who has such a stick need fear neither serpents !■ or evil spirits." A native gentleman known to me has the staff of his umbrella made of one of these rods, and great satisfaction and comfort has he in this his constant com- panion. " The sun cannot smite him by day. neither the moon by night; the serpents and wild beasts move off r.vifily ;' and the evil spirits dare not come near to him." — Rbbkrts. IGS. Chap. 4. Tins command lo salute no one, naturally calls to mind that which Jesus gave to the seventy disciples Luke x.4. Salute no one by the way. It is explained by the custom i i the East. Serious and taciturn as the natives of the East usually are, they grow talkative when they meet an ac- quaintance and salute him. This custom has come from Asia with the Arabs, and spread over the north coast of Africa. A modern traveller relates the reciprocal saluta- j tions with which those are received who return with the | caravans. "People go a great way to meet them ; as soon I as they are perceived, the questioning and salutation be- gin, and continue with the repetition of the same phrases : j ' How do you do 1 God be praised that you are come in peace! God give you peace! How fares it with you? The higher the rank ot the person returning home, the longer does the salutation last."- — Burder. j Elisha's enjoining Gehazi not to salute any that he met. j or to return the salutation of such, evidently "expresses the I haste he would have him make to recover the child, and bring him back to life. For the salutations of the East often take up a long time. " The manner ofcsalutaiion, h- now practised by the people of Egypt, is not less ancient. j The ordinary way of saluting people, when at a distance, is bringing the hand down to the knees, and then carrying it to the stomach. Marking their devotedness to aperson by holding down the band ; as they do their affection by their after raising it up to their heart. When they come close together afterward, they take each other by the hand in token of friendship. What is very pleasant, is to see the countrypeople reciprocally clapping each other's hands- very smartly, twenty or thirty times together, in meeting, without saying any tiling more than Salavxit niche holcom ; that is to say, Hon- do you do ? I wish you good health. It this form of complimenting must be acknowledged to be simple, it must be admitted to be very affectionate. Per- haps it marks out a better disposition of heart than all the studied phrases which are in use among us, and which politeness almost always makes use of at the expense oi sincerity. After this first compliment many other friendly questions are asked, about the health of the family, men- tioning each of the children distinctly, whose names thev know,"" &c. If the forms of salutation among the ancient Jewish peasants took up as much time as those of the modern Egyptians that belong to that rank of life, it is no wonder the prophet commanded his servant to abstain from saluting those he might meet with, when sent to recover the child of the Shunamitess to life: they that have attributed this order to haste have done right"; but they ought to have shown the tediousness of eastein compli- ments.—Habmer. Salutations at meeting, are not less common in the East than in the countries of Europe ; but are generally con- fined to those of their own nation, or religious party When the Arabs salute each other, it is generally in thev; terms: Sahim atakum, peace be with you ; laying, as they utter the words, the right hand on the heart. The answc r is, Aleikvm tstulvvi, with you be peace; to which Egecl people are inclined to add, "and the mercy and ble-sing ot God." The Mohammedans of Egypt and Syria never salute a Christian in these terms; they content themselves with saying to them, "Good-dav to you," or, " Friend, bow do you- dol" Kiebuhrs statement is confirmed by Ml Bruce, who savs, that some Arabs, to whom he gave ;! e salam, or salutation of peace, either made no reply, oi <■ pressed their astonishment at his impudence in n freedom. Thus it appears, that the Orientals have v.. kinds of salutations; one for strangers, aDd the othei l< i their own countrymen, or persons of their own religion; profession. The Jews in the days of our Lord, seem lo have generally observed Ihe same'eustom; they would not address the usual compliment of " Peace be to you.' u. eilher heathens or publicans ; the publicans of the Jewish nations would use it to their countrymen who were ri-h- licans, but not to heathens; though the more rigil Jews refused to do it either to publicans or heathens. Our Lord required his disciples to lay aside the moroseness of Jews, and cherish a benevolent disposition towards all around them : " If ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others 1 Do not'even the publicans so ?" They were bound by the same authority, to embrace their brethren in Christ with a special affection, yet they were to look upon every man as a brother, to feel a sincere r.nd cordial in'e- Chap. 5. il M rest in his welfare, and lo express, at meeting, theii benevo- lence, in language corresponding with liir feelings "I 'heir hearts. This |ireee|it is not incnsi-tent wiih the - )i.i i -■■- which the prophet Klisha gave tu his servant Gehazi, not to saint.' any man lie met, nor return his salutation ; t,.i he wished him to make all me hast.- in his powei he child of the Shunaiiiilr, who had laid hit lei SO many obligations. The manners of the country rendered icanlions particularly proper and necessary, as Ihe salutations of the East often lake up a li n PAXTON. Ver. 39. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds li is lapful, and came and Bhred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. Their common pottage in the E.is! is 111:1. ]•• by cutting their meat into little pieces, and boiling them with rice, flour, and paiMev. all which is aft. -t ward poured into a proper vessel. This in their language is called Shoorba. Parsley is used in this Shomb:i, and a great many other herbs, in their cookery. These are not always gathered out of gardens, even by those that live in a n settled way than the Arabs : for Russel. after having given a long account ol the garden Stuff at Aleppo, tells us, that besides those from culture, the fields afford bugloss, mallow, aspar- agus, which thev use as poiheibs, besides some others which they use in salads. This is the m6re extraordinary, as they have such a number of gardens about Aleppo, 'and will take off all. wonder from the story of one's going into the fields, to gauV-r herbs, to put into'the pottage of the sons of the prophets, -3 Kings iv. 39, in a time when indeed Ahab, and doubtless some others, had gardens of herbs, but it is not to be supposed things were so brought under culture as in later times.— EUrubs, Ver. 39. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lapful, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. 40. So they poured out for the men to eat: and it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out and said, O thou man of God, there i< death in the pot : and they could not eat thereof. In the vales near Jordan, in the neighbourhood of Jericho, not far from the Dead Sea, is found, growing in great abun- dance, the vine of Sodom, a plant, from the fields around that devoted city, which produces grapes as bitter as gall, and wine as deadly as the poison of a serpent. This dele- terious fruit is mentioned by Moses ill terms which rally justify the assertion: "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter, their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps." It is probably the wild vine, a species of gourd, which produces the coloquinlida, a fruit so excessively bitter that it cannot be eaten ; and when given in mediefne, proves a purgative SO powerful, as to be frequently follow the vessi Is, and hemorrhage. ' It seems therefore to have been early, and not without reason, considered as poisonous. It was of this wild vine the sons of the prophets ale; and its instantaneous effect, together with their knowledge of its violent action, easily accounts for their alarm. Another species of wild vine, but of a milder character, which srows in Palestine, near the highways and hedges, is the Labrusca. Its fruit is a very small grape, which becomes black when ripe ; but often it does not ripen at all. These are the wild grapes to which the prophet compares the in- nabilants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah : " And he .ooked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." They are als > the sour grapes lowhich another inspired prophet alludes, when be predicts ihe de- stroying judgments that were coming upon his rebellious people: " In those days they shall sav no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, arid the children's teeth are set on 4GS. 281 • ■<\^c— Every man that eatelh the sour grape, his teeth shall Ver 42. And there came a man from Baal-ahali- sha, and brouj i.i the man of I »od bread of the first-fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof: and lo- said, Giv; unto the people, that they may eat. See-on 1 Kings 14. 3. The uiaigiii >.:■-, in 'cad of in the husk, " in his scrip or garment." I think the marginal reading is better than the text. In what was the man to carry the ears of corn 1 In what may be s.en every day— " in his scrip or garment." In the mantle (like a scarf) the natives carry many things thus ihe petty merchant takes some of his' ware, and the travellei his nee. — Roberts. CHAPTER V. Ver. 6. And lie brought the letter to the kiner of Israel, saying, Now, when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith suit Naa- man my sp-vant to thee, that thou may. st re- cover him of his l.-prosy. Schultens observes that, " the right understanding of this passage depends on the custom of expelling I othei infectious persons, f ramps or cities, and re- proachfully driving them into solitary places; and that when these net ons were cleansed and ret omitted into cities or camps, they were said io be reculltdi, gathered again from their leprosy, and again received into that society lioui which they had ben cut off." — Bordbh. Ver. 1 1. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, 1 thought, He will sttreiy come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his ( (od, ami strike his hand over the place, and recover the | Naaman thought that the prophet would effect his cure sooner and more certainly if he touched him with hishanu, and, as it were, invigorated him bv an effusion of his heal- ing power. Then, as in later times, those who effected such miraculous cures were accustomed to touch the pa- tient. Thus, Jan Mocqitel says, "when the rick Here brought to the sheik of the Arabian SantonS, (religious.) he touched either their right arm or foot, or stroked thrii breast and forehead, alter money had been . i Among all nation- .-np-usliiion considers the touch as the principal requisite of a miraculous cure. Ilea ins Greenland Mission, says. "A Greenland 1 woman requested me to blow upon their sick child, or to lay my hands upon it: they hoped that it would rei a. .. Many more sick Grei I 1 the same favour fivra me, because they lered mc as a prophet, whom they believed able to cure the sick in a supernatural manner.* — Roseni When they consulted a pro; net, the eastern modes required a pre m ; and they might think it was right rather to present him v, !:!> . ■ ■ .■ ' <■ t!-.,i: < !■> r il.ue.- fi mtly l: 1 pened that th. j were del im a tin n ingtl I ion, during which time hospi- tal^ .. mid ll pi to ask tliem to take some repasl with him. And the prophet would naturally treat iliein with some regard to then- quality, lb. y .1. ■ . 1 .: 1 ia v. pa.; oition theii | their avowed rank and number of attendants. The pres- ent ot Jeroboam's wife was that of a woman in affluer.t circumstances, though it by no means determined her to be a princess. That in ide to the prophet Samuel, was ihe pre- sent of a person thai expected to be treated like a man in low life; how great then must be his surprise, first to be treated with distinguished hi a., u in a I; , ge 1 ompany, and then to be anointed king over Israel ! Bui though ibis seems to have been the original ground of presenting common eatables to persons who were visited at their own houses, i would by no roeai s be understood 10 affirm they have always kept to this, and presented eatables. 282 2 KI ■vhei. they expected to stay with them and take some repast, and other things when they did not. Accuracy is not to *ie expected in such matters : the observation, however, nat- urally accounts for the rise of this sort of presents. In other cases, the presents that anciently were, and of late have wont to be made to personages eminent for study and piety, were large sums of money, or vestments : so the pres- ent thai a Syrian nobleman would have made to an Israelr jiisb prophet, with whom he did not expect to stay any time, or indeed to enter inhishouse, " Behold, I thought, He will certainly come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper," consisted of ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. It is needless to mention the pecuniary gratifica- tions that have been given to men of learning 'in the East in later times ; but as to vestments, D'Herbelot tells us, that Bokhteri, an illustrious poet of Cufah, in the ninth century, had so many presents made him in the course of his life, that at his death he was found possessed of a hun- dred complete suits of clothes, two hundred shirts, and five hundred turbans.— Harmer. Ver. 9. So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the j house of Elisha. 10. And Elisha sent a mes- senger unto him, saying-, Go and wash in Jor- dan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. Elish-i's not appearing to receive the Syrian general, is ascribed by some to the retired course of life which the prophets led; but then, why did he see him, and enter into conversation with him, when he returned from his ?ure? I should rather think, that it was not misbecoming the prophet, upon this occasion, to take some state upon him, and to support the character and dignity of a prophet ■if the most high God ; especially, since this might be a means to raise the honour of his religion and ministry, and to give Naaman a righter idea of his miraculous cure, when he found that it was neither by the prayer nor presence of the prophet.but by the divine power and good- ness, that it was effected. — Stackhocse. Ver. 18. In this thing; the Lord pardon thy ser- vant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon; when I bow down myself in the bouse of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy ser- vant in this thing. It is amusing to see full-grown men. as they walk along the ri»d, like schoolboys at home, leaning on each other's hands. Those who are weak, or sick, lean on another's shoulder. It is also a mark of friendship to lean on the shoulder of a companion. — Roberts. Ver. 21. So Gehazi followed after Naaman. And when Naaman saw him running after him, he lighted down from the chariot to meet him, and said, 7s all well ? The alighting of those that ride is considered in the East a.; an expression of deep respect ; so Dr. Pococke tells us, Lhtt they are wont to descend from their asses in Egypt, v.hen they come near some tombs there, and that Christians and Jews are obliged to submit to this. So Hasselquist le lis Linnteus, in one of his letters to him, that Christians were obliged to alight from their as-.es in Egypt, when they met with commanders of the soldiers there. This he corri- p'alns of as a bitter indignity; out they that received the compliment, without doubt, required it'asamost pleasing I piece of respect. Achsah's and Abigail's alighting, were without doubt then intended as expressions of reverence : | but is n to be imagined, that Nanman's alighting from his : chariot, when Gehazi ran after him, arose from the same principled If it did, there was a mightv change in this haughty Syrian after his cure. That Ac .should pay such a | reverence to a servant of the prophet must appear very NIGS. Chap. 5. surprising, yet we car, hardly think the historian would have mentioned this circumstance so very distinctly in any other view. Rebecca's alighting from the camel on which she rode, when Isaac came to meet her, is by no means any proof that the considering this as an expression of rev- erence, is a modern thing in the East; it, on the contrary, strongly reminds one of D'Arvieux's account ol a bride s" throwing herself at the feet of the bridegroom when solemnly presented to him, which obtains among the Arabs. We met a Turk, says Dr. Richard Chandler, in his Asiatic travels, " a person of distinction, as appeared from his turban. He was on horseback with a single attendant. Our janizary and Armenians respectfully alighted, and made him a 'profound obeisance, the former kissing the rim of his garment." So Niebuhr tells us, that at Kahira, Grand Cairo, "the Jews and Christians, who, it may be. alighted at first through fear or respect, when a Mohamme- dan with a great train on horseback met them, are now obliged to pay this compliment to above thirty of the prin- cipal people of that city. When these appear inpublic,-they always cause a domestic to go before to give notice to the Jews and Greeks, and even the Europeans that they mcei with, to get off their asses as soon as possible, and they are qualified on occasion to force them with a great club, which they always carry in their hands." — Harmer. Ver. 21. So Gehazi followed after Naaman: ami when Naaman saw him running after him, he lighted down from the chariot to meet him, and said, /•.-all well? [Heb. margin, Is there pea re ?j 22. And he said, All is well. I never read this passage without fancying a Malabar man running after the chariot, and on being'met by Naa- man, making a most profound bow, and uttering the wind selam, peace — the word used on this occasion, and still in use among mtllions in the East.— Callaway. Ver. 27. The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever And he went out from his presence a leper ti> white as snow. This was said by Elisha to Gehazi, because he ran after Naaman, (who had been cured of his leprosy) and said, hi« master had sent him to take "a talent of silver, and two changes of garments," and because he actually took posses- sion of them. There is an account in the Hindoo book, called Scythu-Purana, of a leper who went to Ramiserara to bathe, in order to be cured of his complaint. He per- formed the required ceremonies, but the priests refused h« offerings. At last a Bramin came: in the moment e! temptation lie took the money, and immediately the lepro y of the pilgrim took possession of his body ! This complaint is believed to come in consequence of great sin, and there- fore no one likes to receive any reward or present from a person infected with leprosv. There are many children born white, though tin it- parents are quite black. These are not lepers,T>ul albi- nos; and are the same as the white negroes of Africa. To see a man of that kind almost naked, and walkingamor.it the natives, has an unpleasant effect on the mind, and leads a person to suspect that all has not been right. Their skin has generally a slight tinge of red, their hair is light, their eyes are weak: and when they walk in the sun, they hang down their heads. The natives do not consider this a disease, but a birth, i. e. produced by the sins of a former birth. It is believed to be a great misfortune to have a child of that description, and there is reason to believe thai many of them are destroyed. The parents of sueh an in- fant "believe ruin will come to their family ; and the peer object, if spared, has generally a miserable existence. His name, in Tamul, is Pdndan .-'and this is an epithet assign- ed to those,.also, who are not white, for the purpose of ma- king them angry. The general name for Europeans in the East is Praniy, (which is a corruption of the word Frank.) Hence these white Hindoosare, by way of contempt, called Pratilm! Should a man who is going to transact import- ant business, meet one of them on the road, it will be con- sidered a verv bad sign, and he will not enter into the transaction till' another day. Should a person who is giving a feast have a relation of that description, he will in rile Chap. 6. 3 KING! him, but the guests will not look upon him with pleasure. Women have a great aversion to them, and yel thej some times marry them; and if they have children, iln-v ■..■Mom lake after "the lather. I have only heard of two white Hindoo females: which leads me to suspect that such in- fan.s are generally destroyed at the birth; as, were they allowed to grow up, no one would marry them.— RoBEHTfl. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 12. And one of his servants said. None, my lord, Oking: but Elisha, the prophet that is in brael, telleth the king- of Israel the words that thou speake8t in thy bedchamber. Ii is not to be doubted, but that Naaman, upon his return from Samaria, spread the fame of Elisha so much in the COUTI of Syria, that some of the great men there might have a curiosity to make a further inquiry concerning him; and being informed by several of his miraculous w.iiks, they might thence conclude that he could tell the -h'.ii.-,! secrets, as well as perform such works as were related of him; and that therefore, in all probability, be was the person who gave the king of Israel iatelligi Q< e of all the schemes that had been attempted to entrap him. ' — Stackiiouse. Ver. 15. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, a host compassed the city, both with horses and char- iots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? 16. And he an- swered, Fear not; for they that be with its are more than they that Ac with them. 1". And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young- man : and he saw, and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. This young man, it is supposable, had been but a little while with his master, no longer than since Gehazi's dis- mission, and therefore perhaps had not yet seen any great experiments of his power to work miracles; or if he had, the great and imminent danger he thought his master in, (for in all probability he had learned from the people of the town, that this vast body of men were come to apprehend him only,) might well be allowed to raise his fear, and shake his faith. It must be allowed that angels, whether they be purely spiritual, or (as others think)"clolhed with some material form, cannot be seen by mortal eyes; and therefore as Elisha himself, without a peculiar vouchsafemem of God, COflld not discern the heavenly host, which, at this time, en- camped about him ; so he requests of God, that, for the re- moval of his fears, and the confirmation of his faith, his servant might be indulged the same privilege: nor does it seem unlikely, that, from such accounts as these, that have descended by tradition, that notion among the Greeks, of a certain ?nist, which intercepts the sight of their gods from the ken of human eyes, might at first' borrow its original. — Stackhocse. Ver. 25. And there was a great famine in Sama- ria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of doves' dung; for five pieces of silver. The Tamul translation for " doves', dung," is "times' grain :" which is known in the East by the name of Kdra- mnnnr.-piru. Dr. Boothroyd translates it"a cab of vetches," which amounts to about' the same thing. Bochart, Dr. Clarke, and mint others, believe it to have been pulse. The Orientals are exceeding fond of eating leguminous grains, when parched. I have often eaten the pulse which pigeons are so fond of, and have found it very wholesome, either in puddings or soup ; (Lev. xx ii. 14, Ruth ii. 14, S Sam. xvii. 28;) and it is surprising to see what a great v will I ravel on only that food and water. It was therefore in eonseouence ofthe famine, that this, then 'id generally vkkv cheap, sustenance, was se dear. I f what use would "a cab ot doves' dung" be unto them 1 Some say, m explanation, it was gn.ul lor manure ' What were they to live upon till the manure had produced the grain 1 — ROBERTS. A Qg the Jews, the ass was considered as an unclean annual, because it neither divides the hoof nor chews the cud. Ii could neither be used as food, nor offered in sa- crifice. The firstling of an ass, like th and other unclean animals, was to be redeemed with the ficeol a lamb.or deprived of life. In eases of extreme want, however, this law was disregarded; for when the Syrian armies besieged Samaria, the inhabitants were so reduced, thai " an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver." Some writers, however, contend, that the term ■Man hamoT does not signify an ass, in this passage, bat is the same as itnn homer, a certain measure ot grain. But tins view of the passage cannot he admitted. We know what is meant by the head of an ass; but the head of a homer, or measure of wheat or barley, is quite unintelligible. Nor could the sacred writer say with propriety, that the city was suffering by a " great famine," while a homer of grain was sold for eighty pieces of silver; for in the next chapter he informs us, that, after the flight of the Syrians, end pro- visions of every kind, by the sudden return of plenty, were reduced to the lowest price, "a measure of line flour (which is the thirtieth part ol a homer) was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Sama- ria." Besides, had the historian intended a measure of corn, he would not have said indefinitely, a homer was sold for eighty pieces of silver; but a homer of wheat, or of barley, or of oats, which are not of the same value. The prophet accordingly says, in the beginning of the next chapter, " a measure of fine flour shall be sold fora shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel:" And John, in the book of Revelation ; " a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny." Our transla- tors, therefore, have taken a just view of this text, and given a correct version. It is reasonable to suppose, that the as- was not the last to suffer in the siege of Samaria. Hardly treated in times of peace and abundance, he must have been left to shift for himself in such circumstances, in a place where the hunger of the inhabitants compelled them to devour every green thing; and have rapidly sunk into a poor and wretched condition. How great must that famine have been, and how dreadful the distress to which the peo- ple were reduced, when they gave three times the price of the live animal, for that part of him which could yield them at any time only a tew pounds of dry and unpalatable food, but when emaciated by famine, only a few morsels of carrion. Extreme must have been the sufferings which extinguished the powerful influence of religious principle, and natural aversion to a species of food so disagreeable and pernicious; and not only prevailed upon them to use it, but even to devour it with greediness. — Paxton. The royal city of Samaria was so severely distressed, u Inn a certain king of Syria hesieged it, that we are toi-.i an ass': head then sold for fourscore pirns of silver, and the fourth port of a eab of dores' dung for five piee.es : this last article has been thought to be so unfit for food, that it has been very commonly imagined, I think, that a species ol pulse was meant by that term; nevertheless, I cannot but think it much the most probable, that proper doves' dung was meant by the prophetic historian, since, though it can hardly he imagined, it was bought direetlv for food, ii might be bought for the purpose of more speedily raising a supply of certain esculent vegetables, and in greater quantities . which must have been a matter of great consequence ti the Israelites, shut up so straitly in Samaria. Had the kali of the scriptures been meant, how came it to pass tha. the common word was not made use of"! Josephus and th< Sepltiagint suppose that proper doves' dung was meant, an I the following considerations mav make their sentiment ap- pear far from improbable. All allow that melons are a most refreshing food, in those hot countries. And Chardin says, " melons are served up at the tables of the luxurious almost all the year; but the proper season lasts four months, at which time they are eaten by the common people. They hardly eat any thing but melons and cucumbers at that time.'-' He adds, "thai 234 2K1. during these four melon months, they are brought in such quantities to Ispahan, that he believed more were eaten in .hat city in one day, than in all France in a month." On !he other hand, he tells us, in another volume, that they lave a multitude of dove-houses in Persia, which they keep up mure for their dung than any thing else. This being the substance with which they manure their melon-beds, and which makes them so good and so large. Now it melons were half so much in request in I hose days in Judea, as they are now in Persia, it might be natural enough to express the great scarcity of provisions there, by observing an ass's head, which, according to their law was an unclean animal, sold for fourscore pieces of silver; and a small quantity of that dung that was most useful to quicken vege- tation, as well as to increase those productions of the earth which were so desirable in those hot climates, that a small quantity, I say, of that substance should, in such circum- stances, be sold for five such pieces. At least it is probable thus the Septuagint and Josephus understood the passage, if we should think it incredible that melons were in very common use in the days of Jorarn king of Israel. _ Josephus, in particular, says this dung was purchased for its salt, which can hardly mean to be used, by means of some prepa- ration, as table salt, but as containing salt proper for ma- nuring the earth. The prophet Elisha, in that very age, pm salt into a spring of water, to express the imparting to i! the quality of making the land watered by it fruitful, which land had been before barren, (2 Kings ii. 19— 22,) to -v. h event Josephus could be no stranger. It has been objected to this interpretation: that if the doves' dung was for manure, (for this interpretation is not a new one, but wanted to be better illustrated,) that there could be no i wm for growing any kind of vegetable food within the walls of a royal city, 'when besieged; but has anyone a right to take this for granted! when it is known that there is a good deal of ground unbuilt upon vow in the royal cities" of the East; "that Naboth had a vineyard in Jezreel, a place of roval residence a few years before ; that Samaria was a new-built city ; and that in the time of distress, every void place might naturally be made use of to raise a species . I' food, I hat with due cuftivation, in our climate, is brought id perfection, from the time of its sowing, in four months, and at the same time is highly refreshing. When we reflect on these things, the supposition appears not at all improba- ble. We do not know when the siege commenced, or how long it continued; that of Jerusalem, in the time of Zetl- ekiah, lasted a year and a half; but the time lhat this dung was purchased at so dear a rate, we may believe was early in the spring, for then they begin to raise melons at Aleppo, and as theywere then so oppressed with want, it is probable that it was not long after that they were delivered. This explanation will appear less improbable, if we rec- ollect the account already given, of the siege of Damielta, where some of the more'delicate Egyptians pined to death, according toVitriaco, though thev had a sufficiency of corn, for the want of the food they were used to, pumpions, r*c. The Israelites might be willing then, had their stores been more abundant than they were found to have been, to add what they could to them, and especially of such grateful eatables as melons, and such like.— Harmer. Formerly great attention was paid to the nurturing and ■■caring of these birds, (pigeons,) their dung bringing in a early income, from the produce of one pigeon-house alone, if nearly two hundred tomauns. Among other uses to which the small remains of this manure is applied, it is laid on the melon-beds of Ispahan ; and hence the great reputa- tion of the melon of that district for its unequalled flavour. Another use of the dung in older times was to extract salt- petre, for the purpose of making gunpowder ; which, two eenturiesago, had only just been put into the Persian list of warlike ammunition.— Sir R. K. Porter. The dung of pigeons is the dearest manure that the Persians use: and as they apply it almost entirely for the : ■ it ing of melons, it is probably on that account that the melons of Ispahan are so much finer than those of other eities. The revenue of a pigeon-house is about a hundred omauns per annum; and the great value of this dung, which rears a fruit that is indispensable to the existence of •he natives during the great heats of summer, will probably 'hrow some light upon that passage in scripture, where, in he famine of Samaria, the fourth part of a cab of doves' •Jj'ig was sold for five pieces of silver.— Morier. GS. Chap. 7. Ver. 32. But Elisha sat in his house, and the el- ders sat with him : and the king sent a man from before him : but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away my head ? look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door : is not the sound of his master's feet behind him? See on Prov. 16. 14. This form of speech is used to denote the rapid approach of a person. When boys at school are making a great noise, or doing any thing which they ought not, some one will say, " I hear the sound of the master's feet." Are peo- ple preparing triumphal arches, (made of leaves,) or cleaning the rest-house of a great man, some of them keep saying, "Quick, quick, I hear the sound of his feet." "Alas, alas ! how long you have been ! do we not hear even the sound of the judge's feet 1" — Roberts. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 10. So they came, and called unto the porter of the city; and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there tens no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were. From the circumstances recorded concerning the flight of the Syrians, it appears to have been remarkably precipi- tate. That they were not altogether unprepared for a hasly departure may be inferred from comparing this passage wilh the following extract (from Memoirs rclulire to K^vpl. p. 300.) " As soon as the Arabs are apprehensive of an attack, they separate into several small camps, at a great distance from each other, and lie their camels to the tents, so as lobe able to move off at a moment's notice." Such a precaution is not probably peculiar to the modern Arabs, but might be adopted by the Syrian army. If this was the case, it" shows with \i hat great fear God filled their minds, that though prepared as usual for a quick march, they were not able to avail themselves of the advantage, but were constrained to leave every thing behind them as a prey to their enemies. — Burder. Ver. 12. And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants, I will now show you what the Syrians have done to us : They know that we be hungry, therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, say- ing, When they come out of the .city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city. In the history of the revolt of Ali Bey, we have an ac- count of a transaction very similar to the stratagem sup- posed to have been practised bv the Syrians. The pacha of Damascus having approached the Sea of Tiberias, found Sheik Daher encamped there; but the sheik deferring the engagement till the next morning, during the night divided his army into three parts, and left the camp wilh great fires blazing; all sorts of provisions, and a large quantity ol spirituous liquors, giving strict orders not to hinder the enemy from taking possession of the camp, but to conic down' and attack just before the dawn of day. In the mid- dle of the night, the pacha thought to surprise Sheik Daher, and marched in silence to the camp, which, to his great astonishment, he found entirely abandoned ; and imagined the sheik had fled with so much precipitation, thai he could not carry off the baggage and stores. The pacha thought proper to stop in the camp and refresh his soldiers. They soon fell to plunder, and drank so freely of the liquors, that, overcome with the fatigue of ihe day's inarch, and the fum'es of the spirits, thev were not long ere they sunk into a profound sleep. At that time two sheiks, who were watch- ing the enemy, came silently to the camp, and Daher hav ing repassed 'the Sea of Tiberias, meeting them, they all rushed into the camp, and fell upon the sleeping foe. eight thousand of whom thev butchered on the spot; and the pacha, with the remainder of the troops, escaped wilh Chap. 8. B K 1 much difficulty to Damascus, leaving all their baggage in the hands of the victorious Daher. — Paxton. Ver. 15. And they went after them unto Jordan; and, lo, iill (he way wat full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their haste: and the messengers returned, and told the king. Tin- Bight of the Syrians, in the reign of Jehoram, kin? ,) it is nothing less than natural to suppose, that Hazael must have had, professedly at least, some fair pretence, s, <>■.■ ;■• - pearance of propriety in the action ; or why did not those in attendance on their sovereign prevent his proceedings ? Was Hazael the nnhi person present, or in waiting on the sick king" It is by tio means likely; in fact, it is scarcely snpposable; but if we conceive that Hazael offered to the king either a kind of remedy usual in the disorder, which nevertheless failed to cure him; or an assistance, of which he took advantage to murder his master; then we reduce his behaviour to plausibility, and lo the custom of the country in such diseases. Observe also, the text does n, \ sav expressly he did kill him: but " he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it over the king's face, (or person.) and he died." It is usually said, he was chilled but on reading the following extracts, we shall probably admit that this is an English notion, resulting from our climate and manners, &c. applied to an eastern disease, and to a country wherein both climate and man- ners are essentially different. If it be said Hazael stifled the king by means of the cloth spread over his fai e, it might be so; but we should do well to remark, that the easterns are accustomed to sleep with their faces covered; th.r Hazael hardly spread it over the king's face only : that it does not appear the king was asleep; he might therefore have removed the cloth, had he thought proper; and tbrt whatever the cloth was, it was certainly employed, and tl e whole action was managed, in a way to prevent suspicioi Let us now hear Mr. Bruce : " This fever prevailed in Abyssinia in all low grounds and plains, in the neighbourhood of all rivers which run in valleys; it is really a malignant tertian, which, however, has so many forms and modes of intermission, that it is im- possible forone not of the faculty to describe it. It is not in all places equally dangerous; but on the banks and neigh- bourhood of Tacazze, it is particularly fatal. The valley where the river runs is very low and sultry, being full ol large trees. It does not prevail in high grounds or monn tains, or in places much exposed to the air. This lever c called nedap, or bvrnine ; it begin* a' ways with a shivering and headache, a heavy eye, and an inclination to \-omil ■ *86 2 Kl a violent heat follows, which leaves little jitermission, and ends generally-in death the third or fifth day. In the last stage of the distemper, the belly swells to an enormous size, or sometimes immediately after death, and the body, within an instant, smells most insupportably ; to prevent which, they bury the corpse immediately after the breath is out, and often within the hour. The face has a remarkable yellow appearance, with a blackish cast, as in the last stage of a dropsy, or the atrophy. This fever begins immediately with the sunshine after the first rains; that is, while there are intervals of rain and sunshine ; it ceases upon the earth being thoroughly soaked, in July and August, and begins again in September ; but now, at the beginning of Novem- ber, it ceases everywhere. Masuah is very unwholesome, as, indeed, is the whole coast of the Red Sea, from Suez to Babelmandel ; but more especially between the tropics. Violent fevers, called there nedad, make the principal figure in this fatal list, and generally determine the third day in death. If the patient survives till the fifth day, he very often recovers, by drinking water only, and throwing a quantity of cold water upon him, even in his bed, where he is permitted to lie, without attempting to make him dry, or to change his bed, till another deluge adds to the first." (Bruce's Travels,) vol. iii. p. 33. Do not these extracts render it, in some degree, probable, that Hazael, besides the thick cloth soaked in water, added other chilling remedies? in doing which he did no more than is customary in this disease, the nedad ; and, if this kind of fever, or one allied to it, were Benhadad's disease, Hazael might honestly spread a refreshing covering over him. Not "expecting "his exaltation to royalty so instanta- neously, he might be loyal as yet, though his ambition soon found opportunity to be otherwise. The circumstances of the rapid approaches of death, and of immediate burial after death, seem very favourable to Hazael's instantly seating himself on the throne: especially if Benhadad had no son, &c. of proper age to be his successor. — Taylor in Calmrt. CHAPTER IX. Vor. 2. And when thou comest thither, look out there Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in, and make him arise up from among his brethren, and carry him to an inner chamber: 3. Then take the" box of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Is- rael. Then open the door, and flee, and tarry not. The fortified cities in Canaan, as in some other were commonly strengthened with a citadel, to which the inhabitants fled when they found it impossible to defend the place. The whole inhabitants of Thebes, unable to resist the repeated and furious assaults of Abimelech, retired into one of those towers, and bid defiance to his rage: "But there was a strong tower within the city, and tliither lied all the men and women, and all they of the city, and shut it to them, and gat them up to the top of the tower." The extraordinary strength of this tower, and the various means of defence which were accumulated within its narrow walls, may be inferred from the violence of Abimelech's attack, and its fatal issue: "And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower, to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his scull." The city of Shechem had a tower of the same kind, into which the people retired, when the same usurper took it, and sowed it with salt. These strong towers which were built within a fortified city, were com- monly placed on an eminence, to which thev ascended by a flight of steps. Such was the situation of the city of Da- vid, a strong tower, upon a high eminence at Jerusalem ; and the matir.-.t of entrance, as described by the sacred writer: "But the gate of the fountain repaired Shallum, unto the stairs that go down from the city of David." It is extremely probable, that Ramoth Gilead, a frontier town belonging to the ten tribes, and in the time of Jehu in their possession, was strengthened by one of these inner towers, b tilt on an eminence, with an approach of this nature. If *GS. Chap. 9 this conjecture be well founded, it throws light upon a very obscure passage, where the manner in which Jehu was proclaimed king of Israel, is described. His associates were no sooner informed that the prophet had anointed him king over the ten tribes, than " they hasted and took every man his garment, and put it under him on the top of the stairs, and" blew with trumpets, saying, Jehu is king.'' fence the stairs were not those within the tower, by which ey ascended to the top; but those by which they ascended the hill, or rising ground on which" the tower stood; the top of the stair will then mean the landing-place in the area before the door of the tower, and bv consequence the most public place in the whole city. As it was the custom of those days to inaugurate and proclaim their kings in the most public places, no spot can be imagined more proper for such a ceremony, than the top of the steps, that is, the most elevated part of the hill, upon which stood the castle of Ramoth Gilead, in the court of which, numbers of people might be assembled, waiting the result of a council of war which was sitting at the lime, deliberating on the best method of defending the city against the Syrians, in tho absence of their sovereign. — Paxton. Ver. 10. And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her. And he opened the door and fled. The Abbe Poiret, in his travels through Barbary, tells us, that the severest punishment among The Arabs is to be cut to pieces and thrown to the dogs. " After this the queen of Mira, concerning whom so many surprising stories had been told of her poisoning the water by drugs and enchant- ments, was, notwithstanding the known partiality of this king for the fair sex, ordered to be hewn in pieces by the soldiers, and her body given to the dogi." (Bruce.)— BtJRDER. Ver. 13. Then they hasted, and took every man his garment, and put it under him on the lop of the stairs, and blew with trumpets, saying, Jehu is king. They laid down their garments instead of carpets. " The use of carpets was common in the East in the remoter ages. The kings of Persia always walked upon carpets in their palaces. Xenophon reproaches the degenerate Persians of his time, that they placed their couches upon carpets, to re- pose more at their ease. The spread ins of garments in the street before persons to whom it was intended to show par- ticular honour, was an ancient and very general custom. Thus the people spread their clothes in the way before oui Saviour, Matthew xxi. 8, where some also strewed branches. In the Agamemnon of JEschylns, the hypocritical G'lytem- nestra commands the maids to spread out carpets before her returning husband, that, on descending from his char- iot, he may place his foot on a " purple-covered path." We also find this custom among the Romans. When Cato of Utica left the Macedonian army, where he had become legionary tribune, tl*e soldiers spread their clothes in the way. (Plutarch's Life of Cato.) The hanging out of carpets, and strewing of flowers and branches, in solemn proces- sions, among us, is a remnant of the ancient custom. — RoSENMULLEH. Ver. 28. And his servants carried him in a char- iot to Jerusalem, and bliried him in his sepul- chre with his fathers in the city of David. What does this funeral chariot, which was carried bv men, mean s What we may see in the vicinity of a large town every day of our lives. This chariot, or thaiideii, (as it is called in Tamul,) is about six feet long, three feel broad, and in the centre about four feet m height. The shape is various, and the following is more common lh;n anv other. The drapery is of while, or scarlet cloth ; and the whole is covered with garlands of flowers. The ser- vants then carry it pn their shoulders to the place of sepul- ture, or burning. — Roberts. {See Engraving.) Ver. 30. And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it ; and she painted her face. Chap. 10. 2 Kl and tired her hea J, and looked out at a window. 31. And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, Hi ' Ziinri peace, who slew his master i -32. Ami he lifted up his face to the window, lid, Who ('son my side / who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. 33. And he said, Throw her down. ilied her eyes wdth stibium or antimony. This is i cus.om in Asiatic countries to the present day. "The i i as mm b from us in their notions' or beauty A large, soft, and languish- ing brack eye. wilh them, constitutes the perfection of beauty. It is chiefly on this account that the women use of antimony, which, although it adds to the . be eye, throws a kind of voluptuous languor over it, which makes it appear, it' I may use the expression, in bliss. The Persian women have a curious nuking their eyebrow , meet; and if this charm lij denied them, they paint the forehead with a kind of ii made lor that purpose." (E. S. Wanng's Tour to Slieeraz.)— Burder. In the evening we accompanied them on shore, and took i line coffee in the house ot the consul, where we were in- troduced to the ladies of Ins family. We were amused by - wife, a very beautiful woman, sitting upon the divan of his apartment, and smoking vith a pipe six feel in length; her eyelashes, as well as those of all the other women, were tinged with a black powder made of the sulphuret of antimony, and having by no means a cleanly appearance, although con- sidered as essential an addition to the decorations of a woman of rank in Syria, as her ear-rings, or the golden cinctures of her ankles. Dark streaks were also pencilled, from the corners of her eyes, along the temples. This curious practice instantly brought to our recollections cer- tain passages of scripture, wherein mention is made of a custom among oriental women of" pulling the eucs in point- ing;" and which our English translators of the Bible, unable to reconcile with their notions of a female toilet, have rendered "painting the face."— Clarke. The court of eastern houses is for the most part sur- rounded with a cloister, over which, when the house has of stories, a gallery is erected of the same di- mensions wilh the cloister, having a balustrade, or else a piece of carved or latticed work, going round about, to prevent people from falling from it into the court. The doors of the enclosure round the house, as already men- tion.-.I, are made very small, to defend the family from the insolence and rapacity of Arabian plunderers; but the doors of the houses very large, for the pnrpose of admit- on- a copious stream of fresh air into their apartments. The windows which look in the street, are very high and narrow, and defended by lattice-work; as they are only intended to allow the cloistered inmate a peep of what is passing without, while she remains concealed behind the casement. This kind of window the ancient Hebrews called Arubah, and is the same term which they used to express those small openings, through which pigeons pass- ed into the cavities of the rocks, or into those buildings which were raised for their reception. Thus the ptophet demands: " Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves (orvia-ne-**) el arubolhchcm, to their small or narrow windows." The word is derived from a root which sig- nifies to lie in wait for the prey; and is very expressive of (he conceal'..; manner in which a i examines, through that kind of window, an external object. Irwin describes the windows in upper Egypt, as having the same form and diuie:i*; ens ; and says expressly, that one of the windows of the houses in which they lodged, and through which they lo iked into the street, more resembled a pigeon-hole, than any thing else. But the sacred writers mention another kind of window, which was large and airy: it was called fjvjn) halon, and was large enough to admit a person of mature age being cast out of it; a punishment which that profligate woman Jezebel suffered by the com- mand of Jehu, the authorized exterminator of her family. — Paxton. Dr. Shaw, after having observed that the jealousy of the ■uople there admits only of one small latticed window into NGS. 287 the street, the ii si opening into their own courts, says, "It is during the celebration only of some zeena, as they call a public festival, that these houses and their I dowa oi bal ies are lefl open. I'm this being a time ol i tli ■::.:■:■'.. n , ml i o.o ugancc, each family is ambi ious i . ad trains both the inside and outside of the In io i m nil their i n die, t I ii i inline, while crowds of both i , dressed out in their best apparel, and laving aside all modesty and restraint, go in and out where they plea: ,-. i we have, '2 Kings ix. 30, of Jezebel's painting her lace, and tiring her headj and looking oul at a win- dow, upon Jehu's public entrance into Jezreel, gives us a of an eastern lady atone of these zeenahs ot solemnities." — Harmer. Ver. 33. And he said, Throw her down. So they throw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses; and he trode her under foot. While the above particulars were relating, it was a ■ hudderinj gl one thai looked down from the open side of the Ketkhoda's saloon, on almost the very spot where the unhappy victims had breathed their last. 'It recalled to my remembrance a similar window, for similar purposes, at Erivan, where the governor of that place used to dispose of his malefactors the moment sentence was pronounced. And while listening lo the hideous details of a sort of pun- ishment so common in the East, 1 could not but recall simi- lar descriptions in ancient writers on these countries, which showed how old had been the practice of taking offenders to a height, and casting them headlong, sometimes from a rock, at others, from high battlements, and often from a window winch commanded a sufficient steep. We have a dreadful picture of this most tremendous mode of pun- ishment in the second book of Kings.— Sir R. K. Porter. CHAPTER X. Ver. 1. And Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. To those who are unaccustomed to the effects of polyga- my and concubinage, this appears a very remaikable'cir- cumstance. In Homer, old King Priam is represented as having fifty sons and twelve daughters. Artaxerxes Mno- mon, king of Persia, had, by his concubines, who amount- ed to three hundred and sixty, not less than one hundred and fifteen sons, besides three by his queen. " Muley Ab- dallah, who was emperor of Morocco in 1720, is said, bv his four wives, and the many thousand women he had ill his seraglio during his long reign, to have had seven hun- dred sons, able to mount a horse; but the number of his daughters is not known." (Stewart's Journey lo Mequi- nez.) — Burder. Ver. 6. Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying-, If ye he mine, and if ye will hearken unto my voice, take ye the heads of the men your master's sons, and come to me to Jezreel by to-morrow this time. (Now the king's sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, which brought them up.) The rich hire a dedeh, or wet-nurse, for their children. If a boy, the father appoints a steady man, from the age of two years, to be his lalch, who, I conjecture, must stand in the same capacity as the bringers-up of children mentioned in the calastrnphe of Ahab's sons. But if it be a daughter, she has a gees scfeed, or white head, attached to her for the same purpose as the laleh. (Morier.)— Burder. Ver. 8. And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning. Daring this fight, ten tomaunswere given for every head of the enemy that was brought to the prince: and it ha.-- 23S 2 KINGS. Chap. 10. been known to occur, after the combat was over, that pris- oners have been put to death in cold blood, in order that the heads, which are immediately despatched to the king, and deposited in heaps at the palace-gate, might make a ■■tore considerable show. — Mokier. Arrived at the palace of the pacha, inhabited by the dey, .he first object that struck our eyes were six bleeding heads, ranged along before the entrance ; and as if this dreadful ^ighl weto not sufficient of itself to harrow up the soul, it was still further aggravated by the necessily of stepping ever then, in order'to pass into the court. They were the heads of some turbulent agas, who had dared to murmur against the dey. (Panamas Nairn! ice of a Residence in Algiers.) " The pacha of Diarbech has sent to Constan- tinople a circumstantial report of his expedition against the rebels of Mardin. This report has been accompanied by a thousand la-ads, severed from the vanquished. These sanguinary trophies have been exposed, as usual, at the gate of the seraglio. The Tartar who brought them has obtained a pelisse of honour ; presents have also been sent to the pacha." {LiU-runi P,i „.,r,i;,i,i . vol. ix. p. OiS'.l.) A pyramid of heads, of a certam number of feet diameter, is sometimes exacted in Persia ; and so indifferent are the i the distresses of others, that they will select says, that " when Timou'i stormed Ispahan, it was impossible to count the slain, but an account was taken of seventy thousand heads, which were heaped in pyramids, as monuments of savage re- venge." " Three weeks before our arrival at Cattaro, they (the Montenegrines) had some skirmishes with the Turks, and had brought home several of their heads, which were added to the heap before the bishop's house." (Dodwell's Tour through Greece.) — Burder. Wr. 12. And he arose and departed, and came to Samaria. And us he was at the shearing-house in the way, 13. Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah, king of Judah, and said, Who are ye? And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah ; and we go down to salute the child- ren of the king, and the children of the queen. 14. And he said, Take them alive. And they took them alive, and slew them at the pit of the shearing-house, even two and forty men : neither ieft he any of them. Our translators suppose, that the edifice at which Jehu lev.- the brethren of Anaziah, king of Judah, was destined to i he sole purpose of shea ring of sheep ; but as I apprehend, i he term in the original is ambiguous, which is accordingly h orally translated in the margin, the house of shepherd 's bind- ing, it might be better to use some less determinate word ; a- i he word, I am ready to believe, mav signify the binding '.■■■[. lor -hearing, the binding up their fleeces, after these fleeces taken from the sheep beforehand were washed ; or the binding the sheep for the purpose of milking. Whether t was erected for all three purposes, or if onlv for one of 'hem, then for which of the three, it may be very difficult nreci ielj to say. A pit near such a building must be use- ful Ln any of the three cases, for the affording waterforthe :i ten thai were detained there for some time, in the first and third case, to drink; and for the washing the wool in the other. If the intention of the historian had been to de- scribe it as the place appropriated to the shearing of sheep, if would have been natural for him to have used the word licit precisely expresses that operation, not such a general term as the house of binding All know that sheep must be bound, or at least forcibly held, in order to be shorn ; and it appears in the Travels of Dr. Richard Chandler in the Lesser Asia, lhat " the shepherds there, sitting at the mouih of the pen, were wont to seize on the ewes and she-goats, each by the hind leg, as they pressed forward, to milk Ihem ," which seizingthem, sufficiently showsthey must be held, shackled, or somehow bound, when milked. In another observation I have laken no'ice of the readi- ness of great men, in the East, lo repo-e themselves, when fatigued, under the shelter of roofs of a very mean kind ; the brethren, it seems, of Ahaziah ancientlv did the same hing. But they found no more safe'y in this obscure re- ■ treat, than they would have found in the palaces of either Samaria or Jezreel. The slaying them at the pit, near this place, seems to have been owing to a '■ustom at that time, whether arising from superstition, .o preserve the land from being defiled, or any other notion, does not at first | sight appear ; but it was, it seems, a customary thing at that time lo put people to death near water, at least near where water was soon expected to flow, as appears from 1 Kings xviii. 40.— Harmer. Ver. 15. And when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rechab, com- ing to meet him : and he saluted him, and said to him, Is thy heart right, as my heart is with thy heart ? And Jehonadab answered, It is. If it be, give me thy hand. And he gave him his hand ; and he took him up to him into the chariot. A very solemn method of taking an oath in the East is by joining hands, uttering at the same lime a curse upon the false swearer. To this form the wise man probably alludes in that proverb: "Though hand join in hand"— though they ratify their agreement by oath — "the wicked shall not be unpunished, but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered." This form of swearing is still observed in Egypt and the vicinity ; for when Mr. Bruce was at Shekh Ammer, he entreated the protection of the governor in pros- ecuting his journey, when the great people, who were as- sembled, came, and after joining hands, repeated a kind of prayer, of about two minutes long, by which they declared themselves and their children accursed, if ever they lifted up their hands against him in the tell, or field, in the des- ert; or in the case that he or his should fly to them for refuge, if they did not protect them at the risk of their lives, their families, and their fortunes ; or, as they emphatically expressed it, to the death of the last male child among then.. The inspired writer has recorded an instance of this form of swearing in the history of Jehu : " And when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab, the son of Re- chab, coining to meet him, and he saluted him, and said to him, Is thy heart right, as my heart is with thy heart ; and Jehonadab answered, It is. If it be, give me thy hand. And he gave him his hand, and he look him up unto him into the chariot." Another striking instance is quoted by Calrnet from Ockley's history of the Saracens. Telha, just before he died, asked one of Ali's men if he belonged tothe emperor of the faithful; and being informed that he did, "Give me then, said he, your hand,"lhat I may pui mine in it, and by this action renew the oath of fidelity which I have already made to Ali." — Paxton. Deep as the reverence is with which the Orientals treat their princes, yet in some cases, a mode of treatment oc- curs that we are surprised at, as seeming to us of the West, ioo near an approach to that familiarity that takes place among equals: the taking a new elected prince by the hand, in token of acknowledging his princely character, may probably appear to us in this light. D'Herbelot, in ex] lam- ing an eastern term, which, hetells us, signifies the electic n or auguration of a calif, the supreme head of the Moham- medans, boih in civil and ecclesiastical matters, tells us, lhat " this ceremony consisted in stretching forth a person's hand, and taking that of him that they acknowledged lor calif. This was" a sort of performing homage, and sweat- ing feallv to him." He add?;, that "" Khondemir, a cele- brated historian, speaking of the election of Othman. the third calif after Mohammed, says, that Ali alone did not present his hand to him, and that upon that occasion Ab- durahman, who had by compromise made the election, said to him, 'Ali! he who violates his word is Ihe first person that N injured by so doing;' upon hearing of which words, Ali stretched out his hand, and acknowledged Othman as calif." How much less solemn and expressive of reverence is this, than the manner of paying homage and swearing feal- ty f.t ihe coronation of our "princes ; to say nothing of the adoration that is practised in the Romish church, upon the election of their grea' ecclesiastic ! It may however serve to illustrate what we read concerning Jehonadab, the head of an Arab tribe that lived in. and consequently was in some measure subject to, the kingdom of Israel. " Jeho- Chap. 11- 2 K I K G | 2S0 oadabc&meto meet Jehu, and he sainted him; and Jehu ■aid i i Jehanadab, Is thy bean right as my heart in with thV ll ail I and J ■ • 1 1 i: ;i 'ah .answered, ll is, Al d If it be, give me tliv li. ml - ■> his hand, and he to : him up ehat Lot." This (riving I ive suppos- ed, b iheii way of expressing matters, that Jehu saluted, Jehanadab, and Bishop Patrick thought it was plain that it ought so to be understood; bui [cam It most natural to understand the wolds as signifying, that Jehonadab came to meet Jehu as then king of Israel; and to compliment him on being acknowledged king of the country in which he dwelt; not that this newly anointed prince first sainted him. This would not hive been in character. So when Jacob was introduced to Pharaoh, he is said to have blessed Pharaoh, not Pharaoh Jacob, Gen. xlvii, 7. The words therefore should have been translated, with a slight variation, after some such manni 1 on Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, coming to meet htm, and he. Jehonadab, saluted him, and he, Jehn, said unto him, Is thy heart," &c. — Harmer. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 2. But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Jo- ram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from amon? the king's sons which were slain : and they bid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber, from Athaliah, so that he was not slain. A bedchamber does not, according to the usage of the East, mean a lodging room, but a repository for beds. Cbardin says, " In the East beds are not raised from the ground with posts, a canopy, and curtains; people lie on the ground. In the evening they spread out a mattress or twoof cotton, very light, of which they have several in great houses, against they should have occasion, and a room on purpose for them." From hence it appears that ii was in a chamber of beds that Joash was concealed. — Harmer. Ver. 12. And he brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the tes- timony : and they made him king, and anoint- ed him ; and they clapped their hands, and said, God save the king. The way by which females in the East express their jov. is bv gently applying one of their hands to their mouths. This custom appears to be very ancient, and seems to be referred to in several places of scripture. Pitts, describing the joy with which the leaders of their sacred caravans are received in the several towns of Barbary through which they pass, says, " This Emir Hagge, into whatever town he comes, is received with a great deal of joy, because he is going about so religious a work. The women get upon the tops of the houses to view the parade, where they keep striking their forefingers on their lips softly as fast as they can, making a joyful noise all the while." The sacred writers suppose two different methods of expressing joy by a quick motion of the hand: the clapping of the hands, and that of one hand only, though these are confounded in our translation. The former of these methods obtained an- cien'lv, as an expression of malignant joy ; but other words, which our version translates clapping ihe hands, signify, the applying of only one hand somewhere with softness, in testimony of a joy of a more agreeable kind. Thus in 2 Kings xi. 12, and Psalm xlvii. 1, it should be rendered in the singular, Clap your hand, and as the word implies gentleness, it may allude to such an application of the hand to the mouth as has now been recited. — Burder. Ver. 14. And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was, and the princes" and the trumpeters by the kinf>»s was very proper. — Harmer. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 9. And Jehoash the king; of Israel sent to Amaziah king of Judah, saying, The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying. Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast ithat was in Lebanon, and trode down the thistle. "We have here another beautiful instance of the way in which the ancients conveyed instruction or reproof in par- n'.rles, apologues, or riddles. Jehoash, the king of Israel, 'he author of the parable, compares himself to a cedaT : and Amaziah, the king of Judah, to a thistle. It would no doubt be very annoying to Amaziah to be represented bv a ihis'le! and his opponent by a cedar. Some years ago, two magistrates, who were much superior to their predecessors, m reference to the war in which they had discharged iheir unties, were appointed to take charge of separate districts. The natives, as usual, did not speak plainly as to their merits, but under " the similitude of a parable." One of the districts was very famous for the banyan tree, the fruit of which is only eaten by the flying fox, birds, and mon- keys. The people, therefore, to show how much better their present magistrate was than the former, said, " Ah ! the banyan of our country is now giving the fruit of the palmirah." Those of the other district {where the palmirah was exccedinglu plentiful) *;ud vt their magistrate, "Have you not heard that our palmirah is now giving mangoes ?" Some men are always known by the name of certain trees. Thus, a person who is tall, and stoops a little, is called the cocoa-nut tree, and he who has long legs and arms, is called the banyan, which spreads its arms, and lets fall its sup- porters to the ground. It is, therefore, not very improbable that Jehoash was known by the name of the cedar, and Amaziah by that of the thistle.— Roberts. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 28. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. See on 2 Kings 2. 7. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 3. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel ; yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel. Few things are more shocking to humanity than the cus- tom of which stich frequent mention is made in scripture, of making children, &c, pass through fire in honour of Moloch: a custom, the antiquity of which appears from its having been repeatedly forbidden bv Moses, as Lev xviii. 21, and at length, in chap. xx. 1—5, where the ex pressions are very strong, of " giving his seed to Moloch." This cruelty, one would hope, was confined to the stran- gers in Israel, and not adopted by any native Israelite; yet we afterward find the kings of Israel, themselves, prac- tising this superstition, and making their children pass through the fire. This may be illustrated by an instance: There is a remarkable variation of terms in the history ot Ahaz, who (2 Kings xvi. 3) is said to make "his son tc pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen," t. c. no doubt, in honour of Moloch — which 2 Chron.xxviii. 3, is expressed by " he burned his childrer in the fire." Now, as the book'of Chronicles is best un derstood, by being considered as a supplementary and ex planatory history to the book of Kings, it is somewhat sin- gular, that it uses by much the strongest word in thii passage— for the import of ibor (lyai) is, generally, to con- sume, to clear off: so Psal. Ixxxiii. 14, "as the fire bvrnclh a wood," so Isaiah i. 31 ; and this variation of expression is further heightened, by the word son (who passed through) being singular in Kings, but plural (sons) in Chronicles. It seems very natural to ask, " If he burned his children in the fire, how could he leave any posterity to succeed him V We know, that the Rabbins have histories of the manner of passing through the fires, or into caves of fire; and there is an account of an image, which received children into its arms, and let them drop into a fire beneath, amid the shouts of the multitude, the noise of drums, and other instruments, to drown the shrieks of the agonizing infant, and the horrors of the parents' mind. Waiving further al- lusion to that account at present, we think the following extract may afford a good idea, in what mannerthe passing through, or over fire,"was anciently performed : the atten- tive reader will notice the particulars. " A still more as- tonishing instance of the superstition of the ancient Indians, in respect to the venerated fire, remains at this day in the grand annual festival holden in honour of Darma Rajah, and called the feast of fire; in which, as in the ancient riles of Moloch, the devotees walk barefoot over a slaving fire, extending forty feet. It is called the feast of fire, be- cause they then walk on that element. It lasts eighteen days, during which time, those that make a vow to keep it, "must fast, abstain from women, lie on the bare ground, Chap. 17, 18. 2 Kl and walk on a brisk fire. The eighteenth day, they assem- ble, on the sound of instruments; their heads c. floiecrs, the body bedaubed irilh saffron, and follow the figures of Darma Rajah, and Drobede, bit u-iU , who on ten in procession: when they come 10 the lire, they stir it, to animate its attivitu, and take a little of the ashes, with which they rub their forehead, and when the gods nave been three times round it, they walk either fact or slow, according to their zeal, over a very hot lire, ex- tending to about forty feet in length. Some earn/ tht ir chil- dren in their arms, and others lances, sabres, 'and stand- ards. " The most fervent devotees u a the fire. After the ceremony, the people press to collect sonic of the ashes to rub their foreheads with, and obtain from the devotees some of the (lowers with which they were adorned, and which they carefully preserve." (Son- neral's Travels, vol. i. 164.) ' The Mowers, then, were not burned. This extract is taken from Mr. Maurice's "history of Hindostan," and it accounts for several expressions used m scripture: such as causing children (very young per- haps) to pass through fire, as we see they are carried over the fire, by which means, though devoted, or consecrated, not destroyed ; neither were they injured, except by being profaned. Nevertheless, it might, and probably did happen, that some of those who thus passed, were hurt or maimed in the passing, or if not immediately slain by the fire, might be burnt in this superstitious pilgrimage, in such a manner as to coin ran fatal diseases. Shall we sup- pose, then, that while some of the children of Ahaz passed safely over the fire, others were injured by it, and injured even to death? But this could not be the case with all of them; as besides Hezekiah, his successor, we read of "Maaseiah, the king's son," 2 C'hron. xxviii. 7. Human- ity would induce us to hope that the expression "humid" should be taken in a milder sense than that of slaying by lire ; and, perhaps, this idea may be justified, by remarking the use of it— Exod. iii. 8, 3, "the bush burned with fire, yet the bush was not consumed." The word, therefore, being capable of a milder, as well as of a stronger sense, like our English word, to burn, it is desirable, H permit, to take it in the milder sense in this instance of Ahaz, and possibly in others. Nevertheless, as the cus- tom of widows burning themselves to death, with the body of their deceased husbands, not only continues, bat is daily practised in India, it contributes to justify the harsher con- struction of the word to burn; as the superstitious cruelty which can deprive women of life, mav easily be thought guilty of equal barbarity in the case of children, [and moreover the drowning of children in the Ganges, as an act of dedication, is common.] — Taylor in Calmet. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 10. Ami they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree : 11. And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them ; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger. Thus did the wicked Jews imitate the heathen. The whole verse might be a description of the localities, and usages of modern heathenism. See their high hills ; they are all famous for being the habitation of some deity. On Lhe summit there is generally a rude representation, formed ty nature, or the distorted imagination, into the likeness of a god. In going to the spot, images are set up in every di- rection, as so many sentinels and guides to the sacred ar- cana. See the Fiats religiosa, and numerous other trees, under which various symbols of idolatry may be seen. Fastened into the roots of one, we discover the trident of Siva : under another, an emblem of Ganesa: there we see a few faded flowers, a broken cocoa-nut, an altar, or the ashes of a recent tire. — Roberts. Ver. 17. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire. The Tamul translation has " to pass or tread on the fire." Pent, xviii. 10. 9 Kings xxiii. lO.xxi. 6. Lev. xviii. 21. Jer. xxxii. 35. are rendered "step orer" the fire. To begin with Lev. xviii. 21. " Thou shalt not let any of thy seed i . h the ire to Moloch; neither shalt thou profane of thy God: I am the Lord." The to profane the name of thy God," are chap, xix. 13, " And ye shall not .swear by mv name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God." (See also chap. XX. 3. xxi. ti. and xxii. 2, 32. Ezek. xxxvi. 20. j Connected therefore, with passing through the lire, as men- tioned in Lev. xviii. 21, and the marginal references, it is clear that the name of God was profaned by The Tamul translation of Lev. xviii. 21, for " pass through the fire," has " step over the fire," which alludes to the oath which is taken by stepping over the fire. It is a solemn way of swearing to innocence, by first making a lire, and when stepping over to exclaim, "Jam not guiliiy." Hence the frequency of the question, (when a man denies 1 in,) "Will you step over the fire?" But so careful are the heathen in reference to fire, when they are not on their oath, that they wi'll not step over it. See a'trav- eller on his journey; does he come to a place where there has been a fire, he'will not step over it, but walk round it, lest any evil should come upon him. I think it, therefore, probable, from the words, " profane the name of thy God," as mentioned in connexion with passing through the fire, and from the eastern custom, that the ancient idolaters did take a solemn oath of allegiance to their gods, or of their innocence of crime, by thus stepping over the fire. But it is also a t-iistom among these heathen to pass through, 01 rather to walk on, the fire. This is done some- times in consequence of a vow, or from a wish to gair. popularity, or to merit the favour of the gods. A fire is made on the ground, from twenty to thirty paces in length, and the individual walks on it baretbot, backwards and forwards, as many times as he may believe the nature of his circumstances require. Some say that these devotees put a composition on their feet, which prevents them from being much burnt; but I am of opinion this is not often the case. To walk on the fire is believed to be most aeceptsb% to the cruel goddess Kali, the wife of Vyravar, who was the prince of devils. When a man is sick, he vows, " O Kali, mother, only cure me, and I will walk on fire in your holy A lather, for his deeply afflicted child, vows, " O Kali, or, O Vyravar, only deliver him, and when he is fifteen years of age, he shall walk on fire in your divine presence. — Roberts. Ver. 37. And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore ; and ye shall not fear other gods. The most prominent effect of heathenism on the minds of its votaries is fear ; and no wonder; for how can they love deities guilty of such repeated acts of cruelty, injustice, falsehood, dishonesty, and impurity 1 Strange as it may appear, European descendants, as well as native Christians, are in danger of fearing the gods of the heathen. There are so many traditions of their malignity and power, that it requires strength of mind, and, above all, faith in Jesus Christ, the conqueror of devils, to give a perfect victory over it. On this account the missionaries sent out by Den- mark, more than one hundred years ago, (and some of their successors,) have not approved of the native Christians studying the heathen books and superstitions. This, how- ever, has had an injurious effect, Because it disqualified the members of the church to expose the errors of heathenism to the people, and alr admonitory manner, the two forefingers being extended, and the two others doubled down in the palm: an action also common on the tombs at Persepolis, and other monu- ments just cited; his left hand grasps a bow of a different shape from that held by his officer, but exactly.like the one in which the king leans in the basrelief oh the tomb at Nakshi-Roustan. This bow, together with the left foot of the personage I am describing, rests on the body of a pros- trate man. who lies on his back with outstretched arms, in the act of supplicating for mercy. This unhappy per- sonage, and also the first in the string of nine which ad- vance towards the king, are verv much injured: however, enough remains of the almost defaced leader, when com- pared with the apparent condition of the succeeding eight, to show that the whole nine are captives. The hands of ■>.\\ are tied behind their backs, and the cord is very dis- tinct which binds the neck of the one to the neck of the other, till the mark of bondage reaches to the last in the line. If it were also originally attached to the leader, the i ord is now without trace there ; his hands, however, are evidently in the same trammels as his followers. The second figure in the procession has his hair so close to his head, that it appears to have been shaven, and a kind of caul co'crs it from the top of the forehead to the middle of IGS. Chap. IS the head. He is dressed in a short tunic, reaching no fur- ther than the knee; a belt fastens it round the waist ; his legs are bare. Behind this figure is a much older person, with a rather pointed beard and bushy hair, and a similar caul covers the top of his head. He too is habited in a short tunic, with something like the trouser, or booted ap- pearance on the limbs which is seen on some of the figures at Persepolis. In addition to the binding of the hands, the preceding figure, and this, are fastened together by a rope round their necks, which runs onward, noosing all the remaining eight in one string. This last-described person has the great peculiarity attached to him, of the skirt of his garment being covered entirely with inscrip- tions in the arrow-headed character. Next follows one in a long vestment, with full hair, without the caul. Then another in a short, plain tunic, with trousers. Then suc- ceeds a second long vestment. After him comes one in a short tunic, with naked legs, and, apparently, a perfectly bald head. He is followed by another in long But the ninth, and last in the gionp, rho also is in the short tunic and trouser, has the singularity of wearing a prodigious high-pointed cap ; his beard and hair are much ampler than any of his companions, and his face looks of a greater age. In the air, over the heads of the centre figures, appears the floating intelligence in his circle and car of sunbeams, so often remarked on the sculptures of Nakshi-Roustan and Persepolis. " Above the head of each individual in this basrelief is a compartment with an inscription in the arrow-headed wri- ting, most probably descriptive of the character and situa- tion of each person. And immediately below the sculp- ture, are two lines in the same language, running the whole length of the group. • Under these again, the exca- vation is continued to a considerable extent, containing eight deep and closely-written columns in the same char- acter. From so much labour having been exerted on this part of the work, it excites more regret that so little pro- gress has yet been made towards deciphering the character. The design of this sculpture appears to tally so well with the great event of the total conquest over Israel, by Salma- nese~r, king of Assyria, and the Medes, that I venture to suggest the possibility of this basrelief having been made to commemorate that final achievement. Certain circum- stances attending the entire captivity of the ten tribes, which took place in a second attack on their nation, when considered, seem to confirm the conjecture into a strong probability. In turning from this account in the scriptures, to the sculpture on the rock, the one seemed clearly to ex- plain the other. In the royal figure, I see Salmaneser, the son of the renowned Arbaces, followed by two appropriate leaders of the armies of his two dominions, Assyria ana Media, carrying the spear and the bow. Himself rests on the great royal' weapon of the East, revered from earliest time as the badge of supreme power — Behold I do set my bow in the cloud. Besides, he tramples on a pTostrate foe'; not one that is slain, but one who is a captive : this person not lying stretched out and motionless, but extending his arms in supplication. He must have been a king, for on none below that dignity would the haughty foot of an east- ern monarch condescend to tread. Then we see approach nine captives, bound, as it were, in double bonds, m sign of a double offence. We may understand this accumulated transgression, on recollecting that on the first invasion of Israel, by Tiglath-pileser, he carried away only part of three tribes ; and on the second by Salmaneser, he not only confirmed Hoshea on the throne, but spared the remaining people. Therefore, on this determined rebellion of king and people, he punishes the ingratitude of both, by putting both in the most abject bonds, and bringing away the whole of the ten tribes into captivity; or, at least, the principal of the nation; in the same manner, probably, as was after- ward adopted by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, with regard to the inhabitants of Judea, he carried away nil from Jeru- salem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives ; andallthe craftsmen o ml smiths : none remained, save the poorest sort of people of the land. 2 Kinss xxiv. 14. " Besides, it may bear on our argument, to remark, that, including the prostrate monarch, there are precisely ten captives: who might be regarded as the representatives, or heads, of each tribe, beginning with the king, who, as- suredly, would be considered as the chief of his: and end- CiiAr. 18. 2 KINGS. tag with ilie aged figure at ilie end, « ho i high ea| | have been an exaggerated representation of themiure woin by the sacerdotal tribe of Levi: a just punishment of the priesthoo I at that tune, which h:ul debased itself by every species of idolatrous compliance with the whims, or rather wickedness ol the people, in the adoption ol pagan wor- ship. Hence, having all walked in the statute- of the heathen, the Lord rejected Israel, and delivered them into 1 1 1 . ■ I I ..I the spoilers. Doubtless, the figure with the mii his garments, from the singularity of the must have been some noted personage in the hisiorv of the event; and besides, it seems to designate a striking peculiarity of the Jews, who were accustomed to v i it.' memorable sentences of old, in the form of phylacle- 1 1. s, on different parts of their raiment. What those may mean, which cover the garment of this figure, we have DO ii mh. oi explaining, till the diligent researches of the learned mav be aide to decipher the arrow-headed charac- ter, and then a full light w.mM be thrown on the whole history, by expounding the tablets over every head. If the aerial form above were ever intended to represent the heavenly apparition of a departed king, which is the opin- ion of some, that of the great Arbaces might appear here with striking propriety, at the final piest of rebellious Israel. Should the discoveries of lime prove im conjec- ture at all right, this basrelief must be nearly two'hnndred years older than any which are ascribed to Cyrus, atPerse- polis or Pasargadic." (Sir R. K. Porter.) — Birder. (See ait' nir in?, pi. no. at the end of the volume.') Ver. '20. Thou gayest; (but they are but vain words.) / tin re counsel and Strength for the war. Now, on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebel- lest against me? The Hindoos say of boasting words, or those which do not proceed from the heart, they are " words of the mouth ;" but to speak evil of a person is called a chondu-chadi, a hint of the lip. — Roberts. Ver. 23. Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria, and I will de- liver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. In the first periods of the Jewish history, the armies of Israel consisted all of footmen. At length Solomon raised a body of twelve thousand horse, and fourteen hundred chariots, some with two, and others with four horses ; but whether that magnificent prince intended them for pomp or war, is uncertain. Infantry was also the chief strength of the Greek and Roman armies. Cavalry is not so neces- sary in warm climates, where the march of troops is less incommoded with bad roads; nor can they be of so much use in mountainous countries, where their movements are attended with great difficulty and hazard. The eastern potentates, however, brought immense numbers of horse into the field, and chiefly trusted to their exertions for de- fence or conquest. The people of Israel, who were ap- pointed to " dwell alone," and not to mingle with the na- tions around them, nor imitate their policy, Were expressly forbidden to maintain large bodies of cavalry; and they accordingly prospered, or were defeated, as they obeyed or transgressed this divine command; which a celebrated au- thor observes, cannot be justified by the measures of human prudence. Even upon political reasons, says Warburton, the Jews might be justified in the disuse of cavalry, in the defence of their country, but not in conquering it from a warlike people, who abounded in horses. Here, at least, the exertion of an extraordinary providence was wonder- fully conspicuous. The kings who succeeded Solomon certainly raised a body of horse for the defence of their dominions, which they recruited from the studs of Egypt, in those times equally remarkable for their vigour and beauty. But the Jewish cavalry were seldom very numer- ous: and under the religious kings of David's line, who made the divine law the rule of their policy, they were either disembodied altogether, or reduced to a very small number. In the reign of Hezekiah. when the country was invaded bv the king of Assvria.tbe .Tews seem to have had no force of this kind, for, said Rabshakeh, " Xow, there- fore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of As- syria, and I will deliver thee 1WO thousar.d horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them." — Paxton. Ver. 28. Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with 8 loud voice in the Jews' language, and spake, saying, Hoar the word of the great king, the kins W Assyria: 29. Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand : 30. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, Say- ing, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. 31. Hearken not to Heze- kiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with mc by a present, and conic out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig-tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern ; 32. Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land ; a land of corn and witv a hind of bread and vineyards, a land of oi. olive and of honey, that ye may live and not die : and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he, persuadeth you, saying, The Lord will deliv- er us. It must be owned that there is something extremely in- solent in the speeches of Rabshakeh to Hezekiah and his loyal subjects, ('2 Kings xviii. ;) his boastings, both as to matter and manner, appear to have been of the most un- limited kind, antl to have wanted for no amplification in the capacity of the speaker to bestow on them : he describes" his master's power in the highest terms, and even beyond what fidelity, as a servant To the king of Assyria, might have required from him. Probably his speeches are re- corded as being in a strain somewhat unusual, and it will not be easy to find their equal : nevertheless, the reader may be amused by the following portrait, which forms no bad companion to that of Rabshakeh: if it may not rival that in expression, it falls little short of it, and is, to say the least, an entertaining representation of eastern manners and train of thought. It should be remarked, that Rabsha- keh was speaking openly, in defiance to enemies : Hyat Saib was conversing in his own residence. If, when speaking in private, he was thus eloquent, what had been has eloquence, had he been employed by his sovereign in a message of defiance 1 Hyat Saib, the jemadar, or governor of Baidanore, " having exhausted his whole siring of questions, he turned the discourse to another subject — no less than his great and puissant lord and master, Hyder, of whom he had endeav- oured to impress me with a great, if not a terrible idea; amplifying his honour, his wealth, and the extent and opu- lence of his dominions ; and describing to me, in the most exaggerated terms, the-numberof his troops, his military talents, bis vast, and, according to his account, unrivalled genius; his amazing abilities in conquering and governing nations; and, above all, his amiable qualities and splendid endowments of heart, no less than understanding. " Having thus, with equal zeal and fidelity, endeavoured to impress me with veneration for his lord and master, and for that purpose attributed to him every perfection that may be supposed to be divided among all the kings and generals that have lived since the binh of Christ, and given each their due, he turned to the English government, and en- deavoured to demonstrate to me the folly and inutility of our attempting to resist his progress, which he compared to that of the sea, to a tempest, to a torrent, to a lion's pace and fury — to every thing that an eastern imagination could sug- gest as a figure proper to exemplify grandeur and irresist- ible power. He then vaunted of his sovereign's successes over the English, some of which I had not heard of before, and did not believe; and concluded by assuring me, that it was Hvder's determinate n to drive' all Europeans from Indosian, which he averred he could not fail to do, con- sidering the weakness of the one, and the boundless powpi 2 KINGS. Ch/ 19 of the other.— He expended half an hour in this maimer and discourse." (Campbell's Travels to India.) — Taylor in Calmet. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 3. And they said unto him, Thus saith Hez- ekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of re- buke, and blasphemy : for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. When a person has all but accomplished his object, when only a very slight obstacle has prevented htm, it is then said, " The child came to the birth, but there was not strength to bring it forth." Some time ago, an opulent man accused another, who was also very rich, and in office, of improper conduct to the government: the matter was well investigated by competent authorities; but the accused, by his superior cunning, and by bribes, escaped, as by the ""skin of his teeth;" and the people said, " Alas! the child came to the mouth, but the hand could not take it." When a person has succeeded in gaining a blessing which he has long desired, he says, " Good, good ! the child is born at last." Has a person lost his lawsuit in a provincial court, he will go to the capital to make an appeal to a superior court; and should he there succeed, he will say, in writing to a friend, " Good news, good news ! the child is born." When a man has been trying to gain an office, his friend meeting him on return, does not always ask, " Is the child born 1 or did it come to the birth 1" but, " Is it a male or a female V If he say the former, he has gained his object ; if the latter, he has failed.— Roberts. Ver. 7. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land ; and I will cause him to fall by the. sword in his own land. See on Is. 37. 36. The destruction of Sennacherib and his army appears to have been effected by that pestilential wind called the sir At Bagdad, October 9, 1818, Sir R. K. Porter informs us, (Travels, vol. ii. p. 229,) the master of the khan " told me, that they consider October the first month of their autumn, and feel it delightfully cool in comparison with July, August, and September; for that during forty days of the two first- named summer months, the hot wind blows from the des- ert, and its effects are often destructive. Its title is very ap- propriate, being called the samiel, or baude semoom, the pestilential wind. It does not come in continued long cur- rents, but in gusts at different intervals, each blast lasting several minutes, and passing along with the rapidity of lightning. No one dare stir from their houses while this invisible flame is sweeping over the face of the country. Previous to its approach, the atmosphere becomes thick r.nd suffocating, and appearing particularly dense near the horizon, gives sufficient warning of the threatened mischief. Though hostile to human life, it is so far from being preju- dicial to the vegetable creation, that a continuance of the samiel tends to ripen the fruits. I inquired what became of the cattle during such a plague, and was told they were seldom touched by it. It seems strange that their lungs should be so perfectly insensible to w-hat seems instant destruction to the breath of man ; but so it is, that they are regularly driven down to water at the customary times of day, even when the b'asts are at the severest. The people who at- tend them are obliged to plaster their own faces, and other parts of the body usually exposed to the air, with a sort of muddy clay, which, in general, protects them from its most malignant effects. The periods of the winds' blowing are generally from noon till sunset ; they cease almost entirely during the night; and the direction of the gusts is always from the northeast. When it has passed over, a sulphuric, and indeed loathsome smell, like putridity, remains for a long time. The poison which occasions this smell must be deadly ; for if any unfortunate traveller, too far from shel- ter, meet the blast, he falls immediately ; and in a few minutes his flesh becomes almost black, while both it and hfc< bones at once arrive at so extreme a state of corruption, that the smallest movement of the body would separate the one from the other." — Robinson. . The south wind in those arid regions blowing over an immense surface of burning sand, becomes so charged with electrical matter, as to occasion the greatest danger, and often instant death, to the unwary traveller. A Turk, who had twice performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, told Dr. Clarke that he had witnessed more than once the direful effects of this hot pestilential wind in the desert. He has known all the water dried out of their skin bottles in an in- stant, by its infliaence. The camels alone gave notice of its approach, by making a noise, and burying their mouths and nostrils in the sand. This was considered as an infal- lible token that the desolation was at hand; and those who imitated the camels escaped suffocation. In some districts it commits great ravages, and at times so totally burns up all the corn, that no animal will eat a blade of it, or touch any of its grain. It has been known, even in Persia, to destroy camels and other hardy animals; its effects on the human frame are represented as incon- ceivably dreadful. In some instances it kills instantaneous- ly ; but in others the wretched sufferer lingers for hours, or even days, in the most excruciating torture. In those places where it is not fatal to life, it resembles the breath of a glowing furnace, destroys every symptom of vegetation, and will, even during the" night, scorch the skin in the most painful manner. In the sandy desert it is often so heated as to destroy every thing, animal and vegetable, with which it comes in contact. In the inhabited country every article of furniture, of glass, and even of wood, becomes as hot as if it were exposed to a raging fire. In Hindostan, when the hot wind blows, the atmosphere for many hours of the day becomes insupportable ; the heavens are like brass, and the earth like heated iron. At such times the miserable in- habitants are obliged to confine themselves in dark rooms, cooled by screens of matted grass kept continually watered. To this terrible agent the prophet alludes in his prediction of Sennacherib's overthrow : " Behold, I will send a blast upon him." The return of man to his native dust is as certain and speedy as the blasting of a lender plant by the deadly breath of the simoom : " For the wind passelh over it, and it is gone ; and the place thereof shall know it no more." Campbell, in his Travels, most significantly calls it a horrid wind, whose consuming blasts extend their ravages all the way from the extreme end of the Gulf of Cambaya up to Mosul. It carries along with it fleaks of fire, like threads of silk; instantly strikes dead those that breathe it, and consumes them inwardly to ashes; the flesh soon be- coming black as a coal, and dropping off the bones. The numbers that perish by its fatal influence are sometimes very great. Thevenot states, that in the year 1665, in the month of July, four thousand people died at Bassora by that wind, in three weeks' time. By this powerful and terrific agent, invigorated by the arm", and guided by the finger of Jehovah, was the numer- ous army of the proud and blaspheming Sennacherib de- stroyed under the walls of Libnah. In the brief statement of Isaiah it is said, " Then the angel (or, as it may be ren- dered, the messenger) of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand men." 'Now this angel of Jehovah is ex- pressly called, in verse 7th of the same chapter, rvac/i, a blast or wind; which can hardly leave a doubt of the man- ner in which this passage is to be understood. — Paxton. Ver. 24. I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places. The curious Vitringa admires the explanation which Grotius has given, of that watering with the foot by which' Egvpt was distinguished from Judea, derived from an ob- servation made on Philo, who lived in Egypt, Philo having described a machine used by the peasants of that country for watering as wrought by the feet; which sort of water- ing Dr. Shaw has since understood of the gardener's pot- ting a stop to the further flowing of the water in the rill, in which those things were planted that wanted watering, bv turning the earth against it with his foot. Great re- spect is due to so candid and ingenious a traveller as Dr Shaw, I must however own, that I apprehend the mean- Qbap. ID. 2 KINGS. 295 tag of Moses is more truly represented by tirotius ihan the doctor, Foi M i intend H> si llic great labour of1 this way of watei fog bj the foot, « hi b ing that instrument really was. on which account ii seams in b.- laid a- 1.! • ia I'.Lrvpt since the time of Philo, and ei i iei methods ol raisii turning it e ea tfa ■ I. that ih ies, w hich lias be equally, wrought i laborious Mill, as alcr made use of; whereas 4he loot i\ liii-li l>r. .Shaw speaks nl', nil- of watering. If it should be in- was >n> I older than \ ' , ten sed. 1 would bj way of reply ob i ■ I . ■ ii machines might be tot and were undoubl se t lie invention of An would nut have brought litem into disuse. But though I think the interpretation of Deut. xi. 10, by Grotius, is pref- erable to that of Dr. Shaw, I readily admit that the i 's thought maybe very naturally applird to these words of ib, to which however the doctor has not applied it ; for he seems to boast that he could as easily turn the water of great rivers, and cause then old channels to be- come di v, as a gardener stops the water from don ing any longer in a rill by the sole of his foot. And as the gardener stops up one rill and opens another with his mattock, to let in the water, so I have digged and drank strange waters, that is, which did i" 'i bet itofore dow in the places I have made them ilow in. This is the easiest interpretation that can, I believe, be given to the word strange, made use of by this Assyrian prince, and makes the whole verse a reference to the east- ern way of watering: I have digged channels, and drank, and caused my army to drink out of new-made rivers, into which I have conducted the waters that used to UOT , : , where, and have laid those old channels dry with the sole of my fool, with as much ease as a gardener digs channels in his j.oden, and directing the waters of a cistern into a i ew rill, with his loot stops up that in which it before ran. In confirmation of all which, let it be remembered, that ihis way of watering by rills is in use in those countries from whence Sennacherib came; continued down from ancient times there, without doubt, as it is in Egypt. The understanding those words of the Psalmist, Ps. L\v. '., Thou, visitest the earth and watered it, thou preoH/if en- richest it iriih the rivers o/'GoD, of the watering it as by a ri'l of water, makes an easy and beautiful sense; the rain b( ing to the earth in general, the same thing from God, that a watering rill, or little river, is to a garden from man.— Uarmer. Ver. 26. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded ; thy were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the house-tops, and as com blasted before it be grown up. The Hebrew has, instead of small power, " short of hand." This figure is much used here, and is taken from a man trying to reach an object for which his arm is not long enough; When it is wished to ascertain what is a man's capacity or power, it is asked, " Is his arm long or short V " Let me tell you, friend, Tamban will never succeed; his arm is not long enough." Of feeble people it is said, " they have short hands." — Roberts. Ver. 28 Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou earnest. A person says of his deliverer from prison or danger, " Ah I the good man took me out by his tote," i. e. hook. A culprit says of the officers who cannot catch him. " Their hooks are become straight." The man who cannot drag another from his secrecy, says, " My hook is not sufficient for that fellow." — Roberts. The dromedary differs from the common camel, in being of a finer and rounder shape, and in having upon its back a smaller protuberance. This species (for the former sel- dom deviating from the beaten road, travels with its head at liberty) is governed bv a bridle, which being usually fastened to a rir.g fixed in its nosirils, may very well illus- trate the i ■' - « riter uses concern- in:- Sennacherib: "I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way bv which lli on earnest." These words refer al - tiol of heaven, under which he acted, and the swiftness of his retreat.— Paxtun. Ver. 35. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Loud went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and live thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they uere all dead col psi s, Mr. P.oswell, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, informs us, that it was a subject of conversation between them, in what manner so great a multitude of Sennacherib's army was destroyed. " We are not lo suppose," says the l-ntm. m reply, "that the angel went abroad with a sword in his hand, stabbing them one by one; but that some powerful natural agent was employed ; most probably the saniyel." Whether the doctor had noticed some picture in which the angel was thus employed, is uncertain ; but it should seem, thai this idea is common; and even Dr. Doddridge appears to have conceived of the angel, as of a person employed in slaughter; for he says, in a note on the passage (Matt. xxvi. 531 where our Lord mentions that his Father could furnish him twelve legions of angels, "How dreadfully would such an army of angels have I one of these celestial spirits was able to destroy 185,000 Assyrians at one stroke 1" Without attempting to investi- gate the power of celestial spirits, we may endeavour to pre- sent the history of the destruction of Sennacherib's army, according to what, in all probability, was the real fact; pre- mising that simurl, sumicl, stint i/cl, sumfom, simoom, &c. arc different names' for the same meteor. Mr. Bruce's account of this wonderful natural phenomenon, affords some very interesting particulars. The extracts are from the quarto edition of his Travels. " On the lfith, at half past ten, we left El Moid, [death] At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated'with great plea- sure the rugged top of Chiggre, to which we were fast ap- proaching, and where we were to solace ourselves with plenty of good water, Idris cried out, 'Fall upon your ftces. for here is the simoom !' I saw from the southeast a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rap- idly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground, w itb my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten suffocation. For mv part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it, nor was I free of an asthmatic sensation, till I had been some months in Italy, at the baihs of Poretta, near two years afterward. A universal despondency had taken possession of our people. They ceased to speak to one another, and when they did it was in whispers, by which 1 easily guessed that they were increasing each other's fears, by vain suggestions, calculated to sinkeach other's spirits still further. This phenomenon of the simoom, unexpected by us, though foreseen by Idris, caused us all to relapse into our former despondency. It still continued to blow se as to exhaust us entirely, though the blast was so weak as scarcely would have raised a leaf from the ground. At twenty minutes before five, the simoom ceased, and a com- fortable and cooling breeze came by starts from the north. We had no sooner got into the plains than we felt great symptoms of the simoom, and about a quarter before twelve, our prisoner first, and then Idris, cried out, The simoom '. the simoom! My curiosity would not suffer me to fall down without looking behind me; about due south, a little to the east, I saw the coloured haze, as before. It seemed now ui be rather less compressed, and to have with it a shade of blue. The edf?es of it were not defined as those of the former: but like a very thin anefo, with about a yard ill the middle, tinged with these colours We all fell upon our faces, and the simoom passed with a gentle ruflung 296 2 K wind. It continued to blow in this manner till near three o'clock, so we were all taken ill at night, and scarcely strength was left us to load the camels. The simoom, with the wind at southeast, immediately followed the wind at north, and the usual despondency that always accompanied it. The blue meteor, with which it began 'passing over us about twelve, and the ruffling wind that followed it, eon- linnet1 till near two. Silence, and a desperate kind of indifference about life, were the immediate effects upon us; and I began, seeing the condition of my camels, to fear we were all doomed to a sandy grave, and to contemplate it with some degree of resignation. I here began to provide for the worst. I saw the fate of our camels fast approach- ing, and that our men grew weak in proportion : our bread, too, began to fail us, although we had plenty of camel's flesh in its stead ; our water, though to all appearance we were to find it more frequently than in the beginning of our journey, was nevertheless brackish, and scarce served the purpose to quench our thirst; and above all, the dreadful simoom had perfectly exhausted our strength, and brought upon us a degree of cowardice and languor that we strug- gled with in vain." The following extract is from D'Osbornville's "Essays, &c. on the East:" — "Some enlightened travellers have seriously written, that every individual who falls a victim to this infection, is immediately reduced to ashes, though apparently only asleep; and that when taken hold of to be awakened by passengers, the limbs part from the body and remain in the hand. Such travellers would evidently not have taken these tales on hearsay, if they had paid a proper attention to other facts, which thev either did or ought to have heard. Experience proves, that animals, by pressing their nostrils to the earth, and men, by covering their heads in their mantles, have nothing to fear from these meteors. 'his demonstrates the impossibility can only penetrate the most delicate lungs, should calcine the skin, flesh, nerves, and bones. I acknowledge these accounts are had from the Arabs them- selves; but their picturesque and extravagant expressions are a kind of imaginary coin, to know the true value of which, requires some practice." Notwithstanding this remark, if the word immediately were exchanged for quickly, the purport of the account might be almost exactly justified. Our author proceeds— " I have twice had an opportunity of considering the effect of these siphons, with so: what I have seen in the lers, who were struck during their sleep, and died on tlie spot. I ran to see if it was possible to afford them any suc- cour, but they were already dead ; the victims of an inti Hot >iij,~,:,-ii!ing fire. There were apparent signs of the dissolu- tion of their fluids ; a kind of serous matter issued from the nostrils, mouth, and ears; and in something more than an hour, the whole body was in the same state. However, as, according to their custom, they [the Arabs] were dili- gent to pay them the last duties of humanity, I cannot affirm that the putrefaction was more or less rapid than usual in that country. As to the meteor itself, it may be examined with impunity at the distance of three or four fathoms; and the country people are only afraid of being suprised by it when they are asleep; neither are such acci- dents very common, for these siphons are only seen during two or three months of the year ; and as their approach is fell, the camp-guards and the people awake arc always very careful to rouse those that sleep, who also have a general habit of covering their faces with maniles." Any seeming contrariety of representation between Mr. iruce and this traveller may be sing that in different deserts, or vear, perhaps,) these meteors are more or less fatal; but the reader's attention is desired, particularly, to certain ideas implied in these descriptions: — 1. The meteor seems like a thin smoke, i. e. seen by daylight, when Mr. Bruce travelled. 2. It passed with a gentle ruffling wind. 3. It was some hours in passing. 4. It affected the mind, by en- feebling the body; producing despondency and cowardice. f>. It is dangerous by being breathed. 6. It is peculiarly fatal to persons sleeping. 7. lis effects, even on those to whom it is not fatal, are debilitating and lasting. 8. It is felt; and is compared to a'suffocating fire. 9. Its extent is sometimes considerable; about half a mile; sometimes • i"p-, some.imes less. 10. Colonel Campbell says, at the close of the extract from him, page 9, that "to prevent drawing it in, it is necessary first to see it, which is nol always practicable." No doubt, we may safely add, espe- cially by niglU. These particulars respecting the nature and effects of the simoom, will illustrate, by comparison, occurrences record- • ed 2 Kings, chap xix., and Isaiah, chap, xxxvh. I. " Behold, I will send a blast upon him," (Sennacherib.) The word rendered blast (nn ruacli) does not imply a vehement win^.; but a gentle breathing, a breeze, a vapour," a reek, an exhalation ; and thus agrees perfectly with the descriptions extracted above. II. It is supposed the prophet alludes to this meteor, Isa chap. xxx. 27, " The Lord's anger is burning, or devouring, fire;" ("burning with his anger" — "histongue is a devour- ing fire." Eng. Trans.) And ver. 33, " The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." III. The army of Sennacherib was destroyed by night. No doubt the unwarrantable pride of the king had extended also to his army, (witness the arrogance of Rabshakeh,) so that being in full security the officers and soldiers were negligent; their discipline was relaxed; the"camp-gu?.'ds" were nol alert; or, perhaps, they themselves were the first taken off; and those who slept not u-rapped up, imbibed the poison plentifully. If this had been an evening of dissolute mirth, (no uncommon thing in a camp,) their joy (perhaps for a victory, or "the first night of their attacking the city," says Josephus) became, by its effects, one means of their destruction. IV. If the Assyrians were not accustomed to the action of this meteor at home, they might little expect it ; and by night, might little watch for, or discern it. The total number of Sennacherib's army is not mentioned : perhaps it was three or four times the number slain; that it was very great, appears from his boastings sent to Hezekiah. If the extent of the meteor was half a mile, or a mile, in passing over a camp, it might destroy many thousands cl sleepers; while those on each side of its course, escaped; and these, "rising early in the morning," discovered th i slaughter of their fellows around them. The destruction of Cambyses' army of 50,000 men going for Ethiopia, is, in some respects, not' unlike this destruction of the Assyrians. V. The subsequent languor, despondence, and cowardice, attending this meteor, contribute to explain the forced re- turn of Sennacherib home; even though his army might be very numerous, notwithstanding this diminution. Observe, it was not before Jerusalem that this event occurred, but to the south. VI. The Babylonish Talmud affirms, that this destruc- tion of the Assyrians was executed by lightning; and some of the Targums are quoted for saying the same thing. Josephus says, " Sennacherib, on his return from the Egyptian war, found his army which he had left under Rabshakeh, almost entirely destroyed by a judicial pesti- lence, which swept awav, in officers and common soldiers, the first night they sat down before the city, 185,000 men." VII. That this" meteor inflicts diseases where it is not immediately fatal, Mr. Bruce himself is an instance ; he also says, "though Syene, by its situation, should be healthy, the general complaint is a weakness and soreness in the eyes; generally ending in blindness of one or both eyes; v'ou scarce ever see a person in the street who sees with both eyes. Thev say it is owing to the hot wind from the desert'; and this I apprehend to be true, by the violent sore- ness and inflammation we were troubled with in our returr home, through the great desert, to Syene." — Taylor re Calmet. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 1 1 . And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord ; and he brought the shadow ten debtees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz. At the beginning of the world it is certain there was no distinction of time, but by the light and darkness, and the wholi' ilav uas included in the general terms of the evening and morning. The Chaldeans, manv ages after the flood, were the first who divided the day into hours; they being the first who applied themselves with any success to astrol- ogy. Sun-dials are of ancient use : but as they were of no service in cloudy weather and in the night, there was Cm ■JO— 23. 2 KIN'.; ■J'.i? another invention of measuring the parts of time but that not proving suilicieutlv exact, they laiil it aside for another by sand. The use of dials was earlier among the i .u the Romans. It was above three handled , the building of Rome before they knew any .i i but vet they had divided the day and night in'. i lurntv-foiir hours; though they did not count the hours numerieallv, but from midnight to midnight, distin- ■iii l.v particular u; -s,as bv the cock-crowing, llic dawn, the midday, &c. The first sun-dial we read of i: one ins, which divided the day into hours, is I l.v Plinv, as fixed upon the temple of Unmans by L. Papyrius, the censor, about the twelfth year of the , Pyrrhus. Scipio Nasica, some years after, ;!. , I,,, I i hi- "day and night into hours from the dropping of water. — Border. Vi-r. 13. And Hezekiah hearkened unto them, aul showed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spi.es, and the precious ointment, and all, the house of his armour, and all that was found in his trea- sures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them The display which Hezekiah made of his treasure was to gratify the'ambassadors of the king of Babylon. It ap- pears to have been an extraordinary thing, and not done but upon this and occasions of a similar nature ; such proli.iblv was the general practice. Lord Macartney in- forms us, that " the splendour of the emperor of China and his court, and the riches of the mandarins, surpass all that can be said of them. Their silks, porcelain, cabinets, and other furniture, make amost glittering appearance. These, are only exposed when they make or receive visits: for they commonly neglect themselves at home, the laws against private pomp and luxury being very severe." Vci; .in iiiuis. in his voyage to the East, describing the treasure of the king of Calicut, says, that it is esteemed so ii-iiii. in ic that it cannot be contained in two remarkably large cellars or warehouses. It consists of precious stones, plates of gold, and as much coined gold as may suffice to lade a hundred mules. They say that it was collected together by twelve kings who "were before him, and that in his treasury is a coffer three spans long and two broad, full of prec'ious stones of incalculable value. This custom for the eastern princes to amass enormous loads of treasure, merely for show and ostentation, appears to have been practised by the kings of Judea. One instance of it at least is found in" the case of Hezekiah, in the passage now re- ferred l CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 11. Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wick- edly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols. Bodin informs us from Maimonides, that it was customary among the Amorites to draw their new-born children tlirou-jh a (lame; believing that by this means they would escape many calamities ; and that Maimonides himself had been an eyewitness of this superstition in some of the nurses of Egypt. — Border. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 17. Because they have forsaken me, and have burnt incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anirer with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched. "Ah! who can quench the wrath of my enemy?" " Who 1 O, I have done it already, for his anger is turned to water." Does a person reply to another in such a way anger, it is asked, " "Will ghee (clarified but- ter) quench fire 1" " Do not cast ghee on that man's pas- sion-.." "1 beseech ran to try to make peace for me." " Peace for you 1 can I quench his wrath V — Robeiits. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 3. And the king stood by a pillar, an. 1 made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book: and all the people stood to the covenant. See on 2 Kings 11. 14. Ver. 7. And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove. Very large hangings are used in the temples, some of which are fastened to the roof, others used as screens, and others to cover the sacred cars. On them are painted the actions of the gods, as described in the books Ramyanum and ihe Scanda Purana; and there are portrayed things ot the most indecent nature. — Roberts. In the history of Schemselouhar and the prince of Per- sia, (Arabian Nights' Entertainment,) when the former was told that the calif was coming to visit her, she ordered the paintings on silk, which were in the garden, to be taken down. In the same manner are paintings or hangings said to be used in the passage referred to. The authority given for this custom must be allowed to be sufficient to vouch for the existence of the practice in question, to whatever ani- madversions the work itself may be liable in any other point of view. — Border. Ver. 11. And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the en- tering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burnt the char- iots of the sun with fire. The Hindoos believe that the sun is drawn in his course by seven horses, and that the deity sits in his chariot of one wheel, which is driven by Arunah. Thus may be seen the sun and his horses represented in wood, or painted on the hangings which adorn the cars. See, then, the profligacy of the kings of Judah : they gave horses and chariots to the sun as a sign of their attachment to that system of idol- atry, and to procure those blessings which are believed to be 'dispensed by the gods ; for it must be observed, that sneb gifts to the deiiies and their temples are only for the fulfil- ment of some vow for favours received, or for those which are earnestly desired. — Robeiits. By those horses, cannot well be understood, as the grea.er part of modern interpreters maintain, a number of sculp- tured figures of gold, silver, or brass, which had been pre- sented as votive offerings to the heathen deity. The words of the sacred historian certainly refer to living horses for he simply states, that Josiah " took away the horses that .he kings of Judah had given, or dedicated to the sun :" but had the figures of horses been intended, the clause, to corres- pond with the common manner of the sacred writers, must have run in these terms, He took away the horses of gold, of silver, or of brass; for in this way the molten calf of Aaron, the serpent of Moses, and the lions and oxen of Solomon, are distinguished in scripture from the real ani- mals. Nor had he distinguished in one statue the horses from the chariot; nor assigned to them a particular Mali, n between the temple and the house of Nathan-melech ; because they were parts and appendages of the same gen- eral figure. Besides, the destruction of the hordes was effected by one operation, and the chariots by another; which shows that they were not metallic figures: Josiaj. took away, or (as the verb is rendered in other parts) de- stroyed the horses, but he burned the chariots in the fire. These horses were given or dedicated to the sun, to be offered in sacrifice to that luminary, according to soni 298 2 KI wt iters; or kept in honour of Baal, or Apollo, as others imagine. The Jewish writers allege that the priests of the sun 'led them forth at the dawn, with great pomp, into a large area, between the temple and the house of Nathan- melfich, to salute their god, as soon as he appeared above the horizon. — Paxton. Ver. 21. And the king commanded all the peo- ple, saying, Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of the covenant. 22. Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah. To those who may wonder how Jerusalem could receive snch multitudes, as were obliged by the Jewish law to attend there three times a year, and as we know did sometimes actually appear in it, I would recite the account that Pitts gives of Mecca, the sacred city of the Mohammedans, and the number of people he found collected together there, for the celebration of their religious solemnities, in the close of the seventeenth century. This city, he tells us, he thought he might safely say, had not one thousand families in it of constant inhabitants, and the buildings very mean and ordinary. That four caravans arrive there every year, with great numbers of people in each, and the Mohamme- dans say, there meet not fewer than seventy thousand souls at these solemnities ; and that though he could not think the number quite so large, yet that it is very great. How such numbers of people, with their beasts, could be lodged and entertained in such a little ragged town as Mecca, is a question he thus answers: " As forfhouseroom, the inhab- itants do straiten themselves very much, in order at this time to make their market. And as for such as come last, after the town is filled, they pitch their tents without the town, and there abide until they remove towards home. As for provision, they all bring sufficient with them, except it be of flesh, which they may have at Mecca ; but all other provisions, as butter, honey, oil, olives, rice, biscuit, ccc. they bring with them as much as will last through the wilder- ness, forward and backward, as well as the time they stay at Mecca; and so for their camels they bring store of prov- ender, &c. with them." The number of Jews that assem- bled at Jerusalem at their passover, was much greater: but had not Jerusalem been a much larger city than Mecca is, as in truth it was, yet the present Mohammedan practice of, abiding under tents, and carrying their provisions and bedding with them, will easily explain how they might be accommodated. Josephus says, that in one year the num- oer of lambs slain at the passover amounted to five hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred, and that ten men at least ate of one lamb, and often many more, even to the number of twenty. Taking therefore the number of per- sons at the lowest computation, i. e. ten to one lamb, there must have been present this year at Jerusalem, not less than two million five hundred and sixty-five thousand persons ! — Harmer. Ver. 30. And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepul- chre. And the people of the land took Jehoa- haz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead. fGS. Chap. 25. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 7. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zede- kiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon. This was probably done with the intention ol rendering the king incapable of ever reascending the throne. Thus it was a law in Persia down to the latest time, that no blind person could mount the throne. Hence the barbarous cus- tom, common at the time of Chardin, and even since, of depriving the sons and male relations of a Persian king, who are not to be allowed to attain the government, of then sight. Down to the time of Abbas, who reigned in 1642, this was done, according to Chardin, only by passing a red-hot copper plate before the eyes. " But the power o! vision was not so entirely destroyed, but that the pcrsi n blinded still retained a glimmering; and the operation wss frequently performed in so favourable a manner, that Mill some sight remained. During the reign of Abbas II., one of the brothers of that prince once visited his aunt and his nephew, whose palace joins the residence of the Dutch : as he expressed a wish to visit these strangers, they were informed of this, and they were invited to spend an after- noon, and take supper with them. The brother of the king brought several other blinded princes with him, and when candles were introduced, it was observed that they were aware of it. They were asked if they saw any thing. The king's brother answered in the affirmative, and added, that he could see enough to walk without a stick. This was unfortunately heard by one of the court spies, who were employed to watch all'the motions of the great people. According to the custom of these people, he related it to the king in a malicious manner, and so that he could not avoid being uneasy. 'Howl' cried he, ' these blind peo- ple boast they can see % I shall prevent that ;' and imme- diately he ordered their eyes to be put out in the manner above described. This "is performed by entirely putting out the eyes with the point of a dagger. The Persians," continues Chardin, "consider their policy towards the children of the royal family, as humane and laudable; since they only deprive them of their sight, and do not put them to death, as the Turks do. They say that it is allow- able to deprive these princes of their sight, to secure the tranquillity of the state ; but they dare not put them to death for two reasons ; the first is, because the law forbids to spill innocent blood ; secondly, because it might be possible that those who remained alive should die without children, and if there were no other relations, the whole legitimate fami- ly would become extinct." — Rose.vmuller. Ver. 30. And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life. The other guests were arranged round the room, accord- ing to their "respective ranks : among whom was an old man, a lineal descendant of the Seffi family, whom they called Nawab, and who took his seat next to the Ameen- ad-Dowlah. Although needy and without power, he is always treated with the greatest respect. 2 Sam. ix. 1. 7. He receives a daily sursat, or allowance, from the king, which makes his case resemble that of Jehoiachin, for his, allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, adailv rate, all the days of his life. 2 Kings xxv. 30 Giving to the Nawab a high rank in society, is illustrative of the precedence given to Jehoiachin, by setting his throne above the throne of the kings that were' with him in Bab- ylon.—Morusr. THE FIRST BOOK OF CHRONICLES CHAPTER II. Ver. 34. Now Sheshan had no sons, but daugh- ters: and Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whoso name was Jarha. 35. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife, and she bare him Attai. The usages of the East differ very much from those of the West, with relalion to the more than kind treatment of taken notice of in explaining passages of holy writ, I do not know; but I believe the gathering up together, and presenting thein in one view to my reader, will be a sort of novelty. They marry their slaves frequently lo their daughters, and that when they have no male issue, and (hose daughters are what we call great fortunes. That Hassan .of whom Mnillei gives a long account in his eleventh letter, ami who was kiaia of the Asaphs of Cairo, that is to say, the colonel of four or five thousand men who go under that name, was the slave of a predecessor in that office, the famous Kamel, and married his daughter: " for Kamel," says he, "accord- ing to the custom of the country, gave him one of his daughters in marriage, and left him, at his death, one part of the great riches he had amassed together in the course of a longhand prosperous life." What Sheshan then did, was perhaps not so extraordinary as we may have imagined, but perfectly conformable to old eastern customs, if not to the arrangements of Moses ; at least it is, we see, just the same with what is now practised. — Harmer. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 39. And they went to the entrance of Gedor, even unto the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks. 40. And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet, and peaceable ; for they of Ham had dwelt there of old. Our people, who are extremely watchful over their pub- lic pastures, to guard them from intruders, and so ready lo go to law with their next neighbours about their right to common, or the number of beasts they shall feed there, may think it very strange that Abraham and Lot, the Ken- iles and Rechabites, should have been permitted to move up and down, and feed their flocks and nerds unmolested, in inhabited countries as well as in deserts. But this ancient custom still continues in Palestine, which, depopulated as it is, probably has as many inhabitants in its towns, as it had in the days of Abraham. Nor is this pe- culiar to Palestine ; there' are many that live in Barbarv, and other places, in the same manner* And as the Kenites and Rechabites lived in Palestine in tents, and pastured their cattle there without molestation, when the country was very populous, so Maillet assures us, that great numbers of these people that live in tents, come into Egypt itself to pasture their cattle, a very populous country," and indeed the Holland of the Levant. As I do not know his account has ever appeared in English, I will here give it to the reader: — " Besides these native inhabitants of Egypt, who have fixed habitations, and compose those numerous and popu- ous villages of which I have spoken above, there are also in that part of the country that is next the deserts, and even often in those that border on the Nile, a sort of wandering people, who dwell in tents, and change their habitation, as the want of pasture or the variety of the seasons lead them. These people are called Bedouin Arabs; and we may Some keep on the mountains, and at a distance from the cities and villages, but always in places where il is easy for them to have water. Others pilch their tents, which ale very low and poor, in the neighbourhood of places that are inhabited, where they permit them for a small recompense lo feed their flocks. ' They even give them up soire lands to cultivate for their own use, only to avoid having any mis- understanding with people, who can do a gre mischief without any danger of having it returned upon them. For to avoid everything of this kind, they have nothing to do but to penetrate a day's journey into the des- erts, where, by their extreme frugality, and by the knowl- edge they have of places of water, they can subsist several months without great difficulty. There is not a more pleas- ing sight in the world, than the beholding, in the months of November, December, and January, those vast meadows, where I he grass, almost as high as a man, is so thick that a bullock laid in it has enough of it without rising, within his reach, to feed on for a whole day, all covered with habi- tations and tents, with people and herds. And indeed H is at this time of the year that the Bedouins flock into Egypt, from three or four hundred leagues distance, in order lo feed their camels and horses there. The tribute which they require of them for granting this permission, they pay with the produce of some manufactures of their wool, or with some sheep, which they sell, as well as their lambs, or some young camels, whicti they dispose of. As to what remains, accustomed as they are to extreme frugality, they live on a little, and a very small matter is sufficient for their support. After having spent a certain space of time in the neighbourhood of the Nile, they retire into the deserts, from whence, by routes with which they are acquainted, they pass into other regions, to dwell there in like manner some months of the year, till the return of the usual season calls them back to Egypt." We see here that they are at liberty to feed their cattle, not only in the deserts adjoining to cultivated countries, but in those countries themselves, and in those that are full of people too. The commons then of these countries are not, cannot be, appropriated to this or that village, this or that district, but lie open to all, nor have they any notion of our rights of commoning. It was so anciently in Israel, as appears by the case of the Kenites and Rechabites, as well as by that ancient constitution among the Jews, ascri- bed by them to Joshua, and which is the first of ten that are supposed to have been established by him, by which it was lawful to feed a flock in the woods, everywhere, without any regard to the division of the lands between the tribes, so "that those of the tribe of Naphtali might feed a flock in the woods of the tribe of Judah. These usages are ex- tremely contrary to ours; the observing tnerefore that they continue still in full force in the East, may be requisite to engage us to admit such suppositions, in settling the Old Testament history, as we might otherwise hardly be willing to allow. — Harmer. CHAPTER V. Ver. 10. And in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagarites, who fell by "their hand : and they dwelt in their tents throughout all the east land of Gilead. The shepherds are not the only class of people that live in tents; many Orientals forsake their villages at the ap- proach of summer, for the more airy and refreshing shelter which they afford. This custom, which may be traced tc an antiquity very remote, explains, in the most satisfactory manner, an incident in the history of Jacob. When the patriarch, in consequence of a divine admonition, had formed the resolution to return from Mesopotamia to bin 300 1 CHRONICLES. Chap. 9- father's house, he sent for Rachel and Leah to his flocks, and there informed them of his design ; and on their con- senting to go with him, he set out upon his journey so silently, that Laban had no notice of it till the third day after his departure. It appears, however, that he carried all his effects with him, and tents for the accommodation of his family; and that Laban', who pursued him, had tents also for the use of his followers. The reason is, it was the time of sheep-shearing, when the masters and all their re- tainers commonly lived under tents in the open fields; and had the greater part, if not the whole of their furniture with them, on account of the entertainments which were given on these joyful occasions. Thus was Jacob equipped at once for his journey, and Laban for the pursuit. It is not more difficult to account for the intelligence not reaching Laban till the third day after Jacob's escape. Laban's flocks were in two divisions — one under the care of Jacob, the other committed to the care of Laban's sons, at the distance of three days' journey; and Jacob's own flock, tinder the management of his family, were, probably for the same reason, at an equal distance. Besides this, there might ' of the it necessary to state ; the fact is certain, and all the incidents of the story are natural and easy: The custom of living in tents was not confined to people in the country ; persons of distinction often retired from the towns into the fields, and lived tinder tents during the heats of summer. Tahmasp, a Persian monarch, used to spend the winter at Casbin, and to retire in the summer three or four leagues into the country, where he lived intents at the foot of Mount Alou- vent, a place famed lor its cool and pleasant retreats. His sueces-.ors acted in the same manner, till the time of Abbas the Great, who removed his court to Ispahan. — Paxton. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 18. (Who hitherto waited in the king's gate eastward:) they were porters in the companies of the children of Levi. This gate was so called, because Solomon built it and the rest of the wall on that side, at an extraordinary trouble and expense, raising the foundation four hundred cubils, or seven hundred and twenty-nine feet seven inches from the bottom of the deep valley of Kidron, by means of large stones, twenty cubits, or thirty-six feet five inches long, and six cubits, or ten feet ten inches high, so as to be on an equality with the rest of the surface. When Captain Light visi.ed Jerusalem, in 1814, some of these large stones seem to have been remaining, for when describing the Turkish aga's house, which is built on the spot where the house of Pontius Pilate formerly stood, he says, " what attracted my observation most, were three or four layers of immense s'ones, apparently of the ancient town, forming part of the walls of the palace." The ancients delighted in building wi;h these large kinds of stones, for in the ruins which we have of ancient buildings, they are often to be found of great magnitude. Mr. Wood, in his Ruins of Palmyra and Balicc, states, "that the stones which compose the sloping wall of the latter are enormous ; some are from twenty-eight to thirty-five feet long, and nine feet high. There are three of the following dimensions : fifty-eight feet high, and twelve thick ; they are of white granite, with large shining flakes like gypsum." At Bagdad, the gate Al'Talism is " now bricked up, in honour of its having been entered in triumph by the Sultan Murad, after his having recovered Bagdad from the Per- sians, and the weak grasp of the unworthy son of the great Abbas. In consequence of this signal event, the portal was .nslantly closed on the victor having marched through, and from that day has never been reopened. This custom of shutting up any passage that has been peculiarly honoured, that it may not be profaned by vulgar footsteps, appears to have prevailed very generally over the East. I found an instance of it at Ispahan, where the Ali Copi gate is, in like manner, held sacred for a similar reason." (Sir R. K. Por- ter.)-BuHD£B. CHAPTER X. Ver. 9. And when they had stripped him, they took his head, and his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about to carry tidings unto their idols, and to the people. After Saul had fallen on Mount Gilboa, his enemies "stripped him, and took off his head, and sent the tidings to their idols." When the heathen of the present day gam a victory over their enemies, they always take the tidings to their idols. There is the king, and -there his general, and troops, and priests, and people, marching in triumph to the temple. Then they relate to the gods all their proceed- ings ; how they conquered the foe, and that to them they have come to give the glory. But this practice is had re- course to, also, in the common affairs of life. A man de- livered from prison, or anv great emergency, always goes to his gods, to carry the joyful tidings. Hear them relate the story: " Ah ! Swamy, 5;ou know Muttoo wanted to ruin me ; he therefore forged a deed in my name, and tried to get my estates ; but I resisted him, and it has just been de- cided before the court, that he is guilty. I am therefore come to praise you, O Swamy!" — Roberts. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 4 1 . Uriah the Hittite, Zabad the son of Ahlai. Foreigners resident in the country were permitted to serve in the Jewish armies, and they sometimes rose to a very high rank; for both Uriah and Ittai, who seemed to have held principal commands in the armies of David, were aboriginal Canaanites. But in succeeding ages, the kings of Judah, affecting to imitate the policy of the sur- rounding potentates, or distrusting the omnipotent protec- tion of Jehovah, occasionally hired large bodies of foreign troops to fight their bailies, who, like mercenaries of later times, after expelling the invaders, sometimes turned their arms against their employers, and ravaged the country which they came to protect.— Paxton. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 8. And of the Gadites there separated them- selves unto David, into the hold to the wilder- ness, men of might, and men of war Jit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces icere like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains. See on 2 Sam. 2. 18. Ver. 15. These are they that went over Jordan in the first month, when it had overflown all his banks; and they put to flight all them of the valleys, both towards the east and towards the west. See on Josh. 3. 15. Ver. 40. Moreover, they that were nigh them, even unto Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen; and meat, meal, cakes of figs, and bunches of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep abundantly: for there was joy in Israel. The strong and docile ox was also .taught to submit his shoulder to the heavy burden ; for, at the accession of David to the throne of Israel, the people brought " bread on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen." He is less fitted, indeed, by the rotundity of his form, for this spe- cies of labour, than for those just mentioned. But although the very back of the ox, according to this elegant writer, declares that it has not been formed to receive a load, yet the concurring testimony of past ages assures us that it is not altogether unfit for that purpose. jElian observes, that the bull submits to the bier, and carries a boy or a girl on his neck, and a woman on his back. The Roman authors mounted Bacchus on a bull, and made Europa travel in the same manner. These facts prove, that it was by no means uncommon to use the ox for burdens of every kind, and even for the saddle ; a custom which Mr. Bruce avers, is still practised among some trihes. In Guzerat the oxen Chap. 17—21. 1 CHRONICLES. SOI are perfectly while, with black horns, a skin delii and eyes rivalling those of the antelope in brilliant lusiie. Those reared in ihe northern pari of the province are no- ble animals, superior in size, strength, ami docility ; some of them travel with a hackery, a vehicle for the convey- ance of women and children, from thirty to forty miles B dav. ami are yoked to the carriages of wealthy Hindoos in of India. In sweetness of temper ue^s of manners Ihev nearly resemble ihe elephant. Some of these oxen are valued at nearly two hundred pounds sterling. — Paxton. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 16. And David the Icing came and sat be- fore the Lord, and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto ? The ceremonial of the Orientals does not end with the introduction of persons to one another, but continues during the whole visit. The most scrupulous attention is paid by all parties to the established tokens of respect; the posture of the body, the part of the room, and other circumstances, are all regulated by custom, to whose imperious dictates they have "implicitly submitted from the remotest antiquity. One of the postures by which a person testifies his respect for a superior, is by sitting upon his heels, which is consid- ered as a token of great humility. In this manner, says Dr. Pococke, resting on their hams, sat the attendants "of the English consul, when he wailed on the caia of the pacha of Tripoli. It was in this humble posture, probably, that David, the king of Israel, sat before the Lord in the sanctuary, when he blessed him for his gracious promise concerning his family; half sitting and half knee to rest the body upon the heels. This entirely renin', es ilie ground of perplexity, which some expositors have felt, in their attempts to elicit a meaning from the phrase, sitting before the Lord, at once consistent wilh the majesty of Je- hovah, and the humility of the worshipper ; for this attitude expressed among the Orientals the deepest humility, and by consequence, was every way becoming a worshipper of the true God. — Paxton. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 9. Now when Ton king of Hamath heard how David had smitten all the host of Hada- rezer king of Zohah, 10. He sent Hadoram his son to King David, to inquire of his welfare, and to congratulate him, because he had fought against Hadarezet, and smitten him ; (for Hada- rezer had war with Tou ;) and urith him all manner of vessels of gold and silver and brass. Here, again, we have a beautiful and simple picture of eastern manners. Tou, the heathen king, sent a messenger to compliment David on his success over his enemies. Who, in the East, has not witnessed similar things 1 Has a man sained a case in a court of law; has he been blessed by the birth of a son; has he given his daughter in mar- riage ; has he gained a situation under government ; has he returned from a voyage or a journey, or finished a success- ful speculation ; — then his friends' and neighbours send messengers to congratulate him — to express the joy they feel in his prosperity; "so much so, that, had it come to themselves, their pleasure could not have been greater." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 1. And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. See on 2 Sam. 24. 1. Ver. 5. And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thou- sand men that drew sword ; and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword. i - in history are more surprising than the great nuiiil.i]. which are recorded as forming eastern armies, . lipture accounts of the armies that invaded Ju. I. a, hi were raised in Judea, often excite the wonder ot . To parallel these great numbers by those ol oilier armies, is nut all that i- acceptable to the inquisitive ; n is requisite also to show how so small a province as the Holy Land really was, could furnish such mighty armies of lighting men ;' with the uncertainty of the proportion ol these lighting men to the whole number tf ihe nation ; in respect to winch nianv unfounded conjectures have escaped the pens of ihe learned. Tins includes more importance than may be at first sight attached to it, because it is well known that Joseplms, in narrating the same facts, often gives different numbers. In the story of Alujah, 1 Kings XT. 5, we read in some MSS. 40,000, instead of 400,000. The Question is, which is wrong 1 since it has been concluded that both could not be right. Besides this, the answers to those who question the possibility of the Holy Land main- taining so great a population as ihe armies mentioned im- plies, have usually taken the proportion which Europe fur- nishes of fighting men to the mass of its inhabitants ; and very erroneous conclusions (as I conceive) have been drawn from such calculations. It must be admitted, that the passages in which numbers are expressed in all ancient writings, and by parity of reason, in the scriptures, seem, more than many others, to justify suspicion of error in our present copies ; and to understand them correctly requires much attention and information ; especially when such numbers are very great. Having premised this, I proceed to attempt two particulars : first, by instances of numerous armies which hare been occasionally raised, to show wha: man be done by despotic power, or the impulse of military glorv ; second!)/, to show that the composition of Asiatic armies is such'as may render credible those numbers which express their gross amount ; while no just inference re- specting the entire population of a country can be drawn from the numbers stated as occasionally composing its ar- mies. As to the first particular, the acc'ountsof the armies of Semiramis, of Darius.andof Xerxes, are in everybody's hands, but as these are not without suspicion of having been enlarged, either purposely by misreport, or acciden- lallv bv errors in copvists, I decline them; and rather sub- mit'to ihe reader's attention the account given by Knolles in his " History of the Turks," of the contending armies of Bajazel and Tamerlane. It is no bad specimen of the " I will" of military power, of the cares and anxieties at- tending on the station of command, and of the feelings of great minds on great occasions. " So, marching on, Tamerlane at length came to Bachi- chich, where he staid to refresh his army eight daies, and there againe took a generall muster thereof, wherein were found (as most write) fmir hundred thousand horse, and six hundred thousand fool) or, as some others that were there present aflirme, three hundred thousand horsemen, and Jive hit ml red thousand foot of a! nations. Vnto whom he there gaue a generall pay, and, as his manner was, made vnto them an oration, informing them of such orders as he would haue kept, to the end they might the better obserue the same : with much other militarie discipline, whereof he was very curious wiih his captains. At which time, also, it was law'full for euery common soldier to behold him with more boldness than en other daies, forasmuch as he did for that lime, and such like, lay aside his imperial majestie, and Shew himselfe more familiar vnto them " Page 215. . . ." Malcozzius hauing made true relation vnto Baiazet, was by him demanded ' whether of the two armies he thought bigger or stronger V for now Baiazet had assembled a mightie armie of three hundred thousand men, or, as some report, of three hundred thousand horsemen and tiro hundred thousand foot. Whereunto Malcozzius, hauing before cra- ued pardon, answered, ' That it could not be, but that Tamerlane might in reason haue the greater number, for that he was a commander of farre greater countries.' Wherewith proud Baiazet offended, in great choller replied. ' Out of doubt, the sight of the Tartarian hath made this coward so affraid. that he thinkelh euery enemie lo be two." 216 " All which Tamerlane, walking this night vp and down in his cainpe, heard, and much reioiceti .! 302 1 CHRONICLES. Chap. 22—26. hope ihat his soldiers had alreadie in general conceiued of the victorie. Who afler the second watch returning vnto his pauillion, and there casting himself upon a carpet, had thought to haue slept awhile ; but his en res not suffering him so to do, he then, as his manner teas, called/or a booke, wherein was contained the Hues of his fathers and ancestors, and of other valient worthies, the which he rscd ordinarily to read, as he then did: not as therwith vainly to deceiue the time, but to make vse thereof, by the imitation of that which was by them worthily done, and declining of such dangers as they by their rashness or ouersight lei into." Page 218 [Vide the same kind of occupation of Ahasuerus, Esther vi. 1.] . . ." My will is," said Tamerlane, " that my men come for- ward vnto me, as soon as they may, for I will aduance for- ward with an hundred thousand footmen, fiftie thousand vpon each of my two wings, and in the middest of them forty thousand of my best horsemen. My pleasure is, that after they haue tried the force of these men, that they come vnto my avauntgard, of whom I wil dispose, and fifty ttwusand horse more in three bodies, whom thou shaft command: which I wil assist with 80,000 horse, wherein shal be mine own person : halting 100,000 footmen behind me, who slial march in two squadrons: and for my arereward I appoint 40,000 horse, and fiftie thousand footmen, who shal not march, but to my aid. And I wil make choice of 10,000 of my best horse, whom I wil send into euery place where I shal thinke needfull within my armie, for "to impart my commands." (Knolles's History of the Turks, page '21H.) [It is impossible, on this occasion, not to recollect the im- mense army led by Napoleon Bonaparte into Russia, ex- ceeding six hit nd red thousand troops; .also the forces engaged around Leipsie, amounting (including both sides) to half a million of men. Vide Literary Panorama, for Novem- ber, 1813.] It may be said, " Such mighty empires may well be supposed to raise forces, to which the small state of Jtidea was incompetent ;" and this may safely be admitted. But what was, in all probability, the nature and composition of the Jewish, as of other eastern armies, we may learn from the following relations, which contribute to strengthen the credibility of the greater numbers recorded as composing them. I shall first offer what Baron De Tott reports of the armies raised by the chain of the Crimea; and then, as still more descriptive of Asiatic armies, especially of those raised on the spur of an occasion, the remarks of M, Volney: " It maybe presumed that the rustic, frugal :ife, which these pastoral people lead, favours population, while the wants and excesses of luxury, among polished nations, strike at its very root. In fact, it is observed, that the people are less numerous under the roofs of the Crimea, and the province of Boodjack, than in the tents of the No- guais. The best calculation we can make, is from a view of the military forces which the chain is able to assemble. We shall soon see this prince raising three armies at the same time ; one of a hundred thousand men, which he com- manded in person ; another of sixty thousand, commanded by the calga ; and a third of forty thousand, by the noo- radin. He had the power of raising double the number, without prejudice to the necessary labours of the state. " The invasion of New Servia, which had been de- termined on at Constantinople, was consented to in the assembly of the grand vassals of Tartarv, and orders were expedited, throughout the provinces, for the necessary military supplies. Three horsemen-were to be furnished by eight families, which number was estimated to be sufficient for the three armies, which were all to begin their operations at once. That of the nooradin, consisting of forty thou- sand men, had orders to repair to the Little Don ; that of the calga, of sixty thousand, was to range the left coast of the Boristhenes, till they came beyond the Orela ; and that which the cham commanded in person, of a hundred ihou- tand, was to penetrate into New Servia." (De Tott.) " Sixty thousand men, with them, are very far from being synonymous with sixty thousand soldiers, as in our armies. That of which we are now speaking affords a proof of this; it might amount, in fact, to forty thousand men, which may be classed as follows : — Five thousand Mamlouk cav- »lry, which mas tie whole effective army; about fifteen hun- dred Barbary Arabs, on foot, and no other infantry, for the Turks are acquainted with none ; with them the cavalry is every thirg. Besides these, each Mamlouk having in his suite two footmen, armed with slaves, these would form a body of ten thousand valets, besides a number of servants and serradgis, or attendants on horseback, for the bey and kachefs, which may be estimated at two thousand : all the rest were sutlers, and the usual train of followers. Such was this army, as described to be in Palestine, by persons who had seen and followed it. The Asiatic armies are mobs, their marches ravages, their campaigns mere inroids. and their battles bloody frays. The strongest, or the I'.osl adventurous party, goes in search of the other, which not unfrequently flies without offering resistance : if they stind their ground, they engage pellmell, discharge their car- bines, break their spears, and hack each other with their sabres ; for they rarely have any cannon, and when tl ey have, they are but of little service. A panic frequently diffuses itself without cause: one party flies, the other pur- sues, and shouts victory; the vanquished submits to the will of the conqueror, and the campaign often terminates without a battle." (Volney.) It appears, by these extracts, that the nnmbers which compose the gross of Asiatic armies are very far from de- noting the true number of soldiers, fighting men, of thai army ; in fact, when we deduct those whose attendance is of little advantage, it may be not very distant from truth, if we say, nine out of ten are such as, in Europe, would be forbid the army ; nor is the suggestion absolutely despica- ble, that when we read 40, instead of 400, the trtie fighting corps of soldiers only are reckoned and stated. However that may be, these authorities are sufficient to justify the possibility of such numbers as scripture has recorded, being assembled for purposes of warfare; of which purposes plunder is not one of the least, in the opinion of those who usually attend a camp. It follows, also, that no conclusive estimate of the population of a kingdom can be drawn from such assemblages, under such circumstances; and therefore, that no calculation ought to be hazarded on such imperfect data.— Taylor in Calmet. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 19. Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God: arise, therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the. Lord God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the holy vessels of God, into the house that i? to be built to the name of the Lord. In all heathen temples, there are numerous vessels of brass, silver, and gold, which are especially holy. Those, however, of the highest castes, may be allowed to touch, and even borrow them for certain purposes. Thus, a native gentleman, who is going to give a feast, borrows the large caldron for the purpose'of boiling the rice ; should his daughter be about to be married, he has the loan of the silver salvers, plates, and even jewels ; which, however, must all be purified by incense and other ceremonies when returned to the temple. " The ark" finds a striking illus- tration in the keadagam of the Hindoos,— a model of which may be seen in the house of the Royal Asiatic Society. In it are placed the idols, and other sacred symbols, which are carried on men's shoulders. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXVI. Ver. 6. Also unto Shemaiah his son were sons born, that ruled throughout the house of their father:- for they were mighty men of valour. It has been a frequent complaint among learned men, that it is commonlv difficult, and oftentimes impossible, to illustrate many passages of the Jewish history, referred to in the annals of their princes, and in the predictions of their prophets, for want of profane historians of the neighbouring nations, of anv great antiquity ; upon which I have been ready to think, that it might hot be altogether vain to com- pare with those more ancient transactions, events of a later date that have happened in those countries, in nearly simi- lar circumstances, since human nature is much the same in all ages, allowing for the eccentricity that sometimes arises from some distinguishing prejudices of that particular time. The situation of the Christian kings of Jerusalem, in particular, in the twelfth century, bears, in many respects, i ciii;(>\!('u:s. a strong resemblance toihatof the kings of Juilali; and the history of tliL- crusades may servo to throw some' light mi lions o£ the Jewish princes. At lee paring Ihem together may be amusing. It is said of King Uzziah, 1 Chron. xxvi. (J, that " he went forth and warred agaiu-t the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built Cities about Ashdod and among the Philistines." Thus we liinl, in die tune of the crusades, when that ancient city of the Philistines, called Ashkclon, had frequently made in- roads into the territories of the kingdom of Jerusalem, the I'htis'ians built two strong castles not far from Ashkelon; and finding the usefulness cf these structures, Bans Fulk, ing of the year of our Lord llo*. ;,.i, ,,, patriarch of Jerusalem and his other pi build another castle, called Blanche Gvtarda, which he garrisoned with such soldiers as he could depend upon, furnishing them with arms and provisions. 'II iple of Ashkelon, often defeated their attempts, ml :iines Ihev did not content themselves with being on the defensive, 'but attacked them, and did them great mischief, gaining the advantage of them. This occa- sioned those who claimed a right to the adjoin i I by the neighbourhood of such a si i to build many villages, in which many families dwelt, concerned in tilling the ground, and raising pro\ iskhs for Other parts of their territories. Upon this the people of Ashkelon, finding themselves encompassed round by a number of inexpugnable fortresses, began to grow very un- easy at their situation, and to apply to Egypt for help by repeated messages! Exactly- in the same manner we may believe (Jzziah Duilt cities about Ashdod, that were fortified to repress the excursions of its inhabitants, and his people the fertile pastures which lay thereabout ; and which pastures, I presume, the Philistines claimed, and indeed all the low land from the foot of the mountains to the sea, but to which Israel claimed a right, and of a part of which this powerful Jewish prince actually look j ses- sion, and made settlements for his people there, which he •litis guarded from the Ashdodites: " He built < Ashdod, even among the Philistines," for so I would ren- der the words, as the historian appears to be speaking of the same cities in both clauses. Uzziah did more than King Fulk could do, for he beat down the walls not only of 3ath and Jabneh, two neighbouring cities, hut of Ashdod itself, which must have cut off all thoughts of their disturb- ing the Jewish settlers, protected by strong fortresses, when they themselves lay open to those garrisons. Ashkelon, on the contrary, remained strongly fortified, by fortresses built by the Christians.— Harmer. Ver. 13. And they cast lots, as well the small as the great, according to the house of their fa- thers, for every grate. 14. And the lot east- ward fell to Shelemiah. Then for Zechariah his son (a wise counsellor) they cast lots, and his lot came out northward. 15. To Obed- edorn southward; and to his sons the house of Asuppim. 16. To Shuppim and Hosah the lot came forth westward, with the gate Shal- lecheth, by the causeway of the going up, ward against ward. Thus the gates were assigned to the different officers by lot. On the death of a parent, the whole of his fields and gardens are often divided among his children, and great Sisputes generally arise as to whom shall be given this or thai par) of the property. One says. " I will have the field to the eas'." " Nn," says another, " I will have that :" and it is not till they have quarrelled and exhausted their store of ingenuity and ahuse, that they will consent to settle the matter by lot. The plan they take is as follows: they draw on the ground the cardinal points: they then write the names of the parties on separate leaves, and mix ihem all together: a little child is then called, and told to take one leaf and place it on any point of the i this being done, the leaf is opened, and to the person whose name is found therein will be given the field or garden which is in that direction. I think H therefore probable, thai the lo's eastward, westward, northward, and southward, v Inch fell to Shelemiah, Zechariah, Obed-edom, and Shuppim, were dinwn something in the same way. — ROBERTS. Ver. 27. Out of the spoils won in battles did they dedicate to maintain the bouse of the Lord. According to the law of Moses, the booty was to be dil ul, ,1 equally between those who were ill the battle, and were in the c p, whatever disparity there might be in the number of each party. The law further requires, that out of that part of the spoils which was :, !■ I to the fighting men, the Lord's Bhare should be ■ il loi e\ei\ live hundred men, oxen, sheep, &c. they were to lake one for the high-priest, as being the Lord's first-fruits, and out of the other moietj b to the children of Israel, they were to give for every fifty men, oxen, sheep, &c. one to the Leviies. Among the Greeks and Romans the plunder was brought together into one common stock, and divided afterward among the offi- cers and soldiers, paying some respect to their rank in the distribution. Sometimes the soldiers made a reserve of the I the booty, to present, by way of compliment, to their respective generals. The gods were always remem- bered. And the priests had sufficient influence to procure them a handsome offering, and other acceptable presents. — BlHDER. CHAPTER XXVII. Ver. 25. And over the King's treasures iras Az- maveth the son of Adiel : and over the store- houses in the fields, in the cities, and in the villages, and in the castles, was Jehonathan the son of Uzziah. Subterranean granaries were common in the East. The following is a detailed account of those now used by the Moors: — After the harvest they used to enclose their corn in subterraneous granaries, which are pits dug in the earth, where the corn is preserved for a considerable time. This custom is very ancient, and ought to be general in all warm countries, inhabited by wandering people. To secure the corn from moisture, they line these pits with straw, in pro- portion as they fill them, and cover them with the same ; when the granary is filled, they cover it with a stone, upon which they put some earth in a pyramidal form, to dis- perse the water in case of rain. Amongthe wealthier part, the fathers commonly fill one granary at the birth of each child, and empty it at their marriage. I have seen corn preserved in this, manner during five-and-twenty years. It had lost its whiteness. When by motives of convenience, or by an imperial order, the Moors are obliged to change their habitations, not being able to carry their grain with them, they leave over these granaries a mark of stones heaped together: they have much trouble in finding them again. It is the custom now to observe the earth at the rising of the sun, when a thick vapour ascends from them : they then discover the granary, upon which the sun has a marked etfect, on account of the fermentation of the corn which is shut up. — Bchder. Ver. 28. And over the olive-trees, and the syca- more-trees that were in the low plains, was Bnal-hanan the Gederite : and over the cellars of oil was Joash. When our translation represents Joash as over the cellars of oil. in the time of King David, 1 Chron. xxvii. 28, they have certainly without any necessity, and perhaps improp- erly, substituted a particular term for a general expression, Joash was at that time, according to the sacred historian, over the treasures of oil ; but whether it was kept in cellar*. or in some other way, does not at all appear in the original history. The modern Greeks, according to Dr. Richard Chandler, do not keep their oil in cellars, but in large earthen jars, sunk in the ground, in areas before thei- The custom might obtain among the Jews : asthei it was needless, it must be improper to use the parliculat term cellars, when the original uses a word of the mos! general signification. It is certain they sometimes buried their oil in the earth, in order to secrete it in times of dan 501 1 CHRONICLES. Chap. 29. ger, on which occasion they must be supposed lo choose the most unlikely places, where such concealment would be least suspected, in their fields; whether they were wont to bury it, at other times, in their courtyards, cannot be so easily ascertained. — Harmer. The Egyptians are not the only people to whose palate the fruit of the sycamore is agreeable ; Hasselquist, the Swedish traveller, found it very grateful to the taste ; he describes it as soft, watery, and sweetish, with something of an aromatic flavour. The fruit of this tree comes to maturity several times in a season ; according to some wri- ters not fewer than seven times, although prolific figs, or such as are perfectly formed, ripen only once. Thus the sycamore produces a fresh crop of agreeable, and not un- wholesome fruit, seven times a-year, fir the use of those that dwell under its shadow ; a boon which perhaps no other tree in the garden of Nature bestows on man. Nor is it a dangerous or a laborious task to gather the figs ; they seem to have so little hold of the parent tree, that " if Ihey be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.'" The disposition of the fig-tree to part with her untimely or precocious figs, is noticed by John, in the book of Revela- tion : " And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind." This accounts for the appointment of a particrfiar officer in the reign of David, whose sole duty it was to watch over the plantations of sycamore and olive'- trees : " And over the olive-trees and the sycamore-trees that were in the low plains, was Baalhanan the Gederite." So valuable was the sycamore in the land of Canaan, during the reign of David, (from which undoubtedly may be inferred the high estimation in which it was held in every age,) that, in the commission of Baalhanan, the offi- cer charged with its protection, it is joined with the olive, one of the most precious gifts which the God of nature has bestowed on the oriental nations. Hasselquist found the sycamore growing in great numbers in the plains and fields of Lower Egypt, which verifies the accuracy of the inspired writer ; and 'it appears from the same traveller, that the olive delights in similar situations; for, in his journey from Jaffa to Rama, he passed through fine vales abounding with olive-trees. — Paxton. Ver. 30. Over the camels also was Obil the Ish- maelite: and over the asses was Jehdeiah the Meronothite. Natural historians mention two varieties of this animal, the domestic and the wild ass; but it is to the former our attention at present is to be directed. His colour is >gener- ally a reddish brown j a circumstance to which he owes his name in the Hebrew text; for (-"ion) hamor is derived from a verb which signifies to be red or dun. This ap- pears to have been the predominating colour in the orien- tal regions ; but we learn from the song of Deborah, that some asses were white, and on this account reserved for persons of high rank in the state. The term (Win) olfion is another name for that creature, from a root which signi- fies to be firm or strong ; because he is equal to a greater load than anv animal of the same size. To this qualitv Jacob alluded in his last benediction : " Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens." Or, it may re- fer to the stubborn temper for which he is remarkable, and the stupid insensibility which enables him to disregard the severest castigation, till he has accomplished his purpose. These qualities are beautifully described by Homer, in the 11 th book of the Iliad; but the passage is too long to be quoted. In the patriarchal ages, the breed of this animal, which we r'-gard with so much unmerited contempt, was greatly encouraged, and constituted no inconsiderable portion of wealth among oriental shepherds. It is on this account the number of asses in the herds of Abram, and other patri- archs, is so frequently stated by Moses, in the book of Gen esis. So highly were they valued in those times of primi- tive simplicity, that they were formed into separate droves, and committed to the management of princes, and other persons nt distinction. The sacred historian informs us, that Anab, a Horite prince, did not think it unbecoming his dignity to feed the asses of Zibeon his father: and that the sons of Jacob seized the asses of Shechem and his peo- ple, and drove them away, with the sheep and the oxen. During the seven years of famine that wasted the land of Egypt, and reduced the people to the greatest distress, Jo- seph purchased their asses, and gave them corn to pre- serve them alive. When the people of Israel subdued the Midianites, they carried away "threescore and one thou- sand asses." In times long posterior, Saul, the son of Kish, was sent in quest of his father's asses, which had straved from their pasture; and he was engaged in this service when the prophet Samuel received a command to anoint him king over Israel. After David's accession to the throne, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies, he appointed Jehdeiah the Meronothite, a prince in Israel, to superintend this part of his property. Nor was this animal unworthy of such attention and care. His humility, pa- tience, and temperance, qualities in which he greatly excels, eminently fitted him for the service of man. His great value was soon discovered, and he was preferred even to the horse, for many domestic purposes. The sons of Jacob employed him to carry burdens of every kind; and he seems to have been the only quadruped they took with them in their repeated journeys into Egypt, to purchase corn for their households; and their descendants continued for many ages to employ him in the same manner. The fruits of the field, the produce of the vineyard, provisions and merchandise of all kinds, were carried on the backs oi asses. He was long used for the saddle in the oriental regions , and persons of high rank appealed in public, mounted on this animal. Those which the great and wealthy selected for their use, were larger and more elegant animals than the mean and unshapely creature with which we are ac- quainted. Dr. Russcl, in his history „f Aleppo, mentions a variety of the ass in Syria, much larger than the common breed; and other travellers say, that some of them in Per- sia are kept like horses for the saddle, which have smooth hair, carry their heads well, and are quicker in their mo- tions than the ordinary kind, which are dressed like horses and taught to amble like them. — Paxton. CHAPTER XXIX. Ver. 24. And all the princes, and the mighty men, and all the sons likewise of King David, submitted themselves unto Solomon the king. The Hebrew has, for submitted, " Gave the hand under.'' To give "the hand under," is a beautiful orientalism to denote submission. See the man who wishes to submit to a superior; he stands at a short distance, then stooping, he keeps movine his hands to the ground, and says, " I submit, my lord." "You recollect having heard that Kandan and Chinnan had a serious quarrel'!" — "Yes, I heard it."— " Well, they have settled the matter now, for Chinnan went to him last evening, and ' gave his hand under.' " " The Modeliar is no longer angry with me, because 1 have put down my hand to the ground." " That rebellions son has, for many'years, refused to acknowledge his father's authority, but he has at last put his hand under," i. e. he has submitted to him — has become obedimt.— Roberts. (See Engraving.) THE SECOND BOOK OF CHRONICLES CHAPTER I. Ver. 16. And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn; the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price. See on 1 Kings 10. 28. CHAPTER V. Ver. 12. Also the Levites, which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being array- ed in white linen, having cymbals and psalte- ries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets. No person in Greece and Italy appeared at an entertain- ment in black, because it was a colour reserved for times of mourning, but always in white, or some other cheerful colour, winch corresponded with the joyous nature of the occasion. Such were the garments of salvation in which the people of Israel celebrated their festivals, or entertained their friends. When Solomon brought up the ark of the Lord from the city of David, and placed it between the cherubim in the most holy place, the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and Jeduthun, and their brethren, who conducted the songs in the temple, stood at the east end of the altar, arrayed in vestures of fine linen, the chosen emblem of purity and joy. The few faithful witnesses that remained ,n Sardis, and had not defiled their garments, were prom- ised the distinguishing honour of walking with their Sa- viour in white. And to encourage them in their steadfast adherence to the cause of God and truth, it is added, " He that overcomeih, the same shall be clothed in white raiment." On the mount of transfiguration, the raiment of Christ became white as the light ; and in the same garb of joy and gladaess the angels appear at his resurrection. — PlXTON. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 28. If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting, or mildew, locusts, or caterpillars : if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land ; whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there he. We arc so little acquainted with the various species of destructive insects that ravage the eastern countries, that it maybe thought extremely difficult to determine what kind was meant by Solomon, in his prayer at the dedication of the temple, 2 Chron. vi. 28, bv the'word (Vrn) chased, which our version renders caterpillars, and which is distin- guished by him there from the locusts, which genus is so remarkable for eating up almost every green thing: but a passage of Sir John C'hardin may probably illustrate that part of Solomon's address to him whom he considered as the God of universal nature. The paragraph of Solo- mon's prayer is this: When, heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee ; if thett pray towards this place, &c If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting', mildeir, locusts, or if'thcre be caterpillars ; if their enemies besiege them in the land of their xties, &c Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling- place, and forgive and da, &c. The causes of famine, reckoned up here, are want of rain, blasting, mildew, lo- custs, and caterpillars, according to our translation: with which maybe compared the following passage of Chardin, 39 in the second tome of his Travels: "Persia is subject to i.i-., i: !' - . , >.ird by hail, by drought, or by insects, either locusts, or small insects, which tiny call san, which arc small while lice, which fix themselves on the foot ol the stalk of corn, gnaw it, and make it die. It is rare for a year to be exempt from one or the other of these a inch affect the ploughed land and the gar- dens, Sic. 'rheciiuincralii.il by Solomon, and that of this modern writer, though not exactly alike, yet sonearl] re- d be seinlile ' ither, that nirliii'-d In believe the-e small inserts are what Solomon meant, by the word translated caterpillars in our English version. — Habmkr. CHAPTER VII Ver. 13. If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people. A term used by the sacred. writers to signify the locust, is(=sn)A«gni, w hich our translators render sometimes locust and sometimes grasshopper. They translate it locusts in the following passage: " If I shut up heaven that there he no more ram, or if i command the locusts (hagab) to de- vour the land, or if I send a pestilence among my people : if my people shall humble themselves and pray unto me, and seek my lace, then will 1 hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and heal their land." "We cannot reasonably doubt that the word, in this place, denotes the locust, for tins decla- ration was made in answer to Solomon's prayer at the dedica- tion of the temple, that if the heaven should be shut up, and I here should be no rain ; or if there should be famine, pesti- lence, blasting, m if lew, locust, or caterpillar, then Got! would hear them when they spread forth their hands towards thai holy place. It must also be remembered, that the grass- hopper is an inoffensive animal, or noxious in a very slight degree, and therefore by no means a proper subject for deprecation in the temple. This circumstance also shows, that the Hebrew term here does not mean the cicada, as some writers have supposed ; for though the noise which they make is extremely disagreeable and disturbing, as Chandler complains, it is not an insect so distressing to the Orientals, as to admit the idea that it was a sub emn prayer at the dedication. To disturb the slumbers of the weary traveller, or the toil-worn peasant, and to devour the frails of the earth, and plunge the inhabitants - try into all the horrors of famine, are evils of a very differ- ent magnitude. Ha sab is rendered grasshopper in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes; and the circumstances, it must be confess- ed, harmonize with the character of those creatures; for it will be readily admitted that their chirping must be dis- agreeable to the aged and infirm, that naturally love quiet, and are commonly unable to bear much noise. But it is more probable that hagab denotes the locust, which is pro- veibially loquacious. They make a very loud, screaking, and disagreeable noise, with their wings; if one begin, others join, and the hateful concert becomes ui paii^e then ensues, and, as it were, on a signal given, it again commences; and in this manner they continue squall ins for two or three hours without intermission. Mi. Harmer is of- opinion, that hagab onsht to be rendered lo- i ust iti this passage too, because it becomes a burden by its depredations, and desire fails; that is, every green thing disappears, and nature puts on the semblance of universal deadness: and such is the affecting appearance Df the human body in extreme old age: it resembles a tree which the lo- cust has stripped of it- leaves, has deprived of its bark, and left naked and bare, to wither in the blast, and moulder, by degrees, into the dust from whence it rose. The interpre- tation is ingenious; but the common meaning seems to bt know whether this may not give us a truer view oi Chap. 28. 2 CHRONICLES 309 (he design of lliose lowers that Uzziah built in the wilder- ness, mentioned 2Chron. xxvi. 10, than commentators have (lone, who have supposed they were conveniences made for sheltering the shepherds from bad weather, or to defend them from the incursions of enemies ; for they might rather be designed to keep the nations that pastured there in awe ; to prevent their disputing with his servants about wells, and also'to induce them quietly to pay that tribute to which the seventh and eighth verses seem to refer.— Harmer. Ver. 15. And he made in Jerusalem engines, in- vented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal : and his name spread fin abroad : for he was marvellously helped till he was strong'. The batteringram was an engine with an iron head, re- sembling the head of a ram, with which they beat down the enemies' walls. Of this, Putter mentions three kinds ; the first was plain and unartificial, being nothing but a long beam with an iron head, which the soldiers drove with main force against the wall; the second was hung with ropes to .'inoiljri In am, by the help of which they thrust it forward with much greater force; the third differed from the former only in being covered with a testudo, or shroud, to protect the soldiers that worked it from the darts of the enemy. The beam was sometimes no less than a hundred arid twenty feet in length, and covered with iron plates, lest those who defended the walls should set it on fire ; the head was armed with as many horns as they pleased. Josephus reports, that one of Vespasian's rams, the length of which was only fifty cubits, which came not up to the size of sev- eral of the Grecian rams, had a head as thick as ten men, and twenty-five horns, each of which was as thick as one man, and placed a cubit's distance from the rest ; the weight, hung (as was customary) upon the hinder part, was no les/> than one thousand and "five hundred talents; when it was removed from one place to another, it was not taken in pieces ; a hundred and fifty yoke of oxen, or three hundred pair of horses and mules/laboured in drawing it; and no less than fifteen hundred Tien employed their utmost strength in forcing it against the walls. At other times, we find these rams driven upon wheels. Such was the formidable engine, of which the prophet warned the inhabitants of nnd which, in the hands of the Romans, levelled at last the walls of that proud metropolis with the ground. To this may be added, various engines for.easting arrows, ■larts, and stones of a larger size; of which the most re- markable was the balista, which hurled stones of a size not less than millstones, with so great a violence as to dash whole houses in pieces at a blow. Such were the engines which Uzziah, the king of Judah, planted on the walls and towers of Jerusalem, to defend it against the attacks of an invading force: " And he made in Jerusalem engines, in- vented by cunning men, to be on the towers, and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal." Some of 'hese inventions, however, had been in use long before ; for in the reign of David, the batteringram was employed in the siege of Abel-Bethmnachah : " They cast up a bank against the city, and it stood in the trench ; and all the peo- ple that were with Joab battered the wall to throw it down." These powerful engines, invented by Jewish artists, and worked bv the skill and vigour of Jewish soldiers, were undoubtedly the prototypes of those which the celebrated nations of Greece and Rome afterward employed with so much success in their sieges.— Paxton. Ver. 23. So Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to the Icings; for they said, He is a leper : and Jotham his son reign- ed in his stead. The kings and princes of the oriental regions are often subjected to trial after their decease by their insulted and oppressed people, and punished according to the degree of their delinquency. While the chosen people of God "ere accustomed to honour in a particular manner the memory of those kings who had reigned over them with justice an 1 clemency, they took care to stamp some mark of posthumous disgrace upon those who had left the world under their dis- approbation. The sepulchres of the Jewish kings were at Jerusalem; where, in some appointed receptacle, the re- mains of their princes were deposited; ancf fron cumstance of these being the cemetery for successive rulers, it was said when one died and was buried there, that he was gathered to his fathers. But several instances occur in the history of the house of David, in which, on various ac- counts, they were denied the honour of being entombed with their ancestors, and were deposited in some other place in Jerusalem. To mark, perhaps, a greater degree of cen- sure, they were taken to a small distance from Jerusalem, and laid in a private tomb. Uzziah, who had, by his pre- sumptuous attempt to seize the office of the priesthood, which was reserved by an express law for the house 01 Aaron, provoked the wrath of heaven, and been punished for his temerity with a loathsome and incurable disease. " was buried with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings; for they said, He is a leper.'' It was undoubtedly with a design to make asuitable impres- sion on the mind of the reigning monarch, to guard him against the abuse of his power, and teach him respect for the feelings and sentiments of that people for whose benefit chiefly he was raised to the throne, that such a stigma was fixed upon the dust of his offending predecessors. Fie was, in this manner, restrained from evil, and excited to good, according as he was fearful of being execrated, or desirous of being honoured after his decease. This public mark of infamy was accordingly put on the conduct of Ahaz : " They buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem, but they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel.' — Paxton. CHAPTER XXVIII. Ver. 27. And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem: but they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israei . and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead. The Israelites were accustomed to honour in a peculiar manner the memory of those kings who had reigned over them uprightly. On the contrary, some marks of | osthn- mous disgrace followed those monarchs who left the world under the disapprobation of their people. The proper place of interment was in Jerusalem. There, in some appointed receptacle, the remains of their princes were deposited: and, from the circumstance of this being the cemetery for successive rulers, it was said, when one died and was so buried, that he was gathered to his fathers. Several instan- ces occur in the history of the kings of Israel, wherein, on certain accounts, they were not thus interred with their predecessors, but in some other place in Jerusalem. So it was with Ahaz, who, though brought into the city, was not buried in the sepulchres of the kings of Israel.' In some other cases, perhaps to mark out a greater degree of cen- sure, they were taken to a small distance from Jerusalem. It is said that Vzziah vas buried vith his fathers in the fuld of the burial vhich belonged to the kings : for thai said, Be is a leper. (2 Chron. xxviT 23.) It was doubtless with a de- sign to make a suitable impression on the minds of their kings while living, that such distinctions were made after their decease. They might thus restrain them from evil or excite them to good, according as they were fearful et being execrated, or desirous of being honoured, when they were dead. The Egyptians had a custom in some measure similar to this ; it was however general as to all person-, though it received very particular attention, as far as it concerned their kings. ' It is thus described in Franklin's Histoni of Ancient and Modern F.evpt; " As soon as a man was dead, he was brought to his trial. The public accuser was heard. If he proved that the deceased had led a bad life, his memory was condemned, and he was deprived oi the honours of sepulture. Thus, that sage people were affected with laws which extended even be von d the grave, and every one, struck with the disgrace 'inflicted on the dead person, was afraid to reflect dishonour on his own memory, ,ind that df his family. But what was singula/, the sovereign himself was not exempted from this public inquest upon his death. The public peace was interested 310 EZ in the lives of their sovereigns in their administration, and as death terminated all their actions, it was then deemed for the public welfare, that they should suffer an impartial scrutiny by a public trial, as well as the most common sub- ject. Even some of them were not ranked among the hon- oured dead, and consequently were deprived of public burial. The Israelites would not suffer the bodies of some of their flagitious princes to be carried into the sepulchres appropriated to their virtuous sovereigns. The custom was singular: the effect must have been powerful and in- fluential. The most haughty despot, who might trample on laws human and divine in his life, saw, by this solemn investigation of human conduct, that at death he also would be doomed to infamy and execration." What degree of conformity there was between the prac- tice of the Israelites and the Egyptians, and with whom the custom first originated, may be difficult to ascertain and decide, but the conduct of the latter appears to be founded on the same principle as that of the former, and as it is more circumstantially detailed, affords us an agreeable ex- planation of a rite but slightly mentioned in the scriptures. — Burder. CHAPTER XXXII. Ver. 3. He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains, which were without the city ; and they did help him. 4. So there was gathered much people tog-ether, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water 1 That stream which flowed from Siloam is, I presume, the brook that Hezekiah speaks of, which in the time of the crusades was not attempted to be stopped up. What the cause of that was we are not told, but it seems the waters of some springs without the city were conveyed into Jerusalem at the time; and that Solomon in his reign had attempted to do the like, and had effected it: as to part of the water of the springs of Bethlehem, it was no wonder then that Hezekiah should think of introducing the waters of Siloam in like manner into the city, in order at once (o deprive the besiegers of its waters, and benefit the inhabit- ants of Jerusalem by them. Probably it was done in the same manner that Solomon brought the waters of Bethle- | tA'. Chap. 4. hem thither, that is, by collecting the water of the spring or springs into a subterraneous reservoir, and from thence, by a concealed aqueduct, conveying them into Jerusalem, with this difference, that Solomon took only part of the Bethlehem water, leaving the rest to flow into those cele- brated pools which remain to this day ; whereas Hezekiah turned all the water of Siloam into the city, absolutely stopping up the outlet into the pool, and filling it up with earth, that no trace of it might be seen by the Assyrians. Which seems indeed to be the account of the sacred writer, 2 Chron. xxxii. 30, " The same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, (which is another name for Siloam,) and brought it straight down to the west side ol the city of David." Thus our translators express it: but the original may as well be rendered, " Hezekiah stopped the upper going out (r-mo molsa) of the waters of Gihon, and directed them underneath, (ncos lemaltah,) to the west of the city of David ;" and so Pagninus and Anas Montanus un- derstand the passage ; he stopped up, that is, the outlet of the waters of Gihon into the open air, by which they were wont to pass into the pool of Siloam, and became a brook ; and by some subterraneous contrivance directed the waters to the west side of Jerusalem.— Harmer. Ver. 5. Also he strengthened himself, and built up all the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another wall without, and repaired Millo in the city of David, aud made darts and shields in abundance. See on 2 Sam. 5. 9. Ver. 8. With him is an arm of flesh : but with us is the Lord our God, to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested them- • selves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah. The margin has, for rested upon, " leaned." " I lean (from sanikiriilhu) on the words ' f that good man." " All people gladly lean on the words of 'hat just judge." "Who would lean on the words of that fa.se man 1" " Alas ! we leaned upon his words, and have fallen into trouble." "My husband, have I not leaned upon your words 1 Yes, and therefore I have not fallen." — Roberts. EZRA. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 14. Now, because Ave have maintenance from the king's palace, and it was not meet fqr us to see the king's dishonour, therefore have we sent and certified the king. Literally, " salted with the salt of his palaee." Some have supposed that (he words refer to their receiving a stipend from the king of Persia, which was wont to" be paid in salt; others suppose it expresses an acknowledg- ment that they were preserved by that king's protection, as flesh is preserved by salt. And many pieces of collateral learning are introduced to embellish these conceits. It is sufficient, to put an end to all these conjectures, to recite the words of a modern Persian monarch, whose court Chardin attended some time about business. " Rising in wrath against an officer, who had attempted to deceive him, ne drew his sabre, fell upon him, and hewed him in pieces, at the feet of the grand vizier, who was standing, and whose favour the poor wretch courted by this deception. And looking fixedly upon him, and the other great lords that stood on each side of bim, he said, with a tone of indig- nation, ' I have then such ungrateful servants and traitors as these to eat my salt. Look on this sword, it shall cut off all these perfidious heads.' " (Tome iii. p. 149.) The Persian great men do not receive their salaries, it is well known, in salt; and the officer that was killed was under the immediate protection of the grand vizier, not the prince: our English version has given, then, the sum; though it has not literally translated the passage. It means the same thing as eating one's bread signifies here in the West, but, perhaps, with a particular energy. I 1 eg leave to introduce one remark here, of a very different nature, that we may learn from this story, that Samuel's hcwir.g Agagin pieces, though so abhorrent from our customs, dif- fers very little, in many respects, from this Persian execu- tion. Samuel was a person of high distinction in Israel: he Chap. 5—8. EZB \ Iiad been their judge, or supreme governor under God ; he was a prophet too; and we are ready I" thiiii. I lid not have been employed in the ;■■ OUngofbl ml. How strange would '11 be in oui eyes, if we ■ m' of our kings culling oil' the head of a I rail or with his OWO hands; OI in archbishop of Canterbury stab- bing a fueign captive prince ! But different eounti ies have eul usages. Soliman, king of Persia, who liew- ijhful officer in pieces, reigned over a much : icher country than Judea, and at the same lime : icd by Ills subjects as sacred a person as Sain osed to f>e descended from their p; ad ined; to reign by a divine constitution, and to be possi ssed. we are assured by this writer in another place, of a kind of ■netration and authority. — 1 have said, it appears o signify the same thing as eating one's bread, in thi W i I bly, with some particular kind of energy, mark- -i merely the obligations of gratitude, DUl the ies Of fidelity. For as the letter was written not only by some of the great officers on the western side oi the Euphrates, bat in the name of the several colonii pie that had been transplanted thither, the Dinaites, the Apharsathehites, the Tarpelites, Sec ver. 9, 10, it h; not to be supposed these tribes of people all received from the palace, or a stipend for their support; but with great adulation they might pretend they considered them- selves as held under as strong engagements of fidelity to ■■I' Persia, as if thev had eaien salt in his palace. The following story from D'Herbelot will explain tins, if the views of these ancient Persians may be supposi d to cor- respond with those of the Persians of the ninth century. Jacoub ben Laith, the founder of a dynasty of Persian princes called the Soffarides, rising, like many other of the ancestors of the princes of the East, from a very low slate to royal power, being in his first setting out in the use of arms no better than a freebooter or robber, is yet said to have maintained some regard to decency in his depreda- tions, and never to have entirely stripped those that he r b- bed, always leaving them something to soften their alllic- tton. Among other exploits that are recorded of him, he is said to " have broken into the palace of the prince of that country, and having collected a very large booty, which he ■ ; ojnt of carrying away, he found his foot kick- ed s.iiirihing, which made him stumble. He imagined it might be something of value, and putting it to his mouth, to distinguish what it was, his tongue soon in- formed him it was a lump of salt. Upon this, according to the morality, or rather superstition of the country, where the people considered salt as a snmbol and pledge of hospi- talil.i, he was so touched, that he left all his booty, retiring without taking away ahv thing with him. The next morn- ing, the risk they had run of losing many valuable things, being perceived,' great was the surprise,' and strict the in- quiry, what should be the occasion of their being left. At length Jacoub was found to be the person concerned, who having given an account, very sincerely, of the whole transaction to the prince, he gained his esteem so effectual- Iv, that it might be said with truth, that it was his regard for sail that laid the foundation of his after fortune. The prince employed him as a man of courage and genius in many enterprises, and finding him successful in all of them, he raised him, bv little and little, to the chief posts among his troops, so that at that prince's death, he found himself possessed of the command in chief, and had such interest in their affections, that they preferred his interests to those of the children of the deceased prince, and he became abso- lute master of that province, from whence he afterward spread his conquests far and wide." When the Aphar- sathehites, the Tarpelites, and the other transplanted tribes, told Artaxerxes, the Persian monarch, that they were sail- ed with the salt of his palace, it appears, according to il things, to mean, that thev considered themselves as eating his bread, on account of being put and continued in pos- session of a considerable part of the Jewish Country, by him and his predecessors; and that their engagements of fideli- ty to him were indeed as strong, as if they had eaten salt in his palace. — Harmer. CHAPTER V. Ver. 7. They sent a letter unto him, wherein was written thus: Unto Darius the kirn:, all peace. The people of the East are always very particular as to the way in which tbey commence a letter. Thus, they nk ol the individual to whom the] write, and keep in view also what is their object. .iio are respected by kings." "To Mm who has the happiness ,,i naaln." -To the feet of his ex- CclletlCV, my father, looking lowaids the place wllcle la' is worshipping, 1 wnte.'' A lather to his son says, " Head of all blessings, chief of life, precious pearl." Wh( B | eo- eh other on the road, they say, " Salam, peace to you." Or, whan they send a message, or ask a favour, il is always accompanied by a salani.— Roberts. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 2. And there was fo 1 at Axhmetha, in the palace thai is in the province of the Modes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written. This passage proves the great antiquity of the custom of . ,i. ■■ io be dep.isiied in the archives, i ,f the impor- tant ordinances of the magistrates, and particularly of , -.'ranted either to individuals or whole coniinu- lities Tiros, in an inscription marble, uoied bv Thomas Smith, it is said of a privilege granted t ,t a separate sepulchre, "Of this inscription two copies have been made, one of which is deposited in the archives." In the same manner, elsewhere, " A copy of this inscription shall be deposited in the archives." — Rosf.nmuu.er. Ver. 11. Also I have made a decree, that who- soever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house, and, being set up, let him be hanged thereon. Lud. de Dieu observes, that there is no proper construc- tion in the words which we render, and being si I ip; la- would therefore translate them, after the Seventy, "and standing, let him be beat upon it," or " whipped, as the manner was among the Persians and other nations. Among the Jews, they who were beaten, did not stand, but lay- down. Deut. xxv. 2. If a greater punishment be here meant, then he makes the first words refer to the wood, and the latter to the man. " And from above, let it fall upon him :" that is, the stake being lifted up, shall be stuck into his bod)', and come out at his fundament. This was a cruel practice among the eastern people, and is yet con- tinued there. — Burder. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 21. Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance The whole valley was covered with the tents of the pil- grims; for a very few, compared with their numbers, could find lodgings in the building. These several en- campments, according to their towns cr districts, were placed a little apart, each under its own special standard. Their cattle were grazing about, and the people who attended them, in their primitive eastern garbs. Women appeared, carrying in water from the brooks, and children were sporting'at "the tent doors. Towards evening, this pious multitude^to the number of eleven hundred at least, began their evening orisons, literally shouting iheir prayers, while the singing of the hymns, responded by iheyec'hoes from the mountains, was almost deafening. At intervals, during the devotion, matchlocks, muskets, and pistols, w en repeatedly fired, division answering division, as if il wen some concerted signal. This mixture of military and religions proceeding, produced aft effect perfectly novel to a European eye, in the nineteenth century; though it might have been more than sufficiently familiar to that ol a knight-companion in the thirteenth, when the crusade covered every hauberk with a pilgrim's amice. But the recollection of what country I saw ihese in, conjured up a very different image. I was in ihe land of the Medes, 00 Ot to which the 'en tribes were brought in cap tivitv about two thousand years ago; and from which, in the fulness of lime, the scattered remnants wen (after the first return, B. C. 536, by command of Cyrus,) and leiP back to their na'ive land, on the decree ol Arta- 312 E2 xerxes the king, when Ezra gathered ihern together to the river that runneth to Ahava, and there they abode in their tents three days : and he viewed the people and the priests. And he proclaimed a fast there, that they might afflict themselves before God, to seek of him a right way for them, and for their little ones, and for their substance. And the Lord was entreated of them, and he delivered them from the i.and of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way. And Ezra, and those with him, came to Jerusalem. We see in this account, from the book of Ezra, chap. viii. that the wild tribes of the mountains were then regarded as banditti ; and that no decrees of safe-conduct from the king would have more effect in those days, than in the present, to protect a rich caravan from ambuscade and depredation. But I must own, there are some points of observation in the encampment before me, which a little disturbed the resemblance between its holy grouping, and that which followed the really pious ordinance of the sa- cred scribe of Israel. The Mohammedan evening prayer over, all was noise of another description; bustle and riot- ous merriment, more like preparations of a fair, than a worship ; showing at once the difference in spirit between the. two religions. In the one, the moral law walked hand in hand with the ceremonial ; and the mandate of wor- shipping the one God, in purity of heart, and in strictness of practice, was unvaryingly asserted in the chastisement or welfare of the people ; and so we see it was acknowl- edged by the seemly and humble joy under pardon, with which the recalled Israelites returned to the land of their temple. But here the performance of certain rites seemed to be all in all. The preachers of the multitude holding forth, that as they advance nearer to the shrines of their pilgrimage, so in due proportion their sins depart from them ; and thus every step they approach, the load becomes lighter and lighter, t'ill the last atom flies off the moment ! before the tomb of the prophet, or saint : and from which holv spot they rise perfectly clear, free, and pmsir often too willing to commence a new score, to be as readily wiped away.— Sir R. K. Porter. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 3. And when I heard this thing-, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonished. Oriental mourners divested themselves of all ornaments, and laid aside their jewels, gold, and every thing rich and splendid in their dress. The Grecian ladies were directed in this manner to mourn the death of Achilles : " Not clothed in rich attire of gems and gold, with glittering silks or purple." This proof of humiliation and submis- sion Jehovah required ot his offending people in the wil- derness: "Therefore, row put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Horeb." Long after the time of Mn^es, that rebellious nation again received a command of similar import : " Strip you, and make you bare, and gird sack- cloth upon your loins." — Paxtov. Ver. 6. And said, O my God ! I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God : for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. " Ah, that fellow's sins are on his head : how LA. Chap. 9, 10. are the sins on his head. Alas ! for such a head as that. Who can lake them from his head 1 His iniquity is so great, you may see it on his head." Does a man wish to extenuate his crime, to make himself appear not so great a sinner as some suppose, he asks, " What ! has my guilt grown up to heaven 1 no ! no !" " Abominable wretch, your guilt has reached to the heavens." " Can you call that little, which has grown up to the heavens 1" — Roberts. Ver. 8. And now for a little space grace hath" been showed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, ana give us a little reviving in our See on Isa. 22. 23. The margin has, " or a pin," that is, " a constant and sure abode." It is worthy oi notice, that the Tamul trans- lation has it, " a hut in his holy place." To " lighten" the eyes signifies to give comfort, to strengthen, to refresh. A father says to his son, when he wishes him to do any thing, " My child, make these eyes light." " O woman, enlighten my eyes, lest I be swallowed up with sorrow." " O that our eyes were clear! who will take away the darkness from m} eyes V — Roberts. CHAPTER X. Ver. 1. Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himsell down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congrega tion of men, and women, and children : for tfit people wept very sore.- People on their arrival from England are astonished at the apparent devotion of the Hindoos, when they see them cast themselves down before their temples. Those of high rank, and in elegant attire, do not hesitate tnus to prostrate themselves in the dust, before the people. How often, as you pass along, may you see a man stretched his full lengi*h on the ground, with his face in the dust, pouring out his complaint, or making his requests unto the gods. It mat- ters not to him who or what may be near him ; he heeds not, and moves not, ti'l his devotions are finished. — Roberts. Ver. 9. Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jerusalem within three days: it was the ninth month, and the twentieth day of the month ; and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain. What a marked illustration we have of this passage every wet monsoon. See the people on a court-day, or when they are called to the different offices on business. The rain comes on ; they have only a piece of cotton round their loins, and a small leaf, which they carry ever their heads: they all run in a stooping position (as if that would save them from the rain) to the nearest tree, and there they sit in groups, huddled together, and trembling " for the great rain."— Roberts. NEHEMIAH. CHAPTER I. Ver. 11. O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name ; and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man: for I was the king's cup- bearer. Hoobigant supposes that Nehemiah repealed this prayer, which he had often before .used, now again in silence, while he administered the cup to the king m his office. The oiiicc of cupbearer was a place of great honour and in the Persian court, because of the privilege which it gave him who bare it, of being daily in the king's presence, and the opportunity which lie had thereby of gaining his favour, for procuring any petition he should make to him. That it was a place of great advantage seems evident bv Nehemiah's gaining those immense riches which enabled him for so many years, out of his own purse only, to live in his government with great splendour and expense, without burdening the people. According to Xenophon, the cupbearer with the Persians and Mcdcs used to take the wine out of the vessels into the cup, and pour some of it into his left hand, and drink it, that if there was any poison in it, the king might not nc hurt ; and then he delivered it to hira upon three fingers. — Burher. CHAPTER II. Ver. 2. Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick ? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. When friends, servants, or acquaintances, have a request to make, or a secret to disclose, they walk about with a gloomy countenance, and never speak but when spoken to. Their object is to induce you to ask what is the matter, because they think you will then be disposed to listen to thei Aomplaint. — Roberts. Ver. 7. Moreover, I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may con- vey me over, till I come into Judah. No person of consequence travels in the East without a letter, or kattali, i. e. a command from the Rasa, the gov- ernor, the collector, or officer in authority, to the different chiefs of the districts through which he may have to travel. Were it not for this, there would often be a difficulty in getting supplies, and there would generally be a great' de- lay; trie officers would be insolent and overbearing, and the purveyors would demand thrice the sum the articles were worth. The letters in question are generally in duplicate, so that one precedes the traveller, and the other is in his possession. Thus, when he arrives at the choultry or rest-house, there will always be people to receive hiiri, who are readv to furnish him wi:h supplies, and coolies to help him on his journey. Sometimes they declare they are in the greatest want ; they cannot get rice, they have neither fish nor fowls, and are brought to the lowest ebb of misery. — Roberts. Ver. 8. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. The hand is sometimes taken in an ill sense for inflict- ing punishments, and sometimes in a good sense, for we extend favours to men with the hand. Thus Drusius ex- plains Psalm lxxxviii. 5, cut off from thy hand, that is, fall- en from thy grace and favour. Pindar thus uses tin h„n,i of Coil, for Ins help and aid, 8n> oiv iraX.ijia, by ' ('.'<«/: which the scholiast interprets, by the power and help of God. Thus Nehemiah is here to be understood. — Bir- DEB. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 3. Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall. When men deride the workmanship of a mason, they say, " Che! why, if a dog or a jackal run against that wall, it will fall." "'A wall ! why, it will not keep out the jack- als."— Roberts. Ver. 14. And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remem- ber the Lord which is great and terrible, and fio-ht for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses. The ancients appear to have done more to excite the valour of their soldiers, than merely exhorting them to be courageous. This will appeaf in the following citation: " A circumstance which greatly tends to inflame them with heroic ardour, is the manner in which their battalions are formed. They are neither mustered nor imbodied by chance: they fight in clans, united by consanguinity, a family of warriors : their tenderest pledges are near tlicui in the field. In the heat of the engagement, the soldier hears the shrieks of his wife, and ihe~eries of his children. These are the darling witnesses of his conduct; the ap- plauders of his valour, at once beloved and valued. The wounded seek their mothers and their wives: undismayed at the sight, the women count each honourable scar, and suck the gushing blood : they are even hardy enough to mix with the combatants, administering refreshment, and exhorting them to deeds of valour." (Tacitus, Ve Mor. Germ.)— Bcrder. Ver. 21. So we laboured in the work: and half of them held the spears, from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared. Thus did the people labour from the earliest dawn till the latest glimpse of evening light. "Well, Tamby, have vou found your cattle V " Found them "\ no ! and 'I wan- dered from the rising east, till the stars appeared." "At what time do you intend to leave the temple V " Not till the star? appear." "When do you expect the guests 1" " Immediately when the stars appear." — Roberts. CHAPTER V. Ver. 13. Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out and emptied. When men or women curse each other, they shake the lap, i. e. their cloth, or robe, and say, " It shall be so with thee." Does a man begin to shake his sail, orwaistcloth.in the presence of another, the other will say, "Why do you shake your cloth here? eo to some other place." "What! can you shake your lap here 1 do it not, do it not." " Yes, yes;' it is all true enough; this misery has come upon m« through that wretched man shaking his cloth in my pres- 314 NEHEMIAH. Chap. 5. ence." The natives always carry a pouch, made of the leaf of the cocoa, or other trees, in their lap ; in one part of which they keep their money, and in another their areca- nut, betel leaf, and tobacco. It is amusing to, see how careful they arc never to have thai pouch empty; for they have an idea, that so long as a single coin shall be found in it, (or any of the articles alluded to,) the attraction will be so great, that the contents of the ponchwill not be long without companions. See the Englishman, who wants any thing out of a pouch or bag; if he cannot soon find the ar- ticle he requires, he shakes out the whole: not so the Hin- doo ; he will fumble and grope for an hour, rather than shake out the whole. "Do that! why, who knows how long the pouch will remain empty 1" It is therefore evi- dent, that to shake the lap conveyed with it the idea of a curse. — Roberts. Instead of the fibula that was used by the Romans, the Arabs join together with thread, or with, a wooden bodkin, the two upper corners of this garment; and after having placed them first over dne of their shoulders, they then fold Ihe rest of it about their bodies. The outer fold serves them frequently instead of an apron, in which they carry herbs, loaves, corn, and other articles, and may illustrate several allusions made to it in scripture: thus, "One of the sons of the prophets went out into the field, to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered there of wild gourds, his lapful." And the Psalmist offers up his prayer, that Jehovah would " render unto his neighbours seven- told into their bosom, their reproach." The same al- lusion occurs in our Lord's direction to his disciples: "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom." It was also the fold of this the man who ventured to violate his oath, and promise to restore the possessions of their impoverished brethren: " Also, I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performelh not this promise, even thus be he shaken out and emptied." — Paxton. He shook the dust out of the foreskins of his garment, as a symbol of what follows. A similar rite was used in the case of peace and war, when the Roman ambassadors proposed the choice of one to the Carthairinians, a- having either in their bosom to shake out. (Florus, 1. ii. c. 6. Livv, 1. xxi. c. 18.) " When the Roman ambassadors entered tlie senate of Carthage, they had their toga gathered up in their bosom. They said, We carry here peace and war: vou may have which you will. The senate answered, You may give which you please. They then shook their toga, and said, We bring you war. To which all the senate an- swered, We cheerfully accept it." — Border. Ver. 14. Moreover from the time that I was ap- pointed to be their governor in the land of Ju- dah, from the twentieth year even unto the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king-, that is. twelve years, I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor. longed to him as the governor. When they eat the rice of a person, it denotes they are under ob- ligations to him. People who have formerly been em- ployed by yon often come and say, " Ah, my lord, how Img it is since I had the pleasure of eating your rice." Those who are in the service of the government, are said to eat the rice of the king. A servant, who is requested to injure his master, says, "No, no; have I not eaten his rice for many days'?" Of a person who has been faithful to a superior, it is said, " Yes, yes; he has eaten his rice, or he would not have been so true to him." — Roberts. Ver. 15. But the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver ; yea, even their servants bare rule over the people : but so did not I, because of the fear of God. The demanding provisions with roughness and severity by such as travel under the direction of government, or authorized by government to do it, is at this day so prac- tised in the East, as greatly to illustrate several passa- ges of scripture. When the Baron De Tott was sent, in 1767, to the cham of the Tartars, by the French ministry, as resident of France with that Tartar prince, he had a mil.mandar, or conductor, given him by the pacha of Kot- chim, upon his entering the Turkish territories, whose business it was to precede and prepare the way for him, as is usually done in those countries to ambassadors, and such as travel gratis, at the expense of the porte, or TurK- ish court. This conductor, whose name, it seems, was Ah Aga, made great use of his whip, when he came among the poor Greeks of Moldavia, to induce them to furnish out that assistance and those provisions he wanted for the baron; for though it was represented as travelling at the expense of the porte, it was really at the expense of the inhabitants of those towns or villages to which he came. The baron appears to have been greaily hurt by that mode of procedure with those poor peasants, and would ralhet have procured what he wanted with his monev, which he thought would be sufficiently efficacious, if the command of the inikmandar should not be sufficient without the whip. The baron's account of the success of his efforts is a veiy droll one, which he has enlivened by throwing it into the form of dialogues between himself and the Greeks, and Ali Aga and those peasants, in which he has imitated the broken language the Greeks made use of, pretending not to understand Turkish, in order to make it more mirthful. It would be much too long for these papers, and quite un- necessary for my design, to transcribe these dialogues;, it is sufficient to say, that after the jealousy of the poor op- pressed Greeks of their being to be pillaged, or more heavi- ly loaded with demands by the Turks, had prevented their voluntarily supplying the baron for his money, Ali Aga undertook the business, and upon the Moldavian'- j i. ''end- ing not to understand the Turkish language, he knocked him down with his fist, and kept kicking him while he was rising; which brought him to complain, in go. id Turkish, of his beating him so, when he knew very well they were poor people, who were often in want of necessaries, and whose princes scarcely left them the air they breathed. "Pshaw! thou art joking, friend," was the reply of Ah Aga, "thou art in want of nothing, except of being well basted a Utile oftener; but all in good time. Proceed we to business. I must inslantly,have two sheep, a dozen of fowls, a dozen of pigeons, fifty pounds of bread, four oques of butter, with salt, pepper,' nutmeg, cinnamon, lemons, wines, salad, and good oil of olive, all in great plenty." With tears the Moldavian replied, " I have alreadv told you that we are poor creatures, without so much as Bread to eat. Where must we get cinnamon 1" The whip, n seems, was taken from under his habit, and the Moldavian beaten till he could bear it no longer, but was forced to fly, finding Ali Aga inexorable, and that these provisions must be produced; and, in fact, we are told, the quarter of an hour was not expired, within which time Ali Aga required that these things should be produced, and affirmed to the baron that they would be brought before the primate, or chief of the Moldavians of that town, who had been so se- verely handled, assisted by three of his countrymen ; all the provisions were brought, without forgetting even the cinnamon. May nut this airuiint be supposed to illustrate that pas- sag.' nl Xi'iii.hiali. .'hap. v. 15: The former governors that hod /'.i ■ '.'..- me. e-erc chargeable nolo the people, and hod taken of then, bread and trine, besides forty shekels of silver : yea, even their servants bore role ore? the people : but. so did not I,becav;c of the fear of God. It is evident something oppressive is meant. And that it related to ihe taking bread limn I hem, or eatables in general, togelher with wire, perhaps sheep, fowls, pigeons, butter, fruit, and other things, when probablv thev were travelling, or sojourning in some place at a distance'from home. And that the like impeii- ous and unrighteous demand had, from time to time, been made upon them by the servants of these governors, whom they might have occasion to send about the country. 1 cannot account for the setting down the precise number ol forty, when speaking of shekels, but by supposing that the word besides, here, i-N acher, should have been translated aflcnrard, whicl it more c mmonly, if not more certainly, Chap. 6. NEHEMIAH. 315 signifies; and means, that afterward ihey were wont to this ili-iiiand tor provisions into in \, el, en amounting lo forty shekels. It is certain it would not mean the whole annual allowance to the governor by the children of the captivity ; that would have been much too small ; nor could it mean what every householder was to pay annually towards the governor's support, lor fifty shekels was as much as eaen mighty man of wealth was assessed at by when lie wanted to raise a large sum of money for the km;; of Assyria, and when Israel was not in so low a slate as in the time of Nehemiah : it must then, sure- ly, mean the value of that quantity of eatables and wine they might charge any town with, when single towns wore charged with the support of the governor's table for a sin- gle repast or a single day, which it is natural to suppose Could only be when they thought fit to travel from plate to place. I'll is, it seems, their servants took the liberty too 10 require, when they were sent on a journey. And if they aged to the officers of the king of Persia enforced their requisitions in a manner similar to that made use of by the people belonging to the Turkish governors of prov- serves, with emotion, in this passage, Yea, even their ser- vants bare rule oi rr the people: but so did not 1, because of tile fear of God. — Harmkr. Vet. 17. Moreover, there were at my table a hun- dred and fifty of the Jews and rulers, besides those that came unto us from among the heathen that are about us. IS. Now that which was prepared for me daily was one ox and six choice sheep ; also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine: yet for all this required not I the bread of the gov- ernor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people. Nehemiah calculated the expenses of his table, not by the money he paid, but by the provisions consumed by his guest.-. Such is still the practice in the East. So De la Motraye informs us of the seraglio at Constantinople: '• One may judge of the numbers who live in this palace, by the prodigious quantity of provisions consumed in it yearly, which some of the hattchis, or cooks, assured me amounted to more than 30.000 oxen, 20.000 calves, 00.000 sheep, 10,000 lambs 10.000 kids, 100,000 turkeys, geese, and goslings, '200,000 fowls and chickens, 100,000 pigeons, without reckoning wild-fowl or fish, of the last of which he only named 130,000 calcam-bats, or turbots. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 5. Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me, in like manner, the fifth time, with an open letter in his hand. A letter has its Hebrew name from the circumstance of its being rolled or folded together. The modern Arabs roll up their letters, and then flatten them to the breadth of an inch, and instead of sealing them, paste up thetr ends. The Persians make up their letters in a roll about six inches long, a bit of paper is fastened round it with gum, and sealed with an impression of ink. In Turkey, letters are commonly sent to persons of distinction in a bag or purse ; to equals' they are also enclosed, but to inferiors, or those who are held in contempt, they are sent open or unenclosed. This explains the reason of Nehemiah's observation : " Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me, with an open letter in his hand." In refusing him the mark of respect Usually paid to persons of his station, and treaiing him con- temptuously, by sending the letter without the customary appendages, when presented to persons of respectability, Sanballat offered him a deliberate insult. Had this open letter come from Geshem, who was an Arab, it might have passed unnoticed, but as it came from Sanballat, the gov- ernor had reason to expect the ceremony of enclosing it in a bag, since he was a person of distinction in the Persian cc urt, and at that lime governor of Judea. — Paxtok. Norden tells us, thafwhen he and his company were at Essauen, an express arrived there, despatched by an Arab pi on e, v. ho brought a letter directed to the reys, (or mas- ter of their barque,) enjoining him not to set out with hi3 barque, or cany them any farther, adding, thai in a day's lime he should be at Essauen, and there would give his orders relative to them. "The letter, however, accord- ing to the usage of the Turks," says this author, "was open ; and as the revs was not on board, the pilot carried it to one of our faiL is to read it.* Sanballat his servant, then, with an open letter, which is mentioned Neh. vi. 5, doth not appear an odd thug, it -1 Id seem , but if it was according to their usages, why is ihis ciicuiii- ;l ■ c plained of, as i I Why indeed is it mentioned at all! Why! becau e, however the sending letters open lo common people may be i uslomary in ihese countries, it is no aeeonlmg to illcir usages to send them so to people of distinction. So Dr. Pococke, in : Of that very country where Norden was when us, among other things, in the 57th plate, the figure of a Turkish letter put into a salin bag, to Montague says, the bassa of Belgrade's answer to the Eng- lish ambassador, going to Constantinople, was brought to him in a purse of scarlet satin. The great emir, il deed, of the Arabs, according to D'Arvieux, was not wont to en- close his letters in these hags, any more than to have them adorned with flourishes; but thai is supposed 10 I owing to the impoliteness of the Arabs; and he tells us, that when he acted as secretary to the emir, h these defects, and that his doing so was highly acceptable to the emir. Had this open letter, then, come from Geshem, who was an Arab, it might have passed unnoticed; but as it was from Sanballat, the enclosing it in a handsome bag was a ceremony Nehemiah had reason toexpeci from him. since he was a person of distinction in ihe Persian court, and then governor of Judea ; and the not doing it was the greatest insult, insinuating, that though Nehemiah was, according to him, preparing lo assume the royal dignity, he should be so far from acknowledging him in that charac- ter, that he would not even pay him the compliment due to every person of distinctn n. Chardin gives us a like account of the easlern letters, adding this circumstance, that those that are unenclosed as sent to common peo- ple, are usually rolled up ; in which form iheir paper ; om- moiily appears. A letter in the form of a small roll of pa- per, would appear very odd in our eyes, but it seems is very common there. If this is the true representation of the af- fair, commentators have given but a poor account of it. San- ballat sent him a message, says one of them, " pretend- ing, it is likely, special respect ami kindness unto him, in- forming him what was laid to his charge." So far Mr. Harmer. Contrast with this open letter to Nehemiah the closed, rolled, or folded letter, sent by Sennacherib to Hezekiah, •J Kings lix. 14. We read, verse 9, "He sent messen- gers to Hezekiah, saying" — " And Hezekiah received the [scp/trr] in/, r at the hand of the messenger, and read it : and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord." It was therefore folded or roll- ed, and no doubt enclosed in a proper envelope; and I would not be certain whether this action of taking a letter from its case is not expressed here by ihe word percsh, which signifies to divide, to separate. Consider also the passage, Isaiah xxix. 11: "And the vision shall be to \ a Ihi word of a [sepker, the same as the letter spread by Hezekiah] lelter that is sealed — sealed up in a bag, closely— which is given to a man of learning to read, but he savs, ' It is sealed' — how should I know what information it contains-! I merely can discover to whom it is directed ;" while the unlearned cannot even read the address. We see such occurrences daily in the streets of London: messcneers sent with letters, desire passengers to read the direc ions for them. — Observe, the messengers sent lo Hezekiah are described as saying, when jd fact, they say nothing, bat only deliver a letter containing the message. — Taylor in C.u.met. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 10. Afterward I came unto the house of Shemaiah, the son of Delaiah. the son of Me hetabeel, who teas shut up : and he said, Let us. 516 NEHEMIAH. Chap. 7—13. meet tog-ether in the house of God, within the temple; and let us shut the doors of the tem- ple : for they will come to slay thee ; yea, in the night they will come to slay thee. By the house of God, within the temple, (as it is in the text, Nehetn. vi. 10,) Shemaiah certainly meant the sanctuary ; and to advise Nehemiah to retreat" thither, he had a good pretence, because it was both a strong and a sacred place, being defended by a guard of Levites, and, by its holiness, privileged from all rude approaches ; but his real design hereiu- might be, not only to disgrace Nehemiah, and dis- hearten the people, when they saw their governor's cow- ardice, but to prepare the way likewise for the enemies' assaulting and taking the city, when there was no leader to oppose them; to give countenance to the calumny that had been spread abroad, of his affecting to be made 'king, because he fled upon the report of it; and perhaps, by the assistance of some other priests, that were his confederates, either to destroy him, or to secure his person until the city was jetrayed into the enemies' hands.— Stackhouse. CHAPTER VII. Vet. 1. Now it came to pass, when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the porters, and the singers, and the Levites were appointed, Z. That I gave my brother Hanani, and Hana- niah the ruler of the palace, charge over Jeru- salem : (for he was a faithful man, and feared God above many.) Nehemiah, very likely, was now returning to Shushan, to _ five the king an account of the state of affairs in Judea; and therefore he took care to place such men in the citv as he knew would faithfully secure it in his absence. Hanani is said to be his brother; but he chose his officers, not out of partial views to his own kindred, but because he knew that they would acquit themselves in their employment with a strict fidelity. Hanani had given proof of his zeal for God and his country, in his taking a tedious journey from Jerusalem to Shushan, to inform Nehemiah of the sad state of Jerusalem, and to implore his helping hand to relieve it, chap. i. And the reason why Nehemiah put such trust and confidence in Hananiah, was, because he was a man of conscience, and acted upon religious princi- ples, which would keep him from those temptations to per- fidiousness, which he might probablv meet with in his absence, and against which a man destitute of the fear of God has no sufficient fence.— Stackhouse. Ver. 3. And I said unto them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be~hot ; and while they stand by, let them shut the doors, and bar them : and appoint watches of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and every one to be over against his house. In the hot countries of the East, they frequently travel in the night, and arrive at midnight at' the place of their destination. Luke xi. 5. Mark xiii. 35. Probably they did not therefore usually shut their gates at the' going down of the sun, if they did so at all through the night. Thevenot could not, however, obtain admission into Suez in the night, and was forced to wait some hours in the cold, without the walls. Doubdan, returning from the river Jordan to Jerusalem, in 1052, tells us, that when he and his companions arrived in the valley of Jehoshaphat thev were much surprised to find that the gates of the city were shut, which obliged them to lodge on the ground at the door of the sepulchre of the Blessed Virgin, to wait for the re- turn of day, along with more than a thousand other people, who were obliged to continue there the rest of the night, as veil as they. At length, about four o'clock, seeing every- body making for the city, they also set forward, with the design of entering by St. Stephen's gate ; but they found it shut, and above two thousand people, who were there in waning, without knowing the cause of all this. At first ihey thought it might be too early, and that it was not cus- tomary to open so soon : but an hour after a report was spread that the inhabitants had shut their gates because the peasants of the country about, had formed a design of pil- laging the city in the absence of the governor and of his guards, and that as soon as he should arrive, the gates should be opened.— Burder. Ver. 4. Now the city was large and great, but the people were few therein, and the houses were not built. One reason why the bulk of the Jews (who were origin- ally pastoral, and lovers of agriculture) might rather choose to live in the country than at Jerusalem, was, because it was more suited to their genius and manner of life; but at this time their enemies were so enraged to see the walls built again, and so restless in their designs to keep the city from rising to its former splendour, that it terrified many from coming to dwell there, thinking themselves more safe in the country, where their enemies had no pretence to dis- turb them. — Stackhouse. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 10. Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and' send por- tions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord : neither be ye sorry ; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. The eastern princes, and the eastern people, not only invite their friends to feasts, but it is their custom to send a portion of the banquet to those that cannot well come to it, especially their relations, and those in a stale of mourning. This sending of portions to those for whom nothing was prepared, has been understood by those commentators I have consulted, to mean the poor'; sending portions, how- ever, to one another, is expressly distinguished in Esth. ix. -2-2, from gifts to the poor. There would not have been the shadow of a difficulty in this, had the historian been speaking of a private feast, but he is describing a national festival, where every one was supposed to be equally con- cerned: those, then, forichom nothing iras prepared, it should seem, means those that were in a state of mourning. Mourning for private calamities being here supposed To take place of rejoicing for public concerns. But it is not only to those that are in a state of mourning that provisions are sometimes sent ; others are honoured by princes in the same manner, who could not conveniently attend to the royal table, or to whom it was supposed not lobe convenient. So when the grand emir found it incommoded Monsieur D'Arvieux to eat with him, he complaisant]}' desired him to take his own lime for eating, and sent him'whal he liked from his kitchen, and at the time he chose. And thus, when King David would needs suppose, for secret reasons too well known to himself, that it would be inconvenient for Uriah to continue at the royal palace, and therefore dis- missed him to his own house, " there followed him a mess of meat from the king." 2 Sam. xi. 8, 10.— Harmer. Ver. 37. And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins : also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress. These people attribute all their losses and afflictions to their sins; Has a man lost his wife or child, he says, " En- pdratin-nemityom , for the sake of my sins, this evil has come upon me." " Why, friend, do you live in this strange land V " Because of my sins.'' No people can refer mere to sin as the source of their miser)-, and yet none appear more anxious to commit it. " The sins of iny ancestors, the sins of my ancestors, are in this habitation,"" says the old sinner, who wishes to escape the sight of his own.— Roberts. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 15. In those days saw I in Judah some tread- ing wine-presses on the sabbath, and bringing NEHEMIAH. 317 in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and- figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sab- bath-day : and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals. In peaceful times, the press in which the grapes and olives were trodden, was constructed in the vineyard: lull in tune of war and danger, it was removed into the nearest City. This precaution the restored captives were reduced to take tor their safety, at the time they were visited by Ne- lirnuah. In a state of great weakness themselves, without an efficient government or means of defence, they were ex- posed to the hostile machinations of numerous . i , , ■ 1 power- ful enemies. For this reason, many of the Jews brought their grapes from the vineyards, and trod (hem in Jerusa- lem, ilic only place of safety which the desolated country afforded. " In those days," said Nehemiah, " saw I in Jii- dah, some (reading wine-presses on the sabbath, and bring- ing in sheaves, and lading asses; and also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which tli.\ In n. 1 to Jerusalem on the sabbath-dav." I lad these wine-presses been at a distance from Jerusalem, Nehemiah. who so strictly observed the precept of resting on that day, would not have seen the violation of which he complains'. Our translators, in Mr. Harmer's opinion, seem to have been guilty of an oversight in (he interpretation of this verse, which plainly supposes, that sheaves of corn were brought into Jerusalem at the very time men were treading the wine-presses. This, he observes, is a strange anachro- nism, since (he harvest there was finished in or before the third month, and (he vintage was not till the seventh. But, u may be replied in favour of our translators, thai by Mr. Harmer's own admission, they have at present a species of corn in (he East, which is not ripe till the end of summer; which made Rauwolf say, it was the lime of harvest when he arrived a( Joppa, on the thirteenth of September. But if they have such a species of corn now, it is more than probable they had it then ; for the customs and manage- ment of the Orientals suffer almost no alteration from the lapse of time, and change of circumstances. If (his be ad- mitted, (he difficulty vanishes: and there is nothing incon- gruous or absurd in supposing that Nehemiah might see his countrymen bringing (his late grain in sheaves from the field, to tread it out in the city, for fear of their numer- ous and malicious foes, who might have sel upon them, had they no* taken this precaution, as the Arabs frequently do on the present inhabitants, and seized Ihe heaps on the barn-floor. Mr. Harmer translates the Hebrew lerm, par- cels of grapes ; but as the word signifies a Amp of any thing, it may with equal propriety be rendered parcels or sheaves of corn, especially as grapes are mentioned afterward. It is true, our author makes them dried grapes, but for the word dried he has no authority from the original text; (here is no good reason, therefore, to find fault with our translators in this instance. — Paxton. Though the conveniences they have in the wine coun- tries for pressing their grapes, were frequently in peaceful times in (heir vineyards, vet in times of apprehension these conveniences were often "in the cities themselves. Greece, to the present day, is frequently alarmed, and always under apprehension from corsairs: accordingly we find, that though ihe pla*A*5l''nns of olive-trees belonging to Alhensare large, and at some distance from thence, "yet the mills for grind- ing and pressing the olives are in that town; and (his, though, according to his description, tlie great olive-grove, or wood of these trees, as Dr. Richard Chandler calls it, watered by the Cephissus. is about three miles from the city, and has been computed as at least six miles long. The same reason that can induce men to fetch their olives from a distance into their towns, must operate more or less for- cibly with regard to their grapes. This was, in particular, ihe state of things at the lime Nehemiah visited the chil- dren of the captivity. They had many enemies about them, and those very spiteful ; and they themselves were very weak. For this reason, many of them trod their grapes in Jerusalem itself: "In those' days saw I in Judah some treading wine presses "on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; and also « me, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jeru- salem on the sabbath-day." Had these wine-presses been at a distance from Jerusalem, he that so strictly observed the precept of resting that day would not have seen thai violation of it. They appear, by that circilinsl.ni as by the other particulars mentioned there, to have been within the walls of Jerusalem. The words of Nehemiah are to be understood as signifying, " In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the sabbath, and hrine.ui:: in parcels of grapes for that purpose m !,a ]„i w 'In. h they had laden on asses, and also jars of u ini pre ed elsewhere, dried grapes and figs, and all manner of bur- dens of victuals, which they sold on Ihe sabbath:" Ihe squeezing the grapes for wine, and drying them for raisins, being, it seems, at least frequently attended to at one and the same time. So when I > i . Chandler set out from Smyr- na to visit Greece, in the end of August, the vintage was just begun, "the black grapes being spread on the ground in beds, exposed to the sun to dry for raisins; while in an- other part, the juice was expressed for wine, a man, with feet .and legs bare, treading the fruit in a kind of cistern, with a hole or vent near ihe bottom, anil a vessel beneath it to receive the liquor." (Travels in Greece.) If the same custom obtained in Judea then, which it seems is practised in Greece now, and that the vintage was just then finishing, Nehemiah must have been particularly galled ; for it seems they finish their vintage wiih dancing, and therefore I presume with songs, and probably music. For speaking of the Greek dances, of which some are sup- posed of very remote antiquity, and of one in particular, called the crane, he says, "the peasants perform it yearly in the street of the French convent, where he and his com- panions lodged at that time, at the conclusion of the vint- age; joining hands, and preceding their mules and their asses, which are laden wilh grapes in panniers, in a very curved and intricate figure; the leader waving a handker- chief, which has been imagined to denote the clew given by Ariadne ;" the dance being supposed to have been in- vented by Theseus, upon his escape from the labyrinth. Singing seems to have been practised by the Jews in their vineyards, and shouting when they trod the grapes, from what we read, Isaiah xvi. 10: but whether dancing too, and whether they carried their profanation of the sab- bath lliis length, in "the time of Nehemiah, we are not in- formed. Some may have supposed that the words of Jer- emiah, ch. xxxi. 4, 5, refer to the joy expressed by the Jews in Ihe time of vintage : " Again, I will build thee, and thou shall be built, O viigin of Israel ; thou shalt again be adorn- ed with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and eat them as common things." Vines and dancing are here joined together— Birdeu. Ver. 25. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked ofl" their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. In Judea, the punishment of infamy consisted chiefly in emiing off the hair of evil-doers: yet it is thought that pain was added to disgrace, and that th'ev tore off the hair with violence, as if they were plucking a bird alive. This is the genuine signification of the Hebrew word used by Nehemiah in describing his conduct towards those Jew's who had violated the law bv taking strange wives: " And I contended with them, and smoie certain of them, and pinched off their hair." This kind of punishment was common in Persia. King Artaxerxes, instead of pluck- ing off Ihe hair of such of his generals as had been guilty of a fault, obliged Ihem to lay aside the tiara. The Em- peror Domitian caused ihe hair and beard of the philoso- pher Apollonius to be shaved.— Paxton. ESTHER, CHAPTER I. Ver. 5. And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days, in the court of the gar- den of the king's palace; 6. Where were white, green, and blue hiDiginirs, fastened with cords or" fine linen and purple to silver rings and pil- lars of marble : the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble. In the houses of the fashionable and the gay, the lower part of rhe walls is adorned with rich hangings of velvet jr damask, tinged with the liveliest colours, suspended on hooks, or taken down at pleasure. A correct idea of their richness and splendour may be formed from the description which the inspired writer has given of the hangings in the royal garden at Shushan, the ancient capital of'Persia: " Where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pil- lars of marble." The upper part of the walls is adorned with the most ingenious wrealhings and devices, in stucco and fret-work. The ceiling is generally of wainscot, paint- ed with great art, or else thrown into a variety of panels, with gilded mouldings. Inthedaysof Jeremiah'the prophet, when the profusion and luxury of all ranks in Judea were at their height, their chambers were ceiled with fragrant and costly wood, and painted with the richest colours. Of this extravagance, the indignant seer loudly complains: " Wo unto him that saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows : and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion." The floors of these splendid apartments were laid with painted tiles, or slabs of the most beautiful marble. A pavement of this kind is mentioned in the book of Esther : at the sump- tuous entertainment which Ahasuerus made for the princes and nobles of his vast empire, " the beds," or couches, upon which they reclined, " were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble. Plaster of terrace is often used for the same purpose ; and the floor is always covered with carpets, which are, for the most part, of the richest materials. Upon these carpets, a range of narrow beds, or mattresses, is often placed along the sides of the wall, with velvet or damask bolsters, for the greater ease and convenience of the company. To these luxurious indulgences the prophets occasionally seem to allude: Ezekiel was commanded to pronounce a "wo to the women that sew pillows to all arm-holes;" and Amos denounces the judgments of his God against them " that lie upon beds of Ivory, and stretch "themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of ihe midst of the stall." — Paxton. To give some idea of the grandeur of this feast, we may remark, that in eastern countries their houses are built round a court, in which, upon extraordinary occasions, company is entertained, being strewed with mats and car- pets. And as the court lies open to the sky, it is usual, in the summer, to have it sheltered from the' heat of the sun, bv a large awning or veil, which being extended upon ropes reaching across the court, from one side of the top of the house to the other, may be folded or unfolded at pleasure. The Psalmist seems to'allude to some covering of this kind, Ps. 104.2: " Who stretchest out the heavens like a cur- tain." Is. 40. 2. (Shaw's Travels, p. 247.) Now the Persian king entertained the whole city of Shushan, great and small, for seven days together, in the court of the garden of the king's palace. In that garden we must suppose a very spacious area, probably containing many acres, cu- riously paved, and having lofty columns of marble, erected in rows at proper distances; to the tops of those columns were fixed rings of silver, through which they drew pur- ple cords of fine linen, across from row to row, and from pillar to pillar ; and over those cords they spread large sheets of delicate calico, possibly painted with blue, which would make a very splendid and beautiful sky over all the court, and a delightful shade to all the guests. Instead oj mats and carpets, they had heds, or couches, of gold and silver, to sit upon, and were served with wine in vessels of gold. This is probably the idea we are to entertain of the furniture of this gorgeous banquet.— Taylor's Concord- ance. Dr. Russel does not represent the pavement of the courts as all mosaic work, and equally adorned, but he tells us, that it is usually that part that lies between the fountain and the arched alcove on the south side, that is thus beautified, supposing that there is but one alcove in a court; however, it should seem in some other parts of the East, there are several of these alcoves opening into the c»urt. Maun- drell, who calls them duans, in his account of the houses of Damascus, says expressly, that they have generally several on all sides of the court; "being placed at such different points, that at one or other of them you may always have either the shade or the sun, which you please." Are not these alcoves, or duans, of which, according to this, there might be several in the court of the palace of Ahasuerus, what the sacred writer means bv the beds adorned with sil- ver and gold 1 Esth. i. 6. I shall elsewhere show, that the bed where Esther was silling, and on which Haman threw himself, must more resemble the modern oriental duans. or divans, than the beds on which the Romans reclined at their entertainments ; and consequently it is more natural to understand those beds of these alcoves, or duans, richly adorned with gold and silver, while on the lower variega- ted pavements carpets were also .laid, for the reception of those that could not find a place in these duans ; on which pavements, Dr. Shaw tells us, they are wont, in Barbary. when much company is to be entertained, to strew mats and carpets. — Harmer. Ver. 9. Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus. The women are not permitted to associate with the other sex at an eastern banquet ; but they are allowed to enter- tain one auother in their own apartments. When Aha- suerus, the king of Persia, treated all the people of his capital with a splendid feast, Vashti, the queen, we are intormed, " made a banquet for the women in the royal house, which belonged to King Ahasuetus. This, observes Chardin, is the custom of all the East; the women have their feasts at the same time, but apart from the men. And Maillet informs us, in his letters, that the same custom is observed in Egypt. This is undoubtedly the reason that the prophet distinctly mentions "the voice of the bride- groom, and the voice of the bride ;" he means that the noise of nuptial mirth was heard in different apartments. The personal voices of the newly married pair cannot be un- derstood, but the noisy mirth which a marriage feast commonly excites; forin Syria, and probably in all the surrounding countries, the bride is condemned to absolute silence, and fixed by remorseless etiquette to the spot where she has been seated. When the banquet was finished, and the guests had removed, the poor came in and ate up the fraarnents, so that nothing was lost. This custom will account for the command to the servants, in the parable ol the supper, " Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed. Chap. 1. EST and the halt, and ihe blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is dune as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said onto the servant, Go out into the high- ways, and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be tiled." These poor and destitute persons were called to the entertainment only before the time when, according to the custom of the country, they were expected lo attend.— Faxton. Females, in the East, never have their feasts in the > c room as the men, because it would be highly indecorous to- wards their lords, and they would I lengths of merriment, as when alone. On meeting, they embrace, and smell each other ; and after the] comes the betel-leaf, the chunam.and the arcca-nuis. 1 [ave their lords given them any new jewels or robes; they are >obn mentioned, as a proof of the favour they are in; and after thev hare finished their food, shroots and scandal become the order of the day.— Roberts. It may he taken as a general rule, that wherever our translators have inserted a number of words in italic, they have been embarrassed to make sense of the passage ; and some have been inclined to think, that in propoi number of words inserted, is the probability of their having missed the true import of the place. Without adopting this notion, we may venture to ask the reader, whether he has been satisfied with the ideas oominnntealed in the first chapter of Esther!— " The king made a feast to all the people that were present at Shushan, the palace; both unto mall. se\on days, in the eourl of the garden of the king's palace; where were while, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen, and purple, to silver rings and pillars of marble; the bed- were o| mild, and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble." What are we to undei this 1 hangings fastened to silver rings, to pillars of mar- made of fine linen ? beds of sold ami silver, laid on the pavement? &c. Commentators sive very littie information on tins passage: and it is much' belter to trust at once to ourselves, than to transcribe their conjee ures. The first thing observable is the canopy covering the ccurt : it was of while canvass, {carpas, -s-r :) the brace! of it were blue, (nnN rfjxn) that is, the cords, &e. used to support this canopy, and l6 keep it in its place, properly extended, &c. over head. Secondly, in t lie eourl In low were pavilions, platforms, or railed divisions [the word i-hchdi ('San) signifies the railed .leek of a ship] of linen [or, hung with linen] and of aragaman, [calico? fine cotton?] upon railings of silver pillars— smaller pillars 1 .n ei and columns of while marble ; and Ihe divan cushions were embroidered with gold and silver: these were placed upon mustabvs of porphyry (red marble) and white marble, and round-spoiled marble, and marble with wandering, irregular veins. To justify this description, we shall first consider the canopy; ihe render will judge of its probability and use by the following quo- tations : — " Among ihe ruins remaining at Persepolis, is a court, Containing many lofty pillars: one may even presume thai uis di 1 not support any architrave, as Sir John Cbardin has observed, but we may venture to suppose, that i covering of tapestry, or linen, was drawn over them, to idienlar projection of the sine i is also probable that the tract of ground where most of the columns stand, was originally a eourl before i like thai which was before the king's In. use al S lioned Esther, chap. v. and i h rough which a flow of fresh air was admitted into the apartments."— {Le Bruyn.) This a! i of Le Bruyn, formed aim suggestion of a canopy covering the court. It is confirmed also by the custom of India. We have been told bv a gen- leman from whom we requested information on ihi- -all- ied, thai "al ihe festival of Derma Rajah, in Calcutta, the great court of a very large house is overspread with a covering made of canvass, lined « Ufa calico; and this linin? is ornamented with broad stripes, of various colon s, in which (in India, observe) green predominates. On icca- sionof this festival, which is held only once in three year-, the master of ihe house gives wine and cake, and other refreshments, to the English gentlemen and ladies who wish to see ihe ceremonies; he also gives payment, as well as hospitality, to those who perform them." That such a covering would b _• necessary in hot climates we may easily suppose; nor is the supposition enfeebled by remarking, thai lh. coliseum, or Flavian amphitheatre, at Koiie, has still remaining on its walls the marks of the masts, or scaffoldings, which were en oled v. lea thai iuin was covered with an awning, as ii was during ere to the Roman public. The word brace (ocn) simnlie. /,, ,w, ,'/, i„ l,iij hold t>f,to emmtd; it may be thought that these braces wenl from side the'holtse; weie fastened to pi. pel projections high in Ihe sidesof the building; and, pa- •• •_■,'.: ■ aim blue braces must have had an ornamental effect In the lower part of Ihe eourl the preparation COB i-md in what may be called a railed platform on a mostaby: whal these were the reader will understand, by an extract from Dr. Russel's History of Aleppo. "Partofthe principal court is planted with trees, and flowering shrubs; the rest is paved. Al the south end is a square basin of water, with jelsd'eavx, and close to it, upon a StO te laby. is built a small pavilion : or the inustahy being only railed in, an open divan is occasionally formed on it. [Note, a mustaby is a stone platform, raised about two oi three feet abo+e the pavement of the court.] This being some steps higher than the basin, a small fountain is usually placed In the middle of the divan, the mosaic pave- ineni round uliieli [.rum ..instantly wetted by the^'rf a'eait, displays a variety of splendid colours, and ihe water, as it run's to Ihe basin through marble channels, which are rough at bottom, produces a pleasing murmur. Wheie the size of the court admits of a larger shrubbery, tempo- rary divans are placed in ihe grove, or arbours are formed of slight latticed frames, covered by the vine, the rose, or .■ : the rose shooting lo a most luxuriant height. when in full (lower, is elegantly picturesque. F basin, on the south side of the court, is a wide, lofty, arched alcove, about eighteen inel.es higher than the pavement. and entirely open to the court. It is painted in the same manner as the apariments, but the roof is finished in plain or gill stucco; and the floor round a small fountain is paved with marble of sundry colours, with a jet d'eav in the middle. A large divan is here prepared, but being intended for the summer, chints and Cairo mats are em- ployed instead of cloth, velvet, and carpets. It is .ailed, m way of distinction, The Divan, and by its north aspect, and a sloping painted shed projecting over the arch, being pro- tected from the sun. it otters a delicious situation in 1 he hot months. The sound, not less than the sight, of the is extremely refreshing; and if there be a breath of air stirring, it arrives seemed by the Arabian jasmine, ihe henna, and other fragrant plants, growing in the shrubbery, or ranged in pots round the basin. There is usually on each side of the alcove a small room, or cabinet, neatly fitted up, and serving for retirement. These rooms are ■'•. whence probably the Spaniards derived their al enha, which is rendered by some other nations in Europe, alcove." In another part Dr. Russel gives a print ol a muslaby, with sundry musicians sitting on it, on which he observes, "The front of the s'one mustaby is fined with marble of different clouts. Part of the court is paved in mosaic, in the manner represented in the print." This print "shows, in miniature, ihe inner court of a great house. The doors of the kaah, and part of the cupola, appear in front; on the side, the high arched alcove, %oi divan, n iih the shed above ; the marble facing of the mus- ti bv. the mosaic pavement between that and ihe basin, and the fountain playing." This account of Dr. Russel's harmonizes perfectly with the history in Esther, and we have only to imagine that the railings, or smaller pillars of the divan, on the mustaby in the palace of Ahasuerus, were of silver, (silver-gilt.) while the larger, called columns, placed at the corners, or else- where, were of marble; the flat part of ihe mustaby abn being overspread with carpets, &c. on which, next the rail- ings, " Ire cushions richly embroidered, for the purpose of being leaned against. These things, mentioned in the scripture narration, if placed according to the doctor's ac- count, enable us to comprehend the whole of ihe Ribie de- scription, and justify every word in it. That the last three words describe three different kinds of marble, of which the mustaby of Ahasuerus was composed, is evident from tl.es, -mim ition of theil roots. And as to the linen which was appended to the railings, with iis accompanying am- gaman, we may ask, if this word signifies jmrjils, whal was ESTHER. the subject of it, silk, worsted, or cotton 1 Was it the chints of Dr. Russel 1 or was it of the diaper kind, that is, figured linen ? or was it calico 1 which, on the whole, we think it was. — Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 11. To bring Vashti the queen before the Icing, with the crown royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. The Persians, on festival occasions, used to produce their women in public. To this purpose Herodotus relates a story of seven Persians being sent to Amyntas, a Grecian prince, who received them hospitably, and gave them a splendid entertainment. When, after the entertainment, they began to drink, one of the Persians thus addressed Amyntas: " Prince of Macedonia, it is a custom with us Persians, whenever we have a public entertainment, to introduce our concubines and young wives." On this prin- ciple Ahasuerus gave command to bring his queen Vashti into the public assembly. — Burder. Ver. 12. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by his chamber- lains : therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. When a person is speaking to you, on almost any sub- ject, he keeps saying every moment, " Be not angry, my lord;" or, "Let not your anger burn." Judah said to Joseph, " Let not thine anger burn." " Go not near that man; his anger is on fire." " Well, well, what is the mat- ter with that fellow'!" " Not much ; some one has put the torch to his anger." " Go, throw some water on that fire, or it will not soon be out." — Roberts. CHAPTER II. Ver. 9. And the maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him ; and he speedily gave her her things for purification, with such things as belonged to her, and seven maidens, which were meet to be given her, out of the king's house : and he preferred her and her maids unto the best place of the house of the women. After these presents followed eleven caroches (coaches) full of young maidens, slaues to serue the bride : these caroches were couered and shut, and either of them at- tended by eunuchs, Moores : after these followed twenty- eight virgins' slaues, attired in cloth of gold, and accom- panied by twenty-eight blacke eunuchs all on horsebacke, and richly clad. After which were seen two hundred and forty mules, loaden with tents of tapestrie, cloath of gold, sattin, veluet, with the ground of gold, with many cushions, which are the chairesthe ladies of Turkie use, with many other rich and sumptuous moueables. (Knolles's History of the Turks.)— Burder. Ver. 11. And Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women's house, to know how Esther did, and what should become of her. The apartments of the women are counted sacred and inviolable, over all the East ; it is even a crime to inquire what passes within the walls of the harem, or house of the women. Hence, it is extremely difficult to be informed of the transactions in those sequestered habitations; and a -nan, says Chardin, may walk a hundred days, one after brother, by the house where the women are, and vet know .: ) more what is done there than at the farther end of Tar- tary. This sufficiently explains the reason of Mordecai's conduct, who " walked every day before the court of the women's house, to know how Esther did, and what should liecome of her."— Paxton. CHAPTER III. Ver. 7. In the first month, (that is the month Ni- san;) in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that i-, «he lot, before Haman, from day to day, and from month to month, Ic the twelfth month, that is the month Adar. It was customary in the East, by casting lots into an urn, to inquire what days would be fortunate, and what not, to undertake any business in. According to this superstitious practice, Haman endeavoured to find out what time in the year was most favourable to the Jews, and what most un- lucky. First he inquired what month was most unfortu- nate, and found the month Adar, which was the last month in the year, answerable to our February. There was no festival during this month, nor was it sanctified by any pe- culiar rites. Then he inquired the day, and found the thir- teenth day was not auspicious to them, ver. 13. Some think there were as,many lots as there were days in the year, and for every day he drew a lot ; but found none to his mind, till he came to the last month of all, and to the middle of it. Now this whole business was governed by providence, by which these lots were directed, and not by the Persian gods, to fall in the last month of the year ; whereby almost a whole year intervened between the design and its execu- tion, and gave time for Mordecai to acquaint Esther with it, and for her to intercede with the king for the reversing, or suspending his decree, and disappointing the conspira- cy.— Patrick. Ver. 10. And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave i^unto Haman the son of Ham- medatha the Agagite, the Jews' enemy. This he did both as a token of affection and honour. With the Persians, for a king to give a ring to any one, was a token and bond of the greatest love and friendship imaginable. It may be this was given to Haman to seal with it the letters that were or should be written, giving or- ders for the destruction of the Jews. Among the Romans, in aftertimes, when any one was put into the equestrian or- der, a ring was given to him, for originally none but knights were allowed to wear them. It was sometimes used in ap- pointing a successor in the kingdom: as when Alexander was dying, he took his ring from off his finger, and gave it to Perdiccas, by which it was understood that he was to succeed him. — Burder. CHAPTER V. Ver. G. And the king said unto Esther at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition ? and it shall be granted thee : and what is thy request ? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be per- formed. The time of drinking wine in the East, is at the begin- ning, not at the close of entertainments, as it is with us. Sir John Chardin has corrected'an error of a French com- mentator, as to this point, in his manuscript note on Esther v. 6*. It seems the commentator had supposed the banquet of wine meant the dessert, because this is our custom in the West ; but he observes, " that the eastern people, on the contrary, drink and discourse before eating, and that after the rest is served up, the feast is quickly over, they eating very fast, and every one presently withdrawing. They conduct matters thus at the royal table, and at those of their great men." Dr. Caslell, in' his Lexicon, seems to haw- been guilty of the same fault, by a quotation annexed to that note. Chardin's account agrees with that of Olearius, who tells us, that when the ambassadors he attended were at the Per- sian court, " at a solemn entertainment, the floor of the hall was covered with a cotton cloth, which was covered with all sorts of fruits and sweetmeats, in basins of gold. That with them was served up excellent Shitas wine. That after an hour's time, the sweetmeats were removed, to make way for the more substantial part of the entertain- ment, such as rice, boiled and roasted mutton, fowl, game, &c. That after having been at table an hour and a half, warm water was brought, in a ewer of gold, for washing ; and grace being said, they began to retire without speaking a word, according to the custom of the country, as also did Chap. 6. KST1I ER. 331 Ihe ambassadors soon after." This is Olearius's ;i.t ', in short: by which il appears, that wine was bronghl firM ; lhat Ihe time of thai part of the entertainment was doable •o the other; anil lhat immediately after eating they with- drew . This was the practice ol' the modern court of Per- sia, and probably might be so in the days of Abasuerus. Unluckily, Diodali and Dr. Oaslell did not attend lo this ai I trice, in speaking ot the banquet ol wine prepared by Queen Esther.— Habmbr. Ver. 9. Then went Hainan forth that day joyful and with ;i glad heart : but when Hainan saw Mordecai in the king's gate, thai he stood not up, nor moved for him, lie was full of indig- nation against Mordecai. This is, indeed, a graphic sketch of eastern maniieis. The colours are so lively and so fresh, lhat they might have been but the work or ye: terdajr. See the D tleman, at the head of his courtly train: he moi pompous guise, and all who see him arise from their mmk, take ori' their sandals, and humbly move in n him. To some he gives a graceful wave of the hand; to others not a word nor a look. Should there be one who neither -lands up nor moves lo him, his name and place of abode will be inquired after, and the first opportunity eagerly embraced to glut his revenge. The case of Mui- too-Chadde-Appa, modeliar of the Dutch governor Van de Graaff's gate, is illustrative of this disposition. A Moorman of high bearing and great riches had purchased the rent of the pearl fishery of the bay of I rndachy, and, inconsequence, was a person of great influence among the people. The proud modeliar was one day passing along ihe mad. where was sealed on his carpet the renter of the pearl fishery. He arose not, moved not to him, when pass- ing by, and i lie modeliar's soul was fired with it He forthwith resolved upon his ruin, and, by deeply-formed intrigues, too well succeeded. The rent was taken from Ihe Moorman; the money he had advanced to the head- men, the officers, the boatmen, the divers, and othei . was I st; his estates were sold j and, to make up the deficiency, lie himself was disposed of by auction for four hundred and twenty-five rix-dollars, and the modeliar became the purchaser. — Roberts. Ver 12. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and to-morrow am I invited unto her , also with the king. The kings of Persia very seldom admitted a subject to their table. Alhenrciis mentions it as a peculiar honour. which no Grecian enjoyed before or after, that Artaxerxes condescended to invite Timogoras, the Cretan, to dine even at the table where his relations ate ; and to send sometimes a part of what was served up at his own ; which some per- sons looked upon as a diminution of his maje prostitution of their national honour. Plutarch, in his life of Artaxerxes. tells us, that none but the king's mother, and his real wife, were permitted to sit at his table : and he therefore mentions it as a condescension in that prince, that he sometimes invited his brothers. Haman, the prime minister of Ahasuerus, had therefore some reason to value himself upon the invitation which he received, to dine wilh the king: " Haman said, moreover, Yea, Esther the queen let no man come in with the king, into the banquet which she had prepared, hut myself: and to morrow am I invited unto her also with the king." The same ambitious minister received another mark of great distinction from !us master: "The king took his ring from his hand, and gave it unto Haman." This he did, both as a token of affection and honour; for when the king of Persia gives a ring to any one, it is a token and bond of the grei and friendship. " Here also," says Mr. Forbes, " we see an exact description of the mode of conferring honour on the favourite of a sovereign, a princely dress, a horse, and a ring; these are now the usual presents to foreign ambas- sadors, and between one Indian prince and another. — Fix- ton. 41 CHAPTER VI. Ver. 1. On that night could not the kin and bo commanded to bring the book of rec- ords of the Chronicles; and they were read before the king, That which was practised in the court of Ahasueru! in ihe pas-age now referred to, appear; to have I n . in the Ottoman pone. "It was likewise found in the records of the empire, that the last wai with B occasioned the fitting out of a hundred and Bft] intended i" ; ■ ■ -■a of Azoj li : and ihe pa i - Oculars mentioned in the account ol the expenses not sre- cifying the motives of ihis armament, it was forgotten ili; t tie p. i - ol A/oph : ml Taganrag sic.l I'm nothing in Ihe present war; the building of the galliots was ord carried on with the greatest despatch." (Baron I " The king has neat his person an officer, wl to be his hi I" Ins ■'. and is obliged to make a journal of the king's acti ins, g! i or bad, v. ithoni comment of In ■ - > - when the King dies, or at least soon alier, is delivered lo the council, who read it over, and erase everything t'al i in it, while they supply every material fact that been omitted, whether purposely or not." (Bruce Ver. 7. And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honour, £ Lt i the royal apparel be brought which the kins useth to wear, and the horse that the kingridith upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: 9. And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour. S n Matt. 11.21. Pitts gives an account of a cavalcade at Algiers, upon a person's turning Mohammedan, which is designed to do him. as well as their law, honour. " The apostate is to get oii horseback, on a stately steed, with a rich saddle and fine trappings; he is also riehlv habited, and hath a turban on Ins head, bul nothing of this is to be called his own; enly there are given him about two or three yards of broadcloth. which is laid before him on the saddle. The horse, with him on his back, is led all round the city, which he is sev- eral hours in doing. The apostate is ailended with drums and other music, and twenty or thirty sergeants. These march in order, on each side of the' horse, wilh naked swords in iheir hands. The crier goes before, with a loud voice giving thanks to God for the proselyte that is made." uiiiy of custom in the instance now cited, and the passage alluded to in Esther, must appear remarkable.— BURDER. Herodotus relates, that ihe Kings of Persia had horses peculiar lo themselves, that were brought from Armenia. and were remarkable for theii beamy. If the same law prevailed m Persia as did in Judea, no man might ride on the king's horse, any more than sit on his throne, or hold This clearly discovers the extent of Hainan's ambition, when he proposed to bring "ihe royal apparel which the king nsedto wear, and the horse that the king . and Ihe crown which is set upon his head." The crown roval was not to he set on the head of the ma... but on the head of the horse ; this interpretation is allowed bv Aben Ezra, by the Targum, arid by the Syriac version. \mi n til D is afterward made of the crown, as set upon the head of Mordecai, nor would Haman have dared to advise what, bv the laws of Persia, could not be gTanted. But it was asual lo put the crown royal on the head of a horse led in state; and this we are a ".er.sf is a custom in Petsia. as it is with ihe Ethiopians, to this dav: from them it passed or the horses which the Romans yoked in thei> triumphal chario's wen- adorned with crowns.— PaxTON: 322 ESTHER. \°"" Very few English readers are sufficiently aware of the importance attached to the donation of robes of honour in the East. They mark the degree of estimation in which the party bestowing them holds the party receiving them ; and sometimes the conferring or the withholding of them leads to very serious negotiation, and misunderstandings. "The prince of Shiraz," savs Mr. Morier, "went in his greatest state to Kalaat Poiishan, there to meet and to be invested with the dress of honour, which was sent him by the king, on the festival of No-Rouz. Although the day of the festival had long elapsed, yet the ceremony did not take place until this time, as the astrologers did not announce a day sufficiently fortunate for the performance ol anlact ot so "much consequence as this is looked upon to be through- out Persia. All the circumstances attendant upon the re- ception of a Kalaat being the great criterions by which the public may judge of the degree of influence which the re- ceiver has at court, every intrigue is exerted during the preparation of the Kalaat, that it may be as indicative of the royal favour as possible. The person who is the bearer of it, "the expressions used in the firman, which announces if. having been conferred, the nature of the Kalaat itself, are all circumstances that are examined and discussed by the Persian public. A common Kalaat consists of a caba, or coat ; a Rummer-bund, or zone ; a gowch-pccck, or shawl for the head :— when it is intended to be more distinguishing, a sword or a dagger is added. To persons of distinction, rich furs are given, such as a catabec, or a conrdec ; but when the Ka- laat "is complete, it consists exactly of the same articles as the present which Cyrus made to Syennesis, namely, a horse with a golden bridle, U-i, yni^ay.W,^; a golden chain, trrptiinv ; a golden sword, .1 uvi :nr x»« '"»' ; besides '. he dress, the UfaiKhv, which is complete in all its parts. Such, or nearly such, was the Kalaat which the prince went out to meet ; and consequently he gave as much publicity to il as he could devise The prince himself was conspicuous at a distance, by a parasol being borne over his head, which, to this day, is a privilege allowed only to royalty, and is exem- plified by the sculptures at Persepolis, where the principal personage is frequently designated by a parasol carried over him. . . . The road, about three miles, was strewn with roses, and watered ; both of which are modes of doing honour to persons of distinction ; and, at very frequent intervals, -lass vases, filled with sugar, were broken under his horses' feet. The treading upon sugar is symbolical, in their estimation, of prosperity ; the scattering of flowers was a ceremony performed in honour of Alexander, on his entry into Bab}'- lon, and has perhaps some affinity to the custom of cutting down branches off the trees, and 'strewing them in the way, as was practised on our Saviour's entry into Jerusalem, Mark xi. 5. The other circumstance, 'the spreading of garments in the way,' is used in the scriptures as an- nouncing royalty." In another passage, Mr. Morier observes, that the Persian plenipotentiary to the signature of a treaty with Russia, "at first was at a loss how to make himself equal in person- al distinctions (and numerous titles) to the Russian nego- tiator ; but recollecting that, previous to his departure, his sovereign had honoured him by a present of one of his swards, and of a dagger set with precious stones, to wear which is a peculiar distinction in Persia; and besides, had clothed him with one of his own shawl robes, a distinction of still greater value, he therefore designated himself in the preamble of the treaty as endowed with the special gifts of the monarch, lord of the dagger set in jewels, of the sword adorned with gems, and of the shnwl coat already worn. This may appear ridiculous to us, but it will be remem- bered that the bestowing of dresses as a nvtrk of honour among eastern nations, is one of the most ancient customs recorded both in sacred and profane history. We may learn how great was the distinction of giving a coat already ■worn, by what is recorded of Jonathan's love for David: ' And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle,'(l Sam. xviii.4;) and also in the history of Mordecai, we read, ' For the man whom the king delightelh to honour, let the royal apparel be brought which the king used to wear,' &c. Esther v. 7,8." The r.-ader will be pleased with these additional circum- stances and authorities: but, perhaps, he will do well to consider the sword, the bow, and the girdle of Jonathan, as mi'ilttry appendage; and as peculiarly referring to the mil- ery custom of that country, by which "it may be illustrated, is the more strictly appropriate and acceptable.— Tavlor in Calmet. CHAPTER VH. Yer. 7. And the king- arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath, went into the palace-gar- den : and Hainan stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen ; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by lin- king. " When the king of Persia," says Tavernier, " orders a person to be executed, and then rises, and goes into a wo- man's apartment, it is a sign that no mercy is to be hoped for." But even the sudden rising ol the king in anger, was the same as if he had pronounced the sentence of death. Olearius relates an instance of it, which occurred when he was in Persia.' Schah Sefi once felt himself offended by unseasonable jokes, which one of his favourites allowed himself in his presence. The king immediately rose and retired, upon which the favourite saw that his life was for- feited. He went home in confusion, and in a few hours afterward the king sent for his bead.— Rosenmcller. Yer. 8. Then the king returned out of the palace- garden into the place of the banquet of wine: and Hainan was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they cover- ed Haman's face. The majesty of the kings of Persia did not allow male- factors to look" at them. As soon as Hainan was so con- sidered, his face was covered. Some curious correspon- dent examples are collected together in Poole's Synopsis, in loc. From Pococke we find the custom still continues. Speaking of the artifice by which an Egyptian bey was taken off, he says, "A man "being brought before him like a malefactor just taken, with his hands behind him as i! tied, and a napkin put over his head, as malefactors com- monly have, when he came into his presence, suddenly shot him dead." — Birder. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 10. And he wrote in the king Ahasuenis' name, and sealed it with the* king's ring; a^d sent letters by posts on horseback, and riders on mules, camels, and young dromedaries. See on Job 9. 25. Ver. 15. And Mordecai went out from the pres- ence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple: and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. See on Dan. 5. 29. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 19. Therefore the Jews of the villages, that dwelt in the un walled towns, made the four- teenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another. See on Nehem. 8. 10. On the first of the Hindoo month of July, also on the hist day of the new moon of their October, the people send por- tions of cakes, preserves, fruits, oil, and clothes, ore to another.— Roberts. , The eastern princes and people not only invite their friends to feasts, but " it is their custom to send a portion of the banquet to those that cannot well come to it, especially ESTHER. iheir relations, and those in a state of mourning." (Char- din.) Thus when the grand emir found it incommoded M. D'Arvienx 10 eat with him, I"' desired him to lake his own time for eating, and sent him from his kitchen, what he liked, and at the time he chose. This was the name, after the Babylonish captivity, of the i we I ft h month, nearly answering to our February, O. S. and perhaps so called from the richness or exuberance of the earth in plants and flowers at that season, in the warm eastern 'countries. "As February advances, the fields, which were partly green before, now, by the springing up of the hitter grain, become entirely covered with an agree- able verdure; and though the trees continue in then i -ail. ■■< state till the end of this month, or the he-inning of Match, yet the almond, when latest, being in blossom before the middle of February, and quickly succeeded by the apricot, peach, &c. gives the gardens an agreeable appearance. The spring now becomes extremely p.casant." (Russel's \'at. Hist, of Aleppo.)— Burder. Ver. 26. Wherefore they called these days Purim, after the name of Pur. This festival was to be kept two days successively, the fourteenth and fifteenth of the month Adar, ver. 81. On both days of the feast the modern Jews read over the Me- gillah, or book of Esther, in their synagogues. The copy there read must not be printed, but written on vellum, in t he form of a roll ; and the names of the ten sons of Hainan are written on it in a peculiar manner, being ranged, they say, like so many bodies hanged on a gibbet. The reader mast pronounce all these names in one breath. Whenever Hainan's name is pronounced, they make a terrible noise in the synagogue : some drum with their feet on the floor, and the boys have mallets, with which to knock and make a noise. They prepare themselves for tneir carnival by a previous fast, 'which should continue three days, in imita- tion of Esther's, Esther iv. 16, but they have mostly reduced t to one day. — Jennings. CHAPTER X. Ver. 3. For Mordecai the Jew was next unto the king Ahasuerus, and great among; the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and sDeaking peace to all his seed. Sir John Malcolm tells us, that the sepulchre of Esther and Mordecai stands near the centre of the city of Hama- dan. It is a square building, terminated by a dome, with an inscription in Hebrew upon it, translated and sent to. him by Sir Gore Ouselev, late ambassador to the court of Persia'. It is as follows: " Thursday, fifteenth of the month Adar. in the year 4171 from the creation of the world, was finished the building of this temple, over the graves of Mordecai and Esther, by the hands of the good-hearted brothers, Elias and Samuel, the sons of the deceased Ish- mael of Kashan." A more particular and recent account of this tomb will be found in the following extract: " This tomb is regarded by all the Jews, who yet exist in the empire, as a place of particular sanctity ; and pilgrimages are still made to it at certain seasons of the year, in the same spirit of holy peni- tence with which, in former times, they tnrned their eyes towards Jerusalem. Being desirous of visiting a place, H ifhout reverence, I sent to i favoui ol 'lie priest, under whose care it is preserved. Became tome immediately on my message, and seemed pleased with the rosp.et manifested low.-nds the ancient people of his nation, in the manner with which I asked to be admitted to their shrine. I accompanied the priest through The town, over much ruin and rabbi h, to an enclosed niece of ground, rather more elevated than any in its mi ,!!.:!.■ \ i. unity. In the centre was the Jewish m .i qii.'ie bin Mini; of brick, of a mosque-like form, with ;i rather elongated dome at the top; the whole seems in a veiy decaying state; falling fast to the mouldered i h i .ill fragments around, which, in former limes. had been connected with and extended the con-' the sacred enclosure. The door that admitted as into the tomb is in the ancient sepulchral fashion of the coonlrj very small ; consisting of a single stone of great thiekne and turning on iis own pivots from one side. Its I;, v is always in possession of the head of the Jews, resident at Hamadan; and doubtless has been so preserved, from the timeof the holv pair's interment, when the grateful the captiviiv, whose lives they had rescued from univeisal massacre, first erected a monument over the remains of their benefactors, and obeyed the ordinance of gratitude, m making the anniversary of their preservation, a lasting memorial of heaven's mercy, and the just faith of Esihi i and Mordecai. ' So God remembered his people, and jus lifted his inheritance. Therefore those days shall be Dnti them, in the month Adar, the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the same month, and with an assembly, and joj with gladness before God, according to the generation Ibl ever among his people.' Esth. x. 12, 13. The pilgrim.- ■. •■ yet kept up, is a continuation of this appointed assembling And thus having existed from the time of the event, suci a memorial becomes an evidence to the fact, more convin- cing, perhaps, than even written testimony; it seems a kind of eyewitness. The original structure, "it is said, was de- stroyed at the sacking of the place, by Timonr; and soft] after that catastrophe, when the country became a little settled, the present unobtrusive building was raised on the original spot. Certain devout Jews of the city stood at the expense ; and about a hundred and fifty years ago, (nearly five hundred after its re-erection,) it was fully repaired by a rabbi of the name of Ismael. On passing through the little portal, which we did in an almost doubled position, we entered a small arched chamber, in which are seen the graves of several rabbis : probably, one may cover the re- mains of the pious Ismael ; and, not unlikely, the others mav contain the bodies of the first rebuilders, after the sacrilegious destruction bv Timour. Having trod lightly by their graves, a second door of such very confined dimensions presented itself at the end of this vestibule, that we were constrained to enter it on our hands and knees, and then standing up, we found ourselves in a larger chamber to which appertained the dome. Immediately under its concave, stand two sarcophagi, made of a very dark wood. carved with great intricacy of pattern, and richness of twisted ornament, with a line of inscription in Hebrew, running round the upper ledge of each. Many other inscriptions, in the same language, are cut on the walls, while one of the oldest antiquity, engraved on a slab of while marble, is let into the wall itself. The priest assured me it had been rescued from the ruins of the first edifice, at its demolition by the Tartars; and, with the sarcophagi themselves, was preserved on the same consecrated spc'.." (Sir R. K. Porter.)— Border. JOB. CHAPTER I. Ver. 3. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hun- dred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great household ; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east. It is remarkable that in this passage female asses only are enumerated; llie reason is, because in them great part of their wealth consisted; the males being few, and not held in equal estimation. We find that the former were chosen for riding by the natives of these parts : and the ass of Balaam is distinguished as a female. They were prob- ably led to this choice from convenience ; for, where the country was so little fertile, no other animal could subsist so easily as this : and there was another superior advantage in the female; that whoever traversed these wilds upon" a she-ass, if he could but find for it sufficient browse and wa- er, was sure to be rewarded with a more pleasing and nu- 'rilious beverage. — Bryant. Ver. 4. And his sons went and feasted in their houses every one his day; and sent and called , for their three sisters, to eat and to drink with them. Literally, " were wont and held a banquet-house ;" which is not exactly an English idiom. The original phrase lit- erally signifies, "a banquet-house," or "open house for feasting;'" and hence Tyndal renders it, " made bankettes;" which is not perfectly literal, but far less paraphrastic than cur common rendering, "went and feasted in their houses." -Good. Ver. 5. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morn- ing, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all : for Job said, It may be thnt my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually. The feasting continued till they had been at each other's house in turn. Something like this is practised by the Chinese, who have their co-fraternities, which they call the brotherhood of the month; this consists of thirty, according to the number of days therein, and in a circle they go every Jay to eat at one another's houses by turns. If one man have not conveniences to receive the 'fraternity in his own house, he may provide for it at another; and there are many public-houses very well provided for this purpose. — Bur- Ver. 7. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou 1 Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. In our common version, "From going to and fro ;" but this is not the exact meaning of the Hebrew eitr ; which, as is well observed by Schultens, imports not so much the act of going forward and backward, as of making a cir- cuit or circumference; of going round about. It is hence justly rendered in the Spanish, " De cercar por la lierra," " From encircling or encompassing the earth :" to which is added, in the Chaldaic paraphrase, " to examine into the works of the sons of man." The Hebrew verb rw is still in general use among Arabic writers, and, in every instance, implies the same idea of gyration, or ciicuinam- bulalion. — Good. Ver. 10. Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side ? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. It is said of a man who cannot be injured, " Why at- tempt to hurt him 1 is there not a hedge about him 1" " You cannot get at the fellow, he has a strong hedge about him." " Yes, yes; the modeliar has become his hedge." — Rob- erts. To give the original verb the full force of its meaning, it should be derived from the science of engineering, and ren- dered, " Hast ?iiou not raised a pulisado about him V The Hebrew verb rat implies, to fence with sharp spikes, pali- sades, or thorns ; and hence the substantive ep:w is used for spikes, palisades, or thorns themselves. The Arabian wri- ters employ the same term, and even the same idiom, still' more frequently than the Hebrews. In the Arabic version of the passage before us, the metaphor is varied still further; but the observations thus offered will render the variation not difficult of comprehension: thus, instead of being interpreted as above, " Hast thou not made a fence about him !" it is translated in the Arabic copy, "Hast thou hot protcrlfil him villi thy hand?" The Syriac runs to the same effect, while the Chaldee paraphrast "translates, " Hast thou not overcovercd him with thy word ?" In the latter clause of this verse, the words, "increased in the land," are, in the Hebrew, " overflowed the land." Our common version merely gives the sense of the original, without the figure, whose "force and elegance render it highly worthy of being retained. The Hebrew (v">s) peraz does not simply mean to increase, but to burst or breok forth as a torrent ; and hence to overflow or exundate its boun- daries. The word is used in the same rendering in many parts of the Bible, in which it cannot be otherwise trans- lated. The following instance mav suffice, from the stan- dard English text, 2 Sam. v. 20: " The Lord hath broken forthupon mine enemies before me, as the breach of waters: therefore he called the name of that place Baal-PERAzm." The Arabians employ, to this hour, the very same term to express the mouth or embouchure, the most rapid and irre- sistible part of a stream, in proof of which, Golius, with much pertinency, brings the following couplet from Gjan hari, the whole' of which is highly applicable, and where the word mouth, in the second line, is in the original ex- pressed by this very term : — "His rushing \v>a]lh nVrllowpcl liini with its heaps: So, at its iiLnuth. ill.- mail KuphraVs sweeps." Dr. Stock has caught something of the idea, though it is not so clearly expressed as it might have been : " And his possessions burst out through the land." So the versions of Junius and Tremellius, and Piscator, " El peats ejus in multitiidinem eriiperit in terra'" — "And his cattle, for multitude, have burst forth through the land." n:po substance or possession, is often used for cattle, as the earliest substance or possession. So cattle, among our- selves, is said by the etymologists to be derived from capi- talia.— Good. Ver. 12. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power ; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. (,!hap. 1. is the trial and triumph of the integrity of Job; a character of whose origin no certain documents have descended to us, but who, al the period in question, »;h chief nrigistiatc, or emir, as we should style him in the i enl day, "I the city of Uz ; powerful and prosperous beyond all the sons of the East, and whose virtue and piety were as eminently distinguished as his rank. Of the lour characters intro- 0 the poem, as his friends, Eliphaz, Bildati, ad Klihn, the first three are denominated, in all the Greek translations of the poem, kings of the respective : 1 1,-1 , to « hteh then loin,-. :.:<■ prefixed ; and i i particularized, in the Chaldee paraphrase, as a relation of Abraham, and was probably, therefore, a des- i ni.Mii of liuz, the .second son of Nahor. the brother of Abraham, as conjectured by Bochart. There are some .■mi.,, however, and of great distinction for learning and ... in opposition to these biographical remarks, c md thai the whole of the poem, as well i" tl chaiac ters as in its structure, is fabulous. Such espei opinion of Professor Michael is, whose chief arguments are derived from the nature of the exordium, in which Satan appears as the accuser of Job; from the temptations and sufferings permitted by the great Governor of the world to befall an upright character ; from the roundness of the numbers by which the patriarch's possessions are described, as seven thousand, three thousand, one thousand, and five hundred; and from the years he is said to have lived after his recovery from disease. It may perhaps be thought to demand a more subjugating force than is lodged .'iiments, to transmute into fable what has uni- formly been regarded as fact, both in Europe and Asia, for .perhaps upwards of four thousand years; which appears to have descended as fact, in a regular stream of belief, in the very country which forms the scene of the history, from ed lime of its occurrence to the present day ; the chief character in which is represented as having had an actual existence, and is often associated with real char- acters, as Noah, Abraham, Ismael, Isaac, Jacob, and So- lomon, in various' parts of the book which is there held most sacred, and which, so far as it is derived from nation- al history or tradition, is entitled to minute attention ; and (which should seem long since to have settled the question ,i character which, precisely in the same man- ner, is associated with real characters in the authoritative pages of the Old Testament. " It is altogether incredible," observes M. Michaelis, "that such a conversation evertook place between the Almighty and Satan, who is supposed to return with news from the' terrestrial regions." But why should such a conversation be supposed incredible 1 The attempt at wit in this passage is somewhat out of place; for the interrogation of the Almighty, "Hast thou fixed thy view upon my servant Job, a perfect and upright man?" instead of aiming at the acquisition of news, is intended as a severe and most appropriate sarcasm upon the fallen spirit. " Hast Tiintj, who, with superior faculties and a more comprehensive knowledge of my will, hast not con- tinued perfect and upright, fixed thv view upon a subordi- nate being, far weaker and less informed than thyself, who has continued so 1" The attendance of the apostate at the tribunal of the Almighty is plainlv designed to show us, that good and evil angels are equally amenable to him, and equally subject to his authority; — a doctrine common to every part of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and, ex- cept in the mythology of theParsees, recognised bv perhaps every ancient system of religion whatever. The part as- signed to Satan in the present work is that expressly as- Signed to him in the ease of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and of our Saviour in the wilderness; and which is assigned to him generally, in regard to mankind at large, ov all the Evangelists and Apostles, whose wrihngs have leached us, both in their strictest historical narratives, and closest argumentative inductions. And. hence, the argu- ment which should induce us to regard the present passage is fabulous, should induce us to regard all the rest in the -ame light, which are imbued with the same doctrine; — a view of the subject which would sweep into nothingness a much larger portion of the Bible than I am confident M. Michaelis would choose to part with. The other argu- ments are comparatively of small moment. We want not fable to tell us that good and upright men mav flci become the victims of accumulated calamities; for it is a living fact, which, in the mystery of providence, is perpet- ually occurring in every country : while as to the round- numbers by which the patriarch's possessions are described, nothing could have been more ungraceful or superfluous than lor the poet to have descended to units, had even the literal numeration demanded it. And, al- though he is slated to have lived a hundred and forty years after his restoration to prosperity, and in an era in which the duration of man did not perhaps much exceed that ol iho present day, it should-be recollected, that in his person, as well as in his property, he was specially gifted by the Almighty: that, from various passages, he 'seems to have been younger than all the interlocutors, except Eliliu, and much younger than one or two of them ; that his longevity is particularly remarked, as though of more than usual ex- tent; and that, even in the present age of the world, we have well-authenticated instances of persons having lived, in different parts of the globe, to the age of a hundred and fifty, a hundred and sixty, and even a hundred and seventy years. It is not necessary for the historical truth of the book of Job, that its language should be a direct transcript of that actually employed by the different characters introduced into it; for in such case we should scarcely have a single book of real history in the world. The Iliad, Shah Nameh, and the Lusiad, must at once drop all pretensions to su. h a description; and even the pages of Sallust and Cesar, ol Rollin and Hume, must stand upon very questionable au- thority. It is enough that the real sentiment be given, and the general style copied: and this, in truth, is all that is aimed at, not 'only in our best reports of parliamentary speeches, but, in many instances, (which indeed is much more to the purpose,) by the writers of the New Testament, in their quotations from the Old. The general scope and moral of the ensuing poem, namely, that the troubles and affliction of the good man are, for the most part, designed as tests of his virtue and integrity, out of which be will at length emerge with additional splendour and happiness, are common to eastern poets, and not uncommon to those of Greece. The Odyssey is expressly constructed upon such a basis ; and, like the poem before us, has every appear- ance of being founded upon real history, and calls in to its aid the machinery of a sublime and supernatural ag( ncy. But in various respects the poem of Job stands alone and unrivalled. In addition to every corporeal suffering ami privation which it is possible for man to endure, it carries forward the trial, in a manner and to an extent which has never been attempted elsewhere, into the keenest faculties and sensations of the mind; and mixes the bitterest taunts and accusations of friendship, with the agonies of family bereavement and despair. The body of other poems con- sists chiefly of incidents ; that of the present poem of col- loquy or argument, in which the general train of reason- ing is so well sustained, its matter so important, its language so ornamented, the doctrines it develops so sublime, its transitions from passion to passion so varied and abrupt, that the want of incidents is not felt,' and the attention is still riveted, as by enchantment. In other poems, the su- pernatural agency is fictitious, and often incongruous : here the whole is solid reality, supported, in its grand outline by the concurrent testimony of every other part of the scriptures; an agency not obtrusively introduced, but de- manded by the magnitude of the occasion; and as much more exalted and magnificent than every other kind ol similar interference, as it is more veritable and solemn. The suffering hero is sublimely called forth to the perform- ance of his part, in the presence of men and of angels ; each becomes interested, and equally interested, in his conduct ; the Almighty assents to the trial, and for a period withdraws his divine aid; the malice of Satan is in its full career of activity; hell hopes, earth trembles, and even- good spirit is suspended with awful anxiety. The wreck of his substance is in vain; the wreck 'of his family is in vain; the scalding sores of a corroding leprosy are in vain; the artillery of insults, reproaches, and railing poured forth from the mouth of bosom friends, are in vain Though at times put in somedegree off" his guard, the holy sufferer is never completely overpowered. He sustains the shock without yielding: he still holts fast his integrity. Thus terminates the trial of faith :— Satan is confounded; fidelity triumphs; and the Almighty, with a magnificence well worthy of the occasion, unveils his resplendent in- 326 JQ bunal, and crowns the afflicted champion with his ap- plause. , This poem has been generally supposed to possess a dra- matic character, either of a more or a less perfect degree ; but, in order to give it such a pretension, it has uniformly- been found necessary to strip it of its magnificent exordium and close, which are unquestionably narrative ; and even then the dramatic cast is so singularly interrupted by the appearance of the historian himself, at the commencement of every speech, to inform us of the name of the person who is about to take up the argument, that many critics, and among the rest Bishop Lowt'h, are doubtful of the propriety of referring it to this department of poetry, though they do not know where else to give it a place. In the present writer's view of the subject, it is a regular Hebrew epic ; and, were it necessary to enter so minutely into the ques- tion, it might easily be proved to possess all the more prom- inent features of an epic, as collected and laid down by Aristotle himself; such as unity, completion, and grandeur in its action ; loftiness in its sentiments and language ; mul- titude and variety in the passions which it develops. Even the characters, though not numerous, are discriminated, and well supported ; the milder and more modest temper of Eliphaz is well contrasted with the forward and unre- strained violence of Bildad ; the terseness and brevity of Zophar with the pent-up and overflowing fulness of Elihu ; while in Job himself we perceive a dignity of mind that nothing can humiliate, a firmness that nolhing can subdue, still habitually disclosing themselves, amidst the mingled tumult of hope, fear, rage, tenderness, triumph, and de- spair, with which he is alternately distracted. I throw out this hint, however, not with a view of ascribing any addi- tional merit to the poem itself, but merely to observe, so far as a single fact is possessed of authority, that mental taste, or the internal discernment of real beauty, is the same in all ages and nations; and that the rules of the Greek critic are deduced from a principle of universal impulse and operation. Nothing can have been more unfortunate for this most excellent composition, than its division into chapters, and especially such a division as that in common use ; in which not only 'the unity of the general subject, but, in many in- stances, that of a single paragraph, or even of a single clause, is completely broken in upon and destroyed. The natural division, and that winch was unquestionably in- tended by its author, is into six parts, or books; for in this order it still continues to run, notwithstanding all the confu- sion it has encountered by sub-arrangements. These six parts are, An opening or exordium, containing the intro- ductory history and decree concerning Job ;— three distinct series of arguments, in each of which the speakers are re- gularly allotted their respective turns; — the summing up of the controversv; — and the close or catastrophe, consisting of the suffering hero's grand and glorious acquittal, and res- toration to prosperity and happiness. — Good. Ver. 14. And there came a messenger unto Job, and said. The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them. Hfc. "She-asses." In our common version, which seems borrowed from Tyndal, asses: yet why the sex, which is so expressly mentioned in the original and the Septuagint. and is copied into every version with which I am acquaint- ed, excepting these two, should be here suppressed, I know not. Female asses, on account of their milk, were much more highly esteemed, at all times, in the East, than males, a few of which only appear to have been kept for continu- ing the breed ; and hence, perhaps, they are not noticed in ver. 3 of this chapter, which gives us a catalogue of the patriarch's live-stock. She-asses, moreover, on account of their milk, were generally preferred for travelling. The iss of Balaam is expressly declared to have been female, Numb.xxii.21; as is that of Abraham, Gen. xxii. 3. — Good. Ver. 15. And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword ; and I only am es- caped alone to iell thee. Heb. " And the Sabean rushed forth"— a poetic expres- sion for " the Sabeans," or " Sabean tribe." The Syriac 3. Chaiv * version gives us, " a band or company rushed forth," the word Sabean being omitted. Saba, or Sheba, was a town or city of Arabia Desena; and the Sabeans and Chal- deans were wont to wander in distinct bands or hordes, upon predatory excursions, over the whole of the border country, and perhaps, at times, as far as from the banks of the'Euphrates to the outskirts of Egypt. The Bedouin Arabs of the present day present us with the best specimens of these parties of irregular plunderers. Both are equally entitled to the appellation of Kedarines; the root of which, in Arabic as well as in Hebrew, implies assault, incursion, liimuU; and both either have employed, or still continue to employ, as a covering for their tents, a coarse brown hair cloth, obtained from their daik-coloured and shaggy goats : whence the fair bride of Solomon, in the song of Ver. 20. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped. These are two of the actions by which great distress or agony of mind has, in all ages, been accustomed to^be ex- pressed in the East. In addition to these, sometimes the hair of the beard was also shaven or plucked off, as was done bv Ezra, on his arrival at Jerusalem, on finding that the Hebrews, instead of keeping themselves a distinct and holy people, after their return from captivity, had in- termixed with the nations around them, and plunged into all their abominations and idolatries. Ezra ix. 3. And sometimes, instead of shaving the hair of the head, the mourner, in the fulness of his humiliation and self-abase- ment, threw the dust, in which he sat, all over him, and purposely covered his hair with it. See Job ii. 12. After shaving the head, when this sign of distress was adopted, a vow was occasionally offered to the Almighty, in the hope of obtaining deliverance. This seems to have been a frequent custom with St. Paul, who did both, as well at Cenchiea as at Jerusalem, and in both places probably on this very account. See Acts xviii. 18. and xxi. 24.— Good CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. And Satan answered the Lord, and said. Skin for skin ; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. The Arabs set the exploits of their chiefs in the dialogue form, like the book of Job. The Cingalese oflen spend hours at night in reciting alternately the exploits of Budhu, and of their gods and devils. I have oflen been disturbed by them. This passage, imperfectly explained by most commentators, is, bv Mr. Robinson, set in so clear a light, that the reader will'be better satisfied with a quotation, than an abridgment. " Before the invention of money, tr; de used to be carried on by barter, that is, by exchanging one commodity for another'. The man who had been hunting in the woods for wild beasts, would carry their skins to market, and exchange them with the armourer for so many bows and arrows. As these traffickers were liable to be robbed, they sometimes agreed to give a party of men a share for defending them; and skins were a very ancient tribute. With them they "redeemed their own shares of property and their lives. It is to one or both of these cus- toms, that the text alludes, as a proverb. Imagine one oi these primitive fairs. A multitude of people from all parts, of different tribes and languages, in a broad field, all over- spread wilh various commodities lobe exchanged. Imagine this fair to be held after a good hunting season, and a bad harvest. The skinners are numerous, and clothing cheap. Wheat, the staff of life, is scarce, and the whole fair dread a famine. How many skins this year will a man give for this necessary article, without which, he and his family must inevitably die 1 "Why, each would add to the heap, and put 'skin upon skin,' for all' the skins 'that a man hath, will he give for his life.' Imagine the wheal growers, of whom Job was one, carrying home the skins, which iliev had taken for wheat. Imagine the party engaged to protect them, raising the tribute, and threatening if it were not paid, to put them to death. What proportion of skins would these merchants give, in this case of necessity 1 Skin upon ikin, nil the skins that 'fin/ have, will thru »irr furl hi ir I ins. Theprtvetb Ihen menus! that we should save inn lives al any price."— Cu.i.awav. \ ■ ■ ; So went Sfttan fotth from the pn Ben se oi the I.ORD, and smote .l,,li with sore biles, from ihe sole of his foot unto his crown. I ble»] pie have, the greatest passible dread and Ink's, and all cutaneous diseases. Here, then, we «e i he princely Job the victim of a loathsome disorder, silting among the aslies and broken earthen vessels, the impure refuse of the kitchen and other places. See the |ioor neglected objecl who is laboui ing tiridi i umilar I this day, from the head to the fool ; he is Cov- ered ivrli scales and blotches, around his loins is a scanty rag, he wanders from one I ily pine,' to another, and when he sees you, stretches out a hand towanl- \i.. mi agea ahall thou rainc up: Ami tin. ii sh;.li !..■ .■.ill.-. I 'I'll.' repairer ofruins, Tlir re..l..i.r ..I paths lo walk in. So Ezek. xxxvi. 33:— And I will als,> cause vou In dwell in the cities; And II, i- I'.im.'.l wastes shall lie rebuilt. ]i is useless to quote further: the parallel passages are al- imerable. — Good. Ver. 21. Which long for death, but it cometh not: an 1 dig for it more than for hid treasures. We are constantly hearing of treasures which have been or are about lo be discovered. Sometimes you may see a e of ground, which has been completely turned up, r .h, ,M i , . , 1 1 i.ki i i. >n , or ruin, entirely demolished, in hopes of finding the hidden gold. A man lias found a small i Bin, lias heard a tradition, or has had a dream, and off he goes 10 his |.,||. Perhaps In- has been seen on the Spot, * he Iteda soothsayer; the report gets out; and then needy, the old, and the young, a motley group, all full ,,f anxiety, lo Join in lite spoil. Sum.- have iron in- struments, other's have slicks, and some thejr fingers to scratch up the ground. At last some of them begin lo look at each other with considerable suspicion, as if all wen- not right, and each seems to wish he had not come on SO foolish an errand, and then steal off as quietly as they can. I once kueu a deep tank madecompletelydry,(byii nselal r,) in the hope of finding great treasures, which were said to have been cast in during the ancient wars. Passing near, when they had nearly finished their work, and had considerably 1. Mated, I went up to the owner, (whose face immediately began to show its eh i .1 and inquired, "Why are you taking so much . inpiv that lank V "He replied, an calmly «.< he louXd, " We are merely cleaning it out." Poor man! I believe he found nothing bul stones and bones, and a few coppel , for it more than for hid treasures.' finds a practical illustration in the East, and is a figure of common use in the language.— Roberts. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 2. //' we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved I but who can withhold him- self from speaking? The term noa, " to essay or attempt," is peculiarly expres- sive in the Hebrew, and is derived from the sense of smell exercised by hounds and other animals, in essaying or exploring the track of the prey they are in pursuit of. It is -'ill iised among the Arabs for a pleasant smell or odour. Eliphaz means to insinuate his desire to select the very ■|ilv he could possibly meet with upon a minute research, such as, while it answered the purpose of expo- tllacy of the patriarch's reasoning, should hurt In- feelings as little as possible. — Good. Ver. 6. Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, the uprightness of thy ways, and thy hope1? The clew to the genuine sense of this passage will be obtained by a slight transposition of the latter hemistich: ■' Is not this fear of thine, thy confidence; and the upright- ness of ihv ways, thy hope V Job had before affirmed, chap. :>i. 36,26, "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me. and that which 1 was afraid of is come unto me. 1 was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; vet trouble came;" '• R. I was continually exercised by a sodlv fear, a holv misgiving; I did not dare to cherish a sentiment of carnal security; even in the height of my prosperity, I was deeplv sensible of my exposure to calam- ity, and lived habitually under a trembling anticipation of its approach. To this Eliphaz alludes; q. d. Here is some- thin? for which it is hard to account. " Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak- hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art 12 troubled." How is this? Why is thy practice so much at variance with thy precepts'! If thou art the man thou claiinesl to be; it thou hast been governed, as thou alle- ges!, by a prevailing fear of God, and hast never indulged a feeling of self-sufficient security, why is not this thy lea a source of humble confidence to thee in the day of distress I and why does not the recollection of ihe uninipea, liable integrity and npi ighlnessof thy ways, serve as an anchor ol hope, amid the tossings of a tried and troubled spirit I This surely were to have been expected from one of thy character. A heart conscious of innocence con 1,1 sustain itself in such a trial; it would be entirely contrary to the analogy of the divine dispensations lo suppose that such a one would be the victim of overwhelming judg- ments; for " remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being i tentl or when were the rigl ra i This interpretation makes the whole address of Eliphaz consistent, coherent, and clear, though founded upon the fallacy, lhat men are invariably dealt with in this world according to their desert. — Bush. Ver. 9. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. When people are angry, they distend their nostrils and blow wnh great force : the action may be taken from some animals, which, when angry, blow violently through their noses, Of a man who is much given to anger, it is said, " That fellow is always blowing through his nose." "You may blow through your nose for a thousand years, ii will never injure me." '" Go not near the breath o'f his nostrils, he will injure you."— Roberts. Ver. 15. Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up. This refers to the great fear of Job; but the same effect is often ascribed to great joy. Thus, in Hindoo books, in describing the ecstasy of gods or men, it is often said, " The hair of their flesh stood erect." A father says to his long absent child, " My son, not having seen your lotus face for so long, my hair' stands up with joy." — Roberts. Ver. 19. How much less on them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth ? It is probable that this means a moth-worm, which is one stale of the creature alluded to. It is first enclosed in an egg, from whence it issues a worm, and after a time becomes a complete insect, or moth. The following ex- tracts from Niebuhr may throw light on this passage, that man is crushed by so feeble a thing as a worm :— " A dis- ease very common in Yemen is the attack of the Guiney- worm, orihe Yuw-MrJinrnsh, as it is called by the physi- cians of Europe. This disease is supposed to be occasioned by the use of the putrid waters, which people are obliged to drink in several parts of Yemen ; and for this reason the Arabians always pass water, with the nature of which they are unacquainted, through a linen cloth, before drinking it. Where one unfortunately swallows any of the eggs of this insect, no immediate consequence follows; but after a con- siderable time, the worm begins to show itself through the skin. Our physician, Mr. Cramer, was, within a few days of his death, attacked by five of these worms at once, although this was more than five months after we had left Arabia. In the isle of Karek I saw a French officer named Le Page, who, after a Ions and difficult journey performed on foot, and in an Indian dress, between Pondicherry and Sural, through the heart of India, was busy extracting a worm out of his body. He supposed that he had got ii by drinking bad water in the country of ihe Mahrattas. Tl Ls disorder is not dangerous if the person affected can extract the worm without breaking it. With this view it is rolled on a small bit of wood as it comes out of the skin. It is slender as a thread, and two or three feet long. It gives no pain as it makes its way out of the body, unless what may be occasioned bv the care which must betaken of it for some weeks. If unluckily it be broken, it then returns into the body, and the most disagreeable consequences ensue, palsy, a gangrene, and sometimes death." — Burder. 3S0 JOB. Chap. 5, CHAPTER V. Ver. 5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance. This seems a manifest allusion to the halt-starved Arabs of the desert, who were always ready for plunder, as their descendants are to this day. Such starvelings are thus de- scribed by Volney : " These men are smaller, leaner, and biacker, than any of the Bedouins yet known ; their wasted legs had only tendons without calves; their belly was glued to their back. In general, the Bedouins are small, lean, and swarthy, more so, however, in the bosom of the desert, than on the borders of the cultivated country. They are ordi- narily about five feet two inches high. They seldom have more than about six ounces of food for the whole day. Six or seven dates, soaked in melted butter, a little milk, or curd, serve a man for twenty-four hours; and he seems happy when he can add a small portion of coarse flour, or a little ball of rice. Their camels also, which are their chief support, are remarkably meager, living on the mean- est and most scanty provision. Nature has given it a small head, without ears, at the end of a long neck, with- out flesh: she has taken from its legs and thighs every muscle not immediately requisite for motion; and, in short, has bestowed on its withered body only the vessels and tendons necessary to connect its frame together ; she has furnished it with a strong jaw, that it may grind the hardest aliments ; and lest it should consume too much, she has straitened its stomach, and obliged it to chew the cud." -Burder. Ver. 7. Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. Hebrew, " Sons of the burning coal." The word son, among the Hindoos, is applied to man, and all kinds of animal life. Men of ignoble parentage are called sons of thi koddekal, i. e. the mechanics. When animals, reptiles, or insects, are troublesome, they are called passusinudia maggal, sons of the devil; or vease-maggal, sons of the prostitute, or of the treacherous ones. Seethe ploughman, at his occupation; should the bullocks prove restive, he immediately vociferates the epithets alluded to. Listen to the almost breathless cowherd, who is running after some of his refractory kine, to bring them to the fold, and he abuses them in the most coarse and indelicate language. The man also, who, for the first time, discovers the white ants destroying his property, bawls out with' all his might, " Ah ! vease-maggal, sons of the prostitute." — Roberts. Ver. 21. Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue : neither shalt thou be afraid of de- struction when it cometh. Dr. A. Clarke says, " the Targum refers this to the in- cantations of Balaam: from the injury by the tongue of Balaam thou shalt be hidden." The people live in great fear of the scourge of the tongue, and that independent of an incantation, because they believe the tongues of some men have the power of inflicting a dreadful curse on any object which has incurred their displeasure. Thus, many if the evils of life are believed to come from nel-vooru, the .:urse or the scourge of the tongue. " Have you heard what Kandan's tounn- has done for Muttool" "No ! what has happened V "Why, some time ago, Kandan promised on his next voyage to bring Muttoo a cargo of rice, but he did not keep his word ; Kandan, therefore, became very angry, and said, ' I shall not be surprised at hearing of thy vessel being wrecked.' Mutloo again sailed, without caring for Kandan 's tongue; but lo ! his vessel has been knocked to pieces on the rocks, and I saw him this morning on his way home, beating his head, and exclaimin?, 'Ah! this nti-ronru, nd-vooru, this evil tongue, this evil tongue, my vessel has gone to pieces on the rocks." But the tongues of some men are believed to possess malignant power, not only in imprecations, but also in their blessings and praises. 'The other day, when I and some others were sitting with our friend the doctor, one of his daughters came lo speak to her father; as she was delivering her message, one of the party exclaimed, ' What a beautiful set cf teeth !' and from that moment they beg;:n to decay." "Alas! alas! poor old Murager purchased a fine milch cow yesterday, and was driving her along the road this morning, on his way home, when, behold, a fellow met them and said, ' Ah, what large teats!' The cow broke from the string, she rushed to the hedge, and a slake ran through her udder." "Ah, what a miserable man is Valen ! a few days ago, as his wife was nursing the infant, he said, 'How comely art thou, my fawn !' when immediately a cancer made its. ap- pearance in her breast, from which she can never recover." — Roberts. Ver. 23. For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field ; and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee. See on 2 Kings 3. 19. In a country where wild beasts are so numerous and so fierce, and where the natives have so few means of dt fence, can it be a matter of surprise that people on a journey are always under the influence of great fear 1 The father says to his son, when he is about to depart, "Fear not; the beasts will be thy friends." The dealer in charms says, when giving one of his potent spells, " Be not afraid, young man ; this shall make the cruel beasts respect thee."— Roberts. Ver. 25. Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall, be great, and thine offspring as the grass of the earth. When a priest, or an aged person, blesses a ycung couple, he says, " Your children shall be as the grass, arruga-jmbi, (Agrostis Linearis.) Yes; you shall twine and bind your- selves together like the grass." — Roberts. Ver. 26. Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his sea- Literally, " in dried up," or, " shrivelled age ;" and hence the term here employed, ("Vs) is applied by the Arabian" to designate the winter season, in which everything is cor- rugated or shrivelled. On which account some commen- tators propose, that the text should be rendered " in the winter of life;" poetically, indeed, but not thoroughly con- sistent with the metaphor of a shock of corn: which, in close congruily with the emblematic picture of winter, at its season of maturity, is dried vji and contracted, and thus far offers an equal similitude of ripe old age; but which forci- bly increases the similitude by the well known fact, that, ' like ripe old age also, it must be committed to the earth in order to spring to newness of life ; for, in both cases, " the seed which thou sowest shall not quicken, except it die." Tyndal has given the passage thus: " In a fayre aee lyke as the corn sheewes are broughte into the barne in due sea- son:" whence Sandys, "Then, full of days. lik.> uvinhly slux-ks of rom, In season n-;Lpt-.l, .sh:ilt to thy grave be borne." Nor very differently Schultens, notwithstanding that he ad- mits that the Hebrew (tin) in itself implies "congestion, accumulation, or heaping together." " Intrnbis in decrep- itii si-nertme adtumulum," " Thou shalt eater into the tomb, in decrepit age;" meaning, as a shock of corn enters into the ham.— Good. Great is the desire of the men of the East to see a good >M age. Thus the beggars, when relieved, often blesxyou. and say, " Ah ! my lord, may you live a thousand years." " Live, live, till the shakings of age." — Roberts. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 2. Oh that my grief were thoroughly weigh- ed, and my calamity laid in the balances to- gether ! " Ah ! my lord, could you weigh my poverty, I am sure you would relieve me." " The sorrows of that man's soul, who can weigh them i" " Alas ! if my sorrows could be weighed, then would pity be shown unto me."— Roberts. JOB. Ver. 4. For the arrows of the Almighty are with- in me, the poison thereof drinketh up my spi- rit : the terrors of God do set themselves in ar- ray a linst me. Tlie practice of using poisoned arrows is universal among the interior nations,.!' Southern Africa, to whom : .,,,! ached. like Strongest of all the powm< used is thai which nasi n discovered by tl>e most uncivilized of all the nations, the wild Bushmen"; a wound from which IS, attended with great pain and thirst, while the poison is arouehOUl the system, and attended with '-Teat 1 brought some of the poison with me to o see if any antidote against it could be discov- exactly the appearance of black wax. and is found deposited in" sheltered corners of rocks, but how it e is yet unknown. A medical gentleman, who had devoted much attention to the different kinds of known er delivering some lectures in London on that particular subject, heard of the Bushman poison, and au- to furnish him with some of it, that he might analyze it, and endeavour to find out an antidote. I rejoiced that the matter had fallen into such good hand: di.itcly forwarded it by post. I received different letters, containing various experiments, but all had tailed. Ire- member the tir-t trial he made of the power of the poison tting the point of a needle, and. after dipping it into the powder, pricking a bird with it, which died almost immediately. The same experiment was made on a second bird, while 'some antidote was immediately applied to ooun- teract the effects of the poison. After a short time it also died. Various antidotes were tried in the same way, but all proved equally ineffectual — Campbell. Ver. 6. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there an;/ taste in the white of an egg The eastern people often makeuse of bread, with nothing more than salt, or some such trifling addition, such as sum- uier-savorv dried and powdered. Tins, Russel says, is done nv many at Aleppo. The Septuagint translation of this his to refer to the same practice, when it renders the first part of the verse, "will bread be eaten without tfalll"— Bcrder. Ver. 12. Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass? Is a servant ordered to do a thing for which he has not strength; to undergo great hardships; he asks, "Is my strength as iron 1 Am I a stone 1" — Roberts. Ver. 15. My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; 16. Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid : 17. What time they wax warm they vanish : when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. « The phrase in this place is a strict orientalism, " My 'sSorethren have acted (or played) the flood with me :" and the proverbial form is at least as common now among the Arabians, as it could be when the present' poem was com- posed. Fairly explained, nothing can be more apposite, nothing more exquisite, than the image before us, and the whole of its description. Arabia has but few rivers ; Proper Arabia perhaps none ; for what in this last country are called rivers, are mere torrents, which descend from the mountains during the rains, and for a short period af- terward. A few rivers are found in Yemen, or the south- ern province; and the Tigris and Euphrates, as touching its northern limits in their passage along Irak Arabi, have occasionally been laid claim to by Arabian geographers. Even the Astam of Najd, or Neged, the province of Sandy Arabia, though laid down as a considerable river in the maps, is a mere brook. Hence the country is chiefly water- ed and fertilised by exudations of its dry channels, an overflow of wfucb is uniformly regarded as a great treasure and blessing; the inhabitants in the neighbourhood hail its appearance, and prepare to enrich themselves out of its Moles, by admitting It 111'" Ihell 1.11,1s - ol I, eIy,.o often happens, that the blessing is converted to a curse; 1 1,;, i the torrent rushes « ilhsc a and rapid- ity, as to carry every thing before it; and that, exhausted by its own n. I on is as brief as us stream is rapid, allowing them scarcely lime to slake their own thirst, or, at least, lo fill their domestic utensils. Fair and Specious, therefore, as is its Inst appearance, it is m the end mil ofdeceil and cruel disappointment i " Et vial' Dr. I.ov.ih, upon the passage before us) per Araba- deserta errantcs simple confeelos pel tide dcslilunnt," Prajl. xii. p. 1111— it pi umises comfort, but overwhelm with mortifica- tion. Such (says Job) are the companions who come to visii me in my affliction ; they afieel to console me, but they redouble my distress.— Good. In desert parts of Africa it litis afforded lunch joy lo fall in with a brook of water, especially when running in the direction of the journey, expecting it would prove a valua- ble companion. Perhaps before it accompanied us two miles, it became invisible by sinking into the sand; but two miles farther along, it would re-appear and run as be- fore, and raise hopes of its continuance ; but after running a Uw hundred yards, would finally sink into the sand, not again to rise, fii both cases it raised hopes which were not realized; of course it deceived. Perhaps it is to such brooks thai Job refers in the loth verse. There are many in Africa, which are described in verse 17, which run in the winter, or rainy season; but the return of the hot season completely dries them up, which prove often great disap- pointments to stranger travellers. — Campbell. Ver. 1?. The paths of their way are turned aside ; they go to nothing, and perish. Rendered by Schultens and Reiske, " into thedes°rt, the emptv space, or land of nothing;" but the former is the more forcible rendering. The torrent progressively evap- orating and branching into fresh outlets, becomes at length itself nothing. The original means equally "nothing," and " a desert," or place of nothing. It is usually rendered in the former signification. I have already observed that the latter is preferred by Reiske and Schultens ; but either will answer. The whole description is directly coincident with a very valuable article inserted by Major Colebrooke, in the sev- enth volume of Asiatic Researches, and entitled, " On the Course of the Ganges through Bengal." He observes, that the occasional obstructions w hieh the rivers of Bengal mee' with, on the return of their periodical flux, produce not un- frequenlly some very extraordinary alterationsin the course and bending of their respective beds, and hence, some equally extraordinary changes in the general face of the country. "While some villages that, in common, are scarce- ly visited by a river, even at its utmost rise, are overflowed and suddenly swept away; others, actually seated on the banks of an arm, and that used to be regularly inundated, are totally deserted, and the inhabitants have to travel over many miles to obtain water. He adds, that the Ganges has evinced changes of this nature, in a greater degree than anv other Indian stream ; and that even since the survey of Major Rennel, in 1764, it has deviated in its course not less than two miles and a half; whence several of the vil- lages which figure in his map are no longer to be found in the situations assigned them ; while islands of considerable magnitude, now inhabited and cultivated, have started into being where the river then rolled its deepest waters.— Good. Ver 28. Now, therefore, be content : look upon me: for it is evident unto you if I lie. "When a person is accused of uttering a falsehood, he' says, " Look in mv face, and you will soon see I am inno- cent." "My face will tell you the truth." When the countenance does not indicate guilt, it is said, " Ah ! his face does not say so." " The man's face does not contain the witness of guilt. "-»-Roberts. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 2. As a servant earnestly destreth the shadow, and as a hireling looketh for the reioard of his WOlk. The people of the Esst measure time by the length of their shadow. Hence, if you ask a man what o'clock it is, he immediately goes in the sun, stands erect, then looking where his shadow tei minaies, he measures the length with his feet, and tells you nearly the time. Thus they earnest- ly desire the shadow which indicates the time fur leaving th=ir work. A person wishing to leave his toil, says, " How long my shadow is in coming." " Why did you ' not come sooner 1" " Because I waited for my shadow." — R BERTS. Ver. 2. As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as a hireling looketh for the reward of his work ; 3. So am I- made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. The expression, when fairly rendered from the original, is peculiarly forcible: " So much worse is my destiny than that of the bondsman and the hireling, that, while they pant and look early for the night-shade, as the close of their trouble, even the night is not free from troubles to myself." — Good. Ter. 10. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. Inanimate objects are often spoken of as if they knew their owners. A man who has s< ild his fi-ld, says, " That will not know me anv more." Does a field not produce good crops, it is said, " That field doth not know its owner." Has a man been long absent from his home, he asks, when enter- ing the door, " Ah ! do you know me V Does he, after this, walk through his garden and grounds, the servants say, " Ah ! how pleased these are to see you !" Has a per- son been unfortunate at sea, it is said, " The sea does not bnew him." — Roberts. Ver. 12. Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me? Some suppose this alludes to the sea overflowing its banks. But the Orientals also believe that the sea is the dwelling-place of many of their spiritual enemies. Hence they have a deity to watch the shore, whose name is Kali. Numerous enemies, also, are compared to the sea, and wicked chiefs who oppress the people, to timingalam, i. e. a whale. " Ah 1 that whale, who can escape him V— Crocodiles are verv terrible to the inhabitants of Egypt ; when therefore they appear, they watch them with great attention, and take proper precautions to secure them, so that they should not be able to avoid the deadly weapons afterward used to kill them. To these watchings, and those deadly after-assaults, I apprehend Job refers, when he says, avi la whale, (but a crocodile no doubt is what is meant there,) that thou, settest a watch over me? " Different methods," says Maillet, " are used to take crocodiles, and some of them very singular; the most common is to dig deep ditches along the Nile, which are epveredwith straw, and into which the crocodile may probably tumble. Some- times they take them with hooks, which are baited with a quarter of a pig, or with bacon, of which they are very fond. Some hide themselves in the places which they know to be frequented by this creature, and lay snares for him." — Bur- der. Ver. 19. How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spit- tle? This is a proverb among the Arabians to the present day, ri) which they understand, Give me leave to rest after rriy lal.gue. This is the favour which Job complains is not granted to him. There are two instances which illustrate the passage (quoted by Schultens) in Harris's Narratives, entitled the Assemblv. One is of a person, who, when eagerly pressed to give an account of his travels, answered with impatience, " Let me swallow down my spittle, for my iourney hath fatigued me." The other instance is of a made to i The other instance ho used that proverb, quick return made to one who used that proverb, feutlei me," said the person importuned, " to swallow down my spittle :" to which his friend replied, " You may if you please swallow down even Tigris and Euphrates;" that is, take wriat time you please. — Burder. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 11. Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water? The reed grows in immense numbers on the banks and in the streams of the Nile. Extensive woods of the canes Phragmit and Calama magrostes, which rise to the height of twelve yards, cover the marshes in the neighbourhood of Suez. "The stems are conveyed all over Egypt and Arabia, and are employed by the Orientals in construct- ing the flat terraces of their habitations. Calmet thinks it probable that this extensive region of canes gave name to the Red Sea, which, in those times, entirely inundated the marshes on its borders. Jam Suph is a sea that pro- duces canes ; and as the Arabs denote two sorts of canes by the general name buz, the surname being added after- ward, Moses, the sacred historian, following the same ancient denominations, did not attend to the specifical nice- ties of botanology. This same leader of the people, un- derwent the first dangers of his life in a cradle made of the reeds donax or hagni. This information induced Cal- met to conclude, that in these reeds, -which covered the banks of the Nile, we have what our translation renders the flags, (suph, ) in which Moses was concealed in his trunk, or ark of bulrushes, goma. The remarkable height to which they grow, and their vast abundance, lead to the persuasion, that in some thick tuft of them, the future prophet of Israel was concealed. It appears also, from the interrogation of Job, that the goma cannot reach its full stature without an abundant supply of water : " Can the rush — goma, rather the tall strong cane or reed — grow up without water"!" This plant, therefore, being a tall reed, is with great pro- priety associated with the kanah, or cane: " In the habita- tion of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass, with canes and reeds." — Paxton. Ver. 12. While it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. The application of this beautiful similitude is easy, and its moral exquisitely correct and pertinent. As the most succulent plants are dependant upon foreign support for a continuance of that succulence, and in the midst of their vigour are sooner parched up than plants of less humidity ; •so the most prosperous sinner does not derive his prosper- ity from himself, and is often destroyed in the highday of his enjovments, more signally and abruptly than those who are less favoured, and appear'to stand less securely. — Good. CHAPTER IX. Ver. IS. He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness. Of a cruel master it is said, " When his servants stop to take their breath, he abuses them." " The man grudge* me my breath." " What ! can I work without taking my breath V " The toil is always upon me: I have not time for breathing."— Roberts. Ver. 25. Now my days are swifter than a post : they flee away, they see no good. " Ah ! my days are like an arrow." " What is my time 1 'tis like the wind." " 'Tis like cotton spread in the strong wind." "See that falling leaf; that is life." "'Tis bu' as a snap of the finger." " Am I not like a flower V "Yes; it is a stream." " Aneer-midle, i.e. a bubble! how softly it glides along! how beautiful its colours! but how- soon it disappears." — Roberts. The common pace of travelling in the East is very slow. Camels go little more than two miles an hour. Those who carried messages in haste moved very ditferently. Drome- daries, a sort of camel, which is exceedingly swift, are used for this Durpose ; and Ladv M. W. Montague asserts, that Chap. 9— 12. K they far outrun (he swiftest hones. There are also mes- setgers who run on foot, and who sometimes go a hundred ana fifty miles in less than twenty-four hoars j with what energy 'then might Joh say, " My 'lays are swifter than a post. Instead of passing awav with a slowness of motion like that of a caravan, my days of prosperity have disap- Seared with a swiftness like that of a messenger carrying aspatches. — Burder. Ver. 26. They are passed away as the swill ships ; as the eagle that hasteth to the prey. "The swift ships." Many interpretations have been given of this expression. The author of the Fragments an- nexed to Calmet's Dictionary, observes, that if it can be rendered supposable that any animal, or class of animals, may be metaphoricallv called ships, it is the dromedary, well known to Job. The eastern writers apply the term to camels and dromedaries. " The whole caravan being now assembled, consists of a thousand horses, mules, and asses, and of five hundred camels : these are the ships of Arabia ; their seas are the deserts." (Sandy's Travels.) " What enables the shepherd to perform the long and tiresome jour- neys across Africa, is the camel, emphatically called by the Arabs, the ship of the desert : he seems to have been crea- ted for this very trade." (Bruce's Travels.) Of the drom- edary, which is a kind of camel, Mr. Morgan (Union/ of Algiers) says, " I saw one perfectly white all over, belong- ing to Leila Oumane, princess of that noble Arab Neja, named Heyl ben Ali, upon which she put a very great value, never sending it abroad but upon some extraordina- ry occasion, when the greatest expedition was required: having others, inferior in swiftne-s, for more ordinary messages. They say that one of these Aasharies will, in one night, and through a level country, traverse as much ground as any single horse can perform in ten, which is no exaggeration of the matter, since many have affirmed to me, that it makes nothing of holding its rapid pace, which is a most 'violent hard trot, for Ibur-and-tweniy hours on a stretch, without showing the least sign of weariness or in- clination to bait ; and that then having swallowed a ball or two of a sort of paste made up of barley-meal, and, maybe, a little powder of dry dates among it, with a how I of wa- ter, or camel's milk, if to be had, and which the courier seldom forgets to be provided with in skins, as well for the sustenance of himself as of his pegasus, the indefatigable animal will seem as fresh as at first setting out, and ready to continue running at the same scarcely'credible rate, for as many hours longer, and so on from one extremity of the African desert to the other, provided its rider could hold out without sleep, and other refreshments." The follow- ing extracts from Arabic poetry, translated by Sir W. Jones, speak the same language: — : so brisk, thai she Sies with vin.l, after il has iliscliarft-.l •' Lons is her neck ; an.1 when she raises it with releritv, it rescui- ng alr.lt .ill 111.- lilli.iKV Timis.' vhich bore away my fair one. on Die morning when "Sailine from A.luli. i.r vessels of (the merchant) Ibn Yainin, which the mariner now turns nliiniti.lv. ami n.iw steers in a -liieet emus.. : ''Ships which cleave [he 1'naniini: waves with their prows, as a buy ^f play iliviite-3 Willi his hatui the collected earth." — Border. CHAPTER X. Ver. 10. Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese ? Much philological learning has been brought to the ex- planation of this passage. In the preceding verse, Job is speaking of his death. "Wilt thou bring me unto dust again J" But what has the pouring out of milk to do with death 1 The people of the East pour milk upon their heads after performing the funeral obsequies. Has a father a profligate son, one he never expects to reclaim, he says, in reference to him," Ah ! I have poured milk upon my head," i. e. " I have done with him ; he is as one dead to me." "And curdled me like cheese." The cheese of the East is little better than curds j and these also are used at the funeral ceremonies.— Roberts. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 2. No doubt but ye are the people, and wis- dom shall die with you. The people of the East take great pleasure in irony, and some ot their satirical sayings are very cutting. Whin a sage intimates that he has superior wisdom, or when he is disposed to rally another for his meager attainments, he says, " Yes, yes ; you are the man I" " Your wisdom is like the sea." " You found it in dreams." " When you die, whither will wisdom go 1" " You have all wisdom !' " When gone, alas I what will become of wisdom V "O the .Ny.iui! U the philosopher!" — Roberts. Ver. 4. I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answered) him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn. Though Job, in his distress, cried unto the Lord, his neighbours mocked him, and laughed him to scorn; show- ing their own impiety, and belief that God would not an- swer him. Sometimes, when a heathen (who is supposed to be forsaken of the gods) performs a penance or religious austerity, others will mock him, and say j "Fast for me also ; yes, perform the poosy for me, and you shall have all you want." Should a man, who is suffering under the punishment due to his crimes, cry to the gods for help, those who are near reply, {for the nods,) "Yes, we are here; what do you want! we will help you." "When the gods come, tell them I am gone home;" I could not remain any longer." Thus was the jusi, the upright Job, laughed to scorn when he called upon God.— Roberts. Ver. 5. He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease. The critics are by no means agreed on the import of this passage; and, to say truth, we cannot flatter ourselves with; a complete removal of its uncertainty. However, the attempt to explain it is honourable, even though it fail. To us it seems to suggest a comparison between the super- abundant splendours of the interior of a wealthy man's dwelling, and the dark, dismal, night-wandering of a war- worn traveller. To add a lamp, however brightly burning, to what Mr. Good calls " the sunshine of the prosperous," were to render that lamp a contempt, a ridicule, whereas the man who slays amid mire and clay, in outer darkness, would rejoice to profit by its lustre. A travelling lamp, though ils light be vivid", would be laughed at amid the various elegant illuminations in the interior of a house fitted up with great taste by a man of fashion : nevertheless, however awkward, coarse, and clumsy, it may be, the man who is falling into a quagmire would be extremely thankful for ils assistance. This acceptation of the sentiment de- mands no dislocation of any word in the text: but, whether it completely dissipates ihe obscurity of the passage, the reader must'judge. — Taylor in Calmet. D'Oyley and Mant quote from Caryl and Poole as fol- lows: "A despise,! lamp is of the same signification wilh a smoking firebrand ; which last is a proverb for lhat which is almost spent, and therefore despised and thrown aw ay a- useless." In view of these observations, it is worthy of notice, thai of a man who is much despised, or who is very contemptible, it is said, " That fellow is like the half-con- sumed firebrand of the funeral pile." Job, bv his enemies, was counted as a despised lamp. When a person is sick unto death, it is said, " His lamp is going out." After death, " His lamp has gone out." When a person is. indis- posed, should a lamp give a dim light, the people of the house will become much alarmed, as they th.nk it a bad sign. A lamp, therefore, which burns dimly, (as did lhat of Job,) will be lightly esteemed. — Roberts. Ver. 20. He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understating of The term crops seems, in this present place, to imply some- thing more than " of the aged," as it is commonly render- ed; and rather intimates, "the aged officially convened in 334 JO public council ;" whence it is rendered " senators,"by Schul- tens and Dr. Stock : but elders, or eldermen, is a more gene- ral term, and hence more extensively appropriate, as well as more consonant with what ought ever to be the unaffect- ed simplicity of biblical language. Though the term sena- tors includes the idea of age, it' includes it more remotely. In Gen. 1. 7, we have a similar use of the term elders : for we are told, that " when Joseph went up into the land of Canaan to bury his father, with him went all the servants of Pharaoh, the ciders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt;" in other words, the chief officers of state, the privy counsellors, and the entire senate or body of le- gislators, chosen from the land or people. — Good. Ver. 22. He discovereth deep things out of dark- ness, and bringeth out to light Ae shadow of death. The author of the poem discovers a great partiality for this figure: the reader can scarely fail to recollect its oc- currence in ch. x. 21, 22. In the present instance, how- ever, it appears to be used in a different sense, and to allude, in characteristic imagery, to the dark and recon- •<: dite plots, the deep and desperate designs, of traitors and conspirators, or other state-villains : for it should be observ- ed, that the entire passage has a reference to the machinery of a regular and political government; and that its general drift is to imprint upon the mind of the hearer the important doctrine, that the whole of the constituent principles of such a government, its officers and institutions, its monarch and princes, its privy-counsellors, judges, and ministers of state ; its chieftains, public orators, and assembly of elders; its nobles, or men of hereditary rank ; and its stout, robust peasantry, as we should express it in the present day ; nay, the deep, designing villains that plot in secret its destruc- tion,—that the nations themselves, and the heads or sove- reigns of the nations, are all and equally in the hands of the Almighty; that, with him, human pomp is poverty, human excellence turpitude, human judgment error, human wisdom folly, human dignities contempt, human strength weakness. — Good. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways be- fore him. When a master chastises an affectionate slave, or tells him to leave his service, he says, " My lord, though you slay me, yet will I trust in you." Does a husband beat his wife, she exclaims, " Mv husband, though you kill me, I will nut let you go." " Kill me, my lord, if you please, but I will not leave you : I trust in you." " Oh ! beat me not ; do I not trust in you V " What an affectionate wife that is : though her husband cut her to pieces, yet she trusts in him." " The fellow is always beating her, yet she confides in him." — Roberts. Ver. 24. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? Job, in his distress, makes this pathetic inquiry of the Lord. Should a great man become displeased with a per- son to whom he has been previously kind, he will, when he sees him approaching, avert his face, or conceal it with his hand, which. shows at once what is the state of the case. The poor man then mourns, and complains, and asks, " Ah ! why does he hide his face V The wife says to her offended husband, " Why do you hide your facel" The son to his father, " Hide not your face from your son." — Roberts. Ver. 26. For thou writest bitter things against me. " Ah ! the things that man has written against me to the pidge, are all faissapu, all bitter." " Oh! that is a bitter, bitter fault." " Who will make this bitterness-sweet V — Roberts. Ver. 27. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths ; thou seitest a print upon the heels of my feet. !. Chap. 12—15 The punishment of the stocks has been common in the East from the most remote antiquity, as is seen in all their records. But whether the stocks were formerly like clogs, or as those of the present day, it is impossible to say. Those now in use differ from those in England, as the unfortunate culprit has to lie with his back on the ground, having his feet fast in one pair, and his hands in another. Thus, all he can do is to writhe his body; his arms and legs being so fast, that he cannot possibly move them. A man placed in great difficulty, says, " Alas! I am now in the stocks." "I have put my boy in the lulungu." i. e. stocks; which means, he is confined, or sent to school. To a young man of roving habits, it is said, " You must have your feet in the stocks," i. e. get married. " Alas I alas ! I am now in the slocks; the guards are around my path, and a seal is put upon my feet."— Roberts. {See Engraving.) CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean 1 not one. The following are common sayings :— " Who can mm a black crow into a white crane %" " Who can make the bitter fruit sweet 1" " Who can make straight the tail of the dogl" " If you give the serpent sweet things, will his poison depart 1" — Roberts. Ver. 7. For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Trees here appear to be more tenacious of life than in England. See them blown down ; yet from the roots fresh shoots spring up. See them sometimes at such an angle (through storms) that their branches nearly touch the ground, and yet they keep that position, and continue to bear fruit. Those trees, also, which have actually beeu cut down, after a few showers, soon begin to send forth the "tender branch." The plantain-tree, after it has borne fruit once, is cut down ; but from its roots another springs up, which, in its turn, also gives fruit, and is then cut down, to make way for another. Thus, in .reference to this tree, it may be truly said, Cut it down, but " the tender branch thereof will not cease." — Roberts. Ver. 17. My transgression is sealed up in a bag. and thou sewest up mine iniquity. The money that is collected together in the treasures of eastern princes is told up in certain equal sums, put into bags, and sealed. — (Chardin.) These are what in some parts of the Levant are called purses, where they reckon great expenses by so many purses. The money collected in the temple in the time of Joash, for its reparation, seems, in like manner, to have been told up in bags of equal value to each other, and probably delivered sealed to those who paid the workmen, (2 Kings xii. 10.) If Job alludes tc this custom, it should seem that he considered his offences as reckoned by God to be very numerous, as well as not suf- fered to be lost in inattention, since they are only consider- able sums which are thus kept. — Harmer. Ver. 19. The waters wear the stones: thou wash - est away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth ; and thou destroyest the hope of man. Is a man found fault with because he makes slow pro- gress in his undertaking, he says, " Never mind ; the water which runs so softly, will, in time, wear away the stones." — Roberts. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 7. Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills 1 When a majoritv of people agree on any subject, should an individual pertinaciously oppose them, it will be asked, "What! were you born before all others'!" "Yes, yes; he is the first man : no wonder he has so much wisdom !" " Salam to \he first! man." — Roberts. C :ap. 16. JO] Hebrew, " Wast Ihoii born first of mankind 1" Such ap- pears to me the true rendering, tlmu^li it is given differently riy different ■mil will admit of l tufications ; the word trm (Adam) being either a propel name, or an appellative for mankind .it large; whence some of the uhVst versions render the | •■: H.i i thou born before Adaml" while the generality, and in my opinion more correctly, give us, "An primus lu.u atns \ii thou the first-born of men V or, "Wast IhoC ti .in Srsl of mankind ¥' — Good. \ ii 2 V He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers. Wrestlers, before they began their combats, were rubbed all over in a rough manner, and afterward anointed with i il, in order to increase the strength and flexibility ol their itas tins unction, in making the skin too slippery, tendered it difficult for them to take hold of each other, they remedied that inconvenience, sometimes by rolling themselves in the dust of the Pa kvstra, sometimes by throw- ing fine sand upon each other, kept for that purpose in X.y-:n-, or porticoes of the Gymnasia. Thus prepared, they began their combat. They were matched two .gainst two, and sometimes several couples contended at the same time. In this combat, the whole aim and design of the wrestlers was to throw their adversary upon the ground. Both strength and art were employed to tins purpose; they seized each other by the arms, drew forward, pushed h ek- ward, used many distortions and twistings of the body; locking their limbs in each other's, seizing by the neck or throat, pressing in their arms, struggling, plying on all -ides, lining from the ground, dashing their V; < like nous, and twisting one another's necks. In lliis man- ner, the athlete wrestled standing, the combat ending with the fall of one of the competitors. To th "s eo words of Eliphaz seem to apply: "For he stretehelh out his hand against God" like a wrestler, challenging his an- tagonist to the contest, " and strengthening himself," rather vaunteth himself, stands up haughtily, and boasts of his jirowess in the full view of "the Almighty-," throwing abroad Ins anus, clapping Ins hands together, springing into the middle of the ring, and taking his station there in the adjusted attitude of defiance.' " fie runneth upon him, even on his neck," or with his neck stretched out, furi- ously dashing his head against the other; and this he does. even when he perceives that his adversary r covered with defensive armour, upon which he can make* 0 impression : " he runneth upon the thick bosses of ' bucklers." — Paxton. Vcr. 33. He sh-ill shake off his un*-pe the vino, an I shall cast off his Power as the olive. I be. a valuable acquisition to the learned world, if observations made in Judea itself, or rath -r, in thiscase, in the land of Uz. were communicated to n relating to the Datura) causes which occasion, from time i time, a disap- pointment of their hopes from their vinevurds and olive - ; and the .effects of a violently sultry southeast wind on their most useful or remarkable vegetables. I very much question, however, whether the words of Eliphaz, in if Job, xv. 33, refer to any blasting of the vine by nitiN.nl causes; thev seem rather to expres- he violently taking away the unripe grapes by the wiin m-x, of which I have given an account in the preceding volume. It is certain the word ina biser, translated here unripe used to express those grapes that were sn far a growth as to be eaten, though not properly ripened, as ap- pears from Jeremiah xxxi. -2'?, and Ezek. xviii. '2: and the verb cars ynrhnas, translated here skate of, signifies re- moving hv violence, consequently cannot be meant of any thing done in the natural course of things, but by a human hand ; and if so, mav as well be applied to the depredations of the Arabs, as the impetuosity or deleterious quality of anv wind, the energy of poetry making use of a verb' ac- tive instead of its passive. It may not be amiss, before I close, just to take notice, that the vulgar Latin translation was so little apprehensive that grapes, when grown to any considerable size, were wont to drop, that its authors, or correctors, have rendered the word's alter this manner : " Laedetur quasi vinea in pri- mojlore botrus ejus," that is, " his cluster shall he injured as a vine when il first comes into flower;" intim if any damage is done to the vine at all by an in season, Ihey supposed il would be upon lis first flowering. How ariluous ,s the business „{ translating a foreign | oem into English verse! A multitude of circumstances must be attended to by such a translator, when he finds binuelj obliged, as he often does, to vaiy the expressions a little, on account ol bis vet e; and, for want-of full information as to particular points, he must frequently fail. M this kind demand great candour. — Haumek. A north or northeast wind frequently proves injurious to the olive-trees in Gr< ' the blossom. Dr. ( 'handler says, "We ate under an olive-tree, then laden with pale yellow flowers: a strong breeze from the sea scattered the bloom and incommoded us, but the spot afforded no shelter more eligible." In another place, he are now, as anciently, a prin- cipal source of the riches of Athens. The mills for pressing and grinding the olives are in the town ; the oil is depos- ited in large earthen jars, sunk m the ground, in the areas before the houses. The crops had failed five years suc- cessively; when we arrived; the cause assigned was a northerly wind, called Greco-Tramontane, which destroyed the flower. The fruit is set in about a fortnight, when the apprehension from this unpropitious quarter ceases. The bloom in the following year was unhurt, and we had the pleasure of leaving the Athenians happy in the prospeet of a plentiful harvest." — Burdeb. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 0. Shall vain words have an end? or what imboldeneth thee that thou answerest? The Hebrew has, " words of vind." " His promiki ' il is only wind.'' " I lis words are all wind." " The wind has taken away his words!" " Breath, breath ; all breath !" — Roberts. Ver. 4. I also-coulil speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you. The whole of this passage is rendered unintelligible, in its usual mode of translating, by attributing a conditional instead of a future tense to it : " I also could speak, &e." or, " But I could speak," — instead of," But I wt»speak,"or "talk on." — Good. Ver. 9. He teareth me in his wrath who haleth me' he (jnasheth upon me with his teeth: mine enemy sharpencth his eyes upon me. ■ Has not the cruel man been sharpening his eves upon me V "His eyes are like arrows: they pierce my life.'' " Truly, his cutting eyes are always upon me." " Yes, yes; the eyes of the serpent."— Roberts. Ver. 10. They have gaped upon me with their mouth ; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully : they have gathered themselvns together against me. Here is another living picture of eastern manners. See the exasperated man ; he opens his mouth like a wild b< asl. shows his teeth, then suddenly snaps them together. Again he pretends to make another snatch, and growls like a tiger. Should he not dare to come near, he moves his hand, as if sinking you on the cheek and says, " I will beat thy kou- nan. i. e. cheek, thon low-eriste fellow." — Roberts. From the following extracts, this treatment appears!, have been considered very injurious. " Davage was deep- ly incensed : nor could I do more than induce him to come to the factory on business while I was there; Mr. Pringle having, in one of his fits, struck him on the cheek with the sole of his slipper, the deepest insult that can be offered to an Asiatic; among whom it is considered as a mark of dis- respect to touch even the sole of the foot." (Lord Yalen- lia.) "In the Mahratta camp, belonging to Scindia, his prime minister, Snrjee Rao, was murdered in the open bazar: his mistresses were, as usual, stripped of all they and his favourite one was sent for to court, and severely beaten in the presence of Scindia's wife, who add- ed to the indignity, by giving her several blows herself with a slipper." (B'roughton.) " When the vazir declared himself unable to procure the monev, Fathh Ali Shah re- proached him for his crimes, struck him en the face, and with the high wooden heel of a slipper, always iron-bound, beat out several of his teeth." (Sir W. Ouseley.) The Hindoo, religiously abstaining from animal food and intoxicating liquors, becomes thereby of so very mild a temper, that he can bear almost any thing without emo- t'on, except slippering; that is, a stroke with the sole of a slipper or sandal, after a person has taken it off his foot and spit on it; this is dreaded above all affronts, and con- sidered as no less ignominious than spitting in the face, or bespattering with dirt, among Europeans. — Burder. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 1. My breath is corrupt, my days are ex- tinct, the graves are ready for me. A man far advanced in years, or one who is in deep affliction, says, " The place of burning is near to me, and the wood is laid together for my funeral pile." " How are you, my friend V "How am II I will tell you. Go.order them to get the wood together to burn this body." A father sometimes says of his wicked sons, " Yes, I know they de- sire my death ; they have been preparing for the funeral ; they are ready to wash me : the bier is at hand, and the wood is prepared." " Why do you all look so anxious 1 I am not ready for the washing."— Roberts. Ver. 3. Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he thai will strike hands with me ? See on Prov. 6. 1. The difficulty in this passage has resulted, in the first place, from the abruptness of the transition; and, secondly, from its being, in its common construction, very improperly separated from the preceding verse, and applied to the Al- mighty instead of to Eliphaz, the last speaker, to whom Job is peculiarly addressing himself. The fair interpreta- tion is, " But if there be any meaning in what ye say — if ye do not revile my character, but believe me to'be the op- pressor and the hypocrite ye assert — come on : I will still venture to stake myself against any of you. Will any of you venture to stake me against yourselves"! Who is he that will strike hands with me '? that will dare to measure his deserts with my own 1 and appeal to the Almighty, in proof that he is a juster man than I am V It is an argumen- tutm ad homincm, of peculiar force and approoriation, ad- mirably calculated to confound and silence the persons to whom it is addressed. The custom of staking one thing against another is of very early origin, and found in the rudest and simplest modes of social life ; hence the pasto- rals of Theocritus, as well as of Virgil, abound with ref- erences to this practice.— Good. Ver. 9. The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. The idea here suggested is that of purity and holiness. Porphyry observes, that in the Leontian mysteries the initi- ated had" their hands washed with honey, instead of water, to intimate that they were to keep their hands pure from all wickedness and mischief; honey being of a cleansing na- ture, and preserving other things from corruption.— Boh- DRH. Ver. 14. I have said to corruption, Thou art my rither : to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. Those who retire from the world to spend their lives in a desert place, for the purpose of performing religious aus- terities, often exclaim to the beasts, " Yes ; you are my relations, you are my parents ; these are my companions md friends." — Roberts. Ver. 16. They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust. B. Chap. 17, 18 Literally, to the limbs — " the grasping limbs," " the tre- mendous claws or talons" of the grave. The imagery is peculiarly bold, and true to the general character under which the grave is presented to us in the figurative language of sacred poetry, — as a monster, ever greedy to devour, with horrid jaws wide gaping for his prey; and, in the pas- sage before us, with limbs in unison wilh his jaws, and ready to seize hold of the victims allotted to him, wilh a strength and violence from which none ran extricate them- selves. The common rendering of fulcra, redes, or bars, -as of a prison, is as unnecessary a departure from the >per figure, . original term.- CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 2. How long will it be ere you make an end of words ? The commentators are not agreed to whom the opening of this speech is addressed. Being in the plural number, it cannot, according to the common forms of Hebrew col- loquy, be addressed to Job alone. Le Clerc, however, at- tempts to prove, that, under particular circumstances, such a form may be admitted, and especially when particular respect is intended. Other interpreters' conceive that it is addressed to Job and Eliphaz, to whom Job had been just replying. But the greater number concur in supposing that it relates to the family or domestics of Job, in conjunc- tion with himself, who, it may be conceived, were present, and at least tacitly approving his rebukes : " 'At cum tuii familia," is the explanation of Reiske. It is more probable that it applies to the interlocutors generally. — Good. ■ Ver. 4. He teareth himself in his anger : shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place? " Foolish man, why are you so angry 1 Will your anger pull down the mountain, or take a single hair from the head of your enemy 1" " This evil is only felt in your own heart and house ; it is your own destruction." — Roberts. Ver. 5. Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. 6. The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him. See on 1 Kings II. 26. Ver. 8. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare. The original implies a snare with pieces of wood, or other substance, put crosswise, or bar-wise, so as to sus- tain the deceitful covering of turf, or other soil, put over it to hide the mischief it conceals. The term is used Exod. xxvii. 4, to express a grating, or net-work of brass. The same kind of snare or pitfall is still frequently employed throughout India, in elephant-hunting. — Good.' Ver. 15. It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his : brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation. A very singular method of expressing sorrow amrig the ancients, was by burning brimstone in the house of ifce deceased. Livy mentions this practice as general among the Romans ; and some commentators think it is referutl to in these words of Eildad : " Brimstone shallbe seatteud upon his habitation." The idea corresponds with the de- sign of the speaker, which is to describe the miserable end of the hypocrite. — Paxton. Ver. 16. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off. Man is often described as a tree, and his destruction by the cutting off of the branches. " Alas! alas ! he is like a tree whose branches have been struck by the lightning." "He is a tree killed by the shepherds ;" which alludes to the practice (in dry weather, when the grass is burned up) of climbing the trees to lop off the branches and leaves for Chap. 10. J( the use of the flocks ami caille. ■ 1 lis branches and shoots are destroyed;" which means, himself ami family, "I know all his branches and hunches;" anmg all his con- nexions, (bee on Luke x x i i i . 31.)— -Roberts. Ver. 17. His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street. 'What kind of a man is Rftmar?" "I will tell you: his name is in every street ;" which means, he is a person of great fame. "All! my lord, only grant me iliis lavour, i inie shall be i'n every street." " Who does not wish his name to be m the streets I" " Wretch, where is reel « ill aeknow ! " From generation to generation ihall Ins name be in the streets." " Where is thy name written in stone ! No : it is written in water." — Roberts. Ver. 19. He shall neither have son nor nephew araotiff his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings. Heb. " Among his sojourning"— from -u " to sojourn," or "dwell for a short and uncertain period," as in travelling. The idea is peculiarly expressive and forcible: not only among his own people, and in his own settled habitation, shall his name, his memory, his family, be extinguished; hut DO asylum, no refuge, shall be afforded them in distant countries, and among strangers, with whom he had casually sojourned, and where his memory might be supposed to call forth the hospitalities of friendship. The Jewish his- tory affords innumerable instances of persons compelled to fly from their native homes, and seek an asylum ID the bosom of strangers, to whom they were only casually, or even altogether unknown : and, without ranging further, the history of Moses himself, the probable writer of the ; poem, furnishes us with a memorable example. — Good. The original word for dwellings, Sehuliens says, signi- fies a territory of refuge for strangers. The great men among the Arabs called their respective districts bv this name, because they took undertheir protection all defence- less and necessitous persons who fled thither ; they prided themselves in having a great number of these clients or de- pendants. This was an ancient custom in Arabia, and continues to the present day. The Arabian poets frequent- y refer to it. — Burder. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 3. These ten times have ye reproached me : you are not ashamed that yon make yourselves strange to me. See on Gen. 31. 7, 8. Ver. 6. Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net The allusion here may be to an ancient mode of combat practised among the Persians, Goths, and Romans. The custom amongthe Romans was this: one of the combatants was armed with a sword and shield, the other with a tri- dent and net; the net he endeavoured to cast over the head of his adversary, in which, when he succeeded, the entan- gled person was soon pulled down bv a noose, that fastened round his neck, and then despatched. The person who carried the net and trident was called Retiarius, and the other, who carried the sword and shield, Secutor, or the pursuer, because, when the Retiarius missed his throw, he was obliged to run about the ground till he got his net in order for a second throw, while the Secutor followed him, to prevent, and despatch him. The Persians used a run- ning loop, which horsemen endeavoured to cast over the heads of their enemies, that thev might pull them off their horses. The Goths used a hoop fas'enedto a pole. (Olaus Magnus.) " In the old Mexican paintings, we find war- riors almost naked, with their bodies wrapped in a net of large meshes, which thev throw over the heads of their enemy." (Humboldt.)— Burder. Ver. 16. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer: I entreated him with mv mouth. 43 » 337 When a man becomes reduced in the world, his slaves Obey him. he calls, but thev answer not; he hej laugh at him. II-' the verse — Kami dum. Pays u a, Y.i i is Kavi-Kavi-Endar. "Though I call, he comes not; [hough he sees, he , or, I am engaged, engaged, says he^'— Ron- Ver, It. Mj breath is strange to my wife though I entreated foi the children's sake of mine own body. It is not often that husbands, in these regions, conde- scend to entreat their wives, but they are sometimes (as when sick or in any way dependant) obliged to bumble He then says, ■■ My u ih-'s hreaih is not nou as mine.'' "For the sake of your children listen to my words." Nothing is more provoking to a woman than to say she has the breath of a num. — Roberts. Ver. 20. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and 1 am escaped with the skin teeth. 1 suppose the above words have given rise to the old English savins, 'lie has escaped with the skin of his teeth;" which cm • he h.vs had great diliieitliy in avoid- ing the danger. But have the leelh any skin'! li was formeily a custom among the heathen kings to knock out the teeih of their prisoners, or those who had offended them; and to this practice ihe Psalmist seems to allude: " Thou hast broken" the teeih of the ungodly.;" and, "Break their teeth, O God! in their mouth." Those who had been thus treated said, "We have escaped with the ise- rastl," i. e. the gums of our teeth. When a man is angry with another, he says. " Take care ; I will knock thv teeth out. Thou shall only have thy gums left." " What!" asks the person thus threatened, "am I thy slave, to have my teeth knocked out V But the teeth a're always spoken of as being very valuable ; and by them the people often esti- mate the worth of any blessing. "Ah! the king might have granted me that' favour This teeth would nol have fallen out on that account." " Would his gums have been left, if he had told me that secret 1" " Yes, yes, take care, or you will lose your pearls," (teeth.) " See the miserable man; the sickness has left him his gums only." — Roberts. There is Scarcely any verse in the whole poem that has more puzzled the commentators, and excited a greater variety of renderings, than this. The word skin is here repealed from the preceding line, for the sake of an itera- tion ; in which figure no poets have more largely indulged than the Asiatics, whether ancient or modern. It is a word of extensive meaning, and implies generally, rn integument, skin; and in the present place more particu- larly, the gums, which are the proper integuments of the teeth, the substance in which they are first produced, and which, through life, afford--; a nutritious covering to their base. It may also be rendered film, although- I do. not think this the direct sense of the term in the present pas- sage; it rather implies inii-^umcnts generally, and has been preferred by the original writer to any other term expres- sive of the' same meaning, on account, as I have already observed, of the i'eration hereby produced. — Good. In the celebrated inscription on the pillarat Delhi, called the Lat of Feeroz Shah, is the following passage, exhibit- ing a similar hyperbole in different terms: "Blades of grass are perceived between thine adversary's teeth." {Asiatic Researches.) The author of the Fragments subjoined toCalmet's Dictionary, thus paraphrases the passage : " My upper row of teeth stands out so far as to adhere to my up- per lip, that being so shrivelled and dried up, as to sink upon my teeth, which closely press it." He obsSrves, if our translation be riaht, it may receive some illustration from the following instances of those who did not escape with the skin of their teeth. " Prithwinarayan issued an order to Stirnparatana, his brother, to put to death some ol the principal inhabitants of the town of Cirtipur, and to cut offthe noses and lips of every one, even the infants who 333 were not found in ihe arms of their mothers; ordering, at the same time, all the noses and lips that had been cut off to be preserved, that he might ascertain how many souls there were, and to change the name of the town to Naska- tapir, which signifies, the town of cut noses. The order was carried into execution with every mark of horror and cruelty, none escaping but those who could play on wind instruments: many put an end to their lives in despair; others came in great bodies to us in search of medicines; and it was most shocking to see so many living people with their teeth and noses resembling the sculls of the deceased." (Asiatic Res.) — Burder. r Ver. 23. O that my words were now written I oh that they were printed in a book ! 24. That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever I The most ancient way of writing was upon the leaves of the palm-tree. Afterward they made use of the inner bark of a tree for this purpose ; which inner bark being in Latin called liber, the Greek /Ji.tfXot, from hence, a book, hath ever since, in the Latin language, been called liber, .and in the Greek, IhiiXm, because their books anciently consisted of leaves made of such inner barks. The Chinese still make use of such inner barks, or rinds of trees, to write upon, as some of their books brought into Europe plainly show. Another way made use of among the Greeks and Romans, and which was as ancient as Homer, (for he makes mention of it in his poems,) was to write on tables of wood, covered over with wax. On these they wrote with a bod- kin, or stile of iron, with which they engraved their letters on the wax ; and hence it is that the different ways of men's writings or compositions are called different styles. This way was mostly made use of in the writing of letters or epistles ; hence such epistles are in Latin called tnbella, and the carriers of them labellarii. When their epistles were thus written, they tied the tables together with a thread or string, setting their seal upon the knot, and so sent them to the party to whom they were directed, who, cutting the string, opened and read them. It is observable also, that anciently they wrote their public records on vol- umes or rolls of lead,' and their private matters on fine linen and wax. The former of these customs we trace in Job's wish, " 0 that mv words were now written ! O that they were printed in a book ! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever !" There is a way of writing in the East, which is designed to fix words on the memory, but the writing is not designed to continue. The children in Barbary that are sent to school, make no use of paper, Dr. Shaw tells us, but each boy writes on a smooth, thin board, slightly daubed over with whiting, which may be wiped off or renewed at pleasure. There are few that retain what they have learned in their youth ; doubtless things were often wiped out of the memory of the Arabs in the days of Job, as well as out of their writing- tables. Job therefore says, " O that they were written in a book," from whence they should not be blotted out ! But books were liable to injuries, and for this reason he wishes his words might be even graven in a rock, the most lasting T.-ay of all. Thus the distinction between tenting and writing in a book, becomes perfectly sensible, and the gra- dation appears in its beauty, which is lost in our translation, Where the word printed is introduced, which, besides its im- propriety, conveys no idea of the meaning of Job, records that are designed to last long not being distinguishec from less durable papers by being printed. — Burder. The word roek, which our translators have made use of, seems to me to be more just than that used bv Schullens. It is certrdn that the word -m tzvr, which is in the original, signifies m other places of the book of Job, a rock ; and never there, or anywhere else in the scriptures, that I am aware of, and I have with some care examined the 'point, lioes it signify a small sepulchral stone, or monumental pillar. On the other hand, I am sure the words that are used •for this purpose, when the sacred writers speak of the sepulchral stone on Rachel's grave; of the pillar erected by Absalom to keep up his memory; and of that monu- ment which marked out the place where the prophet was buried that prophesied n?ainst the altar of Jeroboam, and which continued to the days of Josiah; are different. Nor can the using this term appear strange, if weconsider the Chap. 19. antiquity of the book of J. b; since it is easy to imagine, that the first inscriptions on stones were engraved on some places of the rocks, which wereaccidenlly smooth- ed, and made pretty even. And, in fact, we find some thai are very ancient, engraved on the natural rock, and what is remarkable, in Arabia, where it is supposed Job lived. This is one of the most curious observations in that account of the prefetto of Egypt, which was published by the late bishop of Clogher ; and is, in my apprehension, ~an ex- quisite confirmation of our translation, tin. ugh there is reason to think neither the writer nor editor of that journal thought of this passage, and so consequently claims a place in this collection. The prefetto, speaking in his journal of his disengaging himself at length from the mountains of Faran, says, " they came to a large plain, surrounded however with high hills, at the foot of which we reposed ourselves in our tents, at about half an hour after ten. These hills are called Gebel el Mnknlab, that is, the Written Mountains: for, as soon as we had parted from the mountains of Faran, we passed by several others for an hour together, engraved with, ancient unknown-characters, which were cut in the hard marble rock, so high as to be in many places at twelve or fourteen feet distance from the ground : and though we had in our companv persons, who were acquainted with the Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, English, Illyrican, German, and Bohemian languages, yet none of them had any knowledge of these characters ; which have nevertheless been cut into the hard rock, with the greatest industry, in a place where there is neither water, nor any thing to be gotten to eat. It is probable, therefore, these unknown characters contain some very secret mysteries, and that they were engraved either by the Chaldeans, or some other persons long before the coming of Christ." The curious bishop of Clogher, who most laudably made very generous proposals to the Antiquarian Society, to en- gage them to try to decipher these inscriptions, was ready to imagine they 'are the ancient Hebrew characters, which the Israelites, having learned to write at the time of giving the law, diverted themselves with engraving on these mount- ains, during their abode in the wilderness. There are still in Arabia several inscriptions in the natural rock; and this way of writing is very durable, for these engravings have, it seems, outlived the knowledge of the characters madp use of; the practice was, for the same reason, very an. uent as well as durable ; and if these letters are not so ancient as the days of Moses, which the Bishop of Clogher snoposes, yet these inscriptions might very well be the continuation of a practice in use in the days of Job, and mav therefore be thought to be referred to "in these words of his, O that tkey were graven .... in the roek for ever <— Harmer. Ver. 23. O that my words were now written ! oh that they were printed in a book ! 24. That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever ! 25. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 26. And though, after my skin, worm/: destroy this borly, yet in my flesh shall I see God: 27. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another ; though my reins be consumed within me. It has been the fashion with a class of interpreters and divines, pleased perhaps to associate their own with Ihe celebrated names of Grotius, Le Clerc, and Warbtuton, to explode from this passage any reference to a future life, or the expectation of the Messiah ; and no slight contempt has been expressed for thecredulily and mental servitude (very candidly taken for granted) of those who entertain the be- lief of such a reference. This has, however, been the opin- ion of the greater number of scripture critics, ancient and modern, popish and protestant. The usual objections against this interpretation are, that no vestiges appear in the book of Job, of any acquaintance with the doctrine of a future life; that it would be very extraordinary if there really existed in the mind of the composer of this 'book, an) Chap. 19. , JO knowledge of the Redeemer to come, that such :i glorious hope should show itself nowhere but in this single pa— agr ; thai we cairaol reconcile such an avowal with the despond- epcy which appears to have prevailed in the id of JoB; and that the terms employed d I Here- >anly i than the | ersuasion of a deliverance, by divine goodness, -enl calamity, and a restoration to health and happiness, in the present life. To these ren i I reply, 1. Admitting that there is no intimation of the doctrine of immortality and a future judgment, or of the exportation Of a Messiah, in any other pail of llus book, thrronxrqilrtirr does not follow. It should be recollected thai, in book, the matter is disposed considerably ac ling to the taste and choice of the writer; and that a more vi\ id im- pression might be made, by presenting a capital circum- stance, with its brightness and force collected into than would be produced if it were dispersed through the general composition. The whole texture of this passage, introduced with the most impassioned wish for attention and perpetual remembrance, and sustained in the sublimest style of utterance, is evidently thus contrived to interest and impress in the highest degree. Those of our objectors who ascribe the date of the poem to the period of the captivity, cannot refuse 10 admit that the writer possessed whatever knowledge the Jewish nation had with respect to a Messiah and a future state. The writings of Moses and the former prophets, and the greater part of the works of the latter prophets, and the 1 1 grouped with the Psalms, were, at this time, the accredited scriptures of the Jews; and few will be so hardy as to affirm, that no intimations occur in those writings of the doctrines which constituted the hope and consolation of Israel. On this (in my opinion, untenable) hypothesis, it would appear highly credible that some very distinct ref- erence to those doctrines would enter materially into the structure of the work. •2. The alleged inconsistency between these expressions of triumphant confidence, as we understand them, and the gloominess and despondency generally prevalent in the speeches of Job, presses equally on our opponents, who con- fine the passage to the expectation of restored prosperity in the present life. It lies even more against them, for Job, not only before, but in his very last speech, evidently de- spaired of a res/ oral ion to temporal felicity. His properly might, indeed, by some wonderful, though almost incredible reverse of God's providence, be retrieved ; or, at least, valent comforts in that class of things might be obtain- but his children were destroyed; they could not live again : and his o'.vn disorder, probably the dreadful orien- tal leprosy, was incurable and fatal.' Yet. between this hopeless condition as to earthly enjoyments, and a vigorous aspiration of the mind after spiritual and immortal" bless- ings, there is no inconsistency. A man must have little judgment, little taste, and less moral sensibility, who does not perceive in these alternations of faith and diffidence, despair and hope, a picture exquisitely just and touching, of the human mind, under the influence of the most agita- ting conflict between religious iprinnple resting on the be- lief of invisible existences, and, on the other hand, the dic- tates of sense, the pressure of misery, and the violence of temptations. 3. But we are not disposed to grant cither of the assump- tions before mentioned. We have better evidence than the facta of German anti-supernaturalists, or the opinions of English refiners upon theology, that the patriarchs from whom the tradition of divine "truths had descej " confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and desired a better country, that is, a heavenlv." Nor is it credible that the promise of a M*siah was totally unknown to the true worshippers of Jehovah in Arabia, allied to the family of Abraham, and in the habit of reve- rentially cherishing the remains of primeval truth. And, besides the possession of the patriarchal religion, what is there to prevent any but a deist from conceiving that God might inspire his 'faithful and afflicted servant with the knowledge and the joyful confidence which he expresses'! Is not such a supposition consonant with all the known scheme and principlesof the divine dispensations? Wasnot the occasion worthy of the interposition 1 Has it not always been the faith of the Jewish and of the Christian church, that the ultimate sentiments which it is the design of the el 3. 339 bto suppoit and illustrate, and which, in the se- quel .til.. i tamp "' ,|iv iue approbation, form a part of the body of revealed truth ] There are also ;es in the book which may be ralionally urged as rerognition.-. of a future state. 4. The bare assertion that thr tr i nr: much as is usually attributed to them, hi . bi ag the contrary. To the un- der, as well as to the critical scholar, the means of judging for himself are industriously presented, in the .i given above, and in the remarks and refer- lined. The words are as plain asm any instani e the language o) pri | hei | can be expected to be. It appears to me strictly rational, probable, and in harmony with the great plan of a progressive revelation, to regard thi- re- markable passage as dictated by the Spirit of prophecy, who, "in many poiii..ii-..aiid m many modes, spake to the fathers." Let me also entreat the reader's most impartial considera- tion, ^ hether the sense here maintained is not required, even necessitated, by the words, taken in their fair meaning and connexion ; and whether the affixing of a lower inter- pretation does not oblige those who take this course, to put a manifest force upon the phrases, and upon the marks of pre-eminent importance with which the sacred author has signalized them. After employing the utmost force and beauty of language to stamp importance upon the words which he was about to utter, and to ensure for them a never-dying attention, the patriarch protests his confidence that the living God, the eternal, independent, and unchanging One, would be his Vindicator from injustice, and his Redeemer from all his sorrows ; and would restore him from the state of death, to a new life of supreme happiness in the favour and enjoy- ment of God. It is not necessary to suppose that Job understood the full import and extent "of what he was " moved bv the Holy Spirit to speak." The general belief on the divine testi- mony of a future Saviour from sin and its consequent evils, would place him on a level with other saints, in his own and many succeeding ages, who "died in faith, not re- ceiving the promises" in their clearest development, "but seeing them afar off." Even when those promises had received many accessions of successive revelations, the Jewish prophets did not apprehend the exact design and meaning of their own predictions; for " they inquired ami searched diligently— what or what kind of lime, the Spirit of Christ which w'as in Ihem did signify." Our inquiry is, therefore, not so much what the patriarch actually under- stood, as what the Author of inspiration intended ; since it was "not unto themselves, but unto us," that the patriarchs and prophets " ministered those things." " No prophecy of scripture is of self-solution ;" but is made gradually plainer by new communications from the same omniscient source, and bv the light of events. Upon this principle, it is proper for us to compare the language of this passage, with the character and declara- tions of Him to whom "all the prophets gave witness." He, in the fulness of the times, was manifested, as the Redeemer from sin and death, the First and the Last, and the Living One, the Resurrection and the Life ; who, in ihe appointed season, " is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him; whose voice the dead shall hear, and hearing, shall live." If, then, the evidence which we can attain in this case, be sufficient to satisfy an impartial judgment, that the pas- sage before us was '" given by inspiration of God," as a prophecy of the second coming of the only Redeemer and Judge of mankind ; it is no less evidence in point to our present investigation, on the person of the Great Deliverer, than if it directly regarded his first advent : — and it unequi- vocally designates Him by the highest titles and attributes of Deity. Upon the hypothesis of those who regard the book of Job as a divine parable, all doctrinal and practical con- clusions from it are strengthened, rather than rendered weak or precarious.— J. P. Smith. Ver. 24. That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! This probably refers to the ancient practice of writing on stone (bv means of an iron instrument) those events which were to be conveyed to posterity. The fact, also, o 340 JOB. Chap. 19—21. lead being used, may allude to the fixing of the stone by means ofthat metal. In all parts of the East are to be found records thus written, many of which have never been deciphered, as they are in the languages not now understood. It is proverbial to say, " The words of the wise are written on stone." " Learning for the young is like a writing in stone."— 'Roberts. Ver. 26. And though, after my skin, worms de- stroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Though worms be not in the original, I believe the trans- lators have acted wisely in supplying the word for the text. Dr. Mason Good translates it, '"After the disease hath destroyed." But the opinion of the Orientals, as expressed in their ancient writings, and also in those of the present day, is, that worms do exist in the skin, and in all parts of the body, and that they principally cause its destruction. They say the lift is first destroyed by them, and afterward the body. A man who is very ill, often exclaims, " Ah ! my body is but a nest for worms ; they have paths in all parts of my frame." " Ah ! these worms are continually eating my flesh." In the ancient medical work called Kwrrti.-Natick-Snot.eram, written by the celebrated Agaltiyar, it is said, " The human body contains eighteen kinds of worms:— 1. the skin; 2. the flesh; 3. the bones; 4. the blond; 5. (producing) wind; 6. the excrement; 7. the urine; S. intestines; 9, mcftip; 10. abscess; 11. sores (geperallyO 12. leprosy; 13. itch; 14. cancer; 15. mouth; 1G. teeth; 17. scull ; and 18. the hair." Is it not a fact that the medical men of England have only of late years discovered that animalcules exist in some of these parts alluded to 1 and perhaps they may do well also to inquire, whether old Agattiyar be not correct in some of his other opinions. — Roberts. Ver. 28. But ye should say, Why persecute we him? seeing the root of the matter is found in " What is the root of his conversation V " Is his root right 1" " We cannot find out his root V " Ah ! he has a good root." — Roberts. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 16. He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him. In a country where serpents lurk in every path, and where such numbers of people lose their lives from their bite, can itbe a matter of wonder that they are greatly afraid of them, and that their language abounds witlf figures taken from the destructive power of that reptile 1 Some modern writers have asserted, that there are very few of them which have poisonous qualities. It is said that some trav- ellers take occasional journeys of several months into Italy, Greece, and Egypt, that they may have an opportunity of writing a book " for the gratification of their friends ;" and that it is necessary to contradict, or alter a little, the descriptions of their predecessors, in order to find a sale, or to ensure a modicum of popularity. There may be something like scandal in these observations ; but I am quite sure they are not without force in reference to some who have favoured the world with their sketches of the East. To say there are many serpents whose bite is not fatal, is correct ; but to assert that there are many whose bite is not poisonous, is nonsense. Perhaps the most armless of all the tribe is the rat-snake; but its bite always produces giddiness in the bead, and a great degree of deadness in the part where the wound has been inflicted. Apologizing for this digression, I observe, that when a man is encaged with another, and yet dare not make a personal attack upon him, he says, " The viper shall bite thee." " From wuDm art thou 1 the race of vipers'?" "Yes, yes; the poison of the picddei/an-pdmio, i. e. the beaver-serpent, is in thy mouth." " What! serpent, art thou going to bite me 1 Chce, Chee ! I will break thy teeth."— Roberts. Ver. 17. He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter. See on chap. 29. 6. Is a man about to leave his native place, to reside in another country in hope of becoming rich, people say to him, " We suppose there are rivers of ghee, and honey and milk, in the town where you are going to live !"- Roberts. In these cool countries we have no idea of butter so liquid as described in these words; it appears among us in a more solid form. But as the plentiful flowing of honey, when pressed from the comb, may be compared to a little river, as it runs into the vessels in which it is to be kept, so, as they manage matters, butter is equally fluid, and may be described in the same way: " A great quantity of butter is made in Barbary, which/after ifis boiled with salt, they put into jars, and preserve for use." (Shaw.) Streams of butter then, poured, when clarified, into jars to be preserv- ed, might as naturally be compared to rivers, as streams of huney (lowing upon pressure into other jars in which it was kept. — Burder. Ver. 23. When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating. A man in the East does not, as in England, say he has eaten plentifully, or he has not taken any thing to eat ; but he has well filled his belly, or, " to his belly there is nothing." Thus, the beggar at your door stoops a little, then puts his hands on the abdomen, and exclaims, " My lord, for my belly nothing, for my belly nothing !" — Rob- erts. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 15. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him ? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him ? The heathen sometimes ask us, " Why should we pray to your God 1 is there any thing to be gained by it ? When we go to our own temples, we have often fruit given to us ; but when we come to yours, nothing is offered: give us something, and we will pray to him." On one of these occasions, a bystander repeated a favourite proverb, " Do you ask for pay when requested to eat sugarcane V which silenced the jester. — Roberts. Ver. 16. Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me. There has been a difficulty of great magnitude supposed in the present and several of the ensuing verses. Reiske, in order to explain it, has recourse to his usual method ; and while he changes the divison of the letters in the first member of the verse before us, in order so far to obtain an explanation, he transfers the ensuing six verses, from 17 to 22 inclusively, to a place between verses 31 and 32. Other commentators, with less hardihood, suppose a dia- logue to be held between the speaker and some imaginary respondent, and have attempted to mark out, by inverted commas, the passages that belong- to the respective dispu- tants. There is no necessity for any such expedients: the general drift of the argument is clear : " The righteous, I admit, are generally rewarded with temporal prosperity ; but do not, on this account alone, accuse me of hypocrisy and all wickedness, because I am at present a sufferer; for the wicked themselves, in the mysteries of providence, are occasionally allowed to partake of an equal prosperity; they live in happiness, and die in quiet, even while they abjure the Almighty, and laugh at those who serve him. Do not however mistake me — far be it from me to become an advocate for the wicked— I know the slipperiness of their foundation, and that more generally they sutler for their iniquity in the present world, as well in their own persons as in their posterity; I am only anxious to prove that your grand argument is fallacious; that no conclusion can be drawn from the actual prosperity or misery of man, as to the moral rectitude or turpitude of his heart; and that, with a wisdom which it is impossible for mortals to fathom, the Almighty not unfrequently allots a similar ex- ternal fate, both to the righteous and the wicked." — Good. Ver. 17. How oft is the candle of the wicked put ltx.1 or Rock Gral— Praln) 104: IS. Wild 4».-Jot> 39: 1 Chap. 21— 24. JO out? and hew oft Cometh theii destruction upon them? God distributed sorrows In hi See ou 1 Kings 11. 36. Vir. 24. His breasts are full of milk, and liis bones are moistened with marrow. When the mother dies before Bhe has suckled her child, ils lite has been sometimes preserved by the milk of its lather's breast. This curious feci was not unknown to A i i-io!le, « Iki says, they thai have a small quantity of milk, ilimnlaiiee when their breasts are sucked ; that women who are past age, by hem;; often sucked, and even males, have yielded milk insufficient quantity to nourish an infant. Humboldt declares, in his Personal Narrative, thai he -aw a man, an inhabitant of Arenas, a village not far from Cumana, Francisco Lozano, who suckled a child with his own milk. "The mother having fallen sick, the father, to quiet the infant, took it into his bed, and pressed it to his bosom. Lozano, then thirty-two years of age, had never remarked till that day that he had milk; but the irritation of the nipple, sucked bv the child, caused the accumulation of that liquid. The milk was thick and very sweet. The father, astonished at the increased size of his breast, suckled his child two or three times a-day, during live months. We saw the certificate which had been drawn up on the spot to attest this r< urkable fact, eyewitnesses of which are still living, (ITiOA Thev assured us, that (luting this suckling, the child had no other nourishment than ihe milk of his father. Lozano, who was not at Arenas during our jour- ney in the missions, came 10 us at Cumana. He was accompanied by his son, who was then thirteen or fourteen years of age. Mr. Bonpland examined with attention the father's breast, and found it wrinkled like those of women who have given suck." The existence of milk in the breast of a male was known so early as ihe days of Job: " His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow."— Paxton. The margin has, for breasts, " milkpails." Of a man who is voi v rich, it is common to say, " His chatties (ves- sels) are full of milk." But of a good king or governor it is said, " He nourishes like the,kmg whose breasts are full of milk." "Yes; he so rules, that the hearts of the goddess of the earth are full of milk." — Roberts. Vor. 32. Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb. 33. The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innu- merable before him. How came Job to speak of the clods of Ihe valley, when describing magnificence of burial 1 I should suppose, in answer to this question, that Job is to be understood, not as intending to mark out the wonted places of their interment, but the manner of ornamenting their sepulchres ; planting flowers, and odoriferous herbs or shrubs, on or about their graves: "Clods like those of a valley or torrent, verdant and flowery, shall surround him, and'be pleasing to him." The liveliness of eastern poetry here representing the dead, as having the same perceptions as if they were alive in ulchres : " He shall watch in the heap of earth, or stones, that cover him," for such the margin of our transla- tion tells ns, is the more exact import of the Hebrew: " The clods around him, like those in some pleasant valley, or on the border of some torrent, shall be sweet unto him." — H.U1MER. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 6, For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for naught, and stripped the naked of their clothing. This proverbial form of speech is used when a man drags from another that which is his last resource. "Why do vou take this tax from the naked 1" " What ! take a cloth from the naked 1 Is there no shame V How often, also, do we see a man seize another by the cloth on the public road, and swear if he will not instantly pay his debt, he shall be left naked. — Roberts. Vdt. 7. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. It is one of the thirty-two charities of the Hindoos, " to have water ready for ihe traveller to drink." Hence, on the public roads.'in front of ihe houses of charitab may be seen ves-els tilled « ith water, for the use ol all « ho pass that way. But respectable men do not drink there: they go inside, and say, " Conjum-taneer" a little waier ; and il is given to them. — Roberts. Ver. 20. Whereas our substance is not cut down: but the remnant of them the fire consumeth. There can be little doubt that the reference is to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah : and as all men are often spoken of as constituting one family or community, so the aban- doned inhabitants of these cities are poetically represented as descendants or remnants of the wicked that perished in the flood. — Good. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 11. My foot hath held his steps: his way have I kept, and not declined. When a man follows another in a path so closely as al- most to touch the feet of him who goes before, il is said, " His feet hath laid hold of his steps," intimating thai the men are so near to each other, that the feet of him « ho fol- lows, like unto the lingers of a man's ham!-, -eize the feet of him who goes before. Thus the devoted disciple oi a gooroo, or the man who closely pursues another, is .-aid to lake hold of the steps of him who goes before. Perhaps the figure may be taken from Ihe great adroitness that the natives of the 'East have in seizing hold of any thing with their toes ! See a man walking along the road: he sees something on the ground, which he wishes to pick up; but he does not sloop, as an Englishman. No ! he takes it op between his first and second toes. Look at tailors, shoe- makers, or sailors: when they want to twist a cord, they do not tie it to a nail, or ask another person to take hold. No ; they make one end fast to the great toe, and perform Ihe other operation with the hands. But the most remark- able illustration of this practice was in the case of Alymille, the Kandian chief, who was beheaded near Kandy. When he arrived at the place where he was to be executed, he looked around for some lime for a small shrub; and on seeing one, he seized it with his toes, in order to be firm while the executioner did his office. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 3. They drive away the ass of the father less ; they take the widow's ox for a pledge. How various and important are the services which this humble creature renders to his master ! He serves him for riding, for bearing his burdens, drawing the plough, tread- ing in the grain into the flooded soil, turning the millstone; and to all these services the female adds" the nmritious beverage of her milk. To the poor man, therefore, a single ass might prove an invaluable treasure. In many bases, it was the principal means of support to himself and his family; a circumstance which accounts for the energetic language respecting this animal, in some pa --age- of SCI i] - ture. To " drive away the ass of the fatherless," Job denounces as a deed of atrocity, which none but a proud and unfeeling oppressor could be guilty of perpetrating. — Paxton. Ver. 5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work, rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldclh food lor them and for their children. See on Gen. 1G. 12. The passage refers, evidently, not to the proud and haughty tyrants themselves, but to the oppressed and needy wretches, the Bedouins and other plundering tribes, whom their extortion and violence had driven from sociely, and compelled in a body to seek for subsistence bv public robbery and pillage In this sense the description is admi- rably forcible and characteristic. — Goon. Ver. 8. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. This exactly agrees with what Niebuhrsays of the mod- ern wandering Arabs near Muunt Sinai: "Those who can- not afford a tent spread out a cloth upon four or six stakes ; and others spread their cloth near a tree, or endeavour to shelter themselves from the heat and the rain in the cavities of the rocks." — Burder. Yer. 9. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. It used to be said of the cruel king of Kandy, that he would not allow the infant to suck its mother's breast. Of a wicked woman it is said, " She will not allow her own child to suck her." " O the savage husband! he snatches the child from his wife's breast." — Roberts. Ver. 16. In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime : they know not the light. The short duration of mud-walled buildings is not the only objection to the use of unburnt brick; for in windy weather the streets are incommoded with dust, and with mire in time of rain. At Damascus, when a violent rain happens to fall, the whole city, by the washing of the houses, becomes as it were a quagmire. So great is the quantity of dust and mire which sometimes accumulates in the streets of an eastern city, that the prophet Zechariah borrows a figure from it, of great force and significancy in the ear of an Oriental, to denote the immense riches of Tyre: " Tyrus did build herself a strong hold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets." The beauty of the figure is lost if we attempt to judge of it by the state of an occidental city in modern times ; but it will not be easy to conceive one more stri- kingly appropriate, if the streets of an eastern city, choked with mire, or suffocated with dust, are considered. Dr. Shaw directs the attention of his readers to the same cir- cumstance, the dissolution of oriental buildings upon a shower, and supposes it may illustrate what Ezekiel ob- serves respecting untempered mortar. When that traveller was at Tozer, in the month of December, they had a small drizzling shower, which continued for the space of two hours ; and so little provision was made against accidents of this kind, that several of the houses, which, as usual, were built only with palm branches, mud, and tiles baked in the sun, fell down by imbibing the moisture of the shower. Nay, provided the drops had been either larger, or the shower of a longer continuance, he was persuaded the whole city would have dissolved and dropped to pieces. In his opinion, the phrase " untempered mortar" refers to the square pieces of clay of which the wall is constructed ; but on looking at the text, it is evident that it refers to the plaster which is used in the East for covering the walls after they are built. The words of the prophet are : " And one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untem- pered mortar. — Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it 1" The view which Chardin gives of this text is, therefore, to be preferred. According to that intelligent traveller, the mud walls fall down in consequence of the rain dissolving the plaster. This plaster hinders the water from penetrating the bricks ; but when it has been soaked with wet, the wind cracks it, by which means the rain, in some succeeding shower, gets between and dissolves the whole mass. To this external coating of plaster, the proph- et certainly refers, and not to the bricks, of which the wall is constructed ; for these, however tempered, never can be supposed to resist the action of violent rains. The ruinous effect of stormy winds and heavy rains upon such frail structures, is well described in the thirteenth verse, and exactly corresponds with the accounts of modern travel- ers: "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God. I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury ; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it B. Chap. 24 down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall he discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the Lord." The same allusion is involved in the prediction of Amos, where he denounces the judgments of God against a profli- gate and refractory people : " For, behold, the Lord com. mandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts." The palaces of the great and the cottages of the poor, seem to have been constructed of the same fragile material ; for they were affected by the storm and the tempest in the same manner, and when the cup of iniquity is lull, are dissolved by the same shower. — Paxton. Nearly all the houses in the East are made of unburnt bricks, so that there is very little difficulty in making a hole sufficiently large to admit the human body. No won- der, then, that this is the general way of robbing houses. Thus, in the morning, when the inmates awake, they see daylight through a hole in the wall, and immediately know what has been done. — Roberts. Ver. 18. He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth: he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards. From this verse to the end of ver. 24, it is agreed by all the translators, that there is much difficulty and perplexity. " Non minium, (says Le Clerc,) quam hacperiodo se ob- scurius quicquam in Sanctis scripturis"—" There is hardly any passage in the holy scriptures more obscure than the present :" and Schultens fully concurs in the observation. Hence there are no two interpreters, perhaps, who have translated it in precisely the same way, or understood it in the same manner. By many the text has been suspected to be erroneous in several instances; and a sense has been attempted to be extorted by pretended amendments of it. Reiske, here, as on all other occasions, is by far the boldest emendator ; there is scarcely a verse into which he has not introduced some alteration, and in some verses an altera- tion amounting to nearly half the original text. It would be in vain to investigate these numerous renderings, of which no one appears to me to be more perspicuous than another, or to propose a clearer sense than that contained in our common version, obscure and in many parts unintelligible as it is allowed to be. Without dwelling, therefore, upon the misconceptions of my predecessors, I shall at once offer to the reader's attention, with much diffidence, a new inter- pretation of this contested passage, founded upon a differ- ent view of the writers' general scope and intention : and in doing this, while I adhere to the original text, without any amendment, the reader will find, f trust, that I shall be able to extract a very obvious meaning from it, even by such strict and literal rendering. What is the grand point of controversy between the pious patriarch and his too severe companions 1 I have been compelled to advert to it on various occasions, and especially in the note on chap, xxi. 16, which contains the patriarch's preceding reply. Job is, from first to last, accused by his friends of being an enormous transgressor, because it had pleased the Almighty to visit him with a severe affliction: and when he at first denied his being such a transgressor, he was immediate ly taxed with gross and open hypocrisy. He defends himself, in several of his subsequent answers, from this cruel and unfounded charge, and ably and completely refutes the very ground of the argument, by observing, iD chap. xxi. that although it be true that the righteous are often, and for the most part, rewarded sooner or later, in this life, with prosperity, and the wicked punished as they deserve ; yet that, in the mystery of providence, the rule by no means holds universally ;" for that the wicked also are often al- lowed to be prosperous, even to the latest period of their existence, and the upright to endure an uninterrupted series of pain and affliction. In chapter xxii. the original charge is again, however, advanced against the patriarch by Eli- phaz, who once more advises him to repent of his misdeed--, in order that he might be restored to his former prosperity) and ascribes his vindication of himself to a spirit of ob- stinacy and rebellion. In the chapter before us, Job re- verts to the argument so forcibly opened in his preceding reply: and in enlarging upon it, observes not only that the conduct of providence is inscrutable to us in regard to its dealings with the righteous and the wicked, but in regard Chaf. 24-27. it to all the different classes of mankind, all the different in" lea "i life Ihey pursue, and all the different events that accompany them. In every scene we behold evil, moral or physical, permitted; in the retirement of the country, and in the crowd d city; by sea and by b rid : n commences in the womb itself, and accompanies' m.'j thron stage i 1 In being, We know nothing of 'he laws of prov- idence , the Almighty often appears to be labouring in vain; and vi se and virtue, the righteous and the wicked, to be almost equally, and almost promiscuously, the subject of prosperity and of affliction. The corollary is cleat and nnaus weralrfe : " How absurd, then, is it to accuse me ol a sinner than the rest of mankind, from the mere circumstance of my being a severer sufferer than others." — Good. Ver. 19. Drought and heat consume the snow- waters; so doth the grave' those which have sinned. Literally, " ransack or plunder them." The reference is to those dikes, tanks, or reservoirs of water, winch, in eastern countries, are always carefully filled during the periodical exudations of the large rivers, ;h the Nile, In- dus, and Ganges, and preserved to fertilize the soil by occasional irrigations through the rest of the year, anil without which there can be no harvest. Solsa.xxxvi. 16: — Make y, ju i. ■■ uiiii in,-, and come out to inc, All, I being stripped of their produce, are heaped on its board. The afflicted patriarch certainlv re- ferred to the end of harvest, in allusion to which he might say, with strict propriety, " my root was spread out bv the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branches'; my glory was fresh in me." — Paxton. The slaughter of Saul filled his camp with terror and mourning ; before that, it is probable, his tent might some- times be distinguished by lights; at least these illumina- tions are now used in those countries to do honour to princes, and must not here be forgotten. So the tent of the bey of Girge, Norden tells us, was distinguished from the other tents in that encampment, by forty lanterns sus- pended before it in form of checker-work. So Thevenot, describing the reception of the new bashaw of Egypt under tents, near Cairo, says there were two great trees, on which two hundred lamps hung, at the gale of the little enclosure which surrounded his pavilions, which were lighted in the nighttime; and that there was the same before the tents of the principal officers, as in the caravan of Mecca. In the East, it is nuow a customary thing; if it was the same anciently, perhaps the words of Job might refer to it, ch. xxix. 2, 3: "Oh that it were with me as in months past, as in the davs when God preserved me; when his candle shined upon mv head," when I returned prosperous from expeditions agiinst the enemies of my tribe, and had my tent adorned with lamps, " and 1 passed through the night by the light of it."— Hakmer. Ver. 4. As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle. Job was reverting to the time of his prosperity, as is seen i the preceding verse, '' head, and when by his light " when my children were about me, when I washed my steps with butter." The Psalmist also is speaking of the pros- perity of those who fear the Lord. To say the secret of the king is with such a person, is a strong way of descri- bing the intimacy which exists between them. " Take care how you accuse him to the great man, because his secret is with him." " Alas! alas! his secret is no longer with me ; his lamp no longer shines in my heart." — Roberts. Ver. 6. When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil. Botlles of goat-skin, with the hairy side inwards, receive the milk of their flocks: and when they wish to make but- ter, they put the cream into a goat-skin, prepared in the same manner, which they suspend in their tents, and then pressing it to and fro, in one uniform direction, quickly produce a separation of the unctuous from the whevey part of the fluid. In the Levant, they tread upon the skin with their feet, which produces the same effect. The last method of separating the butter from the milk, perhaps may throw light upon a passage in Job, of some difficulty: " When I washed my steps with butler, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil." Commentators have observed, what must be obvious to every reader, that the afflicted patriarch meant to say, he once possessed great abundance of these products ; but they have not been able to account for the manner of his expression. The way of a great personage was some- times swept, sometimes strewed with flowers, sometimes watered ; but never, as far as we know, moistened with butter. The feet were sometimes anointed with oil, in which odoriferous substances had been infused ; but lo them, butter was never applied. It is more natural to suppose, that these words of Job referred to the method of churning their milk, by treading upon large skins full of cream, with their bare feet. It conveys a still more lively idea of the exuberant plenty which Job once possessed, if this method was adopted when they had large quantities of milk to churn. A variety of practice very similar to this appears to have prevailed'in the ancient vineyards. When a small quantity of grapes was to be pressed' it seems to have been done with the hand; for Pharaoh's butler dreamed that he took the grapes and pressed them in this manner into his master's cup. This, it must be admitted, was only a vision- ary scene ; hut we must suppose it corresponded with gen- eral custom. So, when they meant lo churn a small quan- tity of cream, they suspended it in a skin, from the roof of the tent ; and the female part of the family conducted the process. But when the quantity was very large, as it must have been in the extensive dairies of the patriarchs, who possessed such immense flocks and herds, it was put into a number of skins, and churned by the feet of men. This Mr. Harmer considers as no improbable account, and by no means an unnatural explanation of the phrase, " I washed my steps with butter ;" and in the present stale of our knowledge, perhaps a more satisfactory one cannot be given. Greece, indeed, lies at a great distance from the land of Uz, and the age when Job flourished is far removed from our times; hut as a skin is slill the churning vessel used bv the Arabs in the Holy Land, as well as in Barl-ary, and consequently, as their cnsloms admit of little or no va- riation, the use of skins in churning must belong lo a very remote antiquity. And the same reason that might induce the more opulent Greeks, in the time of Chandler, to tread their cream, rather than swin» it in ihe lent, or between two poles, as the Arabs generally do, might also induce the richer proprietors in Asia, who possessed such numerous flocks, lo adopt ihe same custom. The expression, it must be allowed, is highly figurative, but not more so than many oihers, in which the oriental muse delights. The term washing, when used poetically, is not surely confined to clernsing the feel, bv some purifying fluid ; for dipping the feet in the blood of ihe slain, t 3: Pialmist calls washing the c ■ i I JOB. 347 feet Hence, to plunge tliem into cream or butter, or to sprinkle them profusely with it, may be called washing them hi batter, with equal propriety; and walking in it, washing the step* The butler is carried to market in the same g..;u -l.nn m whicli it is churned. In consequence of this mode ol man agement,it becomes necessary to melt and strain n u ,.idi i to separate the impurities; a process by which n acquires a certain rancid taste, disagreeable, tor the most pari, to thOBgh not to llie natives. To this CttStom Of melting the butter, in order to clarify it, Zophar seems to allude, m his description of the state and portion of a I m: "He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter." As the flowing of honey from the comb into the vessels in which it is to be kept, may. by a bold figure, be compared to a little rive aj clarified butler, when poured into the jars in which it is preserved for use. The wicked man, says Zophar, shall not see the rivulets, much less the rivers, still less the tor- rents of honey and butter, (as the clause ought to be ren- dered,) which the righteous may hope to possess. In our excellent translation, the beauty of the climax in this in- stance is lost ; for instead of continuing to rise, it sinks in the close, ending with brook, after mentioning rivers and torrents; but in the original it is equally striking and well conducted— Paxton. These are figurative expressions to denote great pros- perity. " The man is so rich, he washes himself with ik.ii," i. e. clarified butter. "Oh, the charitable man, milk and honey accompany his feet." So great was the profu- sion, "the honey caused the feet to slip," fin the paths,) the creepers danced, the trees nodded their heads, and milk, from the dwellings of the cattle, flowed in streams through the streets. (Scanda Purana.)— Roberts. Ver. 7. When I went out to the gate, through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street. This inlimates that Job was a judge among his people, as the courts of justice in former times were kept in such situations. Who has not seen a great man or a saint thus having his seat prepared in the street 1 There he goes un- der a shady tree, or under a veranda, or in a rest-house, with his servant following him, having a mat or a tiger's skin, or that of some other animal under his arm. The seat is prepared, and the crosslegged sage sits to hear and answer questions.— Roberts. Chardin says, it is the custom of Asia not to go into the shop*, which are very small, but to sit down in seats pre- pared for the purpose on the outside, on which cushions are laid for persons of distinction ; and he adds', that people Of quality cause carpets and cushions to be carried wherever, they please, that they may repose themselves upon them more agreeably. To a custom of this -kind Job seems to refer in his mournful retrospect of departed prosperity: " When I went out to the gate through the city, when 1 prepared my seat in the street." This patriarch was a prince and a judge among his people, and was, therefore, entitled to take his seat in the gate, which was the ordinary place of hearing causes in the East, attended by a retinue of servants, with carpels and cushions for his accommodation, according to his rank, and the office he sustained. — Paxton. Numbers of the Southern Arabs assemble in their mar- kets by way of amusement, and consequently, for conver- .ation': the same custom appears anciently to have obtained, tn places of the East, less remote from us than Yemen. "Notwithstanding this external gravity," says Niebuhr, "the Arabs love a great deal of company; accordingly, line sees them assiduously assembling in the public coffee- nouses, and, above all, running to fairs, in which no coun- trv, perhaps, more abounds than Yemen; since there is scarcely a village of any consideration to be found, which has not a weekly fair. When the villages are at some distance from each other, their inhabitants assemble on the appointed day in the open fields. Some come hither tobuy or to sell; others, who are mechanics of various professions, enploy sometimes the whole week in going from one little bormgh to another, in order to work at these fairs; and finally, many propose to themselves to pass away the time there more agreeably than at home. From this taste of the Arabs for society, and especially of those of Yemen, it is easy to infer that they are more civilized than it may be imagined." Michaelis, the great promoter of Niebuhr'sex- pediiion into the East, has taken notice of tin i liis extract from this wuik, saying, " The publii places are, to this day, in Yemen, the places Di diversion, and thus serve two uses; jtisl as the gales of ciiics, which anciently wie ni.nle ihen public places, as we are told in the Bible, Sen. XIX. 1. Job xxix. 7. Ps. lxix. H,"&c. — IIarmer. Ver. 8. The young; men saw me, and hid them- selves: and the aged arose, and stood up 9. The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. What a graphic scene is this! When a man of rank passes a cmwd, the young people and children conceal themselves behind their seniors, and the aged always arise from their seats. See the man in a court of justice, who is listening to the address of the judge, and his hand is placed on his mouth. To place the hand on the mouth also de- notes astonishment ; and Major Laing says, when he was at Toma, in Africa, a woman was SO miich surprised at the sight of a while man, that she " did not stir a muscle till the whole had passed, when she gave a loud halloo of astonishment, and covered her mouth with both her hands." — Roberts. This is a most elegant description, and exhibits most correctly that great reverence and respect which was paid, even by the old and decrepit, to the holy man in passing along the streets, or when he sat in public. They not only rose, which in men so old and infirm was a great mark of distinction; but they stood ; they continued to do it, though even the attempt was so difficult. — Lowth. When the easterns wish to be silent, they place their hand upon their mouth, to express their inteniions by action, and their sentiments by attitude. Many instances of this practice are to be found. " In one of the subterranean vaults in Egypt, where the mummies lie buried, they found in the coffin an embalmed body of a woman, before which was placed a figure of wood, representing a youth on his knees, laying a finger on his month, and holding in his other hand a sort of cliafingdish, which was placed on his head, and in which, without doubt, had been some per- fumes." (Maillet.) " On our taking possession of Rosetta, at an entertain- ment which was given, a young Greek came up to me. kissed my shoulder, and with his finger on his lips, without uttering a single syllable, slipped privately into my hand a nosegay which he'had brought me: this simple demonstra- tion completely unfolded all his sensations, and was ex- pressive of his political situation, his fears, and his hopes." (Dcnon.)— Bcrder. Ver. 14. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me : my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. See on Is. 28. 5. Or turban. This consists of a cap and a sash of fine linen or silk, wound round ihe bottom of it. This is the usual headdress of the Turks, Persians, Arabs, and other eastern nations. Dr. Shaw says, " The Moors and Turks, with some of the principal Arabs, wear upon the head a small hemispherical cap of scarlet cloth. The turban, as thev call a long narrow web of linen, silk, or muslin, is folded round the bottom of these caps, and very properly distinguishes, by the number and fashion of these folds, the several orders and degrees of soldiers, and sometimes of citizens, one from another." — Burder. Ver. 15. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was 1 to the lame. The man who bestows great charities, is said to be the eyes of the blind, and the feet of the cripples. " True, mv lord, I am blind ; but you are my eyes." " Ah ! sir, shall 1 not love my eyes V " O king," says the lame man, " are you not my staff?" "Alas! alas! our eyes have gi ne," say the blind, when their benefactor is dead. But when a person confides in the wisdom cf another, he says. " He is my eyes." " I have two good eyes in the temple." — Roberts, Ver. 19. My root traj spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch. " The precious water of the Cephissus is the property of the waivude only during the season of watering the olive- wood: for the remaining months the owners of the gar- dens, in a proportion settled by long usage, divert the stream into their grounds, for one, two, or three hours in a week or fortnight, according to the bargain at which they have hired or purchased their land. The instant that the stream is turned into the required channel, a public inspector, who is called Dragaris-too-nen, and is always in attendance, turns his hourglass, and I lie gardener also measures the time in the same manner ; other Greeks frequently being present to prevent collusion, and cut off the rivulet immediately at the expiration of the stipulated hour." — (Hobhouse.) It is well known that in the hot eastern countries, where it rarely rains during the summer months, the copious dews which fall there during the night, contribute greatly to the nourishment of vegetables in general. " This dew," says Hasselquist, speaking of the excessively hot weather in Egypt, '■ is particularly serviceable to the trees, which would otherwise never be able to resist this heat; but with this assistance they thrive well, and blossom and ripen their fruit." — Bcudeh. Ver. 20. My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand. This figure is much used in their poetry. " The bow is bent in his hand." " See the strong bow ; it is bent to kill thee." — Roberts. Ver. 22. After my words they spake not agajn ; and my speech "dropped upon them. Of a man who speaks with great euphonv, it is said, " His words come, lule lule yaka," i. e. drop by drop. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXX. Ver. 2. Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished ? The Tamul translation has this, "as the strength of the hands being gone by old age." Of a man who has become weak in consequence of age, it is said, " Ah! by reason of old age, the strength of his hands has departed from him." " It is true he is an old man, but the strength of his hand has not perished." But this mode of expression also refers to a man's circumstances. Thus, when a person has lost his property, it is said, " the strength of his hands has gone." " Poor man ! he has not any strength in his hands."— Rob- erts. Ver. 3. For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time deso- late and waste : 4. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper-roots for their meat. This describes the ignoble state of the parents of those children by whom Job was now held in derision. In the book called Sinthft Manni, there is an account of some princesses, who once had their rice, like jasmine flowers, given them on golden plates; but now they had to go with potsherds, to beg for the leaves from the 'hedges for their daily food. A rich man brought to poverty, sometimes asks, " What care 1 1 Can I not go into the desert, and live on roots and leaves V It is a fact, that numbers do thus live, especially the Vedahs, and those who have retired from men.— Roberts. Ver. 6. To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves-of the earth, and in the rocks. The oriental shepherd and his family sometimes take up their abode in caves, with which the country, particu- larly about Askelon, abounds. These caverns are often so capacious as to admit the master and his whole property. In times of imminent danger, the people forsake their towns and villages, and retire with their wives and chil- dren, their flocks and herds, into these dark recesses, which have been from time immemorial the refuge of the oppressed. It was in these hiding-places that Baldwin I., jT-ng of Jerusalem, in the barbarous age of the crusades. B. Chap. 30. found the inhabitants of many villages, with their flocks and their herds, who had favoured the cause of his enemies and fled at his approach. In Egypt, such excavations ap- pear to have been the settled abodes of a numerous and peaceful population. Dr. Richardson entered several mount- ain defiles, on his way to Nubia, where he found " a num- ber of excavations extremely well executed, covered with sculpture, and painted in the most brilliant colours ; like- wise a number of pits sunk perpendicularly into the rock, all of which have been used as burying-places, and many of them <6till contain handsome mummy cases, made o'f wood and stone, beautifully painted in a variety of colours, and covered with curious devices." But besides these, " high up in the front, along the base of the mountain, and over the rocky flat, all the way from Medina Thabou, there are innumerable excavations, many of them large and beau- tifully formed, painted, and sculptured with many curious devices, illustrative of ancient customs. In one place above Medina Thabou, the doors into these excavations are so nu- merous and so contiguous, that they resemble a row of houses in a village. They have a long piazza in front, and a large apartment within ; and a long shaft running back into the rock. They rise in tiers above each other, accord- ing to the different elevations of the mountain. They have evidently been dwellinghouses, and, from the shady piaz- za in front, the spectator enjoys the most delightful view that can possibly Ix obtained of the plain of Thebes." In Hindostan, too, the fainting inhabitants are forced to escape from the severe fervours of an eastern noon, into vast arti- ficial caverns, and into grottoes of the most refreshing cool- ness, which the great and the wealthy cause to be con- structed in their gardens.— Paxton. Ver. 16. And now my soul is poured out upon me : the days of affliction have taken hold upon me. " Why are you so dejected, my friend V " Because the kct- takalam, i. e. the ruinous time, has caught me." — Roberts. Ver. 20. I cry unto thle, and thou dost not hear me : I stand up, and thou regardest me not. It is extremely mortifying, when a man stands up, ml to be noticed. A native gentleman had a case which he wish- ed to bring before the notice of the king of Tanjore, and asked my advice how to act. I recommended him to go to the capital, and wait upon his majesty. On his return, he informed me he had not stated his case to the king ; and, upon my blaming him, he asked, " What could I do 1 I went to a place where I knew he would have to pass ; and when he came near, I stood up ; but he regarded me not." — Roberts. Ver. 22. Thou liftcst me up to the wind; thou causest me. to ride upon it, and dissolvest my substance. This figure is probably taken from the custom of an an- gry man, who takes any light substance and throws it into the wind, saying to his antagonist, " Thus shall it be with thee." — Roeerts. There is a remarkable figurative representation in Job, chap. xxx. 2i, thus rendered in cur translation : " Thou liftest me up to the wind ; thou causest me to ride vpon it, and dissolvest my substance." Possibly after we have ex- amined the phraseology of this passage, its force may be further evident, .and it may receive additional illustration. " Thou dost raise me up on high, into the air, by the agency— of— upon— the wind; thou dost make me to ride on it, as on a chariot, or other vehicle ; and dost dissolve — disperse— dissipate— my whole — entire — jit all: all that I ever.was: all that I ever possessed." Such is the power ol the original. This might perhaps be referred to a vapour raised by the wind, which, after being borne about among the clouds, is dissolved, and falls in dew: but, (1.) the wind which raises it, seems rather to describe a storm, and during storms dew does not perceptibly rise. (2.) The current of wind, which, like a chariot, bears away the subject of its power, is a vehement, powerful, rapid'blast; as we say. a , high wind; and does net agree with the formation, &c. of Chap. 30. J( dew, which is a tranquil, deliberate process. (3.) The word (mo) mege<:, is applied to express the melting of a Bolid body; as of the earth with rain, Psalm Ixv. 10; of the lulls, through intense heat, Nahuta i. 5; so Amos ix. lb. Mr. Scott has rendered the passage- Ron Dm The Under these considerations, w<- presume to think tin- reader will agree with us in referring it to a sandstorm : possibly such as we have noticed in the former number; or. much rather, such as is described by the following in- formation, which the reader will not be displ rose, as it stands high among the most picturesque and most terrific descriptions of the kind to he met with. It is li in) Mi '. Bruce. " On the 14th, at seven in the morning, we left Assa Nag- ga, our course being due north. At one o'clock we alight- ed among some acacia-trees, at Waadi el Halboub, bav- in- gone twenty-one miles. We were here at once sur- prised and terrified by a sight surely one of the most mag- nificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from W. and to N. W. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand, at different distances, at times moving with in, at others stalking on with a majestic slow- ness ; at intervals we thought they were coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm us; and small quantities of sand did actually more than once reach us. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight, their tups reaching to ""/.<. There the tops often separated from the bodies'; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon US, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from us with a wind at S. E. leaving an impression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though sure- ly one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of- no use to carry us out of this danger, and the full per- suasion of this riveted me as if to the spot, where I stood, and let the camels gain on me so much in my state or lameness, that it was with some difficulty I could' overtake them. "The whole of our company were much disheartened, (except Idris.1 and imagined that they were advancing into whirlwinds of moving sand, from which tliev should never be able to extricate themselves; but before four o'clock in the afternoon, these phantoms of the plain had all of them fallen to the ground, and disappeared. In the evening we came to Waadi Dimokea. wJiere we passed the night, much disheartened, and our fear more increased, .vhen we found, upon wakening in the morning, that one side was perfectly buried in the sand that the wind had blown above us in the" night. The sun shining through the pillars, which were thicker, and contained more sand apparently than any of the preceding days, seemed to give those nearest us an appearance as if spotted with stars of gold. I do not think at any time they seemed to be nearer than two miles. The most remarkable circumstance was, that the sand seemed to keep in that vast circular space surrounded by the Nile on our left, in going round bv Chaigie towards Dongola, and seldom was observed much to the eastward of a meridian passing along the Nile through the Magiran, before it takes that turn ; whereas the simoom was always on the opposite side of our course, coming upon us from the southeast. The same appearance of moving pillars of sand presented themselves to us this day in form aid disposition like those we had seen at Waadi Halboub, only they seemed to be more in number, and less in size. They came several times in a direction close upon us; that is, I believe, within less than two miles. They began, im- mediately after sunrise, like a thick wood, and almost dark- ened the sun: his rays shining through them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of fire." If my conjecture be admissible, we now see a magnifi- cence in this imager)', not apparent before: we see how lob's dignity might be exalted in the air; might rite to 13. 349 great grandeur, importance, and even terror, in the sight ol b< holders; might ride upon the wind, which bears it about, causing il to advance, or to recede; and, after all, the wind diminishing, might disperse, di- scatter this pillar of sand, into tin- undistinguished level of the desert. This comparison seems to he precisely adapted to the mind of an Arab, who must have seen, or have been informed of similar phenomena in the countries around him. — Tayi.oii in Cai.mkt. Ver. 23. For I know that thou wilt bring- me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. Those expressions in which the grave is described asM* house appointed for all living ; the long home of man; and ■ j habitation .- are capable of much illustration from antiquity. Montfaucon says, " We observed in the fifth volume of our Antiquity a tomb styled i/uiiloi imn, a resting-place. Quiescere, to rest, is often said of the dead in epitaphs. Tims we find in an ancient writer, a man speaking of his master, who had been long dead and buried, cujus ossa bent i/uiesranl ; in.lv Ins bones rest in peace. We have an instance of the like kind in an inscription in Grutt?r, (p. 09(1,) and in another, (p. 594,) fecit sibi rcqvieto- riinn, he made himself a resting-place. This resting-place is called frequently, loo. an eternal home. In his lifetime he built himself an eternal house, says one epitaph. He made himself an eternal house with his patrimonv, savs another. He thought it better (says another) to build him- self an eternal house, than to desire his heirs to do it. They thought it a misfortune when the bones and ashes of the dead were removed from their place, as imagining the dead suffered something by the removal of their bones. Tins notion occasioned all those precautions used for the safety of their tombs, and the curses they laid on those who re- moved them." — Border. Ver. 25. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble ? was not my soul grieved for the poor? Hebrew, " Should I not then weep for the ruthless day V The meaning of the preceding verse having been generally misunderstood, that of the present, and, indeed, of the greater part of the remainder of the chapter, which follows coneatenately, has been misunderstood also. The exquisite pathos of this interrogative must wind itself into the heart of every reader. The expression, " for the ruthless day," is peculiarly forcible in the original, a- nc-p1-, " for the s'lt/n, rigid, immoveable, pitiless, or inexorable day." In the latter clause of this verse, we may understand the Hebrew to signify, " for the rock," not " for the poor," as given bv all the translators. The term indeed (p-:n) admits of both these senses ; but the latter is obviously the true sense in the present place: and for want of attending to this circum- stance, the meaning of the passage has been utterly lost : " Should not my soul pine lor the marble tomb, or sepul- chral rock," in which it was usual to deposite the bodies of all those of higher rank and condition in life; "for the rock or stony recess of darkness and death-shade," as mentioned in eh. xxviii. 3, in which the same term is used, and rendered by every one in the sense now offered. — Good. Ver. 27. My bowels boiled, and rested not ; the days of affliction prevented me. People in great distress often say, "My bellv, my belly is on fire." " Who will take away this fire 1" ' In cursing each other, "Wretch! thou shalt soon have a fire in thy belly." " Now they are beginning to erriluthcr," i. e. burn. "Ashes! ashes ! thou art all ashes !" — Roberts. Ver. 29. I am a brother to dragons, and a com- panion to owls. See on Mic. I. 8. Dr. Boothroyd prefers, " A brother am I to sea-monsters.*' Dr. Harris says, the original is variously rendered ; drag- ons, serpents, sea-monsters, and whales. The Tamul tra»-. 350 JOB. Chap. 31. lation has it, " Tarn a brother to the malli-pdmbu" i. e. the rock snake, or hoc constrictor; and wherever the term dragon occurs, (in that translation.) it is rendered in the same way. Some of these serpents are of immense size, and possess great muscular power. If they once get folded round the body of an animal.it is impossible for it to escape. A gentleman of mv acquaintance, when on a shooting ex- cursion, heard a sudden scream ; he ran to the spot, and saw a beautiful deer in the embrace of one of these ser- pents : he took his rifle, and put a ball through its head ; its folds instantly became loose, and the deer was set at liberty, but died soon after. He brought the reptile home, and it measured eighteen feet. I know not what induced the translators thus to render it by the name of thai monster, except they hare taken the idea from the prophets Micah and Jeremiah: "I will make a wailing like the dragons," and, "they snuffed up wind like dragons;" as the malli- pdmbu is said to make a dreadful wailing in the night, and when in want of prey, to inhale the wind for food. The sacred writers also describe it as loving to dwell in desert places, which is another feature of its character. — Roberts. When the ancient Hebrews observed the dragons erect, and with expanded jaws fetching a deep inspiration, they interpreted the circumstance as if these animals, with their eyes lifted up to heaven, complained to their Maker of their miserable condition, that, hated by all creatures, and confined to the burning and steril deserts, ihey dragged out a tedious and miserable existence. It was perhaps to some idea of this kind that Job referred, when, bemoaning the hardness of his lot, he complained : " I am a brother to dragons, and a companion of owls." He was unable to associate with mankind; cut off from the comforts of life, and doomed to wear out the rest of his days in poverty and wretchedness. The prophet Micah has the same allusion, in the day of his adversity, to the habits of that reptile: " I will make a wailing like "the dragons, and mourning as the owls." He may refer also to its hissing, which jElian says is so loud that i't alarms and terrifies every creature within hearing.— Paxton. Ver. 31. My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep. The people of the East are very fond of the ydl, or guitar, also of the iinaru, or harp. When a person is in trouble, his instrument is also considered to be in sorrow. Many stories are told of the fascinating powers of the ancient mu- sicians. " There was once a man who neglected all his affairs for the sake of his instrument : at which his wife became much dissatisfied, and asked him, in a taunting way, ' Will you ever gain a tusked elephant and a kingdom by your harpT He was displeased with her, and said, 'I will.' He then went to the king of Kandy, and on his harp asked his majesty for a tusked elephant and a kingdom. The king was so'delighted, that he gave him *he elephant and the province of Jaffna. The musician then returned, and founded the town of Ydl-Pdnam" i. e. the harp and the songster; or, as some render it, the harp-town, which we call Jaffna. — Roeerts. CHAPTER XXXI. Ver. 1. I made a covenant with mine eyes ; why then should I think upon a maid ? Has a man a strong desire to go on a pilgrimage to a dis- tant temple, and should' his friends remonstrate with him, he will say, " I have made a udam-pitdiliki," (i. e. a covenant with my eyes;) " I must go." Does a father reprove his son for' improper conduct, he replies, "What can I dol She has made a covenant with my eyes." " My friend, let us have your opinion on this subject." — " I will not." " Why V — " Because I have made a covenant with my mouth." — Roberts. , In Barbarv, when the ladies appear in public, they always fold themselves up so closely in their hykes, that even without their veils one can "discover very little of their faces. But in the summer months, when they retire to their counirv-seats, they walk abroad with less caution; though even then, on the approach of a stranger, they always drop their veils, as Rebecca did on the approach of Isaac. But although they are so closelv wrapped up, that those who look at them cannot even s« nheir hands, still less their face, yet it is reckoned indecent in a man to fix his eyes upon them ; he must let them pass without seeming at all to observe them. Jc allusion to this rigorous custom, Job says, " I made a covenant wilh mine eyes; why then should I think upon a raaidl" When a lady of distinction, says Hanway, travels on horseback, she is not only veiled, but has generally a servant, who runs or rides before her, to clear the way ; and on such occasions, the men, even in the market-places, always turn their backs till the women are passed, it being thought the highest ill manners to look at them. — Paxton. Ver. 17. Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof. It is a very customary, and a very desirable thing in the East, to eat under the shade of trees; and this situation the inhabitants seem to prefer, to taking their repasts in their tents or dwellings : so De la Roque tells us, (p. 203,) " We did not arrive at the foot of the mountain till after sunset, and it was almost night when we entered the plain ; but as it was full of villages, mostly inhabited by Maronite* we entered into the first we came to, to pass the night thero It was the priest of the place who wished to receive us . he gave us a supper under the trees, before his little dwel ing As we were at table, there came by a stranger, wearing a white turban, who, after having saluted the company, sa'. himself down to the table, without ceremony ; ate with us during some time, and then went away, repealing severa, times the name of God. They told us it w-as some traveller, who, no doubt, stood in need of refreshment, and who had profited by the opportunity, according to the custom of the East, which is to exercise hospitality at all times, and towards all persons." The reader will be pleased to see Ihe ancient hospitality of the East still maintained, and even a stranger profiting by an opportunity of supplying his wants. It reminds us of the guests of Abraham, (Gen. chap, xviii.,) of ihe con- duct of Job, (chap. xxxi. 17,) and especially, perhaps, of that frankness with which the apostles of Christ were to enter into a man's house after a salutation, and there to con- tinue " eating and drinking such things as were set before them," Luke x. 7. Such behaviour would be considered as extremely intrusive, and indeed insupportable, among our- selves ; but the maxims of the East would qualify that, as they do many other customs, by local proprielies, on which Ware incompetent to determine. — Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 22. Then let mine ami fall from my shoulder- blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone. It is said, " If I have done as you say, may these legs be broken." " Yes, let-these eyes be blind, if I have seen the thing vou mention." " May this body wither and faint, if I am guilty of that crime."' " If I uttered that expression, then let the worms eat out this tongue."— Roberts. '. Ver. 26. If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, 27. And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: 28. This also were an iniquity to be punished hi/ the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above. To kiss the hand and place it on the head, is a token of respect less revolting to our minds, than some of those which have been mentioned. An Oriental pays his respects to a person of superior station, bv kissing his hand, and putting it to his forehead ; but if the superior be of a condescending temper, he will snatch away his hand, as soon as the othti has touched it ; then the inferior puts his osvn fingers to hi: lips, and afterward to his forehead. It seems, according to Pitts, to be a common practice among the Mohammedans, that when they cannot kiss the hand of a superior, they kiss their own, and put it to their forehead; thus also they ven- erate an unseen being, whom they cannot touch. But the custom existed long before the age 'of Mohammed; for in the same way the ancient idolaters worshipped their distant or unseen deities. " If," said Job, " I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretlv enticed, and my mouth hath kissed nv ( HAP. 31—33. JOB. 351 hand, this also were an iniquitv lobe punished by the judge; for 1 should have denied the tiod that is above." Had the afflicted man done this, in the case to which he refers, it WOOld have been an idolatrous aelicin, although it i- ex.ieilv agreeable to the civil expressions of respect which obtained in his country, and over all the East.— Paxton. Ver. 32. The stranger did not lodge in the street: hut 1 opened my doors to the traveller. No people can be more kind and hospitable to travellers ol then own caste, than those of the F.ast ; and even men of the lower grades have always places to go to. See the liter the premises; lie'looloat the master and says, paralhctisc, i. e. a pilgrim, and he is allowed to lake up his li • night. ~ For his entertainment, he has to re- pe.it the . i.' ■ mi ,i, news of his country and journey, or any legend of olden lime. — Roberts. Ver. 35. Oh that one would hear me I behold, my desire is thai the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book: 30. Surely 1 would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me. This refers to accusations against the innocent Job. A man charged of a crime which he has nol committed, says, •• If I am guilty, 1 will carry it on my head." " I am sine you have done this deed."— "II" " Yes." — " Then will I wear it on my head. ' " That fellow wears his crimes on his head," i.e. he is not ashamed of them. The head is reckoned superior to all other parts of the body.— Roberts. The business of book-making, it is to be presumed, had made but little progress in the days of Job, and it is not easy to see how such a performance, on the part of Job's adver- sary, as the writing a book, could have afforded any peculiar gratification to ihe afflicted man's feelings. In modern times, when such an enterprise is of all others the most hazardous, it might perhaps be a very appropriate expres- sion of ill-will, to wish that an adversary had engaged in a publishing speculation. But in the case of Job and his maligners, we must seek for a different explication; for even had the trade of authorship been as common and as perilous in those days as it now is, we cannot but consider Job too good a man to have given vent to so bad a wish. From the context, we learn that the pious sufferer was aggrieved by the vagueness of the charges preferred against him bv his harsh-judging comforters. They dealt in loose generalities affording him no opportunity to vindicate him- self hv answering to a specific accusation. In the words cited, he utters the earnest wish that a definite form were given to the injurious imputations of his false friends. He would fain be summoned to a formal trial ; he would have hooked against him, that he might know what were the aspersions which were lobe wiped from his char- acter. Such an accusation, thus definitely written, he would bear abo'jt publicly and conspicuously, that he might pub- licly and conspicuously confute it; he would bear it as an .1 it" would, in the end, by his triumphant disproval of it. redound to the still higher honour of his innocence. That the Heb. sephcr, book, may without vio- ins interpreted, is clear from Deut.'xxlv. I: "Let him write a bill of divorcement, (sepher,) and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house." In the present con- nexion ii is tantamount to a bill of cnilictmcnt.—Bisu. From the following extract it' appears what is the cus- tomary kind of homage which, in the East, is paid not only ■nty. but to communications of the will, whether' bv word or letter: "When the mogul, by letters, sends his commands to any of his governors, these papers are entertained with as much respect as if himself were present ; for the governor, having intelligence that such letters are coming near him, himself, with other infe- rior officers, rides forth to meet the patamar, or messenger, that brings them, and as soon as he sees those alights from his horse, falls down on the earth, and takes them from the messenger, o»ii lays them onhisheaa he hi mis 1/n >» fast: then retiring to his place of public meet- ing, he reads and answers them." (Sir Thomas Roe.)— Bur per. When Soliman ascended the throne, " the letter which was to be presented to the new monarch was delivered to of tin- slaves, contained in a purse of cloth of gold, di awn together with strings of twi-ie.l gnhl .mil silk, with tassels of the same. The general threw him elfai bis feel bowing to the very ground; lb upon his knees, he drew out of the bosom ol bi I the hug eoiitainiiig the letter which the assembly nad sent to the new monarch. Presently be opened the bag, took out the letter, kissed it. laid il to his forehead, presented it t\,,aiid the e up." To such a custom Job evidently refers iii these words: "Oh that mine adversary bad Wl iUen a hook: surely I would lake it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me," or, on my head. — Paxton. Ver. 38. If my land cry against me, or that ihe furrows likewise thereof complain. Does a man through idleness or meanness neglect to cultivate, or water, or manure his fields and gardens, those who pass that way say, "Ah ! these fields have good reasor to complain against" the owner." "Sir, if you defraud these fields, will they not defraud you?" ''The fellow who robs his own lands, will he not rob you!" "These fields are in great sorrow, through the "neglect of their owner." — Roberts. Ver. 39. If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life. Was nol Job the owner of the land 1 Does he not say in the preceding verse my land 1 How then could be have caused Ihe owners to lose their life 1 Dr. Boothroyd has it, "or have grieved the soul of its managers." Covc'rdale has it, " grieved any of the ploughmen." The Tamul has the same idea : " If I have eaten the fruits thereof without paying for Ihe labour, or have afflicted the soul of the culti- vators? Great landowners in the East do nol generally cultivate their own fields: they employ men, who find all the labour, and have a certain part of the produce for their remuneration. The cultivator, if defrauded, .will say, " The furrows I have made bear witness against him : they complain." Job iherefore means, if the fields could complain for want of proper culture, or if he had afflicied Ihe tiller, or eaten the produce without rewarding him for his toils, then " let thistles grow instead of wheat and cockle instead of barley." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXXII. Ver. 5. When Elihu saw that there was no an- swer in the mouth of these three men, then his wrath was kindled. When men are completely confounded, when they have not a word to say in reply, it is said, " in their imula. i. e. mouth, there is no answer." — Roberts. Ver. 21. Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person; neither let me give nattering titles unto man. The Hebrew word here used signifies to surname, cr more properly to call a person by a name which does not strictly belong to him, and thai generally in compliment or flattery. Mr. Scott on this passage informs us from Po- cocke^ that " the Arabs make court to their superiors by carefully avoiding to address them by their proper names, instead of which, they salute ther.i with some title or epi- thet expressive of respect." — Burder. CHAPTER XXXIII. Ver. 6. Behold, I am accordm"; to thy wish in I rod's stead ; I also am formed out of the clay. "The body and the herb, which come from the clay, will also return to it." " The body must return to the dust, why then trouble yourself? Will it exist for an immeasurable period !"— Roberts. Ver. 16. Then he -openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction. It is usual to say, " I will open that fellow's ears. I will take away the covering." " Ah ! will you not open your ears V — Roberts. Ver. 24. Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit ; I have found a ransom. A spscies of capital punishment which serves to illus- 'tate the sacred fit, is the pit into which the condemned j iSfins were pr'cipitated. The Athenians, and particu- lar!-/ the tribe Hippothoontis, frequently condemned offend- ers io the pit. It was a dark, noisome hole, and had sharp spikes at the top, that no criminal might escape; and others a1, the bottom, to pierce and torment those unhappy persons that were cast in. Similar to this place was the Lacede- monian Kaiaia;, into which Aristomeues, the Messenian, being cast, made his escape in a very surprising manner. This mode of punishment is of great antiquity; for the speakers in the book of Job make several allusions to it. Thus, in the speech of Elihu : " He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword." — " Then is he gracious unto him, and sailh, Deliver him from going down to the pit ; I have found a ransom." — '• He will deliver his soul from going down into the pit, and his life shall see the light." The allusions in the book of Psalms are numerous and interesting ; thus the Psalmist prays, " Be not silent to me ; lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit." — " Let them be cast into deep pits, that they rise not up again." The following allusion occurs in the prophecies of Isaiah : ■' The captive exile hasteneth, that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should CHAPTER XXXIV. Ver.1 7. Whatman is like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water? Of a man who does not care for contempt or hatred, it is said, " He drinks up their hatred like water." When a man is every way superior to his enemies, "Ah! he drinks them up like water." " He is a man of wonderful talents, for he drinks up science as water." Thus, Elihu wished to show that Job had hardened himself, ■and was insensible to scorn, for he had swallowed it as water. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXXVI. Ver. 3. I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. There is something in our nature which places superior importance on any thing which comes from afar. When a man has to contend with a person who is very learned, should a friend express a doubt as to the result, or advise him to take great care, he will say, "Fear not, vcggulnnra- tila, from very far I will fetch my arguments." " The arguments which are afar off, shall 'now be brought near." " Well, sir, since you press me, I will fetch my knowledge from afar." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXXVII. Ver. 6. For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength. In the East Indies the commencement and the breaking of the monsoons are generally very severe ; the rain descends in the most astonishing torrents. In a few hours the inhab- itants find themselves'in a liquid plain. The high and the low grounds are equally covered, and exhibit [he appear- ance of an immense lake, and surrounded by thick dark- ness, which prevents them from distinguishing a single object, except such as the vivid glare of lightning displays in horrible forms. In the winter months the mountain floods swell the small rivers of India in a wonderful man- ner Within a few hours they often rise twenty or thirty feet above their usual height, and run with astonishing rapiilitv ; and the larger rivers, before gentle and pellucid, are then furious and destructive, sweeping away whole villages, with their inhabitants and cattle while tigers and B. Chap. 33—38. other furious animals from the wilds join the general wreck, and unite their horrid voices with the cries of old men and helpless women, and the shrieks of their expiring children, in its passage to the ocean. It is in such a scene that the beamy of Eiihu's speech to Job, in which he mentions "the great rain of his strength," are properly understood. Even in the milder climate of Judea, the rains pour down three or four days and nights together, as vehemently as if they would drown the country, sweeping away in their iiiuous course the produce of the field, and the soil on which it grew, the flocks and herds, and human dwellings, with their hapless inmates, in one promiscuous ruin. Far dif- ferent are the feelings awakened in the mind, bv the ! ight of a majestic, pure, and quiet river, on whose ve'rdant pas- tures the flocks repose, or drink, without alarm or danger, of its flowing waters. So full of majesty and gentleness, neither alarming the fears, endangering the safety, nor encouraging the carelessness of genuine Christians, are the consolations of true religion. So the Psalmist felt, when he selected the loveliest image in the natural world to convey an idea of the rich and ample provision which the divine bounty has made for man : " He makelh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth me beside the still waters."— Paxton. Ver. 7. He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work. Has a man something in Ais hand which he does not wish to show to another, he says, " My hand is sealed." Of a gentleman who is very benevolent,' it is said, " His hand is sealed for charity only." " Please, sir, give me this."— "What ! is my hand sealed to give to all V' " What secret was that which Tamban told you last evening 1" — " I can- not answer ; my mouth is sealed." " That man never for- gets an injury." — " No, no, he seals it in his mind." A husband who lias full confidence in his wife, says, "I have sealed her." Canlicles iv. 12. To seal a person, therefore, is to secure him, and prevent others from injuring him. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Ver. 3. Gird up now thy loins like a man ; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. " Well, Tamby, you have a difficult task before you : gird up your loins." " Come, help me to gird this snli, i. e. mantle, or shawl, round my loins ; I have a long way to run." "Poor fellow! he soon gave it up; his loins were not well girded."— Roberts. Ver. 14. It is turned as clay to the seal: and they stand as a garment. The birds pillage the granary of Joseph extremely, where the corn of Egypt is deposited that is paid as a tax to the grand seignior,' for it is quite uncovered at the top, there being little or no rain in that country; its doors how- ever are kept carefully sealed, but its inspectors do not make use of wax upon this occasion, but put their seal upon a handful of clay, with which they cover the lock of the door. This serves instead of wax ; and it is visible, things of the greatest value might be safely sealed up in the same manner. Had Junius known (his circumstance, or had he at least reflected on it, he would not perhaps have explained Job xxxviii. 14, // is turned as clay to the seal, of the potters adorning clav with various paintings, or various emboss- ings ; especially had he considered, that the productions of the wheel of the potter, in the age and the country of Job, Were, in all probability, very clumsy, unadorned things, since even still in Egypt, the ancient source of arts, the ewer, which is made, according to Norden, very clumsy, is one of the best pieces of earthenware that they 'have there, all the art of the potter, in that country, consisting in an ability to make some vile pots cr dishes/without varnish.— Harmer. Ver. 16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? To a vain boasting fellow it is said, " Yes, yes ; the 808 Ver. 34. Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? 35. Cansl thou send lightnings', that they may go, and say unto thee, Here w< This probably refers to thunder, and its effects in pro- ducing rain, ft is said, "Why, fellow, are you making suchanoisel Are you going 'in shake tin- . ■;.■■ rain you are going to produce ?" " What is all this noise about ! Is it rain you want !" " Cease, cease your roaring; the rain will not come." " Listen to that elephant, rain is coming." — Roberts. Ver. 39. Wilt thou hunt the prey for th or fill the appetite of the young lions i To a man who is boasting of the speed of his foot, or his prowess, it is said, " Yes. there is no doubt thou will hunt the prey for the tiger." When a person does a favour Tor a cruel man, it is asked, ■' What ! give food to the tiger 1" "O yes; give milk to the serpent." "Here comes the sportsman ; he has been hunting prey for the liijer."— Roberts. CHAPTER XXXIX. Ver. 1. rtnowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? It is well known lhat the hind goes with young eight months, and brings forth her fawn in the beginning of au- tumn. Why then does Jehovah address these interroga- tions to Job:' " Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth 1 Or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve 1 Canst thou number the months lhat they fulfil 1 Or knowest Ihou the time when thev bring forth 1" Could Job be ignorant of circumstances which were ob- vious to all the shepherds in the East, who had numerous opportunities of observing the habits and manners of these creatures 1 It is obvious that Jehovah could not refer to the mere speculative knowledge of these facts, but to that which is proper to himself, by which he not only knows, but also direcls and governs all things. This is confirmed by the use of the verb (to*) shamar, which signifies to ob- serve, to keep, or to guard: Knowest thou the time when the wild goats bring forth, the parturition of the hinds dost thou guard ">. Without the protecting care of God, who up- holds all hi? works by the word of his power, the whole race of these timid creatures would soon be destroyed by the violence of wild beasts, or the arts of the hunter. It is with great propriety, says .me of the ancients, that Jehovah demands, " The birth of the hinds dost thou guard V for, since this animal is always in flight, and wiih fear and ter- ror always leaping and skipping about, she could never bring her young to maturity without such a special protec- tion. The providence of God, therefore, is equally con- spicuous in the preservation of the mother and the fawn ; both are the objects of his compassion and tender care ; and consequently, lhat afflicted man had no reason to charge his Maker with unkindness, who condescends to watch over the goats and the hinds. — Pax-ton. Ver. 3. They bow themselves, they brins: forth their young: ones, they cast out their sorrows. 4. Their young ones are in good likin?-, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them. The hind has no sooner brought forth her fawn, than the pain she suffered is forgotten j " Thev bow themselves" to bring forth their young ones, "they cast out their sorrows." These words must forcibly remind the reader of the ma- ternal pains and joys of a higher order of beings: " A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come : but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is bom into the world." It is added. " Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn ; they go forth, igli they are brougb ii iw and have no human ownei to provide for their wants, and to guard them from danger, m. afleT being suckled a v. oi. , I bet i me rigorous an I shift for themselves in the open fields. They grow Up ays our translation; bill the fawn i: monlj I'll in the cornfield, lierause ii lives in the deserts, and frequents lh»se places Which are far remote Irom the cultivated field. Besides, in Arabia, -where Job flourished, Ihe harvest is reaped in the months Of Man h and April, tag before the lends bring forth their young. The fawn, does not thrive with corn,' but with the few shrubs and hardy pi. mis n hich grow in the wild open country. But the inspired writer has committed no mistake ; the original phrase is capable of another transla- tion, which perfectly corresponds with the condition id' lhat animal, in those parts of the world. In Chaldee, the word (s;;) //„/„/,-, or (us;;) bnburu, is evidently the same as ihe Hebrew (-,'in:) bahouls. Thus in I.;. ban's address t . . . I .- . . ..I when heai rived in I'adan.-irnni, " Whv standest thou with- out," 'he Hebrew word is (i'lrc) bailouts; and in Jonathan and tinkclosii is (st--:) balmra. The same remark applies to a text in the book of ExodllS: " If he rise again and walk abroad upon his staff;" in Hebrew (pro) bahmtts; in Chaldee, (ic::) habara. Hence, the phrase may be trans- lated, They grow up without, or in the open field. Many other instances might be specified, but these are sufficient to establish the justice of the remark. Even the Hebrew phrase itself is translated bv Schultens, " in the open field, which is indisputably the sense of the passage under con- sideration. Thus, when the fawn is calved, it grows up in the desert, under the watchful providence of God; it soon forsakes the spot where it was brought forth, and suckled by the dam, and returns no more. — Paxton. Ver. 5. Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? 6. Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. 7. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither re- gardeth he the crying of the driver., 8. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing. This animal was called •»; ayoio;, among the Greeks, and onager by the Romans. Some natural historians con- sider it as a different species from the tame and domestic ass: but others, among whom is the celebrated Buffon, af- firm, that it differs from its unhappy relation only in those particulars which are the proper effects of independence and liberty. Although more elegantly shaped, the general form of its body is the same; but in temper and manners it is extremely dissimilar. Intended to fill a higher place in the kingdom of nature, than its abject and enslaved brother, it exhibits endowments which, in all ages, have commanded the admiration of every observer. Animated by an unconquerable love of liberty, this high-spirited ani- mal submits his neck with great reluctance to the yoke of man ; extremely jealous of the least restraint, he shuns the inhabited country, and steadily rejects all the delicacies it has to offer. His chosen haunt is the solitary and inhos- pitable desert, where he roves at his ease, exulting in ihe possession id' unrestrained freedom. These are not acci- dental nor acquired traits in his character; but instincts, implanted by the hand of his Maker, that are neither to be extinguished nor modified by length of time, nor change t f circumstances. To this wild and nntameable temper, Je- hovah himself condescends to direct the attention of Job, when he answered him out of the whirlwind, and said : " Who hath sent out the wild ass free"? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass 1 whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorn- eth the multitude of Ihe city, neither regardeth he i he crv- ing of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pas- ture, and he searehe.-h afle- every green thing." The proper name of this animal in the Hebrew language, is (ma) para, a term which, according to some writers, is expressive of its extreme suspicion. It i- employed by Mo- ses to denote the wild and untractable disposition of Ish- vaael and his descendants; and by Zophar, to characterize a vain, self-righteous, and obstinate person. In accordance 354 JOB. Chap. Willi this idea, tne noun furnishes a veiD in the Hiphil form, which signifies to act as wildly as the onager. Others de- rive the noun from a Chaldee verb, which signifies to run with great swiftness; and every writer, ancient and modern, who has treated of this animal, has attested the wonderful celerity with which it flies over the desert. According to Leo Africanus, the wild ass yields only to the horses of Barbary ; and Xenophon avers, in his Anabasis, that it out- runs the fleetest horses. It has feet like the whirlwind, says Oppian ; jElian asserts, that it seems as if it were car- ried forward by wings like a bird. These testimonies are confirmed by Professor Gmelin, who saw numerous troops of them in the deserts of Great Tarlarv, and says, The onagers are animals adapted to running, and of such swiftness, that the best horses cannot equal them. Reiving on its extraordinary powers, it fre- quently mocks the pursuit of the huntci ; and in the stri- king description of its Creator, " Scorneth the multitude of the city," that invade its retreats, and seek its destruction. li laughs (as the original term properly signifies) at their numbers and their speed, and seems 10 take a malicious |.!.m ""■ ::i ii' .:j>puinting their hopes. Xenophon stales, that the onagers in Mesopotamia, when pursued on horse- back", will >lop suddenly in the midst of their career, till the hunters approach, and then dart away with surprising ve- locity ; and again stop, as if inviting them to make another effort lo overtake them, but immediately dart away again like an arrow shot from a bow: indeed, it would be impos- sible for men to take them, without the assistance of art. " We gave chase," says Mr. Morier, " to two wild asses, but which had so much the speed of our horses, that when they had got at some distance, they stood still and looked behind at us, snorting with their noses in ihe air, as if m contempt of our endeavours to catch them." The hunters, however, often lie in wait for them at the ponds of brackish water, to which they resort to drink; or take them alive by means of concealed pits, half filled with plantsand branches of trees, to lessen the creature's fall. At other times the chase is continued by relays of fresh horses, which the hunters mount as the others are exhausted, till the strength of the animal is so completely worn out, that it can be easily overtaken. The wild ass, unsocial in his temper, and impatient of restraint, frequents the solitary wilderness, and the vast in- hospitable desert, the salt marsh, and the mountain range. This is the scene adapted to his nature and instincts, and his proper domain allotted to him by the author of his being. We are not left to infer this fact from the manners and habits of the animal ; Jehovah himself has attested it in these terms: "Whose house I have made the wilder- ness, and Ihe barren land his dwellings." He who made Ihe wild ass free, and loosed his hand", provides a habita- •tion for him in the desert, where the voice of man is not heard, nor a human dwelling meets hi< eye. But every desert is not equally to his liking; it is the barren or sail land in which he delights. So grateful is salt to his taste, that he uniformly prefers brackish water to fresh, and se- lects for his food those plants that are impregnated with sadine particles, or that have bitter juices. He therefore retires from the cultivated or fertile regions, not merely to be free from the domination of man, but to enjoy the pas- ture which is agreeable to his instincts. " The multitude," or the abundance of the city, " he despises for the salt or . bitter leaf on the sandy waste." Into such a state of' desolation and sterility was the in- heritance of God's ancient people reduced, by the arms of Nebuchadnezzar: "Upon the land of my people shall come tip thorns and briers, yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous -city: because the palaces shall be forsaken, the mul- titude of the city shall be left, the forts and towers shall be •dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks." A .more affecting picture can scarcely be conceived; the de- populated fields and ruined cities "of a country once flow- ing with milk and honey, were to become the favourite haunts of those shy creatures " for ever," or during the long period of seventy years. " Until the spirit" should be poured upon them from on high, from the beginning to the end of the captivity, a tedious and irksome period to the unhappy captives, 'were the wild asses to stray through their barren fields, and repose in their deserted houses, undisturbed by the presence of man. But the pride and '■a. -rarity of their oppressor were soon visited with corres- s deprn had so greatly abused, and by the violence of his disor- der, " driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts; and his dwelling was with the wild asses," in the salt land and frightful desert. He seems to have been divested of every thing human but the form ; irra- tional and sensual, he was guided solely by his animal propensities. Nor was he longer able to distinguish what was becoming or agreeable, even to the animal nature of man ; every desire and appetite was become so brutish, that he felt no wish to associate with beings of his own kind, but lived with the beasts, and fed in their pasture. Some respectable writers have considered the onager as a solitary creature, refusing lo associate even with"lhose of his own species, because he shuns the presence of man, and frequents the most frightful solitudes. But this hasty opinion is* completely refuted by the testimony of modern travellers, the nomadic hordes of Tarlary, and the trading companies of Bukharia. From their accounts we learn that the wild asses are still very numerous in the deserts of Great Tariary, and come annually in great herds, which spread themselves in the mountainous deserts to the north and east of Lake Aral. Here they pass the summer, and assemble in the autumn by hundreds, and even by thou- sands, in order to return in company to their former re- treats in the mountains of Northern Asia. The grega- rious character of the wild ass is not in reality contradicied by the prophet in these words: "For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers." In this passage he describes the perverse and im- tractable dispositions of Ephraim, and the certain destruc- tion to which their obstinacy exposed them. A wild ass alone, they were by their foolish conduct ready lo become a prey to the destroyer. But it is rather the king'of Assyria, than the ten tribes, whom he compares to that animal. Instead of trusting in the Lord their God, they courted the favour, and solicited the protection of that ambitious and artlul monarch, who, like "a wild ass alone," consulted only his own selfish inclinations, and aimed at his own aggrandizement. This ill-advised measure, from which they promised themselves so much advantage, he declares, would certainly hasten this catastrophe, which they sought to avoid. They should find, when too late, that they had been ihe dupes "of his deceitful policy, and the victims ol his unprincipled ambition. The wild ass, like almost every creature that inhabits the barren wilderness, is re- duced to subsist on coarse and scanty fare. The sweets of unbounded liberty are counterbalanced by the unremitting labour which is' necessary to procure him a precarious subsistence. In those salt and dreary wastes, which provi- dence has allotted for his residence, very few plants are to be found, and those, from the heat of the climate and the nature of the soil, are stinted in their growth, and bittei to the taste: " They see not when good cometh ;" for they grow in the parched places in the wilderness, " in a sail land, and not inhabited." In such inhospitable regions, the wild ass is compelled to traverse a great extent ci" country, to scour the plains, and range over the mountains, in order to find here and there a few blades of coarse, withered grass, and browse the tops of the few stunted shrubs which languish in the se sandy wilds. Such are the allusions involved in these words:" "The range o( the mountains ishis pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing." Every natural historian has recorded the extreme wit- ness of this animal. He is so jealous of his liberty, that on the slightest alarm, or the first appearance of danger, he flies with amazing swiftness into the desert. His senses are so acute, that it is impossible to approach him in the open country. But in spite of all his vigilance, the hunt- er often encloses him in his toils, and leads him away into captivity. Even in this unhappy slate, he never submits his neck to Ihe yoke of man without a determined nejHSt- ance. " Sent out free" by Him that made him, he is tena- cious of his independence, and opposes, to the extraordinary methods which his captors are forced to employ, the most savage obstinacy; and for the most part, he baffles all their endeavours to tame him; still he " scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regards he the crying of the driver." On the authority of this text, Chrysostom says, " [his animal is strong and untameable ; man can never subdue him, whatever efforts he may make for that purpose." But Varrc Chap. 39. J <■ affirms, on the contrary, that " the wild ass is fil for labour; easily tamed ; and that when he is once tamed, he never reMime- Ins original wildness." The word-, of ; in ion of the Greek father; rliey only intimate, that it is extremely dilli- enll i" subdue the high spirit ana stubborn temper of this animal; for the apostle James declares, thai "everj kind of beasl is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind ;" and urea' numbers of them are actually broken to the yoke in Persia, and some other countries. But it a] the statement of Professor Gmelin, thai the Persians tame ./■takers ; and the reason probably is, that they [i ceed in rendering a lull •_ m serviceable to man. nntameable and indocile is the wild nss, in the mind of Zophar, than the human Wind, in (hen present degenerate suite: "Vain man would lie wise, though man like a wild ass's colt." Empi\ .■ <■'■ ■ ■ in ■ ■■ ■■! n - i. s'ill aspires to equal God in wisdom and knowledge; still fondly supposes himself qualified to sit in judgment on the divine proceedings, and to take the exclusive m of his own affairs, although the wild ass's colt is not more rude, indocile, and untractable. Nor is this an acquired habit : he is born a wild ass's colt, and therefore, by nature equally impatient of salutary restraint, equally wilful in consulting his own inclinations. And this defect in his character, no created arm is able to subdue; it yields only to the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spun, who make's him willing 'in the day of effectual calling, by a display power. — Paxtun. Vsr. 13. Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and leathers unto the ostrich ? These birds are exceedingly numerous in the Easl ; and it gives a kind of enchantment to a morning scene, to see Bock ol them together, spreading their beautiful plumage in the rays of the sun. They proudlv stalk along, and then run with great speed, particularly if they gel sight of a ser- pent; and the reptile must wind' along 'in his besl style, or he will soon become the prey of the lordly bird. A hus- imes says to his wife, "Come hither, my beauti- ful peacock. Had" they not their beauty from you"?" This bird is sacred to Scandan. — Roberts. Ver. 13." Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks 1 or wings and feathers unto the ostrich? 11. Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, 15. And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. 16. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear: 17. Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. 18. What time she lifteth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider. The ostrich is by farthe largest among the winged tribes, and seems to be the connecting link between il and the fowl. She is not to be classed with the former, because she is furnished with a kind of wings, which, if they cannot raise her from the ground, greail, . her Sight; not with the latter, for "the feathers which :-r,,w oul of her small wings, are all unwoven and decom- posed, and their beards consist of long hairs detached from one another, and do not form a compact body to strike the air with advantage; which is the principal office for which Ihc feathers of the wing are intended." Those of the tail have also the same structure, and, bv consequence, cannot oppose to the air a suitable resistance. They can neither expand nor close, as circumstances require, nor lake differ- ent inclinations; and what is not a little remarkable, all the feathers which cover the body exhibit the same con- formation. The ostrich has not^ like the greater part of other birds, feathers of various kinds, some sofi and downy, which are next the skin; and others of a more firm and i dstence, which cover the former; and others still long, i ..; rength, and on which the mqve- mi nts oi the animal depend. All hei feather; are of one kind, all of them bearded with del ched hairs or filaments, withouiconsistence and reciprocal adherence in one word, no utility in ih ing, or in directing the flight Besides the peculiar structure oi hi i wings, she is pressed down to the earth by her ciu.iiiioii- m/.c. Billion calculates the weight of a living ostrich, in middling condition, at no 01 eighty pounds; which would require .in immense powei in the wings and motive muscles of these members, to raise and support in tbe air so pom mass. Thus by her excessive weightandthe loose lei ture of her feathers, she is condemned, like a quadruped, laboriously to run upon ihe surface of the earth, without being ever able to mount up into the air. But alihough raising herself from the ground, she is admira- bly fitted for running. The greater part of her body is ill hair, rather than feathers; her head and her sides have little or no hair; and her legs, which are very ihi.d. ami muscular, and in which her principal force re- sides, are in like manner almost naked; her large sinewy and plump feet, which have only two toes, resemble consid- erably the feet of a camel; her wings, armed with two spikes, like those of a porcupine, are rather a kind of arms than wings, winch are given her for defence. These characteristic features throw great light on a part of the description which Jehovah himself has condescend- ed to give of this animal in the book of Job. Itbeginswith • gation,: "Gavest ihou wings and feathers unlo the ostrich V Dr. Shaw translates it: " The wing of the ostrich is expanded ; the very feathers and plumage of the slork." According to Bufi'on, the ostrich is covered with feathers alternately while and black, and sometimes gray by the mixture of these two colours. They are shortest. says the author, on the lower part of the neck, the rest of which is entirely naked; they become longer on the back and Ihe belly; and are longest at the extremity of the tail and the wings; but he denies that any of them have been found with red, green, blue, or yellow plumes. This assertion, however, is not quile correct ; for if credit is due to Dr. Shaw, " when the ostrich is full grown, the neck, particularly of ihe male, which before was almost naked, is now very beautifully covered with red feathers. The plumage, likewise, upon the shoulders, the back, and some pans of the wings, from being hitherto of a da 1 1 colour, becomes now as black as jet, while some of the feathers relain an exquisite whiteness. They are, as de- scribed in the thirteenth verse, the very feaih'ers and plu mage of the slork; that is, they consist of such black and while feathers as the slork, called Irom ihcnee Ti)uipyost i; known to have. But the belly, the thighs, and the breast do not partake of this covering, being usually naked ; am. when touched are of the same warmth as the flesh of th. quadrupeds. The ostrich, though she inhabits Ihe sandy deserts, where she is exposed to few interruptions, is extremely vigilant and shy. She betakes herself lo flight on the first alarm, and traverses the waste with so great agilitvand swiftness, that the Arab is never able to overtake her, even when he is mounted upon his horse of Family. The fact is thus stated by Jehovah: "What time she lifleih up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider." She affords him only an opportunity of admiring at a distance the ex- traordinary agility and stateliness of her motions, the rich- ness of her plumage, and the great propriety of ascribing lo her " an expanded quivering wing." Nothing certainly can be more beautiful and enierlaining than such a sight; Ihe wings, by their continual though unwearied vibrations, serving her' at once for sails and oars, while her feet, no less a-sisiing in conveying her out of sipht, are equally in- sensible of fatigue. Her surprising swiftness is confirmed by the writer of a voyage to Senegal, who says, " She sets off at a hard gallop; but after being excited a little, she ex- pands her wings, as if to catch the wind, and abandons her- self to a speed so great that she seems not to touch Die ground." "I am persuaded," continues that writer, "she would leave far behind the swiftest English courser." Buffon also admits that the ostrich runs faster than the horse. These unexceptionable testimonies completely vin- dicate the assertion of the inspired writer. But as it "is on horseback the Arab pursues and takes her, it is necessary 356 JO to explain how he accomplishes his purpose, and show its consistency with the sacred writings. " When the Arab rouses an ostrich," says Buffon, " he follows her at a dis- tance, without pressing her too hard, but sufficiently to prevent ber from taking food, yet not to determine her to escape by a prompt flight." Here the celebrated naturalist fairly admits that she has it in her power to escape if she were sufficiently alarmed. "It is the more easy," contin- ues our author, " to follow her in this manner, because she does not proceed in a straight line, and because she de- scribei-almost always in her course a circle more or less ex- tended." The Arabs, then, have it in their power to direct their pursuit in a concentric interior circle, and by conse- quence straighter; and to follow her always at a just distance, by passing over much less ground than she. When they have thus fatigued and starved her for a day or two, they take their opportunity, rush in upon her at full speed, lead- ing her always as much as possible against the wind, and kill her with their clubs, to prevent her blood from spoiling the beautiful whiteness of her feathers. In this account of Buffon, the highest modern authority in matters of this kind, nothing occurs to contradict the assertion of the in- spired writer ; while he distinctly admits that she runs faster than the fleetest horses, and could not be taken but by artful management. She constructs her humble nest in the bare ground, ex- cavating the sand with her feet. It is hollow in the middle, and fortified on all sides by a circular mound of some height, for the purpose of preventing the rain from flowing into the nest and wetting her young. From the most ac- curate accounts which Dr. Shaw could obtain from bis conductors, as well as from Arabs of different places, it ap- pears that the ostrich lays from thirty to fifty eggs. jElian mentions more than eighty; but Shaw never heard of so great a number. The first egg is deposited in the centre ; the rest are placed as conveniently as possible round about it. In this manner, she is said to lay, deposite, or trust " her eggs in the earth, and to warm them in the sand, and for- sreiieth (as they are not placed like those of some other birds upon trees, or in the clefts of rocks, &c.) that the foot (of the traveller) may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them." She seems in a great measure insen- sible to the tender feelings which so powerfully operate in the greater part of other animals. This assertion, indeed, Buffon seems inclined to controvert: "As soon," says that writer, " as the young ostriches are hatched, they are in a condition to walk, and even to run and seek their food ; so that in the torrid zone, where they find the degree of heat which they require, and the food which is proper to them, they are emancipated at their birth, and abandoned by their mother, of whose care they have no need. But in countries less warm, for example, at the Cape of Good Hope, the mother watches over her young as long as her assistance is necessary, and on all occasions her cares are propor- tioned to their wants." This account Buffon takes from Leo Africanus and Kolhi'-, to whom he refers ; in which it is admitted, that the mother abandons her offspring as soon as they are hatched, although it is alleged, not for want of affection, but because her cares are not necessary. But this is to suppose that they are not like other young creatures, all of which re- quire more or less attention from their parents, for some time after their birth ; an anomaly which cannot be ad- mitted but on the most convincing evidence. Let us now hear the account of Dr. Shaw, who travelled in the native country of the ostrich, and borrowed his information from the Arabs, who were well acquainted with all her habits and dispositions: " Upon the least distant noise, or trivial oicasion.she forsakes her eggs or her young ones, to which, perhaps, she never returns ; or, if she does, it may be too late either to restore life to the one, or to preserve the lives of the other." Agreeably to this account, the Arabs meet sometimes with whole nests of these eggs undisturb- ed; some of which are sweet and good; others are addle and corrupted ; others again have their young ones of dif- ferent growths, according to the time, it may be presumed, they have been forsaken by the dam. They oflener meet a few of the little ones, no bigger than well-grown pullets, half starved, straggling and moaning about, like so many distressed orphans, for their mother. And in this manner, the ostrich may be said, as in verse sixteenth. " to be hard- ened against ber young ones, as though they were not hers ; !. ' Chap. 39. her labour (in hatching and attending them so far) being in vain without fear," or the least concern of what becomes of them afterward. This want of affection is also re- corded by Jeremiah, in bis Lamentations: " The daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness." In her private capacity the ostrich is not less inconsider- ate and foolish, particularly in the choice of food, which is often highly detrimental and pernicious to her; for she swallows every thing greedily and indiscriminately, whe- ther it be pieces of rags, leather, wood, stone, or iron. When Dr. Shaw was at Oran he saw one of these birds swallow, without any seeming uneasiness or inconveniency, several leaden bullets, as they were thrown upon the floor, scorching hot from the mould; the inward coats of the oesophagus and stomach being, in his opinion, probably better stocked with glands and juices, than in other animals with shorter necks. They are particularly fond of their own excrement, which they greedily eat up as soon as it is voided ; no less fond are 'they of the dung of hens and other poultry. It seems as if their optic, as well as their ol- factory nerves, were less adequate and conducive to thei{ safety and preservation, than in other creatures. The divine Providence in this, no less than jn other respects, " having deprived them of wisdom, neither hath it impart- ed to them understanding." This part of her character is fully admitted by Buffon, who describes it in nearly the same terms. The ostri?h was aptly called by the ancients a lover of the deserts. Shy and timorous in no common degree, she retires from the cultivated field, where she is disturbed by the Arabian shepherds and husbandmen, into the deepest recesses of the Sahara. In those dreary and arid wastes, which are scarcely ever refreshed with a shower, she is reduced to subsist on a few tufts of coarse grass, which here and there languish on their surface, or a few other solitary plants, equally destitute of nourishment, and, in the Psalmist's phrase, even " withered before they are grown up." To this dry and parched food, may perhaps be added, the great variety of land snails which occasionally cover the leaves and stalks of these herbs, and which may afford her some refreshment. Nor is it improbable that she sometimes regales herself on lizards and serpents, together with insects and reptiles of various kinds. Still, however, considering the voracity and size of this camel bird, it is wonderful how the little ones should be nourished and brought up; and especially, how those of fuller growth, and much better qualified to look out for themselves, are able to subsist. — Paxton. Ver. 16. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers : her labour is in vain without fear. Mr. Vansittart, in his Observations on Select Places of the Old Testament, proposes the following translation of this verse : " She hath hardened her young ones for that which is not hers ; her labour is for another without dis- crimination." To justify this version he adduces these ex- tracts from modern travellers : " We pursued our journey next morning : in the course of the day I amused mysell by firing my'piece to start game. A female ostrich rose from her nest, which was the largest I had seen, containing thirty-two eggs : twelve more being distributed at some dis- tance, in a little cavity by itself. I could not conceive that one female could cover so many; they were of an unequal size, and on examination I found that nine of them were much less than the rest. This peculiarity interested me, and I ordered the oxen to be unyoked at about a quarter of a league distance from the nest. I then concealed myself in a thicket, from whence I could overlook the place, and yet remain within gunshot. I had not watched long before the female returned and sat on the eggs. During the rest of the day which I passed in the thicket, three more came to the same nest, covering it alternately ; each continued sit- ting for the space of a quarter of an hour, and then gave place to another, who, while waiting, sat close by the side of her it was to succeed, a circumstance that made me con- jecture, that in cold or rainy nights they sit by pairs, or perhaps more. The sun was almost down ; the male bird approached : these, equally with the female, assist in hatch- ing the eggs. I instantly shot him : but the report of my gun scared the others, who in their flight broke several of Chap. 30. JC Ihem. I now drew nearer, and saw wilh regret that the young ostriches were just ready to 41111 the shells, being per- rered wilh down. 'This peculiarity of female ostriches assisting each other for the incubation of the same nest, is, I think, calculated to awaken the attention of the naturalists: and not being a general rule, proves that cir- cumstances sometimes determine the actions of these crea- tures, regulate their customs, and strengthen their natural instinct, by giving them a knowledge not generally bestow- ed. For is 11 not probable that they mav associate to be the ) ' in! l»i al'l'' i" defend their voting ! " An ostrich starling before me at the distance of twenty paces, I thought it might he silting, and hastened to the spot rose, where I found eleven eggs, quite warm, and four others at a distance of two or three feet from the nest. I called to my companions, who broke one of the warm eggs, in which was a young ostrich, perfectly formed, about the size of a chicken just hatched. I thought these quite spoiled, but found my people entertained a very different opinion of the matter, every one being eager to come in for his share. Amiroo in the mean time caught up the four outward ones, assuring me that I should find •them excellent. In the sequel, I learned from this African, what the rest of my Hottentots, and even naturalists them- selves, were unacquainted with, since none that I recollect have ever mentioned it: the ostrich ever places near her nest a certain number of eggs, proportioned to those she intends to sit on; these remaining separate and uncovered, continue good a long while, being designed by the provi- dential mother for The first nourishment of her voting. Experience has convinced me of the truth of this observa- tion, for I never met with an ostrich's nest without finding eggs disposed in this manner, at a small distance from it. (Vat Hani's Travels.) " Among the very few polygamous birds that are found in a state of nature," the ostrich is one.. The male, distin- guished by its glossy black feathers from the dusky gray female, is generally seen with two or three, and frequently as many as five, of'the latter. These females lay their eggs in one nest, to the number of ten or twelve each, which they hatch altogether, the male taking his turn of silting on them among the rest. Between sixty and seventy eggs have been found in one nest : and if incubation has begun, a few are most commonly lying round the sides of the hole, having been thrown out by the birds on finding the nest to contain more than it could conveniently hold." (Barrow.) JEUan says, of the female ostrich, " She separates the unproductive eggs, and sits only on the good ones, from which the brood is produced; and the others she uses for food for her young." These accounts render obvious the propriety of the new- proposed translation. Because by the four mother birds having the same nest in common, and intermixing their eggs, they would likewise, when the eggs were hatched, have their young intermixed and in common ; so than the parents not being able to discern their own particular young, would expend their affection equally on the whole 'brood, and consequently on the young of another bird equally as her own : thus she would be taking to herself the young of oilers instead of her own ; so that in this respect she might be saiil to harden her own young, by taking the young of another, and dividing her affection upon them.' In this sense she might be called cruel as to her own voung, though she would at the same time be affectionate also. — Bvrder. Ver. 26. Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings towards the south? It is considered an exceedingly fortunate thing to see a hawk or a kite flying in circles from left to right, towards the south. When the south wind blows, those birds may be seen njpking their way in circles towards that quarter ; but when they return they fly in a direct line. — Roberts. The hawk is distinguished by the swiftness of her flight, and the rapid motion of her wings in flying. But as it is the first of these which naturally fixes the attention of an observer, the Hebrews, according to their invariable custom, selected it as the reason of the name by which she is known in their language ; they call her (;■:) nets, from the verb vilsn, to fly. She was reckoned by many of the ancients the swiftest of the feathered race. ' In Homer, the descent of Apollo from heaven is compared to her flight: "From tl? mountains of Ida he descended like a swift hawk, the 3. 357 destroyer of pigeons, that is the swiftest of birds." In the thirteenth 1 k, Ajax u lis Hector the day t.hould come when he would wish to have horses swifter than hawks, to carry him back to the city. Among the Egyptians the hawk was the Symbol of the h inds ; a sure proof that they ted with great admiration the rapidity of her motions. For the same reason, according to some writers, she was consecrated to the sun, which she resembles in the surprising swiftness of her career, and the faculty with which he moves through the boundless regions of the sky. This custom of consecrating the hawk to Apollo, the Greeks borrowed from the Egyptians, among whom no animal was so sacred as the ibis and the hawk. So great was their veneration for these animals, that if any person killed one of them, with or without design, he was punished with death ; while for the destruction of anv other animal, he was only subjected to an arbitrary fine. This bird, so highly venerated among the heathen, was pronounced unclean by the Jewish lawgiver; it was to bean abomination to the people of Israel ; its flesh was not to he eaten, nor its car- cass touched with impunity. The reason of this law may probably be found in her dispositions and qualities; she is a bird of prey, and, by consequence, cruel in her temper, and gross in her manners. Her mode of living, too, may probably impart a disagreeable taste and flavour to the flesh, and render it, particularly in a warm climate, improper for the table. Nor do we know that it was ever relished by any people, although the pressure of necessitous circumstance's may have occasionally reconciled individuals to use it for food. Her daring spirit, her thirst of blood, the surprising rapidity of her flight, and her perseverance in the chase, soon pointed her out to the hunter as a valuable assistant ; but even he willingly resigns her carcass to be meat to ihe beasts of the field. Of this bird Jehovah demands, " Doth the hawk fir bv thy wisdom, and stretch her wings towards the south '!" Jerome, and several other interpreters, render the words, By thy prudence doth the hawk renew her plumage, having expanded her wings towards the south 1 because the verb (i3n) abar, in the future of the Hiphil, seems to be formed from the noun (-on) abcr, or (h-cn) abrah, which signifies a feather. This law, by which the eagle, the hawk, and other birds, annually shed their feathers, was not contrived by the wisdom of man ; although it appears he is able, by certain managements, to accelerate Ihe moulting season, as well as the renovation of the plumage. But, as means and remedies derive all their efficacy from God. and depend for success only upon his co-operation, it may still be demanded, Doth the hawk renew her plumage by thy wisdom, expand- ing her wings towards the sonlh 1 II is said., by an ancient writer on this passage, that humid and warm places are favourable to this change, and are therefore diligently sought for by hawkers, wilh the view of promoting the moulting of their falcons. When the south wind blows, the wild hawks, instructed by Iheir instinctive sagacity, ex- pand their wings till their limbs become heated ; and by this means the old plumage is relaxed, and the moulting facilitated. But when the south wind refuses its aid, they expand their wings to the rays of the sun, and shaking them violently, produce a tepid gale for themselves; and thus their bodies being heated, and their pores opened, the old feathers more easily fall off, and new ones grow up in iheir place. But it is more probable that these words refer, net to the annual renovation of the plumage, but to the long and persevering flight of the hawk towards the south, on the approach of winier. Her migration is not conducted by the wisdom and prudence of man ; but by the superintend- ing and upholding providence of the only wise God. The words of Jehovah cannot be understood as referring to the falconer's art ; for we have no evidence that the hawk was employed in hunting, till many ages after the times in which the patriarchs flourished. Besides, if the divine challenge referred to that amusement, the direction of her flight could not be confined to the south ; for she pursues the game to every quarter of heaven. The renowned Chrysosiom, on this passage, inquires why Jehovah has made no mention of sheep and oxen, and 01 her animals of the same kind, but only of useless creatures, which seem to have been formed for no beneficial or important purposes. But is it to be sup- posed that God, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working, has made any part of his works in vain % Wr may not be able to discover, after the most careful invest!- 358 JU gation, the end which the Almighty had in view, when he created some of his works; but shall we presume on this account to pronounce them useless or insignificant'? So far from being a useless bird, the hawk, in some cases, brings the most important and effectual assistance to the hunter. It has already been observed, that the antelope, which seems rather to fly 'than to run, leaves the swiftest dug far behind, and could never be overtaken without the help of the falcon. The hawk, then, is not the useless and insignificant creature which the Greek father represents her; on the contrary, she has conferred benefits on mankind of no inconsiderable value. — Paxtcn. CHAPTER XL. . Ver. 15. Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Behemoth is an amphibious animal, whose real character is involved in much obscurity. The greater part of mod- ern writers have thought that behemoth is the elephant, and leviathan the whale ; this indisputably the largest of the aquatic, and that the largest of terrestrial animals. But their sentiments are liable to objections so numerous and weighty, that we are compelled, after the most careful inves- tigation, to refer these names to very different animals. Bo- rhart is of opinion, that the sacred writers refer, under .hese terms, to the crocodile and the hippopotamus: and he is probably correct. He follows Beza and Diodati in supposing the leviathan to be the crocodile of the Nile ; and from this he infers, that the behemoth is the hippopotamus, an inhabitant of the same river. In the book of Job, the Almighty, after describing a numberof terrestrial animals in a continued series, commences a new description in -the fortieth chapter, in which we find leviathan, which is al- lowed by all to be an aquatic animal, joined with behe- moth; therefore, to preserve the appointed order undis- turbed, the latter must also be an aquatic animal. They are, besides, very similar in several respects: both are quadrupeds of enormous size— fierce in their dispositions— amphibious in their nature— both of them inhabitants of the Nile. Nor does the name, behemoth, ill agree with the hippopotamus; for the Hebrew term behema, may denote any beast, especially if it be of a superior size, as the hip- popotamus is acknowledged to be. A ristotle gives him the size of an ass; Herodotus affirms that in stature he is equal to the largest ox ; Diodorus makes his height not less than five cubits, or above seven feet and a half; Tatius calls him, on account of his prodigious strength, the Egyptian elephant. The Arabian authors quoted by Bochart, say that the behema, the same as the behemoth, is a four-fooled animal, although he lives in the water. But were it admit- ted that behema bv itself is always applied to land animals, yet behemoth may signify the hippopotamus with sufficient propriety, because that animal yields to very few in bulk and stature; it is amphibious, and resembles in many par- ticulars terrestrial animals. No aquatic animal, indeed, so much resembles the beasts of the field ; hence the hippo- potamus alone, of all aquatic animal*, is called, bv way of excellence, behema, or, in the Egyptian dialect, behemoth; for behemoth is not a plural, but a singular noun, with an Egyptian termination, like Thoth, Paoth, Phamenoth, the names of Egyptian months, which are all in the singular number. The description of behemoth is introduced with these words: " Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee ; he eateth grass as an ox." The Almighty did not need to fetch the arguments of his mighty power'from a distance ; the Nile, which rolled its ample waters through regions bordering on Arabia, the native country of Job, contained Lie hippopotamus, one of the most surprising effects of creating power and goodness. Such seems to be the mean- ing of the command, "Behold now behemoth, which I have made with thee," or in thy neighbourhood. The par- ticle im often signifies, near or'hard by : thus, in the book of Joshua, the city of Ai is said to be im Bethaven, near Eethaven: and, in the book of Judges, the Danites were, im beth Micah, near the house of Micah. But as the pro- priety of the translation cannot reasonably he disputed, it is needless to multiply examples. The Almighty proceeds : " he eateth grass like an ox." The ox and the elephant are equally beasts of burden ; it is therefore by no means wonderful that they live on the same kind of food ; but 3. Chap. 40 that the hippopotamus, an aquatic animal, which lives fot the most part in the bottom of the Nile, should eat grass like an ox, is a singular phenomenon, well entitled to our consideration. Nor is it without design he is compared to the ox; for, he not only associates with him in the same pastures, but also bears a considerable resemblance to him in the size and stature of his body, and in the form of his head and feet. — Paxton. Ver. 16. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, ard his force is in the navel of his belly. The loins are the seat of strength in every animal; hence, in the language of scripture, to strengthen the loins denotes an augmentation of power. A very decisive in- stance occurs in the second chapter of Nahum : " Make thy loins strong;" fortify thy power mightily. The same idea is involved in the prayer of the Psalmist, that the power which the wicked had so greatly abused, might be diminished, till it became consistent with the peace and safety of others, or entirely taken away: "Make their loins continually to shake." The last clause, " His force is in the navel of his belly," cannot well be reconciled with the state- ments of ancient writers, that the belly of the elephant is the most tender and vulnerable cart of his body. This is a fact so generally known, so fully^authenlicaled, that in war the hostile spear is usually directed to the navel of that formidable animal, where the most deadly wound may be inflicted. We learn from Jliny, that when the rhinoceros attacks the elephant, he likewise aims his furious thrust at the same part of the body. The same powerful instinct which directs the horn of the rhinoceros, leads the gnat, if the Talmudical writers may be credited, to the navel of the elephant, which it enters, and torments him with excrucia- ting pains. But it is not to be supposed that the inspired writer would place the strength of that animal in the softest and most defenceless part of his frame, because it is not consistent with the truth of natural history. But the navel and belly of the hippopotamus are like the rest of his body, protected by an impenetrable skin, of so great solidity and thickness, that it is said to be formed into spears, and other missile weapons. Diodorus asserts that the hippopotamus has a skin nearly the strongest of all animals; and Ptolemy says hyperbolically, that the robbers in India have a skin like the hippopotamus, which no arrow can pierce. Ze- ringhi declares that a musket ball can make no impres- sion on the dried skin of that animal, nor can any weapon pierce it, till it has been long steeped in water.— Paxton. Ver. 17. He moveth his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. Majiy writers, among whom are Caryl and Schultens, in order to support their hypothesis, that behemoth is the ele- phant, venture lo contradict the uniform sense of the term zanab, which, in our translation, is properly rendered the tail, and make it signify the proboscis or trunk of that ani- mal', y.aiuih, in Parkhiirst, signifies the extremity or hind- ermost part of a thing, as the tail of an animal, or the end of a firebrand almost extinguished ; and hence, as a verb in a primitive sense, to cut off the extremity or hinder- most part. Yet in opposition to the constant meaning of this word in scripture, these writers turn it into the snout or trunk of the elephant, to make it agree with their fa- vourite hypothesis. But if zanab be suffered to retain its usual meaning, it furnishes a strong presumption, that the hippopotamus is intended in the text under consideration, and not the elephant, whose tail, like that of the hog, is small, weak, and inconsiderable. It is, according to Buffon, but two feet and a half or three feet long, and pretty slen- der; but the tail of the hippopotamus, he obseft-es from Zer'inghi, does not resemble that of a hog, but rather that of a tortoise, only that it is incomparably thicker. 1 he tail of the hippopotamus, Scheuchzer observes, although short, is thick, and may be compared lo the cedar tor us. tapering, conical shape, iis smoothness, thicknos, ;,na ->~irt, and very firm, pleasure; which, in the sacred 'is considered as a proof of his ptodigious strengih. " The sit ews of his stones," continues the sacred v. liter, " are wrapped together." Bochart renders ihe words, '1 he sinews of his thighs are interwoven or strength. But although it is yet he moves and twists it at pleas listed togethe :il clause, we may certainly infer, thai behemoth is one of the mosi powerful onthefac our globe. Buch undoubtedly is the hippo- potamus, if we may believe ihe account? ol Dai h in ihe gunnel ol a he disianci ol more than four reel, ! ■ ihrough [lie plank. ;i n- 1 sink i in- boa; ; and when he bad done, he weni away shaking his ears. i occasion he saw him in the wash of the shore, ii i 1 1, with fourteen hogsheads of i, and left it dry upon bis back; and another ched the boat off, w ithoul tin- beast re- ptible injury. Dampier and his crew - ai him, but in no purpose, for the bullets fj lie bis sides as from a, wall of adamant. — PiXTON. Vet. 18. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones art- like bars of iron. The idea of his prodigious strength is increased by the account given of his bones, which are compared to sfrong brass, and bars of iron. Such figures are com- monly employed by the sacred writers, lo express great !i. of which a striking example occurs in ihe prophecies of Micah ; " Arise and thresh, i > daughter of Zion; for 1 will make thy horn iron, and 1 will make iss: ami thou shaft beat in pieces many people." So hard anil strong are the bones of the hippopotamus. | . and particularly the canine teeth of the lower jaw, says Buffon, are very loir.;, ami so haul and strong, that they strike fire with steel ; a circumstance which prob- ably gave rise to the fable of the ancients, that the hippo- potamus vomited fire. The substance of the canine teeth is so white, so fine, and so hard, that it is preferable to ivory for making artificial teeth. "His bones are like bars o'f iron j" and snch, in the description of BufTon, are the bones of this animal. The cutting teeth, says that celebrated specially those of the under jaw, are very long, cylindrical, and chamfered. The canine teeth are also iked, prismatic, and sharp like the tusks of the The largest of the cutting and canine teeth are twelve, and sometimes sixteen inches long, and each of thetn weighs from twelve to thirteen pounds. — Paxton\ Ver. IT". He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made hjm can make his sword to approach unto him. It is added, " he is the chief of the ways of God : he that made him can make his sword lo approach unto him." The phrase in the first clause, is evidently hyperbolical, i is merely, that he is one of the noblest animals which the almighty Creator produced. In size, the hippo- potamus is inferior only to the elephant. The male, which Zeringhi brought from the Nile to Italy, was sixteen feet nine inches long, from the extremity of the muzzle to the origin of the tail ; fifteen feet in circumference, and six feet and a half high: and the legs were about two feet ten inches long. The head was three" feet and a half in length, and eight feet and a half in circumference. The opening of the mouth was two feet four inches, and the largest teeth were more than a foot long. Thus his prodigious strength ; his impenetrable skin; the va-st opening of his mouth, and his portentous voracity ; the whiteness and hardness of his teeth; his manner of life, spent with equal ease in the sea, on the land, or at the bottom of the Nile, — equally claim our admiration, and entitle him to be considered as the chief of the ways of God. Nor is he less remarkable for his sagacilv ; of which two instances are recorded by Plinv. After he has gorged himself with corn, and begins to return with a distended belly to the deep, with averted steps he traces a great many paths, lest his pursuers, following the lines ,,f one plain track, should overtake and destroy him while he is unable to resist. The second instance is not less remarkable: "When he has become fat with too much Indulgence, he reduces his obesity bv copious bleedings. For this purpose, he searches for newly cut reeds, or sharp pointed rocks, and rubs himself against ihem. till he make a sufficient aperture for the blood to flow. To promotethe discharge, it is said, he agitates his body ; and when ho B 359 the wound lis him the rt of blood-! :. of all an- "ii can make his sword approach onti the words may be rendered, I!'- who made ■ d sword ; of which the meaning seems lobe, He hi furnished his mouth with long teeth, somewhat bent, sharp, and protruded, with which, .. ii' ot it Lie, he reaps and mastii alea the grass and corn on which be feeds. Bui if behemoth ' ■ . how can it be said n nli any correctness, lhal he is provided with a crooked sword for reaping his food. The bortni id Ins neck prevents him liom reaching the ground with Ins mouth, and D ing bis teeth for collecting herbage. 'I his operation is performed by Ins trunk, which receives the food, and conveys it into bis ii i b. His teeth are perfectly inefficient, except for mastication; and as for bis trunk, ii has no resemblance to any sharp instrument; on this account the ancients never gave it the name of a sword or sickle, but called it a hand ; a name which it may receive with great propriety. A very learned interpreter, perceiving the inconvenience of this if behemoth mean the elephant, prefers our translation : ': He that made him can make his sword ap- proach unto him:" that is, He alone that made him can take away his life. But whether we apply the words to the the hippopotamus, the sense is equally inadmis- sible, for both these animals are frequently destroyed with- out the immediate interference of God. Besides, lo apply the sword to any one, and to take away his life with it, are not exactly the same ; nor does this view agree with the whole series of the context, while the interpretation given by Bochart perfectly accords with it, and connects ihe verse with the rest of the narrative : He who made him, has fur- nished him wilh a sickle, or crooked sword, to reap and col- lect his food.— Paxton. Ver. 20. Surely the mountains bring- him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. This is considered as a verv strong argument in favour of the elephant, an animal which, it is well known, browses upon the mountains; while, fully assured of his mild and forbearing temper, all the beasts of the field sport around him in peace and security. But Ihe text applies with equal. and even with more propriety, to the hippopotamus ; for it seems to indicate something remarkable in the circumstance, that such an animal should seek his food in peace, on ihe hills and mountains which skirt his habitation. But surely it is not strange, that the elephant, a creature which always lives on the land, and whose disposition leads him to eat grass like an ox, should be found on such a pasture. The hippopotamus, on the contrary, lives for the most part in the water, and walks on the bottom, as in the open air; yet he seeks his food more frequently on the land, where he de- vours sugarcanes, rushes, millet, rice, roots, and vegetables of every kind, in immense quantities, and ravages, far and wide, the cultivated fields. Not content with laving waste the plains, he proceeds in the night to the hills and moun- tains, and renews his depredations, Tatius asserts that he is the most voracious of all animals, so that he devours the standing corn of a whole field for nourishment. Natural historians give the same account of the morse, an animal which in many respects resembles the hippopotamus, and inhabits the large rivers of Russia, which roll their waters into the Frozen Ocean. He is about the size of an ox. will. verv short legs; his nreasl is higher and broader than the I the body : he has two large and long disk-, resembling ivory in whiteness, and of equal value. AVI . i he is inclined to sleep, he forsakes the i -can, and, in com- panies, retires lo the mountains. Aronn. the hippopotamus. the beasts of the field may sport in safety; for although he le.-d- on fishes, crocodiles, and even cadaverous flesh, he is not known to prey on oFher animals. It is not even diffi- cult to drive him away from Ihe cultivated field more timid on land than in the wavv. Hjs only resource 11 1 travel undo it a Int. ire he ventures again to appear. Tn, Ip- ii dmg to Dampier, are accu tomed to throw him a part of their fish when he comes near their canoes, an.' 360 JC then he prices on without doing them any harm. The sanje voyager relates an anecdote, which remarkably dis- plays the mildness of his disposition ; as their boat lay near the snore, he went under her, and with his back lifted her out of the water, and overset her, with six men on board, but did them no personal injury. These facts prove, at once, his incredible strength, and his habitual gentle- ness."— Paxton. Ver. 21. He lieth under the shad}' trees, in the covert of the reeds and fens. 22. The shady trees cover him ivith their shadow ; the willows of the brook compass him about. When satiated with food, he reposes " under the shady trees in the covert of the reed and fens." The elephant, it is admitted, delights in the shade, but very seldom lies down to sleep, as the sacred writer asserts of "behemoth ; nor is he known to frequent the reeds which cover the marsh, and skirt the border of the lake. But the reeds are the chosen haunt of the hippopotamus; they supply him with a grateful food, and screen him during hi's repose from the burning heat of the sun. In this part of his history, ancient and modern authors harmoniously accord. Marcellinus ob- serves, that he reposes among the tall reeds, where they grow thickest in the mire. They are his covert, his food, and his medicine. Hence the prayer of David, Rebuke the company of the spearmen, or, as 'it may be translated, the wild beast of the reed, which has been supposed to refer to the hippopotamus, as the symbol of the Egyptian people and government; and this is the more probable, as he mentions the bulls and the calves, which that degenerate race hon- oured with idolatrous reverence. The circumstance of his making his bed among the thick reeds of the marsh, naturally suggests his relation to the Nile, whose banks are richly clothed with that plant; this is confirmed by manv Egyptian representations, in which he is joined with the Crocodile. Kimchi, and other writers, who contend that the elephant is meant in this description, unable to recon- cile the clause under consideration to their theory, are compelled to throw it into the form of an interrogation : Does he lie under the holy trees in the covert of the reeds and fens ? that is, he by no means lies in such places. But they did not perceive that this solution of the difficulty is destructive to their own theory; for the elephant does lie under the shady trees, or takes his repose standing under their covert. Besides, to throw the clause into the form of an interrogation, is to break the texture of the descrip- tion, and to mar its beauty; and if such liberties with the sacred text were admitted, nothing is so plain or express in the word of God, which may not be eluded. The only other remark necessary to be made is, that the words of the sacred writer are confirmed by the testimony of Burfon, who says the hippopotamus, besides his usual cry, which has a great resemblance to that of the elephant, or to the s'ammering and indistinct sounds uttered by deaf persons when asleep, makes a kind of snorting noise, which be- trays bam at a distance. To prevent the danger arising from this circumstance, he generally lies among the reeds that grow upon marshy grounds, and which it is difficult to approach: there "the shady trees cover him with their shadow ; the willows of the brook compass him about." — PaXTON. Ver. 23. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not : he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. Be iiemoth, which before was feeding upon the mount- ains, or sleeping under the shade of the reeds and the willows, is in the next verse introduced quenching his thirst at the river: "Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth he can draw up Jordan into his mouth." Bochart gives a different translation :" Behold, let a river come upon him, he will not fear; he is safe though Jordan break forth upon his mouth." This ver- sion, it must be allowed, agrees perfectly with what natural historians sav of the hippopotamus, that he walks deliber- ately into the deepest floods, and pursues his journey with the same fearless composure as in the open air, along the bottom of the torrent, or the channel of the sea. He re- in-, a Ions under ws Dampier has seen him 3. Chap. 41 descend to the bottom of three fathoms water, and remain there more than half an hour before he returned to the surface. — Paxton. Ver. 24. He takelh it with his eye pierceth through snares. his The inspired writer thus concludes his description : " he takelh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.". Bochart renders the words, Who shall take him in his sight, and perforate his nose with hooks? that is, Who shall come before him, and attack him with open violence? It is found extremely difficult to subdue him in fair com- bat ; and therefore the Egyptians have recourse to strata- gem. They watch near the banks of the Kile, till he leave the river to feed in the adjacent fields: they then make a large ditch in the way by which he passed, and cover it with thin planks, earth, and herbage. Passing without suspicion on his return to the flood, over the de- ceitful covering, he falls into the ditch, and is immediately despatched by the hunters, who rush from their ambush, and pour their shot into his head. From this review, the fair and necessary conclusion seems to be, that behemoth is not the elephant, but the hippopotamus of the Nile. — Paxton. CHAPTER XLI. Ver. 1. Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook ? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down 1 From this passage Hasselquist observes, that the levia- than " means a crocodile, by that which happens daily, and without doubt happened in Job's time, in the river Nile ; to wit, that this voracious animal, far from being drawn up by a hook, bites off and destroys all fishing-tackle of this kind, which is thrown out in the river. I found, in one that I opened, two hooks, which it had swallowed, one sticking in the stomach, and the other in a part of the thick membra! r which covers the palate."— BuRnER. The term leviathan is properly the same as tannin, which in our scripture is translated dragon. The royal Psalmist uses them as convertible terms, in the seventy-lburth Psalm, where he celebrates the mighty power of God in these lofty strains: " Thou brakest the heads of the dragons {tannin) in the waters ; thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness." He has been followed*y the prophet in a passage where he foretels the deliverance of the church, from her cruel and implacable enemies: " In that day, the Lord, with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish leviathan, the piercing serpent, even leviathan, that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." Kimchi distinguishes leviathan and tannin, by their magnitude alone. Leviathan, says he, is that enor- mous serpent or dragon. Hence, leviathan is a sinuous animal, which coils itself up like a dragon ; and is de- scribed by the prophet as the oblique, tortuous, or crooked serpent. "But as the word tannin is ofien used to denote the whale, and other marine animals; so, the term levia- than is, in scripture, sometimes employed to denote the same creatures. An example of this use of the term oc- curs in David's description of the sea : " There go the ships, there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein." It is not however certain, that the term is ever used in this general sense; for it will be shown, that the creature to which it properly belongs, often infests the sea near the mouth of the great rivers of Africa and the East. Every part of the sublime description which Jehovah has given of leviathan in the book of Job, exactly corresponds with the natural history of the crocodile, which lives equally in the sea and in the river. That terrible animal bears a striking resemblance to the dragon or serpent. He has the shape of our asp; his legs are so short, that, like the serpent, he seems to go upon his belly. His feet are armed with claws, his back-bone is firmly jointed, and his tail a most formidable weapon; his whole formation is calculated for strenith. Let us now hear Jehovah himself describe the leviathan, and we shall find that it exactly corresponds with the character and habits of the crocodile: "Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hock; or hi<= tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?' He is oi Chap 11. JOB. too great magnitude to be drawn out of the water like a fish. The second clause manifestly refers to tlie impossi- l.ilitv of drawing out his tongue, on account of its ad- hering throughout to Ins under jaw. It is besides short, thin, and broad, and bv consequence, cannot be drawn out 10 Ins lips, like the tongue of any other animal.— Paxton. Ver. 2. Canst thou put a hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn ? He is too powerful and fierce to be treated like a small fish: the elephant may submit to such indignities, but the crocodile scorns the dominion of man. — Paxton. The Hebrew word which is translated thorn, signifies rather an iron rim,', fixed in the jaw. Bruce, speaking of the manner of fishing in the Nile, says, when a fisherman has caught a fish, he draws it on shore, and puts a strong inm ring into its jaw. " To this ring is fastened a rope, by which the fish is attached to the shore, which he then throws again into the water. Those who want fish go to the fish- ertnan, as to a fish-market, and purchase them alive We ■ nght a couple, and the fisherman showed us ten or twelve, fastened in a similar manner."— Rosennhi.i.f.r. Ver. 3. Will he make many supplications unto thee I will he speak soft words unto thee? An elegant prosopopoeia, which expresses, with great force and beauty, the difficulty with which he is overcome. — Paxton. Ver 1 Will he mike a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? As the vanquished are wont to redeem their life with the loss of their liberty. This question seems to iniimate, that attempts have been made to tajjne the crocodile, but they have uniformly proved abortive. If this allusion is involved in the words, it is a certain proof that the whale is not intended; for, while attempts have actually been made to tame the crocodile, none have ever been made to iomes^icate the whale. — Paxton. Ver. 5. Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? "Wilt thou play with him as with a birdl or wilt thou iind him for thv maidens 1" It cannot be: he is a trucu- lent animal, and particularly hostile to children of both sexes, that, by approaching the banks of the Nile without sufficient circumspection, fall a prey to this vigilant de- vourer. He will even rush upon a full grown person, and drag him in a moment to the bottom of the stream. Maxi- lims Tyrius mentions an Egyptian woman, who brought up a young crocodile, of the sarne age with her son, and per- mitted them to live together in the most familiar manner. The crocodile was gentle and harmless during his early youth, but his natural disposition gradually unfolded as he advanced to maturity, till at last he seized upon his unsus- pecting associate, and devoured him. Ancient authors record many instances of crocodiles entering the houses of the inhabitants near the Nile, and destroying their chil- dren. These are sufficient to justify the interrogation of the Almighty, and to show that the terrible animal in question never can be completely tamed, nor safely trusted. —Paxton. Ver. 6. Shall thy companions make a banquet of him ? shall they part him among the mer- chants ? If leviathan be the whale, bo'.h the one and the other are <*;me every year; in some parts of the world, every day. Th- inhabitants of some regions feast on the blubber of the whale, and lay up the remainder for winter provisions. Cetaceous fishes are sought by "the merchants" at great expense, and constitute no inconsiderable portion of their wealth. But the fishermen neither rejoice when the croco- dile is taken, except for the death of a devouring monster, aoi feast upon his flesh; they do not cut up his carcass, nor expose him to sale, with the view of increasing their riches. — Paxton. 46 Ver. 7. Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-spears ? If leviathan, in this sublime expostulation, signified the whale, the answer might be given in the affirmative : for that prodigious creature has been often compelled to J ield to the harpoon ; his skin has been filled with barbed irons, and his head with fish spears: nor is the capture of the whale attended with much difficulty. But the crocodile is said to defy the arm of the harpooner. and the point of his spear; and in attacking him, the assailant has to encounter both great difficulty and imminent danger.— Paxton. Ver. 8. Lay thy hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. So great a horror shall seize thee, that thou shall think rather of flight than combat, and the very touch of Ins skin shall convince thee, that it will not yield to thy stroke. — Paxton. / Ver. 9. Behold, the hope of him is in vain : shall not one be cast down even at the Bight of him? If leviathan cannot.be taken by these means, the hope ol subduing hiin is utterly vain ; none may expect to prevail against him ; his very presence tills the stoutest heart with terror. It cannot however be denied, that the crocodile is often taken and destroyed; but the remark equally applies to the whale; and consequently, if ihe words of Jehovah describe a creature which is too powerful and loo fierce to be vanquished, neither the one nor the other can be under- stood. But it were absurd to suppose, that any creature on the earth, or in the sea, is either invulnerable or uncon- querable. The sacred writer says expressly, that every creature may be tamed by the industry of man. The lan- guage of Jeliovah, therefore, only means, that the man who attacks the leviathan, must not hope for an easy conquest ; and the experience of all ages attests the truth of the asser- tion. In size, he is very inferior to the whale; yet he sometimes extends to the length of thirty feet ; and accord- ing to some ancient writers of great name, to forty or fifty. His strength is so great, that with one stroke of his tail he is said to cast the strongest animals to the ground ; so that, to hunt the crocodile has always been reckoned one of the boldest and most perilous undertakings. In the time of Diodorus, the Nile and its adjacent lakes swarmed with crocodiles : yet very few were taken, and those not with hooks, but with iron nets. How difficult an undertaking this was, may be inferred from the coin which Augustus, the Roman emperor, caused to be struck, when he had completed the reduction of Egypt, on which was exhibited the figure of a crocodile, bound with a chain to a palm-tree, with this remarkable inscription, S'emo amtea rtlegaoil. These words certainly insinuate that in the experience of the ancients, to chain'the crocodile was an achievement of the utmost difficulty. If the crocodiles which inhabit the Nile, are not, as modern travellers maintain, so fierce and dangerous as the ancients represent them, it must be owing to a number of adventitious circumstances; for in other parts of the world they are as ferocious as ever. It ought to be remembered, that Jehovah describes the general character of the species, which are admitted by writers of undoubted credit, to be the most fierce and savage of all animals. Plutarch asserts in express terms, that no crea- ture is so ferocious ; and in another part of his works, that it is an animal extremely averse to society, and the most atrocious of all the monsters which the rivers, the lakes, or the seas, produce.— Paxton. Ver. 10. None it so fierce that dare stir him up; who then is able to stand before me ? When the crocodile is satiated with prey, he leaves the deeps to repose on the banks of the river, or on the shore of the sea. At such a time, none are so bold as to disturb his slumbers, or provoke his vengeance; or if any one, disregarding the dictates of prudence, or eager to display his in'repidity, ventures in such circumstances to attack him, it is at the imminent hazard of his life, and is for the most part attended with fatal consequences Diodorus assigns this as the reason that he was worshipped by the Chap. 41. E?yp'.i i, du Ver. 11. Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him ? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine. 12. I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion. 13. Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle ? These clauses, although teeming with important instruc- tion, and, considering the authority with which they are vloihed. entitled to deep attention, contribute nothing to the object of this review; we therefore proceed to the twelfth verse. " I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion." These are admirably displayed in the following particulars: " Who can discover the face.of his garment, or come to him with a double bridle 1" The crocodile never casts his skin, like the greater part of ser- pents, which he so nearly resembles, but retains it to the end of his life. The horse is a most powerful and spirited animal, yet he suffers a bit to be put into his mouth, and submits to the control of man; but the crocodile spurns his dominion, and parts with his freedom only with his life. Some interpreters propose a different version, which is equally characteristic of that animal : ,; Who shall venture within the reach of his jaws, which, when extended, have the appearance of a double bridle V — Paxton. Ver. 14. Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about. The doors of his face are his immense jaws, which he opens with a great and horrible hiatus. This feature of ihe crocodile has been mentioned by all naturalists. On the land his motions are slow, but' in the river he springs eagerly on his prey, and either knocks it down with his tail, or opens a wide mouth for its destruction, armed with nu- merous sharp teeth of various lengths, with which, like the shark, he sometimes severs the human body at a single bite. Peter Martyr saw one, whose mouth was seven feet in width. Tatius affirms, that in seizing the prey, he become, all mouth: and Albert, that the opening of his mouth extends as far back as his ears. Leo Africanus and Scaliger affirm, that he can receive within his mouth a young heifer. The vast capacity of his jaws is attested also by Martial, in the following iines : "Cum enmparata riclibus mis ora Nileacus habeas crocodilua angusla." " His teeth are terrible round about :" or, in everv respect, calculated to inspire the beholder with terror. They are sixty in number, and larger than the proportion of his body seems to require. Some of them project from his mouth like the tusks of a boar ; others are serrated and connected like the teeth of a comb ; hence, the bite is very retentive, and not less difficult to cure than the wound inflicted by the teeth of a- mad dog. All the ancients agree, that his bite is most tenacious and horrible.— Paxton. Ver. 15. His scales are his pride, shut up tog-ether as with a close seal. 16. One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. 17. They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. In these remarkable words is described trie closeness of his scales, which, cohering to one another like the plates of a shield, cover his whole back. Those writers who make leviathan signify the whale, find themselves involved by this part of the description in an inextricable difficulty, for the whale has not a scale upon its body. This single cir- cumstance, indeed, ought to determine the question: the whale it cannot be, for that immense animal has a smooth skin; and the history of nature furnishes no other to which the description of Jehovah will applv, hut the crocodile, whose back is -overed with'impenetrahle scale. One writer endeavoui I to get quit of the difficulty, by supposing that the text includes a comparison, and paraphrases il in this manner : leviathan is as safe from the assault ol man, as if his body were defended with the strongest and broad- est scales. But this mode of interpretation cannot be too severely reprobated; because it makes the sacred text say any thing which may suit the taste or the purpose of a writer. The words of Jehovah are expresi , the back of leviathan is covered with numerous, strong, and closely connected scales, under the protection of which, he fears no assailant, he shrinks from no danger. Nor is it con- sistent with truth, that a whale, which has no scales, is as strongly defended against the point of a spear, as if he were covered with this natural shield ; lor if lus prodigious frame were defended by the broadest, the strongest, and the closest scales, the capture, if at all practicable, would be as ardu- ous and difficult, as it is now easy. Abandoning this feeble _ and inadmissible argument, Caryl and others contend, that some cetaceous fishes are covered with scales, quoting in support of their assertion, a passage from Arrian, that he had heard Nearchus say, that the latter had heard certain mariners sav, that they had seen cast upon the seashore, a monstrous fish, of fifty cubits long, which had scales all over, of a cubit thick. On this ridiculous story, it is need- less to make any remark ; to state is to refute it : or, if refutation be deemed necessary, it is sufficient to say, that although hundreds of cetaceous fishes are caught 'every year, both in the North and in the South Sea, not so much as one has been found sheathed in scales, since the days of Nearchus. — Paxton. " The back of the crocodile," says Thevenot, " is covered with scales, resembling a door studded with large nails, and so hard that it cannot be pierced with a halberd." Bertram says, thai the whole back of the crocodile is covered with horny flakes, or scales, which no musket-ball can pierce — Border. Ver. 18. By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes arc like the eyelids of the morning. It seems to be generally admitted, that the crocodile turns his face to the sun wfi'en he goes to sleep on the banks ol the river; and in this position becomes so healed, that the breath, driven forcibly through his nostrils, issues with so much impetuosity, that it resembles a stream of light. A similar expression is used concerning the war-horse, in the thirty-ninth chapter, which may give us a clearer idea of the brightness which issues from the nostrils of tins animal: " The glorv of his nostrils is terrible." Provoked by the sound of the trumpet, and the sight of armed men. a white fume stieams from his expanded nostrils; which the Spirit of inspiration calls his glorv, and common authors coin- pare to fire. Thus, Silius Italii us, Frenoque teneri impa- liens crebrase.ipiral i:,ir:!..' .■•■■• an ! ( 'laudian. Ave frmil ■piihihr wires. In the same 'manner aie we I o understand the wonls of Jehovah o neciiiing the crocodile. The heat of that scaly monster, basking in the scorching beams of a vertical sun, together with the force with which the breath is emitted from the nostrils, produces the same luminous appearance round his nose,, as plays around that of the high-mettled charger on the day of battle. The next clause possesses very great poetical beauty: "His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning :" like the brightening dawn of day. The learned Bochart mentions a curious coincidence between this striking figure, and the sentiments of the Egyptians. Among that people, the eyes of the crocodile is the' hieroglyphic for the dawn; because they first arrest the attention, as the terrible animal approaches the surface of the deep ; or because they are dim, and command a very limited field of vision under the water, bul recover their brilliancy and acuteness as soon as he returns to the open air. Such is the appearance of the solar orb at hi; rising; he seems to emerge from the waves of the sea wi'h a dim and faded lustre, but which increases every moment as he advances towards the meridian. But how it can be asserted of the whale, that his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning, it is not easy to conjecture. His eyes, which are not much larger than'those of an ;x. are buried beneath a ponderous eyelid, and imbedded .a fat. Hence, blinder than a mole, he wanders almost at random in the mighty ■waters, equally unable to avoid being left by the retreating surge upon the strand, or dashed against the pointed rocks. — Paxton. Ver. 19. Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. 20. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caliln.il 21, His breath kindleth c OUt ofhis month. Tatius gives a similar account of the hippopotamus: I \<- nostrils are very broad, and emil an ignited smoke, as from a furnace of fire. The very same remark is made bj Ens tathius: He lias a broad nose, expiring an ignited smoke a furnace. These two animals live in ihe same tnd have the same mode of respiration. The longei they continue under -water without breathing, they respire the more quickly when they begin to emerge. As the torrent rushes along with greater impetuosity, when the obstacle which opposed its progress is removed; so their ing repulsed, effervesces ami breaks out with so much violence, that thev seem to vomit flame from their mouth and nostrils. The whale, it must be admitted, being of much larger size than the crocodile, breathes with a pro- portionate vehemence; it does not, however, vomit fire, but spouts water to an immense height in the air. The lan- guage of the inspired writer is highly figurative and hyper- bolical, painting, in the most vivid colours, the heat and force with which the breath of the crocodile rushes from his expanded nostrils.— Paxton. Ver. -22. In his neck remained) strength, and sor- row is turned into joy before him. The whale has no neck, and by consequence cannot be the leviathan: like other fishes, his head is joined to his shoulders; while the crocodile is formed like a serpent, with a neck and shoulders, which enable him to move, to raise, or turn back his head, when he seizes his prev. " Sorrow is turned into joy before him ;" what afflicts, alarms, or depresses other animals, animates his courage and activity. Or the words may be rendered, Sorrow dances before him; which mav denote, that he spu-ads ter- r ir and destruction wherever he comes; for he imme- diately rushes upon those that happen to meet his eye, and although they may he so fortunate as to escape, still thev reckon it an" ill omen to have fallen in the way of that fierce and savage destroyer. Thus terror marches before him, as a herald before his sovereign, to proclaim his approach, and prepare his way.— Paxton. Ver, 23. The flakes of his flesh are joined to- gether: they are firm in themselves : they can- not be mowd. 24. His heart is as firm as a stone ; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. As the scales of leviathan present a coat of mail nearly impenetrable to the attacks ofhis enemies; so his flesh, or, as it is rendered by some, the prominent parts of his bodv, are like molten brass, the particles of which adhere so closely, thai they cannot be separated. The verv reverse Of what Job affirmed of himself, mav be asserted of the crocodile ; his strength is the strength of stones, and his flesh is formed of brass ; the verv refuse, the vilest parts of his flesh, (for so the word signifies,) are firm, and strong, and joined; or, as the Septuagint translates it, glued to- ge'Ler, that they cannot be moved. But if the refuse of his Best) be so firm and hard, how great must he the strength Thich belongs to the nobler parts of his frame? This aue-tioii is answered in the next verse: "His heart is as firm-as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether mill- stone." In all creatures, the heart is extremely firm and compact ; in the leviathan it is firm as a stone; and to give us the highest idea of its hardness, Jehovah compares it to the ne:her millstone, which, having the principal part of the work to perform, is required to be peculiarly hard and s:>Hd. Some writers imagine, that the Almighty refers, not vi much to the natural hardness of the heart, as to the cruel temper of the animal, or to his fearless intrepidity ; he feels no pity, he fears no danger, he is insensible to ex- ternal impressions as the hardest stone.— Paxton. V n. 25. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty ave afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves. el a 81 erct honor shoot through the whole soul ; ■ as it were incapable ol i .-ll.-.-t i> il like a pot of ointment." The sudden and violent dis- placing of the waters, makes the sea resemble a large cal- dron furiously boiling over a strong fire; or the ascending water, being mixed with sand and mud from the bottom, excited by the violent agitation, resembles in colour, and in the smooihness of its swell, a pot of ointment; than which, more striking figures can scarcely be presented to the mind. It is the opinion of ancient writers, that the crocodile ex- hales from his body an odour like musk, with which he perfumes the pool where he gambols; and they assign this as the reason that the turbulence of the gulf which receives him, is compared to the boiling of a pot of ointment. But admitting what so many have asserted, that the crocodile diffuses a fragrant odour around him, it can hardly be sup- posed that the quantity exhaled can be so great as to war- rant such a comparison. The inspired writer seems to al- lude, not to the ointment or its fragrance, but to the boiling of the pot in which spices are decocting, an operation which probably requires a very brisk ebullition. Those who maintain that leviathan is the whale, demand how the crocodile, which inhabits the river, can make the sea boil? But the difficulty admits of an easy solution; the word sea, both in Hebrew and English, is often used in a restricted sense for any large expanse of water. The Jew- ish and Arabian writers, agreeably to this sense, frequently speak of the Nile, and its adjacent lakes, as a sea, and with great propriety, for the river itself is broad and deep, and at a certain season of the year, it overflows its banks, and covers the whole surface of Lower Egypt. The lakes which have been formed by the inundations, are of considerable depth and extent, and swarm with crocodiles; these may be called seas, with as much propriety as the sacred writers of the New Testament call the lake of Sodom the Salt Sea, and the lake of Tiberias the Sea of Galilee. The royal Psalmist, it must be admitted, mentions the sea in the prop- er sense of the term, as the haunt of leviathan: " So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumer- able; both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play there- in." But as the sea is, in that passage, opposed to the earth, it may comprehend the whole body of waters which sur- round and intersect the dry land, and by consequence, the proper habitation of the crocodile. This solution, however, is by no means necessary to establish the claims of this an- imal to the scripture title of leviathan, for it has been fully ascertained, by modern travellers, that he actually frequents the sea, although he generally prefers those rivers which are subject to annual inundations. Crocodiles, or aliga- tors, are very common on the coast and in the deep rivers of Jamaica, ['hough they prefer the hanks of such rivers as, in consequence of frequent or periodical overflowing, are covered with mud, in which they find abundance of testa- •ceous fish, worms, and frogs, for food. In South America, they chiefly frequent marshy lakes, and drowned savannas; but in North America, they infest both the salt parts of the near the sea, the fresh currents above the reach of the tide, and the lakes both of salt and fresh water. The slimy banks of these rivers within the range of the tide, are covered by thick forests of mangrove-trees, in the entangled thickets of which the crocodiles'conceal themselves, and lie m wait for their prey. According to Pinto, they abound on the coast of New Guinea; and Dampier found several on the shores of Timor, an island in the South Sea. The hippopotamus is a powerful adversary to the crocodile, and so much the more dangerous, that it is able to pursue him to the very bottom of the gulf. They are so numerous in the bay of Vincent Pincon, and the lakes which commun: cate with it, as to obstruct, by their numbers, the piraguas and canoes which navigate those waters. When De la Borde was sailing along the eastern shore of South Ameri- ca in a canoe, and wishing to enter a small river, he found its mouth occupied by about a dozen large crocodiles. These testimonies prove, beyond a doubt, that the crocodile frequents the mouths of rivers and the bays of the sea, as well as the fresh-water stream and lake; and by conse- quence, the Psalmist might, in perfect agreement with the habits of that anin al, represent him as playing in the great and wide sea, while the ships pursue their way to the de- sired haven.— Paxton. Ver. 32. He maketh a path to shine after him ; one would think the deep to be hoary. He swims with so much force and violence near the sur- face of the water, that his path may be easily traced by the deep furrow which he leaves behind him, and the whitening foam he excites. The same appearance at- tend the motion of the dolphin: but the long withdi awing furrow, and the hoary foam, are not confined to the sea ; they are likewise to be seen in the river and in the lake ; and by consequence, may characterize, wiih sufficient pro- priety, the motion of the crocodile in the Nile and its adja- cent lakes.— Paxton. Ver. 33. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. This clause Bochart renders, There is not his like upon the dust, (which is certainly the true meaning of the phrase, al ajihar ;) because, the crocodile is rather to be classed among reptiles than quadrupeds. His feet are so short, that he rather seems to creep than walk, so that he may, with great propriety, be reckoned among " the creeping things of the earth." But he differs from reptiles in this, that while they are in danger of being trampled upon, and bruised by the foot of the passenger, he is liable to no such accident. It cannot be said, in strictness of speech, that he is made without fear, for lie is known to fly from the bold and resolute attack of an enemy; but the expression may be understood hyperbolicallv, as denoting a very high de- gree of intrepidity. The words of the inspired writer, how- ever, are capable of another version, which at once removes the difficulty, and corresponds with the real character of the animal: He is so made, that he cannot be bruised; he cannot be crushed like a serpent, or trampled under the feet of his pursuer. — Paxton. Ver. 34. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king- over all the children of pride. " He beholdeth all high things ;" or, as it may be transla- ted, he despiseth all that is high ; " he is a king over all the children of pride." No creature is so large, so strong, so courageous, if we can believe the oriental writers, but he regards it with indifference or contempt. Men, women, and particularly children, who incautiously approach his haunts, become a prey to his devouring maw. The earned, the horse, the ox, and other portly quadrupeds, which fall in his way, he fiercely attacks, and forthwith devours. He will even venture to encounter, and not always without success, the elephant and the tiger, when they come to drink in the stream. His first attempt is to strike them down to the ground, or break their legs with his tail, in which he generally succeeds : he then drags them to the bottom of the river ; or if they are animals of a moderate size, he swallows them up entire, without taking the trouble of putting them to death. The alligator, says Forbes, some- times basks in the sunbeams on the banks of the river, but oftener floats on its surface : there concealing his head and feet, he appears like the rough trunk of a tree both in shape and colour : by this deception, dogs and other animals fear- lessly approach, and are suddenly plunged to the bottom by their insidious foe. Even the royal tiger, when he quits his covert and comes to drink at the stream, becomes his prey. From this description, it appears that no animal is mor? terrible than the crocodile; no creature in form, in temper, in strength, and in habits, so nearly resembles leviathan, as described bv Jehovah himself, in the book of Jor, and con- ■ equently none has equally powerful claims to the name. This conclusion is greatly strengthened by several allusions to the leviathan in other parts of scripture. In the prophe- cies of Isaiah, he is called "the piercing serpent,'1 or dragon: and that the prophet under that symbol refers to the king of Egvpt, appears from these words': "And it shall come to pass on that day, that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one." The prophet Ez'ekiel gives to Pharaoh the name of the great dragon, or leviathan: " Speak and sav, thus saveth the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers : which has said, My river is Chap. 42. JO mine own, and I have made it for myself." But it would certainly be very preposterous to give the name of the ele- phant to the king of Egypt, which is neither a native of that country, nor ever known to visit the banks of the Nile. In allusion to the destruction of Pharaoh and Ins army in the lied Sea, the Psalmist sings: " Thou didsl dmde'llie sea bv thy strength; thou brakesi the heads of the dragons m the water; thou brakesi the heads of Leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meal to the people inhabiting the wil- derness." But why should Pharaoh and his people be coin- pa red so frequently, and with so much enipha-is.toihe great dragon or leviathan, but because some remarkable, terrible creature, infests their valley, !o which that name properly applies? But no formidable beast of prey, except the crocodile, distinguishes Egypt from the surrounding re- gions; and since this creature is universally allowed to be extremely strong, cruel, and destructive, we must conclude it is no other than the leviathan of the inspired writers. The inhabitants of Egypt regarded the crocodile as the most powerful defender of' their country, and the Nile as the source of all their pleasures and sociable enjoyments, and elevated both to the rank of deities. This accounts for the singular language of the prophet Ezekiel, and the boast which he puts into the mouth of Pharaoh : " My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself." — Paxton. CHAPTER XLII. Ver. 10. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his fciends ; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Our idea of captivity seems to be principally confined to prisoners of war ; but" in the East, adversity/great adver- sity, and many other troubles, are spoken of in the same way. Thus,a man formerly in great prosperity, speaks of his present state as if he were in prison. " I am now a captive." "Yes, I am a slave." If again elevated, " his captivity is changed." — Roberts. Ver. 11. Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house; and they be- moaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an ear-ring of gold. The custom alluded to of relations and friends giving re- lief to a person in distress, is practised in the East at this day. When a man has suffered a great loss by an accident, by want of skill, or by the roguery of another, he goes to his brothers and sisters, and all his acquaintances, and de- scribes his misfortunes. He then mentions a day when he will give a feast, and invites them all to partake of it. At the time appointed they come, arrayed in their best robes, each having money, ear-rings, finger-rings, or other gifts suited to the condition of the person in distress. The indi- vidual himself meets them at the gate, gives them a heart v welcome, the music strikes up, and the guests are ushered into the apartments prepared for the feast. When they have finished their repast, and are about to retire, they each ap- proach the object of their coinmi eration, and present their donations, and best wishes lor future prosperity. A rich merchant in North Cej Ion, named Siva Sangu Chetty, was suddenly reduced to poverty; but by this plan he was re- sumed to his former prosperity. Two money brokers, also, who were sent to these parts by their employer, (who lived on the opposite continent,) lost o^ne thousand rix-dollars, belonging to their master; they therefore called those oi their caste, profession, and country, to partake of a feast, at winch i nue the whole of their loss was made up. When a young man puts cm the ear-ringsor turban for the first time, a feast of the same description, and for the same purpose, is given, to enable him to meet the expense of ihc rings, ami to assist him in future pursuits of life. When a young woman also becomes marriageable, the female relations and acquaintances are called to perform the same service, in order to enable her to purchase jewels, or to furnish a marriage portion. In having recourse to this custom, there is nothing that is considered mean ; for parents who are respectable and wealthy often do the same thing. Here, then, we have another simple and interesting illustration ol a most praiseworthy usage of the days of ancient Job.— Roberts. Ver. 14. And he called the name of the first Jemi- ma; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Kercnhappuch. To vary names by substituting a word similar in sound, is very prevalent in'the East. The following extract from Sir Thomas Roe, is a striking example of this circumstance. " They speak very much in honour of Moses, whom they cnll Moosa cnlim Alia, Moses the publisher of the mind of God : so of Abraham, whom they call Ibrahim carim Alia, Abraham the honoured, or the friend, of God: so of Ish- mael, whom they call Ismal. the sacrifice of God : so oi Jacob, whom they call Arab, the blessing of God : so of Jo- seph, whom they call Eesoff,\.he betrayed for God: so of Dayid, whom they call Dahnod, the lover and praiser of God : so of Solomon, whom they call Sclyman, the wisdom of God : all expressed in short Arabian words, which they sing in ditties, unto their particular remembrance. Many men are called by these names: others are called Mahmud, or Chaan, which signifies the moon ; or Frista, which sig- nifies a star. And they call their women by the names of spices or odours; or of pearls or precious stones ; or else by other names of pretty or pleasing signification. So Job called his daughters." — Bcrder. Ver. 15. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job : and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. In the s le form c but great value is attached to a woman of a light complex- ion. Hence our English females are greatly admired in the East, and instances have occurred where great exerlions have been made to gain the hand of a fair daughter of Brit- ain. The acme of perfection in a Hindoo lady is to be ol the colour of gold ! — Roberts. THE BOOK OF PSALMS. PSALM I. Ver. 3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season: his leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Dr. Boothroyd has it, "Like a tree planted by water etreams ;" and Dr. A. Clarke says, " The streams or di- visions of waters." This probably alludes to the artificial streams which run from the lakes or wells : by the side of these may be seen i/ees, at all seasons covered with luxuriant verdure, blossoms, or fruit, because the root is deriving con- tinual nourishment from the stream; while at a distance, where no water is, may be seen dwarfish and unhealthy :nvs, with scarcely a leaf to shake in the winds of heaven. — Roberts. We see no reason to suppose, with many commentators, that allusion is had to any particular species of tree, as, for example, the palm, the olive, or the pomegranate, each of which has been conceived to be intended, from its peculiar adaptedness to represent the permanent and prolific nature of the good man's happiness. It is indeed said of the righte- ous, Ps. xcii. 12, that " he shall flourish like the palm-tree ; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon-/' but it will answer all the demands of the passage to understand it of any tree advantageously situated, and evincing a vigorous and thrifty growth. In the arid climes of the East," the trees, unless sustained by artificial irrigation, are apt to lose their ver- dure during the sultriness of the summer months — a fact which affords an interesting clew to the imagery here em- ployed. Although the word " rivers" is adopted in our authorized translation, yet it is by no means an adequate representative of the original. V?s the term thus rendered, from aSs to divide, to sunder, to split, properly signifies di- visions, partitions, sections; i. e. branching cuts, trenches, or water-courses, issuing either from a large body of water, as a lake, a pond, a river, Ps. xlvi. 4 ; or from a well or fountain-head, Prov. v. 16. Job xxvi. 6; and alludes to the methods still practised among the oriental nations, of con- veying water to gardens and orchards. This wasbymeans of canals or rivulets flowing in artificial channels, called ;•;-; divisions ; i.e. cuts or trenches, which distributed the water in all directions. The whole land of Egypt was anciently sluiced in this manner, by innumerable canals and water-courses, designed lo convey the fertilizing waters of the Nile over every part of the valley through which it ran. Maundrell (Trav. p. 1-2-2) speaks of a similar mode of irrigation in the neighbourhood of Damascus: "The gar- dens are thick set with fruit trees of all kinds, kept fresh and verdant by the waters of the Barady. This river, as soon as it issues out of the cleft of the mountain before mentioned, into the plain, is immediately divided into three streams, of which the middlemost and largest runs directly to Damascus, through a large open field called the Ager Damascenus, and is distributed to all the cisterns and fount- ains in the city. The other two, which I take to be the work of art, are drawn round, the one to the right, the olher to the left, on the borders of the gardens, into which they are let out, as they pass, by little rivulets, and so dis- posed all over the vast wool ; insomuch that there is not a garden, but has a fine, quick stream running through it." The same traveller describing, p. 89, the orange garden of the emir of Beyroot, observes, that " it contains a large quadrangular plot of ground divided into sixteen lesser squares, four in a row, with walks between them. The walks are shaded with orange-trees of a large spreading size. Everv one of these sixteen lesser squares in the gar- den was bordered with stone ; and in the stone-work were troughs, very artificiallv contrived, for conveying the water all over the garden ; there being little outlets cut at even- tree for the stream, as it passed bv, to flow out and wa'.ei^ it." A striking allusion to trees cultivated in this manner occurs Ezek. xxxi. 3, 4: "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedai in Lebanon, with fair branches and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature, and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high, with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field." So Ecel. ii. 6, " I made me pools of water to iratcr therewith the mood that bringeth forth trees." To the same purpose, Prov. xxi. 1, " The king's heart is in the hand of the LoTd, as the rivers of waters, (=-^-;sd divisions of wa- ters ,-) he turneth it whithersoever he will ;" i. e. as these fertilizing rivulets, the work of art, are conducted forward and backward, to the right hand or the left, diverted or stopped at the will of him who manages them, so is the heart of kings, and, by parity of reasoning, of the rich and mighty of the earth, swayed at the sovereign disposal of the Lord of all creatures. He, by the course of his providence, and by the inward promptings of his Spirit, can turn the enriching tide of their bounty in any diiection he sees fit, whether to bless the poor with bread, or to supply the means of salvation to the destitute. — Bush. Ver. 4. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. We must recollect here, that in the East the thrashing- floors are places in the open air, (Gen. 1. 10,) on which the corn is not thrashed, as with us, but beaten out by means of a sledge, in such a manner that the straw is at the same time cut very small. "When the straw is cu' small enough, they put fresh corn in the place, and after ward separate the' corn from the cut-straw, by throwing it in the air with a wooden shovel, for the wind drives the straw a little farther, so that only the pure corn falls to the ground." (Thevenot.) — Rosenmdller. PSALM II. Ver. 1. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The Hebrew word which Luther has translated heathen. (f'i)(i/».) signifies, in fact, people in general ; but it is used in the Old Testament, for the most part, and by the later (and even modern) Jews, exclusively of other nations who are not Jews, and that with a contemptuous and odious secondary meaning. Other nations, also, have similar names for foreigners, and for such as are not of their re- ligious faith. Thus the Greeks and Romans called them Barbarians, that is, properly, inhabitants of the desert. The Arabs called them Adsch'em, by which they mean, first, their neighbours the Persians, and then all foreigners in general. The Mohammedans call all the people of the earth, who do not believe the pretended divine mission of Mo hammed, Kuffar in the plural, Kafar in the singular, and by a corrupted pronunciation, Gaur, (Giavur,) which signi- fies unbelievers and infidels. Hence the name Kaffers, which the inhabitants of the southeastern coast of Africa received from the Mohammedan Arabs. — Rosenju'ller. Ver. 9. Thou shalt break them with a rod ol iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a pot- ter's vessel. " Begone ! wretch," savs the infuriated man, " or I will dash thee to pieces as a leuddam," i. e. an earthen vessel.— Roberts. The rod, in remote antiquity, was a -wooden staff, not much shorter than the height of a man, with golden studs or nails, or 'ometimes ornamented at the top with a ronnd Ps 5—7. I'SA knob, such as are seen in the hands of the Persian kings, .nim-nts of Persepolis. Justin .says, "that at the time of the rape of I he Sabine virgins, the kind's, us insignia of iheir dignity, bore, instead of l lit- diadem, long staves, which the Greeks called sceptres." Hence it may be conceived how, in Homer, kings made u I the seep- e n nil. The sceptre, as well as throne, is often used as a symbol of government. Hence in Ps, Xlv. 6, a • emblem of a iosl government. And in the above passage it is said of the king celebrated in this Psalm, that he would break his enemies « ith a by which his dominion is represented as lerrib strut-live over those who oppose him. The sense is, thai he will conquer them with irresistible power. A similar iven of the Me siahin Num. jaiv. 17. "There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out nl l I ii l, n.f shall smite the corners (according to Luther, the 'princes') of Moab." — Rosenmli.ler. PSALM V. \ 7. But as for me, I will come i/i/n thy house in the multitude of thy mercy; an I in thy feu will I worship towards thy holy temple. It is yen- natural that people, when praying, should turn the face towards the quarter where the place dr. In a-ed li- the Divinity is situated, and which is considered as Ins B n ce tin' Jews prayed with their faces turned towards the temple. (1 Kintrs viii. 3-i, II. IS;) and those re- siding out of Jerusalem, turned it towards that point of the heavens in which Jerusalem lay. Dan. vi. 10. Thus the :;ms. when praying, always turn iheir faces towards Mecca, "Kebla, says Bjornstahl, "signifies, in Arabic, the point towards which all true Mussulraen turn their faces when praying ; whether in the open air or in their temples, where it is always marked by a niche, in which no! only the iman stands, but also some finely written copies of the' Koran are lying. This point is always towards Mecca; for there stands the Caaba, or quadran- ?ular house, said to have been first built by Abraham and shmael, and which is the great sanctuary of the Moham- nedans, for the sake of which such great pilgrimages are annually undertaken to Mecca, and thence to Medina, where Mohammed isburied."-RosENMCLLER. Ver. 12. For thou, Lord, wilt bk-ss the r with favour wilt thou compass him shield. rliteous ; with A shield is a defensive piece of armour, and is used to ward off the blows lhal are aimed at the person who wears it. In this passage of the Psalmist it is spoken of in a differ- ent sense. It is to be used by a divine power for the pres- ervation of the people of God: and, connected with their safety, they are to be honoured and exalted: and both their i and exaltation are to be so complete, that they are said to h mpassed about with the favour of God as with a shield, in the same manner as a person completely Covered with, or elevated upon, a large broad shield. This id of the words is paralleled by a practice which, subsequent to the age of the Psalniist, obtained Romans, of which the following instances may I : " Brinno was placed on a shield, according to the custom of the nation, and being carried in triumph on ■is of the men, was declared commander-in- chief." The shields of the ancients, as a scholiast observes upon the Hind. ii. 38D, were so large as almost to cover i whole man, an.! hollowed, so ill atthevin a manner enclosed the body in front. II !l .,■ ti;s of the surround- ing shield. Tyrlreus. in the second of his hymns, still ex- tant, says, " The warrior stands in the contest firm upon both feet; the hollow of the spacious shield covering below his sides and thighs, and his breast and shoulders above." — BuRDER. PSALM VI. ' Title — To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Shemi.ii'h. A Psalm of David. This superscription is in Luther," upon cizht strings." I tan haidly think that a musica instrument of eight strings MS. 3G7 is meant here, as the Hebrew word {scheminitK) does not appear among the musical instrnineins mentioned in the old Testa nt. The meaning ol the Hebrew word is, octave; and in I Chron. xr. 21, where the singt temple ale , ■inline rated, n stands alter a Moid which prop- erly signifies rirxins, (ii/hi/ihH,) anil may then inly a tielile pall, u In. tins," says I'm K:il, ' ha\ c sicniltei! ; ■_■ 1 | nearly the same that ' virgin an' sigmtied aim i man poets, called master-singers in the middle . ROSENMULLEE. Ver 2 Have mercy upon me, OLord; fur I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my In vexed. Hr. Boothroyd translates, " For my bones are troubled." The object of the expression appears to !»-, to show that the trouble has taken fast hold, it is deeply sealed, my bones are its resting place. The Hindoos, in extreme grief or joy, say. "our roses are melted ;" i.e. like boiling lead, they are completely dissolved. — Roberts. Ver. 8. Depart from me, all ye workers of ini- quity : for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. Silent grief is not much known in the East: hence, when the people speak of sorrow, they say its voice. " Have I not heard the voice of his lamentation ("—Rob- erts. PSALM VII. Ver. 12. If he turn not, he will whet his sword ; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. The Hebrew word signifies literally, "that he hath trM- den on his bow," that is, to bend it. Arrian. in his Account of India, saj-s, " Such of their warriors as combat on foot, carry a bow which is as long as a man. When they want to bend it, they set it upon the ground, and tread on it with the left foot, while they draw onthe string." — RosENv.ru, kr. Ver: 13. He hath also prepared for him the in- struments of death ; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. This sentence maybe rendered more accurately, "he makes his arrows burning." The image is deduced from such fiery arrows as aredescribed by Ammianns Marcelli- nus. They consisted of a hollowed reed, to the lower part of which, under the point or barb, was fastened a round re- ceptacle, made of iron, for combustible materials, so that such an arrow had the form of a distaff. The reed, as the above author says, was filled wiih burning naptha ; and when the arrow' was shot from a slack bow, (tor if dis. charged from a light bow the fire went out,) it struck the enemies' ranks and remained infixed, the flame consuming, whatever it met with ; water poured on it increased its vio- lence; there was no other means to extinguish it but by throwing earth upon it. Similar darts or arrows, which were twined round with tar and pitch, and set fire to, are described by Livy, as having been made use of bv the in- habitants of the city of Saguntum, when besieged by the Romans. An allusion to such arrows is also made in Ephesians vi. 16. — Rosen-miller. Ver. 14. Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth false- hood. Dr. Boothroyd translates this, " Lo, the wicked hath con- ceived iniquity, and is big with mischief; hut an abortion shall he bring frnth:" which certainly corresponds bettei with the order of the figure of the text. " What induces that man to come so much to this pit ce ! '''[end upon it. lie is preparing some plans." — "Yes, I am of opinion his womb has conceived something." Does I person begin to ,li dose bis purposes, it is said, " Ah ' it is this yf,u have been conceiving the 'ast few days." But when he puis his plans into practice, "Yes. he is now in parturition" "Well! how has the matter ended 1" — "Ended! he has brought forth poykul," }. e. lies. — Roberts. PSALM VIII. Ver. 6. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feel. This is a common figure of speech to denote the supe- riority of one man over another; hence the worshippers of the gods often say in their devotions, " We put your feet upon our heads." " Truly, the feet of Siva are upon my head." " My Gooroo, my Gooroo, have I not put your feet upon my head 1" "My lord, believe not that man; your feet have always been upon my head." "Ah! a mighty Icing was he ; all things were under his feet." — Roberts. PSALM IX. Ver. 14. That I may show forth all thy praise in the gates of the daughter of Zion: I will re- joice in thy salvation. That is, in Jerusalem, meaning in the temple itself. The " gates of the daughter of Zion" are opposed to the " gates of death," mentioned in the preceding verse. Zion is the general name of the mountain, on whose irregular emi- nences the city of Jerusalem was built. But in a more limited sense, the name of Zion was given to the highest of those eminences, on which, besides a part of the city, the palace of David, and several public buildings, were built. This Mount Zion was joined on the south side by means of a bridge, with the mountain or hill of Moriah, which was entirely occupied by the extensive buildings of the temple. In the Old Testament, we are often to understand by Zion and Jerusalem, the national sanctuary, the temple particu- larly, where, as in the above passage, the adoration of God, and the thanksgivings to be publicly offered him,arespoken of. Zion or Jerusalem is called daughter, because the He- brews used to figure cities, communities, and states, under the images of women, and the inhabitants as children. Thus, the daughter of Tyre, the daughter of Babylon, for the cily of Tyre and'the city of Babvlon. Even now, the head of the government of Tunis, in Barbary, is called Dey, or Day, that is, as D'Arvieux observes, mother's brother ; because the republic is considered as the mother, the citi- zens as her children, and the Turkish sultan as the consort of the republic— Rosenmuller. Ver. 15. Th» heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken. This image is taken from the catching of wild beasts, by means of strong ropes or nets. Lichtenstein. in speaking of the hunting of the Koofsa,(Katfers,) says, " They catch jinuch game by means of nets ; in the woody districts, they often make low hedges, miles in length, between which they leave openings ; in these openings, through which the game tries to escape, they conceal snares, which are placed so in- geniously that the animals are caught in them by the leg, and cannot extricate themselves." Also lions and elephants are caught in this manner; the latter, when they' have been broughtby means of fire, or by lame elephants, to a narrow place, where they cannot turn back, are caught by throwing ropes round their legs. Ropes and nooses are meant by the figurative expression, snares of death, 2 Sam. xxii. 6, which the people of the an- cient world used, both in the chase and in war. The word is sometimes rendered net, as in this passage. Arrian, in his Treatise on Hunting, relates, that Cyrus met with wild asses in the plains of Arabia, which were so swift, that none of his horsemen were able to catch them. Yet the young Lvbians, even boys of eight years of age, or not "much older, had pursued them, mounted on their horses, without saddle or bridle, till they threw a noose over them, and thus took them. He gives instructions to pursue stags with •rained horses and dogs, till they can be either shot with arrows, or taken alive by throwing a noose over them. These are the strong snares which Pollux means, when he speaks of the wild asses, and they are also the same as hose in which Uahis, the natural son of an ancient Span- mm Ps. 8— 16 ish king, was taken. He was exposed when a child, and suckled by a hind: having grown up among the stags, he had attained' their swiftness, so that he fled with them over the mountains, and traversed forests, till he was at length caught in a noose. In the same manner Ulloa saw the Guasos(one of the aboriginal Peruvian nations) catch with their nooses (the Spanish lazo)the most active and cautious man as easily as the wild bull. Some English pirates once approaching their shore, and thinking to drive off the Guasos with their firearms, the latter threw their nooses towards the vessels, and so pulled on shore those who had not fallen down at first sight ; one who was caught escaped with his life, notwithstanding he had been thus violently drawn from the boat to the shore, the noose having caught him over the shoujfler on the one side, and the arm on the other ; but it was some time before he was able to recover his strength. In the same manner the Sagarthian horse- men in the Persian army used their nooses in war. — (He- rodotus.) These people, who, according to Siephanus, lived on the Caspian Sea, had no oiher arms than a noose and a dagger, to kill with the one the enemy whom thev had caught with the other. The same is related by Pausa- nias, of the Sauromati. — Rosenmuller. PSALM X. Ver. 5. His ways are always grievous : thy judg- ments are far above out of his sight : as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. Of a proud and powerful man, it is said, " He puffs away his foes;" i. e. they are so contemptible, so light, that like a flake of cotton, he puffs ihem from his presence. Great is the contempt which is shown by puffing through the mouth and blowing through the nostrils. — Roberts. Ver. 15. Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man : seek out his wickedness till thou find none. Thris member is often selected as an object for impreca- tions. " Ah ! the kalian, the thief, his hand shall be torn off for that." "Evil one, thou wilt lose thy hand for this violence." But the hand or arm is also selected as an ob- ject for blessings. " My son, (says the father,) may the gods keep thy hands and thy feet." — Roberts. PSALM XI. Ver. 6. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest : this shall be the portion of their cup. The gods are described as doing this upon their enemies; and magicians, in cursing each other, or those who arethe objects of their ire, say, the fiery rain shall descend upon them. — Roberts. PSALM XIV. Ver. 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowl- edge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord. "Wicked one, the fiends shall eat thee." "That vile king eats the people as he does his rice." " Go not near that fellow, he will eat thee." But, strange as it may ap- pear, relations say of those of their friends who are dead, they have eaten "them. Thus, a son, in speaking of his deceased parent, says, "Alas! alas! I have eaten my father." " My child', my child!" says the bereaved mother, " have I eaten' vou V The figure conveys extreme grief, and an intimation that the melancholy event has been occa- sioned by the sins or faults of the survivors. In cursing a married man, it is common to say, " Yes, thou wilt soon have to eat thy good wife." And to a poor widow, "Wretch ! hast thou not eaten thy husband 1" — Roberts. PSALM XVI. Ver. 4. Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink-offerings of blood -will I not offer, nor take up their names into mv lips. drink I lie w nu- of the •;uiiIht mixed u it h hi" . farly when they bound themselves bj dreadful oaths, and to the performance of fearful deeds. This drink i by the Romans rininn assiratum, because n*s 1 1 ! 1 1 1 -^ to Fevtu-i, signifies I>| i in tin- atii-ieni Latin language; In this manner, as Sallu-t relates, Catiline took tl aths with his accomplices. " It was said at the tin:. line, after making a speech, calling on the accomplices of his crime to take an oath, presented them with human blood mixed with « ine, Is cups ; and « hen e drank n; it, alter pronoun, ing an iinpror.uion. as is i ti- omary in solemn sv, iti, ,-s. explained his | Ian." In a similar manner, Silius Italicus makes the ( ', tlannibal swear, an instance which is pai.ienhulv suitable to illustrate the above passage, because the Carthaginians w The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; ray God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. See on F.ph. 6. 16. That is, my strong, mighty deliverer. The image is taken from the bull, whose strength and defensive weapon lie in his horns Hence a horn it the symbol of strength. Jet x i ■■, in. •-.'■. sa] s, •■ The born ol Moab is i hi off;" that is, hi wet ■ weakened Mical i v. 13, says, " Arise and thrash, Odaus ten '/•• n foi I will make thy I i u. t ni.ii I v :., i.i i.e'in i ' ic.i.-s ; ;:ini (ho u shall beat in pieces many | pie." Ps. CXZXii. 17, "There will 1 make the 1 1 . ii ii ol Dt i id to bud : 1 have adorned 8 I imp anointed;" translated by Luther, " will make him stung and mighty." The Greeks and Romans made u e Ol tin same image. The former said of a hold and valiant roan, •■ He has imriis." ii, ii ays of wine, thai ii revived the e the poor " hums,'' that is. courage and strong: Ii.— Rosenmi:i.i.ek. The most extraordinary oriental costume which 1 hav< vet seen, is Ihe head-ill ess v in n Id . . i '. :> n : i< ; ' I • o el Kamr, and in all the dj eenti gionoi Mount Lebanon. : : n, ii so frequently seen. Ii is called Taotoor, and is set on the forehead, projecting ghl born. It is from fifteen to twenty inches long; in its thickness gradually diminishing; having its diameter at one extremity about four n el e . abOUl tWO. Il is hollow, Otherv I e the weight would he lll- Slippoi I: hie III the slilie.! nerk ; ami II Is 1 111 se 1 lei] llVCI', SO a s to give ii a silvery appearance. The end with Ibi diameter rests on ihe I head, where it is strapped to, by one strap passing behind the head, and another passing under the chin : the horn itself protrudes straight forward, inclining upward, at an angle of about twenty or thirty degrees. Over the further extremity they throw the veil, which thus serves the double purpose of modesty and shade. I could hear no account of the origin of this unicorn costume. In its style it differs materially from the horns described by Bruce in Abyssinia, and by other travellers, which have been considered as illustrating those pass; go. in scripture, " Lift not up your horn on high.— Thy horn hast thou exalted," Ac. Foi- here it is the females that wear it ; and not the men, as in Abyssinia : it has no ap- pearance of strength, nor indeed, to me, of beauty; ah hough, doubtless, among the females of Mount Lebanon, there may be as much vanity in their mode of adjusting and bearing this article of dress, as is to be found at any European toilet. Some, indeed, though very few, wear this monstrous orna- ment protruding from one side of the face, instead of the front: but I could obtain no satisfactory account of this heretical fashion, any more than of the orthodox position of the Tantoor. It is not worn by the Druse women only The servant of the house where "I lived at Deir el Kamr wore one : so also did a young woman, whose marriage I there witnessed: several, likewise, of the virgins, thai neie her fellows, and bore her company, wore this head-dress , all these were Christians. Hanna Dooms ni told me that it is used chiefly by the lower orders: at least that those who have hern brought up at Damascus, or at the principal cities, would not think of wearing it. In other word.-;, probably, it is the true ancient female mountaineer's cos- tume: but what is its degree of antiquity, it may be difficult to discover.— Jowbtt. Ver. 9. The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me, The margin has, for sorrows, " cords." (2 Sam. xxii. 6. Prov. xiii. 11, and xiv. 27.) Dr. Boolhroyd translatis, " The cords of hades enclosed me ; the snares o death were laid forme." The Psalmist says in another place, He "shall rain snares" upon the wicked. From the par- allel texts in Samuel and Proverbs, it is evident that death, by the ancients, in figure at least, was punsoiviFiED and de- scribed as having snares, with which to catch the bodies ol men. The Hindoo Yawn, " the catcher of the souls ol men," bears some resemblance to the Charon and Minos ol the Egyptians and Grecians. Yama rides on a buffalo, ha* 370 PSA a large snare in his hand, and is every way a most hide- ous looking monster. In his anxiety to fill his caves with mortals, he was of:en involved in great disputes wi;h the gods and others ; as in the case of Mareander, who was a lavourile of the supreme Siva. He had already cast his snare upon him, and was about to drag him to the lower regions, when the deity appeared, and compelled him to relinquish his prey. When people are in the article of death, they are said to be caught in the snare of Yama. (See Matt, xxiii. 33.)— Roberts. Ver. 33. He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and sctteth me upon my high places. The allusions to this animal in the sacred volume, though not numerous, are of considerable importance. Its name in Hebrew, (?v) ail, is considered by Dr. Shaw as a gen- eric word, including all the species of the deer kind ; whether they are distinguished by round horns, as the stag; or by flat ones, as the fallow-deer; or bv the small- ness of the branches, as the roe. The term originally signified aid or assistance; and, in the progress of language, by a natural and easy transition, came to denote an animal furnished with the means of defence, but limited to horned animals, particularly the stag and the hind. This creature seems to resemble the goat, in being remarkably sure-footed, and delighting in elevated situations. The royal Psalmist alludes !.. b .;h circumstances in one of his triumphant odes: " He maketh mv feet like hinds' tee!, and setteth me upon my high places." He might also refer, in the first clause, to the uncommon solidity and hardness of its hoof, which Virgil compares to brass, which enables it to tread, with ease, the pointed rocks. It may seem, from the words of David, that the female possesses a surer foot and a harder hoof than the male, for he ascribes to himself the feet of the hind; but since natural historians have not remarked any difference between them, it is prob- able he was led to the choice from some other cause, which it may not be easy to discover. The prophet Habakkuk, in the close of his prayer, has the same allusion, and nearly in the same words: " He will make mv feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places." While the Psalmist contents himself with referring merely to the firmness and security of his position, " he setteth me upon my high places," the prophet encourages himself with the persuasion, that his God would conduct him through every danger, with the same ease and safety as the hind walks among the cliffs of the rock.— Paxton. PSALM XIX. Ver. 4. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of "the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun ; 5. Which ts as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. -. The espousals by money, or a written instrument, were performed by the man and woman under a tent or canopy erected for that purpose. Into this chamber the bride- groom was accustomed to go with his bride, that he might talk with her more familiarly : which was considered as a ceremony of confirmation to the wedlock. While he was there, no person was allowed to enter; his friends and at- tendants waited for him at the door, with torches and lamps in their hands; and when he came out, he was received by all that were present with great joy and acclamation. To '(his ancient custom, the Psalmist alludes in his magnifi- cent description of the heavens: " In them he set a taber- uacle for the sun ; which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race." — .Paxton. Ver 10. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb. There is no difference made among ns, between the it licncy of honey in the comb, and after its separation from ii We' may therefore be at a loss to enter into the energy -MS. ps. 18—22 of that expression, " Sweeter than honey, and the honey- comb," Ps. xix. 10; or, to express it with the same emphasis as our translation does the preceding clause, " Sweeter than honey, yea, than the honeycomb," which last, it -hould seem from the turn of thought of the Psalmist, is as much to be preferred to honey, as the finest gold is to that of a more impure nature. But this will appear in a more easy light, if the diet and the relish of the present Moors of West Barbarv be thought to resemble those of the times of the Psalmist: for a paper published first in the Philosophical Transactions, and after that by Dr. Halle}', in the Miscellanea Curiosa, informs ns, that they esteem honey a wholesome breakfast, " and the most delicious that which is in the comb, with the young bees in it, before they come out of their cases, while they still look milkwhile.'and resemble, being taking out, gen- tles, such as fishers use: these I have often ate of, but they seemed insipid to my palate, and sometimes I found they gave me the heartburn." — Harmer. PSALM XX. Ver. 5. We will rejoice in thy salvation,, and in the name of our God we will set up our ban- ners: the Lord fulfil all thy petitions. In all religious as well as warlike processions, the people carry banners. Hence on the pinnaclesof their sacred cars, on the domes or gateways of their temples, and on the root of a new house, may be seen the banner of the caste orsect floating in the air. Siva, the supreme, also is described as having a banner in the celestial world. When a person makes a solemn vow to go on a pilgrim- age, to perform a penance, or to bathe in holy water ; or when a man has a dispute in a court of law, or 'in any other way; or when a disobedient son has resolved to act as he pleases ; it is said, " Why try to move him from his pur- pose 1 lussil-ltatti, he has tied up, and stands by his ban- ner :" which implies, he must and will abide by his purpose. —Roberts. The banners formerly so much used were a part of mili- tary equipage, borne in times of war to assemble, direct, distinguish, and encourage the troops. They might possi- bly be used for other purposes also. Occasions of joy. splendid processions, and especially a royal habitation, might severally be distinguished in this way. The words of the Psalmist may perhaps be wholly figurative: but if they should be literally understood, the allusion of erecting abanner in the name of the Lord, acknowledging his glory, and imploring his favour, might be justified' from an exist- ing practice. Certain it is, that we find this custom preva- lent on this very principle, in other places, into which it might originally have been introduced from Judea. Thus Mr. Turner says, " I was told that it was a custom with the soobah to ascend the hill every month, when he sets up a white flag, and performs some religious ceremonies, to con- ciliate the favour of a dewta, or invisible being, the genius of the place, who is said to hover about the summit, dis- pensing at his will ?ood and evil to every thing around him." (Turner's Travels.) — Buroer. PSALM XXII. Title— To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Sha- har, (Hind of the Morning.) A Psalm of Da- vid. Many curious observations have been made on the titles of the Psalms, but attended with the greatest uncertainty. Later eastern customs, respecting the titles of books arid poems, may perhaps give a little more certainty to these matters; but great precision must not be expected. D'Her- belot tells us, that a Persian metaphysical and mystic poi n was called a Rose Bush. A collection of moral essays, the Garden of Ancmonics. Another eastern book, the Lion nf the Forest. That Scherfeddin al Baussiri called a poem of his, written in praise of his Arabian prophet, who, lie af- firmed, had cured him of a paralytic disorder in his sleep, the Habit of a Dervees/i ; and because he is celebrated there for having given sight to a blind person, this poem is also entitled by its author, the Bright Star. The ancient Jewish taste may reasonably be supposed to have been of the same kind. Agreeable to which is the ex- Ps 22. PSALMS 87 . planation some learned men have given, of David's com- h bow lo b ■ taught the children of Israel, -J Sam. i. 18, which they apprehended did not relate to the u eof ibat MiMpmi in war, but to the hymn whii occasion of the death of Saul and Jonathan, and from which be entiiled this elegy, as they think, the Bow. The twenty- i tin might, in like manner, be called the Hind oj ■.' ,■ the !ifiy-sixth,"the Dove dumb in ,!' slant places; li, the Lily of the Testimony; the eightieth, the n'oiuj, in the plural"; and the forty-fifth, simply the Lilies. [t is sufficiently evident, I should think, that these terms do nit denote certain musical inslinments, Poi if they did, why do the more common names of the timbre , the harp, the psaltery, and the trumpet, with which psalms were sang, Ps. lxxxi. i, 3, never appear in those titles'! - r 1 1 1 \ certain tunes ! It ought not however to be imagined that these tunes are so called from their bear- ing some resemblance to the noises made by the things mentioned in the titles, for lilies are silent, if tins supposition should otherwise have been allowed with respect to the Mind of the Morning. Nor does the filly-sixth Psalm speak of the mourning of the dove, but of its dumbness. II they S tit all, they must signify the tunes to which such songs or hymns were sung, as were distinguished by ties : and so the inquiry will terminate in this point, whether the Psalms to which these titles are affixed were called by these names; or whether they were some other psalms, or songs, to the tune of which these were to be sung. And as we do not find the bow referred to, nor the same name twice made use of, so far as our lights reach, it seems most probable that these are the names of •1 : very Psalms to which they are prefixed. The forty-second Psalm, it may be thought, might very well have been entitled the Hind of the Morning, because, as that named after the water brooks, so panted the soul of '.he Psalmist after God ; but the twenty-second Psalm, it is certain, might equally well be distinguished by this title, Bogs hare compassed' res, the assembly of ike wicked hare ana as the Psalmist, in the forty-second Psalm, rather chose to compare himself to a hart, "than a hind, the twenty-second Psalm much better answers this title, in which he speaks of his hunted soul in the feminine gen- der: Deliver my soul from the sirord, ?ny darling (which in the original is feminine) from the pmrcr of the dog. Every one that reflects on the" circumstances 'of David, at the time to which the fifty-sixth Psalm refers, and considers the oriental taste, will not wonder to see that Psalm en- tilled the Dorc dumb in distant places ; nor are lilies more improper to be made the title of other Psalms, with proper distinctions, than a Garden of Anemonies to be the name of a collection of moral discourses— Harmex. Ver. 6. Bat I am a worm, and no man; a re- proach of men, and despised of the people. "When a man complains and abhors himself, he asks, "What am II a worm! a worm!" "Ah! the proud man; he regarded me as a worm : well should I like to sav to him, we are all worms." " Worm, crawl out of my pres- ence."— Roberts. Ver. 7. All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, the}' shake the head. Ainsworth has this—" All thev that see me, doe skoffat mee: they make-a-mow with the lip, they wag the head." It is exceedingly contemptuous to protrule the lower lip; and, generallv speaking, it is only done to those of a mean condition. Those who cannot grant a favour, or who have not the power to perform something thev have been re- quested to do, " shoot out the lip." To shake the head is a favourite way of giving the negative, and is also a mark nf disdain. — Roberts. Ver. 1 0. I was cast upon thee from the womb. " What !" asks the old slave, " will you dismiss me now 7 Have I not been cast upon you from the kelpum ?" womb.— Roberts. Ver. 18. Many- hulls have compass ^] me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round, liishop Horn.' says, the latter verse, if literally transla- ted, runs tin. Reboki thi wild beast of the reeds, the n Of the Blighty among the i-alvrsol il skipping or exulting wi liver." Wicked men, or those who have much bodily strength, who lnso.li and domineer over the weak, and all "lewd fellows ol the are called m&duivl, i. e. bulls. "Of what country are you the bull 1" People of docile disposition! — those who live at peace with their neighbours — are called Ives: bence when riolenl men injure them, ii is said, "See those bulls how they are oppt. :, at them, they are always butting th " Why has this mad bull 01 Point Pedro come hither 1 Go, bull, go, graze in thy own pastures." David, therefore, prayed that the Lord would rebuke the bulls who thus troubled his people.— Roberts. The strength of the bull is too remarkable to require de- scription; and his courage and fierceness are SO he ventures at limes to combat the lion himself. Nor is he more celebrated for these qualities, than for his disposi- tion to unite with those of his own kind, against their eom- ii' For these reasons he has been chosen by tie- Spirit of inspiration, to symbolize the powerful, fierce, and implacable enemies of our blessed Redeemer; who, for- getting their personal animosities, combined against his precious life, and succeeded in procuring his , . '• Many bolls hare compassed me: strong bulls of Bashaa have beset me round." Nor can we conceive a more stri- king and appropriate symbol of a fierce and ruthless war- rior; an instance of which occurs in that supplication of David : " Rebuke the company of the spearmen, the mul- titude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of silver. In the sublime description of Isaiah, which seems to refer to some great revolutions, which are to be effected in times long 1 1 ... rior to the age in which he flourished; probably in these last days, antecedent to the millennial stale of the church ; the complete destruction of her strong and cruel enemies is thus foretold : " And the unicorns shall come down Wish them, and the bullocks with the bulls, and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fat- ne^. '— Paxton. Ver. 16. For dogs have compassed me; the as- sembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. " The dog," says Poiret, "loses in Barbary, as in the East in general, a part of those social qualities which make him the friend of man. He is no longer that domes- tic, mild, insinuating animal, faithfully attached to his master, and ever ready to defend him, even at the expense of his life. Among the Arabs he is cruel, blood-thirsty, always hungry, and never satisfied. His look is savage, his physiognomy ignoble, and his appearance disagreeable! The Moors grant him, indeed, a corner of their tent ; bill this is all. They never caress him, never throw him any thing to eat. To this treatment, in my opinion, must the indifference of the dogs towards their master be ascribed. Very often they have not even any master. They choose a tent as a place of refuge ; they are suffered to remain there, and no further notice is taken of them. Refuse, carrion, filth, every thing is good enough for them, if thev can but appease their hunger. They are lean, emaciate,^ and have scarcely any belly. Among themselves they sel- dom bite each oiher; but they unite against the stranger who approaches the Arab tents, furiously attack him. and would tear him to pieces if he did not seek safety in flight from this starved troop. If any person were unable to de- fend himself, or had the misfortune to fall, he would be in danger of being devoured, for these dogs are very greedy after human flesh." D'Arvieux also observes, that the Bedouin Arabs keep a great number of dogs, which ran about in and out of the camp, begin to bark at the least noise thev hear, and answer each other. " These dogs." says he. " are not accustomed to see people walking aboiu late at night, and I believe that they would tear any one in pieces who should venture to approach the camp." " In Mo- rocco," «ays Host, " there are dogs in abundance, and as the greater part of the Moors have scarcely enough lo live on for themselves, much less to feed dogs, they suffer them to lie about the streets so starved that they can nardly vang lo- 372 PSA gethor, and almost devoured by fleas and vermin. But these dogs, which do not move during the daytime, though they are frequently trodden on, are so insupportable in the night, not only on account of their barking, bellowing, and cries, b-jt also because they are so savage and sleep so little, that nobody is able to go through the streets without a watch- man." " During all the long tour through this dreary and melan- choly city, (Alexandria, in Egypt,) Europe and its liveli- ness was pictured to me only by the bustle and by the activ- iy of the sparrows. I here no longer recognised the dog, that friend of man, the attached and faithful companion, the lively and honest courtier ; he is here a gloomy egotist, unknown to the host under whose roof he dwells, cut off from human intercourse, without being less of a slave; he does not know him whose house he protects, and devours his corpse without repugnance. The following circumstance will fully paint his character. In the evening of the day on which I arrived at Alexandria, I went to our ship to supply myself with clean linen. It was eleven o'clock at night when I came again on shore, and I was half a league from inv quarters. I was obliged to go through a cily taken only that morning by storm, and in which I did not know a street. No reward could induce my man to quit his boat and accompany me. I undertook the journey alone, and went over the burying-ground, in spite of the manes, as I was best acquainted with this road. At the firs! habitations of the living, I was attacked by whole troops of furious dogs, who made their attacks from the doors, from the streets, and the roofs; and the barking re- sounded from house to house, from one family to another. I soon, however, observed that the war declared against me was not grounded on any coalition ; for as soon as I had quitted the territory of the attackers, they were driven away by the others, who received me on their frontiers. The darkness was only lightened by the stars, and by the constant glimmer of the nights in "this climate. Not to lose this advantage, to avoid the barking of the dogs, and to take a road which I knew could not lead me astray, I left the streets, and resolved to go along the beach ; but walls and timber-yards, which extended to the sea, blocked up the way. After having waded through the water to escape from the dogs, and climbed over walls where the sea was too deep, exhausted by anxiety and fatigue, and quite wet, I reached one of our sentinels about midnight, in the conviction that the clog is the most dreadful among the Egyptian plagues." (Denon.) — Rosenmuller. Ver. 21. Save me from the lion's mouth : for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. Those who are in great trouble from the power or cruelty of others, often cry out to their gods — " Ah 1 save me from the tusk of the elephant ! From the mouth of the tiger, and the tusks of the boar, deliver me— deliver me!" "Who will save me from the horn of the kdndam?" This animal is now extinct in these regions, and it is not easy to deter- mine what it was: the' word in the Sathur-Ago.rathe is rendered jungle-cow, but it was probably the rhinoceros; and Dr. Boothroyd translates, " from the horns of the end me." — Roberts. PSALM XXIII. Ver. 1. The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want. 2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures : he leadeth me beside the still waters. In this figure the Psalmist had in his view a shepherd leadirg his flock into luxuriant fields, and causing them to quench l.ieir thirst and repose by gentle streams. In a tropical clime, a tranquil stream and a green pasture are peculiarly pleasing to the eye. Hence many eastern alle- gories are taken from such scenes. " Never, never will I forget my God : he has brought me into a plenteous pastur- age, and folded me near an abundance of water." " Why does he like this country 1"—" Because he has good gra- cing." " Tamban has left his master, because there was not "much grass." " Much grass ! why the bull was never satisfied." "Well, friend, whither are you going-! in search of grass and water1!" — "Yes; the 'fat one has be- come lean, "because his grass has withered and his water failed."— Roberts. -MS. Ps. 23. The patriarchs wandered with their cattle among the towns and villages of Canaan, and fed Ihem even in the most populous districts without molestation. And it is a remarkable fact, that the Kenites and Reehabites lived in Palestine under tents, and fed their cattle wherever they could find pasture, when the country was crowded with in- habitants, long after it had been divided by lot among the tribes. The Bedouin Arabs claim the same privilege in those countries to this day, which, depopulated as they are, probably contain as many inhabitants in their towns and villages, as in the days of Abraham. Nor is this custom peculiar to Palestine ; in Barbary and other places, they live in the same manner. Great numbers of Arabian shepherds come into Egypt itself, in the months of Novem- ber, December, and Januarv, from three or four hundred leagues distance, to feed their camels and their horses. After having spent some time in the neighbourhood of the Nile, they retire into the deserts, from whence, by routes with which they are acquainted, they pass into other regions to dwell there, in like manner, some months of the year, till the return of the usual season recalls them to the vale of Egypt. To this custom of leading the flocks lrom one country and region to another, the royal Psalmist alludes in that beautiful pastoral : " The Lord is ray shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pas- tures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He resloreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness, for his name's sake." We are taught by the prophet to look for the same blessings from the vigilant care and tender- ness of Messiah : " They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. They shall not hun- ger nor thirst ; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them ; for he that hath mercy on them, shall lead them; even by the springs of water shall he guide them, and I will make all my mountains a way, -and my highways shall be exalt- ed." The conduct of the eastern shepherd in leading his flock to the green pastures, and the still waters, is clearly alluded to by John, in the book of Revelation: " For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and lead them unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." — Paxton. • Ver. 4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. " He was indeed a good king; by his sceptre and um- brella he comforted his subjects." By the staff or sceptre he gently governed and protected his people; and by his umbrella he defended them from the fierce rays of the' sun. " Yes; by these are we instructed, guided, supported, and defended'; what have we to fear? great is our safety and confidence." " You are now becoming an old man, and vour children are young, what will become of them after your death?" — " Ah! friend, is there not a staff in the hand of God?" " Trulv, my wife and children have gone; they have reclined in the place of burning, but my staff is still with' me." " See the wicked one, he has not a staff left." — Roberts. In the bag or scrip, which is mentioned by Samuel as a part of the shepherd's furniture, his provisions, and other necessaries, are carried. He bears in his hand a staff of considerable length, with which he keeps his cattle in order, and numbers them when they return from the field. To this instrument the Psalmist refers in that beautiful and affecting passage, where he addresses Jehovah as the shep- herd of his soul: " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." — Paxton. Ver. 5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies : thou anointest my head with oil ; my cup runneth oyer. In Hindostan, when a person of rank and opulence re- ceives a guest, whom he wishes to distinguish by peculiar marks of regard, he pours upon his hands and arms, in the presence of the whole company, a delightful odoriferous perfume, puts a golden cup into his hand, and pours wine into it till it run over; assuring him at the same time, that Ps. 24—29. PSALMf 373 it is to him a great pleasure to receive him into his house, and that he shall find under his roof every comfort which he could bestow. The reference to this custom, which at one time was probably general throughout the East, in the twenty-third Psalm, is at once beautiful tin. I striking: ■■ Then preparest a table before me inlhe presence "I mine .in inics; thou anointest my head with oil, my cii|i runneth over." The Lord had early received the Psalmist into fa- vour ; raised him to the highest honours, from a very hum- ble condition ; and, what was infinitely better, he set before linn n e inestimable blessings of redeeming love, prepared opions unction of the holy Spirit to enjoy them, and we] id him in the most honourable manner, by put- ling the cup of salvation into his hand, in the pre enceol all hi- people, and pouring into it with unsparing liberality, of heavenly consolation.— Paxton. On all joyful occasions the people of the East anoint the head with oil. Hence, at their marriages, and other festive times, the young and old may he seen with their longblacU atly tied on the crown of the head, shining and smboth, like polished ebony. The Psalmist, therefore, re- joicing in God as his protector, says, "Thou anointest my head with oil." It is an act of great respect to pour per- fumed oil on the head of a distinguished guest ; In' ihe woman in the gospel manifested Iter respect tor the Saviour by pouring '• precious ointment" on his head. — Roberts. ' In the East, the people frequently anoint their visiters with some very fragrant perfume ; and give them a cup or a glass of some choice wine, which they are careful to fill till it runs over. The first was designed to show their love and respect; the latter to imply that while they remained there, they should have an abundance of everything. To something of this kind the PsaUnist probably alludes in 'his passage. — Border. PSALM XXIV. Vcr. 7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye Jift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. See on Prov. 17. 19. PSALM XXV. Ver. I;". Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord ; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. " Those who delight in fowling, do not spring the game with dogs, as we do; hut. shading themselves with an ob- long piece of canvass, stretched over a couple of reeds or sticks, like a door, they walk with it through the several d avenues, where they expect to find game. The canvass is usually' spotted, or painted with the figure of a leopard, and perforated near the top in a few places, for the fowler to look through, and observe what passes before him. The partridge, and other gregarious birds, when the canvass approaches, will covey together, although thev were fei ding before at some distance from one another. The woodcock, quail, and other birds, which do not commonlv feed in flocks, will, at sight of the extended canvass, stand still and look with astonishment, which gives ihe sportsman an op- portunity of coming very near them; and then re-iing the canvass upon the ground, and directing the muzzle of his piece through one of the holes, he will sometimes shoot a whole covev at a time. The Arabs have another, but a more laborious method of catching these birds: for ob- serving that thev become languid and fatigued, after thev have been hastily put up two or three times, they immedi- ately run in upon them, and knock ihem down with their bludgeons. They are likewise well acquainted with that method of catching partridges called tunnelling; and to make ihe capture the greater, they will sometimes place behind the tin a cage witli some tame ones wiihin. which by their perpetual chirping and calling, quickly bring down the covevs which are within hearing, and" by that means destrov great numbers of them. To hunt the jack- al, which greatlv abounds in that country, Ihev sometimes use a leopard which has been trained lo hunting from his vonth. The hunter keeps the animal before him on his horse, and when he meets with a jackal, the leopard leaps down, and creeps along t ill he ihinks himself within reach of Ihe prey, when he leaps upon it with inc edible agility. throwing himself seventeen or eighteen feet at a time." 'I'lie-e statements illusiraie ihe loiceand propriety of those passages of holy Wl it. wee h allude lo the arts and iniple- menls of the hunter and the fowler, hv which the timid vic- tim is taken ere it is aware; or ihe bold is compelled by main force, or by deadly wounds, lo submit to his more cunning or powerful adversary, n is nol without reason the Psalmist rejoiced that the snare was broken, and his soul had escaped as a bird from the snare of ihe fowler; and that God had brought his feet out of the net. — PlXTON. PSALM XXVII. Ver. 6. And now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me : therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. " The Modeliar is now fixed in his situation." — " Is he?" — " Yes, ves, he is on the mountain, and is like unto it." " Who will take me out of this mud, and place me upon the mountain "" PSALM XXVII I. Ver. 1. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my rock; be not silent to me : lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the ph. See on Job 33. 18, 24. Ver. 2. Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands towards thy holy oracle. See on Ps. 44. 20. , PSALM XXIX. Ver. 5. The voice of the Lord breaketh the ce- dars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. See on Deut. 3. 25. Ver. 9. The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests : and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory. Ainsworlh translates, " Jehovah maketh Ihe hinds Irem- blinglv to travel." The thunder of the East is far more terrific than that of England. The explosion is so sudden and so vast, that the earth literally trembles under its power: fierce animals rush into the covert, and birds fly affrighted to the shade. Then it is the people say, " Ah ' this will cause the womb lo tremble." " This llmnder will make the pains to come." " I fear there will be a falling this day." — Roberts. It seems lo be generally admitted, that the hind brings forth her young with great difficulty; and, so much appears to he suggested in the third verse of the same chapter : " Thev bow themselves, they bring forth their young (ins thev cast out their sorrows." But if Pliny, and other nat- ural historians, are worthy of credit, divine providence has been graciously pleased to provide certain herbs, which greatly facilitate the birth ; and by an unerring instinct, he directs the hind to feed upon them, when the lime of ges- tation draws towards a close. Whatever be in this asser- tion, we know from higher authority, that providence doe* promote ihe parturition of the hind, by awakening her fears and agitating her frame by the rolling thunder: "'the voice of Jehovah, (a common Hebrew phrase, rl. i, . .t > g thunder,) maketh the hinds to calve." Nor ought we to wonder that so timorous a creature as ihe hind should he so much affected by that awfully imposing sound, when some of Ihe proudesi men that ever existed, have been made to tremble. Augustus, the Roman emperor, according lo Suetonius, was so terrified when it thundered, that he wrapped a seal-skin round his body, wilh ihe view of de- fending it from the lightning, and concealed himself in somr secret corner till the tempest ceased. The tyrant Caligula, who sometimes affected to threaten Jupiter himself, covered his head, or hid himself under a bed; and Horace con- fesses, he was reclaimed from atheism by the terror of thun- der and lightning. — Paxton. PSALM XXX. Title — A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the house of David. It was common, when any person had finished a house, and entered into it, to celebrate it with great rejoicing, and keep a festival, to which his friends were inviied, and to perform some religious ceremonies, to secure the protection of heaven. Thus, when the second temple was finished, the priests and Levites, and the rest of the captivity, kept the dedication of the house of God with joy, and offered numerous sacrifices, Ezra $1 16. We. read in the New Testament of the feast of the dedication, appointed by Judas Maccabaeus, in memory of the purification and restoration of the temple of Jerusalem, after it had been defiled and laid in ruins by Antiochus Epiphanes; and celebrated an- nually, to the time of its destruction by Titus, by solemn sacrifices, music, songs, and hymns to the praise of God; and feasts, and every thing that could give the people plea- sure, for eight days successively. (Josephus.) This was customary even among private persons. The Romans also dedicated their temples and their theatres. So also they acted with respect to their statues, palaces, and houses. — Chandler. Ver. 1. I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to, re- joice over me. " Thou hast lifted me up." The verb is used, in its original meaning, to denote the reciprocating motion of the backets of a well, one descending as the other rises, and vice versa ,■ and is here applied, with admirable propriety, to point out the various reciprocations and changes of David's fortunes, > till, they pour down lor three or lour days a i,l uights together, as vehemently as it" they would drown the country. The withered appearance of an eastern summer, which is very dry, is doubtless what Uie Psalmist when he says, " my moisture is turned into the (rough! of summer." The reference is not to any particu- I drought, but to what commonly occurs.— -Har- MEK. Ver. 7. Thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble ; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. We see in the case of David, and many others, that they Often had to conceal themselves in caves, mountains, and desert places, from the pursuit of iheirenemies. In countries like these, where the police is imperfect, where population is so scattered, and where it is so easy to sustain life, it can be no wonder that offenders and injured men often conceal themselvesfor months and years from the vigilance of their pursuers. It is an every-day occurrence to hear of men thus biding themselves. Has a person to account for his conduct, or to appear in a court of justice, he packs up his valuables, and makesastart intothe jungle, or to some distant country. Perhaps he prowls about the skirts of a forest, and occasion- ally visits his family in the night. See him on his way, he walks so softly that the most delicate-eared animal cannot detect him ; he looks in every direction ; puts his ears near the ground, and listens for any sound; again he proceeds, sometimes crawling, sometimes walking, till he has reached Ins hiding-place. But the natives themselves are famous for assisting each other to elude the search of their pursuers; and often, as did Jonathan and Ahimanz, they conceal them- selves in the well ! Sometimes an offender will run to a man of rank who is at enmity with his foe, and say, " My lord, you must be my hiding-place against that wicked man, who has committed so many crimes against you." " Ah ! the good man, he was my hiding-place."— Roberts. PSALM XXXIV. Ver. 8. 0 taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. " I have russe-pdrtain," i. e. tasted and seen the holy man. " The Modeliar isa good man ; I have tasted of him many times." "Tamby, have you been to see the collecloT ?"— "No, I am afraid of him." — "Fear not ; I have tasted of him, and he is very sweet." "Do you pretend to know me?" —"Yes, I know you well; many times have I tasted of you, and have proved you to be all bitterness." A wife says of a good husband,'" I have tasted him, and he is very sweet." Does a father chastise his child, he asks, " Do you now taste me ? Am I sweet or sour 1 When you commit such things, 1 shall always be sour to you." Of a good and absent "child, he says,'" My son, my son ! when will you return, that I may again taste your sweetness." — Roberts. Ver. 20. He keepeth all his bones : not one of them is broken. A curious opinion of the Jews is, that wherever their bodies may be buried, it is only in their own promised land that the resuirection can take place; and, therefore, ihey who are interred in any other part of the world must take their way to Palestine "under ground; and this will be an operation of dreadful toil and pain, although clefts tun! caverns will be opened for them by the Almighty. Whethet it arose from this superstition, or from that love foi the land of their fathers, which, in the Jews, is connected with the strongest feeling, of faith and hope, certain it is, thai i«" I..'.' directed thei remains to be sent there. "We ! ays an old traveller, "from Constantinople to^Sidon, in which sacks, as most cer- tainly was told to me, were many Jews' bones put into but unknown to any of the slop. The Jews, His, told me of them at my return from Jeru- salem to Saphct, but earnestly entreated me not to tell it, i.. i le.n ..f pn-\ ruing them another lour-." Sometimes a wealthy Jew has been known to import earth from Jeru- salrui wherewith to line his grave. (Quarterly Review.) — 3URDEH. PSALM XXXV. Ver. 5. Let them be as chaiT before the wind : and let the angel of the Loud chase then. " Begone I fellow ; contend not with my brother or me : thou art as chaff before the wind !" " Not a word, or sood wilt thou be as cotton before the wind !"— Roberts. Ver. 21. Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Alia, alia ! our eye hath seen it. Dr. Boothroyd, " They open wide their mouth against me, and say, Aha ! aha ! our eye seeth what we wished." See that rude fellow, who has triumphed over another; he distends his mouth to the utmost, then claps his hands, and bawls out, "Agd! agd! I have seen, I have seen.". So provoking is this exclamation, that a man, though van- quished, will often commence another attack. An officer who has lost his situation is sure to have this salutation from those he has injured. Has a man been foiled in argument, has he failed in some feat he promised to per- form, has he in any way made himself ridiculous, Un- people open their mouths, and shout aloud, saying, " Agd! finished, finished, fallen, fallen." Then they laugh, and clap their hands, till the poor fellow gets out of their sight. PSALM XXXVI. Ver. 11. Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove Here we have another instance of the feet and hands being used for the whole. man. Our Saviour said of the man: " The hand of him that betrayeth me." Of a sick person to whom the physician will not administer any more medicine, it will be said, paregdri-kiimttdn, " The hand of the doctor has forsaken him." A servant is under the hand of his master. The foot of pride probably alludes to the custom of the conqueror trampling upon the vanquished: for in the next verse it is said, " The workers of iniquity are fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise." — Roberts. PSALM XXXVII. Ver. 6. And he shall bring forth thy righteous- ness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon- day. " Righteousness and the light are but one." "His righ- teousness is as the light." " Yes, he is indeed a wise judge, his decision is as the noonday." "What an erroneous judgment is this ! my case was as powerful and clear as the sun in his zenith."— Roberts. Ver. 35. I have seen the wicked in great powe i and spreading himself like a green bay-tree. The margin has, instead of green bay-tree, "a tree thai growelh in his own soil." Amsworth, "I have seen thr wicked daunting terrible, and spreading himself bare, as a green self-growing laurel." A truly wicked in n pared to a tamarind-tree, whose wood is exceedingly hard, and whose fruit is sour. " That passdm, i. e. fiend, is like th»> mnrul/ia-nmrram" (ttrmimiHu-A.'n/i:) This tree re OSl powerful storms; it never loses its leaves, and is sacred to Vyraver, the prince of devils. I ha°«" seen some ihal would measure from thirl}' to forty feet in circumference. The tamarind-tree at Port Pedro, under which Baldens preached, measures thirty feet.— Roberts. PSALM XXXIX. Ver. 5. Behold, thou hast made my days as a hand-breadth, and mine age is as nothing- before thee : verily every man at his best state is alto- gether vanity. Selah. " What are the days of man 1 Only four fingers." " My son has gone, and has only had a life of four fingers." "You have had much pleasure V — "Not so; it has only been the breadth of four fingers." " Is he a great land- owner ?"— " Yes, he has about the breadth of four fingers." " I am told that the hatred betwixt those people is daily decreasing'"— " Yes; that which is left is about four fingers m breadth." — Roeerts. Ver. 10. Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thy hand. 1 1. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth : surely every man is vanity. See on Job 4. 9. The moths of the East are very large and beautiful, but short-lived. After a few showers these splendid insects may be seen fluttering in every breeze ; but the dry weather and their numerous enemies soon consign them to the com- mon lot. Thus the beauty of man consumes away like that of this gay rover, dressed in his robes of purple, and scar- .et. and green. — Roberts. PSALM XL. Ver. 6. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not de- sire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt-offer- ing and sin-offering hast thou not required. Ainsworth, " Mine ears hast thou digged open." In scripture phrase, the Lord is said to speak in the ears of :us people. Those young heathen who are above ten years cf age, and under twenty, have the ubbalheasum whispered in. their ears, which is believed to have a very sacred ef- fect.— Roberts. Ver. 7. Then said I, Lo, I come : in the volume of the book it is written of me. I have elsewhere observed, that the oriental books and letters, which are wont both of them to be rolled up, are usually wrapped in a covering of an elegant kind: I would here add, that they have sometimes words on these cover- ings, which have a general notion of what is contained in i hem; which management obtained in much elder times, and might possibly he in u-e when some of the Psalms were written. Sir John Chardin, describing the manner "1 dismissing the ambassadors and envoys" that were at 'the court of the Persian monarch, when he was there, at er mentioning the presents that were made them, goes on to inform us, " that the letters to the crowned heads were sealed; that for the cardinal patron was open: that for the pope was formed so as to be larger than the rest; it was enclosed in a bag of verv rich brocade, and sealed at the. ends, which had fringes 'hanging down the bag half way. The seal was applied lo the plaee where the knot was on both sides, upon red wax, of the diameter of a piece of fifteen sols, and very thick. Upon th- middle of niie of the sides of the bag were written these two Persian words, Hamcl Fatcl, which signify, excellent or precious writing." After which he goes on lo explain the reasons that occasion the Persian prince to treat the popes with such distinguished honour, which it would be of no use to con- sider here. The remark I would make relates to the in- scription on the outside of the rich bag enclosing ihese despatches, and which, in few words, expressed the gen- era', nature of what was contained in the roll within: it '• i a royal writing. This practice of writing on the out- ■MS. ps. 39—42. side of the case of a letter, or book rolled up, seems to be at least as ancient as the time of Chrvsoslom, according to a note of Lambert Bos on the 40th Psalm. Chrysostom, we are told there, remarks, that thev call a wrapper the Kr*.i>iS, which is the word the Septua'gint translators make use of to express the Hebrew word r^ra megdlath, which we translate volume: "In the volume of the book it is writ- ten of me." Chrysostom seems to suppose there was written in or on the sacred volume, a word or words which signified the coming of the Messiah. But Chrysos-' torn would hardly have thought of such an interpretation, had it not been frequently done at Constantinople in his time, or by the more eastern princes that had husiness to transact with the Greek emperors ; or been known to have - - practised among the Jews.— Har- been before those t PSALM XLI. Ver. 9. Yea, mine own familiar friend in whom 1 trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted his heel against me. " The man who has eaten my rice has now become a traitor; yes, he has cut my kutkc'-kdl," i. e. heel.— Roeerts. To eat of the same bread has been reckoned in every age a sure pledge of inviolable friendship. Pythagoras com- manded his disciples not to break bread, because, sav they, the bond of friendship is not to be broken ; and all friends should assemble round the same cake. A cake of bread, observes Curtius, was the most sacred pledge of amity among the Macedonians. Nothing was reckoned baser, in the East, than to offer violence to those at whose table they had been entertained. jEschines, in his oration against Demosthenes, reproaches him especially because he had accused him, though they had eaten at the same table, and joined in the same sacred ceremonies. In perfect har- mony with these views and feelings, which seem lo have been derived from a very remote antiquity, the holy Psalmist complains of Ahilhophel : "Yea, mine own familiar fiiend, in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." And a greater than David, in ref- erence to Judas Iscariot: " I speak not of you all : I know whom I have chosen ; but that the scripture may be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me hath lifted up hisheel against me." The traitor had lived for more than three years in the relations of peace and amity with his Lord : he had been called in the apostolic office, and had been admitted to the same familiar intercourse with his divine Master, as the other disci,'es had enjoyed. These invaluable privi- leges greatly aggravated his crime; but his ealmg bread at his Master's table, while he was plotting against his life, was the crowning point of his enormous wickedness. — Paxton. PSALM XLII. Ver. 1. As the hart panteth after the water-brboks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. In the East, where streams are not common, and where the deer are so often chased by their savage co-tenants of the forest and the glade, no wonder that thev -are often driven from their favourite haunts to the parched grounds. After this, their thirst becomes excessive, but they dare not return jo the water, lest they should again meet the enemy. When the good Ramar and his people went through the thirs'y wilderness, it is written, " As the deer cried for water, so did they." " In going through the des- ert yesterday, my thirst was so great, I cried out like the deer for water " " ' Ver. 7. Deep calleth unto deep at the nois^ of thy v.Tit.-r-spouts : all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. A water-spout at sea is a splendid sight; in shape it re- sembles a funnel, with the lube pointing to the water. It 1S19, a large one burst near our ship, which caused con- siderable alarm to all on board. We were near to it be- fore we were aware, and the captain ordered the guns" to be loaded and discharged, to cause it to break. Happily for us, it burst at some distance; but the noise the water Ps. Ifl— 45. I'SA made in rushing from Ihc wakr-spout, and again in dash- in.- into ::r ■ .1 lindi a in' 1,1 illeih unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts." . Natural philosophers often make mention of water-fipouts. which are m,,^i surprising appearances; but hardly an; of ■ , aioi -. that 1 have i bsi 1 1 1 d, srx ak of them, it translators have used the term, Psalm xlu. 7, P be directly describing those I at I ea. And none of tern, 1 think, take notice of the frequency, of water-spouts .. and consequently ilia! it was natural i , mention them, in the description of a vi, lent and dangerous >t. ■> in. , r is the fact, we learn from Dr. Shaw, who tells us, that water spouts are moie lieqnrnilv near the pes i Latikea, Greego, and Carmel, than is part of the Mediterranean. These are all places on the • ria, and the last of tin in everybody knows in Judea, it being a place rendered famous by the prayers of Elijah. The Jews then could not be ignorant uf what frequently happened on their coasts, and David must have known of these danma- of the sea, if he had :ie of them, as Dr. Shaw did. Strange ice this, is the case, that commentators should these water-spouts as only meaning vehement rams; or that any should imagine that he compares his to the pouring of water ihrouu'h the spouts of a bou e, as Bythner seems to do in his Lyra, when they have nothing to do with a storm at sea, wh'ichthe Psalmist is evidently describing. Others have remarked that these spouts are often seen in the Mediterranean, but 1 do not remember to have seen it anywhere remarked, before I read Dr. Shaw, that they frequent on the Syrian and Jewish coasts, than any oilier part of this sea ; and as the doctor has not ap- plied the observation to the explaining any part of scrip- ture, I thought it was right to take notice of it in these pa- pers, and a,s it belongs to the natural history of Judea, it comes into this chapter. — Harmer. Ver. 11. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God ; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. Ainsworth, " the salvations of my face." " Ob ! Siva, are you not the salvation of my face V says the prostrate "To whom shall I make known my distress 1 i the salvation of my face 1" "Alas! alas! the salvation of my face has departed." " The blossoming on my face is now withered and gone," says the widow, la- menting over the corpse of her husband. — Roberts. PSALM XL1V. Ver. ->Q. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god. The st retching out the hand towards an object of devotion, or a holy place, was an ancient usage among Jews and heathens both, and it continues in the East to this time, which continuance I do not remember to have seen re- marked. " If." says the Psalmist, " we have forgotten the name of our God, 'or stretched out our hands to a strange god: shall not God search this out'?" Ps.xliv. 20,21. "Ethi- opia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God," Ps. lxviii. 31. " Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto i I lift up my hand towards tby holy oracle," Psalm xxvtii. 2. That this attitude in prayer has continued among the eastern people, appears by the following passages from Pitts, in his account of the religion and manners of the Moham- medans. Speaking of the Algerines throwing wax can- dles and pots of oil overboard, as a present to some marab- oot, or Mohammedan saint, Pitts goes on, and says, " When this is done, they all together hold up their hands. Desrging the marabbot's blessing, and a prosperous voyage.'' This they do in common, it seems, when in the Straits' mouth ; "and if at any time they happen to be in a very great strait or distress,' as being chased, or in a storm, they will gather money, and di LSI In thesamepage he tells us, the " mambbota have generally a little neat room built over their graves, resembling in figure their mosques or churches, which is very nicely cleaned, and wed lot ked after." And in the succeeding page he tell 0 people there are, who will scarcely pass by any of them without lifting up their hands, and saying ■-, prayer." He mentions the same devotion again as praf tiscd towards a saint that lies buried on the snor. ,'i the Red Sea. In like manner, he tells us, that at quitting ,ne oecl, or holy boose ai Mecca, to which they make devout pilgTin ages, " they hold up their hands towards the beet, making earnest petitions; and then keep going backward till tin y come to the abovesaid farewell gate. All the way as ihe'v retreat, they continue petitioning, holding up their hands, with their eyes fixed on the biclt uniil they are out of sight ol it: and so go to their lodgings weeping." — Harmer. PSALM XLV. Ver. 1. My heart is enduing- a good matter. I speak of the things which 1 have made touch- ing the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. This Psalm is a poetical composition, in the form of an epithalamium, or song of congratulation, upon the marriage of a great king, to be sung to music at the wedding- feast. The topics are'such as were the usual groundwork of such grarulatory odes with the poets of antiquity : they all fall under two general heads, the praises of the bridegroom. and the praises of the bride. The bridegroom for the comeliness of his person, and the urbanity of lis address, for his military exploits, for the extent of his con- quests, for the upright administration of his government, for the magnificence of his court. The bride is celebrated for her high birth, for the beauty of her person, the richness of her dress, and her numerous train of blooming bride- maids. It is foretold that the marriage will be fruitful, ai d that the sons of the great king will be sovereigns of the whole earth. In this general structure of the poem, we find nothing but the common topics and the common ar- rangement of every wedding-song: but when we recollect that the relation between the Saviour and his church is represented in the writings both of the Old and New Tes- tament, under the image of the relation of a husband to his wife, that it is a favourite image with all the ancient prophets, when they would set forth the loving-kindness of God for the church, or the church's dutiful return of love to him ; while, on the contrary, the idolatry of the church, in her apostacies, is represented as the adultery of a mar* ried woman; that this image has been consecrated to this signification by our Lord's own use of it, who describes God in the act of settling the church in her final state of peace and perfection, as a king making a marriage for his son ;— the conjecture that will naturally arise upon the recollection of these circumstances will 'be, that this epi- thalamium, preserved amongthe sacred writings of the ?.n cient Jewish church, celebrates no common marriage, but the great mystical wedding, that Christ is the 1 i and the spouse his church. And this was the unanimous opinion of all antiquity, without exception even of the Jewish expositors. For although, with the veil of igno- rance and prejudice upon their understandings and their hearts, they discern not the completion of this or of any of their prophecies in ihe Son of Mary, vet thev allow, that this is one of the prophecies which 'relate to the Messiah and Messiah's people ; and none of them ever dreamed of an application of it to the marriage of any earthly prince. It is the more extraordinary, that there should have arisen in the Christian church, in later a be -in passed by Solomon. Splendour and stateliness of dress, twice mentioned in this psalm, were not peculiar I I Solomon, but belong to every great and opulent mon- arch. Other circumstances might be mentioned, applica- ble, indeed, to Solomon, but no otherwise than as generally applicable to every king. But the circumstances which are characteristic of the king who is the hero of this poem, are every one of them utterly inapplicable to Solomon, inso- much, that not one of them can be ascribed to him, without contradicting the history of his reign. The hero of this poem is a warrior, who girds his sword upon his thigh, rides in pursuit of flying foes, makes havoc among them with his sharp arrows, and reigns at last by conquest over his vanquished enemies. Now Solomon was no warrior: he enjoyed a long reign of forty years of uninterrupted peace. He retained, indeed, the sovereignty of the coun- tries which his father had conqueied, but he" made no new conquests of his own. " He had dominion over all the region west of the Euphrates, over all the kings on this side of the river, (they were his vassals,) and he had peace on all sides round about him. And Jtidah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon." If Solomon ever girded a sword upon his thigh, it must have been merely for state ; if he had a quiver of sharp arrows, he could have had no use for them but in hunting. And it was with great good judgment, that upon the revision of our English Bible, in the reign of James the First, the OalvmiMic argument of this psalm, as it stood in Queen Elizabeth's Bible, was expunged, and that other substituted which we now read in our Bible of the larger size, in these words: " The majesty and grace of Christ's kingdom; the duty of the church, and the benefits thereof;" which, indeed, contain almost exact summary of the whole doctrine of the psalm. And the particulars of this, it is my intention in future discourses to expound. The psalm takes its beginning in a plain, unaffected manner, with a verse briefly declarative of the importance of the subject, the author's extraordinary knowledge of it. and the manner in which it will be treated: — "My heart is enditing a good matter;" or rather, " My heart labours wil h a goodly theme :" for the word " enditing" answers but poorly, as our transla- tors themselves appear from their margin to have been well aware, to the emphasis of the original, which expresses, that the mind of the prophet was excited and heated, boiling over, as it were, with his subject, and eager to give utter- ance lo its great conceptions. " A good matter," or " a goodly theme," denotes a subject of the highest interest and importance: — "My heart labours willi a fondly theme : I address my performance to the King ;" that is, as hath been abundantly explained, to the great Kin" Messiah:— " My tongue is the pen of a ready writer ,'' tha' is, of a well-instructed writer, a writer prepared and ready, by a perfect knowledge of the subject he undertakes lo treat. But with what sense and meaning is it, that the Psalmist compares his "tongue" to the "pen" of such a writer? It is to intimate, as I apprehend, that what he is about to de- liver is no written composition, but an extemporaneous effusion, without any premeditation of his own, upon the npulse and suggestion of the Holy Spirit: that immediate thai inn lportanct -'lie. arrangement of the parts, will in no degree tall most laboured production of the " pen" of any test prepared by previous study of his subject as the Spirit of God inspires his thoughts, and prompts his utterance. After this brief preface, declai ing that his sub- ject is Messiah, chiefly in his kingly character; that he cannot contain the thoughts which are rising in his mind; that he speaks not from himself, or from previous study, but from inspiration at the moment, he plunges at once into the subject he had propounded, addressing the King Messiah, as if he were actually standing in the royal pres- ence. And in this same strain, indeed, the whole song proceeds; as referring to a scene present to the prophet's eye, or to things which he saw doing.— Horsley. Ver. 2. Thou art fairer than the children of men : grace is poured into thy lips : therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. We have no account in the gospels of our Saviour's person. Some writers of an early age (but none so early as to have seen him) speak of it as warning dignity, and ot his physiognomy as unpleasing. It would be difficult, I believe, to find any better foundation for this strange no- tion, than an injudicious interpretation of certain prophe- cies, in a literal meaning, which represent the humiliation which the Son of God was to undergo, by clothing Ins divinity with flesh, in images taken "from person, .[ de- formity. But from what is recorded in the gospels, of the ease with which our Saviour mixed in what, in the modern style, w-e should call good company; of the respectful attention shown to him, beycnd any thing his repined birth or fortune might demand \ and the manner in « discourses, either of severe reproof or gentle admonition, were received, we may reasonably conclude, that he bad a dignity of exterior appearance, remarkably corresponding with that authority of speech, which, upon some occasions, impressed even his enemies with awe, and with that digni- fied mildness, which seems to have been his more natural and usual tone, and drew the applause and admiral on oi all who heard him. External feature, however, is gene- rally the impression of the mind upon the body, and words are but the echo of the thoughts; and, in prophecy, more is usually meant than meets "the ear in the first sound, and most obvious sense of the terms employed. Beauty and grace of speech are certainly used in this text as figures ot much higher qualities, which were conspicuous in otlf Lord. and in him alone of all the sons of men. That image of God in which Adam was created, in our Lord appeared perfect and entire ; in the unspotted innocency of his life the sanctity of his manners, and his perfect obedience to the law of God; in the vast powers of his mind, intellectual and moral : intellectual, in his comprehension of all knowl- edge ; moral, in his power of resisling all the allurements of vice, and of encountering all the difficulties of . religion, despising hardship and shame, enduring pain and death. This was the beauty with which he was adorned beyond the sons of men. In him, the beauty of the divine image was refulgent in its original perfection; in all the sons of Adam, obscured and marred, in a degree to be scarce discernible; the will depraved, the imagination de- bauched, the reason weak, the passions rampant ! This deformity is not externally visible, nor the spiritual beauty which is its opposite: but, could the eve be turned u] on the internal man. we should see the hideous shape of a will at enmity with God; a heart disregarding his law, insensible of his goodness, fearless of his wrath, swelling wilh the passions of ambition, avarice, vain-glory, lust. Yet thi- is the picture of the unregenerated man', by the depravity consequent upon the fall, born in iniquity, and conceived in sin. Christ, on the contrary, by the mysterious mai ner of his conception, was brrn without spot 'of sin ; he grew up and lived full of grace and truth, perfectly sanctified in flesh and spirit. With this beauty he was "adorned beyond the sons of -IIohslev. Ver. 3. Gird thy sword upon r^y thigh, O most Mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. From the commendation of the comeliness of the king's person, and the graciousness of his speech, the Psalmist, in the same figurative style, passes to the topic of his prowess as -i Mini ir, under which character our Lord is perpetu- ally described in the prophecies. The enemies h( '>ad lo Ps. 45. PSA (lie wicked passions of men, the devil in his « [Tea and machinations, and the persecuting powei world. The warfare is continued through the whole of the period [have mentioned, commencing upon oui I ' .1 - eension, ai n hich lime be i repn i d, in the Ret elation, horse, v, itb a crown upon Ins id, nd a bow in his hand, conquering and to conquer." ["he Psalmist, in iinagei >, almo il the ame tosts bun as a warlike prince preparing to lake the field; de cribe hi weapons, and the magnificence of his armour, and prom- ises him virion ami universal dominion. This veise,*l fear, inusl be bill ill understood by the English reader. The words, "O most Mighty!'' \nv \\e.,k !y render the original, which is a single word, one of the lilies oi Christ, ill its literal sense expressive ol might and valour. But t lie great difficulty which, in my apprehen- sion, must perplex the English reader, lies in the exhorta- tion, to gird on glory and majesty together with the sword. The tilings have no obvious connexion; and how are ma- jesty and glory, in any sense which the words may I u m our language, to be girt on upon the person 1 The truth is, thai, 111 the Hebrew language, these words have a great variety and latitude of meaning; and either these very words, or their synonymes, are used in other places for splendid dress, and lor robes of slate ; and being things to je girt 011, they must here denote some pari of the warrior's dress. They signify such son of armour, of costly mate- rials and exquisite workmanship, as was worn by the greatest generals, and by kings when they led their armies ..ml n;i> eonl 1 1 veil tor ornament as well as safety. The whole verse might be intelligibly and yet faithfully rendered, in these words: — ■• Warrior i giri Buckle on thv : Vei i And in thy majesty ride prosperously, be- cause of truth, and meekness, and righteous- ness ; and thy right hand shall teach thee ter- rible things. That is, take aim with thy bow and arrow at the enemy ; lie prosperous, or successful in the aim taken; ride on 'in ; . • 1 - n it of the living foe, in the cause of religious truth, evangelical humility, and righteousness. "And thy right hand Khali leach ihee terrible things ;" rather, ■' And thy own right hand shall show Ihee wonderful things. *' In these words, the Saviour, effecting every thing by his own power, is represented under the image of a great champion in the field, who is prompted by his own courage, and a reliance on his own strength and skill, to attempt what might seem impracticable; singly to attack whole squadrons of the enemy; to cut his way through their em- battled troops ; to scale their ramparts and their walls, and at last achieve what seems a wonder to himself when the fray is over, when he is at leisure to survey the bulwarks he has demolished, and the many carcasses' his single arm has stretched upon the plain. Such great things he will be able to effect. It yet remains to be more fully explained, what is meant 111 the Psalmist's detail of the Messiah's war, by those ■ wonders" which " his own right hand was to show him :" "Thy own ] |olil hand shs.ll show Ihee wonders." Our public translation has it, " terrible things." But the notion of terror is not of necessity included in the sense of the original word, as it is used by the sacred writers: it is sometimes, indeed, applied by them to frightful things: but it is also applied, with great latitude, to things extraordi- nary in their kind ; grand, admirable, amazing, awful; although they should not be frightful. We have no right, therefore, to take it in the strict sense of " frightful," unless something in the context points to that meaning, which is not the case in this passage. And, accordingly, instead of " terrible," we find, in some of the oldest English Bibles, the better chosen word, " wonderful." Now the "wonderful things" which Messiah's "own right hand" showed him, I take to be the overthrow of the pagan superstition, in the Roman empire, and other great king- doms of the world, by the mere preaching of the gospel. seconded by the exemplary lives and the miracles of the fust preachers, and by the' patient endurance of ment, torture, and death, lor the sake of Christ. It was, indeed, a won. lei I'ul 1 In ne;, « fought by 1 '1.11-1' smgle arm. « hen ins religion prevail, d tn 1 1 a of idol- aii v, supported a ■ 11 « u by tl the fearnin 'of] bile 1 phi 1 . 1 ad 1 ol all bj the invi t- erate prejudice 0 the vulgar, attached to their false gods by the gratification which their eery worship afforded tc the sensual passions, and by the natural partiality of man- . our ol any system, however absurd and CO] I U] il sane .1 by a 1. .i:e a i.: niuii v. Il was a w I.ll'lll thillg, ... : , , 1 1 1 ] , . ■ 1 . 1 11 . 1 . . ; 1 . . i 1 ■ i 1 . . ; ■ • pou.r, lost at once the whole of us external pomp and Splendour; when > 1 1 < ■ 1 1 . . ■ ben, ■m:. il 111 In- 01; ile-, ai ,1 spells and enchainments divested of their power, the idol- atrous worship which by those engines of deceit had been universally established, and for ages sup| oiled, notwith- standing the antiquity of its institutions, and the hew itching gayety and magnificence of ns festivals, Cell into hc-lcd ; when its cruel and lascivious rites, so long hidden in super- stitious veneration, on a sudden became the objects of a just and general abhorrence; when the imliequciiled temples; spoiled of their immense treasures, sunk in ruins, and the images, stripped of their gorgeous robes and cosily jewels, were thrown into the Tiber, or into the common recepta- cles of tilth and ordure. It was a wonderful thing, when the minds of all men took a sudden turn ; kings became the nursing lathers ol' the church, statesmen courted her alli- ance, philosophy embraced her faith, and even the sword was justly drawn in her defence. These were the ''won- derful things" effected by Christ's right hand ; and in these, this part of the Psalmist's prophecy has received its accom- plishment. Less than this his words cannol mean ; and to more than this they cannot with any certainty be extended ■ since these things satisfy all that is of necessity involved in his expressions.— Hobsley. Ver. 5. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; whereby the people fall under thee. The war in which the Psalmist represents the Saviour as engaged, is very different from the wars which the princes of this world wage with one another: it is not for the de- struction of the lives of men, but for the preservation of their souls. This prophetic text of the Psalmist relates only to that spiritual war which Christ wages wiih the enemies of man, for man's deliverance ; to the war arising from that enmity which was originally put between the seed of tl» serpent and the woman's seed. The offensive weapons in this war of charity, according to the Psalmist, are of two sorts, a sword and arrows. The comruon mili- tary sword is a heavy massive weapon, for close engage- ment: wielded by a strong and skilful aim, it stabs and cuts, opens dreadful gashes where it falls, severs limbs, lops the head, or cleaves the body. The arrow is a light mis- sile weapon, which, in ancient times, was used to annoy the enemy at a distance, and particularly when put to flight. It comes whizzing through the air unseen, and, when il hits, so small is the wound, and so swift the passage of the weapon, that it is scarcely felt, till it fixes its sharp point in the very heart. Now both these weapons, the sword and the arrow, are emblems of one and the same thing; which is no other than the word of God, in its different effects, and different manners of operation on the minds of men, represented under these two different images. The word of God maybe divided, indeed, into two parts, the word of reproof, commination, and terror ; and the word of persuasion, promise, and hope. The former holds up to the sinner the picture of himself; sels forth the turpitude of sin, the holiness of God, God's hatred of unrighteousness; and ajarms the conscience with the danger of a state 01 enmity with God, and with denunciations of implacable wrath and endless punishment. The second, the word of persuasion, promise, and hope sets before the penitent the riches of God's mercy, display- ed in the scheme of man's redemption : points to the cross, where man's guilt was expiated ; bids the contrite sinnet rely on the Redeemer's intercession; offers the daily sup- ply of grace to confirm him in his resolutions, and assist him in his efforts to conform himself to the precepts anc. example of the Saviour, and promises victory and glory to 380 PSA .hem that persevere: thus turning despondency into hone, and tear into love. The first, the word of terror, is the sword girt upon Messiah's thigh; the second, the word of persuasion, is the arrow shot From Ins bow. For the sense ol the first metaphor, we have the authority of lli.- sjrrcd uiii.-is themselves. " The sword of I he Spirit," say. St, Paul to the Ephesians, " is the woid of God." And m the Epistle to the Hebrews, the full signification of the figure is opened, and the propriety of the application shown: " For the word of God," says the inspired author, " is quick and powerful, (rather, lively and energetic,) and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing to the parting of soul arid spirit, and to the joints and mat row," — that is, as the soldier's sword of steel cuts through all the exterior in- teguments of skin and muscle, to the bone, and even through the hard substance of the bone itself, to the very marrow, and divides the ligaments which keep the joints of the body together; so this spiritual sword of God's awful word pen'etrates the inmost recesses of the human mind, pierces to the very line of separation, as it were, of the sensitive and the intelligent principle, lops off the animal part, divides the joints where reason and passion are united, sets the in- tellect free to exert its powers, kills sin in our members, opens passages for grace to enter and enrich the marrow of the soul, and thus delivers the man from his body of death. Such are the effects for which the powerful word of terror is compared to a two-edged sword. The comparison of the word of promise to the arrow is more easily understood, being more familiar, and analo- gous to those figures of speech which run through all lan- guages, by which, whatever makes a quick and smart impression on the moral feelings, is represented under the image of a pointed missile weapon ; as when we speak of " the thrilling darts of harmony," or " the shafts of elo- quence." The Psalmist speaks' of these arrows of God's word, as sticking in " the hearts of the King's enemies," that is, of the King Messiah ; for he, you will remember, is the only king in question. His enemies, in the highest sense of the word, are those who are avowedly leag led with theap 'state faction; atheists, deists, idolaters, heretics, perverse disputers, those who, in any manner ol set design, oppose the gospel; who resist the truth by argument, or encounter it wiih ridicule; who explain it away by sophis- ticated interpretations, or endeavour to crush it by the force of persecution. Of such hardened enemies there is no hope, till they have been hacked and hewed, belaboured, and all but slain (m the strong language of one of the ancient prophets) by the heavy sword of the word of terror. But, in a lower sense, all are enemies till they hear of Christ, and the terms of his peace are offered to them. Many such are wrought upon by mild admonition, and receive in their hearts the arrows of the word of persuasion. Such, no doubt, were many of those Jews who were pricked to the heart by St. Peter's first sermon, on the day of Pente- cost: and even those worse enemies, if they can'be brought to their feeling by the ghastly wounds and gashes of the terrific sword of the word of threatening, may afterward be pierced by the arrow, and carry about in their hearts its barbed point. And by the joint effect of these two weapons, the sword and the arrow, the word of terror and the word of persuasion, " peoples," says the Psalmist, that is, whole Kin-gdoms and nations in a mass, "shall fall under thee ;" shall forsake their ancient superstitions, renounce their idols, and submit themselves to Christ. So much for the offensive weapons, the sword and the arrows. But the defensive armour demands our attention : for it has its use, no doubt, in the Messiah's war. His person, you will remember, is clad, in the third verse, " with refulgent, dazzling armour." This may be under- stood of whatever is admirable and amiable in theexlernal form and appearance of the Chrisiian religion. First, the character of Jesus himself; his piety towards God, his phi- lanthropy towards man; his meekness, humility, ready for- giveness'of injuries, patience, endurance of pain and death. Secondly, the same light of good works shining, in a less degree, in the lives of his disciples, particularly the apos- tles and blessed martyrs. Thirdly, whatever is decent and seemly in the government, the discipline, and the rites of the church. All these things, as thev tend to draw the admiration, and conciliate the good-will of men, and miti- gate the malice of the persecutor, are aptly represented LMS. Ps. 45. under the image of the Messiah's defensive armour, and had a principal share in making "peoples fall under him." ! — Hohsley. Ver. G. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. 7. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wicked- ness : therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. It was before shown, how inapplicable this address is to Solomon ; and it is obvious, that it is equally inapplicable to any earthly monarch : for of no throne but God's can it be affirmed with truth, that it is for ever and ever; of no king, but of God and of his Christ, it can be said, that he loves righteousness with a perfect love, and hates wicked- ness with a perfect hate; of no sceptre, but the sceptre of God and of his Christ, that it is a straight sceptre. The sceptre has been, from the earliest ages, a badge of royalty. It was originally nothing more than a straight slenfler rod, studded sometimes tor ornament with little nails of gold. It was an emblem of the perfect integrity of the monarch in the exercise of his power, both by himself and by his ministers, inflexibly adhering to the straight line of right and justice, as a mason or carpenter to his rule. The per- fection of the emblem consisted in the straightness of the stick ; for every thing else was ornament. The straight- ness, therefore, ascribed by the Psalmist to Messiah's sceptre, is to be understood of the invariable justice of ihe administration of his government. Now, certainly there have been many kings, both in ancient and in modern times, to whom the praise is due of a cordial regard in general to righteousness, and of a settled principle of dis- like to wickedness; many who, in the exercise of their authority, and the measure of their.governmenl, have been generally directed by that just sense of right and wrong; but yet kings are not exempt from the frailties of human nature ; the very best of them are, at least, in an equal de- gree with other good men, liable to the surprises of the passions, and the seductions of temptation; insomuch that that predominant love of righteousness and hatred of ini- quity, maintaining an absolute ascendency in the mind, in all times, and upon all occasions, which the Psalmist attributes to his heavenly King, has belonged to none that ever wore an earthly crown": much less is the perfect straightness of the sceptre, a perfect conformity to the rule of right, to be found in the practice and execution of the governments of the world. But the kingdom of the God-man is in this place intended. This is evident from what is said in the seventh verse: " God, even thine own God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows;" that is, God haih advanced thee to a state of bliss and glory above all those whom th iiiinisied. The embroider; of her upper garmeni is, whatever there is of beauty in bei external form, her discipline and her riles. - Hdhsi.EY. V>r. 14. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of noodle-work: the virgins Iter I'nin- panions that follow her shall be brought unto thee. 15. With gladness and rejoicing thai I they be brought: the* shall eater into the King s palace. Our public translation has simph-, " She is brought ;" but the original word implies, the poim. and conduct of a public The greatest caution U requisite in 10 interpret, in the detail of cirenm-'aii. :e th d1 things yet remote. We may venture, however, to apply this conducting Of the queen to the palace of her lord, to some remarkable assistance which i >e Israelites will re- eive from the Christian nations ol he Genlile race, in Iheir resettlement in ihe Holy Land ; which seems to be mentioned under ihe very same image by the prophet Isaiah, at the end of the eighteenth chapler, and by the prophet Zephaniah, chap. iii. 10, and is clearly ihe sub- ject of more explicit prophecies. " The ■ saith Jehovah," speaking to Zion, in ihe prophet Isaia' 'Behold, 1 Will lift Up mv hand lo the G -utiles, and se. uf. my standard lo the peoples; and they shall bring thy sons in their arras, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders." And in another place, " They" (the Gentiles mentioned in Lhe preceding verse) " shall bring all your brethren, for an offering unto Jehovah, out of all nations, upon horses, and 1:1 chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift oeasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem." Bui the Psalmist is struck with the appearance of a very remarkable band, described in the next verse, which makes l pari in this procession : — " She i* conducted in pre ^i.ei to the King, Virgins follow her, her companions, unto thee ; Th.-v are r on.hicl.'.l in precession, Willi festivity nu. 1 rejoicing; They enter Ihe palace of ihe. King." gins seem to be different persons from Ihe kings' of the ninth verse. Those " kings' daughters" were already distinguished ladies of the monarch's owm < .in : these virgins are introduced to it by lhe queen : they follow her as part of her reiinue; and are introduced as her companions. The former represent, as we conceive, the churches of Gentile origin, formed and established in the period of the wife's disgrace: ihe-e virgins we take lo be lew churches, formed among nations, not sooner called lo rhe ! nowledge of the gospel, and lhe faiih in Christ, at the very season of the restoration of Israel, in whose conver- sion the restored Hebrew church may have a principal share. This is that fulness of lhe Gentiles of which St. Paul speaks as coincident in time wilh the recovery of the .lews, and. in a great degree, lhe effect of their conversion. "Have they smmbled lhal they should fall?" saith the apos'le, speaking of the natural Israel; "God forbid: but rather, through their fall, salvation is come unto the Gen- tiles, for to provoke them to emulation. Now, if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much mere their fulness'? F..r if the c.s-ing away of them be lhe reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of ihem be, but life from Ihe dead ?" In these lexis, the apostle clearlydays out this order of lhe business, in the conversion of the whole world lo Christ : First, lhe rejection of the unbelieving Jews : then, the first call of the Gentiles : the recovery of lhe Jews, after a long season of obstinacy and blindness, at last provoked to emu- lation, brought to a risht understanding of God's dispensa- tions, by that very call which hitherto has been one of their stumbling-blocks': and lastly, in consequence of lhe cbn- .ersion of lhe Jews, a prodigious influx from lhe Gentile naiioic \ .-I urn on i ei ed, and iniiuer e.l m th da 1 1, n. and c..i rupiions ol idolatry; which make little less than Iwn thirds, not of the civilized, bul ol the inhabited world. Tiie . I -he- of this new conversion seem lob fins, the quei n's bi idemaids, in the nuptial pn Ver, 16. Instead of thy fathers shall b/a thy chija r.'ii, whom thou mayest make princes in all th« earth. 17. I will make thy name to be remem- bered in all generations; therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and over. In the next verse (the sixteenth) the Psalmist again ad- dresses the queen : — "Thy children shall he in lhe place of lliy fathers; Then shall make' l lean princes in all lie- cailli ." Thy children shall be what thy fathers were, God's peculiar i in. 1. 1 a iii iinguished rani and i haractei in The I'salmi-t closes his divine song v ith a di-tich setting forth the di sign, and predicting the effect, of his own per- formance : — all generations. By endiling this marriage-song, he hoped lo be lhe means of celebrating the Redeemer's name from age to age, and of inciting lhe nations of the world to join in his praise. The event has not disappointed the holy prophet' tion. His composition has been the delight of the congre- gations of ihe faithful for little less than three thousand years. Tor one thousand and forty, it was a means of I.. ■■•[ ie i live in the synagogue ihe hope of the Redeemer to come: for eighteen hundred since, it has been ihe means of perpetuating in Christian congregations the grateful re- membrance of what has been done, anxious atleniion to what is doing, and of lhe cheering hope of the second coming of our Lord, who surely cometh to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, and to set up a standard to the na- tions which yet sit in darkness and lhe shadow of death "He that witnesseth these things, saiih, Behold, I come quickly. And the Spirit saith, Come; and the bride saith, Come; and let every one that hcareih say, Amen. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus 1" — Horslet. PSALM XLVI. Ver. 5. God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and thai right early. The Hebrew has, instead of early, "when the morning appeareth." Ains worth, " God will help it at the looking forth of the morning." A person in perplexity says, " Yes, I hope the morning will soon come ; then will my friends help me." " When the daylight shall appear, many will be ready to assist me." "Ah! when will the morning come? How' long has been this night of adversity !"— Roberts. PSALM XLVIT. Ver. 1. O clap your hands, all ye people, shout unto God with the voice of triumph. See on Lam. 2. 15. v PSALM XLVIII. Ver. G. Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail. " His pain nol great ? it was equal to lhat of a woman in travail." "Alas! alas! this is like the agony of the womb." " Nothing but the womb knows trouble like this."— Roberts . PSALM LI. ' Ver. 7. Puree me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than Hyssop, a name, derived from the ;.ee.-°w escbA an ike many other names of plants, passed from the ea>l"i 384 PSA into Ihe Greek, and from this into most European languages, signifies the plant called in German, Wohlgemuth, (i. e. pleasant,) probably on account of its aromatic smell, and also marjoram, but called by botanists origamwm creticum. Rauwolf found this plant on" the Mount of Olives, and be- tween Ramah and Joppa. — Rosenmuller. PSALM LV. Ver. 6. And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I flee away, and be at The Hindoos have a science called Aagi ja-Kannam , which teaches the art of flying ! and numbers in every age nave tried to acquire it. Those who wish to attain a bless- ing which is alar off, or who desire to escape from trouble, often exclaim, " Oh ! that I had learned the Aagiya-Kaii- nam; then should I gain the desire of my heart."" " Could I but fly, these things would not be so."— Roberts. Ver. 7. Lo, then would I wander far off, and re- main in the wilderness. Selah. The classical bards of Greece and Rome make frequent allusions to the surprising rapidity of the dove, and adorn their lines with many beautiful figures from the manner in which she flies. Sophocles compares the speed with which she cleaves the ethereal clouds, to the impetuous rapidity of ihe whirlwind ; and Euripides, the furious impetuosity of the Bacchanals rushing upon Pentheus, to the celerity of her motions. And Kimchi gives it as the reason why the Psalmist prefers the dove to other birds, that while they become weary with flying, and alight upon a rock or a tree to recruit their strength, and are taken, the dove, when she is fatigued, alternately rests one wing and flies with the other, and by this means escapes from the swiftest pur- suers. The 'Orientals knew weU- how to avail themseives of her impetuous wing on various occasions. It is a curious fact, that she was long employed in those countries as a courier, to carry tidings of importance between distant ciiies. yElian asserts, that Taurosthenes communicated to his father at JSgina, by a carrier pigeon, the news of his success in the Olympic games, on the very same day in which he obtained the prize. The Romans, it appears from Pliny, often employed doves in the same service ; for Brutus, during the siege of Mutina, sent letters tied to their feet, into the camp of the consuls. This remarkable cus- tom has descended to modern times ; Volney informs us, that in Turkey the use of carrier pigeons has been laid aside, only for the last thirty or forty years, because the Curd robbers killed the birds, and carried off their de- spatches.— Paxton. Ver. 17. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will pray, cry id he shall hear my The frequency and the particular seasons of prayer are circumstances chiefly connected with the situation and dis- position of such as habituate themselves to this exercise. But from a singular conformity of practice in persons re- mote both as to age and place, it appears probable that some idea must have obtained generally, that it was expedient and acceptable to pray three limes every day. Such was the practice of David, and also of Daniel, (see ch. vi. 10,) and as a parallel, though, as far as connected with an idol- atrous system, a different case, we are informed that " it is an invariable rule with the Bramins to perform their devo- tions three times every day: at sunrise, at noon, and at sun- set." (Maurice.) — Burder. ""er. 21. The icords of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords. See on Cant. 3. 8. PSALM LVI. Ver. 8. Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle : are they not in thy Injok 1 .MS. Chap. 55— 57. The lachrymatories used in Greece and Rome are, I be- lieve, Unknown to the Hindoos. A person in distress, as he weeps, says, " Ah! Lord, take care of these tears, lei iheni not run in vain." " Alas ! my husband, why beat me 1 my tears are known to God." — Roberts. The custom of putting tears into the ampulla or urna lacrynwles, so well known among the Romans, seems to have been more ancieni.ly in use in Asia, and particularly among the Hebrews. These lachrymal urns were of differ- ent materials, some of glass, some of earth, and of various forms and shapes. One went about to each person in ihe company at the height of his grief with a piece of cotton in his hand, with which he carefully collects Ihe falling tears, and which he then squeezes into the bottle, preserving them with the greatest care. This was no difficult matter; for Homer says the tears of Telemachus, when he heard of his father, dropped on the ground. They were placed on the sepulchres of the deceased as a memorial of the affection and sorrow of their surviving relations and friends. It will be difficult to account, on anv oilier suppo- sition, for the followirfg expressions of the Psalmist : '• Pul thou my tears into thy bottle." If this view be admitted, the meaning will be : " Let my distress, and the tears I shed in consequence of it, be ever befoiie thee." — Paxton. PSALM LVI1. Ver. 4. My soul is among- lions; and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. The arrows were usually made of light wood, with a head of brass or iron, which was commonly barbed. Some- times they were armed with two, three, or four hooks. The heads of arrows were sometimes dipped in poison. Horace mentions the venenata agitta; the poisoned arrows of the ancient Moors in Africa. They were used by many other nations in different parts of the world ; and if we believe the reports of modern travellers, these cruel weapons are not yet laid aside by some barbarous tribes. The negroes in the countries of Bornou and Soudan fight with poisoned arrows; the arrow is short, and made of iron; the smaller" sciatch with it causes the body to swell, and is infallibly mortal, unless counteracted by an antidote known among the natives. Everywhere, the poison used for this inhu- man purpose was of the deadliest kind; and ihe slightest wound was followed by almost instant death. From this statement it will appear, that arrows were by no means contemptible instruments of destruction, although they are not to be compared wilh the tremendous inventions of mod- ern warfare. We are not therefore to be surprised that sc many striking allusions to the arrow, and the troddeD bow, occur in the loftier strains of the inspired writers. The bitter words of the wicked are called "their arrows;" "their teeth are spears and arrows;" and the man that heareih false witness against his neighbour, is" a sharp arrow." But in these comparisons there is perhaps a literal meaning, which supposes a connexion between the mouth and the arrow. The circumslance related by Mr. Park might pos- sibly have its parallel in the conduct of the ancients; and if it had, clearly accounts for such figures as have been quoted. " Each' of the negroes took from his quiver a handful of arrows, and putting two between his teeth, and one in his bow, waved to us wilh his hand to keep at a dis- tance." Some are of opinion, that "the fiery darts," cou- cerning which the apostle Paul warned his Ephesian c( n- verts, allude to the poisoned arrows, or javelins, which were so frequently used in those times ; others contend, that the allusion is made to those missile weapons, which were sometimes employed by the ancients in battles and sieges, to scatter fire in the ranks, or among the dwell- ings of their enemies. These were the r»ptp,pa /?a-i of Arrian, and the Ttvp-pnoi mam of Thucydides, the heads of which were surrounded with combustible matter, and set on fire, when they were launched against the hostile army." — Paxton. Ver. 8. Awake up, my glory; awake psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early. Dr. Boothroyd has this, " Awake, my glory ! awake, lyre Ps. 58. PSALMS. " and harp I" The Orientals oAen speak to in; n jeets-asifihev had intelligence. Thus,astrolli before he begins to play in you fs, Arise, ■ ■ fins great kin- well shall thou be rewarded." A person » bo « hen being carried a thou, go." The Propnetsays, "Awake, oh sword!" W en ■ were preparing for a dnel, difficulty in drawing his sword from the scabbard; at which In- What! is thy sword afraid V — \ replied the other, 'it is only hungry for thy blood.'" PSALM LVI1I. \ i 3 The wicked are estranged fi om tl they go astraj as s ion as they be I i, speak- ing lies. 4. Their poison is li a serpent; they are like the deal' adder that Btoppeth her ear. 1 1 nil ask whence he had this disposition 1 I will tell yon : i' was from the womb." " Expect him not to change; he had it in the womb." The figure of the wicked going astray as soon as thi y are born, seems to be taken frpm the ■ rofa young serpent soon after its birth. The vounges; serpent can envoy poison to any thing it bites; and the suffering in all cases is great, though the mi fatal. Put a suck near the reptile, whose age o many days, and he-wu] immediately snap at it. The young of the tiger and alligator are equally fierce in their earliest habits. — Roberts. Several of the serpent tribe are believed to be deaf, OT very dull i>!' hearing. Perhaps that which is called the ei serpent, is more I have several times been close upon them, but the nit of the way. They lurk in the path, and the ii by them will expire a few minutes after the ! I 'ilk not to him : he is as the deal' serpent, he will not bear." " Truly, I am a deaf serpent, and may soon bite you." "Young man, if you repeat the uM which the priest has whispered in your ear, you M birth will be that of a deaf serpent."— Roberts. Ver. 4. Their poison is like the poison of a ser- i enl : they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her e tr, ,: It appears, savs Chardin, that all the teeth of a serpent are not venomous, because those that charm them will cause their serpents to bite them till they draw blood, and yet the wound will not swell. Adders will swell at the sound of a flute, raising themselves up on one halt' of their body, turn- ing the other part about, and beating proper time ; being wonderfully delighted with music, and following the in- strument. 'Its head, before round and long likeaneel.it spreads out broad and flat, like a fan. Adders and serpents twisi themselves round the neck and naked body of young children, belonging to those that charm them. At Surat, an Armenian seeing one of them make an adder bite his • it receiving any injury, said, I can do that'; and causing himself to be wounded in the hand, he died in [ess than two hours." A serpent's possessing a musical ear, its keeping time in its motions with the harmony, its altering the shape of its head, are circumstances which, if true, are very wonderful. — Harmrr. Vor 5. Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely. Whether any man ever possessed the power to enchant or charm adders and serpents ; or whether those who pre- tended to do so profited only by popular credulity, it is cer- tain that a favourable opinion of magical power once existed. Numerous testimonies to this purpose may be collected from ancient writers. Modern travellers also afford their evidence. Mr. Browne, in his Travels in Africa, thus describes the charmers of serpents. Romeili is an open place of an irregular form, where feats of jug- gling are performed. The charmers of serpents seem also worthy of remark, their powers seem extraordinarv. The serpent most common at Khaira is of the viper class, and undoubtedly poisonous, [for house, the charmer is sent foi , « ho nsea a ei rutin foi ' ■ I us enticed on) ot the cal I in into a bag At other times 1 ha\ i serpents twist round the bodit s of these psylli in all direc- tions, without having had their tangs extracted or broken, and without injnry.— Btmoea. Ver. 5. Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely, tl. Break theii teeth, 0 God, in their mouth; break out the great tooth of the young lions, 0 Lord. Sm, i„ Eccl.x. 11. erpent charmer, maybe found in every village, and some why have gainefl great fame actually liv e By the art. ( leea I ha\ e several ser- pents, « inch they pi' ic round ["he and to talk to tl e I--', lies, 10 , ■ erect, ana theii hoods distended. Alter this, he puts his arm to them, « hich they affect to bite, and soineiiin. , f theii teeth. From close observation 1 am convinced that all these serpents thus exhibit I's.-.imist s, this ;„ |,ave bad bjs , | w hen he savs, " Break their teeth." Living at in been repeat! i his serpents to bite. buihe would never allow it; beca se he knew no harm would ensue. It is, however, gran power of their charms, and there can be no doubt that serpents in their wild state are affecle influence of music. 0 once went to a friend of mine (in the civil servii ■ ) « ith his serpents, i ml charmed him. Alter s me tune the getitleiieo, have a cobracapella in a cage, can you charm him I" " Oh! yes," said the charmer^ The serpent was let oul qfthi cage, and the man began his incantations and eh. inns; the ned on his arm, and he was dead before the night. The following is said to be a most potent charm for r.ll poisonous so rpents : — Sul/t !!\ lec/c, srtolave, aknru- ilnn, Turin, oron, rait: i Uiya, rvitn- kai, viva; which means, "Oh! serpent, thou who art coiled in the path, get out of my way ; for around tbee are the mongoos, the porcupine, and the kite in his circles is ready to lake thee." The mongoos is in shape and ;tize mm h like the English weasel. "The porcupine is also a great enemy of the serpent. The kite, before he roiinceson his prey, flies round in circles, and then drops like a stone; he seizes the reptile with his talons just behind the head, carries it up in the air, and bills it in the head lill it expires. But there are also charmers for bears, tigers, elephants, and other fierce animals. A party having to go through forests or deserts to a distant country, generally contrive to have some one among them possessed of that art. A servant of mine joined himself to a company who were going from Batticaioa to Colombo. There wasa magician, who walked in front, who had required great fame as a charmer of serpents :.n*, a winding shell, cochlea, the well-known habitation which this animal carries about with him. Parkhurst is of opinion, that a better account of the name may be de- duced from the peculiar manner in which snails Ikrust them- selves forward in moving, and from the force with which they adhere to any substauce on which they light. The wise Author of nature, having refused them feet and claws to creep and climb, has compensated them in a way more commodious for their state of life, by the broad skin along each side cf the belly, and the undulating motion observa- ble there. By the latter, they creep ; by the former, as- sisted by the glutinous slime emitted from their body, they adhere firmly and securely to all kinds of superficies^ partly by the tenacity of their slime, and partly by the pressure of the atmosphere. Thus, the snail wastes herself by her own motion, every undulation leaving some of her moisture be- hind; and in the same manner, the actions of wicked men prove their destruction. They may, like the snail, carry their defence along with them, and retire into it on every appearance of danger; they may confidently trust in their own resources, and banish' far away the fear of evil; but the principles of ruin are at work within them, and although the progress may be slow, the result is certain. The holy Psalmist, guided by the spirit of inspiration, prayed, " As a snail which melleth, let every one of them pass away;" and Jehovah answered, " The'wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." — Paxton. Ver. 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living', and in his wrath. The Arabs heat stone pitchers by kindling fires in them, and then daub the outside with dough, which is thus baked. " They kindle a fire in a large stone pitcher, and when it is hot they mix the meal in water, as we do to make paste, and daub it with the hollow of their hands upon the outside of the pitcher, and this soft pappy dough spreads and is baked in an instant; the heat ot the pitcher havingdried up all its moisture, the bread comes off in small thin'slices, like one of our wafers." (D'Arvieux.)— Burdeu. PSALM LIX. Ver. 14. And at evening let them return, and le* them make a noise like a dog-, and go round about the city. Many cities in Syria, and other parts of the East, are crowded with dogs, which belong to no particular person, and by consequence, have none to feed them, but get their food in the streets, andiabout the maikets. Dogs also abound in all the Indian towns and villages, and are nu- merous, noisy, and troublesome, especially to travellers. Like those in Syria, they have no respective owner, gen- erally subsist upon charitv, and are never destroyed. Thev frequently hunt in large packs, like the jackals, which they resemble in many other respects. These allusions are clearly involved in the prayer of the royal Psalmist for de- liverance from his enemies: "And ai evening let them return ; and let them make a noise like ados, and go round about the city. Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge, if they be not satisfied."— Paxton. Ver. 15. Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge, if they be not satisfied. The great external purity which is so studiously attended tofcyfhe modern eastern people, as well as the ancient, produces some odd circumstances with respect to their do?s. They do not suffer them in their houses, and even with care avoid their touching them in the streets, which iiould be considered as a defilement. One would imagine then, that under these circumstances, as they do not appear by any means to be necessary in their cities, however im- portant they may be to those that feed flo-ks, there should ^e very few of these creatures found in those places; they are notwithstanding there in great numbers, and crowd their streets. They do not appear to belong to particular liersons, as our dogs do, nor to be fed distinctly bv such 'MS. Ps. 38— 62. as might claim >some interest in them, but get their food as they can. At the same time they consider it as right to take some care of them, and the charitable people among them frequently give money every week, or month, in butchers and bakers, to feed them at stated times, and some leave legacies at their deaths, for the same purpose. This is Le Bruyn's account. Thevenot and Maillet mention something of the same sort. In like manner, dogs seem to have been looked upon among the Jews in a disagreeable light, yet Ihey had them in considerable numbers in their cities, Ps. lix. 14. They were not, however, shut up in their houses or courts, Ps. lix. (J, It ; but seem to have been forced to seek their food where they could find il, Ps. lix. 15; to which I may add, that some care of them seems lobe indirectly enjoined to the Jews, Exod. xxii. 31; circumstances that seem to be more illustrated by these travellers into the East, than bv any commentators that I know of.— HAnMER. PSALM LX. Ver. 3. Thou hast showed thy people hard things ; thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonish- ment. 4. Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. Albertus Aquensis tells us, that when Jerusalem was taken in 1099, about three hundred Saracens got upon the roof of a very lofty building, and earnestly Degeed for quarter, but could not be induced by any promisi to come down, until they had received'the banner of Tan- cred. one of the chiefs of the crusade army, as a pledge of life. It did not indeed avail them, as that historian ob- serves ; for their behaviour occasioned such indignation, that ihey were destroyed to a man. The event showed the faithlessness of these zealots, whom no solemnities eoul J bind; but the Saracens surrendering themselves upon the delivery of a standard to them, proves in what a strong light they looked upon the giving them a banner, since it in- duced them lo trust it, when they would not trust any prom- ises. Perhaps the delivery of a banner was anciently esteemed, in like manner, an obligation to protect, and that the Psalmist might consider it in this light, when, upon a victory gained ever the Syrians and Edomites, after the public affairs of Israel had been in a bad state, he says, Thou hast showed thy people hard things, &c. Thou hast, git-en a banner to them that fear thee. Though thou didst for a time give up thine Israel into the hands of their enemies, thou hast now given them an assurance of thy having received them under thy protection. When the Psalmist is represented as saying, Thou hast given a ban- ner lolhcm that fear Hue, that il mini be displayed, it maybe questioned whether it is rightly translated, since it is most probable they used anciently only a spear, properly orna- mented, to distinguish it from a common one, as this same Albertus tells us, that a very long spear, covered all over wilh silver, lo which another writer of those crusade wars adds a ball of gold on the top, was ihe standard of the Egyptian princes at that time, and carried before their armies. Thou hast siren a banner, pa nes, an ensign, or a standard, to thi m that fear thee, that il man be lifted up, may perhaps be a better version ; or rather, that they may lift it up lo themselves, or encourage themselves with the confident persuasion that they are under the protection of God because of the truth, thy word of promise, which is an assurance of projection, like the giving me and my people a banner, the surest of pledges.— Harmer. Ver. 4. Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. Has a person gained a signal triumpn over his enemv b) the assistance of another, he then says of the latter, "Hi has given me a victorious faiddi," banner. " Yes," saj the conquerors, " we have gained a victorious banner "— Roberts. PSALM LXII. Ver. 3. How long will ye imagine mischie against a man? ye shall be slain all of you . PSALM! 3-7 s a bowing wall shall ye be, and i i drink, but hi, it seems, was bighty acceptable to them, • the air in a place where, from its situation, il ■ "' '° he extremely hot. t Ine Of the first things that occurs to a reflecting mind upon readitc- ol the Psalmist, is, an inquiry Is rain was miraculous, or a common - i nf the God of nature, though under the direc- tion or a gracious providence. It seems now, from this account of Mr. Pitts, to have been the last, and not contrary to the common course of things in that wilderness. a is made of this merciful shower in the hooks of Moses, so far as I remember; but as we are told in the Psalm, immediately after, of the fleeing of kings, if the is referred to here are ranged in exact order, it muaid " be male and also female— Roberts S90 IJSA Ver. 13. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. 1 4. Thou brakest the heads of levia- than in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. See on Job 41. 1, &c. Ver. 19. O deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the multitude of the wicked ; forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever. It has already been observed, that the turtle-dove never ad mils a second mate, but lingers out her life in sorrowful widowhood. To this remarkable circumstance, these words of David are by many thought to refer : " O deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the multitude of the wicked ; forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever." As the turtle cleaves to her mate with unshaken fidelity, so these interpeters say, had Israel adhered to their God. But it is well known tha't God's ancient people were a ftiff- necked and rebellious race, equally fickle and perfidious, and discovering on almost every occasion a mo 4 violent and unreasonable inclination to the worship of heathen deities. It is, therefore, more natural to suppose, that the holy Psalmist, by this term, alludes to the weak and helpless state of his people, that like the turtle had neither power nor inclination to resist their numerous enemies. The dove is a harmless and simple creature, equally destitute of skill and courage for the combat; and the turtle is the smallest of the family. She is therefore a most proper emblem of the national imbecility into which the people of Israel had sunk, in consequence of their numerous iniqui- ties, with which they had long provoked the God of their fathers. They who were the terror of surrounding na- oons, while they feared the Lord and kept his command- ments, whom God himself instructed in the art of war, and :ed to certain victory, had by their folly become the scorn rf their neighbours, and an easy prey to every invader. — PtXTON. Sometimes those that have no tents, shelter themselves from the inclemency of the night air, in holes and caverns ivhich they find in th^ir rocky hills, where they can kindle ■ires to warm themselves, as well as to dress their provis- ions; to which may be added, that doves also, in those countries, freqytnf.y haunt such places, as well as some >'her birds. Dr. Richard Chandler, in his travels in Asia Minor, ha;, pjth taken notice of the doves there lodging in loles of lb; locks; and of the shepherds and fishermen oeing won t j make use of such retreats, and of their kin- liing fuej in them, by which practice those doves must be trequeJM very much smutted, and their feathers dirtied. And I Ji"e been sometimes ready to imagine, that an at- ientiO'i i'j these circumstances may afford as easy and uatu.a'. an account as any that has been given of that association of such very different things as doves and smoky places, which we meet with in the 68th Psalm. It is certain the people of Israel are compared to a dove, in the book of Psalms ; " O deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the multitude of the wicked ; forget not the congrega- tion of thy poor for ever," Ps. lxxiv. 19; and the same image appears to have been made use of, in this G8th Psalm. If it was made use of, it was not unnatural to compare Israel, who had been in a very afflicted state in Egypt, to a dove making its abode in the hollow of a rock, which had been smutted by the fires shepherds had made in it for the heat- in,' theii milk, or other culinary purposes ; which led them to make such little heaps of stones, on which they might set their pots, having a hollow under them, in which thev put the fuel, according to the eastern mode, of which I have given an account elsewhere, and which little build- ings are meant by the word here translated pots. This image m'ight very properly be made use of to ex- press any kind of affliction Israel might have suffered, when •hey are compared as a body of people to a dove ; and cer- idihlv not less so, when they had been forced to work with- out remission in the brick-kilns of Egypt. For so the sense will be something like this: O my people! though ye have been like a dove in a hole of a rock, that hath been black- ened by the fires of the shepherds for the boiling their pots; ya. on this joyous occasion did you appear as the most beautiful of that species, w-hose wings are like silver, and the more muscular parts, from whence the strength ol the wings are derived, like the splendour of gold.— Hab- PSALM LXXV. Ver. 4. I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly; ■ and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn : 5. Lift not up your horn on high : speak not -with a stiff neck. This passage will receive some illustration from Bruce's remarks in his Travels to discover the source of the Nile, where, speaking of the head-dress of the governors of the provinces of Abyssinia, he represents it as consisting of a large broad fillet bound upon their forehead, and tied be-- hind their head. In the middle of this was a horn, or a conical piece of silver gilt, about four inches long, much in the shape of our common candle extinguishers. This is called kirn, or horn, and is only worn in reviews, or parades after victory. The crooked manner in which they hold the neck, when this ornament is on their forehead, for fear it should fall forward, seems to agree with what the Psalmist calls spca/.ini; irilh a stiff neck, for it perfectly shows the meaning of .speaking with a stiff neck, when you hold the horn on high, or erect, like the horn of a unicorn. Mr. Munroe, speaking of the females in a Maronite vil- lage, in Mount Lf'binun, observes: " But the most remark- able peculiarities of their dress, are the immense silver ear-rings lu:n_ ;:._' i n ward upon the neck, and the tantoiira, or ' horn,' which supports the veil. This latter ornament varies in form, material, and position, according to the dignity, taste, and circumstances of the wearer. They are of gold, silver gilt, or silver, and sometimes of wood. The former are either plain or figured in low relief, and occa- sionally set with jewels; but the length and position of them is that upon which the traveller looks with the great- est interest, as illustrating and explaining a familiar ex- pression of scripture. The young, the rich, and the vain, wear the tantoura of great' length, standing straight up from the top of the forehead; whereas the humble, the poor, and the aged, place it upon the side of the head, much shorter, and spreading at the end like a trumpet. I do not mean to say, that these distinctions ai;e universal, but I was told that they are very general, and thus the 'exalted horn' still remains a mark of power and confidence, as it was in the davs of Israel's glory." — (Summer Ramble in Syria, 1833.)— B. 4' We stopped for the night at the village of Barook. chiefly inhabited by Druses, many of whom are said to have adopted the creed of their Maronite neighbours. Oust tent was placed close to the house of the principal vender of small wares, round which an arrival soon attract- ed a crowd, but far superior in appearance and civility to the inhabitants of any district we had previously seen. Most of the men wore clean white turbans, and the women were wrapped in blue veils, beneath which a tnnloor, that in- variable article of Druse luxury, which is worn day and night, made a conspicuous figure. This we had now an opportunity of examining, for our host, accompanied by his wife, came to our tent, attracted by the novelty of tea, which they both drank, when well sweetened, with apparent satisfaction. The lady, in return, satisfied our curiosity by taking of) her tanioor, which was of silver rudely' enclosed with flowers, stars, and other devices, tin length it was. pn- haps, something more than a foot : but in shape had little resemblance to a horn, being a mere hollow tube, increas- ing in size from the diameter of an inch and a hnlf at chip extremity, to three inches at the other, where it terminated like the month of a trumpet. If the smaller end was closet?, it might serve for a drinking-cup ; and in Germany glares of the same form and size are occasionally used. This strange ornament, placed on a cushion, is securely fixed ti- the upper part of the forehead by two silk cords, which, after surrounding the head, hang behind nearlv lo the ground, terminating in large tassels, which amonglhe better classes are capped with silver." — (Hogg's Visit to Damas- cus, Jerusalem, &c, 1833.)— B. A man of lofty bearing is said to carry his hokn very high. To him who is proudly interfering with the affairs of another it will be said, " Why shou your Somftu (no™) Ps. 71 P8A LMS. 39 > here !" " Whai ' are yon a I be will make the p lord, you have a great horn." "Chinnan has lam Uke the deer, whose horns have fallen Off."— ROB- ERTS. \' ■:■ 8 For in the hand of the Lord ; _■ and- the wine is red; it is full of mixture, and he ) reth out of the same : bul 1 1 . all ili • wicke 1 of the earth shall wring i / drink them. ltd win:-, in particular, is more esteemed in the East than ! v. ■ are told in the travels of < ilearius, that ii ni in Christians in finl Brazil w I, or saffron, into their vine, to Rive it a n the wine is not so red as they like, they making no account of white wine. He mentions the : re. These accounts of their putting Bra ilwoodot tffi »intotbeirwines,iogivethem a deeper red, seem to discover an energj in the Bebrev word dis i ' ■ i Piov. win. ill. that 1 never remarked anywhere. It is of the conjugation called Hith- pihel, =-\s- i lunarians, denotes an action thai turns upon the ageni itself: it is not always, it mavbc I; but in this case it ought lo be taken according to the strict- ness of grammar, and that it intimates the wine's making itself redder l>v something put into it : Look not on the vine i : ppears, indeed, from I-. Ixiii. •2, that some of the wines about Judea were in; rius supposed those wines to be which he met with in Persia, only more deeply tinged by art; and this colouring it, apparently is lo make it more pleasing and tempting to the eye. There are two other places relating to wine, in which our translators have used the term red; but the original wold s; - , , .,, r .Infers from that in Proverbs, and I should therefore i another idea ; what that might be, m-tv, perhaps, appear in the sequel. The word, it is signifies what is made thick or turbid ; so it expresses the thickening water with mud, Ps. l.xxvi. :i. May ii not then signify the thickening wine with its lees? It ry to do so in one of the passages: "In the hand of the Lord is a cup, and the wine is red, or turbid : it is full of mixture, and he poureth out the same: but the dregs liiereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them," Ps. lxxv. 8. The turbidness of wine makes it very inebriating, and consequently expressive of the disorder affliction brings on the mind ; thus, Thevenot, I remember, tells us the wine of Shiras, in Persia, is full of lees, and therefore very heady ; to remedy which, they fil- trate it through a cloth, and then it is very clear, and free Brora fames.— Harmer. The punishments which Jehovah inflicts upon the wick- ed, are compared to a eupfull of fermenting wine, mixed with intoxicating herbs, or which all those to whom it is .riven must drink the dregs or sediment. The same image is found, nut only frequently in other places in the Old Tes- tament, bu' also very often in the Arabian poets. Thus Taabbata Scbarran, in a passage of an Arabic Anthology, by Alb. Schultens: " To those of the tribe of Hodail, we gave the cup of death, whose dregs were confusion, shame, and reproach." Another poet says: " A cup such as they gave us. we gave to them.'' When Calif Almansor had bis valiant, though dreaded general, Abre-Moslem, murder- ed, he repealed the following verse, in which he the corpse: " A cup such as he save, gave I him, bitterer to the taste than wormwood." (Elmacin.) — Burder. PSALM LXXVI. Ver. 1 1 Vow, and pay unto the Lord your God : let all that be round about him bring- presents unto him that ought to be feared. Taxes in Persia are commonly levied under the form of presents to the monarch. The usual presents are those made ani lalri : all governors of provinces and districts, •hiefs of trilvs. ministers, and all others invested with high iffiee, at the feast of the vernal equinox. Tii ei the wealth of the individual, ce of every i money is given, which is always ibe m nt. Allu- 0 .Messiah : in- unto him B ordinary presents, dc I nature, but which ,ii, . , 1. 1 ■..•■, .-nil ideraWe amount, are expected. Ot this kind were, in the opinion of some writers, the pres- i the enemies of Saul refused to bring, at his I i.iel : " But the cl How shall i hi- man save us 1 And they de- spised him, and brought him no presents. But he held his peace." — PiXTOH. PSALM LXXVII. Ver. 2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord : my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be c The margin has, instead of sore, " kernd." Ainsworth. " In the day of my distress I sought the Lord : my hand b\ night reached oiit and ceased not." Dr. Boothroyd, "In the day of my distress I seek Jehovah : by nighl, my hand, iiig. is stretched out unto him." Dr. A.'Clarke says, " My hand was stretched out," i. e. in prayer. The Tamul translation, "My hands, in the night, were spread out, and ceased not." "Ah!" says the sorrowful mother, over her afflicted child, "all night long were my hands spread out to the gods on thy behalf." In that i they sometimes hold their hands for the night together. Some devotees do this with their right hand tl the whole of their lives, till the arm becomes quite stiff. — Roberts. Ver. 10. And I said, this is my infirmity: but J will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. Dr. Boothroyd, " Then I said, this is the time of my scrrow ; but the right hand of the Most High can change it." I have shown that superior honour is givci to the right hand. It is that with which men fight :'lhe "sword arm," consequently protection, or deliverance, ,-, that. David was in great distress ; but, he asks, has " God forgotten to be gracious'?" To this his heart replied, No ! and he determined to believe in the right hand of ihe M.6SI High, which had often delivered and defended him in days past, and which could again change all bis circumstances. The right hand is that which dispenses gifts; no Hindoo would olfer a present with his left hand. A miser is said to have two left hands \ " Never, never shall I forget the right hand of that good man: he always relieved my wants." "Ah! the ungrateful wretch, how many years have I helped him! he has forgotten my right hand." "Yes. poor fellow, he has lost all his property; he cannol nov, use his right hand." " My children, my children," says the aged father, " how many years have I supported you 1 Surely yon will never forget the right hand of your father." — Roberts. PSALM LXXVIII. Ver 21. Therefore the Lord heard this, and was wroth: so a fire was kindled airainst Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel. The first supply of quails was followed by no visible judgment from heaven; for although they were guilty ot murmuring against the Lord, he spared them in his love and in his pity; but they provoked him on thi by their indecent desire of good living; bv loathing ihe manna, which was provided for them by his distinguishing !>v regretting the provisions which they had en- joyed in Goshen; and by denying the divine power and goodness, which they had 'already experienced in sup] lying them with quails, soon after thev came out of Egvpt, and of which they had every day the mosl in jiving them bread from heaven. Incensed by this un- dn'if i! conduct, Jehovah unequivocally no'ified his righ- teous displeasure, before he granted their demands : '-Ye shall eat it a whole month,- until it come out at your not- £92 PSA trils, and it be loathsome unto you; because that ye have despise;! the Lord which is amun; you, and have wept be- fore him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt 1" These words' are a proof, that he had heard the murmur- ing of his people with great indignation. When, there- fore, the month was completed, and while the flesh with which they had gorged themselves was yet in their mouth, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people people with a very great plague and the Lord smote the people Various are the views which, interpreters have given of this judgment; bat their opinion seems entitled to the preference, who suppose it was a fire from heaven, by which some of the people were consumed. Their undu- tiftil murmurings were punished in this manner, a very short time before: " And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord ; and the Lord heard it, and his anger was kindled; and the lire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost pans of the camp." Bochart, indeed, considers this brief statement as a summary view of the scene which is more minutely de- scribed in the rest of the chapter. The same place, he thinks, is called Taberah, from the conflagration, and Ki- broth-halaavah, " because there they buried the people that lusted." But this opinion seems to rest upon no solid foun- dation ; no trace of a more brief, and then of a more extended narrative, can be discovered in the passage. The sacred writer plainly describes two different calamines, of which the first was indisputably by fire, which renders it not im- probable that the second was also produced by the same de- vouring element. This probability is greatly increased by the words of David, in his sublime rlescriDti"-; y. this very judg'ment: "Therefore, the Lord hearu, and was wroth; so a file was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel ; because they believed not God, nor trusted in his salvation." An instance of similar perverseness is recorded of this people, soon after they came out of Egypt. But, although they were perhaps equally blameable, they were not subjected" to the same punishment ; for, in this in- stance, Jehovah bestowed "upon them a supply of quails that evening;and the davafter, he rained manna from heaven around their tents. He had a right to punish themfor their iniquity; but he graciously turned away his anger, and yielded to their importunities. And for this forbearance, several reasons may be assigned. If any fall a second time into the sins which had already been forgiven, he is more guilty than before; because he both insults the justice, and tramples on the grace and mercy of God. Besides, in this instance, the people of Israel murmured against their lead- er-, because they were pressed by famine, and in want of all the necessaries of life. But in the desert of Paran, bread from heaven descended in daily showers around their en- campment, in sufficient quantity to satisfy the whole con- gregation; they lived on angel's food; they were satiated with the bread of heaven; and by consequence, the flesh which they demanded with so great eagerness and impor- tunity, was not required to supply their necessity, but to gratify their lustful desires. When they murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness of Sin, they had but lately come out of Egypt — they were still in a rude and un- tutored state, for the law was not yet given; but in Paran they rebelled, after long and various experience of the di- vine care and goodness, after the law was given, and after they had been instructed by many sufferings, in the evil nature and bitter consequences of sin ; their conduct, there- fore, was much more criminaj, and deservedly subjected them to severe castigation. — Paxton. Ver. 25. Man did eat angels' food : he sent them meat to the full. 26. He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven; and by his power he brought in the south wind. 27. He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea. See on Ex. 1G. 12, 13. On this passage it has been asked, How can these winds blow together, and at the same time bring up the quails from the sea into the desert 1 The Seventy interpreters, and the Vulgate, found it so difficult to give a satisfactory an-s-wer to these queries, that they were induced to render .MS. Ps. 75' the first clause, ,; He removed the east wind from the hea- ven;" as if the removal of one wind was necessarily suc- ceeded by another. But this version cannot be admitted, because ihe Psalmist clearly intends to represent the east and the south winds, as the joint instruments of divine goodness, which, by their united force, collected and brought up the quails from the sea. If the Psalmist had meant to express the removing of the east wind, he must have used the phrase, (c-im p) from the heaven; but instead of this. he uses the words, (c-b:) in or into the heavens, which con-" vey an idea quite the reverse. Our version, therefore, gives the true sense of the sacred text: He caused an easi wind to blow in the heaven ; that is, he introduced it for the very purpose of bringing the quails into the camp. To this' may be added, that in the whole of this Psalm, as often in the other poetical books of the Hebrews, the two hemi- stiches are almost parallel, and mutually explain each other. From whence it follows, that (yen) ya'sah in this text, has nearly the same meaning as its parallel veib, (>rci) rain- has, which signifies to introduce. This is accordingly the sense which all interpreters, ancient and modern, have adopted, except the Septuagint and the Vulgate. From this statement it appears, that the royal Psalmist in this passage means to excite, not to remove the east wind ; to introduce, not to expel it from the heavens. But to un- derstand the miller clearly, let it be remembered, that the people cf Israel were at that time in the wilderness of Pa- ran; at the distance of three days' journey from Sinai, di- rectly north from tlje extremity of the Arabian gulf; and by consequence, from Theman, the country from whence the south wind blows, whose name it commonly bears, in the Hebrew text, which brought the quails into the camp of Israel. The same region is named (o^p) kadim, that is, the east; because it lay towards the southeast; and was de- nominated sometimes by the one name, and sometimes by the other. Although the cardinal winds are reckoned four in number, which are again subdivided into many more; yet the ancient philosophers, and particularly Aristotle and Theophrastus, distributed them into two, the north and the south. The westerly winds they included in the north, be- cause they are colder; and the easterly winds in the south, because they are attended by a greater degree of heat. But, since the east wind was anciently comprehended in the south, the east and the south maybe used in this text as sy- nonymous; and by consequence, the east is the same, or nearly the same, as the south wind. Nor is it in this text alone", that the sacred writers ascribe to the east, what might seem to be the proper effects of the south wind ; the same thing may be observed in every part of scripture. It burns up the fruits of the earth; it blasts the vines, and other fruit-bearing trees; it drove back the Red Sea, and opened a passage to the people of God ; it dries up the fountains of water ; and by its irresistible violence, it dashes the ships of Tharshish in pieces; and, in fine, scatters destruction among the dwellings of wicked men, and sweeps them from the face of the earth, into the silent mansions ot the grave. The prophet Isaiah on this account, calls it a rough wind; and Jonah feelingly describes the vehemence with which it beat upon his head till he fainted, and wish- ed in himself to die. The Greek interpreters uniformly render it the south wind ; and Theodoret regards these two winds as nearly the same. Although, therefore, the phrase (— 'Tp- -1-) ruah hakaiHi/i, properly and precisely speaking, denotes the east wind ; yet, because the east and the south winds resemble each other in many particulars, the He- brews, in the opinion of Bochart and" other learned writers, appear to have used these names promiscuously; which is the reason that (emp) ladim is, in every part of the Greek version, and particularly in the text nnder review, render- ed the south wind. Thus the same wind seems to have been intended by both these terms, the south or African wind, which, from the interior gf Egypt, wafted the quails into the desert, and scattered them round the tents of Israel. This difficulty admits of other solutions equally natural and easv. The inspired writer maybe understood to mean the southeast wind, which might bring the quails as well from the east as from the south ; or, th it both the ea I them. See on Ex. 8. 4. Ver 47. Tie destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore-trees with frost. Tiie land of Egypt never produced a sufficient quantity of wine:,, supply the wants of its inhabitants : but still h contained nviriv vines, although it could not boast of ex- tensive and loaded vineyards. The vines of Egypt are conjoined by the Psalmist, with the sycamores, in his tri- vial country, ■ •!' Ids ancestors: "H ed their vines with hail, and their sycamore-trees with frost." This was to the people of Egypt a very serious loss; for tabled with coffee and -rapes by the aga of Essauen: and it resided in that country, the natives used Ihe young leaves of their vines even more than the fruit. A principal article of their diet consist in minced meat, which they wrap up in small parcels in vine leaves, and laying at upon another, they season it according to the custom of their country, and make of it one of the most delicate dishes presented on their tables. The remainder of the vintage they convert into wine, of so delicious a taste and flavour, that it was carried to Rome in the days of her pride and luxury, and esteemed by epicures the third in the number of their most esteemed wines. The use of wine being prohibited by the Mohammedan law, very little is manufactured al present: but it seems, in ancient times, to have been produced in much greater abundance. In the reign of the Pharaohs, it was certainly made in considerable quantities for the use of the court, who probably could pro- nch wine from other countries, nor were they acquainted with such liquors as the great now drink in Egypt; and consequently the loss of their vines, as the sacred writer insinuates. 'must hare been considerable. The grapes of Egypt are said to be much smaller than those which -row in the land of Canaan. Dandini. though an Italian, seems to have been surprised at the extraordi- nary size of the grapes produced in the vineyards of Leb- anon. They are as large as prunes, and as may be in- ferred from the richness and flavour of the wines for which the mountains of Lebanon have been renowned from time immemorial, of the most delicious taste. To the size and flavour of these grapes, brought by the spies to the camp in the wilderness, the Italian traveller, little versed, it should seem, in the history of the Old Testament, imputes the ardour with which the people of Israel prosecuted the conquest of Palestine. The magnificent cluster which the spies brought from Eshcol, was certainly fined, in no com- mon degree, to stimulate the parched armies of Israel to deeds of heroic valour; but their kindling spirit was effec- tuallv damped by the report of the spies, who were intimi- dated by the robust and martial appearance ol the Canaan- ites, the strength of their cities, and the gigantic stature of i Anak. s produced in the land of Egypt, ahl i re extremely small: but tho the \ inwards of Coelo Syria and Palestine, swell to a sur- prising biguess. The famous bunch, i to of two men to bear it. This difference suffi- ciently accounts for the surprise and pleasure which the people of Israel manifested, when they first beheld, in the tui nil and s.ui.lv desert, the fruits which grew in II,, ir fu- ture inheritance. The extraordinary size of the ; Canaan, is confirmedby the authority of a modern i In traversing the country about Bethlehem, Doubdan found a most delightful valley full id' aromatic herl bushes, and planted with vines, which be supposed were of thi , noi est kind: it was actually the i III | ol Eshcol from whence the spies carried that prodigious bunch ol Moses, of which we read in the book of Num- bers-. That writer, it is true, saw no such cluster, for he did not visit that fruitful spot in the time of the vintage; bin the monks assured him, they still found some, even in the present neglected slate of the country, which weighed ten or twelve pounds. The vineyards of Canaan produce grapes of different kinds; some of them are red, and some while, but the greater part are black. To the juice of the red grape, the sacred writers make frequent allusions: " Win thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadelh in the wine fat 1" " In that day, sins ye unto her a vineyard of red wine : I the Lord do keep it." It is, therefore, with strict propriety, the inspired writer calls it " the bl 1 of the grape," a phrase winch seems intended to indicate the colour of the juice, or the wine produced from it : " Thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape." The sycamore forms the middle link in the vegetable kingdom, between the fig and the mulberry ; and partakes, according to some natural historians, of the nature of boh. This is the reason the Greeks call it mm/apes, — a name compounded of owras, a fig-tree, and ,, tp ..., a mulberry. It resembles the fig-lree in the shape and size of its fruit; which grows neither in clusters, nor at the end of the branches, but by a very singular law, sticking to the trunk of the tree. Its taste is much like that of the wild fig, and pretty agreeable: Pliny says the fruit is very sweet. It may seem strange that so inferior a tree as ihe syca- more should be classed by the Psalmist with the choices, vines, in his ode on the plagues of Egypt: " He destroyed their vines with hail, and their syc.-in,,.|r-tn>es with frost." Many other trees, it mav be supposed, might be of much greater consequence to 'hem ; alar, the date, which, on account of its fruit, the modern Egyptians hold in the highest estimation. But it ought to be remembered, that several trees which are now found in Egypt, and highly valued, might n,,; then be introduced. Very few trees at present in Egypt, are supposed to be natives of the country. If this idea be just, the svoamme and the vine might, at that early period, be in reali y the most valuable trees in thai kingdom. But, admitting that the sycamore was. in respect of intrinsic properties or general utility, much in- ferior to some other trees which they possessed, accidental circumstances might give it ;.n importance to which it had originally no claim. "The shade of this umbrageous tree is so grateful to the inhabitants of those warm latitudes, that they plant it along the side of the ways near their villa- ges; arid as a full-grown sycamore branches out to so great a distance, that it forms a canopy for a circle of forty p: i es in diameter, a single row of trees on one side of the way is sufficient. It is often seen stretching its arms over the houses, to screen the fainting inhabitant from the glowing heats of the summer. Thi- was a benefit SO i them, that it obtained a place in the divine promise: " Thev shall sit every man uncler his vine and under his fig-tree;'" and to show at once the certainty of the promise, and the value of the favour, it is repeated bv another inspired prophet: "Ye shall call every man his neighbour under his vine and under his fig-tree." Now. it appears from the most authentic records, that the ancient Egyptian cof- fins, intended to preserve to many generations the bodies of departed relatives; the little so. uare boxes which }ver«> 39 i placed at the feet of the mummies, enclosing the instru- ments and utensils in miniature, which belonged to the trade and occupation of the deceased ; the figures and in- struments of wood found in the catacombs,— are all made of sycamore wood, which, (hough spongy and porous to appearance, has continued entire and uncorrupted for at least three thousand yeai-. The innumerable lurks which ply on the river and over all the vale, in the time of the inundation, are ,also fabricated of sycamore wood. But besides the various important uses to which the wood was applied, the sycamore produces a species of fig, upon which the people almost entirely subsist, thinking themselves well regaled, when they have a piece of bread, a couple of sycamore tigs, and a pitcher filled with water from the Nile. — Paxton. Ver. 63. The fire consumed their young men ; and their maidens were not given to marriage. This is described as one of the effects of God's anger upon Israel. In Hindi t families, somi times, the marriage of daughters is delayed: this i-. however, always consid- ered as a great calamity and disgrace. If a pers m - girls more than twelve years of age unmarried in a family, he says, " How is it, that that Bramin can sit at home, and eat his food with comfort, when his daughters, at such an age, remain unmarried 1" (Ward.) — Bcrder. Ver. 64. Their priests fell by the sword; and their widows made no lamentation. When the cholera swept off such multitudes, the cities from every house had a fearful effect on the passers by ^ but, after some lime, though the scourge remained, the people ceased to lament, asking, " Why should we mourn ? the Amafa," i. e. the goddess, "is at her play." Thus, in- stead of the shrieks and howls so common on such occa- sions, scarcely a sigh or a whisper was heard from the survivers. — Roberts. Ver. 63. And he smoiejiis enemies in the hinder parts : he put them to a perpetual reproach. Dr. Boothroyd, "And smote his enemies in the hinder parts : he put them to perpetual disgrace." Somecom- menta ors hink this alludes " to the emerods inflicted on the Phili tines;" bul the figure is used in reference to ■ ire conquered, and who consequently sh..« their backs when runningaway. " 1 will make that fellow show his back," means, " I will cause him to run from me." It is also considered exceedingly disgraceful to be beaten on that part. — Roberts. PSALM LXXIX. Ver. 2. The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. 3. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem ; and there teas ' none to bury them. * See on 1 Sam. 31. 9. Criminals were at o. then commonly witho without the gate, the 1 complaint : " The dead to be meat unto the fov mted in public ; and To such executions ibtedlv refers in this lints have they given en, the flesh' of thy sain's unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have fhey shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them." The last clause admits of two senses. 1st. There was no friend or relations left to bury them. •3d. None \\»;re allowed to perform this last office. The des- potism of eastern princes ofien proceeds to a degree of ex- travagance which is apt to fill the mind with astonishment and horror. It has been thought, from lime immemorial, Highly criminal to bury those who had losi their lives by the hand of an executioner, without permission. In Mo- iocco, no person dares to bury the body of a malefactor without an order from the emperor; and Windus, who visited that country, speaking of a man who was sawed in two, iuiorms us, that " hi body must have remained to be i MS. Ps. 73—80. eaten by the dogs, if the emperor had not pardoned him ; an extravagant custom to pardon a man af.er he is dead; but unless he does so, r.o person dares bury the body." To such a degree of savage barbarity it is probable the ene- mies of God's people carried their opposition, that no per- son dared to bury the deadbodiesof their innocent victims. Ver. 11. Let the sighing of the prisoner come be- fore thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die. To illustrate the miserable condition of an oriental pris- oner, Chardin relates a story of a very great Armenian merchant, who for some reason was thrown into prison. So long as he bribed the jailer with large (lunations, he was treated with the greatest 'kin dues, and attention ; but upon the parly who sued the Armenian presenting a consider- able sum, first to the judge and afterward to the jailer, the prisoner first experienced a change of treatment. His privileges were retrenched ; he was then closely confined : then treated with such inhumanity, as not to be permitted to drink but once in twenty-four hours, and this m the hot- test time of the year ; and no person was suffered to see him but the servants of the prison ; at length he was thrown into a dungeon, where he was in a quarter of an hour brought to the point, which all this severe usage was intended to gain. After such a relation, we cannot be surprised lo find the sacred writers placing so strong an emphasis on "the sighing of the prisoner," and speaking of its coming before God, and the necessity of almighty power being exerted for his deliverance. — Pax ton. PSALM LXXX. Ver. 4. O Loud God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people. Hebrew, "wilt fhou smoke?" Ainsworlh, "Jehovah, God of hosts; how lung will thou smoke against the prayer of thy people?" Of an angry man, it is said, "He is con- tinually smoking." " My friend, why do you smoke s« to-day?" "This smoke drives me away; I cannot beal it." " How many days is this smoke io remain in my house ?" " What care I for the smoke ? Itdoes not hurt me." — Roberts. Ver. 5. Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink i al measure. When a master or a father is angry, he says to his chil- dren orservanls, " Yes, in future you .-hall have rice, and Ihe waler of your eyes to eat." " You shall have the water of your eyes in abundance to drink." "Alas! alas! lam ever drinking tears."— Roberts. Ver. 13. The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. See on 2 Sam. 18. 8. Wild hogs are exceedingly numerous and destructive in the East; hence a fine garden will in one nidi! be com- pletely destroyed.' The herd is generally led by old boars. that go along with great speed and fierceness. Should there be a fence, they will go round till they find a weak place, and then they all rush in. In travelling, sometimes a large patch of grass mar be seen completely lorn up. which has been dune by the wild hog for the sake of the roots. These animals are also very ferocious, as ihey will no' hesitate to attack either man or beast, when placed in circumstances of difficulty. One of them once ran at a friend of mine, when travelling in his palanquin : but the creature, not calculating well as to the speed of : only just struck the pole with his tusk ; but the huh- he left behind in the hard wood was nearly half an inch deep.— Roberts. Under the beautiful allegory of a vine, the royal Ps: In1 ist describes the rise and fall of the Jewish commonwealth, in this address to Jehovah: " Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. l>£. S I PSALMS. ire it, and didst <■: , nd ii filled ihe I md. The hills v ei with the sh i . 1 1 > •■■. .H ii, ere like rbe her branches unto the river. Why hast thou Lb down l..i hr. I-,-, so that all they that pass bj thi pluck her"! The bnar out of the wood doth waste it, and [he wild beast of the field doth devour it." Thi animal i* both fierce and cruel, ami -.. sn if: thai lew ol'ihe .ii 1 1 > him in running Hi chiel abode is in the wrests and jungles; bni when the irly ripe, he commits great ravages in the fields and sugar plantations. The powers that subverted the Jewish nation, are compared to the wild hoar and the wild beast of the field, by which the vino is wasted and and n. i figure could be more happi I destructive animal, not satisfied with devouring the fruit, lacerates and breaks with his sharp and powerful tusks the branches of the vine, or with his snout digs it up by the roots, pollutes it with his touch, or tramples it under 'his feet. In Ki:y|>; -..idii: _• t.. I lei,. I- olus and other writers, the labours of tin- lei. «• , animal ■ I useful to man. When the Nile within his proper channel, the husbandman scatters his grain upon the irrigated soil, and sends out a number of swine, that partly by treading il with their feet, partly by digging it with their snout, immediately turn it up, and by . • ivi-t the seed. But in every other part of the world, the hog is odious to the husbandman. II tablished custom among the Greeks and Romans, to offer a he beginning of harvest, and . Bacchus, before they began to gather the vint- age; because that animal is equally hosule to the growing corn and the loaded vineyard. From these examples it is quite evident that the prophet meant to describe, under the figure of a wild boar, the cruel and implacable enemies of the .1. il Ii. And it is extremely probable, that he alluded to some more remarkable adversary, as Sennacherib, the ki.ig of Assyria, or Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon; both of whom were not less ferocious and destructive than j. by which they were symbolized.— Paxton. Ver. 17. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy riL'lit hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong foi thyself. If we would understand the genuine import of this phrase, we must attend to a custom which obtained ir. Judea and other eastern countries. At meals the master Of the feast placed the person whom he loved best on his r:e,hl hand, as a token of love and respect : and as they sat . in the intervals between the dishes, when the master leaned upon his left elbow, the man at his right hand, leaning also on his. would naturally repose his head on the master's bosom ; while at the same time the master ght hand on the favourite's shoulder or side, in testimony of his favourable regard. See also John xsi. 20. ( Pine.)— Burdes. PSALM LXXXI. Ver. 2. Take a psalm, and bring- hither the tim- brel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Bv timbrels are meant the hand-instruments, still used in the East, and called diff, the same name which stands here in the Hehrew text. By the Hebrew word kinnnr. here translated harp, we are probab'y to understand a stringed instrument, a kind of guitar, similar to those called bv the Arabs, tambura. Josepims says, that this instrument had ten strings, and was played with a plectrum ; in more an- cient limes, however, it appears to have been played with the fingers, as we may infer from 1 Sam. xvi. 23. xviii. 16. xix. 9. It is almost always mentioned in the Old Testa- ment on occasions of cheerful entertainments and rejoi- cings. The name of the third instrument, nabel, men- tioned in the text, and here translated psaltery, has also been preserved in the Greek and Latin laneu nablium. As the Hebrew word signifies a leathern bottle, it has been conjectured that the sounditie-bonrd was of that shape. But St. Jerome and Isidore s,-,y that the ins'rnmeot resembled a Greek delta inverted, v- This leads ns to itonjecture that nabel was that kind of lyre so frequently found on ancienl monumi nts, and in statue: of Apollo. A similar Stringed ii>>t riiiin-ur i- still usual in the Hast. Nie- buhr has gh I I ol the bar- bari, who r. ■ '" < 'a no, .nd c; I! il in their ..II it, like other foreign " The belly of it i, like a w fen dish, with a small hole below, and having a skin stretched over it, which is highet in the middh sides. Two sticks, which are united al the top by a third, go obliquely through the skin. Five e.-tani mi i it, supported by a bridge. There are no pi sirnmehi, but each string is tuned by having some Imen wound with it round the transverse stick. It is played in two different ways, nam. ly, either pinched with the lingers, or by passing a piece of leather, which bangs at the side, i"..'l Ihe According lo ihe observation of one Rabbi Simeon, quoted bv Rabbi Salomon Jarchi, in his contmentary on the above passage in the Psalms, kinnor differed from nabel only in number of strings and pegs.— Rosenmoller. Ver. 10. I am the Loud thy Cod, which broughl thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will till '•'My friend, you tell me you are in great distress: take my advice : <:o to the king, and o/n n fee/ mnrth j.'o.Va' " I wenl to the great man and opened my mouth, bill he has not given me anything." " I opened my mouth to him, and nave gained all I wanted." "Why open your mouth there? il will be all in vain." Does a person not wish to he troubled, he says to the applicant, "Do not say Ah, ah ! here;" which means, do not open your mouth, because that word cannot be pronounced without opening the mouth. — Roberts, Ver. 1C. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. The soil, both of the maritime and inland parts of Syria and Phenicia, is of a light loamv nature, and ei vated. Svna maybe considered 'as a country c m three long strips of land, exhibiting different qualities : one extending along the Mediterranean, forming a warm hu- mid vallev, ihe salubrity of which is doubtful, but which is extremely fertile; the other, which forms its frontier, is a hillv, rugged soil, but more salubrious; the third, lying b • yon'd Ihe eastern hills, combines the drought of the I: tlei with the heat of the former. We have seen by wha :i happy combination of climate and soil this province unites in a small compass the advantages and productions of dif- ferent zones, insomuch that the God of nature seems lo have designed it for one of the most agreeable habitations of this continent. Thesoil is a fine mould, without stones, and almost without even the smallest pebble. Volney himself, who furnishes Ihe particulars of this statement, is compelled to admit, that what is said of its actual fertility, exactly corresponds with the idea given of il in the Hebrew scriptures. Wherever wheat is sown, if the rains do not I fail, it repays the cultivator with profusion, and grows to the height of a man. The Mount of Olives, near Jenlsa- I lem, and several other districts in Judea and Galilee, are covered with olive plantations, whose fruit is equal to any 1 produced in the Levant. The fie-trees in the neighbonr- t hood of Joppa, are equally beautiful and productive as the olive. Were the Holy Land ns well inhibited and culti- I vated as formerly, Dr. Shaw declares it would still be t more fruitful than the very best part of Syria or Phenicia ; for the soil itself is generally 'much richer, and all things considered, yields a prefer,-. ble crop. Thus, the cotton, : whieh is gathered in the plains of Rama, E-draelon, and I Zabnlon. is in greater esteem, according lo til writer, than what is cultivate! near Sid.n and Tripoli; neither is it possible for pulse, wheat, or grain o1* iv~ "ltd. to he richer or better tasted, than what is common Jerusalem. The barrenness, or scarcity rather, of whieh some authors may either ignorantly or malici plain, does not proceed, in the opinion of Dr. Shaw, from i the incapacity or natural unfruitfulne" of the comtiv bu 396 PSA from the want of inhabitants, and from the great aversion to labour and industry in those few by whom it is possess- ed. The perpetual discords and depredations among the petty princes who share this fine country, greatly obstruct the operations of the husbandman, who must have small encouragement to sow, when it is quite uncertain who shall gather in the harvest. It is in other respects a fertile c iiiniry, and still capable of affording to its neighbours the like ample supplies of corn and oil, which it is known to have done in the days of Solomon, who gave yearly to Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, arid twenty measures of pure oil. The parts about Jerusalem particularly, being rocky and m mntainous, have been therefore supposed to be barren and unfruitful : yet, granting this conclusion, which is however far from being just, a country is not to be charac- terized from one single district of it, but from the whole. And he-ides, the blessing which was given to Jndah was not of the same kind with the blessing of Asher or of Issa- cnar, that " his bread should be fat or his land pleasant," bit that " bis eyes should be red with wine, and his teeth should be white with milk." In the estimation of the Jew- ish lawgiver, milk and honey (the chief dainties and sub- sistence of the earlier ages, as they still continue to be of the Bedouin Arabs) are the glory of all lands; these pro- ductions are either actually enjoyed in the lot of Judah, or at least, might be obtained by proper care and application. The abundance of wine alone is wanting at present; yet the acknowledged goodness of that little, which is still made at Jerusalem and Hebron, clearly proves, that these barren rocks, as they are called, would yield a much greater quantity, if the abstemious Turk and Arab would permit the vine to be further propagated and improved. Wild honey, which formed a part of the food of John the Baptist in the wilderness, may indicate to us the great plenty of it in those deserts ; and, that consequently taking the hint from nature, and enticing the bees into hives and larger colonies, it might be produced in much greater quan- tity. Josephus accordingly calls Jericho the honey-bearing country. The great abundance of wild honey is often mentioned in scripture; a memorable instance of which occurs in the first book of Samuel : "And all they of the land came to a wood, and there was honey upon the ground; and when the people were come to the wood, be- hold the honey dropped." This circumstance perfectly accords with the view which Moses gave of the promised land, in the snug with winch he closed his long and event- ful career : " He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." That good land preserved 'is character in the time of David, who thus celebrates the lis inguishing bounty of God to his chosen people : " He fould have fed them also with the finest of the wheat, and v:t'i honey out of the rock would I have satisfied thee." In these holy strains, the saered poet availed himself of the most valuable products of Canaan, to lead the faith and hope of his nation to bounties of a higher order, of greater price, and more urgent necessity than any which the soil even of that favoured region, stimulated arid sustained as it certainly was by the special blessing of heaven, produced, —the bounties 'of sovereign and redeeming mercy, pur- chased with the blood, and imparled by the spirit of the Son of God. — Paxton. PSALM LXXXIV. Ver. 1. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! 2. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living; God. The first part of the Psalm cannot be better illustrated (let there be no misinterpretation of our meaning) than by the example of those who go in pilgrimage to Mecca. As their enthusiasm increases in proportion as they advance through the desert to the holy place ; as they are used to be ravished when they behold the shining towers of the Kaaba, so does the journey to Jerusalem proceed with increasing Kinging spirit and joy through the scorched valleys. They become as it were a well of water, for already at Baca they cehold the face of Jehovah.— Ro.senmdller. A parallel instance of pious enthusiasm is exhibiied in "V Clarke's account of his approach to the Holy City, I .MS. Ps. 84 (Travels in the Holy Land, p. 144.) " At three P. M. we again mounted our' horses, and proceeded on our route No sensation of fatigue or heat could counterbalance the eagerness and zeal which animated all our party, in the approach to Jerusalem; every individual pressed forward, hoping first to announce the joyful intelligence of its ap- pearance. We passed some insignificant ruins, either of an- cient buildings or of modern villages; but had they beet of more importance, they would have excited little notice at the time, so earnestly bent was every mind towards the main object of interest and curiosity. At length, after about two hours had been passed in this 'state of anxiely and sus- pense, ascending a hill towards the south. ' HACtoroi.is I' exclaimed a Greek in the van ofjjur cavalcade: and in- stantly throwing himself from his horse, was seen bare- headed, upon his knees, facing the prospect he surveyed. Suddenly the sight burst upon us all. Who shall describe it 1 The effect produced was that of total silence through- out the whole company. Many of the party, by an imme- diate impulse, took off' their hats, as if entering a church, without being sensible of so doing. The Greeks and Catholics shed torrents of tears; and presently beginning- to cross themselves with unfeigned devotion, asked if they might be permitted to take off the covering from their feet, and proceed, barefooted, to the Holy Sepulchre. We had town, by some described as the desolated remnant of Jeru- salemywe beheld, as it were, a flourishing and steady me- tropolis; presenting a magnificent assemblage of domes, towers, palaces, churches, and monasteries; all of which, glittering in the sun's rays, shone with inconceivable splen- dour. As we drew nearer, our whole attention was en- grossed by its noble and interesting appearance. The lofty hills whereby it is surrounded give to the city itself an appearance of elevation inferior to that which it really pos- sesses."— B. Ver. 3. Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallqw a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. The ibis was so venerated in Egypt, as to be an allowed inmate in sacred structures. Something of the same kind occurs also in Persia. "Within a mosque at Oud|icun, lies interred the son of a king, called Schah-Zadeh-Imam Dgiafer, whom they reckon a saint: the dome is rough cast over; before the mosque there is a court, well planted with many high plane-trees, on which we saw a great many storks that haunt thereabout all the year round." (Theve- not.) By the altars of Jehovah we are to understand the tem- ple. The words probably refer to the custom of several nations of antiquity, that birds which build their nests on the temples, or within the limits of them, were not suffered to be driven away, much less killed, but found a secure and uninterrupted "dwelling. Hence, when Aristodikus dis- turbed the birds'-nests of the temple of Kumre.and took the young from them, a voice, according to a tradition preserv- ed by Herodotus, is said n, have spoken these words from the interior of the temple: " Most villanous of men, how darest thou do such a thing? to drive away such as seek refuge in my temple 1" The Athenians were so enraged at Atarbes, who had killed a sparrow which built on the temple of iEsculapius, that they killed him. Among the Arabs, who are more closely related to the Hebrews, birds which have built their nests on the temple of Mecca were inviolable from the earliest times. In the very ancient poem of a Dsehorhamidish prince, published by A. Schnl- tens, in which he laments that his tribe had been deprived of the protection of the sanctuary of Mecca, it is said, We lament the house, whose dove The sparrow buiil its nest. Another ancient Arabian poet, Nabega, the Dliobianit, swears " by the sanctuary which affords shelter to the birds which seek it there." Niebuhr says: " I will observe, that among the Mohammedans, not only is the Kaaba a refuge for pigeons, but also on the mosques over the graves of Ali and Hossein, on the Dsjamea, or chief mosque at Helle Ps. 85. PS A J and in oilier cities, Ihey are equal!)' undisturbed."— Rosen- MCI.1.EI1. The term in this passage is connected with the proper name of the swallow; and therefore cannot be understood •as the common name of the feathered race, but like the other, must denote a particular species of bird, which, by the general suffrage of interpreters, is the sparrow. This idea \£ confirmed by the plaintive description dt' Pavid, i that lmle bird, under the d instinct alone, provides a habitation for herself, in the rears her young, and enjoys the sweets ol repose Some ol these birds the Psalmist had probably Been constructing their nests, and propagating their kind, m the buildings near the altar, or in the courts of the temple : and piously longs to revisit a scene so dear to iu- heart. The altar is here by a synecdoche of a part for the whole, to be understood ot the tabernacle, ami ng the rafters of which the sparrow and the swallow were al- lowed to nestle; or rather, for the buildings which sur- rounded the sacred edifice, where the priests and their as- sistants had their ordinary residence. Even these exterior buildings were extremely desirable to the exile, I mon irch, because 01 their vicinity to the splendid symbols of the divine presence, and [he instruments of his worship. The holy Psalmis; somenmes wished for the wings ol a dove, to waft him into the desert from the cruel oppression of his enemies: but on this occasion, when he is compelled to lice for his life into the wilderness, he longs fur the enjoyment of a sparrow, which flew unobserved into the courts of the tabernacle, and flitted among the beams without interrup- tion.— PlXTON. Ver. 6. Who passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well: the rain also filleth the pools. The words, Who passing through the valley of Baca, make it a pool: the rain also filleth the pools, — are, in the margin, Who passing through the valley of mulberry-trees. The Seventy, m Chronicles, render it pear-trees: in which they are followed by Aquila and the Vulgate. Some think Baca, in the eighty-fourth Psalm, is the name of a rivulet, which burst out of the earth, at the foot of a mountain, with a plaintive murmur, from which it derived its name. But it is more probable that Baca is the name of sonic shrub or tree. Those who translate it the mill berry-tree, to illustrate the passage in the Psalm, pretend it grows best in the dry ground; but this seems to be unfounded. Marinus imagines, that Baca signifies the mulberry-tree, because the fruit of the mulberry exudes a juice resembling trees. Parkhurst rather thinks that Baca means a kind of large shrub, which the Arabs likewise call Baca, and which probably was so named from its distilling an odoriferous gum. For Baca with an alepk, seems to be related to Bacah with a haii, winch signifies to ooze, to distil in small quan- tities, to weep or shed tears. This idea perfectly corre- sponds with the description which CeNius has given of this valley. It is not, according tohim,a place abounding with fountains and pools of water, but rugged and end.ii rassed with bushes and stones, which could not be passed through without labour and suffering; a striking emblem of that vale of thorns and tears, through which all believers must pass to the heavenly Jerusalem. The great uncertainty among interpreters concerning the real meaning of the term Becalm, has induced Mr. Harmer to hazard a conjecture, that the tree meant in this passage is the weeping-willow. But ihis plant is not found in a dry sandy vale, where the thirsty traveller is compelled to dig for water, and to form cisterns in the earth, to receive the rain of heaven. In such a situation, we expect to find the pungent aromatic shrub distilling its fragrant gum; not the weeping-willow, the favourite situation ol which is the watery plain, or the margin of the brook. — Pax- Ver. 7. They go from strength to strength ; every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. The scarcity of water in the East makes travellers particn- mlv careful to take up iheir lodgings as much as possible l f.irscme river or fountain. D'Herbelot informs us, that the Mohammedans have dug wells in the deserts, for the accom- modation of tl ose wh • g i in pilgrimage to Mecca. Tocon- vi llii Di |'ii hn]i- of this Kind, made, or renewed, by thede- voul Israel nes in the valley ol Baca,tofai i li tat eiheir going up to Jerusalem, the Psalmist may lebi in these words. Hence also there appeals 1,-ss of accident than uc commonly think ,.i in .I... ol.'s IcdtriiiL' on Hie banks ol JaUmk, and tin- men i I . ' awaiting La him by the btuok Be or, whenthey COUld HOI holdout With hlln in l nil. Iiiiimhi. Iii this Psalm are described the journeys ol the Israelites to their feasts at Jerusalem, from the distant parts of the country. It mentions their digging wells in the valley of Baca, which, in the rainy season, were filled t lent water, and became a great convenience lo succeeding travellers. In reference to them, the travellers are said lo have gone from strength to strength till, they arrived at Mo urn '/.urn, in Jerusalem, lo appear before God there, which was the object of their journey. When a weary traveller arrives at a well in the wilderness, his strength is nearly gone, but on dunking of its water he is revived and strengthened for another stage ; and, on falling in with an- othei w.ll, he receives fresh vigour for again proceeding on his journey. So that going from strength to strength may literally mean from well to well ; though some under- stand by this, going from company to company.— Campbell. Ver. 10. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Ainsworth, " I have chosen to sit at the threshold, the the threshold." I believe the word door-keeper does not convey the proper meaning of the words, " In sit at Ike threshold ;" because the preference of the Psalmist was evi- dently given to a very humble situation, whereas that of a door-keeper, in eastern estimation, is truly respectable and confidential. The gods are always represented as having door-keepers, who were of great dignity and power, as they also fought against other deities. ""In the heathen temples there are images near the entrance, called kuval-ktJran, i. e. guards or door-keepers. Kings and great men also have officers, whose business it is to stand at the door, or gate, as keepers of the entrance. The most dignified native of Ceylon is the Maha Modeliar of the governor's gate, to whom all others must make obeisance. The word door- keeper, therefore, does not convey the idea of humility, but of honour. The marginal reading, however, " to sit at the threshold," at once strikes an eastern mind as a situation of deep hu- mility. See the poor heathen devotee, he goes and sits near the threshold of his temple. Look at the beggar, he sits or prostrates himself at the threshold of the door or gate till he shall have gained his suit. " I am in sreai trouble I will go and lie down at the door of the temple." "Friend, you appear to be very ill." — " Yes !" " Then go and pros- trate yourself at the threshold of the temple !" "Muttoo, I can get you the situation of a Peon; will you accept of it?" — " Excuse me, sir, I pray you; I had better lie at your thresh- old than do that." " Go, do that ! it is far better for me to lie at the threshold as a common beggar." I think, there- fore, Ihe Psalmist refers to the attitude of a beggar, a sup- pliant at the threshold of the house of the Lord, as being preferable to the splendid dwellings of the wicked. — Rob- erts. PSALM LXXXV. Ver. 10. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Dr. Boothroyd, " Righteousness and peace have em- braced." In the Hindoo book called Iraku-Vangi is said, the " lotus flowers were kissing each other." When the branches of two separate trees meet, in ...n-eqnenci ol strong winds, it is said, "they kiss each o'her." When a young palmirah-ire", which grows near Ihe parent stock, begins to move, (bv the wind,) ihe people say, "Ah! the mother is kissing the daugh'T." A woman says of the ornaments around her nech, ''Yes, these embrace mv neck." Has a female put on the nose-ring, it is, it >« saiu, kissing her. The idea, therefore, is truly jriental, and show* the intimate union of righteousness and peace.— Roberts PSALM LXXXVII. Ver. 2. The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. " Truly, I love the gales of Chinna Amma more than the gates of Pun-Amma." " No, no ; he does not love the gates of that woman ; he will never marry her." " He is angry with my gates; he will not pass them." "Love his gates ! ay, for a good reason ; he gets plenty of help from them." — Roberts. Ver. 7. As well the singers as the players on in- struments shall be there : all my springs are in thee. A man of great charities is said to have many springs : " His heart is like the springs of a well." " Where are my springs, my lord ; are they not in you 1" Tears also are spoken of as coming from springs in the body ; thus the mother of Ramar said to him, in consequence of great sor- row, " The waters of my eyes have dried up the springs of affection." — Roberts. PSALM LXXXIX. Ver. 9. Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. 10. Thou hast broken Rahah in pieces, as one that is slain : thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm. 11. The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world, and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. See on Eph. 6. 16. Ver. 12. The north and the south thou hast crea- ted them : Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name. The northeast part of Lebanon, adjoining to the Holy Land, is in scripture distinguished by the name of Hermon ; and is, by consequence, mentioned as the northern boundary of the country beyond Jordan, and more particularly of the Kingdom of Og, or of the half tribe of Manasseh, on 'the east of that river." But, besides this Mount Hermon, in the northern border of the country beyond Jordan, we read of another mountain of the same" name, lying within the land of Canaan, on the west of the river Jordan, not far from Mount Tabor. To this mountain the holy Psalmist is ihought to refer in these words: " The north and the south ihou hast created them : Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name;" and in the following passage: " As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descends upon the mount- ains of Sion."— Paxton. Ver. 14. Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne. : mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Dr. Boothroyd, " Are the basis of thy throne." The Hebrew, " the establishment of thy throne." " What was the foundation of his throne'!" "Justice! Truly righ- teousness is the atlc-varam, foundation or basis, of all his ways." — Roberts. Ver. 25. I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. The meaning is: he shall reign from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates. This is figuratively expressed thus: his right hand shall extend to the sea, or his left to the Euphrates. A similar expression was used, according to Curtius, by the Scythian ambassadors to Alexander. " If," said they, " the gods had given thee a body as great as thy mind, the whole world would not be able to contain thee'; Ihou wouldst reach with one hand to the east, and with the rtherto the west." — Rosenmuller. PSALM XC. Ver. 4. For a thousand years in thy sight arc but as yesterday wnen it i? past, and as a watch in the night. It is evident in the scriptures, that besides these cares, they had watchmen who used to patrol in their streets: and it is natural to suppose, that they were these people thai gave them notice how the seasons of the night passed away, lam indebted for this thought to Sir John Chardin. lie observes, in a note on Ps. xo. 4, that as the people of the East. have no clocks, the several parts of the day and of the night, which are eight in all, are given notice of. In the Indies, the parts of the night are made known as well by instru- ments of music, in great cities, as by the rounds of the watch- men, who with cries and small drums, give them notice thai a fourth part of the night is passed. Now as these cries awaked those who had slept all that quarter part of the night, it appeared to them but as a moment. There are sixty of these people in the Indies, by day, and as many by night; that is, fifteen for each division. It is apparent the ancient Jews knew how the night passed away, which must probaDly be by some public notice given them : but whether it was by simply publish- ing at the close of each watch, what watch was then ended; or whether they made use of any instruments of music in this business, may not be easily determinable ; and still less what measures of time the watchmen made use of. — HlRMER. Ver. 5. Thou earnest them away as with a flood i they are as a sleep : in the morning they are like grass ichich groweth up. 6. In the morn- ing it flourisheth, and groweth up ; in the even- ing it is cut down, and withereth. In temperate latitudes, the fields are generally covered with durable verdure; but in Asia, gramineous plants of all kinds are extremely perishable. The wonderful ra- pidity of their growth is celebrated by everv traveller into the East. Sir^Thomas Roe says, that when the ground has been destitute of rain nine months together, and looks all of it like the barren sand in the desert of Arabia, where there is not one spire of green grass to be found, within a few days afier those fat enriching showers begin to fall, the face" of the earth there (as it were by a new resurrection) is so revived, and throughout so renewed, as that it is presently covered all over with a pure grecr. mantle. Dr. Russel, in the same admiring terms, de- scribes the springing of the earth as a resurrection of vegetable nature!" Vegetation is so extremely quirk in Hindostan, that, as fast as the water rises, the plants of rice grow before it, so that the ear is never immersed. To the powerful influence of the rain upon the face of oriental nature, Moses compares, with singular beauty and force, the effect which the lessons of heavenly wisdom produce in the human mind : " Mv doctrine shall'drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as Ihe showers upon the grass." Even the dens, which are most copious in those regions, produce a change so beneficial and Midden, that Solomon compares lo their ei i rgy, the influence of roval favour, which, in orient;d courts, frequently nil--- in one'dav a person from the lowest condition, to the'highest ranks of life: The king's " favour is as a dew upon thsgrass " But such extraordinary quick- ness of growth is in, •omuaiible with strength and perma- nence; the feeble and sickly blade yields as quickly to the burning heat, and vanishes away. To this rapid change the Psalmist compares the short-lived prosperity of wicked men: his own evanescent comforts ; the swift progress of his days, and of time in general. So soon are the powers of nature exhausted, that the grass does net always come to maturity, even in the best soils; in the language^ of an- cient prophecy, " it is blasted before it be grown up."— Pax- ton. Ver. 9. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath ; we spend our years as a tale that is told. " This year has been to me as a fabulous story : like the repetition' of a dream, my days pass away. The beginning of life is asthe dew-drop upon the tender herb, in ten moons Ps. 90—92. it assumes iis shape, and is brought forth; crawhi,prattles,walk < lumied v. eh-, i.-im-.-. At sixteen he is a man ; goes forth in the pride of his youth, gets a wile, and bee es the lather of children. The husk of his rice In- refuses to part wnh, and his wish is to enjoy all. He thinks by living cheaply, by reiming ' BPPOI el nti it '.' ili-jK'i, r i,u , h,. is of all men the m 61 happy, Be is i i rdless uf the writing m in- 1 ■ -i > 1 1. ■ i.i i like the lamp which shineth, and ceas oil, and there will be lighl ; lake it away, and there will !"• darkness. In old age come the rheumatics, the jaundice, and an enlarged l > lis ■ ihe ew-. are filled with rheui phlegm C. il Hi'-. 1 1 Mill. I lull idv I '.'rallies ,|| V, 111- lei. k llfllds, iiu wife and children abhor him, and in \ isions he sees the deathly car and horse. The place of burning sa\ s, ' ( 'nine, come; and his family say, 'Go, go.' His strength is gone, ' ;al ers, his' eyeballs roll, and his living soul is taken away. The people then talk of Ins good and evil deeds, and ask, ' Is this life !' The funeral riles follow; the music sounds forlli, and the DYING carry the place of burning." Thus sung the devoted Aruna R —Roberts. Ver. 14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be g'lad all our days. Ainsworlh, " San-lie us in ihe morning with thy mercie." Afflictions and sorrows are spoken of as the " night of life;" and the deliverance lV.un them, as the " morning of joy." " Yes, the night has been Inn gaud gl nunv, hut the i ning has at last come." "Ah! morning, morning, when wilt tin m cime 1" — Roberts. PSALM XCI. Ver. 1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most Hitrh, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. To say a person is under the shadow of a great man, means, he is under his protection. "Oh, my lord, all the fieople are against me ; they are pursuing me as the rigei i et me come under your vnm .'." i. e. shadow. a Ay, ay, the fellow is safe enough, now he has crept under the SHADOW of the king." " Begone, miscreant, thou shall not creep under my shadow." " Many years have I been under ihe shadow of my father : how shall I now leave it '" " G , gone, is the shadow of my days!" says the lamenting widow. — Roberts. Ver ' Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor' fat the arrow that flieth by day 6. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in dark- ness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at bo inday. When the cholera rages,noone will go out while the sun is at iis zi'tiith, because it is believed that the demon of the pestilence is then actively engaged. " The hot exhalations of the fiends." Tl of darkness arc said to have the most power at midnight. — Roberts. The arrow, in this passage, means the pestilence. The Arabs thus denote it: "I desired to remove to a less con- tagious air. 1 received from Scdyman, the emperor, this message: that the emperor wondered w-hat 1 meant, in desiring to remov niv habitation. Is not the pestilence God's arrow, which will always hit his mark, [f God would visit me herewith, how could i avoid it. ' Is nol the plague,' said he, ' in my own palace; and yet I donot think of removing.'" (Busbequius.) We find the same opinion expressed in Smith's Remarks on Ihe Turks. " What." say they, " is nut the plague the dart of Almighty God, ami can we escape the blow he levels at us. Is' not his hand steady to hit the persons he aims at i Can we run out of his sight, and bevond his power V So Herbert, (p. 99,) speaking of Curroon, says, "that year his empire was so wounded with God's arrows of plague, pesiilence, and famine, as this thousand vears before was never so terrible." — P PSALMS. down, Ver. 13. Thou shall tread u pon e lion ani id ad- der: the young lion and the dragon shall thou trample under foot, " Thou shall tread upnn the lion." Thisoxi notes the subjei ii n of tie ! n ml , !,,• im ... power of man. His superiority is indisputable I monarch have en particul. r > > . . grandeui by exhibiting lions m a Nine , • .n.i ,. , mbassador was introduced lo the Calil "among the o her spectacles of rare an- 1 stupendi a hundred lions were brought out, with a keepei lion." This embassy was received al Bagdad A II 305, A. IV '.117. Winn Mr. Bell, of Am. ihe Russian ambassador to 'he ahdiena shah Hussein, of Persia two lions were introduced, io denote ihe power of the kn.g over the fiercest animals. — Burdeh. The adder was known io ihe ancient Hebrews under various names.— Ii is the opinion of sine,' interpreters, that the word ^nw sachal, which in some parts of scripture de- notes a lion, in others, means an adder, or some other kind of serpent. Thus, in the ninety-firsi P aim the; il««) chephir, mean some kind of snakes, , -is well as (mo) phcthan and (ran) tannin, because the coherence of the v n e is by this view better preserved, than by mingling lions and serpents together, as our translators and . prefers have The union of lions, adders, and dragons, is not natural; nor is ii easy lo imagine what can be meant bv Heading upon lie h,.n, and trampling the young lion under foot ; for it is nol posi tble ii I iread upon the lion, as upon the adder, Ihe basilisk, am! other serpents. As the term C?n») sachal, when applied to wild beasts, denotes a black lion ; so in the present application, it means the black adder. Many serpents are of a black colour, but some of them are much blacker than others. The sachal, therefore, denotes the black snake, the colour of which i- inlenselv deep. Another name which ihe adder bears in scripture is (z'-y:;) achsub. It occurs in the following description of wicked men : " They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent : adders' poison is under their lips." The Chaldee renders it the poison of a spider; but the most common in- terpretation is that which our translators have adopted. Some, however, contend lhat the asp is intended ; and in support of their opinion, quote the authority of meny Greek and Lalin interpreters, and what must be decisive with every Christian, the suffrage of an inspired apostle, who gives this version of the Hebrew text: " The poison ot i pa is under their lips." The name in I [ebrew is derived from an Arabic verb, which signifies to coil up; which perfecilv with the nature of this animal, for, in prepar- ing to strike, il contracts itself into a spiral form, and raises its horrid head from the middle of the orb. It assumes the same form when it goes lo sleep, coiling its body into a num- ber of circles, with its head in the centre. ' This is the reason that in Gieek. A<— ,i d notes a shield, as well as a serpent. Now, the Grecian shields are circular, as we learn from Virgil, but whether the name of the shield(A) reem : and is derived from a verb, which sig- nifies to be exalted or lifted up. This term, which in He- brew signifies only height, is rendered bv the Greek inter- preters iiommpK, and by the Latins unicornis; both which answer to our English word unicorn. Jerome and others, doubtful to what animal it belongs, render it sometimes rhinoceros, and sometimes unicorn. It is evident from Ihe sacred scriptures, that the reem is an animal of considera- ble height, and of great strength. Thus Balaam reluctant- ly declared concerning Israel: " God brought them out of Egypt ; he hath as it were the strength of (a reem) a uni- corn." So great in the estimation of that reluctant seer, was the strength of the reem, that he repeats the eulogium in the very same words in the next chapter. From the grateful ascriptions of David, we learn that it is a horned animal : " But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn." And Moses, in his benediction of Joseph, states a most important fact, that it has two horns; the wonts are: /[is horns are like the horns of (=n-i a reem, in the sin- gular number) a unicorn. Some interpreters, determined Ps. 92. to support the claims of the unicorn lo the honour of a place in the sacred volume, contend, that in this instance the sin- gular, by an enallage or change of number, is put for ihe plural. But this is a gratuitous assertion; and besides, li admitted, would greatly diminish the force and propriety of the comparison. The two sons of Joseph, Ephraun and Manasseh, had been adopted into the family of Jacob, and appointed the founders of two distinct tribes, whose descend- ants in the times of Moses were become numerous and re- spectable in the congregation. These were the two horns with which Joseph was lo attack and subdue his enemies; and by consequence, propriety required an allusion to a creature, not with one, but with two horns. In the book of Job, the reem is represented as a \ ery fierce and intractable animal, which, although possessed ot sufficient strength to labour, sternly and pcilinaciously re- fuses to bend his neck to the yoke: " Will ihe unicorn (in Hebrew ihe reem) be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy cribl Canst thou bind the reem with his band in the fur- row, or will he harrow the valleys after theel Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great 1 Orwilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn 1" So far from being disposed to submit to the dominion of man, ht is extremely hoslile and dangerous. Little inferior to the lion himself in strength and fury, he is sometimes associa- ted in scripture with that destroyer. " Save me," cried our Lord to his Father, " save me from the lion's mouth : for thou hast heard me from the horns of (ccni) the unicorns." In the prophecies of Isaiah, it is united with other power- ful animals, to symbolize the great leaders and princes of the hostile nations, that laid waste his native land : " And Ihe unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with Ihe bulls: and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness." Such are the gene- ral characters of the reem, as delineated in the sacred vol- ume: but besides these, several hints are given, which seem to point out, with no Utile certainty, Ihe genus under which the reem ought to be classed. In that sublime composition, where the Psalmist assigns the reasons w hy God is lo be honoured, he joins Ihe calf wilh the young reem, and as- cribes to them the same kind of movement : " He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young (reem, or) unicorn." The prophet Isaiah, in a pas- sage already quoted, classes him wilh Ihe bullocks and the bulls; and Moses assigns him ihe same station, furnishes him wilh horns, and makes him push like a bullocu. If these circumstances are duly considered, no doubt will re- main that he is nearly allied to the creatures with which he is associated. These observations will enable us to examine with more success the various interpretations of the original name proposed by different expositors. Our translators, follow- ing the Greek fathers, consider the reem as a creature with one horn; and, agreeably to this idea, render it unicorn. But this interpretation is encumbered with insuperable dif- ficulties. The unicorn is a creature totally unknown in those countries where the scriptures were wriiten, and the patriarchs sojourned. But is it probable, lhat God him- self, in his expostulation wilh Job, would lake an illustra- tion ( t'coti-iderable length, from a creature with which ihe afflicted man was altogether unacquainted; ar.d mention this unknown animal in the midst of those with which he was quite familiar 1 Nor is it to be supposed, that Moses, David, and the prophets, would so frequently speak of an i animal unknown in Egypt and Palestine, andihe surround- ing countries; least of all, that they would borrow their comparisons from it, familiarly mention iis great strength, and describe its habits and dispositions. Aware of this ob- jection, and at loss how to elude its force, some writers, on the authority of Pliny, iemove the nalive land of the uni- corn to India. But this will be found of no advantage lo their cause ; for still the objection returns with nearly un- diminished force ; how could ihe sacred writers borrow their illustrations from a crealure wilh which, even on ihis supposition, thev were so little acquainted? They make no mention of the elephant, a creature not less powerful and fierce than Ihe unicorn, renowned for its docility, ar.d the various important services which it lenders to man; and numerous in Africa, and many countries ol Asia Ol this noble animal, the people of Israel seem to have nad no knowledge at all, except what they derived from t IV 9S PSALMS. IUJ trade in ivory, which they carried on during the reign of Solomon to some extent. But if the elephant, which abounded in countries much nearer [lie I Lih- Land than In- dia, whose teeih formed an ariiele of commerce at tg ihe ancient Israelites, was so little known to them; n CJ Dt be Supposed thai they had any knowledge of an animal which to India. But we have in reality no proof that such an animal ever existed in any pail of ihe world. Ii must be admitted, that both Pliny and yElian have described the unicorn in their writings ; but these eminent authors borrowed their statements from Ctesias, a writer of little respectability. Had the unicorn existed in any part ol the Bast, it must have been discovered and brought to Rome by those whom the Romans employed to explore the rei esi countries, with the express view of collecting the rarest animals they contained; in order to be exhibited ai the public shows. The tiger, the rhinoceros, and otheranimals, natives ol re- gions which the Roman eagles never visited, were often exhibited in the amphitheatre, before the proud oppressors Of the world. So numerous and diversified were the ani- mals produced on the arena at their public entertainments, that Aristides, in his encomium of Rome, declared, "All things meet here, whatsover is bred or made; and whatso- ever is not seen here, is to be reckoned among those things which are not, nor ever were." But although these shows continued for many ages, not a single unicorn was ever ex- hibited at Rome; a string proof thai no such animal exist- ed In ni'dern times, the remotest countries in Asia have been traversed, in almost every direction, by intelligent and inquisitive travellers; bul no animal of this kind has been discovered; nor has the least information been ob- tained concerning the unicorn, among the Datives, from these facts it may be safely concluded, that the unicorn ex- ists only in the imagination of vain and credulous writers, and by consequence, cannot be the reem of the sacred scriptures. The rhinoceros, on the contrary, was often exhibited in the amphitheatre at Rome; and 'has been frequently seen by modern travellers. No doubt, therefore, can be enter- tained concerning ihe reality of its existence : but the char- acter of the reem" given in ihe scripiures, will not apply to this animal. The reem, it is evident, was equally well they are mentioned. But the rhinoceros inhabits thesouth- ern pans of Africa, and the remotest parts of the East, be- yond the Ganges; and by consequence, could be still less known to the people of Israel than the elephant, which is not once mentioned in the sacred volume. Besides, the reem has large horns ; for, says the Psalm- ist, " My horn shall thou exalt like the horn of a uni- corn;" but the rhinoceros has seldom more than one, and that of a small size, not exalted like the horn of a reem, but turned back towards the forehead. Nor will the use to which the reem applies his horns, correspond with the man- ners of the rhinoceros : the former pushes with his horns, which must therefore be placed on his forehead; but the horn of the latter, which is placed on his nose, and bent backwards, is not formed for pushing, but for ripping up the trunks or bodies of the more soft and succulent trees, and reducing ihsm into a kind of laths, which constitute a part of the animal's food. It is the opinion of others, that the reem is a species of wild bull: which they have endeavoured to establish by several plausible arguments. In many places of scripture, say they, Ihe ox and the reem are joined together, as ani- mals of the same family: in others, the latter is represent- ed as a strong and fierce animal, with large and very strong horns, greatly addicted to push, and by consequence, an enemy much to be dreaded. The reem, therefore, cannot be the buffalo, because his horns being turned inward, are unfit for the combat ; but either the bison, or the urns. It K rather supposed, however, that the urus is the reem of the Hebrews, because the bison, though a very fierce and obstinate animal, maybe subdued by the art of man, and at length entirely domesticated. But" as to the urus, Cesar says expressly", that they cannot be tamed and rendered use- ful to mankind, not even their young ones excepted : they are therefore taken in pits and destroyed. Pliny thus de- scribes the urus: He is of a size little inferior to the ele- phant ; in appearance, colour, and figure, he resembles the 51 bull; his strength and velocity are great; :.nd beneithei spares man noi beasf thai i omes m his way. 2 iiments havccoi,- ■ ' •<■ they are liable to the san biections w hicli these very writers have urged with so mui a I iree against the claims i corn and the rhinoceros. Ii is by no means probable ib.,: cred «i iters would make so many allusions to ani- mal-, WJib Which the people u holll lie " terly unacquainted; would speak so familiarly ab would borrow their figures and illustrations, from iheii form, disposition-, and manners; or that Jehovah him- self vpuld converse with Job so long about a i • lui v. isui no* he people of those countries. The orn ed from the remotest times in the deep rei esse oi the llueanian forest; and was quite unknown to the Ro- mans before the time of Cesar. Neither ihe urus nor the bison, according to Pliny, were 10 be found in tin ece am the former has been con-i'leied In - nne authors as a 6a live of Germany. It is even admitted by Boetius, who .strenuously maintains ihe claims of ihe urus, ihat he can find no wriler who says that these wild oxen are produi I in Syria and Palestine. Aben Ezra, on the CI ■ seris! in his commentary on the prophecies of Hosea, that no wild bull is to be found in Judea, and Ihe SU1 countries. It is not sufficient u> say, that these vai ietiee oil the bovine family, may have existed there in the nines ol Moses and ihe prophets, for a men. conjecture proves no- thing. If the v existed oi , y hv do ihey noi exist now, as well as the wild goat, Ihe hart, and Ihe antelope 1 Why is not a single trace of them to be found ifl the v. mates of Greece and A-ia 1 Pliny indeed slates, that ihe Indian forests abounded with wild oxen; but it will not follow, that ihe urns was known to the Jews, because H was discovered in ihe forests ol India, ihe regions ol Seythia, oj^ the more remote wilds of Africa. But the iruih is, we have no proof that he meant to .-peak of the urus or the bison ; he only mentions wild oxen in general: from which no certain argument can be drawn in support of the opinion which Boetius and others maintain. — P»xton. Bochart, and after him. Rosenmuller and others, regard the reem of the Hebrews as a species of antelope, ihertro pi the Arabs, and the oryx or leocoryx of the Greeks. The argument of most weight in Bochart's mind, seems lo be the fact, that rim, in Arabic, which is equivalent lo mm i>, Hebrew, is Ihus used for a species of while gazelle or anle- lope, (Niebuhr, De-cr. of Arab. p. xxxvui. Germ, ed.) which would seem to be very probably the Icuconi.r. But then Ihe other characteristics ol these animals by no means correspond lo those of the reem, which is everywhere de- scribed as a fierce, intractable animal, acting on ihe offen- sive, and attacking even men of Us own accord. Now, however wild and untameable many species of antelopes may be. thev are universally described as a shy and retir- ing' animal/always living from pursuit, and avoiding even the approach of man'. In opposition lo this, Bocharl and Rosenmuller produce a passage of Martial, wlei to the oryx the epithet fierce, (saevtis oryx, Epigr, xiii. !>.'>,) and another from Oppian, where he says, "There is a beast, with pointed horns, familiar to ihe woods, ihe savage oryx, most terrible lo oilier beasts " (t lyneget. ii. 445.) Now all these epithets and descriptions, even allowing nothing for poetical amplification, are perfectly applicable lo the stag of our forests and of Asia; ihev imply no more lhan lhat Ihe oryx, when hard pushed, will turn upon its pursuer-, and defend himself with fury. Yet no one would hence draw the conclusion, that it was characteristic of ihe stag to act on ihe offensive; nor can such a conclusion be drawn with better reason in regard lo the oryx. — The oryx of Pliny and other ancient writers, is understood to be the antelope oryr of zoologists; the gazella Indica of Ray, ihe rn/im gazrlli' of the Sysl. Nat., the Esuptian i Pennant, and the jmsan'oi Buffon. Il is about the size of a fallow deer, having straight, slender, annulated horns, ,-!,-!■ taper I the horns are about ihree feel long, the points sharp, and about fourteen inches asunder; ihe body and sides are of a reddish ash colour; the face is white, with a black spot at the base of the horn;, and an- other on the middle of the face. It is a native of A-ia and Africa. — The leitconjx, which some suppose to be the <»yx of Oppian. is in general similar to Ihe animal abc'.i de- scribed, exeepl lhat the body is of a milk-while coloui. V inhabits th" neighbourhood of Bassora, on the Persian gulf. 402 Most obviously neither of these animals answer the de- scription of the Hebrew reem. The lact that the Arabs apply the word nm to this class of animals, has probably its origin in the same cause, which also leads them to ap- ply to the races of deer and antelopes, in general, the ep'ithet wild oxen. (See Schttltens, Comm. in Job xxxix. 3.) Other writers have supposed the reem of the Hebrews to be the urns, bison, or wild ox, described by Cesar, which js understood to be the same animal as the "American buf- falo. The characteristics of this animal accord well with those attributed to the reem ; but there is no evidence that the bison' existed in Palestine, or was known to the He- brews. A more obvious supposition, therefore, is that of Schultens, De Wette, Gesenius, and others, that under the reem we are to understand the buffalo of the eastern conti- nent, the bos bubalus of Linnasus, which differs from the bison, or American buffalo, chiefly in the shape of the horns and the absence of the dewlap. This animal is indigenous, originally in the hotter parts of Asia and Africa, but also in Persia, Abvssinia, and Egypt; and is now also natural- ized in Italv and southern Europe. As, therefore, it existed in the countries all around Palestine, there is every reason to suppose that it was also found in that country, or at least in the regions east of the Jordan, and south of the Dead Sea, as Bashan and Idumea. The oriental buffalo appears to be •so closely allied to our common ox, that without an attentive examination it might be easily mistaken for a variety of that animal. In point of size it is rather superior to the ox ; and upon an accu- rate inspection, it is observed to differ in the shape and magnitude of the head, the latter being larger than m the ox. But it is chieflv by the structure of the horns that the buffalo is distinguished, these being of a shape and curva- ture altogether different from those of the ox. They ar-e of gigantic size in proportion to the bulk of the animal, and of a compressed form, with a sharp exterior edge; for a considerable length from their base these horns are straight, and then bend slightly upward; the prevailing colour ol them is duskv, or nearly black. The buffalo has no dewlap; his tail is small, and 'destitute of vertebra near the extremity ; his ears are long and pointed. This ani- mal has the appeirance of uncommon strength. The bulk ■of his body, and prodigious mm force at the first view. His aspec nant; at the same time that his marked with features of stupidity, derous size; his eyes diminutiv render his visage still more savage, hair which hang down from his cheeks and the lower part of his muzzle. This animal, although originally a native of the hotter parts of India and Africa, is now completely naturalized to ihe climate of the south of Europe. Mr. Pennant supposes the aild hulls „f Aristotle to have been buffaloes, and Gmelin and otter distinguished naturalists are of the same opin- ion. Gmelin also supposes the Bos Indicus of Pliny to have been the same animal. Buffun. however, endeavours lo show, that the buffalo of modern times was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and that it was first transported from its native countries, the warmer regions of Africa and the Indies, to be naturalized in Italy, not earlier than the seventh century. The buffalo grows in some countries to an extremely large size. The buffaloes of Abyssinia grow to twice the size of our largest oxen, and are called elephant bulls. Mr. Pennant mentions a pair of horns in the British Museum, which are six feet and a half long, andthe hollow of which will hold five quarts. Father Lobo affirms that some of the horns of the buffaloes in Abyssinia will hold ten quarts: and Dillon saw some in India that were ten feet long. They are sometimes wrinkled, but generally smooth. The dis- tance between the points of the two horns is usually five feet. Wild buffaloes occur in many parts of Africa and India, where they live in great troops in the forests! and are re- garded as excessively fierce and dangerous animals. In all these particulars they coincide with the buffaloes of America. The hunting of them is a favourite, but very dangerous pursuit; the hunters never venture in any numbers to oppose these ferocious animals face to face; but conceal themselves in the thickets, or in the branches »f the trees; whence they attack the buffaloes as they pass ilong. limbs, denote his my is strongly d is- of a pun- hat serves to jfts of frizzled ire the MS. Ps. 92 In Egypt, as also in Southern Europe, the buffalo has been partially domesticated. In Egypt especially, it is much cultivated, where, according to Sonniui, it yields plenty of excellent rniik, from which butter and various kinds of cheese are made. " The buffalo," says Sonnini, "is an acquisition of the modern Egyptians, with which their ancestors were unac- quainted. It was brought pver from Persia into theit country, where the species is at present universally spread, and is very much propagated. It is even more numerous than the common ox, and is there equally domestic, though but recently domesticated ; as is easily distinguished by the constantly uniform culi in r of the hair, and still more by a rem nant of ferocity aha intractability of disposition, and a wild and lowering aspect, the characters of all half-tamed animals. The buffaloes of Egypt, however, are not near so wild, nor so much to be feared, as those of other countries. They there partake of the gentleness of other domestic animals, and only retain a few sudden and occasiunal caprices. They are so fond of water, that I have seen them continue in it a whole day. It often happens that the water which is fetched from tne Nile, near its banks, has contracted their musky smell." ■ These animals multiply more readily than the common ox; they breed in the fourth year, producing voting fur two years together, and remaining steril the third ; and they commonly cease breeding after their twelfth year. Their term of life is much the same as that of the common ox. They are more robust than the common ox, better capable of bearing fatigue, and, generally speaking, less liable to distempers. 1 hey are therefore "employed to ad- vantage in different kinds of labour. Buffaloes are made to draw heavy loads, and are commonly guided by means of a ring passed through the nose. In its habits the buffalo is much less cleanly than the ox, and delights to wallow in the mud. His voice is deeper, more uncouth and hideous, than that of the bull. The milk is said by some authors to be not so good as that of the cow, but more plentiful ; Euf- fon, on the contrary, asserts that it is far superior to cow's milk. The skin and horns are of more value than all the rest of the animal ; the latter are of a fine grain, strong, and bear a good polish, and are therefore in much esteem with cutlers and other artisans. Italy is the country where buffaloes are, at present, most common perhaps in' a domesticated state. They are used more particularly in the Pontine marshes, and those in the district of Sienna, where the fatal nature of the climate acts unfavourably on common cattle, but affects the buffa- loes less. The Spaniards also have paid attention to them; and indeed the cultivation of this useful animal seems to be pretty general in all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, both in Europe and Africa. Niebuhr remarks, that he saw buffaloes not only in Egypt, but also at Bombay, Surat, on the Euphrates, Tigris, Cronies, ,-,t Scanderoon, &c. and indeed in almost all marshy regions, and near large rivers. He does not remember any in Arabia, there being perhaps in that country too little' wa- ter for this animal. (Descr. of Arabia, p. 165, Uerm. edit.) We have been thus particular in describing the buffalo of Asia, in order to show that it possesses, in its wild stale, all the characteristics attributed to the Hebrew reem. Ail the evidence goes to show that it has baen domesticated only at a comparatively recent period; and that the He- brews therefore were probably acquainted with it only as a wild, savage, ferocious animal, resembling the ox ; and it was not improbably often intended by them under lie epithet, bulls of Bashan. The appropriateness of the fore- going description to the Hebrew reem will be apparent, cm a closer inspection of the passages where this animal is mentioned. In Deut. xxxiii. 17, and Ps. xcii. 10, the comparison is with his horns ; which requires no further illustration after what is said above. In Numb, xxiii. 22, xxiv. 8, it is said, " he hath as it were ther strength of a reem;" this is cer- tainlv most appropriate, if we adopt here the word strength, as the proper translation. But the Hebrew word here ren- dered strength, means strictlv, rapidity of motion, speed, combined, if vou please, with/nrcc. In this sense also, it is not less descriptive of the buffalo, which runs with great speed and violence when excited ; as is often the case in regard lo whole herds, which then rush blindly forwards with tremendous power. (See the account of Major Long's IV 9ft PSA expedition to the Rocky Mountains.) In three other pas- sages, the inpled with the common ox, 01 i mi the latter. In Ps. i said," He maketh them also to skip like a calf- Lebanon and Sirion like a young reem ;'' where the \ ungol the ids in parallelism with the .all. bO thai we should naturally expert a great similarity between them. Isa. xxxiv. 7, " And the rcemim shall comedown with (hem, and the bullocks with the hulls," &c. Here, in verse 6, it is Said that the Lord has a great sarriliee in Boziah; and the idea in verse 7 is, according to the LXX andeuesenitts, lull come down, i. e. shall make part of lice, as also the bullocks, old and young, of the land of Edam, so that their " land shall be soaked with The other passage is Job xxix. 'J— 10, " Will the reem be willing to serve thee, or abide by the crib? Canst thou bind the reem with his band in the furrow, <>r will he barrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great, or wilt thou leave thy labour to him ? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home i hi- seed, and gather it into thy barn V Here Job is asked, whether he would dare to intrust to the reem such and such lab ens as were usually performed by oxen. Nothing can be more appropriate to'the wild buffalo than this language ; and we have seen above that the Hebrews probably knew it only in a wild state. The only other passage where the reem is mentioned is Ps. xxii. 21* and this requires a more extended notice. The Psalmist in deep distress says in 12, "Many bulls (="£) have compassed me, strong balls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, asa ravening and roaring lion. For dogs have compassed me," &c. Here it will be observed that three animals are mentioned as besetting the writer, bulls of Bashan, lions, dogs. The Psalmist proceeds to speak of his deliverance ; verse 20, " Deliver my soul [me] from the sword, my darling [me] from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard [and saved] me from the horns of the reemim." Here also it will be seen are three animals, corresponding to the three before mentioned as Besetting him, but ranged in an inverted order, viz. the dog, the lion, and the reem. in place of the bulls of Bashan ; that is, from the whole struc- ture of the poem, and the fact that these animals and no others are alluded to, the inference is almost irresistible, that the rcemim of verse 21 are the pdrim of verse 12, the bulls of Bashan, as has been already suggested above. At least we may inf?r that the reem was an animal not so unlike those bulls, but that it might with propriety be in- terchanged -with them in poetic parallelism; a circumstance most appropriately true of the wild buffalo, and of him onlyS From all these considerations, and from the fact that the buffalo must have been far better known in western Asia than either the rhinoceros or the ory* (even if the descrip- tion of the reem suited these animals in other respects.) we teel justified in assuming the Uiurus bubalus, or wild buf- falo, to be the reem of the Hebrew scriptures, and the unicorn of the English version. The principal difficulty in the way of this assumption, is the fact that the LXX have usually translated the Hebrew ream by r>i'">, unicorn, nne~horn. It must, however, be borne in mind, that these translators lived many centuries after the Hebrew scriptures were written, and not long indeed before the birth of Christ : they lived, too, in Egypt, where it is not impossible that the buffalo had in their age begun to be domesticated. In such circumstances, and being unacquainted with the animal in his fierce and sav- age state, they may have thought that the allusions to the reem were not fully answered by the half-domesticated ani- mal before them, and they may, therefore, have felt them- selves at liberty to insert t he name of some animal which eemed to them n tike such liberties, the very passage of Isaiah above quoted, eh. xxxiv. 7, where the Hebrew is e»-i\:n ay S'-ibi, "and the bullocks with the bulls," i. e. the bulls with the strong ones, or, according lo Gesenius, " the bulls both young and old :" this the LXX translates, mi ol toni mio! raipci, " and the ramsfor wethers) and the bulls," — certainly a quid pro quo not less striking than that of putting unicorn for buffalo. That, the -LXX, in using the word monoccros. (unicorn, one-horn,) did not understand by it the rhinoc-ms. would teem obvious; both because the latter always had its ap- jMS. 403 propriate and peculiar name in rhinoceros, i its horn upon the i n the circumstance so much insisted onabove in the exiiacis from Mr, Bruce thai the rbilao- ceros of that part of Africa adjacent to Egypt actually has too homs. They appear rather lo have had in mind the half-fabuldua onic , described by Pliny, but lost sight of by all subsequent naturalists; although imperfect hints anil accounts ol a miihI.ii annual have been given by travellers 1 India, in different centuries, and entirely in- dependent of each other. The interesting nature of the subject renders it proper to exhibit here all the evidence which exists in respect to such an animal ; especially as it is nowhere brought together in the English language, or at least in nosuch form as to render ii The figure of the unicorn, in various attitudes, is depict- ed, according to Niebuhr, on almost all the stair-eases found among the ruins of Persepolis. One of these figures is given in vol. ii. plate xxiii. of Niebuhr's Travels; and also in vol. i. p. 594, 595 of the Travels of Sir R. K. Por- ter. The latter traveller supposes it to be the representa- tion of a bull with a single liorn. Pliny, in speaking of the wild beasts of India, says with regard' to the animal in question; Asprrrimon tintrm it rum mniwcvrnlcm, rtlu/lio corpore equo similem, capile cento, pedibus elephanli, cattda ente. Banc feram capi. (Hist. Nat. via. 21.) "The unicorn is an exceeding fierce ani- mal, resembling a horse as to the rest of its body, but having the head like a stag, the feet like an elephant', and the tail like a wild boar: its roaring is loud, and it has a black horn of about two cubits projecting from the middle of its forehead." These seem to be the chief ancient notices of the existence of the animal in question. In 1530, Ludivico de Bartema, a Roman patrician, trav- elled to Egypt, Arabia, and India; and having assumed the character of a Mussulman, he was able to visit Mecca with the Hadj, or great caravan of pilgrims. In his account of the curiosities' of tins city, in Ramnsio's Collection of Travels, (Racotta di Viaggi, Venet. 15113, p. 1(13,) he savs : " On the other side of the Caaba is a walled court, in which we saw two unicorns, which were pointed out to us as a tarity; and they are indeed truly remarkable. The larger of the two is built like a three-year-old colt, and has a horn upon the forehead about three ells long. The other unicorn was smaller, like a yearling foal, and has a horn perhaps four spans long. — This animal has the colour of a yellowish brown horse, a head like a stag, a neck not very long, with a thin mane ; the legs are small and slender, like those of a hind or.roe ; the hoofs of the forefeet are'divided, and re- semble the hoofs of a goat. These two animals were sent to the sultan of Mecca", as a rarity of great value, and very seldom found, by a king of Ethiopia, who wished to secure, by this present, the good will of the sultan of Mecca." ' Don Juan Gabriel, a Portuguese colonel, who lived several years in Abyssinia, assures us, that in the region of Agamos, in the Abyssinian province of Damota. he had seen ananimal of the form and size of a middle-sized horse, of a dark chestnut-brown colour, and with a whitish horn, about five spans long, upon the forehead ; the mane and tail were Mack, and the legs short and slender. Several other Portuguese, who were placed in confinement upon a high mountain in the district of Namna, by the Abyssinian king, Adamas Saghedo, related that they had seen' at ihe foot of the mountain, several unicorns feeding. (Ludoll's Hist. ^Ethiop. lib. i. c. 10. n. 80, seq.) These accounts are con- firmed bv Father Lobo, who lived for a long time asa mis- sionary in Abyssinia. He adds, that the unicorn is extremely shy. and escapes from closer observation by a speedv flight into the forests ; for which reason there'is no exact de- scription of him. (Voyage histor. d'Abvssinie, Amst. 1728, vol. i.p. Ki, 291.) All these accounts are certainly not ap- plicable to the rhinoceros: although it is singular that Mr. Bruce speaks only of the latter animal as not uncommon in Abyssinia, and makes apparently no allusion to the above accounts. In more recent times we find further traces of the am mal in question in Southern Africa. Dr. Sparrmann, tho Swedish naturalist, who visited the Cape of Good Hope and the adjacent regions '- -he years 1772-17711, g.ves, in his travels, the following account: Jacob Knock, -n ob- serving peasant on Hippopotamus river, who had travelled of a perpendicular rock a drawing made by the Hottentots, representing a quadruped with one horn. The Hottentots told him that the animal there represented was very like the horse on which he rode, but had a straight horn upon the forehead. They added, that these one-horned animals were rare, that they ran with great rapidity, arid were also very fierce. They also described the manner of hunting them. " It is not probable," Dr. Sparrmann remarks, " that the savages wholly invented this story, and that too so very circumstantially ; still less can we suppose, that they should have received and retained, merely from history or tradi- tion, the remembrance of such an animal. These regions are very seldom visited; and the creature might, therefore, long remain unknown. That an animal so rare should not be better known to the modern world, proves nothing against its existence. The greater part of Africa is still among the terra incognita:. Even the giraffe has been again discovered only wiihin comparatively a few years. So also the gnu, which, till recently, was held to be a fable of the ancients." A somewhat more definite account of a similar animal is contained in the Transactions of the Zealand Academy of Sciences at Flushing. (Pt. iv. Middelb. 1792. Prsef. p. Ivi.) The account was transmitted to the societv in 171)1, from the Cape of Good Hope, by Mr. Henry Cloete. It states that a bastard Hottentot, Gerrit Slinger by name, re- lated, that while engaged several years before w'ith a party, in pursuit of the savage Bushmen, they had got sight of nine strange animals, which they followed on horseback, and shot one of them. This animal resembled a horse, and was of a light-gray colour, with while stripes under the lower jaw. It had a single horn, directly in front, as long as one's arm, and at the base about as thick. Towards the middle the horn was somewhat flattened, but had a sharp point; it was not attached to the bone of the forehead, but fixed only in the skin. The head was like that of the horse, and the size also about the same. The hoofs were round, like those of a horse, but divided below like those of oxen. This remarkable animal was shot between the so- called Table Mountain and Hippopotamus river, about six- teen days' journey on horse-back from Cambedo, which would be about a month's journey in ox-wagons from Cape- town. Mr. Cloete mentions, that several different natives and Hottentots testify to the existence of a similar animal with one horn, of which they profess to have seen drawings bv hundreds, made by the Bushmen on rocks and stones. He supposes that it would not be difficult to obtain one of these animal5, if desired. His letter is dated at the Cape, April 8, 1791. (See thus far Rosenmuller's Altes u. neues Murgenland, ii. p. -1)9, seq. Leipz. 1818.) Such appear to have been the latest accounts of the ani- The Quarterly Review for Oct. 1820, (vol. xxiv. p. 120,) in a notice of Frazier's tour through the Himalaya Moun- tains, goes on to remark as follows: " We have no doubt that a little time will bring to light many objects of natural nistory peculiar to the elevated regions of Central Asia, and hitherto unknown in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, particularly in the two former. This is an opinion which we have long entertained ; but we are led to the expression of it on the present occasion, by having been favoured with the perusal of a most interesting com- munication from Major Latter, commanding in the rajah of Sikkim's territories,. in the hilly country east of Nepaul, addressed to Adjutant-general Nicol, and transmitted by him lo the Marquis of Hastings. This important paper expli- citly states that the unicorn, so long considered as a fabu- I his animal, actually exists at this moment in the interior rf Thibet, where it is well known to the inhabitants. 'This,' — we copy from the Major's letter — 'is a very curious fact, and it may be necessary to mention how the circumstance became known to me. In a Thibetian man- uscript, containing the names of different animals, which 1 procured the other day from the hills, the unicorn is classed under the head of those whose hoofs are divided : it is call- ed the one-horned Iso'po. Upon inquiring what kind of animal it was, to our astonishment, the person who brought the manuscript described exactly the unicorn of the an- •ipnts ; saving, that it was a native of the interior of Thibet, ib-iut the size of a tattoo, [a horse from twelve to thirteen MS. Ps 92. hands high,] fierce and extremely wild; seldom, if ever, caught alive, but frequently shot: and that the flesh was used for food.' — ' The person,' Major Latter adds, ' who gave me this information, has repeatedly seen these ani- mals, and eaten the flesh of them. They go together in herds, like our wild buffaloes, and are very frequently tc be met with on the borders of th«. great desert, about a month's journey from Las:.a, in that part of the country in- habited by the wandering Tartars.' " This' communication is accompanied by a drawing made by t+ie messenger from recollection. It bears some resemblance to a horse, but has cloven hoofs, a long curved horn growing out of the forehead, and a boar-shaped tail, like that of the/cm monoceros described by Pliny. FrorrT its herding together, as the unicorn of the scriptures is said to do, as well as from the rest of the description, it is evi- dent that it cannot be the rhinoceros, which is a solitary animal ; besides, Major Latter stales, that in the Thibetian manuscript the rhinoceros is described under the name of serro, and classed with the elephant; 'neither,' says he, 'is it the wild horse, (well known in Thibet,) for that has also a different name, and is classed in the manuscript with the animals which have the hoofs undivided.' — ' I have written,' he subjoins, ' to the Sachia Lama, requesting him to procure me a perfect skin of the animal, with the head, horn, and hoofs; but it will be a longtime before I can get it down, for they are not to be met with nearer than a month's journey from Lassa.' " As a sequel to this account, we find the following para- graph in the Calcutta Government Gazette, August, 1821: " Major Latter has obtained the horn of a young unicorn from the Sachia Lama, which is now before us. It is twenty inches in length ; at the root it is four inches and a half in circumference, and tapers to a point ; it is black, rather flat at the sides, and has fifteen rings, but they are only prominent on one side; it is nearly straight. Major Latterexpects to obtain the head of the animal, with the hoofs and the skin, very shortly, which will afford positive proof of the form and character of the tso'po, or Thibet unicorn." Such are the latest accounts which have reached lis of this animal ; and although their credibility cannot well be contested, and the coincidence of the description with that of Pliny is so striking, yet it is singular that in the lapse of more than ten years, (1832,) nothing further should have been heard on a subject so interesting.— But whatever may be the fact as to the existence of this animal, the adoption of it by the LXX, as being the Hebrew rccm, cannot well be correct ; both for the reasons already adduced above, and also from the circumstance, that the reem was evident- '■% an animal frequent and well known in the countries where the scenes of the Bible are laid ; while the unicorn, at all events, is and was an animal of exceeding rarity. — Robinson in Calmet. "Ver. 12. The righteous shall nourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Leb- anon. The palm-tree is very common in Judea, and in the sur- rounding regions. The Hebrews call it (ion) tamar, and the Greeks junf, phenix. The finest-palm trees grow about Jericho and Engeddi ; they also flourish in great numbers along the banks of Jordan, and towards Scylho- polis. Jericho is by way of distinction called " the city of palm-trees." It seems indeed to have been recognised as the common symbol of the Holy Land; for Judea is repre- sented on several coins of Vespasian, by a disconsolate woman silling under a palm-tree ; and in like manner, upon the Greek coin of his son Titus; struck on a similar occa- sion, we see a shield suspended on a palm-tree, with a vic- tory writing upon it. The same tree is delineated upon a medal of Domitian, as an emblem of Neapolis or Naplosa, the ancient Sichem ; and upon a medal of Trajan, it is the symbol of Sepphoris, the metropolis of Galilee. From these facts it may be presumed that the palm-tree was formerly much cultivated in Palestine. Several of them still grow- in the neighbourhood of Jericho, wnich abounds with water, where the climate is warm, and the soil sandy : a situation in which they delight, and where they rise to full maturity. But at Jerusalem, Sichem, and other places to the northward, two or three of them are rarely seen together; and even these, as their fruit seldom or neve) Ps. 92- 1(12. comes to maturity, are of no further service (han, like the palin-treeof Deborah, to shade ihe-dwelhngsof the parched inhabitants, or to supply them w Ltfa branches ai ihe solemn festival. The piesenl condition and quality of palm-trees in Canaan, leads us to conclude, that they never at any lime unrri 1 1 1 ■ i- \ cry numerous or fruitful in that country. The opinion that Plienice is the same with a country of datc- ii. it appear probable; for if such a valuable plant had ever been cultivated in Palestine with success, it would have been cultivated down to the present times, as nd m Barbary. In these countries the traveller meets with large plantations of palm-trees on the seacoast, as well as in the interior; although those only which grow m the sandy deserts of Sahara, and the regions of Getulia, and the Jereeda, bring their fruit to perfection. They are propagated chiefly from young shoots taken from the roots if full-gr.)\vn trees; which, if well transplanted and taken care of, will yield their fruit in the sixth or seventh year; while those which arc raised immediately from the kernel, will not bear till about their sixteenth year. '1 his method of raising the j.in;, or palm, and particularly the circum- stance, that when the old trunk dies, young shoots are never wanting to succeed it, may have giveu occasion to the well-known fable of the phenix, which perishes in a flame of her own kindling; while a young one springs from her ashes, to continue the race. The palm-tree arrives at its greatest vigour about thirty years alter being transplanted, and continues in full strength and beatuv for seventy years longer, producing yearly fif- teen or twenty clusters of dates, each of them weighing fif- teen or twenty pounds. After this period it begins grad- ually to decline, and usually falls about the latter end of its second century. "Cui p'lacet curas agere seculorum," says Palladius, " depalmiseogitet conserendis." It requires no other culture and attendance than to he well watered once in four or five days, and to have a few of the lower boughs lopped off when they begin to droop or wither. These, whose stumps or polli'ees, "in being thus gradually left upon the trunk, serve, like so many rounds of a ladder, to climb up the tree, either to fecundate or to lop it, or to gather the fruit, are quickly supplied with others, which gradually hang down from the crown or top, contributing both to the regular and uniform growth of this tall, knot- less, and beautiful tree, and to its perpetual and delightful verdure. It is usual with persons of better station, to entertain their gnesis on days Oi joyous festivity with the honey of the palm-tree. This they procure by cutting off the head or crown of one of the more vigorous plants, and scooping the lop of the trunk into the shaped a basin, where the sap in ascending lodges itself, at the rate of three or four quarts a day, during the first week or fortnight; after which the quantity daily diminishes, and at the end of six weeks or two months the juices are entirely consumed, the tree bee- mes dry, and serves only for timber or lire-wood. This liquor, which has a more' luscious sweetness than honey, is of the consistence of a thin syrup, but quickly grows tart and ropy, acquiring an intoxicating quality, and giving by distillation an agreeable spirit — the Aaraky of the natives, and the palm-wine of the natural his- The palm is ont >f the most beautiful trees in the vege- table kingdom; it is upright, lofty, verdant, and embower- ing. It grows by the brook or well of living water ; and resisting every attempt to press or bend it downward, shoots directly towards heaven. For this reason, perhaps, it was regarded by the ancients as peculiarly sacred, and there- fore most fr°iuently u?d in adorning their temples. The chosen symbol of'constancy, fruitfulness, patience, and victory ; the more it is oppressed, the more it flourishes, the higher it grows, and the stronger and broader the top ex- pands. To this majestic and useful tree the child of God is compared in the holy scriptures, with singular elesance and propriety. Adorned with the beauties of holiness, and rich in the mercies of the covenant, fruitful in good works, and reposing all his thoughts in heaven, precious in the sight of God, and lovely in the view of every rational being capable of forming a just estimate of his character, he may well be said to flourish like the palm-tree, and to crrow like a cedar in Lebanon. "Planted in the house of the Lord, he shall flourish in the courts of our God. He shall -till bring forth fruit in old age; he shall be fat and flourish- es. 405 ng; to show that the Lord is upright; that he is his .-ock; and there is no unrighteousness in him." — Paxton. " The W nkcd spring as the grass, but good men endure like the palm-tree, and bear much fruit." " A grateful man is like the palmirah-tree; for small attentions he gives much tin it."— Roberts. Ver. 13.' Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. The being planted in the house of God, or in its courts, may allude to an ancient custom, still used in the Kast, el planting trees in the courtyard of a house. Plai-"d, in ins Journal from Busserah to Aleppo, informs us, tr.at ine people of Aleppo plant a cypress-tree in the courtyard ot •heir houses. Dr. Fryer, in his new account of i. Easl Indies and Persia, describes a nabob's apartments as en- compassing in the middle a verdant quadrangle of trees and plants. It is also observable, that the Jews, though forbidden to plant trees in the temple, planted them in their proseuchae, which were, in some sort, houses of God. — Bl utiKK. Ver. 14. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing. The Hebrew, instead of flourishing, has, "oreEn!" Ainsworth, "shall be fat and green." Of a very old man who has retained his strength, the Hindoos say, " he is a GREEN veteran." "See that patche-kiltavin, U'icoii ,,|d man,) how strong he is." " My friend, if you act in this way, you will never be a green old man." A man who has been long noted for roguery is called a pott green rogue; and a well-known utterer of falsehoods, a green liar. " Ah ! my lord 1" says the relieved mendicant, " in your old age you will be fat and flourishing;" or, "You will be a green old man." — Roberts. PSALM CI, Ver. 3. I will set no wicked thing before mine> eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. Pleasure or displeasure, approbation or abhorrence, may be known by the look, or the cast of the eye. What we are pleased 'and delighted with attracts and fixes ihe eye. What we dislike or hate, we turn away from the sight of; and when the Psalmist resolves that Ac would not fix his eyes -upon any evil thing, he means, he would never give it Ihe least countenance or encouragement, but treat it with displeasure, as what he hated, and was determined to pun- ish. For he adds, "I hate the work of them that turn aside." Mr. Schultens hath shown in Ws commentary on Prov. vii. 25, that nOB hath a much stronger and more sig- nificant meaning than that of mere turning aside ; and that it is used of an unruly horse, that champs upon the bit through his fiery impatience ; and when applied to a bad man, denotes one impatient of all restraint, of unbridled passions, and who is headstrong and ungovernable in the gratification of them, trampling on all the obligations of religion and virtue. Such as these are the deserved objects of the haired of all good men, whose criminal deviations and presumptuous crimes they detest ; none of which shall cleave to them ; they will not harbour the love of or incli- nation to them, nor habitually commit them, nor encourage the practice of them. — Chandler. PSALM CII. Ver. 3. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a hearth. A person believing himself to be near death, says, in the bitterness of his soul, " Alas ! my days have pa-sed away like smoke; my bones are as a firebrand." — Roberts. Ver. 6. I am like a pelican cf the wilderness; 1 am like an owl of the desert. The pelican is another bird :f 'be desert, to which the sacred writers sometimes allude Its Hebrew name is kaath, literallv, the vomiter Sr*n he Hebrew verb Kaau., 40G PSA !r, -•omit. The reason assigned for this name by the an- rkrls is, that it discharges the shells it had swallowed, after they have been opened by the heat of its belly, in order ,o pick out the fish, which form its principal food. This •act, says Bochart, is so generally, attested by the writers of antiquity, that it cannot be called in question ; ami then cites a great number of authorities in its support. But with all deference to this learned writer, it may be justly doubt- ed, if this bird really takes the shell-nsh on which it feeds into its stomach, in the first instance; it is more probable that it deposites them in (he bag or pouch under its lower chap, which serves not only as a net to catch, but also as a repository for its food. In feeding its young ones, (whether this bag is loaded with water or more solid food,) the peli- can squeezes the contents of it into their mouths, by strong- ly compressing it upon its breast with its bill ; an action which may well justify the propriety of the name which it received from the ancient Hebrews. To the same habit, it is probable, may be traced the traditionary report, that the pelican, in feeding her young, pierces her own breast, and nourishes them with her blood. Dr. Shaw contends, that kaath cannot mean the pelican, because the royal Psalmist describes it as a bird of the wil- derness, where that fowl must necessarily starve, because its large webbed feet, and capacious pouch, with the man- ner of catching its food, which can only be in the water, show it to be entirely a water-fowl. But this objection pro- ceeds on the supposition, that the deserts which it frequents contain no water, which is a mistake; for Ptolemy places three lakes in the interior parts of Marmorica, which is ex- tremely desolate ; and Moses informs us, that the people of Israel met with the waters of Mara, and the fountains of Elim, in the barren sands of Arabia. Besides, it is well known that a water-fowl often retires to a great distance from her favourite haunts; and this is confirmed by a fact, which Parkhurst stales from the writings of Isidore, that the pelican inhabits the solitudes of the Nile. This far- famed river, as we know from the travels of Mr. Bruce, rolls its flood through an immense and frightful desert, where water-fowls of different kinds undoubtedly find a se- cure retreat. Mr. Bruce himself sprang a duck in the "burning wilderness, at a considerable distance from its banks, which immediately winged her flight towards it; a clear proof of her being familiarly acquainted with its course. From this circumstance we may infer, that the pelican is no stranger to the most desert-and inhospitable borders of the Nile. It also appears from Damir, the Ara- bian naturalist quoted by Bochart, that the pelican, like the duck which Bruce found in the deseit of Senaar, does not always remain in the water, but sometimes retires from it to a great distance ; and indeed its monstrous pouch, which, according to Edwards, in his natural history of birds, is ca- pable of receiving twice the size of a man's head, seems to be given it for this very reason, that it misdit not want food foi itself and its young ones, when at a distance from the water. Bochart is of opinion, that kaath, in some passages of scripture, is intended to express the bittern, which differs from the pelican, by his own admission, only in the form of the bill. Thus the holy Psalmist complains, " I am like a pelican (bittern) of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert." The clear and consistent exposition of this pas- sage, he contends, requires the word kaath to be rendered bittern; because the sacred writer compares himself to the bittern and the owl, or more properly the ostrich, on ac- count of his groaning. It is therefore natural to conclude, that both these animals have a mournful cry. Many rea- sons have been advanced, to prove that the chos, rendered in our translation the owl, is in reality the female ostrich ; of which this is one, that it has a most hideous voice, re- sembling, in a very remarkable manner, the lamentations of a human being in deep affliction. That the Psalmist maybe consistent with himself, the same ilung must be as- serted of the kaath, which it would be difficult to admit, if that term signified only the pelican; for natural historians observe a profound silence in relation to the voice of that iird. But if the name kaath is common to the bittern and •he pelican, the difficulty vanishes, for the former has a •lear voice. All the ancient natural historians agree, that he bittern, by inserting its bill in the mud of the marsh, or •lunging it under water, utters a most disagreeable cry, !>k' the roaring of a bull, or the sound of distant thunder. MS. Ps. 102. But the opinion of that celebrated writer, in this instance, rests upon a false, or at least an uncertain foundation. The afflicted Psalmist seems to refer, not so much to the plaint- ive voice of these birds, as to their lonely situation in the wilderness. One of the first and most common effects of pungent sorrow, is the desire of solitude; and on this occa- sion the royal Psalmist, oppressed with grief, seems to have become weary of society, and like the pelican, or the fe- male ostrich, to have contracted a relish for deep retire- ment. Besides, as our author allows, that the pelican and the bittern differ only in the form of the bill, the translation for which he contends is of no real importance ; and it is certainly a good rule to admit of no change in a received translation, unless it can be shown, that the new term or phrase expresses the meaning of the original with greater justness, propriety, or elegance. The bird of night, which, like the ostrich, delights in the desert and solitary place, is distinguished by several names in the sacred writings. In the book of Psalms, it is men- tioned under the name kopis, which is evidently derived from the verb kasah, to hide; because the owl constantly hides herself in the daytime, and comes abroad in the evening. The Seventy, Theodotion, Aquila, and other in- terpreters, render it nutmropaf, in English, the horned owk The learned Bochart suspected that kous might denote the onocrotalus, thus named from its monstrous c;ip or bag un- der the lower chap. It must be admitted, that kous might properly enough be given as a name to that bird, from this extraordinary circumstance in its form; but after the most diligent inquiry, the writer has not been able to discover any difference between the pelican of the ancients, and the oniicrotahti ; and as kaath is mentioned in the same con- texts with kous, and rendered in the ancient versions either the pelican or imocrotalus, kous, in his opinion, must have a different meaning. This idea receives no little confirm- ation from a passage in the hundred and second Psalm, where kous is followed in construction by haroboth, and signifies kous, not of the desert, as we render it, but of the desolate or ruined buildings; which exactly corresponds with the habits of the owl, but does not seem so applicable to the onocrotalus, or pelican. Buffon calls the horned owl the eagle of the night, and the sovereign of that tribe of birds which shun the light of day, and never fly but in the even- ing, or after it is dark. But, as a description of it is con- nected with the illustration of no passage of scripture, it falls not within the design of this work. The voice of the horned owl is said to be frightful, and is often heard re- sounding in the silence of night; which is-the season of his activity, when he flies abroad in search of his prey. He inhabits the lonely rocks or deserted towers on the sides of the mountains; he seldom descends into the plain, and never willingly perches upon trees. The dreary and fright- ful note of the owl sounding aloDg the de lOS -104. PSA LMi with t/ansupA; that all ihe larger water-fowls are extreme- ly shy; thai they sometimes bmlil their Deals in reined places, a long way from the water where they seek ilicir food; and ih ■■■ evi d the common heron « ill i twelve or fourteen miles, and perhaps much farther, from her usual r« I :ki • and streams « I with fisli. But no argument em he imiu'ed on the ar- ;ol scripture, in matters of tins kind; because i wi iters da not alwaj s obsei i e a ii ought also i" be remembi r- ■ .! from Isaiah, th : mnected with the raven, which is not an aquatic bud. !. I the raven are associated with greater propri- ety m seenes of desolation, to which they tun e been assign- ed by the common suffrage of mankind, and accordingly re- garded as inauspicious buds, and objects of fear and aver- "Foeilanuc fit volurris \viiiui i niinii.i Itirtns Ijmh li ^ tmh.) (lii-ui'.i niurt.ililni.i oiu.ii "—Grid. The presence of the owl and the raven, two hateful birds, in company with the cormorant and the bittern, greatly heighten tlie general effect of the picture delineated bv the prophet: " But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it I the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it; and he snail stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.'' — Paxton. Ver. 7. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top; Brookes says of this bird, " It usually sits alone on the tops of old buildings and roofs of churches, sinking very sweetly, especially in the morning; and is an oriental bird." BURDER. The sparrow- has been considered bv some interpreters as a solitary moping bird, which loves to dwell on the house-top aione ; and so timid, that she endeavours to con- ceal herself in the darkest corners, and passes the night in sleepless anxiety. Hence they translate the words of the Psalmist : " I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top." But her character and manners by no means agree with their description. She is a pert, loquacious, bustling creature, which, instead of courting the dark and solitary corner, is commonly found chirping and fluttering about in the crowd. The term in this text, theiefore, must he understood in its genera! sense, and probably refers to some variety of the owl. Jerome renders it, I was as a sol- itarv bird on the roof. The Hebrew text contains nothing which can with propriety suggest the sparrow, or any sim- ilar bird; and indeed, nothing seems to be more remote from the mind of David: all the circumstances seem to indicate some bird of the night; for the Psalmist, bending under a load of severe affliction, shuns the society of men, and mingles his unceasing groans and lamentations with the mournful hootings of those solitary birds w-hich disturb the lonely desert. "By reason of the voice of mv groaning, my bones cleave to my skin ; I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert." He then pro- ceeds with his comparison: "I watch, and am as a bird upon the house-top alone ;" I watch, that is, I have spent a sleepless night: or, as it is paraphrased in the Chaldee, I have watched the whole night Ion?, without once closing my eyes. Every part of this description directs our atten- tion to some nocturnal bird, which hates the lisht, and comes forth from its hiding-place when the shadows of evening fall, to hunt the prey, and from the top of some ruined tower, to tell its joys or its sorrows to a slumbering world. But, with what propriety can the sparrow be called a solitary bird, when it is gregarious, and, so far from lov- ing solitude, builds her nest in the roofs of our dwellings 1 Natural historians mention two kinds of this bird, one do- mestic, and the oiher wild. But the wild sparrow does not repair for shelter, like her relative, mentioned by David, to the human dwelling; she never takes her station on the house-top, but seeks a home in her native woods. If the allusion, therefore, be made to the sparrow, it must be to the domestic, not to the wild species. It is in vain to argue, that the domestic sparrow may he called solitarv, when she is deprived of her mate ; for' she does not, like the tuftle, when she loses her spouse, remain in a state of inconsola- ble widowhood, "but accepts, without reluctance, the first companion that solicits her affections. Hence the Psalm- isi undooh edly q{ the owl, whose are ct lebraledl by [Uity.— Paxton. Ver. 11 .Myila low that declineth; and 1 am \\ ithei ed like lining shadow," says the old in. hi in, shadow is last del-lining:" siywnihu, siimnt/iu. declining, declining. " I am withered." "Indran, the king 'il others, They were withered by the mandates of Sooran. "Alas! his face and heart are withered." " My heart is withered, I cannot cat my food." " Sorrow, not age, has withered my face." " Alas*! how soon this blossom has withered." — Roberts. Ver. 26. They shall perish," but thou shall endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a g-arment : us n vesture shall thou change them, and they shall be changed. It is reckoned in the East, according to Dr. Pococke, a mark of respect often to change their garments, in the time of a visit for a night or two. He expresses himself, however, with obscurity and some uncertainty; but il is made cerrain by the accounts of other travellers, that it is a matter of state and magnificence. So Thevenot tells us, that when he saw the grand seignior goto the new. mosque, he was clad in a satin doliman of a flesh colour, and a vest of almost the same colour; but when he had said his prayers, then he changed his vest, and put on one of a particular kind of gn .'. . ■ :r time he went to the mosque in a vest of crimson velvet, hut returned in one ot a fired satin. To this frequent change of vestments among the great, possibly the Psalmist alludes, when, speaking ot the Lord of all, "he says, The heavens, unchangeable as they are, when compared with the productions of the earth, shall perish, while he shall remain ; yea, they shall" be laid aside, in comparison of his immortality, as soon as a gar- ment grows old ; or rather, this change which they shall undergo, shall come on more speedily, with respect to his eternity, than the laying aside of a vestment which kings and princes change often in a day. The changing of clothes is a piece of eastern magnificence: how wonder- fully sublime, then, in this view, is this representation of the grandeur of God, " Thou shall change these heavens as a prince changes his vesture." — Hakmes. PSALM CUT. Ver. 15. As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. See en 2 Kings 19. 7. Ver. 16. For the wind pnsseth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. See on Est. 1. 5, G. PSALM CIV. Ver. 2. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment ; who stretchest out the heavens like- a curtain. It is usual in the summer season, and upon all occasion^ when a large companv is to be received, to have the court of the house (which is the middle of an open square) shel- tered from the heat of the weather by an umbrella or veil, which, being expanded upon ropes from one side of the parapet-wall to the other, may be folded or unfolded al pleasure. The Psalmist seems to allude to some coveting Of this kind in that beautiful expression of " stretching ot the heavens like a curtain." — Shaw. Ver. 10. He sendeth the springs in o the valleys, which run anion"; the hills. 11. They give irinkto every.heast of the field: the wild asse.* I'i'iich their thirst. See on Job MO. S PSALMS. Ps. 104 Ver. 17. Where the birds make their nests: as * for the stork, the fir-trees are her house. This bird has long been celebrated for her amiable and pious disposition, in which she has no rival among the feathered race. Her Hebrew name is chaaida, which sig- nifies pious or benign; to the honour of which, her char- acter and habits, as described by the pen of antiquity, prove h°r to be fullv entitled. Her kind, benevolent tem- per, she discov rs in feeding her parents in the lime of incubaUm, when they have not leisure to seek their food, or when they have become old, and unable to provide for themselves. ' This attention of the stork to her parents is confirmed by the united voice of antiquity; and we find nothing in the scriptures to invalidate the testimony. She was classed by the Jewish lawgiver among the unclean birds, probably because she feeds on serpents, and other venomous animals, and rears her young by means of the same species of food. In the challenge which the Almighty addressed to Job, the wings and feathers of the ostrich are compared with those of the stork: "Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks, or wings and feathers unto the D.strich ;" or, as it is rendered by the learned Bochart, and after him by Dr. Shaw, "the plumage of the stork." Nat- ural historians inform us, that the wings are lipped with black, and a part of the head and thighs are adorned with feathers of the same colour ; the rest of the body is while. Albert says, the stork has black wings, the tail and other parts white; while Turner asserts, that the wings are white, spotted with black. From these different accounts, it is evident that the feathers of the stork are black and white, and not always disposed in the same manner. She con- structs her nest with admirable skill, of dry twigs from the forest, and coarse grass from the marsh: but wisely yield- ing to circumstances, she does not confine herself to one situation. At one time she selects for her dwelling the pinnacle of a deserted tower, or the canal of an ancient aqueduct ; at another, the roof of a church or dwelling- house. She frequently retires from the noise and bustle of the town, into the circumjacent fields; but she never builds her nest on the ground. She chooses the highest tree of 'he forest for her dwelling; but always prefers the fir, when it is equally suitable to her purpose. This fact is clearly stated by the Psalmist, in his meditation on the power of God : " As for the stork, the fir-trees are her house." In another passige, the Psalmist calls the nest of the sparrow her house: "Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young." But the term house is not used in these passages, merely by a figure of speech ; if the descrip- tion of ancient writers be true, it is in everv respect the most proper and expressive that can be selected. The s'ork chooses the site of her dwelling with much care and intelligence; she combines her materials with great art, and prosecutes her plan with surprising exactness. After the structure is finished, she examines it on all sides, tries rs li'-uiiif.v Mud -'liilitv, supplies any defect she may dis- "■.•,■1 ■ ' - i ■;, :..!inirable industry, reduces with her bill ■ D unsig i [j pi i .-nun, or ill-adjusted twig, till it perfectly c irresporids with her instinctive conception of safety, neat- ness, and comfort. The inspired writer alludes to this bird, wi|h an air of constant and intimate acquaintance : " As for the stork, the fir-tree is her house." We learn from the narrative of DoubJan, that the fields between Cana and Nazareih arc covered with numerous flocks of them, each flock contain- ing, according to his computation, more than a thousand. In some parts, the ground is entirely whitened by them ; and on .he wing thev darken the air like a congeries of clouds. At the approach of evening, thev retire to roost on the trees. The inhabitants carefully abstain from hurt- ing them, on account of their important'services in clearing the country of venomous animals. The annual migration of this bird did not escape the notice of the prophet Jere- miah, who employs it with powerful effect for the purpose of exposing the stupidity of God's ancient people : " Yea, the stoi'c in the heaven 'knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle, Ihe crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but mypeople know not the judgment of the Li< rd." Thev know, wi'h unerring precision, the time when ii is necessary for them to remove from one place to ■ ■moihei, and the region whither they are to bend their flight ; but ihe people of God, that received many specia. revelations from heaven, and enjoyed the continual in- structions of his prophets, had become so depraved, that they neither understood the meaning of mercies nor judg- ments; they knew not how to accommodate themselves to either, nor to answer the design of heaven in such dispen- sations; they knew not the signs of their times, nor what they ought to do. The stork, That had neither instructer to guide her, nor reason to reflect, and judgment to deter- mine, what was proper to be done, found no difficulty in' discerning the precise time of her departure and return. — Paxton. Ver. 18. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies. The wild goat, or ibex, belongs to the same species with the domestic goat, and exhibits nearly the same character and dispositions. His Hebrew name, yoala, from a verb which signifies to ascend, indicates one of the strongest habits implanted in his nature, to scale the loftiest pinnacle of the rock, and the highest ridge of the mountains. He takes his station on the edge of the steep, and seems to de- light in gazing on the gulf below, or surveying the immense void before him. Those frightful precipices which are in- accessible to man, and other animals, where the most adventurous hunter dares not follow him, are his favourite haunts. He sleeps on their brow ; he sports on their small- est projections, secure from the attack of his enemies. These facts were observed by (he shepherds of the East, recorded by the pen of inspiration, and celebrated in the songs of Zion: " The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats." In the expostulation which Jehovah addressed to Job, they are called "the wild goals of the rock;" because it is the place which the Creator has appointed for their proper abode, and to which he has adapled all their dispo- sitions and habits. The dreary and frightful precipices, which frown over the Dead Sea, towards the wilderness of Engedi, the inspired historian of David's. life calls em- phatically " the rocks of the wild goats," as if accessible only to those animals. The ibex is distinguished by the size of his horns. No creature, says Gesner, has horns so large as those of the mountain goat, for they reach from his head as far as his buttocks. Long before his time, Pliny remarked, that the ibex is a creature of wonderful swiftness, although its head is loaded with vast horns. According to Scaliger, the horns of an elderly goat are sometimes eighteen pounds weight, and marked by twenty-four circular prominences, the indi- cations of as many years. The horns of the ibex, accord- ing to the Chaldee interpreter, are mentioned by the prophet among the valuable commodities which enriched the mer- chants of Tyre, in the days of her prosperity : " The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the mer- chandise of thy hand ; they brought thee for a present, horns of ivory and ebony." It is certain that the horns cf this animal were greatly esteemed among the ancients, on account of ihe various useful purposes lo which they were converted. The Cretan archers had them manufactured into bows ; and the votaries of Bacchus, into large cups, one of which, says vElian, could easily hold three measures. The conjecture of Bochart is therefore extremely probable, that ihe iial.it of Homer, is the ibex of the Latins ; for hf calls it a w:ild goat, says that it was taken among the rocks and had horns of sixteen palms, of which the bow of Pan dams was fabricated. We may conclude from the wisdon> and sroodness of God, which shine conspicuously in all his works, that ihe enormous horns of the ibex are not a use- less encumbrance, but, in some respects, necessary to its safety and comfort. The Arabian writers aver, that when it sees ihe hunter approach the top of the rock, where it happens to have taken its station, and has no other way of escape, turnin? on its back, it throws itself down the preci- pice, at. once defended by its long bending horns from the projections of ihe rock, and saved from being dashed in pieces, or even hurt by the fall. The opinion of Pliny is more worthy of credit, that ihe horns of Ihe ibex serve as a poise lo i;s body in its perilous excursions among the pre- cipitous rocks, "or when it attempts to leap from one crag to ano'her. The fcais which it is said to perform among the Alpine summits, are almost incredible; one fact, however, seems to be certain, that in bounding from one height-to 101. PSALMS. 40'.. another, il far surpasses all ihe olher varieties of die spe- I'o hunt Uie ibex has been justly reckoned a -t perilous enterprise, which frequently terminates in the Banter's destruction. These facts place in a very strong light the extreme dangers which at one time compelled David to seekfjn refuge from the pursuit of bis infatuated 1 v., among the rocks of the wild goats; ami, at time, Ihe bitter and implacable spirit which Saul to follow him in places so full of peril. The Hebrew name of the cony is derived from a verb miles to hide, and sen,, . i, n, ,:,,■., , a , reaturc of aii, aid and harmless disposition- Unable to avoid or cn- b ■ various dangers to which il would in the plain, it seeks a shelter among the rocks, in the fis- Mirasot' which it hides itself from the pursuit of Its I nc- n, iev This circumstance is attested by the sacred uiivi, in one of the songs ol'Zion : " The high hills ate a ictnce for the wild goats, and the rocks for the (=•:£») shaphans." 'I'm , i e which the shaphan makes of the rock for the place of its abode, is mentioned by Solomon as a proof of sagacity: "The shaphans are but a feeble folk, yel make they their houses in the rocks." It is evident I i the e words also, that the shaphan is a gregarious animal, al- though they atl'ord us no hint from which the numbers ir little communities uiav be interred. To what particular animal the name shaphan really bc- I ings. has been much disputed among Ihe learnetL In our version it is rendered by the word cony or rabbit: in which our translators have followed the greater part of modern interpreters. Several circumstances seem lo fa- vour this interpretation; it is twice connected in the law of Moses with the hare, as if it were a kindred animal ; ill*- noun in the plural is rendered hare by the Seventy, in which they have been followed by many ancient inter- l'ie ers of great name: the meaning of shaphan seems to correspond with the timidity of the rabbit; and it is certain that the Rabbinical writers' formerly interpreted the origi- nal word in this manner. Besides, the rabbit is a gregari- ous animal, of a diminutive size, and found in great num- bers in the plain of Jericho. But these facts are not sufficient to establish the point for which they are brought forward; for. instead of seeking a habitation in the fissures ocks, the rabbit delights to burrow in the sandy downs. Sometimes, indeed, he digs a receptacle for him- self in rocky eminences, where the openings are filled with earth, but he generally prefers a dwelling in the sand, a situation for which he 'is evidently formed by nature. The words of David clearly show, that the instincts and habits of the shaphan, as naturally and constantly lead him. to the rocks lor shelter, as those of his associate impel him to rove among the mountains. He does not allude to an occa- sional residence, but lo a fixed and permanent abode ; not to the wanderings of a few, but to the habitual choice of a whole species. But the rabbit as uniformly seeks the sandy plain, as the wild goat ihe summit of the mountain. The shaphan. according to Solomon, discovers great wis- dom and sagacity in retiring from the plain country, to the natural fastness which the almiglitv Crea'or has provided for its reception ; but it is no mark of wisdom in the rabbit, that he forsakes occasionally the sandy plain, which he is naturally formed to occupy, and retires to the rocks, which are so liule soiled to his habits and manners. This is an act of rashness or folly, not of wisdom. The wise man is also noting the sagacity of a whole species, not of a ram- bling individual; but the species is to be found on the plain, not among the rocks. Nor is the rabbit a feeble creature; he runs with considerable swiftness ; and he is provided wi'h the means of digging his burrow, which he employs with so great energy,'particularlv when alarmed bv the approach of danger, that he buries himself in the sanl with surprising rapidity. To exert his strength, ac- cording to existing circumstances, is all the sagacity which , s : and this, it must be admitted, is not peculiar to him, bat common to the hare, the hedgehog, and many other animals. He betravs no foresight, except in, prepa- ling his dwelling, and he is never known to supply the want of strength bv anv contrivance. The shaphan, as described both by David' and Solomon, exhibits a very dif- ferent character, and therefore cannot be the same animal. But if we applv these characters to the daman Israel, or, as Mr. Bruce calls it, ihe ashkoko, the identity of this ani- mal with the shaphan of the scriptures will inslan lv 52 appear: " The daman is a harmless creature, of the same size and quality with the rabbit, and with the like inesr- vating posture and disposition of the fore-teeth. But it is of a browner colour, with smaller eyes, and a head more pointed; like the marmot's; the forefeet likewise are short, and ihe hinder are nearly as long in proportion as those of the jerboa. Though this animal is known sometimes to burrow in the ground, yel he is so much attached to the rock, that he is seldom or never seen on the ground, or from among large stones in the mouth of caves, where he fixes his constant residence. He is gregarious, as the wise man intimates, ami lives in families ; lie is a native of Judea, Palestine, and Arabia, and consequently, must have been familiar to Solomon, and other inspired writers. The royal Psalmist, in a passage already quoted, describes him with great propriety, and joins him with other animals, which were perfectly known in that country. Solomon favours us with a more detailed account of his character: " There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise ; the sephanim are a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." This exactly corresponds with the character which natural historian's give us of the daman Israel, which they represent as equally feeble in body and temper. The toes of his fore- feet very much resemble the fingers of the human hand ; his feet are perfectly round, very pulpy or fleshy, liable to be excoriated or hurt, and of a soli fleshy substance. Tlu-v are quite inadequate to dig holes in the ground, much more to force their way into the hard rock. Unable or afraid to stand upright on his feet, he steals along every moment as it were apprehensive of danger, Ins belly al- most close lo the ground, advancing a few steps at a time, and then pausing, as if afraid or uncertain whether he should proceed. His whole appearance and behaviour in- dicate a mild, feeble, and timid disposition ; which is con- firmed by the ease with which he is lamed. Cons, ions as it were of his total inability lo dig in ihe ground, or to mingle with the sterner beasts of the field, he builds his house on rocks, more inaccessible than those to which the cony retires, and in which he resides in greater safety, not by exertions of strength, for he has it not, but by his own " sagacity and judgment. Solomon has therefore justly char- acterized him as " a feeble animal, but exceeding wise." The Arabian writers confound the daman Israel with the jerboa, which seems to be a species of rat. It ruminates, builds its house on the rocks, or digs its abode in the ground, but always in some high and rocky place, where it may be safe from' ihe influx of waters, and the foot of the wild beast. If we may believe C.e Arabic writer quoted by Bochart, these diminutive animals discover no little saga- citv in the conduct of public affairs, particularly in appoint- ing a leader, whose business it is to give them notice < n the approach of danger, and who in case of neglect is punished with death, and succeeded by another more attentive to their safety. Mr. Bruce, on the contrary, contends with great earnestness, that the habits of the jerboa are quite different from those which Solomon ascribes to the sha- phan ; he asserts, that the jerboa always digs his habita- lion in ihe smoother places of the desert, especially where the soil is fixed gravel ; for in that chiefly he burrows, dividing his hole below into many mansions. He is not gregarious, like the shaphan, nor is he distinguished for his feebleness, which he supplies by his wisdom. Although, therefore, he ruminates in common With some olher ani- mals, and abounds in Judea, he cannot be the shaphan of the scripture. Hence, it is probable, that the Arabian wri- ters improperly confounded the daman Israel, or shaphan, and the jerboa ; and it may be considered as nearly certain, that the shaphan of Solomon is not the rabbit, but the daman Israel, which, though bearing some resemblance lo it, is an animal of a different species. — Paxton. Ver. 20. Thou makest darkness, and it ;s night wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. Immediately after landing, we hired horses to conduct us to Fanskog, ten miles and a half, where we arrived at so neat an inn. and were withal so subdued by want of sleep and fatigue, that we rested for a few hours, writing our journals without candles half an hour after midnight, by a light that could not te called twilight; it was rather th" 410 PSALMS. Ps. 10,)— 110. glare of noon, being reflected so strongly from the walls and houses, that it was painful to our eyes, and we began already to perceive, what we never felt' before, that dark- ness is one of those benevolent gifts of Providence, the value of which, as conducive to repose, we only become sensible of. when it ceases altogether to return. There were no shutters to the windows, and the continual blaze which sur- rounded us, we could gladly have dispensed with, had it been possible. When we closed our eyes, they seemed to be still open ; we even bound on them our handkerchiefs; but a remaining impression of brightness, like a shining light, wearied and oppressed them. To 'this inconvenience we were afterward more exposed, and although use rendered OS somewhat less affected by it, it was an evil of which we all complained, and we hailed the returning gloom of au- tumn as a comfort and a blessing. — Clarke. PSALM CV. Ver. 26. He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron whom he had chosen. Calmet says the word servant, among the Hebrews, " generally signifies a slave :" and Dr. A. Clarke says, (on Rom. i. 1, " Paul a servant of Jesus Christ,") the' word &»Xos, which we translate servant, properly means a slave, one who is the entire property of his master, and is used here by the apostle with great propriety. In eastern lan- guage the word used as expressive of the relationship of men to their deities is slave. " I am the adumi," i.e. slave, "ofthesupremeSiva." " lam thedevoted slave of Vishnoo." Hindoo saints are always called the sfaresofthe gods. The term servant is applied to one who is at liberty to dispose of himself, in serving different mas'ers : hut not'so a slave, he is the property of "his owner; from him he receives protec- liou and support, and be is not at libertv to serve another master; hence it is that the native Christians, in praying to the true God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, always speak of themselves as slaves; they are not their own, but "bought with a price." — Roberts. Ver. 30. The land brought forth frogs in abun- dance, in the chambers of their kings. [I .- t it 'ifficrjll for an Englishman in an eastern wet m msooi i form a tolerable idea of thaLplague of Egypt, in which the frogs were in ihe " houses, bedchambers, beds, and kiiM ';',;- i nighs," of the Egyptians. In the season alluded to, myriads of them send forth their constant croak- in every direction, and a man not possessed of overmuch patience, becomes as petulant as was the licentious god, and is ready to exclaim, " Croa A new-comer, on seeing them leap about the rooms, be- comes disgusted, and forthwith begins an attack upon ihem, but the next evening will bring a return of his active visiters. It may appear almost incredible, but in one evening we killed upwards of forty of these guests in the Jaffna Mission House. They had principally concealed themselves in a small tunnel connected with the baihing-room, and their noise had become almost insupportable. I have been amused when a man has been making a speech which has uftt given pleasure to his audience, to hear another per- son ask, " "What has that fellow been croaking about, like a frog of the wet monsoon 1" The natives also do us the honour of saying, that our singing, in parts, is very much like the notes of the large and small frogs. The bass singers, say they, resemble the croak of ihe bull-frogs, and the other parts the notes of the small fry.— Roberts/ PSALM CVII. Ver. 5. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Many perish, victims of the most horrible thirst. It is then that the value of a cup of water is really felt ; he that has a zenzebia of it is the richest of all : in such a case, there is no distinction ; if the master has none, the servant will not give it to him ; for very few are the instances where ? -nan will voluntarily lose his life to save that of another, particularly in a caravan in the desert, where people are strangers to each other. What a situation for a man, though a rich one, perhaps the owner of all the caravans l' He'is dying for a cup of water; no one gives it to him ; he offers all he possesses; no one hears him; they are all dying, though by walking a few hours farther iheyanight be saved! The camels are lying down, and cannot be made to ri-e ; no one has strength lo walk; only he that has a glass oC that precious liquid lives to walk a mile farther, and per- haps diesJoo. If the voyages on seas are dangerous, so are those in the deserts. At sea, the provisions very often fail ; in the desert, it is worse. At sea, storms are met with; in the desert there cannot be a greater storm than to find a dry well. At sea, one meets pirates; we escape, we sur- render, or die; in the desert they rob the traveller of all his property and water. They let him live, perhaps, but what a lite ! to die the most barbarous and agonizing death. In short, to be thirsty in a desert, without water, exposed lo the burning sun, without shelter, and no hopes of finding either. is the 111..-1 terrible situation lhata man can be placed in, and I believe that it is one of the greatest sufferings that a human bring can sustain. The eyes grow inflamed, lie tongue and lips sW,.]|. a hollow smmd is heard in the ears, which brings on deafness, and the brains appear to grow thick and inflamed. All these feelings arise from ibe«anl of a little water. In the midst of all this misery, the deceit- ful nurages appear before the traveller, at no great distance, somefting like a lake or river of clear fresh water. The deception of this phenomenon is well known, but it does not fail to invite the longing traveller towards that element, and to put him in remembrance of the happiness of being on such a spot. If perchance a traveller is not undeceived, he hastens his pace to reach it sooner : the more he advances towards it, the more it goes from him, (ill at last it vanishes entirely, and the deluded.passenger often asks where isJhe water he sawat no great distance. He can scarcely believe that he was so deceived ; he protests that he saw the waves running before the wind, and the refleclion of the high rocks in the water. (Belzoni.)— Burdeb. Ver. 16. For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder. See on Acts 12. 10. PSALM CIX. Ver. 9. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 10. Let his children be con- • tinually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Listen to two married men who are quarrelling, von will hear the one accost the other, " Thy family will so.'n come to destruction." " And what will become of thine V rejoins the other : "I will tell thee ; thy wife will soon take off* her thali," which means she will be a widow, as the llmli is the marriage jewel, which must be taken off pn the death of a husband " Yes, thy children will soon be beggars; Ishall see then at my door." — Roberts. Vet. 23. I am gone like the shadow when it de- elineth : I am tossed up and down as the locust. See on SCJiron. 7. 13. Br. Shaw, speaking of the swarms of locusts, which he saw near Algiers, in 1724 and 1725, says, "when the wind blew briskly, so that these swarms were crowded J>v others, we hail a lively idea of that comparison of the Psalmist, of being tossed up and dotcn as the locust." — Birder. PSALM CX. Ver. 1. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The host always places a distinguished guest on his right b'ii.1. i>rr;:iisp that side is considered more honourable than the other. Hence the rank known by the name of vaiang- /.,.,.,7.-, rigbt-hand caste, is very super.or tr the idu . i or icl't-ii: nil caste. — Roberts. Ps. na-iao. PSALMS III FSALM (XII. Ver. 10 The wicked shall Bee it, and be grieved; be shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away; the desire of the wicked shall perish. An enraged man snaps his teeth together, ns if about to bite ilit- object ofnisanger. Thus, iu the book H the giant 11 ■ranan is described as in his fury gnashing is "thirty-two teeth!" "Look at the beast, turn . his teeth." "Go near that fellow.''— " Not I, indeed, he will only gnash his teeth." — Roberts. PSALM CXIII. Ver. 9. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, lo be a joyful mother of children. Should a married woman, who has long been considered steril, become a mother, her joy, and that of her husband and lriends, is most extravagant. " They called her Malady" i. e. barren, " but she lias given u- fruit."' " My neighbours pointed at me, and said but what will they say now V A man who manifests great d slight, i- said to be 'like the barren woman, who has borne ;: fluid i Many thing which is exceedingly valuable, it is said, "This is as precious as the son of the barren woman/' i. c. of her who had long been reputed barren. — Roberts. PSALM CXIX. Ver. 82. Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying:, When wilt thou comfort me? Has a mother promised to visit her son or daughter, and should she not be able to go, the son or daughter will say, " Alas! my in.. i her promised to come to me; how long have I been looking for her? but a speck has grown upon my eye." " I cannot see. my eyes have failed me ;" i.e. by lookingso intensely i<$ her coming. — Roberts. Ver. 83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke ; yet do I not forget thy statutes. Bottles are made of the skins of .goats, sheep, and other animals ; and there are several articles preserved in them, in the same way as the English keep hogs' lard in bladders. Some kinds of medicinal oil, assafcetida, honey, a kind of treacle, and other drugs, arc kept for a great length of time, by hanging the bottles in the smoke, which soon causes them lo become black and shrivelled. The Psalmist was ready to faint for the salvation of the Lord : his eyes had failed in looking for His blessing, and anxiety had made him like unto a skin bottle, shrivelled and blackened in the smoke. — Roberts. Cups and drinking vessels of gold and silver were doubt- less used in the courts of princes. (1 Kings x. 21.) But in the Arab tents leathern bottles, as well as pitchers, were used. These of course were smoky habitations. To this latter circumstance, and the contrast between the drinking utensils, the Psalmist alludes : "My appearance in my present state is as different from what :( was when I dwelt at court, as the furnimre of a palace differs from that of a poor Arab's tent." — Harmeh. The eastern hottle is made of a goat or kid skin, stripped off, without opening the belly; the apertures made by cutting off the tail and legs are sewed up, and when filled, it is lied about the neck. The Arabs and Persians never go a journey without a small leathern bottle of water hanging by their side like a scrip. These skin bottles preserve their water, milk, and other liquid', in a fresher state than any other vessels they can use. The people of the East, indeed, put into them every thing they mean to carry to a distance, whether dry or liquid, and very rarely make u*e of boxes and pots, unless to preserve such things as are liable to be broken. They enclose these leathern bottles in woollen sacks, because their beasts of carriage often fall down under their load, or cast it down on the sandy desert. This method of transporting the necessaries of life has another advan- tage; the skin bottles preserve them fresher; defend them against the ants, and other insects, which cannot penetrate the skin ; and prevent the dust, of which immense quanti- ties are constantly moving about, in the arid regions of Asia, and so fine, thai m eofiei i im em rablt to it, from ,, m. h is foi these rea ■ • thai prci every kind are enclosed in reset I made of the skins ol i hoe animals. The conjecture, therefore, is highly proba- ble, that not only the balm and the honey, v. huh are some- what liquid, but also the nut- and almonds, which were sent as a present to Joseph li..m ! Di I- ed in red fresh; and lo defend them again*! injur . ■ ■ - . I. the whole were en- closed in woollen sacks. This custom ha* descent present times; forfrnitsand provisions of every kind are still commonly packed up in skins, by the inhabitants of Syria. To those goal-skin vc '! the I' ;ilinist refers in this complaint ; " 1 am become as a bottle in the smoke." My appearance in the stale of my i die is as different from what it was when 1 dwell Bt court, as are the gold and sil- \ . i vessels of a palace, from the .smoky skin bottle of a poor Arab's tent, where I am now compelled to reside. Not less einphatical is the lamentation ol the prophet, that the precious sons of Zion, comparable to line gold, or to ves- sels fabricated of that precious metal, were considered as no belter than earthen pitchers, the work of the potter. The holy Psalmist compares himself to a bottle in the smoke; which is a convertible phrase with a bottle in the tent of an Arab; because, when hies are lighted in it, the smoke instantly fills every part, and greatly incommode* the tenant. >>'or wi|] this appear surprising, v. hen u is con- sidered that an Arabian tent has no aperture but the door, from which ihe smoke ran escape. The inspired writer, therefore, seems to allude both to the meanness of a skin bottle, and to iis blackness, from the smoke of the tent in which it is placed. And a most natural image it was for him to use, driven from the vessel* of Vilver and gold in the palace of Saul, to quench his thirst with the wandering Arabs, from a smuiied boiile of goat-skin. These bottles are liable lo be rent, when old or much used, and at the same time eapableof being repaired. In the book of Joshua we are informed, the Gibeonites " took wine bottles, old and rent, and bound up." This is perfectly according to the custom of the East; and the manner in which they mend their oldand rent bottles is various. Sometimes they set in a piece; sometimes they gather up the wounded place in the manner of a purse ; sometimes they put in a round flat piece of wood, and by that moans stop the hole. — Pax- TON. Ver. 103. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, siceeter than honey to my mouth. An affectionate wife often says, " My husband, your words are sweeter !o me than honey; yes, they are sweeiertban the sugarcane." " Alas ! my husband is gone," says the widow; " how sweet were his words! honey dropped from his mouth; his words were ambrosia."— Roberts. Ver. 136. Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law. This figure occurs in the poem called Vicrnlc-rudn-toothc. " Rivers of tears run down the face of that mother bereft of her children," is a saying in common use. " The water of her eyes runs like a river." — Roberts. PSALM CXX. Ver. 4. Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals ot juniper. "Coals of juniper;" more properlv, like the glowing oi coals of broom. The Hebrew word Tothern, here trans- lated juniper, meansashrub of the genista or broom species, the Spartium junceum of Linnreus. which grows in thesouth of France and in Spain, where it ha* retained its Arabic name, roterna. It is a rnodeiate shrub, with thin branches, and white flowers that grows in the deserts. Forskal found it frequently in the sandy heaihs about Suez. The caravans use it for fuel. When ihe Psalmist compares il i the slanderer with the glowing cf the coals of broom, he doubtless alludes to the severe pain caused by touching those coals, which continue to glow for a very long time. — ROSEN- MILLER. PSALMS. Ps. 121- -123. PSALM CX XI. Ver. 5. The Lord is thy keeper ; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. An timbrella is a very ancient, as well as honourable de- fence against the pernicious effects of the scorching beams of the sun, in those sultry countries; may we not then sup- pose this is that kind of shade the Psalmist refers to in the 121st Psalm'? ver. 5, "The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand." " The sun shall not smile thee by- day, nor the moon by night." Niebuhr, who visiied the southern part .of Arabia, gives us the following account of a solemn procession of the Iman that resides at Sana, who is a great prince in that part of Arabia, and considered as a holy personage, being descend- ed from Mohammed, their great prophet. " It is well known that the sultan at Cunsianiinnple eves every Fridav to the mosque, if his health will at all admit of it. The Iman of Sana' observes also this religions practice, with vast pomp. We only saw him in his return, because this was repre- sented to us as the most curious part of the solemnity, on account of the long circuit he then takes, and the great number of his attendants, after their havingperlbrmedtheir devotions in other mosques The Iman was preceded by some hundreds of soldiers. He, and each of the princes of his numerous familv, caused a mdatla, or large umbrella, to be carried by his side, and it is a privilege which, in this country, is appropriated to princes of the blood, just as the sultan of Constantinople permits none but his vizier to have his kaik, or gondola, covered behind, to keep him from the heat of the sun. They say that in the other provinces of i Yemen, the independent lords, such, for example, as the sheiks |f Jafa, and those of Haschid u Bekil, the scherif of Abu Arisch_and many others, cause these mdallas, in like manner, to be carried for their use, Bg a mark of their independence. Besides the princes, the Iman had in his train at least six hundred lords of the most distinguished rank, as well ecclesiastics as seculars, and those of the mili- tary line, many of them mounted on superb horses, and a great multitude of people attended him on foot. On each side of the Iman was carried a flag, different from ours, in that each of them was surmounted with a little silver vessel like a censer. It is said that within some charms were put, to which thev attributed a power of making the Iman in- vincible. Many other standards were unfurled with the same censer-like vessels, but without any regularity. In one word, ihe whole train was numerous, and in some measure magnificent, but no order seemingly was observed." It appears by the carvings at Persepolis, umbrellas were very anciently used by the eastern princes ; charms, we have reason to believe, were at least as ancient: may we not, with some degree of probability, suppose then this I'ilst Psalm refers to these umbrellas, where the response made, probably, by the ministers of the sanctuary, to the declaration of the king, in the two first verses, reminded him that Jehovah would be to him all that heathen princes hoped for, as to defence and honour, from their royal um- brellas and their sacred charms, but hoped for in vain, as to them 1 " The Lord shall be thy shade on thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night." — Harmer. Ver. G. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. A meridian summer's sun in England gives but a faint idea of ihe power of this luminary in the East; and yet, even in this temperate climate, who has not been incon- venienced when exposed to his rays ? But how much greater is his effect in India ! Sometimes " a stroke of the sun" smites man and beast with inslant death. The moon has also a pernicious effect upon those who sleep in its beams: and fish, having been exposed to them for one nigh!, be- comes most injurious to those who eat it : hence our. English seairten, when sailing in tropical climes, always take care to place their fish out of "Ihe sight of the moon." — Roberts. The very severe cold of the nights in the East was ascribed by the ancients to the influence of the moon, which they also -upposed to be the origin of the dew. Macrobius says " that the nurses used to cover their sucklings against the moon, that they might not, as damp wood which bends in the heat, get crooked limbs from the superabundance of moisture. It is also well known," continues he, " that he who has slept in the moonlight is heavy when he awakes, and as if deprived of his senses, and, as it were, oppressed by the weight of the dampness which is spread over his whole body." The same opinion of the injurious effects of the light of the moon upon the human body, still prevailed in the East Indies in later times. Iwrgen Anderson, in his Description of the East, says, "One must here (in Batavia) lake great care not to sieep in the beams of the moon un- covered. I have seen many people whose neck has become crooked, so that they look more to the side than forward. I will not decide whether it is to be ascribed to the moon, as people imagine here." In some of the southern parts of Europe the same opinions are entertained of the pernicious influence of the moonbeams. An English gentleman walk- ing in the evening in the garden of a Portuguese nobleman at Lisbon, was most seriously admonished by the owner to put on his hat, to protect him from the moonbeams. The fishermen in Sicily are said to cover, during the night, the fish which they expose to dry on the sea-shore, alleging that the beams of the moon cause them to putrefy. — Rosen- PSALM CXXII. Ver. 2. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. I think, so far as the sense is concerned, it does not mat- ter whether this be read in the past, present, or future tense; for, in my opinion, the arguments on that subject are of little importance. I believe it to be a declaration of affec- tion for Jerusalem, in which the feet, as the instruments of going to the holy place, were in eastern style naturally as- sociated. The devout Hindoo, when absent from the sacred city of Sedambarum, often exclaims, "Ah! Sedambarum, my feet are ever walking in thee." "Ah! Siva-stalAam, are not my feet in thee V A man who has long_ been absent from his favourie temple, says, on his return, " My feet once more tread this holy place." — Roberts. PSALM CXXIII. Ver. 2. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so out eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us. The hand is looked at as the member by which a supe- rior gives protection or, dispenses favours; and if this Psalm be, as some suppose, a complaint of ihe captives in Babylon, it may refer to the hand as the instrument of de- liverance. A man in trouble says, " I will look at the hand of my friend." " I looked at the hand of my mistress, and have been comforted." A father, on returning from a journey, says, " My children will look to my hands," i. e. for a present. Of a troublesome person it is said, " He is always looking at mv hands." A slave of a cruel master says in Ids god, " Ah r Swamy, why am I appointed to look at his hands'!" — Roberts. The Easterns direct their servants very generally by signs— even in matters of consequence. The Cingalese intimate their wish for a person to approach, by bending the finger with the point towards the person wanted, ss if to seize him— quite in the opposite direclion to the English way of beckoning. To depart is signified by a side r.od; and a frown by a front one.— Callaway. The servants or slaves in the East attend their masters or mistresses with the profoundest respect. Maundrell observes, that the servants in Turkey stand round their master and his guests with the profoundest respect, silence, and order, imaginable. Pococke says, that al a visit in Egypt, every thing is done with the greatest decency, and the" most profound silence, the slaves or servants standing at the bottom of the room, with their hands joined before them, watching with the utmost attention every motion of theirmaster, whocommandsthemby signs. DeLa Motraye says, that the eastern ladies are waited on "even at the least wink of the eye, or motion of the fingers, and that in a manner not perceptible lo strangers." The Baron De Tott Ps. 124— 127. PSA1 relates a remarkable instance of the authority attending this mode of commanding, and of the use ol "The nwni[):in ceremonies on the.se occasions were over, and Racub(therie\v vizier) continued todiscoutse familiarly with the ambassador, when the mn:nr m:,i (,..i high nroVOStl Coming into the hall, and approaching the pacha, whispered something in his ear, and we observed that all the answer he received from him was a slight horizontal motion with his hand, after which the vizier instantly resuming an die, sontinued the conversation for some nine longei . we then left the hall of audience, and came to the foo Ol the u'reat staircase, where we remounted our horses: here, nine heads, cut off, and placed in a row on the out- side of the first gate, completely explained the sign, which the vizier had made use of in our presence." Hence we discover the propriety ol the actions performed by the pro- phets. Ezektel was a sign to the people in not mourning for the dead, (chap, xxiv.) in his removing into captivity, and digging through the wall, (chap, xii.) Such conduct was perfectly well understood, and was very significant. — Bcrder. PSALM CXXIV. Ver. 7. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare, of the fowlers: the snare is broken, ami we arc escaped. A man who has narrowly escaped danger says," My life is like that of the bird which has escaped from the snare." The life of a man is often compared to that of a bird. Thus, of him whose spirit has departed, it is said, " Ah ! the bird has left its nest : it has gone away." " As the un- hatched bird must first burst from the shell before it can fly, so must this soul burst from its body." — Roberts. PSALM CXXV. Ver. 2. As the mountains are. round about Jeru- salem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth, even for ever. \ The description which Volney gives of his approach to Jerusalem, furnishes no contemptible illustration of this verse; and as it is pleasant to compel anaavowed infidel to illustrate and confirm the religion of Christ, which he detests, 1 shall subjoin his account. " Two days' jour- ney south of Nahlous, following the direction of the mount- ains, which gradually become more rocky and barren, we arrive at a town, which, like many others already men- tioned, presents a striking example of the vicissitude of human affairs: when we behold its walls levelled, its ditches filled up, and all its buildings embarrassed with ruins, we scarcely can believe we view that celebrated metropolis, which formerly baffled the efforts of the most powerful empires, and for a time resisted the efforts of Rome herself; though by a whimsical change of fortune, its ruins now neceive her homage and reverence : in a word, we with difficulty recognise Jerusalem. Nor is oar astonishment less, to think of its ancient greatness, when we consider its situation amidst a rugged soil, destitute of water, and surrounded by dry channels of torrents and sleep heights. Distant from every great road, it seems neither to have been calculated for a considerable mart of com- merce, nor the centre of a great consumption. It however overcame every obstacle, and may be adduced as a proof of what popular opinion may effect', in the hands of an able legislator, or when favoured by happy circumstances." The proud unbeliever had found a shorter and easier road lo his conclusion, in the volume of inspiration: and par- ticularly in the passages quoted above, from the Psalms of David, who refers the singular prosperity of Jerusalem to the peculiar favour of Heaven. This was the real source of her greatness, and it was this alone, and not the natural strength of her situation, nor the skill and valour of her defenders, which enabled her so long to baffle the designs if her enemies. — Paxton. PSALM CXXVI. Ver. 2. Then was our month filled with laughter, and our tongue with sinrritio" ; then said thev among the heathen, The Loud hath done great things for them. r " See that happy man ; his mouth is always full of laugh- ing, his tongue is always singing ; he is ever showing Ms teeth." — Roberts. Ver. 4. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. This image is taken from the torrents in the deserts to the south of Judea; in Idumea, Arabia Petraa, &c, a mount- ainous country. These torrents were constantly dried up in the summer, (Job vi. 17, 18,) and as constantly returned after the rainy season, and filled again llirir deserted chan- nels. The point of the comparison seems to be the return and renewal of these (not rivers, but) torrents, which yearly leave their beds dry, but fill them again ; as the Jews had left their country desolate, but now flowed again into it.— Bp. Horne. Ver. 5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. 6. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall, doubtless, come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. See on Ezek'. 25. 4. These figures are taken from agricultural pursuits ; tne seed, being well watered, will produce a plenteous harvest. The Jews in their captivity had been sowing good seed, had watered it with their tears, and the time was now come for them to reap with joy, and to return with their sheaves re- joicing. It is proverbial to say to a boy who weeps because he must go to school, or because he cannot easily acquire his lesson, " My child, the plants of science require the walerof the eyes." " If you sow with tears, the profit will appear in your own hands." — Roberts. The writer of the account of the ruins of Balbec, speak- ing of the valley in which it stood, observes, that it has very little wood; and adds, "though shade be so essential an article of oriental luxury, yet few plantations of trees are seen in Turkey, the inhabitants being discouraged from labours, which produce such distant and precarious enjoy- ment, in a country where even the annual fruits of their in- dustiy are uncertain. In Palestine we have often seen the indman sowing, accomi prevent his being robbed of returned from Babylon upon the proclamation of Cyrus, were in similar circumstances to husbandmen sowing their corn amidst enemies and robbers. The rebuilding of their towns and their temple resembled a lime of sowing ; but they had reason to fear that the neighbouring nations -would defeat these efforts. (Nehem. iv. 7.) In opposition lo this apprehension the Psalmist expresses his hope, perhaps pre- dicts, that there would be a happy issue of these beginnings, to re-people their country. — Harmer. PSALM CXXVII. Ver. 4. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man: so arc children of the youth. S.Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them : they shall not be ashamed, hut they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. The margin has, instead of speak, "subdue the enemies in the gate." In ancient books, and also among the learned, (in common conversation,)sonsarespoken of as thearrows of their fathers. To have a numerous male proeenv is con- sidered a great advantage ; and people are afraid of offend- ine such a family, lest the arrows should be sent at them. " What a fine fellow is the son of Kandan ! he is like an arrow in the hand of a hero." — Roberts, The Orientals are accustomed to call brave and valiant sons the "arrows" and "darts" of their parents, because thev are able to defend them. " To sharpen arrows," " to make sharp arrows," is among them, to get brave and valiant sons. Merrick mentions a similar Chinese mode of ex- pression. " When a son is born in a family, it is customary .o hang up bows and arrows before the house, as a sign lhat the family has acquired a defender."— Rosenmuller. PSALM CXXVIII. Ver. 3. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thy house: thy children .like nlive- plants round about thy table. The people are exceedingly fond of having their houses covered with different kinds of vines ; hence may be seen various creepers thus trained, bearing an abundance of fruit. Many interesting figures, therefore, are taken from plants which are thus sustained. A priest in blessing a married couple, often says, " Ah ! may you be like the trees Cama-Vullai and Cat-Pa^a-Tharu!" These are said to grow in the celestial world, and are joined together: the Cama-Valleif, being parasitical, cannot live without the other. — Roberts. The natives of those countries are careful to decorate their habitations with the choicest products of the vegetable kingdom. The quadrangular court in front of their houses, is adorned with spreading trees, aromatic shrubs, and fra- grant flowers, which are continually refreshed by the crys- tal waters of a fountain playing in the middle. To increase the beauty of the scene they cover the stairs which lead to the upper apartments with vines, and have often a lattice- work of wood raised against the dead walls, upon which climbs a»vrae, or other mantling shrub. .This pleasing custom justifies Doddridge in supposing the occasion of our Lord's comparing himself to a vine, might be his standing near a window, or in some court by the side of the house, where the sightof a vine creeping upon the staircase orthe wall might suggest this beautiful simile. This kind of ornament seems to have been very common in Judea, and may be traced to a very remote antiquity. From the fa- miliar manner in which the Psalmist alludes to it, we may suppose it was one of the decorations about the royal palace: " Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the s'ides of thy house ; thy children like olive-plants round about the table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord." Kimchi, a celebrated Jewish writer, explains the psalm in the same way ; and observes, that a wife is com- pared to a vine, because lhat alone of all trees can be plant- ed in a house. In confirmation of Kimchi's remark, Dr. Russel says, " It is generally true, if fruit-bearing trees be intended, as the vine is almost the only fruit-tree w^hieh is planted in the houses; pomegranates are another." — Pax- ton. PSALM CXXIX. Ver. 3. The ploughers ploughed upon my back ; they made long their furrows. " Ths enemies of Israel cut their backs, as the ploughers cut the soil." (Dr. Boothroyd.) When a man is in much trouble through oppressors, he says, " How they plough me and turn me up ! All are now ploughing me. Begone! have vou not already turned me up V "Alas! alas! my enemies nay, my children, are now ploughing me." — Rob- Ver. 6. Let them be as the grass upon the house- tops, which withereth afore it groweth up; 7. Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves, his bosom. See on Ruth 2. 4, 5. The tops of the houses in Judea were flat, and so grass erew upon them, being covered with plaster . of terrace. As it was but small and weak, and, being on high, was exposed to the scorchingsun, it was soon withered. (Shaw.) Menochius says, that he saw such roofs in the island of Corsica, flat, and having earth upon them, on which grass grew of its own accord ; but being burnt up in summer time by the sun, soon withered. But what Olaus Magnus relates" is extraordinary. He says, that in the northern Gothic countries they feed their cattle from the tops of houses, especially in a time of siege ; that their houses are built of stone, high and large, and covered with rafters of fir and bark of birch : on this is laid grass-earth, cut out -.MS. Ps. 128—132 of the fields four-square, and sowed with barley or oats, so that their roofs look like green meadows : and that what is siiwn, and the grass, that grows thereon, may not wither before plu.ked up, they very diligently water it. Maundrell says, that these words allude to the- custom ot plucking up corn from the roots by handfuls, leaving the most fruitful fields as naked as if nothing had ever grown in them ; and that this is done, that they may not lose any of the straw, which is generally very short, and necessary for the sustenance of their cattle, no hay being made in that country. — Burder. In the morning the master of the house laid in a stock ot earth, which was carried and spread evenly on the top of the house, which is flat. The whole roof is thus formed of mere earih, laid on and rolled hard and flat. On the top of every house is a, large stone roller, for the purpose of hard- ening and flattening this layer of rude soil, so that the rain may not penetrate; but upon this surface, as may be sup- posed, grass and weeds grow freely. It is to such grass that the Psalmist alludes, as useless and bad. — Jowitt. The reapers in Palestine and Syria make use of the sickle, in cutting down their crops, and according to the present custom in this country, "fill their hand" with the corn, and those who bind up' the sheaves, their "bosom." When the crop is thin and short, which is generally the case in light soils, and with their imperfect cultivation, it is not reaped with the sickle, but plucked up by-the root with the hand. By this mode of reaping they leave the most fruitful fields as naked as if nothing had ever grown on them; and as no hay is aade in the East, this is done, that they may not lose any" of the straw, which is necessary for the sustenance of their cattle. The practice of reaping with the hand is perhaps involved in these words of the Psalmist, to which reference has already been made : " Let them be as the grass upon the house-tops, which withereth afore it groweth up; wherewiih the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves, his bosom." The tops of the houses in Judea are flat, and being covered with plas- ter of terrace, are frequently grown over with grass. As it is but small and weak, and from its elevation exposed to the scorching sun, it is soon withered. To prevent this, thev pluck it up for the use of their cattle, with the hand. A more beautiful and striking figure, to display the weak and evanescent condition of wicked men, cannot easily be con- ceived. Thev are every moment exposed to the judgments of God, like the grass on the house-top, which is tossed by the breeze, and scorched by the sun, and to the grasp of Omnipotence, which, w-eak and defenceless as they are, they can neither avoid nor resist.. The sudden destruction of the wicked is described by the same writer, under another figure not less remarkable for its force and propriety : " 1 have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading him- self like a green bay-tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo.he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." — Paxton. " Ah ! that wretched family shall soon be as withered grass." " Go, vile one, for soon wilt thou be as parched grass." — Roberts. PSALM CXXXII. Ver. 9. Let thy priests be clothed with righteous- ness ; and let thy saints shout for joy. " See that excellent man ; he tice and charity." — Roberts. the garments of jns- Ver. 17. There will I make the horn of David to bud : I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed. "Yes, that man will flourish ; already his horn has begun to appear— it is growing."— Roberts. Ver. 18. His enemies will I clothe with shame; but upon himself shall his crown flourish. This idea seems to be taken from the nature of the ancient crowns bestowed upon conquerors. From the earliest periods of history the laurel, olive, and ivy, fur- nished crowns to adorn the heads of heroes, who had con- quered in the field of battle, gained the prize in the race, Pa. U -141. or performed some oiher important set vice to the public. These were the dear-bought rewards ol the most heroic exploits ol' :int ujtiil v. This sets I he proprictv ot I he plitvi-c in mil »tew. The idea pf a crown of gold and |ewels il isbing, is at least unnatural: whereas flourishing is Datura] l" laurels and oaks. These were put upon ihe heads of the victors in lull verdure. (Fine.)— l'.i torn. PSALM CXXXIII. Ver. 3. As the (tew of Hermon, and as the -w that descended upon the mountains of Zion : for there the Lord commanded the blearing, rr, ii life for evermore See on Ps. 89. 13. A great difficulty occurs in the comparison which the Psalmist makes to the dew of Hermon, that fell 0 lill nf /ion; which might easily be uilerpreied, if it bad been ii ibe clouds which lay on Herman, beii g brought by the north winds to Jerusalem, caused the dews illy he lii, l of Zion. But there i- aShihon •nti :' > -'iv'" ' ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ : I Ii i - light- ning is often followed by thunder. Thu I the lightnings lor the rain'; and when he utterelh his voice, multitude of waters in the heaven ;n and as these refreshing showers air preceded by squalls of wind, "he bringeth forth the wind out of Ins treasure," Jer. Ii. 10 — Warmer. PSALM CXXXVII. Ver, 1. By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. See on Lam. 10. Ver. 5. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her ■ In the Hindoo book, Scanda-Purana, it is written," Singa- Muggam, on seeing that his heart throbbed, the tears Mowed, and his hands and feet forgot their cunning." "Yes; if I lose thee, if I forget thee, it will be like the losing, like the forgetting of these eyes and arms."— Roberts. The last words mean, may niv right hand forget, refuse to perform itsservice; namely. < ' benumbed. A similar, and, as it appears, proverbial expression, is found in an old Arabian poem, in De Sacy's Chrestom Arab: "No, never have I done anything that could displease thee; if this is not true, may my band be unable to lift my scourge;" that is, may it be lamed. — Rosenmcixer. PSALM CXXXVIII. Ver. 6, Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly : but the proud he know- eth afar olfF. This is truly oriental : " JS'un orari rcsgh tooratila cr- rila-rnin, i. e. "I know him afar off. Let htm be at a great distance; allow him to conduct his plans with the greatest secrecy j vet, I compass his path, I am close to him. You pretend to describe the fellow to me: I know him well; there is no need to go near to him, for I can recognise him at the greatest distance. See how he carries his head; look at his gait; who can mistake his proud bearing V "How does your brother conduct himself!" — "I cannot tell, for he knows me afar ofl." — Roberts. PSALM CXL. Ver. 4. Keep me, O Lord, from the hand of the wicked ; preserve me from the violent man ; who have purposed to overthrow my goings. See on Ps. 91. 13. PSALM CXLL Ver. 5. Let the righteous smite me ; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall he an excellent oil, which shall not break my head : for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. Certain oils are said to have a most salutary effect on the head ; hence in fevers, or any other cenplaims which af- fect the head, the medicahmen always recommend oil. 1 have known people who were deranged, cured in a very short time by nothing more than the ap;..:V -""lion of a peculiar kind of oil to the bead. There are, howe\ cr, other kind-. which are believed (when thus applied) to produce delit ium. Thus the reprrofs of the righteous were .ompare.". 416 to excellent oil, which produced a most salutary effect on the head. So common is this practice of anointing the head, that all who can afford it. do it every week. But strange as it may appear, the crown of the head is the place selected for chastisement. Thus owners of slaves, or hus- bands, or schoolmasters, beat the heads of the offenders with their knuckles. Should an urchin come late to school, or forget his lesson, the pedagogue savs to some of the other boys, "Go, beat his head." " Begone, fellow! or 1 will beat thy head." Should a man be thus chastised by an inferior, he quotes the old proverb — " If my head is to be beaten, let it be done with the fingers that have rings on ;" meaning a man of rank. "Yes, yes; let a holy man smite my head: and what of that 7 it is an excellent oil." " My master has been beating my head, but it has been good oil for me." — Roberts. Ver. 6. When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words ; for they are sweet. Ainsworth, " Their judges are thrown down by the rock sides." In 2 Chronicles xxv. 12, it is recorded that the chil- dren of Judah took ten thousand captives, "and brought them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, that they were all broken in pieces." It was a custom in all parts of the East thus to despatch criminals, by casting them down a precipice; the Tar- peian rock affords a similar instance. But who were these judges'! probably those " men that work iniquity," as mentioned in the 4th verse. In the 5th verse he speaks of the salutary nature of the reproofs of the righteous, but in the 7th he seems to refer to the cruel results of having unrighteous judges ; for in consequence of their suitings he says, " Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood;" i. e. their bones were like the fragments and chips scattered on the earth, left by the hewers of wood. Therefore these judges were to be " overthrown in stony places."— Roberts. Ver. 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. A remarkable expression of the Psalmist David, Psalm cxli. 7, appears to have much poetical heightening in it, which even its author, in all probability, did not mean should be accepted literally ; while, nevertheless, it might be susceptible of a literal acceptation, and is sometimes a fact.— The Psalmist says, " Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth." This seems to be strong eastern paint- ing, and almost figurative language; but that it mav be strictly true, the following extract demonstrates : " At five o'clock we left Garigana, our journey being still to the eastward of north ; and at a quarter past six in the evening arrived at the village of that name, whose inhabitants hail all perished with hunger the yearbefore ; their u-retched bones being all unburied, and scattered upon the surface of the ground, where the village formerly stood. We encamped among the bones of the dead; no space could be found free from them ,• and on the 23d, at six in the morning, full of horror at this miserable spectacle, we set out for Teawa; this was the seventh -day from Ras El Feel. After an hour's travelling, we came to a small river, which still had water standing in some considerable pools, although its banks were destitute of any kind of shade." (Bruce.) The reading of this account thrills us with horror; what then must have been the sufferings of the ancient Jews at such a sight 1 — when to have no burial was reckoned among the greatest calamities; when their land was thought to be polluted, in which the dead (even criminals) were in any manner exposed to view ; and to whom the very toucn of a dead body, or part of it, or of any thing that had touched a dead body, was esteemed a defilement, and required a ceremonial ablution 1 — Taylor in Calmet. PSALM CXLII. Ver. 7. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name; the righteous shall compass PSALMS. Ps. 141—148. me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me. These people speak of afflictions, difficulties, and sorrows, as so many prisons. " lyo inlha marryil ejijw rutin pome ?' i. e. "Alas! when will this imprisuninent go!" exclaims the man in his difficulties.— Roberts. PSALM CXLIV. Ver. 12. That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace. Of a man who has a hopeful and beautiful family, it is said, " His sons are like shoots, (springing up from the parent stock,) and his daughters are like carved work and precious stones." — Roberts. Ver. 13. That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store; that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets. The surprising fecundity of the sheep has been celebrated by writers of every class. It has not escaped the notice of the royal Psalmist, who, in a beautiful ascription of praise to the" living and the true God, entreats, that the sheep of his chosen people might " bring forth thousands and ten thousands in their streets." In another song of Zion, he represents, by a very elegant metaphor, the numerous flocks, covering like a garment the face of the field: "The pastures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are cov; ered over with corn ; they shout for joy, they also sing." The bold figure is fully warranted by the prodigious num- bers of sheep which whitened the' extensive pastures of Syria and Canaan. In that part of Arabia which borders on Judea, the patriarch Job possessed at first seven Jhou- sand, and after the return of his prosperity, fourteen thou- sand sheep; and Mesha, the king ol Moab, paid the king of Israel "a yearly tribute of a hundred thousand lambs, and an equal number of rams with the wool." In the war which the tribe of Reuben waged with the Hagarites, the former drove away "two hundred and fifty thousand sheep." At the dedication of the temple, Solomon offered in sacri- fice " a hundred and twenty thousand sheep." At the feast of the passover, Josiah, tlie king of Judah, "gave to the people, of the flock, lambs and kids, all for the passover- offerings, for all that were present, to the number of tnirty thousand, and three thousand bullocks; these were of the king's substance." The ewe brings forth her young com- . monly once a year, and in more nngenial climes, seldom more than one lamb at a time. But in the oriental regions, twin iambs are a? frequent as they are rare in other places ; which accounts in a satisfactory manner for the prodigious numbers which the Syrian shepherd led to the mountains. This uncommon fruiffulness seems to be intimated by Sol- omon in his address to the spouse : " Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are -even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one beareth twins, and none is barren among them."— Paxton. PSALM CXLVIII. Ver. 9. Mountains, and all hills ; fruitful trees, and all cedars: 10. Beasts, and all cattle: creeping things, and flying fowl : 11. Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: 12. Both young men and maidens; old men and children: 13. Let them praise the name of the Lord : for his name alone is excellent ; his glory is above the earth and heaven. Those who are unacquainted with oriental liierature, sometimes affect to smile at the addresses which are made in scripture to animate and inanimate nature. " How ridiculous," sav thev, "to talk about the mountains skipping like rams, and the 'little hills like lambs !" but they know not that this is according to the figurative and luxuriant IV 1 19, L50. I'SALMr 117 genius of the people ofihe East. The proprietor of lands, ■!. -ri.ir.l-, and gardens, often exclaims, when walk- ing amon; iliem m time of drought, " All ! tree-, plain-, and ll.iu.i-, tanks and cattle, birds and fish, and all living creatines, sing praises to the gods, and rain shall be given to you." — Romans. PSALM CXLIX. Ver. 5. Lot the saints be joyful in glory : let them sing aloud upon their beds. After the troops were assembled, a public sacrifice was offered upon the national altar, which was succeeded by a -n.iriial least prepared for the whole army ; and to confirm '.heir purpose ana inflame their courage, a hymn to Jehovah closed the festival. The hundred and forty-ninth psalm, was, in I he opinion of Doddridge, composed on such an occasion ; it was sung when David's army was marching out to war against the remains of the devoted nations Of Canaan, and first went up in solemn procession lo the house of God, there, as it were, to consecrate the arm- he put into their hands. On that occasion, the devout mon- arch called on his associates in arms (ver. 5) "to sing aloud upon their beds," that is, the couches upon which they reclined at the banquet attending their sacrifices, which gives a clear and important sense to a very obscure and difficult pas-age. To these military sacrifices and banquets the people were summoned by the sound of two silver trumpets of a cubit long, according to Josephus, but, like ours, wider at bottom. These were blown by two pi tests, as the law of Moses required ; and they' were sounded in a particular manner, that the people might know the meaning of the summons. Then the anointed for the war, going from one battalion to another, exhorted the soldiers in the Hebrew language, no other being al- lowed on that occasion, to fight valiantly for their country, and for the cities of their God. Officers were appointed to give notice, that those whose business it was should make sufficient provision for the army, before they marched ; and every tenth man was appointed for this purpose. This arrangement was made by a resolution of the tribes, recorded in the book of Judges: "And we will take ten men of a hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand out often thousand, to fetch victual for the people, that they may do, when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, according to all the folly that they have wrought in Israel." Mr. Harmer contends, that ' these men were not intended so much to collect food for 53 the use of their companions in that expedition, as to dress it, to serve it up, and to wait upon them in eating it." But although the difference is not very material, the suppo- sition that the tenth part of the army was to forage for ihe rest is more natural, and at the same lime more agreeable to the literal meaning of the text, which signifies to hunt the prey— Paxton. PSALM CL. Ver. 3. Praise him with the sound of the trum- pet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. 4. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and or- gans. 5. Praise him with the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high-sounding cymbak. Instruments of music were used in the worship of the Must High God : and the Hindoos, in singing praises, and performing religious ceremonies to their deities, always have the same accompaniments. Thus the trumpet and the "high-sounding cymbals," the timbrels, (which corre- spond parlly with the tambarine,) the harp, -vus kinnor, (also called kinnora in Tamul,) is a stringed instrument, played with the fingers: and maybe heard in all their tem- ples at the time of service. The devotee engaged in ma- king offerings often exclaims, " Praise him, O ye musicians ! praise him; praise the Swamy :" and great is their enthu- siasm ; their eyes, their heads, their tongues, their hands, their legs, are all engaged. At a marriage, or when a great man gives a feast, the "guests goto the players on instru- ments, and say, " Praise the noble host, praise the bride and the groom ; praise aloud, O cymbals ! give forth the voice, ye trumpets; strike up the harp and the timbrel; praise him in the song, serve him, serve him." — Roeerts. Ver. 5. Praise him with the loud cymbals : praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals. The Hebrew word, which is here translated cymbal, sig- nifies rather, metal plates or basins. In the above passage. a larger and smaller kind are probably meant, both ol which are still customary in the East. The latter are metal plates, castanets, such as the oriental female dancers take two on each hand, over one finger and the thumb. Foi military music, they have large plates of the same form. And these are those which are here called " high-sounding cymbals."— Bubder. THE BOOK OF PROVERBS. CHAPTER I. Ver. 1. The proverbs of Solomon, the son of Da- vid, king of Israel. In those periods of remote antiquity, which may with the utmost propriety be styled the infancies of societies and nations, the usual, if not the only mode of instruction, was by detached aphorisms or proverbs. Human wisdom was then indeed in a rude and unfinished slate : it was not digested, methodized, or reduced to order and connexion. Those who by genius and reflection, exercised in the school cf experience, had accumulated a stock of knowledge, were desirous of reducing it into the most compendious form, and comprised in a few maxims those observations which they apprehended most essential to human happiness. This mode of instruction was, in truth, more likely than any other to prove efficacious with men in a rude stage of soci- ety ; for it professed not to dispute, but to command ; not to persuade, but to compel : it conducted them, not by a circuit of argument, but led immediately to the approbation and practice of integrity and virtue. That it might not, how- ever, be altogether destitute of allurement, and lest it should disgust by an appearance of roughness and severity, some degree of ornament became necessary ; and the instructers of mankind added to their precepts the graces of harmony, and illuminated them with metaphors, comparisons, allu- sions, and the other embellishments of style. This manner, which with other nations prevailed only during the first periods of civilization, with the Hebrews continued to be a favourite style to the latest ages of their literature. — LOWTH. Ver. 6. To understand a proverb, and the interpre- tation ; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. The people of the East look upon the acquirements of antiquity as being every way superior to those of modern times : thus their noblest works of art and their sciences are indebted to antiquity fur their invention and perfection. Instead, therefore, of their minds being enlightened and excited by the splendid productions of modern genius, they are ever reverting to the wisdom of their forefathers, and sighing over the loss of many of their occult sciences. We, on the other hand, by contemplating the imposing achieve- ments of the present age, are in danger of looking with contempt on antiquity, and of pursuing with thoughtless avidity the novelties and speculations of modern inven- Solomon could repeat " three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five;" and many of the philos- ophers of the present age in the East have scarcely any other wisdom. Listen to two men engaged in argument: should he who is on the point of being foiled, quote an ap- posite proverb against his antagonist, an advantage is con- sidered as having been gained, which scarcely any thing can counteract. See a man who is pondering over some difficulty : his reason cannot decide as to the course he ought to pursue, when, perhaps, some one repeats a palla- miille, i. e. an old saying: the whole of his doubts are at once removed, and he starts with vigour in the prescribed course. " Young man, talk not to me with infant wisdom, what are the savings of the ancients ! you ought to obey your parents. Listen ! ' The father and the mother are* the first deities a child has to acknowledge.' Is it not said, ' Chihlren who obey willingly are as ambrosia to the gods V " " Were you my friend, you would not act thus ; Secause, as the proverb says, ' True friends have but one soul in two bodies.' " "I am told you have been trying to ruin me ; ' but will the moon be injured by ihe barking of a dog V " " You have become proud, and conduct yourtelf like the upstart who must ' cany his silk umbrella to keep off the sun at midnight !' " " You talk about your hopes of some coming good: what say the ancients'? ' Expect- ation is the midday dream of life.'" " Cease to be indolent, for, as our fathers said, ' Idleness is Qie rust of the mind.' " " That you have been guilty of many crimes I cannot doubt, as the proverb says, ' Will there be smoke without firel' Your wife has, I fear, led you astray, but she wil. be your ruin : what said the men of antiquity 1 ' As is the affection of a file for the iron, of a parasitical plant for ihe tree which supports it ; so is the affection of a violent woman for her husband: she is like Yama, .(the deity oi death,) who eats and destroys without appearing to do so.'" With these specimens, the English reader may form a tolerable idea of the importance which is atiached to proverbs. — Roberts. Ver. 19. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain ; which taketh away the life ol the owners thereof. The words rendered " greedy of gain," denote one who cuts or clips off every scrap of'money he possibly can. In the times of Abraham and Moses, and long after, they used to weigh their silver, and, no doubt, to cut and clip ofl pieces of it, to make weight in their dealings with each other, as is practised by some nations, particularly the Chinese, to this day. — Burd-eh. Ver. 26. I also will laugh at your calamity; 1 will mock when your fear cometh ; 27. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your de- struction cometh as a whirlwind ; when distress "'and anguish cometh upon you. According to Savarv, the south wind, which blows in Egypt from February to May, fills the atmosphere with a subtile dust, which inipi-t!,- i.'-piraiion, and brings with it pernicious vapours. Sometimes it appears only in the shape of an impetuous whirlwind, which passes rapidly, and is fatal to the traveller, surprised in the middle of the deserts. Torrents of burning sand roll before it, the firma- ment is enveloped in a thick veil, and the sun appears of whirlwinds of the south, and with peculiar force and beauty, compare the sudden approach of calamity to their impetuous and destructive career. " I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh: when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind: when distress and anguish cometh upon you." Whole caravans have been overwhelmed in a moment, bv the immense quantity of sand which it put~ in motion. The Arab who conduced Mr. Bruce through the frightful deserts of Senaar, pointed out to him a spot among some sandy hillocks, where the ground seemed U be more elevated than the rest, where one of the la'gesi caravans which ever came out of Egypt was covered v i h sand, to the number of several thousand camels. This awful phenomenon Addison has well described in the fol- lowing lines, which he" puts into the mouth of Syphax, a Numidian prince: — And, smothered in the dusiy whirlwind, PROVERBS. 419 CHAPTER III. Vet 8. It slmll be health to thy navel, and mar- row to thy bones. The navel of an infant is often very clumsily managed in t lie East: hence it Is no uncommon thing to see that pan greatly enlarged, and diseased. The fear of the Lord, therefore, would be as medicine and health to the navel, UMI*iog it i" -""■'■ and prosper. Strange as il mayappear, is often spoken of as a criterion of prosperity; ani Solomon appears to have had the same idea, for he mentions tins health of the navel as being the result of trusting in the Lord, and of acknowledging I Inn in till our ways. He says in the next verse, " I [onoui the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase : so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine." And this reference to the lave}, as being connected with earthly prosperity, is com- 11011 at this day. Has a person arisen from poverty to af- "uence, it is said, "His navel has grown much larger." Should he insult the man from whom he has derived his prosperity, the latter will ask, " Who made your navel to grow 1" — Robkrts. Medicines in the East are chiefly applied externally, and in particular to the stomach ami belly. This comparison, vs, is diawn from the plasters, ointments, oils, is, which are made use of in the East upon the belly and stomach inmost maladies; they being ignorant in the villages, of the art of making decoctions and potions, and the proper doses of such things. — Harukr. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 13. Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go : keep her ; for she is thy life. Is is said of the fixed will or purpose of those who take fast hold of leamingor any other thing, " Ah! theyare like he hand of the monkey in'the shell of the cocoa-nut ; it will «ot let go the rice." " On the banks of a broad river there was once a verv ! trge herd i f monkeys, which greatly injured the fields and gardens of the inhabitants. Several consultations were held as to the best way of getting rid of those troublesome ma- rauders: to take' their lives was altogether contrary to the prejudices of the people; and to take them in traps was almost impossible, as the monkeys never approached any place without well examining the ground. At last it was determined to procure a sufficient number of cocoa- nuts; to make in each a small hole, and fill them with rice. These were strewed on the ground, and the people retired to watch the success of their plan. The offenders soon went to the place, and seeing the rice (their favourite food) in the nuts, they began to eat the few grains scattered about on the ground : but these only exciting their appetite, they each thrust a hand through 'the small hole into the nut, which was soon clasped full of rice. The hand now be- came so enlarged that it could not be withdrawn without losing its booty : to leave such a dainty was more than the monkey could consent to: the people therefore came for- ward, and soon seized their foes, as the cocoa-nut attached to the hand prevented them from getting quickly out of the way. They were, therefore, all made piris 'ners, and fer- ried across the river, and left to seek their food in the wil- derness." " Take fast hold of instruction ; let her not go; keep her ; for she is thy life."— Roberts. CHAPTER V. Ver. 1 8. Let thy fountain be blessed ; and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19. Let her be as the lovino- hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. The hind is celebrated for affection !o ber mate ; hence a man, in sneaking of his wife, often calls her bv that name. "My hind, my hind! where is my hind V "Alas! my hind has fallen; the arrow has pierced her life."— Roberts. The hind of loves, and the roe of grace, in the language of the ancient Hebrews, mean, the amiable hind and the love- ly roe. These creatures, it is generally admitted, in the whole form of their bodies, and in all their dispositions and man- ners, are wonderfully pleasing. The ancients were partic- ularly delighted with them; thi thej fed them at their tables with the greatest care; they washed, and combed, and adorned them with garlands of flowers, and chains of gold or silver. The bind seems to have been admitted to all those privileges, except that of reposing with her master on the same com h, which must have been rendered inconvenient by the largeness of ber size. If these things are duly considered, the chl wise man will not appear so singular ; to thecal of an Ori- ental it was quite intelligible, and perfectly proper. Let a man tenderly love his spouse; relax in her company from the severer duties of life; take pleasure in her innocent and amiable conversation ; and in fine, treat hi the kindness, and admit her to all the familiarity, which the beauty of her form, tin' c: dispositions, and the nearness of her relation, entitle her to expect. — Paxtom. The Orientals still comparea beautiful woman toa hind, or the gazelle, which resembles the roe. " When the Arabs wish to describe the beauty of a woman, they sav, that she has the eyes of a gazelle. All their songs, in which they celebrate their mistresses, speak of no 'long bin gazelle eyes, and they need only compare them to this animal, to describe, in one word, a periect beauty. The gazelle is in fact a very pretty animal; it has something innocently timid about it, not unlike the modesty and bash- fnlness of a young girl." (D'Arvieux.) Sparrmann says of the Cape or African gazelle, which is very nearly re- lated to that of Palestine, " This animal is, perhaps, the most beautiful of all gazelles, and is particularly distin- guished, as the gazelle in general, for its fiery and' beauti- ful eyes: hence, in some parts of the East, it is properly considered as the greatest praise which can be bestowed on the beauty of a woman, to say, Thy eyes are like the eyes of a gazelle." — Rosenmclleh. Ver. 10. Lei Aerie as die loving hind and pleasant roe: let her breasts satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love. See on 3 Sam. 2. 18. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 1. My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, i/~thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, 2. Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth. It was at first reckoned sufficient if the covenant was made in the presence of all the people; but in process of time, the ceremony of striking hands was introduced at the conclusion of a bargain, which has maintained its ground among the customs id civilized nations down to the present time. To strike hands with another was the emblem ot agreement among the Greeks under the walls of Troy ; for Nestor complains, in a public assembly of the chiefs, that the Trojans had violated the engagements which they had sanctioned by libations of wine, and giving their right hands. And in another passage, Agamemnon protests th;;t the agreement which the Trojans had ratified bv the blood of lambs, libations of wine, and their right hands, could not in any way be set aside. The Roman faith was plighted in the same way; for in Virgil, when Dido marked from her watch-towers the Trojan fleet setting forward with bal- anced sails, she exclaimed, Is this the honour, the faith 1 " En dcxlra fidesque 1" The wise man alludes often to this mode of ratifying a bargain, which shows it was in gene- ral practice among the people : " My son, if thou be sure- ty tor thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth." Traces of this custom may be discovered in ages long an- terior to that in which Solomon flourished : for Job, in his solemn appeal to God from the tribunal of men, thus ex- presses himself: " Lay down now, put me in surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with mo V' — Paxton. Ver. 5. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand cj the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. ■UQ PROVERBS Chap. 7. Does a man complain of his numerous enemies, it will be said, " Leap away, friend, as the deer from the snare." " Fly off, fly off, as the bird from the fowler." " Go slyly to the place ; and then, should you see the snare, fly away like a bird." — Roberts. Before dogs were so generally employed, the hunters were obliged to make use of nets and snares, to entangle he game. When the antelope finds itself enclosed in the toils, terror lends it additional strength and activity ; it strains every nerve, with vigorous and incessant exertion, to bteak the snare, and escape before the pursuer arrives. And such is the conduct which the wise man recommends to him who has rashly engaged to be surety for his neigh- bour : " Deliver thyself as (an antelope) from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler." The snare is spread, the adversary is at hand, instantly exert all thy powers to obtain a discharge of the obligation ; a moment's' hesitation may involve thee and thy family in irretrievable ruin. — P.ixton. Ver. 6. Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. The name of this minute insect in Hebrew is (>6d:) tie- mala, from a root which signifies to cut down; perhaps because the God of nature has taught it to divide or cut off the top of the grain, which it lays up in its subterraneous cells for the winter, to prevent their germination. This operation is attested by numerous ancient writers, among whom we observe the celebrated names of Pliny and Plu- tarch. It is at least certain, that the ant cuts off the tops of growing corn, that it may seize upon the grain ; which may perhaps be the true reason of its Hebrew name. The al- lusions to this little animal in the sacred writings, although not numerous, are by no means unimportant. The wisest cf men refers us to the bright example of its foresight and activity : " Go tc the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, and be wise : which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and galhereth her food ill the harvest." Their uniform care and promptitude in improving every moment as it passes; the admirable order in which tl.ey proceed to the scene of action ; the perfect harmony which reigns in their bands ; the eagerness which they discover in running to the assistance of the weak or the" fatigued ; the readiness with which those that have no burden yield the way to their fellows that bend under their loads, or when the grain happens to be too heavy, cut it in two, and take the half upon their own shoulders; furnish a striking example of industry, benevolence, and concord, to the human family. Nor should the skill and vigour which they display in digging under ground, in building their houses, and in constructing their cells, in filling their granaries with corn for the winter, in forming channels for carrying off the rain, in bringing forth fheirhidden stores which/ire in danger of spoiling by the moisture, and ex- posing them to the sun and air, be passed over in silence. These, and many other operations, clearly show how in- structive a teacher is the ant, even to men of understanding; and how much reason Solomon had to hold up its shining example to their imitation. We mid another allusion to the ant near the close of the same book: " The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer. It is, according to the royal preacher, one of those things which are little upon the earth, but exceeding wise. The superior wisdom of the ant iias been recognised by many writers. Horace, in the passage from which the preceding quotation is taken, praises its sagacity; Virgil celebrates its foresight, in pro- viding for the wants and infirmities of old age, while it is young and vigorous: " atque kiopi metuens formica senectse." And we learn from Hesiod, that among the earliest Greeks it was called Idris ; that is, wise, because it foresaw the coming storm, and the inauspicious day, and collected her 8tore. Aristotle observes, that some of those animals which have no blood, possess more intelligence and sagacity than some that have blood; among which are the bees and the dnts. Cicero believed that the ant is not only furnished with senses, but also with mind, reason, and memory: " In formica non modo sensus sed etiam mens, ratio, mentions'." Some authors go so far as to prefer the ant to man himself, on account of the vigorous intelligence and sagacitv which they display in all their operations. Although this 'opinion is justly chargeable with extravagance, yet it must be ad- mitted, that the union of so many noble qualities in so small a corpuscle, is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the works of nature. This is admitted by Solomon himself: " The ants are a people not strong, yet they pre- pare their meat in the summer." He calls them a people, because they are gregarious ; living in a state of society, though without any king or leader to maintain ofder and superintend their affairs. The term people is frequently applied to them by ancient writers. iElian savs, in a pas- sage already quoted, that the ants which ascend the stalks of growing corn, throw down the spikes which they have bit off, tui i5d/"J, '« «arai, to the people, that is, the ants below. Apuleius, describing the manner in which the ants convoke an assembly of the nations, says, that when the signal is given, Ruuht alia; superque aliresepedum populorum undce. The wise man adds, they are not strong; that is, they are feeble insects ; nor is it possible that great strength can re- side in so minute a creature. Hence the Arabians say con- temptuously of a man that has become weak and infi m, " he is ieebler than the ant."— Paxton. Ver. 13. He winketh with his eyes, hp speiketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers See on Matt. 6. 3. It should be remembered, that when people are in their houses, they do not wear sandals ; consequently their feet and toes are exposed. When guests wish to speak with each other, so as not to be observed by the host, they convey their meaning by the feet and toes. 'Does a person wish to leave a room in company with another, he lifts up one of his feet ; and should the other refuse, he also lifts up a foot, and then suddenly puts it down on the ground. " He teacheth with his fingers." When merchants wish to make a bargain in the presence of others, without making known their terms, they sit on the ground, have a piece of cloth thrown over the lap, and then put each a hand under, and thus speak with the fingers! When the Bramins con- vey religious mysteries to their disciples, they teach with their fingers, having the hands concealed in the folds of their robes. — Roberts. Ver. 27. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt? When an individual denies a crime of which he has been accused, it will he asked, f Will you put fire in your bosom?" " lam innocent, I am innocent; in proof of which I will put fire in my bosom." Does a man boast he will do that which is impossible, another will say, " He is going m put fire in his bosom without being burned." — Roberts. Ver. 34. For jealousy is the rage of a man ; therefore he will not spare in the day of ven- geance. Jealousy is very common r.nd powerful among the people of the East ; and is frequently carried to an extent, of which we have no example in European countries. " Whoever, in Persia, has the misfortune to see, or the imprudence to look at, the wife of a man of rank, were it but as she travels on the road, and at ever so great a distance, is sure to be severely beaten by her eunuchs, and, perhaps, put to death ; and to meet any of the king's concubines is such a capital crime, that, on a certain occasion, when the favourite queen happened, during the chase, to be overtaken by a storm, and under the necessitv of taking refuge in a hamlet, not one of the people would let her majesty in, that they might not have the misfortune of seeing her."' (Michaelis.) — Bcrder. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 10. And, behold, there met him a woman, with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. Females of that class are generally dressed in scarlet; have their robes wound tightly round their bodies ; their eyelids and finger nails are painted or stained ; and they wear numerous ornaments. (2 Kings ix. 30.) S»e en Isa iii. IG, and following verses.— Roberts. PROVERBS. 421 Ver. 11. She /.s- loud and stubborn ; hei feet abide not in her house. In ancient Greece, the women were strictly confined within their lodgings, especially virgins ami widows; of whom ihe former, as having less experience in the world, were more closely watched! Their apartment was com- monly well guarded with locks and bolls; and sometimes they were so straiily confined, that they could not pass f-om one part to another without permission. New-mar- ried women were almost under as strict a confinement as virgins ; bul when once they had brought forth a child, they commonly enjoyed greater liberty. Thismdulgence, how- ntirelv owing to the kindness of their husbands ; lor those who were jealous or morose, kept their wives in perpetual imprisonment. But how gentle and kind soever husbands might be, it was considered as very indecenl for • d i" go abroad. A Jewess was not so much i mfined but still h was deemed improper for her to appear much in public; for in Hebrew she is called (noty) almah, from a verb u huh signifies to hide or conceal, because she was seldom or never permitted to mingle in promiscuous com- pany. The married women, though less restrained, were still expected to keep at home, and occupy their time in the management of their household. In the book of Proverbs, the wise man states it as a mark of a dissolute wdman, that •' her feet abide not in her house :" while "every wise wo- man," by her industrious and prudent conduct, "buildelh her house." " She lookelh well to the ways of her house- hold, and eateth not the bread of idleness. — Paxton. Ver. 1G. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. We are not (o suppose that all beds were alike; no doubt, when King David wanted warmth, his attendants would put both mattresses below, and coverlets above, to procure it for him. Neither are we to understand, when a bed is ihe subject of boasting, that it consisted merely of the krabbaton, or orcsk. In Pro. vii. 10, the harlot vaunts of her bed, as highly ornamented " with tapestry-work — with brocade I have brocaded — bedecked — my oresh ; the covering to my duan (rather the makass) is fine linen of Egypt, embossed with embroidery." This description may be much illustrated by the account which Earon De Tott gives of a bed, in which he was expected to sleep, and in which he might have slept, had not European habit incapaci- tated him from that enjoyment: " The time for taking our re- pose was now come, and we were conducted into another large room, in the middle of which was a kind of bed, with- out bedstead or curtains. Though the coverlet and pillows exceeded in magnificence the richness of the sola, which likewise ornamented the apartment, I foresaw thai I could expect but little rest on this bed, and had the curiosity to examine its make in a more particular manner. Fifteen mttlresscs of quilted cotton, about three inches thick, placed one upon another, formed the ground-work, and were cov- ered by a sheet of Indian linen, sewed on the last mattress. A coverlet of preen satin, adorned with gold, embroidered in embossed irork, was, in like manner, fastened lo the sheels, the ends of which, turned in, were sewed down alternated- Two large pillows of crimson satin, covered with ih,- !>:., cmbroidenj, in which there was no want of gold or spangles, rested on two cushions of the sofa, brought near to serve for a back, and intended to support our heads. The taking of the pillows entirely away would have been a g 1 r.'- source, if we had had any bolster; and the expedient of turning ihe oiher side upward having only served to show they were embroidered in the same manner on the bottom, we at last determined to lay our handkerchiefs over them, which, however, did not prevent our being verv sensible of the embossed ornaments underneath." Heie we have (1.) many mattresses of quilted cotton: (•2.) a sheet of Indian linen; {quern, muslin, or the fine linen of Egypt V) (3.) a coverlet of green satin, embossed: (■J.) two large pillows, embossed also: (5.) two cushions from the sofa, to form a back. So that we see an eastern bed may be an article of furniture sufficientlv complicated. This 'description, compared with a note of De La Mo- iraye. (p. 172,) leads to the supposition, that somewhat like what ae informs us is called makass, i. c. a brocaded cover- ing for show, is what the harlot boasts of, as being the upper covering to her minder, or oresh. " On a rich mi la," says he, " was & false con i in- of plain green silk, for the same reason as that in the hall ; but 1 Rfli d it up, w bile the two eunuchs who were with us had their bacts turned, and I found that the makass of the minders was i very rich brocade, with a gold ground, and flotoered wiihsilk of several colours, and the cushions of green velvet also, grounded with gold, and flowered like Hum." Sole. "The minders have two covers, one of which is called makash,/w ornament : and the other to preserve that, especially when they are rich, as these were. This was in ihe seraglio at Constantinople. It is perfectly in character for the harlot, who {T.">. ix II) "sits on a kind of throne at her door," and who ir. this passage boasts of all her showy embellishments, to mention whatever is gaudy, even to the tinsel bedeckings of her room, her furniture, and her makasses, assuming nothing less than regal dignity in words and description : though her apartment be the 'way to hell; and the alcove containing her bed be the very lurking chamber of death — Taylor in Cai-met. Ver. 27. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. v See on Is. 22. 16. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 1. Wisdom hath built her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: 2. She hath kill- ed her beasts ; she hath mingled her wine ; she hath also furnished her table: 3. She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the hig-hest places of the city, 4. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, 5. Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Hasselquist takes noticp of what appears to us an old cus- tom in Egypt, which he supposes is very ancieit, Uoiigh he does not apply it to the illustration of any passage of scripture ; il seems, however, to be referred to by Solomon in the book of Proverbs. He saw, he says, a number of women, who went about inviling people to a banquet, in a singular, and, without doubt, very ancient manner. They were about ten or twelve, covered with black veils, as is customary in that country. They were preceded by four eunuchs : after them, and on the side, were Moor's with their usual walking staves. As they were walking, they all joined in making a noise, which he was told signified their joy, but which he could not find resembled a joyful or pleasing song. The sound was so singular, as that he found himself al a loss to give an idea of it to those that never heard it. It was shrill, but had a particular nuaver- ing, which they learnt by long practice. The passage in Proverbs, which seems to allude to this practice, is the beginning of the ninth chapter: " Wisdom hath killed her beasis ; she hath mingled her wine; she haih also furnish- ed her table; she hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon Ihe highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him (urn in hither: as for him that wantelh understanding, she Saith lo him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled." Here the reader observes, that the invitation is supposed to be made by more than one person ; that they were of the female sex lhat were employed in the service ; and that the inviialion is supposed not'to have been, as among us, a private message, but open lo the notice of all. Whether it was with a singing tone of voice, as now in Egypt, does not, determinatelv al least, appear by the word her made use of, and' which is translated rriclh: She cnelh. by r.er maidens, vpon Hie hi ghect places of the city. It may improper to add, that though the eastern people now eat out of the dishes oftentimes, which are brought in singly, and follow one another with great rapidity, not out of plates, many lesser appendages are placed round about the table bv way of preparation, which seems to be what is meant by ihe expression, she nho hath furnished her (able , in one word, all things were then ready, and the more di» 422 PROVERBS. C.i/ lant kinds of preparation had been followed by the nearer, till every thing was ready, so as that the repast might im- mediately begin. The cattle were killed, the jars of wine emptied into drinking vessels, and the little attendants on the great dishes placed on the table.— Harmer. Ver. 14. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city. The cus'cm of sitting at their doors, in the most alluring pomp that comes within their reach, is still an eastern prac- tice. " These women," says Pitts, speaking of the ladies of pleasure at Grand Cairo, " used to sit at the door, or walk in the streets unveiled. They are commonly very ~'oh in their clothes, some having their shifts and drawers of silk, &c. These courtesans, or ladies of pleasure, as well as other women, have broad velvet caps on their heads, beautified with abundance of pearls, and other costly and gaudy ornaments, &c. These madams go along the streets smoking their pipes of four or five feet long;" and ' they sit at their doors, a man can scarce ] will endeavour to decoy him in."— Burder CHAPTER X. Ver. 11. The mouth of a righteous by but they of life : but violence i wicked. vereth the mouth of the " The language of a holy man is like a well with good springs : thousands may be refreshed there." " The words of a bad man are like the springs of the sea ; though very strong, they are not sweet." " Violence covereth the mouth of the wicked." To cover the mouth is the sign of sorrow: thus, they who act violently will sooner or later reap the fruits thereof. They will have to cover their mouth in token of sorrow for the past, and in anticipation of the fu- tur " CHAPTER XI. Ver. 1. A false balance is abomination to the Lord : but a just weight is his delight. Great severity has been frequently exercised in the pun- ishment of those who were detected in the kind of fraud here referred to. " A police-officer observing one morning a female, not a native, carrying a large piece of cheese, in- quired where she had purchased it; being ignorant of the vender's name, she conducted him to his shop, and the magistrate, suspecting the quantity to be deficient in weight, placed it in the scales, and found his suspicion verified : whereupon he straightway ordered his attendants to cut Irom the most fleshy part of the delinquent's person what would be equivalent to the just measure : the order was instantly executed, an 1 the sullerer hied to death." (Joliffe.) — Burder. J Ver. 21. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered. See on 2 Kings 10. 15 To join hands was ancientlv, and still continues in the East, a solemn method of taking an oath, and making an engagement. This circumstance is probably alluded to in :hese words of Solomon ; its present existence is clearly ascertained by what Mr. Bruce (Trav. vol. i. p. 199) re- lates : " I was so enraged at the traitorous part which Has- san had acted, that, at parting, I could not help saying to Ibrahim— Now, shekh, I have done everv thing you have de- sired, without ever expecting fee or reward ; "the only thing I now ask yon, and H is probably the last, is, that you avenge me upon this Hassan, who is every day in your power. Upon this he gave vie his hand, saying, he shall not die in his bed, or I shall never see old age." — Burder. The expression, though hand join in hand, mav bear a slight correction, conformable both to the original Hebrew, and also to the custom actually prevailing in_Svria. The original fh i» simply signifies, hand to hand. And this is the custom of persons in the East, when thev greet eacli other, or strike hands, in token of friendship and agreement. They.touch their right hands respectively; and then raise ,hem up to their lips and forehead. This is the universal eastern courtesy; the English Version, and the devices grounded upon it, give the idea of hand clasped in liand, which is European, rather than oriental. The sense, there- fore, is, Though hand meet hand — intimating that heart as- sents to heart in the perpetration of wickedness — yet shall not the wicked gn tntpu ni^hrd. — Jowett. There is a remarkable passage (Proverbs xi. 21) thus rendered by our translators: " Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished" ; but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered :" i. e. though they make many associations, and oaths, and join hands among themselves, (as formed part of the ceremony of swearing among these shepherds of Snakem,) yettheyshall not be punished." But Michaelis proposes another sense of these words, " hand in hand"— my hand in your hand, i. e. as a token of swearing, " the wicked shall not go unpunished."— Taylor in Cal- MET. Ver. 22. As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. Nearly all the females of the East wear a jewel of gold in their noslrils, or in the septum of the nose; and some of them are exceedingly beautiful, and of great value. The oriental lady looks with as much pleasure" on the gem which adorns her nose, as any of her sex in England do upon those which deck their ears. But as is that splendid jewel in the snout of a swine, so is beauty in a women without discretion. She may have the ornament, her mien may be graceful, and her person attractive ; but without the matchless jewel of virtue, she is like the swine with a gem in her nose, wallowing in the mire. "The most beautiful ornament of a woman is virtue," Tarnul proverb. — Roberts. This proverb is manifestly an allusion to the cush m of wearing nose-jewels, or rings set with jewels, hanging from the nostrils, as ear-rings from the ears, by holes bored to receive them. This fashion, however strange it may appear to us, was formerly, and is still, common in many- parts of the East, among women of all ranks. Paul Lucas, speaking of a village, or clan of wandering people, a little on this side of the Euphrates, says, " The women al- most all of them travel on foot; I saw none handsome among them. They have almost all of them the nose bored, and wear in it a great ring, which makes them still more deformed." But in regard to this custom, belter authority cannot be produced than that of Pielw della Valle, in the account which he gives of Signora Maani Gioerida, his own wife. The description of her dress, as to the orna- mental parts of it, with which he introduces the mention of this particular, will give us some notion of the taste of the eastern ladies for finery. " The ornaments of gold, and of jewels, for the head, for the neck, for the arms, for the legs, and for the feet, (for they wear rings even cm their toes,) are indeed, unlike those of the Turks, carried to great ex- cess, but not of great value: as turquoises, small rubies, emeralds, carbuncles, garnets, pearls, and the like. My spouse dresses herself with all of them, according to their fashion, with exception however of certain ugh nngs, of very large size, set with jewels, which, in truth very ab- surdly, it is the custom to wear fastened to one of tneir nos- trils, like buffaloes; an ancient custom however in the East, which, as we find in the holy scriptures, prevailed among the Hebrew ladies, even in the time of Solomon. These nose-rings, in complaisance to me, she has left off; but I have not yet been able to prevail with her cousin and her sisters to do the same. So fond are they of an old cus- tom, b'e it ever so absurd, who have been long habituated to it." To this account may be subjoined the observation made by Chardin, as cited in Harmer : " It is the custom in almost all the East for the women to wear rings in their noses, in the left nostril, which is bored low down in the middle. These rings are of gold, and have commonly two pearls and one ruby between, placed in the ring. I never saw a girl or young woman in Arabia, or in all Persia, who did not wear a ring after this manner in her nostril."— Burder. Ver. 26. He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him : but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. Mirza Ahady, in conjunction with the prince's mother Chap. 11 — 15. PROVERBS. was believed to have monopolized all the corn of the coun- try; and lie had no sooner reached shn.iz than he r.ii.-ed its price, which, of course, produced a correspondent ad- va:i:c in lliat of bread. Ventre aflame n'a point d'oreilles, — '.he p.ople became outrageous in their misery. As is usnill :n all public calamities in the East, they • 0 by shutting their shops in the bazar. They then n-ortcd io the louse of the sheikh-el-islam. the bead of the law, re- quiring him '.i issue a/Wwvt, which might make it lawful to kill Mirza Ahady, and one or two more, whom they knew to be his coadjutors in oppressing them. They then appeared in a body before the gate of tic prince's palace, I expressed their grievances in a tumultuous way, mi : dem tnded thai Mirza Ahady should be delft them. Mohammed Zeky Khan.ourfot n sent out by the prince to appease them, accompanied by Mirza Banker, the chief baker of the city, who .. those whose life had been denounced. As soon as the lat- ter appeared, he was overwhelmed with insults and re- but he managed to pacify them, by saying, What crime have I committed ! Mirza Ahady is [he man to abuse; if he sells corn at extravagant prices, bread ' m ■■■ in aoDseqai nee. In the meantime, Mirza Ahady had secreted himself from the fury of the mob; but being countenanced by the prince's mother, and, consequently, by the prince himself, he let the storm rage, and solaced" himself by ma- king fresh plans for raising more money. The price of bread was lowered for a lew days, until the commotion should cease: and, as it was necessary thai some satisfac- tion should be given to the people, all the bakers of the (own were collected together, and publicly bastinadoed on the soles of their feet." (Morten) "We" are told of the fate of one person in whose house an immense quantity of grain was found: a stake was fixed in the centre of his granary, to which he was bound, and left to perish from hunger amidst that abundance which he had refused to Share with his fellow-citizens." (Malcolm.)— Burder. Ver. 29. He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall he servant to the wise of heart. This form of expression is still used in India. " I un- derstand Kaudan will give a large dowry with his daugh- ter : she will, therefore, be a good bargain for your son." — " You are correct, my friend ; she is to inherit 'the wind." " I once had extensive lands for my portion ; but now I in- herit the wind." " I know you would like to have hold of iny property: but you may take the wind." — Roberts. CHAPTER fill. Ver. 10. A righteous mare regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked arc cruel. " During my stay at Surat, 1 rode out most evenings with our worthv chief, and, among other uncommon sights to a stranger. I took notice that many trees had jars hanging to several of the boughs; on inquiring, I was told that they were filled with water every evening, hymen hired on pur- pose by the Gentops, in orderto supply the birds with dunk. in! excited a desire of visiting the banyan hospi- tal, as I had heard much of their benevolence to all kinds of animals that were either sick, lame, or infirm, through age or accident. On my arrival, there were presented to my view many horses, cows, and oxen, in one apartment; iii another, dogs, sheep, goats, and monkeys, with clean straw for them to repose on. Above-stairs were depositories for tany sorts, -and flat broad dishes for water, for the use of those birds and insects which might chance to come into the apartment through the window's, which were lat- ticed, with apertures large enough to admit small birds to enter. I was told by the attendants, that each apartment was cleaned every morning, the beasts fed and littered once a day, the seeds above-stairs winnowed, the dishes washed, and clean water put in them daily." (Parson's Travels in Asia.) Thevenot describes a banyan hospital, where he saw a number of sick oxen, camels, and horses, and many invalids of the feathered race. "Animals deemed in- curable," he says, " were maintained there for life ; those that recovered* were sold to Hindoos exclusively." — B'JRDF.R. Ver. 27. The slothful wareroasleth not that which he took in hunting; but the substance of a dili- gent man is precious. There is something particular in the word ("rr) charak, used in this passage ui Solomon; ii is not the word that is commonly u bin it siituiiics rathei as appears from Han. n i. -7. No author, I thiol an account what this should mean, onde d in Besides wild-boars, antelopes, and hares, which are par- ticularly mentioned by D'Ai vieux, when he speaks ol the V " I diverting themselves with hunting IB Land, Dr. Shaw tells us, all kinds of game are found in great plenty in that country : but I do not remember an ac- count id' any thing being prepared for food by singing, that is taken either in bunting or hawking, except hares, which I have indeed somewhere lead ot as dressed, in the East, after this manner: a hole being dug in the ground, and the earth scooped out of it laid all round its edge, the brush- wood with which it is filled is set on lire, the hare is thrown nnskinned into the hole, and afterward covered with heated earth that was laid round about it, where it continues till it is thought to be done enough, and then being brought to table, sprinkled with salt, is found to be very agreeable food. — Harmer. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 17. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith. understood it of the forced accommodation of travellers, which Arabs and conquered people were obliged to submit to. It was not unusual for travellers to eat at the expense of those who were not pleased with entertaining them ; and to use a kind of force, which produced hatred. Dr. Shaw notices this circumstance. Speaking of Barbarv, he says. " In this country, the Arabs and other inhabitants are obliged, either by long custom, by the particular tenure of their lands, or from fear and compulsion, to give the Spahees, and their company, the Moquanah, as they call it, which is such a sufficient quantity of provisions, for ourselves, together with straw and barley for our mules and horses. Besides a bowl of milk, and a basket of figs, raisins, or dates, which, upon our arrival, were presented to us, to stay our appetites^ the master of the tent where we lodged fetched us from his flock, according to the number of our company, a kid or a goat, a lamb or a sheep, half of which was immediately seethed by his wife, and served up with cuscasooe; the rest was made Kab-ab, i. r. cut into pieces, and roasted, which we reserved for our breakfast or dinner the next day." In the next page he says, " when we were entertained in a courteous manner, (for the Arabs will sometimes supply us with nothing till it is extolled by force,) the author used to give the master of the tent a knife, a couple of flints, or a" small quantity of English gunpowder," &c. To prevent such parties from living at free charges upon them, the A^abs take care to pitch in woods, valleys, or places the least conspicuous, and that in consequence they found it difficult often to dis- cover them. — Border. Ver. 19 The way of the slothful mare was a hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous ismaae plain. The oriental gardens were either open plantations, or enclosures defended by walls or hedges. Rauwolf found. about Tripoli, many gardens and vineyards enc'iosed f;r the most part with hedges, and separated by shady wa.2i. Some fences in the Holy Land, in later times, are no) less beautiful than our living fences of while thorn, and per- fectly answer the description of ancient Jewish prophets. who inform us, that the hedges in their times consisted I f thorns, and that the spikes of these thorny plants were ex- ceedingly sharp. Doubdan found a very fruitful full of olives, fig-trees, and vines, about eight m west from Bethlehem, enclosed with a hedge; and thai part of it adjoining to the road, strongly formed of 1 orr.s and rose-bushes, intermingled with pomegranate-trees ; i surpassing beauty and fragrance. A hedge composed o( 424 PROVERBS. Chap. 16 rose-bushes and wild pomegranate-shrubs, then in full flower, mingled with other thorny plants, adorned in the varied livery of spring, must have made at once a strong and beautiful fence. The wild pomegranate-tree, the spe- cies probably used in fencing, is much more prickly than the other variety ; and when mingled with other thorny bushes, of which they have several kinds in Palestine, some whose prickles are very long and sharp, must form a hedge very difficult to penetrate. These facts illustrate the beauty and force of several passages in the sacred vol- ume : thus, in the Proverbs of Solomon, " The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns;" it is obstructed with difficulties, which the sloth and indolence of his tem- per represent as galling or insuperable ; but which a mod- erate share of resolution and perseverance would easily remove or surmount. — Paxton. Hasselquist says, that he saw the plantain-tree, the vine, the peach, and the mulberry-tree, all four made use of in Egypt to hedge about a garden : now these are all un- armed plants. This consideration throws a great energy into the words of Solomon : The way of the slothful man is a hedge of thorns. It appears as difficult to him, not only as'breaking through a hedge, but even through a thorn fence: and also into that threatening of God to Israel old, Iwi" ' oill hedge up the way with thorns, Hi 11. 6. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 11. A just weight and balance are the Lord's; all the weights of the bag are his work. The Jews were required to be exact in their weights and measures, that the poor might not be defrauded. Hesy- chius remarks upon this point, as a reason for such great care, that what the possession of a field or house is to a wealthy man, that the measure of corn, or wine, or the weight of bread, is to the poor, who have daily need of such things for the support of life. " The Jewish doctors assert, that it was a constitution of their wise men, for the preventing of all frauds in these matters, that no weights, balances, or measures, should be made of any metal, as of iron, lead, tin, (which were liable to rust, or might be bent, or easily impaired,) but of marble, stone, or glass, which were less subject to be abused : and therefore the scripture, speaking of the justice of God's judgments, observes, (ac- cording to the Vulgate,) that then are weighed with all the stones in the bag." (Lewis.) — Burder. Ver. 14. The wrath of a king is as messengers of death; but a wise man will pacify it. Executions in the East are often very prompt and arbi- trary. In manv cases the suspicion is no sooner entertained, or the cause of offence given, than the fatal order is issued; the messenger of death hurries to the unsuspecting victim, shows his warrant, and executes his orders that instant in silence and solitude. Instances of this kind are continually occurring in the' Turkish and Persian histories. " When the enemies of a great man among the Turks have gained influence enough over the prince to procure a warrant for his death, a capidgi (the name of the officer who executes these orders) is sent to him, who shows him the order he has received to carry back his head; the other takes the warrant of the grand seignior, kisses it, puts it on his head in token of respect, and then having performed his ablu- tions, and said his prayers, freely resigns his life. The capidgi having strangled him, cuts off his head, and brings it to Constantinople. The grand seignior's order is im- plicitly obeyed ; the servants of the victim never attempt to hinder the executioner, although these copidgis come very often with few or no attendants." It appears from the writings of Chardin, that the nobility and grandees of Persia are put to death in a manner equally silent, hasty, and unobstructed. Such executions were not uncommon among the Jews under the government of their kings. Solomon sent Benaiah as his capidgi, or executioner, to put Adonijah, a prince of his own family, to death ; and Joab, the commander-in-chief of the forces in the reign of his father. A capidgi likewise beheaded John the Baptist in the prison, and carried his head to the court of Herod. To such silent and hastv executioners the royal preacher seems to refer in that proverb, " The wrath of a king is as messengers of death; but a wise man will pacify it;" his displeasure exposes the unhappy offendeiito immediate death, and may fill the unsuspecting bosom with terror and dismay, like the appearance of a capidgi; but by wise and prudent conduct, a man may sometimes escape the danger. From the dreadful promptitude with which Benaiah exe- cuted the commands of Solomon on Adonijah and Joab, it may be concluded that the executioner of the court was as little ceremonious, and the ancient Jews nearly as pas- sive, as the Turks or Persians. The prophet Elislia is the only person on the inspired record, who ventured to resist the bloody mandate of the sovereign ; the incident is re- corded in these terms: " But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him ; and the king sent a man from before him; but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head 1 Look when the messenger cometh ; shut the door, and hold him fast at the door — is not the sound of his master's feet behind him V But if such mandates had not been too common among the Jews, and in general submitted to without resistance, Jehoram had scarcely ventured to despatch a single messenger to take away the life of so eminent a person as Elisha. — Paxton. Ver. 15. In the light of the king's countenance is life ; and his favour is as a cloud of the latter Poets often speak of the generosity of the great, as the clouds full of rain, but the uncharitable are like the clouds without rain. " 6 the benevolent man ! he is like the fruit- ful rain ; ever giving, but never receiving." — Roberts. The former and latter rains is a phrase quite familiar to every reader of the scriptures. The distinction which it announces is founded in nature, and is of great impor- tance in those parts of the world. At Aleppo, the drou,;ni. of summer commonly terminates in September, by some heavy showers, which occasionally continue some* days; afterwhich, there is an interval of fine weather, of between twenty and thirty days, when the showers return, which are called the second rains. The first rains fall between the twenty-sixth of September and the sixth of October: but it is later in Judea ; the former rain, descending in Palestine about the beginning of November. The seasons in the East are exceedingly regular, yet it is not to be sup- posed that they admit of no variation ; the descent of the first and second rain occasionally varies a whole month. But the first and second rains of Syria, mentioned by Rus- sel, do not seem to correspond with the former and latter rains of the holy scriptures. This is the opinion of Jerome, who lived long' in Palestine : nor do the natural historians of those countries take 'any notice of the first and second rains in autumn ; but uniformly speak of the former and . latter rains. It is therefore of some importance to inquire, what are the times of the year when these rains descend. Here it may be proper to observe, that rain in the vernal season, is represented by oriental writers as of great ad- vantage. The more wet the spring, the later the harvest, and the more plentiful the crop. In Barbary, the vernal rains are indispensably requisite to secure the' hopes of the husbandman. If the latter rains fall as usual in the middle of April, he reckons his crop secure ; but extremely doubt- ful if they happen to fail. This accounts well for the great value which Solomon sets upon them : " In the light of the king's countenance is life, and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain." To this maybe added, that the words translated the former and latter rains, are not expressive of first and second ; and by consequence, do not refer to the rains mentioned by Russel, but mark a distinction of much greater importance. They must there- fore be the same as the venial rains, which are universally allowed to be of the utmost consequence in those regions. The time of the first rains is differently stated by modern travellers. According to Dr. Shaw, the first autumLa. rains usually fall about the eleventh of November; fiom a manuscript journal of travels in those countries, Mr. Harmer found that the rain fell in the Holy Land on the second of November; and he was assured by the historian of the revolt of Ali Bey, who lived some years in Palestine that the rains begin to fall there about the eighteenth day of September; at first they descend in slight showeis, but as Chap. 17. PROVERBS. Ihe season advances, they become very copious and heavy, though never continual. Dr. Shaw seems to suppose, that the Arabs "I Bulbar; do not begin to break up their grounds till the first rams of autumn fall ; while the author of the history of Ah Be] 'a revolt supposes thai they sometimes plough then I the descent of the rain, because the soil is then light, and easily worked. This statement contains notion:.- incie.li- ble; grain will -emain long in the earth unhurl late as soon as the descending showers communicate suf- ficient moistnm. The oriental husbandman may cultivate Ins field, as is often done in other countries, in expectation Of rain ; a circumstance to which Solomon seen " He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." If they m-wi sowed in the East but when the soil was moistened with rain, they could have no reason to observe whether the wind threatened rain or promised fail weather; bat if the seed was cast into the ground previous to the descent of the rain, they might naturally enough be induced to wait till they he signs of its approach. The .Htinj the beginning of winter, by the concurring testimony of travellers, is commonly introduced by a gale of wind from the northeast. In Syria, the winds are variable in Novem- ber, and the two succeeding months; seldom strong, but more inclined to the north and east, than any cf the ether quarters. They continue to blow nearly in the same di- rection, till about the end-of February, when they begin to blow hard westerly. The weather in April is in gent ral fair and clear; seldom dark or cloudy, except when it rains, which it does in hard thunder-bowers, as in the last month, but not so often. When light northerly or easterly breezes happen to blow, they have commonly a few close, hazy days ; but the westerly winds are generally fresh.— Paxton. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 12. Let a bear, robbed of her whelps, meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly. The furious passions of the female bear never mount so high, nor burn so liercelv, as when she happens to be de- prived of her young. When she returns to her den, and misses the objects of her love and care, she becomes almost frantic with rage. Disregarding every consideration of danger to herself, she attacks, with inlense ferocity, every animal that comes in her way, "and in the bitterness of her heart, will dare to attack even a band of armed men." The Russians of Kamschatka never venture to fire on a young bear when the mother is near ; for if the cub drop, she becomes enraged to a degree little short of madness; and if she get sight of the enemy, will only quit her revenge with her life. " A more desperate attempt, therefore, can scarcely be performed, than to carry off heryoungin her ab- sence. The moment she returns, and misses them, her pas- sions are inflamed ; her scent enables her to track the plun- derer; and unless he has reached some place of safety before the infuriated animal overtake him, his only safety is in dropping one of the cubs, and continuing to flee ; for the mother, attentive to its safety, carnesithometo her den, be- fore she renews the pursuit!" These statements furnish an admirable illustration of a passage in the counsel of Hushai to Absalom, in which he represents the danger of attacking David and his followers with so small a force as twelve thousand chosen men, when their tried courage was inflamed, and their spirits were imbittered by the variety and severity of their sufferings, and when their caution, matured by long and extensive experience in the art of war, and sharpened by the novelty and peril of their circumstances, would certainly lead them to anticipate, and take measures to defeat Ihe attempt. " Hushai said unto Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel hath given, is not good at this lime ; for (said Hushai) thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field." The frantic ragefcf the female bear, when she has lost her young, gives wonderful energy to the proverb of Solomon : " Let a bear, robbed of her whelps, meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly." Dreadful as it is to meet a bear in such circumstances, it is yet more dangerous to meet a " fool in his folly, ' a furious' and re- vengeful man, under the influence of his impetuous pas- sions, and his heart determined on their immediate gratifi- cation. Naturally stubborn and cruel as the bear, and equally de\ otod i<> his lusts as s|,,. js to her young, he pur- sue- them with equal fury and eagerness. It is j escape the vengeance of a bereaved bear, by surrendering pari of the litter, and diverting pari ..1 her pursuit ; but n.; consideration 0? interest or duty, no partial gratifications, can arrest his furious career, 01 divert his attention. Rea- son, degraded and enslaved, lends all her remaning wis- i..l reinleis the fool more cruel and mischievous than the bear, in proportion as she is su- perior to instinct— P-axton. Ver. 18. A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend. See on ch. (i. 1. rhi i I indooproverbsays," Muniddr munerv&a-iaduv&r," i.e. " I le who si a ml- la r.u.c, niav haw to pay." This, there- lore, is the idea of a surety ; he stands iiefore the debtor, and covenants with the creditor for the payment ol the mo- ney : be, therefore, .. re, is literally betwixt the contending parties. In this respect " was Jesus made a surety" for us: he stood before, and became our i/rcir>>;,or Mediator. The melancholy instances of ruin, in consequence of be- coming surely for others, are exceedingly numerous in the East. Against this they have many proverbs, and fearful examples ; but nothing seems lo give them wisdom. Near- ly all the government" monopolies, both among native and European rulers, are let to the highest bidders: thus, the privilege of searching for precious stones in certain dis- tricts, of taking up the chiar root, salt rents, fishing for thanks, or pearls, is confined to those who pay a fixed sum to government. As the whole of the money cannot be ad- vanced till a part of the produce shall be sold, sureties have- to be accountable for the amount. But as such specula- lions are generally entered into, in order to better a reduced fori une, an extravagant price is often paid, and ruin is the consequence, both to the principal and his surety. This practice of suretyship, however, is also common in the most trifling affairs of life : " Parrelliilha-xonum, i. e. Sign your name," is asked for to every petty agreement. In every legal court or magistrate's office may be seen, now and then, a trio entering, thus to become responsible for the engage- ments of another. The cause of all this suretyship is prob- ably the bad faith which so commonly prevails among the heathen. — Roberts. Ver. 19. He that exalteth his gate sceketh de- struction. . The general style of buildings in the East, seems to have continued from the remotest ages down to the present times, without alteration or any attempt at improvement. Large doors, spacious chambers, marble pavements, cloistered courts, with fountain- sometimes playing in the midst, arc certainly conveniences well adapted to the circumstances of these'hotter climates. All the windows of their dwell- ings, if we except a small latticed window or balcony which sometimes looks into the street, open into their respective courts or quadrangles; as arrangement probably dictated by the jealousy which unceasingly disturbs the repose of an oriental householder. It is only during the celebration of some public festival, that these houses, and their latticed windows, or balconies, are left open. The streets of an oriental city, the better to shade the inhabitants from the sun, are commonly narrow, with sometimes a range ot shops on each sMe." People of the same trade occupy the same street. Both in Persia and in Turkey the trades are carried on in separate bazars, in which their shops are ex- tended adjacent to each other on both sides of the building one of the principal houses, is through a porch or gateway. with benches on each side, where the master of the family receives visits, and despatches business; few persons, not even the nearest relations, having further admission, ex- cept upon extraordinary occasions! The door of the porch by which a person enters the court, is very small ; some- times not above three feel high. The design of such l«w and inconvenient doors is, to preven' ••>» Arabs from r.'i:ng 426 PROVERBS. .Chap. 18, 19. into the houses to plunder them ; for these freebooters, who are almost centaurs, seldom think of dismounting in their excursions ; and therefore the peaceable inhabitants find such small entrances the easiest and most effectual way of preventing their violence. To this singular practice the royal preacher may be supposed to refer : " He that exalt- :th his gate, seeketh destruction." It can hardly be sup- posed that Solomon mentioned the loftinass of 'the gate, rather than other circumstances of magnificence in a build- ing, as the wideness of the house, the airiness of the rooms, the cedar ceilings, and the vermilion paintings, which the prophet Jeremiah specifies as pieces of grandeur, without some particular meaning. But if bands of Arabs had taken the advantage of large doors to enter into houses in his territories, or in the surrounding kingdoms, the apothegm possesses a singular propriety and force. We have the more reason to believe that Solomon had his eye on the in- solence of the Arabs in rising into the houses of those they meant to plunder, because the practice seems not to have been unusual in other countries; and is no! now peculiar to those plunderers. The Armenian merchants at Julia, the suburb of Ispahan, in which they reside, find it necessa- ry to make the front door of their houses in general small, partly to hinder the Persians, who treat them with great rigour and insolence, from entering them on horseback, and partly to prevent them from observing the magnificent furniture within. But the habitation of a man in power is known by his gate, which i> generally elevated in propor- tion to the vanity of its owner. A lofty gate is one of the insignia of royalty ; and it must have been the same in an- cient times. The gates of Jerusalem, of Zion. and other places, are often mentioned in the scripture with the same notions of grandeur annexed to them: thus the Psalmist addresses the gates of Zion: " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ;««ven lift them up, ye everlasting doors: and the king of glory shall come in."— Paxton. The Arabs are accustomed to ride into the houses of • hose they design to harass. To prevent this, Thevenot tells us that the door of the house in which the French mer- chants lived at Rama was not three feet high, and that all the doors of that town are equally low. Agreeably to this account, the Abbe Mariti, speaking of his admission into a monastery near Jerusalem, says, "the passage is so low that it will scarcely admit a horse ; and it is shut by a gate of iron, strongly secured in the inside. As soon as we en- tered, it was again made fast with various bolts and bars of iron : a precaution extremely necessary in a desert place, exposed to the incursions and insolent attacks of the Arab;.." To exalt the gale, would consequently be to court -BuRDEr.. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 10. The name of the Lord is a strong- tower ; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. iVKn of wealth are called towers. Thus, when such a person dies, it is said, "The pcllata-koburam, i. e. strong tower, has fallen." " I am going to my koburam," says the man who is going to his powerful friend. — Roberts." Ver. 16. A man's gift maketh room for him, and bnngeth him before groat men. See on 1 Sam. 9. 7. Ver. 1 8. The lot causeth contentions to cease and parteth between the mighty. Tn nci/ly all cases where reason cannot decide, or where the light of several claimants to one article has to be set- 'ed, recourse is had to the lot, which "causeth contentions "'. cease." Though an Englishman might not like to have a wife assigned to him in such a way, yet many a one in • he East tas no other guide in that important acquisition. Perhaps a young man is either so accomplished, or so respectable, or so rich, that many fathers aspire to the honour of calling him ion-in-law. Their daughters are dtn to be beautiful, wealthy, and of a good family : what I.; he to do 3 The name of each young lady is written on a vmarate piec« of olah ; and then all are mixed together. The youth ani his friends then go to the front of the tem- ple ; and being seated, a person who is passing by at the time is called, and requested to take one of the pieces of olah, on which a lady's name is inscribed, and plate it near the anxious candidate. This being done, it is opened, and she whose name is written there, becomes his wife! Are two men inclined to marry two sisters, a dispute of- ten arises as tp whom the youngest shall be given. To cause the " contentions to cease," recourse is again had to the lot. The names of the sisters and the disputants are written on separate pieces of olah, and taken to a sacred place : those of the men being put on one side, and the females on the other. A person then, who is unacquainted with the matter, takes a piece of olah from each side, and the couple whose names are thus joined togeifier become man and wife. But sometimes a wealthy" father cannot decide betwixt two young men who are candidates for the hand of his daughter: "what can he do? he must settle his doubts by lot." Not long ago, the son of a medical man, and another youth, applied for the daughter of Sedam- bara-Snppiyan, the rich merchant. The old gentleman caused two " holy writings" to be drawn up, the names of the lovers were inscribed thereon : the son of Kandan, the doctor, was drawn forth, and the young lady became his wife. Three Bramins, also, who were" brothers, each ar- dently desired the hand of one female; and, after many disputes, it was settled by lot, which "causeth contentions to cease;" and the youngest of the three gained the prize. But medical men are also sometimes selected in ihe same way. One person tells the afflicted individual such a doc- tor has far more skill than the rest : another says, " He ! what is he but a cow-doctor ? how many has he killed ! Send for such a person, he will soon cure yon." A third says, " I know the man for you ; he had his knowledge from the gods; send for him." The poor patient at last says, " Select me one by lot ;" and as is the name, so is the doctor. But another thing has to be settled; the medical gentleman intimates that there are two kinds of medicine which appear to him to be equally good, and therefore the lot is again to decide which is best. " The lot causeth con- tentions to cease." — Roberts. Ver. 19. A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city ; and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. See on Acts 12. 10. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 12. The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion : but his favour is as dew upon the grass. " The favour of my friend is as the refreshing dew." " The favours of that good man are continually dropping upon us." " He bathes me with his favours." — Roberts. Ver. 13. The contentions dropping. of a wife, continual See on ch. 21. 9. The allusum in this passage is generally thought to be to an old and decayed house, through which the rain con- tinually drops, rendering it highly disagreeable to inhabit Durell supposes that the allusion is to the " dropping of the eaves of a house, or any continued genile falling of water, than which nothing is more apt to be tiresome and distract- ing." Mr. Harmer thinks that it refers to the arbours made of the boughs of trees upon the house-tops, in which the inhabitants of those sultry regions were accustomed to sleep in summer. " Egmont" and Hevman tell us that a, Caipha, at the foot of Mount Carmel.the houses are small and flat-roofed, where, during the summer, the inhabitants sleep in arbours made of the boughs of trees." Again. " Dr. Pococke tells us, in like manner, that when he was at Tiberias, in Galilee, he was enterlained by the sheik's steward, and thatJfcey supped upon the top of the house for coolness, accordirraPto their custom, and lodged there like- wise in a sort of closet, about eight feet square, of a wicker- work, plastered round towards the bottom, but without any door." "However pleasant," says Mr. Harmer, "these arbours and these wicker-work closets may be in the dry part of the year, they must be very disagreeable in the wet and they that should then lodge in them would be erposedto a Chap. 10—21. PROVERBS. 427 continual dropping. To such circumstances probably it is .hat Solomon alludes, when he says, ' li is better to dwell ip, than with a brawling woman in a wulf house.' A corner covered with boughs or rushes, and made into a little arbour, in which they used to sleep in summer, but which must have been a very incommo- i Dtire dwelling, '!'.> the same allusion belong those other expressions that speak of the contentions of a wile being like a coniinnal diopping. Put together they amount to this, that it is belter to have no Other habitation than an arbour on the house-top, and he there exposed lo the wet of winter, which is oftentimes of several days' continuance, than to dwell in a wide house with a brawling woman, for her contentions are a eoiitin- ual dropping, and, wide as the house may be, you will not be able to avoid thcin or get out of their reach.1' — Bush. Vrr. 24, A slothful man hideth li is hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again. Many of the Arabs, and other eastern people, use no spoon in eating their victuals; they dip their hands into the milk, which is placed before them in a wooden bowl, and lift it to their mouth in their palm. Le Bruin observed five or six Arabs eating milk together, on the side of the Nile, as he was going up that river to Cairo; and D'Ar- vieux says they eat their pottage in the same way. Is u not reasonable to suppose, says Harmer, that the same usage obtained anciently among the Jews ; and that Solomon re- fers to it when he says, " A slothful man hides his hand in the dish, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again 1" Our translators render it the bosom ; but the word every where signifies a pot or dish. The meaning, there- fore, according to Harmer, is, "the slothful man" having lifted up his hand full of milk or pottage to his mouth, will not do it a second time; no, though it be actually dipped Into the milk or pottage, he will not submit to the fatigue of lining it again from thence lo his mouth." But as it is rather a caricature to represent the sluggard as so exces- sively indolent or lazy, that he will rather let his hand lie in the dish among the milk or pottage, than lift it to his mouth a second time, the explanation of Dr. Russel is to be preferred: "The Arabs, in eating, do not thrust their whole hand into the dish, but only their thumb and two first fingers, with which they take up the morsel, and that in a moderate quantity at a time. I take, therefore, the sense to be, that the slothful man, instead of taking up a moderate mouthful, thrusts his hand into the pillaw.orsuch like, and takes a handful at a time, in order to avoid the trouble of returning frequently to the dish." According to this view, the slothful man endeavours by one effort to save himself the trouble of continued exertion. It seems to have been adopted by the Arabs, as much for the sake of de- spatch as from necessity; for D'Arvieux says, a man would eat upon very' unequal terms with a spoon, among those that, instead of them, use the palms of their hands. "This mode of drinking was used by three hundred men of Gideon's army: " And the number of them that lapped, pi.ttingiheir hands to their mouth, were three hundred men ; but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drirrk water." Three hundred men, immediately on their coming to the water, drank of it in the quickest manner they could, by lifting it in their palms, and lapping it like a doe, that they mighl be ready, without delay, to follow their leader to the battle : the rest look up water in pitchers, or some kind of vessel, and bending down upon their heels and knees, or with their knees placed upright before them, either of which might be called bowing their knees to drink, they handed these drinking-vessels slowlv from one to another, as at an ordinary meal; an act which procured their dismission. The Hottentot manner of drinking water from a pool, or stream, seems exactly to coincide with the mode adopted by the three hundred, and gives a very clear idea of it: Thev throw k up with their right hand into their mouth, seldom bringing the hand nearer than the dis- tance of a foot from the mouth, and so quickly, that however thirsty, they are soon satisfied. Mr. Campbell, who had an opportunity of seeing this operation, when travelling among that people, frequently tried to imitate it, but without suc- cess.— Paxton. CHAPTER XX. Vrr 1. The sluggard will not plough by reason of. the cold : therefore shall he bog in harvest, and havt pothing Mai in. winter. "They begin to plough about the lat- ter end of September, and sow their earliest wheal about the mi. Idle of i t.iober. The frosts are never severe enough to prevent their ploughing all the winter." — Burder. Ver. in Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord. Here we have a true view of the way in which nearly all travelling merchants deal with their customers. See. that Mohammedan pedler with his bags over his shoulder: the one contains his merchandise, the other his deceitful weights, lie ..un,.. :,, , loor. t hrows hi> bags on I he ground, and is willing either to buy or to sell. Have yon any old silver, gold, jewels, precious stones, iron, or lead, he is ready to he your customer; but he only l/uys with his own weights, which are much heavier than the standard. Should you, however, require to purchase anyarticleSj then he has other weights by which he ski.i.s; and you may often see him fumbling for a considerable time in the bao before he can find those which are less in weight than the regular standard. — Roeerts. Yn. 29. The glory of wrong men is their strengtl . and the beauty of old men is the gray head. Should a youth despise the advice of a gray-headed man, the latter will point to his hairs. "When young men pre- sume to give advice to the aged, they say, " Look at our gray heirs." Do old people commit things unworthy oi their years, the young ask, " Why have you these gray hairs 1" intimating they ought to be 'the emblem of v. is. 1. mi. —Roberts. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 1. The king's heart is in the hand of the Loud, as the rivers of water; he turneth it whithersoever he will. See on Ps. 1. 3. Ver. 4. A high look, and a proud heart ploughing of the wicked, is sin. id the The margin has, instead of ploughing, light : " The light of the wicked." The Taimil translation has, the lamp of the wicked. In eastern language, as well as in the scriptures, the wordta^iis often used" to denote the life of man : but in this passage it means the prosperity of the wicked. " Look at Valen, how brightly does his lamp burn in these days!" — "Yes, his lamp has now a thousand faces." Thus the haughty eyes, the proud hearts, and the prosperity of the wicked, were alike sinful before God. The lamp(t. e. pros- perity) of the wicked is sin. — Roberts. Ver. 8. The way of man is froward and strange:' but as for the pure, his work is right. This passage, according to the common interpretation, is very obscure. The original Hebrew words are used lo signify a man laden with guilt and crimes, and that his way is "(not /-e i-ii, -A and stnim'i , as in our translation, but) un- 5/1 ,iAii. in continually Borymg ; in which expression there is a most beautiful allusion' to a beast which is so overburden- ed, that he cannot keep in the straight road, but is continu- ally tottering and staggering, first to the right hand, and then to the left. — Parkiicrst. Ver. 9. It is better to dwell in a corner of the house-top, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. See on eh. 19. 13. How pleasant soever the arbour, or wicker-closet, upon the roof, may be during the burning heats of summer, i< must be very disagreeable in .'..<= rainy season. They who 4 -23 PROVERBS. Chap. 22, 23 lodge in eilher at that time, must be exposed continually to the storm beating in upon them from every quarter. In al- lusion, perhaps, to this uncomfortable situation, Solomon observes : " It is better to dwell in a corner of the house-top, wn feelings, harassed and goad- ed, as was meet, by the daily quarrels of his seraglio, he returns in a succeeding apothegm to the subject woman, are alike." It appears from these proverbs, that the booths were generally constructed in the comer, where two walls met, for greater safety ; for, on the middle of the roof, they had been too much exposed to the storm. This is con- tinued by Dr. Russel, who remarks, in a manuscript note, that these booths in Syria are often placed near the walls; so minutely correct are even the most incidental observa- tions of the inspired writers. — Paxton. The termagants of the East are certainly not inferior to those of their own sex in any part of the world: in some respects, the females are perhaps more timid and retired than those of Europe ; but let them once go beyond the pre- scribed bounds, and let their powers be brought fairly into action, and they are complete furies. Has any one caused a woman's child to cry, does a neighbour intimate that she is not what she ought "to be, or that some of her friends are no better than they should be, the whoop is immediately sounded, and the brawl begins. She commences her abuse in her best and highest tone of voice : vociferates all the scandal she can think of, and all she can invent. Some- limes she runs up to her antagonist, as if about to knock her down : again she retires, apparently to go home; but, no! she thinks of something more which ought not to be lost, and again returns to the contest. At intervals (merely to vary the scene) she throws up dust in the air, and curses ner opponent, her husband, and her children. Should the poor woman not have been blessed with a progeny, that will not be overlooked, and a thousand highly provoking and indecent allusions will be made. See her fiery eyes, her dishevelled hair, her uplifted hand, and she is more like a fury from another region, than a human being. An eastern sage says, " Should one woman scold, the whole earth will shake; should two commence, the sign Pisces will fall ; if three join in the brawl, the sea will dry up ; but if four try theirpowers, what will become of the world V In the Scan'da Purana it is said, " It is better for any one to fall into hell, than to perform the duties of a householder with a woman who will not respect her husband's word. Is there any other disease, any other Yama, than spending life with such a woman 1" One of their philosophers describes some of the defects in young females which ought to deter any man from marrying them. " Those who love to be at the house of other people, who are great sleepers, who love dancing and other sports, who are wounded by the arrows of Cama, (Cupid,) who love before their fathers betroth them, who have voices like thunder, who have tender, or rolling, or cat eyes, who have coarse hair, who are older than yourself, who are full of smiles, who are very athletic, who are caught in the hell of useless and strange religions, who despise the gooroo, and call the gods' statues ; have nothing to do with "them." Solomon says, in another place, " The contentions of a wife are a continual dropping;" and the Tamul proverb has it, "She is like the thunder of the rain, and is ever dropping." -Roberts. This expression the LXX render tv «m i.»ii. The Vul- gate, * in domo commtini," in a common house ; that is, in a house common or shared out to several families. Dr. Shaw says, that "the general method of building, both in Barbaryand the Levant, seems to have continued the same from the earliest ages down to this time, without the least alteration or improvement: large doors, spacious chambers, &.",. The court is for the most part surrounded with a cloister, over which, wnen the house has one or more sto ries, there is a gallery erected. From the cloisters or galle- ries we are conducted into large spacious chambers of the same length with the court, but seldom or nevei communi- cating with one another. One of them frequently serves a whole_ family; particularly when a father indulges hi; married children to live with him ; or when several pe sons join in the rent of the same house."— Burder. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 13. The slothful man saith, There is a Hon without, I shall be slain in the streets. The sluggard is fond of sleep ; and, to excuse his sloth fulness, he makes use of the pretence, when he is to go out of his house in the morning dawn, and to follow his busi- ness, that he might fall a prey to one of the wild beasts which prowl about during the night. When it becmes dark, the people of the East shut" themselves up in their houses for fear of the wild beasts. Thus Alvarez, in his account of Ethiopia, says, that " in Abyssinia, as soon as night sets in, nobody is to be seen abroad for fear ( f wild beasts, of which the country is full.' Ver. 14. The mouth of strange women is p deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fa;1 therein. Maundrell, describing the passage out of the jurisdicti » of the Bashaw of Aleppo into that of him of Tripoli, tells us, the road was rocky and uneven, but attended with va- riety. " Sometimes it led us under the cool shade of thick trees: sometimes through narrow valleys, watered with fresh murmuring torrents: and then for a good while to- gether upon the brink of a precipice. And in all places it treated us with the prospect of plants and flowers of diver' kinds: as myrtles, oleanders, cyclamens, &c. Having spent about two hours in this manner, we descended into a low valley; at the bottom of which is a fissure into the earth, of a great depth ; but withal so narrow, that it is not discernible to the eye till you arrive just upon it, though to the ear a notice of it is given at a great distance, by reason of the noise of a stream running down into it from the hills. "We could not guess it to be less than thirty yards deep. But it is so narrow, that a small arch, not four yards over, lands you on its other side. They call it the sheik's wife ; a name given to it from a woman of that quality, who fell into it, and, I need not add, perished." May not Solomon refer to some such dangerous place as this, when he says, " The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit : he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein," Prov. xxvii. 14; and, " A whore is a deep ditch ; and a strange woman is a narrow pit," Prov. xxiii. 27. The flowery pleasures of the place, where this fatal pit was, make the allusion still more striking. How agreeable to sense the path that led to this chamber of death '. — Harmer. Ver. 26. Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 3. Be not desirous of his dainties ; for they are deceitful meat. See on Gen. 27. 4. Ver. 5. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away, as an eagle towards heaven. A husband who complains of the extravagance of his family, says, " How is it that wings grow on all my proper ty ? not ma»y days ago I purchased a large quantity of pad- dy, but it has taken the wing and flown away. The next time I buy any thing, I will look well after the wings." " You ask me to give you money, and I would, if I pos- sessed any."—" Possessed any ! why ! have wings grown on your silver and gold V " Mas! alas! I no sooner get Chap. 23—25. PROVERBS. 429 'hings inloihe house, than wings grow on hem, and they fly away. Last week I began to clip wings , but they have soon grown again." — Roberts. Ver. 6. Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: 7. For as he thinketh in his heart, so it be: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart M not with thee. 8. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words. Whether the same ideas are to be attached to the expres- sion •■ evil eye," as used by Solomon, and as understood by IU9, may not be easilv ascertained, though per- haps worthy of consideration. Pocoeke says of the Egyp- tians, thai "they have a great notion of the magic art, have books about it, 'and think there is much virtue in talismans and charms; butparticularlvare strongly possessed with an opinion of the evil eye. When a child is commended, ex- cept you give it some blessing, if they are not very well as- siii -.1 ni vour good will, they use charms against the evil eye; and particularly when they think any ill success at- tends them on account of an evifeye, thev throw salt into the fire."— Burner. Many references are made in the scriptures to an evil ete. Sometimes they mean anger or envy; but in the pas- sage cited an allusion appears to be made'to the malignant influence of an evil eye: "The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up." The fan-Mint, evil-eye, of some people is believed to have a most baneful effect upon whatsoever it shall be fixed. Those who are reputed to have such eyes are always avoided, and none but near rela- tions will invite them to a feast. " Your cattle, your wives, your children, your orchards, vour fields, are all in danger 'from that fellow's eyes. The other day he passed my gar- den, cast his eye upon mv lime-tree, and the fruit has since fallen to the ground. Av, and worse than that, he caught a look at my child's face, and a large abscess has since appeared." To prevent such eyes from doing any injury to their children, many parents (both Mohammedan and Hindoo) adorn them w-iih numerous jewels and jackets of varied colours, to attract the eye from the person to the ornaments. — Roberts. Ver. 20. Be not among- wine-bibbers ; among riot- ous eaters of flesh. The Arabs are described bv Shaw, as very abstemious. They rarely diminish their flocks bv using them for food, hut live chiefly upon bread, milk, butter, dates, or what they receive in exchange for their wool. Their frugality is in manv instances the effect of narrow circumstances; and shows with what propriety Solomon describes an ex- pensive way of living by their frequent eating of flesh. — Ver. 27. For a whore is a deep ditch ; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. See on ch. 22. 14. Ver. 30. They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Dandini informs us that it was the practice of tipplers not merely to tarry long over the bottle, but over the wine cask. " The goodness of the wine of Candia renders the Candiots great drinkers, and it often happens, that two or three great drinkers will sit down together at the foot of a cask, from whence they wil. not depart till thev have emptied it." See also Isaiah v. 11. — Burder. Ver. 31. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when h giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth it elf aright. Red wines were lost esteemed in the East. So much was the red colou admired, that when it was too white they gave it a deeper tinge by mixing it with saffron or Brazilwood. By extracting the colouring matter of such ingredients, the wine may be said to make itself redder; a circumstance which, in Mr. Harmer's opinion, Solomon means to expresa in that proverb, " Look not on the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright." The verb is in the Hebrew Mid- dle Voice, or Hithpahel conjugation, which denotes an ac- tion that turns upon the agent itself, and in this instance im parts great energy to the warning. — Paxton. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 1 1. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain. It was allowed among the Jews, that if any person could offer any thing in favour of a prisoner after sentence was passed, he might be heard before execution was done : and therefore it was usual, as the Mishna shows, that when a man was led to execution, a crier went before him and pro- claimed, " This man is now going to be executed for such a crime, and such and such are .witnesses against him; whoever knows him to be innocent, let him come forth, and make it appear." — Doddridce. Ver. 26. Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer. The rescripts of authority used to be kissed whether they were believed to be just or not; and the letters of people of figure were treated in this manner ; but it is possible these words may refer to another custom, which D'Arvieux gives an account of in his description of the Arabs of Mount Carmel, who, when they present any petition to their emir for a favour, offer their billets to him with their right hands, after having first kissed the papers. The Hebrew manner of expression is short; every lip shall kiss, one malcth to re- turn, a right answer, that is, every one shall be ready to pre- sent the stale of his case, kissing it as he delivers it, when there is a judge whose decisions are celebrated for being equitable. — Harmer. Ver. 31. And lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Stone walls were frequently used for the preservation of vineyards, as well as living fences. Van Esjmont and Hey- man, describing the country about Saphet, a celebrated city of Galilee, tell us, " the country round it is finely improved, the declivity being covered with vines supported by low walls." — Harmer. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 7. For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither, than that thou shouldst he put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen. In an eastern feast or ceremony, nothing can exceed the particularity which is observed in reference to the rank and consequent precedence of the guests. Excepting where kings or members of the royal family are present, the floor and seats are always of an equal height; but the upper part of a room is most respectable, and there the most dignified individual will be placed. Should, however, an inferior presume to occupy that situation, he will soon be told to go to a lower station. There are also rooms assigned to dif- ferent guests, in reference to their rank or caste, and none but their peers can remain in the place. I was once present at the marriage feast of a person of high caste: the ceremonies were finished, and the festivities had com- menced ; but just before the sppper was announced, it was discovered that one of the guests was not quite equal in rank to those in the same apartment \ hint was '.nerefore given to him, but he refused to leave the placp : the host was then called; but, as the guest was scarcely & grade lower than the rest, he felt unwilling to put him out. The remainder, therefore, consisting of the first men in the town, immediately arose and left the house — Roeerts. PROVERBS. Ver. 11. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Some suppose this alludes to fruit served up in filigree- work : but I believe it does not refer to real fruit, but to representations and ornaments in solid gold. The Vulgate has, instead of pictures, "in lectis argenteis," "in silver beds." The Tamul translation has, in place of pictures of silver, velle-tallam, i. e. salvers or trays of silver. The Rev. T. H. Home, " Apples of gold in net-work of silver." In the Glh and 7lh verses, directions are given as to the way a person ought to conduct himself in the presence of a king: and words fitly spoken are compared, in their effect on the mind, to apples of gold, in salvers of silver, when presented as tributes or presents to the mighty. When eastern princes visit each other, or when men of rank have to go into their presence, they often send silver trays, on which are gold ornaments, as "presents to the king, to propitiate hiiiTin their favour. Thus, when the governor-general, and the native sovereigns, visit each other, it is said, they distributed so many trays of jewels, or other articles of great value. Golden ornaments, whether in the shape of fruit or any other thing, when placed on highly-polished silver salvers, or in net-work of the same metal, have a very beautiful appearance to the eye, and are highly ac- ceptable and gratifying to him who receives them. As, then, apples or jewels of gold are in "salvers," or "beds," or " net-work" of silver, to the feelings of the receiver, so are words fitly spoken, when addressed to the mind of him who is prepared to receive them. To confirm this expla- nation, the next verse is very apposite : " As an ear-ring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear." The effect, then, of a wise re- proof on an obedient ear, is equal to that produced by the presents of ear-rings of gold, or ornaments of fine gold. — Roberts. Ver. 13. As the cold of snow in the time of har- vest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him ; for he refresheth the soul of his masters. The custom of cooling wines with snow, was usual among the eastern nations, and was derived from the Asiatics and Greeks to the Romans. The snow of Leb- anon was celebrated, in the time of D'Vitriaco, for its refrigerating power in tempering their wine : " All sum- mer, and especially in the sultry dog-days, and the month of August, snow of an extreme cold nature, is carried from Mount Libanus, two or three days' journey, that, being mixed with wine, it may make it cold as ice. The snow is kept from melting by the heat of the sun, or the warmth of the air, by being covered up with straw." To this cus- tom, the wise man seems to allude in that proverb : " As the cold of snow in the time of harvest; so is a faithful servant to them that send him, for he refreshes the soul of his masters." The royal preacher could not speak of a fall of snow in the time of harvest, as pleasant and refreshing; it must, on the contrary, have been very incommoding, as wt actually find it in this country; he'must therefore be understood to mean liquids cooled by snow. The sense then will be : As the mixing of snow with wine, in the suhrv time of harvest, is pleasing and refreshing; so a suc- cessful messenger revives the spirit of his master who sent nim, and who was greatly depressed from an apprehension of his failure. — Paxton. Ver. 14. Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift, is like clouds and wind without rain. See on 2 Kings 3. 1G, 17. Ver. 17. Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour's house, lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee. ,: The premises are in grief through him who so often visits them." — Tamul Proverb. " The man, who though iost in the dark, and yet refuses to go to the house of him yho will not treat him with respect, is worth ten millions :f pieces of gold."— Roberts. Ver. 19. Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble, is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint. The eastern saying, " To put confidence in an unfaithful man, is like trying \o cross a river on a horse made oi clay," is quoted for the same purpose. — Roierts. Ver. 23. The north wind driveth away rain ; so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue. Our translators were at a loss how to render Prov. xxv. 23 : they could not tell whether Solomon spoke of the north wind as driving away rain, or bringing it forth, and there- fore put one sense in the text, and the other ]x. !he margin. I have observed nothing decisive as to this point in the books of travels which I have perused, and indeed very little more relating to the winds, excepting the violent heat they sometimes bring with them in these countries. At Aleppo, " the coldest winds in the winter are those that blow from between the northwest and the east, and the nearer they approach to the last-mentioned point, the colder they are during the winter, and part of the spring. But from the beginning of May to the end of Sepiember, the winds blowing from the very same points, bring with them a degree and kind of heat which one would imagine came out of an oven, and which, when it blows hard, will affect metals within the houses, such as locks of room-doors, nearly as much as if they had been exposed to the rays of the sun ; yet it is remarkable that water kept in jars is much cooler at this time than when a cool westerly wind blows. In these seasons, the only remedy is to shut all the doors and windows, for though these winds do not kill as the sammiel, which are much of the same nature, do in the desert, yet they are extremely troublesome, causing a languor and difficulty of respiration to most people," &c. — Harmer. Ver. 27. It is not good to eat much honey ; so for men to search their own glory is not glory. Delicious as honey is to an eastern palate, it has been thought sometimes to have produced terrible effects. So Sanutus tells us, that the English that attended Edward I. into the Holy Land, died in great numbers, as they marched, in June, to demolish a place, which he ascribes to the excessive heat, and their inlemperate eating of fruits and honey. This, perhaps, may give us the thought of Solomon when he says, " It is not good to eat much honey." He had before, in the same chapter, mentioned that an ex- cess in eating honey occasioned sickness and vomiting; but, if it was thought sometimes to produce deadly effects, there is a greater energy in the instruction. — Harmer. CHAPTER XXVI Ver. 3. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back. According to our notions, we should rather say, " A bridle for the horse, and a whip for the ass." But it should be remembered that the eastern asses, particularly those of the Arabian breed, are much larger, more beautiful, and better g s. than those in our cold northerly countries. " In Arabia," says Nicholson, " we meet with iwo kinds of asses. The small and sluggish kind are as little esteemed in the East as in Europe. But there are some of a species large and spirited, which appeared to me more convenient for travelling than the horses, and which are very dear." Such, no doubt, there are evidently in Palestine, and as the modern Arabs take pains in training them to a pleasant pace, there is the highest probability that something of the- kind was practised among the ancient Israelites ; since from numerous-passages of the Old Testament it appears that asses were the beasts on which that people, and e'en their great men, usually rode. Their asses, therefore, being active and well broke, would need only a bridle to guide them ; whereas their horses, being scarce, and prob- ably often caught wild, and badly broke, would be much less manageable, and frequently require the correction of the whip." — Parkhurst. , In the East, the horse was taught only two motions, to walk in state, or to push forward in full career; a bridle was therefore unnecessary, and seldom used, except for Chap. 27 PROVERBI mere ornament; the voice, or the hand of his master, was sufficient todirecl Ins way, or to stop his course. While the ass reluctantly submits to the council of the bridle, lie □res m.s ins back with stupid insensibility to the rod. This instrument of correction is, therefore, reserved for the fool, i subdue the vicious propensities of his turn him, (torn the error of his way. The an- -, 11 I rai ii • - preferred the young ass for the saddle. It i- m this account the sacred writers so frequently mention uding .hi voiuig asses and on ass colts. They must have mei] ei i d e, like the young of all animals, m. ire tractable, lively, and active, than their parents, and, c adapted to this employment. Button remarked particularly of the young ass, Ui.it ii is a tray, nimble, and gentle animal, "and therefore to be preferred for riding loathe same animal when become lazy and stub- i'lin through age." "indeed, the Hebrew name ol young ass, iv," from a root which signifies to rouse or e cpressive of its character for sprightliness and activity." On public and solemn occasions, they adorned Inch they rode, with rich and splendid 'trappings. "In this manner," says an excellent writer of Essays on Sacred Zoology, "the magistrates, in the tune of the Judges, appear to have rode in state. They proceeded to the gate of their city, where they sat to hear causes, in slow proces- sion, mounted on asses superbly caparisoned with white -loth, which covered the greater part of the animal's body. It is thus that we must interpret the words of Deborah : Speak, ye that ride on white asses,' on asses caparisoned tngS made of white woollen cloth, 'ye that sit in and walk,' or march in stale, 'by the way.' The colour is not that of the animal, but of his Itirun, or covering, for the ass is commonly dun, and not white." No doubt can be entertained in relation to the existence of the custom alluded to in this quotation. It prevails among the Arabs to the present day ; but it appears rather unnatural to ascribe the colour of a covering to the crea- ture that wears it. We do not call a man white or black, because he happens to be dressed in vestments of white or black cloth ; neither did the Hebrews. The expression naturally suggests the colour of the animal itself, not of its : and the only point to be ascertained is, whether the ass is found of a while colour. Buflbn informs us, that the colour of the ass is not dun, but flaxen, and the belly of a silvery white. In many instances, the silvery while pre- dominates ; f.j* Cartwright, who travelled into ihe East, affirms, thai he beheld, on the banks of the Euphrates, great droves of wild beasts, among which were many wild asses, all white. Oppian describes the wild ass, as having a coat of silvery white; and the one which Professor Gmelin brought from Tartary, was of the same colour. While asses, according to Morier, come from Arabia ; their scarcity makes them valuable, and gives them conse- quence. The men of the law count it a dignity, and suited o their character, to ride on asses of this "colour. As the Hebrews always appeared in white garments at their pub- ' anil on davs of rejoicing, or when the courts of _ustice were held ; so they naturally preferred white asses, ;ccause the colour suited the occasion, and because asses •>f Ihis colour being more rare and costly-, were more covet- ed by the great and the wealthy. The same view is taken of mis question by Lewis, who sa'vs. the asses in Judea " were fa* red colour; and therefore white asses were highly valued, and used by persons of superior note and quality." In this passage he clearly speaks of the colour of the animals themselves, not of their coverings. — Paxton. Ver. 11. As a dor: rettirncth to his vomit; so a fool returneth to his foil}'. " " See the fellow," it is said, " he has repeatedly suffered for his folly ; how often has he been corrected ! and vet, like the dog, he eats up the food he has vomited." " Yes, he is ever washing his legs, and ever running into the mud. " You fool ; because you fell nine times, must you fall again V — Roberts. Ver 11 At the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. The doors of the ancients did not turn on hinges, but on pivots thus constructed : the upright of the moveable door hexl the wall had, at each extremity, a copper case sunk into if, with a projecting point on the inside, to take the better hold of the wood work. This ease was generally ol a cylindric form; but there have been found some square s, from which ihere sprang on each side iron straps, serving to bind ligether and strengthen the bo: which the door was constructed hollow. (Winckelman's lierculaneum.1 — BORDER. Ver. 17. He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears. " Whv meddle with that matter 1" " Will a rat seize a cat by the ears !" "1 will break thy bones, thou low caste." — " No doubt about that j I suppose in the same way as the rat which seized my cat last night: begone, or I will give thee a bile." — Roeehts. Ver. 25 When he speaketh fair.believe himnot: for (here arc seven abominations in his heart. The number seven is often used to denote many. " If we have rain, we shall have a crop of seven years." " My friend, I came to see you seven times, but the servants nlwavs said ttoi-liu^n'riir," i. e. he is eating. "I will never speak to that fellow again: he has treated me with contempt these seven limes." "You stupid ass, 1 have told you seven times." " The wind is fair, and the dhony is ready for sea." — " I cannot believe you ; I have already been on board seven times." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXVII. Ver. 6. Faithful are the wounds of a friend ; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. " Begone ! wretch : you cannot deceive me. I am more afraid of your smiles, than the reproaches of my friend. I know the serpent—get out of my way." " Ah I" says the stranger, " the trees of my own village are better to me than the friends of this place." — Roberts. Ver. 9. Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart so doththe sweetness of a man's friend by heattj counsel. At the close of a visit in the East, it is common to sprinkle rose, or some other sweet-scented water, on the guests, and to perfume them with aloe-wood, which is brought last, and serves for a sign that it is time for a stranger to take leave. It is thus described by M. Savary : " Towards the conclu- sion of a visit among persons of distinction in Egypt, a slave, holding in his hand a silver plate, on which are burning precious essences, approaches the face of the visit- ers, each of whom in his turn perfumes his beard. They then pour rose-water on his head and hands. This is the last ceremony, after which it is usual to withdraw.'' As to the method of using the aloe-wood, Maundrell says, they have for this purpose a small silver chafmgdish, covered with a lid full of holes, and fixed upon a handsome plate. In this they put some fresh coals, and upon them a piece of lignum aloes, and then shutting it up, the smoke imme- diately ascends with a grateful odour through the cover Probably to such a custom, so calculated to refresh and exhilarate, the words of Solomon have an allusion. — Border. Great numbers of authors take notice of this part of Eastern complaisance, but some are much more particular and distinct than others. Maundrell, for instance, who gives a most entertaining account of the ceremony of burn- ing o lours under the chin, does not mention any thing ol the sprinkling sweet-scented waters ; however, many other writers do, and Dr. Pocoeke has given us the figure of the vessel thev make use of upon this occasion, in his first volume. Thev are both then used in the East, but if one is spoken of more than the other, it is, I think, the per- fuming persons with odoriferous smoke. The scriptures. in like inarner. speak of perfumes as used anciently foi civil purposes, as well as sacred, though they do not men tion particulars. "Ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart," Prov. xxvii. 9. Perhaps this won', rerfume, com- l:;:2 PROVERBS Chap. 27. prebends in its meaning, the waters distilled from roses, and odoriferous flowers, whose scents in the East, at least in Egypt, if Maillet may be admitted to be a judge, are much higher and more exquisitely grateful, than with us ; but if those distillations should be 'thought not to have been known so early, the burning fragrant things, and the ma- king a sweet smoke with them, we are sure, they were ac- quainted with, and to that way of perfuming, Solomon at least refers. But a passage in' Daniel makes it requisite to enter more minutely into this affair, and as at the same time >t mentions some other eastern forms of doing honour, .vhich I have already taken notice of, but to all which in this case objections have been made, I will make my re- marks upon it in a distinct article, which I will place im- mediately after this, and show how easy that little collection of oriental compliments may be aceountea for, as well as explain more at large this particular affair of burning odours merely as a civil expression of respect.— Harmer. " Ver. 15. A continual dropping; in a very rainy- day, and a contentious woman, are alike. See on ch. '21. 9. Ver. 19. As in water, face answereth to face; so the heart of man to man. The Hindoos do not appear to have had mirrors made of silvered glass, unti.1 they became acquainted with Euro- peans; but they had them of burnished metal and other ar- ticles. Many even at this day pour water into a vessel which they use for the same purpose. " His friendship for me is like my body and its shadow in the sun, which never separate." — Roberts. Ver. 22. Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among- wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him. Pounding in a mortar is a punishment still used among lie Turks. The ulemats, or body of lawyers, in Turkey, are by law secured in two important privileges — they can- not lose their goods by confiscation, nor can they be put to death except by the pestle and mortar. The guards of the tower.', who suffered Prince Coreskie to escape from prison, w<-re, some of them, empaled, and others pounded or beaten tc pieces in great mortars of iron, by order of the Turkish government. This dreadful punishment appears to have been occasionally imposed by the Jewish rulers, for Solo- mon clearly alludes to it in one of his Proverbs: "Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." — Paxton. , Dr. Boothroyd says, "that is, no correction, however severe, will cure him'." Large mortars are used in the East for the purpose of separating the rice from the husk. When a considerable quantity has to be prepared, the mortar is pla .ed outside the door, and two women, with each a pestle of five feet long, begin the work. They strike in rotation, as blacksmiths do on the anvil. Cruel as it is, this is a punishment of the state; the poor victim is thrust into the mortar, and beaten with the pestle. The late king of Kandy compelled one of the wives of his rebellious chiefs thus to beat her own infant to death. Hence the saying, " Though vou beat that loose woman in a mortar, she will not leave her ways ;" which means, though you chastise her ever so much,' she will never im- prove.— Roberts. There is a remarkable passage, Prov. xxvii. 22, " Though ill m shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." The mode of punishment referred to in this passage, has been made a subject of inquiry, by a correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine, who signs R. W., [conjectured to be Richard Winter, a very respectable minister among the 'lissenters.] In answer to his inquiries, another corre- spondent assured him there u-cre notrarcs nf any snrh custom n the East. But, besides what probability arises in the af- firmative, from the proverbial m.inner of speech adopted bv Solomon, the allusion mav he strengthened, and the existence of such a punishment may be proved by positive testimony. None who are well informed, can willingly allow that any mode of expression in scripture is beyond elucidation, or can consent that the full import of a simile, adopted bv an inspired writer, should be contracted or diminished. ' " Fanaticism has enacted, in Turkey, in favour of the ulemats, [or body of lawyers,] that their goods shall never be confiscated, nor themselves put to death, but by being bruised in a mortar. The honour of being treated in so dis- tinguished a manner, may not, perhaps, be sensibly felt by everyone; exan.ples are rare;— yet the insolence of the Muln irritated Sultan Osman to such a degree, that he or-* dered the mortars to be replaced, which, having been long neglected, had been thrown down, and almost covered with earth. This order alone produced a surprising effect ; the body of ulemats, justly terrified, submitted." (Baron De Tott.) "The Mohammedans consider this office as so important, and entitled to such reverence, that the person of a pacha, who acquits himself well in it, becomes inviolable, even by the sultan; it is no longer permitted to shed his blood. But the divan has invented a method of satisfying its ven- geance on those who are protected bv this privilege, without departing from the literal expression of the law , by order- ing them to be pounded in a mortar, of which there have been various instances." (Volney.)— Taylor in Calmet. I have a drawing bv a Cingalese, of the treatment re- ceived by the family of Elypola, one of Raja Singha'srnin- isters, in 1814, and which led to his dethronement. In the first part of the picture the kingis represented sitting in his palace, with one of his queens having her face in the op- posite direction. Elypola is prostrate before him, with his wife and five children behind, guarded by a sentinel. In the second division, one executioner is ripping open one of the children, and another holding up the reeking head of the next, just cut off, and ready to drop it into a mortar. Next, the unhappy mother appears with the pestle lifted in her hands, to bray the head ot her infant. It appears from the published accounts of this inhuman business, that the poor woman let fall the pestle once, and fainted away. Lastly, three children appear on a precipice with bound hands, and fastened to a large stone, intended to sink them in the pond, into which an executioner behind is about to precipitate them.— Calloway. Ver. 25. The hay appeareth, and the tender grass showeth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered. There is a gross impropriety in our version of Proverbs xxvii. 25, " The hay appeareth, and the tender grass show- eth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered." Now, certainly, if the tender grass is but just beginning to show itself, the hay, which is grass cut and dried, after it has ar- rived at maturity, ought by no means to be associated with it, still less to precede it. And this leads us to notice, that none of the dictionaries, &c. which we have seen, give what seems to be the accurate import of this word, which we apprehend means, the first shoots, the rising — just bud- ding— spires of grass. So in the present passage (-ojn nSi galeh chajir) the lender risings of the grass are in motion; and the buddings of grass (urass in its early state, as is the peculiar import of »«n dosha) appear ; and the tufts of grass, proceeding from the same root, collect themselves together, and, by their union, begin to clothe the mountain tops with a pleasing verdure." Surely, the beautiful progress of vege- tation, as described in this passage, must appear to every man of taste too poetical to be lost; but what must it be to an eastern beholder ! to one whose imagination is exalted by a poetic spirit; one who has lately witnessed all-sur- rounding sterility, a grassless waste !— Tatlor in Calmet. Ver. 27. And thou shall have goats' milk enough* for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens. Milk is a great part of the diet of the eastern people. Their goats furnish them with some part of it, and Russel tells us are chiefly kept for that purpose ; that they yield it in no inconsiderable quantity ; and that it is sweet, and well-tasted. This at Aleppo is, however, chiefly from the beginningof April to September; they being generally sup- plied the other part of the year with cows' milk, sich as it is: for the cows being commonly kept at the gardens. Chap. 23—30. PRO VK I,' IIS. 488 and fed with the refuse, the milk general); tastes so strong of garlic m as t" I"' '■ ei v ill This circumstance sufficiently points oni how for prefera- ble the milk of goats mast have been. — Hjhmkb. CHAPTER XX VI II. Ver. 3. A poor man that oppresseth the pool is like a sweeping rain, which lea vet h no food. To feel ihe force of this passage a person should see the rains which sometimes fall in Ihe East. For many months together we arc occasionally withoul a single drop of rain, and then it comes down as if the heavens were breaking up, and the earth were about to be dissolved. The ground, which had become cracked byilie drought, sud- denly swells J the foundations of houses sink, or partially remove from their places; men and beasts flee for shelter ; vegetables, trees, blossoms, trues, are destroyed ; mid when the waters go off, there is scarcely any thing left for the food of man or beast. The torrents which fell on the eon tinent of India and North Ceylon, in May, 1837, were B fearful illustration of the "sweeping rain which leaveth no food." — Roberts. Ver. 15. As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people. The bear is occasionally found in company with the lion, in the writings of the Old Testament ; and if the sav- age ferocity of his disposition be duly considered, cer- tainly forms a proper associate for that destroyer. " There .came a lion and a bear," said the son of Jesse, "and took a lamb out of the tioek ;" and Solomon unites them, to con- stitute the symbol of a wicked magistrate: "Asa roaring lion, and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people." The savage, which in these texts is asso- ciated with the lion, is the brown or red bear. Natural historians mention two other species, the white and black, the dispositions and habits of which are entirely different. The white bear differs in shape from the others, is an in- habitant of the polar regions, and feeds " on the bodies of seals, whales, and other monsters of the deep." It is prop- erly a sea bear, and must have been totally unknown to the inspired writers, who lived so far remote from those dreary and desolate shores which it frequents. The black and the brown bears are considered by many as only va- rieties of the same species; but their temper and manners are so different, that Buffon, and other respectable writers, contend, that they ought to be regarded as specifically dif- ferent. The brown or red bear is both a larger animal than the black, and a beast of prey that in strength and ferocity scarcely yields to the lion himself; while the black bear chiefly subsists on roots, fruits, and vegetables, and is never known to prey upon other animals/ This species uniformly flies from the presence of men, and never attacks ,them but in self-defence; but the red bear is a bold, and extremely mischievous animal, which will attack a man with equal indifference asa lamb or a fawn. The black bear also confines himself to the more temperate northern lati- tudes, never ascending to the arctic circle, nor descending lower than the Alps, where it is sometimes found ; but the brown bear accommodates himself to every clime, and is to be found in every desert, or uncultivated country, on the face of our globe. He ranges the Scythian wild's as far as the shores of the frozen ocean ; he infests the boundless forests of America; he traverses the burning wastes of Lybia and Numidia, countries of Africa, which supplied • he ancient Romans with bears to be exhibited at their public spectacles; he prowls on the glowing sands of Ara- bia ; he lounges on the banks of the Nile, and on the shores of the Red Sea; he inhabits the wilderness adjoining to the Holy Land. Hence, the black bear must have b»en unknown to the inhabitants of Canaan; while the red bear infested their country, prowled around their flocks, and watched near their dwellings, affording them but too manv opportunities of studying his character, and too much reason to remember his manners. A particular description of this animal is to be found in every work on natural history ; our concern is only with those traits in his character, which serve to illustrate the sacred writings. His external appearance is unusually ■ I savage; his limbs .-ire strong and thick; his forefeet somewhat resemble the human hand; i nd I wl His motions are ss awkw ard a: his I | under tin- t isiderable degree ol alertness and running. If hunger compel Inn to attack a man, 01 ■ tn put suit of Ins prey, he ! ' ' d end rapid in i lie forest. Many bea its of prey surpass him in running ; yet his p great, thai a man on C ot i danger to which a pci -on i . exposed from hi , extreme ; he can scan elj horie to savi ■ ■■' can give him no security; and ihe loftiest tree i commonly the chosen dwelling of Ins pursuer, which, o far from affording a safe retreat, only ensures Ins destruction. The danger of the victim. bear litis marked for destruction, is by his natur. : inclines* of his e\ e excellence of his otl er - nses, particularly b'i smelling, which Buffon conjectures, from the peculiar structure of the organ, to be perhaps more exquisite thai thai of any othei foi can any hope be rationally entertained from the forbearance or generosity of his Tem- per; t,i these, or any other amiable quality, hi and savage heart is an entire stranger. His anger, v. hich is easily excited, is at oiiee capricious and intense. P. dark and sullen scowl, which on his forbidding nance never relaxes into a look of satisfaction, indicates tie- sen].', | ninroseness of his disposition ; and his voice, which is a deep murmur, or rather growl, often accom- panied with a grinding ol ihe t,-,-ili, betrays the discontent which reigns within. It is therefore v, itii justice that the inspired writers uniformly number him among the mosl ferocious and dargercus tenants of the forest, and asso- ciate his name and manner with the sorest judgments which afflict mankind.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXX. Ver. 4. Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment ? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell? " Yes, you are full of confidence, you are quite srtre, you know all about it: have yon just returned from the heavens'!" " Truly, he has jusl finished his journey from above: listen, listen, to this divine messenger." "Out friend is about to do wonderful things, he has already caught the wind; he has seized it with his hand."— Roe- Ver. 10. Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty. Whatever crimes your servants commit, no one will tell vou of them, except those who wish to gain your favour. But let them once fatl, then people in every direction come to expose their villany. — Roberts. Ver. 15. The horse-leech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. This creature is only once mentioned in the holy scrip- tures. It was known' to the ancient Hebrews under the name (npfyfj aluka, from the verb alak, which, in Arabic, signifies to adhere, slick close, or hang fast. The reason of the Hebrew name is evident ; the leech sticks fast li the skin : and in several languages, its pertinacious adhesion is become proverbial. Horace celebrates it in this line — "Non iiiissiini ctltem, nisi plena cruoris liirudo." An ancient author calls it the black reptile of the marsh, because it is commonly found in marshy places. Its cru- elty and thirst of blood, are noted by many writers, and, indeed, are too prominent qualities m this creature to be overlooked. Atqu .lantni.' — PlmU. in Epidico, let it 434 PROVERBS. Chap. 31. Long before the lime of lhat ancient Roman, the royal preacher introduced it in one of his Proverbs, to illustrate the cruel and insatiable cupidity of worldly men: " The horse-leech hajh two daughters, crying, Give, give." Sev- eral questions have been proposed in relation to this text ; whether, for example, it is to be literally understood; and what the royal preacher means by its two daughters. Bo- chart contends, that it cannot be literally understood, first, because its introduction into that proverb would be quite improper; second, because the horse-leech has no daugh- ters, being generated of putrid matter in the bottom of the marsh. In answer to these reasons, it may be observed, that if it be connected with the preceding verse, the intro- duction is quite proper, and highly emphatical ; indeed, we can scarcely conceive any thing more forcible and beautiful than the comparison. To the second objection, it is suffi- cient to reply, that Bochart has merely asserted the forma- tion of the horse-leech from putrid mire; but the absurdity of equivocal generation has already been considered. Mer- cer supposes, that the two daughters of the horse-leech are the forks of her tongue, by which she inflicts the wound ; but this exposition is inadmissible, because she is destitute of that member, and acts merely by suction. Bochart, supposing that the clause where 'it is introduced, cannot with propriety be connected with any part of the context, considers it, of course, as independent ; and admitting the derivation of aluka from alak, to hang or be appended, in- terprets the term as denoting the termination of human life, appended as it were to the purpose of God, limiting the term of our mortal existence ; and by consequence, that her two daughters are death and the grave, or, should these be thought nearly synonymous, the grave, where the body returns to its dust, and the world of spirits, where the soul takes up its abode. But "with all deference to such high authority, this interpretation appears very forced and unnatural. The common interpretation seems, in every respect, entitled to the preference. Solomon, having in the preceding verses mentioned those that devoured the property of the poor, as the worst of all the generations he fcad specified, proceeds in the fifteenth verse to state and iaustrate the insatiable cupidity with which they prose- cuted their schemes of rapine and plunder.— As the horse- leeeh hath two daughters, cruelty and thirst of blood, which cannot be satisfied ; so, the oppressor of the poor has two dispositions, cruelly and avarice, which never say they have enough, but continually demand additional gratifica- tions.— Paxton. Ver. 17. The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. In the East, in consequence of the superstitions of hea- thenism, numerous human bodies are exposed to become the prey of birds and wild beasts; and it is worthy of being recorded, that the eye is the first part selected by the former, as their favourite portion. It is, however, considered to be" a great misfortune to be left without sepulchral rites; and it is no uncommon' imprecation to hear, " Ah ! the crows shall one day pick out thy eyes." " Yes, the lizards shall lay their eggs in thy sockets."— Roberts. Solomon appears to give a distinct character to some of the ravens in Palestine, when he says, " The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." The wise man, in this passage, mav allude to a species of raven, which prefers the valley for her habitation to the clefts of the rock; or he may perhaps refer to some sequestered valley in the Land of'Promise. much frequented by these birds, which derived its name from that circumstance; or, as the rocky precipice where the raven loves to build her nest, often overhangs the tor- Tent, (which the original word, sn: ntihal, also signifies,) and the lofty tree, which is equally acceptable, Vises on its banks, the royal preacher might, by that phrase, merely in- tend the ravens which prefer such situations. Bochart conjectures, that the valley alluded to was Tophet, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which Ihe prophet Jeremiah •-alls the valley of the dead bodies; because the dead bodies of criminals were cast into it, where they remained without hur.a!, till they were devoured by flocks of ravens, which collected for that purpose from the circumjacent country. If this conjecture be right, the meaning of Solomon will be this: He who is guilty of so great a crime, shall be sub- jected to an infamous punishment; and shall be cast into the valley of dead bodies, and shall find no grave, but the devouring maw of the impure and voracious raven. It was a common punishment -in the East, (and one which the Orientals dreaded above all others,) to expose in the open fields the bodies of evil-doers that had suffered by the laws of their offended country, to be devoured by the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven. Hence, in Aristophanes, an old man deprecates the punishment of being exposed to the ridicule of women, or given as a banquet to Ihe ravens; and Horace, in his sixteenth epistle to Uuinlius, repre- sents it as the last degree of degradation, to be devoured by these hateful birds. The wise man insinuates, that the raven makes his first and keenest attack on the eye; which perfectly corresponds with his habits, for he always begins his banquet with lhat part of the body. Isidore says of him, " Primo in cadave- ribus ocul urn petit:" and Epictetus, 'Oi i>ev «„?a«s naim- XcvTriKOTw rovi o^SaXfiofi liyaivovTat : the ravens devour the eyes of the dead. Many other testimonies might be ad- duced ; but these are sufficient to justify the. allusion in the proverb.— Paxton. Ver. 25. The ants are a "people not strong, yet they prepare their meat m the summer. See on ch. 6. 6. Ver. 26. The conies are but. a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks. See on Ps. 104. 18. Ver. 27. The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands. See on 2 Cnron. 7. 13. Ver. 33. Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bring- eth forth blood: so theforcing of wrath bring- eth forth strife. The ancient way of making butter in Arabia and Pales- tine, was probably nearly the same as is still practised by the Bedouin Arabs and' Moors in Barbary, and which is thus described by Dr. Shaw : " Their method of making butter is by putting the milk or cream in a goal's-skin turned inside out, which they suspend from one side of the tent to the other, and then pressing it to and fro in one uniform direction, they quickly occasion the separation of the unc- tuous and wh'eyey parts." So " the butter of the Moors in the empire of Morocco, which is bad, is made of all the milk as it comes from the cow, by putting it into a skin and shaking it till the butter separates from it." (Stewart's Journey to Mequinez.) And what is more to the purpose, as relating to what is still practised in Palestine, Hasselquist. speaking of an encampment of the Arabs, which he found not far from Tiberias, at the foot of the mountain or hill where Christ preached his sermon, says, " they make butter in a leathern bag hung on three poles, erected for the purpose, in the form of a cone, and drawn to and fro by two women." — Burder. The following is a description given by Thevenot of the manner of making butter at Damascus, which he, however, expressly assures us, is the same all over the East. " They tie a stick with both ends to the hind-feet of a goat's-skin, which serves instead of a leathern bag, that is, each end of the stick to one fool, and the same with the forefeet, that these sticks mav serve as handles; they then put the milk into this bag, close it carefully, shake it about, holding by the two sticks ; after a lime, add some water, and then shake it as before, till butter comes."— Rosenmcller. CHAPTER XXXI. Ver. 18. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good : her candle goeth not out by night. Chap. 2. ECCLESIASTIC. 435 To give a modern instance of a similar kind — M nsieni De Guys, in his Sentimental Journey through Gh "embroidery is the constant employment of ilie Greek wo- men. Those who follow it for a living are employi 'I in it from morning to night, us are also their daughters and stave This is a picture of tlie industrious wife, painied after nature by Virgil, in the eighth book of bis /Em-id:— I have a living portrait of the same kind constantly before my eyes. The lamp of a pretty neighbour of mine, who follows that trade, is always lighted before day, and her young assistants are all at work betimes in the morning."— BURDER. Ver. 24. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it ; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Herodotus, it seems, thought the Egyptian women's car- rying on commerce was a curiosity ri.at deserved to be in- bistory: it tan hardly then he thought an im- proprii tj to take notice of this circumstance in a collection riding lo illustrate the scriptures, am! in a country where the women indeed spin, but i!' only buy and sell, bul weave, and do almi relating to manufactures. The commerce mentioned by Herodotus is lost, according to Maillet, from among the women of Egypt in general, being only retained by the Arabs of that country who live in the mountains. The Arabian historians say, that the women used to deal in buy- ing and selling of tlmigs woven of silk, gold, and silver, \ 1 I. in, ol cotton and thread, or simple linen cloth, whether made in the country or imported ; the men in wheat, barley, rice, and other productions of the earth. .Maillet, in giving an account of the alteration in this re- pe I '" I IgJ pi, affirms that this usage slill continues among the Arabs to this day, who live in the mountains ; and con- sequently he must be understood lo affirm, that the things that are woven among the Arabs and sold, are sold by the women, who are indeed the persons that weave the men's hykes in Barbary, according to Dr. Shaw, and doubtless weave in Egypt— Haumek. ECCLESIASTES, OR THE PREACHER. CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. I made me great works ; I built me houses ; I planted me vineyards ; 5. I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits; G. I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees. The following account of these reservoirs will evince at what an immense expense and labour they were constructed. Solomon's cisterns " are seated in a valley, and are three in number, each occupying a different level, and placed in a right line with each other, so that the waters of the one may descend into the next below it. Their figures are quad- rangular: the first, or southern one, being about three hun- dred feet long ; the second, four hundred; and the third, five hundred ; the breadth of each being about two hundred feet. They are all lined with masonry, and descended to by narrow 'flights of steps, at one of the corners ; the whole depth, when emtpy, not exceeding twentv or thirty feet. may Be considered useiul works in so barren and destitute a country as Judea, yet they are hardlv to be reckoned among the splendid monuments of a luxurious sovereign's wealth or power, since there are many of the Hebrew tanks in Bombay, -the works of private individuals, in a mere commercial settlement, which are much mote elegant in their design, and more expensive in their construction, than any of these. Near these reservoirs there are two small fountains, of whose waters we drank, and thought them good. These are said to have originally supplied the cis- terns through subterranean aqueducts; but they are now- fallen into decay from neglect, and merely serve as a water- ing-place for cattle, and a washing-stream for the females of the neighbouring country." (Buckingham.) " After a slight repast, we took leave of our hosts, and set out in a southern direction to examine the Piscine, sa;d to have been constructed by Solomon. The roval preacher has been imagined to allude to these, among other instances of his splendour and magnificence, in the passage where he is arguing for the insufficiency of worldly pursuits to pro- cure happiness, Eccl. ii. G. They are three in number, placed nearly in a direct line above each other, like the locks of a canal. By this arrangement, the surplus of the first flows into the second, which is again discharged into the third : from thence a constant supply of living waler is carried along the sides of the hill to Bethlehem and Jeru- salem. The figure of these cisterns ii rectangular, and they are all nearly of the same width, but of considerable difference in length, the third being almost half as large again as the first. They are still in a certain state of preser- vation, and with a slight expense might be perfectly re- stored.' The source from whence they are supplied is about a furlong distant; the spring rises several feet below the surface, the aperture of which is secured by a door, so con- trived, that it may be impenetrably closed on any sudden danger of the water being contaminated." (Jolliffe's Letters.) — Bidder. At about an hour's distance to the south of Bethlehem, are the pools of Solomon. They are three in number, of an oblong figure, and are supported by abutments. The antiquity of their appearance entitles them, Dr. Richardson thinks, lo be considered as the work of the Jewish monarch : " like every thing Jewish," he says, " thev are more re- markable for strength tl^in for beauty." They are situated at the south end of a small valley, and are so disposed on the sloping ground, that the waters of the uppermost may descend into the second, and those of the second into tiie third. That on the west is nearest the source of the spring, and is about 480 feet long ; the second is about 600 feet in length, and the third about GCO ; the breadth of all three being nearly the same, about 270 feet. They are lined with a thick coat of plaster, and are capable of containing a great quantity of water, which they discharge into a small aqueduct that convevs it to Jerusalem. This aqueduct is built on a foundation of stone : the water runs through round earthen pipes, about ten inches in diameter, which are cased with two stones, hewn out so as to fit them, and they are covered over with rough stones, well cemented to- gether. The whole is so much sunk into the groundon the side of the hills round which it is carried, that in many places nothing is to be seen of it. In lime of war, however, this aqueduct could be of no service to Jerusalem, as the communication could be easily cut off. The fountain which 436 ECCLESIASTES. Chap. 3, 4. supplies these pools is at about the distance of 140 paces from them. "This," says Maundrell, "the friars will have to be that sealed fountain to which the holy spouse is compared, Cant. iv. 12." And he represents it to have been by no means difficult to seal up these springs, as they rise under ground; and have no other avenue than a little hole, "like to the' mouth of a narrow well." "Through thh hole yon descend directly clown, but not without some d r culty, for about four yards; and then arrive in a vaulted r .oin fifteen paces long and eight broad. Joining to this is a lother room of the same fashion, but somewhat less. Both these rooms are covered with handsome stone arches, very aneii/nt, and perhaps the work of Solomon himself. You find here four places at which the water rises. From these separate sources it is conveyed by little rivulets into a kind Of basin, and from thence is carried by a large subterraneous passage down into the pools. In the way, before it arrives at the pools, there is an aqueduct of brick pipe--, which re- ceives part of the stream, and carries it by many turnings and windings to Jerusalem. Below the pools, here runs down a narrow rocky vallev, enclosed on both sides with high mountains. This the friars will have to be ' the en- closed garden' alluded to in the same place of the Canticles. As to the pools, it is probable enough they may be the same with Solomon's; there not being the like store of excellent spring-water to be met with anywhere else throughout Palestine. But, for the gardens, one may safely affirm, thai if Solomon made them in the rocky 'ground which is now assigned for them, he demonstrated greater power and wealth in finishing his design, than wisdom in choosing the p. ace for it." — Modern Traveller. It were very desirable to convey some idea, though im- perfect, of the nature and arrangement of the gardens an- nexed to royal palaces, in the East ; for which this would be a proper "place. But to bring the subject within a mode- rate compass is not easy ; and every situation has peculiari- ties, which do not admit of illustration by comparison, or of application to our present purpose. The gardens of the seraglio at Constantinople command an extensive sea view, and "are constructed accordingly. Dr. E. D. Clarke and M. Pouqueville agree that thev are far from magnificent, as Europeans estimate magnificence; and may rather be thought wildernesses than gardens. They abound in fruit- tress, in treillages, in fountains, and in kiosques. Their other ornaments are but meager ; and their flowers, which should constitute the chief distinction of a garden, especially of an imperial garden, are but ordinary. In fact, those gentle- men rather apologize to their readers for anticipated disap- pointment. " I promise," says Dr. Clarke, " to conduct my readers, not only within the "retirement of the seraglio, but into the harem itself, and the most secluded haunts of the Turkish sovereign. Would only I could also promise a degree of satisfaction, in this respect adequate to their de- sire of information." Chardin has given plates of several Persian gardens; and from what he says— which is confirmed by Mr. Morier — coolness and shade beneath wide-spreading trees, water, and verdure, are the governing powers of a Persian para- dise. It might be so, anciently, at Jerusalem ; nevertheless, we are still left in uncertainty" as to what might characterize the ancient city of David, his palace, and his gardens. We mavsafelvinfer that they were extensive, since his demesne occupied the whole area of Mount Zion: they afforded a variety of heights, since the mount was far from level : it rose, also, much above Mount Moriah, on which stood the city of Jerusalem, and consequently commanded distinct views of that city and its environs. . The various heights afforded situations for buildings of different descriptions; private kiosques adorned with "the utmost magnificence and skill, (under Solomon,) dwellings for I he inmates, the guards, the attendants, the harem, and for foreign curiosities also ; for specimens of natural history, birds, beasts, &c. Nor was the extent of Mount Zion a rock ; for Dr. Clarke s'ates express.y, " If this be indeed Mount Zion, the pro- phecy concerning it, (Micah iii. 12,) that the plough should pass over it, has been fulfilled to the letter; for such labours were actually going on when we arrived." Here was there- fore a space (or spaces) of arable land; and this, afier so many revolutions of the surface, and so great intermixture of unproductive ruins, derived from the buildings andforti- Scations upon it, and around it. a In its original state, we deed not doubt, but that it would admit, not only of the giowth of shrubs, but of trees; "the thick gloom of cypresses and domes," which, as Dr. Clarke observes, of Constanti- nople, distinguish the most beautiful part of that city. How greatly such combinations must have contributed to the general aspect of the Hebrew metropolis, surrounded by barren mountains, we can be at no loss to conceive: and with these royal embellishments we may connect those which were " planted in the house of the Lord," Psalm xcii. 13. Mr. Rich says, very justly, " We should form a very incor- rect notion of the residence of an eastern monarch, if we imagined it was one building which in its decay would leave a single mound, or mass of ruins. Such establishments always consist of a fortified enclosure, the area of which is occupied by many buildings of various kinds, without sym- metry or general design, and with large vacant spaces' be- tween them." — Taylor in Cai,met. CHAPTER III. Ver. 5. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together : a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. See on 2 Kings 3. 19. Ver. 7. A time, to rend, and a time to sew ; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. New clothes were thought very necessary for the solemni- zation of a staled eastern festival. Commentators have taken notice, that the rending mentioned by Solomon, Ec- cles. iii. 7, refers to the oriental modes of expressing sor- row ; but they seem to think, that the sewing signifies no- thing more than the terminating, perhaps nothing more than the abating, of affliction. Maimonides is quoted on this oc- casion, as saying, He that mourns for a father, &c, let him stitch up the rent of his garment at the end of thirty days, but never let him sow it up well. As the other cases, how- ever, are as directly opposite as possible, is it qpt more probable, that a season ol joy is here meant, in contrast to a time of bitter grief, than merely of some abatement oi distress 1 And lhat by a lime of sewing, is meant a time of making up new vestments, rather than a slight tacking to- gether the places of their clothes, which were torn in the paroxysm of their grief! Thus, when Jacob supposed he had lost his son Joseph, he rati his clothes for grief, Gen. xxxvii. 34; while the lime of preparing for the circumcision of the son of Ishmael, the bashaw of Egypt, when Maillet lived there, must have been a time of great sewing ; for the rejoicing on that occasion lasted, it seems, " ten days, and on the first day of the ceremony the whole household of the bashaw appeared in new clothes, and were very richly dressed. Two vests of different-coloured satin had been given to every one of his domestics, one of English cloth, with breeches of the same, and a lining of fur of a Moscovite fox. The meanest slave was dressed after this sort with a turban, of which the cap was of velvet, or English cloth, and the other part adorned with gold. The pages had large breeches of green velvet, and short vests of gold brocade. Those of higher rank were more richly dressed ; and there was not one of them but changed his dress two or three times during the solem- nity. Ibrahim, the young lord that was to be circumcised, appeared on the morning of the first day, clothed in a half* vest of while clolh, lined" with a rich fur, over a doliman of Venetian cloth of gold, and over this half vest he wore a robe of fire-coloured camlet, lined with a green tabby. This vest, or quiriqui, was embroidered with pearls of a large size, and fastened before with a clasp of large dia- monds. Through all the time the solemnity lasted, Ibrahim changed his dress three or four times a day, and never wore the same thing twice, excepting the quiriqui, with its pearls, which he put" on three or four times." I need not go t>n with Maillet's account; it is sufficiently evident that the time of preparing for this rejoicing was a time of sewing. — Harmer. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 11. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat : but how can one be warm alone ? In the oriental regious the oppressive heat requires the members of the same family, in general, to occupy each a Chaf. 5 — 7. ECCLESlASTEi 437 separate bed. This, according to Maillet, is the custom in Egypt] where, not only the master and the mistress ol the family sleep in different beds in the same apartment, but also their female slaves, though several I same chamber,, have each a separate mattress. Fet Solo- mon seems to intimate that a different custom prevailed in Canaan, and one which the extreme heat ot the climate seems positively to forbid : " If two lie together, then they have heal, but how can one be warm alone 1" Mr. Har- mer endeavours to solve the difficulty, by supposing thai two might sometimes occupy one bed for medicinal purposes, li is certain that, in the case of David, it was thought a very efficacious method of recalling ihe vital warmth when u was almost extinguished. But it is probable that the royal preacher alluded rather to the nipping cold of a Syrian winter, when the earth is bound with covered with snow, than to the chilling rigours of extreme old age, The cold winter is very severe during the night in that country. Even in the daytime il is so keen, Inal Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, had a fire burning before him on the hearth, when he cut the scroll in which the, prophecies of Jeremiah were written, and committed it 10 the dimes. This accounts, in the most satisfactory manner, for the remark of Solomon ; for nothing surely can be more natural than for two to sleep under the same canopy during the seveie cold of a wintry night. The same desire of comfort, one would think, which induces :parate in the summer, line them, at least occasionally, to cherish the vital heat by a nearer approxi- mation than sleeping in the same room. It is usual, through the East, for a whole family to sleep in the same apartment, especially in the lower ranks of life, laying their beds on the ground. To this custom our Lord alludes in the par- ail. " I [e from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are now withnie in bed ;" that is, my whole family are now a-bed in thesarae room with me: " I cannot arise" to give thee."— Paxton. CHAPTER V. Ver. G. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error : wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thy hands ? " " Let not thy mouth weaklv excuse thee to no purpose; and do not say before the messenger, (who may be sent to inquire of thee what thou hast vowed,) it was a mistake." As the priests kept a servant to levy their share out of the Offerings of the people. (1 Sam. ii. 13 — 16,) and as they were greatly concerned in seeing the vows punctually paid, ble that they kept messengers to go and summon ' they knew to have vowed any thing, for the purpose of enforcing the payment of it. An employment which we find in aftertimes in the synagogues, without knowing when il began, might be the same, foT the most part, n ith thai whirl, is here alluded to. The Jews, who scru- pled to touch money on the sabbalh-day, used to bind them- selves on that day to an officer, sent by the rulers of ihe synagogue, to give such sum for alms; and that officer re- ceived it from them the next day. This conjecture is the more probable, as that officer, who was the chagan or min- ister of the synagogue, is sometimes styled the" messenger of the synagogue. (Desvaeux.) — Bcrder. Wr 12. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abun- dance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. In manv parts of the East there are not any banks, or public offices, in which the affluent can deposite their riches ; consequently the property has to be kept in the house, or concealed iii some secret place. TJnderthese circumstances, it is ii,) wonder that a man having great wealth should live in constant dread of having it stolen. There are those who have large treasures concealed in their houses, or gardens, or fields, and the fact being known thev are closely watched, whenever they pay special attention to any particular ob- ject, or place. The late king of Kandy, alter he was taken prisoner, and on his voyage to Madras, was much concerned about some of his concealed treasures, and yet he would not tell where they were. So great is the anxiety of some, arising from the lewels and gold they keep in their frail houses, that ihey literal!) wall h a great part of the night, ami sleep in the day, thai their golden deity may nut be taken from them. I knew a man who had nearly all his wealth in gold pa- godas, which he kept in a large chest in his bedroom: neither in body nor in mind did he ever wander far from the precious treasure; his abundance hindered him from s. 1 . • i ■ | . 1 1 1 lt ; and for a time it seei 1 as if it would hinder him from dying ; for when that fatal moment came, he se- rial times, when apparently gone, again opened his eyes and again gave mothkh look at the chest; and one of ihe last offices of his hands was to make an attempt to feel tor the key under las pillow ! — Roberts. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 7. All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. " My friend," says the sage, to ihe diligent and merchant, " why are you so anxious to have riches 1 Know you not that all' this exertion is for the support of one sin- gle span of the belly ?" " Tamby, you and your people work very hard ; wliv do you do so?" The man will look at you for a moment, and then putting his fingers on his navel, say, " It is all for the belly." — Roberts. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 6. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. Cow-dung dried was the fuel commonly used for firing, but this was remarkably slow in burning. On this account the Arabs would frequently threaten to burn a person with cow-dung,asa lingeringdeath. When tins was used it was generally under their pots. This fuel is a very striking conlrast to thorns and furze, and things of that kind, Which would doubtless be speedily consumed, with the crackling noise alluded to in this passage. Probably ii is this con- trast which gives us the energy of the comparison.— Harmer. Ver. 10. Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these 1 for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning- this. The Hindoos have four ages, which nearly correspond with the golden, silver, brazen, and iion ages of the western heathen.' In the first age, called Krclha, they say the corn sprang up spontaneously, and required no attention ; in the second, named Trcnthn, the justice of kings and the bles- sings of Ihe righteous caused it to grow; in the third, called Tuvara, rain "produced it; but in this, the fourth age, called /v///». many works have to be done to cause it lo grow. " Our fathers," say they, "had three harvests in the year: the trees also gave an abundance of fruit. Where is now the cheapness of piovisions? the abundance of fish? the fruitful flocks? the rivers of milk! the plenty of water ? Where the pleasures? Where the docilitv of animals' Where the righteousness, the truth, and affection ? Where the riches, ihe peace, the plenty ? Where the mighty men 1 Where the chaste and beautiful mothers, with their fifteen or sixteen children? Alas! alas! they are all fled."— Ro- berts. Ver. 13. Consider the work of God : for who can make thai straio-ht which he hath made crook- ed? " My lord.it is of no use Irving to reform that fellow: his ways are crooked: should you by force make him a little straight, lie will relapse into his former state." " If yon make straight the tail of the dog, will it remain so?"— Rob- erts. Ver. 25. I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of fo"y, even of foolishness and madness. 433 ECCLESIASTES. Chap. 7- -10 The margin has, instead of applied, "I and my heart compassed," i. e. encircled, went round it. According to Dr. Adam Clarke," I made a circuit;— I circumscribed the ground I was to traverse: and all within my circuit I was determined to know."— In English we say, " I studied the subject," but in eastern idiom, it is, " I went round it." " Have you studied grammar 7"—" Yes, suite suite," round and ■ jund. " That man is well acquainted with magic, for to it-. ' knowledge he has been round and round it : nay more, I^i told he has compassed all the sciences." — Roberts. Ver. 26. And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands : whoso pleaseth God shall es- cape from her ; but the sinner shall be taken by her. The following insidious mode of robbery gives a very lively comment upon these words of Solomon: "The most cunning robbers in the world are in this country. They use a certain slip with a running noose, which they cast with so much sleight about a man's neck when they are within reach of him, that they never fail, so that they strangle him in a trice. They have another curious trick also to catch travellers. They send out a handsome woman upon the road, who, with her hair dishevelled, seems to be all in tears, sighing and complaining of some misfortune which she pretends has befallen her. Now, as she takes the same way as the traveller goes, he easily falls into conversation with her, and finding her beautiful/offers her his assistance, which she accepts: but he hath no sooner taken her up on horseback behind him, but she throws the snare about his .neck, and strangles him, or at least stuns him, until the ' rcbbers who lie hid come running in to her assistance, and complete what she hath begun." (Thevenot.) — Burder. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 8. Let thy garments be always white ; and let thy head lack no ointment. This comparison loses all its force in Europe, but in India, where white cotton is the dress of all the inhabitants, and where the beauty of garments consists, Dot in their shape, but in their being clean and white, the exhortation becomes strikingly proper. A Hindoo catechist address- ing a native Christian on the necessity of correctness of conduct, said, See how welcome a person is whose garments are clean and white. Such let our conduct be, and then, though we have lost caste, such will be our reception. (Ward.)— Birder. Ver. 12. For man alsoknoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds thai are caught in the snare ; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. "Alas! alas! trouble has come suddenly upon me; lam caught as fishes in the net." " We are all of us to be caught as fishes in the net." — Roberts. CHAPTER X. Ver. 7. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. See on 1 Kings 10. 8. In all ages and nations, we read or hear of complaints against those who have arisen from obscurity to respecta- bi.ity or rank in the state. It is not so modern as some suppose for servants and inferiors to imitate their superiors; and thoueh some would like to see a return of the " good "Id times!" when a man's vest and jerkin would have to oe regulated by his rank, such things are doubtless best left to themselves." The Hindoos are most tenacious in their adherence to caste, and should any one, through property or circumstances, be elevated in society, he will always be loked upon with secret contempt. Their proverb is, " He who once walked on the ground, is now in his palanquin ; and he who was in his palanquin, is now on the ground." — Roberts. Persons of rank and opulence, in those countries, are now distinguished from their inferiors, by riding on horseback when they go abroad; while those of meaner station, and Christians of every rank, the consuls of Christian powers excepted, are obliged to content themselves with the ass or the mule. A Turkish grandee, proud of his exclusive privilege, moves on horseback with a very slow and state- ly pace. To the honour of riding upon horses, and the stately manner in which the oriental nobles proceed through the streets, with a number of servants walking before them, the wise man seems to allude, in his account of the disor- ders which occasionally prevail in society: " I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.— Paxton. Ver. 8. He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it ; and whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him. . ' Other enclosures have fences of loose stones, or mud walls, some of them very low, which often furnish a re- treat to venomous reptiles. To this circumstance the royal preacher alludes, in his observations of wisdom and folly: " He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it : and whose break- eth a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." The term which our translators render hedge in this passage, they might with more propriety have rendered wall, as they had done in another part of the writings of Solomon : " I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down." — Paxton. Ver. 11. Surely the serpent will bite without en- chantment ; and a babbler is no better. The incantation of serpents is one of the rr and interesting facts in natural history . This wonderful art, which sooths the wrath, and disarms the fury of the deadliest snake, and renders it obedient to the charmer's voice, is not an invention of modern times; for we discover manifest traces of it in the remotest antiquity. It is assert- ed, that Orpheus, who probably flourished soon after letters were introduced into Greece, knew how to still the hissing of the approaching snake, and to extinguish the poison ol the creeping serpent. The Argonauts are said to have subdued by the power of song the terrible dragon that guarded the golden fleece : Hiitti) tmrni ffeXfoi rcpas. Ovid ascribes the same effect to the soporific influence of certain herbs, and magic sentences. But it seems to ha'e been the general persuasion of the ancients, that the principal power of the charmer lay in the sweetness of his music. Plinv savs accordingly-, that serpents were drawn from their lurking-places by the power of music. Serpents, says Augustine, are supposed to hear and understand the words of the Marsi ; so that, by their incantations, these reptiles, for the most part, sally forth from their holes. The wonderful effect which music produces on the serpent tribes, is confirmed bv the testimony of several respectable moderns. Adders swell at the sound of a flute, raising themselves upon the one half of their body, turning them- selves round, beating proper lime, and following the instru- ment. Their head, naturally round and long like an eel, becomes broad and flat like a fan. The tame serpents, many of which the Orientals keep in their houses, are known to leave their holes in hot weather, at the sound of a musical instrument, and run upon the performer. Dr. Shaw had an opportunity of seeing a number of serpents keep exact lime with the dervishes in their circulatory dances, running over their heads and arms, turning when they turned, and stopping when they stopped. The rattle- snake acknowledges the power of music as much as any of his family ; of which the following instance is a decisnje proof: When Chateaubriand was in Canada, a snake ol that species entered their encampment ; a young Canhdirn. one of the party, who could play on the flute, to divert his associates, advanced against the serpent with his new species of weapon. " On the approach of his enemy, the haughty reptile coiled himself into a spiral line, flattened his head, inflated his cheeks, contracted his lips, displayed his en- venomed fangs and his bloody throat ; his double tongue glowed like two flames of fire; his eyes were burning coals; his body, swollen with rage, rose and fell like thi- Chap. 10 ECCLESIASTES. 439 bellow- of a forge; his dilated skin assumed a dull and Kaly appearance ; and his tail, 'which sounded the denuu- ibrated with bo great rapidity, as to resemble a light nimin'. The < " ; 1 1 1 . . . 1 1 ; . 1 1 hum pioporliun n eyes lost their fierceness, t lie oscilla- tions o? hi > wished to enter- tain his nobles and courtiers, or sought the amusement of the chase. Some are of opinion, these curtains refer to th« 14-2 SOLOMON'S SONG. sumptuous hangings which surrounded the bed of the Israel- itish king: and their idea receives some countenance from a manuscript note of Dr. Russel's, which slates, that mos- cheto curtains are sometimes suspended over the beds in Syria and Palestine. But since it is common in Hebrew poetry to express nearly the same thought in the second parallel line as in the first ; and since it is equally common ill scripture to put a pan for the whole, — it is more natural to suppose, thai the tents of Solomon are actually meant in this passage ; and as we are sure they were extremely mag- nificent, they might, with great propriety, be introduced here, on account of their beauty. — Paxton. Ver. 7. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon : for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? Before noon, the shepherds and their flocks may be seen slowly moving towards some shady banyan, or other tree, where they recline during the heat of the day. The sheep sleep, or lazily chew the cud ; and the shepherds plat pouches, mats, or baskets, or in dreamy musings while away their time. — Roberts. Ver. 9. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horsjjs in Pharaoh's chariots. This appears a very coarse compliment to a mere English reader, arising from the difference of our manners ; but the horse is an animal in very high estimation in the East. The Arabians are extravagantly fond of their horses, and caress them as if they were their children. D'Arvieux gives a diverting account of the affectionate caresses an Arab used to give a mare which belonged to him. He had sold it to a merchant at Rama, and when he came to see it, (which he frequently did,) he would weep over it, kiss its eyes, and when he departed, go backwards, bidding it adieu in the most tender manner. The horses of Egypt are so remark- able for stateliness and beauty, as to be sent as presents of great value to the sublime porte ; and it appears from sacred history, that they were in no less esteem formerly among the kings of Syria, and of the Hittites, as well as Solomon himself, who "bought his horses at 150 shekels, which (at Dean Prideaux's calculation of three shillings the shekel) is £2-2. 10s. each, a very considerable price at which to purchase twelve thousand horses together. The qualities which form the beauty of these horses, are tallness, propor- tionable corpulency, and stateliness of manner ; the same qualities which they admire in their women, particularly corpulency, which is known to be one of the most esteemed charactersof beauty in the East. Niebuhrsays, "as plump- ness is thought a beauty in the East, the women, in order to obtain this beauty, swallow, every morning and every even- ing, three of these insects, (a species of tcnchrioncs,) fried in butter." Upon this principle is founded the compliment of Solomon ; and it is remarkable that the elegant Theoc- ritus, in his epithalamium for the celebrated queen Helen, whom he described as ;>/; i ri-snn, and, indeed, seems to throw over it an air of ridicule: Who is this that looketh forth as the morn- ing, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and dazzling, like a bride li ;hl id home with il tmbeauxl The common trans- lation certainly sustains much better the dignity of the last clause, while 'it gives the genuine meaning of (=•*) <"«>, sage of scripture where it oo I) lii's either terrible, or the tumult and confusion of mind which terror producer. — Paxto.v. Ver 12. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of water, washed with milk, and fitly set. Hebrew, for fitly set, " sitting in fulness ;" that is, " filly p] iced and set as' a precious stone in the foil of a ring." " See that youth, what a beautiful eye he has ! it is like a sapphire set in silver;" which means, the metal represents the white and the blue, the other part of the eye. The eyes of their more sacred idols are made of precious stones. Wash 1 with milk." Though people thus wash them- selves after a funeral, the custom is also spoken of by way of figure, as a matter of great joy. " Oh ! yes, they are a happy pair ; they wash themselves with milk." " The joy is as great as being bathed in milk." But some do thus ac- tually wash their bodies three or four times a month, and the effect is said to be cooling and pleasing. I suppose, however, it arises as much from an idea of luxury, as any other cause. The residence of the god Vishnoo is said to be surrounded by a sea of milk, which may also be an- other reason to induce the devotee thus to baihe himself. — ltOBERTS. The eyes of a dove, always brilliant and lovely, kindle « ilh peculiar delight by the side of a crystal brook, for this is her favourite haunt'; here she loves to wash and to quench her thirst. But the inspired writer seems to inti- mate, that not satisfied with a single rivulet, she delights especially in those places which are watered with numer- ous streams, whose full flowing tide approaches the height o| the banks, and offers her an easv and abundant supply. They seem as if they were washed with milk, from their shining whiteness; and fitly, rather fully set, like a gem I, neither too prominent nor too depressed, but - • formed as with nice adaptation to fill up the socket.— PaXTON. Ver 15. His legs are as pillars of marble set upou sockets of fine gold ; his countenance is ■ Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. " His thighs are as pillars of marble, fixed upon pedes- ;als of line gold ;" alluding to his sandals bound on his feet ! ii ribands; or, perhaps, expressive of the feet themselves, as being of a redder tincture than the legs and thighs. The Asiatics used to die their feet of a deep red I'ims the lover in Giiagovinda says, O damsel, shall I die red with the juice of alactaca, those beautiful feet, which Will make the full-blown land lotos blush' with shame ? (Sir W. Jones.) — Burdes. CHAPTER VI. Ver 4. Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tir- zah; comely as Jerusalem; terrible as an a rmy with banners. This and the next chapter give an idea of what were the notions of beauty in the bride: she was like the city of Tir- zah, belonging to the tribe of Ephraim. A handsome Hin- doo female is compared to the sacred city of Seedambaram. The following, also, are signs of beauty in an eastern wo- man : her skin is the colour nalis, and :, gji "i are tush hu • ; her limbs must be her gail like the stately swan. Hit feet are e beautiful lotus ; hei waisl is slender as the lightning emblethe five petals of the kanlha flower] bet breasts are like the ii as ihe trunk »f the areca- tree. 1 1 n mouth is like tl : her lips as coral; her teeth are like beautiful arl berm and lifted up, like that ol the < h o n , « In n raised to snuff the wind ;) her eyes are I .. wasp, and me karangu-vally flow it ; hn ; ..'bow, and nicely separated ;' and her hair is as the black cloud. — Rob- erts.' Ver. 9. My dove, my mult ill- I, is hut one: she is tl /i///one,of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The conjugal chastity of the dove has been celebrated by every writer, who has described or alluded to her char- acter. She admits but of one mate; sbe never forsakes him till death puts an end to their union ; and never aban- dons of her own accord, the nest which then united labour has provided. iElian, and other ancient writers, affirm, that the turtle and the wood-pigeon punish adultery with death. The black pigeon, when her mate dies, obstinately rejects the embraces of another, and continues in a wid- owed state for life. Hence, among the Egyptians, a black pigeon was the symbol of a widow who declined to enter again into the marriage relation. This tact was so well known, or at least so generally admitted among the an- cients, that Tertullian endeavour- to establish the doctrine of monogamy bv the example of thai bird. These facts have been transferred by later authors to the widowed tur- tle, which, deaf to the solicitations of another mate, con- tinues, in mournful strains, to deplore her loss, till death puts a period to her sorrows. The.-e fact.s unfold I he true reason, that the church is by Solomon so frequently com- pared to the dove. — Paxton. Ver 11. I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded. See on ch. 7. 11, 12. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 1. How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. The word rendered joints means the concealed dress, or drawers, which are still wi rn bv the Moorish and Turkish women of rank. Lady M. W. M. n'anne. in describing her Turkish dress, says, " the first ss is a pair of drawers, very full, that reaches down to my shoes, and conceals the legs more modestly than vonr petticoats ; they are of a thin, rose-coloured damask, brocaded with flowers." — Border. Ver. 3. Thy two breasts arc like two young roes that are twins. See on ch. 2. 8. Ver. 4. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fish-poois in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim; thy nose is as the towei of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus Whatever is majestic and comely in the human coun- tenance ; whatever commands the reverence, and excites the love of the beholder, — Lebanon, and ils towering ce- dars, are employed by the sacred wii-ers to express. In the commendation of the church, the countenance of her Lord is as Lebanon, excellent as ihe cedars: while in the eulogium which he pronounces on his beloved, one fea- ture of her countenance is compared to the highest peak of that mountain, to the Sanr.in, which rises, j iih majestic 448 lOLOMON'S SONG. Chap. & grandeur, above the tallest cedars that adorn its summits: " Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus." Calmet imagines, with no small degree of probability, that the sacred writervilludes to an elegant tower of white marble, which, in his days, crowned the summit ot a lofty precipice, at the foot of which the river Barradj foams, about the distance of two miles from Da- mascus. When Maundrell visited the place, he found a small structure, like a sheik's sepulchre, erected on the highest point of the precipice, where it had probablv stood. From this elevated station, which forms a part of Leba- non, the traveller enjoyed the most perfect view of the city. S; charming was the landscape, so rich and diversified the scenery, that he confessedly found it no easy matter to tear himself away from the paradise of delights which bloomed at his feet. Nor was a very late traveller less delighted with this most enchanting prospect.— .Paxton. Ver. 5. Thy head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thy head like purple ; the King is held in the galleries. The only remarkable mountain on the western border of Canaan, is Carmel, which lies on the seacoast, at the south end of the tribe of Asher, and is frequently men- tioned in the sacred writings. On this mountain, which is very rocky, and about two thousand feet in height, the prophet Elijah fixed his residence : and the monks of the Greek church, who have a convent upon it, show the in- quisitive stranger the grotto, neatly cut out in the solid rock, where, at a distance from the tumult of the world, the ven- erable seer reposed. At the distance of a league are two fountains, which they pretend the prophet, by his miracu- lous powers, made to spring out of the earth ; and lower down, towards the foot of the mountain, is the cave where he instructed the people. It is an excavation in the rock, cut very smooth, both above and below, of about twenty paces in length, fifteen in breadth, and verv high; and Thevenot, who paid a visit to the monks of 'Mount Car- mel, pronounces it one of the finest grottoes that can be seen. The beautiful shape and towering height of Carmel furnish Solomon with a striking simile, expressive of the loveliness and majesty of the church in the eyes of her Redeemer: " Thv head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thy head like purple; the King is held in the gal- leries.'' The mountain itself is nothing but rock. The monks, however, have with great labour covered some-parts ot it with soil, on which they cultivate flowers and fruits of various kinds; but the fields around have been celebra- ted in all ages for the extent of their pastures, and the rich- ness of their verdure. So great was the fertilitv of this region, that, m the language of Ihe sacred writers, the name Carmel, is often equivalent to a fruitful field. This was undoubtedly the reason that the covetous and churlish Na- bal chose it for the range of his numerous flocks and herds. — Paxton. Ver. 8. I said, I will go up to the palm-tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof; now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples. See on ch. 2. 3. Ver. 11. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us 'lodge in the village. 12. Let us get up early to the vineyards ; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape ap- pear, and the pomegranates bud forth : there will I give thee my loves. In the gardens around Aleppo, commodious villas are built, for the use of the inhabitants, to which they retire during the oppressive heals of summer. Here, amid the wild and almost impervious thickets of pomegranate, and other fruit-bearing trees, the languid native and exhaust- ed traveller find a delightful retreat from the scorching beams of the snn. A similar custom of retiring into the country, and taking shelter in the gardens, at that season, appears to have been followed in Palestine, in ages verv p-mote. • The exquisite pleasure which an Oriental feels, while he reclines under the deep shade of the pomegranate, ihe apple, and other fruitful trees, in the Syrian gardens, which, uni- ting their branches over his head, delend him from the glowing firmament, is well described by Russel. " Revived by the freshening breeze, the purling of the brooks, and the verdure of the groves, his ear will catch the melodv of the nightingale, delightful bevond what is heard in England; with conscious gratitude to heaven, he will recline on the simple mat, and bless the hospitable shelter. Beyond the limits of the gardens, hardly a vestige of verdure remains the fields are turned into a parched and naked waste." h. Persia, Mr. Martyn found the heat of the external air quit* intolerable. In spite of every precaution, the moisture ot the body being soon quite exhausted, he grew restless, and thought he should have lost his senses, and concluded, lha. though he might hold out a day or two, death was inevita- ble. Not only the actual enjoyment of shade and water diflu.ses the sweetest pleasure through the panting bosom of an Oriental, but what is almost inconceivable to the na- tive of a northern clime, even the very idea, the simple re- currence of these gratifications to the mind, conveys a lively satisfaction, and a renovating energy to his heart, when ready to fail him in the midst of the burning desert. " He who smiles at the pleasure we received," says Lichlcnstejn, " from only being reminded of shade, or thinks this ob- servation trivial, must feel the force of an African sun, to have an idea of the value of shade and water."— Paxton. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 2. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me : I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. The fragrant odour of the wines produced in the vine- yards of Lebanon, seems chieflv to have attracted the no- tice of our translators. This quality is either factitious or natural. The Orientals, not satisfied with the fragrance emitted by the essential oil of the grape, frequently put spices into their wines, to increase their flavour. To this practice Solomon alludes in these words: " I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of mv pomegra- nate." But Savary, in his Letters on Greece, affirms, that various kinds of naturally perfumed wines, are produced in Crete and some of the neighbouring islands : and the wine of Lebanon, to which the sacred writer alludes, was probably of ihe same species. — Paxton. Ver. 6. Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm : for love is strong as death ; jealousy is cruel as the grave : the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. When a husband ie going to a distant country, the wife says to him, " Ah ! place me as a seal upon thv heart," ;'. e. let me be impressed on thy affections, as the seal leaves its impression upon the wax. " Let not your arms embrace another; let me only be sealed there:" '" for love is strong as dealh, jealousy is cruel as the grave." — Roberts. This alludes to jewels, having the name or portrait ot the beloved person engraved on it, and worn next the heart, or on the arm.. In the pictures of the eastern princesses and heroines, there is sometimes a large square jewel on the forepart of the arm, a little below the shoulder, " When all the persons had assembled in the divan, every one re- mained sitting or standing in his place without moving, till in about half an hour came two kapndschis, one of whom carried the imperial signet-ring, and presented it to the grand vizier, who arose from his sofa, and received the signet-ring wilh a kind of bow, kissed il, put it en his hand, look it off again, and put it in the bag in which it had been before, and placed both in a pocket at the left side of his kaftan, as it were upon his heart." (Schultz.) — ROSENMULLER. Ver. 14. Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe, or to a young hart, upon the mountains of spices. See on ch. 2. 8, 9. ISAIAH CHAPTER I. Ver. 3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, ray people doth not consider. "Ah! my children, my cows and my sheep know me well; but v i." "Alas! alas! tnv entile know me better than my wife; I will go and live with them, for theii Ic ■ incere to me. 1 will n any longer in such a family ; henceforth the cattle shall be my companions, they shall be my children." — ROBERTS. Ver. 8. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cot- tage in a vineyajrd, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. This was a little temporary hut, covered with houghs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat bv day. and II e c il ! . nd dews hv night, for the watch- man that III or vineyard, during the short season while the fruil was ripening, (Job xxvii. is) and presently removed when it had served that purpose. The eastern people were probably obliged to have such a con- stant watch to defend the fruit from the jackals. "The jackal," says Hasselquist, " i- a species of mnstela, which is Ver. 9. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. See on Job 4. 9. Ver. IS. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. This, bvmanv, is believed to refer to the strength of the colour, and to the difficulty of discharging it : and though I do not presume to com radicl that opinion, it mav perhaps be suggested to have an additional meaning. Dr. Adam Clarke says, "Some copies have (c>:wa) ke-shanim, like crimson garments." The iniquities of Israel bad become verv great. In the 10th verse the rulers are addressed as if of Sodom and Gomorrah ; and in the 21-t. it is said the faithful citv had become a harlot. In the 29th, " Thev shall be ashamed of the oaks which ve have desired, and ye shall be con- founded for the gardens that ve have chosen." Is it not certain that these references to Sodom, to a harlot, and the gardens, allude to the wickedness, the idolatry, and the union which Israel had formed with the heathen 1 For what purposes were the gardens or groves used, of which the frequenters were to be ashamed 1 No doubt, for the same as those in the East at the present day. The courte- sans of the temples receive those in the groves, who are ashamed to go to their houses. Those wretched females are called Soli-kiiliknl, i.'e. parrots of the grove. "The wicked youth is always gathering flowers in the grove." "Thou hideous wretch! no one will marry thee; thou art not fit for the grove." (See on chap. lxvi. 17.) Scarlet, or crimson, was the favourite colour of the an- cient heathen prostitutes. (Jer. iv. 30.) " And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do ? Though thou clothes! thy- self with crimson-, though thou deckest thee with orna- 57 meats of gold, thougn thou rentes! thy face with painting, in vain shall llioii make thyself fair; thy lovers will de- ■ . . I ihe die -..,1 ,1 other modes of allurement, used by a female ol the same character, at tins day. (Rev. ivii. 4.) " The woman was arrayed in par] le and si irlet colour, and decked with '■'"l.i 'nd |. iv. - ■ and pearl-; having a golden cup in her hand, lull ol a l.onn nations anil tilth mess ol her |... . aical ion i \ ad apon b n ton hi ad « ax a name « i men, M. ter Bi bylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots a: i V ■ it , '■ .n- .,i ■' ■ Earth." In thai most vivid description ol Ezekiel (chap, x.xii.) of the idolatries of Sa- maria and Jerusalem, they are represented as two b ibloi i, and llieie Mich die!,, ii i ,■ - a i e made a- e. ii vt a mo ' frightful picture of the depravity of the \ pie. '" She in- creased her whoredoms : for when she -aw men portray- ed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldean- portrayed with veiimii.ion." tier paramours, also, were " exceeding in died attire upon their heads." The icbed prostitutes of the temple always have [heir garments Of seal I t, - uni- son, or vermilion. — Roberts. Ver. 22. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water. This is an image used for the adulteration of wine with more propriety than may at first appear, if what Thevenot says of the people of the Levant of late times, weie true of them formerly. "They never mingle water with their wine to drink, but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating the streng'th of the wine." It is remark- able, that whereas the Greeks and Latins, by mixed mint, always understood wine diluted and lowered with water, the Hebrews, on the contrary, generally mean by it. wine made stronger and more inebriating, by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients, such as honcv, spices, defrutum, (or wine inspissated bv boiling it down to two thirds, or one half of the quantity,) myrrh, man- dragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. Such were ihe exhilarating, or rather stupifyirg ingredients, which Helen mixed in the bowl, together with the wine, for her guests oppressed with grief, to raise their spirit-, the coi of which she had learned in Egypt. Such was the spiced wine mentioned Solomon's Song viii. 2; and how much Ihe eastern people, to this day, deal in artificial ! prodigious strength, the use of wine being forbidden, mav be seen in a curious chapter of Keinpfer, upon thai subject. — Lowth. Ver. -2."). And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin. The propriety of the denunciation will appear from the following circumstance.: "Silver, of all th'e metals, suf- fers mosl from an admixture of tin, a very small quantity sci". ing lo make that metal as brittle as glass; and, what i- worse, being with difficulty separated from it ajaiD. The very vapour of tin has the same effect as the metal itself, on silver, gold, and copper, rend. -ring them brittle." (New and Complete Dictionary of Arts, ait. Tin.)— Elrder. Ver. 20. For they shall lie ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be con- founded for the gardens that ye have chosen. In the language of the Hebrews, every place where plants and trees were cnl ivrled with greater care than in the open field, was called a garden. The idea of Mich an enclosure was ceria inly borrowed from the garden of Eden, which the bountiful Creator planted for the reception of his fa- rk» creature. The garden of Hesperides, in eastern e™wa- protected by an enormous serpent; and the VOU! o fable . gardens of Adonis, anion? the Greeks Paradise, :o the gar, the e gardens of p inn- Wi every instance . de- i 1 b shady retreats were " A , the rites of p agan my live nations were commonly, if voted to religious purposes. In celebrated, for a long succession superstition. Thus, Jehovah calls the apostate Jews, "a people that provoked me continually to anger to inv lace, that sacrifice!!) in gardens." And in a preceding chapter, the prophet threaten-, tin.-: u in t lie name of the Lord : " They shall be ashamed of the oaks which ve have desired, and ve shall be confounded for the gardens which ye have chosen." The inspired writer not "only mentions these gar- dens, but also makes a clear allusion to the tree of life, or rather of knowledge, both of which were placed in the mul -I of Paradise.— Paxton. Ver, 30. For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf 0 fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. SeeonPs. 1.3. In the hotter parts of the eastern countries, a constant supply of water is so absolutely necessary for the cultiva- tion, and even for the pres irvation and existence of a gar- den, that should it wai wa ei bul fi r a few days, every thing in it would be burnt up wi h the heat, and totally de- stroyed. There is therefore no garden whatever in those countries, but what has such a ceitain supply, either from some neighbouring river, or from a reservoir of water collected from springs, or filled with rain-water in the pro- per season, in sufficient quantity to afford ample provision for the res! of the yea/. — Birder. CHAPTER II. Ver, 4. Ana he shall judge among- the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into priming-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. See on Joel 3. 10. Ver. 8. Their land also is full of idols : they wor- ship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. This is a true and literal description of India: the- travel- ler cannot proceed a mile, through an inhabited country, without seeing idol- and vestiges of id. dairy in every direc- tion. See their vessels, rheir implements of husbandry, their houses, their furniture, their ornaments, their sacred trees, their domestic and public temples; and they all de- clare that the land i> full ol idols. — Roberts. Ver. 13. And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan. See .on Deut. 3. 03. Ver, 20. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made rarh one for himself to worship, to the moles, and to the bats. Thus, no dofibt, refers to the to'al destruction of idolatry. "Toihe bats," (f :><v the Hindoos, and were also used as an article of food b\ the Assyrians. The East maybe termed • country of bats: they hang by hnndreds and thousands in. caves, ruins, and underthe roofs of large buildings. To enter sueh places, especially af.er rain, is most offensive. I have lived in rooms w here it was sickening to remain, on account of the smell produced by those creatures, and whence it was almost impossible to expel them. What from the appearance of the creature, its sunken diminutive Chap. 1—3. its short legs, (with which it cannot walk,) iis leather- « mgs its liall-huii y, oily skin, its offensive ordure evei anon dropping on .he ground, us time for food and - . "when evil s.,irits a|E0 range abroad," ■ :■■ ■ : .'.■ m -: .■.-•.•listing creatures to the people i. \ . ■ . . i >nai its name is used by ih» idoos (as by the prophet) lor an epithet of contempt ien a house ceases to | lease the inhabitants, on account eing haunted, ihej say, (and also do,) give it to Ihebats. las ! alas ! my » Be and children are dead : my houses, !■ :-. ..-. . ale all •■r.en to the bats," •' Tin- bats aie The bat is a winj the tour-footed anin and hideous creatui the light of day, as i li.xcs lis abode in the The ■ ■ . i.. imous size, their : is ii -.hie to remain many Into the vault or trench of I abodes frequented by the Ter- arcely endure to visit." the ilola- ctive judgments of a jusl and together unk sti uction by a\ en :■ rce I kills poultry and small bird them in the face. This fixes its dwelling among o desolate lower, or I ily, it seldom or never leaves In the East, where thev s stench is so „.;. leral letk seconds to examine the pi '■ i i e t nd those dit ma nal bats, which man can si ter, terrified by ihe destri righteous God, 'shall cast his idols of silver gold, which he made for himself to worship ; n ■■. I their intrinsic value, ashamed of the trust he i them, and distracted by the terrors of the Almighty, ne shall cast them in desperation and scorn out of I is shj i i, that, freed from the useless encumbrance, he mav escape for his life. " In that day a man shall cast his idol'- of silver, and his idols ,,f gold, which they made each one for him- self to worship, io the moles, and to the bats." Ins i ad i i building magnificent temples for their reception, where no- thing to offend the senses is permitted lo enter ; instead oi watching over them wilh scrupulous care, devi s Iteir days, their riches, and all they pi ea tolhi t ervi i in- stead of adoring them with insi nsate presto tii ns 1 1 i of- fei ings, i ■ ■ . y shall east them to creatures so vile ii.' ' .... i-inal and loathsome, as to pieclude ihe f returning to theii idolatrous practices. Or io cast their idi I- to the moles and the bats, may signify the utter destruction of these objects of worship." When the Greeks said, BalV es nupoKas, cast him to the ravens, the meaning was, cast him to destruction: and this prophecy may rcler to a proverbial expression among the Jews c'l .-iiailar import. — Paxton. CHAPTER III Ver. 15. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts. " Ah ! my lord, do not thus crush my face : alas ! alas I my nose and other features will soon be rubbed away. I> my face to be made quite flat with grinding'? My heart is squeezed, my heart is squeezed. That head man has been grinding the' faces of all his people."— Roberts. Ver. 16. Moreover, the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk wilh stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking, and mincing ion of the rich and beautiful region which had been abandoned 6y its ter- T t , i - in ■ •■. i is railed '/nub ; it has not been described by any naturalist. It is, in size, very little larger than a bee, of a thicker proportion, and his wings, which are broader than those of a bee, placed separate, like those of a fly : they -are of pure gauze, without colour or spot upon them; the head is large, the upper jaw or lip is sharp, and has at the end of it a strong pointed hair, of about a quarter of an inch long; the lower jaw has two of these pointed hairs; and this pencil of hairs, when joined together, makes a resist- ance to the finger, nearly equal to that of a strong hog's bristle ; its legs are serrated in the inside, and the whole covered with brown hair or down. As soon as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain, till they die, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No remedy re- mains, but to leave the black earth, and hasten down to the sands of Albara; and there they remain, while the rains last, this cruel enemy never daring to pursue them farther. Though his size be' immense, as is his strength, and his body covered with a thick skin, defended with strong hair, yet,' even the camel is not capable to sustain the violent punctures the fly makes with his pointed proboscis. He must lose no time in removing to the sands of Atbara; for, when ence attacked by this flv, his body, head, and legs, break out into large bosses, which swell, break, and putre- fy, to the certain destruction of the creature. Even the el- ephant and rhinoceros, who, by reason of their enormous bulk, and the vast quantity of food and water they daily need, cannot shift to desert and dry places, as the season may require, are obliged to roll themselves in mud and mire, which, when dry, coats them over like armour, and enables them to stand their ground against this winged as- sassin: yet I have found some of these tubercles upon al- most every elephant and rhinoceros that I have seen, and attribute them lo this cause. All the inhabitants of the sea- coast of Melmda, down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the south coast of the Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion, and remove to the next sand, in the beginning of the rainy season, to prevent all their stock of cattle from being destroyed. Tins is not a partial emigration ; the in- habitants of all the countries, from the mountains of Abys- sinia northward, to the confluence of the Nile, and Astabo- ras, are once a-year obliged to change their abode, and seek protection on the sands of Beja; nor is there any alterna- tive, or means of avoiding this, though a hostile band were in 'their way, capable of spoiling them of half their sub- stance. This fly has no sting, though he seems to me to be rather of the bee kind; but his motion is more rapid and sudden than that of the bee, and resembles that of the gad- fly in England. There is something particular in the sound or buzzingof this insect ; it is a jarring noise, together with a humming, which induces me to believe it proceeds, at least in part, from a vibration made with the three hairs at his snout. (Bruce.) — Burder. Ver. 20. In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them - beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard. By reading what is written on 2 Kings ii. 23, a better view will be gained of the contempt attached to those who were bald, and of the term, as being expressive of the most complete weaknessand destitution. To tell a man you will shave him, is as much as to say you will ruin liira— entirelj overthrow him. " Our king "has shaved all his enemies," means, he has punished them; reduced them to the most abject condition ; so that they have not a single vestige of power in their possession. " What, fellow ! didst thou say thou wouldst shave me'?" " I will give thy benes to the crows and the jackals. Begone, bald-head, get out of my way." The punishment to be inflicted en the Jews was very great : they were lo be shaved on the head, the beard, and " the hair of the feet." The latter expression alludes to a most disgusting practice, common in all parts of the East. Calmet says, "The Hebrews modestly express by feet those parts "which decency forbids to name: 'the water of the feet;' 'to cover the feet ;' 'the hair of the feet.'" Thus the Lord was about to shave the Jews by a razor which they themselves had hired !— Roberts. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. G. Forasmuch ns this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son; 7." Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, erev the king of Assyria, and all his glory : and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks. The gentle waters of Shiloah, a small fountain and brook just without Jerusalem, which supplied a pool within the city for the use of the inhabitants, are an apt emblem of the stale of the kingdom and house of David, much r< diu-nl in its apparent strength, yet supported by the blessing of God ; and are finely contrasted with the waters of the Euphrates, great, rapid, and impetuous; the image of the Babylonian empire, which God threatens to bring down like a mighty flood upon all these apostates of both kingdoms, as a pun- ishment for their manifold iniquities.— Blrder. Ver. 14. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of of fence, to both houses of Israel : for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Torusal»m. Cm ISAIAH. The idea appears to be taken from a sione, or a block of i ui the path ot' Ir.ivrMr-i -., over which ihej fall " Well, friend, did the king grantyon your re- quest!"— " No, no; there whs a lMunt-KaUi,(fi ■ imble, and iatti, a block,) a slnmbliBg- i way." " Just as Valen was attaining the object Of In- wUhiS, that oldstnmbliiK'-l'Inclc, ihe Modcliar, laid nay, and the poor fellow stumbled, and C 11." "Why are you sc dejected this morning V*— I tall over that stambling-block, my pro- tn. '—Roberts. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 3 Thou hast multiplied the nation, and aot increased the joy: they joy before thee accord- ing to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice v, h u they divide the spoil. " Katnlan's wife has at length borne her husband a son, and all the relations are rejoicing together, like n Of harvest." " Are you happy in your new situation V— "Yes; my santosham, my happiness, is greater than that of the time of harvest." " Listen to the birds, how merry they are ; cao they be taking in their harvest 1" — Roberts. Ver. G. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. It is common in the East to describe any quality of p. person by railing him the fatter of the qua I it ii. D'Herbe- ■;■_' of a very eminent physician, says, he did such admirable cures, that* he wassurnamed Aboitl Berekiat, the father of benedictions. The original words of this title of Christ, maybe rendered, the father of that whit 1 is voerlastr ing: Christ, therefore, as the head and introducer of an everlasting dispensation, never to give place to another, was very naturally, in the. eastern style, called [he father of eternity. — Harmer. The'phrase, " shall be called," refers not so much to the remarkable that the original -word, (pela,) here rendered '■ wonderful," is elsewhere rendered" secret." Thus Judg. xiii. 17, 18, " An 1 Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass, we may do thee honour 1 And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after ray name, seeing it is secret, (palal") Here the angel evidently appropri- ates one of the distinguishing titles of the promised Messiah, thus identifying his real character, and while ostensibly refusing to make known his name, does in fact impart one of the must significant and sublime of all his designations. — Bush. Ver. 10. The bricks are fallen down, but we will 'build with hewn stones ; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. The houses of the lower orders in Egypt are in like manner constructed of unbtirnt bricks, or square pieces of clay, baked in the sun, and only one story high ; but those Of the higher classes, of stone, are ge'ncrally two, and sometimes three stories high. These facts are at once a short and lively comment on the words of the prophet : " All the people shall know, even Ephraim, and the inhab- itants of Samaria, that say, in the pride and stoutness of Sricks are fallen down, but we will build with •-: the sycamores are cut down, but we will a into cedars." Bricks dried in the sun, are : :ls for building, compared with hewn slone, which, in Egypt, is almost equal to marble, and forms a strong contrast between the splendid palace and mud- walled cabin. And if, as is probable, the houses of the higher orders in Israel were built with the same species Of ROStly and beautiful stone, the contrast slated by the prophet places the vaunting of his wealthier countrym o in a very strong light. The bo nee of that people is still further displayed by the next tigure: "The sycamores are cat down, but we will change thi m into ce- dars ;" Ibe forests ol sycamore, the w i of which we have been accustomed to emploj in building, are cm down by ui instead ol ilicm we will import cedars, of ant and beautiful wood we will construct and adorn our habitations. Ti» yc.m i e grew ill abundance in tbe low country of Judea, and was not much esteemed; but the cedar was highly valued ; it was brought at a great i v, iih much labour, from the distant and rugged summits of Lebanon, to beautify the dwellings of the great, the palaces uf kings, and the tempi Jehovah. It was therefore an extravagant boast, which betrayed the pride and vanity of then il , 'iat all the warnings, i, and judgments of the living God, were lii- siillieicnl to subdue or restrain. — Paxton. CHAPTER X. Ver. 1. Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed. The manner of making eastern decrees differs from ours : they are first written, and then the magistrate authenticates them, or annuls them. This, I remember, is the Arab manner, according to D'Arvieux. When an Arab wanted a favour of the emir, the way was to .apply to the secretary, who drew up a decree according iodic icqiiest of the party; if the emir granted the favour, he printed his seal upon it; if not, he returned it torn to the petitioner. Sir J. Chardin confirms this account, and applies it, with great propriety. to the illustration of a passage which I never thought ot when I read over D'Arvieux. Alter citing Is. x. 1, Ho unto them thai decree unrighteous deori • that write grievousness, for so our translators have rendered the latter part of the verse in the margin, much more agree- ably than in the body of the version, Sir John goes on, " The manner of making the royal acts and ordinances hath a relation to this: they are always drawn up tic oinej a the request; the first minister, or he whose oltice it is, writes on the side of it, 'according to the king's will,' and from thence it is sent to the secretary of slate, who draws up the order in form." They that consult Vitringa upon the passage, will find that commentators have been perplexed about the latter part of this wo : every one sees the propriety of denoun- cing evil on those thai decree unrighteous judgments ; but it is not very clear why they are threatened that write them; it certainly would be wrong to punish the clerks of our courts, that have no other concern in unjust decrees, than barely writing them down, according to the duty of their place, as mere amanuenses. But according to the eastern mode, we find he that writes or draws up the order at first, is deeply concerned in the injustice, since he expresses matters as "he pleases, and is the source of the mischief; the superior only passes or rejects it. He indeed is guilty if he passes an unjust order, because he ought to have re- jected it ; but a great deal of the guilt unquestionably comes upon him who first draws the order, and who makes'it more or less oppressive to others, just as he pleases, or rather, according to the present that is made him by the party that solicits the order. For it appears from D'Arvieux', that the secretary of the emir drew up no order without a pres- ent, which 'was wont to be proportionate to the favour asked; and that he was very oppressive in his demands. In this view of things the words of the prophet are very clear, and easy to be understood ; and Sir John Chardin, by his acquaintance with the East, proves a much better inter- preter than the most learned western commentators, even celebrated rabbies themselves: for according to Vitringa, Rabbi David Kimchi supposes the judges themselves were the writers the prophet meant, and so called, because they caused others to write unjust determinations: though Vi- tringa admits, that such an interpretation does not well agree with the conjugation of the Hebrew word. — Harmer. Ver. 13. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures. ISAIAH. Chap. 10—13 and I have put down the inhabitants like a val- iant man: 14. And my hand hath found, as a nest, the riches of the people : and as one gatber- eth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth ; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. These are the sentiments and boastings of Sennacherib, a proud Assyrian monarch, who viewed and treated cities just as we in Africa viewed and treated ostrich nests, when the}' fell in our way: we seized the eggs as if they had been our own, becaiuse we had found them, and because there was no power that could prevent us. So did Senna- cherib seize and plunder cities with as little compunction as we seized the eg?s of the absent ostrich ; never thinking of the misery for life which he thereby brought on many peaceable families, who had done nothing to injure or of- fend him. — Campbell. Ver. 19. And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be kw, that a child may write them. Volney remarks, in a note, that there are but four or five of those trees, which deserve any notice ; and in a note, it may he added, from the words of Isaiah, "the rest of the trees of his forest shall be lew, that a childmay write them," p.h. x.(J9. Could not the infidel write a brief note, or state a minute fact, without illustrating a prophecy 1 Maundrell, who visited Lebanon in the end of the seventeenth century, and to whose accuracy in other matters all subsequent trav- ellers who refer to hiin bear witness, describes some of the cedars near the lop of the mountain as " very old, and of a prodigious bulk, and others younger, of a' smaller size." Of the former he could reckon up onlvsixteen. He meas- ured the largest, and found it above twelve yards in girth. Such trees, however few in number, show that the cedars of Lebanon had once been no vain boast. But after the lapse of more than a century, not a single tree of such dimen- sions is now to be seen. Of those which now remain, as visited by Captains Irby and Mangles, there are about fifty in the whole, on a single small eminence, from which spot die cedars are the only trees to be seen in Lebanon. — Keith. Ver. 32. As yet shall he remain at Nob that day : he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. This is a part of the description of the march of Senna- cherib against Jerusalem. When he arrives rfearthe citv, he lifts up his hand and shakes it, to denote that he will soon inflict signal punishment upon it. How often may this significant motion of the hand be seen ; it is done by lifting it up to the height of the head, and then moving it backward and !' rward in a cutting direction. Thus, when men are at so great a distance as to be scarcely able to hear each other's voice, they have this convenient way of making known their threatenings. Sometimes, whenbrawlers have separated, and apparently finished their quarrel, oneof them will turn round and bawl out with all his might, and then shake his hand in token of what he will still do. — Roberts. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 4. But with righteousness shall he. judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth -with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. The application of this figure in the East refers rather to angry expressions, than to a judicial sentence. " The mouth of that man burns up his neighbours and friends." " His mouth ! it has set on fire all the people." — Roberts. Ver. 6- The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. 7. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their young oiws shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8. And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice-den. 9. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. See on Job 20. 14. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 7. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt. This figure appears to be taken from themeltingof wax, or metals. "My heart, my mind, melts for him; I am dissolved by his love." " Alas ! alas ! my bowels are melt- ing within me " ' Ver. 8. And they shall be afraid : pangs and sor- rows shall take hold of them ; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth ; they shall be amazed one at another ; their faces shall be as flames. Great pains are often spoken of as the anguish of par- turition. " Ah ! my lord, I am very ill ; my pains are like those of a woman' when bringing forth her first-born." " Has it come to this 1 am I to bring forth like a woman 1" " He cries like the woman in her agony." " Yes, my friend ; as the pains of a female in child-bearing are pro- duced by sin; so your present sufferings are produces by the sins of a former birth." — Roberts. Ver. 14. And it shall be as the chased roe, (ante- lope,) and as a sheep that no man taketh up : they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land. See on 2 Sam. 2. 10. To hunt the antelope is a favourite amusement in the East ; but which, from its extraordinary swiftness, is at- tended with great difficulty. On the first alarm, it flies like an arrow from the bow, and leaves the best mounted hunt- er, and the fleetest dog, far behind. The sportsman is obliged to call in the aid of the falcon, trained to the work, to seize on the animal, and impede its motions, to give the dogs time to overtake it. Dr. Russel thus describes the chase of the antelope : " They permit horsemen, without dogs, if they advance gently, to approach near, and do not seem much to regard a caravan that passes within a little distance ; but the moment they take the alarm, they bound away, casting from time to time a look behind: and if they find themselves pursued, they lay their horns back- ward, almost close on the shoulders, and flee with incredi- ble swiftness. When dogs appear, they instantly take alarm; for which reason the sportsmen endeavour to steal upon the antelope unawares, to get as near as possible before slipping the dogs ; and then, pushing on at lull speed, they throw off the falcon, which, being taught to strike or fix upon the cheek of the game, retards its course by repeated attacks, till the greyhounds have time to get up." — Burner. Ver. 18. Their bows also shall dash the your..g men to pieces ; and they shall have no pity on tlf fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children. See on 2 Sam. 22. 35. Both Herodotus and Xenophon mention that the Per- sians used large bows; and the latter says particularly, that their bows were three cubits long. Thev were cele- brated for their archers, Jer. xlix. 35. Probably their neighbours and allies, the Medes, dealt much in the same sort of arms. In Psalm xviii. 34, and Job xx. 24, mention is made of a bow of brass. If the Persian bows were oi metal, we may easily conceive that with a metalline bow Chap. 13. ISA of three cubits' length, and proportionably strong, the soldiers h in. I -i.iv ill.' voting iin-ii , ill.' weaker and un- resisting pari of the inhabitants, in the general carnage on taking the city.— Lowtr. Vet. 19. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall In- as when i tod overthrew Sodom and I tomorrah. 20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. II wolfs testimony it appears thai in llie sixteenth century, "there was not a house to be seen." And now er .-i barren ,/, >. ,/. in which the ruins are nearly the only indication that u had evei been inhabited." "It is impossible," add- Major Iveppel, "to behold thisscene, and not to be reminded how cxacllv the pre.li. h ,,l Isaiah md Jeremiah have been fulfilled, even in the ap- pearance Babylon was doomed to present, that she should ■ > -ibilcd ; that 'the Arabian should nol pitch his lent there ;' that she should ' become heaps ;' thai ner cities : ■ desolation, a dry wilderness.''' " Babylon is spurned alike by the heel of the Ottomans, the Israelites, is of Ishmael. It is a Icnanlkss and desolate me- tropolis."— (Mii-nan.) til the Arabian pilch his tent there, neither shall Vu ir fold there, li was prophesied of ouldbeasli We for camels and a couching- : I of Philisti a, thai il should be cottages for shepherds, and a pasture for Hocks. But Babylon was I with a far greater desolation, and to become unfit or unsuiting even for such a purpose. And that neither a tent would be pitched there, even by an Arab, nor a fold made by a shepherd, implies the last degree of solitude and desolation. " It is common in these parts fot\ to make use of ruined edifices to shelter their flocks in." (Mignan.) But Babylon is an exception. In- king the bricks from thcucc, the shepherd might with facility erect a defence from wild beasts, and make a fold for his flock amid the heaps of Babvlon : and the Arab, who fearlessly traverses it by day, might pilch his lent by night. But neither the one nor the other could now be per- suaded to remain a single night among the ruins. The superstitious dread of evil splits, far more than the natural tenor of the wild beasts, effectually prevents them. Cap- ii was accompanied by six Arabs, completely he " could not induce them to remain towards the apprehension of evil spirits. It is impossi- ble to eradicate this idea from the minds of these people, who are very deeply imbued with superstition." And when the sun sunk behind the Mujelibe, and the moon would have still lighted his way among the ruins, it was wi'h infinite regret that he obeyed "the summon! of his the country assert that it is ex- '/ this mound after nightfall, it of the multitude of evil spirits by which it is haunted."— Keith. The s.-i iptures, in describing the mined state into which to be reduced, represent them not un frequently. (Jer. xlix. IS,) as to be so desolated, that no shepherds with flocks should haunt them; which sup- poses they were to be found on the remains of others. This is a proper representation of complete destruction. For in the East it is common for shepherds to make use of remaining rums to shelter their flocks from ihe heat of the middle of Ihe day, and from the dangers of the night. So ..after mentioning the exquisite remains of a Vpollo, in Asia Minor, which were such as that it was inn . conceive greater beauty and ni;i|.'s'v , if ruin, g >es on, " At evening a large flock of goats, returning to the fold, their bells tinkling, spread over the heap, climbing to browse on the shrubs and trees growing between the huge stones." Another passage of the same writer, shows that they make use of ruins also to guard Iheir Bocks from the noon-tide heat. Speaking of Aiasa- luck, generally understood to be Ihe ancient F.phesus, and certainly near the site of that old city, and at least its suc- cessor, he says, " A herd of goats was driven to it for shel- j-s All. 457 ter from the sun at noon; and a noisy flight of crows from the quarries seemed to insult us silence. We heard the partridge call in the area of the theatre and of the stadium. The glorious pomp of its heathen worship is no longer re- in, ml. I.. I; and Christianity, which was there nursed by ap.isil, s, and fostered by general councils, until il to fulness of stature, barely lingers on in an exist I ly visible." This description is very gloomy and melancholy; how- ever, the usefulness of these ruins is such, for Ihe halm.- n of those that lend flocks, that it often prevents a place from being quite desolate, and Continues it among inhabited places, though miserably ruinated. Such is the stale oi Ephesus : it is described by Chandler, as making a very gloomy and melancholy appearance, but as not absolutely without People. "Our horses," says he, "were disposed among the walls and rubbish, with iheir saddles on; and a mat was spread for us on the ground. "We sat here, in the open air, while supper was preparing ; when, suddenly, fires Degan to blaze up among ihe bushes, and we saw lie- villagers collected about them in savage gioiips. or passing to and fro with lighted brands for torches. The flames, with the siars and a pale moon, afforded us a dim pri pect of ruin and desolation. A shrill owl, called cucuvaia, from its note, with a nighthawk, flitted near us; and a jackal cried mournfully, as if forsaken by his companions on the mountain."— Bu'uder. Ver. 21. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall"be full of doleful creatures : and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. See on ch. 34. 13. "Yes; the wretch is now punished for his crimes, and those of his father; dogs and devils are now dwelling in his habitation." The owl, whose native name is anthi, is one of the most ominous birds of the East. Let him only alight upon the house of a Hindoo, and begin his dismal screech, and all the inmates will be seized with great con- siernaiion. Some one will instantly run out and make a noise with his areca-nut cutler, or some other instrument, to affright it away. I recollect one of ihese creatures once flew into the house of a lady when she was in the pains ol parturition : the native servants became greatly alarmed, and run to me, lamenting the fearful omen. I h;id it driven from the bouse; and notwithstanding ihe malignant in- fluence of the feathered \isiter, and the qualms of the do- mestics, all things went on well. On another occasion, I shot one of them which had troubled us on the roof, night by nighi; but as he was only wounded in the wing, I took him into the house, with the intention of keeping him: but the' servants were so uncomfortable, and complained so much at having such a " beast" in the house, I was obliged to send him away. From these statements it will be seen what ideas would be attached to the owls dwelling in the houses of Babvlon. — Roberts. "There are many dens of wild beasts in various parts. There are quantities of porcupine quills, (kephud.) And while the lower excavations are often pools of water, in most of the cavities are numbers of bats and owls. These souterrains, (caverns,) over which the chambers of majesty may have been spread, are now the refuge of jackals and other savage animals. The mouths of their entrances are strewed with the bones of sheep and goats ; and the loath- some smell that issues from most of lliem is sufficient warn- ing not to proceed into the den." (Buckingham.-) The king of ihe forest now rangi * over the site of that Bi bylon which Nebuchadnezzar built for his own glory. And the temple of Belus, the greatest work of man, is now like unlo a natural den of lions. " Two or three majestic lions" were seen upon its heights, by Sir Robert Ker Porter, as he was approaching it ; and "the broad prints of their feet were left plain in the clayey soil." Major Keppel saw there a similar foot-print of a Hon. It is also the unmolested re- treat of jackals, hyenas, and oilier noxious animals. Wild b»asts are " numerous" at the Miijilibc, as well as on Birs Nimmnd. "The mound was full of large holes; we en- tered some of them, and found them strewed with carcasses and skeletons of animals recently killed. The ordure ot wild beasts was so strong, thai prudence got the better of curiosity, for we had no doubt as to the savage nature of the 453 ISA! inhabitants. Our guides, indeed, told us that all the ruins abounded in lions and other wild beasts; so literally has the divine prediction been fulfilled, that wild beasts of the desert should lie there, and their houses be full of doleful creatures; that the wild beasts of the island should cry in their desolate houses." (Keppel.)— Keith. Ver. 22. And the. wild beasts of the island shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged. Europeans are often astonished, in walking through a town or village, to see so many desolate houses, and fre- quently come to improper conclusions, lioinan idea that the place had once a greater number of inhabitants. At half an hour's notice, families may be seen to leave their dwell- ings, never to enter them more. Hence, in almost every di- rection, may be seen buildings with roof-; half fallen in ; with ti tubers hanging in various position-: shutters and doors napping in the wind, or walls half-levelled to the ground. Various are the reason- for u nich the supersti- tious idolater will leave his dwelling: should one of the family die on the fifth day of the new or waning moon, the place must be forsaken for six months; or should the Cobra Capella (serpent) enter the house at the limes alluded to, the people must forthwith leave the house. Does an owl alight on the roof for two successive nights, the inmates will take their departure'; but if for one only, then, by the performance of certain ceremonies, the evilsmaybe averted. Are evil spirits believed to visit the dwelling 1 are the chil- dren often sick 1 are the former as well as the present oc- cupiers unfortunate 1 then will they never rest till they have gained another habitation. Sometimes, however, they call for the sdstre, i. e. magician, to inquire if he can find out the cause of their troubles; when perhaps he says, the walls are tso high, or too much in this or that direction ; and then mav be seen master, servants, children, carpenters, and masons, all busily employed in making the pre.seiihed alterations. But another reason for the desolation in houses is, that a father sometimes leaves the dwelling to two or three of his sons; and then, when the necessary repairs have to be made, one will not do this, another will not do that, till the whole tumbles to the ground.— Roberts. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 8. Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. As we passed through the extensive forest of fir-trees sit- uated between Deir el Kamr and Ainep, we had already heard, at some distance, the stroke of one solitary axe, re- sounding from hill to hill. On reaching the spot, we found a peasant, whose labour had been so far successful, that he had felled his tree and lopped the branches. He was now hewing it in the middle, so as to balance the two halves upon his camel, which stood patiently by him, wailing for his load. In the davs of Hiram, kin? of Tvre, and subse- quently under the kings of Babylon, this romantic solitude was not so peaceful : that most poetic image in Isaiah, who makes these very trees vocal, exulting in the downfall of the destroyer of nations, seems now to be almost realized anew — Yea, the fir-trees re juice at thee, a nil the cedars of Leb- anon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is conic tip against us. — Jowett. Ver. 9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth ; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. The sepulchres of the Hebrews, at least those of respect- able persons, and those which hereditarily belonged to the principal families, were extensive caves, or vaults, excava- ted fioni the native rock by art and manual labour. The roofs of them in general were arched : and some were so spacious as to be supported by colonnades. All round the »ides weie cells for the reception of the sarcophagi ; these *.H. Chap. 14 were properly ornamented with sculpture, and each was placed in its proper cell. The cave or sepulchre admitted no light, being closed by a great stone, which was rolled to the mouth of the narrow passage or entrance. Many of these receptacles are still extant in Judea; two in particular are more magnificent ihan all the rest, and are supposed to be the sepulchres"uf the kings. One of these is in Jerusa lem, and contains twenty-Jour cells; the other, containing twice that number, is in a place without the city.— Bukder. Ver. 16. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? Narrowly to look on and to consider even the view of the Mujelibe, is to see what the palace of Babylon, in which kings, proud as " Lucifer," boasted of exalting themselves above the stars of God, has now become, and how, cut down to the ground, it is broken in pieces. " On pacing over the loose stones, and fragments of brick-work which lay scattered through the immense fabric, and surveying the sublimity of the rums," says Captain Mignan, ;' I naturally recurred to the lime when these walls stood proudly in their original splendour,— when the halls were the scenes of fes- tive magnificence, and when they resounded to the voices of those whom death has long since swept from the earth. This very pile was once the seat of luxury and vice ; now abandoned to decay, and exhibiting a melancholy instance of the retribution of Heaven. It stands alone ; — the soli- tary habitation of the goatherd marks not the forsaken site." — Keith. Ver. 19. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of . those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit : as a carcass trodden under feet. Rather like the abominable tree, meaning that on which criminals were executed. This, in the Roman law, is de- nominated infelix arbor; and Maimonides tells us, that the Jews used to buty it with the criminal'who suffered on it, as involved equally with him in the malediction of their law — Hi-'ider. "Several deep excavations nave been made in different out of Us grave. " Several penetrate it in far into the body of the structure," till it has become as lite raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword. " And some, it is likely, have never yet been explored, the wild beasts of the desert literally keeping guard over them." (Keppel ) "The mound was full of large holes"— thrust Near to the Mujelibe, on the supposed site of the hanging gardens which were situated within the wallsof the palace, " the ruins are so perforated in consequence of the digging for bricks, that the original design is entirely lost. All that could favour any conjecture of gardens built on terraces are two subterranean passages. There can be no do'll t thai both passages are of vast extent : they are lined with bl icks laid in with bitumen, and covered orcrieilh large masses- ,■! stone. This is nearly the only place where stone is ob- servable." Arches built upon arches raised the hanging- gardens from terrace to terrace, till the highest :\ as on a level with the top of the city walls. _No\v they arc tost out Ul • an ■ '■ ikw M ' a.n-l, — and subterranean passages are disclosed— doien In the stones of the pit. " As a caress trod- den under feet." The streets of Babylon were parallel, crossed by others at right angles, and abounded with houses three and four stories highland none can now tra/ersethe site of Babylon, or find any other path, without ( eading them under foot. The traveller directs his couise to 'he highest mounds; and there are none, whether temples or palaces, that are not trodden on. The Mujelibe "ii.es in a seep ascent, over which the passengers can only go up by the winding paths worn by frequent visits to the ruin-d edi- fice.'—Keith. -17. Vn 23. I will also make i: a possession for the bittern, and pooh of water: and I wil with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord ol hosts, What was be going to sweep ' The devoted city of i ,', i I'ln- v.. nil besom is often used, as a figure, to denote the way in which people are swept from the earth. Thus, when the cholera morbus began to ram', it was said, "Alas! alas! it is sweeping us away as with a besom." '• 11,. w is the cholera in your villa-.' !"— '• It has come like besoms." When the people made offerings and sacrifices to the demons who were believed to produce the disease, ia, who was believed to be the devil's agent sometimes said, " Make Mich and such offerings, oi 1 h ill sweep you away with a besom." In the Hindo or almanac, where predictions are given respecting cer- tain months of the year, it is often said, " The year is not good, it brings a besom." — Roberts. Ver. 29. Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, be- cause the rod of him that smote thee is broken : for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent In Egvpi and oilier oriental countries, a serpent was the common symb il of a powerful monarch; it was embroider- ed on the robes of princes, and blazoned on their diadem. to signify their absolute power and invincible might, and thai, as the wound indicted by the basilisk is incurable, so the fatal effects of their displeasure were neither to be avoid- ed nor endured. These are the allusions involved in the address of the prophet, to the irreconcilable enemies of his nation. — Paxton. Ver. 31. Howl, O gate ; cry, O city: thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved :' for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times. Tin's may be in allusion to smoke arising from distant conflagrations, caused bv an advancing desolating army, .he sight of which would greatly alarm the inhabitants of Palestina. I have seen the smoke from mountains, « hose srass and bushes were on fire, at the distance of forty or fifty miles. Or it may refer to clouds of sand or dust raised by troops rapidly advancing to attack them. By this means I have observed the advance of travelling parties, Ion? be- fore they reached us, from the cloud of sand raised by the movement of the oxen. Game is also frequently discovered by the same means.— Campbell. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 1. The burden of Moab. Because in the niirht Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence : because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence. See on Jer. 40. 1—28. CHAPTER XVI. Ver 2. For it shall be, that as a wandering bird cast out of the n-'st, so the daughters of Moab shall be at the fords of Arnon. The figure appears to be taken from a young bird being thrown out of the nest before it is able to fly, and which ly wanders about for a place of refuge. "Well, Tamban, what has become of your profligate son V — " I Know not, my friend, because I have turned him out of the nest.™ " Why. my boy, have youcometothisdistant coun- try'!"— " Because my relations turned me out of the nest." "Alas forme! alas for me!" says the bereaved mother; 1: my young one has taken to the' wins; it has flown from the nest." " I have only one left in the nest ; shall I not take care cf it V " I should like to get into that nest ;" says the young man who wishes to marry into a high and rich family. " Ah ! my lord, dismiss me not from your service . VII. 459 to whom sbj ploymeDti I have many chil- dren, « ho n ill be suflen rs if 1 leai e j ou w bo w ill put fire to the lair ol the Ah I my lord, mm me not away; 1 shall be like a hud wandering from its nest." — I CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 6. Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three ber- uppermost hough, four or five iii the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Loud God of [srael. The vinlager cuts down the grapes from the vine with a sharp hook or sickle; but the olive was sometimes beaten off the tree, and sometimes shaken. The former method is mentioned by Moses, in one of his precepts: "When thou beaten, thine olive-tree, thou shall not go over the in; il shall be for the Stranger, lor 'he father- less, and tor the widow." The latter is marked by the prophet Isaiah ; ''Vet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, i" ol an olr e tree | tw hree be lop of the uppermost bough, lour or five in il utmost fruitful bra in- In' thcict. -ai:h the I I I b„l of Israel." It in in a -I hum i. of di\ in, j , i ( I •_■ 1 1 1 < ■ 1 1 1 s , by the 1 1 : " When thus it shall be in the d the people, Ihere shall be as the shaking of an d ." The conjecture oi I l,u in, r. on these qu, lations, in which the shaking of the olive-tree is n i-,l wiih the grapes, is nol improbable, "that the shaking of tl live-tree does not indicate an improvement made I mode i,l' gathering them; or different methi ds of pi lure b, differ, n' | c pie, in the and country, « hd po es ed olivi yards; bm rather expressed the difference betweei the main crop by the owners, and the way in which the poor collected the lew olive-berries that were left, and which, by the law of Muss, they Mere permitted to lake" The custom of beating the nine with long poles; tomake the frail fall, is -till followed in -omc parts ol Italy. Thi? foolish itici In id, besides hurling the plant, and sp( : branches that would bear the year following, makes the ripe and unripe fruit fall indiscriminately, and bruises a great deal of both kinds, by which ihcy becooue rancid in the heaps, and give an iil-navoured oil. Such is the statement of the Abbot Fortis, in his account of Dalmalia; we ere not then to wonder, lhal in llie time of Moses, when ihe art of cultivation was in so simple and unimproved a state, beating should have been the common way of gathering olives by the owners, who were disposed io leave, we may lew as possible, i i .-n by their law io go over the branches a second time. Bui snaking them appears to have been sufficient, when lliev h: d Lung till they were fully ripe; and was therefore practised by the poor, or by strangers, who were either not provided with such long poles as the owners possessed, or did not find them necessary. Indeed, it is noj improbable, that the owners were well aware of the injury done to the olive- tiees bv beating, although they practised it, because it was the most effectual way of gathering the fruit with which they were acquainted; and might therefore prohibit the pom- and the stranger to collect the gleanings in that man- ner: they were on that account reduced, to the necessity of shaking the olive-berries from the tree, how ineffectual a be die method, or remain without them. The main crop, then, seems to have been taken from the olive by beating, and the gleanings uniformly by shaking. Under this conviction, Dr. Louth has, with great judgment, trans- lated the sixth verse of the seventeenth chapter of Isaiah: A gleaning shall be left in it, as in the shaking of the olive- tree. — Paxton. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 2. Thatsendeth ambassadors by the sea, ernea in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their be- ginning hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled ! " In order lo pass along the Nile, the inhabitants have recouise totheeoiitrivanceof afloat, made ot'large earthen pitchers, tied closely together, and covered with leaves of palm-trees. The man that conducts it, has commonly in his mouth a cord, wilh which he fishes, as he passes on." (Norden.) Egmoiil and Heyman saw some small floats, u>ed by the Egyptian fishermen, consisting of bundles of reeds, floated by calabashes. " My palanquin bearers now found no difficulty in fording the stream of the Dahder ; the last time I crossed, it was with some danger on a raft placed over earthen pots, a contrivance well known in modern Egypt, where they make a float of earthen pols, tied together, covered with a, platform of palm-leaves, which will bear a considerable weight, and is conducted without difficulty." (Forbes.) — Burder. Ver. 6. They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth : and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. See on 1 Sam. 13. 18. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 5. Prepare the table, watch in the watch- tower, eat, drink : arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield. The ancient warrior did not yield to the moderns in Keeping his armour in good order. The inspired writer often speaks of furbishing the spear, and making bright the arrows; and the manner in which he expresses himself m relation to this part of the soldier's duty, proves that it was generally and carefully performed. But thev were particularly attentive to their shields, which they took care frequently to scour, polish, and anoint with oil. The ori- ental soldier seems to have gloried in the dazzling In. tie of his shield, which he so highly valued, and upon winch he engraved his name and warlike exploits. To produce the desired brightness, and preserve it undiminished, he had recourse to frequent unction ; which is the reason of the prophet's invitation : " Arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield." As this was done to improve its polish and brightness, so it was covered with a case, when it was not n use, to preserve it from becoming rusty. This is the reason the prophet says, " Kir uncovered the shield." The words of David, already quoted, from his lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, may refer to this practice of anoint- ing the shield, rather than anointing the king : " The shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though it had njt been anointed with oil:" the I being a supplement, the version now given is perfectly agreeable to the original text. — Paxton. Strange as it may appear, the Hindoos make offerings lo their weapons of war, and to those used in hunting. Fishermen offer incense to the bag in which they carry their fish, and also to the net; thus, while the incense is burning, they hold the different implements in the smoke. They also, when able, sacrifice a sheep or a fowl, which is said to make the ceremony more acceptable to Varuna, the god of tne sea. Should the tackle thus consecrated not prove successful, they conclude some part of the ceremony has not been properly performed, and therefore must be repeated. But in addition to this, they often call for their magicians to bless the waters, and to intercede for prosper- ity. Nor is this sacrificing to implements and weapons confined to fishermen, hunters, and warriors, for even artisans do the same thing to their tools ; as also do students and scholarsto their books. Thus, at the feast called nara- ratere, i. e. the nine nights, carpenters, masons, goldsmiths, weavers, and all othef tradesmen, may be seen offering to their tools. Ask them a reason, and they say the incense and ceremonies are acceptable to Sarusa-pattii, the beauti- fu' goddess of Braraa. — Roberts. Ver. 9. And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he an- swered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; AH. Chap. 21. and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. This is a prophecy, and yet speaks as if the event to which it relates had been already accomplished. In Jere- miah, also, li. 8, it is said, " Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed." David says, " Thou hast smitten all mine enemies." Dr. A. Clarke says, " That is, thou wilt smile I" He speaks in full confidence of God's interference, and knows that he shall as surely have the victory, as if he had it already. In these selections the PASTiense is used instead of the future. He who came from Edom. with died gar- ments from Bozrah, is made to say, " I will slain all my rai- ment." Dr. A. Clarke has, " And I have stained." In this instance, therefore, the future is used for the past, Ps. lxix :— " Let their table become a snare before them; and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not ; and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thv wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate ; and' let none dwell in their tents." Dr. Boolhroyd renders these imprecations in the future, because he believes the whole to refer to judgments thai .should fall on the enemy. Dr. A. Clarke says, " The execrations here, and in the fol- lowing verses, should be read in the future tense, because they are predictive, and not in the imperative mood, as if they were the offspring of the Psalmist's resentment." It is common in eastern speech, in order to show the cer- ium v i , any tiling which shall- be done, to speak of it as having been already accomplished. Thus the Psalmist, in speaking of the iniquities of bad men as having already received their reward, evidently alludes to the certainty of future punishment. It is therefore of the first impor- tant' to Know in what tense the verb is meant, as that alone will give a irtie view oflhe intention of the wriler. In the Tamil! language the past tense is often elegantly used for the future: thus, in the Nan-nool (the Native Grammar) this distinction is beautifully illustrated. Does a note re- quire to be taken to another' place in a very short time, the messenger, on being charged not to loiter on the way, re- plies. " Nan rrin'kii vuttaix," i. e. "I have already re- turned:" whereas he has not taken a single step of his journey. "My friend," asks the priest, "when do you intend lo go to the sacred place and peiform your vows?" " Nan pmic ban-Main," i. e. "I have been and returned," which means he is going immediately. "Carpenter, if you are not quick in fini-hiug that car, Ihe gons will be angry wilh you."— "My lord, the work is already done;" when perhaps some months will have to elapse before the work can be finished. But they also use the past for the future, to denote cehtanty as well as speed. Do the ants begin lo runabout wilh their eggs in their mouth, it is said, " iiniIlii-pa-iMjattu," it has rained, though a single drop has not fallen on the ground. The meaning is, the sign is so certain, that all doubt is removed. " Why does that man go lo the village 1 Does henot know the cholera is sweeping as a besom 1 Alas! alas! avron-ckelu pnncn ; he is already dead ;" which means, he will certainly die. Should the friends of a young man inquire whether he may go to sea, Ihe soothsayer says, (if the signs are. unfavourable.) " He is already drowned." But the future is also used instead of the past, as in the case of the deliverer from Bozrah : " I will stain," for " I have stained." Should a man re- fuse to obey an officer, and inquire, "Where is the order of the kingl" the reply is, "He will command," which strongly intimates it lias been done, and that other conse- quences will follow. (1 Sam. iii. 13.) See margin, 1 Kings iii. 13; also vi. 1; and xv. 25. 2 Kings viii. 16. Dan. ii. 28 ; also iii. 29 ; for all of which see marginal readings. See Dr. A. Clarke on Matt. iii. 17; also xxvi. 28, blood is shed, for will be shed.— Roberts. Ver. 11. The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night ? watchman, what of the night? The Orientals employed watchmen to patrol the city during the night, to suppiess any disorders in the streets, or to guard the walls against the attempts of a foreign ene- my. To this custom Solomon refers in these words : " The Chap. -22. IS \ I A 1 1 4G1 watchmen thai went about the city round me, ibey smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of tii<= wall took away my veil from me." This custom may be traced to a verj remote :iii'n|iiii\ ; s,, rniv as the departure of Israel from the land of Kgvpt, the morning watch is menl tainry indicating the lime when the watchmen were com- i i Persia, the watchmen were obliged to indcmnilV those who were robbed in the streets ; which ac- counts foi the vigilance and severity which they display in i je of their office, and illustrates the i I watchman given n> I'.zekiel, who lived in ihat country, and the duties he was required to perforin. If the wicked per- ished in his iniquities without warning, the prophet was to be accountable for his blo.nl ; but if he duly pointed out his danger, he delivered his own soul. These terms, there- neiiher harsh nor severe ; they were the com- mon appointments of watchmen in Persia. They were also charged to announce the progress of the night to the slumbering city; " The harden or Dumah : he calls to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night ! The watchman said. The morning Com- eth, and also the night." This is confirmed b, tion of Charditi, upon these words of Moses; " For a thou- sand yents in thy sight are bill as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch i"n the nigh; ;" that as (he people of the East have no clocks, the several parts of the day and of the night, which are eight in all, are announced. In the Indies, the parts of the night are made known, as well bv instruments of music, in great cities, as by the rounds of the watchmen, who, with cries and small drums, give them notice that a fourth part of the night is past. Now, as these cries awa- ked those who had slept all that quarter part of the night, it appeared to them but as a moment. There are sixty of these people in the Indies bv div, and as many by night; that is. fifteen for each division. It is evident the ancient Jews knew, by means of some public notice, how the night- watches passed away ; but, whether they simply announced the termination of the watch, or made "use of trumpets, or other sonorous instruments, in making the proclamation, it may not be easy to determine ; and still less what kind of chronometers the watchmen used. The probability is, that the watches were announced with the sound of a trumpet ; for the prophet Ezekiel makes it a part of the watchman's duty, at least in lime of war, to blow the trumpet, and warn the people. — Pax-ton. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 1. The burden of the valley of vision. What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the house-tops ? The houses in the East were in ancient times as thev are still, generally, built in one and the same uniform manner. The roof or'top of the house is always flat, covered with broad stones, or a strong plaster of terrace, and guarded on every side with a low parapet-wall. The terrace is fre- quented as much as any part of the house. On this, as the season favours, they walk, they eat, thev sleep, they trans- act business, they perform their devotions. The house is built with a court within, into which chieflv the windows open; those that open to the street are so obstructed with lattice-work, that no one either without or within can see through them. Whenever, therefore, anything is u> h- seen or heard in the streets, everyone immediately goes up to the house-top to satisfy his curiosity. In the same man- ner, when any one had occasion to make any thing public, the readiest ami most effectual wav of doing it, was to proclaim it from the house-tops to the people in the streets. — Lowtii. Ver. 8. And he discovered the covering of Judah, and thou didst look in that day to the armour of the house of the forest. The editor of the Fragments subjoined to Calmet's Dic- tionary of the Bihle, thus renders and explains this passage: He rolled up, turned back, the covering of Judah, as the covering veils, hanging at the door of a house or tent, are rolled up, for more convenient passage, and did look, in- spect carefully, the arms and weapons of the house ..f the "orest. The ideas contained in this interpretation are apt- d ui the following extract from Frazer's Histo- rj ■ Mt Is , ,ii 1 , Khan : " .Nadu Shah, ha\ nig taken Delhi, or- dered Sirbullind Khan to attend the Towpehi Bashi, the master of the ordnance; and the Nissikchi Bachi, head regulator, commissary of seizures, who had each two hun- . i.. seize all the king's and the omra's ordnance, thi '" ' ary, jewels, toishik-khanna, (the arsenal,') and all the other implements and arms that belonged to the empe- ror, and the deceased omras; and to send to Mahommed Shah, the captive emperor, his son, Sultan Ahmed, and Malika al '/umani, (the queen of the times,) the Nadir Shah took away ihc ordnance, ellecls, and treasure." May not such a conduct in a conqueror justify the allu- sion supposed to be intended in this representation of the prophet; for what is this but rolling back what covered the privacy of the conquered stale, and prying inlo the hou.se of its armoury. — Burder. Ver. 1G. What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that hewed him out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth a habita- tion for himself in a rock? The Orientals burv without the walls of their cities, unless when they wish to bestow a distinguishing mark < f honour upon the deceased. For this reason, ihe sepulchres of David and his family, and the tomb of Huldah the prophetess, were within the city of Jerusalem; and perhaps the only ones to be found there. The sepulchres of the Hebrews, that were able to afford the necessary expense, were extensive caves or vaults, excavated in the native rock, by the art and exertions of man. The roof's were generally arched ; and some were so spacious as to be supported by colonnades. All round the sides were cells for the reception of the sarcophagi ; these were ornament- ed with appropriate sculpture, and each was placed in its proper cell. The cave or sepulchre admitted no light, be- ing closed by a great stone which was rolled to the mouth, by the narrow passage or entrance. Many of these recep- tacles are still extant in Judea ; two in particular are more magnificent than all Ihe rest, and for that reason supposed to be the sepulchres of the kings. One of these is in Jeru- salem, and contains twenty-four cells; ihe other, containing twice that number, is without the city. "You are to form to yourself," says Lowth, speaking of these sepulchres, "an idea of an immense subterraneous vault, a vast gloomy cavern, all round the sides of which are cells to receive the dead bodies ; here the deceased monarchs lie in a dislin- guished sort of slate, suitable to their former rank, each on his own couch, with his arms beside him. his sword at his head, and the bodies of his chiefs and companions round about him." " Whoever," says Maundrell. " was buried there, this is certain, that the place itself discovers so great an expense, both of labour and of treasure, that we may well suppose it to have been Ihe work of kings. You approach it at the east side through an entrance cut out of the natural rock, which admits you into an open court of about forty paces square, cut down inlo the rock, wilh which it is encom- passed instead of walls. On the south side of the court, is a portico, nine paces long, and four broad, hewn likewise out of the rock. This has a kind of architrave running along its front, adorned wilh sculpture of fruits and flowers, still discernible, but by time much defaced. At the end ot Ihe portico on the left hand, you descend to Ihe passage into the sepulchres. Passing through it, you arrive in a large apartment about seven or eight yards square, cut oui ..) the natural rock. Its sides and ceiling are so exactly square, and its angles so just, lhat no architect with levels and plummets cculd build a room more regular; and ihe whole- is so firm and entire, that it may be called a chamber hol- lowed out of one piece of marble. From this room you pass into six more, one within another, all of the same fabric as the first. Of these the two innermost are deeper than Ihe rest, having a second descent of about six Dr seven steps into them. In every one of these rooms, except the first, were coffins of stone placed in niches in the sides ot the chambers. Thev had been at first covered with haud- some lids, and carved wi'h garlands; but now most of them are broken lo pieces bv sacrilegious hands. The sides and ceilings of the rooms were also drooping with ihe moisl 462 ISAJ damps condensed upon them ; to remedy which nuisance, and to preserve these chambers of the dead polite and clean, there was in each room a small channel cut in the floor, which served to drain the drops that fell constantly into it. To these sepulchres, and their interior chambers, one within another, the wise man, bv a bold and striking figure, compares the dwelling of a lewd woman: " Her house is the way to hades;" her first or outer chamber is like the open court that leads to the tomb, " going down to the chambers of death;" her private apartments, like the sepa- rate recesses of a sepulchre, are the receptacles of loath- some corruption ; and he calls them, in allusion to the solidity of the rock in which they are hewn, the " long horne,"(=V>? r\-3)beth olam, the house of ages. The higher such sepulchres were cut in the rock, or the more conspic- uously they were situated, the greater was supposed to be the honour of reposing there. " Hezekiah was buried in the chiefest," says our translation ; rather, in the highest part " of the sepulchres of the sons of David," to do him the more honour. The vanity of Shebna, which so much displeased the Lord, was discovered in preparing for him- self a sepulchre in the face of some lofty rock : " What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth a habitation for him in a rock." Several modern travellers mention some monuments still remaining in Persia of great antiquity, which gave them a clear idea of Shebna's pompous design for his sepulchre. They consist of several tombs, each of them hewn in a high rock near the top; the front of the rock to the valley below, being the outside of the sepulchre, is adorned with carved work in relief. Some of these sepulchres are about thirty feet in the perpendicular from the valley. Diodorus Siculus mentions these ancient monuments, and calls them the sepulchres of the kings of Persia. The tombs of Telmissus, in the island of Rhodes,' which Dr. Clarke visited, furnish a still more remarkable commentary os this text. They "are of two kinds; the first are sepulchres hewn in the face of perpendicular rocks. Wherever the side of a mountain presented an almost inaccessible steep, there the ancient workmen seem to have bestowed their principal labour. In such situations are seen excavated chambers, worked with such marvel- lous art, as to exhibit open facades, porticoes with Ionic columns, gates and doors beautifully sculptured, in which are carved the repiesentation of an embossed iron work, bolts and hinges of one stone. " The other kind of tomb is the true Grecian soros, the sarcophagus of the Romans. Of this sort there are several, but oi a size and grandeur far exceeding any thing of the kind elsewhere, standing in some instances upon the crag- gy pinnacles of lofty precipitous rocks. Each consists of a single stone, others of still larger size, of more than one stone. Some consist of two masses of stone, one for the body, or chest of the soros, and the other for its operculum ; and to increase the wonder excited by the skill and labour manifested in their construction, they have been almost miraculously raised to the surrounding heights, and there left standing upon the projections andcrags of the rocks, which the casualties of nature presented for their reception. At Macri, the tombs are cut out of the solid rock, in the precipices towards the sea. Some of them have a kind of portico, with pillars in front. In these they were almost plain. The hewn stone was as smooth as if the artist had been employed upon wood, or any other soft substance. They most nearly resemble book-cases, with glass doors. A small rectangular opening, scarcelv large enough to pass through, admits a stranger to the interior of these tombs ; where is found a square chamber, with one or more recep- tacles for dead bodies, shaped like baths, upon the sides of the apartment, and neatly chiselled in the body of the rock. The mouths of these sepulchres had been originally closed by square slabs of stone, exactly adapled to grooves cut for their reception; and so nicely adjusted, that when the work was finished, the place of entrance might not be observed. Of similar construction were the sepulchres of the Jews in Palestine, and particularly that in which our Lord was buried. Many of these have the appearance of being in- accessible ; but by dint of climbing from rock to rock, at he risk of a dangerous fall, it is possible to ascend even to lie highest. Tney are fronted with rude pillars, which A.H. Chap. 22 are integral parts of the solid rock. Some of them arc twenty feet high. The mouths of these sepulchres are closed with beautiful sculptured imitations of brazet cr iron doors, wiih hinges, knobs, and bars." This intelligent traveller visited a range of tombs of tne same kind on the borders of the lake of Tiberias, hewn by the earliest inhabitants of Galilee, in the rocks which face the water. They were deserted in the time of our Saviour, and had become the resort of wretched men, afflicted by diseases, and made outcasts of society ; for these tombs are particularly alluded to in the account of a cure performed upon a maniac in the country of the Gadarenes. The tombs at Naplose, the ancient Sichevn, where Joseph, Josh- ua, and others, were buried, are also hewn out of the solid rock, and durable as the hills in which they are excavated. Constituting integral parts of mountains, and chiselled with a degree of labour not to be conceived from mere descrip- tion? these monuments sutler no change from the lapse of ages; they have defied, and will defy, the attacks of time, and continue as perfect at this hour, as they were in the of their completion. — Paxton. Ver. 17. Behold, the Lord will carry thee away with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover thee. To be covered is a sign of mourning, of degradation, and inferiority. People in great sorrow cover their faces with their robes; thus may be seen the weeping mother and sorrow-struck father: they cover themselves from the sight of others, to conceal their dejection and tears. But when people are ashamed, also, they cover their heads and faces. For a man to say he will cover another, intimates supe- riority, and shows that he will put him to confusion. "Yes, the man who was brought up and nourished by the Mode- liar, is now greater than his benefactor, for he covers him." "L' ok at that parasitical banyan tree ; when it first began to grow on the other tree, it was a very small plant, but it has been allowed to flourish, and now it covers the parent slock." Thus, those who were to be carried into captivity, were to be covered, in token of their sorrow, degradation, and inferiority. — Roberts. Ver. 22. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder : so he shall open, and none shall shut ; and he shall shut, and none shall open. How much was I delighted when I first saw the people, especially the Moors, going along the streets with each his key on his shoulder. The handle is generally made of brass, (though sometimes of silver,) and is often nicely worked in a device of filigree. The way it is carried, is to have the corner of a kerchief tied to the ring; the key is then placed on the shoulder, and the kerchief hangs down in front. At other times thev have a bunch of large keys, and then they have half on one side of the shoudler, and half on the other. For a man thus to inarch along with a large key on his shoulder, shows at once that he is a person of consequence. " Raman is in great favour with the Modeliar, for he now carries the key." " Whose key have you got on your shoulder 1" " I shall carrv my key on my own shoulder." The kev of the house of David was to be on the shoulder of Eliakim, who was a type of him who had the "govern- ment" " upon his shoulder;" "the mighty God, the ever- lasting Father, the Prince of Peace." — Roberts. Ver. 23. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house. When a man in power has given a situation to another, it is said of the favoured individual, " He is fastened as a nail." " Yes, his situation is fixed, he will not be moved." "What! has Tamban lost his glory 1 I thought he had been fastened as a nail."— Roberts. The Orientals, in fitting up their houses, were by no means inattentive to the comfort and satisfaction arising from order and method. Their furniture was scanty and plain ; but they were careful to arrange the few household utensils they needed, so as not to encumber the apartments Chap. 24. ISA 10 which they belonged. Their devices fur this purpose, pan of the structure, bore the character ■'.!■' simplicity, may not correspond with our iiid propriety ; but I i.l -uiliciently answered their design. One of .1 !u ; ■ Omer, on the first conquest of Jerusale i I medans, erected a mosque on the site of the temple ol Sol- omon ; and, jealous as the God of Israel is, that his glory be not given to another, the unseemly, and violent, and bloody conteniions among Christian sects, around the very sepulchre of the Author of the faith which they dishonour, bear not a feebler testimony in the present da preceding fact bore, at so remote a period, to the truth of ihi? prediction. The phrensied zeal of crusading Christ) ns could not expel the heathen from Judea, thongh Eur ipe then poured like a torrent upon Asia. But the d only by oppressive rulers, but by an unprincipled and a lawless people. " The barbarism of Syria," says Volney, " is complete." " I have often reflected," says lYurckhar.it. in describing the dishonest conduct of a Greek priest in the hauran, (but in words thai admit of too general a'n applica- tion,) " that if the English penal laws were suddenly pro- iii this country, there is scarcely any man in business, or who has money-dealings with othei would not be liable to transportation before the end of fhe first six months. Under the name of Christianity, every degrading superstition and profane rite, equally remote from the enlightened tenets of the gospel, and the dignity of human nature, are professed and tolerated. The pure . : [ of ( lirist. everywhere the herald of civilization and !-■ almost as little known in the Holy Land, as in California or New Holland. A series of legendary traditions, mingled with remains of Judaism, and the wretched fantasies of illiterate ascetics, may now and a glimmering of heavenly light; but if we seek for the effects of Christianity in the Land of Canaan, we must look for that period when the desert shall blossom as the rose, and the wilderness become a fruitful field."- Keitu. V. r. 6, Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are 1 urn* ed. and few men left. " The government of the Turks in Svria is a pure mili- tary despotism, thai is, the bulk of the inhabitants are subject to the caprices of a lac-ion of armed men, who dis- 464 ISA pose of every thing according to their interest and fancy. In each government the pacha is an absolute despot. In the villages, the inhabitants, limited to the mere necessaries of life, have no arts but lliose without which they cannot subsist. There is no safety without the towns, nor security within their precincts." (Voiney.) " Few men left." While '.heir character is thus depraved, and their condition mis- erable, their number is also small indeed, as the inhabitants of so extensive and fertile a region. After estimating the number of inhabitants in Syria in general, Voiney remarks, •' So feeble a population in'so excellent a country, may well excite our astonishment ; but this will be increased, if we compare the present number of inhabitants with that of ancient times. We are informed by the philosophical geographer, Strabo, that the territories of Yanmia and Y op- pa, in Palestine alone, were formerly so populous as to bring forty thousand armed men into the field. At present they could scarcely furnfsh three thousand. From the ac- counts we have of Judea, in the time of Titus, which are to be esteemed tolerably accurate, thai country must have contained four millions of inhabitants. If we go still fur- ther back into antiquity, we shall find the same populous- ness anion? the Philistines, the Phenir-ians, and in the kingdoms of Samaria and Damascus." Though the ancient population of the land of Israel be estimated at the lowest computation, and the existing population be rated at the highest, yet that country does not now contain a tenth part of the number of inhabitants which it plentifully supported, exclusively I'rora their industry, and from the rich resources of its own luxuriant soil, for many successive centuries ; and how could it possibly have been imagined that this identical land would ever yield so scanty a subsistence to he desolate dwellers therein, and that there would be so few men left ?— Keith. Ver. 13. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive-tree, and as the glean- ing-grapes when the vintage is done. See on eh. 17. 6. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 6. And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees ; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. See on ch. 51. 17. In the East they keep their wine in jugs, from which they have no method of drawing it off fine: it is therefore com- monly somewhat thick and turbid, by the lees with which it is mixed : to remedy this inconvenience they filtrate or strain it through a cloth, and to this custom, as prevailing in his time, the prophet here plainly alludes. — Burder. Ver. 10. For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill. Dr. A. Clarke has, " for the dunghill," " under the wheels of the car." This may allude to their ancient ears of war, under which Moab was to be crushed, or under her own heathen cars, in which the gods were taken out in procession. To spread forth the hands, as a person when swimming, may refer to the involuntary stretching forth of the limbs, when the body was crushed with the weight of the car ; or to the custom of those who, when they go before the car in procession, prostrate themselves on the ground, and spread out their hands and legs as if swimming ;' till they have measured the full distance the car has to go, by throwing themselves on the earth at the length of every six feet, and by motions as if in the act of swimming. The wkolc of this is done as a penance for sin, or in compliance "W'ii a vow made in sickness or despair. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXVI. Ver. 19. Thy dead men shall live, together with AH. Chap. 24—27. my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thj dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. As they sometimes plant herbs and flowers abo. the graves ot the dead, so Dr. Addison observed, thai the jews ol Barbary adorned the graves of their dead in a less last- ing manner, with green boughs brought thither from time to time; might nut this practice originate from the doctrine oUhe resurrection 1 perhaps from that well known passage ot a prophet: " Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they aiise. Awake anil sing, ye that dwell in dust: tor thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Is. xxvi. 19. Or if it was practised still earlier, might not this passage have re- ference to that custom 1 It is admitted, that the practice' ob- tained among thosethat entertained no expectation of a resur- rection, but in the language of St. Paul sorrowed as peo- ple that had no such hope. The ancient Greeks practised this decking the graves of their dead, but it might notwith- standing originate from that doctrine, and be adopted by those of aditlerent belief, as having something in it softening the horrors of viewing their relatives immersed in the dust"; and might be thought to be agreeable by those that entered into medical considerations, as correcting those ill-scented and noxious exhalations that might arise in those burial places, to which their women, more especially, were fre- quently induced to go, to express their attachment to the departed. Maillet supposes the modern Egyptians lay leaves and herbs on the graves of their friends,' from a no- tion that this was a consolation to the dead, and believed to be refreshing to them from their shade. The women there, according to him, go, " at least two days in the week, to pray and weep at the sepulchres of the dead; and the cus- tom then is to throw upon the tombs a sort of herb which the Arabs call rihaa, and which is our sweet basil. They cover them also with the leaves of the palm-tree." If they use any other plants for this purpose in Egypt, he has neg- lected to mention them. — Harmer. CHAPTER XXVII. Ver. 10. Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wil- derness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof. Josephus describes Galilee, of which he was the governor, as " full of plantations of trees of all sorts, the soil univer- sally rich and fruitful, and all, without the exception of a single part, cultivated by the inhabitants. Moreover," he adds, " the cities lie here very thick, and there are very many villages, which are so full of people, by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contained above fif- teen thousand inhabitants." Such was Galilee, at the com- mencement of the Christian era, several centuries after the prophecy was delivered ; but now " the plain of Esdraelon and all the other parts of Galilee which afford pasture, are occupied by Arab tribes, around whose brown tents the sheep and lambs gambol to the sound of the reed, which at nightfall calls them home." The calf feeds and lies down amid the ruinsof the cities, and consumes, without hinder- ance, the branches of the trees; and, however changed may be the condition of the inhabitants, Me lambs fce mill consists of a wheel turned by oxen, and which sets several levers in motion : at their extremity is an iron cylinder, near a foot long, and hollowed out underneath. They beat in troughs which contain the grain. At the side of each trough there con- ned ; for he would run a risk of crushed. After this operation, the rice is taken out of the mill, and sifted in the open air ; which is done by filling a small sieve with as much grain as a man can lift; this he raws above his head, and gently spills the rice, turning his face to the wind, which blows away the small chaff or dust. This cleaned rice is put a second time in the mill, in order to bleach it. It is afterward mixed up in troughs with some salt, which contributes very much to its white- ness, and principally to its preservation ; it has then under- gone its whole preparatory process, and in this state it is sold."— Haemer. CHAPTER XXIX. Ver. 1. Wo to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where Da- vid dwelt! add ye year to year ; let them kill sacrifices. The numbers that assembled at Jerusalem must of course consume great quantities of provision. The consumption of flesh also must there have been much larger, in propor- tion to the number of the people, than elsewhere ; because in the East they live in common very much on vegetables, farinaeious food, oil, honey, &c; but at Jerusalem vast quantities of flesh were consumed in the sacred feasts, as well as burnt upon the altar. Perhaps ihis circumstance will best explain the holy city's being called Arid, or the Lion of God, Isaiah xxix. 1: an appellation which has oc- casioned a variety of speculation among-the learned. Vi- tringa. in his celebratedeommentary on Isaiah, supposes that David, according to the eastern custom, was called the Lion of Goo, and so this city was called by this name from him ; a resolulionby no means natural. The Arabs, indeed, in later ages, have often called their great men by this honourable term; D'Herbelot, I think, somewhere tells us, that Ali, Mohammed's son-in-law, was so called; and I Sin sure he affirms, that Mohammed gave this title to Hamzah, his uncle. It will be readily allowed that this was comform- able to the taste of much more ancient times. " The mo- dern Persians will have il," says D'Herbelot, in his account t)f Shiraz, a city of that country, " that this name was given to it, because this city consumes and devours like a lion, which is called Sico in Persian, all that is brought to it, by iwfoich they express the multitude, and it may be the good appetite, of its inhabitants." The prophet then pronounces wo to Zion, perhaps as too ready to trust to the number of its inhabitants and sojourn- ers which may be insinuated by this term which he uses, And. — IIarmer. Ver 3. And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts afrainst thee. Moveable towers of wood were usually placed upon the mount, which were driven on wheels fixed within the bottom planks, to secure them from the enemy. Their size was not always the same, but proportioned to the towers of the city they besieged, the front was usually covered with tiles, and in laler times the sides were likewise guarded with the same materials ; their tops were covered with raw hides, and other things, to preserve them from fire balls and missive weapons; they were formed into several stories, which were able to carry both soldiers and several kinds of engines." All these modes of attack were practised in the days of Isaiah, who threatens Jerusalem wilh a siege eon- ducted according to this method: "And I will encamp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee wilh a mount ; and I will raise forts against thee." The prophet Ezekiel repeats the prediction in almost the same words, adding only the name of the engine which was lo be employed in battering down the walls : " Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and por- tray up. m it the city, even Jerusalem ; and lay siege against it, and cast a mount against it ; set the camp also against it ; and set battering rams against it round about.'' — Pax- ton. Ver. 8. It shall even be. as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth ; but he awa- ketb, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh ; but he awaketh. and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite : so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount circumstance will be agreeable. "The scarcity of water was greater here at Bubaker than at Benown. Day and night the wells were crowded with cattle lowing, and 'fight- ing with each other to come at the trough. Excessive thirst made many of them furious : others being too weak to con- tend for the water, endeavoured to quench their thirst by devouring the black mud from the gutters near the wells'; which they did with great avidity, though it was commonly fatal to them. This great scarcity of water was fell by ail the people of the camp; and by none more than myself. 1 begged water from the negro slaves that attended the camp, but with very indifferent success: for though 1 let do op- port unity slip, and was very urgent in my solicitations both to the Moors and to the negroes, I was but ill supplied, and frequently passed the night in the situation of Tantalus. No sooner had I shut my eyes, than fancy would convey ivie lo the streams and rivers of my native land ; there. as'I wan- dered along the verdant bank, I surveyed the clear stream with transport, and hastened to swallow the delightful draught; but, alas! disappointment awakened me, and I found myself a lonely captive, perishing of thirst amid the wilds ef Africa." (Park.)— Birder. Ver. 17. 7s it not yet a very little while, and Leb- anon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest ? The storms and tempests which, gathering on the highest peak of Lebanon, burst on the plains and "valleys below, are often very severe. When De la Valle was travelling in the neighbourhood of that mountain, in the end of April, a wind blew from its summits so vehement and cold, with so great a profusion of snow, that though he and his com- pany " were in a manner buried in their quilted coverlets, yet it was sensibly felt, and proved very disagreeable." It is not therefore w-ithout reason that Lebanon, or the white mountain, as the term signifies, is the name by which that lofty chain is distinguished ; and that the sacred wriiers so frequently refer lo the snow and the gelid waters of Leba- non. They sometimes allude to it as a wild and desolate region ; and certainly no part of the earth is more dreary and barren than the Sannin, the region of perpetual snow. On that naked summit, the seat of storm and tempest, where the principles of vegetation are extinguished, the art and industry of man can make no impression ; nothing but the creating power of God himself, can Toduce a favourable Chap. 30—32. ISA alteration. Thus, predicting a \\ nderful change, sacfa aa results from the signal manifestations of the d:\ me tavo in- to individuals or ilu- church, the prophet demands " la " not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into' a fruitful field!" The contrast in this promise, be- ii. iked, snowy, and tempestuous summits of Le- .1 field beautiful and enriched with the fairest and most useful productions of nature, expresses, with great finer, tin' diifereiiee which the smiles ot Heaven produce 9 retched and hopeless circumstances of an indi- vidual or a nation.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXX. Ver. 14. And he shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit. This solemn threatening refers to the Jews for their wicked relian in the shadow of Egypt :" they were to be reduced to the greatest straiis for thus "trusting in the heathen. It is proverbial to sav of those who have been robbed, and left •n destitute circumstances, "They have not even a potsherd, not a broken c/iuttu in their possession." To appreciate this idea, it must be remembered that nearly all their cook- ing utensils, all their domestic vessels, are made of earthen- ware : so that not to have a potsherd, a fragment left, shows the greatest misery. Even Job, in all his poverty and wretch- edness, wasn.it so" destitute, for he had "a potsherd to scrape himself withal."—" A sherd to take fire from the hearth." This allusion may be seen illustrated every morning in the East. Should the good woman's fire have 'been extinguish- ed in the night, she takes a potsherd in the morning, and goes to her neighbour for a little fire to rekindle her >u n ; and as she goes along, she may be seen every now and then blowing the burning ember, lest it should go out. They were not to have a sherd, out of which they could drink a little water. Not having pumps, they are obliged to have something to take water from the well or tank. Of a very poor countrv, it is said, " In those parts there is not a sherd out of which you can drink a little water." " The wretchedness of the people is so great, they have not a sherd with which to take water from the tank." — Roberts. Ver. 21. The oxen likewise, and the young asses that ear the ground, shall eat clean provender which hath been winnowed with the shove! and with the fan. See on 1 Kings 4. 01. Tho^e who form their opinion of the latter article by an English fiv, will entertain a very erroneous notion. That of the East is made of the fibrous part of the palmirah or cocoa-tree leaves, and measures about a yard each way. Thus may be seen the farmer waiting away the chad' from the corn, having the round part of the fan in his hand : and thus may be seen the females in the morning, tossing in the husk' from their rice. (See on Jer. xv. 7.)— Robbhts. In these words, the prophel foretels a/season of great plenty, when the cattle shall be fed with corn better in quality, separated from the chaff", and (as the 'crin rendered dean in our version, properlv signifies) acidulated, in older to fa- der it m^re grateful to their taste. The evangelist clearly refers to the'practice, which was common in every part of Syria, of ploughing with the ass, when he calls him, ito£i- vcn>, a creature subject to the yoke. In rice-grounds, which require to be flooded, the ass was employed to prepare them for the seed, bv treading them with his feet. It is to this method of preparing the ground, that Chardin so prophet to allude when he says. " Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass." They shall be blessed under the future reign of the promised Messiah. In times anterior to his appear- ing, their country was to be made a desolation ; briers and •' ins were to 'encumber their fields; their sumptuous elltngsweretobe cast down; their cities and strongholds levelled with the dust. But when Messiah commences his reign times of unequalled prosperity shall begin their ca- AH. 467 recr. The goodness of Jehovah shall descend in fertilizing their fields, and to swell tbi which the skill and industry of the husbandman conducts among Ins plantations, or with which he covers his rice- grounds. Serine from the ruinous incursions of aliens, and in the. sure hope of an abundant harvest, he shall scatter his rice on the face of the superincumbent water, and tread it into the miry soil with " the feet of the ox and the ass." Prosperous ami happy himself, he will consider it his duty, and feel it his delight', " to do good and to communicate,"— to succour the widow and the fatherless, to open his il s to the si ranger, to diffuse around him the light of truth, and to swell, by the diligent and prudent use of all the means that Providence has brought 'within his reach, the sum of human enjoyment.— Paxton. Ver. 29. Ye shall have a song, as in the night token a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the mighty One of Israel. Music is considered far more enchanting at night than at any other period; "it gives cheerfulness to darkness, and pleasure to the heart." Their favourite proverb is, "the day song is like the flower of the gourd," t. c. devoid of smell. Nothing is more common than for ade.'.ts to sing them 'Ives to sleep : thus, as thev recline, they beat a tabret and chant the praises of their gods, till through heaviness they can scarcely articulate a word. At other times the mother or wife gently taps the instrument, and in soft tones lulls the in- dividual to repose. In the night, should they not be able to sleep, they have again recourse to the same charm, and not until they shall have fairly gone oil' in fresh slumbers, will their companions have any rest. Hence, in passing through a village or town at midnight, may be heard people at their night I v song, to grace the festive scene, to beguile away their time, to charm their fears, or to procure refreshing'sleep. The Jews then were to be delivered from the proud As- syrian's yoke, and again to have their pleasant song in the night.— Roberts. CHAPTER XXXII. Ver. 2. And a man shall be as a hidinsr-placc from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place ; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary hind. " Ah 1 that benevolent man, he has long been my shel- ter from the wind ; he is a river to the dry country."— Roberts. "Well does the traveller remember a day in the wilds ot Africa, where the country was chiefly covered with burn- ing sand ; when scorched with the pewerful rays of an almost vertical sun, the thermometer in the shade stand- ing at 100°.— He remembers long looking hither and thither for something that would afford protection from the almost insupportable heat, and where the least molion of air felt like flame coming against the face. At length he espied a huge loose rock leaning against the front of a small clifFwhich faced the sun. At once he fled for refuge underneath its inviting shade. The coolness emitted from this rocky canopy he found exquisitely exhilarating. The wild beasts of the desert were all fled to their dens, and the feathered songsters were all roosting among the thickest foliage they could find of the evergreen-trees. The whole creation around seemed to groan, as if their vigour had been entirely exhausted. A small river was providentially at band, to the side of which, after a while, he ventured, and sipped a little of its cooling water, which lasted better than the best burgundv, or the finest old hock, in the world. During all this enjoyment, the above apropos text was the interesting subject of the traveller's meditation ; though the allusion, as a figure, must fall infinitely short of that which is meant lo be prefigured by it— Campbell. The shadow of a great projecting rock i* the most it freshing that is possible in a hot country, not only as most perfectly excluding the ravs of the sun,' but also having in itself a natural coolness, which it reflects and communicate." to every thing about it. — Lowtu. 468 ISA Ver. 1 3. Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers, yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city: 14. Because the palaces shall be forsaken ; the multitude of the city shall be left ; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks. See on Job 39. 5. Ver. 20. Blessed are ye that sow beside all wa- ters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass. See on ch. 30. 24. The various kinds of grain, which they commonly sow in the Holy Land, are frequently mentioned in the sacred volume ; and the correctness of the statement is attested by modern historians. Oats are not cultivated near Aleppo; but Dr. Russel observed some fields of them about Antioch, and on the seacoast. The horses are fed universally with barley ; but lucern is also cultivated for their use, in the spring. The earliest whear is sown about the middle of October; other grain, among which are barley, rye, and Indian millet, continue to be sown till the end of January ; and barley, even so late as the end of February. The Persian harrow consists of a large rake, which is fastened to a pole, and drawn by oxen. InHindostan, it is like an or- dinary rake with three or four teeth, and is drawn by two oxen. Similar to this was probably the Syrian harrow. But in Palestine, the harrow is seldom used, the grain be- ing covered by repassing the plough along the edge of the furrow; and in places where the soil is sandy, they first sow, and then plough the seed into the ground. It appears, from the prophecies of Isaiah, that besides the more valua- ble kinds of grain, several aromatic seeds were sown ; as the sesamum, coriander, and cummin. These the Orientals sprinkled upon their bread, to give it a more agreeable flavour. Rice is trodden into the ground by the feet of oxen; a practice seemingly alluded to by the prophet, in these words; " Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass." This, according to Chardin, answers exactly the manner of plant- ing rice : for they sow it upon the waters; and before sow- ing, while the earth is covered with water, they cause the ground to be trodden by oxen, horses, and asses, to prepare it for receiving the seed. As they sow the rice on the water, so they transplant in the water; for the roots of this plant must be kept continually moist, to bring the rice to matu- rity. Two bushels and a half of wheat or barley are sufficient to sow as much ground as a pair of beeves will plough in one day ; which is, a little more or less, equal to one of our acres. Dr. Shaw could never learn that Barbary afforded yearly more than one crop; one bushel yielding ordinarily from eight to twelve, though some districts may perhaps afford a much greater increase, for it is common to see one grain produce tenor fifteen stalks. Even some grains of the Murwany wheat, which he brought with him to Oxford, and sowed in the physic garden, threw out each of them fifty. But Muzeratty, one of the kaleefas, or viceroys of the province of Tlemsan, brought once with him to Algiers, a root that yielded fourscore, telling Dr. Shaw and his party, that in consequence of a dispute concerning the re- spective fruitfnlness of Egypt and Barbary.theEmirHadge, or prince of the western pilgrims, sent once to the bashaw of Cairo, one that yielded sixscore. Pliny mentions some that bore three or four hundred. It likewise happens, that one of these stalks will sometimes bear two ears, while each of these ears will as often shoot out into a number of lesser ones, affording by that means a most plentiful increase. And may not these large prolific ears, when seven are said to come up upon one stalk, explain what is mentioned of the seven fruitful years in Egypt, that the earth brought I kern forth by handfuls 1 — Paxton. The emigrants that went from England some years ago to the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, were chiefly lo- cated in a district called Albany, on the confines of Ca'ffra- ria. Many of them were ruined by not literally attending to the contents of this text. They were not sufficiently aware of the indispensable necessity of water, or at least *.H. Chap. 32—34 moisture under ground, to render fields at all productive in a hot and dry climate. They ploughed land, and dug a deep ditch round each field, as they were accustomed to do in England; with the mould dug from ittheyfoimed a mud wall, which made all look very pretty and farmer-like. Dutch boors from a distance came to see what they were about. They told them their fields were too far from the river ;_ that unless they could lead water upon them, they must riot expect to have any harvest. Looking at the neat ditch that surrounded the field, thev inquired what this was fori For defence, was the reply. "Yes," said the boors, "it will defend your field from receiving any moist- ure from the surrounding ground;" and, shaking their heads, said " That is a bad defence." From the high ideas they had of their own superior knowledge of agriculture, they only smiled at the remarks made by the Alrican far- mers. The rainy season came, when the grain sprang up, and made rapid progress while that season lasted; but lo the sun returned from its northern circuit, dispelled the clouds, and darted forth its unimpeded fiery rays, which soon caused the surface of the ground to become as hard as a brick, consequently the grain withered and died, and cleanness of teeth, for want of bread, was in all their ham- lets that season 1 But had there been plenty of water to lead over their fields, the crops would probably have been most abundant. The expression, "sending forth the feel of the ox and the ass," seems to refer to the practice said still to prevail in the East, where these animals are em- ployed to tread the thin mud when saturated with water, to fit it for receiving the seed. Should there be a river there, a fountain here, and a pool elsewhere, it is far wiser to have the fields near, than aea distance from any of these . Sometimes God gives peculiarly happy spiritual seasons 'o countries, or districts in countries, causing the river of life abundantly to flow, and streams from it extensively to spread its influence: then the wise husbandman will hasten to scatter his seed, in cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and among individual families, in expectation of a rich har- vest, from the well watering of the garden of plants.— CHAPTER XXXIII. Ver. 11. Ye shall conceive chaff; ye shall bring- forth stubble : your breath as fire shall devour you. When married females quarrel, they often say, "Yes, thy womb shall give children, but they shall all be as chaff." "Yes, barren one, you may have a child, but it will be blind and dumb." " True, true, you will bring forth a pdmbu-relke," i. e. a generation of serpents. — Rob- erts. Ver. 21. But there the glorious Lord trill be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams ; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. In such a highly cultivated country as England, and where great drought is almost unknown, we have not an opportunity to observe the fertilizing influence of a broad river ; but in South Africa, where almost no human means are employed for improving the land, the benign influence of rivers is most evident. The Great, or Orange River, a remarkable instance of this. I travelled on its banks at one time, for five or six weeks; when, for several hun- dred miles, I found both sides of it delightfull\"covered with trees of various kinds, all in health and and abundance of the richest verdure; but all the country be- yond the reach of its influence was complete desert. Every thing appeared struggling for mere existence; so that we might be said to have had the wilderness on one side, and a kind of paradise on the other. — Campbell. CHAPTER XXXIV. Ver. 7. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls: and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. See on Ps. 2-2. 12, 15. Chap. 35— 3S. ISAIAH. CHAPTER XXXV. Ver. 6. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. See on Ps. 18. 33. I . n in s and dumbness are the uniform effects of long (Talking in a desert ; the sand and gravel produce the l"i lie the latter. In such cases some of us have walked lueii's ingeiher without Uttering a sentence; and all walked as it' crippled, from the sand and gravel •.•riling into the shoes ; but the sight of water, especially if unex- pected, unloosed every tongue, and gave agility to every limb; men, oxen, goals, sheep, and dogs, ran with speed anil expressions of joy to the refreshing element.— Camp- bell. Ver. 7. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land spring's of water : in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall 3, with reeds and rushes. Instead of the parched ground, Bp. Lowth translates it, the glowing sand shall become a pool, and says in a note, that the word is Arabic as well as Hebrew, expressing in both Languages the same thing, the glowing sandy plain, which in the hot countries at a distance has the appearance of water. It occurs in the Koran, (cap. xxiv.) ■■ But as to the unbelievers, their works are like a vapour in a plain which the thirsty traveller ihinketh to be water, until, when he cometh thereto, he findeth it to be nothing." Mr. Sale's note on this place is, the Arabic word serai signifies that false appearance, which in the eastern countries is often seen in sandy plains about noon, resembling a large lake of water in motion, and is occasioned by the ation of the sunbeams. It sometimes tempts thirsty travel- lers out of their way, but deceives them when they come near, either going forward, (for it always appears at the same distance,) or quite vanishes.— Burder. CHAPTER XXXVII. Ver. 24. By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon ; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir-trees thereof : and I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of his Carmel. At six o'clock we again set forward, and passing near the church, the priest, a venerable old man, with a flow- ing beard, was standing on the threshold, and courteously saluted us. Our road, somewhat better than yesterday, continued gradually to rise, and we were now fairly within that long elevated chain which has borne, from the' earliest ages, the name of Lebanon. We had felt a great anxiety to see the celebrated cedars, which are supposed to be the remains of the ancient forests that once entirely clothed these heights. Hitherto we had been allured forward by our guides, with the promise of soon reaching them, but we now discovered that we had been purposely deceived, and ought to have taken another road, in which case the village of Eden, in their immediate vicinity, would have afforded us a more commodious halting-place. After leaving Balbec, and approaching Lebanon, towering wal- nut-trees, either singly or in groups, and a rich carpet of verdure, the offspring of numerous streams, give to this charming district the'air of an English park, majesti- cally bounded with snow-tipped mountains. At Deir el Akmaar the ascent begins — windin? among dwarf oaks, hawthorns, and a great variety of shrubs and flowers. After ome hours of laborious toil, a loaded horse slipped near t.e edge of a precipice, and must inevitably have perished, if a servant, with great presence of mind, had not cut the girths, and saved ihe animal, at the expense of most o!' the stores, and the whole of the crockery. Vain were the lamentations over fragments of plates and glasse-, broken bottles, and spilt brandy and wine, in an impover- ished country, where nothing that contributes to comfort can be replaced. Seven hums were spent in attaining the summit of the mountain after leaving the village. The view on both sides was splendid. — A deep bed ol snow had now to be crossed, and the horses sunk or slipped at every moment. To rule was impracticable, and to walk danger- ous, for the melting snow penetrated 1 is, ami out feet I trozen. An hour and a half brought us to the cedars. Seven of the most ancient still remain. They are considered to be coeval with Solomon, and therefore 'held sacred. Rude altars have been erected near them, and an annual Christian festival is held, when worship is per- formed beneath their venerable branches. Other cedars, varying in age and size, form around them a protecting grove. We reckoned every tree with scrupulous care. Many, indeed, have sprung lip from ancient roots, but enu- merating all that present independent trunks, including the patriarchal trees, they amount to three hundred and forty- three. At a quarter of an hour from the cedars is the vil- lage of Beesharry, a lovely, romantic spot, on the brink of a deep glen. — Hogg. Ver. 27. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb : as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up. See on Ruth 2. 4. Ver. 29. Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into mine ears ; therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou earnest. It is usual in the East to fasten an iron ring in the nose of their camels and buffaloes, to which they tie a rope, by means of which they manage these beasts. God is here speaking of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, under the image of a furious refractory beast, and accordingly, in allu- sion to this circumstance, says, / Kill put my hook in thy nose. — Burder. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Ver. 12. Mine arre is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. Hezekiah makes use of a simile, in that hymn of his which Isaiah has preserved, that appeared, many years ago, very perplexing to a gentleman of good sense and learning, who resided intone of the most noted towns of the kingdom for weaving. He could not conceive, why the cultingshort the life of that prince, should be compared to a weaver's culling off a piece from his loom when he had finished it, and he and everybody that saw it in that state expected it as a thing of course. He consulted those that were ac- quaint! with the manufactory, but could gain no satisfac- tion. Perhaps it may appear more easy to the mind, if the simile is understood to refer to the weaving of a carpet, filled with flowers and other ingenious devices : just as a weaver.after having wrought many decorations into apiece of carpeiins, suddenly cuts it off, while the figures were rising into view as fresh and as beautiful as ever, and the spectator is expecting the weaver would proceed in his work; so, after a variety of pleasing and amusing transac- tions in the course of my life, suddenly and unexpectedly it seemed to me that it was come to its period, and was just going to be cut off. Unexpecledness must certainly be in- tended here. — Harmer. The shepherds of the East are often obliged to remove their flocks to distant places to find pasturage ; hence their habitations are exceedingly lisht, in order to be the more easily removed. The "lodge in a garden of cucumbers." and the frail rest ins-place of the shepherd, greatly resrml.l- each other. — Roberts. ISAIAH. Ver. 14. Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chat- ter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppress- ed ; undertake for me. No bird is more ncisy than the crane ; and none utters a harsher note. The prophet, however, applies the verb (qss) tsaphtsaph, which signifies to chatter, to the loud and scream- ing crvof this bird ; l'or which Mr. Harmer proiesses him- self unable to account. " The word tsaphtsaph," says he, " translated chatter, appears to signify the low, melancholy, interrupted voice of the complaining sick, rather than a chattering noise, if we consult the other places in which it is used : as for the chattering of the crane, it seems quite inexplicable." But the difficulty had not, perhaps, appear- ed so great, if this respectable writer had observed that the connective Van is wanting in the original text, which may be thus considered: " As a crane, a swallow, so did I chat- ter." The two nouns are not, therefore, necessarily con- nected with the verb tsaphtsaph, but admit the insertion of another verb suitable to the nature of the first nominative. The ellipsis maybe supplied in this manner: "Asacrane, so did I scream, as a swallow, so did I chatter." Such a supplement is not, in this instance, forced and unnatural ; for it is evidently the design of Hezekiah to say, that he expressed his grief after the manner of these two birds, and therefore suitably to each ; and he uses the verb tsaphtsaph, which properly corresponds only with the last noun, to :~ T, ■ ' , • .. , ' ■ .1.- J.... »~ M.nnl.. Ilinw rich „n, leaving the reader to supply sponds with the other. It is also the manners of the the verb perfectly agreeame to t tie manners 01 tne cast, wneie sonow i.s ex- pressed sometimes in a low interrupted voice, and anon in loud continued exclamations. The afflicted monarch, therefore expressed his extreme grief after the manner of the Orientals, in loud screams like the crane, or in low in- terrupted murmurings like the swallow. According to some writers, the verb under consideration signifies the note of any bird, and by consequence may with equal propriety be employed to denote the, loud scream of the crane, or the melancholy twitter of the swallow; if this be so, the difficulty admits of an easy solution. — Paxton. Ver. 17. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness : but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption : for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Jeroboam preferred " molten images" to the true God, and therefore the Lord said unto him by Ahijah, thou "hast cast me behind thy back." The Levitessaid of the children of Israel, they " rebelled against thee, and east thy law behind their backs." The Lord said of the wicked cities of Samaria and Jerusalem, "Thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back." This metaphor, to cast behind the back, is in common use, and has sometimes a very offensive sig- nification. The expression is used to denote the most com- plete and contemptuous rejection of a person or thing. "The king has cast his minister behind his back," ?'. e. fully re- moved him, treated him with sovereign contempt. " Alas ! alas! he has thrown my petition behind his back; all my efforts are defeated." "Yes, man, I have forgiven you ; ail your ;rimes are behind my back ; but take care not to offend CHAPTER XL. Ver. 3. The voice of him that crieth in the wil- derness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low : and /he crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. When a great prince in the East sets out on a journey, it is usual to send a party of men before him, to clear the way. The state of those countries in every age, where roads are almost unknown, and from the want of cultivation in many oarts overgrown with brambles, and other thorny plants, which renders travelling, especially with a large retinue, very incommodious, requires this precaution. The empe- ror of Hindostan, in his progress through his dominions, as described in the narrative of Sir Thomas Roe's embassy to the court of Delhi, was preceded by a very great company, sent before him to cut up the trees and hushes, to level and smooth the road, and prepare their place of encampment. Balin, who swayed the imperial sceptre of India, had five hundredchosenmen,in rich livery, with their drawn sabres, who ran before him, proclaiming his approach, and clear- ing the way. Nor was this honour reserved exclusively for the reigning emperor ; it was often shown to persons of royal birth. When an Indian princess made a visit to her father, the roads were directed to be repaired, and made clear for her journey ; fruit-trees were planted, water-ves- sels placed in the road-side, and great illuminations pre- pared for the occasion. Mr. Bruce gives nearly the same account of a journey, which the king of Abyssinia made through a part of his dominions. The chief magistrate of every district through which he had to pass, was, by his office, obliged to have the roads cleared, levelled, and smoothed ; "and he mentions, that a magistrate of one of the districts having failed in this part of his duty, was, together with his son, immediately put to death on tliespot, where a thorn happened to catch the garment, and interrupt for a moment the progress of his majesty. This custom is easily recognised in that beautiful prediction: " The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain ; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." We shall be able, perhaps, to form a more clear and precise idea, from the account which Diodorus gives of the marches of Semiramis, the celebrated queen of 'Babylon, into Media and Persia. In her march to Ecbatane, says the historian, she came to the Zarcean mountain, which extending many furlongs, and being full of craggy precipices and deep hollows, could not be passed without taking a great compass. Beingthere- fore desirous of leaving an everlasting memorial of herself, as well as of shortening thewav,she ordered the precipices to be digged down, and the hollows to be filled up ; and at a great "expense she made a shorter and more expeditious road ; which to this day is called from her, the road of Semiramis. Afterward'she went into Persia, and all the other countries of Asia subjected to her dominion; and wherever she went, she ordered the mountains and the precipices to be levelled, raised causeys in the plain coun- try, and at a great expense made the ways passable. Whatever may be in this story, the following statement is entitled to the fullest credit : " All eastern potentates have their precursors and a number of pioneers to clear the road, by removing obstacles, and filling up the ravines, and the hollow ways in their route. In the days of Mogul splendour, ihe emperor caused the hills and mountains to be levelled, and the valleys to be filled up for his con- venience. This beautifully illustrates the figurative lan- guage in Ihe approach of trie Prince of Peace, when every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." — Paxton. Ver. 11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. See on Ezek. 25. 5. One of the great delights in travelliaw through a pastoral country, is to see and feel the force of the beaunlul imagery in the scriptures. borrowed from pastoral life. All day long the shepherd attends his flock, leading them into " greeB pastures" near fountains of water, and chooses a convenient place for them to " rest at noon." At night he drives them near his tent, and if there is danger, encloses them m the fold. They know his voice and follow him. When travel- ling, he tenderly watches over them, and comes writ as tne erhauslei) in his arms. Such a shepherd is the Loin Jesus Christ. See John x — Rev. R. Anderson's loun tiirocgh The shepherds of antiquity were " an abomination unto Cit.w. in ISAIAH. ;;i ihe.Kivpii-ins," and 50 ihey are among the Hindoos; and as the Egyptians would not eat'with the Hebn ther will the various castes of India sal with their shi p- henls. Tin' pastoral office in the Kasi is Car moi •iible than in England, and ii is only by looking al 11 in its various relations and peculiarities, as ii exists there, thai •vi} .'.nil -i view of many passages of scripture. Flooksai home are generally in fine fields, sunn led bj hedges or fences; but there they are generally in the m it ii d were it not lor the shepherds, would goaslray, and be exposed to die wild beasts. As the sons of Jacob at distance to feed their Socks, SO Still -a absent for one and two months Ii i aere there is plenty of pasturage. In their re- movals, it is an interesting sight to see llie sin , tying the lambs in their bosoms, ami also to witness how gently they " lead those that are with young." Another interesting fact is the relationship which exists betwixt the us Bock; for being so much together, they ac- quire a friendly feeling : hence the sheep " know his voice, and B stranger Will Ihey not follow." D#es he wish to re- move lu another place, he goes to such a distance as that they can hear his voice, and then he imitates the aoi made by a sheep, and immediately they may be seci. hound ing along to the spot where he is. Thus " he gocih before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice." But another way of leading a flock, especially whin- there '■' ii of a tree, and "keep showing i! to theiii, which causes them to run along more cheerful- ly. He also calleth " his own sheep by name," and it is in- teresting to notice how appropriate the names are to the animals. Thus, should a sheep or a cow have a bad tem- per, (or any other failing,) it will be called the angry one, the malicious, or sulky, or wandering one; the killer of he* young, the fiend; llie mad one, the jumper, the limper, the dwarf, the barren, the fruitful, the short, the fat, the long, the tricky one. The cows also are named after some of their goddesses, particularly after the wives of Siva, Vishnoo,"and Scandan; thus Lechymy, Parvati, and Val- le. n.ay be heard in every herd. To bulls are given the names of men and devils ; as, Vyraven, Pulliar, M&lhan, &:. Before the sun shall have gained his meridian, the shepherds seek out a shady place, where they may make their links " o rest at noon." As the shepherd « ho mount- ed the throne of Israel carried his sling and his stone, so these generally have the same missiles by which they cor- rect the wanderers, and keep off their foes: hence the dog i, scarcely ever used in the tending or guiding of flocks. As was Jacob, so here the shepherds are often remunerated in kind, and therefore have not any other wages, (except now and then a little cloth or rice ;) "hence, often, a certain number of the rams are given as pay, and to this also the patriarch may allude : " The rams of thy flocks have I not eaten." In most of ihese particulars we see illustrations of Him who "is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel," who laid prostrate the " roaring lion" of hell, and who keeps us in safety, so that the foe cannot pluck us out of his hand. — Roberts. Ver. 12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains ill scales, and the hills in a balance? Here we have a vivid illustration of the dignified and gorgeous imagery of the East. " What man can take up the waters of the unknown dark ocean in his hands'!" " Whose lingers are long enough to span the arch of heav- en !" " Who can bring together all the dust of the earth in a measure I" " Who can weigh the hills and mountains in scales I" These figures largely show the insignificance of man. — Roberts. Ver. 16. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-of- fering;. The stupendous size, the extensive range, and great ele- vation of Libanus; its towering summits, capped with per- petual snow, or crowned with fragrant cedars; its olive plantations; its vineyards, producing the mosi delicious w iiii-s ; ii- . '. ■ mg I. looks ; its fer- nle wile, and oiii.i ifi ions s|,i uliliei i. ' mil I 'ii n- to form in Si'iipinie laiii'iiai'i-. 'lie '-:l»ry Ol Lebanon." But that glory, li ble to change has, by I hi u mous consent of modern travell I iffered a en ible decline. The eiten- ■ ■ii, m hn h adorned and perfumed the irnrii . , n. I i'.'i l\ mi" "I lb".'' Inolllilain . be ! i inlva small niiinbei ol'ihese " irei ol I li •', i.il," winch, according to the usual import of llie phrase, signally displayed the divine [on i, and j dness, now remain. Their count- less number in the days of Solomon, and their i rodigiou bulk, must be recollected, in ordei lo feel ihe toice ol mat sublime declaration of the prophet: " Lebanon is noi siiiii- cieiu to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt- ofl'ering."— P.ixton. Ver. 24. Yea, they shall not be planted : yea. they shall not be "sown : yea, their stock shall not' take root in the earth: and he shall also Mow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall lake them away as stubble. Whirlwinds occasionally sweep along the country in an extremely frightful manner, carrying away in their vortex, sand, branches, and stubble, anil raising them to an im- mense height in the air. Very sinking is the allusion which Ihe prophet makes to this phenomenon : " lie shall also blow upon them, and ihey shall wither, and ihe whirl- wind shall lake them away as slubble." "With equal force and beamy, the Psalmist refers lo ihe rotatoiy acti, the whiilwim'l, which frequently impels a bit of straw, over1 the wasie, like a wheel set in rapid motion : "O my God. make ihem like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind." Sometimes it comes from no particular point, but moves about in every direction. Mr. Bruce, in his journey through the desert of Senaar, bad the singular felicity i i i- plate this wonderful phenomenon in all its terrifii without injury, although wilh considerable danger and alarm. In that vast expanse of desert, from west and lo northwest of him, he saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, moving at times with great ce- lerity, at others, stalking on with majestic slowness; at intervals he thought they were coming in a very few min- utes to overwhelm him and bis companions. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There ihe lops often sepa- rated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and appeared no more. Sometimes ihey were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon- shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon them, ihe wind being very strong al north. Eleven of ihese awful visiters ranged alongside of ihem about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to him, al that distance, as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from them with a wind at southeast, leaving an impression upon Ihe mind ol our intrepid traveller to which he could give no name, though he candidly admits thai one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and asionishment. He declares it was in vain to think of living; ihe swiftest horse, or faste-t sailin? ship, could be of no use to carry them oni "f ihis danger; and the full persuasion of this riveted him to the spot where he stood. Next day they were gratified wiih a similar display cf moving pillars, in form and disposition like those already described, only they seemed to be more in number and less in size. They came several limes in a direction close upon them; that is, according to Mr. Bruce's computaiion, within less than two miles. They became, immediately after sunrise, like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun : his 1 1 through them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of tire. At another lime ihey were terrified by an army (as it seemed) of these sand pillars, whose march was constantly south ; a number of which seemed once lo be coming direcllv upon them ; and though ihey were little nearer lhan two miles, a considerable qnantif .f sand fell around them. On ihe twenty-first of November, about eight in the morning, he had a view of the desert m ih- westward as before/and ihe sands had already rise in immense twisted pillais, which dail.ened the heav 17; ens, and moved over the desert with more magnificence than ever. The sun shining through the pillars, which were thicker, and contained more sand apparently than any of the preceding days, seemed to give those nearest them an appearance as if spoted with stars of gold. A little before twelve, the wind at north ceased, and a con- siderable quantity of tine sana rained upon them for an hoar afterward. To this species of rain, Moses was no stranger ; he had seen it, and felt its effects in the sandy deserts of Arabia, and he places it among the curses that were, in future ages, to punish the rebellion of his people ; " The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust : from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed."— Paxton. CHAPTER XLI. Ver. 15. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp thrashing instrument having teeth : thou shalt thrash the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. The manner of thrashing corn in the East differs essen- tially from the method practised in western countries. It has been fully described by travellers, from whose writings such extracts are here made, and connected together, as will convey a tolerable idea of this subject. In Isaiah xxviii. 27, "28, four methods of thrashing are mentioned, as effected by different instruments: the flail, the drag, the A'ain.andthe treading of the cattle. The staff, or flail, was used for the uijirmiora senium, says Hieron, the grain that was too tender to be treated in the other methods. The drag consisted of a sort of frame of strong planks, made rough at the bottom with hard stones or iron ; it was drawn by horses or oxen over the corn-sheaves spread on the floor, the driver silling upon it. The wain was much like the former, but had wheels with iron teeth, or edges like a saw. The axle was armed with iron teeth, or serrated wheels throughout: it moves upon three rollers, armed with iron teeth or wheels, to cut the straw. In Syria they make use of the drag, constructed in the very same manner as above de- scribed. This not only forced out the grain, but cut the straw in pieces for fodder for the cattle, for in the eastern countries they have no hay. The last method is well known from the law of Moses, which forbids the ox to be muzzled when he treadeth out the corn. Deut. xxv. 4. (Lowth.) " In thrashing their corn, the Arabians lay the sheaves down in a certain order, and then lead over them two oxen, dragging a large stone. This mode of separa- ting the ears from the straw is not unlike that of Egypt." (Niebuhr.) "They use oxen, as the ancients did, to beat out their corn, by trampling upon the sheaves, and drag- ging after them a clumsy machine. This machine is not, as in Arabia, a stone cylinder, nor a plank with sharp stones, as in Syria, but a sort of sledge, consisting of three rollers, fitted with iror.s, which turn upon axles. A farmer chooses out a level spot in his fields, and has his corn car- ried thither in sheave-, upon asses or dromedaries. Two oxen are then yoke' in a sledge, a driver gets upon it, and drives them backwards and forwards (rather in a circle) upon the sheaves, and fresh oxen succeed in the yoke from time to time. By this operation the chaff is very much cut down; the whole is then wmr owed, and the pure grain thus separated. This medt of 'lnsiung out the corn is tedious and inconvcn- = it i, destroys thechaff, and injures the quality "f the gram." (Ibid.) In another place, Niebuhr tells us tha "two parcels oi- layers of corn are thrashed out in a day; and they move each of them as many as eight times with a wooden fork of five prongs, which they call meti- dre. Afterward they throw the straw into the middle of the ring, where it forms a heap, which grows bigger and bigger; when the first layer is thrashed, they replace the straw in the ring, and thrash it as before. Thus the straw becomes every time smaller, till at last it resembles chopped straw. After this, with the fork just described, they cast the whole some yards from thence, and against the wind, which driv- ing l*.ck tne straw, the corn and the ears not thrashed out fall apart from it, and make another heap. A man col- lects the clods of dirt, and other impurities, to which any rurr. adheres, and throws them into a sieve. They after- w-ard place in a ring the heaps, in which a good many "ulire ears are still found, and drive over them for four or Ul. Chap. 41, 42. five hours together a dozen couple of oxen, joined two and two, till by absolute trampling they have separated the grains, which they throw into the air with a shovel to cleanse them." " The Moors and Arabs continue to tread out thei: corn after the primitive custom of the East. Instead of beeves, they frequently make use of mules and horses, by tying in the like manner by the neck three or four of them together, and whipping them afterward round about the nedders, (as they call the thrashing floors, the Lybica. arete of Ho-* race,) where the sheaves lie open and expanded in the same manner as they are placed and prepared with us for thrashing. This, indeed, is a much quicker way than ours, but less cleanly; for, as it is performed in the open air, (Hos. xiii. 3,) upon any round level plat of ground, daubed over with cow's dung, to prevent as much as pos- sible the earth, sand, or gravel, from rising, a great quan- tity of them all, notwithstanding this precaution, must una- voidably be taken up with the grain; at the same time the straw, which is their only fodder, is hereby shattered to pieces, a circumstance very pertinently alluded to 2 Kings xiii. 7, where the king of Syria is said to have made the Israelites like dust by thrashing." (Shaw.) — Blrher. Ver. 18. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. A most important pastoral duty in the eastern regions, is to provide water for the flock. The living fountain and the flowing stream, generally furnish a sure and abundant sup- ply; but these are seldom to be found in the burning desert, where the oriental shepherd is often compelled to feed his cattle. In such circumstances, happy is he who finds a pool where his flocks may quench their thirst. Often, as he pursues his journey, a broad expanse of water, clear as crystal, seems to open to his view ; and faint and weary under the fierce sunbeam, he gazes on the unexpected re- lief with inedible delight, and fondly anticipates a speedy termination to his present distress. He sees the foremost camels enter the lake, and the water dashed about by their feet. He quickens his pace, and hastens to the spot ; but to his utter disappointment the vision disappears, and no- thing remains but the dry and thirsty wilderness. To such deceitful appearances, the prophet opposes, with admirable effect, the real pool, the overflowing fountain, and the run- ning stream; the appropriale symbols of those substantial blessings of grace and mercy, that were laid up in stole for the church of Christ in the' last days: "And the parched ground (or the scorching heat) shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water." " I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water." — Paxton. Ver. 19. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the myrtle, and the oil- tree; I will set in the desert the fir-tree, and the pine, and the box-tree together. See on Ex. 25. 10. CHAPTER XLII. Ver. 2. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. "When two or more people go along the streets, they speak in such a loud voice, that all who pass may hear. Has a person sained or lost a cause in a court of justice, he vocif- erates his storv again and again to his companions, as he goes along the' road. This practice may have arisen from the custom of the superior walking the first, which makes it necessary lor him to speak in a loud voice, that those who arc in the rear may hear his observations. Men of a boisterous temper, who wish to raise a clamour, or those who arc leaders in anv exploit, always bawl aloud when they talk to their companions, as thej go along the road. — Roberts. Ver. 11. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages r^a/ Kedardoth Chap. 12—44. ISA inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, li t th. in shout from the top of the mountains. " By duert, or aSdernm, the reader is no! always lo un- derstand a country altogether barren and unfruitful, bat sui-h only as ts rarely or never sown or cultivated; which, thoagh li yi. Ids no crops of corn or fruit, yet affords herb- or less, for the grazing of cattle, with fountains or rills of w r, though more sparingly interspersed than in otlur places." (Shaw.) Agreeable to this account, we find lliat Nabul. who was possessed of three ihousatiil sheep, Slid a thousand goats, dwelt in the wilderness, 1 Sam, IXT.S M li.r.e heen impossible lor linn to have ilone, had I hi re not been sufficient pasturage for his docks and herds. — \.i -lii-t'ied with cultivating the rich plains and fertile valleys "I Ins native land, the Jewish farmer reduced, the barren rocks and rugged mountains under Ins domain, and i uelled them to minister to his necessities. For this them with th; where this was impracticable, he constructed walls of loose stones, in paral- lel rows along their sides, to support the mould, and pre- vent it from being washed down by the rains. On these circular plots of excellent soil, which gradually rose one ilher, from the base to the very summits of the mountains, he raised abundant crops of corn and other escu- lent vegetables; or. where the declivity was too rocky, he planted the vine and the olive, which delight in such situa- tions, and which rewarded his toil "with the most picturesque ind the richest products. Thus, the places where only the wild goat wandered and the eagle screamed, which 10 be doomed to perpetual nakedness and ster- : ny, were converted by the bold and persevering industry ol the Syrian husbandman into corn-fields and gardens, vine- yards and olive plantations, the manliest traces of which, in all the mountains ol l'alesliiie. remain to this day. The in- habitants ol tha| "good land." literally sang from the top of the rock when it Rowed with the blood of the grape, and poured them out " rivers of oil." — Paxto.v. Ver. 14. I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will 1 cry like a travailing woman ; 1 will destroy and devour at once. The words devour, swallow, or sup, as used by Isaiah, ■ and deaf; and so insensible is he to external things, that whatever sights may pass before his vision, and whatever sounds may fall upon his ear. ho appears to he altogether lo their power. The people say he is so full of passing scenes. — of the deity Roberts. CHAPTER XLIII. Ver. 11). Behold, I will do a new thing: now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it .' 1 will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. From Lattakoo to Kurree-chane, which is about three hundred miles, might, when I travelled it, be justly called a wilderness, for there was not a single mile ol any visible path or road. The ruts made by the wheels of my wagons on going up the country, were so visible, that on returning I was delighted to find natives travelling with loaded oxen along those ruts : and as other natives would probably do the same, it would soon become a beaten visible highway, which most likely was the manner of the formation of all original roads. A visible road in a wilderness saves much trouble and anxiety to travellers, even when they have travelled over the same ground before. In general they musfc be guided by landmarks such as hill, clumps of trees, fords, &c. ; but in plains or across forests, where no hills can be seen, they must often be puzzled what course lo follow. But where there is a visible path, however bad. travellers are relieved from all this trouble, anxiety, and uncertainty, as if they constantly heard a voice behind them saying, "This is the way, walk" ye in it." In a heathen land the inhabitants are ignorant of the way to true happiness either here or hereafter; but when gospel light enters, publishing what the Son of God has done and snfTeTed for sinners, then a highway may be said lo be in that land, which, by ihe blessing of God, will greatly increase the comfort of the population. — Campbell. Ver. 24. Thou hast brought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices ; but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. See on Jer. 6, 20. Dr. Boothroyc! has " sweet reed." Tamal, " sweet bark !" This probably means cinnamon, as we know that " sweet bark" was used by Moses in the service of the sanctuary : and it is in connexion with the sacrifices of the Most High that it is here mentioned by the prophet. — Roberts. On approaching and entering first the city of Mashovv, and afterward that of Kurree-chane. jhe two highest up towns which I visited in Africa, various of ihe inhabitants who, like all the rest of their countrymen, had never seen wagons or white men before, were charmed with the sight, and, as a proof of it. they presented rne with pieces of sugar, or sweet cane, about a foot in length, and in such numbers, that ihe bottom of that part of ihe wagon where I sat was covered with sweet cane. It was an act of kind- ness. This occurrence explained to me this passage in Isaiah, where God is evidently charging his ancient people with want of affection, or unkindness: which expression they would understand, having probably the same custom which I found in Africa., which the Hebrews may have learned while ihey resided in Africa, viz., in Egypt. — Camfbell. CHAPTER XLIV. Ver. 3. For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground ; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my bless- ing upon thine offspring. This probably alludes to the way in which people bathe. They do not in general, as in England, plunge into a stream or river, but go near a well or tank : and then, with a little vessel, pjnr water on their heads and bodies. •a isa See the man who is weary, he calls for his_neighbour, or servant, or wife, la accompany him lo the wellj he then lakes orf his clothes, (except a small strip round his loins,) sits on his hams, and the individual who assists begins to '-pocs water" upon hiin, till he be refreshed, and exclaims, potha.m, i. c. sufficient. In this way his bodv is invigo- rated, his thirst quenched, and he is made ready for his food. —Roberts. Vcr. 4. And they shall spring- up as among the grass, as willows by the water-courses. In many parts of South Africa, no trees are to be found : ers. The trees are of various kinds; the most i L-ly mimo>a ; but willows, when there were any, always stood in from of the others, on the verv margin of the water, which wastrulva river of life to theni. Like those in Isaiah's days, they required much water— ;ould not prosper without* it, therefore near it they were alone found;— a loud call, by a silent example, to Chris- • near the throne of grace, word of grace, and ordinances of grace, if they wish to grow in wisdom, knowl- edge, faith, and holiness. — Campbell. Ver. 5. One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of Ja- c >b:«and another shall subscribe it-ith his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the . Israel. This is an allusion to the marks which were made by punctures, rendered indelible bv fire or bv staining, upon the hand, or some other part of the body, signifying the state or character of the person, and to whom he belonged. The slave was marked with the name of his master; the soldier of his commander : the idolater with the name or ensign of his god ; and the Christians seem to have imitated this practice by what Proeopius says upon this place of : Many narked their wrists or their arms with the sign of the cross, or with the name of Christ." (Lowtb.) To this explanation I shall subjoin the following extract from Dr. Doddridge's Sermons to Young People, p. 79, !S and still further elucidates this trans- action. " Some very celebrated translators and critics un- derstand the words which we render, subscribe irith lis Hand d, in a sense a little different from that which ^ur English version has given them. Thev would rather .ender them, another shall icrite upnn his hand. I am the Lord's ; and they suppose it refers to a custom which for- merly prevailed in the East, of stamping the name of the general on the soldier, or that of the master on the slave. As this name was sometimes borne on the forehead, so at other times on the hand: and it is certain that several scriptures, which may easilv be recollected, are to be ex- plained as alluding to this: Rev. iii. 12. vii. 2, 3. xiii. 16, 17. Now from hence it seems to have grown into a custom •ous nations, when solemnly devoting theaiselves to the service of anv dekv, to be initiated into it by receiving some marks in their flesh, which might never wear out. This interpretation the original will certainly bear ; and it here makes a verv strong and beautiful sense, since every true Christian has 'a sacred and indelible char- acter upon him, which shall never be erased. But if we retain our own version it will come tonearlv the same, and evidentlv refers to a practice which was sometimes used among the Jews. (Nehem. ix. 3st. x. 20.) and which is in- deed exceedingly natural, of obliging themselves lo the ser- vice of God, by setting their hands to some written articles, emphatically expressing such a resolution."— Bl-rder. Ver. 1 8. They have not known nor understood : for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see: and their hearts, that they cannot under- stand. The Orientals, in some cases, deprive the criminal of the bght of day, by sealing up his eves. A son of the gre-n Mogul was actually suffering this punishment when Sir Thomas Roe visited the court of Delhi. The hapless vomri was cast into prison, and deprived of the light bv some ad- nesive plaster put upon his eyes, for the space of three AH. Chap. 45. years ; afier which the seal was taken awav, that he might with freedom enjoy the light ; but he was still detained in Other princes have been treated in a different manner, to prevent them Horn conspiring against the reign- ing monarch, or meddling with ariLiis of state : they have been compelled to swaliow opium, and other stupifving drags, to weaken or benumb their faculties, and render thera unfit for business. Influenced by such absurd and cruel policy, Shah Abbas, the celebrated Persian monarch, who died in 1629, ordered a certain quantity of opium to be given every day to his grandson, who was to be his suc- cessor, lo stupity him. and prevent him from disturbing his government. Such are probably ihe circumstances alluded to by the prophet : " They have not known, nor understood ; for he hath shut their eyes that they cannot see; and their hearts that they cannot' understand." The vet b (rve) tan, rendered in dot version, to shut, signifies to overlay, to cover over the surface; thus the king of Israel prepared three thousand talents of gold, and seven thousand talents of refined silver (ne) to overlay the walls of the temple. But it generally signifies to overspread, or daub over, as with mortar or plaster, of which Parkhurst quotes a num- ber of examples; a sense which entirely com - the manner in which the eves of a criminal are sealed up in some nans of the East. The practice of sealing up the eyes, and stupifving a criminal with drugs, seems^to have been contemplated by the same prophet in another passage of his book : " Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eves, lest thev see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed."— Paxton". Ver. 20. He feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor sav, Is there not a lie in mv ri°-ht hand? " • ° " That wicked fellow has now to eat dust or t.-'^s.' " Begone, wretch! for soon wilt thou have tofei The man who is accused of a great crime, lakes d'.si, or ashes, in his mouth, and thus swears that lie is innocent The idea seems lobe, if I am guilty, may mv mouth soon be rilled with earth as in death." " A lie in mv right hand.' " The right hand is Ihe abode of truth." The idols are often made with the right hand lifted up. to show that they are truth; and men thus swear, bv lifting up the right hand. In the ninth and twentieth rerses (inclusive) of this chapter, we have an admirable disquisition on the absurdity of idolatry; and neither can the maker of idols nor their worshippers say, there is " not a lie in my rig« hand."— Roberts. CHAPTER XLV. Ver. 2. I will go before thee, and make the crook- ed places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. See on Acts 12. 10. Ver. 3. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret place*, that thou mayest know that I the Lord whicr call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. As treasures are frequently hidden under ground in the East, by those that are apprehensive of revolutions; so the finding them is one great object, in their apprehension, ol sorcery. We are told bv travellers into the East, that thev have met with great difficulties verv often, from a notion universally disseminated among them, that all Europeans are magicians, and that their Tisits to those eastern countries are not to saiisfv curiosity, but to find out. and get of those vajt treasures they believe lobe buried there in great quantities. These representations are very common; but Sir J. Chardin gives usa more particular and amusing account of affairs of this kind. "It is common in the Indies, for those sorcerers that accompany conquerors, evervwhere to point out the place where treasures are hid. Thus at Surat, when Siragi came thither, ihere were people who, Chap. 1" 49. u striking on the grand, or against walls, found cnii those that bad been hollo* ed or dug op, such places in lie opened." Ill' lien intimates, that somo- thm_' ol this nature had happened to him in Mingrelia. Amon'j the various contradictions thatagitati breast, this appears to be a remarkable one: they firmly believe the power of magicians to discover bidden trea- sures, and yet ihev continue to hide them. Dr. Perry lias given nsan aoeoBntof some mighty treasures bidden in the ground by some of the principal people ol ! empire, which upon a revolniidii win- discovered by do- mestics, privy to the secret. D'Herbelol lias given as ac- counts or treasures concealed in the same manm them of great princes, discovered hv neeidenis exlremelv remarkable; but this account of Cnardin's, of conquerors pretending to find out hidden treasure! ers. l- yiiy extraordinary. As, however, people of this cast have made great pretences to mighty things in all ages, and were DO! unlrcqiieutly ctmlided m by princes, there is reason i" 1> ■'■ v ■ i h \ ;,i clouded s,,iiiel ones, I iv I heir art. to discover treasures anciently to princes, of which they had gained intelligence by other methods; and as God opposed his prophets, at various times, to pretended sorcerers, it is no; unlikely that the prophet Isaiah points at some such pro- loveries in those remarkable words, Is. xlv. 3 : "And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hid- den riches of secret places, that thou mayest know, that I I. ! which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel." I will give them, by enabling some prophet of mine to tell thee where they are concealed. Such a sup- position throws a great energy into those words. — Habmer. Ver. 10. Wo unto him that saith unto his fitlier. What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth ? Dr. Booth royd has, "to a mother, what dost thou bring forth 1" Unnatural as is this language, yet children often use it to their parents. Listen to a sun who has been chided by his father lor bad conduct — " Why did you beget me 1 Did I ask you 1 Why reprove me for evil1? Whose fault is it! Had you not be-oiteii me, should I have been here V The father replies, " Alas ! for the day in which I became thy parent." The mother says, "Why did I bear this dog 1 Have I given birth to a monkey 1 Yes ! I am the mother of this ass." — Roberts. CHAPTER XLVI. Ver. 3. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are car- ried from the womb. " True, this fiendish son was borne from mv belly. Ten long moons did I carry him in my womb." '" Is it for this I have carried him so long in my womb? My fate! my fate ! alas ! my fate !" — Roberts. CHAPTER XLVII. Ver. 1. Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans : for thou shall no more be called tender and del- icate. 7. And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so thai thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of' it. See on Ezek. 13. 18. Ver 2. Take the millstones, and grind meal: un- cover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. To grind flour in the East is the work of servants or slaves, and to make it by pounding with a pestle and mor- tar is the office of female servants or slaves. There being but few bridges, those who are in a low condition are obliged to ford the rivers ; hence may be seen large compa- VII. 475 to the opposite banks, who have b -en obliged to the Ice" and to " nncoi ei the thigh." Thus were the "lea I .Ion, who had been nurtured on a tbn ne, to be reduced to the condi- tion..! menials, and to cross the rivers as people of the lowest degi Ver. 14. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the lire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire *.o sit before it. It is very usual in the East to burn the stubble and the grass, jn "order to destroy the vermin. Thus Ban way, speaking of the inhabitants of the deserts of Tartaiv, says, " thai they arrived in the desert in the first winter month, and that the inhabitants who live nearest to it, often manure tracts ol land by burning the grass, which grows very high." The words of our Saviour al-o allude to this, when he says, "Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the held, which to-day is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven." Matt. vi. 30. — Rosenmuller. CHAPTER XLIX. Ver. 9. That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that dre in darkness. Show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall he in all high places. 10. They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them : for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall lie guide them. 1 1. And 1 will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. See on Ps. 23. 1—3. Ver. 15. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. This question is asked when a person doubts of finding mercy, where there is every reason to expect it. Does an individual express surprise at seeing a mother pay attention to an infant which is deformed, or supposed to be bv a devil ; it is asked, Can a woman forget her sucking child 1 Is a woman in great haste to relnrn home, it is in- quired, " What, have you a sucking child in the house ? The cub of the monkey is as dear to its dam, as gold is to us." — Roberts. Ver. 16. Behold, I have graven thee upon the ..palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. It is common to make punctures on the arms and wrists, in memory of visiting any holy place, or to. represent the deity to whom the individual is consecrated : thus, a god, a temple, a peacock, or some indecent object, is described ; but I never saw or heard of any thing of the kind being en- graved on the PAi.Msof the hands. The palms ol the hands are, however, believed to have writlen on them the fate ol the individual; and, from this, it is common to say, in re- ference to men or things, they are written on the palms ol his hands. " I wonder why Raman has taken Seethe for bis wife?" "Whv wonder"? She was written on the palms of his hands." "Fear not," says the old soothsayer, look- ing into the hands of the anxious youth, " she is written here„thou shalt have her." " Alas 1 alas ! the old deceiver told me her name was written on mv palms, but she has gone, and the wriiing is erased." " Give up that pursuit ? ■ Never! it is writlen on the palms of my hands" « Ah: my friend, you have longsince forgotien me." "Forgotten you ! Never, for your walls are ever before me." " Ah ! my father, I am now in the distant country, but your walls are always in my sight." " Ah ! when shall I again visit This is an allusion to the eastern custom of tracing out on their hands, not the names, but the sketches of certain eminent cities or places, and then rubbing them with the powder of the hennah or cypress, and thereby making the marks perpetual. This custom Maundrell thus describes : " The next morning nothing extraordinary passed, which gave many of the pilgrims leisure to have their arms mark- ed with the usual jsnsigns of Jerusalem. The artists, who undertake the operation, do it in this manner: they have stamps in wood of any figure that you desire, which they first print otf upon your arm, with powder or charcoal ; then taking two very fine needles tied close together, and dip- ping them often, like a pen, in certain ink, compounded, as I was informed, of gunpowder and ox gall, they make with them small punctures all along the lines of the figure which they have primed, and then washing the part in wine, conclude the work. These punctures they make with great quickness and dexterity, and with scarce any smart, seldom piercing so deep as to draw blood.— Burder. Ver. 22. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daugh- ters shall be carried upon their shoulders. It is a custom, in many parts of the East, to carry their children astride upon the hip, with the arm around the oody. In the kingdom of Algiers, when the slaves take the children out, the boys ride upon their shoulders; and in a religious procession, which Symes had an opportunity of seeing at Ava, the capital of the Burman empire, the first personagesof rank-that passed by, were three children borne astride on men's shoulders. It is evident from these facts, that the oriental children are carried sometimes the one way, sometimes the other. Nor was the custom in reality different in Judea, though the prophet expresses himself in these terms: " They shall bring (hysons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders; for according to Dr. Russel, the children able to support them- selves, are usually carried astride on the shoulder; but in infancy they are carried in the arms, or awkwardly on one haunch. Dandini tells us, that on horseback the Asiatics " carry their young children upon their shoulders with great dexterity. These children hold by the head of him who carries them, whether he be on horseback or on foot, and do not hinder him from walking, nor doing what he pleases." " This augments the import of the passage in Isaiah, who speaks of the Gentiles bringing children thus; so that dis- tance is no objection to this mode of convevance, since they may thus be brought on horseback from "' among the peo- ples,' however remote." — Paxton. Children of both sexes are carried on the shoulders. Thus may be seen the father carrying his son, the little fellow being astride on the shoulder, having, with his hands, hold of his father's head. Girls, however, sit on the shoulder, as if on a chair, their legs hanging in front, while they also with their hands lay hold of the head. In going to, or returning from, heathen festivals, thousands of parents and their children may be thus seen marching along with joy. In this way shall the Gentiles bring their sons and their daughters to Jehovah: kings shall then be " nursing fathers/' and queens " nursing mothers."— Roberts. ' Ver. 23. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet ; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord : for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. Tne accomplishment of this prediction is often the sub- ject of the prayers of Christians. Thev regard it as one of the illustrious features of the times of the millennium, that kings and potentates shall, as foster-fathers, take the church under their special protection and patronage, and instead of opposing and oppressing it, exercise towards it all the kind and tutelary offices of a devoted nurse or mother A H . Chap. 49 towards the children of her care. In this view of the pas- sage, it has perhaps been forgotten that the prophetic scrip- lures are not lacking in intimations, that in that bright and blissful period, the ancient institutions of the world will be so modified, and the different fabrics of government, civil and ecclesiastical, so revolutionized, that it is, to say the least, doubtful whether there will then be any such rulers as kings and queens to bestow fheir regal regards upon the spouse of Christ. At any rate, it is certain that the text will not then be applied, as it now is, as authorizing a re- ligions establishment subject to the control of a civil power, or in other words, as sanctioning the union of church and slate. To the abetters of this pernicious alliance, the pres- ent passage has ever been a " pillar of strength" in the way of proof. Let us endeavour, then, to collect the true sense of the prediction from its various connexions. , It may be remarked, that the prophecy of which it forms a part, abounds with metaphor ; as for instance, v. 22, " the lifting up of the Lord's hand ;" " the setting up of his stand- ard to the Gentiles and people;" " their "bringing Zion's sons in their arms, and carrying her daughters upon their shoulders:" and v. 23, " the kings and queens of the Gen- tiles bowing down to the church, with their faces towards the earth, and licking up the dust of her feet." Here is scarce an expression but is highly figurative, and shall we suppose that in the phrase " kings nursing fathers" there is nothing of the same character ? For what is the office of the nurse: Is it not to nourish the child? But do kings, as human rulers, in the true sense, nourish the church ? Do they afford to it that spiiitual pabulum on which it lives and thrives! Do they administer the word and sacra- ments 1 Is not this the peculiar and distinguishing office of the ministry of the gospel, set apart to this very work, and actingas the only pastors, i.e. feeders, of the flock of Christ? Is not this the office which they claim as their privilege, which the New Testament gives them, and with whicn neither kings nor magistrates are to intermeddle? It is easy enough to understand how kings are nursing fathers to the subjects of the nations over which thev rule ; and as it is the duty of their subjects to regard .them in this char- acter, so it is their duly to act towards their subjects con- sistently with this designation, especially in protecting them in the peaceful enjoyment of their natural and civil rights. But it is not so easy to perceive how kings and queens, as such, are nurses to any but their people, in the capacity of subjects. If indeed the nations of Christendom be churches, then the king of the nation is the king of the church, and so is the nurse of the church. But this is not the kind of church spoken of in the New Testament, nor does the pro- phetical promise in question speak of any such church. It is evident then, that it is at best only in a metaphorical sense that the words of the promise legitimately hold good. What that sense is precisely, when stripped of its figura- tive dress, we shall endeavour to show in the sequel. At present, we call attention to the immediate connexion of the words under review. They are introduced as an answer to the question, v. 21, (following the promise of a numerous church upon the rejection of the Jews, v. 1!), 20.) " Then shalt thou say in thy heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro ? And who hath brought up these ? Behold, I was left alone ; these, where had they been ?" Upon the rejection of the Jews, it is supposed to be matter of wonder, from whence so many children should still be found clustering about this bereaved and desolate mother. From the New Testament narrative, we learn the difficulty there was in regard to this, in the minds of the Apostles, and the early Jewish believers, and how astonishing it was to them, when it came to pass.-- The pro- phecy may be considered as expressing, in a striking man- ner, the perplexed ruminations of the church in regard to an event so strange and mysterious. It was a problem she knew not how to solve. " Who brought up these ? Where had they been ?" This is her anxious interrogatory, and the Lord answers, " The kings of the Gentiles shall be thy nur- sing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers ;'" i. e. they shall have been such; when ihis multitude is gathered in, they shall have been reared and brought up as the subjects and servants of worldly kings, who little thought of the service they were rendering to the church. They were unconsciously acting the part of nurses to those who were destined in the purpose of God to be the children of Zion Chap. 50,51. ISA just as the teachers of a literary seminary are often unwit- tingly employed in training their pupils for liigher service in the church of God, when subsequently bis grace sub- dues their hearts, and makes them his de\oted servants. In tills sense, how large a portion of the colleges in our land are nurseries of the church's In like manner; it is here predicted that earthly governments shall he nurseries for the spiritual dominion of Jesus Christ. Out ullheir subjects shall Ms subjects be gathered. The agency of kings and queens and all worldly potentates in I pie "i 'their rule shall be so controlled by a directing providence, as to be made subservient to the measureless enlargement of bis kingdom. This is the grand drift of ecy before us. it speaks not of the defence or up- holding of the church by the powers of the earth, or the bestowing of worldly possessions and distinctions upon it. Rich and satisfied in the covenant, favour, and spiritual glory of her Head and Husband, what can she ask or expect at the hands of earthly princes 1 What can Mew do lor her sublime interest, of whom it is said, " They shall bow down to tficc with their faces towards the earth," and liek up the dust of thy feet." The Zion of our God has boons to be- stow upon worldly sovereigns, but none to ask of them. Thus interpreted, the passage is throughout i The answer is suitable to the question, and both, to the scope of the prophecy, -which is, to pre-intimate the calling of the Gentiles, and'the increase of the church, upon the casting away of the Jews, by the bringing of the elect of all nations into that new Jerusalem which is from above, and is the mother of them all. — Bush. Thus were those who had been enemies lo Jehovah to bow down and acknowledge his majesty. They were to " lick up the dust," which is a figurative expression to de- note submission and adoration. "Boasting vain fellow! the king your friend ! he your companion ! You will not have even the dust of his feet given von for food." " The minister give you that office ! he will not give vou the dust of his feet." " Alas I alas! for me, I expected' his favour; I depended on his word; but I have not gained the dust of his feet." "I will not remain longer in this country ; 1 will leave vou, and go to reside with the king." " With the king! Why, the dust of his feet will no; he given you for a reward.'' " Could I but see ihnt holy man ! I would eat the dust of his feet." So great then is to be the humility and veneration of kings and queens, in ref- erence to the Most High, that they will bow down before him, and lick up the dust of his feet.— Roberts. CHAPTER L. Vcr. 2. Wherefore, when I came, was there no man ? when I called, was there none to an- swer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it can- not redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness : their fish stinketh, be- cause there is no water, and dieth for thirst. The Krooman (or Koorooman) river, in Africa, which is i considerable stream, used to run in an oblique direc- ion across the great southern Zahara desert, till it emptied itself into the Great Orange River. Now it sinks out of sight into the sand almost immediately on entering the des- ert, only a few miles after the junction of the M river with its waters. As a proof that it had once run in the desert, I travelled ten or fifteen miles on its bard dry channel along which it had run after entering the desert, having a steep bank on both sides, beyond which there was nothing but deep sand. The aged natives told me that in their young days there was a considerable river in that channel, and sometimes rose so high that it could not be crossed for a long time. They first blamed the Matslaroo people for drying it up by me.ins of witchcraft, but after- ward acknowledged it must have been done by the hand of God. — Campbell. Ver. 6. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them'that plucked off the hair : I hid not my face from shame and spitting-. Mr. Hanway has recorded a scene differing little, if at A H. 47? all, from that alluded to by Ihe prophet. " A prisoner wai brought, who had two large logs or wood Sued to the smah of his leg, and riveted together; then' was also a heavy triangular collar of wood about ins neck. The general asked me, if that man had taken my goods. I told aim, I did not remember to have Been him before. He ivan ques- tioned some time, and al length ordered to be beaten with sticks, which was performed by two soldiers with such sever- ity as if they meant to kill him. The soldiers were then ordered to spit in his face, an indignity of great antiquity in the East. This, and the cutting off beards, which I shall h,i v session to mention, brought to my mind the suffer- ings recorded in the prophetical history of our Saviour. Isaiah 1.6. " Sadoc Aga sent prisoner to Astrabad— his beard was cut off; his face was rubbed with dirt, and his eyes cut out. Upon his speaking in pathetic terms with that emotion natural to a daring spirit, the general ordered him to be struck across the mouth to silence him ; which was done with such violence that the blood issued forth." — Blrder. CHAPTER LI. Ver. i). Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath ; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner : but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteous- ness shall not be abolished. 7. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law ; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. See on Job 4. 9. Ver. 8. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool : but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to genera- tion. As the fashions of the garments of the Orientals never change, they have large stores of them ; but they have no little difficulty in preserving them from moths: which cir- cumstance may have occasioned their profuse use of per- fumes.— Roberts. Ver 11. Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; a nd sor- row and mourning shall flee away. Is there not here an allusion to the custom so common in the East, of sinking upon a journey, particularly with a view to quicken the pace of the camels? " We should not have passed this plain so rapidly, but for the common cus- tom o( the Arabs of ur?ing on their camels by singing: the effect is very extraordinary: this musical excitement increases their pace at least one fourth. First one camel- driver sings a verse, then the others answer in chorus. It reminded me somewhat of the Venetian gondoliers. I oRen asked the camel-drivers to sing, not only to hasten 0UI progress, bin also for the pleasure of hearing their sim- ple melodies. Some of their best songs possess a plaintive sweetness that is almost as touching as the most exquisite European airs. The words are often beautiful, generally simple and natural, being improvisatory effusions. The following is a very imperfect specimen. One takes up the song: — 'Ah, when shall I see my family again? the rain has fallen and made a canal between me and my home. Oh, shall I never see it more ?' The reply to this and similar verses was always made by the chorus, in words such as these: — ' Oh, what pleasure, what delight, to see my family again ; when I see my father, mother, brothers, sisters, I will hoist a fla»on the head of my camel for joy.'" (Hoskins' Trav. in Ethiopia, p. 2G.) — Bush. In descrihine the order of the caravans, Pitts informs ,is. " that some of the camels have bells about their necks, ani some about their legs, like those which our carriers put about their fore-horses' necks, which, together with the servants (who belong to the camels and travel on loot) singing all night, make a pleasant noise, and the journey passes away delightfully." This circumstance is explana- tory of the singing of the Israelites in their return to Jeru- salem.— Harmer. Ver. 1 4. The captive exile hasteneth that he may- be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. See on Job 33. 18, 24. Vor. 17. Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury ; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out. Artificial liquors, or mixed wines, were very common in ancient Italy, and the Levant. The Romans lined their vessels with odorous gums, to give their wines a warm bitter flavour; and it is said, that several nations of mod- ern times communicate to their wines a favourite relish by similar means. In Greece this is accomplished by in- fusing the cones of the pine in the wine vats. Hasselquist says they use the sweet-scented violet in their sherbet, which they make of violet sugar dissolved in water; the grandees sometimes add ambergris, as the highest lux- ury and indulgence of their appetite. The prophet Isaiah mentions a mixture of wine and water; but it is evident from the context, that he means to express by that phrase the degenerate state of his nation; and consequently, we cannot infer from it, the use of diluted wine in those coun- tries. It is observed by Thevenot, that the people of the Levant never mingle water with their wine at meals, but drink by itself what water thev think proper, for abating the strength of the wine. While the Greeks and Romans by mixed wine always understood wine diluted and low- ered with water, the' Hebrews, on the contrary, meant by it wine made stronger, and more inebriating, by the addi- tion of powerful ingredients, as honey, spices, defrutum, or wine inspissated, by boiling it down to two thirds or one half of the quantity, myrrh, opiates, and other strong drugs. The Greeks were no strangers to perfumed and medicated wines ; for in Homer, the far-famed Helen mixed a num- ber of slupifying ingredients in the bowl, to exhilarate the spirits of her guests that were oppressed with grief; the composition of which, the poet says, she learnt in Egypt. Of the same kind was the spiced wine mentioned in the Song of Solomon ; and to this day, such wines are eagerly sought by the people of Syria and Palestine. The drunk- ards in Israel preferred these medicated wines to all others : " Who hath wo V said the wise man, " who hath conten- tions •? who hath sorrow 1 who hath babbling 1 who hath wounds without cause 1 who hath redness of eyes 1 They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to seek mixed wine." Nor were the manners of that people more correct in the days of Isaiah; for he was directed to pronounce a " wo unto them that rose up early in the morning, that thev might follow strong dnnl; ; that continued until night, tiil wine inflamed them." This ancient custom furnished the holy Psalmist with a highly poetical and sublime image of divine wrath : " For in the hand of the Lord ... a cup ; and the wine is red; it is full of mixture." The prophet Isaiah uses the same figure in one of his exhortations: " Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury ; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out." The worshippers of the beast and his image, are threatened with the same fearful punishment: "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indigna- tion." The Jews sometimes acidulated their wine with the juice of the pomegranate ; a custom to which the spouse thus allude* " I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine, ci the juice of my pomegranate ;" or of wine mixed with • he juice of that fruit. Prepared in this way, it proves a rooming and refreshing draught in the heat of summer, and !-y consequence, highly acceptable to an Oriental. — Paxton*. Ver. 20. Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the ISAIAH. Chap. 52. head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net : they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuKO of thy God. What a graphic picture we have here of an eastern city or town in time of faruim- ! See the squalid objects ; in their despair, they rush forth, throw themselves down in the streets, and there remain till they die, or are relieved. They have scarcely a rag left to defend them from the heat ol the sun, or the dew of the night ; and they eourt death as a blessing. Ask them why they lie there, they reply, to die: tell them to get out of the way, and they answer not again; and so great is their indifference, that many of them would literally be crushed to death, rather than make the least effort to preserve life.— Roberts. CHAPTER LII. Ver. 1. Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion ; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jeru- salem, the holy city : for henceforth there shall no more come unto thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Jerusalem had long been afflicted by her foes, but the time of her deliverance was at hand, and in token of that she was to deck herself in her glorious attire. At the time of famine, sickness, or sorrow, the people clothe themselves in their meanest apparel, and their ornaments are laid aside : but on the return of prosperity, they array them- selves in their most " beautiful garments." — Roberts. Ver. 2. Shake thyself from the dust ; arise, arid sit down, O Jerusalem : loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O ca-ptive daughter of Zion. See the poor prisoners; see mothers bereft of their chil- dren, or wives of their husbands ; they roll themselves in the dust, and there make their bitter lamentations. The holy city had figuratively been in the dust, but she was now to arise, to take the shackles from her neck, and to sit down in the place prepared for her. — Roberts. Ver. 2. Shake thyself from the dust ; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem : loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. 10. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations ; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. The use of the oriental dress, which I now wear, brings to the mind various scriptural illustrations, of which I will only mention two. The figure in Isaiah lii. 10, " The Lord hath made bare his holy arm," is most lively : for the loose sleeve of the Arab shirt, as well as that of the outer garment, leaves the arm so completely free, that, in an instant, the left hand passing up the right arm, makes it bare; and this is done when a person, a soldier, for exam- ple, about to strike with the sword, intends to give his right arm full play. The image represents Jehovah as suddenly prepared to inflict some tremendous, yet righteous judg- ment, so effectual, " that all the ends of the world shall see the salvation of God." The other point illustrated occurs in the second verse of the same chapter, where the sense of the last expression is, to an Oriental, extremely natural: "Shake thyself from the dust, arise, sit down, 0 Jerusalem." It is no uncommon thing to see an individual, or a group of persons, even when very well-dressed, sitting with their feet drawn under them, upon the bare earth, passing whole hours in.idle conversa- tion. Europeans would require a chair; but the natives here prefer the ground. In the heat of summer and autumn, it is pleasant to them to while away their time in this man- ner, under the shade of a tree. Richly-adorned females, a? well as men, may often be seen thus amusing themselves. As may naturally be expected, with whatever crtre they may, at first sitting down, choose their place, yet the flow- ing dress by degrees gathers up the dust; as this occurs, they, from time'to time, arise, adjust themselves, shake off the dust, and then sit down again. The captive daughter Ch ap. 53. I S A of Zion, therefore, brought duwn to the dust of suffering Mid oppression, is commanded to arise and shake herself from thai (!u-t ; and ihcn, with grace, and dignity, and composure, and security, to sit iloini ; to take, as il were, again, her seat and her rank, amid the company of the nations of the earth, which had before afflicted her, and trampled her to the earth. It may be proper to notice, that Bishop Lowth gives another rendering, "Arise, ascend thy lofty seat," and quotes eastern customs, to justify the version :' but I see no necessity for the alteration, although to English ears it may sound more appropriate. A person of rank in the Bast often sits down upon the ground, with his attendants about him, — Jowett. Ver. 7. How beautiful upon the mountains are Ihe feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth ! Small feet are considered beautiful in all parts of the Cast. The feet of kings and holy people are sp. preference to the other parts of the body. His majesty of the Burmese empire is always mentioned as the "golden feel." " My messenger will soon return, he will bring me good tidings ; his feet will be glorious." " Ah I m hen « ill the fuel of my priest return this way ; how glorious is their place!" " Are you in health ?" asks the holy man. "Yes; b) the glory of your feet," is the reply. " Ah ! Swamy, it is a happy circumstance for me that your feet have entered mv house." — Roberts. Vet. 8. Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. The phrase, " see eye to eye," is that which we propose toe's plain, and the preceding verse should be read in order tc show more clearly the connexion. The whole passage is a prediction of gospel times; it points to the proclamation of the joyful and \\ eleome tidings which constituted the burden of our Saviour's preaching, and that of hisaposiles. Inthe poetical style of the East, the watchmen are represented as standing anon their watch-tower, or post of observation, and stretching their vision to the utmost point of the hori- zon, as if in eager expectation of the appearance of a news- be mug in n.'er. On a sudden the wished-for object appears in sight, on the summit of the distant mountain, speeding his rapid way to the city, while the watchmen, anticipating the tenor of his tidings, burst forth in a shout of gratnlation and triumph. " Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice ; with the voice together shall thev sing." The i ui.-LT'-i v strikingly represents the expectant attitude and heedful vigilance of the believing part of the teachers and pastors of the nation of Israel on the eve of the Messiah's manifestation. The reason of the outbreak of their holy joy is immediately given : " For thev shall see eve to eve, when the Lord shall bring again Zion," i. e. they shall have a clear and unclouded discernment of the actual exe- cution of the divine purposes. As faithful watchmen, intent upon their duty, and earnestly looking out for the signs of promise, thev shall be favoured with a clear, dis- tinct, luminous perception of Ihe objects of their gaze, in which they shall be honourably distinguished from a class of watchmen spoken of by the'same prophet, eh. lvi. 10, of whom it is said, "His watchmen are blind;" instead of seeing clearly, they see nothing. That this is the genuine force M' the expression, " they shall see eve to eye." is to be inferred from the parallel usage, Num. xiv. 11. "For thev nave heard that thou, Lord, art among this people, that thou, I •■), art seen fate to fare," (Heb. eve to eye;) i. e. in the ■ •I open, evident manner. Of equivalent import are the Ex. xxx. 11, " And the Lord spake unto Mo- ses face tn f/ier, as a man speaketh unto his friend." Num. xii. 8, " With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even appa- rently, and not in dark speeches;" where the latter part of the verse is exegetical of the former. We conclude, there- fore, t'lat th» words do not in their primary and most legit- imate sense imply a perfect unanimity of religious or doctrinal bt lief in the wat< I, men, or spiritual guides, oi the Christian church. frequent thai desert, have heaped up stones at unequal dis- i -. foi their direction through this desert. We have. derived great assistance from the robbers in this respect, who are our guides v. hen the marks either fail, or are un- intelligible to us." Alter which he remarks, that if it be considered, that this road to 0) is seldom trodden, it is no wonder that those persons they had with then dm s, were frequently at a loss to determine their way through ilns desert. The learned know very well, that there are many great deserts in various parts of the East, and in particular a great desert between Babylon and Judea ; and as Judea was, in the time of the captivity, an abandoned country, at least as to a great part of it, and the road through thai deseh might have been much neglected, is it not rea- sonable to suppose, that the piling up heaps of stones might actually be of considerable importance, to facilitate the re- turn of Israel into their own country 1 And if not, is it not natural to suppose the difficulties in the way of their return might be represented by want of such works 1 And conse- quently, thai that clause should be rendered, not gathi out tht stones, but Urate ye up heaps of stones, that you may be directed in your march through the most difficult and dan- gerous places where you are to pass. It is cettain the word >sr>~ sakkeloo, that is used here is, confessedly, in every other place but one, Is. v. 2, used to signify the throwing stories at a person, after which they were wont to cover them with a heap of them, as a memorial of what was done; see par- ticularly the account of the punishment of Achan, Josh, vii. 25, 26; now it must appear somewhat strange, that the same wold should signify gathering stones up in older 10 take them away, and also, on the contrary, to cover over a person or a spot with them, thrown up on a heap. And especially when the stoning ihe ways, that is, pouring down heaps of'stone, at proper distances, to direct travellers in danger of mistaking their way, is so natural a thought in this passage ; while we find few or no traces of Ihe gather- ing stones out of an eastern road, to make journeying more pleasant to the traveller.— Harmer. CHAPTER LXIII. Ver. 1. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with (Hod trarments from Bozrah? this that is glori- ous in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength ? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. 2. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? 3. I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people, there vas none with me : for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my gar- ments, and I will stain all my raiment. The treading of grapes and olives is a custom to which frequent reference is made by the inspired writers. The glorious Redeemer of the church appeared in a vision to the prophet, in the garb and mien of a mighty conqueror returning in triumph from the field of battle, and drew from him this admiring interrogation: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with died garments from Bozrah I this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the great- ness of his strength 1" To which the Saviour answers : "I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." The prophet resumes: "Wherefore art thou red in thine ap- parel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine- fat V And Jehovah Jesus replies : " I have trodden the wine-press alone ; and of the people, there was none with me ; for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury ; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." As the raiment of the treader was sprinkled with the blood of the grapes, so were the garments of the Redeemer, w th :he 481 ISAIAH. Chap f,3_65 blood of his enemies, that were as effectually and easily crushed by his almighty power, as are the clusters of the vine when fully ripe,' beneath the feet of the treader. The same figure is employed in the book of Revelation, to express the decisive and tearful destruction which awaits the man of sin and his coadjutors, that refuse to turn from the error of their way : " And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire ; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. And the wine-press was trodden with- out the city, and bl»od came out of the wine-press, even unto the horses' bridles, bv the space of a thousand and s:i hundred furlongs." The new wines in some places, are always poured into casks that had been kept for ages, and after remaining on the old lees of former years, are drawn off for use, which adds greatly to the quality of Jhe wine. To this practice the words of the prophet evi- dently refer; " And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." — Paxton. The manner of pressing grapes is as follows : having placed them in a hogshead, a man with naked feet gets in and treads the grapes : in about half an hour's time, the juice is forced out: he then turns the lowest grapes up- permost, and treads them for about a quarter of an hour longer: this is sufficient to squeeze the good juice out of them, for an additional pressure would even crush the unripe grapes, and give the whole a disagreeable flavour — Buroer. Ver. 13. That led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? 14. As a beast goeth down into the ■valley, the Spirit of the Lord causeth him to rest ; so didst thou lead thy people, to make thy- self a glorious name. The prophet Isaiah makes an allusion to the horse, which is apt, from the difference of our manners and feel- ings, to leave an unfavourable impression upon the mind; it occurs in the sixty-third chapter, and runs in these terms : " That led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble. As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spiril of the Lord caused him to rest : so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself. a glorious name." If these words be understood as merely referring to the unobstructed course of a single horse in the plain, and the descent of a beast into the valley to repose — the allusion, more especially considering the general beauty and sublimity which characterize the style of Isaiah, seems rather flat and mean ; and this is the more surprising, when it is considered, that the prophet is here describing a scene by which the Lord acquired to himself a glorious name, and which, by consequence, demanded no common strength or magnificence of thought. Nor does it appear for what reason, in order to rest, a herd should descend into a valley ; for the hills must be equally pleasing and comfortable" places of repose as the vales. We shall find it in the manners of the Arabian, to which the simile refers; and a very little attention is necessary to convince a dis- passionate inquirer, that the image is most lively and mag- nificent. The original Hebrew term (wo) smis, in the singular number, denotes both a single horse, and a body of cavalry. In the same manner we use the word horse, to express a single animal of that species, and at other limes, the horse- men of an army. In the book of Exodus, smis denotes the horsemen of Pharaoh's army who pursued after the tribes of Israel. But if it denote the horse of an Egvptian army, it may, with equal propriety, denote the horse"or cavalry of an Arabian tribe. Now, Arabian horses are remarkable lor the surprising swiftness with which they escape the hot- Icjt pursuit of their enemies. In two hours after an alarm is given, the Arabs strike their tents, and with their fami- lies, and their whole property, plunge into the deepest re- cesses of their sandy deserts, which the boldest and most exasperated enemy dares not invade. In the time of De la Roque, the great emir of Mount Carmel had a mare which he valued at more than five thousand crowns. The Arabi- ans, it seems, prefer the female to the male because it. is more gentle, silent, and able to endure fatigue, hunger, and thirst ; qualities in which, they have found from experience, the former excels the latter. "The mare which the emir or prince of Carmel rode, had carried him three days and three nights together, without eating or drinking, and by this means effectually saved him from the pursuit of his ene- mies. This account entirely removes the apparent mean- ness of the prophetic representation, and imparts a liveli- ness and dignity to the description. At the moment when Pharaoh and his army thought the people of Israel were completely in their power, shut in by ihesea and the mount- ains, that they could not escape, — like the Arab horsemen, they decamped, and through the sea marched inio the des- ert, whither their enemies were unable to follow. If the Arabian horses are not so sure-footed as the mule, which Dr. Shaw affirms, it will account for the next clause in the same verse: "As a horse in the wilderness, they should not stumble." The departure of Israel from the land of Egypt was sudden, and their movements were rapid, like those of an Arab, whom his enemy has surprised in his camp: yet no misfortune befell them in their retreat, as at times overtakes the swiftest and surest-footed horses. The next verse may be explained by the same custom : "As a beast or herd goeth down into' the valley, so the Spirit ot the Lord caused him to rest." The Arab, decamping at the first alarm, marches off with his flocks and herds, his wife and children, into the burning deserts. This he does, not from choice, but for safety ; and by consequence, how- proper and agreeable soever the hills maybe for pasturage, in times of alarm or danger, the deep sequestered valley must be far more desirable. The custom of the Arabs in Barbary, stated by Dr. Shaw, finely illustrates this figure. About the middle of the afternoon/his party began to look out for the encampment of some Arabian horde, who, to prevent such numerous parties as his from living at free charges upon them, take care to pitch in woods, valleys, or places the least conspicuous. And he confesses, that if they had not discovered their flocks, the smoke of their tents, or heard the barking of their dogs, they had either not found the encampment at all, or with extreme difficulty.— Paxton. CHAPTER LXIV. Ver. 5. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness; those that remember thee in thy ways : behold, thou art wroth : for we have sinned : in those is continuance, and we shall be saved. Does a man expect a guest for whom he has a great regard, he goes forth to meet him. Not to do so would show a great deficiency in affection and etiquette.— Rob- erts. CHAPTER LXV. Ver. 3. A people that provoketh me to anger con- tinually to my face ; thai sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick. See on ch. 1. 29. Ver. 4. Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments ; which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels ; 5. Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. " Come not near to me, for I am holier than thou." Here we have another instance of the glaring wickedness of the Jews, in their imitation of the heathen devote es, who resembled the Hindoo Yogees. Those men are so isolated by their superstition and penances, that they hold but little intercourse with the rest of mankind. They wander about in the dark in the place of burning the dead, or "among the graves;" there they affect to hold converse with evil and other spirits; and there they pretend to receive inti- mations respecting -he destinies of others. They will eat things which are religiously clean or unclean ; they neither ISAIAH. •185 wash their bodes, nor comb their hair, nor cut their nails. Dor wear clothes. They are counted to be most kotjf, among Ver. 22. For as the days of the tree arc the days of my people. The people of the East have a particular desire for long life; hence one of their best and most acceptable Wishes is, " May you live a thousand years." " May you live as long 8 the < !i -tree," i. e. the banyan or ficus' i'ndica. I never saw a tree of that description dead, except when struck by And to cm one down would, in the estimation ill a Hindoo, be almost as great a sin as the taking of life. I do not think this tree will die of itself, because il con- tinues to let fall its own supporters, and will march over acres Of land if not interrupted. Under itsgisantic branches the beasts of the forests screen themselves from Ihe heat of the sun ; and under its sacred shade may be seen the most valued temples of the Hindoos. — Roberts. CHAPTER LXVI. Ver. 12. For thus saith the Loud, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream : then shall ye stick, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. 13. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you ; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. The native females of South Africa, when at home, literally carry about their children on their side, putting one leg of the child behind, and the other before her, and resting on the upper part of the hip. The child clings to her side, and from the prolongation of her breasts, the mother can conveniently suckle it, without moving it from its place. When I saw this done, il had always a very affectionate appearance. When they travel, or are fleeing from an enemy, they carry their children on their hack, under their cloak, their heads only being visible. The fe- males in the South Sea Islands have the same custom. Whether that part of the passage has an allusion to a sim- Hnr practice existing among Jewish females, I know not; but this I know, that on witnessing the African custom, I thought of the above text, which refers to a peaceful and prosperous period, when God should act in the kindest manner towards his ransomed people. To me, when I saw it, it had the appearance of peace, security, and affection. — Campbell. Ver. 17. They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens, behind one tree in the midst, eating' swine's flesh, and the abomina- tion, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord. Not only sacred groves in general, but the centres of such groves in special, were, as the Abb6 Banier has ob- served, made use of for temples by the first and most ancient heathens. Some one tree iii the centre of each such grove was usually had in more eminent and special venerali m, being made the penetrale or more sacred place, which, doubtless, they intended as the anti-symbol of the tree of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, in the midst of Ihe garden of Eden. To this strange abuse alludes Ver. 20. And they shall bring all your brethren for arr offering unto the Lord, out of all na- tions, upon horses, and in chariots, and in lit- ters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as tiie children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into tb^e house of the Lord. The editor of the Ruins of Palmyra tells us, thai the caravan ihey formed, to go to that place, consisted of about two hundred persons, and about the same number of beasts of carriage, which were an odd mixture of horses, camels, mules, and asses ; but there is no account of any vehicle drawn on wheels in that expedition; nor do we find an ac- count of such things in other eastern journeys. There are, however, some vehicles among them used for the sick, or for persons of high distinction. So Pitts observes, in his account of his return from Mecca, that at the head of each division some great gentleman or officer was carried in a thing like a horse-litter, borne by two camels, one before and another behind, which was covered all over with searcloth, and over that again with green broadcloth, and set forth very handsomely. If he had a wife attending him, she was carried in another. This is apparently a mark of distinc- tion. There is another easlern vehicle used in their jour- neys which Thevenot calls a coune. He tells us, ihe counes are hampers, like cradles, carried upon camels' backs, one on each side, having a back, head, and sides, like the great chairs sick people sit in. A man rides in each of these counes, and over them they lay a covering, which keeps them both from the rain and sun, leaving, as il were, a window before and behind upon the camel's back. The rilling in these is also, according to Maillci, a mark of distinction; for, speaking of the pilgrimage to Mecca, he says ladies of any figure have litters ; others arc cm ii-.l -n- ting in chairs, made like covered cages, hang ingi m both sides of a camel ; and as for ordinary women, they are mounted on camels without such conveniences, after the manner of the Arab women, and cover themselves from sight, and the heat of the sun, as well as they can, with their veils. These are the vehicles which are in present use in the Levant. Coaches, on the other hand, Dr. Russel assures us, are not in use at Aleppo ; nor do we meet with any account of theii commonly using them in any other part of the East: but one would imagine, that if ever such conveniences as coaches had been in use, they would not have been laid aside in countries where ease and elegance are so much consulted. As the caravans of the reluming Israelites are described bythe prophet, as composed, like Mr. Dawkin's to Palmyra, of horses and mules, and swift beasts; so are we to under- stand, I imagine, the other terms of the litters and counes, rather than of coaches, which the margin meniions ; or of covered wagons, which some Dutch commentators suppose one of the words may signify, unluckily transferring the customs of their own country to the East ; or of chariots, in our common sense of the word. For though our translators have given us Ihe word dm rial, in many passages of scrip- ture, those wheel-vehicles which those writers speak of, and which our version renders chariols, seem to have been mere warlike machines; nor do we ever read of ladies liding in them. On the other hand, a word derived from the same original is made use of for a seal any how moved, such as the mercy-seat, 1 Chron. xxxviii. 18, where our translators have used the word chariot, but which was no more of a chariot, in ihe common sense of the word, than a litter is; it is made use of also for lhat sort of seat mentioned Lev. xv. !», which they have rendered saddle, but which seems to mean a litter, or a coune. In these vehicles many of the Israelites were to be conducted, according to the prophet, not on the account of sickness, but lo mark out the emi- nence of those Jews, and to express the greal respect their conductors should have for them. — Harjier. JEREMIAH. CHAPTER I. Ver. 11. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou 1 And I said, I see a rod of an almond-tree. 12. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen : for I will hasten my word to per- form it. The almond-tree, so lrequently mentioned in the sacred writings, was called by the Hebrews shakad, from a verb which signifies to awake, or watch; because it is the first tree which feels the genial influences of the sun, after the withering rigours of winter. It flowers in the month of January, and in the warm southern latitudes brings its fruit to' maturity in March. To the forwardness of the al- mond, the Lord seems to refer in the vision with which he favoured his servant Jeremiah : " The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou 1 And I said,- 1 see a rod of an almond-tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen ; for I will hasten my word to perform it;" or rather. "I am hastening, or watching over my word to fulfil it." In this manner it is rendered by the Seventy, eypriyopa cyw an : and by the Vulgate, Vi- gilabo ego sqper veicim ineum. This is the first vision with which the prophet was honoured ; and his attention is roused by a very significant emblem of that severe correc- tion with which the Most High was hastening to visit his people for their iniquity ; and from the species of tree to which the rod belonged, he is warned of its near approach. The idea which the appearance of the almond rod suggest- ed to his mind, is confirmed by the exposition of God him- self: " I am watching over, or on account of my word, to fulfil it ;" and this double mode of instruction, first by em- blem, and then by exposition, was certainly intended to make a deeper impression on the mind, both of Jeremiah and the people to whom he was sent. It is probable, that the rods which the princes of Israel bore, were scions of the almond-tree, at once the ensign of their office, and the em- blem of their vigilance. Such, we know from the testimo- ny of scripture, was the rod of Aaron ; which renders it exceedingly probable that the rods of the other chiefs were from the same tree : " And Moses spake unto the children jf Israel, and everv one of their princes gave him a rod apiece, for each prince, according to their fathers' houses, twelve rods ; and the rod of Aaron was among their rods . . . and behold the rod of Aaron, for the house of Levi, was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds." The almond rod of Aaron, in the opin- ion of Parkhursl, which was withered and dead, and by the miraculous power of God made to bud and blossom, and bring forth almonds, was a very proper emblem of him who first arose from the grave ; and as the light and warmth of the vernal sun seems first to affect the .same symbolical tree, it was with great propriety that the bowls Of the golden candlestick were shaped like almonds. The hoary head is beautifully compared by Solomon to the al- mond-tree, covered in the earliest days of spring with its snow-white flowers, before a single leaf has budded : " The almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail." Man has existed in this world but a few days, when old age begins to appear; sheds its snows upon his head ; prematurely nips his hopes, darkens his earthly prosp3cts, and hurries him into the ?tave. — Paxton. Ver. 13. And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time, saying:, What seest thou 1 And I said, I see a seething-pot, and the face thereof is towards the north. 14. Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. To compensate in some measure for the scarcity of fue., the Orientals endeavour to consume as little as possible in preparing their victuals. For this purpose they make a hole in their dwellings, about a foot and a half deep, in which they put their earthen pots, with the meat in them, closed up, about the half above the middle; three fourth parts they lay about with stones, and the fourth part is left open, through which they fling in their dried dung, and any other combustible substances they can procure, which burn immediately, and produce so great a heat, that the pot becomes as hot as if it stood ovei a strong fire of coals; so that they boil their meat with greater expedition and much less fuel, than it can be done upon the hearth. The hole in which the pot is set, has an aperture on one side, for the purr iove of lie fuel, which seems to be what Jer- emiah calls the face of the pot : " I see," said the prophet, " a pot, and the face thereof is towards the north;" intima- ting that the fuel to heat it was to be brought from that quar- ter. This emblematical prediction was fulfilled when Neb- uchadnezzar, whose dominions lay to the north of Palestine, led hisarmies against Jerusalem, and overturned the thrones of the house of David. — Paxton. CHAPTER II. Ver. 6. Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness ; through a land of deserts, and of pits ; through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death ; through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt ? The account that Mr. Irwin has given of that part of this wilderness which lies on the western side of the Red Sea, through the northern part of which Israel actually passed, very much corresponds with this description, and may serve to illustrate i'. When it is described as a land with- out water, we are not to suppose it is absolutely without springs, but only that water is very scarce there. Irwin accordingly found it so. On the first day after his setting out, having only travelled five miles, they filled thirty wa- ter-skins from the river Nile, but which lie thought might prove little enough for their wants, before they reached the next watering-place They travelled, according to their computation, "fifty-four miles farther, before they found, three days after, a spring, at which they could procure a fresh supplv ; and this was a new discovery to their guides, and for which they were indebted to a very particular ac- cident. It was not till the following day, that they arrived at the valley where their guides expected to water their camels, and where accordingly they replenished the few skins that were then empty: the spring was seventy-nine miles from the place from whence they set out. The next spring of water which they met with was, according to their reckoning, one hundred and seventy-four miles distant from the last, and not met with till the seventh day after, and was, therefore, viewed with extreme pleasure. " At nine o'clock we came suddenly upon a well, which is situ- ated among some broken ground. The sight of a spring of water was inexpressibly agreeable to our eyes, which had so longbeen strangers io so refreshingan obiect." Th- nexl day they found another, which " gushed from a rock, and threw itself with some violence into a basin, which it had hollowed for itself below. We had no occasion for a fresh supply ; but could not help lingering a k\v minutes Chap. 2. JEREMIAH. 487 10 admire a sight, so pretty in itself, ami *o bewitching to our eyes, which had of late been strangers to bubbling remits ami limpid streams." We imisi here mention the smallness of ihe quantity of water one of these lour springs afforded, which Irwin met xv'tli in the a. 'vert, or at least the difficulty of watering their beam it " We lost," say 'bis writer, "the greatest pan of the day at this spring. Though our skins were presently filled, the camels were yet to drink. As the camels coald not go to the well, a hole was sunk in the earth below the surface of the spring, over which a skin d tn retain the water which flowed into it. At this but two camels could drink at a time; and it was six hours before our camels, which amounted to forty-eight in all, were watered. Each camel, therefore, by Ibis call ula lion, takes a quarter of an hour to quench his enormous thirst ; and to water a common caravan of four hundred amels, al such a place as this, would require tv. IWO nights. A most unforeseen and inconceivable delay to an uninformed traveller!" If we are to give this part of the prophei's description of that wilderness a popular ex- plauatii n, and not take it in the most rigorous sense, we might, undoubtedly, to put the same kind of construction on the two last clauses of it. A land thai no man passed throng) , and where no man dwell: a land, that is mil usually passed, and where hardly any man dwelt. So Irwin de- scribes the desert of Thehais as " unknown even to the in- habitantsof the country ; and which, except in the instances I have recited, has not been traversed for this century past by any but the outcasts of humankind." Such a wilder- ness might very well be said not to be passed through, u h -n only two or three companies travelled in it in the compass ol'a hundred years, and that on account of extreme danger, al that particular time, attending the common route. He actually calls it, "a road seldom or never trodden." As to its being inhabited, Irwin travelled, by his estimation, above 300 miles m this desert, from Ghinnah to the towns on Ihe Nile, without meeting with a single town, village, or house. They were even extremely alarmed at seeing the fresh tracks of a camel's feet, which made a strong impres- sion on a soft soil, and which the Arabs with them thought "were not more than a day old ; and they could not compre- hend what business could bring* any but Arab freebooters into that wa^te. When the prophet describes this wilderness, according lo our version, as the fond of the tkadow of death, his meaning has been differently understood by different peo- ple. Some have supposed it to mean a place where there were no comforts or conveniences of life ; but this seems too general, and to explain it as a particular and distinct member of the description, pointing out some quality dif- ferent from the other circumstances mentioned by Jeremiah, seems to be a more just, as it is undoubtedly a more lively way of interpreting the prophet. Others have accordingly understood tiiis clause as signifying, it was the habitation of venomous serpents, or destroying beasts; some as endanger- ing those that passed through it, as being surrounded by the hostile tribes of Arabs; some as being overshadowed by trees of a deleterious quality. They might better have in- troduced the whirlwinds of those southern deserts than the last particular, which winds, taking up the sand in great quantities, darken the air, and prove fatal to the traveller. This last would he giving great beauty and energy to the expression, (the shadow of death,) since these clouds of dust, literally speaking, overshadow those that have the misfortune to be then passing through those deserts, and must at the same time give men the utmost terror of being overwhelmed by them," and not unfrequently do in fact prove deadly. Another clause, a land of pits, is also a part of the pro- phet's description. Irwin affords a good comment on this part of our translation: in one place he says," The path winded round the side of the mountain, and to our left, a horrid chasm, some hundred fathoms deep, presented itself to cur view. It is surprising no accident befell the loaded camels." In another, " On each side of us were perpen- dicular steeps some hundred fathoms deep. On every part is such a wilJ confusion of hanging precipices, disjointed rocks, and hideous chasms, that we might well crv out with the poet, 'Chaos is come again.' Omnipotent Father! to thee we trust for our deliverance from the perils that sur- round us. 11 was through this wilderness that thou didst lead thychosen people, h was here thou didsl manifest thy signa, protection, in snatching them from ihe jawsol di \\ In. Ii opened ii 1 1, hi evi iv - nle." .And in the next page, " At twoo'i lonh we came suddenly upon .-, dreadful chasm in the road, which appears to have been Ihe effect of an earthquake. It is about three hundred yards long, one hundred yards wide, and as many deep; and what is a curiosity, in the he gulf, a single column of stone raises' its head ti e of the earth. The rudeness of the work, and the astonishing length ol the stone, announce it tobealusus nam i a-, il ■ Hated to us, that beneath the column there lies a prodigious sum of money; ami added. with a grave face, they have a tradition, thai none but a Christian's hand can remove the stone to come at it. We rounded the gulf, which was called Soman, and leaving it behind us, we entered a valley where we found a very craggy road." The first clause in this passage, through a ther marauders, but only low embankments; hence, were there not keepers, they would be exposed to all kinds of depredations. These men wander about the ridges, or spend their time in plattinjbaskeisor pouches forareca-nuts and betel loaf; or tend a few sheep. At night they sleep in a small stall, about six feel by four, which stands on four t whirlwind: his hori Wo unto us ! for legs, and is thatched with leaves. The whole affair is fo light, that it can be removed in its complete state to any other part, by two men ; or be taken to pieces in a few minutes, and removed and put together, by one man. The frail fabric illustrates the "lodge in a garden of cucumbers." — Roeerts. Ver. 30. And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with orna- ments of gold, though thou rendest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life. The Hebrew has, instead of face, " eyes." This is a minute description of an eastern courtesan. In Ezekiel xxiii. 40, similar language is used : " For whom thou didst wash thyseif, paintedst thine eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments, and salest upon a stately bed." Jezebel also "painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window." She was the patroness of a most impure system, and the term " whoredoms," as applied to her, may be safely used in the most obvious sense. The females allu- ded to adorn themselves with those ornaments which have been described in the 3d chapter of Isaiah; and having bathed, they rub their bodies with saffron, to make them- selves fair ; and then put on their crimson robes. One kind of paint with which they teint their eyelids is made of a nut called kaduki, which is first burned to a powder, then mixed with castor-oil ; after which it is set on tire, and that which drops from it is the paint referred to. Another kind is made of the juice of limes, indigo, and saffron. In these allusions we see again the hateful and loathsome state of Jerusalem.— Roberts. Several authors, and Lady M. W. Montague in particu- lar, have taken notice of the custom that has obtained from time immemorial among the eastern women, of tinging the eyes with a powder, which, at a distance, or by candle-light, adds very much to the blackness of them. The ancients call the mineral substance, with which this was done, stibium, that is, antimony ; but Dr. Shaw tells us, it is a rich lead ore, which, according to the description of naturalists, looks very much like antimony. Those that are unac- quainted with that substance may form a tolerable idea of it, by being told it is not very unlike the black-lead of which pencils are made, that are in everybody's hands. Pietro Delia Valle. giving a description of his wife, an Assyrian lady, born in Mesopotamia, and educaled at Bagdad, whom he 'married in that country, says, " her eyelashes, which are long, and, according to the custom of the East, dressed with stibium, as we often read in the holy scriptures of the Hebrew women of old, and in Xenophon,of Astyages, the grandfather of Cyrus, and of the Medes of that time, give a dark and at the same time majestic shade to the eyes." "Great eyes," says Sandys, speaking of the Turkish women, "they have in principal repute; and of those the blacker they "be the more amiable ; insomuch that they put between the eyelids and the eve a certain black powder, with a fine long pencil, made of a mineral brought from the kingdom of Fez, and called alchole, which by the noi disagreeable staining of the lids doth better set forth the whiteness of the eye; and though it be troublesome for a time, yet it com- forteth the sight, and repelleth ill humours." Dr. Shaw furnishes us with the following remarks on this subject. " But none of these ladies take themselves to be completely dressed, till they have linged the hair and edges of their eyelids with the powder of lead-ore. Now as this opera- tion is performed bv dipping first into the powder a small wooden bodkin c( the thickness of a quill, and then draw- ing it af erward through the eyelids, over the bail of the eve, we shall have a lively image of what the prophet (Jer. iv. 30) may he supposed to mean by rending the eyes with painting. ' The sooty colour, which is in this manner com- mnnicnti'd to the eves, is thought to add a wonderful grace- fulness to persons of all complexions. The practice of it, no do-ibi, is of greal antiquity; for besides the instance already taken notice of. we find that when Jezebel is said (2 Kings ix. 30,) to hare painted her face, the original wordt, are, she adjusted her eves with the 'ponder of lead-ce."— Cm CHAPTER V. Ver 6. Wherefore a lion out of the fores! shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil then), a leopard shall watch over t li.-i r cities: every our that goeth OUt thence shall he torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, an I their backslidings are increased. The lion prowls about in the day, which I have often witnessed hi Africa: bat ihe habits of the wolf are differ- ent, as it seldom makes its appearance before sunset, alter which u comes forth, like other thieves of the night, in search of prey. 1 never, when moving about in Africa, saw more than one wolf stalking about in daylight, ami that was in a most forsaken part, where, to a great extent, the land was absolutely paved with Bag-stones, I he same as ihe side pavements in our streets; but when night came, they were constantly howling and hovering around our encamp- ment. The habit of ihe leopard, also, is to be slumbering in concealment during the day; bin ihe darkness rouses him. and he comes forth seeking what he may devour. It is of the tiger species, anil rather smaller. The wolves, -on I n it] Id have the boldness lo prowl about their cities, as Ihe wild beasts did about our wagons in Ihe wilderness, so that it should be most hazardous for man orb tore outside their walls. — Campbell. The rapacious character of the wolf was familiarly known to the ancients, for both the Greek and Latin poets frequently mention it. In the first book of the Georgics, Virgil says, this office was given to the wolf by Jupiter, lo hunt the prey. The rapacious wolf, is a phrase which often occurs in ihe odes of Horace ; and Ovid, in one of his Elegies, sings, how the wolf, rapacious and grcedv of blood, when press,., I |,v famine, plunders the unguarded fold: his ravenous temper prompts him to destructive and sanguin- ary depredations. He issues forth in the night, traverses ihe country, and not only kills what is sufficient lo satisfy his hunger, but, everywhere, unless deterred by Ihe bark- ing of dogs or the vociferation of the shepherds, destroys a whole flock; he roams about the collages, kills all the ani- mals which have been left without, digs the earth under the doors, enters with a dreadful ferocity, and puis every living creature to death, before he chooses to depart, and carry off his prey. When these inroads happen lo be fruitless, he returns lo the woods, searches about with avidity, follows the track of wild beasts, and pursues them in the'hope that ihey may he slopped and seized by some other wolf, and that he may be a partaker of the spoil. " To appease hun- ger," says Bull'm, "he swallows indiscriminately every thing he can find, corrupted flesh, bones, hair, skins haif tanned and covered with lime;" and Pliny avers, that he devours the earth on which he treads, to satisfy his vora- cious appetite. When his hunger is extreme, he loses the idea of fear ; he attacks women and children, and even sometimes dans upon men ; till, becoming perfectly furious by excessive exertions, he generally falls asacrifice to pure Taction. He has been accordingly joined with ihe lion in executing punishment upon wicked men; and it is evident from his character and habits, ihat he is well adapted to the work of judgment; " The great men," said Jeremiah, " have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds; wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of Ihe evenings shall spoil them." The rapa- cious and cruel conduct of the princes of Israel, is compared bv Ezekiel to the mischievous inroads of the same animal: "Her princes in ihe midst thereof, are like wolves ravening the prev. to shed blood, to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain." The disposition of the wolf lo attack the weaker animals, especially those which are under the protection of man, is alluded lo by our Lord in the parable of the hire- ling shepherd : " The wolf catches them and scatters ihe Bock;" an 1 the apostle Paul, in hi., address to the elders of ces the name of ihis insidiousand cruel animal, to the false teachers who disturbed ihe peaee.and perverted the faith of their people: " I know this, that afier my de- parting, shall grievous wolves enter in among 3-011, not -paring ihe Bock." Ovid gives him the same character in his fable of Lycaon. — Paxton. Ver. 8. They were as fed horses in the morning; : every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. JEREMIAH. - 46* The same term is used in the East to denote a similar thing. It is said, " Listen lo thai evil man, he is always " 0 that wicked one, he is like ihe horse in his The men ol that family are all neighers." Heathenism is ever true to itself; impurity is Us inseparable companion. — Roberts. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 1. 0 ye children of Benjamin, gather your- selves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sigh of fire in Beth-haccerem : for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction. The methods by which the besieged in time of war en- deavoured to defend themselves and their families were various. When the enemy approached, they gavi notice to their confederates lo hasten their assistance. In the day, Ihis was done bv raising a great smoke ; in Ihe night, by fires or lighted torches. If the flaming torch was intended to announce the arrival of friends, it was helcXslill ; but on the approach of an enemy, it was waved backwards and forwards, an apl emblem of the destructive tumults of war. In allusion to this practice, Ihe prophet Jeremiah calls lo Ihe people of Benjamin and Judah; "Gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow* the trumpet in Tekoah, and set up a sign of fire in Belh-haccerem; for evil approaches out of the north, and great destruction." — Pax ton. In. Belh-haccerem there might possibly be a very high tower. Kimchi observes thai the word signifies a high tower, for the keepers of the vines to watch in. If il were so, ii was a very proper place to set up the sign of fire in, to give nolice lo all Ihe surrounding country. It was usual with ihe Persians, Grecians, and Romans, lo signify in the night by signs of fire, and by burning torches, eiiher ihe approach of an enemy, or succour from friends. The for- mer was done by shaking and moving their torches; the latter by holding them still.— Burder. Ver. 2. I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman. A passage of D'Arvieux will account for llial surprise, which he supposes the daughters of Jerusalem would not- withstanding feel, upon seeing the swarthiness of the per- son which Solomon had chosen for his spouse, as it shows the attention usually paid by Ihe grea' men of Ihe East to Ihe complexion of their wives, as well as ihe great tanning power of Ihe sun in Palestine. "The princesses, and Ihe other Arab ladies, whom they showed me from a private place of the tent, appeared 10 me beautiful and well-shaped j one may judge by these, and by what they told me of them, that the rest are no less so ; they are very' fair, because they are always kept from ihe sun. The women in common are extremely sunburn!, besides Ihe brown and swarthy colour which they naturally have," &a. Naturally, he says, though this most permanent swarthiness must arise from the same cause with that temporary tanning he speaks of, or otherwise the Arab princesses would have been swarlhy, though not sunburnt, being natives of ihe country, which vet, he affirms, Ihev were not. It is on this account, without doubt, lhat ihe prophet Jeremiah, when he would describe a comelv woman, de- scribes her by the character of one that dweileih at home. The delicate, and Ihose lhat are solicitous to preserve their beauty, go very little abroad : it seems it was so anciently, and therefore the prophet uses a term 10 express a woman of beauty, which would not be very applicable to many British fine ladies. — Harmer. Ver. 20. To what purpose cometh there to me in- cense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt-offerings are not ac- ceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto mt. The sweet-smelling reed grows in the deserts of Arabia. It is gathered near Jambo, a port town of Arabia Petrea, from whence it is brought into Egypt. Pliny says it is common to India and Sync. This plant was probably 4' 10 JEREMIAH. 6-8. among the number of those which the queen of Sheba presented id Solomon; and what seems to confirm the opinion is, that it is still very much esteemed by the Arabs on account of its fragrance. It is likely the sweet cane of Jeremiah, who calls it prime, or excellent, and associates it with incense from Sheba. " To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, ami the sweet cane from a far country 1" And, iu allusion to the same plant, Isaiah complains in the name of Jehovah, " Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money." In the book of Exodus, it is called "sweet calamus," and is said to come " from a far country ;" which agrees with the declaration of ancient writers, that the best is brought from India. — Paxton. Ver. 24. We have heard the fame thereof; our hands wax feeble : anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain as of a woman in travail. When a person is hungry, or weary, or when he hears bad news, it is said, " His hands have become weak." " His hands have turned cold." — Roberts. CHAPTER VII. Yer. 34. Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusa- lem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of glad- ness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride : for the land shall be desolate. It was the custom in the East, even in modern times, to conduct the bride and bridegroom through the streets, with the loudest demonstrations of joy. Rauwolf found this custom also prevalent in Aleppo. " When a Turkish woman is going to be married, and the bridegroom is con- iucted to her house, their relations and friends, who are invited to the wedding, as they go along through the streets cry with such a loud voice, which they gradually raise as they advance, that they can be heard from one street to the other." When the prophet paints a period of public distress, he says among other things, " The voice of the bride and the bridegroom shall no longer be heard." Thus, in Persia, no marriages are celebrated during Lent, (the month of Ramadan,) and the solemnities of mourning in memory of Hossein ; because every thing must then be still and mourn- ful. (Olearius.) — Rosenmuller. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 7. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming : but my people know not the judgment of the Lord. See on Ps. 104. 17. Some interpreters imagine, that by the phrase, "the stork in the heaven," the prophet means to disiinguish be- tween the manner of her departure, and that of other migrating birds. The storks collect in immense numbers, and darken the air with their wide-extended squadrons, as they wing their flight to other climes; while many other birds of passage come and go in a more private and con- cealed manner. But, if this was the prophet's design, he ought not to have introduced the crane, or our translators should have found another sense for the term which he uses; for the crane is seen pursuing her annual journev through the heavens equally as the stork, and in number's sufficient to engage the public attention. When Dr. Chandler was in Asia, about the end of August, he saw cranes flving in vast caravans, passing high in the air, from Thrace as he supposed, on their way to Egypt. But, in the end of March, he saw them in the Lesser Asia, busily engaged in picking up reptiles, or building their nests.' Some of them, he assures us. built their nests in the ruins of an old fortress; and that the return of the crane, and the begin- ning of the bees to work, are considered there as a sure sign that the winter is past. The first clause of that verse then, equally suits the stork and the ciane; and by consequence, the conjecture of these interpreters is unfounded. It is more natural to : that the prophet alludes to the impression which the ; sphere makes upon these birds, and the hint which insuixi immediately suggests, that the time of their migration is come. As soon as they feel the cold season approaching, or tepid airs beginning to soften lb* rigours of winter, in the open firmament of heaven, where they love to range, thev perceive the necessity of making preparations for their departure, or their return. The state of the weather is the only monitor they need to prepare for their journey, —their own feelings, the only guides to direct their long and adventurous wanderings. But it is most probable that the prophet by these words, "in the heaven," which by the structure of "the clause he seems to apply exclusively to the stork, as a peculiar trait in her character, intends to express boih the astonishing rapidity of her flight, when she starts for distant regions, and the amazing height to which she soars. She is beyond almost any other, a bird "in the heaven," journeying on the very margin of ether, far above the range of the hu- man eye. From the union of the stork and the crane in the same passage, from the similarity of their form and habits of life, Harmer thinks it by no means improbable, that the Hebrew word hasfda signifies both these, and, in one word, the whole class of birds that come under the prophet's de- scription. But that respectable writer has no foundation for his opinion; the stork and the crane, although they resemble each other in several particulars, belong to dif- ferent families, and are distinguished in Hebrew by diffe- rent names. The return of these birds to the south, marked the approach of winter, and the time for the mariner to lay up his frail bark ; for the ancients never ventured to sea dur- ing that stormy season. Stillingfleel has given a quotation from Aristophanes, which is quite appropriate. The crane points out the time for sowing, when she flies with het warning notes to Egypt; she bids the sailor hang up his rudder and take his "rest, and every prudent man provide himself with winter garments. On the other hand, the flight of these birds towards the north, proclaimed the ap proach of spring. The prophet accordingly mentions llit times appointed for the stork in the plural number, which is probably used to express both the lime of her coming and of her departure. No doubt is entertained about the meaning of the second term ; it is universally allowed to denote the turtle; and as the voice of the turtle and the song of the nightingale are coincident, it seems to be the prophet's intention "to mark oiTt the coming of a bird later in the spring than the hasida, for, according to Chardin, the nightingale begins to be heard some davs later than the appearance of the stork, and marks out the 'beginning of spring, as the stork indicates the termination of winter.— Paxton. Should a husband be fond of roving from his house, and remaining in other places, his wife says, " The storks know their time and place, but my husband does not know." " In the rain neither the Koku nor other birds will depart from their nestlings: but my husband is always leaving us." " Ah ! my wicked son ! would that he, as the stork, knew his appointed time and placs !" — Roberts. Ver. 17. For behold, I will send serpents, cocka- trices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord. See on Eccl. 10. 11. Ps. 58. 5, 6. and Is. 11. 8. The East Indian jugglers ascribe it to the power of a certain root that they touch venomous set penis without danger, and are able to do with them whatever they please. This is confirmed bv one of the best-informed and most judicious observers, Mr. Kaempfer, a German physician, who practised his profession from the year 1(>8'2, for twelve years, in several countries in Asia. In his instructive "work, written in Latin, in which he has recorded the great- er part of his observations, a separate chapter is dedicated to the arts of the East India charmers of serpents, the sub- stance of which we will add here. "Among the arts of the Indian jugglers and mounte- banks, the most remarkable is, that thev make one of the most venomous serpents, the Naja, calleriJry the Portuguese Cobra de Cabello, dance. This serpent, so dangerous to J II A P. 9. JEREMIAH. 491 man, infuses, by its bite, a most deadly poison into the wound. Those who are bit by it are iininedi.ilely seized with tils and oppression, and expiie in convulsions, unless speed] assistance is given; at least tbey hardtj escape mortification, in the injur"d part, and the etire ol w lin-h r- difficult, if antidotes are applied too late. This serpent, w hn-h Indoles 10 ilit- class of \ ipei's, is from three to four feel long, and Of a middling thickness; its skin is scaly, and beautifully striped, rough, dark brown, and belly white. When provoked, this viper lias the peculiar prop- erty of pulling up the skin on both sides of the tuck, and e [tending it like a fillet, which, on the reverse side, shows liice a pair of spectacles, distinctly marked with a while colour, the circles of which are visible in the skin, w Inch is spread round the head: thus, with iis body raised, and extended jaws, displaying two rows of sharp teeth, it darts upon the enemy with surprising swifmess. That ihis for- midable animal should be brought, by singing, lo make, Before spectators, movements resembling a dance, is incred- ible to those who hear it, and an agreeable and astonishing sight lo those that witness it. But if we examine this ser- pent dance more closely, and learn how these animals are taught, we shall find every thing very natural : I will first describe the dance, as it is called. " A charmer of serpents, who intends to display his art, before he does any thing, takes a piece of a certain root, of which he always carries some in the scarf which he wean round his waist, in his right hand, which he closes firmly; this root, according to his declaration, defends him against all attacks from serpents, so that he can do any thing with them without being endangered : upon this, he throws the serpent upon the ground out of the vessel in which he car- ries it ;.hout, and gentlv irritates it with a stick, or with the clinched fist in which he holds this root. The provoked animal, resting on the point of its tail, raises up its whole body, and dans upon the fist, which he holds out to him, with extended jaws, from which the hissing tongue is pro- truded, and with flaming eyes. The charmer now begins his song, at the same time moving his fist backward and forward, up and down, according to the lime. The ser- pent, with its eyes constantly directed towards the fist, imitates its movements with its head and whole body, so that without quitting its place, and resting on its tail, it ex- tends its head two spans long, and moves to and fro, to- gether with the body, in beautiful undulations, which is called dancing : this, however, does not last longer than half a quarter of an hour; for, exhausted by the erect posi- tion, and movements to tb# time, the serpent throws itself upon the ground and escapes; to avoid this, the charmer breaks off his song a little before, when the serpent lays itself quietly upon the ground, and suffers itself to be brought back to its receptacle. " The question now is, how it is effected, that the serpent follows the motion of the hand which is held before it 1 whether by the secret power of the root held in ill or by the song of the charmer 1 These people, indeed, affirm that this effect is produced by both. The root, say they, causes the serpent to do no harm, and the song makes it dance. They, therefore, bring this root to the spectators to Surchase, and do not much like to let any one approach a ancing serpent without having previously secured himself with it; but that others may not be able to discover what root it is, tbey cut them only in very small pieces, which in taste and external appearance resemble the sarsaparilla, but are only a little stronger. But we must not believe that the root makes the serpent harmless, and that the song makes it dance. I threw two pieces of the root, which 1 had purchased for a tritle from a charmer, to a serpent which was quietly lying on the ground after the dance was finished; but it did "not cause it to move, nor did it show any sign of aversion. But no person of sense in our days, probably, can believe that serpents are so charmed by the song, that they dance ; and David, in the well-known pas- sage in the Psalms, does not appear to say this. In short, according tc mv conviction, it is only fear, by which this species of serpents, which is more docile than any other. is taught to follow the motions of its master's hand, which •s held before it, and so makes movements with its body resembling a dance. I myself saw how a Hindoo of the Bramin tribe, who lived 'in a suburb of Nagapatam, in- structed such a serpent to dance in a few days, by means of a nick and a basin, which he held before it : they are ren- dered harmless by employing the poison-bags at the root of the canine teeth o'i the uppn |aw, which is done by provok- ing ihcin, and making them bite a cloth, or some other soft and warm body, and repealing this for some days succes- 'ili dy."— Ih niiKll. Ver. 20. The harvest is past, the summer is end- ed, and we are not saved. Has a man lost a good situation, it is said, " His harvest is past ." N a person amassing much money, it is said, " He is gathering in his harvest."— Roberts. CHAPTER IX. •tfrer. 1. Oh that my head were watqrs, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day ami night for the slain of the daughter of my people ! The marginal reading intimates the head was exhausted, the fountain was dry. People in prospect of great misery, ask, " Have we waters in our heads for that grief 1" "That my sorrows may not dry up, these eyes are always weep- ing."—Roberts. Ver. 2. Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodg- ing-place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. People in the East, on their journeys to other towns or countries, are obliged to travel through the most lonely wilds. Hence the native sovereigns, or opulent men, erect wdiat are called rest-houses, or choultries, where the trav- ellers or pilgrims reside for the night. It is in the wilder- ness where the devotees and ascetics live retired from men : there, either for life, or for a short period, thev per- form their austerities, and live in cynical contempt of man. When a father is angry with his family, he often exclaims, "If I had but a shade "in the wilderness, then should I be happy: I will become a pilgrim, and leave you." Nor is this mere empty declamation to alarm his family ; for num- bers in every town and village thus leave their homes, and are never heard of more. There are, however, many who remain absent for a few months or years, and then return. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder, when a fathei or husband threatens his family he will retire to the ktitu, i. e. wilderness, that they become greatly alarmed. But men who have been reduced in their circumstances become so mortified, that they also retire from their homes, and wander about all their future lives as pilgrims. "Alas! alas ' 1 will retire to the jungle, and live With wild beasts,"- says the broken-hearted widow. "Oli fnr a loilse in some vast wilderness, s.ini- l.nim.Urss . . . i . 1 1 ^r 1 1 i i > nf shade." (Cowper.)— Robeets. Ver. 8. Their tongue is as an arrow shot out ; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he lay- eth his wait. The circumstance related bv Mr. Mungo Park, in the following extract, might possibly have its parallel in the conduct of the ancients; and if it hatl, clearly accounts for such figures as that used by the prophet: " Each of the negroes look from his quiver a handful of arrows, ^nd putting two between his teeth, and one in his bow, waved to us with his hand to keep at a distance." (Travels in Africa.) — Burder. Ver. 17. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Considci ye and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, thai they may come: 18. And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and cur eyelids gush oul with waters. The custom of hiring woiren ;o wetp at funerals, who JEREMIAH. Chai>. 9. were called by the Romans praeficse, has been preserved in the East to ttvs day. J. H. Mayer, one of the latest trav- vvomen, who are several times spoken of in the Bible, and of whom I could not form a proper notion. This ancient custom has been retained here to this day. I have often seen the ceremony, but most clearly and nearest here, in Medini, an Egyptian village. Fifteen or twenty women, dressed in dark, wiih a black or dark-blue handkerchief round their heads, assemble before the house of the deceased ; one of them beats a talourine, the others move in a cir- cle, keeping time to the instrument, singing at the same time the praises of the deceased; in the space of a miuute they clasp their hands twenty or thirty times togelherjb^- f-jre their face, and then let them drop to the knee. The constant violent motion changes the ceremony into a dance; every moment a piercing cry, almost like a whistle, is heard from one of the attendants. The mourning continues seven days, during which the nearest female relation, ac- companied by mourning women, visit the grave of the. de- ceased, and as they march along, alternately utter this shrill and piercing cry." — Rosenmuller. Immediately after death the people of the house begin to make a great lamentation : they speak of the virtues of the deceased, and address the body in very touching language. The female relations come together, and beat their breasts. Their long hair is soon dishevelled : they sit down on the floor around the corpse, put their arms on each others' shoulders, and in a kind of mournful recitative bewail the loss of their friend. I have sometimes been not a little affected to hear their exclamations. See the wife bending over the dead body of her husband ; listen to her lamentations :— " Ah, how many years have we been married, and lived happily to- gether ? never were we separated, but now ! Alas, my king, my kingdom, my master, my wealth, my eyes, my body, my soul, my god. Shall I make an offering to Brama, because thou art taken away? Now will your enemies rejoice, because your are gone. Did the gods call for you ? are you in Siva's mount? Though I saw you die, I am still alive. When shall I again see the light of your beautiful countenance? Owhen again shall I behold his nuble mien? how can I look upon that face w-hich was once like the full-blown lotus, but now withered and dry. When shall I again see his graceful bearing in the palanquin. Alas ! my name is now the widow. When will my aged father again say to you, son-in-law ? Do the eyes which saw the splendour of my bridal day witness this deadly scene ! In future, by whom will these children be defended ? When I am sick, who will go for the far-famed doctor i When my children cry, to whom shall I complain ? When they are hungry, to whom will they say, father? Ah! my children, my children, you must now forget that pleasant word." Hear the daughter over her father. — "My father, had I not my existence from you ? Who had me constantly in his arms, lest I should fall ? Who would not eat except I was with him ? Who fed me wiih rice and milk ? When I was dejected, who purchased me bracelets? Who pur- chased the beautiful jewel for my forehead? O! my god, you never could bear to look in my withered face. Who will now train my brothers ? Who procured me the tali? (husband.) To whom shall I go when my husband is angry ? Under whose shade shall my husband and chil- dren now go? To whom will my children now say, grand- father ? In whose face will my mother now look? Alas ! my father, my father, you have left us alone." Listen to the son over his father: — " From infancy to manhood you have tenderly nursed me. Who has given me learning ? Who has taught me to conduct myself with discretion? Who caused me to be selected by many? Who would not eat if I had the headache ? Who would not allow me to be fatigued by walking ? Who gave me the beautiful palanquin ? Who loved to see his son happy ? Whose eyes shone like_ diamonds on his son? Who aught me to prepare the fields? who taught me agricul- ture ? Ah! my father, I thought you would have lived to partake of the fruits of the trees I had planted. Alas! luas ! I shall now be called the fatherless son." Hear the aged father over the body of his son :— " Mv • on, my son, art thou gone ? What ! am I left in mv old age? My lion, my arrow, my blood, my body, my soul, mv third eye ! gone, gone, gone. Ah ! who was so near to his mother ? To whom will she now say, son ? What ! gone without assistirg us in our old age? Ah ! what will thy betrothed do? I hoped thou wouldst have lived to see our death. Who will now perform the funeral rites for us ? Who will light up the pile ? Who will perform the annual ceremonies ? To thebats, to the bats, my house is now given." The daughter over the body of her mother says, " Alas I what shall I do in future? We are like chickens, whose mother is killed. Motherless children are beaten on the head. We are like the honeycomb hanging on the trees, at which a stone has been thrown: all, all are scattered." She says to the females who are coming to mourn over her mother, " I am the worm which has to eat a dead body. Though you should give me a large vessel full of water, it w'lii not quench my thirst so well as a few drops from the hand of my mother ! My mother has gone, and left us for the streets. Who lulled me to repose? Who bathed me near the well ? Who fed me with milk-? Ah ! my father also is dead. Why have you gone without seeing the splendour of my bridal day ? Did you not promise to deck me for the festive scene ? What I am I to be alone that day ? Ah ! my mother, how shall I know how to conduct myself? When I am married, should my husband use me ill, to whom shall I go ? Who w^U now leach me to manage household affairs? Ah! there is nothing like a mother! How many pains, how many difficulties, have you had with me ? What have I done for you ? Alas ! alas ! had you been long sick, I might have done something for you. Ah ! you told me disobedience would be my ruin. You are gone : why did I not obey you ? My fate, my fate ! my mother, my mother ! will you not look at me ? Are you asleep ? You told us you should die before our father. My mother, will you not again let me hear your voice? When I am in pain, who will say, fear not, fear not? I thought you would have lived to see the marriage of my daughter. Come hither, my infant, look at your grand- mother. Was I not nursed at those breasts ? You said to my father, when you were dying, 'Love my children.' You said to my husband, ' Cherish my daughter.' Ah ! did you not bless us all ? My mother, my mother, that name I will not repeat again." The son says to the mourning women, "Ah! was she not the best of mothers ? Did she not conceal my faults ? Can I forget her joy when she put the bracelets on my wrists. O ! how she did kiss and praise me, when I had learned the alphabet. She was ^) ways restless while I was at school, and when I had to return, she was always look- ing out for me. How often she used to say, ' My son, my son, come and eat;' but now, who will call me?" Then, taking the hand of his deceased mother into his owfl, he asks, "and are the worms to feed on this hand which has fed me?" Then, embracing her feet, "Ah! these will never more move about this house. When my great days are come, in whose face shall I look ? Who will rejoice in my joy? When I goto the distant country, who will be constantly saying, ' Return, return ?' Ah ! how did she rejoice on my wedding day. Who will now help and com- fort my wife"? If she" did' not see me every moment, she was continually saying, 'My son, my son b Must I now apply the torch to her funeral pile ? Alas ! alas ! I am too young for that. What! have the servants of the funeral house been anxious to get their money? Could ihey not have wailed a few years ? What do those bearers want ? Have you come to take away my mother ?" Then, lying on the' bier by her side, he says, " Take me also. Alas! alas! is the hour come? I must now forget you. Your name must never again be in my mouth. I must now perform the annual ceremony. O life, life! the bubble, the bubble !" Listen to the affectionate brother over the body of h s sister :—" Were we not a pair? why are we separated? Of what use am I alone ? Where is now my shade ? I will now be a wanderer. How often did I bring you the fragrant lotus? but your face was more beautiful than that flower. Did I not procure vou jewels ? Who gained you the bridegroom? Have I' not been preparing to make a splendid show on your nuptia. day ? Alas ! all is vanity. How fatal is this for your betrothed. For whose sins have you been taken away? You nave vanished like the god- dess Lechimy. In what birtn shall we again see you? Chap. 10—12. JEREMIAH. How many miters wailed fer yon 1 Yon have poured fire into my bowels : my senses have gone, ami I wan like an evil spirit. Instead of the marriage ceremonies, we are -now attending to those of your funeral. I may get another mother, tor my lather can many again: 1 may acquire cjiildren ; hut a sister, never, never. Ah I give me one look: let your lotus-like lace open once— one smile. Is this your marriage ceremony 1 I though! one thing, but fate thought another. You have escaped tike lightning: the house is now full of darkness. When I go 10 the dis- tant town, who will give me her commissions ! To whom shall we give four clothes and jewels ! My sister, I have to put the torch to your funeral pile. You said, ' Brother, we will never part; we will live together in one house :' hut you are gone. I refused to give you to the youth in the far country, but now whither have yon gone 1 To whom shall I now say, I am hungry '. Alas! alas! my father planted cocoa, mango, an. I |ark trees in vorn name, but you have not lived to eat the fruit the f. I have been to tell them you are gone. Alas! I see her clothes: take them away. Of what use is that palanquin now I Who used to come jumping on the road to meet me ? If I have so much sorrow, what must have been that of your mother for ten long moons'! Whose evil eve has b< en upon you? Who aimed the blow ? Will there ever again be sorrow like this"! My belly smokes. Ah, my sister, your gait, your speech, vurheaulv, all gone: the (lower is withered— the flower is 'withered. ' Call for the bier; call for the musi- cians." Husbands who love their wives are exceedingly pathetic in their exclamations: they review the scenes of their youth, and speak of their tried and sincere affection. The children she has borne are also alluded to ; and, to use an orientalism, the man is plunged into a sea of grief. '■ What, the apple of my eye gone ? My swan, my parrot, my deer, mv Lechimyl Her colour was like gold, her gait like the stately swan, her waist was like lightning, her teeth were like pearls, her eyes like the kiyal fish, (oval,) her eyebrows like the bow, and her countenance like the full-grown lotus. Yes, she has gone, the mother of my children. No more welcome, no more smiles in the evening when I return. All the world to me is now CHAPTER X. Ver. 5. They arc upright as the palm-tree, but speak not ; they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them ; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. From the first clause, it is evident that he alluded also to the shape of their gods. Before the art of carving was carried to perfection, the ancients made their images all of a thickness, straight, having their hands hanging down and close to their sides, the legs joined together, the eyes shut, with a very perpendicular attitude, and not tinlike to the bodv of a palm-tree ; such are the figures of those an- tique Egyptian statues that still remain. The famous Greek architect and sculptor Daedalus, set their legs at lib- erty, opened their eyes, and gave them a freer and easier attitude. But according to some interpreters, and particu- larly Mr. Parkhurst, the inspired writer sometimes gives it a more honourable application; selecting it to be the symbol of our blessed Redeemer, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. The voice of antiquity ascribes to the palm, the singular quality of resisting a very great weight hung upon it, and of even bending in the contrary direction, to counterbalance the pressure. Of this circumstance, Xenophon takes notice in his Cyrope- dia ; ploys their own rain-maker, but generally thinks those at a distance have more power lo produce it than those at home, a rain-maker, from high up the c travelled with my party for a few weeks. I ::-ke,i Mm se- riously, if he really believed thai he had power to bring ram when he pleased ' His reply was, that " he could not say he had. but he used means to bring it ;" such as rolling great stones down the sides of mountains, to drawdown the clouds. A rain-maker at Lattakoo who was unsuccess- ful, first said it was because he had not got sufficient pres- ents of cattle. He then desired them first to bring him a live baboon ; hundreds tried but could not catch one. He ne\i di manded a live owl, but they could not find one. N« rain coming they called him rogue, impostor, &c. and or- dered him away.— Campbell. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 3. And I will appoint over them four kinds saith the Lord ; the sword to slay, and the (loo-.* to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the . beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. An oriental enemy, as in former ages, cuts down the trees of the country which he invades, destroys the villages, and burns all the corn and provender which he cannot carry off: the surrounding plain, deprived of its verdure, is cov- ered with putrid carcasses and burning ashes: the hot wind wafting its fetid odours, and dispersing the ashes among the tents, renders his encampment extremely disagreeable. During the night the hyenas, jackals, and wild beasts of various kinds," allured by the scent, pro« I oyer the field with a horrid noise ; and" as soon as the morning dawns, a multitude of vultures, kites, and birds of prey, are seen asserting their claim to a share of the dead. Such was the scene which Forbes contemplated on the plains of Hin- " snvs ihnt writer ,( n scpnp dostan ; " and it me," says that Wl replete with horrid novelty, realizing the prophet's denun- ciation : ' I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord; the sword to slr.v, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.' " — Paxton. Ver. 7. And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land ; I will bereave them, of chil- dren, I will destroy my people, since they re- turn not from ^heir ways. 8. Their widow? are increased to me above the sand of the seas : I have brought upon them, against the mother of the young men, a spoiler at noonday : 1 have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city. When the cholera of anv other pestilence rages, it is said, "Alas! this sickness 'has fanned the people away." " Truly they have been suddenly fanned from the earth." See on' Isa. xxx. 24.— Roberts. Ver. 9. She that hath borne seven languisheth : she hath given up the ghost ; her sun is gone down while it was yet day : she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the Lord. Of a person who is dead, it is said, " He is set," and of one dying, " He is setiing." Should a beautiful young man or woman be reduced by sickness, it is said, "He is like the evening, which is occupying the place of the morn ing !"— Roberts. - JEREMIAH. Chap. Ver. 18. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed ? wilt thou be, altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail? " Waters that fail." Heb. " Waters that are not to be trusted," i. e. such as are delusive, such as disappoint ex- pectation. That which Mr. Harmer proposes simply as a query, may be stated as a very probable suggestion, viz. that in these words the prophet alludes to the phenomenon of the mirage, so frequently mentioned by eastern travel- lers. " There is," says Chardin, " a vapour or splendour, in the plains of the desert, formed by the repercussion of the rays from the sand, that appears like a vast lake. Travellers afflicted with thirst a-re drawn on by such ap- pearances, but coming near find themselves mistaken; it seems to draw back as they advance, or quite vanishes." — " To the southeast, at a distance of four or five miles, we noticed on the yellow sands two black masses, but whether they were the bodies of dead camels, the temporary hair- tents of wandering Bedouins, or any other objects, magni- fied by the refraction which is so strongly produced in the horizon of the desert, we had no means of ascertaining. With the exception of these masses, all the eastern range of vision presented only one unbroken waste of sand, till its visible horizon ended in the illusive appearance of a lake, thus formed by the heat of a midday sun on a' nitrous soil, giving to the parched desert the semblance of water, and reflecting its scanty shrubs upon the view, like a line of extensive forests; but in no direction was either a natural hill, a mountain, or other interruption to the level line of the plain, to be seen." (Buckingham's Travels in Meso- potamia.) "We have suffered very much from the fatigue of this day's journey, and have still five days' march through this waterless desert. The only object to interest us, and relieve the weariness of mind and body, has been the mirage, so often described. Some travellers state that this phenomenon has deceived them repeatedly. This I am surprised at, since its peculiar appearance, joined to its occurrence in a desert where the traveller is too forcibly impressed with the recollection that no lakes or standing pools exist, would appear to me to prevent the possibility, that he who has once seen it, can be a second time de- ceived. Still, this does not diminish the beauty of the phe- nomenon:— to see amid burning sands and barren hills, an apparently beautiful lake, perfectly calm and unruffled by any breeze, reflecting in its bosom the surrounding rocks, is, indeed, an interesting and wonderfu. spectacle; but it is a tantalizing sight, traversing the desert on foot, always with a scanty supply of water, and often, owing to their great imprudence, wholly destitute of it." (Hoskins' Travels in Ethiopia.) — Bosh. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 5. For thus saith the Lord, Enter not into the house of mourning-, neither go to lament nor bemoan them : for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord," fit-era loving-kindness and mercies. See on 1 Kings 18. 28. Ver. 6. Both the great and the small shall die in this land : they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them. The cutting off the hair in mourning for the dead, is an eastern, as well as a Grecian custom; and appears to have obtained in the East in the prophetic times, as weH as in later ages. That it was practised among the Arabs, in the seventh centurv, appears by a passage of D'Herbelot. Khaled ben Valid ben Mogairah, who was one of the jravest of the Arabs in the time of Mohammed, and sur- oamedby him, after Khaled had embraced the new religion he introduced into the world, the "sword of God," died un- der the califate of Omar, in the city of Emessa, in Syria; and he adds, that there was not a female of the house of Mogairah, who was his grandfather, either matron or maiden, who caused not her hair to be cut off at his burial. How the hair that was cut off was disposed of, does not appear in D'Herbelot. Among the ancient Greeks, it was sometimes laid upon the dead body; sometimes cast into the funeral pile; sometimes placed upon the grave. Under this variation of management among the Greeks, it would have been an agreeable additional circumstance to have been told, how the females of the house of Mogairah dis- posed of their hair. We are equally ignorant of the man- ner in which the ancient Jews disposed of theirs, when they cut it off in bewailing the dead. But that they cut it off, upon suclr occasions, is evident from a passage of the prophet Jeremiah, ch. xvi. 6. " Both the great and the small shall die in this ".and : thev shall not be buried, nei- ther shall men lamen for them", nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them." The words do not seem determinately to mean, that those of the male sex onlv were wont to cut themselves, or make themselves bald for the dead ; but that 'there should be no cutting of the flesh made at all for them, no baldness, Jeaving it uncertain which sex had been wont to make nse of these rites of mourning, who should then omit them. So the interiineary translation of Montanus understands the words. Both practices seem to have been forbidden by the law o" Moses; the soft and impressible temper of the female se might, it may be imagined, engage them sooner to de- vii e from the precept, than the firmer disposition pf the other. So here we see they were the females of the family of Mogairah that cut off their hair at the burial of Khaled ; not a word of the men. And accordingly we find among the modern Mohammedans, the outward expressions at least of mourning are much stronger among the women than the men : the nearest male relations, Dr. Russel tells us, describing their way of carrying a corpse to be buried, immediately follow it, " and the women close the proces sion, with dreadful shrieks, while the men all the way are singing prayers out of the Koran. The women go to the tomb every Monday or Thursday, and carry some flowers or green leaves to' dress it with. They make a show of grief, often expostulating heavily with the dead person, ' Why he should leave them, when they had done every thing in their power to make life agreeable to him.' This however, by the men, is looked upon as a kind of impiety ; and, if overheard, they are chid severely for it ; and, I must say, the men generally set them a good example in this re- spect, by a patient acquiescence in the loss of their nearest relations, and indeed show a firm and steady fortitude under every kind of misfortune." — Hammer. Ver. 7. Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead ; neither shall men give them the cup of conso- lation to drink for their father or for their mother. 8. Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink. The making a kind of funeral feast was also a method of honouring the dead, used anciently in these countries, and is continued down to these times! The references of commentators here have been, in common, to the Greek amtTloman usages ; but as it must be more pleasing to learn eastern customs of this kind, I will set down what Sir J. Chardin has given us an account of in one of his manu- scripts; and the rather, as some particulars are new to me. " The oriental Christians still make banquets cf this kind, (speaking of the ancient Jewish feasts of mourning, mentioned Jer. xvi. 6, 7, and elsewhere,) by a custom de- rived from the Jews ; and I have been many times present at them, among the Armenians in Persia. 'The 7th verse speaks of those provisions which are wont lobe sent to the house of the deceased, and of those healths that are drunk to the survivers of the family, wishing that the dead may have been the victim for the sins of the family. The same, with respect to eating, is practised among the Moors. Where we find the word comforting made use of, we are to understand it as signifying the performing these offices." In like manner he explains the bread, of men, mentioned Ezek. xxiv. 17, as signifying, "the bread of others; the bread sent to mourners; the bread that the neighbours, re- lations, and friends sent." — Harmer. CiiAr 17—20. JEREMIAH. D'Ovlev and Manl say, " Friends were wont lo come, after the funeral was over, lo comfort those who liail Imin-d the dead, and send in provisions to make a fcasl, il being supposed that thej themselves were so sorrowful a lo be able lo think of their necessary food." Afi.-i has been consumed on the funeral pile or buried, the rela- tions of the deceased prepare and send a line kind of gruel (made of the Palmirah killunga) toihe fun. -ml house; At the anniversary of a funeral, the relations of the dec-eased meet to eat together, and give food to the poor. Hence great numbers on these occasions gel plenty of provisions. — Roberts. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 6. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wil- derness, in a salt land, and ti.it inhabited. Nothing can be more desolate and solitary than the salt plains of the Fast, [fol a shrub, not a tree, to cheer the eye; even birds and beasts seem affrighted at the scene. What with the silence of these solitudes, the absence of shade, of water, of vegetable and animal life, the traveller moves on with renewed speed to escape from such dreary waste-;. Idolatrous Judah had trusted in idols: hersin was written " with a pen of iron ;" it could not be erased ; and for thus trusting in them, and in man, she was to dwell in " the parched places," the " salt land," which was "not in- Ver. 8. For he shall be. as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green ; and shall not be care- ful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. S-e on Ps. I. 3. To appreciate the beauty of this allusion, it is necessary to think of a parched desert, where there is scarcely a green leaf to relieve the eye. In the midst of that waste is per- haps a tank, a well," or a stream, and near to the water's edge will be seen plants, and shrubs, and trees covered with the most beautiful foliage. So shall be the man who puts his trust in Jehovah. — Roberts. Ver. 11. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth Ihcm not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. See on 1 Sam. 2G. 20. Ver. 13. O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that for- sake thee shall be ashamed, and they that de- part from me shall be written in the earth, be- cause they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Dr. Pococke represents the Coptis. who are used by the great men of Egypt for keeping their accounts, &'r. as making use of a sort of pasteboard for that purposp, from which the writing is wiped off from time to lime with a wet sponge, the pieces of pasteboard being used as slate. Peter Delia Valle observed a more inartificial wav still of writing short-lived memorandums in India, where" he beheld chil- dren writing iheir lessons with their fingers on the ground, the pavement being for that purpose strewed all over with very fine sand. When the pavement was full, thev put the writings out : and, if need were, strewed new sand, from a little heap they had before them wherewith to write farther. One would be tempted to Ihink the prophet Jeremiah had this way of writing in view, when he savs of them thai de- part from God, " they shall be written in 'the earth," eh. rvii. 13. Certainly it means in general, " soon be blotted out and forgotten," as is apparent from Psalm lxix. 38, Ezek. xiti. 'J. Dr. Bell's plan of teaching a number of pupils to read at the same time, was taken from what he saw practised in the l-'.asi ; and this is the plan which Mi 1 jncaster has 1 . unproved and extended. The plan. a Milling nil in use in the East.— Clarke in Harmer. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 3. Then I went down to the potter's house and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels The original word means stoves rather than wheels. Dr. Blaj ii'T. in a note on this passage, says, " the appellation will appeal very proper, il we consider this machine as consisting o a pair ol i-iicnlar stones, placed one upon an- other lik,- millstones', ol which the lower was immoveable, but the upper one turned upon the foot of a spindle, or axis, and had tion comma atea lo il bj the feel of the potter silting at his work, as may be learned from Ecdus. xxxviii. 29, Opon the top ol this upper stone, which was flat, the day was placed, which the potter, having given the slum velocity, formed into shape with his hands.' — Border, Ver. "I 0 house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter ? saitli the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so arc ye in my li i nd, 0 house of Israel. It is said of an obedient son, " He is like wax; you may shape him any way you please; you may send him hither and thither, this way or that way, all will be right." — Rob- erts. | Ver. 14. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken ? Tacitus, Hist. lib. v. cap. 6. Prcecipuum montium Liba- nura erigit, mirnrn dietu, tantos inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibtis. " Of the mountains of Judea, Libanns is the chief; and, what is surprising, notwithstanding the extreme heat of the climate, is shaded wiih trees, and per- petually covered with snow." Whether this of Tacitus be strictly true maybe doubled. The author of the Universal History informs us, that " Rauwolf, who visited the cedars of Libanus, about mid-summer, complains of the rigour of the cold and snows here. Radzeville, who was here in June, about five years after him, talks of the snow that never melts away from the mountains. Other traveller- speak to the same purpose; among whom our Maundrell represents the cedars as growing among the snow ; but he was there in the month of May. From all this he might have formed a judgment that the" cedars stand always in the midst of the snow: but we are assured of ihe contrary by another trav- eller, (La Roque,) according lo whom the snows here begin to melt in April, and are no more to be seen after July ; nor is, says he, any at all left but in such clifls of the moun- tains as the sun cannot come at ; that the snow begins not to fall again till December; and that he himself, when he was there, saw no snow at all; and it is probable he speaks nothing but the truth."— Burder. Ver. 17. I will scatter them as with an east wind before tKe enemy; I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity. Nothing exasperates a person more, when he goes to ree another, than for the individual thus visited to arise and turn his back to the visiter. To see a man thus erect with his back towards another has a striking effect on the mind In the face of the man thus insulted is chagrin and confu- sion ; in the other, contempt and triumph. After a pause, the figure who shows his back moves forward, leaving tne other to indulge in spleen and imprecations. — Roberts. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 15. Cursed Ac the man who brought tiding? to my father, saying, A man-child is born unto thee ; making him very glad. I have already noticed the great anxiety of the peoplf c •IDS JEREMIAH. Chap. 22—25 the East to have male children. At the time of parturition 'he husband awaits in an adjoining room or the garden; and so soon as the affair shall be over, should the little siranger be a son, the midwife rushes outside, and beats the thatch on the roof three times, and exclaims aloud, " A male child! a male child ! a male child is born !" Should the infant be a female, not a word is said, and the father knows what is the state of the case. When a person con- ducts himself in an unmanly way, the people ask, " Did they beat the roof for you 1 Was it not said to your father, CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 13. Wo unto him thatbuildeth his house by- unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong: that useth his neighbour's service without wa- ges, and giveth him not for his work. Upper chambers. The principal rooms anciently in Ju- dea were those above, as they are to this day at Aleppo ; the ground-floor being chiefly made use of for their horses and servants. Busbequius, speaking of the house he had hired at Constantinople, says, " Pars superior, sola habita- tur ; pars inferior equorum stabulationi desti.iata est. The upper part is alone inhabited ; the lower is allotted for the horses' stabling." "At Prevesa the houses are all of wood, for the most part with only aground-floor, and wherethere is one story, the communication to it is bv a ladder or wooden steps on the outside, sheltered, however, by the overhanging eaves of the roof. In this case the horses and cattle occupy the lower chamber, or it is converted into a warehouse, and the family live on the floorabove, in which there are seldom more than two rooms." (Hobhouse.) "In Greece, the wealthiest among them, the papas, have houses with two rooms raised on a second floor, the lower part being divided into a stable, cowhouse, and cellar (Dod- well.)— Burder. Ver. 24. As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence. The signet is always worn on the little finger of the right hand. Things which are dear are spoken of as that orna- ment. " O my child, you are as my signet." " We are like the ring-seal, and the impression';'' meaning, the ehild resembles the father. " Never will I see him more ; were he my signet, I would throw him away." "I do that! rathci would I throw away my ring-seal." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 25. I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have Jreamed, I have dreamed. Exactly in the same way do the heathen priests and de- votees impose on the people at this day. Have they some .profitable speculation which requires the sanction of the gods, they affect to have had a visit from them, and they generally manage to relate some secret transaction (as a iiroot) which the individual concerned supposed was only Known to himself.— Roberts. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 6. For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. The we is spoken of as the source, and also as the cause, of a -blessing. Thus, has a person been sick, and is he asaed, how did you recover 1 he replies, " The gods fixed their eves upon'me." Does a man promise a favour, he rays, " I will place my eyes upon yon." Does he refuse, * says, " I wall not put my eyes on you." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 10. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. " In the East they grind their corn at break of day. When one goes out in a morning, he hears everywhere the noise of the mill, and this noise often awakens people." (Chardin.) He supposes also that songs are made use ol when they are grinding. It is verv possible then, that when the sacred writers speak of the noise of the millstones, they may mean the noise of the songs of those who worked them. This earliness of grinding makes the going ol Rechab and Baanah to fetch wheat the day before from the palace, to be distributed to the soldiers under them, verv natural. (2 Sam. iv. 2—7.) They are female slaves wh'c are generally employed at these handmills. It is extremely laborious, and esteemed the lowest employment in the house. (Harnier.) Mr. Park observed this custom in the interior parts of Africa, when he was invited into a hut by some female natives, in order to shelter him from the in- clemency of a very rainy night. While thus employed, one of the females sung a song, the rest joining in a sort ol chorus. The houses of Egypt are never without lights. Maillet assures us, (Lett. ix. p. 10,) they burn lamps not only all the night long, but in all the inhabited apartments of a house ; and that the custom is so well established, that the poorest people would rather retrench part of their food than Tins remark will elucidate several - ''i i|'iui passnp i of the words above referred to, Jeremiah makes tne taking away of the light of the candle and total destruc- tion the same thing. Job describes the destruction of a family among the Arabs, and the rendering one of their habitations desolate, after the same manner:" "How oft is the candle of the wicked put out, and how oft cometh their destruction upon them !" Jobxviii. 5. xxi. 17. On the other hand, when God promises to give David a lamp always in Jerusalem, (1 Kings xi. 3G,) considered in this point of view, it is an assurance that his house should never become desolate.— Border. The people of the East who can afford it, have always a lamp burning in their room the whole of the night. It is one of their greatest comforts ; because, should they not be able to sleep, they can then look about them, and amuse themselves. " Evil spirits are kept away, as they do not like the light!" Lechemy, the beautiful goddess, also takes pleasure in seeing the rooms lighted up. But that which is of the most importance is, the light keeps off the serpents and other poisonous reptiles. — Roberts. Ver. 15. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me, Take the wine-cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee, to drink it. 16. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. See on Mark 15. 2, 3. Ver. 16. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I wilJ send among them. " This is an allusion to those intoxicating draughts which used to be given to malefactors just before their execution, to take away their senses. Immediately before the execution began, says the Talmud, they gave the con demned a quantity of frankincense in a 'cup of wine. tc. stupify him, and render him insensible of his pain. The compassionate ladies of Jerusalem generally provided this draught at their own cost. The foundation of this custom was the command of Solomon, Prov. xxxi. 6. "Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to tho?e that be of heavy hearts." — Lewis. Ver. 38. He hath forsaken'his covert, as the lion: for their land is desolate, because of the fierce- ness of the oppressor, and because of his fierce anger. See on Isa. 38. 14. Chap. 26- JEREM1AH. CHAPTER XXVI. Ver. 18. Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, ami spake to all the people of Judah, saving, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. See on Mic. 3. 12. CHAPTER XXXI. Ver lr>. Thus saith the Lord, A voice was heard in Iiamah, a lamentation, and hitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were From Le Bruvn's Voyage in Syria we learn, that "the women go in companies, on certain days, out of the towns to the tombs of their relations, in order to weep there; and when they are arrived, thev display very deep expressions of grief. While I was at Ramah, I saw" a very great com- rmv of these weeping women, who went out of the town. followed them, and after having observed the place they visited adjacent to their sepulchres, in order to make their usual lamentations, I seated myself on an elevated spot They fust went and placed themselves on their sepulchres, and "wept there; where, after having remained about half an hour, some of them rose up, and formed a ring, holding each other by the hand, as is done in some country-dances. Quickly two of them quitted, the others, and placed them- selves in the centre of the ring; where they made so much noise in screaming, and in clapping their hands, as, to- gether with their various contortions, might have subjected them to the suspicion of madness. After that they returned, and seated themselves to weep again, till they' gradually withdrew to their homes. The dresses they wore were such as they generally used, white, or any "other colour; but when they rose up to form a circle together, they put on a black veil over the upper parts of their persons." — Bcbder. Ver. 18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoan- ing; himself thus: Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke : turn thou me, and I shall be turned ; for thou art the Lord my God. The simile is a most apt one. I had frequent opportuni- ties of witnessing the conduct of oxen when for the first lime put into the yoke to assist in dragging the wagons. On observing an ox that had been in the yoke for seven or eight hundred miles beginning to get weak, or his hoofs to be worn down to the quick, by treading on the sharp gravel, a fresh ox was put into the yoke in his place. When the selection fell on an ox I had received as a present from some African king, of course one completely unaccustom- ed to the yoke, such generally made a strenuous struggle for liberty,— repeatedly breaking the yoke, and attempting to make its escape. At other times such bullocks lay down ipon their sides or backs, and remained so in defiance of the Hottentots, though two or three of them would be lash- ing them with their ponderous whips. Sometimes, from pity to the animal. I would interfere, and beg them to be less cruel. " Cruel !" they would say, " it is mercy, for if we do not conquer him now, he will require to be' so beaten all his life." Some oxen would seem convinced of the folly of opposing the will of the Hottentots by the end of the first day; some about the middle of the second; while some would continue the struggle to the third ; after which they would go on as willingly and quietly as any of their neigh- bour oxen. They seemed convinced that their resisting was fruitless as kicking against the pricks, or sharp pointed iron, which they could not injure, but that every kick they gave only injured themselves.— Campbell. Ver. 19. Surely after that I was turned, I repent- ed; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh : I was ashamed, yea, even con founded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. It appears to have been the custom, when a person'was in sorrow, to smite his thigh. Is it not interesting to know that the people of the East, when in similar circumstances, do the same thing at this day 1 See the bereaved father; he smiles his riL-ht thigh, 'and cries aloud, "Iya! lyo .'" alas! alas!— Roberts. Ver. 28. And it shall come to pass, that like as 1 have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so*will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord. See on ch. 5. 6. Ver. 29. In .those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 30. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. See on Gen. 49. 11. CHAPTER XXXII. Ver. 11. So I took the evidence of the purchase. both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open. The double evidences of Jeremiah's purchase, which are mentioned ch. xxxii. 11, seems a strange management in their civil concerns; yet something of the like kind ob- tains still among them. Both the writings were in the hands of Jeremiah, and at his disposal, verse 14; for what purpose then were duplicates made'! To those that are unacquainted with the eastern usages, it must appear a question of some difficulty. " The open or unsealed writing," says an eminent com- mentator, " was either a copy of the sealed deed, or else a certificate of the witnesses, in whose presence the deed of purchase was signed and sealed."— (Lowth.) But it still recurs, of what use was a copy that was to be buried in the same earthen vessel, and run exactly the same risks wiih the original 1 If by a certificate is meant a deed of the witnesses, by which they attested the contract of Jere- miah and Hananeel, and the original deed of purchase had no witnesses at all, then it is natural to ask, why were they made separate writings'! and much more, why was one sealed, and not the other 1 Sir J. Chardin's account of modern managements, which he thinks illustrates this ancient story, is, " that after a con- tract is made, it is kept by the party himself, not the notary ; and they cause a copy to be made, signed by the notary alone, which is shown upon proper occasions, and never exhibit the other." According to this account, the two books were the same, the one sealed up with solemnity, and not to be used on common occasions; that which was open, the same writing, to be perused at pleasure, and made use of upon all occasions. The sealed one answered to a record with us; the other a writing for common use. — Harmer. Ver. 13. And I charged Baruch before them, saying, 14. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, tho God of Israel, Take these evidences, this evi- dence of the purchase, both which is sealed, and this evidence which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days. Whatever materials the ancient Jews wrote upon, they were liable to be easily destroyed by the dampness when hid- den in the earth. It was therefore thought requisite to en- close them in something that might keep them from the damp, lest they should decay and be rendered useless. In those days of roughness, when war knew not the softenings of 500 JEREMIAH. later limes, men were wont to bury in the earth every part of their property that could be concealed after that manner, not only silver and gold, but wheat, barley, oil, and honey ; vestments and writings too. For that I apprehend was the occasion of Jeremiah's ordering, that the writings he de- livered to Baruch, mentioned in his thirty-second chapter, should be put into an earthen vessel. — Harmer. CHAPTER XXXIII. Ver. 13. In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the Lord. See on Ps. 23. 4. It was the custom of more accurate or severe masters, to number their flocks in the morning when they went out to pasture, and again in the evening when they returned to the fold. But the most indulgent masters seem to have always numbered their flocks in the evening; a fact clearly attested by Virgil in the close of his sixth Eclogue : " Cogere dimrc oves st.ilmlis nuiiifniiinpie referre Jussit, el invito processit vesper Olympo." " Till vesper warned the shepherds to pen their sheep in the folds and recount their number ; and advanced on the sky, full loth to lose the song." Agreeably to this cus- tom, the prophet Jeremiah is directed by the Spirit of God to promise, " The flocks shall pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the Lord." The reference of these words to the rod of the shepherd numbering his flock, when they return from the pasture, appears from the verse immediately preceding: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, again in this place, which is desolate, without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds, causing their flocks to lie down." — Paxton. CHAPTER XXXIV. Ver. 3. And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand ; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king- of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Baby- lon. To say, your eyes shall see the eyes of another, implies pleasure or pain. Thus, to comfort one who greatly de- sires to see another, but who fears he shall not have that pleasure, it is said, " Fear not, your eyes shall see his eyes." But, should a person have committed some crime, it is said to him, in order to make him afraid, " Yes ; your eyes shall see his eyes," i. e. of the person who has been injured, and who has power to inflict punishment. — Rob- CHAPTER XXXVI. Ver. 22. Now the king sat in the winter-house in the ninth month : and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. In Palestine, and the surrounding regions, the coldness of the night in all the seasons of the year, is often very in- convenient. The king of Judah is described by the prophet, as sitting in his winter-house in the ninth month, corre- sponding to the latter end of November and part of Decem- ber, with a fire burning on the hearth before him. This answers to the stale of the weather at Aleppo, where, as Russel informs ns, the most delicate people make no fires till the end of November. The Europeans, resident in Syria, he observes in a note, continue them till March ; the people of the country, seldom longer than February ; but fires are occasionally made in the wet seasons, not only in March, but in April also, and would be acceptable, at the gardens, sometimes even in May. Dr. Pocoke, in his jour- ney to Jerusalem, being conducted by an Arab to his tent, found his wife and family warming themselves by the fire on the seventeenth of March ; and on the eighth of May, ixe was treated with a fire to warm him, by the governor of the heats of the day. In May and June, and even in July, travellers very often put on fires in the evening. This statement clearly discovers the reason, that the people who went to Gethsemane to apprehend our Lord, kmdled a fire of coals, to warm themselves at the time of the passover, which happened in the spring. But it is not only in ele- vated situations, as that on which the city of Jerusalem stands, that the cold of the night is so piercing; the trav- eller has to encounter its severity on the low-lying plains, by the seaside, and in the sandy deserts, where, during the day, beneath the scorching sunbeam, he could scarcely breathe. The severe cold of the morning compelled Mr. Doubdan to remain some hours at Joppa, in a poor Greek hovel, before he could set out for Rama. At ancient Tyre his condition was still more distressing. On the sixteenti of May, he found the heat near that once-renowned mat of nations so great, that though he and his party took their repast on the grass, under a large tree, by the side of a small river, yet he complains, " they were burnt up alive." After attempting in vain to prosecute their voyage, night overtook them at the ruins of Tyre. Near those ruins, they were obliged to pass a considerable part of the night, not without suffering greatly from the cold, which was as violent and sharp as the heat of the day had been intense. Our traveller acknowledges, that he shook, as in the depth of winter, more than two or three full hours. — Paxton." The " hearth" here mentioned was in all probability the iandoor of the East, of which so full an account is given in Smith and Dwight's Travels in Armenia.—" What attract- ed our attention most this stormy day, was the apparatus for warming us. It was the species of oven called tannoor, common throughout Armenia, and also in Syria, but con- verted here for purposes of warmth into what is called a Iandoor. A cylindrical hole is sunk about three feet in the ground in some part of the room, with a flue entering it at the bottom to convey a current of air to the fire which heats it. For the emission of smoke no other provision is made than the open sky-light in the terrace. When used for baking bread, the dough, being flattened to the thickness of common pasteboard, perhaps a foot and a half long by a foot broad, is stuck to its smooth sides by means of a cushion upon which it is first spread. It indicates, by cleaving off, when it is done, and being then packed down in the family chest, it lasts at least a month in the winter and ten days in the summer. Such is the only bread known in the villages of Armenia; and even the cities of Erivan and Tebriz offer no other variety than a species perhaps only twice as thick, and so long that it might almost be sold by the yard. To bake it, the bottom of a large oven is covered with pebbles, (except one corner where a fire is kept constantly burning,) and upon them, when heated, the sheets of dough are spread. The convenience of such thin bread, where knives and forks are not used, and spoons are rare, is that a piece of il doubled enables you to take hold of a mouthful of meat more delicately than with your bare fingers; or, when prop- erly folded, helps you to convey a spoflnlul safely to yoni month to be eaten with the spoon itself. When needed for purposes of warmth, the tannoor is easily transformed into a tandoor. A round stone is laid upon the mouth of the oven, when well heated, to stop the draught; a square frame about a foot in height is then placed above it ; and a thick coverlet, spread over the whole, lies upon the ground around it, to confine the warmth. The family squat upon the floor, and warm themselves by extending their legs and hands into the heated air beneath it, while the frame holds, as occasion requires, their lamp or their food. Its economy is evidently great. So full of crevices are the houses, that an open fireplace must consume a great quantity of fuel, and then almost fail of warming even the air in its imme- diate vicinity. The tandoor, heated once, or at the moet twice, in twentv-four hours by a small quantity of fuel, keeps one spot continually warm for the relief of all numb Ver. 30. Tkerefore thus saith the Lord of Jehoi- akim king of Judah : He shall have none to sr. upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. Chap. 37. JEREMIAH. Mil It may not be improper here to remarc upon the wisdom and goodness of God displayed in the temperature of an oriental sky. The exeessive heats of the day, which are sometimes incommodious, even in the depth of winter, are compensated and rendered consistent with animal and vegetable life, by a corresponding degree of coolness in the night. The patriarch Jacob take- notice of this fact, in his expostulation with La ban : " By day the heal consumed me, and the frost by night." Mr. 'Bruce, in like manner, fre- quently remark*; in his journey through the deserts of Se- jaar, where the heat of the day was almost insupportable, thai the coldness of the night was very great. When Rau- wolf travelled on the Euphrates, he was wont to wrap him- self up in a frieze coat in the nighttime, to defend him- self from the frost and dew, which, he observes, are very frequent and violent there. Thevenot traversed the very fields where Jacob tended the flocks of Laban ; and he found the heats of the day so intense, that although he wore upon his head a large black" handkerchief after the manner of the Orientals when tiny travel, yt, his forehead was frequently so scorched), as to swell exceedingly, and ac- tually to suffer excoriation; his hands being more exposed to the burning sun, were continually parched; and he learned from experience, to sympathize with the toil-worn shepherd of the East. In Europe, the days and nights re- semble each other, with respect to the qualities of heat and cold ; but if credit be due to the representations of Chardin, ii is quiie otherwise in oriental climates. In the Lower Asia, particularly, the day is always hot ; and as soon as the sun is lificcn degrees above the horizon, no cold is felt in the depth of winter itself: on the contrary, the nights are as cold as at Paris in the month of March. It is for this reason, that in Turkey and Persia they always used furred habits in the country, such only being sufficient to resist the cold of the night. Chardin travelled in Arabia and Mesopotamia, ihe scene of Jacob's adventures, both in win- ter and in summer, and attested on his return the truth of what the patriarch asserted, that he was scorched with heat in the day, and stiffened with cold in the night. This dif- ference in the state of the air in twenty-four hours, is in some places extremely great, and according to that respect- able traveller, not conceivable by those who have not seen i! ; one would imagine, they had passed in a moment from the violent heats of summer to the depth of winter. Thus it has pleased a beneficent Deity to temper the heat of the dav by the coolness of the night, without which, the great- est part of the East would be a parched and steril desert, equally destitute of vegetable and animal life. This ac- count is confirmed by a modern traveller. When Camp- bell was passing through Mesopotamia, he sometimes lay at night out in the open air, rather than enter a town ■ on which occasions, he savs, " [ found the weather as piercing cold, as it was distressfully hot in the daytime." The same difference between the days and nights,"has been observed on the Syrian bank of the Euphrates; the mornings are cold, and the davs intensely hot. This difference is dis- tinctly marked in these words of the prophet: " Therefore, thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, king of Jiirlah : he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and hisde.nl body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost." So just ami accurate are the numerous allnsions of scripture to the natural state of Ihe oriental regions; and so necessary it. is to study with care the natural history of those celebrated and interesting countries, to enable us to ascertain with clearness and precision, the meaning, or to discern the beauty and force of numerous passages of the sacred volume.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXXVII. Vcr. 1 5. Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe : for they had made that the prison. The treatment of those that are shut up in the eastern prisons differs from our usages, but serves to illustrate sev- eral passages of scripture. Chardin relates several circum- stances concerning their prisons, which are curious, and should not be omitted. In the first place, he tells us that the eastern prisons are not public buildings erected for that purpose; but a part of the house in which their criminal judges dwell, As the governor and ] rovost of a town, or the captain of the watch, imprisoned such as are accused in their own houses, they set apart a canton of it for that pur- po-e, when they are put into these offices, and choose for the jailer the most proper person they can find of their Sir John supposes the prison in which Joseph, together with the chief butler and chief baker of Pharaoh, was put, was in Potiphar's own house. But I would apply this account to the illustration Of another passage of scripuiie: "Where- fore," it is said, Jer. xxxvit. 15, "the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in Che house of Jonathan Ihe scribe j for they had made that the prison." Here we see a dwelling-house was made a prison ; and the house ot an eminent person, for it was the house of a scribe, which title marks out a person of qual- ity: it is certain it does so in some places of Jeremiah, particularly ch. xxxvi. 12, " Then he went down into the king's house into the scribe's chamber, and lo, all the princes sat there, even Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah," &c. The making the house of Jonathan the prison, would not now, in the East, be doing him any dishonour, or occa- sion the looking upon him in a mean light : it would rather mark out the placing him in an office of importance. It is probable it was so anciently, and that his house became a prison, when Jonathan was .made the royal scribe, and be- came, like the chamber of Elishama, one of the prisons ol the people. — Harmer. Ver. 21. Then Zedekiah the king commanded that they should commit Jeremiah into the court of the prison, and that they should give him daily a piece of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city were spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison. In primitive times, an oven was designed only to serve a single family, and to bake for them no more than the bread of one day; a custom which still continues in some places of the East; but the increase of population in the cities, higher degrees of refinement, or other causes in the progress "of time, suggested the establishment of public bakehouses. They seem to have been introduceM into Ju- dea long before the captivity ; for the prophet Jeremiah speaks of "the bakers' street," in ihe most familiar manner, as a p'ace well known. This, however, might be only a temporary establishment, to supply the wants of the sol- diers assembled from other places, to defend Jerusalem. If tii ey received a daily allowance of bread, as is the prac- tice st'ill in some eastern countries, from the royal bake- houses, the order of the king to give the prophet daily a piece of bread, out of the street where they were erected, in the same manner as the defenders of the city, was per- fectly natural. The custom alluded to still maintains its ground at Algiers, where the unmarried soldiers receive every day from the public bakehouses a certain number of loaves. Pills indeed asserts, that the Algerines have pub- lic bakehouses for the accommodation of the whole city. The women prepare their dough at home, and the bakers send their boys about the streets, to give notice of their being ready to receive and carry it to the bakehouses. They bake their cakes every day, or every other day, and give'the boy who brings the bread home, a piece or little cake for the baking, which is sold by the baker. Small as the eastern loaves are, it appears from this account, that they give a piece of one only to ihe baker, as a reward fol- ios trouble. This will perhaps illustrate Ezekiel's account of ihe false prophets receiving pieces of bread by way of gratuities: "And will ye pollute me among my peop'ie, for handfuls of barley, and pieces of bread?" These arc compensations still used in the East, but of the meanest kind, and for services of the lowest sort. — Paxton. The bazars at Ispahan are very extensive, and it is possible to walk under cover in them lor two or three miles together. The trades are here collected inseparale bodies which make it very convenient lo purchasers ; and, indeed we may from analogy suppose the same to have been the case from the most ancient times, N»hen we consider the command of Zedekiah to feeJ J»i<_miah from he bakeiV street. -M.rier. JEREMIAH. Chap. 38—43 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Ver. 6. Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Ham- mele^h, that was in the court of the prison : and l.hey let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire : so Jeremiah sunk in the mire. There were two prisons in Jerusalem; of which one was called the king's prison, which had a lofty tower that overlooked the royal palace, with a spacious court before it, where state prisoners were confined. The other was designed to secure debtors and other inferior offenders : and in both these the prisoners were supported by the pub- lic, on bread and water. Suspected persons were some- times conrined under the custody of state officers, in their own houses; cr rather a part of the house which was oc- cupied by the great officers of state, was occasionally con- verted into a prison. This seems to be a natural conclusion from the statement of the prophet Jeremiah, in which he gives an account of his imprisonment: "Wherefore, the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison, in the house of Jonathan the scribe ; for they had made that the prison." This custom, so different from the manners of our country, has descended to mod- ern times ; for when Chardin visited the East, their pris- ons were not public buildings erected for that purpose, but, as in the days of the prophet, a part of the house in which their criminal judges reside. " As the governor, or provost of a town," says our traveller, " or the captain of the watch, imprison such as are accused, in their own houses, they set apart a canton of them for that purpose, when they are put into these offices, and choose lor the jailer, the most proper person they can find of their domestics." The royal piison in Jerusalem, and especially the dungeon, into which the prisoner was let down naked, seems to have been a most dreadful place. The latter cannot be better described, than in the words of Jeremiah himself, who for his faith- fulness to God and his country, in a most degenerate age, had to encounter all its horrors: " Then took they Jere- miah, and cast him into the dungeon that was in the court of the prison ; and they let him down with cords ; and in the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and his feet sunk in the mire." A discretionary power was given to the keeper, to treat his prisoners as he pleased ; all that was expected of him being only to produce them when required. If he kept them in safe custody, he might treat them well or ill as he chose ; he might put them in irons or not ; shut them up close, or indulge them with greater liberty ; admit their friends and acquaintances to visit them, or suffer no person to see them. The most worthless characters, the most atrocious criminals, if they can bribe the jailer and his servants with large fees, shall be lodged in his own apartment, and have the best accommodation it can afford; but if he be the enemy of those committed to his charge, or have received larger presents from their persecutors, he will treat them in the most barbarous manner. — P.ixton. Ver. 7. Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon : the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin. The possession of black eunuchs is not very common in the Levant; they are hardly anywhere to be found, ex- cept in the palaces of the sovereign or of the branches of the royal family. When the Baron De Tott's wife and .nother-in-law were permitted to visit Asma Sultana, daugh- er of the Emperor Achmet, and sister of the reigning irince, he tells us, that " at the opening of the third gale ■f her palace, several black eunuchs presented themselves, who, with each a white staff in his hand, preceded the visiters, leading them to a spacious apartment, called the ■hamber of strangers." He adds, that to have such atten- fts is a piece of great state, as the richest people have more than one or two of them. — Harmer. CHAPTER XXXIX. Ver. 6. Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes : also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. 7. Moreover, he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon. By an inhuman custom, which is still retained in the East, the eyes of captives taken in war are not only put out but sometimes literally scooped or dug out of their sockets. This dreadful calamity Samson had to endure, from the unrelenting vengeance of his enemies. In a posterior age, Zedekiah, the last king of Judah and Benjamin, after be- ing compelled to behold the violent death of his sons and nobility, had his eyes put out, and was carried in chains to Babylon. The baibarous custom long survived the decline and fall of the Babylonian empire, for by the testimony of Mr. Maurice, in his History of Hindostan, the captive princes of that country were often treated in this manner, by their more fortunate rivals ; a red-hot iron was passed over their eyes, which effectually deprived them of sight, and at the same time of their title and ability to reign. — Paxton. CHAPTER XLI. Ver. 5. That there came certain from Shecheni, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven, and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with offerings and incense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the Lord. See on 1 Kings 18. 28. Ver. 8. But ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael, Slay us not : for we have treasures in the field, of wheat, and of bar- ley, and of oil, and of honey. So he forbare, and slew them not among their brethren. See on Job 27. 18. This refers to stores they had concealed, as is clear from the mentioning of " the oil and honey." During the time of the Kandian war many prisoners received lenient treat- ment, because of the assurance that they had treasures hid in the field, and that they should be the property of their keepers. In some cases there can be no doubt there were large sums thus acquired by certain individuals.— Roberts. CHAPTER XLII Ver. 2. And said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the Lord thy God, even for all this remnant ; (for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us.) The margin has this, " Let our supplication fall before thee." " O my lord," says the suppliant, " let my praversbe prostrate at your feet." " O forget not my requests.'but let them ever surround your feet." " Allow my supplications to lie before you." " Ah ! give but a small place for my prayers." " At your feet, my lord, at your feet, mv lord, are all my requests." — Roberts. CHAPTER XL1II. Ver. 9. Take great stones in thy hand, and hide them in the clay in the brick-kiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah. If their bricks, in those hot and dry countries^ are in general only dried in the sun, not burnt, there is sjme reason to be doubtful whether the Hebrew word i^vmelbcn signifies a brick-kiln, as multitudes besides our translators have supposed. The bricks used in the construction of the Egvplian canals, must have been well burnt : ll'ose 43— 4G. JEKEM1A 11 -,U., dried in ihe sun coulit have lasted DO time. But bricks for lliis use could not have been often wanted, They were not accessary for the building those treasure cil are nice jnned Kx.ul. i. 11. One of the pyramids is built with sun-dried bricks, which Sir J. Chardin tells us are du- roWe, as well as accommodated to tlie temperature of the air ill, -re; which li^l circnmslance is, I presume, ! they .i it- in such common use in these very hot countries. There must 'hen be many places used in the East for the making bricks, where there are no kilns at all; and such a place, 1 apprehend, the word \Ab maHnn signifies; and it should seem to be the perpetual association of a kiln, and of the places where bricks are made, with »> in the West, that has occasioned the word to be translated bru/.-kiln. The interpretation 1 have given best suits Jer. xliii. 9. The smoke df the brick-kiln, in the neighbourhood of a roval Egyptian palace, would not have agreed very well with the eastern cleanliness and perfumes— Harmeu. Ver. 12. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives : and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment : and lie shall go forth from thence in peace. The deserts that lie between Egypt and Syria are at this day terribly infested by the wild Arabs. " In travelling along the seacoast of Syria, and from Suez to Mount Sinai," Bays Dr. Shaw, "we were in little or no danger of being robbed or insulted ; in the Holy Land, and uponjhe isth- mus between Egypt and the 'Red Sea, our conductors cannot be too numerous." He then goes on to inform us, that when he went from Ramah to Jerusalem, though the pilgrims themselves were more than six thousand, and were escorted by four bands of Turkish infantry, exclusive of three or four hundred spahees, (cavalry,) yet were they most barbarously insulted and beaten by the Arabs. This may lead us, perhaps, to the true sense of the pre- ceding words, "And he shall array himself wilh the land Of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment." It sig- nifies, that just as a person appearing to be a shepherd, passed unmolested in common by the wild Arabs ; so Nebu- chadnezzar, by his subduing Egvpt, shall induce the Arab tribes to sutler him to go out of that country unmolested, the possession of Egypt being to him what' a shepherd's garment was to a single person : for though, upon occasion, the Arabs are not afraid to affront the most powerful prin- ces, it is not to be imagined that conquest and power have no effect upon them. The ti that dwell in the wilderness, (says the Psalmist, referring to these Arabs,) shall bote before him, whom he has described immediately before, he hating do- minion from sea ta sco, and from the river lo the ends of Ihe earth, arid which he unquestionably supposes was the great inducement to that submission. Thus Ihe Arab that was charged with the care of con- ducting Dr. Pococke to Jerusalem, after secreting him for some time in his tent, when he took him out into the fields, to walk there, put on him his striped garment; apparently for his security, and that he might pass for an Arab. So D'Arvieux. when he was sent by the consul of Sidon to the camp of ihe grand emir, equipped himself for the great- er security exactly like an Arab, and accordingly passed unmolested, and unquestioned. — Burder. CHAPTER XLIV. Ver. 17. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing gocth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jeru- salem : for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. When the new moon is first seen, the people present their hands in the same form of adoration, and take off the tur- ban, an tteydo to other go is. If a person have a favourite son or wife, or any friend with whom be thinks himself fortunate, be will call fpr one of them on that night, and, after looking tit the new moon, will slcadiasily look at the face of the individual. But if there be no person of thai description present, he will look at his white cloth, or a piece of gold. — Roberts. CHAPTER XLVI. Ver. 4. Harness the horses ; and get up, ye horse- men, and stand forth with your helmets ; fur- bish the spears, and put on the brigandines. A piece of defensive armour used in early times, was the brea tplate or corslet: with this Goliath was accoutred; bin in our version the original tennis rendered a coat of mail ; and in the inspired account of the Jewish armour, it is translated habergeon. It was between the joints of this ban ffoi i we render it in that passage) that Ahab re- eeired bis mortal wound by an arrow shot at a venture. To this species of armour i be prophet Isaiah alludes, where the same Hebrew word is used as in the preceding texts, but is here rendered breastplate ; and in the prophecies ol Jeremiah it is translated biigandine. Prom the use of these various terms, in translatingthe Hebrew term (i-, dragged at his chariot-wheels the intrepid general who bad defended it, twice around the walls of Gaza. Ashkelon was no less celebrated for the excellence of its wines than for the strength of its fortifications. And of Ashdod it is related by an eminent ancient historian, not only that it was a great city, but that u withstood the longest siege recorded in history, (it may also be said either of prior or of later dale,) having been besieged for the space of twenty-nine years by Psymallictis, king of Egypt. Strabo, after the commencement of the Christian era, classes its Citizens aujbng the chief inhabitants of Syria. Each of these cities, Gaza, Ashkelon. and Ashdod, was the See of a Bishop from the days of Constantine to the invasion of the Saracens. And, as a decisive proof of their existence as cities long subsequent to the delivery of the predictions, it may further be remarked, that different coins of each of these very cities are extant, and are copied and described in several accounts of ancient coins. The once primely magnificence of Gaza is still attested by the " ruins of white marble ;" and the house of the present aga is composed of fragments of ancient columns, cornices, &c. ; and in the courtyard, and immured in the wall, are shafts and capitals of granite columns. In short, toltaiics for shepherds, and folds for flocks, par- tially scattered along the seacoasl, are now truly the best substitutes for populous cities that the once powerful realm of Phihs i.i can produce; and the remnant of that land which gave titles and grandeur to the lords of the Philis- tines is destroyed. Ga:a, the chief of its satrapies, "the abode of luxury and opulence," now bereaved oj its ting, ins, is the defenceless residence of a subsidiary ruler of a devastated province; and, in kin- ■ lalion, ornaments of its once splendid edifices are now bedded in a wall that forms an enclosure for beasts. A handful of men could now take unobstructed possession of that [dace, where a strong citv opposed the entrance, and defied, for a rime, the power of the conqueror of the world. The walls, the dwellings, and the people of Ashkelon, have all perished : anil though its name was in the time of the crusades shouted in triumph throughout every land in Eu- rope, it is now literally without 'an inhabitant. And Ashdod, which withstood a siege treble the duration of that of Troy, and thus ontrivalled far the boast of Alexander at Gaza, has, in verification of" the word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword," been ciU off, and has fallen be- fore it to nothing. There is yet another city which was noted by the pro- phets, the very want of any information respecting wdiich, and the absence of its name from several modern maps of Palestine, while the sites of other ruined cities are marked, are really the best confirmation of the truth of the prophecy that could possibly be given. Ekrim shall be rooted up. It is rooted up. It was one of the chief cities of the Philis- tines; hot though Gaza still subsists, and while Ashkelon and Ashd k) retain their names in their ruins, the very name of Ekron is missing. The wonderful contrast in each particular, whether in respect to the land or to the cities of the Philistines, is the exact counterpart of the literal prediction ; and having the testimony of Volney to all the facts, and also indisputable evidence of the great priority of the predictions to the events, what more complete or clearer proof could there be that each and all of them emanated from the prescience of Heaven ? — Keith. CHAPTER XLVIII. Ver. 1. Against Moab thus saith the Lord of 64 hosts, the God of Israel, Wo unto Nebo ! for it is spoiled; Kiriath-Aim is confounded and taken; Bll&gab is confounded and dismayed. 2. There shall be no more praise of Moab: in Heshbon they have devised evil against it; come, and let us cut it off from beings nation : also thou shalt be cut down, O Madmen ; the sword shall pursue thee. The land of Moab lay to the east and southeast of Jndea, and bordered on the east, northeast, and partly on the south, by the Dead Sea. Its early history is neatly analo- gous to that of Ainmon ; and the soil, though perhaps more diversified, is, in many places where the desert and plains of salt have not encroached on its borders, of equal fertili- ty. There are manifest and abundant vestiges of its an- c'ient greatness. "The whole of the plains are cdvered with the sites of towns, on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one. And as the land is capable of rich cultivation, there can be no doubt that the country now so deserted once presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility." The form of fields is still visible; and there are the remains of Roman highways, which in some places are completely paved, and on which there are milestones ol the tunes of Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Severus, with the number of the miles legible upon them. Wherever any spot is cultivated, the corn is luxuriant : and the riches of 'the soil cannot perhaps be more clearly illustrated than by the fact, that one grain of Heshbon wheat exceeds in dimensions two of the ordinary sort, and more than double the number of grains glow on the stalk. The frequency, and almost, in many instances, the close vicinity of the sites of the ancient 'towns, "prove that the population of the country was formerly proportioned to its natural fertili- ty." Such evidence may surely suffice to prove, that the country was well cultivated and peopled at a period so long posterior to the date of the predictions, that no cause less than supernatural could have existed at the time when they were delivered, which could have authorized the assertion, with the least probability or apparent possibility of its truth, that Moab would ever have been reduced to that state ol great and permanent desolation in which it has continued for so many ages, and which vindicates and ratifies to this hour the truth of the scriptural prophecies. And the cities of Moab have all disappeared. Their place, together with the adjoining part of Idumea, is cha- racterized, in the map of Volney \s Travels, by the ruins oj toirns. His information respecting these ruins was derived from some of the wandering Arabs; and its accuracy has been fully corroborated by the testimony of different Euro- pean travellers of high respectability and undoubted veracity, who have since visited this devastated region. The whole country abounds with ruins. And Burckhardt, who en- countered many difficulties in so desolate and dangerous a land, thus records the brief history of a few of them: " The ruins of Eleale, Heshbon, Meon, Medaba, Dibon, Aroer, still subsist to illustrate the history of the Beni Israel." And it might with equal truth have been added, that they still subsist to confirm the inspiration of the Jewish scrip- ture, or to prove that the seers of Israel were the prophets of God, for the desolation of each of these very cities was the theme of a prediction. Every thing worthy^if observa- tion respecting them has been detailed, not oniy in Bnrck- hardt's Travels in Syria, but also by See'.zen, and, more recently, by Captains Iihv and Mangles, who, along with Mr. Banks" and Mr. Legh, visited this deserted district. The predicted judgment has fallen wi:h such truth upon these cities, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab far and near, and they are so utterly broken dovn, that even the prying curiosity of such indefatigable travellers could dis- cover among a multiplicity of ruins only a {'c-w remains so entire as to be worthy of particular notice. The subjoined description is drawn'from their united testimony.— Among the ruins of El Aal (Eleale)are a number of large cisterns, fragments of buildings, and foundations of houses.' At Heshban (Heshbon) are the ruins of a large ancient town. together with the remains ofa temple, and some edifices. A few broken shafts of columns are still standing ; and ther? are a number of deep wells cut in the rock. The ruins of Medaba are about two miles in circumference. There are 500- JEREMIAH. many remains of the walls of private houses constructed with blocks of silex, but not a single edifice is standing. The chief object of interest is an immense tank or cistern of hewn stones, " which, as there is no stream at Medaba," Burckhardt remarks, " might still be of use to the Bedouins, were the surrounding ground cleared of the rubbish to al- low the water to flow into it ; but suck an undertaking is far beyond trie views of the wandering Arabs." There is also the foundation of a temple built with large stones, and appa- rl.v of lm- i.M.ir Willi I i columns near The ruins of Diban (Dibon) situated in the midst of a fine plain, are of considerable extent, but present nothing of interest. The neighbouring hot wells, end the similarity of the name, identify the ruins of Mvoun with Meon, or Beth Meon of scripture. Of this ancient city, as well as of Ara'ayr (Aroer,) nothing is now remarkable but what is common *o them with all the cities of Moab — their entire desolation. The extent of the ruins of Rabba (Rabbath Moab,) former- ly the residence of the kings of Moab, sufficiently proves lis ancient importance, though no other object can be par- ticularized among the ruins except the remains of a palace or temple, some of the walls of which are still standing ; a gate belonging to another building ; and an insulated altar. There are many remains of private buildings, but none en- tire. There being no springs on the spot, the town had two birkets, the largest of which is cut entirely out of the rocky ground, together with many cisterns. Mount Ncbo was completely barren when Burckhardt passed over it, and the site of the ancient cily had not been ascertained. Sdin is spoiled. While the ruins of all these cities still retain their an- cient names, and are the most conspicuous amid the wide scene of general desolation, and while each of them was in like manner particularized in the visions of the prophet, they yet formed but a small number of the cities of Moab: and the rest are also, in similar verification of the prophe- cies, desolate, without any to dwell therein. None of the an- cient cities of Moab now exist as tenanted by men. Kerek, which neither bears any resemblance in name to aDy of the cities of Moab which are mentioned as existing in the time of the Israelites, nor possesses any monuments which .enote a very remote antiquity, is the only nominal town in the whole country, and in 'the words of Seetzen, who visited it, " in its present ruined state it can only be called « hamlet :" "and the houses have only one floor." But the most populous and fertile province in Europe (especially any situated in the interior of a country like Moab) is not covered so thickly with towns as Mi Tib is plentiful in ruins, deserted and desolate though now it be. Burckhardt enumer- ates about fifty ruined sites within iis boundaries, many of them extensive. In general they are a broken down and undistinguishable mass of ruins ; and many of them have not been closely inspected. But, in some instances, there are the remains of temples, sepulchral monuments, the ruins of edifices constructed of very large stones, in one of which buildings "some of the stones are twenty feet in length, and so broad that one constitutes the thickness of the wall;" traces of hanging gardens; entire columns lying on the ground, three feet in diameter, and fragments of smaller columns ; and many cisterns cut of the rock. — When the towns of Moab existed in their prime, and were at ease, — when arrogance, and haughtiness, and pride prevailed among them — the desolation and total desertion and abandonment of them all must have utterly surpassed all human* conception. And that such numerous cities — which subsisted for many ages — which were diversified in their sites, some of them being built on eminences, and naturally strong ; others on plains, and surrounded by the richest soil ; some situated in valleys by the side of a plen- tiful stream; and others where art supplied the deficien- cies of nature, and where immense cisterns were excavated out of the rock — and which exhibit in their ruins many monuments of ancient prosperity, and many remains easily convertible into present utility — should have all fled away, — all met the same indiscriminate fate — and be all desolate, without any to dwell therein, notwithstanding all these an- existing facilities and inducements fur being the habiiations of men — i> a matter of just wonder in the present day, — and had any other people been the possessors of Moab, the fan would either have been totally impossible or unaccount- able. Trying as thi:1 'est of the truth of prophecy is — thai is the word of God, and not of erring man, which can so well and so triumphantly abide it. They shall cry of Moab, How is it broken down t-KEiTH. Ver. 8. And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape; the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed, as the Lord hath spoken. Moab has often bee:; a field of contest between the Arab and Turks; and although the former have retained pos session of it, both have mutually reduced it to desolation The different tribes of Arabs who traverse it, not only bear a permanent and habitual hostility to Christians and to Turks, but one tribe is often at variance and at war with another; and the regular cultivation of the soil, or the improvement of those natural advantages of which the country is so full, is a matter either never thought of, or that cr.rmot be real- ized. Property is there the creature of power, and not of law: and possession forms no security when plunder is the preferable light. Hence the extensive plains, where they are not partially covered with wood, present a barren as- pect, which is only relieved at intervals by a few clusters of wild fig-trees, that show how the richest gifts of nature degenerate when unaided by the industry of man. And instead of the profusion which the plains must have exhibit- ed in every quarter, nothing but "patches of ftie best soil in the territory are now cultivated by the Arabs ;" and these only "whenever they have the prospect of being able to secure the harvest against the incursions of enemies." The Arab herds now roam at freedom over the valleys and the plains; and "the many vestiges of field enclosures" form not any obstruction; they wander undisturbed around the tents of their masters, over the face of the country ; and while the valley is perished, and the plain d, strayed, the cities also of Aroer are forsaken ; they arc for the flocks which lie down, and none moke than of raid. The strong contrast be- tween the ancient and the actual state of Moab is exempli- fied in the condition of the inhabitants as well as of the land; and the coincidence between the prediction and the fact is as striking in the one case as in the other.— Keitu. Ver. 11. Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste re- mained in him, and his scent is not changed. They frequently pour wine from vessel to vessel in the East : for when they begin one, they are obliged imme- diately to empty it into smaller vessels, or into bottles, or it would grow sour. From the jars, says Dr. Russel, in which the wine ferments, it is drawn off into dnnyans, which contain perhaps twenty quart bottles ; and from those into bottles for use: but as these bottles are generally not well washed, the wine is often sour. The more careful use pint bottles, or half-pint bottles, and cover the surface with a little sweet oil. — Burdes. Ver. 12. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send unto him wanderers, that shall cause him to wander, and shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles. The Bedouin (wandering) Arabs are now the chief and almost the only inhabitants of a country once studded with cities. Traversing the country, and fixing their tents for a short time in one place, and then decamping to another, depasturing every part successively, and despoiling the whole land of its natural produce, they are vandeicrs who have come up (mains! it, and who keep it in a stole ofperpehiol desolation, They lead a wandering life ; and the only reg- ularity they know or practice is to act upon a systematic scheme of spoliation. They prevent any from forming a fixed settlement who are inclined to attempt it; for although the fi ui fulness of the soil would abundantly repay the la- bour of settlers, and render migration wholly unnecessary, even if the population were increased more than tenfold, yet the Bedouins forcibly deprive them of the means of subsistence, compel them to search for it elsewhere and, Chap. 49. JEREMIAH 507 in the words of the prediction, literally cause mm to win- der. "It in.u I"' lemaiked generally of I in- Bedouins," says Burckhardt, in describing their extortions in this very country, " that wherever they are tin- masters of the culti- vators,' the latter an BOOB reduced to beggary by their un- ceasing demands." — Keith. Ver. 27. For was not Israel a derision unto thee ? was he found among thieves? for since thou spakest of him, thou skippedst for joy. See on 1 Kings 18. 28. Ver. 28. O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth. Where art intervenes not, pigeons build in those hollow places nature provides for Ihem. A certain city in Africa is called Hamam-et, from the wild pigeons that copiously breed in the adjoining cliffs; and in a curious paper rela- ting to Mount ..Etna, (Phil. Trans, vol. 1.x.) which men- tions a number of subterraneous caverns there, one is no- ticed as being called by the peasants, La Spelonca della Pa- lomba, from the wild pigeons building their nests therein. fSol. Song ii. 11.) Though /Etna is a burning mountain, yet the cold in these caverns is excessive: this shows that pigeons delight in cool retreats, and explains the reason why thev resort to mountains which are known to be very cold even in those hot countries. The words of the Psalm- ist, flee as a bird to your mountain, without doubt refer to the flying of doves thither when frightened by the fowler. Dove-houses, however, are very common in the East. Of Kcfleen, a large village, Maundrell says, there are more dove-cots than other houses. In the southern part of Egypt, the tops of their habitations are always terminated by a pigeon-house. Isaiah lx. 8. — Harmer. In a general description of the condition of the inhabi- tants of that extensive desert which now occupies the place of these ancient nourishing states, Volney, in plain but unmeant illustration of this prediction, remarks, that the " wretched peasants live in perpetual dread of losing the fruit of their labours: and no sooner have they gathered in their harvest, than they hasten to secrete it in private places, and retire among the rocks which border on the Dead Sea." Towards the opposite extremity of the land of Moab, and at a little distance from its borders, Seetzen re- lates, that "there are many families living in caverns;" and he actually designates them " the inhabitants of the rocks." And at the distance of a few miles from the ruined site of Heshbon, there are many artificial caves in a large range of perpendicular cliffs — in some of which are cham- bers and small sleeping apartments. While the cities are desolate, without any to dwell therein, the rocks are ten- anted. But whether flocks lie down in the former without any to make them afraid, or whether men are to be found dwelling in the latter, and are like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth — the wonderful transition, in either case, and the close accordance, in both, of the fact to the prediction, assuredly mark it in charac- ters that may be visible to the purblind mind, as the word of that God before whom the darkness of futurity is as light, and without whom a sparrow cannot fall unto the ground'. And although chargeable with the impropriety of being somewhat out of place, it may not be here altogether im- proper to remark, that, demonstrative as all these clear predictions and coincident facts are of the inspiration of the scriptures, it cannot but be gratifying to every lover of his kind, when he contemplates that desolation caused By many sins and fraught with many miseries, which the wickedness of man has wrought, and which the prescience of God revealed, to know that all these prophecies, while they mingle the voice of wailing with that of denuncia- tion, are the word of that God who, although he suffers not iniquity to pass unpunished, overrules evil for good, and makes the wrath of man to praise him, and who in the midst of judgment can remember mercy. ADd rea- soning merely from the "uniform experience" (to borrow a term and draw an argument from Hume) of the truth of the prophecies already fulfilled, the unprejudiced mind will at once perceive the full force of the pro< f derived from experience, and acknowledge thai it would be a re- jection of the authority of reason as well ;.s of revela- tion i" mistrosj the truth of that prophet ii affirmation ol m ii citating and redeeming import, respecting Ammon and Moab, whieh i- the laM of the series, and winch alone now awaits futurity to stamp it with the brilliant and crowning zeal of its testimony. "I will bring again the captivity i I Moab in the latter days, sailh the Lord! 1 will bring again the captivity of the chi'dren of Amnion, saith Hi. I.i1 The remnant of my people shall possess them, They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations."— Keitu. Ver. 37. For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped : upon all the hands shall be cut- tings, and upon the loins sackcloth. The relations of the deceased often testify their sorrow in a more serious and affecting manner, by cutting and slashing their naked arms with daggers. To this absurd and barbarous custom, the prophet thus alludes: "For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped; upon all hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth." And again, "Both the great and the small shall die in the land; they shall not be buried, neiiher shall men lament for them," nor cut themselves." It seems to have been very common in Egypt, and among the people of Israel, before the age of Moses, else he had not forbidden it by an express law : " Ye are the children of the Lord your God ; ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead." Mr. Harmer refers to this cus- tom, the " wounds in the hands" of the prophet, which he had given himself, in token of affection to a person. — P*x- " We find Arabs," La Roque tells us from D'Arvieux, " who have their arms scarred by the gashes of a knife, which they sometimes give themselves, to mark out to their mistresses what their rigour and the violence of love make them suffer." From this extract we learn what par- ticular part of the body received these cuttings. The scrip- ture frequently speaks of them in a more general manner. —Harmer. Ver. 40. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread his wii.gs over Moab. See on Ezek. 17. 8. CHAPTER XLIX. Ver. 3. Howl, O Heshbon : for Ai is spoiled : cry, ye daughters of Rabbah, gird ye with sackcloth ; lament, and run to and fro by the hedges : for their king shall go into captivity, and his priests and his princes together. The places of burial in the East are withuit their cities, as well as their gardens, and consequently their going to them must often be by their garden walls, (not hedges.) The ancient warriors of distinction, who were slain in battle, were carried to the sepulchres of their fathers; and the people often went to weep over the graves of those whom they would honour. These observations put togethei sufficiently account for this passage. — Harmer. Ver. 7. Concerning Edom, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Is wisdom no more in Teman ? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their, wisdom vanished? Compare with this Obad. v. 8, " shall I not in that day, saith the Lord, even destrov the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the Mount of EiauV Fallen and despised as now it is, Edom, did not the prescription of many ages abrogate its right, might lay claim to the title of having been the first seat of learning, as well as the centre of commerce. Sir Isaac Newton, who was nc mean master in chronology, and no incompetent judgi to r.ns JEREMIAH. Chap. 41j give a decision in regard to the rise and first progress of literature, considers Edom as the nursery of the arts and ■-ciences, and adduces evidence to that effect from pro- fane as well as from sacred history. "The Egyptians," he remarks, "having learned tne skill of the Edomiles, began now to observe the position of the stars, and the length of the solar year, for enabling them to know the position of the stars" at any time, and to sail by them at all times without sight of the shore, and this gave a begin- ning to astronomy "and navigation." It seems that letters, and astronomy, and the trade of carpenters, were invented by the merchants of the Red Sea, and that they were pro- pagated from Arabia Petraa into Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Asia Minor, and Europe. While the philosopher 'may thus think of Edom with respect, neither the admirer of genius, the man of feeling, nor the child of devotion will, even to this day, seek from any land a richer treasure of plaintive poetry, of impassioned eloquence, and of fervid piety, than Edom has bequeathed to the world in the book of Job. It exhibits to us, in language the most pathetic and sublime, all that a man could feel, in the outward pangs of his body and the inner wrilhings of his mind, of the frailties of his frame, and of the dissolution of his earthly comforts and endearments ; all that mortal can discern, by meditating on the ways and contemplating the works of God, of the omniscience and omnipotence of the Most High, and of the inscrutable dispensations of his providence; all that knowledge which could first tell, in written word, of Arclnrus, and Orion, and the Pleiades; and all that devotedness of soul, and immortality of hope, which, with patience that faltered not even when the heart was bruised and almost broken, and the body covered over with distress, could say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." But if the question now be asked, Is under- standing perished out of Edom? the answer, like every response of the prophetic word, may be briefly given: It is. The minds of the Bedouins are as uncultivaied as the des- erts they traverse. Practical wisdom is, in general, the first that man learns, and the last that he retains. And the simple but significant fact, already alluded to, that the clear- ing away of a little rubbish, merely "to allow the water to flow" into an ancient cistern, in order to render it useful to themselves, " is an undertaking far bevond the views of the wandering Arabs," shows that understanding is indeed perished from among them. *They view the indestructible works of former ages, not only with wonder, but with su- perstitious regard, and consider them as the work of genii. They look upon a European traveller as a magician and believe that, having seen any spot where they imagine that treasures are deposited, he can afterward command the guardian of the treasure to set the whole before him. In Teman, which yet maintains a precarious existence, the inhabitants possess. the desire without the means of knowl- edge. The Koran is their only study, and contains the sum of their wisdom. And, although "he was but a " mis- erable comforter," and was overmastered in argument by a kinsman stricken with affliction, yet no Tcmanile can now discourse with either the wisdom or the pathos of Eliphn: of old. Wisdom is no more in Teman, and understanding has perished nut of the Mount of Esau. While there is thus subsisting evidence and proof that the ancient inhabitants of Edom were renowned for wis- dom as well as for power, and while desolation has spread so widely over it, that it can scarcely be said to be inhabi- ted by man, there still are tenants who hold possession of it, to whom it was abandoned by man, and to whom it was decreed by a voice more than mortal. And insignificant and minute as it may possibly appear to those who reject .he light of revelation, or to the unreflecting mind, (that will use no measuring-line of truth which stretches bevond •hat which inches out its own shallow thoughts, and where- with, rejecting all other aid, it tries, bv the superficial ■touch of ridicule alone, to sound the unfathomable depths of infinite wisdom,) yet the following scripture, mingled >vith other words already verified as the voice of inspira- ion, and voluntarily involving its title to credibility in the appended appeal to fact and challenge to investigation, may, in conjunction with kindred proofs, yet tell to man — if hear- ing he will hear, and show him, if seeing he will see — 'he verity of the divine word, and the infallibility of the divine judgments; and, not without the aid of the rightful and unbiased exercise of reason, may give understanding to the skeptic, that he may be converted, and that he may be healed by Him whose word is ever truth. " But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it, (Idu- mea;) the owl also, and the raven shall dweil in it. It shall be a habitation for dragons, and a court for owls: the wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr (the hairy or rough creature) shall cry to his fellow; the screech owi also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest; there shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow ; there shall the vultures also be gathered every one with her mate. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read ; no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate; for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them. And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line : they shall possess it for ever; from generation to generation shall they dwell therein." Isa. xxxiv. 11, 13—17. " I laid the mountains of Esau and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." Mai. i. 3. Such is the precision of the prophecies, so remote are they from all ambiguity of meaning, and eo distinct are the events which they detail, that it is almost unnecessary to remark, that the different animals here enumerated were not all in the same manner, or in the same degree, to be possessors of Edom. Some of them were to rest, to meet, to be gathered there : the owl and the raven were to dwell in it, and it was to be a habitation for dragons ; while of the cormorant and bittern, it is emphatically said, that they were to possess it. And is it not somewhat beyond a mere fortuitous coincidence, imperfect as the information is re- specting Edom, that, in "seeking out" proof concerning these animals and whether none of them do fail, the most decisive evidence should, in the first instance, be uncon- sciously communicated from the boundaries of Edom, of the one which is first noted in the prediction, and which was to possess the land 1 It will at once be conceded, that in whatever country any particular animal is unknown, no proper translation of its name can there be given ; and that for the purpose of designating or identifying it, refer- ence must be had to the original name, and'to the natural history of the country in which it is known. And, without any ambiguity or perplexity arising from the translation of the word, or any need of tracing it through any other lan- guages to ascertain its import, the identical word of the original, with scarcely the slightest variation (and that only the want of the final vowel in the Hebrew word, vowels in that language being often supplied in the enunciation, or by points,) is, from the affinity of the Hebrew and Ara- bic, used on the very spot by the Arabs, to denote the very bird which may literally be said to possess the land. While in the last inhabited village of Moab, and close upon the borders of Edom, Burckhardt noted the animals which frequented the neighbouring territory, in which he dis- tinctly specifies Shera, the land of the Edomites ; and he relates that the bird katta is " met with in immense num- bers. They fly in such large flocks that the Arab boys often kill two or three of them at a time, merely by throw- ing a stick among them." If any objector be here inclined to sav, that it is not to be wondered at that any particular bird "should be found in any given country, that it might continue to remain for a term of ages, and that such a sur- mise would not exceed the natural probabilities of the case, the fact may be freely admitted as applicable, perhaps, to most countries of the globe. But whoever, elsewhere', saw any wild bird in any country, in flocks so immensely nu- merous, that two or three of them could be killed by the single throw of a stick from the hand of a boy; and that this could be slated, not as a forcible, and perhaps false, illustration to denote their number, nor as a wonderful chance or unusual incident, but as a fact of frequent oc- currence 1 Whoever, elsewhere, heard of such a fact, not as happening merely on a sea rock, the resort of myriads of birds, on their temporary resting-place, when exhausted in their flight, but in an extensive country, their permanent abode 1 Or if, among the manifold discoveries of travel- lers in modern times, it were really related that such oc- cupants of a country are to be found, or that a correspond- ing fact exists in any other region of the earth which was once tenanted bv man, who can also "find" in the records of a high antiquity the prediction that declared itl Of what country now'inhabited could 'he same fact be now Chap. 49. JEREMIAH. 509 with certainly foretold ; and where is the seer who can dis- cern the vision, fix on the spot over the worlds sarface, and select, from the whole winged tribe, the name of the tirsi in order and the greatest in number of the future and chief [>p->i-Mir- of the land 1 Of the bittern (kephud) as a joint possessor with the bMta of [domes, evidence has not been given, or ascer- tained;— but numerous as the facts have been which mod- ern discoveries have consigned over to the service of revelation, that word of truth which fears no investigation can appeal to other facts, unknown to history ami soil un- discovered— but registered in prophecy, and there long since revealed. 'lite oir! also and the raren (or crow) shall din 11 in //.— The owl and raven do dwell in it. Captain Mangles re- lates, that while he and his fellow-travellers were examin- ing the ruins and contemplating the sublime scenery of Petra, "the screaming of the eagles, hawks, and owls, who were soaring above their heads in considerable num- bers, seemingly annoyed at anyone approaching I heir lonely habitation, added much to the singularity of the scene." The fields of Tafyle, situated in the immediate vicinity of Edom, are, according to the observation of linrckhardt, frequented by an immense number of crows. " I expect- ed," says Seetzen, (alluding to his purposed tour through •dumea, and to the information he had received from the Arabs,) " to make several discoveries in mineralogy, as well as in the animals and vegetables of the country, on the manna of the desert, the ravens," &c. /( shall be a habitation for dragons, {serpents.) I laid his heritage waste for the 'dragons of the wilderness. — The evidence, though derived from testimony, and not from per- sonal observation, of two travellers of so contrary characters and views as Shawand Volney, is so accordant and apposite, that it may well be sustained in lieu of more direct proof. The former represents the land of Edom, and the Wilder- MSB of which it now forms part, as abounding with a variety of lizards and vipers, which are very dangerous and troublesome. And the narrative given bv Volney, • ready quoted, is equally decisive as to the fact. The Arabs, in general, avoid the ruins of the cities of Idumea, "on account of the enormous scorpions with irhirh thru «/<■„,-,«." Its cities, thus deserted by man, and abandoned' to their undisturbed and hereditary possession, Edom may justly be called the inheritance of dragons. The irild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, (or of the borders of the sea.) Instead of these words of the English version, Parkhurst renders the former the ravenous birds hunting the i This interpretation was given long before the fact to which it refers was made known. But it has now been ascertained (and without anv allusion, on the other hand, to the prediction) that eagles, hawks, and ravens, al^ ravenous birds, are common in Edom, and do not fail to illustrate the prediction as thus translated. But when animals from different regions are said to meet, the prophe- cy, thus implyingthat some of them at least did not proper- ly pertain to the country, would seem to require some further verification. And of all the wonderful circum- stances attached to the history, or pertaining to the fate, of Edom, there is one which is" not to be ranked among the least in singularity, that bears no remote application to the prefixed prophecy, and that ought not, perhaps, to pass here unnoted. It is recorded in an ancient chronicle, that the Emperor Decius caused fierce lions and lionesses to be transported from (the deserts of) Africa to the borders of Palestine and Arabia, in order that, propagating there, they mjghl act as an annoyance and a barrier to the barbarous Saracens: between Arabia and Palestine lies the doomed execrated land of Edom. And may it not thus be added, that a cause so unnatural and unforeseen would greatly tend to the destruction of the flocks, and to the desolation of all the adjoining territory, — and seem to be as if the king of the forest was to take possession of it for his subjects 1 And may it not be even literally said that the wild beasts of the desert meet there with the irild beasts of the borders of the sea ? The satyr shall dn-ell there. — The satvr is entirely a fabu- lous animal. The word (soir) literally means a rough, hairy one ; and, like a svnonvmous word in both the Gteek and "Latin languages which has the same signification, has been traislaled botn ov lexicographers and commentators the trot, Par^r.urst savs that in this sense he would under- stand this very passage; and Lowth distinctly asserts, with- out assigning to it any other meaning, that "the word originally signifies g, .n the inaccessible cliffs which, in some places, rise to the height of seven hundred feet, and the barren and craggy precipices which enclose the ruins of Petra, the capi al of the Neb itei, a once powerful but now forgotten people, the eagle builds his nest, and screams for the safety of Ins young, when thennweleome traveller approaches lus lonely habitation.— Paxton. Ver. 17. Also Edom shall be a desolation ; every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. 18. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the Lord, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it. Judea, Amnion, and Moab exhibit so abundantly the re- mains and the means of an exuberant fertility, that the won- der arises in the reflecting mind, how the barbarity of man could have so effectually counteracted for so " many gen- erations" the prodigality of nature. But such is Edom's desolation, that the first sentiment of astonishment on the contemplation of it is, how a wide-extended region, now i! vrsifi'il by the strongest features of desert wildness, could ever have been adorned with cities, or tenanted for ages by a powerful and opulent people. Its present aspect would belie its ancient history, were not that history cor- roborated by "the many vestiges of former cultivation," bv the remains of 'walls arid paved roads, and by the ruins of cities still existing in this ruined country. The total cessa- tion of its commerce — the artificial irrigation of its valleys wholly neglected— the destruction of all the cities, and the continued spoliation of the country by the Arabs while aught remained that they could destroy — the permanent exposure, for ages, of the soil, unsheltered by its ancient groves, and unprotected by any covering from the scorch- in- rays of the sun — the unobstructed encroachments of the desert, and of the drifted sands from the borders of the Red Sea, the consequent absorption of the water of the springs and streamlets during summer, are causes which have all combined their baneful operation in rendering Edom most desolate, the dcsola'ion of desolations. Volney's account is sufficiently descriptive of the desolation which now reigns over Idumea; and the information which Seet- zen derived ni Jerusalem respecting it is of similar import. He was told.oiat "at the distance of two days' journey and a half from Hebron, he would find considerable ruins of the ancient city of Abde, and that for all the rest of the journey he would see no place of habitation ; he would meet only w:ith a few tribes of wandering Arabs." From the borders of Edom, Captains Irby and Mangles beheld a boundless extent of desert view, whii h they bad hardly ever seen equalled for singularity .and grandeur. And the following extract, descriptive ol what Bnrckhardt actually witnessed in the different parts of Edom, cannot be more graphically abbreviated than in the uonls ,,| the prophet. Of Its eastern boundary, .ml of the adjoining pari ol Arabia Petrsea, strictly so called, Bnrckhardt writes— ''It might with truth be called Petra-a, not only on account of us rocky mountains, but .also of the cli \ tiled plain already de- scribed, which is so much covered with stones, especially flints, that it may with great propriety be called a stony desert, although susceptible of culture ;' in many places it is overgrown with wild herbs, and must once have been thick- ly inhabited ; for the traces of many towns and villages are met with on both sides of the Hadj road, between Maan and Akaba, as well as between Maan and the Plains ol Hauran, in which direction are also many springs. At present all this country is a desert, and Maan (Teman) is the only inhabited place in it." 1 will stretch out my hanii against late, o Mount Seir, and trill make thee most desolate. I trill stretch out my hand upon Edom, and trill make it deso- late from Teman. Iii the interior of Idumea, where the ruins of some of its ancient cities are still visible, and in the extensive valley which reaches from the Red to the Dead Sea— the appear- ance of which must now be totally and sadly changed from what it was — " the whole plain presented to the view an ex- panse of shifting sands, whose surface was broken by in- numerable undulations and low hills. The same appears to have been brought from the shorts of the Red Sea by the southern winds; and the Arabs told me that the valleys con- tinue topresent the same appearance beyond the latitude of Wady Mousa. In some parts of the valley the sand is very deep, ,-md there is not the slightest appearance of a load, or of any work of human art. A few trees grow among the sand-hills, but the depth of sand precludes all Begetatim of herbage." It grape-gatheri - com* to thee, would thru not leu re some ■_■ /. ,i ■,■ ,„....,.■....' , / ■ /,,, „ , L < / they brill dest roil till lh> u Itnn . ■ ,. . i ,• I .. • / .• - . . I /'■■ I babe. Edom shall be a desolate wild i ", On ascending the-western plain, on a higher level than that of Arabia, we had before us an immense expanse of dreary country, en- tirely covered with black flints, with here arid there some hilly chain rising from the plain." I trill stretch out upon Idumea the line if confusion, and Ike stones of emptiness. Of the remains of ancient cities -till exposed to view in different places throughout Idumea, Burckhan't describe* "the ruins of a large town, of which nothing remains but broken m alls and heaps of stones; the ruins of an ancient city, consisting of large heaps of hewn blocks of silicions stone; the extensive ruins of Gherandel, Arindcla, an an- cient town of Palestina Tenia." " The following ruined places are situated in Djcbel Shera (Mount Seir) to the S. and S. W. of Wady Mousa— Kal. ab, Djirba, Pasta, Evl. Ferdakh, Anyk, Birel Bcytar.Shemakh, and Syk. Of the towns laid down in D'Anville's map, Thoana excepted, no traces remain." / \eiil lay thy cities irasle, and them shall bi desolate. 0 Me ■' Sev / - II make the< /■ petual desola- While the cities of Idumea, m general, are thus most desolate; and while the rums thi mselves are as indiscrimi- nate as they are undefined in the prediction, (there being nothing discoverable, as there was nothing foretold, but their excessive desolation, and that they shall not return,) there is one striking exception to this promiscuous desolation, wbicb is alike singled out by the inspired prophet and by the scientific traveller. Bnrckhardt gives a description, of no ordinary interest, of the site of an ancient city which he visited, the ruins of which, not only attest its ancient splendour, but they "are entitled to rank among the most curious remains of ancient an." Though the city be desolate, the monuments of its opulence and power are durable. These are — a chann»' on each side of the river for conveying the "valer to the city — numerous tombs — above I wo hundred and fifty sepul- I chres. or excavations— many mausoleums, one in partico- ! lar. of colossal dimensions "in perfect preservation, and a work of immeii-. labour, containing a chamber sixteen i pad square and aoove twenty live feet in height, with a | colonnade in front thirty-live feet high, crowned with a j pediment highly ornamented, &c; twd large truncated | pyramids, and a theatre with all its benches capable of con- 512 JEREMIAH. Chap. 49. taming about three thousand spectators, all cut out of the rock. In some places these sepulchres are excavated one oyer the other, and the side of the mountain is so perpen- dicular, that it seems impossible lo approach the uppermost, _no path whatever being visible. " The ground is covered with heaps of hewn stones, foundations of buildings, frag- ments of columns, and vestiges of paved streets, all clearlv indicating that a large city once existed here. On ihe left bank of the river is a rising ground, extending westward for nearly three quarters of a mile, entirely covered with similar remains. On the right bank, where the ground is more elevated, ruins of the same description are to be seen. There are also the remains of a palace and of several tem- ples. In the eastern cliff there are upwards of fifty separate sepulchres close to each other." These are not the symbols of a feeble race, nor of a people that were to perish utterly. But a judgment was denounced against the strongholds of Edom. The prophetic threatening has not proved an empty boast, and could not have been the word of an uninspired mortal. " I will make thee small among the heathen; thy terribleness hath deceived thee and the pride of thy heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill ; though thou shouldst make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord : also Edom shall be a desolation." These descriptions, given by the prophet and by the ob- server, are so analogous, and the precise locality of the scene, from its peculiar and characteristic features, so identified — and yet the application of the prophecy to the fact so remote from the thoughts or view of Burckhardt as to be altogether overlooked — that his single delineation of the ruins of the chief (and assuredly the strongest and best- fortified) city of Edom was deemed in the first edition of this treatise, and in the terms of the preceding paragraph, an illustration of the prophecy alike adequate and legitimate. And though deprecating any allusion whatever of a per- sonal nature, and earnest for the elucidation of the truth, the author yet trusts that he may here be permitted to dis- claim the credit of having been the first to assign to the prediction its wonderful and appropriate fulfilment; and it is with no slight gratification that he is now enabled to adduce higher evidence than any opinion of his own, and to state, that the selfsame prophecy has been applied by others— with the Bible in their hands, and with the very scene before them — to the selfsame spot. Yet it may be added, that this coincident application of the prophecy, without any collusion, and without the possibility, at the time, of any interchange of sentiment, affords, at least, a strong presumptive evidence of the accuracy of the ap- plication, and of the truth of the prophecy ; and it may well lead to some reflection in the mind of any reader, if skepticism has not barred every avenue against convic- tion. On entering the pass which conducts to the theatre of Pe- tra, Captains Irbyand Mangles remark: — "The ruins of I he city here burst on the view in their full grandeur, shut in on the opposite side by barren craggy precipices, from which numerous ravines and valleys branch out in all directions; the sides of the mountains covered with an endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwellings, ( O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, &c. Jer. xlix. 16,) presented al- together the most singular scene we ever beheld." In still further confirmation of the identity of the site, and the ac- curacy of the application, it may be added, in the words of Dr. Vincent, that " the name of this capital, in all the vari- languages in which it occurs, implies a rock, and as scriptures, in Strabo, and Al such it is described in the Edrissi." And in a note he enumerates among the various names having all the same signification— Sela.'a rock, (the very word here used in the original,) Petra, a rock, the Greek name, and The Rock, pre-eminently — expressly re- ferring to this passage of scripture. Captains Irby and Mangles having, together with Mr. Bankes and Mr. Legh, spent two days in diligently ex- amining them, give a more particular detail of the ruins of Petra than Burckhardt's account supplied ; and the more full the description, the more precise and wonderful does the prophecy appear. Near the spot where they awaited the decision of the Arabs, " the high land was covered upon both its sides, and on its summits, with lines and •olid masses of dry wall. The former appeared to be traces of ancient cultivation, the solid ruin seemed to be only the remains of towers for watching in harvest and vintage lime.- The whole neighbourhood of ihe spot bears similar traces of former industry, all which seem to indi- cate the vicinity of a great metropolis." A narrow and circuitous defile, surrounded on each side by precipilous or perpendicular rocks, varying from four hundred to seven hundred feet in altitude, and forming, for two miles, " a sort of subterranean passage," opens on the east the way to the ruins of Petra. The rocks or rather hills, then diverge on either side, and leave an oblong space, w here once stood the metropolis of Edom, deceivedby its terribleness, where now lies a waste of ruins, encircled on every side, save on the northeast alone, by stupendous cliffs, which still show how the pride and labour of art tried there to vie with the sublimity of nature. Along the borders of these cliffs, de- tached masses of rock, numerous and lofty, have been wrought into sepulchres, the interior of which is excavated into chambers, while the exterior has been cut from the live rock into the forms of towers, with pilasters, and suc- cessive bands of frieze and entablature, wings, recesses, figures of animals, and columns. Yet, numerous as these are, they form but a part of " the vast necroplis of Petra." " Tombs present themselves, not only in every avenue to the city, and upon every precipice that surrounds it, but even intermixed almost promiscuously with its public and domestic edifices; the natural features of the defile grew more and more imposing at every step, and the excavations and sculpture more frequent on bo;j sides, till it presented at last a continued street of tombs." The base of the cliff's wrought out in all the symmetry and regularity of art, with colonnades, and pedestals, and ranges of corridors adhering lo the perpendicular surface ; flights of steps chiselled out of the rock; grottoes in great numbers, " which are certainly not sepulchral ;" some excavated residences of large dimensions, (in one of which is a singe chamber sixty feet in length, and of a breadth proportioned;) many other dwellings of inferior note, particularly abundant in one defile leading to the city, Ihe sleep sides of which confain a sort of excavated suburb, accessible by flights of steps; niches, sometimes thirty feet in excavated height, with altars for votive offerings, or wilh pyramids, columns, or obelisks; a bridge across a chasm now apparently inac- cessible; some small pyramids hewn out of the rock on Ihe summit of the heighls;" horizontal grooves, for the'eonvey- ance of water, cut in the face of the rock, and even across the architectural fronts of some of theexcavalions; and, in short, " the rocks hollowed out into innumerable chambers of different dimensions, whose entrances are variously, richly, and often fantastically decorated with every imaginable or- der of architecture" — all united, not only form one of the most singular scenes fhat the eye of man ever looked upon, or the imagination painled — a group of wonders perhaps unparalleled in their kind — but also give indubilable proof, bolh that in the land of Edom there was a city where hu- man ingenuity, and energy, and power must have been ex- erted for many ages, and to so great a degree as to have well entitled it to be noted for its strength or terribleness, and that the description given of it by the prophets of Israel was as strictly literal as the prediction respecting it is true. " The barren state of the country, together with the desolate condition of the city, without a single human being living near it, seem," in the words of those who were spectators of the scene, "strongly to verify the judgment denounced against it." " O thou who dwellest in the clefts of the rock, &c. — also Edom shall be a desolation," &c. Of all the ruins of Petra,"nhe mausoleums and sepulchres are among the most remarkable, and they give Ihe clearest indication of ancient and long-continued royally, and o( courtly grandeur. Their immense number corroborates the accounts given of their successive kings end princes by Moses and Strabo; though a period of eighteen hundred years intervened between the dates of Iheir respective rec- ords concerning them. The slructure of the sepulchres also shows that many of them are of a more recent date. " Great," says Burckhardt, "must have been the opulence of a city which could dedicate such mon'iments to the memory of its rulers." But the long line oSF he kings and of the nobles of Iduraea has for ages been cut off; they are without any representative now, without any loenvrial b'lt the multitude and the magnificence of their ur.visiterl sepul- chres. "They shall call the nobles thereof to the khploui, Chap. 49—51 JEREMIAH 513 but Ihcrc shall be no kingdom there, and all her princes shall be nothing." Amid Lhe mausoleums and sepulchres, the remains of temple- or palaces, and the multiplicity of tombs, which all form, as it were, the grave of ldumea, u here its ancient spleudcur is interred, there are edifices, the Roman and Grecian architecture of which decides i|ui i hey were built Jong posterior to the era of the prophets.— Keith. Ver. 19, Behold, ho shall come tip like a lion from the swelling of Jordan against the habita- tion of the strong: hut I will suddenly make him run away from her; and who is a chosen vinn, thai I may appoint over her? for who is like me? and who will appoint methe time? and who is that shepherd that will stand before me? See on Josh. 3. 15. CHAPTER L. Ver. 2. Declare ye among; the nations, and pub- lish, and set up a standard ; publish, and con- ceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is con- founded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces. As it was generally believed that the divinity abandoned any figure or image" which was mutilated or'broken, this prophetic declaration may be considered as asserting the destruction of the idols. 'Such a sentiment still prevails among the heathen. Dr. Buchanan, who visited many In- dian provinces at the commencement of the seventeenth century, mentions that a Polvgar chief, about two hundred and fifty years before, had been directed by the god Ganesa to search for treasures under a certain image, and to erect temples and reservoirs with whatever money he should find. "The treasures were accordingly found, and applied as directed ; the image from under which the treasures had been taken was shown to me, and I was surprised at find- ing it lying at one of the gates quite neglected. On asking the reason why the people allowed their benefactor to re- main in such a plight, he informed me, that the finger of the image having been broken, the divinity had deserted it : for no mutilated image is considered as habitable by a god." -BlTtDER. Merodach was a name, or a title, common to the princes and kings of Babylon, of which, in the brief scriptural ref- erences to their history, two instances are recorded, viz. Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, King of Babylon, who exercised the office of government, and Evil-Merodach, who lived in the davs of Jeremiah. From Merodach being here associated with Bel, or the temple of Belus, and from the similarity of their judgments— the one bowed down nnd confounded, and the other broken in pieces — it may reasona- bly be inferred that some other famous Babylonian building is here also denoted ; while, at the same time, from the ex- press identity of the name with that of the kings of Baby- lon, and even with Evil-Merodach, then residing there,'it may with equal rea«on be inferred that, under the name of Merodach, the palace is spoken of by the prophet. And next to the idolatrous temple, as the seat of false worship which corrupted and destroyed the nations, it may well be imagined that the royal residence of the despot who made the earth to tremble and oppressed the people of Israel, would be selected as the marked object of the righteous judgments of God. And secondary onlv to the Birs Nimrood in the great- ness of its ruins is the Mujelibe, or Maklonbe, generally understood and described by travellers as the remains of the chief palace of Babylon. The palace of the King of Babylon almost vied with the great temple of their god. And there is now some contro- versy, in which of the principal mountainous heaps the one or the other lies buried. But the idler desolation of both .eaves no room for any debate on the question,— which of the twain is bowed down and confounded, and which of them is broken in pieces. The two palaces, or castles, of Babylon were strongly fortified. And the larger was surrounded by three walls of great extent. "When the citv was sud- denly taken bv Demetrius, he seized on one of the castles by surprise, and displaced its garrison by seven thousand of his own troops, whom be stai ed within it. < If the other be Could nol make himself master. Their extent and b period of three hundred years after the deliv- ery of the prophecy, are thus sufficiently demonstrated. Tin solidity Oi the Structure of the greater as well as of lhe leaser pahtoe, might bare warranted tbe belief of its un- broken durability forages.— And never was there a build- ing whose splendour and magnificence were in greater con- Irasl to its present desolation. The vestiges of the walls whieh surrounded il are Still to be seen, and serve with other circiimst.il]. -,s in identify it with the Mujelibe, as the aami Vferod ich is identified with the palace, llisbroken in pieces, and heme lis name Mujelibe, signifying over- turned, OI tinned upside down. Its circumference is about hall I le : its height one hundred and forty feet. But it is "a mass of confusion, none of its members being disiin- guishabie." The existence of chambers, passages, and cel- lars, of different forms and sizes, and built of did terials, has been fully ascertained. It is the receptacle of wild beasts, and full of doleful creatures; wild beasts cry in the desolate houses, and di agom is Ae pleasant palaces— "venomous reptiles being very numerous throughout the ruins." "All the sides are worn into furrows by the weather, and in some places where several channels of rain have united together, these furrows are of great depth, and penetrate a considerable way into the mound." " The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows worn partly by the weather." It a- grave, to the sides of the fit. — Keith. Ver. 8. Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats before the flocks. From this passage it appears that it was customary with the ancient Israelites to have he-goats among their flocks of sheep, and that in travelling the goats went foremost. The same judicious custom exists in South Africa to this day The goat possesses much more fortitude than the sheep, and is more forward in advancing through difficulties, espe- cially in crossing rivers; and the sheep, who are not fond of such exploits, implicitly follow them. While travelling in Africa, I was obliged to have a small flock of sheep, to secure food when game was scarce; and as instigators to bold and rapid travelling, I was necessitated always to have a few goats in the flock. They always took the lead, espe- cially in crossing rivers, one of which, the Great Orange River, was about a quarter of a mile across, and there the goats behaved nobly. Had they been rational creatures I should have returned them public thanks. The goats, always taking the lead among lhe sheep, seem as if sensible of possessing superior mental powers. — Campbell. Ver. 38. Adrousrht is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it it the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols. Fully to understand this passage, a person must see the phrens'y of the heathen when they get a sight of their idols. Tims, wden the gods are taken out in procession, the mul- titudes shout, and the priests mutter and rave. The ges- tures are all distorted, and the devotees are affected with alternate sorrow or joy. — Roberts. CHAPTFR LI. Ver. 13. O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness. On taking Babylon suddenly and bv surprise, Cyrus be- came immediately possessed of the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places. On his first publicly ap- pearing in Babylon, all the officers of his army, both of the Persians and allies, according to his command, wore very splendid robes, those belonging to the superior officers being of various colours, all of the finest and brightest die, and richly embroidered with gold and silver; and thus the hiihlrn rihes of secret, places were openly displayed. And when the treasures of Babylon became the spoil of another tjreat king, Alexander gave six 771:71a (about 15/.) to each Macedonian horseman, to each Macedonian soldier and 514 JEREMIAH. Chap. 51. foreign horseman two mints, (52.) and to every other man in his army a donation equal to two months' pay. > Deme- trius ordered his s ddiers" to plunder the land of Babylon for their own use. — But it is not in these instances alone that Chaldea has been a spoil, and that all who spoil her have been satisfied. It was the abundance of her treasures which brought successive spoliators. Many nations came from afar, and though they returned, to their own country, (as in formerly besieging Babylon, so in continuing to de- spoil the land of Chaldea,) none returned in vain. From the ri< hness of the country, new treasures were speedily stored up, till again the swunl come upon them, and tlicy were robbed. The prey of the Persians and of the Greeks for nearly two centuries after the death of Alexander, Chaldea became afterward the prey chiefly of the Parthians, from the north, for an equal period, till a greater nation, the Ro- mans, came from the coasts of the earth to pillage it. To be restrained from dominion and from plunder was the exci- ting cause, and often the shameless plea, of the anger and fierce wrath of these famed, but cruel, conquerors of the world. Yet, within the provinces of their empire, it was their practice, on the submission of the inhabitants, to pro- tect and not to destroy. But Chaldea, from its extreme dis- tance, never having yielded permanently to their yoke, and the limits of their empire having been fixed by Hadrian on the western side of the Euphrates, or on the very borders of Chaldea, that hapless country obtained not their protection, though repeatedly the scene of ruthless spoliation by the Romans. The authority of Gibbon, in elucidation of Scripture, cannot be here distrusted, any more than that of heathen historians. To use his words, "a hundred thou- sand captives, and a rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers," when Ctesiphon was taken, in the second century, by the generals of Marcus. Even Julian, who, in the fourth century, was forced to raise the siege of Ctesi- phon, came not in' vain to Chaldea, and failed not to take of it a spoil ; nor, though an apostate, did he fail to verify by his acts the truth which he denied. After having given Perisador to the flames, " the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms, and of splendid furniture, were partly distributed among the troops, and partly reserved for the publicservice; the useless stores were destroyed by fire, or thrown into the stream of the Euphrates." (Gibbon.) Having also re- garded his army with a hundred pieces of silver to each soldier, he thus stimulated them (when still dissatisfied) to fignt for greater spoil — " Riches are the object of your de- sires 1 those riches are in the hands of the Persians, and ■the spoils of this fruitful country are proposed as the prize of your valour and discipline." The enemy being defeated after an arduous conflict, "the spoil was such as might be expected from the riches and luxury of an oriental camp ; birge quantities of silver and sold, splendid arms and trap- pings, and beds and tables of missy silver." (Ibid.) When the Romans under Heraclius ravaged Chaldea, " though much of the treasure had been removed from De- stagered, and much had been expended, the remain-ins wealth appears to have exceeded their hopes, and even to have svri.tTED their avarice." While the deeds of Julian and the words of Gibbon show how Chaldea was spoiled— how a sword continued to be on her treasures— and how, year after year, and age after age, there was rumour on rumour and violence in her land— more full illustrations remain to be given of the truth of the same prophetic word. And as a painter of great power may cope with another by drawing as closely to the life as he, though the features be different, so Gibbon's description of the sack of Ctesiphon, as pre- viously he had described the sack and conflagration of Se- leucia, (cities each of which may aptly be called "the daughter of Babvlon," having been, like it, the capital of Chaldea,) is written as if, by the most graphic representa- tion of facts, he had been aspiring to rival Volney as an illustrator of scripture prophecy. "The capital was taken by assault; and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a keener edge to the sabres of the Moslems, who shouted with religious transport, ' This is the white palace of Chosroes ; this is the promise of the apostle of God.' The naked robbers of the desert were suddenly enriched beyond the measure of their hope or knowledge. Each chamber revealed a new treasure, secreted with art, or ostentatiously displayed ; the gold and silver, the various wardrobes and •precious furniture, surpassed (says Abulfeda) the estimate «f fart.y or numbers: and another historian defines the un- told and almost infinite mass by the fabulous computation of three thousand of thousands of thousands of preces of gold. One of the apartments of the palace was decorated with a carpet of silk sixty cubits in length and as many in breadth, (HO feet;) a paradise, or garden, was depicted on the ground; the flowers, fruits, and shrubs, were imitated by the figures of the gold embroidery, and the colours of the precious stones : and the ample square was encircled by a variegated and verdant border. The rigid Omar divided the prize .among his brethren of Medina; the picture was dest roved ; but such was the intrinsic value of the materials, that the share of Ali alone was sold for 20,000 drachms. A mule that carried away the tiara and cuirass, the belt and bracelets of Chosroes, was overtaken by the pursuers ; the gorgeous trophy was presented to the commander of the faithful, and the gravest of the companions condescended to smile when they beheld the white beard, hairy arms, and uncouth figure of the veteran, who was invested with the spoil of the great king." Recent evidence is not wanting to show that, wherever a treasure is to be found, a sword, in the hand of a fierce enemy, is upon it, and spoliation has not ceased in the land of Chaldea. " On the west of Hilleh, there are two towns which, in the eyes of the Persians and all the Shiites. are rendered sacred by the memory of two of the greatest mar- tyrs of that sect. These are Meshed Ali and Meshed Housien, lately filled with riches, accumulated by the de- votion of the Persians, but carried off by the ferocious Wa- habees to the middle of their deserts." And after the incessant spoliation of ages, now that the end is come of the tieasures of Chaldea, the earth itself fails not to disclose its hidden treasures, so as to testify, that they once were abundant. In proof of this an instance may be given. At the ruins of Hoomania, near to those of Ctesi- phon. pieces of silver having (on the 5th of March, 1812) been accidentally discovered, edging out of the bank of the Tigris; "on examination there were found and brought away," by persons sent for that purpose by the pacha of Bagdad's officers, " between six and seven hundred ingois of silver, each measuring from one to one and a half feel in length ; and an earthen jar, containing upwards of two thousand Athenian coins, all of silver. Many were pur- chased at the time by the late Mr. Rich, formerly the East India Company's resident at Bagdad, and are now in his valuable collection, since bought by government, and depo- sited in the British Museum."" Amid the ruins of Ctesiphon " the natives often pick up coins of gold, silver, and copper, for which thev always find a ready sale in Bagdad. In- deed, some of the wealthy Turks and Armenians, who are collecting for several French and German consuls, hire people to go and search for coins, medals, and antique gems; and I am assured they never return to their employers emp- ty-handed," as if all 'who spoil Chaldea shall be satisfied, till even the ruins be spoiled unto the uttermost. — Keith. Ver. 25. Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth ; and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. On the summit of the hill are " immense fragments ol brick-work of no determinate figures, tumbled together, and converted into solid vitrified masses." " Some of these huge fragments measured twelve feet in height, by twenty- four in circumference; and from the circumstance of the standingbrick-work having remained in a perfect state, the change exhibited in these is only accountable from their haviig been exposed to the fiercest fire, or rather scathed by light this" " They are completely molten— a- strong pre- sumption that fire was used in the destruction of the tower, which, in parts, resembles what the scriptures prophesied it should become, ' a burnt mountain.' In the denunciation respecting Babylon, fire is particularly mentioned as an agent against it. To this Jeremiah evidently alludes, when he says that it should be ' as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,' on which cities, it issaid, 'the Lord rain- ed brimstone and fire.'—' Her high gates shall be burned with fire and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.' " " In many of these immense unshapen masses might be traced the gradual ef- Chap. 51. JEREMIAH 515 fects of the consuming power, which had produced so re- markable an appearance; exhibiting nans burnt to thai variegated dark hue, seen in the vitrified matter lying about m inufactories; while, through the whole ol these awful testimonies of the fire (whatever fire it was ' I « hich doubtless, hurled them from their original elevation," (/ Wtil roll thee down from the rocks,) " the regular lines of the cement are visible, a^ul so hardened iu common with the bricks, that when the masses are smirk ihcv ring like glass. On examining the base of the standing wall, contiguous to these huge transmuted substances, it is found tolerably free from any similar changes— m short, quite in its original state; hence,'' continues Sir Robert Ker Porter, "I draw the conclusion, that the consuming poweracted from above, and that the scattered ruin fell from some higher point than the summit of the present standing fragment. The heat of the fire which produced such amazing effects must have burned with the force of the strongest furnace; and from the general appearance of the cleft in the wall, and these vitrified masses, I should be induced to attribute the catas- trophe to lightning from heaven. Ruins bv the explosion Of any combustible matter would have exhibited very dif- ferent appearances." " The falling masses bear evident proof of the operation of fire having been continued on them, as well after they were broken down as before, since every part of their sur- face has been so equally exposed to it, that many of them have acquired a rounded form, and in none can the place of separation from its adjoining one be traced by any ap- pearance of superior freshness, or any exemption from the influence of the destroying flame." The high sales of the temple of Belns, which were stand- ing in the time of Herodotus, have been burnt with fire ; the vitrified masses which fell when Bel bowed down rest on the top of its stupendous ruins. " The hand of the Lord has been stretched upon it; it has been rolled down from the rocks, and has been made a burnt mountain," — of which it was further prophesied, " They shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations, but thou shall be desolate for ever, saith the Lord." The old wastes of Zion shall be built; its former desolations shall be raised up : and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. But it shall not be with Bel as with Zion, nor with Babylon as with Jerusalem. For as the " heaps of rubbish impregnated with nitre" which cover the site of Babylon " cannot be cultivated," so the vitrified masses on the summit of Birs Nimrood cannot be rebuilt. Though still they be of the hardest substance, and indestructible by the elements, and though once they formed the highest pinnacles of Belus, yet, incapable of be- ing hewn into any regular form, they neither are nor can now be taken for a comer or for foundation.''. And the bricks on the 'solid fragments 'of wall, which rest on the summit, though neither scathed nor molten, are so firmly cemented, that, according to Mr. Rich, " it is nearlv impos- sible to detach any of them whole," or, as Captain Mignan still more forcibly states, " they are so firmly cemented, that it is utterly impossible to detach anv of them.'' " My most violent attempts," says Sir Robert Ker Porter, " could not separate them." And Mr. Buckingham, in assigning reasons for lessening the wonder at the total disappearance of the walls at this distant period, and speaking of the Birs Nimrood generally, observes, " that the burnt bricks (the only ones sought after) which are found in the Mujelibc, the Kasr. and the Birs Nimrood, the only three erect mon- uments in which there are any traces of their having been used, are so difficult, in the two last indeed so impossible, to be extracted whole, from the tenacity of the cement in which they are laid, that theycould never have been resort- ed to while anv considerable portion of the walls existed to furnish an easier supply: even now, though some portion of the mounds on the eastern bank of the river," (the Birs is on the western side,) " are occasionallvdug into for bricks, they are not extracted without a comparatively great expense, and very few of them whole, in proportion to ihe great num- ber of fragments that come up with them." Around the tower there is not a single whole brick to be seen. These united testimonies, given without allusion to the prediction, afford a better than any conjectural commenta- ry, such as previously was given without reference to these facts. While of Babylon, in general, it is said, that it would be token from thence ; and while, in many places, no- thing is left, yet of the burnt mount.iin, which forms an ac- i mi in enough in magnitude to build a city, men d I take ■> stone t"i foundations, nor a stone for a Corner. H«l ins undergone the action of the fiercest fire, and being completely molten, the masses t a tip Bel, mi which the band of the Lord has been stretched, reduced irSo anyotherform or substance. nor gain by the hand of man. And the ton 1 1 ol Ba bel, afterward fhe temple of Belus, which witnessed the ion of mankind; shall itself be witnessed by the latest generation, even as now it stands, desolate for ever, — an indestructible monument of human pride and folly, and of Divine judgment and truth. The greatest of the rains, as one of the edifices of Babylon, is rolled down into a vast, indiscriminate, cloven, confounded, useless, and blasted mass, from which fragments might be hurled with as liille injury to the ruined heap, as from a bare and rocky mount- ain's side. Such is the triumph of the word of the living God over the proudest of the temples of Baal. — Keith. Vet. '27. Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the na- tions against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz ; appoint a captain against her ; cause the horses to come tip as the rough caterpillars. Some think locusts are meant, instead of caterpillars; and one reason assigned is, that they " have the appearance ot horses and horsemen." Others translate, " bristled locusts." There are bristled caterpillars in the East, which at certain seasons are extremely numerous and annoying. They creep along in troops like soldiers, are covered with stiff Hairs or bristles, which are so painful to the touch, and so powerful in their effects, as not to be entirely removed for many days. Should one be swallowed, it will cause death ; hence people, at the particular season when they are numerous, are very cautious in examining their water vessels, lest any should have fallen in. In the year 1826, a family at Manipy had to arise early in the morning to go to their work, and they therefore prepared their rice the evening before. They were up before daylight, and took their food : in the course of a short time they were all ill, and some of them died du- ring the day. The rice chatty was examined, and there were found the remains of the mieutttj, the rough caterpil- lar. Dr. Hawkesworlh says, of those he saw in the West Indies, "their bodies were thick set with hairs, and they were ranging on the leaves side by side, like files of sol- diers, to the number of twenty or thirty together. When we touched them, we found their bodies had the qualities of nettles." — Roberts. Ver. 36. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. 37. And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonish- ment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant. On the one side, near to the site of Opis, " the country al. around appears to be one wide desert of sandy and barren soil, thinly scattered over with brushwood and tufts ol reedy grass." On the other, between Bussorah and Bag- dad," immediately on either bank of the Tigris, is the un- trodden de'rrt. The absence of all cultivation, — the steril, arid, and wild character of the whole scene, foimed a con- trast to the rich and delightful accounts delineated in scrip- ture. The natives, in travelling over these pathless des- erts, are compelled to explore their way by the siars." "The face of the country is open and flat, presenting to the eve one vast level plain, where nothing is to be seen but here and there a herd of half-wild camels. This immense tract is very rarely diversified with any trees of moderate growth, but is an immense wild, bounded only by the hori- zon." In the intermediate region, " the whole extent from the foot of the wall of Bagdad is a barren waste, without a blade of vegetation of anv description ; on leaving the gates, the traveller has before himthejrospect of a oare desert,- a flat and barren c( (intrv." " The whole country between Bagdad and Hillah is a perfectly flat and (with the exeep 51G JEREMIAH. Chap. 51. tion of a few spots as you approach the latter place) uncul- tivated watte. That it was at some former period in a far different state, is evident from the number of canals by which it is traversed, now dry and neglected ; and the quantity of heaps of earth covered with fragments of brick and broken tiles, which are seen in every direction,— the indisputable traces ot former population. At present the only inhabitants of the tract are the Sobeide Arabs. Around, as far as the eye can reach, is a trackless desert." " The abundance of the country has vanished as clean away as if the 'besom of desolation' had swept it from north to south ; the whole land, from the outskirts of Babylon to the farthest stretch of sight, lying a melancholy waste. Not a habitable spot appears fur countless miles." The loud, of Babylon is desolate, wtilwut a n inhabitant. The Arabs traverse it ; and every man met with in the desert is looked on as an enemy. Wild beasts have now their home in the land of Chaldea ; but the traveller is less afraid of them,— even of the lion,— than of" the wilder animal, the desert Arab." The coun- try is frequently " totally impassable." " Those splendid accounts of the Babylonian lands yielding crops of grain two or three hundred-fold, compared with the modern face of the country, afford a remarkable proof of the singular desolation to which it has been subjected. The canals at present can only be traced by their decayed banks." " The soil of this desert," says Captain Mignan, who traversal it on foot, and who, in a single day, crossed forty water-courses, "consists of a hard clav, mixed with sand, which at noon became so heated with'the sun's rays that I found it too hot to walk over it with any degree of comfort. Those who have crossed those desert wilds are already ac- quainted with their dreary tediousness even on horseback; what it is on foot they can easily imagine." Where astron- omers first calculated eclipses, the natives, as in the des- erts of Africa, or as the mariner without a compass on the pathless ocean, can now direct their course only by the stars, over the pathless desert of Chaldea. Where cultiva- tion reached its utmost height, and where two hundred-fold was stated as the common produce, there is now one wide and uncultivated waste; and the sower and reaper are cut off from the land of Babylon. Where abundant stores and treasures were laid up, and annually renewed and increased, fanners have fanned, and spoilers have spoil,., 1 I hem till they have emptied the land. Where labourers, shaded by palm- trees a hundred feet high, irrigated the fields till all was plentifully watered from numerous canals, the wanderer, without an object on which to fix his eye, but " stinted and short-lived shrubs," can scarcely set his foot without pain, after the noonday heat, on the "arid and parched ground," fares, from city to city, there is now " silence and solitude ;" for the ancient cities of Chaldea are desolations,— where no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass there- by.—Keith. Ver. 42. The sea is come up upon Babylon : she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. This metaphor is in common use to show the oi ing power ot an enemy. " Tippoo Saib went down upon his foes, like the sea he swept them all away." " True, true, the British troops went like the sea upon Bhurtpore, the forts have been carried away."— Roberts. Ver. 53. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burnt with fire ; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary. They were so broad, that, as ancient historians relate, six chariots could be driven on them abreast ; or a chariot and four horses might pass and turn. They existed as walls for more than a thousand years after the prophecy was delivered; and long after the sentence of utter destruc- tion had gone forth against them, they were numbered among " the seven wonders of the world." And what can lie more wonderful now, or what could have been more in- -onceivable by man, when Babylon was in its strength and glory, than that the broad walls of Babylon should be so utterly broken that it cannot be determined with certainty that even the slightest vestige of them exists. " All accounts agree," says Mr. Rich, " in the height cf the walls, which was fifty cubits, having been reduced to these dimensions from the prodigious height of three hun- dred and fifty feet" (formerly stated, by the lowest compu- tation of the length of the cubit, at three hundred feet,) " by Darius Hystaspes, after the rebellion of the town, in order to render it less defensible. 1 have not been fortunate enough to discover the least trace of them in any part of the ruins at Hillah ; which is rather an unaccountable circum- stance, considering that they survived the final ruin of the town, long after which they served as an enclosure for a park ; in which comparatively perfect stale St. Jerome in- forms us they remained in his time." In the sixteenth century they were seen for the last time by any European traveller, (so far as the author has been able to trace,) before they were finally so utterly broken as totally to disappear. And it isinteresting to mark both the time and the manner in which the walls of Babylon, like the city of which ihey were the impregnable yet unavailing defence, were brought down to the grave, to be seen no "The meanwhile," as Rauwolf describes them, "when we were lodged there, I considered and viewed this ascent, and found that there were two behind one another," (He- rodotus states that there was both an inner, or inferior, and outer wall,) "distinguished by a ditch, and extending them- selves like unto two parallel vails a great way about, and that they were open in some places, where one might go through like gates ; wherefore 1 believe that they were the wall of the old town that went about them; and that the places where they were opeii have been anciently the gates (where- of there were one hundred) of that town. And this the rather because I saw in some places under the sand (wherewith the two ascents were almost covered) ihe old wall plainly appear." The cities of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Destagered, Kufa, and anciently many others in the vicinity, together with the more modern towns of Mesched Ah, Mesched Hussein, and Hillah, " with towns, villages, and caravansaries without number," have, in all probability, been chiefly built out of the walls of Babylon. Like the city, the walls have been taken from thence, till none of them are left. The rains of man/hundred years, and the waters coining upon them annually by the overflowing of the Euphrates, have also, in all likelihood, washed down the dust and rubbish from the broken and dilapidated walls into the ditch from which they were originally taken, till at last the sand of the parch- ed desert has smoothed them into a plain, and added the place where they stood to the wilderness, so that the broad walls of Babylon are utterly broken. And now, as the sub- joined evidence, supplementary of what has already been adduced, fully proves, — it may verily be said that the loftiest walls ever built by man, as well as the " greatest city on which the sun ever shone," which these walls sur- rounded, and the most fertile of countries, of which Baby- lon the great was the capital and the glory,— have all been swept by the Lord of Hosts with the besom of destruction. A chapter of sixty pages in length, of Mr. Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, is entitled, " Search after the walls of Babylon." After a long and fruitless search, he discovered on the eastern boundary of the ruins, on the summit of an oval mound from seventy to eighty feet in height, and from three to four hundred feet in circumfer- ence, "a mass of solid wall, about thirty feet in length, by twelve or fifteen in thickness, yet evidently once of much greater dimensions each way, the work being, in its pres- ent slate, broken and incomplete in every part ;" and this heap of ruin and fragment of wall he conjectured to be a part — the only part, if such it be, that can be discovered — of the walls of Babylon, so utterly are they broken. Beyond this there is not even a pretension to the' discovery of any part of them. Captain Frederick, of whose journey it was the " prin- cipal object to search for the remains of the wall and ditch that had compassed Babylon," states, that "neither of these have been seen by any modern traveller. All my inquiries among the Arabs," he adds, " on this subject, completely failed in producing the smallest effect. Within the space of twenty-one miles in length along the banks of the Eu- phrates, and twelve miles across it in breadth, I was unable Chap. 51. JEREMIAH. :.17 o perceive any thing that could admit of my imagining Ihnt eitheia wall or a dilch had existed within this exten- sive area. If any remains do exist of the walls, thej must have been of greater circumference loan is allowed hv modern geographers. 1 may possibly have been deceived ; luit 1 spared bo pains to prevent it. I never was em- ployed in rutins? and walking less ihaii tight hours for six successive davs, and upwards of twelve on the sev- enth." Major Keppel relates that he and the party who accom- panied him, " in common with other travellers, had totally failed in discovering any trace of the city walls;" and he adds, "the Divine predictions against Babylon have been so literally fulfilled in ihe appearance of the ruins, that 1 am disposed to give Ihe fullest signification to the words of Jeremiah, — the broad walls of Babylon shall be ut- terly broken." IS.itniUm shall be an astonishment —I'.ieni one that. %oclh , ■ihall.be astonished. Ii is impossible to think on what Babylon was, and to be an eyewitness of what it is, without astonishment. On first entering its ruins. Sir Rob- ert Ker Porier thus expresses his feelings: " I could not but feel an indescribable awe in thus passim?, as it won-, into the gates of fallen Babylon."— " 1 cannot portray," says Captain Mignan, " the overpowering sensaiion of reveren- tial awe that possessed my mind while contemplating the extent and magnitude of ruin and devastation on every side." How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder ! How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! —The following interesting description has lately been given from the spot. After speaking of the ruined embank- ment, divided and subdivided again and again, like a sort of tangled network, over the apparently interminable ground — of large and wide-spreading morasses — of ancient foundations— and of chains of undulating heaps— Sir Robert Ker Porter emphatically adds-^ — "The whole view was particularly solemn. The majestic stream of the Euphrates, wandering'in solitude, like a pilgrim monarch through the silent nuns of his devastated kingdom, still appeared a no- ble river, under all the disadvantages of its desert-tracked course. Its banks were hoary wilh reeds; and the gray osier willows were yet there on which the captives of Israel hung up iheir harps'.and while Jerusalem was not, refused to be comforted. But how is the rest of the scene changed since then ! At that time those broken hills were palaces — those long undulating mounds, streets — this vast solitude filled with the busy subjects of the proud daughter of the East.— Now, wasted with misery, her habitations are not to be found — and for herself, the teorm is spread over far." From palaces converted into broken hills j — from streets lo long lines of heaps ; — from the throne of the world to sitting in the dust ; from the hum of mighty Babylon to the death- like silence that rests upon the grave to which it is brought down: — from the great storehouse of the world, where treasures were gathered from every quarter, and the prison* house of the captive Jews, where, not loosed to return home- wards, they served in a hard bondage, to Babylon the spoil of many nations, itself taken from thence, and'nothing left; —from B vast metropolis, the place of palaces and the glory of kingdoms, whither multitudes ever flowed, to a dreaded and shunned spot not inhabited nor dwelt in from genera- tion to generation, where even the Arabian, il gfa the son of the desert, pitches not his tent, and where the shep- herds make not their folds;— from the treasures of dark- ness, and hidden riches of secret places, to the lakin? away of bricks, and to an uncovered nakedness ;— from making the earth to tremble, and shaking kingdoms, to be- ing cast out of the grave like an abominable branch ;— from the many nations and great kings from the coasts of the earth that have so often come up against Babvlon, to the workmen that still cast her up as heaps and add to the num- ber of pools in the ruins; — from the immense artificial lake, manv miles in circumference, by meapsof which the annual rising of the Euphrates was regulated and restrain- ed, to these pools of water, a few yards round, dug bv the workmen, and filled by the river ;— from the first and great- est of temples to a burnt mountain desolate for ever; from the golden image, fortv feet in height, which stood on the top of the temple of Belus, 1 1 all the graven images of her gods, that are broken unto tr, - ground and mingled with the dust ;— from the splendid and luxuriant festivals of Baby- lonian monarchs, the noise of the viols, the pomp of Bel- shazzar's feast and ihe godless revelry of a thousand lords drinking out of the golden vessels that had been taken from /.ion, lo ihe cry of wild beasts, the C ping Oi doleful creatures of which theirdcsolate houses and pleasant palaces are full, the nestling of owls in cavities, the dancing of wild goals on ihe ruinous monad as OH I dwelling-place of dragons and of venomous reptiles;— from arch upon arch, and terrace upon lerrace, nil the hang- ing gardens of Babylon rose like a mountain, down to ihe stones of the pit now disclosed to view ; — from the palaces of princes who sat on the mount of the congregation, and thought in the pride of their hearts to exalt themselves above the stars of God, to heaps cut down to the ground, perforated as the raiment of those that are slain, and as a carcass trodden under feet ;— from the broad walls of Baby- lon, in all their height, as Cyrus camped againcl them round about, seeking in vain a single point where congre- gated nations could scale the walls or force an opening, to the untraceable spot on which they stood, where ihere is nothing left to turn aside, or impede in their course, the worms that cover it;— and finally, from Babylon the great, the wonder of the world, to fallen Babylon, the astonish- ment of all who gobvil ;— in extremes like these, u hatever changes they involve, ami by whatever instrumentality they may have been wrought out, there is not to this hour, in 'his most marvellous history of Babylon, a single lact that may not most appropriately be ranked under a prediction, and that does not tally entirely with its express and precise fulfilment, while at the same time they all united shew, as may now be seen, — reading the judgments to the very letier, and looking to the facts as'ihey are,— the destruction which has come from the Almighty upon Babylon. Has not every purpose of the Lord been performed against Babylon? And having so clear illustration^!)!' tha facts before "us, what mortal shall give a negative answer lo the questions, subjoined hv their omniscient Author to these very prophecies?— " Who hath declared this from ancient time ? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I, the Lord ? and ihere is no god beside me ; — declar- ing the end from the beginning, and from ancient limes the things that are not yet done — savin?, my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Is it possible that there can be any attestation of the truth of prophecy, if it be not witnessed' here? Is there any spot oa earth which has undergone a more complete transformation? "The records of the human race." it has been said with-trulh, " do not present a contrast more striking than that between the primeval magnificence of Babylon and ils long desolation." Its ruins have of late been carefully and scrupulously ex- am ined by different natives of Britain, of unimpeached vera- cilv, and the result of every research is a more striking demonstration of ihe literal accomplishment of every pre- diction. How few spots are there on earth of which we have so clear and faiihftil a pictureas prophecy gave of fallen Babylon, at a time when no spot on earth resembled it less than ils present desolate solitary site! Or could any pro- phecies respecting any single place have been more precise, or wonderful, or numerous, or true, — or more gradually accomplished throughout many generations? And when they look at what Babylon was, and what it is, and perceive the mintite realization of them all — may not nations learn wisdom, may not tyrants tremble, and may not skeptics think 1 — Keith. Vex. 62. Then shah thou say, O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off", that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. The course of the Tigris through Babylonia, instead of being adorned, as of old, with cities and iowns, is marked with the sites of "ancient ruins." Silace, Sabala, Narisa, Fuchera, Sendia " no longer exist." A succession of lon- gitudinal mounds, crossed at right angles by others, mark the supposed site of Artemita, or Destage'red. Its once luxuriant gardens are covered with grass; and a higher mound distinguishes "the roval residence" from the ancient streets. Extensive ridees and mounds, (near to Houmania,) varying in height and extent, are seen branching m every direction. A wall, with sixteen bastions, is the only me- ,318 JEREMIAH. Chap. 51 morial of Apollonia. The once magnificent Seleucia is now a scene of desolation. There is not a single entire building, but the country is strewed for miles with frag- ments of decayed buildings. " As far," says Major Kep- pel, '' as the eye could reach, the horizon presented a bro- ken line of mounds ; the whole of this place was a desert flat/' On the opposite bank of the Tigris, where Ctesiphon its rival stood, bevides fragments of walls and broken masses of brick-work, and remains of vast structures encumbered with heaps of earth, there is one magnificent monument of antiquity, " in a remarkably perfect stale of preservation," '• a large and noble file of building, the front of which pre- sents to view a wall three hundred feet in length, adorned with four rows of arched recesses, with a central arch, in span eighty-six feet, and above a hundred feet high, sup- ported by walls sixteen feet thick, and leading to a hall which extends to the depth of one hundred and fifty-six feet," the width of the building. A great part of the back wall, and of the roof, is broken down ; but that which re- mains " still appears much larger than Westminster Ab- bey." It is supposed to have been the lofty palace of Chos- roes ; but there desolation now reigns. " On the site of Ctesiphon, the smallest insect under heaven would not find a single blade of grass wherein to hide itself, nor one drop of water to allay its thirst." In the rear of the palace, and attached to it, are mounds two miles in circumference, in- dicating the utter desolation of buildings formed to minis- ter to luxury. But, in the words of Captain Mignan, "such is the extent of the irregular mounds and hillocks that overspread the site of these renowned cities, that it would occupy some months to take the bearings and dimensions of each with accuracy." While the ancient cities of Chaldea are thus desolate, the sites of others cannot be discovered, or have not been visit- ed, as none pass thereby; the more modern cities, which flourished under the empire of califs, are " all in ruins." The second Bagdad has not indeed yet shared the fate of the first. And Hillah — a town of comparatively modern date, near to the site of Babylon, but in the gardens of which there is not the least vestige of ruins — yet exists. But the former, " ransacked by massacre, devastation, and oppres- sion, during several hundred years," has been " gradually reduced from being a rich and powerful city to a slate of comparative poverty, and the feeblest means of defence." And of the inhabitants of the latter, about eight or ten thousand, it is said that " if any thing could identify the modern inhabitants of Hillah as the descendants of the ancient Babylonians, it would be their extreme profligacy, for which they are notorious even among their immoral neighbours." They give no sign of repentance and refor- mation to warrant the hope that judgment, so long con- tinued upon others, will cease from them; or that they are the people that shall escape. Twenty years have not passed since towns in Chaldea have been ravaged and pillaged by the Wahabees; and so lately as 1823, the town of Sheere- ban " was sacked and ruined by the Coords," and reduced to desolation. Indications of ruined cities, whether of a remote or more recent period, abound throughout the land. The process of destruction is still completing. Gardens which studded the banks of the Tigris have very recently disappeared, and minsled with the desert, — and concerning the cities also of Chaldea the word is true that they are des- olations. For ''the whole country is strewed over with the debris of Grecian, Roman, and Arabian towns, confound- ed in the same mass of rubbish." But while these lie in indiscriminate ruins, the chief of the cities of Chaldea, the first in name and in power that ever existed in the world, bears many a defined mark of the judgments of heaven. The progressive and predicted decline of Babylon the great, till it ceased to be a city, has already been briefly detailed. About the beginning of the Christian era, a small portion of it was inhabited, and the lar greater part was cultivated. It diminished as Seleucia increased, and the latter became the greater city. In the second century nothing but the walls remained. It became gradually a grealdesert; and, ifcthe fourth century, its walls, tepaired for that purpose, formed an enclosure for wild beasts, and Babylon was converted into a field for the chase -a hunting-jilace for the pastime of the Persian monarchs. The name and the remnant were cut off from Babylon ; and there is a blank, during the interval of many ages, in he historv of its mutilated remains and of its mouldering decay. It remained long in the possession of the Saracens , and abundant evidence has since been given, that every feature of its prophesied desolation is now distinctly visi- ble— for the most ancient historians bore not a clearer tes- timony to facts confirmatory of the prophecies relati' and permanent ruin. The identity of its site has been com- pletely established. And the truth of every general and ol every particular prediction is now so clearly demonstrated, that a simple exhibition of the facts precludes the possibili- ty of any cavil, and supersedes the necessity of any rea- soning on the subject. It is not merely the general desolation of Babylon, — however much that alone would have surpassed all human foresight,— which the Lord declared by the mouth of his prophets. In their vision, they saw not more clearly, nor defined more precisely, the future history of Babylon, from the height of its glory to the oblivion of its name, than they saw and depicted falkn Babylon as now it lies, and as, in the nineteenth, century of the'Christian era, it has, for the first time, been fully described. And now when an end has come upon Babylon, after a long succession of ages has wrought out its utter desolation, both the pen and the pen- cil of travellers, who have traversed and inspected its ruins, must be combined, in order to delineate what the word oi God, by the prophets, told from the beginning that that end would be. Truth ever scorns the discordant and encumbering aid ot error : but :o diverge in the least from the most precise facts would here weaken and destroy the argument; for the pre- dictions correspond not closely with an v ihing, except alone with the express and literal reality. To swerve from it, is, in the same degree, to vary from them : and any misrepre- sentation would be no less hurtful than iniquitous. But the actual fact renders any exaggeration impossible, and any fiction poor. Fancy could not have feigned a contrast more complete, nor a destruction' greater, Than that which has come from the Almighty upon Babylon. And though the greatest city on which the sun ever shone be now a deso- late wilderness, there is scarcely any spot on earth more clearly defined— and none could be more accurately delin- eated by the hands of a draftsman— than the scene of Baby- lon's desolation is set before us in the very words of the prophets; and no wolds could now be chosen like unto these, which, for two thousand five hundred years, have been its '' burden" — the burden which now it bears. Such is the multiplicity of prophecies and the accumula- tion of facts, that the very abundance of evidence increases the difficulty of arranging, in a condensed form, and thus appropriating its specific fulfilment to each precise and separate prediction, and many of them may be viewed con- nectedly. All who have visited Babylon concur in ac- knowle'dgingor testifying that thedesolation isexacilysuch as was foretold. They, in general, apply the more promi- nent predictions; and, in minute details, they sometimes unconsciously adopt, without any allusion or reference, the very words of inspiration. Babylon is wholly desolate. It has become heaps — it is cut down to the ground — brought down to the grave — trod- den on — uninhabited — its foundations fallen — its walls thrown down, and utterly broken —its loftiest edifices rolled down from the rocks— the golden city has ceased — the worms are spread under it. and the worms cover it, &c. There the Arabian pilches not his tent ; there the shep herds make not their folds; but wild beasts of the desert lie there, and their houses are full of doleful creatures, and owls dwell there, &c. It is a possession for the bittern, and a dwelling-place for dragons; a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert; a burnt mountain ; pools of water; spoiled, empty, nothing left, utterly destroyed ; every one that goeth by is astonished, &c. Babylon shall become heaps. Babylon, the glory of king- doms, is now the greatest of ruins. Immense tumuli of temples, palaces, and human habitations of every descrip- tion, are everywhere seen, and from long and varied lines of rums, which, in some places, rather resemble natural hills than mounds which cover the^remains of great and splendid edifices. Those buildings which were once the labour of slaves and the pride of kings, are now misshapen heaps of rubbish. " The whole face of the country is cov- ered with vestiges of building, in some places consisting o Chai'. 52. JEREMIAH. 119 brick walls surprisingly fresh, in others, merely a vast mo- nuuh of rubbish, ofsach iuJelerrainate figures, variety, and extent, as to involve the person who should • i any theory in inextricable confusion." Long mounds, running from north to souih.are crossed by others from easl 10 west; and are only distinguished by their i on, and number, from the decayed banks of canals. The greater part of the mounds are certainly the remains of buildings, originally disposed in b other at right angles. The more distinct and prominent of these " heaps" are double, or lie in par- allel lines, each exceeding twenty feet in height, and are intersected by cross passages, in such a manner as to place doubt the fact of their being rows of houses or streets fallen to decay. Such was the form of the streets of Babylon, leading towards the gates ; and such are now the lines of heaps — " There are also, in some places, two hollow channels, and three mounds, running parallel to each other for a considerable distance, the central mound being, in such cases, a broader and flatter mass than the other two, as if there had been two streets going parallel to each other, the central range of houses which divided them being twice the size of the others, from their being double residences, with a front and door of entrance to face each avenue." "Irregular hillocks and mounds, formed over masses of ruins, present at every step memo- rials of the past." From the temple of Belus and the two royal palaces, to the streets of the city and single dwellings, all have become heaps; and the only difference or gradation now is, from the vast and solid masses of ruins which look like moun- tains, to the slight mound that is scarcely elevated above the plain. Babylon is fallen, literally fallen to such a de- gree that those who stand on its site and look on numerous parallel mounds, with a hollow space between, are some- times at a loss to distinguish between the remains of a street or a canal, or to tell where the crowds frequented or where the waters flowed. Babylon is fallen, till its ruins cannot fall lower than they lie. '// is cut down lo the ground. Her foundations are fallen ; and the ruins rest not on them. Its palaces, temples, streets, and houses, lie " buried in shape- less heaps." And " the view of Babylon," as taken from the spot, is truly a picture of utter desolation, presenting its heaps to the eye, and showing how, as if literally buried under them, Babylon isbroughl down to the grave. Cast her up as heaps. Mr. Rich, in describing a grand heap of ruins, the shape of which is nearly a square of seven hundred yards in lengthand breadth, states that the workmen pierce into it in every direction, in search of bricks, "hol- lowing out deep ravines and pits, and throwing up the rub- bish in heaps on the surface." " The summit of the Knsr" (supposed to have been the lesser palace) is in like manner " covered with heaps of rubbish." /_' of hi r lie !■ /"'. Vast h^njis constitute all that jf" ancient Babylon. All its grandeur is de- parted ; all its treasures have been spoiled ; all its excel- lence has utterly vanished ; the very heaps are seartthed for" bricks, when aoibit ad; even these are not left wherever they can be taken away, and Babylon has for ages been "a quarry above ground," ready to the hand oj every successive despbiler. Without the most remote allusion lothis|iiu|ili. <•. .( 'aptain Mignan describesa mound attached to the palace ninety yards in breath by half that in height, the whole of which' is deeply furrowed, in the same manner as the generality of the mounds. " The ground is extremely soft, and tiresome to walk over, and appears completely exhausted of all its building material now is left save one towering hill, the earth of which is mixed with fragments of broken brick, red varnished pot- tery, tile, bitumen, mortar, glass, shells, and pieces of mother-of-pearl"— worthless fragments, of no value lo the poorest. From thence shall she be taken— let nothing of her be Icfl. One traveller, towards the end of the last century, r the site of ancient Babylon, without being con- scious of having traversed it. While the workmen cast her up as heaps in piling up the rubbish while excavating for brick, that they may lake them from thence, and that nothing be left ; they labour more than trebly in the fulfilment of prophecy, for the numerous and deep excavations form pools of water, on the overflowing ol the Euphrates, and, annually filled, they are not dried up throughout the year. Deep cavities are also formed by the Arabs, when digging for hidden treasure. The ground is sometimes covered with pools of water in the hollows." Sit the dust, sit on the ground, O daughter of the Chaldeans. the mounds, which form all that Tin- surface of Babylon, consists of decomposed buildings reduced to dust , and over all the ancient streets and habitations there is lit- erally nothing but the dust of the ground on which to sit. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered. " Our path," says Cap- tain" Mignan, " lay through the great mass of ruined heaps on the site of ' shrunken Babylon.' And I am perfectly incapable of conveying an adequate idea of the dreary, lonely nakedness that appeared before me." — Keith. CHAPTER LII. Ver. 21. And concerning- the pillars, the height of one pillar teas eighteen cubits, and a fillet ol twelve cubits did compass it ; and the thickness thereof was four lingers: it was hollow. In the same way do the people of the East speak of any thing which is less in measure than a span. " What height are your pepper vines ?"—" About two fingers." " When the rice becomes five fingers in height we shall want more rain." That which is less than a finger is spoken of as a grain of rice ; the next gradation is an ellu, i. e. gingelly seed ; the next is a mustard seed; and the last an anu, i. e an atom.— Roberts. LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH. CHAPTER I. Ver. 1. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people ! how is she become as a widow ! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she be- come tributary ! Jerusalem had been sacked by a ruthless foe, and her sons had been carried oft' to Babylon. " As a widow." When a husband dies, the solitary widow takes off her marriage jewels, and other ornamenis; her head is shaved! and she sits down in the dust to bewail her lamentable condition. In the book Scanda Puriina, it is said, after the splendid city of Kupera had been plundered by the cruel Assurs, " the city deprived of its riches by the pillage of the Assurs, resembled the wiriow !" Jerusalem became as a widow in her loneliness bemoaning her departsd lord. — Roberts. Ver. 3. Judah is gone into captivity, because of affliction, and because of great servitude ; she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overlook her between the straits. It was the practice with those who hunted wild beasts to drive them, if possible, into some strait and narrow pas- sage, that they might more effectually take them, as in such a situation an escape could hardly be effected. It is to this circumstance that the prophet alludes in these words. — Burder. Ver. 11. All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul : see, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile. What a melancholy picture have we here ! the captives, it appears, had been allowed, or they had concealed, some of their " pleasant things," their jewels, and were now obliged to part with them for food. What a view we also have here of the cruelly of the vile Babylonians! The people of the East retain their little valuables, such as jewels and rich robes, to the last extremity. To part with that, which has, perhaps, been a kind of heir-loom in the family, is like parting with life. Have they sold the last wreck of their other property; are they on the verge of death ; the emaciated members of the family are called together, and some one undertakes the heart-rending task of proposing such a bracelet, or armlet, or anklet, or ear-ring, or the pendant of the forehead, to be sold. For a moment all are silent, till the mother or daughters burst into tears, and then the contending feelings of hunger, and love for their " pleasant things," alternately prevail. In general the conclusion is, to pledge, and not to sell, their much-loved ornaments ; but such is the rapacity of those who have money, and such the extreme penury of those who have once fallen, they seldom regain them." Numbers give their jewels to others to keep for them, and never see them more. I recollect a person came to the mission house, and brought a large casket of jewels for me to keep in our iron chest. The valuable gems were shown to me one by one; but I declined receiving them, because I had heard that the person was greatly indebted to the govern- ment, and was led to suspect the object was to defraud the creditor. They were then taken to another person, who received them,— decamped to a distant part of ihe country, and the whole of the property was lost, both to the individu- al aud the creditors.— Roberts. Ver. 17. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, ana there is none to comfort her : the Lor6 hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adver- saries should be round about him : Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. AVhat a graphic view we have here of a person in distress! See that poor widow looking at the dead body of her hus- band, as the people take it from the house ; she spreads forth her hands to their utmost extent, and piteously be- wails her condition. The last allusion in the verse is very common. — Roberts. CHAPTER II. Ver. 1. How hath the Lord covered the daugh- ter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger. Those who are in favour with the king, or those who obey him, are called his footstool. But the figure is also used in a degrading sense. Thus, do two men quarrel, one says to the other, " I will make thee my footstool." " Ah ! my lord, be not angry with me, how long have I been your footstool 1" " I be that fellow's footstool ! Never ! Was he not footstool to my father T'— Roberts. Ver. 15. All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth ? See on Job 27. 23. The vulgar, the low triumph of a victorious party, in the East, is extremely galling; there is nothing like moderation or forbearance in the victors. No, they have recourse tc every contemptuous and brutal method to degrade their fallen foe. Has one party triumphed over another in a court of law, or in some personal conflict, the conquerors shout loud, "Aha! aha! fallen, fallen;" and then go close to the vanquished, and " clap their hands. "— Roeerts. Oriental females express their respect for persons of high rank, by gently applying one of their hands to their mouths ; a custom which seems to have existed from time immemorial. In some of the towns of Barbary, the lead- ers of the sacred caravans are received with loud acclama- tions, and every expression of the warmest regard. The women view the parade from the tops of the houses, and testify their satisfaction by striking their four fingers on their lips as fast as they can, all the while making a joyful noise The sacred writers perhaps allude to this custom, in those passages where clapping the hand in the singular number is mentioned. Striking one hand smartly upon the other, which we call clapping the hands, was also used to express joy, in the same manner as among ourselves; but in the East it appears to have been generally employed to denotr a malignant satisfaction, a triumphant or insulting joy. In this way, the enemies of Jerusalem expressed their satisfaction^ at the fall of that great and powerful city.— Paxton. CHAPTER III. Ver. 7. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out : he hath made my chain heavy. This figure is taken from a prisoner having a heavy chain to drag as he goes along. Husbands sometimes Cl.Af LAMENTATIONS. speak of their wives as a chain. Thus, is a man inviled to a disiaiu country ; he asks in reply, " How ran I come ! inv u i|.- I, as mule my chain heavy." " My husband, my hosband, you shall not go; my weeping shall make youl chain heavy." A man in great trouble asks, Who will break this 'san ante ? i. e. chain. "My chain, my chain, who will break this chain V " Have you heard Varavar's chain is broken! He is dead ! Who will make another chain for him V— Roberts. Ver. 15. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. " Wicked, wicked son," says the disappointed mother, '• I expected to have had pleasure from thee, but thou hast given me kasapu," i. e. bitterness. "Shall 1 go to hi house to live on bitterness V " Who can make this bitter- ness sweet V — Roberts. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 5. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets ; they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. In preparing their victuals, the Orientals are, from the extreme scarcity of wood in many countries, reduced to use cow-dung for fuel. At Aleppo, the inhabitants use wood, and charcoal in their rooms, but heal their baths with cow-dung, the parings of fruit, and other things of a similar kind, which they employ people to gather for that purpose. In Egypt, according to Pitts, the scarcity of wood is so great, that at Cairo they commonly heat their ovens witli horse or cow dung, or dirt of the streets ; what wood they have being brought from the shores of the Black Sea, and sold by weight. Chardin attests the same fact ; " The eastern people always use cow-dung for baking, boiling a pot, and dressing all kinds of victuals that are easily cook- ed,-especially in countries that have but little wood;" and Dr. Russel remarks, in a nole, that "the Arabs carefully collect the dung of the sheep and camel, as well as that of the cow ; and that the dung, offals, and other matters, used in the bagnios, after having been new gathered in the streets, are carried out of the city, and laid in great heaps to dry, where they become very offensive. They are intolerably disagreeable, while drying, in the town adjoining to the bagnio; ; and are so at alUimes when it rains, though they be stacked, pressed hard together, and thatched at top.1' The^e statements exhibit, in a very strong light, the extreme misery of the Jews, who escaped from the devouring sword of Nebuchadnezzar: " Thev that feed delicately, are desol- ate in the streets; they that were brought up in scarlet, embrace dunghills." To embrace dunghills, is a species of wretchedness, perhaps unknown to us in the history of modern warfare ; but it presents a dreadful and appalling image, when the circumstances to which it alludes are re- collected. What can be imagined more distressing to those who lived delicately, than to wander without food in the streets? What mole disgusting and terrible to those who had been clothed in rich and splendid garments, than to be forced, by the destruction of their palaces, to seek shelter among stacks of dung, the filth and stench of which it is almost impossible to endure. The dunghill, it appears from holy writ, is one of the common retreats of the mendi- cant, which imparts an exquisite force and beauty to a pas- sage in the song of Hannah: " He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of giory." The change in the circumstances of that excel- lent woman, she reckoned as great (and it was to her not less unexpected) as the elevation of a poor despised beggar, from a nauseous and polluting dunghill, rendered tenfold more fetid by the intense heat of an oriental sun, to one of the highest and most splendid stations on earth.— Pax- ton. Ver. 7. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing iras of sapphire: 8. Their visage is blacker than a coal ; they are not known in the streets : 66 their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is wither ed, it is become like a stick. I leave it to physicians and naturalists to determine, with minute exactness, what effect extreme hunger produces on the body, particularly as to colour. It is sufficient for me to remark, that the modern inhabitants of the East sup- pose it occasions an approach to blackness, as the ancient Jews also did. " Her Nazarites," says the prophet, com- fdaining of the dreadful want of food, just before Jerusa- em was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, " her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire. Their visage is blacker than a coal : they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth lo their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick." Lam. iv. 7, 8. The like is said, ch. v. 10 : " Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible famine." The same representation of its effects still obtains in those countries. So Sir John Chardin tells, that the common people of Persia, to express the sufferings of Hossein, a grandson of their prophet Mohammed, and one of their most illustrious saints, who fled into the deserts before his victorious enemies, that pursued him ten days together, and at length overtook him, ready todie with heat, thirst, and fa- tigue, and slew him with a multitude of wounds, in memory of which they annually observe ten days with great solem- nity ; I say, he tells us, that the common people then, to express what he suffered, " appear entirely naked, except- ing the parts modesty requires to be covered, and blackened all over ; while others are stained with blood ; others run about the streets, beating two flint-stones against each other, their tongues hanging out of their mouths like people quite exhausted, and behaving like persons in despair, crying with all their might, Hossein, &c. Those that coloured themselves black, intendedto represent the extremity of thirst and heat which Hossein had suffered, which was' so great, they say, that he turned black, and his tongue swelled out of his mouth. Those that were covered with bland, intended to represent his being so terribly wounded, as that all his blood had issued from his veins before he died." Here we see thirst, want of food, and fatigue, are sup- posed to make a human body look black. They are now supposed to do so ; as they were supposed anciently to have that effect. — Harmer. CHAPTER V. Ver. 4. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. See on Num. '20. 19. That numbers of the Israelites had no wood growing on their own lands, for their burning, must be imagined from the openness of their country. It is certain, the eastern villages now have oftentimes hitle or none on their premi- ses : SO Russel says, that inconsiderable as the stream that runs at Aleppo, and the gardens about it, may appear, they, however, contain almost the only trees that are to be met with for twenty or thirty miles round, " for the villages are destitute of trees," and most of them only supplied with what rainwater they can save in cisterns. D'Arvieux gives us to understand, that several of the present villages of the Holv Land are in the same situation; for, observing that the Arabs burn cow-dung in their encampments, he adds, that all the villagers, who live in places where there is a scarcity of wood, take great care to provide themselves with sufficient quantities of this kind of fuel. This is a circumstance I have elsewhere taken notice of. The Holy Land appears, by the last observations, to have been as lit- tle wooded ancientlv as at present ; nevertheless, the Israel- ites seem to have burnt wood very commonly, and wi'hout buying it too, from what the prophet says, Lam. v. 4. " We have drunken our water for money, our wood is sold lo us." Had they been wont to buy their fuel, they would not have complained of it as such a hardship. The true account of it seems to be this: The woods oi the land of Israel being from very ancient times common, the people of the villages, which, like those about Aleppo, had no trees growing in them, supplied themselves with fuel out of these wooded places, of which there were many anciently, and several that still remain. This liberty of taking wood in common, the Jews suppose to have been a constitution of Joshua, of which the}' give us ten ; the first, giving liberty to an Israelite to feed his flock in the woods of any tribe : the second, that it should be free to take wood in the fields any where. But though this was the ancient ;ustom in Judea, it was not so in the country into which hey were carried captives ; or if this text of Jeremiah re- spects those fhal continued in their own country for a while under Gedaliah, as the ninth verse insinuates, it signifies, that their conquerors possessed themselves of these woods, and would allow no fuel to be cut down without leave, and that leave was not to be obtained without money. It is certain, that presently after the return from the captivity, timber was not to be cut without leave, Neh. ii. 8.— Harmer. Ver. 12. Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured. No punishment the East, IEL. Chap. 1. especially for slaves and refractory children. Thus, has a master an obstinate slave ; has he commuted some great offence with his hands; several men are called, who tie the offender's hands, and hoist him to the roof, till he beg for forgiveness. Schoolboys, who are in the habit of playing truant, are also thus punished. To tell a man you will hang him by the hands, is extremely provoking. See, then, the lamentable condilion of the princes in Babvlon, they were " hanged up by their hands," as common slaves. — Roberts. Ver. 16. The crown is fallen from our head : wo unto us, that we have sinned. Has a man lost his property, his honour, his beauty, or his happiness, he says, " My crown has fallen ;" does a fa- ther or grandfather reprove his sons for bad conduct, he asks, " Has my crown fallen V — Roberts. EZEKIEL. CHAPTER I. Ver. 1. Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. The prophet Ezekiel holds a conspicuous place among the writers of the Old Testament, although, from the highly figurative style of his predictions, a greater degree of ob- scurity has been supposed to attach to this book, than per- haps to any other, except the Revelations, in the whole sa- cred canon. This remark applies peculiarly to the first and tenth chapters of ihe book, which contain the descrip- tion of a remarkable emblematical vision, presented, in- deed, under some variations of aspect in each, but in its general features manifestly the same. These chapters, to- gether with the nine last, are said to have been reckoned so sacredly obscure by the ancient Jews, that they abstained from reading them till they were thirty years of age. The mystery appears to have been but lilt'le'abated by time, as the great mass of commentators still speak of the unpene- trated veil of symbolical darkness in which the prophet's meaning is wrapped, and the common readers of scripture reiterate the lamentation; although doubtless every portion of the inspired writings is just as luminous and intelligible as infinite Wisdom saw best it should be ; and it is a fea- ture of revelation worthy of that Wisdom, that it is adapted to every stage of progress and attainment in spiritual knowl- edge. While in some parts, and those the most important, it levels itself to the capacity of a child, in others it gives scope to the intellect of an angel. Most of the earlier predictions of the book of Ezekiel, have respect to the remnant of the nation left in Judea, and to the further judgments impending overlhem, such as the siese and sacking of Jerusalem— the destruction of the Temple— the slaughter of a large portion of its inhabitants — and the abduction of the remainder into a foreign land. The date of the first chapter is about six years prior to the occurrence of these events, and the vision which it contains was undoubtedly designed to exhibit a visible symbol of THE DIYUIE GLORY WHICH DWELT AMONG THAT NATION. The tokens of Jehovah's presence constituted the distingni-hing honour of Israel, and its departure from among them would consequently form the essence of their national calamities, and swell them indefinitely beyond all similar disasters which could possibly befall any other people. Plain intima- tions of the abandonment of the Holy City by the emblems of the Lord's glory, are interspersed through several ensu- ing chapters, till we come to the tenth, where the same splendid image is again brought to view, and is voir ex- hibited in the act of forsaking its ancient dwelling-place. The first chapter describes what their treasure was; the tenth, the loss of it. Together with this, the latter contains several additional particulars in the description of the vision, which are all-important to its explication. By keeping in mind this general view of the contents of these chapters, the reader will find himself assisted in giving that signifi- cancy to each, which he was probably before at a loss to discover. It may be here remarked, that the symbol of the Divine glory described by Ezekiel was not designed as a mere temporary emblem, adapted only to that occasion, but that it is a permanent one, of which we have repeated inti- mations in the scriptures. It is from this fact, chiefly, that it derives its importance as an object of investigation. — Bcsii. Ver. 7. And their feet were straight feet ; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf s foot ; and they sparkled like the colour of bur- nished brass. Heb. " their feet was a straight foot." By foot here is meant the lower part of the legs, including the ankles. As the human foot is formed, motion of the body in any par- ticular direction requires the foot to be turned in that direc- tion. The form here mentioned precludes that necessity, which is doubtless the reason of its being assigned them.-- Ver. 9. Their wings were joined one to another : they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. 10. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side : they four also had the face of an eagle. The reader must imagine such a relative position of the living creatures, preserving the form of a square, that to the eye of a spectator the different faces would be presented as here described, for the prophet could not see the four faces of each at once. Suppose two of the living creatures EZEKIEL on a right lino in front, and two on each side of the line, equidistant from it, and the faces can be easily arranged so as to conform to the description. — Bush. Ver 12. And they went every one straight for- ward (Thither the spirit was to go, they went; and they tamed not when they went. One design of their having four faces was, that they might go directly forward towards cither of the four car- dinal points without turning their bodies.— Bush. Ver. 16. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl ; and they four had one likeness: and their appear- ance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. 17. When they wont. they went upon their four sides ; anil they turned not when they went. From all that we can gather of the form of these wheels, hey appear to have been spherical, or each composed 01 two of equal size, and inserted, the rim of the one into that cf the other at right-angles, and so consisting of four equal parts or half circles. They were accordingly adapted to run either forward or backward, to the right 'hand or the left, without any lateral turning; and by this means, their motion corresponded with that of the four faces of the liv- ing creatures to which they were attached. " When they west upon their four sides, they turned not as they went ;" Fleb. " When they went, they went upon the quarter-part of their fourfoldness," i. e. upon, or in the direction of, one of the four vertical semicircles into which they were divided, an 1 which looked towards the four points of the compass. When it is said—" they turned not"— it is not to be under- stood that they had no't a revolving or rotary motion, but that they, like the faces, never forsook a straight forward Ver. 10. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them ; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. 20. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither teas their spirit to go ; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living crea- ture was in the wheels. These circumstances are doubtless dwelt upon with pe- culiar emphasis, in order to show the intimacy of relation and harmony of action subsisting between the' living crea- tures and the wheels, or more properly between the things symbolically represented by them. — Busu. Ver. 22. And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creatures xoas as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth ovtr their heads above. Heb. " As for the likeness upon the heads cf the living creatures, it teas thai of an expansion stretched over their heads above, like ibe aspect of the terrible crystal." This expansion was a splendid level pavement or flooring, of a crystal clearness, and resting upon the heads of the living creatures, as the temple lavers rested upon the four corner- stavs, or " undcrsetters," of their bases. The resemblance to the crystal was not in colour, butij transparency, for the colour was like that of a sapphire stone or the cerulean azure of the real firmament of heaven. This is evident from v. 2G, and also from Ex. xxiv. 9, 10, containing an evident allusion to this vision, and perhaps the germ of it. " Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel ; and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved- workofa sapphire-stone, and, as it were, the body of heaven in its clearness." — Bcsn. Ver. 23. And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one towards the other: had two, which covered on this side, and every our had two, which covered on that aide, their bodies, The wings therefore of the whole four being in contact « rii each other, formed a kind of curtain beneath the in- cumbent pavement, and thus completed the resemblance to the Temple Bases, and forming in fact a magnificent living chariot.— Bush. Ver. 24. And when they went, I heard the noise of their wines, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of a host; when they stood, they let down their wings. Heb. " And there was a voice— in their standing they let down their wings." The design of the prophet seen r t." be, to show the perfect obsequiousness of the living creatures to the word of command emanating from the throne above, and directing their movements. When the word was given to move, their wings were at once expanded, the resound- ing din was heard, and the glorious vehicle, instinct with life, rolled on in amazing majesty. Again, when the counter mandate was heard, they in an instant stayed themselves in mid career, and relaxed their wings. — Bush. Ver. 27. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it ; from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even down- ward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it the simple. These words, from the lips of a great advocate of infidelity, proclaim the certainty of the truth which l,e was too blind or bigoted to see. For not more unintention- allv or unconsciously do many illiterate Arah pastors or herdsmen verifv one "prediction, while they literally trend Palestine under' font, than Volney, the academician, himself 52G EZEKIEi Chap. 7— S verifies another, while, speaking in ms own name, and the spokesman also of others, he thus confirms the unerring :ruth of God's holy word, by what he said, as well as by describing what he saw. It is no " secret malediction," spoken of by Volney, which God has pronounced against Judea. It is tire curse of a broken covenant that rests upon the land ; the consequences of the iniquities of the people, not of those only who have been plucked from oft' it and scattered throughout the world, but of those also that dwell therein. The ruins of empires originated, not from the regard which mortals paid to re- vealed religion, but from causes diametrically the reverse. The desolations are not of Divine appointment, but only as they have followed the violations of the laws of God, or have arisen from thence. And none other curses have come upon the land than those that are written in the Book. The character and condition of the people are not less definitely marked than the features of the land that has been smitten with a curse because of their iniquities. And when the unbeliever asks. Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto the land 1 the same word which foretold that the question would be put, supplies an answer and assigns the cause. —Keith. CHAPTER -VII. Ver. 10. Behold the day, behold, it is come ; the morning is gone forth ; the rod hath blossomed ; pride hath budded. 11. Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness : none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs; neither shall there be wailing for them. This alludes to the punishment of the children of Israel; and Jehovah, through his servant, addresses the people in eastern language : " The morning is gone forth." Their wickedness, their violence, had grown into a rod to punish them. The idea is implied in the Tamul translation also. " Yes, wretch, the rod has long been growing for thee, 'tis now ready, they may now cut it." " True, true, the man's past crimes are as so many rods for him." — Roberts. Ver. 16. But they that escape of them shall es- cape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. This is a most strikingly apt simile to all who have heard the sound made by the turtle-dove. In the woods of Africa I have often listened to the sound of the turtle-dove's apparent mourning and lamentations, uttered incessantly for hours together — indeed, without a moment's intermis- sion. In a calm, still morning, when every thing in the wilderness is at rest, no sound can be more plaintive, piti- ful, and melancholy. It would cause gloom to arise in the most sprightly mind,— it rivets the ear to it,— the attention is irresistibly arrested. — Cjmpbell. Ver. 21. And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil ; and they shall pollute it. 22. My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place : for the rob- bers shall enter into it, and defile it. Instead of abiding under a sett'ed and enlightened gov- ernment, Judea has been the scene of frequent invasions, "which have introduced a succession of foreign nations, (des peuples etrangers.") " When the Ottomans took Syria from the Mamelouks, they considered it as the spoil of a vanquished enemy. According to this law, the life and property of the vanquished belong to the conqueror. The government is far from disapproving of a system ofroj- bery and plunder which it finds so profitable." (Volney.)— Keith. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 7. And he brought me to the door of the court ; and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. Caves, and other similar subterraneous recesses, conse- crated to the worship of the sun, were very generally, il not universally, in request among nations where that su- perstition was practised. The mountains of Chusistan at this day abound with stupendous excavations of this sort. Allusive to this kind of cavern temple, and this species of devotion, are these words of Ezekiel. The prophet in a vision beholds, and in the most sublime manner stigmatizes the horrible idolatrous abominations which the Israelites had borrowed from their Asiatic neighbours of Chaldea, Egypt, and Persia. " And he brought me, says the prophet, o the door of the court ; and when I looked/behold, a hole n the wall. Then said he unto me, son of man, dig now n the wall ; and, when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, (that is, into this cav- ern temple,) and behold the wicked abominations that they do there. So I went in, and saw, and behold, every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, were portrayed upon the wall round about." In this subterraneous temple were seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and their emplovment was of a nature very nearly similar to that of the priests in Salsette. "They stood with every man his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the an- cients of Israel do in the dark, every man in the cham- bers of his imagery '" In Egypt, to the particular idolatry of which country, it is plain,' from his mentioning every form of creeping thing and abominable beasts, the prophet in this place alludes, these dark secluded recesses were called mystic cells, and in them were celebrated the secret mysteries of Isis and Osiris, represented by the quadrupeds sacred to those deities. (Maurice.) — Border. Ver. 17. Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O Son of man? Is it a light thing to the hovjse of Judah that they commit the abomina- tions which they commit here ? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger ; and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. This last expression undoubtedly alludes to some par- ticular ceremony belonging to their idolatrous worship. Mr. Lowlh (on the prophets) says, the words may refer to a custom among the idolaters of dedicating a branch of laurel, or some other tree, to the honour of the sun, and carrying it in their hands at the time of their worship. Lewis observes, that the most reasonable exposition is, that the worshipper, with a wand in his hand, would touch the idol, and then apply the stick to his nose and mouth, in token of worship and adoration. — Burder. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 2. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth towards the north, and every man a slaughter-weapon in his hand ; and one man among them was clothed with Y.iien, with a writer's inkhorn by his side ; and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar. See on Matt. 10. 9. As they use not wax in sealing up doors, but clay, so they use ink, not wax, in sealing their writings in the East. So D'Arvieux tells us, that " the Arabs of the desert, when they want a favour of their emir, get his secretary to write an order agreeable to their desire, as if the favour was grant- ed: this they carry to the prince, who, after having read it, sets his seal to it with ink, if he grants it ; if not, he returns the petitioner his paper torn, and dismisses him." In another place he informs us, that " these papersare with- out date, and have only the emir's flourish or cipher at the bottom, signifving, The poor, the abject Mehcmct, son of Tiirabeye." Two things appear in these passages. The one, that the Arab seals have no figure engraven on them, but a simple inscription, formed,"with some art, into a kind of cipher; the other, that when they seal, they dc I Chap. 12. EZEKIEL. not make an impression on wax, but stamp letters of ink on the paper. The modern inhabitants of Egypt appear to make use of ink in their sealing, as well as die Arabs of the desert, who may be supposed not to have such conveniences as those thai live m such a place as Egypt : for Dr. Pococke says, that "they make the impression of their name wiih their ilv oi cirnelian, which they wear on tb' and which is 'blacked when they have or. asion to seal with it." This mav serve to show us, that there is a closer connexion between the vision of St. John, Itev. vii. 9. and that of Ezekiei, ch. ix. 2, than commentators appear to have apprehended. They must be joined, I imagine, complete view of either. St. John saw an angel w ith the seal oi the living God, and therewith multitudes were sealed : i heads ; but to understand what sort of a mark was made there, you must have recourse to the inkhorn of i in the' other hand, Ezekiei saw a person equip- ped wiih an inkhorn, who was to mark the servants of God on their foreheads, that is, with ink, but how the ink was to be applied is not expressed; nor was there any need that it should, if in those times ink was applied with a seal being in the one case plainly supposed ; as in the Apoca- lypse, the mention of a seal made it needless to take any no;ice of an inkhorn by his side. This posiiion of ihe inkhorn of Ezekiel's writer may ap- pear somewhat odd to a European reader, but the custom of placing it by the side continues in the East to this day. Olearius," who takes notice of a way that they have of thickening their ink with a sort of paste they make, or with sticks of Indian ink, which is the best paste of all, a cir- cumstance favourable to their sealing with ink, that the Persians carried about with them, by means of their girdles, a dagger, a knife, a handkerchief, and their money ; and those [hat follow the profession of writing out Iv.ok-s, their inkhorn, their penknife, their whetstone 10 sharpen it, their letters, and every thing the Moscovites were wont in his time to put in their boots, which served them instead of pockets. The Persians, in carrying their inkhorns after this manner, seem to have retained a cus- tom as ancient as the days of Ezekiei ; while the Musco- vites, whose garb was very much in the eastern taste in the days of Olearius, and who had many oriental customs among them, carried their inkhorns and their papers in a very different manner. Whether some such variations might cause the Egyptian translators of the Septuaguu version to render the words, " a girdle of sapphire, or embroidery, on the loins,'' I will not take upon me to affirm ; but I do not imagine our Dr. Castell would have adopted tins sen- timent in his Lexicon, had he been aware of this eastern custom : for with gTeat propriety is the word nrp ksietk mentioned in this chapter three times, if it signified an inkhorn, the requisite instrument for sealing those devout mourners ; but no account can be given why this r.rp should be mentioned so often, if it only signified an "embroidered girdle." As to the other point relating to the Arab seals; iheir having no figures upon them, only an inscription, it is to be thought that those of the Jews were in like manner without any images, since they were as scrupulous as the Mohammedans can be; and from hence it will appear, that it was extremely natural for St. Paul to make a seal and an inscription equivalent terms, in 2 Tim. ii. lit; "The foundation of God siandeth sure, having his seal," this inscription, "the Lord knoweth those that are his; and let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from ini- quity."— Harmer. Ver. 4. And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jeru- salem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry, for all the abomina- tions that be done in the midst thereof. Mr. Maurice, speaking of the religious rites of the Hin- doos, savs, before they can enter the great pagoda, an " in- dispensable ceremony lakes place, which can only be per- formed by the hand of a bramin ; and that is, the impress- ing of their foreheads with the tituk, or mark of differ- ent colours, as ihey mav belong either to the sect of Veeshnu, or Seeva. If the temple be that of Veeshnu, their foreheads are marked with a longitudinal line, and the colour used is vermilion. If it be the temple oi B a, they are marked with a parallel line, and the colour used is turmeric, or saffron. But these two grand seels being ided into numerorj cla es, 6 tb the size and the shape of the tiluk are varied in proportion 10 (heir su- perior or inferior rank. In regard to the tiluJc, I must ob- it was a custom of very ancient date in Asia, lo mark their servants in the forehead. It is alluded to in il words of Ezekiei, where Ihe Almighty commands his angels to "go through the midst of [he city, and set a mark on Ihe lor. heads of the men who sigh for ihe abom- inations committed in Ihe midst thereof." The same idea occurs also in Rev. vii. 3.-— BORDER. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 3. Therefore, thou son of man, prepare the stuff' for removing, and remove by day in their si "-lit ; and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight: it may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house. 4. Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for removing : and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity. 5. Dig thou through the wall in their sio-ht, and carry out thereby : 6. In their sight shalt thou bear ii upon thy shoulders, and carry il forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground; for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel. 7. And I did so as I was commanded : I brought forth my stuff by day, as stuff for captivity, and in the even I digged through the wall with my hand; I brought it forth in the twilight, and I bare it upon my shoulder in their sight. When they travel to distant places, they are wont to send off their baggage to some place of rendezvous some time before thev set out. The account that an ingenious com- mentator, whose expositions are generally join- Patrick's, gives of a paragraph of ihe prophet Ezekiei, ought to be taken notice of here : it is, in a few words, this, "that the prophet was to get the goods together, to pack them up openly, and at noonday, that all might see, and lake notice of it; that he was tb get forth at even, as men do that would go offby stealth : that he was to digthrough the wall, to show that Zedekiah should make his escape by the same means; ihat what the prophet was commanded to carry out in the twilight, must be something differen from the goods he removed in the daytime, and therefore must mean provision for his present subsistence ; and that he was to cover his face, so as not to see the ground, as Zedekiah should do, that he might not be discovered." Sir John Chardin, on the contrary, supposes, there was nothing unusual, nothing very particular, in ihe two first of the abovementioned circumstances. His manuscript notes on this passage of Ezekiei are to Ihe following purport. "This is as ihey do in the caravans: they carry out their baggage in ihe daytime, and ihe caravan loads in the even- ing, for in the morning it is too hot to set out on a journey v. and Ihey cannot well see in the night. How- ever, ihis.l'epends on the length of iheir journeys; for when they are too short to take up a whole night, 'they load in the night, in order to arrive at iheir journey's end early in the morning, it being a greater inconvenience to arrive at an unknown place in the night, than to set out on a jour- ney then. As to his digging through the wall, he says Ezekiei is speaking, without doubt, of the walls of the caravansary. These walls, in the East, being mostly of earth, mndj or clay, they may easily be bored through." Ezekiel's collecting together his goods, does not look like a person's flying in a hurry, and by stealth ; and consequent- ly his going forth in the evening, in consequence of this preparation, cannot be construed as designed to signify a stealing away. These managements rather mark out the distance of the way they were going: going in:o ■ . piivitT in a very far country. The going into captivity had not privacy attending it; and accordingly, the sending their " e'hand, and selling out in a coinni .11 rendezv On i ther hand, I should no agis- ter of his own dwelling, or of 'the town in which he ihen resided : a man- agement designed to mark out the flight of Zedekiah; as the two first circumstances were intended to shadow out the tarrying Israel openly, and avowedly, into capuvily. Ezekiel was. I apprehend, to do two things: to imitate the g ling of the pe iple into captivity, and the hurrying flight of the king: iwo very distinct things. The mournful, but composed collecting together all they had for a transmi- grati ..i, ;.i, ! 1-ading them perhaps on asses, being as re- mote as could be from the hurrying and' secret manage- ment of one making a private breach in a wall, and going off piecipitatelv, with a few of his most valuable effects on his shoulder, which were, I should think, what Ezekiel was lo carry, when he squeezed through the aperture in the wall, not provisions. Nor am I sure the prophet's covering his face was designed for concealment-: it might be to express Zedekiah's distress. David, it is certain, had his head c n'ered when he fled from Absalom, at a time when he intended no concealment; and when Zedekiah fled, it was in the night, and consequently such a concealment not wanted ; not to say, it would have been embarrassing to him in his flight, not to be able to see the ground. The prophet mentions the digging through the wall, after men- tioning his preparation for removing as into captivity ; but it is necessary for us to suppose these emblematical aclions of the prophet are ranged just as he performed them.— Habmer. CHAPTER SHI. Vcr. 4. O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. When game fails him, or when the sword has ceased to supply his wants, the fox devours with equal greediness, honc-v, fruits, and particularly grapes. In allusion to his eager desire for the fruit of the vine, it is said in the Song of Solomon, " Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." In scripture, the church is often compared to a vineyard ; her members to the vines with which it is stored; and by consequence, the grapes may signify all the fruits of righteousness, which those mystical vines produce. The foxes that spoil these vines, must therefore mean false teachers, who corrupt the purity of the doctrine, obscure the simplicity of worship, overturn the beauty of appointed order, break the unity of believers, and extinguish the life and vigour of Christian practice. These words of Ezekiel may be understood in the same sense: "0 Jerusalem! thy 'prophets, (or as the context clearly proves,') thy flattering teachers, are as foxes in the deserts;" and this name they receive, because, with vulpine subtlety, they speak lies in hypocrisy. Such teachers the apostle calls " wolves in sheep's clothing," deceitful work- ers, who, by their cunning, subvert whole houses; and whose word,' like the tooth of a fox upon the vine, eats as a canker. — Paxton. In this passage, Dr. Boothroyd, instead of foxes, trans- lates "jackals," and I think it by far the best rendering. These animals are exceedingly numerous in the East, and are remarkably cunning and voracious. I suppose the reason why they are called the lion's provider is, because they yell so much when they have scent of prey, that the noble beast hearing the sound, goes to the spot and satisfies his hunger. They often hunt in packs, and I have had from twenty to thirty following me (taking care to conceal themselves'in the low jungle) for an hour together. They will not, in. general, dare to attack man : but, let him be help'ess or dead, and they have no hesitation. Thus our graveyards are often disturbed by these animals; and, after they have once tasted of human flesh, they (as well as many other creatures) are said to prefer it to any other. Theit cunning is proverbial : thus, a man of plots and schemes is called a nareyan, i. e. a jackal. " Ah ! only give that fellow a tai., and he will make a capital jackal.'' " Begone, low caste, or I will give thee to jackals."— RnilERTS. IEL. Chap, la Ver. 11. Say unto them which daub it with tin- tempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower ; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. In countries destitute of coal, bricks are only either sun- dried or very slightly burnt with bushes and branches of trees, laid over them and set on fire. Such are ready to moulder if exposed to moisture, and entirely to melt away if exposed to heavy rain dashing against them. To prevent such a catastrophe, all the houses in the Cape colony are daubed or plastered over with (inelnortar, made from ground seashells. Should only a small hole remain unnoticed in the plaster, powerful rain will get into it, and probably soon be the destruction of the whole building. Well do I remember one deluge of rain that turned a new house ol three floors absolutely into a mass of rubbish, and brought down the gable of a parish church, besides injuring many other buildings. — Campbell. Ver. 18. And say, Thus saith the Lord God, Wo to the women that sew pillows to all arm-holes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of pyery stature, to hunt souls ! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you? The margin has, instead of " arm-holes," " elbows." The marginal reading is undoubtedly the best. Rich peo- ple have a great variety of pillows and bolsters to sup- port themselves in various positions when they wish to take their ease. Some are long and round, an:' are stuffed till they are quite hard ; whilst others are short and soft, to suit the convenience. The verse refers to females of a loose character, and Parkhurst is right when he says, " These false prophetesses decoyed men into their gardens, where probably some impure rites of worship were per- formed." The pillows were used for the vilest purposes and the k«rchiefs were used as an affectation of shame.— Roberts. In Barbary and ihe Levant they " always cover the floors of their houses with carpets; and along the sides of the wall or floor, a range of narrow beds or mattresses is often placed upon these carpets; and, for their furthet ease and convenience, several velvet or damask bolsters are placed upon these carpets or mattresses — indulgences that seem to be alluded to by the slteteMng of ihemselvei iijmn rmiches, and by the sewing of pillows to arm-holes." (Shaw.) Bui Lady M. W. Montague's description of a Turkish ladv's: apartment throws still more light on this passage. She says, " The rooms are all spread with Per- sian carpels, and raised at one end of them, about two feet. This is the sofa, which is laid with a richer sort of car- pet, and all round it, a sort of couch, raised half a foot, covered with rich silk, according to the fancy or magnifi- cence of the owner. Round about thisare placed, standing against the walls, two rows of cushions, the first very large, and the rest little ones. The seats are so convenient and easy, that I believe I shall never endure chairs again as long as I live." And in another place she thus describes the fair Patima: " On a sofa raised three steps, and covered with fine Persian carpets, sat the kahya's lady, leaning on cush- ions of white satin embroidered. She ordered cushions lo be given me, and took care to place me in the corner, which is the place of honour." — Border. Ver. 19. And will ye pollute me among my peo- ple for handfuls of barley, and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies? See on Jer. 37. 21. At Algiers they have public bakehouses for the people in common, so that the women only prepare the dough at home, it being the business of other persons to bake it. Boys are sent about the streets to give notice when they are ready to bake bread j " upon this the women within come Chap 16—19. EZLI and knock m the inside of the door, which the lx>v hearing makes towards the house. The women open the door a very little way. and hiding ihfir ('.»■■•■«;. deliver tl akes to h i hi, which, when baked, he brings to the door a -am, and ihe vv.iiuiii receive ihtMii in ill'- same manner as they gave ■hem.'' Tins is done almost every day, and the] , or Hiiir cake, for the baking, which the bakei sells. (Pills.) This illustrates the account of the false prophetesses receiving as gratuities pieces of breads they are compensations still used in ihe Ka-i, hui are compen- sations of the meanest kind, and for services of the lowest strt.— Har.mkr. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 3. Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work ? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon See on Isa. 88. 23. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 4. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast horn, thy navel was not cut, neither ivast thou washed in water to supple thee : thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. It was an ancient custom to salt the bodies of new-horn infants. It is probable that they only sprinkled ihem with salt, or washed them with salt-water,' which they imagined would dry up all superfluous humours. Galen says, "Sale mod ico insperso, cutis infanlis densior, Bolidiorque redditur;'' that is, a little sail being sprinkled upon Ihc infant, its skin is rendered more dense and -olid. It is said that Ihe inhabitants of Tariary still continue the practice of salting their children as soon as they are born.— Birder. Ver. 10. I clothed thee also with hroidered work) and shod thee with badgers' skin, and girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. See on Ex. 25. 5. Ver. 18. And tookest thy hroidered garments, and coveredst them : and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. 10. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord God. The burning of perfumes is now practised in the East in times of feasting and jov ; and there is reason to believe that the same usage obtained anciently in those countries. Niebuhr mentions a Mohammedan festival, "after which every one returned home, feasted, chewed kaad, burnt fra- frant substances in his house, stretched himself at lenglh on is sola, and lighted his kiddre, or long pipe, with the greatest satisfaction." — Harmer. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 3. And say, Thus saith the Lord God, A great eagle with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar. The eagle is ihe strongest, the fiercest, and the most ra- pacious of ihe feathered race. He dwells alone in the desert, and on the summits of the highest mountains ; and suffers no bird to come wilh impunity within the range of his flight. His eve is dark and piercing, his beak and talons are hooked and formidable, and his cry is Ihe terror of every wing. His figure answers lo his nature; 'ndependenlly of his aims, he has a robust and compact body, and very powerful limbs and wings; his bones are hard, his flesh is firm, his fealhers are coarse, his attitude C7 IK L. 529 is fierce and erect, his motions are lively, and his flight is ipid Such I- ihe gol leu - gJe, a ■ de: ci ibed .•I in. I'.' nl'.i'i '.eis ni nature. To tbi Doble bird Ihe prophet E/.'t-iel e\ ii|.-|illv lei, rS, 111 hi - pniah!. I. ihe house ol braei : " \ greal eagle, n ith greal « ini ] d( v- i ed, lull "i leathers, which had divers colours, ■ I. ■ ii .. Let nan. and tooli the highest branch of the cedar." In this parablera stricl regard to physical truth is discovered, in anotbei respeci, for the r.-gic is known lo have a predilection |,,i cedars, which are ihe loftiest trees in the finest, and therefore more suited in lns,hn nig temper than any other. Lajloquefoundnnuiiihei.il , , , feathers scattered on the ground beneath ihe lofiy cedars which slid crown the summits of Lebanon, on the highest branches of which, thai fierce destroyer occasionally perch- es.— Paxton. Ver. 7. There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers; and, bchoid, this vine did bend her roots towards him, and shot forth her branches towards him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation. The reason of the figure must be obvious to every reader ; the erect and majestic mien of ihe eagle, point him out a.-: Ihe intended sovereign of the feathered race; he is, there- fore, the lit emblem of superior excellence, and of legal majesty and power. Xenophon, and other ancient histo- rians, inform us. thai the golden eagle with extended wings, was the ensign of the Persian monarchs, long before it was adopted by the Romans; and il is very probable that the Persians borrowed the symbol from Ihe ancient Assyrians, in whose banners it waved, till imperial Babylon bowed her head lo the yoke of Cyrus. II this conjecture be well founded, il discovers ihe reason why ihe sacred writers, in describing the victorious march of the Assyrian armies, allude so frequently to the expanded eagle. Referring still to the Babylonian monarch, the prophet I claimed in ihe en s ,,| N, i , • I , ihe measuie of « hose iniqui- ties was nearly full : " Ue shall come as an eagle against ihe house of the Lord." Jeremiah predicted a similar ca- lamity to the posterity of Lot: "For thus saith the Lord, Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread his wings over Moab:" and the same figure is employed lo denote ihe sudden destruction which overlook the house of Esau: "Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagles and spread his wings over Bozrah." The woids of these inspired prophets were not suffered to fall lo the ground: they received a full accomplishment in the irresistible »m- petuositv and complete success with which ihe Babylonian monarchs. and particularly Nebuchadnezzar, pursued iheir plansof conquest. Ezckiel denominates him with sip/king propriety, " a great eagle with greal wings;" because he was the most powerful monarch ol his time, and led into Ihe field moie numerous and better appointed armii ihe prophet calls by a beautiful figure, his wings,) than perhaps the world had ever seen. — Paxton. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 8. Then the nations sit against him on every side from the provinces, and sproad their net over him : he was taken in their, pit. The manner in which ihis is done, Xenophon describes at considerable lenglh . They dig a large circular pit, and at nighl introduce into il a goat, which liey bind to a stake or pillar of earth ti Ihe bottom, and then enclose the pit with a hedge of branches, that it ennnot be seen, leaving no entrance. The savage beast hearing in the night the voice of the goat, prowls round ihe hedge, and finding no opening, leaps over, and is taken. When the hunter pro- poses to catch him in the toils, he stretches a series of nets in a semicircular form, bv means wf long poles fixed ia the ground : ihree men are placed i« ambush, among Ihe nets; one in the middle, and one at each extremity. The toils being disposed in this manner, some wave (laming torches; others make a noise bv beating their shields, knowing ihai lions are noi less terrified by loud sounds than by fire. The men on foot and horseback,' skilfullv combining iheirmove- ments and raising a inignty bustle- and clamour, rush iu 530 EZEP upon them, and impel them towards the nets, till, intimidated by the shouts of the hunters and the glare of the torches, they approach the snares of their own accord, and are en- tangled in the folds. — Paxton. Ver. 1 1. And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was ex- alted among the thick branches, and she ap- peared in her height with the multitude of her branches. The allusion here is evidently to the sceptres of the an- cients, which were no other than walking-sticks, cut from the stems or branches of trees, and decorated with gold, or studded with golden nails. Thus Achilles is introduced as swearing by a sceptre, which being cut from the trunk of a tree on the mountains, and stripped of its bark and leaves, should never more produce leaves and branches, or sprout again. Such a one the Grecian judges carried in heir hands. See Homer, II. i. 234.— Burder. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 14. Thou, therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thy hands together, and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers. " Smite thy bands together." To smite the hands together, in the East, amounts to an oath ! In the 17th verse, the Lord says, in reference to Jerusalem, " I will also smite my hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest : I the Lord have said." By the solemn smiting of hands it was shown the word had gone forth, and would not be recalled. When a priest delivers a message to the people, when he relates any thing which he professes to have received from the gods, he smiles his hands together, and says, " true." Does a Pandarum, or other kind of religious mendicant, consider himself to be insulted, he smites his hands against the individuals, and pronounces hisimprecationstiponthem, crying aloud, " True, true, it will all come upon you." Should a person, when speaking of any thing which is cer- tain to happen, be doubted by others, he will immediately smite his hands. " Have you heard that Muttoo has been killed by a tiger 1" — " No ! nor do I believe it." The re- later will then (if true) smite together his hands, which at once confirms the fact. " Those men cannot escape for any great length of time, because the king has smitten his hands;" meaning, he has sworn to have them taken. Jehovah did smite His hands together against Jerusalem.— Roberts. Ver. 21. For the king of Babylon stood .at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver. Heb. " mother of the way." It is a common thing among the people of the East to denominate a man the father of a throg for which he is remarkable. It appears also that both people and places may in like manner be called the ■mother of such things for which they are particularly no- ticed. Thus Niebuhr tells us, that the Arabs call a wo- man that sells butter omm es svbbet, the mother of butter. He also says, that there is a place between Basra and Zo- bier, where an ass happened to fall down, and throw the wheat with which the creature was loaded into some wa- ter, on which account that place is called to this day, the mother of wheat. In like manner, in the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Her- belot, omm alkclab, or t/te mother of bonks, signifies the book of the divine decrees; and at other times the first chapter of the Koran. The mother of the throat is the name of an imaginary bein? (a fairv) who is supposed to bring on and cure that disorder in the throat, which we call the quinsy. In the same collection we are told, that the acacia, w Egyptian thorn is called by the Arabians the mother of I EL. Chap. 19—23. satyrs, because these imaginary inhabitants of the forests and deserts were supposed to naunt under them. After this we shall not at all wonder when we read of Nebuchad- nezzar's standing in the mother of the way, a remarkable place in the road, where he was to determine whether he would go to Jerusalem, or to some other place, one branch of the road pointing to Jerusalem, the other leading to a ditler EZEKIEL. —to be decoyed, and to be a perpetual desolation." " All this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert." Ruins are seen in every di- rection. The country is divided between the Turks and the Arabs, but chiefly possessed by the latter. The extortions of the )ce and the depredations of the other, keep it in per- petual desolation, and make it a spoil, to the heathen. " The far greater part of the country is uninhabited, being aban- doned to the wandering Arabs, and the towns and villages are in a state of total ruin." " At every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient cities, the remains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek churches." The cities are des- olate. " Many of the ruins present no object of any inter- est. They consist of a few walls of dwelling-houses, heaps of stones, the foundations of some public edifices, and a lew cisterns filled up; there is nothing entire, but it appears that the mode of building was very solid, all the remains being formed of large stones. In the vicinity of Amnion there is a fertile plain interspersed with low hills, which, for the greater part, are covered with ruins." While the country is thus despoiled and desolate, there are valleys and tracts throughout it, which "are covered wi.h a fine coat of verdant pasture, and are places of resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their camels and their sheep." '• The whole way we traversed," says Seetzen, '■ we saw villages in ruins, and met numbers of Arabs with their camels" &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a building among the ruins of Amnion, " the masonry of which was evidently constructed of materials gathered from the ruins of other and older buildings on the spot. On entering it at the south end," he adds, " we came to an open square court, with arched recesses on each side, the sides nearly facing the cardinal points. The recesses into the northern and southern walls were originally open passages, and had arched doorways facing each other — but the first of these was found wholly closed up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage, just sufficient for the entrance of one man and the goats, which the Arab keep- ers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night." He relates that he lay down among " flocks of sheep and goats," close beside the ruins of Ammon; — and particular- ly remarks that, during the night, he was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the " bleating of flocks." So literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt, and Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or al- lusion whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled for a different object than the elucidation of the scriptures, — that ,: the chief city of the Ammonites is a stable for cam- els, and a couching-place for flocks." " The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations." While the Jews, who were long their heredila- rv enemies, continue as distinct a people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the Ammonites remains; none are now designated by their name, nor do long after the time when the race was foretold, for they retained their name, and contin- ued a great multitude, until the second century of the Christian era. "Yet they are cut off from the people. Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is destroyed." No people is attached to its soil— none regard it as their country and adopt its name ; and the Ammonites are not remembered among the nations. Rahhah ( 'Rabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon) shall be a desolate heap. Situated, as it was, on each side of the borders of a plentiful stream; encircled by a fruitful re- gion; strong by nature and fortified by art ; nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted the conjecture in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that the royal city of Ammon, whatever disasters might possibly befall it in the fate of war or change of masters, would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to become a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such tokens of its continuance as a city, more than a thousand years had given uninterrupted experience of its stability, ere the prophets of Israel de- nounced its fate; yet a period of equal length has now marked it out, as it exists to this day, a desolate heap — a Perpetual or permanent desolation. Its ancient name is •i ill preserved bv the Arabs, and its site is now " covered •vim the ruins of private buildings; nothing of them re- maining except the foundations, and some of the doorposts. The buildings, exposed to the atmosphere, areall in decay," so that they may be said literally to form a desolate heap The public edifices, which once strengthened or adoined the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also des- olate ; and the remains of the most entire among them, sub- jected as they are to the abuse and spoliation 'of the wild Arabs, can be adapted to no better object than a stable for camels. Yet these broken walls and ruined palaces, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon, can now be made subservient, by means of a single act of reflection, or sim- ple prooess of reason, to a far nobler purpose than the most magnificent edifices on earth can be, when they are con- templated as monuments on which the historic and pro- phetic truth of scripture is blended in one bright inscrip- tion. A minute detail of them may not therefore be unin- teresting. Seetzen (whose indefatigable ardour led him, in defiance of danger, the first to explore the countries which lie east of the Jordan, and east and south of the Dead Sea, or the territories of Ammon, Moab, and Edom) justly characteri- zes Ammon as " once the residence of many kings — an an- cient town, which flourished long before the Greeks and Romans, and even before the Hebrews;" and he btiefly enumerates those remains of ancient greatness and splen- dour which are most distinguishable amid its ruins. " Al- though this town has l^een destroyed and deserted for many ages, I still found there some remarkable ruins, which attest its ancient splendour. Such as, 1st, A square building, very highly ornamented, which has been perhaps a mauso- leum. 2d, The ruins of a large palace. 3d, A magnifi- cent amphitheatre of immense size, and well preserved, with a peristyle of Corinthian pillars without pedestals. -1th, A temple with a great number of columns. 5th, The ruins of a large church, perhaps the see of a bishop in the time of the Greek emperors. Cth, The remains of a temple with columns set in a circular form, and which are of an extraordinary size. 7th, The remains of the ancient wall, with many other edifices." Burckhardt, who afterward visited the spot, describes it with greater minuteness. He gives a plan of the ruins ; and particularly noted the ruins of many temples, of a spacious church, a curved wall, a high arched bridge, the banks and bed of the river still partially paved ; a large theatre, with successive tiers of apartments excavated in the rocky side of a hill; Corin- thian columns fifteen feet high ; the castle, a very extensive building, the walls of which are thick, and denote a re- mote antiquity; many cisterns and vaults; and a plain covered with the decayed ruins of private buildings;— monuments of ancient splendour standing amid a desolalt heap. — Keith. Ver. 4. Behold, therefore, I will deliver thee to the men of the East for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee : they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk. The seed-time is attended with considerable danger to the husbandmen, in Palestine and Syria; for although the more peaceful Arabs apply themselves to agriculture, tr. supply their families with grain, many of the same wander- ing race choose rather to procure the corn which they wani bv violence, than by tillage. So precarious are the fruits of the earth in Palestine, that the former is often seen sow- ing, accompanied by an armed friend, to prevent his being robbed of the seed. These vexations, and often desolating incursions, are described by the prophet in the following remarkable terms, when he denounced the judgments of God against the descendants of Ammon : " Behold, there- fore, I will deliver thee to the men of the East for a posses- sion, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee : they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk." The practice of robbing the sower in the field, seems to have been very ancient: anc. is perhaps al- luded toby the Psalmist, when he encourages the righteous man, to persevere in working out his salvation, in spite of the dangers to which be is exposed, bvthe complete success, which in due time shall assuredly crown his endeavours. " Thev that sow in tears," on account of the danger from the lurking and unfeeling Arabian, "shall reap in joy." He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless ccme again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves Chap. 26. EZEK1EL. ■,:)3 wilh him." It is mud more natural to suppose that these vrses refer to such acts of violence, than to imagine, « itfa all the commentators who have turned their attention to this circumstance, that ihey allude to the anxiety ol a hus- v. ho sows las corn in a lone of great scarcity, I his hup.", may he dis.ippuinted by the failure of the succeeding harve 1 We a m here read, that such fearful anticipations ever produced weeping and lamenta- tion, although the Orientals are very prone to violent ex- pressions of grief. But, if we refer the passage to the danger which the farmer in those parts of the wot Id often i i!. in led, of losing his precious seed, the hope of his Inline subsistence, and even his life, in attempting to defend it, we have an adequate cause for his rears and lamentations. ige contains a beautiful picture of the success which, by the blessing of God, attended the efforts of his cho in people, to return from their captivity to the land of their fathers; and holds out a powerful encouragement to believers in Christ, to persevere in their heavenly course, notwithstanding the numerous and severe trials of this pre- sent life; for in due time, they shall certainly enter into the rest which remains for the people of God.— Paxton. Ver. o. Ami I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the Ammonites a couching-plaoe for flocks ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. The Syrian shepherds were exposed, wilh their flocks, 10 all the' vicissitudes of the seasons. Il was indeed impos- sible to erect buildings capacious enough to receive the countless numbers of cattle, which constituted the wealth of these pastoral princes. Their servants were, therefore, compelled to watch the flocks night and day. The flocks of Libya " often graze both night and day, and for a whole month together, and repair into lung deserts, without any shelter, so wide the plain extends." The Mesopotamian shepherd was reduced to the same incessant labour, chilled by the piercing cold of the morning, and scorched by the succeeding heats of a flaming sun, the opposite action of which often swells and chafes his lips and face. Jacob complains, " Thus 1 was; in the day, the drought consu- med me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes." In limes long posterior to the age when Jacob flourished, the angels who descended to announce the birth of our Lord, found the shepherds to whom they were sent, keeping watch over their flocks by night. To prevent them from wandering, they shut them' up in a fold formed of hurdles, and took their station on the outside, to defend them from the attacks of wild beasts, or bands of robbers, thai infested the country, and preved upon the property of the peaceful and industrious inhabitants. When the prophet Ezekiel threatened the Ammonites, that Rabbah, their capital, should become a stable for cam- els, we are not to imagine that ilie Arabian shepherds were careful to provide such coverts for these more tender animals. Chardin says, that as they feed them on the ground, and do not litter them, thev never think of erecting such buildings for their reception.' The same fact is ad than they are. if they had some little shelter in winter. The only shelter to which they have recourse, is the deso- late ruin; and to this circumstance the prophet Ezekiel mosl probably alluded, when he described Rabbah as about to become a stable for camels, or, as the original term may be rendered wi'h equal propriety, a place of camels, where they screen themselves from the rays of a burning sun. and feed on the nettles, and other plants', which spring up among the mouldering walls of ruined habitations. The same term is rendered in the twenty-third psalm, pastures; and perhaps all that the prophet means is only this, that Rabbah should be so completely destroyed, that camels should feed on the place where it stood ; and if this was his meaning, ii has been long since realized, for the last remains of that oroud citv have entirely disappeared. The greatest skill and vigilance, ami even tender care, are required in the management of such immense flocks as wander on the Sy- rian plains. Their prodigious numbers compel the keepers to remove them too frequently in search of fresh pastures, which proves very destructive to the young that have not strength to follow. This circumsta ice displays the energy of Jacob's apology lo his brother Esau, fir nut attending him as he requested: "The flocks and herds with young are with me ; and if men should ovei drive them one day, all the flocks would die." It illustrates also another passage in the prophecies of Isaiah : " He shall feed his Bock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are w ilh young:" a beautiful image, expressing with great force and elegance, the tender and unceasing . the shepherd to his flock— Paxton. CHAPTER XXVI. Ver. 3. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Be- hold, 1 am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. 4. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. 5. It shall be a place for the spreading- of nets in the midst of the sea : for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God ; and it shall become a spoil to the nations. This history of the city is most affecting, and it has been said with much force, that " the noble dust of Alexander, traced by the imagination till found stopping a beer-barrel, would scarcely afford a stronger contrast of grandeur and abasement tha'n Tyre, at the period of being besieged by that conqueror, and the modern town of Tsour erected on its ashes?' It was probably a colony of the Sidonians, as it is called " the daughter of Sidon." ' From its present name appears to have been taken the general name of Syria. lie first mention is in Joshua, where it is called "the sir. m? city Tyre." At an early period it became the mistress of ih'e seas ; traded even to Britain, and planted colonies in diflcr- enl parts of the Mediterranean, among which Carthage be- came the most celebrated. The history of Tyre is more especially interesting to the Christian, from its connexion with prophecy, and Hem the striking eloquence wilh which inspiration has described v ut' its brighter days, and lire impressive , ■,,, Di- stances of its destruction. It was also referred to by out Saviour, when he pronounced wo upon the inhabitants ol Chorazin and Bethsaida, because they had seen Ms mighty works and repented not. Her merchants were princes, her traffickers the honourable of the earth. She heaped up sil- ver as dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. The boards of her shins were of the fir-trees of Senir, her masls of the cellars of Lebanon, her oars of the oaks of Bashan, her benches of the ivory of Chiltim, her sails of fine linen, broidered work from Egypt, and her awnings were of pur- ple. Her heart was lifted up. and she said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas. Such is the description given in sacred writ of the pride and magnifi- cence of ancient Tvre. Now, in the language of the same authority, the noise of her songs is ceased, and the voice of her harps is no more heard: her walls are broken down, her pleasant houses are no more, she is made like the top of a rock, a place to spread nets upon : she is built no more. The Saracens and Turks were the unconscieiis instru- ments who carried these prophecies into their fulfilment : they utterly destroyed Sidon and Tvre, that they might not afford further refuge to the crusaders. There' were two harbours, formed by the island ; one towards the north, and the other towards the south; and there was a passage, be- tween the island and the shore from the one to the other. The island is represented by Pliny as having been four miles in circumference, but the peninsula upon which the present town is situated, is of much less extent. It would therefore appeal that it is built for the most part open the mole thrown up by Alexander, including a small portion ol the original island. There is thus enough of ihe rock left in existence for the fishers to spread their nets upon, while the principal area, once mantled with palaces and alive with ! a busy population, has been swept into "the midst of ihe wa- ters," and can be built no more. The disappearance of tnc island has caused the destruction of the harbours j and as all protection lo shipping is now taken away. Tvre can never again rise to eminence as "the mart of nations." 534 EZE] There are still two small rocks in the sea, to which the island probably extended ; and as the fishermen's boats can approach them in calm weather, they seem to invite the spreading of nets upon their surface. 'I and my compan- ions sailed over the present harbour in a small boat, to ex- amine the columns that may clearly be seen under the water on a fine day, but the sea was too rough to allow us to dis- co/er many of them. The present town is walled, and is ot very modern date. The space inside is in a great meas- ure open, and the houses are mean. The governor's res- idence is the only respectable building. There are many xlumns near the small harbour, and others on the opposite side of the peninsula, but there is no ruin of ancient date, the plan of which can be traced. We saw in a garden a granite column of one block, that measured 30 feet in length, and the diameter was in proportion. The eastern end of the cathedral is still standing. We ascended to the top of the ruin by a spiral staircase, and from thence had a view of the town. The burial-ground is near. From this situa- tion the houses had a singular appearance, as the roofs are all flat, and were then verdant with a rich covering of grass. Upon the plain there are the remains of an extensive aque- duct. The mole appears like a mere collection of sand, but beneath there may be some construction of more endur- ing materials. " Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days 1 Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre ? The Lord of Hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth."— Isa. xxiii. 7—9. The stirring scenes of a'seaport exhibit a picture of more constant excitement than can ever be presented by any other place. The arrival and discharge of ships; the cries of the captains as they direct their ready mariners ; the songs of the boatmen, the dash of the oars, and the roll of the sea; the solitary female, whose eye catches every speck that appears white in the horizon, and never leaves it till one after another of its inmates have been carefully numbered, that perchance she may discover among them the father of her disconsolate children ; the faltering step of the aged sailor, whose battles have been foug.it, and whose victories have been won ; the tears of those who are bidding farewell, and the rapture of those who are greeting the arrival of a long-aosent friend ; the anxious assemblies of the merchants, either speaking of traffic, or proclaiming their good fortune, or lamenting the .oss of some fair ship in a destructive gale ; the reckless merriment of the seamen, as they enjoy upon land a little respite from their constant toils: — all these, and a thousand other scenes of noise, and joyousness, and wealth, have been exhibited upon these shores. They have passed away, like the feverish dream of adisturbed sleep. Ships may be seen, but at a distance; no merchant of the earth ever enters the name of Tyre upon his books, and where thou- sands once assembled in pomp and pride, and there was b3auty, and splendour, and dominion, I could discover only a few children amusing themselves at play, and a party of Turks sitting in gravity, and sipping their favourite cof- fee.— Hardy. The desolate appearance of Soor from the sea, — a strag- gling, repulsive village of lowscattered dwellings, with a few squalid inhabitants loitering on the beach — is in gloomy contrast with the gorgeous descriptions of insular Tyre, before Alexander effected its destruction by the daring ex- pedient of uniting it with the continent. The present peninsula, once the site of this splendid city, anciently estimated at three miles in circumference, but ap- parently of somewhat less extent, is now a drearv waste, distinguished only by hillocks and furrows; and the me- morable isthmus, then so laboriously constructed, has be- come less conspicuous from the augmentation of its width, bythe gradual accumulation of sand. Its once vaunted port is now so effectually choked, that only small boats can ap- proach the shore, although, amidst the waves, the founda- tions are still visible of the massive walls that formed its fortified boundaries, leavingonly a narrow entrance secured by a chain. Near the landing-place, a few tolerable houses face the sea, and similar ones are sparingly distributed in other directions. An insignificant bazar offers few temp- tations even to those who seek ordinary commodities, and the diverging streets are little more than circuitous alleys, japririoti-lv winding between high walls, as if concealment alone affoided security. Here- and there a low door opens [EL. Chap. 26. into an orchard or paddock, but more frequently into a small court, surrounded with miserable hovels, evidently the abodes of abject poverty. Occasionally an unclosed door exhibits a court of larger dimensions, where a few rude implements of husbandry, and the less meager looks of belter-clad occupants, betoken a state somewhat approach- ing to comfort and ease. Little cultivation, however, is perceptible near the town — of commercial activity there is no sign— listless groups fill every vacant space— and fisher- men no longer "spread their nets" on the shore. Hence it becomes difficult to conjecture how a population, scarcely removed from indigence, can here subsist, notwithstanding the temperate habits of the East, which demand little more than a morning and evening repast of fresh baked cakes, sometimes eaten with a sort of pottage made of lentils, onions, &c, and sometimes merely with a draught of water, or a little fruit. Relentless desolation seems to brood over this devoted re- gion. Fragments of clustered columns and broken walls, at the southeast extremity of the town — the only visible re- mains of the structures even of the middle ages— perhaps mark the site of the magnificent metropolitan church, once the conspicuous ornament of Christian Tyre. In that splendid edifice of rich gothic architecture, distinguished by three spacious naves, and two lofty towers, where coun- cils were held and princes and prelates assembled, the bones of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa were deposited in a sumptuous sepulchre. Every trace of the mausoleum of Oris-en, raised in the third century, and still existing in the twelfth, has now disappeared. Broken shafts thrown into a narrow creek awkwardly serve the purpose of a bridge; others piled in the sea, form a barrier against hostile ap- proach. A few columns of marble, of granite, and of por- phyrv, lie unheeded round a small cove, now the only land- ing-place, while mounds of sand, thinly strewn with arehi tectural fragments, alone point out the ancient circuit ot the town. And is this all that remains to tell the tale of ancient Tyre — the early seat of civilization — the emperess of the waves 1 Could "this dreary coast have poured forth dauntless navigators to explore distant regions ; — this cheer- less waste, could it ever have been the patrimony of" mer- chant-princes 1" Could this little territory have been the emporium of the commerce of the world 1 — Hogg. Ver. 4. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers : I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. 12. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchan- dise ; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones, and thy timber, and thy dust, in the midst of the water. One of the most singular events in history was the man- ner in which the siege of Tyre was conducted by Alexan- der the Great. Irritated that a single city should alone op- pose his victorious march, enraged at the murder of some of his soldiers, and fearful for his fame,— even his army's de- spairing of success could not deter him from the siege. And Tyre was taken in a manner, the success of which was more wonderful than the design was daring ; for it was surrounded by a wall one hundred and fifty feet in height, and situated on an island half a mile distant from iheshore. A mound was formed from the continent to the island ; and the ruins of old Tyre, two hundred and forty years afterils demolition, afforded ready materials for the purpose. Such was the work, that the atiempts at first defeated the power of an Alexander. The enemy consumed and the storm destroyed it. But its remains, buried beneah the water, formed a barrier which rendered successful his renewed efforts. A vast mass of additional matter was requisite The soil and the very rubbish were gathered and heaped. And the mighty conqueror, who afterward failed in raising again any of the ruins of Babylon, cast those of Tyre into the sea, and took her very nusT from off her. He left not the remnant of a ruin— and the site of ancient Tyre is now unknown. — Keith. Ver. 14. And I will make thee like the top of n Chap. 26—30. EZEKIEL. rock ; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more : for I the Loud have spoken it, saitli the Lord ( k*». Passing Ijr Tyre from cariosity only, I came t . be a in. hi in hi] witness ,if ill,' t rutli of that prophecy, " ilia. Tyre, the queen ol nations, should be a rock for fishers in dry their nets on." Two wretched fishermen, with miserable nets, having jusl given over their occupation, wiih very lit- i ■ i. , l cue e,'c.| ih. in, at the expense of their nets, to drag in those places where they said shellfish might be caught, in hopes to have bDoughl out one of the famous pw- ;>' fish. I did not succeed ; bill in this 1 was, I believe, as lucky as the old fishers had ever been. The purple fish al in have been only a concealment of their knowledge of cochineal, as, if ihe whole city of Tyre ap- plied in nothing else but fishing, they would not have col- oured twenty yards of cloth in a year.— Brdce. CHAPTER XXVII. Ver. 11. The men of Arvad, with thine army, were upon thy walls roundabout, and the Gam- mailiins were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect. The eastern soldiers in times of peace are disposed of about the walls of places, and particularly in the towers, and at the gates. Niebuhr tells us, that the foot-soldiers of the imam of Yemeni have very little to do in limes of peace, any more than the cavalry : some of them mount guard at the dela's, or governor's; they are also employed at the gates and upon the towers. Van Egmont and llcvin.ni give a similar account. Sandys, speaking of ihe decora- tions of one of the gates of the imperial seraglio in Con- stantinople, tells us, that ii is hung with shields and cimelers. Througn this gate people pass to the divan, where justice is administered; and these are the ornaments of this public passage. — Harmer. Ver. 13. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market. The domestic utensils of the Orientals are nearly always brass : and to these they often refer, as a sign of properly. " He is a rich man ; his house is full of brass vessels." " Begone ! fellow, 1 have more brass ir. my house than would purchase all thy property." " The miserable man has not a brass dish in his house." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXVIII. Ver. 14. Thou art the anointed cherub that cov- ereth ; and I have set thee so : thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up' and down in the midst of the stones of fire. lhts has been considered as a very obscure epithet to apply to the prince of Tyre, and great difficulties have oc- curred in explaining the meaning of the expression. It has been apprehended by some criiies to be an allusion to the posture of the cherubic figures that were over the ark, (Exod. xxv. CO.) and by others to signify the protection which this prince afforded to different neighbouring states. But the first of these interpretations is set aside by consider- ing that the prophet evidently refers to a living cherub, not the posture of the image of one made of gold, or of an olive- tree. As to the other construction, it is inadmissible, be- cause it does not appear from the prophecies that Tyre was remarkable for defending its neighbours, but rather the contrary. Mr. Harmer proposes a new, and probably a just elucidation of this passage. He observes that lakhlthir is a Persian word, which properly signifies a precious car- pet, which is made use of for covering the throne of the kings of Persia; and that this word is also used as an epi- thet by which ihe Persians describe their princes, on ac- count of their being possessed of this throne. The prophet P'lekiel may with the same view give this appellation to <-e prince of Tyre. Such an application of it is certainly DO more than strictly reconcilable to ihe eastern taste. This explanation also answers to the rest of the imagery used in ill iss passage.— Binder. Wr. 24, And there shall be no rnoic a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that art round about them, thai despised them; and they shall know that 1 am the Lord God. Enemies are often compared to thorns and thistles. " Ah ! how this thorn goads me," says ihe man of his foe. Win n a man's adversaries are dead, he says, " This is now a desert without thorns.* ,: Ah ! as our father is dead, we are to our enemies like a jungle without thorns." — Rob- erts. CHAPTER XXIX. Wr. 3. Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. See on eh. 32. 2. Ver. 18. Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great ser- vice against Tyrus : every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled : yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the ser- vice that he had served against it. What an illustration of this passage we have in those who have not been accustomed to carry the palanquin ! During the first day the skin is literally peeled off. To prevent Ihe pole from galling the shoulder, the coolies have cushions, or a piece of the plantain-tree, put under the pole. The shoulders of those who assisted at the siege against- Tyre, were peeled by hard labour. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXX. Ver. 6. Thus saith the Lord, They also that uphold Egypt shall fall ; and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God. 7. And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate. and her cities shall he in the midst of the cities that are wasted. 12. And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers ; I the Lord have spoken it. 13. Thus saith the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols, ami I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt : and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt. Egvpl was one of the most ancient and one of the mighti- est of kingdoms, and the researches of the traveller are still directed to explore the unparalleled memorials of its power. No nation, whether of ancient or of modern times, has ever erected such great and durable monuments. While the vestiges of other ancient monarchies can hardly be found amid the mouldering ruins of their cities, those artificial mountains, visible at the distance of thirty miles, the pyra- mids of Egvpt, without a record of their dale, have with- stood, unimpaired, all the ravages of time. Thedvnastyof Egypl lakes precedence, in antiquity, of every other. 'No country ever produced so long a catalogue of kings. The learning of the Egyptians was proverbial. The number of their cries, and the population of their count rv, as recorded by ancient historians, almos: surpass credibility. Nature boo EZE1 and an united in rendering it a most fertile region. It was called the granary of the world. It was divided into several kingdoms, and their power often-extended over many of the surrounding countries Yet the knowledge of all its greatness and glory deterred not the Jewish prophets from declaring, that Egypt would become "a base kingdom, and never exalt itself any more among the nations." And the literal fulfilment of every prophecy affords as clear a de- monstration as can possibly be given, that each and all of them are the dictates of inspiration. Egypt became entirely subject to the Persians about three nund'red and fifty years previous to the Christian era. It was afterward subdued by the Macedonians, and was gov- erned by the Ptolemies for the space of two hundred and ninety-four years ; until about thirty years before Christ, it became a province of the Roman empire. It continued long in subjection to the Romans — tributary first to Rome, and afterward to Constantinople. It was transferred, A. D. Ml. to the dominion of the Saracens. In 1250 the Mame- lukes deposed their rulers, and usurped the command of Egypt. A mode of government the most singular and sur- prising that ever existed on earth was established and main- tained. Each successive ruler was raised to supreme au- thority, from being a stranger and a slave. No son of the former ruler — no native of Egypt succeeded to the sove- reignty ; but a chief was chosen from among a new race of imported slaves. When E»ypt became tributary to the Turks in 1517, the Mamelukes retained much of their power, and every pacha was an oppressor and a stranger. During all these ages, every attempt to emancipate the coun- try, or to create a prince of the land of Egypt, has proved abortive, and has often been fatal to the aspirant. Though the facts relative to Egypt form too prominent a feature in the history of the world to admit of contradiction or doubt, vet the description of the fate of that country, and of the form of its government, shall be left to the testimony of those whose authority no infidel will question, and whom no man can accuse of adapting their descriptions to the predictions of the event. Gibbon and Volney are again our witnesses of the facts: — " Such is the state of Egypt. Deprived twenty-three een- turiesago of her natural proprietors, she has seen her fertile fields successively a prey to the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Georgians, and, at length, tli" race of Tartars, distinguished by the name of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes, purchased as slaves, and introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power and elected a leader. If their first establishment was a singular event, their continuance is not less extraordinary. They are replaced by slaves brought from their original country. The system of oppression is methodical. Every thing the traveller s=es or hears reminds him he is in the'eountry of slavery and tyranny." " A more unjust and absurb consti- tution cannot be devised than that which condemns the na- livesof a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the -tate of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustri- ous sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands-, and the four-and-twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever been succeeded, ndi bv their sons, but bv their servants." These are the words of Volnev and of Gibbon : and what did the ancipnt prophets foreiel 1 "I will lay the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hands of strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt. The sceptre of Egypt shall depart away." The prophecy adds:— "They shall be a base kingdom — it shall be the basest of kingdoms." After the lapse of two thousand and four hundred years from the date of this prophecy, a scoffer at religion, but an eyewitness of the facts, thus describes the selfsame spot: "In Egypt there is no middle class, neither nobility, clergy, merchants, landholders. A universal air of misery, manifest in all the traveller meets, points out to him the rapacity of oppression, and the distrust attendant upon slavery. The profound ig- norance of the inhabitants equally prevents them from per- ceiving the causes of their evils, or applying the necessary i's effects to everv species of moral and physical knowledge. Nothing is talked of but intestine troubles/the public misery, i.erself puts to death without formality." (Volney.) Other IEL. Chap. 32. travellers describe the most execrable vices as common, and represent the moral character of the people as corrupt- ed to the core. As a token of the desolation of the country, mud-walled cottages are now the only habitations where the ruins of temples and palaces abound. Egypt is sur- rounded by the dominions of the Turks and of the Arabs ; and the piophecy is literally true which marked it in the midst of desolation:— " They shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted." The systematic oppression, extortion, and plunder, which have so'long pre- vailed, and the price paid for his authority and power by every Turkish pacha, have rendered the country " desolate of that whereof it was full," and still show, both how "it has been wasted by the hands of strangers," and how " it has been sold into the hand of the wicked." Can any words be more free from ambiguity, or could any events be more wonderful in their nature, or more un- likely or impossible to have been foreseen by man, 'ban these prophecies concerning Egypt 1 The long line of its kings commenced with the first ages of the world, and, while it was yet unbroken, its final termination was reveal- ed. The very attempt once made by infidels to show, from the recorded number of its monarchs and the durations of their reigns, that Egypt was a kingdom previous to the Mo- saic era of the deluge, places the wonderful nature of these predictions respecting it in the most striking view. And the previous experience of two thousand years, during which period Egypt had never been without a prince of its own, seemed to preclude the possibility of those predicted events which the experience of the last two thousand years has neighbouring nations, the Jewish prophets foretold that its own sceptre woulddepart away; and that that coun- try of kings (for the number of its contemporary as well as successive monaichs may warrant the appellation) would never have a prince of its own : and that it would be laid waste by the hands of strangers. They foretold that it should be a base kingdom— the basest of kingdoms— that it should be desolate itself and surrounded by desolation — and that it should never exalt itself any more among the nations. They described its ignominious subjection and unparalleled baseness, notwithstanding that its past and present degen- eracy bears not a more remote resemblance to the former greatness and pride of its power, than the frailly of its mud- walled fabric now bears to the stability of its imperishable pyramids. Such prophecies, accomplished in such a man- ner, prove, without a comment, that they must be the reve- lation of the omniscient Ruler of the universe.— Keith. CHAPTER XXXII. Ver. 2. Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou earnest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the Waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers. Nothing is more common, in the East, than the compar- ing princes to lions, or better known to those that are ac- quainted with their writings; but the comparing them to crocodiles, if possessed of naval power, or strong bv a watery situation, has hardly ever been mentioned. "D'Herbelot, however, cites an eastern poet, who, celebrating the prowess of Gelaleddin, surnamed Mnnkberni, and Khovarezme Shah, a most valiant Persian prince, said, " He w as dreadful as a bon in the field, and not less terrible in the water than a crccodile." The power of the ancient kings of Egypt seems to be rep.esented af'cr the same manner, by the prophet Ezekiel, ch xxix. 3. " Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king o( Egypt, the great dragon (the great, crocodile) that lieth in the mid-t of bis rivers, which hath said, Mv river is mint own, and I have made it myself." In his 32d chapter, 2d verse, the same prophet makes nse of both the similes, I think, of ihe panegyrist of Gelaleddin : " Take up a lamen- ta'ion for Phataoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young Inn of the' nations, and thou art as a whale (o erocndilcMn the seas: and thou earnest forthwith (or from") ihy rivers, and tr tibledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers." , m Qbaf 82—34. EZE: II is very odd in our translators, to render the original word o»as taneem, whale, and at the same time talk of ltd : n ir indeed are rivers the abode bf the whale; its bulk ii to admit of Mat: the term dragon, which is thrown i he margin, is the preferable version; which word in our language, as the Hebrew word in the original, is, 1 think, generic, and includes the several species of .iv iparous quadrupeds, ifnoi those of the serpentine kind. i ■ is, without doubt, the creature ihe prophet i the comparison seems to point out the powet of Egyptian kings of antiquity: they were mighty by sea as land. — ll.uiMKK. \ ', i 3. Thus saith the Lord God, 1 will, there- fore, spread out my net over thee with a com- pany of many people; and they shall bring thee up in my tent. Herodotus relates that in his time they had in Egypt many and trai ious ways of taking the crocodile. Brookes ir manner of taking Ihe crocodile in Sunn is by throwing three or four nets across a river at proper distan- ces from each other; that so if he break through the first, he may be caught by one of the others." — Border. When a person has been caught by the strata:, em ol an- other, it is said, " lie is caught in his net." " He is like a deer caught in the net." Has a man escaped: "The fel- low has broken the net." "Catch him in your net! will you catch the lightning 1" — Roberts. Ver. 27. And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads; But their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. The ancients, in every part of the world, were accustom- ed to inter their warriors in complete armour. We are informed by Chardin, lhat the Mingrelian soldier sleeps with his sword under his head, and his arms by his side ; and he is buried in the same manner, his arms being placed in the same position. The allusion of. Ezekiel to this ancient custom is extremely clear.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXXIII. Ver. 30. Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee hy the walls, and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. In those frequent intervals of returning warmth, which relieve Ihe severity of an oriental winter, the people of the East enjoy the conversation of their friends; the poorer ■ open air sauntering about, and sitting under the walls of their houses; people of rank and fashion in the porches or gateways, where the master of a family receive* visits, and transacts business — few persons, not even the nearest relations, being admitted into their apart- ments, except upon extraordinary occasions. To these circumstances the prophet Ezekiel seems to refer in the following passage: " Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people are still talking against (or rather concerning) thee by the walls, and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray yon, and hear what is Ihe word that cometh forth from the Lord." Our translators render the original word bcha, against thee; the Septua- gint, -a>i »»», of or concerning thee. This is the more singular, as the same particle is rendered in other parts of scripture, ol" or concerning: thus, in the eighty-seventh Psalm, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of the Lotd." The following words incontestable- prove they were not speaking against Ezekiel, but in his favour: 1: And they come unto thee(as the people cometh : and they sit before ihee as my people ; and they hear thy words, but I EL. 537 they will mil do them; for with their mouth they show much love; but their heart goeth alter their covetousness." Km if " their mouth showed much love," they did not speak again*! the prophet, but in In . i,,'..i on. '1 la -e conversations respecting the prophet were held in wintei ■ for it was the tenth month, answering to the latter end ol December, or beginning of January, when the I It lental- mi nn. lei i ! , . walls tor the benefit of the sun, or in the porches or gateways of their houses. As the Copts in Egypt commonly spend their holydayr, in conversing with one another under the "alls of their ha In lai ion, so Mr. Harmer is of opinion, that these word] of Ezekiel may refer to such times. And if so, he asks, will they not show that the Israelites observed their sab- baths m' ihe captivity 1 And lhat so early as the time of the firs! destruction of Jerusalem, they used to assemble on advices which their calamitous circumstances made pecu- liarly seasonable 1 It is very probable that the Jews in those early limes assembled to hear the instructions of the prophets, and for the public worship of their God, so far as their painful circumstances might pertait; but the words of Ezekiel under consideration, appear to be of a more general character, referring as well to the public meetings of the synagogue, as to the private parties and conversations^! the people. — Paxton. Severe as sometimes the cold weather is in the East, Russel observes, that even in the depth ol that season, when the sun is out, and there is no wind, it is warm, nay, some- times almost hot, in the open air ; and Pococke informs us, that the people ♦here enjoy it, for the Copts spend their holydays in sauntering about, and sitting under their walls in winter, and under shady trees in summer. This doubt- less is to be understood of the poorer sort, who have no places more proper for conversation with their friends; the better houses having porches with benches on each side, where the master of the family receives visits, and despatches business. These circumstances greatly illus- trate the words of Ezekiel, "Also, thou son of man, ihe children of thy people are still talking against thee, or rather, concerning thee, by the walls and in the doors of the houses," &e.— Habmer. Ver. 32. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument : for they hear thy words, but they do them not. " Gone ! gone !" says the bereaved admirer; "she was indeed like a sweet' voice to my ear." " I hear not the sweet song." " Where is my music ?" " The song of the night! the.song of the night! has left me."— Roberts. CHAPTER XXXIV. Ver. G. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill : yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. When travelling in wilderness parts of the world, cattle are, on various accounts, apt to wander or to be scattered, and require attentive shepherds to watch their motions. Should the grass near the encampment of the traveller not suit their taste, or be scarce, they will gradually move to a greater and greater distance, till bushes or chimps of trees are between them and the wagons; then, perhaps, having the scent of water, or that of belter grass, they will move off at great speed. The distant roar of a lion also will so alarm them that they will start oft" like furious or frantic animals. I remember halting for a night about a hundred miles beyond Lattakoo. Knowing that lions were numerous in that part, all the oxen were made fast by ropes to the wag- ons. During the night lions had roared within hearing of the oxen, when all, no doubt, had through terror en- deavoured lo break loose from their fastenings, but only three had succeeded, which having fled, were pursued by two lions, and one of them caught, and almost entirely de- voured by ihose two voracious animals. After they had fairly killed the one, they pursued the other two foi upwards of two miles, when the> gave up the chase, and returned to feast on the one they uid secured. All this we knew from the foot-marks they' ha J left on the ground. In the morning the Hottentots were sent in search of the other two, which they found feeding several miles off. The Jewish shepherds were condemned lor not search- ing for the scattered sheep. When men are fatigued by travelling, they become lazv and indolent, and feel ind s- posed to set off in search of strayed oxen many miles dis- tant; yet I never noticed our Hottentots unwilling to go in search of strayed oxen, however fatigued they might be, and rarely did they return without finding them, though, in some instances, they had to trace their foot-marks for upwards of twenty miles. — Campbell. Ver. 25. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land ; and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. The oriental shepherds, when unprovided with tents, erect huts or booths of loose stones, covered with reeds and boughs. Pococke found, in the neighbourhood of Acre, some open huts, made of boughs raised about three feet from the ground, inhabited by Arabs. In such booths many of the people of Israel were obliged to take shelter in the wilderness, from the want of a sufficient number of tents, the remembrance of which they were commanded to preserve by a solemn festival. But even these meaner and more inconvenient habitations are not always within the reach of an Arabian shepherd; he is often obliged to take refuge under the projecting rock, and to sleep in the open air. A grove or woodland occasionally furnishes a most agreeable retreat. The description which Chandler has left us of one of these stations, is so strikingly pictur- esque, that it must be given in his own words : " About two in the morning, our whole attention was fixed by the balking of dogs, which, as we advanced, became exceed- ingly furious. Deceived by the lisht of the moon, we now fancied we could see a village ; and were much mortified to find only a station of poor goatherds, without even a shed, and nothing for our horses to eat. They were lying, wrap- ped in their thick capotes or loose coats, by some glimmer- ing embers, among the bushes in a dale, under a spreading tiee by (he fold. They received us hospitably, heaping on fresh ' fuel, and producing sour curds and coarse bread, which they toasted for us on the coals. We made a scanty meal, sitting on the ground, lighted by the fire and by the moon; after which, sleep suddenly overpowered me. On waking, I found my two companions by my side, sharing in the comfortable cover of the janizary's cloak, which he had carefully spread over us. I was now much struck with the wild appearance of the spot. The tree was hung with rustic utensils; the she^goats in a pen, sneezed, and bleated, and ruslled to and fro ; the shrubs by which our horses stood, were leafless, and the earth bare ; a black caldron with milk, was simmering over the fire; and a figure, more than gaunt or savage, close by us, struggling on the ground with a kid, whose ears he had slit, and was endeavouring to cauterize with a red-hot iron." This de- scription forms a striking comment on a passage in Eze- kiel, in which God condescends to give this promise to his people : " I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land ; and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.'' No reasonable doubt can be entertained that they were often exposed in the same manner, while tending their flocks; and in great danger, when their country, from the thinness of the population, or other causes, happened to be overrun with beasts of prey. They are accordingly cheered with the sure prospect of those ravenous anima's beins exterminated, and every woodland becoming a pla:e of safety to the slumbering shepherd.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXXV. Ver. 1. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying-, 2. Son of man, set thy face against Mount Seir, and prophesy against it, 3. And say unto it. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O' Mount Seir, I am against th-e, and IEL. Chap. 35. I will stretch out my hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. 7. Thus will I make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut ofl from it him that passeth out, and him that re- turneth. There is a prediction which, being peculiarly remarka- ble as applicable to Idumea, and bearing reference to a cir- cumstance explanatory of the difficulty of access to any knowledge respecting it, is enti;led, in the first instance, to that passeth out and him that returneih." Ezek. xxxv. 7. The ancient greatness of Idumea must, in no small degree, have resulted from its commerce. Bordering with Arabia on the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and forming from north to south the most direct and most commodious chan- nel of communication between Jerusalem and her depen- dencies on the Red Sea, as well as between Syria and India, (through the continuous valleys of El Ghor and El Arabia, which terminated on the one extremity at the borders of Judea, and on the otherat Elathand-Esiongabei on the Elanilic Gulf of the Red Sea,) Idumea may be said to have formed the emporium of the commerce of the East. A Roman road passed directly through Idumea, from Jerusalem to Akaba, and another from Akaba to Moab ; and when these roads were made, at a time long posterior to the date of the predictions, the conception could not have been formed, or held credible by man, thai the period would ever arrive when none would pass through it. Above seven hundred vearsafter the date of the proph- ecy, Strabo relates, that "many Romans and other foreign- ers" were found at Petra by his friend Atlienodorus, the philosopher, who visited it. The prediction is yet more surprising, when viewed in conjunction with another, which implies that travellers would pass b>/ Idumea,— every one that goeth by shall be astonished. And the hadj routes (routes of the pilgrims) from Damascus and from Cairo to Mecca, the one on the east, and the other towards the south of Idumea, along the whole of its extent, go by it, or touch partially on its borders, without passing through it. The truth of the prophecy (though hemmed in thus by apparent impossibilities and contradictions, and with ex- treme probability of its fallacy in every view that could have been visible to man") may yet be tried. The words of the prediction might well be understood as merely implying that Idumea would cease to be a thoroughfare for the commerce of the nations which ad- joined it, and that its "highly-frequented marts" would be forsaken as centres of iutercourse and traffic ; and easy would have been the task of demonstrating its truth in this limited sense, which skepticism itself ought not to be un- willing to authorize. But the fact to which it refers forbids that the prophecy should be limited to a general interpreta- tion, and demands that it be literally understood and ap- plied. The fact itself being of a negative nature, requires a more minute investigation and detail than any matter of observation or discovery that is proveable at once by a simple description. And instead of merely citing authori- ties in affirmation of it, evidence, as remarkable as the prediction, and at once the most undesigned and conclu- sive, shall be largelv adduced to establish its truth. The remark of Volney, who passed at a distance to the iresl of Idumea, and who received his information from the Arabs in that quarter, " that it had not been visited by any traveller," will not be unobserved by the attentive reader. Soon after Burckhardt had entered, on the north- east, the territories of the Edomites, the boundary of which he distinctly marks, he says, that " he was without pro- tection in the midst of a desert, where no traveller had ever been ctfcre seen." It was then" that lor the first time he had ever fell fear during his travels in the desert, and his route ihilher was the most dangerous he had ever trav- elled." Mr. Joliffe, who visited the northern shore of the Dead Sea, in alluding lo the country south of its opposiic exiremilv, describes il as "one of the wildest and most dan- gerous divisions of Arabia," and says, thai any research in that quarter was impraciicable. Sir Frederick Heum- ker, in his Notes dated from Mount Sinai, on the rovth of Idumea, unconsciously concentrates striking evidence in verification of the prediction1, while he slates a fact thai Chap 35. EZEKIEL. ;,:;'.' would seem, at first sight, to militate against it- " Seet- len, on a \ .--s.-i ,,i ,. . i the wall, notifies hi . hat ing i" net i tied tl unity in a direct line between the Dead Sea andMount Smai,'" (through Idumea,) "a route never before ateentpHsAed. This was the more inter- esting to me, as 1 had previously determined to attempt the saint', ii being ilie shortest way hi Jerusalem. The Cava- lier Frediani, whom 1 met m' Egypt, would have pet na ded ine that it was impracticable, and that he, having had intention himself, after baring been di h ipe Sve weeks, was compelled to relinquish his design. While 1 was yet ruminating over this scrap of paper, the superior paid me a morning visi ; he also said it was im- aossibh; hut at length promised to search for guides. I had already endeavoured to persuade those who had ac- companied me flrom Tor, but they also talked ol and declined." Guides were found, who, alter resisting for a while his entreaties and bribes, agreed to conduct him by the desired route; but, unable to overcome their fears, deceived him, and led him towards the Mediterranean coast, through the desert of Gaza. There yet remains a detail of the complication of diffi- eulue-' which, in another direction still, the nearest to Ju- dea, and apparently the most accessible, the traveller has to encounter in reaching that desolate region which once formed the kingdom of Idumea, — difficulties that it may safely be said are scarcely to be met with in any other part of Asia, or even in any other quarter of the world where no natural obstructions intervene. " To give an idea," say Captains Irby and Mangles, " of the difficulties which the Turkish government supposed there would be for an Englishman to go to Kerek and Wady Mousa, it is neces- sary io say. that when Mr. Banks applied at Constantino- ple to have these places inserted in his firman, they returned for answer, " that they knew of none such within the grand seignior's dominions:, but as he and Mr. Frere, the British minister, pressed the affair very much, they at length re- ferred him to the pacha of Damascus, who (equally averse to have any thing to do with the business) passed him on to the governor of Jerusalem." The governor of Jerusa- lem, " having tried all he could to dissuade them from the undertaking," referred him in like manner to the governor of Jaffa, who not only " evaded the affair altogether," but endeavoured to put a stop to their journey. Though frus- trated in every attempt to obtain any protection or assist- ance from the public authorities, and also warned of the danger that awaited them from " Arabs of a most savage and treacherous race," these adventurous travellers, intent on visiting the ruins of Petra, having provided themselves with horses and arms, and Arab dresses, and being eleven in number, including servants and two guides," deter- mined to proceed to try their fortune with the sheikh of Hebron." He at first expressed compliance with their wishes, hut being soon " alarmed at his own determina- l," refused them the least aid or protection. Repeated offers of money gni.les met a decided refusal; and they procured no means of facilitating their journey. Th culiar difficulty, not only o( passing through Idumea, (which they never attempted,) but even of entering within ils bor- ders, and the greater hazard of travelling thither than in anv other direction, are still further illustrated by the ac- quiescence of an Arab tribe afterward to accompany and protect them to Kerek, at a reasonable rate, and by their positive refusal, upon any terms or stipulation whatever, to conduct them to a spot that lay within the boundaries of Edom. " We offered five hundred piastres if they would conduct us to Wady Mousa, but nothing could induce them to consent. They said they would not go if we would give them five thousand piastres," (Ibrtv limes the sum for which they had agreed to accompany them to Kerek, although the distance was not nearly double.) " observing that money was of no use to a man if he lost his life." Having after- ward obtained the protection of an intrepid Arab chief, with his followers, and having advanced to the borders of Edom, their further progress was suddenly opposed in the three thousand miles, in Thrace, Asia Minor, Cyprus, the desert, Egypt, and in Syria, in different longitudinal and lateral directions, from'one extremity to the other, they found nowhere such a barrier to their progress, except in a previous abortive attempt to reach Petra from another quarter; and though (bey were never better prepared fbl encountering it, they ncvei el-ew here experienced so for- midable as opposition. The sheikh of Wady Mousa and ins pei pie Bwore that they would not suffer them to go i< r - ward, and " that they shi Did neither drink of ihen v. all i, not past fai ' Ii try," The Arab chief who had , pou ed lie ii cause also took an oath, " by the faith of a tine Mussulman," that they should dunk of the water o( v, , dj NJi i' '. and go whithersoever he pleased to carry them.' '• Thus," it is remarked, "were both the rival chiefs oppositely pledged in their resolutions respecting us." Several days were passed in entreaties, artifices, and mutual menaces, which were all equally unavailing. — The determination and perseverance of the one party of Arabs was equalled by the resistance and obstinacy of the other. Both were constantly acquiring an accession of strength, and actively preparing for combat. The travellers, thus finding all the dangers and difficulties of which they had been forewarned fully realized, "could not but compare their case to that of the Israelites under Moses, vhen Edom. i, in-. .! (0 -iit thema passage through his country." " They offered even to abandon their object rather than proceed to extremities," and endanger the lives of many others, as well as their own ; and they were told that they were for- tunate in the protection of the chief who accompanied them, otherwise they never would have returned. The hostile Arabs, who defied them and their protectors to ap- proach, having abandoned their camps, and having con- centrated their forces, and possessed themselves of the passes and heights, sent messengers with a renewal of oaths and protestations against entering their territory ; announ- ced that they were fully prepared to maintain their purpose- that war " was positively determined on as the only alter- native of the travellers' not being permitted to see what they desired :" and their sheikh vowed that " if they passed through his lands, they should be shot like so many dogs." Abou Raschid, the firm and fearless chief who had pledged his honour and his oath in guarantee for the advai.ee of the travellers, and whose obstinate resolution nolhingcould exceed, his arguments, artifices, and falsehoods having all failed, despatched messengers to the camps under his in- fluence, rejected alike all compromise with the opposing Arabs, and all remonstrances on the part of his adherents and dependants, (who thought that the travellers were doom- ed to destruction bytheir rashness,) and resolved to achieve by force what he had sworn toaccomplish. " The camp as- sumed a very warlike appearance ; the spears stuck in the sand, the saddled horses before the tents, with the arms hanging up within, altogether had an imposing effect. The travellers, however, were at last permitted to proceed in peace: but a brief space were allowed them for inspecting the ruins, and they could plainly distinguish the opposing party of Arabs, in great numbers, watching them from the heights. Abou Raschid was then dismayed, "he was never at his ease, and constantly urged them to depart." Nothing could oblain an extension of the lime allotted them, and they returned, leaving much unexplored, and even unable by any means or possibility to penetrate a little farther, in order' to visit a large temple which they could clearly dis- cern. Through Idumea thev did not pass. Thus Volney, Burckhardt, Joliffe, Henniker, and Cap- tains Irby and Mangles, not only give their personal testi- mony of the truth of the fact which corroborates the pre- diction, but also adduce a variety of circumstances, which all conspire in giving superfluity of proof that Idumea, which was long resorted to from every quarter, is so beset on every side with dangers to the traveller, that none pas; through it. Even the Arabs of the neighbouring regions whose home is the desert, and whose occupation is wan- dering, are afraid to enter it, or to conduct any within its borders. Yet amid all this manifold testimony to its truth, fhere is not, in anv single instance, the most distant allu sion to the prediction ; and the evidence is as unsuspieiou« and undesigned, as it is copious and complete. " I will make thee small among the nations: thou an greatly despised." Though the border of wickedness, and the retreat of a horde of thieves, who are distinguished as peculiarly savage even among the wild Arabs, and thus an object of dread, as well as of astonishment, to those who pass thereby, vet, contrasted with what it was, or reckoned among the nations, Edom is small indeed. With'n almost all its boundary, it may be said that none abide, or have 540 EZEKIEL. any fixed permanent residence ; and instead of the superb structures, the works of various ages, which long adorned its cities, the huts of the Arabs, where even huts they have, are mere mud-hovels, of ;' mean and ragged appear- ance,'' which, in general, are deserted on the least alarm. But, miserable habitations as these are, they scarcely seem to exist anywhere throughout Edom, but on a single point of itsjjorders; and wherever the Arabs otherwise wander in search of spots for pasturage for their cattle, (found in hollows, or near to springs after the winter rains,) tents are their only covering. Those which pertain to the more powerful tribes are sometimes both numerous and large; yet, though they form at least but a frail dwelling, many of i hem are " very low and small." Near to the ruins of Petra, Burckhardt passed an encampment of Bedouin tents, most of which were " the smallest he had ever seen, about four feet high, and ten in length ;" and towards the southwest border of Edom he met with a few wanderers, who had no tents with them, and whose only shelter from the burning rays of the sun and the heavy chews of night was the scanty branches of the talk-trees. The subsistence of the Bedou- ins is often as precarious as their habitations are mean; the flocks they tend, or which they pillage from more fer- tile regions, are their only possessions ; and in that land tvhere commerce long concentrated its wealth, and through which the treasures of Ophir passed," the picking of gum arable from thorny branches is now the poor occupation, the only semblance of industry, practised by the wild and wandering tenants of a desert. Edom is small among the nations; and how greatly is it despised, when the public authorities at Constantinople deny any knowledge of it !— Keith. Ver. 15. As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee : thou shalt be desolate, O Mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it; and they shall know that I am the Lord. Idumea was situated to the south of Judea and of Moab; it bordered on the east with Arabia Pelrea, under which name it was included in the latter part of its history, and it extended southward to the eastern gulf of the Red Sea. A single extract from the Travels of Volney will be found to be equally illustrative of the prophecy and of the fact. "This country has nut been visited try any traveller, but it well merits such an attention ; for from the reports of the Arabs of Bakir, and the inhabitants of Gaza, who frequent- ly go to Maanand Karak, on the road of the pilgrims, there tire, to the southeast of the lake Asphaltites, (Dead Sea,) within three days' journey, upwards of thirty ruined towns ibsolutcly deserted. Several of them have large edifices, with columns that may have belonged to the ancient tem- ples, or at least to Greek churches. The Arabs sometimes make use of them to fold the cattle in ; but in general avoid them on account of the enormous scorpions with which they swarm. We cannot be surprised at these traces of ancient population, when we recollect that this was the country of the Nabatheans, the most powerful of the Arabs, and of the Idumeans, who, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, were almost as numerous as the Jews, as appears from Josephus, who informs us, that on the first rumour of the march of Titus against Jerusalem, thirty thousand Idu- means instantly assembled, and threw themselves into that city for its defence. It appears that, besides the advantages of being under a tolerably good government, these districts enjoyed a considerable share of the commerce of Arabia and India, which increased their industry and population. We know that as far back as the lime of Solomon, the cities of As- tioum Gaber (Esion Gaber) and Ailah (Eloth) were highly- frequented marts. These towns were situated on the adjacent gulf of the Red Sea, where we still find the latter yet retain- ing its name, and perhaps the former in .hat of El Akaba, or the end (of the sea.) These two places are in the hands of the Bedouins, who, being destitute of a navy and commerce, do not inhabit them. But the pilgrims report that there is at El Akaba a wretched fort. The Idumeans, from whom the Jews only took their ports at intervals, must have found in them a great source of wealth and population. It even appears that the Idumeans rivalled the Tyrians, who also po3."i;os*:d a town, the name of which is unknown, on the coast of Hedjaz, in the desert of Tih, and the city of Faran, and, without doubt, El-Tor, which served it by way of port. From this place the caravans might reach Palestine and Judea (through Idumea) in eight or ten days. This route, which is longer than that from Suez to Cairo, is infinitely shorter than that from Aleppo to Bassorah." Evidence which must have been undesigned, which cannot he sus- pected-ef partiality, and which no illustration can strengthen, and no ingenuity pervert, is thus borne to the truth of the most wonderful prophecies. That the Idumeans were a populous and powerful nation long posterior to the delive- ry of the prophecies; that they possessed a tolerably good government, (even in the estimation of Volney;) that Idu- mea contained many cities; that these cities are now ab- solutely deserted, and that their ruins swarms with enor- mous scorpions; that it was a commercial nation, and pos- sessed highly-frequented marts; that it forms a shorter route than an ordinary one to India, and yet that it had not been visited by any traveller, are facts all recorded, or proved to a wish, by this able but unconscious commen- tator. A greater contrast cannot be imagined than the ancient and present state of Idumea. It was a kingdom previous to Israel, having been governed first by dukes or princes, af- terward by eight successive kings, and again by dukes, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel. Its fertility and "early cultivation are implied, not only in the blessings of Esau, whose dwelling was to be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above, but also in the condition proposed by Moses to the Edomites, when he solicited a passage tor the Israelites through their bor- ders, " that they would not pass through the fields nor through the vineyards;" and also in the great wealth, espe- cially in the multitudes of flocks and herds, recorded as possessed by an individual inhabitant of that country, at a period, in all probability, even more remote. The Idu- means were, without doubt, both an opulent and a power- ful people. They often contended with the Israelites, and entered into a league with their other enemies against them. In the reign of David they were indeed subdued and great- ly oppressed, and many of them even dispersed throughout the neighbouring countries, particularly Phenicia and Egypt. But during the decline of the kingdom of Judah, and for many years previous to its extinction, they encroach- ed upon the territories of the Jews, and extended their dominion over the southwestern part of Judea. Though no excellence whatever be now attached to its name, which exists only in past history, Idumea, including perhaps Ju- dea, was then not without the praise of the first of Roman poets : Primus Idumeas relY'rani tilji M.tntua, nalmas. Virg. Georg. lib. iii. 1. I-. And of Lucan, (Phars. lib. iii.) Arbustis palmarum itivesldume. But Idumea, as a kingdom, can lay claim to a highe] renown than either the abundance of its flocks or the ex cellenceof its palm-trees. The celebrated city of Petra (sr named by the Greeks, and so worthy of the name, on ac count both of its rocky vicinity and its numerous dwelling; excavated from the rocks) was situated within the patri- monial territory of the Edomites. There is distinct and positive evidence that it was a city of Edom, and the me- tropolis of the Nabatheans, whomi Strabo expressly identi- fies with the Idumeans— possessors of the same country, and subject to the same laws. " Petra," to use the words of Dr. Vincent, by whom the state of its ancient commerce was described before its ruins were discovered, "is the ca- pital of Edom or Seir, the Idumea or Arabia Petra?a of the Greeks, the Nabalea, considered both by geographers, his- torians, and poets, as the source of all the'precious commod- ities of the East." " The caravans, in all ages, from Minea in the interior of Arabia, and from Gerrha on the Gulf of Persia, from Hadramaut on the ocean, and some even from Sabea or Yemen, appear to have pointed to Petra as a common centre ; and from Petra the trade seems to have again branched out in every direction to Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, through Arsinoe, Gaza, Tyre, Jeru- salem, Damascus, and a variety of subordinate routes that all terminated on the Mediterranean.' There is every proof that is requisite to show that the Tyrians and "" * Chap. 37, 38. EZEKIEL. so is there the strongest evidence to prove thai the Tyrians obtained all their commodities from Arabia. Bui if Arabia was the centre of this c lerce, Petra was the point to which all the Arabians tended from the three sub- of their va-.t peninsula." Ai a period subsequent to the commence- ment of the Christian era, there always reigned at Petra, according to Strata, a king of the royal lineage, with w! i a prince was associated m the- government. It was a place ol great strength in the time of the Romans, Pompey marched against it, but desisted from the attack ; and 'i ra'- jan afterward besieged it. It was a metropolitan see, to which several bishopricks were attached in the lime of the Greek emperors, and Idiimea was included in the third Palestine— Pakslina ttrlia sue sahitaris. But the ancient slate of Idiimea cannot in the present day be SO clearly as- certained from the records respecting it which can be gleaned from history, whether sacred or profane, as by the wonderful and imperishable remains , if us ,-api: il ,-i-\ ] by " the traces of many towns and villages," v.hieh'indis- putdbly show that it must once have been thickly inhabited. It not only can admit of no dispute that the country and eities of Idumea subsisted in a very different stale from that absolute desolation in which, long prior to the period of its reality, it was represented in the prophetic vision ; but there are prophecies regarding it that have yet a prospec- tive view, and which refer to the time wlivn " the children of Israel shall possess their possessions," or to "the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion." But, dan- gerous as it is to explore the land of Idumea and difficult to ascertain those existing facts and precise circumstances which form the strongest features of its desolate aspect, (and that ought to be the subject of scientific as well as of reli- gious inquiry,) enough has been discovered to show that the sentence against it, though fulfilled by the agency of nature and of man. is pr, , iselysuch as was first recorded in the annals of inspiration. — Keith. CHAPTER XXXVII. Ver. 10. Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judafa, an 1 for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it. For Jo- seph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions. The original manner of communicating ideas by letters, among the ancient Britons, was by cutting I he letters upon sticks, which were most commonly squared, and .some- times formed into three sides. The squares were used for general subjects, and for stanzas of four lines in poetry: the trilateral ones were adapted to trides, and for a peculiar kind of ancient metre, called triban, or triplet, and englyn milwyr, or the warrior's verse. Several sticks with wri- ting upon them were put together, forming a kind of frame, which was called peithvnen. or elucidalor; and was so constructed, that each stick might be turned for the facility of reading, the end of each running out alternately on both sides ofthe frame. (Seceucrorim;. nt the cml of the volume.) A continuation of this mode of writing may he found in the Runic or log almanacs ofthe northern states of Europe, in which the engraving on square pieces of wood has been continued to so late a period as the sixteenth century. The Scythians also conveyed their ideas by marking or culling certain figures and a variety of lines, upon splinters or bil- lets of wood. Aulus Gell'ius (lib. ii. c. 12) says, that the ancient laws of Solon, preserved at Athens, were cut in tablets of wood. At Umea, in Sweden, a person whom Dr. Clarke visit.- !, " produced several ancient Runic staves, such as are known in Sweden under the name of Runic almanacs, or Runic calendars. Thev were all of wood, about three feet and a half long, shaped like the straight swords represented in chnrches upon the brazen sepulchre-plates of our Saxon ancestors. The blades were on each side engraved with Runic characters, and signs, like hieroglyphics, extending their whole length. The signs were explained to us as those ofthe months, and the characters denied the weeks and days. The Runic staves which had beer -iven to us, were afterward exhibited at Morvana, and in ihe different places through which we passed, in the hope of procurinj more. We afterward saw others; but they were always rare, and considered more as curious antiquities than things l: ibitants were we.i acquainted with them, and were often aide to explain the meaning ol ers upon them; and the purpose foi * hii h these instruments were made, especially in tins pa'i nt Sweden. We saw ime of more elaborate workmanship, when lh« Kline- i ! .ii.i, i, i Ii .,! I,, i, , i ■!■.,',, ,! n| .,, a stick, like a physician's cane: but this i.-ot seemed in l,u of a mace modern date, in every instance, it was evident, from some of the mat Its upon them, that iheir first owners were Christians: the different lines and characters deno- ting the fast- ami festivals, golden numbersj'doniinical letter, epact, &c. But the custom of thus preserving v ordsupon rods or sticks is of the highesl antiquity. There is an allusion to ibis custom in Kzekiel, xxxvi'i. lti — 20, where nieniion is made of something verv similar to the Runic staff." Nearly nine centuries beTore the age of Ezekiel's prophecy, Moses used rods in the same manner. Niiiii! ers x v ii. 2, 3. We may now see how satisfactorily the use to « hich these written' rods were in after-ages ap- plied, is illustrated by ihe Runic staves, which have gene- rally the form of a sword or sceptre, being the ensigns of office and dignity borne in the hands by the priests, the elders, and princes of the people. The recurved rods of the priests among the Greeks, and the crosier of a modern bishop, had the same origin.— Burder. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Ver. 1 1. And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalied villages ; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates. The Orieptals were attentive to safety, not less than to convenience and pleasure. To securetheirdwellings from the depredations of hostile tribes, that scoured their country in all directions in quest of plunder, they were forced to surround them with lofty walls. This mode of defence seems to have been adopted at a very remote period ; for the spies whom Moses sent into Canaan to view the coun- try, reported that the cities were great, and walled up to heaven. The height of these walls, which by a bold ori- ental figure, dictated by the pusillanimous fears of the spies, are said to reach up to heaven, must have appeared to the people of Israel, unaccustomed as they were to warfare of that kind, and totally unprovided with the means necessary for besieging fortified places, a verv serious obstacle to the accomplishment of their wishes. But the magnitude of it may be illustrated with the greatest advantage, from the aee, mnts which modern travellers have given us of the present inhabitants of those deserts, who are much in the same circumstances as the people of Israel were when they came out of Egypt, whose attacks are effectually repelled by the lofty walls of one or two Christian monasteries. ' The great monastery of Mount Sinai, Thevenot says, is well built of good freestone, with very high smooth walls; on the east side there is a window, by which those that were within drew up the pilsrims into the monasterv With a basket, which they let down bv a rope that runs bv a pulley, to be seen above at the window.' and the pilgrims- went into it one by one, and so weft hoisted up. These walls are so high that they cannot be scaled, and witho-rt cannon that place cannot be taken. The in, mastery of St. Anthonv, in Egvpt, says Maillet, ti a vast enclosure, with good walls, raised so high as to secure tins place from the insults of the Arabs. There i? no entrance into it but by a pulley, by means of which peo- ple are hoisted up on high, and so conveyed into the moflBS- terv. N'n warlike apparatus which the Arabian freebooters possess, are sufficient for the reduction of these forlifjed places. The Israelites, not better provided for besieging Strongholds, hastily concluded that the walled cities of Canaan, of which they heard such discouraging accounts, must oppose an insurmountable barrier lo their progress. It is not to be supposed that the descendants of Canaan, like the limid monks of Sinai, walled up iheir gates on the approach of danger, and permitted none to enter the place, but by means of a pulley; bnt if their ga*.c«; had not been well 'secured, the precaution of raising I :ir wall so high had been in vain. — Paxtos. CHAPTER XXXIX. Ver. 11. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea ; and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog, and all his multitude : and they shall call it, The valley of Hamon-gog. This refers to the dreadful stench which should arise from the dead bodies of Gog. The Taraul translation has it, " cause to stop the noses." The moment people smell any thing offensive, they immediately press the nostrils to- gether with their fingers. They say of a bad smell, It has stopped my nose; which means the nose is so full of that, it is not sensible of any other smell. The figure is much used in reference to the decayed oysters at the pearl fishery. — Roberts CHAPTER XLIV. Ver. 2. Then said the Lord unto me, This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it ; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, there- fore it shall be shut. Among other instances of the extreme distance, and pro- found awe, with which eastern majesty is treated, one that is mentioned by Sir John Chardin, in his account of Persia, appears very strange to us, yet may afford a lively com- ment on a passage of the prophet Ezekiel. Sir John tells us, " It is a common custom in Persia, that when a great man has built a palace, he treats the king and his grandees in it for several days. Then the great gate of it is open : but when these festivities are over, they shut it up, never more to be opened." He adds, " I have heard that the same thing is practised in Japan." It seems surprising to us, that great and magnificent houses within should have only small entrances into them, which no one would suppose would lead into such beautiful edifices: but such, he observes, is the common custom there : making no magnificent en- trance into their houses at all ; or if they do, shutting them up after a little time, and making use of some small entrance near the great one, or it may be, in some very different part of the building. — Harmer. DANIEL. CHAPTER I. Ver. 2. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his god ; and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god, In all heathen temples there is a place for the sacred jewels and other treasures. The ornaments of the idols are sometimes of great value. I have seen the small crown, breastplate, and necklaces of one idol, worth more than 4007.— Roberts. Ver. 3. And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring cer- tain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; 4. Children in whom was no blemish, but well-favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. The master of the black eunuchs is still one of the most /mportant officers at the court of the Turkish emperor, the arrangement of which is, for the most part, formed after '*ie household of the ancient Persian emperors. He is called Kislar-Aga, that is, overseer of the girls, and is the chief of the black eunuchs who guard the harem or resi- dence of the women. " The Kislar-Aga, by his place, en- joys a powerful influence in affairs, but particularly in those of the court, for which reason the other agas bring concerns before him. His consideration and influence over the emperor is almost always secure." (Von Ham- mer.)— Rosenmuller. Curtius says, that in all barbarous or uncivilized coun- tries, the stateliness of the body is held in great veneration : nor do they think any capable of great services or actions, to whom nature has not vouchsafed to give a beautiful form and aspect. It has always been the custom of the eastern nations to choose such for their principal officers, or to wait on princes and great personages. Sir Paul Ricaut ob- serves, " that the youths that are designed for the great of- fices of the Turkish empire, must be of admirable features and looks, well-shaped in their bodies, and without any de- fects of nature : for it is conceived that a corrupt and sor- did soul can scarce inhabit in a serene and ingenuous as- pect ; and I have observed not only in the seraglio, but also in the courts of great men, their personal attendants have been of comely lusty youths, well habited, deporting them- selves with singular "modesw and respect in the presence of their masters ; so that when a pacha aga spahi travels, he is always attended with a comely equipage, followed by flourishing youths, well clothed and mounted, in great num- bers."— Burder. Ver. 8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank : therefore he requested of the prince of the eu- nuchs that he might not defile himself. It was the custom of most nations, before their meals, to make an oblation of some part of what they ate and drank to their gods, as a thankful acknowledgment that every thing wriich they enjoyed was their gift. These oblations were called libamina among the Romans, so that every en- tertainment had something in it of the nature of a sacrifice. This practice generally prevailing, made Daniel and hij friends look upon the provisions coming from the king's table as no better than meats offered to idols, and, by being so offered, to be accounted unclean or polluted.— Bl-rder. Ver. 15. And at the end often days their counte- nances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than OlIAP. 1— S DANIEL. all the children which did cat the portion of the king's meat It is probable that there was nothing extraordinary or out of the common wav in this circumstance. Sir J. Chardin observes, " I have remarked this, that the countenances of the Kechichs are in fact more rosy and smooth than those of others, and that these people who fast much, 1 mean the Armenians and the Greeks, are notwiihstandini iiful, sparkling with health, with a clear and lively coun- " -Habmeb. CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriac, O king;, live for ever: tell thy ser- vants" the dream, and we will show the inter- pretation. There words are not addressed to the ears of royally merely. Has a man been greatly favoured by another, he says, " Ah ! may von never die." " So good a man ought never to die." " May you live for ever." " Will death comeJo such a man as this I" " Live, live, for ever." — Roberts. Ver. 31. Thou, O king, sawest, and, behold, a great image. This great image, whose bright- ness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. 32. This image's head teas of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass. 33. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. There is usually an obvious and striking congruity in the Mhl parabolic imagery of the scriptures. In the present case there would seem to be an exception i for « ho can conceive of the manner in which iron and clay could be made to combine in the same mass 1 In respect to the other materials, the gold, the silver, ihe brass, thej are sufficiently homogeneous in their nature to allow of being united in the manner supposed in ihe vision. But how a soft -yielding substance like clay could form a constituent part of the same image, and that too of the very base and pediment upon which it rested, is by no mean's obvious. We see not therefore why the definition given to the origi- nal Ohaldaic word by Cocceius, Buxtorf, Gesenius, Simo- nis. ( iilibs.and others, viz. poller's ware, or burn/baked clay, is not decidedly to be preferred. And of the original phrase subsequently occurring, " miry clay," v. 41, 4'2. The first of these lexicographers says expressly, " Nonigitur latum vel limum notat, sed opus coctum ex limo, vel limum ex- coctum," it does not therefore signify clan or mud, in ils soft state, hut something formed by hakins from rlay. This in- terpretation gives consistency to the whole imagery, and, if needs be, can be abundantly confirmed from the frequent use of the same term by the Chaldee Targums. — Bush. Ver. 46. Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and command- ed that they should offer an oblation and sweet oaours unto him. Odoriferous ointments and perfumes were often present- ed by the great as a particular mark of distinction. The kins of Babylon treated the prophet Daniel with the richest perfumes, after he had predicted the future destinies of his empire, as a distinguished proof of his esteem and admira- tion: " Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that the? should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him." This pas- sage Mr. Harmer considers as exceedingly difficult; and he labours hard to prove that the king meant nothing more than civil respect. "Nebuchadnezzar, in all this matter, appeared to have considered Daniel merely as a prophet : his words strongly express this, Your God isaGodof gods ; and had it been otherwise, a person so zealous as Daniel, who risked his life, rather than neglect his homage to his God, and haa the courage to pray to him with his windows open towards Jerusalem, contrary to ihe king I command, would undoubtedly, like Paul and Barnabas, have reject- ed these odours." This vmw completely vindicates the prophet from the charge of conniving at the idolatry of the king; bill it is not necessary to his delence. Tl i oi \, Inn hailnezzar, il is ailowed, admits of a favourable construction; but, at the same lime, n is scarcely possible to avoid the suspicion ihai he was. on mis memorable occa- sion, guilty of idolatrous veneration. The verb Sagad, be irorshiji/ini, so far as the writer has been able to trace it, both in Hebrew and Chaldee, expresses Ihe hoi,,, is rendered to a god, and is, perhaps, universally applied to Ihe worship ol false denies in the sacied senptuirs. II this remark be just, it is greally to be suspected that Nebu- chadnezzar, who had few, or no correct religious princi- ples, io i ,'si rain the sudden movements of his impel nous pas- sions, did intend, on thai occasion, lo honour Daniel as a god, or, which is not materially different, to worship the divinity in the prophet. But it maybe demanded, how then is Daniel to be vindicated! Shall we suppose that a prophet of the Lord, a man highly favoured and distin- guished for his eminent holiness, would sutler idolatry lo Da practised in his presence, more especially when he him- self was the object of it, without expressing his disapproba- tion-! To this objection, the following answer is offered: The sacred writers, studious of extreme brevity, ofien pass over many incidents in the scenes which they describe. Daniel, therefore, might actually reject ihe intended hon- our, although il is not mentioned in the record. This si- lence of the historian will not prove that it was not done, while there are certain circumstances in the narrative which go far lo prove that the prophet did reject the hom- age of Nebuchadnezzar. In the 28lh verse of the second chapter, he solemnly declares before Ihe king and the whole court, that " it is the God of heaven that revealeth secrets, and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days ;" and the 30lh verse, " But as for me this secret is not revealed to me lor any wisdom that I have more than any living." When these faithful declarations are considered, it is not to be supposed that Daniel neglect- ed lo remind the king that religious worship is due to God alone ; and that such a testimony was given at the time, is intimated with considerable clearness in the conl the king himself, verse 47th, which seems to refer to some- thing the prophet had just said to him: "The king an- swered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth il is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a Revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldst reveal this secret." The character of Daniel, therefore, is not affected by the mis- conduct of his sovereign, in paying h:rr. divine honours. — Paxtok. CHAPTER III. Ver. 6. And whoso failed) not down and wor- shipped, shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. This mode of putting to death was not unusual in the East in more modern limes. Chardin. in his Travels, after speaking of the most common modes of punishing with death, says, " But there is still a particular way of putting to death such as have transgressed in civil affairs, either by causing a dcanh, or by selling above the tax by a false weight, or who have committed themselves in any other manner. The cooks are put upon a spit and roasted over a slow lire, bakers are thrown intoa hot oven. During the dearth in 1GG8, I saw such ovens heattti on the royal square in Ispahan, to terrify the bakers, anu aeter them from deri- ving advantage from the general distress." — Rosenmiller. Ver. 25. He answered and said. Lo, I see foui men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and thev have no hurt : and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Professor Eichorn has manifested a strong inclination to expel the prophet Daniel from the sacred writings, .\sihp difficulties which attend some representations in this pro- phet, [" fires which do not burn; ana an image strangely disDroportioned," are especially selected,] are among the professor's principal reasons, we could wish, before sen 544 DANIEL. Chap. 4, 5. .ence were passed on the delinquent, that not only what we have just noticed in relation to his animals, but also the following hints in relation to some of his other subjects, were duly weighed, and accurately understood. The story of the three Hebrews in the fiery' furnace would be much more within our comprehension* if we knew the true form of what is denpminated a furnace ; it is usually conceived of, as being somewhat like our tile-kilns, a solid, enclosed, brick building, with an aperture only for entrance, or, at most, with a door- way below, and a vent above for the flame, smoke, &c. But the circumstances of the story do not war- rant an edifice of this construction ; for it appears that Nebuchadnezzar, still seated on his throne, saw the persons in the fire. Now this he could not do, through the solid wall of such a building; neither could the flame, issuing from a narrow orifice, easily slay those men who threw in the Hebrews, the solid wall being between them and the fire. Either, then, the opening to this furnace, if it 'ere a solid edifice, was large enough to admit of full view into it ; or we must seek some other construction for it. We may carry this idea somewhat further, and infer the pro- priety of supposing Nebuchadnezzar to see throughout the structure; by consequence, the building had no covering; but was, at most, an enclosure of fire ; or, an area sur- rounded by a wall, within which the fire raged. — Taylor is Cai.met. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 25. That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. This was one of the miseries of Nebuchadnezzar, and a much greater one than the people in England imagine. Think of the state of the body and pores after being twelve hours in a blazing sun, and then think on such a dew falling as will saturate all the clothes ; and a tolerable view is gained of the great reverse, and the effect it must have on the human frame. Of a wretched man it is said, " The sun tails ,in hi- head by day, and the dew by night." " He is scorched by the sun, and made wet by the dew. "—Roberts. Ver. 29. At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. See on 1 Sam 9. 25, 26. The custom of walking upon the roof in the cool of the day, to inhale the refreshing breeze, and to survey the sur- rounding scenery, may serve to explain a scripture incident of considerable interest, which does not appear lo have been generally understood. It is thus recorded in the prophecies of Daniel : " At the end of twelve months, he (Nebuchad- nezzar) walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon." The true sense of the original is, " he walked upon the palace;" but this interpretation our translators have placed in the margin, as more doubtful than the other. If Nebu- chadnezzar walked in some apartment of his palace, it is proper excitement, no adequate cause; but if we suppose him walking upon the roof of his palace, which proudly rose above the surrounding habitations, and surveying the vast extent, the magnificence, and the splendour' of that grea! city, the mistress of the world— its walls of prodigious height and thickness— its hanging gardens, reputed one of ih j most astonishing efforts of art and power — its glittering palaces; the Euphrates rolling his majestic flood through the middle of the place, shut in on both sides bv strong bul- warks and doors of brass; it was quite natural for such a man to feel elated with the sight, and indulge his pride and arrogance in the manner described by thepiophet. — Pax- ton. CHAPTER V. Ver. 12. Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, anj dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar : now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. The margin (Chald.) has, instead of " doubts," " knots." A very difficult subject is called a mudiche, a knot ! Thu* the explaining of a riddle is called " untying the knot." Oi a talented man il is said, " Ah ! he is very clever, he ca. tie or untie any knot." Of a dream, it is asked, " Who cat. loose this knot?" Of any mysteries, or of deep plans, it v. asked, "Ah! who can untie these knots?" "How dim- cult that passage was, but he soon unravelled the knot."— Roberts. In the conv of a patent given to Sir John Chardin bv the king of I-e—'a, we find it is addressed "To the lords ol lords, who nave the presence of a lion, the aspect of Deston. the pnnces who have the stature of Tahem-ten-ten, who seem to be in the time of Ardevon, the regents who earn the majesty of Ferribours, the conquerors of kingdoms, su- perintendents lhal unloose a/l manner of knots, and who are under the ascendant of Mercury," &c— Birder. Ver. 21. And he was driven from the sons of men ; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses : they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven ; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. See on Job 39. 5. Ver. 27. TEKEL ; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. This striking form of speech is much used in 'he East at this day. Thus, should two men be disputing rcrpecting the moral character of a third person, one will say, " I know the fellow well; I have weighed him, and he k found wanting." " He found wanting ! vou are much lighter than he." " What ! miscreant, do you wish to weigh against me 1" "■ Thou art bu,t as one part in a thousand." " Begone ! fellow, or I will soon weigh thee." " Yes, yes, there is no doubt about it : you have weighed me; lam much lighter than you." " What kind of times are these t the slaves are weighing their masters." " Yes, the low castes have become very clever, they are weighing their superiors." " What ! woman, do you call in question the authority of your husband: are you qualified to weigh him 1" " The judge has been weighing the prisoners, and thev are all wanting."— Roberts. From the following extract it will appear lhat there is an allusion in these words, which will justify a literal interpre- tation of them. " The first of September, (which was the late mogul's birthday,) he, retaining an ancient yearly cus- tom, was, in the presence of his chief grandees, weighed in a balance : the ceremony was performed within his house, or tent, in a fair spacious room, whereinto none were ad- mitted but by special leave. The scales in which he was thus weighed were plated with gold ; and so was the beam, on which they hung by great chains, made likewise of that most precious metal. The king sitting in one of them, was weighed first against silver coin, which immediately after- ward was distributed among the poor; then was he weighed against gold; after that against jewels, (as they say,) but I observed (being there present with my lord ambassador) that he was weighed against three several things, laid in silken bags on the contrarv scale. When I saw him in the balance, I thought on Belshazzar, who was found too light. By his weight (of which his physicians yearly keep an exact account) they presume to guess of the piesent estate of his body, of which they speak flatteringly, however they think it to be." (Sir Thomas Roe.)— Bcrder. Ver. 29. Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation DANIEL. 04: concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in tin; kingdom. Tins was designed to honour Daniel, and certainly was, according to the custom of the East, a ceremony highly ex- pressive di dignity. To come ool from (he presence of a superior in a garment differen) from thai in which the person we i, was significant of approbation and promo- tion, Whether it nrasihc precise intention »f this clothing to declare Daniel's investiture with the dignity of the third ruler of the kingdom, or whether it was an h rary dis- tinclion, unconnected with hisadvanci soluiely decided, because cafietans, or robes, are at this day put on people with both views. — BoBBBfl, CHAPTER VI. Ver. 18. Then the king wont to his palace; and passed tin- night fasting : neither were instru- ments of music brought before him ; and his sloop wont from him. See on Ezra 9. 3. Ver. 23. Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God. The Orientals have an idea, that in whatever a man believes, whether in reference to the existence oi nonexist- ence of evil or danger in regard to himself, thai so will his condition be regulated. In walking once with a learned Brainin, through a grove of cocoa-trees, I inquired, Why are you not afraid of those huts falling on your head, and killing you on the spoil " Because I have only to believe they wiil not fall, and all is sale," was his reply. — Roberts. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 2. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the ■ heaven strove upon the great sea. The whirlwind, it appears from the sacred writings, comes from different points of the compass. The prophet Ezekiel speaks of one that came from the north ; and al- though it appeared to him in vision, it was according to the course of nature; for we learn from other sources of inform- ation, that it sometimes arises in that quarter. William of Tyre records an instance of a violent whirlwind from the north, in the time of the crusades, which enveloped two hostile armies in an immense cloud of dust, and com- pelled them for a while to suspend the work of destruction. When that enterprising traveller, Mr. Parke, was travers- ing the Sahara, or Great Desert, in his way to the Niger, destitute of provisions and water, his throat pained with thirst, and his strength nearly exhausted, he heard a wind sonneting from the east, and instinctively opened his parch- ed month to receive the precious drops' of rain which he confidently expected, but it was instantly filled with sand drilled from the desert. So immense was the quantitv raised into the air, and wafted upon the wings of the wind, and so great the velocity with which it flew, that he was compelled to turn his face to the west to prevent suffoca- tion, and continue motionless till it passed. In Persia, violent currents of air are sometimes seen impelling the clouds in different directions, whose concussion produces an awful noise, like the rushing of a s?reat body of water. As the cloud approaches the earth, the sound becomes still more alarming: for nothing) says Mr. Morier, can be more awful. To this natural phenomenon, the strife of the four winds in the vision of Daniel is perhaps allusive. — Paxton. Ver. 5. And, behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it. Arise, devour much flesh. 69 It has been satisfactorily proved by the best writers ,.n the subject, ihat the vision refers to the four greal men- ■ Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the M. Io- nian or Grecian^ and the Roman ; and that the second beast, which was like to a bear, symbolizes the empire of the Medes and Persians. All the four monarchies are rep- resented by beasts ot pn-y, to intimate their agreement in the general character of fierceness and rapacity ; and by beasts of different species, lo intimate the existence of im- portant differences in their character and mode of opera- tion. The Babylonish empire is symbolized by a lion a ith eagle's unigs, because it was the first and noblest kingdom upon earth ; il was strong and fierce as a lion ; it was mi ill and rapid in iis movements as a lion wuh eagle's wings; fen years, under the conduct ol Ni I zai . t" the highest pinnacle of power and greaine I I thud kingdom is represented by another beast, "like a. leopard, v. huh had upon the back of il four wings of a fowl; the Insist had also four heads; and dominion was il ' This is the I Irecian monarchy ; the dis- tinguishing characters of which, are great vara position and manners, undaunted boldness, and i conquest, never before or sinceexemplified in the history Ol nations. The fourth beast was so great and horrible, that no adequate name could be found for it; this nonde • ripl was the symbol of the Roman empire, winch differed from all others in the form ol its government, in strength, in power, in greatness, in length of duration, end in ex- tern m| dominion. The Persian monarchy, symbolized by the bear, has also certain specific differences, which are lo be learned from the natural history of that animal. Cruel and rapacious as the others, the bear is inferior in strength and courage to the lion, and, al'lii.ugh slowei in its motions, more aniform in its appearance, and steady in its purpose, than the leopard. Such was the empire of the Medes and Persians: weaker and less warlike than the Babylonian, whose symbol is the lion ; but less various in ils principles of government, in the forms which it assumed, in the cus- toms and. manners of the nations which composed it, and less rapid in its conquests, than the Macedonian, symboli- zed by the spotted leopard, one of the most rapid and im- petuous animals that traverse the desert. But if the bear is inferior to the lion and the leopard in strength, in courage, and in swiftness, it surpasses them in ferocious crueltvand insatiable voracity ; it thirsts for blood and riot.-, in carnage: and such was the empire of the Medes and Persians. They are stigmatized by ancient historians as the greatest robbers and spoilers I hat ever oppressed the nations. The symbol of this all-devouring people is ac- cordingly represented as having "three ribs in the month of it, between the teeih of it," in the very' act of devouring three weaker animals which i: has seized, that is, of op- pressing the kingdoms of Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, which it conquered. And besides, to denote its rapaf ions- ness and cruelty, it is added in the vision, " ihey said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh." The fourth empire is symbolized by "a dreadful and ter- rible beast," for which the prophet found no name in the kingdom of nature. It resembled the fabulous monsters, which poetic imagination sometimes delights to portray; for, in the 1 k of Revelation. John describes it as com- pounded of (he three which preceded it : " The beast which 1 saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet was as the feel of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion." It possessed all the qualities which render beasts of prey a terror toman and other animals; the swiftness , and cun- ning of the leopard, the ferocity of the bear, and the bold- ness and strength of the lion. The Roman empire, which it symbolized, resembled no state of society known among men ; it displayed, in its character and proceedings, the Vigour and courage of the Babylonians, the various policy and alacrity of the Greeks, and the unchanging firmness of the Medes and Persians; qualities which have been equally conspicuous in the Papal slate of Ihat empire. — Paxton. Ver 15. I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of mr head troubled me. Margin, (Chald.) "sheath;" this is a .try curions ex- pression, when applied to such a subjeci cm u is perfcelli 546 DAr> natural. When a person has swooned, the people say, " His life has gone into its iml," i. c. sheath, meaning some particular place into which the life is supposed to retire and conceal itself from the sight. Has a man been wound- ed by a serpent, and should he appear to be dead, it is often said, "Fear not, his life has merely gone into its sheath." When a person's eyes are much sunken by sick- ness, the people say, " Alas ! his eyes have gone into their sheath." " Well, my friend, when did you arrive 1" "I came just as the sun was going into its sheath," i. e. going down. " I am happy to hear that the king hath put his anger and his sword into the sheath." — Roberts. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 5. And as I was considering, behold, a he- goat came from the west, on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. It is very well known that in former time^Macedon, and the adjacent countries, particularly Thrace, abounded with goats; insomuch that they were made symbols, and are to be found on many of the coins that were struck by different lowns in those parts of Greece. But not only many of the individual towns in Macedon and Thrace employed this type, but the kingdom itself of Macedon, which is the oldest in Europe of which we have any regular and connected history, was represented also by a goat with this particulari- ty, that it had but one horn. The custom of representing the type and power of a country under the form of a horned animal, is not peculiar lo Macedon. Persia was represented by a ram. Ammianus Marcellinus acquaints us, that the king of Persia, when at the head of his army, wore a ram's head, made of gold and set with precious stones, instead of a diadem. The relation of these emblems to Macedon and Persia is strongly confirmed by the vision of Daniel record- ed in this chapter, and which from these accounts receives no inconsiderable share of illustration. An ancient bronze figure of a goat with one horn, dug up in Asia Minor, was lately inspected by the society of antiquaries in London. The original use of it probably was to be affixed to the top of a military standard, in the same manner as the Roman eagle. This supposition is somewhat supported by what is related of Ca'ranus, that he ordered goats to be carried be- .fore the standards of his army. — Burder. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 2. And now will I show thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than theynW: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia. '3. And a mighty king shall stand up, that ■shall rule with great dominion, and do accord- Ling to his will. Soon after the death of Alexander the Great, his king- dom was divided towards the four winds of heaven, but not to his posterity ; four of his captains, Ptolemy, Anligonus, Lysimaehus, and Cassander, reigned over Egypt, Syria, Thrace, and Greece. The kingdoms of Egypt and of Syria became afterward the most powerful : they subsisted as in- dependent monarchies for a longer period than the other two; and, as they were more immediately connected with the land of Judea, which was often reduced to their do- minion, they form the subject of the succeeding predictions. Bishop Newton gives even a more copious illustration of the historical faets, which verify the whole of this prophecy, than that which had previously been given by his illustrious predeeessorof tbesame name — who has rendered that name immor al. He quotes or refers to authorities in every in- stance, and his dissertation on that part of the prophecy •t'hich relates tS'the kingdoms of Syria and Egvpt is wound up in these emphatic words: " It' may be proper to stop here, and reflect a little how particular and circumstantial ihis prophecy is concerning the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, from the deash of Alexander to the time of Aritiochus Epiphanes. There is not so complete and regular a series V their kings — there is not so concise and comprehensive an account of their affairs to be found in any author of these times. The prophecy is really more perfect than any his. lory. No one historian hath related so many circumstances, and m such exact order of time, as the prophet hath foretold them; so that it was necessary to have recourse to several authors, Greek and Roman, Jewish and Christian, and to collect here something from one, and to collect there some- thing from another, for better explainingand illustrating the great variety of particulars contained in this prophecy." So close is the coincidence between the prophetic and the real history of the kings of Egypt and of Syria, lhat Por- phyry, one of the earliest opponents of Christianity, laboured to prove its extreme accuracy, and alleged from thence that the events must have preceded the prediction. The same argument is equally necessary at tne present hour to dis- prove the subsequent parts of the same prophecy— though none can urge it now. The last of those facts to which it refers, the accomplishment of which is already past, are un- folded with equal precision and truth as the first— and the fulfilment of the whole is yet incomplete. The more clearly that the event corresponds to the prediction, instead of being an evidence against the truth, the more conclusive is the demonstration that it is the word of Him who hath the times and the seasons in his own power. The subject of the prophecy is represented in these words:—" I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days ; for the vision is for many days." And that which is noted in the scripture of truth terminates not with the reign of Antiochus. At thai very time the Romans extended their conquests towards the East. Macedonia, the seat of the empire of Alexander the Great, became a province of the Roman empire. And the prophecy, faithfully tracing the transition of power, ceases lo prolong the history of the kings of Egypt and of Syria, and becomes immediately descriptive of the progress of the Roman arms. The very term (shall stand up) which pre- viously marked the commencement of the Persian and of the Macedonian power, is here repeated, and denotes the commencement of a third era, or a new power. The word in the original is the same in each. And " arms (an epi- thet sufficiently characteristic of the extensive military power of the Romans) shall stand up, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination lhat makelh desolate." All these things, deeply affecting the Jewish state, the Romans did— and they finally rendered the coun- try of Jndea " desolate of its old inhabitants." The propa- gation of Christianity— the succeeding important event- is thus represented :— " The people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many." The persecutions which they suffered are as significantly described : — " Yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil many days. Now, when they shall" fall, they shall be holpen with a little help, and many shall cleave to them with flatteries." And such was Constantine's conversion and the effect which it produced. No other government but that of the Romans stood up— but ihe mode of that gov- ernment was changed. After the days of Constanline, Christianity became gradually more and more corrupted. Previous to that period there had existed no system of dominion analogous to that which afterward prevailed. The greatest oppressors had never extended their preten- sions beyond human power, nor usurped a spiritual tyranny. But, in contradiction to every other, the next succeeding form of government, unparalleled in its nature, in the an- nals of despotism or of delusion, is thus characterized by the prophet :— " And the king (the ruling power signifying any government, state, or potentate') shall do according to his will ; and he shall exalt himself and irfagnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be ac- complished." This description is suited to the history ol the eastern or western churches— to the government under the Grecian emperors at Constantinople, or of the popes at Rome. The extent of the Roman empire might justify its application to the latter; but the connexion of the prophecy, as referable lo local events, 'ends to limit it to the former. In either case it is descriptive of that mode of government which prospered so long in tne East and in the West — and which consisted in the impious usurpation of spiritual au- thority— in the blasphemous assumption of those attributes Chap II. HAN IE I. 547 which are exclusively divine, and in exalting itself above the laws of God and man. But insie. d confined exclusively to either, it may have been intended to . :i< it does characterize, the spiritual tyranny, and the substitution of the commandments of men lor the will of God, which oppressed Christendom for ages, and bid from men the word of God. The prevalence of supersti- tion, the prohibition or discouragement of marriage, and the worship of saints, as characterise of the same period and of the same power, arc thus prophetically described: — " Neither shall he regard the God of hisfalhers, nor the de- sire of women, or matrimony, neither shall he regard any god. Hut in hisestateshallhehonourtheGod.il | iree Mdhnxzim," protectors or guardians, a term so applicable to the worship of saints, and to the confidence which was reposed in them, that expressions exactly synonymous are often used by manv ancient writers in honour of them— of which Mede and Sir Isaac Newton have adduced a multi- plicity of instances. Mahuzzim were the tutelary saints of the Greek and Romish churches. The subserviency, which long existed, of spiritual power to temporal aggran- dizement, is also noted in the prophecy: " and he shall cause them to rule over manv, and shall divide the land for gain." And that the principal teachers and propagators of the wor- ship of Mahuzzim — " the bishops, priests, and monks, and religious orders, have been honoured, and reverenced, and esteemed in former ages; that their authority and jurisdic- tion have extended over the purses and consciences of men ; that they have been enriched with noble buildings and large endowments, and have had the choicest of the lands appropriated for church-lands ; are points of such no- toriety, that they require no proof, and will admit of no denial." Having thus described the antichristian power, which prospered so long and prevailed so widely, the prophecy next delineates, in less obscure terms, the manner in which that power was to be humbled and overthrown, and intro- duces a more particular definition of the rise, extent, and fall of that kingdom, which was to oppress and supplant it in the latter days. " And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him." The Saracens extended their conquests over great part of Asia and of Europe: they penetrated the dominions of the Grecian empire, and par- tially subdued, though they could not entirely subvert it, nor obtain possession of Constantinople, the capital citv. The prediction, however brief, significantly represents their warfare, which was desultory, and their conquest, which was incomplete. And Arabia is situated to the south of Pales- tine. The Turks, the next and last invaders of the Grecian empire, were of Scythian extraction, and came from the north. And while a single expression identifies the Sara- cen invasion — the irruption of the Turks, being of a more fatal character and more permanent in its effects, is fully described. Every part of the description is most faithful to the facts. Their local situation, the impetuosity of their attack, the organization of their armies, and the success of their arms, form the first part of the prediction respecting them. " A.nd the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over." All hough the Grecian em- pire withstood the predatory warfare of the Saracens, it gave way before the overwhelming forces of the Turks, whose progress was tracked with destruction, and whose coming was indeed like a whirlwind. Chariots and horse- men were to be the distinguishing marks of their armies, though armies, in general, contain the greatest proportion of foot-soldiers. And, in describing their first invasion of the Grecjfln territory, Gibbon relates, that " the myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to Arzeroum, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. The Turkish armies at first con- sisted so exclusively of horsemen, that the stoutest of the youths of the captive Christians were afterward taken and trained as a band of infantry, and called janizaries, (yengi cheri,) or new soldiers." In apparent contradiction to the nature of their army, they were also to possess manv ships. And Gibbon again relates, that "a fleet of two hundred ships was constructed by the hands of the captive Greeks." Bal mm, 1 1 reel evidence is necessary to prove that many shins must have been requisite for ihe capture of so many islands, and the destruction of the Venetian naval power, which was once Ihe most celebrated in Europe. " The words, shall enter into the countries, and overflow and pan over, give us an exact ;dea of their overflowing the western pan . o\ A ia and then passing over into Egypt." " He shall enter also into ihe glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown. "' This expression, "the florions land," occurs in the previous part of Ihe prophecy, ir. Hi.) and, in both cases, it evidently means the land id Israel; and such the Syriac translation rendei Holv Land formed part of the first conquest of Ihe Turks. And ma mi fiiuntrics .■■hall lie avrrthrann. The limits of the Turkish empire embraced the ancient kingdoms of Baby- lon, Macedon, Thrace, Epirus, Greece, &c. and the many countries over which they ruled. The whole of Syria war also included, with partial exceptions. These very excep- tions are specified in the prophecy, though these territories partially intersect the Turkish dominions, and divide one portion of them from another, forming a singular contrast to lh<) general continuity of kingdoms. And, w^hile every particular prediction respecting these separate slates ha.i been fully verified, their escaping out of the hands of the Turks has been no less marvellously fulfilled. " But these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon." Mede, Sir Isaac and Bishop Newton, in applying this prophecy to the Turkish empire, could only express, in general terms, that the Arabs possessed these countries, and exacted tribute from the Turks for permitting their caravans to pass through them. But recent travellers, among whom Volney has to be num- bered, have unconsciously given the most satisfactory in- formation, demonstrative of the truth of all the minuiiirof the prediction. Volney describes these countries in pan— Burckhardl traversed tlym all — and they have since been i her travellers. Edom and Moab are in posses- sion of the Bedouin (or wandering) Arabs. The Turks ha,ve often attempted in vain 10 subjugate them. The par- tial escape of Ammon from their dominion is not less dis- criminating than just. For although that territory lies in the immediate vicinity of thepachalic of Damascus, to which part of it is subjected, — though it be extremely fertile by na- ture,— though its situation and its soil have thus presented, for several centuries, the strongest temptation to Turkish rapacity,— (hough they have often attempted to subdue it,— yet no fact could have been more explicitly detailed, or more incidentally communicated, than that the in- habitants of the greater part of that country, particularly what adjoins the ancient, but now desolate city of Am- mon. ' ; live in a state of complete independence of the Turks." "He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries.'' How significantly do ihese words represent the vast extent of the Turkish empire, which alone has stretched its do- minion over many countries of Asia, of Europe, and of Africa ! Hi-fated Egypt was not to escape from subjection to such a master. " And the land of Egypt shall not es- cape ; but he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt." The Ttnks have drained Egypt of its wealth, of its gold and of its silver, and of its precious things: and such power have they exercised over them, that the kingdom of the Pharaohs, the land where everlasting pyramids were built, despoiled to the utmost, is now one of the poorest, as it has long been the basest, of kingdoms. " The Libyans and Ethiopians shall be at his steps." These form the extremi- ties of the Turkish empire, and were partially subject to its power. " After the conquest of Egypt, the terror of Se- lim's victories," says the historian, " spreading wide, the kings of Africa, bordering upon Cyrenaica, sent their am- bassadors with offers to become his tributaries. Other more remote. nations also towards Ethiopia were easily induced to join in amity with the Turks." Exclusive of Egypt, they still retain the nominal powerover other countriesof Africa. Such is the prophetic description of the rise and extent of that power which was to possess Ju-'ea in the latter days: and it is a precise delineation of the rise and extent of the Turkish empire, to which Judea has been subject for cec- turies.— Keith. HOSEA. CHAPTER IH. Ver. 2. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley. Sir J. Chardin observed in the East, that in their con- tracts for thei. temporary wives, which are known to be frequent there, which contracts are made before the kady, there is always the formality of a measure of corn men- tioned, over and above the sum of money that is stipulated. I do not know of any thing that should occasion this for- mality of late days in the East; it may then possibly be very ancient, as it is apparent this sort of wife is : if it be, it will perhaps accoum for Hosea's purchasing a woman of this sort for fifteen pieces of silver, and a certain quantity of barley. — Harmer. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 12. My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them : for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God. « The method of divination alluded to by the prophet in these words, is supposed to have been thus performed: The person consulting measured his staff by spans, or by the length of his finger, saying, as he measured, " I will go, or, I will not go; I will do such a thing, or, I will not do it ;" and as the last span fell out, so he determined. Cyril and Theophylact, however, give a different account of the mat- ter. They say that it was performed by erecting two sticks, after which they murmured forth a certain charm, and then, according as the sticks fell, backward or for- ward, towards the right or left, they gave advice in any affair. — Burder. CHAPTER V. Ver. 12. Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness. See on Job 4. 9. and 27. 18. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 4. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee 1 O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? foryour goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. " Early dew." " What, is this prosperity 1 what, this pleasure''! Ah ! what are my riches, and what my glory 7 Alas! 'tis like the dew, which flies off at the sight of the morning sun." " My son, my son, be not too confident ; for life is like the dew."— Roberts. Dr. Shaw, speaking of Arabia Petra>a, says, "The dews of the night, as we had the heavens only for our covering, would (in the night) frequently wet us to the skin : but no sooner was the sun risen, and the atmosphere a little heat- ed, than the mists were quickly dispersed, and the copious moisture, which the dews had communicated to the sands, would be entirely evaporated."— Burder. Ver. 9. And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent : for they commit lewdness. The margin has, instead of " consent," " shoulder." The Hindoos for the same thing say, " with one hand." Thus, jiose people with " one hand" haTe gone to the judge, i. e. with one consent. " Those wretches with one hand aie doing evil." " If the coolies do their duly with one hand, the work will soon be finished." " Why have they not ac- complished their object 1 because they did not go about it with one hand." CHAPTER VII. Ver. 16. They return, but not to the Most High ; they are like a deceitful bow : their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. The strings of African bows are all made of the en- trails of animals, a kind of catgut. Moist weather renders it so soft, that they cannot shoot with it : should they try it, the string would either instantly break, or it would stretch to such a length that it could not impel the arrow. In con- sequence of this being the case, I have heard the remark made in Africa, that the safest time to travel among the wild Bushmen is in wet weather, for then they cannot shoot you. Were people using such bows for defence, and un- acquainted with this effect of moisture, in a lime of danger to seize their bow for self-defence, they w:ould be grievous- ly deceived, by finding them useless when most needed. They would thus prove deceitful bows. — Campbell CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 8. Israel is swallowed up : now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure. I believe this refers to an earthen vessel, and not to one made of skin. People often compare each other to an up- pu-panum, i. e. literally, a salt vessel ; because after it has contained salt it is most fragile, the least thing will break it to pieces. " What are you, sir? an upjnt-panum," a salt vessel. " Lock at that poor salt vessel ; if you touch him he will fall to pieces." — Roberts. Ver. 9. For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired Iovbts. See on Job 39. 5—8. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 10. I found Israel like grapes in the wilder- ness ; I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig-tree at her first time : but they went to Baal- peor and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved. In Barbary, and no doubt in the hotter climate of Judea, after mild winters, some of the more forward trees will now and then yield a few ripe figs, six weeks or more be- fore the full season. Such is probably the allusion in this place. (Shaw.)— Border. CHAPTER X. Ver. 7. As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water. " Those sons of fiends are now gone as the veer-moUi^" i. e. the bubble. " Alas ! my race is cut off: it has disap- peared like the bubble." " Yes, those people were only bubbles ; they have all gone."— Roberts. Chap. 10— 14. HOSEA. 549 Ver. 8. The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed : the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills', Fall on us. Has a man by fraiul gained possession of another per- son's land, then 'the imprecation is uttered, " Tlmrns and thistles shall ever grow there I" " lie get riee from his land! Never! he will have thorns and thistles." "Yes, yes, the rice shall be as thorns in his bowels.'' — Roberts. Ver. 12. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; breakup your fallow ground : for il is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. It is said of a good king, " What a blessing is he to the land ; he is always raining pistice upon us." " You talk to tne about the mekit of remaining with such a master: be is always raining blessings upon him." A son alter the de- cease of his father, asks, " Where is now the rain of love 1 alas! 1 am withered and dry." The figure is also used sarcastically, " Yes, indeed you are a verv good friend, you are always raining favours upon me." — Roberts. CHAPTER. XI. Ver. 2. As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burnt incense to graven images. We read frequently of graven images, and of molten images, and the words are become so familiar, as names of idolatrous images, that although they are not well chosen to express the Hebrew names, it seems not advisable to change them for others, that might more exactly correspond with'the original. The graven image was' not a thing wrought in metal by the tool of the workman we should now call an engraver; nor was the molten image an image made of metal, or any other substance melted and shaped in a mould. In fact, the graven image and the molten image are the same thing, under different names. The images of the ancient idolaters were first cut out of wood by the car- penter, as is very evident from the prophet Isaiah. This figure of wood was overlaid with plates either of gold or silver, or sometimes perhaps of an inferior metal; and in this finished state it was called a graven image, (i. e. a carved image,) in reference to the inner solid figure of wood, and a molten (i. c. an overlaid, or covered) image, in reference to the outer metalline case or covering. Some- times both epithets are applied to it at once. " I will cut off the graven and molten image." (Nahum i. 14.) Again, 1 What profite'h the graven and molten image'!" (Hab. ii. 18.) The English word molten conveys a notion of melt- ing, or fusion. But this is not the case with the Hebrew word for which it is given. The Hebrew signifies, gen- erally, to overspread, or cover all over, in whatever man- ner, according to the different subject, the overspreading or covering be" effected; whether by pouring forth a sub- stance in fusion, or by spreading a cloth over or before, or by hammering on metalline plates. It is on account of this metalline case, that we find a founder employed to make a graven image, (Judges xvii. 3 :) and that we read in Isaiah si. 19. of a workman thai mclleth a graven image; and in another place (chap, xliv.) we find the question, " Who hath molten a graven image V In these two pas- sages the words should be orcrlayclh, and overlaid. — Hors- let Ver. 4. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love ; and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. Here we have another figure to show the affection of Jehovah for backsliding Israel. An affectionate wife says of a good husband, " He has bound me with the cords of love." " Ah ! woman, have you not drawn me with the cords of love \" " True, true, I was once drawn by the cordi of love, but they are now all broken." — Roberts. It is very probable that these words refer to the custom of raising the yoke forward to cool the neck of the labour- ing beast. — Buiideb. - Ver. 11. They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the bind of As- syria: and I will place them in their houses, saith the Lord. See on Is. GO. 8. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 1. Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followed] after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation ; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt. Svria is a land in which olives abound, and particularly that' part of it which the people of Israel inhabited. This explains the reason why the Jews, when they wished to court the favour of their neighbours, the Egyptians, sent them a present of oil. The prophet thus upbraids his de- generate nation for the servility and folly of their conduct: "Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east « mil ; he d.u I v mcreaseth lies and desolation : antl they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt." The Israelites, in the decline of their nation- al glory, carried the produce of their olive-plantations into Egypt, 'as a tribute to their ancient oppressors, or as a pres- ent to conciliate their favour, and obtain their assistance, in the sanguinary wars which they were often compelled to wage with the neighbouring states. Oil is now presented in the East, to be*biirnt in honour 1 1 the dead, whom they reverence with a religious kind ot homage. Mr. Harnicr thinks it most natural to suppose, that the prophet Hosea refers to a similar practice, when he upbraids the Israelites with carrying oil into Egypt. They did not carry it thither in the way of lawful com- merce; for they carried it to Tyre without reproof, to bar- ter it for other goods. It was not sent as a present to the gypt ; for the Jewish people endeavoured to gain the friendship of foreign potentates with gold and silver. It was not exacted as a tribute ; for when the king ot Egypt dethroned Jehoahaz the king of Judah, snd imposed a fine upon the people, he did not appoint them to pay so much oil, but so much silver and gold.' But if they burnt oil in those early times in hfjnour of their idols, and their departed friends, and the Jews sent it into Egypt with that intention, it is no wonder the prophet so severely reproach- es them for their conduct. Oil is in modern times very often presented to the objects of religious veneration in Barbary and Egvpt. The Algerines, according to Pitts, when they are in the mouth of the straits, throw a bundle of wax ca'ndles, together with a pot of oil, overboard, a? a present to the marabot or saint who lies entombed there, on the Barbary shore, near the sea.— Paxton. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 5. I will be as the dew unto Israel : he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. The earth, while it supplies the various plants which grow upon it, is supplied for that purpose very much by the dew, which is full of oleaginous particles. " The dews seem to be the richest present the atmosphere gives to the earth ; having, when putrefied in a vessel, a black sedi- ment like mud at the bottom ; this seems to cause the dark- ish colour to the upper part of the ground ; and the sulphur which is found in the new may be the chief ingredient of the cement of the earth, sulphur being very glutinous, as nitre is dissolvent. Dew has both these." (Toll's Hus- bandrv.) A livelv comment this upon the promise in this passage, " I will be as the dew unto Israel."— Bcrder. A priest, or aged man, in blessing a newly married couple, often says, " Ah ! inav vour roots shoot forth like the arc- oipn.i.r," (Azrostis Limnris.') This beautiful grass puts forth NiMEnot s roots, and is highly valued for the feeding of cattle.— Roberts. HOSEA. Chap. 1 Ver. 5. I will be as the dew unto Israel : he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. 6. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as -the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. 7. They that dwell under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Le Bruyn concludes his description of Lebanon, with an account of the cedar-apples, or the fruit which these cele- brated trees produce. He cut one of them in two, and found that the smell within exactly resembled turpentine. They exuded a juice from small oval grains, with which a great many small cavities are filled, which also resembles turpentine, both in smell and in clamminess. These cedar- apples must be classed with the scented fruits of the orien- tal regions ; and have perhaps contributed greatly to the fragrance for which the sacred writers so frequently cele- brate the mountains of Lebanon.— Paxton. Not only both the great and small cedars of Lebanon have a fragrant smell, but Maundrell found the great rup- ture in that mountain, which " runs at least seven hours' travel directly up into it, and is on both sides exceedingly steep and high, clothed with fragrant greens from tcp to bottom, and everywhere refreshed with fountains, falling down from the rocks in pleasant cascades, the ingenious works of nature. These streams all uniting at the bottom, make a full and rapid torrent, whose agreeable murmuring is heard all over the place, and adds no small pleasure to it." — Burder. The approach to Lebanon is adorned with olive-planta- tions, vineyards, arid luxuriant fields; and its lower re- gions, besides the olive and the vine, are beautified with the myrtle, the styrax, and other odoriferous shrubs: and the perfume which exhales from these plants, is increased by the fragrance of the cedars which crown its summits, or garnish its declivities. The great rupture which runs a long way up into the mountain, and is on both sides exceed- ingly steep and high, is clothed from the top to the bottom with fragrant evergreens, and everywhere refreshed with streams, descending from the rocks in beautiful cascades, the work of divine wisdom and goodness. These cool and limpid streams uniting at the bottom, form a large and rapid torrent, whose agreeable murmur is heard over all the place, and adds greatly to the pleasure of that romantic scene. The fragrant odours wafted from the aromatic plants of this noble mountain, have not been overlooked by the sacred writers. The eulogium which Christ pronounces on the graces of the church, contains the following direct reference : " The smell of thy gar- ments is like the smell of Lebanon;" and the prophet Ho- sea, in his glowing description of the future prosperity of Israel, converts the assertion of Solomon into a promise: " His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon." The richness and flavour of the wines produced in its vineyards, have been celebrated by travellers in all ages. Rauwolf declares, that the wine which he drank at Cano- bin, a Greek monastery on mount Libanus, far surpassed any he had ever tasted. His testimony is corroborated by Le Bruyn, who pronounces the wines of Canobin better and more delicate than are to be found anvwhere else in the world. They are red, of a beautiful colour, and so oily, that they adhere to the glass; these are so excellent, that our traveller thought he never tasted any kind of drink delicious. The wines produced on other parts of the tain, although in much greater abundance, are not nearly so good. To the delicious wipes of Canobin, the prophet Hosea certainly refers in this promise: " They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine cf Lebanon." De la Roque, who also visited Canobin, entirely agrees with these travellers in their account of the superior qua- lity of its wines; and expresses his full conviction, that the reputation of the wines of Lebanon mentioned by the prophet, is well founded. Volney asserts, indeed, that he found the wines of Lebanon of a very inferior quality; this may be true, and yet the testimony of these respectable travellers perfectly correct. He might not be presented with the most exquisite wine of Canobin, which has de- servedly obtained so high a character; or the vintage of that year might be inferior. But whatever might be the reason, no doubt can be entertained concerning the accura- cy of other equally credible witnesses, who, from their own experience, and with one voice, attest the unrivalled excellence of the wine of Lebanun. These travellers ad- mit, that the neighbourhood of Canobin produces wines of inferior quality; but, when the wine of Lebanon is men- tioned by way of eminence, the best is undoubtedly meant. In striking allusion to the scenery and productions of that mountain, it is promised in the sixth verse : " His branch shall spead, and his beauty shall be as the olive- tree, and his smell (or his memorial, as the original term signifies) as Lebanon." His branches shall spread like the mighty arms of the cedar, every one of which is equal in size to a tree ; his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, which is generally admitted to be one of the most beautiful pro- ductions of nature; and his smell, his very memorial, shall be as the wine of Lebanon, which delights the taste, and the very recollection of which excites the commendation of those that have drank it, long after the banquet is over. The meaning of these glowing figures undoubtedly is, that the righteous man shall prosper by the distinguishing fa- vour of Heaven ; shall become excellent, and useful, and highly respected while he lives ; and after his death, hi; memory shall be blessed and embalmed in the afiectionat t recollection of the church, for the benefit of many who had not the opportunity of profiting by his example. — Paxtok. JOEL. CHAPTER I. Ver. G. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth vrt the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. 7. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. So valuable is the fig-tree in the land of Canaan, and so high is the estimation in which it is held, that to bark and kill i:, is reckoned among the severest judgments which God inflicted upon Ins offending people. The prophet alludes in these words to the destructive progress of the locust, which, with insatiablegreediness, devours the leaves and bark of every tree on which it lights, till not the small- est portion of rind is left, even on the slenderest twig, in convey the sap from the root, and leaves it white and with- ering ID the sun, for ever incapable of answering the hopes of the husbandman. Such were the people of Israel, de- livered by Jehovah, for their numerous and inveterate transgressions, into the hands of their cruel and implacable enemies. — P.»xto>t. The skin of a man is sometimes spoken of as the bark of a tree. Thus it is said of those who have been severely flogged, " Their backs are like the margossa-tree stripped of its bark:" which alludes to the custom of taking off the bark of that tree for medical purposes.— Roberts. Ver. 13. Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests; howl, ye ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God : for the meat-offering and the drink-offering is with- holden from the house of your God. See on Is. SO. 3. Ver. J 7. The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down ; for the corn is withered. Dr. Shaw informs us, that " in Barbary, after the grain is winnowed, they lodge it in mallamores or subterraneous magazines, two or three hundred of which are sometimes together, the smallest holding four hundred bushels." And Dr. Russel says, that "about Aleppo, in Syria, their grana- ries are even at this day subterraneous grottoes, the entry to which is by a smalfhole or opening like a well, often in the highway ; and as they are commonly left open when emptv, they make it not a little dangerous riding near the villages in' the night."— Burder. Ver. 19. O Lord, to thee will I cry : for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burnt all the trees of the field. There are doubtless different methods for felling timber, practised by various nations. In more rode and uncivilized times, and even still among people of that description, we may expect to find the most simple, and perhaps, as thev may appear to us, inconvenient contrivances adopted. Prior to the invention of sui'able implements, such means as would anv way effect this purpose would certainly be resorted to. 'We must not be surprised then to find that formerly, and in the present day, trees were felled by the operation of fire. Thus Niebuhr says, " we cannot help condemning the unskilful expedient which these high- lands s ciiiplcv fiu Idling trees: they mm lire to the root, and keep it burning till the tree fallsof itself." Mr. Bruce mentions whole forests, whose underwood and vegetation are thus consumed. Possibly ilns custom may be alluded to in Zcch. xii. 6: " I will make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch o( fire in a sheaf, and they shall devour all the people round about." Such fires may be kindled either from design ot accident. In such instances, as obtaining the limber is the object, these fires are purposely lighted, and would be so managed as to do as Utile damage as possible, though some injury must certainly result from this method of felling trees. Strange as it may seem, we learn from Turner's Embassy to Thibet, that there "the only method of felling timber in practice, I was informed, is by fire. In the trees marked out for this purpose, vegetation is d&stroyed by burning their trunks half through; being left in that slate to dry; in the ensuing year the fire is again applied, and they aTe burnt till they fall." An allusion to something ol this kind the prophet Joel certainly has in these words. Perhaps it may be rather to a general undesigned devasta- tion by fire, than to any contrivance for procuring the tim- ber.— Burder. CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. The appearance of them is as the appear- ance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. • 5. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. 6. Before their face the people shall be much pained ; all faces shall gather blackness. 7. They shall run like mighty men ; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, ami they shall not break their ranks. I never saw such an exhibition of the helplessness of man, as I have seen to-day. While we were sitting at dinner, a person came into the house, quite pale, and told us that the locusts were coming. Every face gathered darkness. I went to the door— I looked above, and all round, and saw nothing. " Look to the ground," was the reply, when 1 asked where they were. I looked to the ground, and there I saw a stream of young locusts without wings, covering the ground at the enirance of the village. The stream was about five hundred feet broad, and covering the ground, and moving at the rate of two miles an hour. In a few minutes they covered the garden wall, some inches deep, and the water was immediately let into the channel, into which it flows to water the garden. They swim with the greatest ease over standing water, but the stream carried ihem away, and after floating in it about a hundred paces, they were drowned. All hands were now at work to keep them from the gardens, and to keep them from crossing the streams. To examine the phenomenon more nearly, I walked about a mile and a half from the village, follow- ing the course of the stream. Here I found the stream extending a mile in breadth, and, like a thousand rivulets, all flowing into one common channel. It appeared as if the dust under my feet was forming into life, and as if God. when he has a controversy wilh a people, could raise the very dust of the earth on which they tread in arms againsl them, Men can conquer the tiger, the elephant, the lion. and all the wild beasts of the desert; he can turn the course of the mighty rivers, he can elude the violence of 'he ■/ i 552 JO pest, and chain ihe wind to his car; he can raise the waters into clouds, and by the means of steam, create a power that is yet beyond human measurement ; he can play with the lightnings of heaven, and arrest the thunders of heav- en ; but he is nothing before an army of locusts. Such a scene as I have seen this afternoon would fill England with more consternation than the terrific cholera. One of the people here informs us, that he had seen a stream that con- tinued ten days and nights flowing upon his place. During that time everv person in the place was at work, to pre- serve his garden; as to the cornfields, they were obliged to give them up. They continued to the fifth day defending their gardens; on the evening of the fifth day, the locusts were between five and ten feet deep, and the mass by this time became terrible, and literally fell in pieces over the garden walls.— Campbell. In some regions of the East, the whole earth is at times covered with locusts for the space of several leagues, often :o the depth of four, sometimes of six or seven inches. Their approach, which causes a noise like Ihe rushing of a torrent, darkens the horizon, and so enormous is their multitude, it hides Ihe light of the sun, and casts an awful g.ciom, like that of an eclipse, over the field. Major Moore, when at Poonah, had the opportunity of seeing an immense army of these animals which ravaged the Mahratta coun- try, and was supposed to have come from Arabia. " The column they composed," says he, " extended five hundred miles ; and so compact was" it when on the wing, that like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object;" and some lofty tombs distant from his residence not two hundred yards, were rendered quite invisible. The noise they make in browsing on the trees and herbage may be heard at a great distance, and re- sembles the rattling of hail, or the noise of an army fora- ging in secret. The inhabitants of Syria have observed that locusts are always bred by too mild winters, and that they constantly come from the deserts of Arabia. When they breed, which is in the month of October, they make a hole in the ground with their tails, and having laid three hundred eggs in it, and covered them with their feet, expire; for they never live above six months and a half. Neither rains nor frost, however long and severe, can de- stroy their eggs; they continue till spring, and, hatched by the heat of the sun, the young locusts issue from the earth about the middle of April. From the circumstance of their young ones issuing from ihe ground, they are called 2«, gobox gobai, from an Arabic verb, which signifies to rise out of the earth. Another name is on gazam, from the root gazaz, to cut off, or to spoil ; and more destructive and insatiable spoilers were never let loose to desolate the earth. Plinv calls them a scourge in the hand of an incensed Deity. Wherever their innumerable bands direct their march, the verdure of the country, though it resembled before the paradise of God, a! most instantaneously disappears. The trees and plants, stripped of their leaves, and reduced to their naked boughs and stems, cause the dreary image of winter to succeed In an instant to the rich scenery of spring; and the whole country puts on the appearance of being burnt. Fire itself devours not so fast ; nor is a vestige of vegetation to be found when they again take their flight to produce similar disasters. In a few hours thev eat up every green thing, and consign the miserable inhabitants of' the desolated regions to inevitable famine. Many years are not suffi- •ient to repair the desolation which these destructive insects produce. When they first appear on Ihe frontiers of the cultivated lands, the husbandmen, if sufficiently numerous, sometimes divert the storm by their gestures and their cries, ..r they strive to repulse them by raising large clouds of smoke, but frequently their herbs and wet straw fail them; they then dig a variety of pits and trenches, all over their lipids and gardens, which they fill with water, or with heath, stubble, and other combustible matter, which they .-ft on fire upon the approach of the enemy. These meth- ods of stopping their march are of great antiquity, for flomer familiarly refers to them as practised in his time. But they are all to no purpose, for the trenches are quickly filled, and the fires extinguished, by infinite swarms suc- -eeding one another; and forming a bed on their fields of six or seven inches in thickness. Fire itself is not more active than these devourers : and not a trace of vegetation is to be discovered, when Ihe cloud has resumed is flight. IL. Chap. 2. But the two most powerful destroyers of these insects, is the south, or southeasterly winds, and the bird called the sa- marmar. These birds, which greatly resemble the wood- pecker, follow them in large flocks, greedily devour them, and besides, kill as many as they can ; they are, therefore, much respected by the peasants, and no person is ever allowed to destroy them. The southerly winds waft them over the Mediterranean, where they perish in so great quantities, that when Iheir carcasses "are cast on the shore, they infect the air for several days lo a considerable dis- tance. In a state of putrefaction, the stench emitted from their bodies is scarcely to be endured; the traveller, who crushes them below the wheels of his w-agon, or the feet of his horses, is reduced to the necessity of washing his nose with vinegar, and holding his handkerchief, dipped in it, continually to his nostrils. One of the most grievous calamities ever inflicted bv the locust, happened to the regions of Africa, in the time of the Romans, and fell with peculiar weight on those parts which were subject to their empire. Scarcely recovered from the miseries of the last Punic war, Africa was doomed to suffer, about one hundred and twenty-three years before the birth of Christ, another desolation, as terrible as it was unprece- dented. An immense number of locusts covered Ihe whole country, consumed every plant and every blade of grass in the field, without sparing the roots, and the leaves of the I ices, wiihthe tendrils upon which they grew. These being exhausted, they penetrated with their' teeth the bark, how- ever bitter, and even corroded the dry and solid timber. After they had accomplished this terrible destruction, a sudden blast of wind dispersed them into different portions, and after tossing them awhile ia the air, plunged their in- numerable hosts into the sea. But the deadly scourge was not then at an end; the raging billows Ihrew up enormous heaps of iheir dead and corrupted bodies upon that long- extended coast, which produced a most insupportable and poisonous stench. This soon brought on a pestilence, which affected every species of animals; so that birds, and sheep, and cattle, and even the wild beasts of ihe field, perished in great numbers ; and their carcasses, being soon rendered putrid by the foulness of the air, added greatly to the general corruption. The destruction of the human species was horrible; in Numidia, where at that time Micipsa was king, eighty thousand persons died ; and in that part of the seacoast which bordered upon the reigon of Carthage and Utica, two hundred thousand are said lo have been carried off by this pestilence. When Le Bruyn was at Rama he was informed that the locusts were once so destructive there, that in the space of two hours they ate up all the her- bage round the town ; and in the garden belonging to the house in which he lodged, they ale the very stalks of the artichoke down to the ground. This statement will show, that the locust is one of the most terrible instruments in the hand of incensed Heaven; it will discover the reason that the inspired writers, in de- nouncing his judgments, so frequently allude to this insect, and threaten the sinner with its vengeance ; it accounts, in the most satisfactory manner, for the figures which the pro- phets borrow, when they describe the march of cruel and deslructive armies, from ihe chnracter and habits of this creature. The narratives of Volney, Thevenot, and other travellers, who have seen and described the innumerable swarms of the locusts, and their wasteful ravages, fully confirm the glowing description of Joel and other inspired prophets, quoted in the beginning of this article. "A na- tion," says Joel, " has come up upon my land, strong and without number. He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree ; he has made it clean bare, and cast it away ; ihe branches thereof are made white — the vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languishes, the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered; because joy is withered away from the sons of men." " A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day ot clouds and thick darkness. A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneih. They march every one in his ways; they do not break their ranks, neither does one thrust another. 'The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind Ihema desolate wilderness." "They shall run up the wall ; they shall climb up upon the houses ; they shall enter into the windows like a thief. The eartfc shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble, the sun and ihe moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall m .. , PETRA— TRIUMPHAL ARCH.-Joel 3:19. Page 454. Chap. 3. JOEL. withdraw their shining." The same allusion is involved in these words ol Nahum, concerning Ike Tall of the As- syrian empire: " Thy crowned are aa ilie locusts; and ihy Captains as ihe great grasshoppers, winch camp in the hedges in the cold day, out when the sun ariseth, they flee away, and their place isnbl known." Bochart and other v. I1-, H ho ai .■ In' i acipi int J v. ii|i iln- ca n n . niiili n , mention a great variety of locusts, which vindicates the language of the prophet : " Thy captains are as the great grasshoppers." The next clause is attended with some dif- ficulty. Mr. Lowlh, in his coimncnl, supposes that these away U) avoid the beat ol the sun ; and it has been queried, whether the phrase cold day, docs not mean the night. Bnt it is well known thai the heat ol the sun, instead ol' compelling the locusts to retire, quickens them into life and activity ; and the words cold dig, we believe, are net er used in scripture, nor by any writer of value, to signify the night. The prophet evidently refe their Might during Ihe heat ol' the day, but to the time of their total departure; for he does not speak of their moving from one held to another, but of their leaving the country which they have invaded, so completely that the place of their retreat is not known. The day of cold cannot mean the depth of winter, for tbey do not make their appearance in Palestine at thai sea- son ; and although in Arabia, from whence Fulcherins supposes they come, thickets are found in some places, and it has been imagined that the locusts lie concealed in them during the winter, which may be thought to be their camp- ing in the hedges in the cold day; yet it is to be that the word translated hedges,' properly signifies, no! living fences, bnt stone walls, and therefore cannot with propriety be applied to thickets. But if the locust appears in the month's of April and May, the phrase " cold day" may seem to be improperly chosen. This difficulty, which may be thought a considerable one, arises entirely from nur translation. The original term, (mp) karah, denotes both cold and cooling; and the difficulty vanishes when the latter is introduced, and the words are translated, the day of cooling, or the lime when the Orientals open their windows with the view of refrigerating their houses, or to retreat from the oppressive heats which commence in the months of April and May, to the cooling shades of their gardens. A derivative of this term is employed by the sacred historian, to denote the refrigeratory or summer parlour, which Eglon, the king of Moab, occupied, when Ehud presented the tribute of his nation. — Paxton. Ver. 6. Before their face the people shall be much pained ; all faces shall gather blackness. The margin has, for "blackness," "pot." The Tamul translation has," All faces shall wither, or shrivel." Thusof a man in greal poverty it is said, " His face is shrivelled." It is very provoking to tell a person his face is like the kare-ciutte, t. s. the earthen vessel in which the rice is boiled. The " pot" may allude to such a utensil, in being made black with the smoke. — Roberts. We have an expression, Joel ii. 6, " Before their ap- proach [of the locusts] the people shall be much pained ; all faces shall gather blackness," which is also adopted by the prophet Nahum, ii. 10: " the heart melteth,lhe knees smile together, much pain is in all loins, and ihe faces of them all gather blackness." This phrase, which sounds uncouth to an English ear, is elucidated by the following history from Ockley's History of the Saracens, (vol. ii. p. 319,) which we the rather introduce, as Mr. Harmer has referred this black- vess to the effect of hunger and thirst ; and Calmet. in his Dictionary, under the article obsclre, has referred it to a bedaubing of the face with loot, &e. a proceeding not very consis enl with the hurry of flight, or the terror of distress. " Kumeil, the son of Ziyad, was a man of fine wit. One day ETejage made him come before him, and reproached him, because in such a garden, and before such and such persons, whom he named to him. he had made a great many impreca- , inns against him. saying, the Lord blacken his fare, that is, fill him trilh simpt aid confusion ; and wished that his neck was cut off, and his blood shed." The reader will observe how perfectly this explanation agrees with the sense of the passages quoted above : to gather blackness, then, is equiv- alent to suffering extreme confusion, and being over- whelmed with shame, or with terror and dismay. 70 In justice to Kumeil, we ought not to omit the read] farj of v, it H huh saved his life. " It is true," said he, " 1 did say such words in such a garden ; but then I w. vine-arbour, and was looking on a bunch of grapes that was not yet ripe: and 1 wished it might be turned black soon, that they might be cut off', and be made wine of." v> ■ in ilns instance, as says the sagacious inmate.' that " w ith the w -ell-advised is wisdom :" and " the tongue of the wise is health ;" that is, preservation and safety.— Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 8. Neither shall one thrust another, they shall walk everyone in his path : and when they fall upon 'the sword, tlffy shall not be wounded. Dr. Shaw, speaking of locusts, says, " Those which I saw were much bigger than our grasshoppers : no sooner were any of them hatched, than they collected themselves into a body of about two hundred yards square, which inarching forward, climbed over trees and houses, and ate up every thing in their way. The inhabitants made large fires on the approach of them, but to no purpose; for the fires were quickly put out by infinite swarms succeeding one another; while the front seemed regardless of danger ; and the rear pressed on so close, that retreat was impossi- ble."— Blrder. Ver. 23. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and re- joice in the Lord your God : for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. See on Prov. 1G. 15. Ver. 23. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the hitter rain in the first% month. 24. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. In southern climates, rain comes at particular seasons, which are generaHv termed the rainy seasons. The rain seldom continues to fall long at one 'time even then, but rather falls in what maybe called thunder-showers, and in torrents. If the ground happens to be hard, which it gene- rally is, such a short, though plentiful tail of rain, does little service to the land, as it .runs off' immediately, not having time to soften and sink into Hie ground; afterward the powerful heat of the sun, soon breaking forth from behind the clouds, draws up the little damp that has been left, which soon rehardens the surface of the ground, anil ren- ders it as impervious as before, so that succeeding showers are rendered almost useless; but rain falling moderately, as promised in the text, gradually penetrates ihe ground, and prepares it to retain future showers, which process produces fertility.— Campbell. CHAPTER III. Ver. 1. For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity ol Judah and Jerusalem, 2. 1 will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the val- ley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people, and for my heritage Is- rael, whom they have scattered among the na- tions, and parted my land. Those spiritualizing Jews. Christians, and Mohamme- dans, who wrest 'his passage, like a thousand others of the scriptures, from a literal to a mystical sense, insist on its applving to the resurrection of the dead on the last greal day. From this belief the modern Jews, whose fathers are. thought, by some of the most learned, to have had no idea of a resurrection, or a future state, have their bones depos- 554 JO iled in the valley of Jehoshaphat. From the same hope the Mohammedans have left a stone jutting out of the eastern . wall of Jerusalem, for the accommodation of their prophet, who, they insist, is to sit on it here, and call the whole world from below to judgment. And a late traveller, with the start" of a Christian pilgrim, after summoning up all the images of desolation which the place presents, but without once thinking of the contemptible size of this theatre for so grand a display, says, one might say that the trumpet of judgment had already sounded, and that the dead were about to rise in the valley of Jehoshaphat. (Chateaubriand.) — Buckingham. Ver. 3. And <^iey have cast lots for my people : and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Morgan, in his history of Algiers, gives us such an ac- count of the unfortunate expedition of the emperor Charles the Fifth against that city, so far resembling a passage of the prophet Joel, as to induce me to transcribe it into these were butchered by the Moors and the Arabs, a great num- ber were made captives, mostly by the Turks and citizens of Algiers; and some of them, in order to turn this misfor- tune into a most bitter, taunting, and contemptuous jest, part- ed with their new-made slaves for an onion apiece. " Often have I heard,-' says he, " Turks and Africans upbraiding Europeans with this di-a^ter, saving, scornfully, to such as have seemed to hold their heads somewhat loftily, 'What! have you forgot the time when a Christian at Algiers was scarce worth an onion V The treatment of the Jewish people by the heathen nations, which the pro- phet Joel has described, was, in like manner, contemptuous and bitterly sarcastic : " They have cast lots for mv people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink." Joel iii. 3. They that know the large sums that are wont to be paid, in the East, for young slaves of cither sex, must be sensible that the prophet designs, in these words, to point out the extreme contempt in which these heathen nations held the Jewish people. Considered as slaves are in the East, they are sometimes purchased at a very low price. Joel complains of the con- temptuous cheapness in which the Israelites were held by those who made them captives. " Thev cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink." On tnis passage Char- din remarks, that,'" the Tartars, Turks, and Cossacks, sell the children sometimes as cheap, which they take. Not only has this been done in Asia, where examples of it are frequent ; our Europe has seen such desolations. When the Tartars came into Poland they carried off all they were able. I went thither some years after. Many persons of the court assured me that the Tartars, perceiving that they would no more redeem those that thev had carried off, sold them for a crown, and that thev had purchased them for that sum. In Mingrelia they sell them for provisions, and for wine."— Harmer. Ver. 10. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. The Syrian plough, which was probably used in all the regions around, is a very simple frame, and commonly so light, that a man of moderate strength might carry it in one hand. Volney states that in Svria it is often nothing else than the branch of a tree, cut below a bifurcation, and used without wheels. It is drawn by asses and cows, sel- dom by oxen. And Dr. Russel informs us, the ploughing of Syria is performed often by a little cow, at most' with two, and sometimes only by an ass. In Persia it is for the :L. Chap. 3. most part drawn by one ox only, and not unfrequently even by an ass, although it is more ponderous than in Palestine. With such an imperfect instrument the Syrian husband- man can do little more than scratch the surface of his field, or clear away the stones or weeds that encumber it, and prevent the seed from reaching the soil. The ploughshare is a " piece of iron, broad, but not large, which tips the end of the shaft." So much does it resemble the short sword used by the ancient warriors, that it may, with very little trouble, be converted into that deadly weapon; and when the work of destruction is over, reduced again to its former shape, and applied to the purpose of agriculture. In allu- sion to the first operation, the prophet Joel summons the nations to leave their peaceful employments in the cultiva- ted field, and buckle on their armour: " Beat your plough- shares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears." This beautiful image the prophet Isaiah has reversed, and applied to the establishment of that profound and lasting peace which is to bless the church of Christ in the latter days: " And they shall beat theirswords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." — Paxton. An hour 'and a half beyond the bridge we gained the road from Jaffa to Ramleli. The country had now become generally cultivated, the husbandry good, the crops and fallows clean. Upon a space of ten or twelve acres I ob- served fourteen ploughs at work; and so simple and light is the construction of these implements, that the husband- man, when returning from his labour in the evening, takes his plough home upon his shoulder, and carries it to the field again in the morning. The share is of wood, and armed only at the end with a tooth, or point of iron. The beam is very slender, as well as the rude handle by which it is directed. — Munroe's Summer Ramble in Svria. Ver. 19. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. Of the striking scene delineated in the engravings the enterprising traveller, who has contributed it, must speak for himself: " Our conductor preceded us, calling our at- tention to some large slabs, traces of an ancient pavement, by which the labour of man had converted this abrupt and wild ravine into a magnificent avenue. After many wind- ings in the midst of this almost subterranean street, (so near do the summits of the rocks above approach each other,) we were arrested by a prospect which it were vain to at- tempt to describe. Our view is taken from the entry of the ravine. Two Arabs, with their camels, are seen in the foreground, advancing towards the city of Selah or Petra, the magnificent ruins of which, seen in the distance, fully exemplify the prophetic denunciation — 'Edom shall be a desolation.' (Joel iii. 19.) A grand triumphal arch raised at this spot, such as the ancients were accustomed to con- struct at the approaches of cities, boldly connects together these two great walls of rocks. The impression produced by it is very imposing, at the moment the traveller enters this kind of covered way." The novel disposition of this triumphal arch led M. de Laborde at first to think that it might have served both ns a passage from one side of the rocks to another, and also as a channel for conveying part of the waters of an aque- duct, which was carried along the ravine. He ascended by a s'eep opening encumbered with rocks ; but after reach- ing the summit with difficulty, he found nothing which could authorize the supposition that this arch was destined for any other use than that of adorning the approaches to the capital of Arabia Petrsea.— Horne. [See Jer. 40. 15 — 17. Mai. 1. 4, and the engravings there. See also the Comprehensive Commentary, and some addi- tional views of this ci[y, ii that work.} AMOS. CHAPTER I. Ver. 2. And he said, The Lord will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem ; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither. See on ch. 9. 2, 3. Ver. 5. I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of the Aven, and him that hpldeth the sceptre from house of Eden : and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the Lord. Rather more than a century a°o, Mr. Maundrell visiied the mountains of Lebanon. Having proceeded about half an hour through the olive-yards of Sidon, he and his parly came to the foot of Mount Libanus. Thev had an easy as- cent for two hours, after which it grew more steep and dif- tieull ; in about an hour and a half more, thev came to a fountain of water, where they encamped for the m-hi Next day, after ascending for three hours, thev reached the highest ridge of the mountain, where the snow lay bv ihe side of the road. They began immediately to descend on the other side, and in two hours came to a small village, where a fine brook, gushing at once from the side of the mountain, rushes down into the valley below, and after flowing about two leagues, loses itself in the river Letane. The valley is called Bocat, and stems to be the same wilh '.he Bicah-Aven o! the prophet: " I will break also the bar ol Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain (rather the vale) of Aven, and him thai holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden." The neighbourhood of Damas- cus, and particularly a place near it, which, in the time of Maundrell, still bore the name of Eden, render his conjec- ture extremely probable. It might also have the name of Aven, which signifies vanity, from the idolatrous worship ol Baal practised at Balbec or Heliopolis, which is situated in this valley.— Paxton. Ver. 13. Thus saith the Lord, For three trans- gressions of the children of Amnion, and for four, I will not turn away the •punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child, of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border. Margin, for " ripped," " divided the mountains." It was common in the ancient wars thus to treat women, but in general the Orientals are very kind to their wives in ihe state alluded to. Nay, even to animals in that condition, they are very tender : a man to beat his cow when wilh calf, would be called a great sinner; and to kill a goat or a sheep when with young, is altogether out of the question. The Hindoo hunters will not destroy wild animals when in that state. The term in the margin is applied to that condition. "In the tenth moon the child fell from the " —Roberts. CHAPTER II. Ver. 1. Thus saith the Lord, For three trans- gressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof: because he burnt the bones of the king of Edom into lime. " To plaster the walls of his house with it," as the Chal- dee paraphrase explains the ext, which was a cruel insult- ing of ihe dead. A piece of barbarity resembling this it told by Sir Paul Rycaut, that the wall of the city of Phila- delphia was made of the bones of the besieged, by the prince who took it by storm. — Burder. Ver. 6. Thus saith the Lord, for three transgres- sions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. The shoes, or rather sandals, have the least honour ol any thing which is worn by man, because they belong to the feet, and are comparatively of little value. Nothing is more disgraceful than to be beaten -with the sandals: thus when one man intends to exasperate another, he begins lo take off a sandal, as if going to strike him. To spit in the face is not a greater indignity than this. When a person wishes to insult another in relerence to Ihe price of any ar- ticle, he says, " I will give you my sandals for it." " That fellow is not worth the value of my sandals." " Who are you, sir ■? you are not worthy to carry my sandals;" which alludes to the custom of a rich man always having a ser- vant wilh him to carry his sandals ; i. e. when he chooses to w'alk barefoot. "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe:" so contemptible and so easy was it to be conquered.— Rob- erts. Ver. 7. That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way ol the meek; and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name. Who were those that thus oppressed the poor, who sold them for a pair of shoes, and panted " afler the dust of the earth 1" They were the judges and the princes of the peo- ple. The Tamul translation has it, " To the injury of the poor they eagerly took the dust of the earth ;" literally, they gnawed the e'arth as a dog does a bone. " Dust of the earth." What does this mean 1 I believe it alludes to the lands of the poor, of which they had been deprived by the judges and princes. Nothing is more common in eastern language than for a man to call his fields and gardens his man; i.e. his dust, his earth. "That man has gnawed away my dust or sand." " Ah ! the fellow ! by degrees he has taken away all that poor man's earth." '" The cruel wretch! he is ever trying to take away the dust of the poor." In consequence of there not being fences in the East, landowners often encroach on each other's posses- sions. On the latter part of the verse and the next to it, I dare not write. The heathenism, the devilism, described by Amos, is still the same. Who did these tilings 1 the princes, the judges, and the people of Jvdah. — Roberts. Ver. 8. And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god. It was found advantageous, both for ease and health, to have a carpet or some soft and thick cloth spread on the ground for those to sit upon who dwelt in lenis: subse- quently, ihose who lived in houses used them loo. When they held their idolatrous feasts in the temples dedicated lo the gods, they sat upon the ground, but not on the bare earth, or the marble pavement of ihose temples, but upon something soft and dry spread under ihem, brought for the purpose. The clothes mentioned by the prophet mav mean the coverings of the body for the night, as well as "■"•: l>.c 556 AMOS. day. " When it was aajli, mree coverlets, richly embroi- dered, were taken from a press in the room which we occu- pied, and delivered, one to each of us ; the carpet or sofa, and a cushion, serving, with lhi< addition, instead of a bed." ^Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor.) Such carpets or em- broidered coverlets would neither be an improper pledge for money, (Exod. xxii. 2G, 27,) nor disgrace the pomp of a heathen temple. It may not be amiss to consider why :he circumstance of clothes being taken to pledge, is men- tioned here. Attending an idolatrous feast must have been undoubtedly wrong in? these Israelites: but of what consequence was it to remark, that some of them seated themselves on carpets that had been put into their hands by way of pledge 1. It may be answered, that it might be galling to those that had been obliged to pledge these valu- able pieces of furniture secretly, to have them thus public- ly exposed ; that it may insinuate that these idolatrous zealots detained them, when they ought to have been re- stored, (Ezek. xviii. 7, 1'2, 16. xxx. 15 ;) and that they sub- jected them to be injured, in the tumult of an exlravagant and riotous banquet in a heathen temple ; to which may be added, that they might belong to some of their country- men who abhorred those idols, and might consider them as dishonoured, and even dreadfully polluted, by being so em- ployed. With respect to the last of these circumstances but one, (the being injured in extravagant and riotous banqueting,) I would remark, that they are accustomed, in their common repasts, to take great care that their carpels are not soiled, by spreading something over them ; but in public solemni- ties they affect great carelessness about them, as a mark of their respect and profound regard. (Russel.) Thus De la Valle, describing the reception the Armenians of Ispahan gave the king of Persia, in one of their best houses, when he had a mind to attend at the celebration of their Epipha- ny, says, after the ceremonies were over, he was conducted to the house of Chogi'a Sefer, a little before deceased, where his three sons and his brother had prepared every thing for his reception: " All the floor of the house, and all the walks of the garden, from the gate next the street to the most re- mote apartments, were covered with carpets of brocatel, of cloth of gold, and other precious manufactures, which were for the most part spoiled, by being trampled upon by the feet of those that had been abroad in the rain, and their shoes very dirty: their custom being, not to put them off at the entering into a house, but only at the door of the apart- ments, and the places where they would sit down."— Bur- DEK. ' CHAPTER III. Ver. 2. You only have I known of all the fami- lies of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. In eastern language, to say you know a person, means you approve of him. Thus, should a man be well acquaint- ed with two brothers, and should he not approve of one of them, he will say, " I do not know him." But of him he loves, he says, "Ah! I know him well." Jehovah had known, i. e. approved of Israel, but because of their abomi- nations he had determined to punish them. — Roberts. Ver. 12. Thus saith the Lord, As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear ; so shall the children of Is- rael be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch. Two kinds of goats wander in the pastures of Syria and Canaan ; one that differs little from the common sort in Britain ; the other remarkable for the largeness of its ears. The size of this variety is somewhat larger than ours; but their ears are often a foot long, and broad in proportion. The Syrians keep them chiefly for their milk, of which they /ield a considerable quantity. The present race of goats in the vicinity of Jerusalem, are of this broad-eared species. To this kind of goat, so different from the common 'reed, it is probable the prophet refers : " As the shepherd laketh out of the mouth of the Hon two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be taken out, that dwell in Samaria and in Damascus." It is indeed the in- tention of the prophet to express how few of his people escaped from the overthrow of their country, and were set- tled in foreign parts ; but it would have been hardly natural to suppose, that a shepherd would exert himself to make a lion quit a piece of an ear, only of a common goat ; it must therefore be supposed to reler to the long-eared kind. Rauwolf observed goals on the mountainsaround Jerusalem, with pendent ears almost two feet long. — Paxton. Silting in the corner is a stately attitude, and is expressive of superiority. Russel says, "the divans at Aleppo are formed in the following manner. Across the upper end, and along the sides of the room, is fixed a wooden platform, four feet broad and six inches high ; upon this are laid cot- ton mattresses exactly of the same breadth, and over these a cover of broadcloth, trimmed with gold lace and fringes, hanging over to the ground. A number of large oblong cushions stuffed hard with cotton, and faced with flowered velvet, are then ranged in the platform close to the wall. The two upper corners of the divan are furnished also with softer cushions, half the size of the others, which are laid upon a square fine mattress, spread over those of cloth, both being faced with brocade. The corners in this manner distinguished are held to be the places of honour, and a great man never offers to resign them to persons of inferior rank." Mr. Antes, among other observations made on the manners and customs of the Egyptians, from 1770 to 1782, says, on his being carried before one of the beys of Egypt, in'about half an hour the bey arrived, with all his men, and lighted flambeaux before him; he alighted, and went up stairs into a room, sat dovn in a corner, and all his people placed themselves in a circle round him.— Harmer. An attendant came forward to usher us into the august presenceof the ruler of Egypt. We proceeded intoa large room, lighted by numerous windows, on every side except that by which we entered. The pacha was standing up, but when he perceived us approach, he hastily took his ac- customed seat in the comer with great alertness. Round three sides of the room was a broad scarlet divan, supplied with cushions of gold brocade resting against, the walls. The cornerswere distinguished asphces of honour by a square of crimson and gold silk, with a cushion of the same colour and materials at the back of each. — Hogg's Visit to Da- mascus. Ver. 15. And I will smite the winter-house with the summer-house ; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the grm.t houses shall have an end, saith the Lord. In the writings of Jeremiah and Amos, a di; made between winter and summer-houses. Russel thinks they may refer to different apartments in the same house; but if the* customs of Barbary resemble those of Palestine in this respect, it is better to understand them of different houses. The hills and valleys round about Algiers, accord- ing to Dr. Shaw, are all over beautified with gardens and country-seats, whither the inhabitants of better fashion retire during the heat of the summer season. They are little white houses, shaded with a variety of fruitful trees and evergreens, which, besides the shade and retirement, afford a gay and delightful prospect towards the sea. The gardens are all of them well slocked with melons, fruit, and pot herbs of all kinds ; and (what is chiefly regarded in these hot climates) each of them enjoys a great command of water. In Persia most of the summer-houses are slightly constructed and divided into three pavilions at a considera- ble distance from each other, with canals, fountains, and flower gardens in the intermediate spaces: while the winter- houses, or palaces in cities, are built of strong masonry, and ornamented at great expense ; and palaces, villas, and mosques, are often named after their principal embellish ments. Thus at Barocke and Ahmedabad are the ivory and silver mosques. This account furnishes an easy exposition of a passage in the prophecies of Amos : " I will smite the winter-house," the palaces of the great in fortified towns, " with the summer-house," the small houses of pleasure, used in the summer, to which any foe can have access; "and the houses of ivory shall perish ; and the great houses shall have an end. saiih the Lord," those that are distin- guished by their amplitude and richness, built as they are in their strongest places, yet all of them shall perish like Chap. 4—/. ' A ,\ iheir country-seats, by ihe irresistible stroke of almighty power.— Pa xton. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 2. The Lord God hath sworn by his holi- ness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fish-hooks. I am at a loss to know why there is a distinction betwixt " hooks" and "fish-hooks." I think it fanciful to explain it by saying it means "two modes of fishing." The Taimil translation has, instead of "hooks," kuradu, i. e. pincers, and it ought to be known that these were formerly much used in punishments. In the Hindoo hells this instrument IS spoken of as being used to torture the inhabitants. A man in his rage says, '' I will tear thee with pincers." " Alas! alas! I have been dragged away with pincers." "Ah! the severity of these troubles — they are like pincers." But it is said that hooks also were formerly used to stick into criminals when taken lo the place of execution ; and there is nothing very doubtful about this, because devotees often have large BOOKS fastened into their flesh, by which they are hoisted up on a long pole. "Your posterity with fish- hooks:" this figure is used in the East to show how people draw each other to any given place. Thus, does a man wish to have a large party at some feast or ceremony he is going to make, he persuades a man to say he will honour him with his company ; and then he says to others, you are mviied to meet such an illustrious guest, which causes numbers to come to the occasion. The man of rank in that case is called the fish-hook; because, through him, the guests are caught.— Robkrts. Ver. 9. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens, and your vine- yards, and your fig-trees, and your olive-trees increased, the palmer-worm devoured them : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. Abp. Newcome says, that this means the unwholesome ellltivia on the subsiding of the Nile, which causes some peculiarly malignant diseases in this country. Maillet says, that " the air is bad in those parts, where, when the inunda- tions of the Nile havebeen very great, this river, in retiring to its channel, leaves marshy places, which infect the coun- try round about. The dew is also very dangerous in Egypt." — Burder. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 4. That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and cat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall. Amos reckons fat lambs among the delicacies of the Is- raelites; and it seems the^e creatures are in the East ex- tremely delicious. Sir John Chardin, in his manuscript note to Amos vi. 4, expresses himself in verv strong terms on the deliciousnessof the«e animals in the East, lie tells us, that there, in many places, lambs are spoken of as a sort of food excessively delicious. That one must have eaten of them in several places of Persia, Media, and Mesopota- mia, and of their kids, to form a conception of the moisture, taste, delicacy, and fat of this animal ; and as the eastern people are no friends of game, nor offish, nor fowls, their most delicious food is the lamb and the kid. This observa- tion illustrates those passages that speak of kills as used bv them for delicious repasts, and presents; as well as tho^e others that speak of the feasting on lambs. It also gives great energy to our apprehensions of what is meant, when the Psalmist talks of marroir and fatness. — Harmf.r. Ivory is so plentiful in the East,' it is no wonder that the sovereigns had their beds made principally of that article. But why is there a distinction made in reference to beus and couches'! I believe the latter word refers to the swinging cot, as the Tamul translation also implies. In the houses of the voluptuous these cots are always found, and many are the stories in ancient books of kings and queen's who were swinging together in their cots. When a man aiiiT v grtal delicacy as to the place where he *iee,..s, it is common to say, " You had belter have a swinging col." — Roberts. Ver. 9. And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. 10. And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring- out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, 7s there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue ; for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord. These verses and the context refer to the mortality which should result from the pestilence and famine, (in conse- (lii. Mire of the sins of the people;) and lo the burning of the bodies. The number "ten" probably refers to many, as that is a common expression in the East to denote many. I believe the whole alludes to the custom of burning hu- man bodies, and to that of gathering up the half-calcined hones, and to the putting lliein into an earthen vessel, and then to the carrying back these fragments to the house or into some ouT-Bni.niNn, where they are kept till conveyed to a sacred place. In India this is done by a son or a neai relation; but in ease there is nol one near akin, then an;- person who is going to the place (as to the Gauge-,) car take the fragments of bones, and thus perform the last rites. Dr. Boothroyd takes ihe same view as to the place where the bones have to be kept till they are removed, because ha translates, " a side-room of the house." " Hold thy tongue," finds a forcible illustration in chap. viii. 3, where it is mentioned that there were "dead in every place;" and where it is said, they were lo " cast them forthwith si- lence." "When the cholera or any other pestilence has carried otf many of the people, the relations cease lo weep or speak ; they ask, " What is the use of wailing 1" it is over, " hold thy tongue."— Roberts. Ver. 11. For, behold, '.he Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts. See on Ezek. 13. 11. Chardin, speaking concerning the rains, says, " they aie the rains which cause Ihe walls to fall, which are built of clay, the mortar-plastering dissolving. This plastering hinders Ihe water form penetrating the bricks ; but when the plastering has been soaked with wet, the wind cracks it, and occasions the rain in some succeeding showers le get between and dissolve every thing.'' This account illus- trates the words of the prophet in a very happy manner, as the houses were mostly built of these fragile'malerials.— Har.mer. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 1. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me; and, behold, he Lrmed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ; and, lo. it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. See on Prov. 27. 25. As they seldom make any hay in the East, the wot! ren- dered " mowing." should rather have been. " feedings." There is reason to conjecture, from the following passage of La Roone, that the lime of the king's feedings was the month of March, or thereabouts: "The Arabs," he tells us, from the papers of D'Arvieux, "turn their horses OKI to grass in the month of March, when the grass is pretty well grown; they then take care lo have their mares cov ered, and Ihev eat grass at no other lime in the whole year. anv more than hay: they never give them any straw but to heat Ihem, when thev have been some lime without dis- covering an inclination to drink; they live wholly upon barlev." The Arab horses are all designed for riding and war ;' so, there is reason to believe, were those of the kings of Israel : and if ihe present usages of Ihe Arabs prevaileJ 558 AMOS. Chap. 9. lly, they were turned out early in the spring, in the month of March, and at other times were nourished with barley. These things seem to determine the time of the Icing's feedings to March, of the shooting up of the latter growth ol April. — Burder. Ver. 14. Then answered Amos, and said to Am- aziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a proph- et's son ; but 1 was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. The sycamore buds in the latter end ofMarch^ and the prolific fruit ripens in the beginning of June. Pliny and other natural historians allege, that it continues immature till it is rubbed with iron combs, after which it ripens in four days. Is it not an operation of this kind to which the prophet Amos refers, in the text which we translate, "I was a gatherer of sycamore fruit V The Septuagint seems to refer it to something done to the fruit, to hasten its maturity ; probably to the action of the iron comb, without an application of which the figs cannot be eaten, because of their intolerable bitterness. Parkhurst renders the phrase, a scraper of sycamore fruit ; which he contends, from the united testimony of natural historians, is the true meaning of the original term. The businessof Amos, then, before his appointment to the prophetical onlce, was to scrape or wound the fruit of the sycamore-tree, to hasten its maturity and prepare it for use. Simon renders it a cultivator of sycamore fruit, which is perhaps the prefer- able meaning-, for it appears that the cultivation of this fig required a variety of operations, all of which it is reason- able to suppose, were performed by the same persons. To render the tree fruitful, they scarified the bark, through which a kind of milky liquor continually distilled. This, it is said, causes a little bough to be formed without leaves, having, upon it sometimes six or seven figs. They are hollow, without grains, and contain a little yellow matter, which is generally a nest of grubs. At their extremity, a sort of water collects, which, as it prevents them from ripen- ing, must be let out. Amos, it is probable, was employed in these various operations; which has induced Simon and r.hers to renderthe words, not a gatherer of sycamore fruit, tut a dresser of the sycamore-tree; which includes all the culture and attendance it requires. The sycamore is a large spreading tree, sometimes shooting up to a considerable height, and so thick, that three men can hardly grasp the trunk; according to Hassel- quist. the stem is often fifty feet thick. This unfolds the reason why Zaccheus climbed up into a sycamore-tree, to get a sight of his Redeemer. The incident also furnishes a proof that the sycamore was still common in Palestine ; for this tree stood to protect the traveller by the side of the highway. — Paxton. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 2. Though they dig- into hell, thence shall my hand take them ; though they climb up to heaven-, thence will I bring them down. 3. And though they hide themselves in the top of Car- mcl, I will search and take them out thence ; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he hall bite them. Carmel was one of the barriers of the promised land, which Sennacherib boasted he would scale with the multi- lude "* 1:: nc».-ses and his chariots : " I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel." Ungrateful as the soil of this mountain is, the wild vines and olive-trees that are still found among the brambles which encumber its declivities, prove that the hand of in- dustry has not laboured among the rocks of Carmel in vain. So well adapted were the sides of this mountain to the cul- tivation of the vine, that the kings of Judah covered every improvable spot with vineyards and plantations of olives. Its deep and entangled forests, its savage rocks and lofty summit, have been in all ages the favourite retreat of the guilty or the oppressed. The fastnesses of this rugged mountain are so difficult of access, that the prophet Amos (•lasses them with the deeps of hell, the height of heaven, and the bottom of the sea. The church, in her most af- fluent state, is compared to a fugitive lurking in the deep recesses of this mountain : " Feed thy people With thy rod, the flock of thy heritage which dwell solitarily in the midst of Carmel." Lebanon raises to heaven a summit of naked and barren rocks, covered for the greater part of the year with snow : but the top of Carmel, how naked and steril soever its present condition, seems to have been clothed with verdure in the days of Amos, which seldom was known to fade : " And he said, The Lord will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the "habita- tion of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wiiher." — Paxton. The wind was high when we left Acre, and blew the sand about with such violence that we had great difficulty in making our way. The bay to the southward extends to Mount Carmel, and we were three hours in skirting its shore. We first forded the river Bel us, the sand of which has been much used in the making of glass, and then came to "that ancient river, the river Kishon," immortalized in the song of Deborah and Barak, over which we were fer- ried by a Jewish boatman. The saddles are never taken off the horses in these countries during a journey, either by day or night. They were now taken from the animals that they might not be wet in crossing the river, and the backs of the poor creatures had been so chafed by them, that I felt unwilling to mount mine again. After passing some sepulchres in the rocks we entered the town of Hypha, and were detained some time by the guard, until one of our party waited on the governor, and obtained our release. There were several brass cannon upon the walls, all ready for action. The vessels have here better shelter than at Acre, but the water is shallow. This town is nearly at the foot of Mount Carmel, which extends about 30 miles in a southeastern direction from the sea, in nearly an equal ridge, and at an elevation of about 1C0O feet. It is often re- ferred to in scripture, and was once covered with trees, but it is now nearly bare, and "the excellency of Carmel" has withered before the curse of Heaven. It was the usual residence of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. The place where the false prophets of Baal were discomfited and slain was towards the other extremity, nearer Jezreel, to which Ahab retired ; and at some point near which it is approach- ed bv the Kishon. We may stand at the top of Carmel, as did Gehazi,and look towards the sea, but alas! there is now no "little cloud like a man's hand;" still there is the prom- ise of a shower, and in due time the streams of divine mer- cv will again fall upon this thirsty land, and men shall again liken themselves in their prosperity to " the excellency of Carmel and Sharon." Near the point that overlooks the sea there is a monastery of Carmelite friars. It was de- stroyed a few years ago by Abdullah Pacha, that he might convert the materials to his own use, and though he was ordered to rebuild it at his own expense by the sultan, when a proper representation of the circumstances had been made to his court, no attention was ever paid to the man- date. The monks are now rebuilding it themselves in a very splendid manner, and one of the fraternity is the archi- tect. At a lower elevation on the same point, is a palace recently erected by the pacha. There is a small building near the sea, said to cover the cave in which Elisha dwelt, but as the door was locked w^e could not gain admittance.— Hardy. Ver. 6. It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth ; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth The Lord is his name, See on Jer. 22. 13. The chief rooms of the house of Aleppo at this day are those above, the ground-floor being chiefly made use of for their horses and servants. Perhaps the prophet referred to this circumstance, when he spoke of the heavens of God's chambers, the most noble and splendid apartments of the palace of God, where his presence is chiefly manifested, and the collection of its offices, its numerous .Stile mean divi- sions, of this earth. — Harmer. tith the Lob % Ver. 3. Behold, the days JONAH. -,.7J tha* thu ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the Header of grapes him that sowed] seed: and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. The Arabs commit depredations of every description. They snip the trees of their fruit even in its unripe state, as well as seize on the seed and corn of the husbandman. Maillot ascribes the alteration tor the worse, that is (band in the wine of a province in Egypt, tothe precipitation with which they now gather the grapes. This wns done to save them from the Arabs, " who frequently made excursions into it, especially in the season in which the fruit, begin lo ripen, b iatasave then from these depredations that the inhabitants of the country gather them before ihey come to maturity." It is this circumstance that must explain this passage' of the prophet : " Behold, the days • , , saith the Lord, thai the ploughman shall overtake tapes him that soweth seed ; ami the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt:" that is, the days shall come when the grapes shall not b. as they were before, in a slate of immaturity, for fear of Arabs' or other destroying nations, but they shall be suffer- ed to hang till the lime of ploughing; so perfect shall be the security of these limes.— Harmkr. JONAH. CHAPTER I. Ver. 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it ; for their wickedness is come up before me. See on Nah. 2. 8— fl. Ashur, probably imitating the policy of his dangerous t-.tnpetitor, built "four cities for the accompiodation and r.tfence of his descendants; the first of whicll was Nine- veh, the capital of his kingdom. This powerful city stood an the east side of the Tigris, nor far from the river Lycus, one of its tributary streams; but on which side of the LycUS it lay, cannot now be discovered. The prediction of Nahum, that Nineveh should be so completely destroyed that future ages should search in vain for the spot which it once covered, has been fulfilled in all its extent: "With an overflowing flood, he will make an utter end of the place thereof." ' Ancient geographers inform us of another city of this name, which stood on the Euphrates, and was probably built by Nimrod in honour of his son. But Nine- veh, so frequently mentioned in scripture, lay near the Tigris; and to this last the following observations refer. Slr'abo affirms that Nineveh was larger than Babylon i'self; an assertion confirmed by Diodortis, who makes that eity f>0 miles in compass, while Strabo makes Babylon only about 48. It is therefore with justice that the inspired writer rails Nineveh " an exceeding great city of three days' jour- ney." This account some interpreters refer not to the length, but to the compass of the city ; allowing twenty miles for a day's journey, which accords with the common estimation of ihose times. But the phrase, " Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey," seems rather to inti- mate, that ihe measure 'of three 'days' journey is to be understood of the lenglh, not of the compass of Nineveh. Hence it may be easily supposed, that agreeably to the statement of the prophet,' it contained " more than sixscore thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left hand ;" for, supposing this to be under- stood of infants under two years old, these generally, as Bochart observes, make at least the fiflh pari of the city. If this proportion be just, the inhabitants of Nineveh would not be more than six hundred thousand ; which is not more than Seleucia contained in the days of Pliny, and not so many as has been numbered in the capital of the British empire. — Paxton. Ver. 5. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unFo his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them : but Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship ; and he lay, and was fast asleep. Here again wc are at home, (lo speak royally :) never was there a more n antra I description ol the conduct of a heathen crew, in a storm, than this. No sooner docs danger come, than one begins to heat his head, and cry aloud, Siva. Siva-, another pitcously shrieks, and beats his breast, and says, Vishnoo; and a third strikes his thigh, and shouts with all his might, Varuna. Thus do they cry to their gods, instead of doing their duty. More than once have I been in these circumstances, and never can I forget the horror and helplessness of the poor idolaters. — Roeerts. Vy. 7. And they said every one to his fellow. Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. 15. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea ; and the sea ceased from her raging 16. Then the men feared the Lord exceeding- ly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows. In a storm, the heathen mariners always conclude that there is some one on board who has committed a great crime, and they begin to inquire, " Who is the sinner 1" Some time ago, a number of native vessels left the roads of Negapatam, at the sjme hour, for Point Pedro, in the Island of Ceylon : they had not been long at sea before it was per- ceived that one of them could not make any way; she roll- ed, and pitched, and veered about in every direction; but the other vessels went on beautifully before the wind. The captain and his crew began to look at the passengers, and, at last, fixed their eyes upon a poor woman. H ho was crouched in a corner of the hold ; they inquired into her condition, and found she was in a state of impurity: "Lei down the canoe," was the order, "and take this woman ashore:" in vain she remonstrated, she was compelled to enter, and was soon landed on the beach. " After this, the vessel sailed as well as any other!" AVhen the storm rages, they make vows to their gods ; one will go on a pilgrimage to some holy place, another will perform a penance, and a third will make a valuable present to his favourite temple " Offered a sacrifice :" ihis is generally done when they get safe to shore, but I have been on board when they h;t?e of- fered cocoa-nuts and other articles with ihe greatest earnest- ness. To interfere with them is not always prudent; because, were it not from the hope they have from slid offerings, they would cease to work the 'vessel.— Roftj i» 560 J O I CHAPTER III. Ver. 4. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey; and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. See on Nah. 1. 8. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 5. So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. 6. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd? 7. But God prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 8. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind : and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. The gourd produces leaves and branches resembling those of the garden cucumber. Its fruit is shaped like an orange, of a light white substance when the rind is taken off, and so bitter that it has been called the gall of the earth. It is not eatable ; but is a very fit vessel for flagons, being light, capacious, and smooth, frequently a foot and a half Chap. The gourd of Jonah is generally allowed to be the elke- roa or ricinus, a plant well known in the East ; " it grows very high, and projects many branches and large leaves. In a short time it reaches a considerable height : its stem is thick, channelled, distinguished by many knots, hollow within, branchy at top, of a sea-green colour: its leaves are large, cut into seven or more divisions, pointed and edged, of a bright, blackish, shining-green. Those near- est the top are the largest ; its flowers are ranged on their stem like a thyrsus: they are of a deep-red, and stand three together. With this description agrees the account in the prophet, of its rising over his head to shelter it; for this plant rises eight or nine feet, and is remarkably rapid in withering, when decayed or gathered. The gourd which defended the prophet is said to have been prepared by the Lord. We have no reason to con- clude from this expr that the Almighty created it for the special purpose ; he only appointed and promoted its growth in that particular spot, raising its stem and ex- panding its branches and leaves according to the ordinary laws of nature, till it formed a most refreshing shade over the place where the angry seer waited the fulfilment of his prediction. " We may conceive of it," savs Calmet, "as an extraordinary one of its kind, remarkably rapid ill growth, remarkably hard in its stem, remarkably vigorous in its branches, and remarkable for the extensive spread of its leaves, and the deep gloom of their shadow; and after a certain duration, remarkable for a sudden withering and uselessness to the impatient prophet. The worm which struck the gourd has been considered rather as a maggot than a worm. It was, no doubt, of the species appropriate to the plant; but of what particular spe- cies is uncertain. Like the gourd, it was also prepared by Jehovah, to indicate its extraordinary size and vigour; that it acted by his commission ; and that the effect of its opera- tions was so rapid and decisive, as clearly to discover the presence of divine energy. — Paxton. Ver. 6. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding triad of the gourd. The margin has, instead of "gourd," " Kikajon, or Palme- crist !" Dr. Clarke asks, " But what was the Kikajon 1 the best judges say the racinusor Palma-Christi, from which we gel what is vulgarly called castor-oil." The Tamul trans- lation has, instead of "gourd," Amanaku, i. c. the Palma- C'hristi I It is believed, also, the verb is in the prelerperfect tense, had prepared, which may be another instance of the verb as illustrated under Isa. xxi. 9. The Palma-Christi is most abundant in the East, and I have had it in my own garden to the height of fourteen leet. The growth is ver}' rapid : v. 7, " God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered," i. e the Palma-Christi till it withered. This tree, in the course ol a very short period, produces tfi"e "rough caterpillar," respecting which, I have written under Jer. li. 27, and in one night (where the caterpillers are abundant) will they strip the tree of its leaves, and thus' take away the shade. But there is another worm in the East, called the kurutlu- pullu, l. e. blind worm, said to be produced bv the dew ; it begins its devastations at what is called the cabbage part of the palm, and soon destroys the tree : v. 8, " God prepared a vehement east wind." I have already written on that parching, life-destroying wind. But the margin has it, or " silent," which probably means calm. Thus when theie is a lull of an easterly wind, and the sun pours his fierce rays on the head of the poor traveller, it seems as if life must depart: birds and beasts pant; there is the silence of death, and nature seems ready to expire. — Roberts. " It was early in the evening, when the pointed turrets of the city of Mosul opened on our view, and communicated no very unpleasant sensations to my heart. I found myself on scripture-ground, and could not help feeling some'por- tion of the pride of the traveller, when I reflected that I was now within sight of Nineveh, renowned in holy writ. The city is seated in a very barren sandy plain, on the banks of the river Tigris, embellished with the united gifts of Pomona, Ceres, and Flora. <-The external view of the town is much in its favour, being encompassed with stately walls of solid stone, over which the steeples or min- arets, and other lofty buildings, are seen with increased ef- fect. Here I saw a caravan encamped, halting on its march from the Gulf of Persia to Armenia; and it cer- tainly mads a most noble appearance, filling the eye with a multitude of grand objects, all uniting to form one mag- nificent whole. But though the outside~be so beautiful, the inside is most detestable : the heat is so intense, that in the middle of the day there is no stirring out, and even at night thcvalls of the houses are so heated by the day's sun, as to pro- duce a disagreeable heat to the body, at a foot, or even a yard distance from them. However, I entered it with spirits, because I considered it as the last stage of the worst pari of my pilgrimage. But, alas! I was disappointed in my expectation ; for the Tigris uas dried vp by the intensity of the heat, and an unusual long drought, and I was obliged to take the matter with a patient shrug, and accommodate my mind to a journey on horseback, which, though not so Ions as that I had already made, was likely to be equally dangerous ; and which, therefore, demanded a full exer- tion of fortitude and resolution. " It was still the' hot season of the year, and we were to travel through that country, over which the horrid wind I have before mentioned sweeps its consuming blasts: it is called by the Turks somiel, is mentioned by holy Job under the name of the east wind, and extends jis ravages all the way from the extreme end of the Gulf of Cambaya, up to Mosul ; it carries along with it fleaks of fire, like threads of silk; instantly strikes dead those that breathe it, and consumes them inwardly to ashes ; the flesh soon becoming black as a coal, and dropping off the bones. Philosophers consider it as a kind of electric fire, proceeding from the sulphureous or nitrous exhalations which are kindled by the agitation of the winds. The only possible means o'l escape from its fatal effects, is to fall flat on the ground, and thereby prevent the drawing it in : to do this, howeyer, it is necessary first to see it, which is not always practica- ble. Besides this, the ordinary heat of the climate is ex- tremely dangerous to the blood and lungs, and even to the skin, which it, blisters and peels from the flesh, affecting the eyes so much, that travellers are obliged to wear a trans- parent covering over them to keep the heat off." These accounts, from Col. Campbell's Travels, illustrate the history of Jonah, his behaviour and his sufferings, in the Chap 1—3 MIC same parts. The colonel reports thai the heat is extreme, both by day and night, in the town ; that the Tigris was dried up bv the intensity of the heat , that the heal blisters the skin, 4c. u Now Jonah went out of the city, and sal on the nasi side of the citv, till he might see what would become 0 the city," (iv. 5,) to which he had prophe- sied destruction in forly days' time, (iii. 4.) Jonah could not expect Ihe destruction of the city until about, or after, the expiration of ihe forty days' respite allowed to it ; so long then, at least, he waited in this burning climate. But, as he knew Cod U be slow to anger, [iv. -,) he might (trail some days, or even some weeks, after the expiration of the appointed tune; so that although he was sent on his message, and had delivered it before the ureal heats mine on, yet, to satisfy his curiosity, he' endured them. Thus cir- cumstanced, he constructed for himself a shelter from the sun; and doubtless, when the |v>pr.p kikiim, [gourd, English translation,) or kind of palm, rose in addition to his booth, at once ornamenting, filling, and shadowing it, to complete his shelter, he mighl well rejoice over the gourd with ex- ceeding great joi/. (Might not this plant, growing chiefly by night, Heb. " which a son of night was, and (as) a son of night perished," be some time in rising for that purpose? See Kikajon, Jonah, and Fragment, No. Ixxviii] This plant, during a time, perhaps during a great part of the forty days, or several weeks succeeding, afforded him shel- ter; then, vhile in full vigour, without apparent decay, he left it well overnight, and in the morning it was shrunk, faded, and gone: so that at sunrise, when the morning should be cool, Jonah, examining his plant, was struck by the scarcely-moving aura of an east wind, vehemently hot ; nc wonder, then, he fainted, and wished to die, when the 661 only part of the day in which he could hope for coolness. was thus siilh.r.-iimg. What Jonah must have endured from the heat, Cab I Campbell's account may assist us to conceive. We may observe, further, how aptly this plant Mas a BDN of Nineveh, its history, and iis fate: it was a lime in coining to perfection, and it was a lime in a perfect State: so that citT wag long before it was mistress of the countries around it, and it held that dignity for a lime; but, al about forty years after Jonah's prophecy, (prophetic days, for years, as some have supposed,) the worm (insur- rection and rebellion) smote the plant; and the king of Nineveh (Sardanapalns) burnt himself, wilh his treasures, eie., in his palace. A fate very appropriately prefigured by the kUcium of Jonah! The expectation of coolness in the morning, may be justified from the following extract, in which we find the colonel, like Jonah, reposing under trees in the heat of the day. "From Lattkea to Aleppo, mounted on a mule, 1 travelled along, well pleased with the fruitful appearance of the country; and delighted with the serenity oi the air. We were, as well as I can now recollect, near ten cays on ihe road; dutirig which time, we travelled omy m the morning early, and in the heat of the day we reposed under theishade of trees." — Taylor in C.u.met. Ver. 11. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscorc thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? See on Nah. 1. 8. MICAH. CHAPTER I. Ver. 7. And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burnt with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to the hire of a harlot. Here again we have unalloyed and rampant heathenism: the " sacred" courtesans of the temple give a part of their hire towards the repairing and beautifying of the building ; and also to purchase idols, or carry on the festivals. At the annual festival of Scandan, which continues twenty- four days, the females alluded to defray the expenses of the last day from the proceeds of their own wickedness. — Roberts. Ver. 8. Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. Or, " ostriches." Il is affirmed by travellers of good credit, that ostriches make a fearful, screeching, lamentable noise. " During the lonesome part of the night, they often make a very doleful and hideous noise. I have often heard them groan, as if they were in the greatest agonies : an ac- tion beautifully alluded to by the prophet Micah." (Shaw.) — Border. Ver. 16. Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children ; enlarge thv baldness as the 71 eagle ; for they are gone into thee. iptivity trotn Mr. Bruce has given us an account of an eagle, known in Ethiopia only by the name nisser, eagle ; but by him called the golden eagle; by the vulgar, abou duch'n, father long-beard, from the tuft of hair under his chin. He is a very large bird. " A forked brush of strong hair, divided at the point into two, proceeded from the cavity of his lower jaw, at the beginning of his throat. He had the smallest eye I ever remember to have seen in a large bird, the aper- ture being scarcety half an inch. The crown of his head was bare or bald, so was the front where the bill and scull joined." This is the bird alluded to by the prophet- Burder. CHAPTER II. Ver. 2. And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. See on Job 27. 18. CHAPTER III. Ver. 12. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field ; and Jerusalem shall be- come heaps; and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. We had been to examine the hill, which now bears the name of Zion ; it is situated on the south side of Jerusalem, part of it being excluded by the wall of the present city, which passes over the top of the mount. If this be indeed Mount Zion, the prophecy concerning it, that the plough should pass over it, has 'been fulfilled to the letter; for such labours were actually going on when we arrived. — Clarke. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 4. But they shall sit every man under his Vine, and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. See on Ps. 88. 47. The people of the East have great pleasure in sitting or lounging under their tamarind or mango-trees in the grove. Thus, in the heat of the day, they while away their time in playing with their children, in taking up the fruit, or smo- king their much-loved shroot.— Roberts. This expression most probably alludes to the delightful eastern arbours, which were partly composed of vines ; and the agreeable retreat which was enjoyed under them might also be found under their fig-trees. Norden ex- pressly speaks of vine arbours as common in the Egyptian gardens, (vol. i. p. 71.) and the Prsenestine pavement, in Dr. Shaw, gives us the figure of an ancient one.— Burder. Ver. 5. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. Nothing more arrests the notice of a stranger, on entering Sinde, than the severe attention of the people to the forms of religion, as enjoined by the prophet of Arabia. In all places, the meanest and poorest of mankind mav be seen, at the appointed hours, turned towards Mecca, offering up their prayers. I have observed a boatman quit the labori- ous duty of dragging the vessel against the stream, and re- tire to the shore, wet and covered with mud, to perform his genuflexions. In the smallest villages the sound of the " mowuzzun," or crier, summoning true believers to pray- ers, may be heard, and the Mohammedans within reach of the sonorous sound suspend, for the moment, their employ- ment, that they may add their " Amen" to the solemn sen- tence when concluded. The effect is pleasing and impres- sive ; but, as has often happened in other countries at a litre stage of civilization, the moral qualities of the people do not keep pace with this fervency of devotion. — Burnes. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? Allusions are often made in the scriptures to the value of oil ; and toappreciate them, it should be recollected, that oil only is used to light the houses, and also, for anointing the *>ody. and many medicinal purposes. " Have you heard of the charity of Venase 1 Why, he has given a river of oil to the temple ; and Muttoo has given a river of ghee." " Milk ! why that farmer has rivers of it ; and the Mode- liar has a sea." — Roberts. Ver. 15. Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine. See on Ps. 37. 35 ; Deut. 33. 24 ; and Is. 63. 1—3. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 1. Wo is me ! for I am as when they have gathered the summer-fruits, as the grape-glean- ings of the vintage : there is no cluster to eat : my soul desired the first ripe fruit. The expression here made use of by the prophet may probably be understood by the assistance of a remark which Sir John Chardin has made upon this passage. He informs us, that the Persians and Turks are not only fond of almonds, plumbs, and melons in a mature state, but that they are remarkable for eating them before they are ripe. As soon as ever they approach to that state, they make use of them, the great dryness and temperature of the air preventing flatulencies.— Harmer. Ver. 3. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge ask- eth for a reward ; and the great man he utter- eth his mischievous desire : so they wrap it up. We have seen that to do a thing with one hand, signifies earLeetness and oneness of consent. Whenever a person has to receive a thing from a superior, he must put out both hands ; for not to do so, would be a mark of great disrespect. " Alas ! I went to that man with both hands, (i. e. held them out to him,) but he turned me away." " The greedy wretch eats with both hands," meaning, he is a glutton; because all respectable and decent people eat with the right hand only. — Roberts. Ver. 14. Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thy heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel : let them feel in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. See on Am. 9. 10. Ver. 19. He will turn again, he will have com passion upon us : he will subdue our iniquities ; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. When a devotee believes the guilt of his transgressions has been removed, whether by prayers or austerities, he says, " My sins have all fallen into the sea."— Robert*. NAHUM. CHAPTER I. Vcr. 8. But with an over-running flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies. To a brief record of the creation of the antediluvian world, and of the dispersion and the different settlements of mankind after the deluge, the scriptures of the Old Testa- ment add a full and particular history of the Hebrews for tne space of fifteen hundred years, from the days of Abra- ham to the era of the last of the prophets. While the his- torical part of scripture thus traces, from its origin, the historv of the world, the prophecies give a prospective view which reaches to its end. And it is remarkable that pro- fane history, emerging from fable, becomes clear and authentic about the very period when sacred history termi- nates, and when the fulfilment of these prophecies com- mences, which refer to other nations besides tne Jews. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was for a long time an extensive and populous city. Its walls are said, by heathen historians, to have been a hundred feet in height, sixty miles in compass, and to have heen defended by fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high. Although it formed the subject of some of the earliest of the prophecies, and was the very first which met its predicted fate, yet a heathen historian, in describing its capture and destruction, repeat- edly refers to an ancient prediction respecting it. Diodorus Siculus relates, that the king of Assyria, after the complete discomfiture of his army, confided in an old prophecy, that Nineveh would not be taken unless the river should become the enemy of the city ; that after an ineffectual siege of two years, the river, swollen with long-continued and tempestu- ous torrents, inundated part of the city, and threw down the wall for the space of twenty furlongs; and that the king, deeming the prediction accomplished, despaired of his safety, and erected an immense funeral pile, on which he heaped his wealth, and with which himself, his household, and palace, were consumed. The book of Nahum was avowedly prophetic of the destruction of Nineveh : and it is there foretold, " that the gates of the river shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." " Nineveh of old, like a pool of water — with an overflowing flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof." The historian describes the facts by which the other predictions of the prophet were as literally fulfilled. He relates that the king of Assyria, elated with his former victories, and ignorant of the revolt of the Bactrians, had abandoned himself to scandalous in- the enemy, apprized by deserters of their negligence and drunkenness, attacked the Assyrian army while the whole of them were fearlessly giving way to indulgence, destroved a great part of them, and drove the rest into the city. The words of the prophet were hereby verified: " While they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble full dry." The prophet promised much spoil to the enemy: "Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold ; for there is no end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture." And the historian affirms, that many talents of gold and silver, preserved from the fire, were carried to Ecbatana. According to Nahum, the city was not only to be destroyed by an overflowing flood, but the fire also was to devour it ; and, as Diodorus relates, partly by water, partly by fire, it was destroyed. The utter and perpetual destruction and desolation of Nineveh were foretold : — " The Lord will make an otter end of the place thereof. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. She is empty, void, and waste. The Lord will stretch out his hand against the north, and destrov As- syria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in !" In the second century, Lucian, a native of a city on the banks of the Euphrates, testified that Nineveh was utterly perished ; that there was no vestige of it remaining; and that none could tell where once it was situated. This testimony of Lucian, and the lapse of many ages during which the place was not known where it stood, render it at least somewhat c onbtful whether the remains of an ancient city, opposite tc Mosul, which have been de- scribed as such by travellers, be indeed those of ancient Nineveh. It is, perhaps, probable that they are the remains of the city which succeeded Nineveh, or of a Persian city of the same name, which was built on the banks of the Tigris bv the Persians subsequently to the year 230 of the Christian era, and demolished by the Saracens in C32. In contrasting the then existing great and increasing popula- tion, and the accumulating wealth of the proud inhabitants of the mighty Nineveh, with the utter ruin that awaited it, — the word of God (before whom all the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers) by Nahum was — " Make thyself many as the canker-worm, make thyself m2ny as the lo- custs. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the canker-worm spoileth, and flyeth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day: but when the sun riseth, they flee aivay; and their place is not known where thev are," or were. Whether these words imply that even the site of Nineveh would in future ages be uncertain or unknown ; or, as they rather seem to intimate, that every vestige of the palaces of its monarchs, of the greatest of it's nobles, and of the wealth of its numer- ous merchants, would wholly disappear; the truth of the prediction cannot be invalidated under either interpretation. The avowed ignorance respecting Nineveh, and the obli- vion which passed over it, for many an age, conjoined with the meagerness of evidence to identify it, still prove that the place was long unknown where it stood, and that, even now, it can scarcely with certainty be determined. And if the only spot that bears its name,' or that can be said to be the place where it was, be indeed the site of one of the most extensive of cities on which the sun ever shone, and which continued for many centuries to be the capital of Assyria— the "principal mounds," few in number, which " show neither bricks, stones, nor other materials of building, but are in many places overgrown with grass, and resemble the mounds left by intrenchments and fortifications of ancient Roman camps," and the appearance!, of other mounds and ruins less marked than even these, extending for ten miles, and widelv spread, and seeming to be " the wreck of former buildings," show that Nineveh is left without one monu- ment of royalty, without any token whatever of its splendour or wealth ; that their place is not known where they were ; and that it is indeed a desolation—" empty, void, and waste," its very ruins perished, and less than the wreck of what it was. " Such an viler ruin," in every view, " has been made of it; and such is the truth of the divine predictions."— Keith. CHAPTER II. Ver. 7. And Huzzab shall be led away captive, she shall be brought up, and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of doves, tabering upon their breasts. See on Is. 5. 12. When D'Arvieux was in the campof the great emir, his princess was visited by other Arab princesses. The last that came, whose visit alone he describes, was mounted, he says, on a camel, covered with a carpet, and necked with flowers; a dozen women marched in a row before her, holding the camel's halter with one hand ; they sung L« HABAKKUK. Chap. 1, 2, praises of their mistress, and songs which expressed joy, and the happiness of being in the service of such a beauti- ful and amiable lady. Those which went first, and were more distinct from her person, came in their turn to the head of the camel, and took hold of the halter, which place, as being the post of honour, they quitted to others, when the princess had gone a few paces. The emir's wife sent her women to meet her, lo whom the halter was entirely quit- ted, out of respect, her own women putting themselves be- hind the camel. In this order they marched to the tent, where they alighted. They then all sung together the beauty, birth, and good qualities of this princess. This ac- count illustrates those words of the prophet, wherein he SDeaks of the presenting of the queen of Nineveh, or Nine- veh itself, under the figure of a queen, to her conqueror. He describes her as led by the maids, with the voice of doves, that is, with the voice of mourning ; their usual songs of joy, with which they used to lead her along, as the Arab women did their princess, being turned into lamenta- tions.— Habmer. CHAPTER III. Ver. 14. Draw the waters for the siege, fortify thy strongholds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln. See on Is. 41. 26. Ver. 17. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day ; but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. "The operation of the female locust in laying her eggs is highly interesting. She chooses a piece of light earth, well protected by a bush or hedge, where she makes'a hole for herself, so deep that her head just appears above it ; she here deposiles an oblong substance, exactly the shape of her own body, which contains a considerable number of eggs, arranged in neat order, in rows against each other, which remain buried in the ground most carefully, and artificially protected from the cold of winter." (Pliny.) "Theeggsare brought into life by the heat of the sun. If the heats com- mence early, the locusts early gain strength, and it is then that their depredations are most feared, because they com- mence them before the corn has had time to ripen, and they attack the stem when it is still tender. I conjecture that camping in the hedges in the cold day may be explained by the eggs being deposited during the winter: and when the sun ariseth they flee away, may also be illustrated by the flying away of the insect, as soon as it had felt the sun's in- fluence." (Morier.) — Border. HABAKKUK CHAPTER I. Ver. 8. Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves : and their horseman shall spread them- selves, and their horsemen shall come from far ; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. The Baron De Tott, in his entertaining work, has given us an account of the manner in which an army of modern Tartars conducted themselves, which serves greatly to il- lustrate this passage: " These particulars," says the baron, " informed the cham or prince, and the generals, what their real position was; and it was decided "that a third of the army, composed of volunteers, and commanded by a sultan and several mirzas, should pass the river at midnight, di- vide into several columns, subdivide successively, and thus overspread New Servia, burn the villages, corn, and fod- der, and carry off the inhabitants of the country. The rest of the army, in order to follow the plan concerted, marched till they came to the beaten track in the snow made by the detachment. This we followed, till we arrived at the place where it divides into seven branches, to the left of which we constantly kept, observing never to mingle or confuse ourselves with any of the subdivisions which we succes- sively found; and some of which were only small paths, raced by one or two horsemen. Flocks were found frozen lo death on the plain, and twenty columns of smoke, al- ready rising in the horizon, completed the horrors of the scene, and announced the fires which had laid waste New Servia." The difficulties which have attended the expla- nation of this prediction are thus happilv removed, and the propiiety of the expression fully established.— Paxton. Ver. 10. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them : they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take it. Another contrivance which the besiegers employed, wa, the agger or mount, which they raise so high as to equal, if not exceed, the top of the besieged walls : the sides were supported with bricks or stones, or secured with strong rafters to hinder it from falling; the forepart only remain- ed bare, because it was to be advanced by degrees nearer the city. The pile itself consisted of all sorts of materials, as earth, timber, boughs, stones ; into the middle were cast also wickers, and twigs of trees to fasten, and, as it were, cement the other parts. The prophet Hnbakkuk manifestly refers to the mount, in that prediction where he describes the desolating march of the Chaldeans, and the success of their arms. — Paxton. CHAPTER II. Ver. 2. And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. Writing-tables were used in and before the time of Ho- mer; for he speaks of writing very pernicious things upon a two-leaved table. They were made of wood, consisted of two, three, or five leaves, and were covered wilh wax ; on this impressions were easily made, continued long, and were very legible. It was a custom among the Romans for the public affairs of every year to be committed to writing by the ponlifex maximvs, or high-priest, and published on a' table. They were exposed to public view, so that the people might have an opportunily of being acquainted wilh them. It was also usual to hang up la-us approved and re- corded on tables of brass in their market-places, and in their temples, that they might be seen and read. In like manner the Jewish prophets used to write, and expose their proph- ecies publicly on tables, either in their own houses, or in the temple, that every one that passed by might read them. — Border. Ver. 1 1. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. ZEPHANIAH 565 The margin has, instead of "answer it," "or witness against." When a man denies what he has solemnly promised, the person who complains of his perfidy, says, ' " The place where ycu stood shall witness against you." " A beautiful princess was once enjoying herself in a fra- grant grove, when a nobje prince passed that way ; she be- came enamoured of his person, and he solcmnh [i in to return and marry her. When he left her, she wept bit- terly, and said, ' Ah I should he not return, this Uili-irec (pandanus odoratissima) shall witness against him. Yes, the birds shall be my witnesses.' "—Roberts. Ver. 17. For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which make them afraid, because of men's blood, and for the vio- lence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein. The lofty summits of Lebanon were the chosen haunts of various beasts of prey; the print of whose feet Maun- drell and his party observed in the snow. But they are not confined to these situations: a recent traveller continued descending several hours, through varied scenery, present- ing at every turn some new feature, distinguished either by its picturesque beauty or awful sublimity. On arriving at one of the lower swells, which form the base of the mountain, he and his party broke rather abruptly into a deep and thick forest. As they traversed the bocage, the howlings of wild animals were distinctly heard from the re- cesses. To these savage tenants of the desert, the prophet Ilahakkuk seems to allude. The violence of Lebanon is a beautiful and energetic expression, denoting the ferocious animals that roam on its mountains, and lodge in its thick- els; and that, occasionally descending into die plain in quest of prey, ravage the fold or seize upon the unwary villager. — Paxtov.« CHAPTER III. Ver. 4. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand; and there was the hiding of his power. See on Ps. 92. 10. Ver. 9. Thy bow was made quite naked, accord- ing to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. The oriental bows, according to Chardin, were usually carried in a case hung to their girdles; it was sometimes of cloih, but more commonly of leather. The expression Vet. 10. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments. See on Ps. 18. 33. ZEPHANIA H. CHAPTER I. Ver. 8. And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel. 9. In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit. " Those that wear strange apparel." These are words that in this connexion seem to mean only the rich that were conscious of such power and influence as to dare in time of oppression and danger, to avow their riches, and who there- fore were not afraid to wear the precious manufactures of strange countries, though they were neither magistrates, nor yet of royal descent. A great number of attendants is a modern piece of oriental magnificence ; as I shall here- after have occasion to remark it appears to have been so anciently, Eccles. v. 11 ; these servants, now, it is most cer- tain, frequently attend their master on horseback, richly at- tired, sometimes to the number of twenty-five or thirlv : if ihey did so anciently, with a number of servants attending great men, who are represented by this very prophet as at that time in common terrible oppressors, ch. hi. 3, they may be naturally supposed to ride into people's houses, and having gained admission bv deceit, to force from them by violence considerable contributions: for this riding into' houses is not now only practised by the Arabs; it consequently might be practised by others, too, ancientlv. It is not now peculiar to the Arabs, for Le Eruyn, after describing the magnifi- cent furniture of several of the Armenian merchants at Julfa, tha. suburb of Ispahan in which thev live, tells us, .hat the i ont door of the greatest part of these houses is very small, partly to hinder the Persians from entering inio (hem on horseback, and partly that they may less observe the magnificence within. To which ought to be added, what he elsewhere observes, that these Armenians are treated with great rigour and insolence by the Persians. If this text refers to a violence of this sort, they are the thresh- olds of the oppressed over which Ihey leaped, not the thresh- olds of the oppressive masters, which some have supposed, when they returned laden with spoil.— Harmer. Ver. 12. And it shall come to pass at that time. that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil. The margin has, in place of" settled," " curdled or thick- ened." The Tamul translation has this, " dregs stirred up," i. e. sediment shaken together well thickened. Of people who are in great straits, of those who are a strange compound of good and evil, of things which are difficult lo understand, it is said, "Ah ! this is all kvlhnnbin-raiatal," i. e. stirred up dregs. This appears lo have been the state of the Jews, and ihey wanted to show that the Lord would neither do good nor evil; that in him w^as not any distinct character; and that he would not regard them in their thickened and mixed condition; that though they were joined to the heathen, it was not of any consequence. " I will search Jerusalem with candles ;" ihus were Ihey mis- taken in their false hopes. Does a man declare his inno- cence of anv crime, the accusers sav, " We win rearch thee with lamps"." "'Yes, yes, I will look into that affair with lamps." " What ! have yonr lamps gone out 1 You see I am not guilty."— Roberts. 566 ZEPHANIAH. Chap. CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashke- lon a desolation ; they shall drive out Ashdod at the noonday, and Ekron shall be rooted up. The city of Ashkelon or Ascalon, was one of the five principalities of the ancient Philistines: it is situated on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, between Azotus, or Ashdod, and Gaza. Ashkelon is mentioned in Judg. 1. 18, as having been taken by the tribe of Judah ; after- ward it fell successively under the dominion of the As- syrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. This city had a temple dedicated to Venus Urania, which was de- stroyed by the Scythians, six hundred and thirty years be- fore the Christian era; another dedicated to Derceto, a tu- telary deity of the Philistines; and another consecrated to Apol'lo, of which Herod, the grandfather of Herod the Great, was priest: the latter was born here, and from this circumstance he has sometimes been called the Ascalonite. In the early ages of Christianity, Ascalon was a bishop's see. During the crusades it was a place of considerable importance ; but having been repeatedly captured and re- captured by the Saracens, it was finally reduced to a heap of ruins. 'Though it was one of the chief maritime cities of Phenicia, at present it does not exhibit the least vestige of a port. " The position of Ashkelon is strong : the walls are built on the top of a ridge of rock that winds round the town in a semicircular direction", and terminates at each end in the sea. The foundations remain all the way round ; the walls are of great thickness, and in some places of considerable height, and flanked with towers at different distances. Patches of the wall preserve their original elevation ; but in general it is ruined throughout, and the materials lie scattered around the foundation, or rolled down the hill on either side. The ground falls within the walls, in the same manner that it does without: the town was situated in the hollow, so that no part of it could be seen from the outside of the walls. Numerous small ruined houses still remain, with small gardens interspersed among them. In the highest part of the town are the remains of a Christian close upon the sea, with a well of excellent water beside it. The sea beats strongly against the bank on which the con- vent stands ; and six prostrate columns of gray granite, half covered with the waves, attest the effects of its en- croachments. There is no bay or harbour for shipping; but a small harbour, advancing a little way into the town towards its eastern extremity, seems to have been formed for the accommodation of such small craft as were used in the better days of the city." The water, seen in the fore- ground of our view, is the result of the overflowing of a iprrent during the rainy season, the channel of which is Iry at other times. Ashkelon was one of the proudest satrapies of the Philis- tines : now there is not an inhabitant within its walls ; and the predictions of Jeremiah, Amos, Zephaniah, and Zecha- riah, have been literally fulfilled :— " Ashkelon is cut off with the remnant of their valley." (Jer. xlvii. 5.) He " that holdeth the sceptre" has be'en cut off " from Ashke- lon." (Amos i. 8.) " Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation." (Zeph. ii. 4.) " The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited." (Zech. ix. 5.) At the time the two last-cited predictions were uttered, both these satrapies of the Philistines were in a flourishing con- dition ; each the capital of its own petty state : " and noth- ing but the prescience of heaven could pronounce on which of the two, and in what manner, the vial of his wrath should thus be poured out." Gaza is still a large and respectable .own, but truly without a king: the walls of Ashkelon are broken down, its lofty towers lie scattered on the ground, and the houses are lying in ruins without a human inhabit- ant to occupy them, or to build them up. "How is the arath of man made to praise his Creator ! Hath He said. and shall He not do it % The oracle was delivered by the prophet (Zechariah) more than five hundred years before the Christian era, and we behold its accomplishment eigh- teen hundred years after that event, and see with our eyes that the king has perished from Gaza, and that Ashkelon is not inhabited ; and were there no others on which the mind could confidently rest, from the fulfilment of this one pro- phecy even the most skeptical may be assured, that all that is predicted in the sacred volume shall come to pass." - HORNE. Ver. 6. And the seacoast shall be dwellings, and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. Archbishop Newcome has remarked, that many manu- scripts and three editions have a single letter in one of these words more than appears in the common editions; which, instead of cherith, gives us a word which signifies caves : and he thus renders the words : and the seacoast shall be sheep-cotes ; caves for shepherds, and folds for flocks. This translation wi.l appear perfectly correct, if it be considered that the mountains bordering on the Syrian coast are re- markable for the number of caves in them. In the history of the crusades it is particularly mentioned that a number of persons retired with their wives and children, their flocks and herds, into subterraneous caves, to find shelter from the enemy. — Hahmer. Ver. 7. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah ; they shall feed thereupon : in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening: for the Lord their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity. An extract from Dr. Chandler's Travels furnishes a very lively comment on these words: "Our horses were disposed among the walls and rubbish, (of Ephesus,) with their saddles on; and a mat was spread for us on the ground. We sat here in the open air while supper was preparing ; when suddenly fires began to blaze up among the bushes, and we saw the villagers collected about them in savage groups, or passing to and fro, with lighted brands for torches. The flames, with the stars and a pale moon, af- forded us a dim prospect of ruin and desolation. A shrill owl, called cucuvaia from its note, with a nighthawk, flitted near us; and a jackal cried mournfully, as if for- saken by his companions on the mountain." — Burder. Ver. 9. Therefore, as I live saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Amnion as Go- morrah, even the breeding of nettles, and salt- pits, and a perpetual desolation : the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them. See on Jer. 17. 5, G. Ver. 14. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations : both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows ; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar-work. Marsin, " knobs or chapiters." Chardin, describing the magnificent pillars that he found at Persepolis, tells us, that the storks (birds respected by the Persians) make their nests on the tops of these columns with great boldness, and are in no danger of being dispossessed. — Border. ZECI1 ARIAH. CHAPTER I. Ver. S. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle-trees that icere in the bottom : and be- hind him were there red norses, speckled, and white. The word here translated red signifies blood-red, not any kind of bright bay, or other colour usual among horses. But the custom of painting or dying animals for riding, whether asses or horses, explains the nature of this de- scription. Tavernier, speaking of a city which he visited, says, "five hundred paces from the gate of the city we met a young man of a good family, for lie was attended by two servants, and rode upon an* ass, the hinder part of which was painted red." And MungoPark informs us, that the Moorish sovereign All, always rode upon a milk-white horse, with its tail died red. See also Zech. vi. 2. Rev. vi. 4— Border. CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. And said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabit- ed as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein: 5. For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her. The promise of God's being to Jerusalem, or his church, 8 wall of fire, seems to be spoken in allusion to the manner in which travellers in desert parts of the earth defend them- selves in the nighttime from the attacks of ferocious ani- mals. They place fires in various directions around their encampment. This was our constant practice in the wilds of Africa, when timber to burn could he obtained. While the fires kept burning, we were in perfect safety, as no un- domesticated animal, however ferocious, will approach near to fire. Something in its brightness seems to give alarm.— Campbell. CHAPTER III. Ver. 2. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan ; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? When a man has had a very narrow escape from dan- ger or from death, he is called a firebrand ! Thus, when the cholera rages, should only one in a family escape, he is named "the firebrand." When a person talks of selling his property in consequence of not having an heir, people say, " Sell it not, there will be yet a firebrand to inherit it." " Alas ! alas! my relations are' all dead, I am a firebrand." — Roberts. Ver. 3. Now Joshua was clothed with filthy gar- ments, and stood before ths angel. It was usual, especially among the Romans, when a man was charged with a capital crime, and during his arraign- ment, to let down his hair, suffer his beard to grow long, to \'ear filthy ragged garments, and appear in a very dirty and sordid habit ; on account of which they were called sordidtiti. When the person accused was brought into court to be tried, even his near relations, friends, and ac- quaintances, before the court voted, appeared with dishev- elled hair, and clothed wi:h garments foil and out of fash- ion, weeping, crying, and deprecating punishment. The accused sometimes appeared before the judges clothed it. black, and his head covered with dust. In allusion to (hi- ancient custom, the prophet Zechariah represents Joshua, the high-priest, when he appeared before the Lord, and S:iian stood at Ins right hand to accuse him, as clothed with filthy garments. Alter the cause was carefully examined. and all parties impartially heard, the public crier, bv com- mand of the presiding magistrate, ordered the judges to bring in their verdict. — Paxton. Ver. 10. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig-tree. See on Ps. 78. 47, and 1 Kings 1. 9. The oriental banquet, in consequence of the intense heat, is often spread upon the verdant turf, beneath the shade of a tree, where the streaming rivulet supplies the company with wholesome water, and excites a gentle breeze to cool their burning temples. The vine and the fig, it appears from the faithful page of inspiration, are preferred on such joyous occasions. — Paxton. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 10. For who hath despised the day of small things'/ for they shall rejoice, and shall seethe plummet in the hand of Zerubbahel with those seven; thev arc the eves of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth. The margin has, instead of ." they shall rejoice," "or since the seven eyes of the Lord shall." (iii. 9, " Seven eyes.") Dr. Boothroyd says, these eves represent "the per- fect oversight and providence of God," which I doubt not is the true meaning. It is a curious fact that the run which shines seven times in the course of the week, i.; spoken of as the " seven eyes" of the deity, because there is an eye for each day. Thus, the Sunday, the " first eye" of God. shines, and so on through the rest of the days. * In the 9th verse meniion is made of laying the foundation stone of a temple for Jehovah, and again in the 10th verse it is asked, " Who hath despised the day of small things V saying it is only the foundation, this is' a small beginning: fear not, for the " seven eyes" of the Lord are over the work. His good providence shall accomplish the whole, because he has an eye for each day of the week. Has a man suffered a great evil, has an antagonist Iriumphed over another, either in a court of justice or any other way, he says, in talking about his misfortunes, " God has lost his eyes, or I should not have fallen into this trouble." "Well", friend, how is this 1 I hear you have gained the day." — " True, true, the eyes of God were upon me." Should there not have been rain for some time, the people say, " God has nu eves in these days," i. e. he does not take care of us. In the book Scclhc-rfpn/id it is said, " To all there are two syes--. to the learned there are ihrce; to the giver of alms there are seven eyes, (alluding to each day;) but to those who through penance have received gracious gifts, there are in- numerable eyes."— Roberts. CHAPTER V. Ver. 9. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and. behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings ; (for tiny had wing-* like the wings of a stork :) and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the In the iif which th<"se words are a part, the >-ropr>c Jos ZECHARIAH. Cut -11. fceheld iD fearful perspective, the future calamities of his nation. The ephah represented the measure of iniquity which the Jews were fast filling up by their increasing enormities. The woman whom he saw sitting in the midst of the ephah, signified the Jewish nation in their degene- rate state ; this woman the angel calls wickedness, the ab- stract being put for the concrete, the wicked people of the Jews, to whom God was about to render according to their works. Into the ephah the woman is thrust down, and a talent of lead cast upon the mouth of it, to keep her a close prisoner; denoting that the condemned sinner who has filled up the measure of his iniquity, can neither escape from the curse of God, nor endure the misery which it in- rlicts. The ephah containing this mystical woman, he now sees carried awav into a far country; that is, the nation of the Jews overthrown, their civil and religious polity extin- guished, their temple burned, their priests slain, and the poor remains of their people scattered over the face of all the earth. This great and terrible destruction is accom- plished by the Roman emperors, Vespasian and Titus, sym- bolized by " two women who had wings like a stork," which are sufficiently powerful to waft that bird to a very distant country. These symbolical women lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven ; which was ful- filled when the Roman armies, with a rapidity resembling the flight of a bird of passage, came up against the Jews, now ripe for destruction, and swept them from the land of their fathers into regions far remote, from which they were not, as in the first captivity, to return after seventy years, but to remain in a state of depression and suffering for many generations. Under the curse of incensed heaven they still remain, and must do so, till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and then all Israel shall be saved. — PiXTON. CHAPTER VIII. Ver. 7. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country. The margin has, instead of "west country," "country of the going down of the sun." The form in the margin is exceedingly common; thus people do not always say, "We are to go to the east or west, but " to the side where is the going down," or " to the side where is the ascending place." " In what direction are you going 1"—" To the . place of the going down."— Roberts. Ver. 16. These are the things that ye shall do, Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates. It appears from the above, and other passages of scrip- ture, that the kings of Israel distributed justice, or sat in judgment to decide causes that might be brought before :hem, at the gate, — that the gate of the city was the place where these causes came before them, and where they pro- nounced their decision ;— that the king held his councils at the gate, or where the elders or chiefs met the king, to con- sider the affairs of the nation ; — and that, in fact, all their principal assemblies were held at the gates of the city. . This Jewish custom still exists high in themterior of South Africa. While in Kurreechane, a city about twelve or thirteen hundred miles up from the Cape of Good Hope, I was Sold that a cause was going to be brought before the king. Being anxious to wilnes's it, I was led in haste to She gnte, where I saw the king sit down at the right side of it, wifh his secretary on his right hand, and the prosecutor, o! corn-plainer, on his left, who stated his case across to the secretatry. During his narrating his case, the king was look- ing abfmt as if not attending to what was said, but I saw rom Ins eye that he was attending to what, for form's sake, was addressed to the secretary. When the party had finished what he had to say, the secretary repeated the whole if the king, as if he had been entirely ignorant of the matter. The king immediately gave judgment. — Campbelt . CHAPTER X. Ver. 4. Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle-bow, out of him every oppressor together. See on Is. 22. 23. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 1. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fiia may devour thy cedars. See on Ps. 72. 16. Ver. 1. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fii« may devour thy cedars. 2. Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen ; because all the mighty are spoiled : howl, O ye oaks of Bashan ; for the forest of the vintage is come down. The mountainous range of Lebanon was celebrated for particularly for the size a^id the extent of its forests excellence of its cedars. The ascent from the village o/ Eden, or Aden, near Tripoli, to the spot where the cedars grow, is inconsiderable. This distance is computed bv Captains Irby and Mangles to be about five miles, allowing for the windings of the road, which is very rugged, and passes over hill and dale. These far-famed'treesare situ- ated on a small eminence in a valley at the foot of the high- est part of the mountain : the land on the mountain's side has a steril aspect, and the trees are remarkable by being al- together in one clump. By the natives they are called Ai- sileban. There are. in fact, two generations of trees ; the oldest are large and massy, four, five, or even seven trunks springing from one base ; they rear their heads to an enor- mous height, spreading their branches afar; and they are not found in any other part of Lebanon, though young trees are occasionally met with. The ancient cedars — those which superstition has con- secrated as holy, and which are the chief object of the traveller's curiosity, have been gradually diminishing in number for the last three centuries. In 1550, Belloni found them to be twenty-eight in number: Rauwolf, in 1575, counted Iwenty-fotir; Dandini.in 1C00, and Thevenot, about fifty years after, enumerated twenty-three, which Maun- drell, in 1697, states were reduced to sixteen. Dr. Pococke, in 1738, found fifteen standing, and one which had been re- cently blown down. Burckhardt, in 1810, counted eleven or twelve ; twenty-five others were very large ones, about fifty of middling size, and more than three hundred smaller and youngones. Lastly, in 1818, Dr. Richardson found that the old cedars, "the glory of Lebanon," were no more than seven in number. In the course of another century, it is probable that not a vestige of them will remain, and the predictions of the prophets will then be most literally ful- filled :—" Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down. The high ones of stature shall be hewn down: Lebanon shall fall mightily." (Isa, xxxiii. 9 j i. 33,, 34.1 "Upon the mount- ains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen ; to the end that none of all the trees by the water exalt themselves for their height, neither shoof up the top among the thick boughs." (Ezck. xxxi. 13, 14.) "Open thy doors, O Le- banon, that the fire may destroy thy cedars. The cedar is fallen; the forest of the vintage is come down." (Zech. xi. 1,2.) The trunks of the old trees are covered with the names of travellersand other persons who hsve visited them, some of which go as far back as 1640. These trunks are de- scribed by Burckhardt as seeming to be quite dead; their wood is of a gray teint. Maundrell, in 1697, measured one, which he found to be twelve yards and six inches in girth, and thirty-seven yards in the spread c f its boughs : at above five or six yards from the ground it was divided into five limbs, each of which was equal to a great tree Fortv one vears afterward, (viz. 1738,) Dr. Pococke treasured one which had the roundest body, though not the largest, snd found it twenty-four feet in circumference ; smother, with a sort of triple bodv and of a triangular figure, measurec twelve feet on each side. In 1818," Dr. Richardson meas- ured one, which he afterward discovered was not the lar- gest in the clump, and found it to be thirtv-two feet in cir- cumference. Finally, in 1824, Mr. Madox rested under the branches of a cedar, which measured twenty-seven feel in circumference, a little way from the ground: after which he measured the largest of the trees cow standing, which Chap. 11 — i4. ZECHARIAH. he found to be thirty-nine or forty feet in circumference: it has three very large stems, and seven large branches, with various smaller ones. The cedars of Lebanon are frequently mentioned in the sacred writing-. I!. M.Irs their uncommon size and beauty of dupe and foliage, (which must be borne in mind in order to enter fully into the meaning of the sacred writers,) they send forth a fragrant odour, which seems lobe intended by "the smell of Lebanon." (Has. xiv. f>. Sol. Song iv. 11.) Its timber was used in the erection of the first and second temple at Jerusalem, as well as of the palace of S lioTOOD . and in the last-mentioned edifice, so much cedar-wood ap- peals to have been used, thai it was called " the house of the forest of Lebanon." (I fanes vii. 2; X. 19.) The Tyrians used it in ship-building, (Ezek. xxvn. 5, 6.)— Hosne. [See i-'il ra\ I r of Ike Cedars op Lebanon, in the 3omfre- uensive Commentary] Ver. 7. And1 I will feed the flock of slaughter, even yon, O poor of th'e flock. And I took unto me two staves j the one I called Beauty, and the other 1 called Bands : and I fed the Bock. Written obligations were cancelled in different ways; one was by blotting or drawing a line across them, and an- other by striking them through with a nail; in both cases the bond was rendered useless, and ceased to be valid. These customs the apostle applies to the death of Christ in his epistle to the Colossians : "Blotting out the handwri- ting of ordinances that was againstus. which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross." A rod was sometimes broken, as a sign that the covenant into which they had entered was nullified. A trace of this ancient custom is still discernible in our own country : the lord steward of England, when he resigns his commission, breaks his wand of office, to denote the termination of his power. Agreeably to this practice, the prophet Zechariah broke the staves of Beauty and Bands, the symbols of God's covenant with ancient Israel, to show them, thai in conse- quence of their numerous and long-continued iniquities, he withdrew his distinguishing favour, and no longer ac- knowledged them as his peculiar people. This is the ex- position given by the prophet himself: " And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people ; ami it was broken in that day. Then I cut asunder my other staff, even Bands, that 1 might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel." — Paxton. CHAPTER XII. Ver 6 In that day will I make the governors of Jndah like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the ri- not be any wonder that there is much which is not " fine gold ;" and such is the skill of some of the goldsmiths, they often deceive the most practised eye. The grand secret ol .u.riiYMV, by which other metals could be transmuted into gold, has never been POLLY divulged, but multitudes be- lieve that certain individuals have this knowledge. Nor was that invaluable acquirement confined to Hindoos; for "Diocletian caused a diligent inquiry to be made for all the ancient books which treated of the admiiable art of making gold and silver, and without pity committed them to the flames, apprehensive, as we are' assured, lest the opulence of the Egyptians should inspire them with eor.fi- dencc to rebel against the empire." "The conquest ol Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the globe." Numbers in the East waste their entire property in trying to acquire this wonderful secret. Not long ago a party of the " gold-makers," having heard of a very charitable man, went to him and said they had heard of his good deeds, and in order to enable him to be more benevolent, they offered, at a trifling expense, to make him a large quantity of gold. The kind-hearted creature was delighted at tho thought, and furnished the required materials, among which, it must be observed, was a considerable quantity of gild. The time came for making the precious metal, and the whole was cast into the crucible, the impostors taking care to put in an extra quantity of gold. When it was nearly ready, the alchymisls threw in some stalks of an unknown plant, and pronounced certain incantations : after which the con- tents were turned out, and there the astonished man saw a great deal more gold than he had advanced. Such an op- portunity was not to be lost; he therefore begged them to make him a much larger quantity, and after some objec- tions the knaves consented, taking good care immediately to decamp with the whole amount. An Armenian gentle- man, who died at the age of 82, as is recorded in the Mad- ras Gazette of July 22, 1R30, had expended the whole of his property, amounting to 30,000 pagoda«, in search of the philosopher's stone, but left the world a beggar. "With rrucit.te nii'l furnar.', bursting on his trunk, His last remains of blissful fervour sunk.'— Roberts. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 18. And if the family of Egypt go not up and come not, that have no rain, there shall he the plague wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast or tabernacles. • See on 1 Kings 17. 1. Ver. 20. In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD: and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. The finest breed of Arabian horses is in this country, and has furnished us with those we make use of for the tnrf. They are here chiefly articles of luxury, used only in war, or for parade. The governor has a large stud opposite the house where I live, which affords me much pleasure, as I pay them frequent visits. They are small, but finely sha- ped and* extremely active. Of this I had an opportunity oi judging yesterday, when the cavalry had a field-day in the great square, which, from the mode of exercise, called to mv mind the idea of our ancient tilts and. tournaments. The horses were sumptuously caparisoned,' eing adorned with gold and silver trappings, bells hung round their nccts, ami rich housings. The riders were in handsome Turkish dress?s, with wdiite turbans, and the whole formed to me a new and pleasing spectacle. (Rooke's Travels to llir Coast of Arabi' r-?lix.)— Birder. MALACHI. CHAPTER I. Ver. 1. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. The prophecy is here called "burden," a terra which irequently occurs elsewhere, and which is usually under- stood as equivalent to " burdensome prophecy," or such as denounced heavy and grievous things. But fPom the fol- lowing passage of Jeremiah, it would seem that that inter- pretation does not universally hold : " And as for the pro- phet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the Lord, 1 will even punish that man and his house. Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the Lord answered 1 and, What hath the Lord spoken 1 And the burden of the Lord shall he mention no more: for every man's word shall be his burden ; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God. Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the Lord answered thee 1 and, What hath the Lord spoken 1 But since ve say, The burden of the Lord; therefore thus saith the Lord, Because you say this word, The burden of the Lord, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the Lord." (Jer. xxiii. 34—38.) This has evi- dently the air of a prohibition against taking the word in that unfavourable sense. The original term messa, from a root signifying to bear, carry, take up, is of doubtful im- port, and sometimes signifies a burden, and sometimes what was borne, carried, or " Now," says Mr. Robinson, "it strikes me that the prophet Malachi, who lived in that quarter of the world, might allude to this circumstance, when he says, The Sun of righteousness shall arise with hailing in his n-ings. The Psalmist mentions the wings of Che wind, and it appears to me that this salu- brious breeze, which attends the rising of the sun, may be properly enough considered as the wings of the sun, which contain such healing influences, rather than the beams ol the sun, as the passage has been commonly understood"— Border. Ver. 3. And ye shall tread down the wicked ; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. See on Is.*41. 25. One sort of mortar made in the East is composed of one part of sand, two of wood-ashes, and three of lime, wel mixed together, and beaten for three days and nights inces- santly with wooden mallets. (Shaw. J Chardin mentions this circumstance, and applies it to this passage of the prophet, supposing there is an allusion in these words to the making of mortar in the East, with ashes collected from their baths. Some learned men have supposed the wicked here are compared to ashes, because the prophet had been speaking of their destruction under the notion of burning, ver. 1 ; but the sacred writers do not always keep close to those figures which they first propose; the paragraph ol Malachi is a proof of this assertion, and if they had, he would not have spoken of treading on the wicked like ashes if it had not been customary in these times to tread ashes which it seems was done to make mortar. — Hjrmer. END OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. GENERAL VIE HTH.EAST-M.1 1.4. J«i (9. NEW TESTAMENT THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. CHAPTER I. » Ver. 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came tog-ether, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Espousing or betrothing was a solemn promise of mar- riage made by two persons, each to the other, at such a distance of time as they agreed upon. The manner of performing this espousal was either by a writing, or by a piece of silver given to the bride, or by cohabitation. The writing that was prepared on these occasions ran in this form : " On such a day of such a month, in such a year, A, the son of A, has said to B, the daughter of B, be "thou my spouse according to the law of Moses and the Israelites, and I will give thee, for the portion of thy virginity, the sum of two hundred zuzim, as it is ordained by the law. And the said B has consented to become his spouse upon these conditions, which the said A has promised to per- form upon the day of marriage. To this the said A obliges himself: and for this he engages all his goods, even as far as the cloak which he wears upon his shoulder. Moreover, he promises to perform all that is intended in contracts of marriase in favour of the Israelitish women. Witnesses, A, B, C." The promise by a piece of silver, and without writing, was made before wi'nesses, when the young man said to his mistress, " Receive this piece of silver, as a pledge that you shall become my spouse." The engage- ment by cohabitation, according to the rabbins, was allowed by the law, but it had been wisely forbidden bv the ancients, because of the abuses that might happen, and to prevent the inconvenience of clandestine marriages. After such espousal was made, (which was generally when the parties were young,) the woman continued with her parents several months, if not some years, before she was brought home and her marriage consummated.— Calmet. CHAPTER II. Ver. 1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusa- lem. There is no traveller in Palestine, of any nation, what- ever may be his creed, who does not visit Bethlehem, where "Jesus was born in the days of Herod the king." (Matt. ii. I.) Though now reduced to a village, anciently it was a city, (Ruth ill. 11. iv. I,S and was fortified by Rehc~- boam. (2 Chron. xi. 6.) In Matt. ii. 1, 5, it is called Beth- lehem of Judea, in orderto distinguish it from another town i>f the same name, which had been allotted to the tribe of Zebulun. In Luke ii. 4, it is termed the " city of David," iecause David was born and educated there. Two roads lead from Jerusalem to Bethlehen : the short- est, which is most used, passes over ground extremely rocky and barren, diversified only by some cultivated patches', bearing a scanty crop of grain, and by banks of wild flowers, which grow in' great profusion. This town, or rather vil- lage, is pleasantly situated about six miles southwest o/ Jerusalem, on the brow of a steep hill, in a very fertile soil, which only wants cultivation to render it what the name, " Bethlehem," imports, — a house nf bread. At the further extremity, like a citadel, stands the convent of Saint Gio- vanni, which contains the Church of the Nativity. A star is introduced into our view, in order to guide the reader's eye to this spot. This convent is divided among the Greek, Roman, and Armenian Christians, to each of whom are assigned separate portions, as well for lodging as for places of worship ; but on certain days they may all perform their devotionsat thealtarswhich are erected over the most mem- orable spots within these sacred walls. This convent is entered through a door strongly bound with iron, so low as to oblige the party entering to stoop considerably, and too narrow to allow more than one person to pass at a time. This leads into the Church of the Nativity, whiz-h was erected by the Emperess Helena, on the site of a :emple of Adonis, which was built here by the Emperor Hadrian, it his hatred against all who professed the Christian name and faith. About a mile to the northeast of Bethlehem is a deep valley, in which Dr. Clarke imagined that he halted at the identical fountain or well, for the delicious water of which David longed. ('2 Sam. xiiii. 15 — 18.) Here, according to tradition, is the field where the shepherds kept watch by night, when the angels announced to them the birth of our Lord. (Luke ii. 8—11.) When this spot was visited by Mr. Carne, two fine and venerable trees stood in the cen- tre; and the earth around it was thickly covered with flowers : he represents it as ': so sweet and romantic a spot, that it would be painful to doubt its identity." Bethlehem is now a poor village, with a population of about three hundred inhabitants, most of whom are Chris- tians. Their number was dreadfully reduced by the plague in the year 1832; and though this village is only a few miles distant from Jerusalem, the mortality is generally much greater here than in the metropolis of the Holy Land. The Bethlehemites are represented by all travellers as a bold and fierce race, of whom both Turks and Arabs stand in awe. The greater part of them gain their livelihood by making beads, carving mother-of-pearl shells with sacred subjects, and other trinkets, which are highly valued and eagerly purchased by the devout visiters. The monks of Bethlehem claim the exclusive privilege of marking the limbs and bodies of such pilgrims as choose to submit to the operation, with crosses, stars and, monograms, by means of gunpowder;— an operation this, which is always painful, and sometimes dangerous. This practice is very ancient ; it is noticed by Virgil (^neid. lib. iv. v. 1-1G) and by Pom- ponius Mela, (lib. xxi.) Dr. Clarke remarks, that there rarely exists an instance among the minor popular super- MATTHEW. Chap. 3. stitions of Ihe Greek and Roman churches, but its origin may be found in more remote antiquity, and very often among '.he religious customs of the heathen nations. — HORNE. Ver. 11. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him : and when they had opened their trea- sures, they presented unto them gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. The birth of a son is always a time of great festivity in the East ; hence the relations come together, to songratulate the happy parents, and to present their gifts to the little stranger. Some bring the silver anklets; others, the brace- lets, or ear-rings, or silver cord for the loins. Others, how- ever, take gold, and a variety of needful articles. The wise men did not make presents as a matter of charity, but to show their affection and respect. When the infant son of a king is shown, the people make their obeisance to him. — Roberts. Ver. 1 8. In Rama was there a voice heard, lam- entation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. See on ch. 9. 23. Ver. 23. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. Nassara, the Nazareth of the scriptures, is called by Maundrell an inconsiderable village ; by Brown, a pleasant one, with a respectable convent ; and in Dr. Clarke's visit was said to have so declined, under the oppressive tyranny of Djezzar's government, as to seem destined to maintain its ancient reputation, since now, as of old, one might ask, with equal reason, Can there any good thin? come out of Nazareth ? John i. 46. This town, or village, is situated in a deep valley, not on the top of a hill, as has been erro- neously stated, but rather on the side of a hill, nearer its base than its summit, facing to the southeast, and having above it the rocky eminence which we had passed over in approaching it. The fixed inhabitants are estimated at about two thousand, five hundred of whom are Catholic Chris- tians, about three hundred Maronites, and two hundred Mohammedans ; the rest being schismatic Greeks. These are all Arabs of the country, and notwithstanding the small circle in which their opposing faiths meet, it is said to their honour, that thev live together in mutual forbearance and tranquillity. The private dwellings of the town, to the number of about two hundred and fiftv, are built of stone, which is a material always at hand : 'they are flat-roofed, being in general only of one story, but are sufficiently spa- cious and commodious for the accommodation of a numer- ous poor family. The streets are steep, from the inclina- tion of the hill on which they stand ; narrow, from custom ; and dirty, from the looseness of the soil. Of the public ouildings, the mosque is the most conspicuous from without, and is, indeed, a neat edifice; it has six arches on one of its sides, for we could see no more of it, as it is enclosed within a wall of good masonry, and furnished with a plain whitened thin arch, surrounded by a gallery, and surmount- ed by the crescent : the whole rising from the centre of the town, as if to announce the triumph of its dominion to those approaching it from afar. The Greeks have their shurch on the southeast edge of the town, at the foot of the hill; the Maronites theirs in front of the Franciscan con- vent. The church is built over a grotto, held sacred from a belief of its being the scene of the angels announcing to Mary her favour with God, and her conception and bear- ing of the Saviour. On entering it we passed over a white marble pavement, ornamented in the centre with a device in Mosaic, and descended bv a flight of marble steps into a grotto, beneath the body of the church. In the Srsl compartment of this subterraneous sanctuary, we were told had stood the masswhich constitutes the famous chapel of Loretto, in Italy ; and the friars assured us, with all possible solemnity, that the angels appointed to the task took out this mass from the rock, and flew with it, first to Dalmatia and afterward to Loretto, where it now stands: and that in measuring the mass itself, and the place from which it had been taken, they had found them to cor- respond in every respect, neither the one by the voyage, nor the other by age, having lost or altered any part of its size or shajie. Proceeding farther in, we were shown a second grotto, or a continuation of the first, with two red granite pillars, of about two feet in diameter, at its entrance, and were told that one marked the spot where the angel stood when he appeared to Mary, exclaiming, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou among women. Luke i. 28. The pillar on the right is still perfect, but that on the left has a piece of its shaft broken out, leaving a space of about a foot and a half between Ihe upper and under fragment; the latter of those continuing still to be supported by being firmly imbedded in the rock above, offers to the eyes of believing visiters, according to the expression of the friars, a standing mira- cle of the care which Christ takes of his church, as they insist on its being supported by the hand of God alone. The grotto here, though small, and about eight ieet in height, remains still in its origiual roughness, the roof being slightly Irched. In the outer compartment from whence the chapel of Loretto is said to have been taken, the roof, as well as the sides, have been reshaped, and plastered, and ornamented, so that the original dimensions no longer remain. Within, however, all is left in its first rude state, to perpetuate to future ages the interesting fact which it is thought to record. Passing onward from hence, and ascending through narrow passages, over steps cut out of the rock, and turning a little to the right, we came to a chamber which the friars called La Cucina della Santa Madona; they here showed us the chimney of the hearth on which Mary warmed the food for Jesus, while yet a helpless infant, and where she baked the cakes for her husband's supper, when he returned from the labours of the day. This was an apartment of the house, as they observed, in which the Son of God lived so many years ib subjection to man ; as it is believed by all that he was brought up from childhood to manhood in Nazareth. The fact of Joseph and Mary having resided in this house, and used the very room in which we stood, as their kitchen, has nothing at all of improbability in it: and as excavated dwellings, in the side of a steep hill '.ike this, would be more secure, and even more comfortable, than fabricated ones, it is quite as probable that this might have really been the residence of the holy family, as of any other. The synagogue in which Jesus read and expounded the prophet Esaias on the sabbath, is shown here within the town, while the precipice from which the exasperated peo- ple would have hurled him, is pointed out at a place more than a mile distant, to the southward, and on the other side of the vale.— Buckingham. CHAPTER III. Ver. 4. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins ; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. See on Mark 1. 6. His raiment was not made of the fine hair of that ani- mal, whereof an elegant kind of cloth is made, which is thence called camlet, (in imitation of which, though made of wool, is the English camlet,) but of the long and shaggy hair of camels, which is in the East manulactured '.mo a coarse stuff, anciently worn by monks and anchorites. It is only when understood in this way, that the words suit the description here given of John's manner of life.— Campbell. The girdle is an indispensable article in the dress of an Oriental; it has various uses; but the principal one is to tuck up their long flowing vpstmenls, that they may not incommode them in their work, or on a journev. The Jews, according to some writers, wore a double girdle, one of greater breadth, with which they girded their tunic when thev prepared for active exertions : the other they wore under their shirt, around their loins. This under- girdle they reckon necessary to distinguish between the Chap, l. MATTHEW .-,:; heart, and the less honourable parts of the human frame. The upper girdle was sometimes made of leather, the ma- terial ol which the girdle of John the Baptist was made; but it was more commonly fabricated of worsted, often very artfully woven into a variety of figures, and made to fold several times about the body; one end of which being donbled bark, and sewn along the edges, serves them for a purse, agreeably to the ai the scriptures, which is translated purse in several places of the New Testament.— Paxton. The dress of John greatly re-embh'.l thai of the interior nations of South Africa, only substituting a skin cloak for one of camel's hair; and his food thai of the v. il I Basis men during the locust season. Locusts resemble gigantic grasshoppers furnished with wings. When ll like inn erable armies, the v certainly destrov which they gather tOj I in the sun, and then grind them into powder, which they mil up with wild honey, or what the bees deposite upon rocks, trees, and bushes, and on this compound live a part of the year; so that the locusts, which are the greatest scourge ol more civilized people, are considered as welcome visiters by the wild Bushmen, who hail their approach. Indeed, the crocus and locust seasons are called their harvests; thus Ver, 11. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to hear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and icith fire. The custom of loosing the sandals from off the feet of an eastern worshipper was ancient and indispensable. It is also commonly observed in visits to great men. The san- dals or slippers are pulled off at the door, and either left there, or given to a servant to bear. The person to bear them means an inferior domestic, or attendant upon a man of high rank, to take care of, and return them to him again. This was the work of servants among the Jews: and it was reckoned so servile, that it was thought too mean for a scholar or a disciple to do. The Jews say, "all services which a servant does for his roaster a disciple does for his master, except unloosing his shoes." John thought it was too great an honour for him to do that for Christ, which was thought too mean for a disciple to do for a wise man. —Gill. A respectable man never goes out without his servant or attendant; thus, he has always some one to talk with, and to do any thing he may require. When the ground is smooth, or where ttyre is soft grass to walk on, the sandals are taken off, and the servant carries them in his hand. The devoted, the humble John, did not consider himself worthy to bear the sandals of his divine Master.— Roberts. Ver. 12. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; hut will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. There is, in what the Baptist here declares, an evident allusion to the custom of burning the chaff after winnowing, that it might not be blown back again, and so be mingled with the wheat. There was danger, lest, after they had been separated, the chaff should be blown again among the wheat by the changing of the wind. To prevent this they put fire'to it at the windward side, which crept on and never gave over till it had consumed all the chaff. In this sense it was an unquenchable fire. See also Psalm lxxxiii. 13, 14. Isaiah v. 24.— Bc-rder. After the grain is trodden out, they winnow it by throw-- .ng it up against the wind with a shovel — the r» wrtn of the gospels according to Matthew and Luke, there rendered a fan, which is too cumbersome a machine to be intended oj the evangelist. The text should rather run. whose shovel or fork, the tpym* ttamnr, (which is a portable in- strument,t is in his hand, agreeably to the practice recorded by Isaiah, who mentions both the shovel and the Ian : " The oxen likewise, and the young asses that ear the ground, shall eat clean provender, which haih been winnowed with the shovej and wi:h the Ian." After the grain is winnowed, they lodge It in subterrane- ous magazines, as was formerly the custom ol other nations; Iwi. .a three hundred of these lerepiacb's are sum be found together, the smallest holding foul hundred bush- eK. These grottoes are dug in the form of an oven, grad- ually enlarging towards the bottom, with one round opening ; in- being close shut when ihe magazine is full, i co i Novel witheai h " as to remain perfectly con- ,:!! • DeiO] Tl: in the isl "i a ploughed field ; som and even in the middle of the highway 'I la same kind of granaries are used in Palestine as ID Syria Le Bruyn speak- of a number of deep juts at Rama, which be was told were designed for com : and Rauwolf, of three verj large vaults ai Joppa, where the inhabitants laid up ill. u* corn, when he was in thai country. The treasures in the field, consisting nf wheal and ..I bailey, of oil and ol ich were offered to [shrnael, as a ransom foi the lives of his eaptr.es, were undoubtedly laid up in the same kind of repositories. In dangerous and on tiled times like those of Jeremiah, it is quite common, even at pre-, i.t. foi the Arabs to secure their corn and other effects, which they cannot carry along with them, in deep pits or subterraneous grottoes. Sir John Chardin, in a note upon this verj | as- sage of the prophet, says, " The eastern people in many places hide their corn in these concealments." To these various customs the Bapiist alludes in his solemn warning to the multitudes concerning Christ; " Whose fan (rather whose shovel) is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his lb mr, and gather his wheat into the garner; but the chaff will he burn with unquenchable fire." And our Lord himself, in his parable of the good seed : "Gather ye.to- gether first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn."— Paxton. Ver. 16. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water : and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and light- ing upon him. Many have supposed, that the third person of the trinity, on this" occasion, assumed the real figure of a dove; bu* the sacred writer seems to refer, not to the shape, but to the manner in which the dove descends from the sky. Had it related to the shape or form, it would not have been urn Time mi, as a dove ; bulum n-Miaioat. as of a dove. In this manner, the likeness of fire is expressed by the same evan- gelist, in the Acts of the Apostles. " There appeared ctoven tongues (en in a town some days, you may hear of a more wealthy in- dividual, who could entertain you better. No; in Ihe same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give ;— whatever is set before you." The same inference is deduced from Ihe advice of the apostle John to ihe lady Electa, (3 Epistle 10.) " If there come any to von, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your oikia." She was, therefore, a person of respectability, it not of rank; mistress of a household establishment, on a scale proper for the exercise of Christian benevolence in a convenient and suitable manner— of liberal heart, and ot equally liberal powers. Whoever has well considered the difficulties to which travellers in the East are often exposed to procure supplies, or even sufficient provisions to make a meal, will perceive the propriety of these directions. Although it was one sign of the Messiah's advent, that to Ihe poor the gospel was preached, yet it was not the Messiah's purpose to add lo Ihe difficulties of any man's situation. He supposes that a family-man, a housekeeper, might be without bread, obliged to borrow from a friend, to meet the wants of a single traveller, (Luke xi. 5, " I have nothing to set before him,") no uncommon case ; but, if ibis were occasioned by real penury, the rights of hospitality, however congenial te ihe manners of the people, or to the feelings of the indi- vidual, and however urgent, must be waived. — Taylor in Calmet. Ver. 12. And when ye come into a house, salute it When the priests or pandurams go into a house, they sometimes sing a verse ol blessing; at other times the priest Ver. 25. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord : if they have called the niaster of the house Beel- zebub, how much more shall they rail them of his household? It is supposed that this idol was the same with Eaal-zebnd. Ihe fly-god, worshipped at Ekron, (2 Kings i. 2,) and who had his name changed afterward by the Jews to Baal-zebul, the dung-god: a title expressive of the utmost contempt. Among the Jews it was held, in a manner, for a matter of religion to reproach idols, and to give them odious names: and among the ignominious ones bes'owed upon ihem, the general and common one was zebnl, dung, or a dunghill. Many names of evil spiri's, or devils, occur in the Talmud Among all ihe devils, they esteemed him the worst, the. prince of the rest, who ruled over idols, and by whom ora eles and miracles were given forth among the heathen. This demon they called Baal-zebul. — Border. Ver. 42 And whosoever shall give to drink untu MATTHEW. Chap. 10—13. one of these little ones, a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily, I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. In the eastern countries, a cup of water was a considera- ble object. In India, the Hindoos go sometimes a great way to fetch it, and then boil it, that it may do the less hurt to travellers when they are hot; and after that, they stand from morning nil night in some great road, where there is neither pit nor rivulet, and offer it in honour of their god, to be drank by all passengers. This necessary work of charity, in these hot countries, seems to have been practised by the more pious and humane Jews. (Asiatic Miscella- ny.)— Burder. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 8. But what went ye out for to see ? A man clothed in soft raiment ? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king's houses. Persons devoted to a life of austerity, commonly wore a dress of coarse materials. John the Baptist, we are told in the sacred volume, was clothed in a garment of camel's hair, with a broad leathern girdle about his loins. It is a circumstance worthy of notice, that the finest and most elegant shawls, which constitute- so essential a part of the Turkish dress, and are worn by persons in the highest ranks of life, are fabricated of camel's hair. These un- questionably belong to the " soft raiment" worn by the resi- dents in the palaces of eastern kings. But it is evident that the inspired writer intends, by the remark on the dress of John, to direct our attention to the meanness of his attire. " What went ye out for to see ? a man clothed in soft rai- ment 1 Behold, they that are in king's houses wear soft clothing;" but the garments of John were of a very differ- ent kind. It is, indeed, sufficiently apparent, that the in- habitants of the wilderness, where John spent his days before he entered upon his ministry, and other thinly settled dis- tricts, manufactured a stuff, in colour and texture somewhat resembling our coarse hair-cloihs, of the hair which fell from their camels, for their own immediate use, of which the raiment of that venerable prophet consisted. In the same manner, the Tartars of modern times work up their camel's hair into a kind of felt, which serves as a covering to their tents, although their way of life is the very reverse of easy and pompous. Like the austere herald of the Saviour, the modern dervises wear garments of the same texture, which they, too, gird about their loins with great leathern girdles. Elijah, the Tishbite, seems to have worn a habii of camel's hair, equaiiy mean and coarse; for he is represented in our translation as a "hairy man," which perhaps ought to be referred to his dress, and not to his person. — Paxton. Ver. 16. But whereunto shall I liken this gene- ration? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows. It was the custom of children among the Jews, in their sports, to imitate what they saw done by others upon great occasions, and particularly the customs in festivities, where- in the musician beginning a tune on his instrument, the company danced to his pipe. So also in funerals, wherein the women beginning the mournful song, (as the prirfacre of the Romans,) the rest followed lamenting and beating .heir breasts. These things the children acted and person- ated in the streets in play, and the rest not following the leader as usual, gave occasion to this speech : " We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced ; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented." — Border. Ver. 16. Bat whereunto shall I liken this gene- ration 1 It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, 17. And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced ; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. The funeral procession was attended by professional itiourners, eminently skilled in the art of lamentation, whom the friends and relations of the deceased hired, to assist them in expressing their sorrow. They began the ceremo- ny with the stridulous voices of old women, who strove, by their doleful modulations', to extort grief from those that were present. The children in the streets through which they passed, often suspended their sports, to imitate the sounds, and joined with equal sincerity in the lamentations. — Paxton. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 27. And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out 1 therefore they shall be your judges. The universal opinion in the East is, that devils have the power to enter into and lake possession of men, in thesame sense as we understand it to have been the case, as de- scribed by the sacred writers. I have often seen the poor objects who were believed to be under demoniacal influ- ence, and certainly, in some instances, I found it no easy matter to account for their conduct on natural principles. 1 have seen them writhe and tear themselves in the most frantic manner; thev burst asunder the cords with which they were bound, and fell on the ground as if dead. At one time they are silent, and again most vociferous ; they dash with fury among the people, and loudly pronounce their imprecations. But no soonor does the exorcist come for- ward,than the victim becomes the subject of new emotions; he stares, talks incoherently, sighs, and falls on the ground ; and in the course of an hour is as calm as any who are around him. Those men who profess to eject devils are frightful-looking creatures, and are seldom associated with, except in the discharge of their official duties. It is a fact, that they affect to eject the evil spirits by their prince oj devils. Females are much more subject to those affections than men; and Friday is the day of all others on which they are most liable to be attacked. I am fully of opinion that nearly all their possessions would be removed by medicine, or by' arguments of a more tangible nature. Not long ago, a young female was said to be under the influence of an evil spirit, but the father, being an unbeliever, took a large broom and began to beat his daughter in the most unmerciful man- ner. After some time the spirit cried aloud, " Do not beat me, do not beat me," and took its departure ! There is a fiend called poolhani, which is said to take great delight in entering little children; but the herb called pa-mqjruta is then administered with* great success!— Roberts. Ver. 42. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it : for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solo- mon ; and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. This is spoken in allusion to a custom among the Jews and Romans, which was, for the witnesses tome from their seals when they accused criminals, or gave any evidence against them.— Burder. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 25. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. Stranee as it may appear, this is still literally done in the East. See that lurking villain, watching for the time when his neighbour shall plough his field; he carefully marks the period when the work has been finished, and goes in the niaht following, and casts in what the natives call the pnndin-:) gamel, and the Greek word (.n,,i,Xo<) kavn. los, the Syrians, the Helenistis Jews, and ihe Arabians, al' understood a ship's cable: and hence, ihe Assyrians and Arabians conlended that ihe word must be so interpreted in the proverb under consideration. The Talmudical wri ters also have a similar adage, which is quoted by Box torf: "The departure of the soul from the body is diffi cult as the passing of a cable through a small aperture."- Paxton. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 6. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith xae.n them, Why stand ye here all the day idk I MATTHEW. Chap. 20—22 7. They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard ; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. The most conspicuous building in Hamadan is the Mes- jid Jumah, a large mosque now falling iu.o decay, and before it a maidan or square, which serves as a market- place. Here we observed every morning befc re the sun rose, that a numerous band of peasants were collected with spades in their hands, waiting, as they informed us, to be hired for the day to work in the surrounding fields. This custom, which I have never seen in any other part of Asia, forcibly struck me as a most happy illustration of our Sa- viour's parable of the labourers in the vineyard in the 20th chapter of Matthew, particularly when passing by the same place late in the day, we still found others standing idle, and remembered his words, " Why stand ye here all the day idle '" as most applicable to their situation : for in put- ting the very same question to them, they answered us, " Because no man hath hired us." — Morier. Ver. 11. And when they had received it, they murmured against the good man of the house. Pay a man ever so liberally, he will still murmur ; he looks at the money and then at your face, and says, " po- thathu," i, e. not sufficient. He tells you a long story about what he has done and suffered, about the great expense he has been at to oblige you, and he entreats you for a little more. I ask any Englishman who has been in India, if he ever met with a Hindoo who was not at all times ready to -Roberts. Ver. 1C. So the last shall be first, and the first last : for many be called, but few chosen. The Jews never spake of levying troops, but of choosing them; because all the males, from twenty years old and upwards, being liable to serve, they had always a great many more than they wanted. In allusion to the general muster of the people, and the selection of a certain number for the service of their country, our Lord observes, " Man? are called, but few chosen." The great mass of the people were called together by sound'of trumpet, and on passing in review before the officers, those were chosen who were deemed mcst fit for service. This is the reason the Hebrews usually called their soldiers young men, and bakurim, chosen. But no man, who felt a disposition to serve his country, was rejected ; though an Israelite was not chosen, he might volunteer his services, and was then en- rolled.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 5. Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. See on Is. 30. 24. Ver. 7. And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set Am thereon. In later times also it was customary in those countries lit make riding more convenient in this manner. Tucher, who made a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre in the last half of the fifteenth century, gives the following advice to a person who intends travelling in Palestine : " Have a coat made at' Venice of double cloih : it is very conve- nient in the Holy Land. You spread it upon the ass, and ride on it." — Rosenmuller. Ver. 8. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way. It was a common practice in the East, and one which, on certain great and joyful occasions, has been practised in other countries, to strew flowers and branches of trees in the way of conquerors and renowned princes. Herod- xes pa: the Hellespont, and burnt all manner of perfumes on the bridges, and strewed the way with myrtles. So did those Jews who believed Christ to be the promised Messiah, and the king of Israel ; they cut down branches of the trees, and slrewed them m the way. Sometimes the whole road which leads to the capito! of an eastern monarch, for sev- eral miles, is covered with rich silks over which he rides into the city. Agreeably to this custom, the multitudes spread their garments in the way when the Saviour rode in triumph into Jerusalem. — Paxton. Campbell is right, " Spread their manti.es in the way." The people of the East have a robe which corresponds with the mantle of an English lady. Its name is salvi, and how often may it be seen spread on the ground where men of rank have to walk ! I was not a little surprised soon after my arrival in the East, when going to visit a native gentleman, to find the path through the garden covered with white garments. I hesitated, but was told it was for " my respect." I must walk on them to show I accepted the honour. — Roberts. Ver. 12. And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves. The money-changers were such persons as supplied the Jews, who came from distant parts of Judea, and other parts of the Roman empire, with money, to be received back at their respective homes, or which they had paid before they began their journey. Perhaps also they ex- changed foreign coins for those current at Jerusalem. The Talmud and Maimonides inform us that the half-shekel paid yearly to the temple by all the Jews, (Exod. xxx. 15,) was collected there with great exactness in the month Adar, and that on changing the shekels and other money into half-shekels for that purpose, the money-changers exacted a small staled fee, or payment, called kolbon. It was the tables on which they trafficked for this unholy gain which Christ overturned. — Hammond. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 2. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son. The hospitality of the present day, in the East, exactly resembles that of the remotest antiquity. The parable of the " great supper" is in those countries literally realized. And such was the hospitality of ancient Greece and Rome. When a person provided an entertainment for his friends or neighbours, he sent round a number of servants to in- vite the guests; these were called vocatoresbylhe Romans, and «A/i-ee them skimming along, than she gives a scream, and i lie brood for pbotbctioji run under her wings. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 17. Let him which is on the house-top not come down to take any thing out of his house, " It was not possible to view this country without calling to mind the wonderful events that have occurred in it at various periods from the earli.-st times: more particularly the sacred life and history of our Redeemer pressed fore- most on our minds. One' thing struck me in the form of the houses in the town now under our view, which served to corroborate the account of former travellers in this coun- try explaining several passages of scripture, particularly the following : In Mm. xxiv. 17, our blessed Saviour, in describing the distresses whirl, shortly would overwhelm the land of Jtidea, tells his disciples, '' when ihe abomina- tion of desolation is seen standing in the holy place, let him whe is on the house-top not come down to take any thing out }f his house, but fly,' &c. The houses in this country are all llat-roofed, and communicate with each other: a person there might proceed to the city walls and escape into the country, without coining down into the street." (Willyams's Voyage up the Mediterranean.) Mr. IJarmer endeavours to illustrate this passage, by referring to the eastern custom of the staircase being on the outside of the house: but Mr. Willyams's representation seems to afford a mjre complete elucidation of the text. — Bcrdkr. Ver. IS. Neither let him which is in the Geld re- turn back to take his clothes. , The oriental husbandman is compelled, ,hy the extreme heat of the climate, to prosecute his labours 'in the field al- most in a state of nudity. The ardour with which the farmer urged his labour, even under the milder sky of Italy, required ihe same precaution. "Plough naked,' and sow naked," said Virgil; "winter is an inactive lime for the hind." Aurelius Victor informs us, that the Roman messengers, who were sent to Cincinnatus, from Atenntius, the consul. whom he had delivered from a siege, found him ploughing naked, beyond the Tiber. But the truth is, neither the Syrian nor Italian husbandman pursued his labours in the field entirely naked, but only stripped off his upper gar- ments. An Oriental was said to be naked when these were laidraside. This enables us to understand the meaning of the charge which our Lord gave his disciples: " Neither let him who is in the field return back to take his clothes." The Israelitish peasant when he proceeded to his work in the fieid, was accustomed to strip off his upper garments, and leave, them behind in ihe house, and to resume them when his task was finished. — Paxtox. Ver. 28. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. It has oflen appeared to me that the sight and scent of birds of prev in the East are keener than those of ihe same species in England. Any garbagcthrown from the kitchen, or in the wilderness, will soon attract these winded scav- engers. Should there be a dead elephant or any oiher beast 'n the jungle, vast numbers of ravenous birds and animals hasten to the spot. The eagles, kiies, and crows, begin to tear at the carcass ami alia, b each other, and the jackals snap at their feathered rivals; thus, though there for all, they each try to hinder the other from eating. There can be no doubt that birds of piey are iov use ful in the East, as they carry oil ihe pun id matter which would Otherwise int'ccf the air. Ilcnoe Europeans do not often destroy mii-Ii buds, and in the city of Calcutta tin re is a law to protect them from being injured. — Roberts. Ver. 41. Two. women shall be grinditi"; at the mill ; the one shall lie taken, and the other left. See on ErtTl. 5. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 4. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Sir John Chardin informs us, that in many parts of Ihe East, ami in particular in the Indies, instead of torches and flambeaux, tiny carry a pot of oil in one hand, and a lamp full of oily rags in the olher. This seems to be a very happy illustration of this part of the parable, lie observes, elsewhere, that they seldom make use of randies in the East, especially among the great ; candles casting but little light, and they sitting at a considerable distance from them. Ezek. i. I>-, represents the light of lamps accordingly as very lively.— Harmer. Ver. G. And at midnight there was a cry made. Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. An eastern wedding is always celebrated in the nighl ; for though the fortunate hour foi performing some parts ol the ceremony may be in the day, yet the festivities of the scene will not take place till night. When the bridegroom goes forth to the house of the bride, or when he returns to his own habitation or to that of his father, he is always ac- companied by numerous friends and dependants, who carry lamps and torches. When he approaches either house the inmates rush out to meet him, and greet him with their best wishes and congratulations. The path is covered with " garments'' and lamps like fire flics sparkle in every di- rection . — Roberts. A similar custom is observed among the Hindoos. The husband and wife, on the day of their marriage, being both in the same palanquin, go about seven or eight o'clock at night, accompanied with all their kindred and friends; the trumpets and drums go before them ; and they are lighted by a number of flambeaux ; immediately before the palan- quin walk many women, whose business it is to sing verses, in which they wish them all manner of prosperity. Thev march in this equipage through the streets for ihe space of some hours, after which they return to their own house, where the domestics are in waiting. The whole house is illuminated with small lamps; and many of those flam- beaux already mentioned are kept ready for their arrival, besides those which accompany them, and are carried before the palanquin. These flambeaux are composed of many pieces ef old linen, squeezed hard against one an- other in a round figure, and thrust down into a mould of copper. The persons that hold them in one hand, have in th'" olher a bottle of the same metal with the copper mould, which is full of oil, which l hey take care to pour out from time to time upon the linen, which otherwise gives no light. — Paxton. Ver. 7. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. The nuptial lamps, probably, were highly decorated, the trimming was to prepare them for burning. The fol- lowing account of ihe celebration of a wedding taken from the Zendavesta, niav ihrow some light on this place. " The day appointed for the marriage, about five o'clock in the evening, the bridegroom comes to the house of ihe bride, where the mobed, or priest, pronounces, for the first time, the nuptial benediction: he then brings her to his own house, gives her some refreshment, and afterward the as- sembly of our relatives and friends reconduct her to her 592 MATTHEW. Chap. 23—17. father's house. When she arrives, ihe mobed repeals the nuptial benediction, which is generally done about mid- night ; immediately after, the bride, accompanied with a part of her attending troop, the rest having returned to their own houses, is reconducted to the house of her hus- band, where she generally arrives about three o'clock in the morning. Nothing can be more brilliant than these nuptial ceremonies in India: sometimes ihe assembly con- sists of not less than 2000 persons, all richly dressed with gold and silver tissue; the friends and relatives of the bride, encompassed with their domestics, are all mounted on horses richly harnessed. The goods, wardrobe, and even the bed of the bride, are carried in triumph. The husband, richly mounted and magnificently dressed, is ac- companied by Ins friends and relatives ; and the friends of the bride following him in covered carriages. At inter- vals, during the procession, guns and rockets are fired, and the spectacle is rendered grand beyond description by a prodigious number of lighted torches, and by the sound of a multitude of musical instruments." — Burder. Ver. 10. And while they went to buy, the bride- groom came ; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. At a marriage, the procession of which I saw some vears ago, the bridegroom came from a distance, and the bride lived at Serampore, to which place the bridegroom was to come by water. After waiting two or three hours, at length, near midnight, it was announced, as if in the very words of scripture, Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ve out to meet him. All the persons employed now light- ed their lamps, and ran with them in their hands to fill up their stations in the procession ; some of them had lost their lights, and were unprepared, but it was then too late to. seek them, and the cavalcade moved forward to the house of the bride, at which place the company entered a large and sp'iendidly illuminated area, before the house, covered with an awning, where a great multitude of friends, dress- ed in their best apparel, were seated upon mats. The bridegroom was carried in the arms of a friend, and placed on a superb seat in the midst of the company, where he sat a short time, and then went into the house, the door of which was immediately shut, and guarded by Sepoys. I and others expostulated with the door-keepers, but in vain." (Ward's View of the Hindoos.)— Burder. Ver. 36. Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. It is more easy in the East to visit imprisoned friends than it is in Europe. Thus Rauwolf tells us, that he was allowed at Tripolis, in Svria, to visit his confined friends as often as he liked. " After we had gone through small and low doors into the prisons in which they were confin- ed, their keepers always willmgly let me in and out ; some- times I even remained in the prison with them during the nigh;." — Rosenmcller. CHAPTER XXVI. Ver. 18. And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand ; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. When a man believes himself to be hear death, he says, " Go tell the priest I am going on my journey, my time is at hand." When dead, it is said of him, " His time has gone, he has fallen." — Roberts. Ver. 23. And he answered and said, He that dip- peth his hand with me in the dish, the same • shall betray me. See on John 13. 23. The practice which was most revolting to me was this: when the master of the house found in the dish any dainty morsel, he took it out with his fingers, and applied it to my mouth. This was true Syrian courtesy and hospitality; and, had I been sufficiently well-bred, my mouth would have opened to receive it. On my pointing to my plate, however, he had the goodness to deposite the choice morsel there. I would not have noticed so trivial a circumstance, if it did not exactly illustrate what the Evangelists record of the Last Supper. — Jowett. Ver. 30. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. This was the Hallcl which the Jews were obliged to sing on the night of the passover. It consisted of six psalms, the hundred and thirteenth, and the five following ones. This they did not sing all at once, but in parts. Just before the drinking of the second cup and eating of the lamb they sung the first part; and on mixing the fourth and last cup they sung the remainder; and said over it what they call the blessing of the song, which was P^alrh cxlv. 10. Thev might, if they would.'mix a fifth cup, and say over it tbe'Greal Hallel, which was Psalm exxxvi. but they were not obliged to.— Gill. Ver. 34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. See on Mark 14. 30. Ver. G9. Now Peter sat without in the palace : and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee. The Greek words are more accurately translated by, " Peter sat without in the court." This court (ai\n) in which Peter was at the fire in the palace of the high- priest, was, according to the usual old and oriental mode of building, the inner part of the house enclosed, on all sides, which was not roofed, but was in the open air. — Burder. CHAPTER XXVII. Ver. 2. And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. The Street of Grief, or Dolorous Way, derives its appel- lation from its being the supposed site of the street through which the chief priests and elders of the Jews, after binding Jesus Christ, led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate. (Mat. xxvii. 2.) It proceeds from the gate of Saint Stephen up to an archway, which appears to have been at one time called^' the Gate of Judgment," because malefac- tors were anciently conducted through it to the place of execution. This archway is exhibited in the annexed en- graving. At the period of the crucifixion, this gate stood in the western wall of Jerusalem: but now it is in the cen- tre of the city. The wall above the archwav is supposed to have formed a part of the house of Pilate ; and the cen- tral window is reputed to have been the place whence our Saviour was shown unto the people. The " Street of Grief" rises with a gradual ascent, be- coming narrower towards Calvary, where it terminates. It is difficult to pass along it, owing to the stones being broken up, and it is completely out of order.— Horne. [Sec Comprehensive Commentary, on Ps. 122. 3, and the engraving there of an arched street in Jerusalem. Ver. 7. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potters' field, to bury strangers in. It lay immediately without the wall of the city, on the southeast corner, about a mile from the Temple. " On tht west side of the valley of Hinnom, is the place a. •ienlh called the (jotters' field, and afterward the field ol blood, but now canfpo sancto. It is only a small piece of ground, about thirty yards long, and fifteen broad; one half of which is taken up by a square fabric, built for a charnel- house, that is twelve yards high. Into this building dead bodies are let down from the top, there being five holes lell open for that purpose, through which they may be seen under several degrees of decay." (MaundrefJ.) Why a potters'' field shouid be preferred to any other as Chap. 27. MATT11KW. 593 a burial-place, may be conjectured from the following ex- tract, as in all probability the same causes which prevented mverti! le to arable or pasture ground, must have existed in an equal degree, in Palestine. a burial-ground was one of the few purposes to which it could have been applied. " We travelled eleven hours this dav, and the las) six without once halting. The ground over which we travelled seemed strewed over with small piece! ware, which was so plenty thai many bu bels could be gathered in the space ol a mile. I inquired int casion of it: the information which we revived from OUT sheik and others in the caravan, was, thai in [i the greatest pan of this pi. on was inhabited bj , the soil abounded then, as it does at present, with clay Bi for their use: that they moved their works fn place, as they consumed the clay, or it suited their i-..n- venience. They now make at' Bagdad such kinds of earthenware, with a green glazing on it. When the sun shines it appears like green glass, which is very hurtful to the sight. They cannot plough this ground, as it would cut the feet of both men and oxen." (Parsoi Asia.)— Buhder. Ver. 2G. Then released he Barabbas unto them ; and when he had scourged Jesus, be delivered him. to he crucified. 29. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in bis right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! Mohammed Zeraaun Khan was carried before the king. When he had reached the camp, the king ordered Moham- med Khan, chief of his camel artillery, to put a mock- crown upon the rebel's head, bazubends or armlets on his arms, a sword by his side, to mount him upon an ass, with his face towards the tail ; then to parade him through- out the camp, and to exclaim, This is he who wanted to be the king. After this was over, and the people had mocked and insulted him, he was led before the king, who called for his looties, and ordered them to turn him into ridicule, by making him dance and make antics against his will : he then ordered, that whoever chose might spit in his face. After this he received the bastinado on the soles of hi-- (Vet, which was administered by ihe chiefs of the Cagar tribe, and some time after he had his eyes put out. — Mower. Ver. 29. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand : and they bowed the knee be- fore him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews ! Among other circumstances of suffering and ignominy, which accompanied the death of Christ, it is said that they platted " a crown of thorns, and put it upon his head." Has- selquist says ; " The naba or nabka of the Arabians is in all probability the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put on the head of Christ : it grows very commonly in the East. This plant was very fit for the purpose, for it has many small and sharp spines, which are well adapted to give pain; the crown might be easily made of these soft, round, and pliant branches : ami what in my opinion seems to be the greatest proof is, that the leaves much re- semble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep green. Perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant some- what resembling that with which emperors and generals were used to be crowned, that there might be calumny even in the punishment." — Bcrder. Ver. 31. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to cru- cify him. Crucifixion was a very common mode of inflicting the punishment of death among several ancient nations, name- ly, among the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The cross consisted of a long pole, and a short 75 beam, both of which, as the ancients aiiirm, were united in the form ofa Greek and Roman T'j e little piece ot iin- ] ■'! [ ii-i ii I icni.-ii l.i', mi hou evei general!} the top, to which the writing, containing ihe-causc of the fiunisnment, was affixed. In the middle ol the perpendico- ar poles there was a wooden plug, which proji i horn, on which the person crui ifii d rode oi re ted, that ihe weight of ihe body might not tear the hands I li'lisMVaM'lirlnl mi III,' i I. lie ot exci 111 loll , .-ml fastened it .i ; .ii was generally not bigb.and the feel of the criminal were scarcely four feel above the ground, 'i in i ademned was raised iy . , ■ . ni, upon tin- ping, 01 pulled up with cords; his hands were til st lied with cords to the tmn-v.-i-i- beam, and then nailed on wnh strong inn oails, Cicero against Verres calls cnnilixion the niosl cruel and hoi i id punishment ; and in another place, a punishment which must be far, not only from the body o i a Roman citizen, but also from and even his thoughts. It was, therefore, properly de- ' ■ the it ansonbj (i i sui b ; - bad been guillj of murder, highway I' bbciv. ■' : • ' .-art the govern- i ■ i the i nblii ti rafiliij physician, George GqUlieb Ri< in a treatise ■ tins subject, thai the tortures of crucifixion musi have been indeed indescribable. Even the unnatural con- strained situation of the body, with the arn upward, sometimes i,n days together, mus! have been an le tol lllelil. i-s| l.;!l', ,--1 ' or convulsion could la!. i ]-]., .... , i, i , n ing excrucia- ting pain over the whole oody, particularly in the pierced limbs, and on the back-, mangled In- ] i < • •- j . ■ > .m Besides this, the nails v. ere di it en thn ogh Ihe hands, and sometimes through the feet, exactly in places where irri- table nerves and sinews meet, which were partly injured and partly forcibly compulsed, by which the most acute pams must have been constantly increased. As the wounded parts were alw ; >\s ex | I to the air, they occurred in many other parts, when' tin , n. nl.ition ,,| ihe juices was impeded by the violent tension of the whole body. As the blood, too, w Inch is impelled from the left ventricle of the heart through the veins into all parts of the body, did not find room enough in the wounded and violently extended extremities, it must flow back to the head, which was free, unnaturally extend and oppress the arteries, and thus cause constantly 'increasing headache. On account of the imped- iment of the circulation of the blood in the external parts, the left ventricle of the heart could not entirely discharge itself of all the blood, and, consequently, not receive all the blood whieli conies from the right ventricle; hence the blood in the lungs had no free vent, by which a dreadful oppression was occasioned ; under such constantly increas- ing tortures, the person crucified lived generally three days, en longer. Hence Pilate did not credit the that Jesus had expired so soon, and, therefore, questioned the centuiion who had kept watch at the cross. — RosENMl't.I.ER. Ver. 48. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. What most tormented crucified persons was, dreadfni thirst, which must naturally be occasioned by the heat ol" the wounds or fever. Out of a spirit of humanity, one of the soldiers keeping watch, gave Jesus, at his request, a sponge dipped in vinegar. It is probable that they gave Jesus such vinegar as they had standing there for then usual drink. An example, in more modern times, of giv- ing, in the East, a sponge dipped in vinegar, to such as were to be executed by slow torture, in order to refresh them, is mentioned bv Heberer, in his Description of hi? Slavery in Egypt. " When this Greek had hung upon the hook beyond the third day in much pain, one of the ieepers was at last prevailed upon, by the presents of his friends, secretly to give him poison upon a sponge, under the ap- pearance of refreshing him a little with vinegar."— Burdei:. Ver. 51. And, behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. MATTHEW. Chap. 28 " About one yard and a half distance from the hole in which the foot of the cross was fixed, is seen thai memo- rable cleft in the rock, said to have been made by the earth- quake which happened at the suffering of the God of Na- ture, when the rocks rent, and the very graves were opened. This cleft, as to what now appears of it, is about a span wide, at its upper part, and two deep, after which it closes; but it opens again below, (as you may see in another chapel contiguous to the side of Calvary,)' and runs down to an unknown depth in the earth. That this rent was made by the earthquake that happened at our Lord's passion, there is only tradition to prove ; but that it is a natural and gen- uine breach, and not counterfeited by any art, the sense and reason of every one that sees it may convince him; for the sides of it fit'like two tallies to each other; and yet it runs in such intricate windings as could not well be counter- feited bv art, nor arrived at bv anv instruments." (Maundrell.) " The far end of this chapel, called the Chapel of St. John, i-i confined with the foot of Calvary, where, on the left side of the altar, there is a cleft in the rock: the insides do testify that art had no hand therein, each side to the other being answerably rugged, and these were inaccessible to the workmen: that before spoken of, in the chapel below, is a part of this, which reacheth, as they say, to the centre." (Sandys.)— Border. Ver. 60. And laid it in his own new tomb, which hs had hewn out in the rock : and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and de- parted. The sepulchres were not only made in rocks, but had doors to go in and out at ; these doors were fastened with a large and broad stone rolled against them. It was at the shutting up of the sepulchre with this stone that mourning began: and after it was shut with this sepulchral stone, it was not lawful to open it. — Burder. CHAPTER XXVIII. Ver. 6. He is not here ; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with the Sepulchre it- self, is a prominent object of attention to the devout pil- grim. The Holy Sepulchre, in which, according to an- cient tradition, the body of the Redeemer was deposited by Nieodemus, after he had taken it down from the cross, [John xix. 39 — 12,) stands a little north of the centre of this church, and is covered by a small oblong quadrilateral building of marble, crowned with a tiny cupola standing upon pillars, and divided into three compartments. Over the entrance to this edifice, the reader will observe a tem- porary covering of canvass extended by means of cords, the object of which is to prevent the voice of the preacher, who lectures from the door of the Sepulchre during Passion- u'eek, from being dissipated in the dome above and rendered inaudible. The first compartment is an antechamber, which may contain six or eight persons: here the pilgrims put off their shoes from their feet, before they enter upon the holy ground within ; where, occupying half of the second part of the building, is "the place where the Lord lay." (Matt, xxviii. 6.) The third compartment is a small chapel ap- propriated to the Copts, which is entered from behind, and which has no internal communication with the others. Dr. E. D. Clarke, the traveller, (whose skepticism con- cerning some of the sacred antiquities of Jerusalem was as great as his credulity in others,) was of opinion that the spot now shown as the site of the sepulchre, was not the place of Christ's interment, from the variance of its present .ippearance with the accounts in the Gospel. His reasons lor m'sbelief are as follows :— 1. The tomb of Christ was in a garden without the walls of Jerusalem: the structure which at present bears its name is in the heart of, at least, 'He modern city ; and Dr. Clarke is unwilling to believe that the ancient limits can have been so much circumscribed to the north as to exclude its site. 2. Further, the original sepulchre was undoubtedly a cave : the present offers no such appearance, being an insulated pile, constructed or cased with, distinct slabs of marble. Bishop Heber, however, in his elaborate critique on Dr. Clarke's Travels, has shown that these arguments are in- conclusive. For, — 1. One of the Discourses of Cyril, patriarch of Jerusa- lem, incidentally proves two facts ; viz., first, that the sepul- chre, as we now see it, u-as without the ancient wall ; and. secondly, that before it was ornamented by the Emperess Helena, (with whom he was contemporary.) it was a simple cave in the rock. 2. Further, that the present sepulchre, defaced and alter- , ed as it is, may really be " the place where the Lord lay," , is likely from'the folic wing circumstances : '• Forty yards, or thereabouts," says Bishop Heber, •' from the upper end of the sepulchre, the natural rock is visible: and in the place which the priests call Calvary, it is at least as high as the top of the sepulchre itself. The rock then may have extended as far as the present entrance; and though the entrance itself is hewn into form, and cased -with marble, the adytum yet offers proof that it is not factitious. It is a trapezium of seven feet by six, neither at right angles to its own entrance, nor to the aisle of the church which con- ducts to it, and in no respect conformable to the external plan of the tomb. This last is arranged in a workmanlike manner, with its frontal immediately opposite the principal nave, and in the same style with the rest of the church. It is shaped something like' a horseshoe, and its walls, meas- ured from this outer horseshoe to the inner trapezium, vary from five to eight feet in thickness, a sufficient space to ad"- mit of no inconsiderable density of rock between the outer and inner coating of marble. This, however, does not ap- ply to the antechamber, of which the frontal, at least, is probably factitious; and where that indenture in the mai- ble is found which induced Dr. Clarke to believe that the whole thickness of the wall was composed of the same cost- ly substance. Now these circumstances afford, we appre- hend, no inconsiderable grounds for supposing, with Po- cocke, that it is indeed a grotto above ground: the irregu- larity of the shape; the difference between the external and internal plan; the thickness of the walls, so needless, if they are throughout of masonry, all favour this opinion ; nor is the task ascribed to Helena's workmen, of insulating this rock from that which is still preserved a few vain- distant, at all incredible, when we consider that the labour, while it pleased the taste of their employer, furnished at the same lime materials for her intended cathedral." 3. Although the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been burnt down since Dr. Clarke's visit, yet the " rock-built sep- ulchre of the Messiah, being of all others the least liable to injury, has remained in spite of the devouring element." The Holy Sepulchre is a sarcophagus of white marble, destitute of ornament, and slightly tinged with blue; 6 ft. H in. long, 3 ft. OS in. broad, and 2 ft. 1 J in. deep, measured on the outside. It is but indifferently polished, and ap- pears as if it had at one time been exposed to the pelting of the storm and the changes of the seasons, by which it has been considerably disintegrated. Over it are suspended twelve massy splendid silver lamps, the gifts of monarchs and princes: these are kept continually burning, in honour of the twelve apostles. The sarcophagus occupies about one half of the sepulchral chamber, and extends from one end of it to the other. A space, not exceeding three feet wide, in front of it, is all that remains for the reception o\ visiters, so that not more than three or four persons can be conveniently admitted at a time. Cver the sarcophagus is a large painting, representing Christ bursting the bonds of the tomb, and his triumphant ascent out of the grave on the morning of the resurrection. A Greek or Latin priest al- ways stands here with a silver vase of incense, which he waves over the pilgrims.— Horne. Till: (JOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. CHAPTER I. Ver. 3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight When a man of rank has lo pass through a town or vil- lage, a messenger is despatched 10 tell the people lo prepare the way, and to awaii Ins orders. Bence ma; be sweeping the road, others who "spread their gat the way, and some who are cutting " down branches from the trees" (Matt. xxL 8) to form arches and festoons where the great man has to pass.— Roberts. Ver 6. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey. The Jews were allowed to eat locusts, and when sprinkled with salt, and fried, they are not unlike our fresh water way fish. The Acridophagi must have preferred them to almost every oilier species of food, since they derived their nan - from their eating locusts. We learn from the valua- ble work of Dr. Rossel, that the Arabs sail ami eatihem as B delicacy. Locusts were accordingly^he common food of John, the precursor of Christ, while lie remained in the wilderness. In feeding on that insect, the Baptist submitted to DO uncommon privation, and practised no savage rigour, like many of the hermits who inhabited the deserts : but merely followed the abstemious mode of living lo which Ihe people were accustomed, in the less frequenled parts of Ihe country. The food upon which he subsisted in ihe wil- derness appears to be particularly mentioned, merely to show that he fared as the poorest of men, and that his man- ner of living corresponded with the meanness of his dress. Much unnecessary pains have been taken by some squeam- ish writers, to prove that the locusts which' John u-cd for food, were the fruit of a certain tree, and not the carcass of the insects distinguished by that name; but a littie inquiry will fully clear up this matter, and show, that however dis- gusting ihe idea of that kind of meat may appear to us, the Orientals entertain a different opinion. Many nations in ill" F.isi.asthe Indians of the Bashee islands the Tonquin- ese, and the inhabitants of Madagascar, make nc scruple to eat these insects, of which thev have innumerable swarms, and prefer them to the finest fish. The ancients affirm, that in Africa, Syria, Persia, and almost throughout Asia, the people commonly eat these creatures. Clenard, in a letter from Fez, in 1541, assures us. thai he saw wagon loads of locusts brought into thai city for food. ECirstenius, in his notes on Matthew, savs, he 'was informed bv his Arabic master, (hat he had often seen them on the river Jordan. that they were of the same form wiih ours,bul larger; that the inhabitants pluck off their wings and feet, and ham,' ihe rest at their necks till they grow warm and ferment; and then they eat them, and think them very stood food. A monk, who had travelled into Egypt, asserts, that he had ealen of these locusts, and that in the country thev subsist- ed on them four months in the year. In Bushire, thev are used by the lowest peasantrv as food. The Arabs feed They grind (hem to flour in their handmills, or powder them iri stone mortars. This flour thev mix with water to the consistency of dough, and make thin cakes of it, which they bake like other bread on a heated girdle ; and this, observes Hasselquist, serves instead of bread lo sup- porl life for want of something better. At oilier times thev boil them in water, and afterward stew them with butler, and make a soft of fricassee, which has no bad taste.— P.4XTON. Ver. 10. And straightway coming up nut of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. See on Matt. 3. 11. CHAPTER II. Ver. 3. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. 4. And whin they could not come nii'h unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was : and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay Among other pretended difficulties and absurdities rela- t itiLT to this fact, it has been urged, that, as the uncovering, or breaking up of ihe roof, as mentioned by Mark, or the letting a person down through it, as recorded by Luke, sup- poses the breaking up of tiles, spars, rafters. &c, "so," says the infidel, " it was well if Jesus, and his di.-ci pies, escaped with only a broken pate, bv ihe falling of ihe tiles, and if the rest werenol smothered with dust." But if the construction of an oriental dwellingbe recollected, we shall find nothing in the conduct Of these men either absurd in itself, or haz- ardous to others. Dr. Shaw contends, that no violence was offered to the roof, and lhat the bearers only carried ihe paralytic up to Ihe lop of Ihe house, either by forcing iheir way through the crowd up the staircase, or else by convey- ing him over some of the neighbouring lerrares, and these, after they had drawn away the arlyn, or veil, let him down along the side.cf the roof (through the opening, or implvri- um) into ihe midst of the court before Jesus." But this in- genious explanation is encumbered with several important difficulties. The natural and obvious idea which the text ihe mind is, lhat Ihe roof of the house was ac- tually opened, and the paralytic letdown through the tiling, or roof, into the upper apartment, where Jesus was sitting; while an elaborate process of criticism is necessary to elicit the sense of the learned aulhor: this is a circumslance strongly in favour of the common exposition. Besides, be has produced no proof that srtyn ever signifies a veil, for which the sacred writers, in particular, employ other words, as KoXWa, Karaixrarfia ; but its usual meaning is the roof, or flat terrace of a house, and, by an easy transition, the house itself. Nor has he assigned a sufficient reason for [he Use of the strong term cfo^an-is, by which he is evi- dently embarrassed. Tie endeavours, in the first place, to set quit of it altogether, by observing that it is omitted in the Cambridge manuscript, and not regarded in Ihe Syriac, and some other versions. But conscious it could neither be expunged, nor disregarded upon such authority, he thinks " il may he considered as further explanatory of aneir»»o4r..i.i.i) is dated, before thou shah deny me thrice." No doubt can reasonrhly be entertained, that Mark, who was the disciple of Peter, re- corded the verv words of Christ, as he received them from the apost.e. But it was sufficient for the others to mention Chap. MARK 500 the principa. fact, that Chri-t D Mid predict- ed toe threefold denial o Peter, bui also fixed toe lime when it should happen, before the second crowing. The words of our Loid are certainly to be understood of the second, because this only was -.imply called the Mi','-, v.-; M ii ; e\|ire-jly asserts it, and declares also, that the l"i i -i denial of Peter preceded the first cock-crowing. Here ii may be objected, that between the 11 r-t and second crowing, the fourth part of thi intervenes; irbich at thai time was nearly in Jndea, at I ne time of the year when our Lord was crucified, the . hi eleven hours in length i b liietiist and .eemid denial ol the half of tbjaJ time could have elapsed. This appears from the nar- niive.it' the evangelist Luke, in which it is stated, that when the tei d first denied his I. maid, as he sat by the fire, " A little al'ier, another saw him, and said. Thou art also of them \n.l Petei said, Man, 1 am not;" which was the second denial. " And about the space of one hour after, another confidently aitirmed, say- truth, this fellow also was with him; for he is a " Lnd Peter denied the third time, and imme- diately the cock crew." To this objection it may be suffi- cient to replv, that the statement of the evangelist is ex- tefj and while Peter endeavoured to clear himself of the charge, many words might pass c,n both sides, which are not put on record, and the discussion be protracted through a great part of the night. Nor will it follow from which Luke uses, after a little while, that nc time, or only a very shirt in i n the first and second denial; for the apostle John, in his gospel, mentions many incidents which happened in that lime; and the third denial, which Luke says happened about the space of one hour after the second denial, is in Matthew and Mark said to have taken place "a little after." I! nr.\ this phrase may denote a much longer space of time than is cumin. mly supposed. Besides, Luke does not say, that the third denial happened precisely at the distance of one hour, but about the space of one hour, which* might there- fore be considerably more. In fine, although the fourth part of the bight commonly intervenes between the first I crowing, it is not always the case ; for it is well known, that these birds do not always crow at si Some cock, therefore, after the third denial of Peter, mighl anticipate the usual time of announcing the approach of morning, bv one hour. It may be objected again, when Pi -.i-r denied his Lord, the scribe's, the priests, and theelders, were met in the house of Caiaphas, and sitting in judg- ment on the Saviour; while the apostle wailed the issue, among the servants in the hall. But it is not likely that the council would prolong their sitting through so great a part of the night. Who can believe, that so many persons of the first rank among the Jews, would spend almost the whole night onlhe judgment-seat, when the cause for which they were assembled could, with equal convenience, be referred to another time 1 But this objection is urged in vain; for the fact, that they actually did so. is certain. This will appear, when it is considered how many things were done that night, before the apostle denied his Lord the third time. When the evening was come, that is, at the setting of the sun, our Lord celebrated tic passover with his disciples ; helhen washed their feel, and addressed them on the occasion. After finishing this discourse, he insti- tuted the supper ; then he reproved his disciples for their \i h on i another about the supremacy. When of psalms. This act of devotion being ended, he w to the mount «f Olives. — came to the garden of Gelh; — withdrew f mn his disciples to pray— and after praying an hour, be returned to the disciples, whom he found asleep, and reproved them for their unseasonable indulgence; this he did a second, and a third time. In the meantime, Judas arrived with a numerous party, and apprehended him; and led him away, first to Annas, and then to Caiaphas, in whose house, the scribes, the priests, and the elders were assembled. Into the hall of judgment, Peter with difficulty obtained admission ; and, being recognised as one of his I al the bar ed In i - . Peter de- nied lus Master a second time, and again in the space ol an hour. It will appear to every reflecting and candid mind, that these transactions i:ui-t have occupied i ight The despatch which the high-priest and his council made, indeed would se< m quite extraordinary, it we did not consider that the passover, their most solemn festival, was just ready to commence, and that the worst hearts were now in a state of high excitement against the Redeemer. — Paxton. Ver. 35 Ami he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed, that, if it were possi- sible, the hour might pass from him. How often are we reminded of this by fhe way in which the heathen worship their gods! they fall prostrate before and repeat their prayers.' In our own chapels and school rooms, natives sometimes prostrate tl at the lime of prayer. — Roberts. Ver. 51. And there followed him a certain young- man, having a linen cloth cast about Ms naked boihj : and the young men laid hold on him. 52. And he left "the linen cloth, and fled from them naked See on Jndg. 1 1 12. Pococke observes, in describing the dresses of the people of Egypt, that "it is almost a general custom among the Arabs and Mohammedan natives of the country, to wear a lart-c blanket, either while or brown, and in summer a bine and white cotton sheet, which the Christians constantly use in the country: putting one corner before, over the left shoulder, they bring it behind, and under the right arm, and so over their bodies, throwing it behind over the left shoulder, and so the right arm is left bare for action. When it is hot, and they are on horseback, they let it Ii : lie saddle round them: and about Fatume, I particularly observed, that young people especially, and the | :■ mi irhatci-cr but this blanket; and it is probable the young man was clothed in this manner, who folli wed our Saviour when he was taken, having a linen cloth • 8 about his naked body; and when the young men laid hold on him, he left the linen cloth, and fled 'from them naked."— CHAPTER XV. Ver. 11. But the chief priests moved the | pie that he should rather release Barabbai unto them. Another mode of capital punishment, to which the in- spired writers refer, is crucifixion. It was used in Greece, but not so frequently as at Rome, if consisted of two beams, one of which was placed across the other, in a form nearly resembling the letter T, but with this difference, that the transverse beam was fixed a little below the top ol the straight one. When a person was crucified, he was nailed to the cross as it lay upon the ground, his feet to the upright, and his hands to each side of the transverse beam : it was then erected, and the fool of it thrust will into a hole prepared in the grouni to receive it. By this means, the body, whose whole weight hung upon the nails which went through the hands and feet, was completely disjointed, and the sufferer expired by slow and agonizing torments. This kind of death, the most cruel, shameful, and accursed that could be devised, was used by the Re mans only for slaves, and the basest of the people. The malefactors were crucified naked, that is, without their upper garments; for it does not appear they were stripped of all their clothes, and we know that an Oriental was said to be naked, when he had parted with his upper garments which were loosely bound about him with a girdle. — Pa.\ ton. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE. CHAPTER I. Ver. 78. Through the lender mercy of our God; whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us. A king's minister once said of the daughter of Pande- yan, after she had been in great trouble on account of the danger in which her husband had been placed, " She had seen the great ocean of darkness, but now she saw the rising sun, the day-spring appeared." — Roberts. CHAPTER II. Ver. 4. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, (be- cause he was of the house and lineage of Da- vid,) 5. To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. A Jewish virgin legally betrothed, was considered as a lawful wife ; and by consequence, could not be put away without a bill of divorce. And if she proved unfaithful to her betrothed husband, she was punished as an adulteress; and her seducer incurred the same punishment as if he had polluted the wife of his neighbour. This is the reason that the angel addressed Joseph, the betrothed husband of Mary, in the'se terms: "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thv wife ; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." The evangelist Luke gives her the same title: " And Joseph also went up from Gali- lee unto Bethlehem, to be taxed, with Mary his espoused wife." — Paxton. Ver. 7. And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.' It will be proper here to give a full and explicit account of the inns or caravansaries of the East, in which travellers are accommodated. They are not all alike, some being sim- ply places of rest, by the side of a fountain if possible, and at a proper distance on the road. Many of these places are nothing more than naked walls; others have an attendant, who subsists either by some charitable donation, or the be- nevolence of passengers ; others are more considerable es- tablishments, where families reside, and take care of them, and furnish the necessary provisions. " Caravansaries weie' originally intended for, and are now pretty generally applied to the accommodation of stran- gers and travellers, though, like every other good institu- tion, sometimes perverted to the purposes of private emol- ument, or public job. They are built at proper distances through the roads of the Turkish dominions, and afford to the indigent or weary traveller an asylum from the inclem- ency of the weather: are in general built of the most solid and durable materials, have commonly one story above the ground-floor, the lower of which is arched, and serves for warehouses to store goods, for lodgings, and for stables, while the upper is used merely for lodgings; besides which they are always accommodated with a fountain, and have cooks-shops and other conveniences to supply the wants of lodgers. In Aleppo, the caravansaries are almost exclu- sively occupied by merchants, to whom they are, like other houses, rented." (Campbell.) The poverty of the eastern inns appears from the follow- ing extract. " There are no inns anywhere; but the cit.es, ami commonly the villages, have a large building callei a khan, or caravansary, which serves as an asylum for all travellers. These houses of reception are always built without the precincts of towns, and consist of four wings round a square court, which serve by way of enclosure for the beasts of burden. The lodgings are cells, where ou find nothing but bare walls, dust, and sometimes scor- pions. The keeper of this khan gives the traveller the key and a mat, and he provides himself '.he rest ; he must there- fore carry with him his bed, his Kitchen utensils, and even his provisions, for frequently not even bread is to be found in the villages. On this account the Orientals contrive their equipage in the most simple and portable form. The bag- gage of a man, who wishes to be completely provided, con- sists in of carpet, a mattress, a blanket, two saucepans with lids contained within each other, two dishes, two plates, and a coffee-pot, all of copper well tinned; a small wooden box for salt and pepper; a round leathern table, which he suspends from the saddle of his horse ; small leathern bot- tles or bags for oil, melted butter, water, and brandy, (if the travellei be a Christian,) a pipe, a tinder-box, a cup of cocoa-nut, some rice, dried raisins, dates, Cyprus-cheese, and above all, coflee-bcrries, with a roaster and wooden mortar to pound them." (Volney.) "The caravansaries are the eastern inns, far different from ours ; for they are neither so convenient nor hand- some : they are built square, much like cloisters, being usually but one story high, for it is rare to see one of two stories. A wide gate brings you into the court, and in the midst of the building, in the front; and upon the right and left hand, there is a hall for persons of the best quality to keep together. On each side of the hall are lodgings for every man by himself. These lodgings are raised all along the court, two or three steps high, just behind which are the stables, where many times it is as good lying as in the chambers. Right against the head of every horse there is a niche with a window into the lodging-chamber, out of which every man may see that his horse is looked after. These niches are usually so large that three men may lie in them, and here the servants usually dress their victuals." (Tavernier.)— Birder. The following graphic sketch will afford the reader a still more correct idea of an eastern inn, or caravansary. " After descending for about two hours, we met with an isolated khan, (inn,) beneath magnificent plantains, on the edge of a fountain. It will be proper to describe, once for all, what is called a khan in Syria, as well as in every other eastern country; it is a hut, the walls of which are of ill-joined uncemented stones, affording no protection from wind or rain; these stones are generally blackened by the smoke of the hearth, which continually filters through the open spaces. The walls are about seven or eight feet high, and covered over with pieces of rough wood retaining its bark and largest branches; the whole is shaded with dry fagots, answering the purpose of a roof. The inside is unpaved, and is, according to the season of the year, a led of dust or of mud. One or two stakes support the roof of leaves, and the traveller's cloak and arms are suspended thereon. In tine corner is a small hearth raised upon a few rough stones; a charcoal tire is constantly burning upon this hearth, and one or two copper coffee-pots are al- wavs full of ihick farinaceous coffee, the habitual refresh- ment and only want of the Turks and Arabs. There are in general two rooms similar to the one I have described. One or two Arabs are authorized, in return for the tribute they pay to the pacha, to do the honours of the dwelling, and to sell coffee and barley-flour cakes to the caravans. When the traveller reaches the door of these uhans, he alights from his horse or camel, and removes the straw mats or damask carpets which are to serve him for a bed; they are spread in a corner of the smoking-room; he sits down, calls for coffee, lights his pipe, and wails until his Chap. 2 — 4. LUKE. C01 Oaves have collected some dry wood to prepare his repast. This repast usually consist of two or three cakes, half- baked mi a heated pebble, and of some slices of hashed mot- ton, which is boiled with rice in a copper pot. It rarely happens (hat rice or mutton can be procured in the khan ; die traveller must thou In. satisfied with the cakes and the excellent fresh water whicn is always (bond in the neigh- bourhood of khans. The servants, the slaves, the tnoukres, I I-,) ami the horses, remain round the khan in ihe open air. There is generally in the neighbourhood ■ i Li-, \i hi li -in ves as a bea- con to the caravan; this is mostly as immense sycamore fig-tree, such as I have never seen in Europe ; it is of the size of the largest oaks, and grows to an older age. Its trunk sometimes measures thirty or forty feet in circumfe- rence, and is often larger; its' branches, which lie-in to spread at an elevation of fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, at first extend in a horizontal direction, to an im- mense distance; the upper branches then group themselves in narrower cones, and resemble fromafarour beech-trees. OW of those trees, which Providence seems to have scattered here and there, as an hospitable cloud over the oil of the desert, extends to a great distance from the trunk; and u is not unusual to see perhaps sixty camels and horses, and as many Arabs, encamped, (luring the heat ol the day, under the shadow of one of these trees. In this, however, as in every thing else, it is painful to notice the indifference of eastern people and of their government. intains, which should be preserved with care, as inns provided bv nature for (he wants of the caravan, are left to Ihe stupid improvidence of those who benefit by their shade; (he Arabs light their fires at (he foot of the syca- m ire, and the trunks of most of these splendid trees are blackened and hollowed by the flames of Arab hearths. Our little caravan settled itself under one of (hose majes(ic sycamores, and we passed the night wrapped up in our iloaks, and stretched on a straw mat in a corner of the 1 han. (De Lamartine's Pilgrimage.)— B. Ver. 25. And, behold, there was a man in Jeru- salem, whose name rcas Simeon ; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the con- solation of Israel ; and the Holy Ghost was upon him. The Jews often used to style the expected Messiah, the I I and, mag I never see Ihe consolation was a com- mon form of swearing among them. — Gill. Ver. 44. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and ac- quaintance. We are assisted in our view of this subject by the large companies which go to and return from (he heathen festi- vals. Ten or twenty thousand sometimes come togelher to cue ceremony, and it is almost impossible for friends and relations to keep together ; hence, in going home, though they cannot find! each other in the way, thev do not give themselves any trouble, as they consider it to be a matter of course to be (hus separated. — Roberts. As at the three great festivals all the men who were able were obliged, and many women chose, at least at the pass- over, to attend the celebration at Jerusalem, they used, for their greater security against the attacks of robbers on Ihe road, to travel in large companies. All who came, not only from the same city, but from the same canton or district, made one company. They carried necessaries along with them, and tents for their lodging at night. Sometimes, in hot weather, they travelled all night, and rested in the day. This is nearly the manner of travelling in the East to this hour. Such companies they now call caravans; and in several places have go( houses fitted up for their reception, called caravansaries. This account of their manner of (ravelling furnishes a ready answer lo ihe question, How could Joseph and Mary make a day's journey, without dis- covering before night'lhat Jesus was not in the company ? In the daytime we may reasonably presume (hat the travel- lers would, as occasion, business, or inclination led them, mingle with different patties of their friends or acquaint- ance ; but that in the evening, when they were about to en- camp, every one would join the family to which he belong- ed. As Jesus 'id not appear when it was growing late, his parents first sought him where (hey supposed he would most probably be, among his relations and ac- cpiniiilanec; and not finding him, returned to Jerusalem — Campbell, CHAPTER III. Ver. 22. And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him; and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. See on Mat. 3. 16. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 1. And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the spirit into the wilderness. Mr. Matindrell, in his travels in the Holy Land, saw the pin.- which was the scene of Christ's temptations, and thus describes it : "From (his place (ihe Fountain of (he Apos- tles) you proceed in an iniricale way among hills and val- leys interchangeably, all of a very barren aspect at present, but discovering evident signs of (he labour of (he husband- man in ancieni limes. After some hours' travel in (his son of road, you arrive al Ihe mountainous desert into which our blessed Saviour was led by the spirit lo be templed by the devil. A most miserable dry barren place it is, consisting of high rocky mountains, so torn and disordered as if the eanh had suffered some greal convulsion, in which its very bowels had been turned outward."— Burder. Ver. 16. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath-duy, and stood up for to read. The custom of reading the scriptures publicly was an ap- pointment of Moses, according to the Jews. It was also usual to stand al reading the law and ihe prophets. Some parts of the Old Testament were allowed to be read silling or standing; as particularly, ihe book of Esther. Common Israelites, as well as priests and Levites, were allowed to read the scriptures publicly. Every sabbath-day seven per- sons read ; a priest, a Levite, and five Israelites. And it is said to be a known custom to this day, that even an un- learned priest reads before the greatest wise man in Israel. —Gill. Ver. 20. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. The third part of (he synagogue service was expounding the scriptures and preaching to the people. The posture in which this was performed, whether in the synagogue or in other places, was sitting. Accordingly, when our Saviour had read the haphtaroth in the synagogue at Nazareth, of which he was a member, having been brought up in that city, instead of retiring lo his place, he sal down in the desk or pulpit ; and it is said that the eyes of all that were present were fastened upon him, as they perceived by his posture that he was going to preach to them. And when Paul and Barnabas went into fhe synagogue at Antioch, and sat down, thereby intimating their desire to speak to the people if they might be permitted, ihe rulers of the syna- gogue sent lo them, and gave ihem leave. Acts xiii. 14, 15 — BuRDER. Ver. 23. And he said unto them, Ye will surelj say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thy- self: whatsoever we have heard done in Caper naum, do also here in thy country. In the same way do the people recriminate on each other. "You teach me to reform my life! go, reform your own." LUKE. Chap. 5. " Doctor, go heal yourself, and you shall then heal me." " Yes, yes, (he fclloVcan cure all but his own wife and him- self."— Roberts. Vet 29. And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. The Mount of Precipitation, as it is now called, is about a imle and a half distant from -Nazareth, according to Dr. Richardson, but two miles according to the observations mule by Mr. Buckingham and the Rev. W. Jowelt ; though Dr. E. D. Clarke maintains that the words of the evange- list explicitly prove the situation of the ancient city to have been precisely that which is occupied by the modern vil- lage. Mr. Jowett, however, has (we conceive) clearly shown that the Mount of Precipitation could not be immedi- ately contiguous to Nazareth. This village, it will be ob- served, is situated in a little sloping vale or dell on the side, and nearly extends to the fool of a hill, which, though not very lofty', is rather sleep and overhanging. " The eye naturally wanders over its summit, in quest of some point from which it might probably be, that the men of this place endeavoured to east our Saviour down, (Luke iv. 21) ;) but in vain : no rock adapted to such an object ap- pears. At the foot of the hill is a modest simple plain, surrounded by low hills, reaching in length nearly a mile: in breadth^near the city, a hundred and fifty yards; but farther on, about four hundred yards. On this plain there are a few olive-trees and fig-trees, sufficient, or rather scarcely sufficient, to make the spot picturesque. Then follows a ravine, which gradually grows deeper and nar- rower, til), after walking about another mile, you find yourself in an immense chasm with steep rocks on either side, from whence vou behold, as it were beneath your feet, and before you, the noble Plain of Esdraelon. Nothing can be finer than the apparently immeasurable prospect of this plain, bounded to the south by the mountains of Sa- maria. The elevalion of the hills on which the spectator stands in this ravine is very great; and the whole scene, when we saw it, was clothed in the most rich mountain- blue colour that can be conceived. At this spot, on the right hand of the ravine, is shown theroek to which the men of Nazareth are supposed to have conducted our Lord, for the purpose of throwing him down. Willi the Testament in our hands, we endeavoured to examine the probabilities of the spot: and I confess there is nothing in it which ex- cites a scruple of incredulity in my mind. The rock here is perpendicular for about fifty feet, down which space it would be easy to hurl a person who should be unawares brought to the summit; and his perishing would be a very certain consequence. That the spot might be at a consid- erable distance from the city is an idea not inconsistent with St. Luke's account ; for the expression ' thrusting' Jesus 'out of the ciiy, and leading him to the brow of the hill on which their ciiy was built,' gives fair scope for imagining, that, in their rage and debate, the Nazarenes might, without originally intending his murder, press upon him for a con- siderable distance after they had quitted the synagogue. The distance, as already noticed, from modern Nazareth to this spot is scarcely two miles — a space which, in the fury of persecution, might soon be passed over. Or should this appear too considerable, it is by no means certain but that Nazareth may at that time have extended through the prin- cipal part of the plain, which lies before the modern town : in this case, the distance passed over might not exceed a mile. It remains only to note the expression — 'the brow of the hill, on which their city was built:' this, according to the modern aspect of the spot, would seem to be the hill nr.rth of the town, on the lower slope of which the town is built; but I apprehend the word ' hill' to have in this, as it has in very many other passages of scripture, a much larger - sense; denoting sometimes a range of mountains, and" in some instances a whole mountainous district. In all these cases the singular word ' Hill,' ' Gebel,' is used, according to the idiom of the language of this country. Thus, 'Gehel Carmei,' or Mount Carmel, isa range of m mntains : ' Gebel Libnan,' or Mount Lebanon, is a m mntainons district of more than fifty miles in length: 'Gebel ez-Zeiiun,' the Moun' of Olives, is certainly a considerable tract cf moun- tainous country. And thus any person, coming from Jeru- salem and entering on ihe Plain of Esdraelon, would, if asking the name of that bold line of mountains which bounds the north side of the plain, be informed that it was 'Gebel Nasra,' the Hill of Nazareth; though, in English, we should call them the Mountains of Nazareih. Now the spot shown as illustrating Luke iv. 29, is, in fact, on the very brow of this lofty ridge of mountains-; in comparison of which, the hill upon which the modern town is built is but a gentle eminence." This intelligent traveller, therefore, concludes that this mountain may be the real scene where our Divine Prophet, Jesus, experienced so great a dishonour from the men of his own country and of his own kindred. In a valley near Nazareih is a fountain which bears the name of ihe Virgin Mary, and where the women are seen passing to ar.d fro with pitchers on their heads as in days of old. Il is justly remarked that, if there be a spot throughout the Holy Lanil which was more particularly honoured by the presence of Mary, we may consider this to be the place ; because the situation of a copious spring is not liable to change, and because the custom of repairing thither to draw water has been continued among the female inhabitants of Nazareth from the earliest period of its history. — Horne. We went out to see the hill from which the inhabitants of Nazareth were for throwing down Christ when he preached to them. This is a high stony mountain, situated some gun-shots from Nazareih, consisting of the limestone common here, and full of fine plants. On its top, towards the south, is a steep rock, which is said to be the spot for which the hill is famous: il is terrible to behold, and proper enough to take away the life of a person thrown from it.— Hassei.quist. CHAPTER V. Ver. 5. And Simon answering, said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless, at thy wor 1 I will let down the net. In general, the fishermen of ihe East prefer the night to any other time for fishing. Before the sun has gone down they push off Iheir canoes, or calta-ma rams, each carrying a lighted torch, and, in the course of a few hours, may be seen out at sea, or on the rivers, like an illuminated city. They swing the lights about over the sides of the boat, which the fish no sooner see than they come to the place, and then the men cast in the hook or the spear, as circumstances may re- quire. They have many amusing savings about the folly of the fish in being thus attracted by the glare of a torch.— Roberts. Ver. 19. And when they could not find Jjy what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the house-top. and let him down through the tiling, with his couch, into the midst before Jesus. From the gate of the porch, one is conducted into the quadrangular court, which, being exposed to the weather, is paved with stone, in order to carry off the water in the rainy season. The principal design'of this quadrangle is, to give light to the house, and admit the fresh air into the apartments; it is also the place where the master of the house entertains his company, which are seldom or never honoured with admission into the inner apartments. This open space bears a striking resemblance to the imyhi- ruim or cava aiivm of the Romans, which was also an uncovered area, from whence the chambers were lighted. For the accommodation of the guests, the pavement is covered with mats or carpets; and as it is secured against all interruption from the street, is well adapted to public entertainments. Il is called, says Dr. Shaiv, (he middle of the house, and literally answers to the ra jtarmi of ' the Evangelist, into which the man afflicted with the palsy was lei down through the cerling, with his couch, before Jesns. Hence, he conjectures that our Lord was at this time instructing the people in the court of one of these houses; and it is by no means improb.'ble that the quad- rangle was to bim and his apostles a favourite situation, while they were engaged in disclosing the mysteries of I/HAIV 0, 7. LUKE. redemption. Tn defend the company from the scorching sunbeam, or " windy itorm and tempest," a v.rl was ex- panded npoo ropes from the one side <.i the parapet wall h the other, which might be folded or unfolded at pleasure. The Psalmist seems in allude either to the tern dooms, pr to some covering .it this Kind, in thai beautiful expression of spreading oul the heavens like a veil or cur- iam. We ha vi the sarin- allusion in the ■ ill. lime strains of Isaiah : "It is he thai silteih npon thecircli of the eartl . and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that sireteheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spieadeih them out as a tent to dwell in." — Paxton. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 38. Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, .-unl shaken to- gether, and riiiiiiiiivr over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again. Instead of the fibula that was used by the Romans, the Arabs join together with thread, or with a wq len bod kin, the two tipper corners of this garment ; and after hav- ing placed them first over one of their shoulders, they then fold the rest of it about their bodies. The outer fold serves them frequently instead of an apron, in which they carry herbs, loaves, corn, and other articles, and may illustrate several allusions made to it in scripture: thus, "One of the sons of the prophets went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered there of wild gourds, Ms lap full'." And the Psalmist oilers up his prayer, .hat Jehovah would " render unto his neighbours sevenfold into their bosom, their reproach." The same allusion oc- jurs in our Lord's direction to his disciples : " Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give inio your bosom.'' It was also the fold of this robe which Nehemiah shook before his people, as a significant em- blem of the manner in which God should (leal with the man who ventured to violate his oath and promise, to restore the possessions of their impoverished brethren: l: Also, I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, .that performed) not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied." — Paxton. Ver. 48. He is like a man which built a house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock : and, when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it : for it was founded upon a rock. In the rainy season, the clouds pour down their trea- sures at certain intervals with great violence, for three or four days together. Such abundant and violent rains, in a mountainous country like .Tudea, by washing away the soil, must often be attended with very serious consequences to the dwellings of the inhabitants, which happen to be placed within the reach of the rapid inundation. At Alep- po, the violent rains often wash down stone walls ; and Dr. Russel mentions a remarkable instance of a hamlet with a fig garden, in the Castravan mountains, being suddenly re- moved by the swelling waters to a great distance. It was to an event of this kind, which is by no means uncommon in those regions, that our Lord refers.— Paxton. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 3. And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. This is the oriental wav of making an inquiry or a propi- tiation. Does a man Wish to know something about another, he will not go himself, because that might injure him in his future operations ; he calls for two or three confidential friends, stales what he wants to ascertain, and tells them how to proceed. Thev perhaps first go to some neighbour toga in at the information they can, and then go to the man himself, but do not at once tell hiin their errand ; no, no, they am the -round, and make sure of theii i bj i I, b fore Should Ihi '., hi ■■ ili.nl. I, lli. v have the ailioilne to . ■ i . ■.. I ih.'ii plans'; and if asked « hat they want, thej simplj i nothing; they only i-ann- n. say SAI.AM, "had not seen the ho red individual lor a long lime, at to set their '-yes on him." Wi a favour, as did the centurion i a respect- able person, to slate his case, and there is generally an ' H !..' I in the benefit. It Mattery, humiliations, and importunities can do any thing, he is sure to gain the point.— Roberts. Ver. 36. And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with hitn, and he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat The tables of the ancient Jews were constructed of three distinct parts, or separate tables, making but one in the whole. One was placed at the upper end crossways, and the two others joined to ils ends, one on each side, SO as to leave an open space between, by which the attendants could readily wail at all the three. Round these tables were , ats, but hais, one to each table : eaeh of these beds was called Clinvwn, and three of these being united to surround the three tables made the triclinium. At the end mi . . eh elinhuii was a fool tool lor the convenience ot mounting np to it. These beds were formed of mattresses, ami were supported on frames of wood, often highly orna- mented. Each guest reclined on Ins left elbow, using prin- cipally his right hand, which was therefore kept tit liberty. The feet otitic person reeliningbeing towards the external edge of the bed, were much more readily reached by any bmlv passing than any other part. The Jews, before they sit down to table, carefully wash their hands; they consider this ceremony as essentia). After meals, they wash them again. When they sir down to table, the master of the house, or chief person in the company, taking bread, breaks it, but does not divide it; then putting his hand to it he recites this blessing : Blessed be thou, 0 Lord, our God, the king of the world, who pro- ducesl the bread of the earth. Those present answer; Amen. Having distributed the bread among the guests, he takes the vessel of the wine in his right hand, saying, Bless- ed art thou, O Lord, our God, king of the world, who hast produced the fruit of the vine. They then repeat the :2.3d psalm. They take care that after meals there shall be a piece of bread' remaining on the table. The master of the house orders a glass to be washed, fills it with w ine, and elevating it, says, Let us bless him of whose benefits we have been partaking ; the rest answer, Blessed be he who has heaped his favours on us, and by his goodness has now fed us. Then he recites a pretty long prayer, wherein lie thanks God for his many benefits vouchsafed to Israel; be- seeches him to pity Jerusalem and his temple; to restore the throne of David; to send Elijah and the Messiah, and to deliver them out of their long captivity. They all answer, Amen. They recite Psalm xxiv. !), 10. Then giving the glass with/the little wine in it to be drank round, he takes what is left, and the table is cleared. These are the cere- monies of the modern Jews. — Calmet. Ver. 38. And stood at his feet behind him weep- intr, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the oint- ment. During mv travels, I was in the custom of having a lan- cet always about me, in case of accidents, and when I took this out of my pocket-book, put it into his hands, and told him it was for himself, he looked at me, and at it, with his mouth open, as if he hardly comprehended the possibility of my parting with such a jewel. But when I repealed the words, It is yours, he threw himself on the ground, kissed my knees and my feet, and wept wilh a jov that stilled his ' expression of thanks.— Sin R. K. Porter. Ver. 44. And he turned to *he woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman ? 1 enter- LUKE. Chip. 7—10 ed iiitu thy house, thou gavest me no water for ni}' feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. The first ceremony after the guests arrived at the house of entertainment, was the salutation performed by the master of the house, or one appointed in his place. Among the Greeks, this was sometimes done by embracing with arms around; but the most common salutation was by the conjunction of their right hands, the right hand being rec- koned a pledge of fidelity and friendship. Sometimes they kissed the lips, hands, knees, or feet, as the person deserved more or less respect. The Jews welcomed a stranger to their house in the same way; for our Lord complains to Simon, that he had giveD him no kiss; had welcomed him to his table with none of the accustomed tokens of respect. — Paxton. i Ver. 45. Thou gavest me no kiss ; but this wo- man, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. See that poor woman whose husband has committed some crime, for which he is to be taken to the magistrate ; she rushes to the injured individual, she casts herself down and begins to kiss his feet ; she touches them with her nose, her eyes, her ears, and forehead, her long hair is dishevel- led, and she beseeches [he feet of the offended man to forgive her husband. " Ah ! mv lord, the gods will then forgive you." " My husband will in future be your slave, my chil- dren will love you, the people will praise you ; forgive for- give, my lord." (See on John xii. 3.)— Roberts. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 59. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. It is considered exceedingly desirable for children to be with their parents when they die; they then hear their last requests and commands, and also can perform the funeral riles in such a way as none but themselves can do. It is just before death, also, that the father mentions his property; especially that part which he has concealed in his house, gardens, or fields. It is, therefore, a very common saying, " When I have buried my father, I will do this or that." Should a young man be requested to do that which is not agreeable to his father, he says, " Let me first perform the funeral rites, and then I will do it."— Roberts. Ver. 62. And Jesus said unto him, No man having put his hand to the plourrh, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. The plough used in Syria is so light and simple in its construction, that the husbandman is under the necessity of guiding it with great care, bending over it, and loading it with his own weight, else the share would glide along the surface without making any incision. His mind should be wholly intent on his work, at once to press the plough into the ground, and direct it in a straight line. "Let the plough- man," said Hesiod, " attend to his charge, and look before him ; not turn aside to look on his associates, but make straight furrows, and have his mind attentive to his work." And Pliny: " Unless the ploughman stoop forward" to press his plough into the soil, and conduct it properly, "he will turn it aside." To such careful and incessant exertion our Lord alludes in that declaration : "No man bavin" put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kin"- dom of heaven." — Paxton. CHAPTER X. Ver. 4. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way. The object of this instruction was to prevent their being hindered by unnecessary delay in their journev. It was not designed to pi event the usual and proper civilities which were practised among the people, but to avoid the impedi- ments occasioned by form and ceremony : and this was the more necessary, since it was a maxim with the Jews, pre- vent every man with a salutation. How persons might thus be prevented and hindered will clearly appear in the fol- lowing extract. " The more noble and educated the man, the oftener did he repeat his questions. A well-dressed young man attracted my particular attention, as an adept in the perseverance and redundancy ol salutation. Accosting an Arab of Augila, he gave him his hand, and detained him a considerable time with his civilities : when the Arab being obliged to advance ■< agan ,iil, I, is companions, vith greater speed to come up the youth of Fezzan thought he should appear deficient in good manners if he quitted hit so soon. For near half a mile he kept running by his horse, while all his conversation was, How dost thou fare 1 well, how art thou thyself? praised be God, thou an arrived in peace! God grant thee peace! how dost thou do? &c."— HOR NEMAN. Our Lord commanded his disciples to salute no man by the way. It is not to be supposed, that he would require his followers to violate or neglect an innocent custom, still less one of hi: precepts; he only directed them to make the best use of their time in executing his work. This pre- caution was rendered necessary by the length of time which their tedious forms of salutation required. They begin their salutations at a considerable distance, by bring- ing the hand down to the knees, and then carrying it to the stomach. They express their devotedness to a person, by holding down the hand; as they do their affection by rais- ing it afterward to the heart. When they come close to- gether, they take each other by the hand in token of friend- ship. The countrypeople at meeting, clap each other's hands very smartly twenty or thirty times together, without saying any thing more than, How do ye do 1 I wish you good health. After this first compliment, many other friendly questions about the health of the family, mention- ing each of the children distinctly, whose names'they know. To avoid this useless waste of time, rather than to indicate the meanness in which the disciples were to appear, as Mr. Harmer conjectures, our Lord commanded them to avoid the customary salutations of those whom they might happen to meet by the way.— Paxton. Ver. 19. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. See on Ezek. 2. 6. Ver. 30. And Jesus answering, said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. This is thus illustrated by a recent traveller who " went down from Jerusalem to Jericho," under the protection of a tribe of Arabian shepherds, and the conduct of two oi their number. " After going through the pass, we descend- ed again into deeper valleys, travelling sometimes on the edges of cliffs and precipices, which threatened destruction on the slightest false step. The scenery all around us was grand and awful, notwithstanding the forbidding aspect of the barren rocks that everywhere met our view; but it was that sort of grandeur which excited fear and terror rather than admiration." " The whole of this road from Jerusalem to the Jordar, is held to be the most dangerous about Palestine, and, in- deed, in this portion of it, the very aspect of the scenery is sufficient, on the one hand, to tempt to robberv and murder, and on the other, to occasion a dread of it 'on those who pass that way. It was partly to prevent any accident hap- pening to us in this early stage of our journey, and partly, perhaps, to calm our fears on that score, that' a messenger had been despatched by our guides to an encampment cf their tribe near, desiring them to send an escort to meet us at this place. We were met here accordingly, by a band of about twenty persons on foot, all armed with'matchloeks, and presenting the most ferocious and robber-like appear- Chap. 11—13. i.i'Ki: ance that could be imagined. The effect of this was heightened by the shouts which ilicv sent forth from lull to hill, and which were re-echoed through all the valleys, while ihe bold projecting crags of rock; toe dark which every thin:: lay buried below, the loweVi of the dill's above, and the forbidding de.~-ohti.ni which everywhere reigned around, presented a ]iiclure that was quite in harmony throughout all its pans. " It made us feel most forcibly the propriety of its being chosen as the scene of the delightful tale of compassion which we had before so often admired for its doctl inc. in- dependently of its local beauty. One must be amid these wild and gloomy solitudes, surrounded by an armed band, and leel the impatience of the traveller who rushes on to catch a new view at every pass and turn ; one must be alarmed at the very tramp of the horses' hooft rebounding through the cavenied rocks, and at the savage shouts of the footmen, scarcely less loud than the echoing thunder pro- duced by the d.scharge of their pieces in the valleys;— one must witness all this upon the spot, before the full force and Dcauty of the admirable story ot the good Samaritan can be perceived. Here, pillage, wounds, death, would be accom- panied with double terror, from the frightful aspect of every thing around. Here the unfeeling act of passing by a fel- low-creature in distress, as the priest and Levite are said to have done, strikes one with horror, as an act almost more than inhuman. And here, too, the compassion of the good Samaritan is doubly virtuous, from the purity of the mo- tive which must have led to it, in a spot where no eyes were fixed on him to draw forth the performance of any duty, and from the bravery which were necessary to admit of a man's exposing himself by such delay, to the risk of a simi- lar fate to that from which he was endeavouring to rescue his fellow-creature."— Paxton. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 5. And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, arid shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves ; 6. For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him ? The eastern journeys are often performed in the night, on account of the great heat of the day. This is the time in which the caravans chiefly travel: the circumstance therefore of the arrival of a friend at midnight is very prob- able.— Harmer. Ver. 7. And he from within shall answer and say. Trouble me not : the door is now shut, ami my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. See on Eccl. 4. 17. Maillet informs us that it is common in Egypt for each person to sleep in a separate bed. Even the husband and the wife lie in two distinct beds in the same apartment. Their female slaves also, though several lodge in the same chamber, yet have each a separate mattress. Sir John Chardin also observes, that it is usual for a whole family to sleep in the same room, especially those in lower life, laying theirbeds on the ground. From these circumstances we learn the precise meaning of the reply now referred to: " Hefrom within shall answer and say, Trouble me not ; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed ; I cannot rise and give thee:" it signifies that they were all in bed in the same apartment, not in the same bed. — Bcr- Ver. 47. Wo unto you ! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. We visited what are called the sepulchres of the pro- phets, close to the spot where we had halted. We de- scended through a circular hole into an excavated cavern of some extent, cut with winding passes, and forming a kind of subterraneous labyrinth. The superincumbent mass was supported by portions of the rock, left in the form of walls and irregular pillars, apparently once sluc- coed : and from the nil ing 1 1 tble in many places, we had no doubt of its having on< led tosepultrtre: but whether any, oi « bich ol the prophets were interred here, even tradih. ', beyond the name which it bestows on ihe place.— Blckinguam. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 35. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning. They who travel on foot arc obliged to fasten their gar- ments at a greater height from their leel than they do at othei nines. This is what is understood by girding up their loms. Chardin observes, that " all persons who travel on fool always gather up their vest, by which they walk more commodiously, having the leg and knee unburdened and disembarrassed by the vest, which they are not when Chat hangs over them." After this manner he supposes the Israelites were prepared for iheir going out of Egypt, when they ate the first passover. (Exod. xii. 11.)— Harmer. Ver. 55. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat ; and it cometh to pass. This circumstance accords perfectly with the relations into Syria, Esvpt, and several parts of the East. When the south wind begins to blow, the sky becomes dark ami heavy, the air gray and thick, and the whole at- mosphere assumes a most alarming aspect. The heat pro- duced by these southern winds has been compared to that of a large oven at the moment of drawing out the bread ; and to that of a flame blown upon the face of a person standing near the fire which excites it. (Thevenot.) — Burder. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 7. Then said he unto the dresser of his vine- yard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none : cut it down ; why cumbereth it the ground ? This similitude, by which Jesus illustrates the patience and forbearance of God towards sinners, is founded, it is true, in the experience of all countries, and we find in it nothing difficult or unintelligible. But our Saviour prob- ably alluded to a certain custom of eastern gardeners, men- tioned by an Arabian writer, lbn-al-Uardi, in his work on geography and natural history, called Pearls of Wonder- ful Things. In the tenth chapter of this work, which treats of some curiosities of the vegetable kingdom, of which the Swedish author, Charles Aunvillius, in a Dis- sertation, published in Upsal, in 1752, has given in Arabic and Latin that part which relates to the cultivation of the palm-tree, we find the following observations. Among the diseases to which the palm-tree is subject, is barrenness. But this may be removed by the following means: "You take an axe, and go to the tree with a friend, to whom you say. ' I will hew this palm down, because it is unfruitful.' Tiie latter replies, ' Do not do it" it will certainly bear fruit this year.' But the former says, ' It cannot be otherwise,' and strikes the trunk three times with the back of the axe. The other prevents him, and says, ' For God's sake, do not do it; you will certainly have fruit from it this year; have patience with it, and do not be precipitate ; if it bears no fruit, then hew it down.' It will then certainly be fruit- ful this year, and bear fruit in abundance."— Birder. Ver. 32. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. At Nice, in Asia, at night, " I heard a mighty noise, as if it had been of men, who jeered and mocked us. I asked what was the matter. I was answered, it was only the howling of certain beasts, which the Turks call ciacals, or jackals. They are a sort of wolves, somewhat bigger than foxes, but less than common wolves; yet as greedy and devouring as the most ravenous wolves, or foxes, of all 605 LUKE. Chap. 14, 1! They go in flocks, and seldom hurt man or beast ; but get their food by craR and stealth, more than by open force. Thence it is that the Turks call subtle and crafty persons, especially the Asiatics, by the metaphorical name of ciacals. Their manner is to enter tents, or houses, in the nighttime ; what is eatable they eat; gnaw leather, shoes, boots; are as cunning as they are thievish : but in this they are very ridiculous, that they discover themselves by the noise they make ; for while they are busy in the house, devouring their prey, if any one of their herd without doors chance to howl, they all set up a howling likewise." (Busbequius.) BURDER. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 8. When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him ; 9. And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place ; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. 10. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room ; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. 11. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. See on Mark 9. 39. When a Persian comes into an assembly, and has salu- ted the house, he then measures with his eye the degree of rank to which he holds himself entilled; he straightway wedges himself into the line of guests, without offering any apology for the general disturbance which he produ- ces. It often happens that persons take a higher seat than that to which they are entilled. The Persian scribes are remarkable for their arrogance in this respect, in which they seem to bear a striking resemblance to the Jews of the same profession in the days of our Lord. The master of the entertainment has, however, the privilege of placing any one as high in the rank of the assembly as he may choose. And Mr. Morier saw an instance of It at a public entertainment to which he was invited. When the assem- bly was nearly full, the governor of Kashan, a man of humble mien, although of considerable rank, came in and seated himself at Ihe lowest place ; when the master of the house, after numerous expressions of welcome, pointed with his hand to an upper seat in the assembly, to which he desired him to move, and which he accordingly did. These circumstances furnish a beautiful and striking il- lustration of the parable which our Lord uttered when he taw how those that were invited, chose the highest places. — Paxton. Ver. 16. Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: 17. And sent his servant at supper-time to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready. See on Matt. 32. 2, 3. Ver. 19. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them : I pray thee have me excused. This was not such a trifling affair as some have sup- posed, for it should be remembered it is with oxen only the Orientals perform all their agricultural labours. Such a thing as a horse in a plough or cart, among the natives, I never saw. A bullock unaccustomed to the yoke is of no use; they therefore take the greatest precaution in making such purchases, and they will never close the bargain till they have proved them in the field. Nor will the good man trus' to his own judgment, he will have his neighbours and friends to assist him. The animals will be tried in plough- ing softly, deeply, strongly, and they will be put on all the required paces, and then sent home. When he who wishes to purchase is fully satisfied, he will fix a day for settling the amount and for fetching the animals away .—Roberts. Ver. 21. So that servant came, and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. While the higher orders in the East commonly affect so much state, and maintain so greal a distance from their inferiors, they sometimes lay aside their solemn and awfui reserve, and stoop 10 acts of condescension, which are un- known in these parts of the world. It is not an nncommon thing to admit the poor to their tables, when they give a public entertainment. Pococke was present at a great feast in Egypt, where every one, as he had done eating, got up, washed his hands, took a draught of water, and "retired to make way for others ; and so on in a continual succession, till the poor came in and ale up all. " For the Arabs," he says, " never set by any thing that is brought to table, so that when they kill a sheep, they dress it all, call in their neighbours and the poor, and finish every thing." The same writer, in another passage, mentions a circumstance which is still more remarkable, that an Arab prince will often dine in the street before his door, and call to all that pass, even to beggars, in the usual expression of Bismillih, that is, in the name of God, who come and sit down to meal, and when they have done, retire with the usual form of re- turning thanks. Hence, in the parable of the great supper, our Lord describes a scene which corresponded with exist- ing customs. When the guests, whom the master of the house had invited to the entertainment, refused to come, he "said to his servants, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor and the maim- ed, and the halt and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the high- ways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." — Paxton. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 16. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. That kcpanoi. answers to siliqua, and signifies a husk or pod, wherein the seeds of some plants, especially those of the leguminous tribe, are contained, is evident. Both the Greek and Latin terms signify the fruit of the carob-tree, a tree very common in the Levant, and in the southern parts of Europe, as Spain and Italy. This fruit still continues to be used for the same purpose, the feeding of swine. It is also called St. John's bread, from the opinion that the Baptist used it in the wilderness. Miller says it is mealy, and has a sweetish taste, and that it is eaten by the poorer sort, for it grows in the common hedges, and is of little ac- count.— Campbell. Ver. 20. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his fa- ther saw him and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The Orientals varv their salutation according to the rank cf the persons whom they address. The common method of expressing good-will, is by laying the right hand on the bosom, and inclining their bodies a little ; but when they salute a person of rank, they bow almost to the ground, and kiss the hem of his garment. The two Greek noblemen at Scio, who introduced the travellers Egmont and Heyman to the cham of Tartary, kissed his robe at their entrance, and took leave of him with the same ceremony. Sandys j waspresent when the grand seignior himself paid his people j the usual compliment, by riding in great state through the [ streets of Constantinople. He saluted the multitude as he I moved along, having the right hand constantly on his breast, bowing first to the one side, and then to the other, when the Chap. \: -i7. LUKE. people with a low and respectful voice wished him all happiness and prosperity. Dr. Shaw's account of the Arabian compliment, or common salutation. Peace be umo you, agrees with these statements; but he observes further, that inferiors, out of deference and respect, kiss the feet, the knees, or the garments of their superiors, They fre- quently kiss the hand also ; but this las! seem- warded as a token of equal submission with the D'Arvieui women who wait on the Ara- bian princesses, kiss their hands when they do them the favour not to sillier them to kiss their feet, or t> their lube. All these forms of salutation appear to have been in general (fee in the days of out Lord servant as falling down at the feet of his master, when he had a favour to ask ; and an inferior servant, as i same compliment to the first, who belonged, it would seem, lass; " Tin .1 ai : 1 tell tl.nin and ird, have patience with me and 1 will pay thee all." " And his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Hayepatience with me and I will pay thee all." Whan Janus solicited the Saviour to go and heal his" daughter, he fell down at his feel ; the apos- tle Peter, on another 1 ccasion, seems to have fallen down at his knees, in the same manner as the modern Arabs Mil down at the knees of a superior. The woman who was afflicted with an issue of blood, touched the hem of his sar- m 'lit; and the Syrophenieian woman fell down at his feet. In Persia, the sahiiau >n among intimate friends is made bv inclining the neck over each other's neel-.s. and then incli- ning the cheek to cheek ; which Mr. Morier tin likely the falling upon the neck and kissing, so frequently mentioned in scripture.— P •. Ver. '2">. Now his elder son was in the field : and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. To express the joy which the return of the prodigal af- forded his lather, music and dancing was provi'i Of the entertainment. This expression does not however denote the dancing of the family and guests, but that of a company of persons hired on this occasion for that very purpos^. Such a practice prevailed in some places to ex:- r to a friend, or ji occasion. Major Rooke, in his travels from Ind Arabia Felix, relates an occurrence which will illustrate this part of the parable. " Iladje Cassim, who is a Turk, and one- of the richest merchants in Cairo, had inter- ceded >n my behalf with Ibrahim Bey, at the instance of his son, who had been on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and came from Judda in the same ship wi:h me. The father, in cclebrali .11 of his son's return, gave a most magnificent fete on the evening of the day of my captivity, and as soon as I to invite me to partake of it, and I ac- cordingly went. His company was very numi sistingof three or four hundred Turks, who were all sitting on sofas and benches, smoking their long pipes. The room in which they were assembled was a spacious and lofty hall, in the centre of which was a band of music, com- posed rl five Turkish instruments, and some - form- .-s as there wire no Indies in the assembly, yon may suppose it was not the most lively party in the world, but being new to me, was for that reason entertaining."— Bcr- DBtt. ♦ CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 3. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do, for my lord taketh away from me (he stewardship? I cannot dig- ; to beg I am ashamed. How often are we reminded of this passage bv beggars when we tell them to work. Thev can scat' their ears ; and the religious mendicants, who swarm in ] every part of the East, look upon you with the most sover- eign contempt when you tive them such advii e. " I work! why, I never have done such a thin?; I am not able.'' '■' Surelv, my lord, you are not in earnest ; you are joking , with me." — Roberts. Ver. 10. There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously evi This view will enable the reader to form a correct judg- ment of the streets of the city ol Jem -.Jem, which (it will be seen) are partly open and partly covered. The apart- ment, which s;;oi,ls over the archway in thedistai pari oi w h.ii is called " the I • <■ ol the rich n mentioned in the narrative of St. Luke, (xvi. 19 — 31.) It is one of the best in Jerusalem. The fountain, which is a fed in bold re- ief; although of Saiaeenie workmanship, 11 is ci DJectUred hy Mr. ('tithci wood to be derived from the sty! tecture introduced by (he crusaders' In common with the oi in -i fountains in Ji rusalem, this fountain is supplied from the pools of Solum, ,n, which lie a lew miles to 'in- sonlht west of Bethlehem. The water is conducted through a sin. ill aqueduct, partly under, and partly above ground: it isofexcellei : supply is not sufficiently co- pious for the consumption of the inhabitants, who make up the deficiency from the water supplied by the cisterns which are filled I r. ins .— Horns. id set aho ( lOMFBBBEtisn k Commentary mi 1>>. 133. 3, and the engraving j Ver. 22. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abra- ham's bosom : the rich man also died, and was buried. How offensive to good taste, and to the figure of the text, is the notion of some painters, who represent Lazarus in heaven as reposing in the bosom of the patriarch. Such B tendenc] to lessen that veneration and awe which we owe to subjects of so sacred a nature. This world is the legitimate held for the painter, but let him not presume to desecrate with his pencil the scenes bevond. A beloved son, though at a distance, is still said to be in the BO! OM of bis pan nts " The king is indeed very fond of that man, he keeps him in bis bosom." " Vis. the servant is a greal favourite with his master, he has a place in his bosom." " Why, Muttoo, do you never intend to allow your son to go out of your bosom 1" The ideas implied by the term bosom are intense affection, security, and com- fort. 1 1 nt objects of emle; rment are sometimes spoken of as being in the head. " lie not fond of his wife I he keeps her in his head." "My husband, you are ever in my head." " Yes. beloved, you arc in my eye; mv eye is your resting-place." — Roberts. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 6. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as ? grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto tlm sycamine-tree. Be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted in the sea ; and it should obey you. The sycamore buds late in the spring, about the latter end of March, and is therefore called by the ancients, arbor-urn sapient issimn, the wisest of trees, because it thus 1: ping Frosts to which many otheis are exposed. It strikes its large diverging roots deep into the soiL and on this account our Lord alludes to it as the most difficult to be rooted up and transferred to another situation: "II ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto ihis syc.iinine-tree, he thou plucked up by the loot, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey von." The ex- treme difficulty with which this tree is'tr'ansC-rred from its native spot' to another situation, gives to the words 01 our Lord a peculiar force and beauty. The stroi more diverging the root of a tree, the more difficult it must be to pluck it up, and insert it again so as to make it strike root and grow ; but far more difficult still to pjant it in the sea, where the soil is so far below the surface, and where the restless billows are continut m one side to another; yet, says our Lord, a'task no less difficult than this to be accomplished, can the man of genuine faith per- form with a word ; for with God nothing is impossible, nothing difficult or laborious.— Paxton. Ch; -2 ;, CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 5. Yet, because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. The word wrwiriafiiii, to weary, properly signifies to beat on the face, and particularly under the eye, so as to make the pans black and blue. Here it has a metaphorical meaning, and signifies to give great pain, such as arises from severe beating. The meaning therefore is, that the uneasy feel- ings which this widow raised in the judge's breast, by the moving representation which she gave of her distress, af- fected him to such a degree that he could not bear it, but to get rid of them resolved to do her justice. The passage understood in this sense has a peculiar advantage, as it throws a beautiful light on our Lord's argument, and lays a proper foundation for the conclusion which it contains. — Macknight. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 5. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zaccheus, make haste, and come down ; for to-day I must abide at thy house. Zaccheus did not appear to have seen our Saviour before, but he would not be surprised when it was said, " I must abide at thy house." Hospitality may almost be called a sacred rite in all parts of the East ; and, were it not so, what would become of travellers and pilgrims'! In gen- eral there are no places for public entertainment, for the rest-houses and choultries are seldom more than open places to shelter passengers from the. sun and rain. View the stranger passing through a village, he sees a respecta- ble house, and having found out the .master, he stands before him, and puts out his right hand, and says, para- i/ieasi, i. e. a pilgrim or traveller : he is then requested to be seated, and is asked, whence he came, and whither he is eoing? His temporal wants are supplied, and when in- clined he pursues his journey. — Roberts. Ver. 40. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. Has a man been greatly favoured by another, he says, "Ah! if I ever forget him the stones will cause me to stumble." " I cease to recollect his goodness ! then will the stones make me to stumble and die." The idea appears to be, they will arise up and cause him to fall. — Roberts. CHAPTER XX. Ver. 18 Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Here is an allusion to the two different ways of stoning among the Jews, the former by throwing a person down upon a great stone, and the other by letting a stone. fall upon him. — Whitby. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 18. But there shall not a hair of your head perish. " Well, friend, have you heard that Chinnan has gone lo the judge to complain against yon V " Let him go, not a hair of this head will be spoiled by that." " I advise you to take care, for the Vedan has sworn to ruin vou." " He ! the jackal cannot pull out a single hair." "'What care 1 for thy anger 1 thou canst not pull out one hair." "He injure my son ! let him touch a single hair." — Roberts. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 34. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest mc. See on Mark 14. 30. Ver. 48. But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss? See on 2 Sam. 20. 9. Ver. 64. And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy : Who is it that smote thee ? This usage of Christ refers to that sport so ordinary among children, called (ivivia, in which it is the manner first to blindfold, then to strike, then to ask who gave the blow, and not to let the person go till he named the right man who had struck him. It was used on this occasion to reproach our blessed Lord, and expose him to ridicule. — Hammond. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 31. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? The venerable Mr. Wesley has caught the idea when he says on this passage, " The Jews compare a good man to a green tree, and a bad man to a dead one." Thus still an abandoned character, a decided profligate, is called a patta-maram, i. e. a dried or a dead tree. " Why water that tree 1" " Your money, your influence is all wasted there : cease, cease to attend to that dead tree." " The tree is dead, there are no leaves, it will never more give blossoms or fruit, it is only fit for the fire." A spend- thrift or one who has been unfortunate says, " I ama patta- maram, I have been struck by the lightning." A good man is compared to a talita-maram, i. e. a tree which has " spreading shady branches." People may repose there during the heat of the day: they have defence and com- fort. Jesus was the " green tree" under whom the Jews might have reposed. If, then, they did such things to the "green tree," what would be done to themselves, the dry, the leafless trees of the desert 1 The lightnings of heaven did strike them ; the Roman eagles did pounce on them ; thousands were cut to the ground, and thousands went as slaves to the land of the conquerors.— Roberts. Ver. 48. And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned. Grief is often far more violent in the East than in Eng- land. The frantic mother, bereaved of her son, or the wife bereft of her husband, beats her breast as if she in- tended to burst a passage to her vitals. I have sometimes been amazed at the blows which in their agony they thus inflict upon themselves. "Alas! alas! that ammo, fi. e lady) will never cease to beat her breasts." — Roberts. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. CHAPTER I. Ver. 15. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, Ileth.it cometh after me, is preferred before me: for he was before me. Before we readied Marat, we were met by Mirza Abdul Cossim, a confidential officer el' the governor id' Ispahan, by a hakeem or doctor, one of the learned of the city, ami by several other men of respectability. These deputations were called Pceshwaz, openers of the way, and are one of the principal modes anion- the Persians of doing honour to their guests. The more distinguished the persons sent, and the greater the distance to which they go, so much more considerable is the honour. — Mohier. Ver. 32. And John hare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon liiitl. See on Matt. 3. 16. Ver. 42. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Si- mon the Son of Jona: thou shalt be called Ce- phas, which is, by interpretation, A stone. Names were frequently given to preserve the remem- brance of particular circumstances. And, as will ap- pear in the following extract, frequently as contrasts to the character and condition of those on whom they were im- posed : " Among the people of the house, who attended us here, was a hhabshi, or Abvssinian slave, an old man, of hideous deformity, entitled Almas, or the diamond. And 1 observed that at Shiraz, Fa-sa, and other towns, the Afri- can slaves wore distinguished by Bowery names or epithets, in proportion to their natural ugliness or offensive smell. Thus, I nave known Ya-min, the jessamine; Sumbnl, the hyacinth; Jauher, the jewel; and Makbul, the pleasing, or agreeable." (Sir W. Ouseley.)— Birder. Ver. 48. Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me ? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. The oriental sanien displays little method, beauty, or de- sign; the whole being commonly no more than B medley of fruit-trees, with beds of esculent plants, and cen plots of wheat and barley sometimes interspersed. The garden belonging to the governor of Elens, a Turkish town, on the western border of the Hellespont, which Dr. Chan- dler visited, consisted only of a very small spot of ground, walled in, and containing' only two vines, a fig an I a pome- granate-tree, and a well of excellent water. Ami it would seem, the garden of an ancient Israelite could not boast of greater variety ; for the grape, the fig, and the pomegran- ate, are almost the only fruits which it produced. This fact may perhaps give us some insight into the reason of the sudden and irresistible conviction which flashed on the mind of Nathaniel, when the Saviour said to him, " When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee." The good man seems to have been engaged in devotional exercises, in a small retired garden, walled in, and concealed from the scrutinizing eyes of men. The place was so small, that he was perfectlv'certain that no man but himself was there; and so completely defended, that none could break through, or look over the fence; and by consequence, that no eve Tas upon him. but the all-seeing eve of God; and, thefe- 77 fore, since Christ saw him there, Nathaniel knew he could be no other than the Son of God, and the promised Messiah. — Paxton. Ver. 50. Jesus answered and said unto him, Be- cause 1 said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. On account of the thick-spreading branches and broad leaves of the fig-tree, which, in warm eastern countries, grows much larger and stronger than with us, it was very suitable for the purpose of overshadowing those who sat under it. Hasselquist, in his Journey from Nazareth to Tiberias, Bays, " We refreshed ourselves in the shade of a fig-tree, under which was a well, where a shepherd and his herd had their rendezvous, but without either tent or hut." — BtTRDER. CHAPTER II. Ver. G. And there wore sot there six water-pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece they passed through it in their way fiom Nazareth to Ti- berias. He says, " it is worthy of note, that walking among the ruins of a church, we saw large massy stone pots, an- swering the description given of the ancient vessels of the country, not preserved nor exhibited as relics, but lying about, disregarded by the present inhabitants as antiquities with whose original use they were unacquainted. From their appearance, and the number of them, it was quite evi- dent that a practice of keeping water in large stone pots, each holding from eighteen to twenty-seven gallons, was once common in the country." — Birder. Ver. If). And stiith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse but thou hast kept the good wine until now. The Abbe Mariti, sneaking of the age of the wines of t 'vpi II-. avs, " tin' olilest u ines ii-i-d in commerce do not exceed eight or ten years. It is not true, as has been re- ported, that there is some of it a hundred years old ; but it is certain that at the birth of a son or a daughter, thefalhei causes a jar filled W ilh n ioe 10 be buried in the earth, hav- ing first taken the precaution to seal it hermetically ; in this manner it may be kept till these children marry. ' It is then placed on the table before the bride and bridegroom, and is distributed among their relations, and the other guests in- vited to the wedding." If such a custom prevailed former- ly, it throws great significant')- into the assertion of good wine being first brought out upon such an occasion ; aiul if this supposition is admitted, tends to increase the greatness of the miracle, that notwithstanding what had been drank at first was peculiarly excellent, yet that which Christ by his divine power produced as an after supply, was found to be of a superior quality.— Birder. CHAPTER III. Ver. 8. The wind bloweth where it listcth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit. When a man is unhappy because he does not understar. 1 610 -"-'* his circumstances when things come upon him which can- not be accounted lor by himself or by others, it is asked, " Do you Know whence comelh the wind V " You say vou know not how this matter will end: do you know in what quarter the present wind will blow the next moment 1" — Roberts. Ver. 29. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom : but the friend of the bridegroom, which stand- eth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy there- fore is fulfilled. Among.lhe Jews, in their riles of espousals, there is fre- quent mention of a place where, under a covering, it was usual for the bridegroom to discourse familiarly but pri- vately with his spouse, whereby their affections might be more knit to one another, in order to marriage, which how- ever were not supposed to be so till the bridegroom came cheerfully out of the ckuppa/i, or covered place. To this llavid refers, (Psalm xix. 5,) when he speaks of the sun, " which is a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." It is affirmed that this custom is still observed among the Jews in Ger- many ; either before the synagogues in a square place cov- ered over, or where there is no synagogue, they throw a garment over the bridegroom and the bride for that pur- pose. While this intercourse is carrying on, the friend of the bridegroom stands at the door to hearken ; and when he hears the bridegroom speak joyfully, (which is an inti- mation that all is well,) he rejoices himself, and communi- cates the intelligence to the people assembled, for their sat- isfaction.—Hammond. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 5. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, there- fore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well : and it was about the sixth hour. * At one third of an hour from Naplosa, we came to Jaoub's well, famous not only on account of its author, but much more for that memo'rable conference which our blessed Snviour here had with the woman of Samaria. If il should be questioned whether this be the very well that it is pretended for or not, seeing it may be suspected to stand toj remote from Sychar for women to come so far to draw water, it is answered, that probably the city extended far- ther this way in former times than it does now, as may be conjectured from some pieces of a very thick wall still to i>e seen not far from hence. Over the well there stood for- merly a large church, erected by that great and devout patroness of the Holy Land, the Emperess Helena ; but of this the voracity of time, assisted by the hands of the Turks, has left nothing but a few foundations remaining : the well is covered at present with an old stone vault, into which von are ieldownflrrcugh a very straight hole ; and then re- moving a broad flat stone, you discover the mouth of the well itself. It is dug in a firm rock, and contains about three yards in diameter, and thirty-five in depth, five of ■which we found full of water." (Maundrell.) " The principal object of veneration is Jacob's well, over which a church was formerly erected. This is situated at a small distance from the town, in the road to Jerusalem, and has been visited by pilgrims of all ages; but particu- larly since (he Christian era, as the place where our Sa- viour revealed himself to the woman of Samaria, This spot is so distinctly marked by the evangelist, and so little liable to uncertainty, from the circumstance of the well it- .«»lf, and the features ol the country, that if no tradition existed for its identity, the site of it could hardly be mis- taken. Perhaps noChristian scholar ever attentively read the fourth chapter of St. John without being- struck with the numerous internal evidencesof truth which crowd upon the mind in its perusal: within so Mnnll a compass, it is •impossible to find ir, other wrilin?* so manv sources of re- flection and of intere-'.. Jodr,- n ■' ti'ly ff;'< iiiport.'.nce as Cm a theological document, it concentrates so much informa- tion, that a volume might be filled with the illustration it reflects on the history of the Jews, and on the geography of their country. All that can be gathered on these subjects from Josephus seems but as a comment to illustrate this chapter. The journey of our Lord from Judea into Gali- lee ; the cause of it ; his passage through the territory of Samaria; his approach to the metropolis of this country : its name; his arrival at the Amorite field, which termin- ates the narrow valley of Sichem ; the ancient custom of halting at a well ; the female employment of drawing wa- ter ; the disciples sent into the city for food, by which its situation out of the town is obviously implied ; the question of the woman referring to existing prejudices, which sep- arated the Jews from the Samaritans ; the depth of the well; the oriental allusion contained in the expression, living u-atcr ; the history of the well, and the customs there- by illustrated; the worship upon Mount Get izim ; all these occur within the space of twenty verses; and if to these be added what has already been referred to in the remainder of the same chapter, we shall, perhaps, consider it as a re- cord, which, in the words of him who sent it, we may Hit up our eyes, and look upon, for it is while already to harvest." (Clarke'.) " In inquiring for the Bir-el-Yakoab, or Jacob's well, we were told by everybody that this was in the town; which not corresponding with the described place of the well we were desirous of seeing, led to further explanation; and, at length, by telling the" story attached to it, we found it was known here only by the name of Ber Samarea, or the well of Samaria. Procuring a Christian boy to accompany us, we went out by the eastern gate ; and passing through a continuation of the same valley in which Nablous stands, thickly covered with olive-trees, we reached the end of il in about a quarter of an hour on foot, the pass opening into a round and more extensive vale, and the mountains east of the Jordan being in sight. On the right were some Mohammedan buildings; on the sides, at the foot of Mount Gerizim, either mosques or tombs, now called mahmoodeea, and said to stand over Joseph's sepulchre. On the left, at the foot of Mount Ebal, were several well-hewn grottoes in th,e rocks ; some with arched, and others with square doors: most probably ancient sepulchres without the old city of Sichem, or Sychar. These grottoes were called here khallat rowgh-ban ; but we had no time to examine them. From hence^in another half of an hour, we reach the well of Samaria; it stands at the commencement of the round vale, which is thought to have been the parcel of ground bought by Jacob for a hundred pieces of money, which, like the "narrow valley west of Nablous, is rich and fertile. Over this well stood anciently a large building, erected by St. Helena; of which there are now no other remains than some shafts of granite pillars, all the rest lying in one un- distinguished heap of ruins. The mouth of the well itself had an arched or vaulted building over it ; and the only- passage down to it at this moment is by a small hole in the roof, scarcely large enough for a moderate sized person to work himself down through. "We lighted a leper here; and taking offmv large Turkish clothes, I did not then get down without bruising myself against the sides; nor was 1 at all rewarded for such an inconvenience by the sight be- low. Landing on a heap of dirt and rubbish, we saw a large, fiat, oblong stone, which lay almost on its edge, across the mouth of the well, and left barely space enough to see that there was an opening below. We could not as- certain its diameter; but, by the time of a stone's descent, it was evident that il was of considerable depth, as well as that it was perfectly dry at this season, the fall of the stones giving forth a dead and hard sound. Not far from the well of Samaria is the bir-yusef, over which is a modern building; and it is said to be,'even at. this day, frequented for water from Nablous. The well of Samaria might also have been so, therefore, from Sychar, although that city is said not to have extended further east than the present town ; and, indeed, it is no uncommon thing in Syria, as I myself have often witnessed, for water to be brought from a much greater distance. It is highly probable, therefore, that this is the identical well at which the interesting conference between Jesus .tnd the woman of Samaria really happened." (Buckingham.)— Border. Ver. 6. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, there Chap. 5. ?0! fore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well ; nnd it was about the sixth hour. The learned have been grcally divided in their opinions ?oncerning the true meaning of the particle >"»: in John iv. 6, which is rendered thus, in our version: Jksds, there- fore, 'mi,:; wearied u ilh h,s journey, sat this on (he well: and it tea j about the sixth hour ,- which everybody knows with the Jews meant noon. I!iu an attention to (he us; East, and of antiquity, might, 1 think, ascenain it- meaning with a good deal of exactness. Out version of the word thus, gives no determinaie idea. We know, an the con- trary, what is meant by the translation of a celebrated writer, who renders (he word by the English term immedi- alt ... but thai translation, 1 think by no means the happiest In' has given ns. it conveys the idea of extreme weai mess: bu( nothing in the afler part of (he narraiion leads to such an interpretation ; nor can I conceive for whal able purpose the circumstance of his immediately throwing himself down near the well, before the woman caine up, and which, consequently, it is to be supposed she knew nothing of, is mentioned by the evangelist. Not to say thai the passage cited in proof of this interpretation, Acts xx. 11, which, instead of so Ac deported, he thought signi- fied the immediateness of his departure, by no means gives satisfaction. It is not so expressed in his own translation of that passage, nor does it appearso tosignitv. The sun- pie meaning, I apprehend, of the particle is, that Jesus, being wearied with his journey, sat down by the well, like a person so wearied, as to design to lake >oine repose and refreshment there: to which St. John adds, jl was about the sixth hour. If this be just, the translation should have been something like this: "Jesus iherefore being wearied with his journey, sal down accordingly, or like suth a one, by the well. It' was about the sixth hour." The panicle certainly expresses conformity to an account to be given after ; so John xxi. 1, Jesus showed hi to his diieiples nt the sea of Tiberias; and on this 'wise he himself, referring to the account about to be given. And sometimes it signifies conformitii to an account that had been before given: so John xi. 47, 48, What do wc? for this man doth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, after this manner doing many miracles, all men will believe on him. So eh. viii. 59, Then tool- thai up stones toeast at him : but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by: passed by, by hiding himself after this manner. After this latter manner it is to be understood, I think, here : Jes: s being wearied with his journey, sat down like a weary person by the side of the well, and in that attitude the woman found'him, pre- paring to lake some repose and repast. The disciples, j| is said, ver. 8, were gone away into the city to buy meat ; but it does not at all follow froni thence that they all went, nor is it so probable that they did, leaving him alone; but that, on the contrary, some of them stayed with him, making such preparations as indicated a design in them to eat bread there.— Habmeb. Ver. 9. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? (for the Jews have no dealings with the Samar- itans. J In Atleet, on the road from Nablous to Jerusalem, pass- ing out of a gateway similar to the other, at the opposite extremity of the wall, we crossed a marsh, and remounting, were proceeding on our way, when some women were dis- covered drawing water at a well near the track, and the day being hot, I desired my servant to ask if they would give me some to drink ; but they refused the indulgence, one of them exclaiming, " Shall I give water to a Chris- tian, and make my pitcher filthy, so that I can use it no more for ever 1" " This happened within tin' precincts of Samaria, and was a proof how little change the spirit of the people has undergone within the last eighteen cen- turies. These women were young and handsome, with full, dignified, and stalely figures : a dark-coloured fillet bound the head, and passing under the chin, left the face entirelv covered.— Monroe's Summer R.mcle is Syria. Ver. 11. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep- from whence then hast thou that living water? See on Gen. 24.20. In those dry countries they find themselves obliged to carry with them great leathern boitlesof water, which they refill from time to time, as they have opportunity ; bal whal is very extraordinary, in order lo be able to do this, they, in mam- places, are obliged to carry lines and buckets with iliem Sn Theveiiot, in giving an account of what he provided fol his journey Horn Egypt lo Jerusalem, tells us, be did not forget "leathern buckets to draw water wiih." ltaitwolf goes further, for he gives us to understand, thai i inhabited countries there, as well a.-, m ,', have oftentimes no implements for drawing of water, but what those bring with them that come thither: for speak- ing of the well or cistern at Bethlehem, he says, it is a good rich cistern, deep and wide ; for which reason, "the people that go to dip water are provided with small leathern buckets and a line, as is usual in these countries; and so the merchants that go in caravans through great deserts into far countries, provide themselves also with these, be- cause in these countries you find more cisterns or wells than springs that lie high.'" In how easy a light docs this place the Samaritan woman's talking of the depth of Jacob's well, and her remarking that she did not observe that our Lord had any thing to draw with, though he spoke of pre- senting her willi water. Wells and cisterns differ from each other, in that the first are supplied with water by springs, the other by rain : both are to be found in considerable numbers in Jud'ea, and are, according to Raowolf, more numerous in these coun- tries than springs that lie high, than fountains and brooks that are of running water. Some of these have been made for the use of the people that dwell in their neighbourhood, some lor travellers, and especially those that travel fo- devotion. Thevenot found two, niade a little before hi" time for ihe use of travellers, by Turks of distinction, ii the desert between Cairo and Ga'za. And from a history D'Herbelot has given us, il appears that ihe Mohammedans have dug wells in ihe deserts, for the accommodation o! those that go in pilgrimage to Mecca, their sacred city, where the "distance between such places as Nature had made pleasant for them to stop, and take up water at, were too great: for he tell us, that Gianahi, a famous Moham- medan rebel, filled up with sand all ihe wells that had been dug in the road to Mecca for the benefit of the pilgrims.— Harmed CHAPTER V. Ver. 2. Now there is at Jerusalem, by the shecp- marlcel, a pool, which is called in "the Hebrew tongue, Bethesda, having five porches This was the name of a pool, or rather bath of water, having five porticoes: and so called from the miraculous cures performed there. They still show you " the pool ot Bethesda, contiguous on one side to St. Stephen's gate, on the other to the area of the temple." Maundrell says it is a hundred and twenty paces long, forty broad, and at least t its west end may be discovered some old arches, 'Which are now dammed up. " A little above, we enu n 1 the city at the gate of St. Stephen, where, on each side, a lion retrograde doth stand, called, in time past, the port of the valley and of the flock, for that the cattle came in at this gate, which were to be sacrificed in the temple, and were sold in the market adjoining. On the left hand is a stone bridge, which passeth at the east end of the norlh wall into the court of the temple of Solomon; the head to the pool of Bethesda, underneath which it (the water) had a conveyance, called also probaticum, for that the sacrifices were therein washed ere delivered to the priests. Now il is a great square profundity, green and uneven at the bottom, into which a barren spring doth drill between the stones of the northward wall, and stealeth away almost undiscovered. The place is for a good depth hewn out of the rock; confined above on the north side with a steep wall, on the west with high buildings, perhaps a pari of the castle of Anlonia, where are two doors to descend by. now all that P-e,half choked with rubbish; and on ih« JOHN. Chap. 6. Ver. 13. And he that was healed wist not who it was : for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place. Doddridge translates the word slipped away, and observes from Casaubon, that it is an elegant metaphor borrowed from swimming; it well expresses the easy unobserved manner in which Jesus as it were glided through them, while, like a stream of water, they opened before him, and immediately closed again leaving no trace of the way he had taken.— Burdeh. Ver. 35. He was a burning and a shining light; and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. This character of John the Baptist is perfectly conform- able to the mode of expression adopted by the Jews. It was usual with them to call any person who' was celebrated for knowledge, a candle. Thus they say that Shuah, the father- in-law of Judah, (Gen. xxxviii. 2,) was the candle or light of the place where he lived, because he was one of the most famous men in the city, enlightening their eyes ; hence they call a rabbin, the candle of the law, and the lamp of light. -LlGHTFOOT. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 1. After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. The present town of Tabareeah.as it is now called, is in form of an irregular crescent, and is enclosed towards the land by a wall flanked with circular towers : it lies nearly north and south along the western edge of the lake, and has its eastern front opposed to the water, on the brink of which it stand-, as some of the houses there are almost washed bv the sea. The whole does not appear a mile in circuit, and cannot o.na'ji more than six hundred separate dwellings, from the manner in which they are placed. There are two gates visible from without; one near the southern, and the other in the western wall, the latter of which is in one of the round towers, and is the only one now open. There are appearances also of the tower having been surrounded by a ditch, but this is now filled up by cultivable soil. The interior presents but few objects of interest besides the or- dinary habitations, which are, in general, small and mean. There is a mosque, with a dome and minaret, now fre- quented ; and another with an octangular lower, now in ruins. The former of these is not far from the gate of en- trance; the latter is nearer to the beach. There are also two synagogues of the Jews near the centre of the town, both of them inferior to that of Jerusalem, though similar in design ; and one Christian place of worship, called the house of Peter, near the northern quarter, close to the water's edge. The last, which has been thought by some to be the oldest place of Christian worship now extant in Palestine, is a vaulted room about thirty feet by fifteen, and perhaps fifteen in height; it stands nearly east and west, having its door of entrance at the western front, and its altar immediately opposite in a shallow recess. Over the door is one small window* and on each side four others, all arched and open. The masonrv of the edifice is of an ordinary kind ; the pavement within is similar to that used for streets in this country; and the whole is devoid of sculpture or other ornament, as far as I could perceive. In a court without the house of Peter, I observed, however, a block of stone, on which were the figures of two goats, and two lions or tigers, coarsely executed ; but whether th is ever belong- ed tu the building itself, no one could inform me. During my visit to this church, morning mass was performed by the abuna, at whose house we had lodged ; the congrega- tion consisted of only eleven persons, young and old; and the furniture and decorations of the altar and the priest were exceedingly scanty and poor. This edifice is thought by the people here to have been the very house which Peter inhabited at the time of his being called from his boat to follow Christ. It was evidently constructed, however, for a place of worship, and probably at a period much posterior to the time of the apostle whose name it bears, though it might have been erected on the spot which tradition has marked as the site of his more humble habitation : from hence, they say, loo, it was, that the boat pushed off into the lake when the miraculous draught of fishes was taken. Be- sides the public buildings already specified are the house of the aga, on the rising ground near the northern quarter of the town; a small but good bazar, and two or three coffee sheds. The ordinary dwellings of the inhabitants are such as are commonly seen in eastern villages; but are marked by a peculiarity, which I witnessed hete for the first lime. On the terrace of almost every house stands a small square en- closure of reeds, loosely covered with leaves : these I learnt were resorted lo by the heads of families to sleep in during the summer months, when the heat of the nights is intoler- able, from the low situation of the town, and the unfre- quency of cooling breezes. The whole population of Ta- bareeah does not exceed two thousand souls, according to the opinion of the best-informed residents. Provisions are not abundant, and therefore generally dear ; and fish, when occasionally taken by a line from the shore, are sold to the aga, or to some of the rich Jews, at an exorbitant price. — Buckingham, Ver. 1. After these things Jesus went over theeea- of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. 2. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. 3. And Jesus went up into a mount- ain, and there he sat with his disciples. Tiberias, one of the principal cities of Galilee, was erected by the tetrarch Herod Anlipas, who gave it this appellation in honour of Ihe Emperor Tiberius. It was this Herod who beheaded John the Baptist, (Matt. xiv. 3—11,) and who sought the life of Christ himself, (Luke xiii. 31.) He probably resided in Tiberias, which may be the reason why the Saviour never visited this place. It was situated near the Sea of Galilee, on a plain of singular fertility, which was greatly increased by assiduous cultivation. Jose- phus describes this region as a perfect paradise, blessed with a delicious temperature, and producing the fruits of every climale under heaven, not at stated periods merely, but in endless succession throughout the year. The neglect of agriculture in modern times has, of course, made it less productive; but Ihe mildness of the climate, and the rich- ness of the soil, are still extolled by travellers. When the Romans made war upon the Jews, Tiberias surrendered without waiting for a siege: on this account the Jews re- mained unmolested ; and after the destruction of Jerusalem, this city became eminent for its academy, over which a suc- cession of Jewish doctors presided until the fourth century. In the early ages of Christianity, Tiberias was an episcopal see; in the seventh century it was taken by the Saracens under the Calif Omar; and though it passed into the hands of the Christians during the crusades, the Moham- medans regained the possession of it towards the close of the fourteenth century. Widely scattered ruins of walls and other buildings, as well as fragments of columns, indi- cate the ancient extent of Tiberias. The stone of these ruins is described by the Rev. William Jowett as being " very black, so that there is nothing about them of the splendour of antiquity, — nothing but an air of mourning and desolation. In this circumstance they differ so greatly from the magnificent antiquities of Egypt and Greece, as to leave the most sombre impression on the fancy : they are perfectly funereal." The modern town of Tiberias, which is delineated in our engraving, is by the natives called Tabaria, or Taba- reeah ; it occupies part of the site of the ancient city, and is situated at a short distance to the east from the Sea ot Galilee. It is surrounded with walls and towers, which at first view are very imposing; on a nearer approach, how- ever, their insignificance is apparent. A few cannon would put them down in an instant, though to an assault from the natives they would present, probably, a very long and effectual resistance. One fourth of the space within the walls is stated by Dr. Richardson to be unoccupied by house or building; 'and many parts of the town are in a ruined and filthy condition. The population has been com- puted atone thousand five hundred, or two thousand persons ; Chap. 7—10. JO] eighty booses are occupied by Christians, and one hundred and fifty by Turks, bill the largest portion (amounting to two buadredl is tenanted by Jews ut till nations, who come here to spend the rest of their days. On i he north side ol the town, not lax from the hike, there is a Greek church, the architeetu re of which exhibits much of the character of those sacred edifices which were erected by the Emperess Helena : it is saiil to occupy the identical spot on which stood the house ol the apostle Peter, who, previously lo his becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ, had been a fisherman on the lake To the south of Tiberias lie the celebrated hot baths, the water of which contains a strong solution of muriate of soda, (common salt,) with a considerable intermixture of iron and sulphur; it emits a powerful sulphureous smell. A thermometer placed in different spots' where the water gushes out, rose to the various heights of 131, 139, 138, and 139 degrees of Fahrenheit; in the bath, when' n cools after standing. some time, its temperature was 110. An hum- ble building is erected over the bath, containing mean apartments, on one side for men, on the other for women it is much frequented asa cure for almost every complaint, particularly by the Jews, who have a great veneration for a Roman. sepulchre excavated in a cliff near the spot, which Ihey imagine to be the tomb of Jacob. About a I the town, and exactly in front of the lake, is a chain of rocks, in which are distinctly seen cavities or grottoes that have resisted the ravages of time. These are uniformly represented to travellers as the places referred to in the gospel history, which were the resort of miserable and fierce demoniacs, upon one ol whom Jesus Christ wrought a miraculous and instantaneous cure : (Matt. viii. 28. Mark v. 2, 3. Luke viii. 37.) The Sea of Galilee, which is seen in the background of ■ ing, derives its name from its situation on the eastern borders of the province of Galilee ; it was anciently called the Sea of Chinnerelk, or Chinneroth, (Numb, xxxiv. 11. Josh. xii. 3.1 from its vicinity to the town of that name. In 1 Mac. Xi. ti7, it is called the Water of Gennesar, and in Luke v. I, the Lake of Gennesaret, from the neighbour- ing land of that name. Its most common appellation is the Sea of Tiberias, from the contiguous town of Tiberias, which has been described in the preceding paragraphs. This capacious lake is from twelve to filteen miles in length, and from six to nine miles in breadth; along the shore its depth varies, and in some parts it mav he sixty feet. The water is perfectly fresh, and it is used 'by the in- habitants of Tiberias to drink, and for every culinary pur- pose. The waters of the northern part of this lake abound with delicious fish. It is remarkable that there is not a single boat of any description on the Sea of Tiberias at present, although it is evident from the gospel history that it was much navigated in the time of Jesus Christ. " The fish are caught partly bv the fishermen going into the water up to their y aist, and throwing in a hand-net, and partly with casting-nets from the beach ; the consequence is, that a very small quantity only is taken in comparison of what might be obtained if boats were employed. This accounts for the circumstance of fish being so dear at Tiberias, as to be sold at the same price per pound as meat. Viewed from a height, the water looks, amid the surrounding mountains, like an immense reservoir; and from the northern part be- ing covered with volcanic remains, it lias been conjectured that this lake was at one period the crater of a volcano. It has been compared by travellers to Loch Lomond, in Scot- land: and, like the Lake of Windermere, in Westmoreland, it is often greatly agitated by winds. A strong current marks the passage of the Jordan through this lake ; and when this is opposed by contrary winds, which blow here with the force of a hurricane from the southeast, sweeping into the lake from the mountains, a boisterous sea is instantly raised, which the small vessels of the country (such as were an- ciently in use) were ill qualified to resist! Such a tempest is described in Matt. viii. 2i— 26, which was miraculously calmed by Jesus Christ with a word. The broad and ex- tended surface of this lake, " covering the bottom cf a pro- found valley, surrounded by lofty and precipitous eminences, when added to the impression under which every Christian pilgrim approaches, gives to it a character of unparalleled dignity."— Horne. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 3. His brethren, therefore, raid unto him,' Depart I.cnco, and go into JtioVa, that thy dis- ciples also may see the works that thou doest. In eastern language it is common to apply the word brother or sister to those relations who have no right to it in I'.n ■■land. Thus, cousmsare called " brothers ;" i. e. the ■ a it brothers are called brothers ; but a daughter, though she would he called sister by her cousins, yet her children would not be addressed in the same way, but " mack&n,'' i. e. eousiii, would be their proper title. The name sister, w hieh Abraham gave to Ins wife, is still given to the same degree dt relationship. Gen. xx. 12. " She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother."— Rob- erts. Ver. 38. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow livers of living water. It is said of divine sages, of great gooroos, " Ah ! in their headsare kept the rivers of life, or life-giving rivers." The figure m reference to them is, I doubt not, taken from Siva, as the Ganges is said to flow from his head. — Roberts. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 2. And his disciples asked him, saying, Mas- ter, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind ? The Hindoos and Ceylonese very commonly attribute their misfortunes to the transgressions of a former state o( existence. ■ I remember being rather struck with the seri- ousness of a crippje, who attributed his condition to the un- known fault of Ins former life. His conjecture was, thai he h.id broken the leg of a fowl. Offerings are made with a view to an honourable or happy birth at the nex trans- migration.—Callawav. Ver. 7. And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is, by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The following description of the fountain of Siloam is from the journal of Messrs. Fisk and King, under date ol April 28, 1823. (Missionary Herald, 1824, p. Go.) " Near the southeast corner of the citv, at the foot of 'Zion and Moriah, is the pool of Siloah, (Neh. 3. 15,) whose waters flow with a gentle murmur from under the holy mountain ot Zion, or rather from under Ophel, having Zion on the west, and Moriah on the north. The very fountain issues from a rock, twenty or thirty feet below the surface of the ground, lo which we descended by two flights of steps. Here it flows out without a single murmur^ and appears clear as crystal. From this place it winds its way several rods under the mountain, then makes its appearance with gentle gurgling, and, forming a beautiful rill, takes its way down into the valley, towards the southeast. We drank of the water both at the fountain and from the stream, and found it soft, of a sweetish taste, and pleasant. The foun- tain is called in scripture the ' pool of Siloam.' It was to this that the blind man went and washed, and came seeing." —Bush. CHAPTER X. Ver. 1. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that en- tereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but clinibeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. In summer, the flocks were enclosed in folds, to which allusion is frequently made in the sacred volume. The fold of Polyphemus, "the far-lamed Sicilian shepherd, was a spacious cave, where his cattle, his sheep, and goa'« re- posed. In Persia the shepherds frequently drive their flocks into caverns at night, and enclose them by heaping up walls of loose stones. But the more common sheepfold was an enclosure in the manner of a building, and constructed of stone and hurdles, or fenced with reeds. It had a large door, or entrance, for admitting the flock, which was closed with huriles; and to facilitate the tithing, which was done in the ibid, they struck out a little door, so small, that two lambs could not escape together. To this entrance, which is still used in the East, our Lord alludes in this declaration : " He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a rob- ber."— Paxton. Ver. 3. To him the porter openeth : and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadcth them out. 4. And when ha putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him : for they know his voice. 5. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. Having had my attention directed last night to the words, " The sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name," I asked my man if it was usual in Greece to give names to the sheep. He informed me that it was, and that the sheep obeyed the shepherd when he called Ihem by their names. This morning I had an opportunity of veri- fying the truth of this remark. Passing by a flock of sheep, I asked the shepherd the same question w'hich I had put to my servant, and he gave me the same answer. I then bade him to call one of his sheep. He did so, and it instantly left its pasturage and its companions, and ran up lo the hand of the shepherd with signs of pleasure, and wilh a prompt obedience. It is also true of the sheep in this coun- try, thai a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. The shepherd told me that many of his sheep were" still wild ; that they had not yet learned their names; but that by teaching they would all learn them.— Hartley's Journal of a Tour in Vev. 5. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him : for they know not the voice of strangers. The oriental shepherd marches before his flock to the field, with his rod in his hand and his dog by his side ; and they are so perfectly disciplined, that they follow him wherever he chooses to lead them. To facilitate the man- agement of his charge, he gives names lo his sheep, which answer to them, as dogs and horses answer to theirs in these parts of the world. The shepherds of Egypt select a ram to lead the flock, and suspend a bell from his neck that they may follow him wilh greater ease and certainly. — Paxton. Ver. 11. lam the good shepherd: the good shep- herd giveth his life for the sheep. 12. But he that is a hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. 13. The hireling fleeth, because he is a hire- ling, and careth not for the sheep. Being wakeful at night, I occasionllv heard noises from the hills, which our attendants said proceeded from wolves. The watchful shepherds shouted, and the sheep probably escaped. I was forcibly reminded of the " good shepherd ;'" were the flock near our tent to be forsaken by the shepherd for a single night, it would be scattered and devoured. — Rev. R. Anderson's Tour in Greece. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 1. Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. Bethany is a miserable village, containing between forty and fifty wretched stone huts, and inhabited solely by Arabs. It stands on a rocky mountain, well cultivated, N. Chap H and producing olive and fig-trees, vines, beans, and eirn, which, over the whole country, are now ready for harvest. The tomb supposed to be that of Lazarus is a cave in the rock, to which we descended by tweniy-six rude steps. At the bottom of these, in a small chamber, we saw a smal door in the ground; we descended by two large steps, and stooping through a low passage, about five feet long, enter- ed the tomb, which is not hewed out of the rock, but built with large stones, and arched : I found it to be seven feel four inches, by eight feet two inches and a half, and ten feet high: it is in its original rude stale, and belongs to the Catholics, who say mass in it occasionally. In the tomb are two small windows, opening to holes* in the rock.— Turner. Ver. 17. Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. It was customary among the Jews to go to the sepulchres of their deceased friends, and visit them for three days, for so long they supposed that their spirits hovered about them; but when once they perceived that their visage began to change, as it would in three days in these countries, all hopes of a return to life were then at an end. After a rev- olution of humours, which in seventy-two hours is com- plvled, the body tends naturally to putrefaction ; and there- fore Martha had reason to say, that her brother's body (which appears by the context'to have been laid m the sepulchre the same day that he died) would now on the fourth day become offensive. — Stackhouse. Ver. 19. And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. The general time of mourning for deceased relations, both among Jews and Gentiles, was seven davs. During' these days of mourning their friends and neighbours visit- ed them, in order that by their presence and conversation they might assist them in bearing their loss.' Many there- fore in so populous a part of the country must have been going to and coming from the sisters, while the days of their mourning for Lazarus lasted. The concourse too would be the greater as it was the time of the passover. Besides, a vast multitude now attended Jesus on his jour- ney. This great miracle therefore must have had many Macknigbt. Ver. 31. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily, and went out,, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. Authors that speak of the eastern people's visiting the tombs of their relations, almost always atlrihute this to the women ; the men, however, sometimes visit them too, though not so frequently as the other sex, who are more susceptible of the tender emotions of grief, and think that propriety requires it of them ; whereas the men commonly think that such strong expressions of sorrow would misbe- come them. "We find that some male friends came from Jerusalem to condole with Mary and Manha on account oi the death of their brother Lazarus, who, when ihey suppo- sed that her rising up and going out of the house was with a view to repair to his grave to weep, " followed her, say- ing, She gocth unto the grave to weep there." It is no won- der that Ihey thought her rising up in haste was to go to the grave to weep, forChardin informs us, that the mourn- ing in the East does not consist in wearing black clothes, which they call an infernal dress, but in great outcries, in silling motionless, in being slightly dressed in a brown or pale habit, in refusing to take any nourishment for eight days running, as if they were determined to live no longer. Her starting up then with a sudden motion, who. it was expected, would have sat still without stirring at all, and her going out of the house, made them conclude that it must be to go to the grave to weep there, ihough. according to the modern Persian ceremonial, it wanted five or six days of the usual time for going to weep at the grave : but Chap. 11 — 19. JO I tie Jews possibly might repair ihiiher sooner than ihe Persians do. — Ha{imer. Ver 88. Jeans, therefore; again groaning' in him- self, cometh to the grave. It was a care, and a stone lay upon it. 39. Jesus said, Tal B ye away the stone, Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said unto him, Lord, by tli is time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days Tli; Jewish tombs, like those of Macri, have entrances, which wn I u ilh a l:i i L'f ami I rolled to the door, Which H was not lawful, in the opinion of a Jew, to displace. They were adorned with inscrip- tions and emblematical devices, alluding to pi rulai transactions in the lives of the persons that lie there en- tombed. Thus In place where ihe dust of Joshua reposed, was called Tininath-heres, h of the sun was engraved on his sepulchre, in memory of his arresting lhat luminary in his career, till he had gained a complete victory over ihe confederate kings. Such significant de- vices were common in the East. Ci© I Archimedes was distinguished by the figure of a sphere and a cylinder. — Paxton. Ver. 44. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes : and his face was bound about with a napkin, Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. As the Jews did not make use of coffins, they placed their dead separately in niches, or little cells, cut into the sides of the caves, or rooms, which they had hewed out of the rock. This form of the Jewish sepulchre suggests nn easy solution of a difficulty in the resui rection of I. tzarus. The sacred historian states, that when our Lord cried wilh a loud voice, " Lazarus, come forth, he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes." Upon ihis circumstance, the enemies of revelation seize with avidity, and demand wilh an air of triumph, How he should come out of a grave, who was bound hand and foot wilh grave- clothes 1 But the answer is easy : ihe evangelist does not mean that Lazarus walked out of the sepulchre, hut only that he sal up, then putting his legs over the edge of his niche or cell, slid down and stood upright upon the floor; all which he might easily do, notwithstanding his anus were bound close lo his body, and his legs were tied straight together, bv means of ihe shroud and rollers with which he was swathed. Hence, when he was come forth, Jesus ordered his relations to loose him and let him go ; a circum- stance plainly imporling the historian's admission that Lazarus could not walk till he was unbound.— Paxton. [This interpretation, though plausible and ingenious, does not well accord with the letter of the text. From this it is not easy to avoid the impression, that in some way he came forth from the inner part to the outer opening of the cave, enveloped in his grave-clothes. As to the impossi- bility of his walking when thus impeded, we may safely admit, that if his limbs were thus entirely confined, he was conveyed to the door of the cave, bv the same Almighty power by which he was raised from the dead.— Busu.] CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 18. I speak not of you all ; I know whom I have chosen: but, that the scripture maybe fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lift up his heel against me. See on Ps. 41. 9. Ver. 33. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily. I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. See on Mark 14. 30. It is very common for people to regulate their time in the night by the crowing of the cock: thus, " I did not leave the temple till the S&ma-koli," i. e. midnight cock. " I left ray N. 615 home at the Vudeija-kuli," i. e. the morning cock. The people attach a high value to those birds which crow with - regularity; and nme ol them keep the time with astonishing precision. — RoBEHT*. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 5. And now. o Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Our Lord is undoubtedly here praying lo be glorified with Ins Mediatorial glory. But ihis was not the glory «lii' ii he had vviili ihe Father before the world was, for prior lo the creation he did not exist as mediator, ami I hep- fore cou' ' probably means, " which I had in ihe divine purpose, which thou did It ordain and destine that I flu-ulil have m ihe ages to come." By a similar diction, Chrisl is termed "the Lamb slain from Ihe foundation of the world." But he was not iirhi,:llu slam from the foundation of ihe world, but only in the divine purpose. So here, Christ prays to he ion of that honour aid glory which ihe Father from eternity had decreed should redound lohim, in virtue of his assuming ihe office of Messiah, and being constituted Head and Lord of the New Testament dispensation. At ihis glory he looks, not wilh a retrospective, but with an anticipative eye. — Bush. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 3. Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Phari- sees, cometh thither wilh lanterns, and torches, and weapons. Norden, among oilier particulars, has given some account of the lamps and lanterns thai they make use of commonly at Cairo. "The lamp is of ihe palm-tree wood, of the height of twenty-three inches, and made in a very gross manner. The glass, that hangs in the middle, i with water and has oil on the top, about three fingers in depth. The wick is preserved dry at the bottom of the glass, where they have contrived a place for it, and ascends through a pipe. These lamps do not give much light, yet they are very commodious, beeau e tiny aie transported easily from one place to another. With regard to the lan- terns, they have pretty nearly the figure of a cage, and are made of reeds. It is a collection .,| n. ■ ,.i six glasses, like to that of ihe lamp which has been just described. They suspend them bv cords in the middle of the sireets, when there is any great festival ai Cairo, and they put painted paper in the place of the reeds." Were these the lanterns lhat those who came to take Jesus made use of! or were they such lamps as these thai Christ referred to in the parable of the virgins! or are we rather to suppose that these lanterns an appropriated to the Egyptian illuminations, and that Pococke's account of Ihe lanterns of this country will give us a better idea of those lhat were anciently made use of at Jerusalem 1 Speaking of the travelling of ihe people of Egypt, he says, " by night they rarely make use of tents, but lie in the open air, hav- ing large' lanterns made like a pocket paper lantern, the bottom and top being of copper tinned over, and instead ol paper thev are made with linen, which is extended by hoops. of wire, so that when it is put together it serves as a candle- slick, 5. The quantity of ancient potterv, independently of the ruins, told us at once that we were upon the emplace- ment of the city of Antioch. The superb members of a temple, which, from the thyrsus onmanv of them, evidently belonged to Bacchus, was the first thing we saw. Passing on, a long and immense building, constructed withprodi gious stones, and standing ea i ne entertain ,t might be a church— a church ot Antioch 1 It was mi ; the go. I pi. n. v. nli the cin ulai .ndj'or the bema, all remaining! Willingly would Ih.ue icinained hours in the I i - one of the very d ecrated to the Saviour; but we were obliged to hasten on, The next thing that attracted oui notice were two large archi -. a outet ra in I tinning (at beneath the lull, and supporting the platform of a superb temple. A high wall oi in. in, next occurred, pan probably of the gate of the city, and near n plan of another building. From hence ran a wall, ai least its ruins, alone towards the aqueduct, crowning the browol the bill, and abruptly terminating where the bill became so precipitous as to lequire no di fi di e. 'i he remains of the aqueduct, of w Inch twenty-one arches are perfect, are the most splendid level beheld; thesi s, without cement, of the Mine ii i s in the wall. The view when neat the aqueduct, was enchanting, and well entitled Antioch to its rank of capital of the province of Pisidia. In the valley on the I . and w eepmg w il- ■ ; almist, ' \\ e hanged our harps upon the willow--;' &c. mourning, as at Babylon, for the mclairVholy late of this once great Christian city. Nol a Christian now resides in it, except a single Greek in the khan. Nol a church, nor any priest to ollieiate, where Paul and Barnabas, and their successors, converted the tliou-ands of idolaters to the true faith ! Behind the valley in the east rises a nigged mountain, part of the Pa{preia ; ami in f of the plai e where I sal is the emplacement ef the city, where once si I the syna- gogue, and the mansions that hospitably received the apos- tles, and-those of their persecutors who drove them from the city — all now levelled to the ground ! Behind the city, in the middle distance, is seen the modern ciiy or town of Yalabatz, the houses intermixed with poplars and other trees, in autumnal colouring, and so numerous as to resem- ble a grove rather than a city. Beyond is a plain, bounded by the heights of Taurus, under which appeared a lake, probably ol Eyerdir. (in the right, in the middle distance also, the plain'bounded by mountains, and these overtopped by the rugged Alpine peaks of Abu mi Taurus, covered wiih snow: In the foreground, the aqueduct, with the plains and groves of Yalabaiz appearing through its arches. Behind us rose an amphitheatre of round low hills, backed by mountains, naked and lolly. Reserving a fuller examina- tion for the morrow, we returned to our khan, seeing in our way an inscription on a fountain, which with the others we shall notice hereafter. — Akcndeix. Ver. 15. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye havu any word of exhortation for the people, say on. The custom of reading the law, the Jews sav, existed a hundred and seventy years bjefore the time of Christ. The division of it into' sections is ascribed to Ezra. The five books of Moses, here called the law, contained fifty- three sections, so that by reading one on each sabbath, and .two in one day, they read through the whole in the course of a year, finishing at the feast of tabernacles, which they called "the rejoicing of the law." When AntiochusEpiph- anes burnt the book of the law, and forbid the reading of it, the Jews in the room of it selected some pas; ages on.1 of the prophets, which they thought came nearest in words and sense to the sections of the law, and read them in their stead; but when the law was restored again, th?v still con- tinued the readingof the prophetic sections; and the section for the day was called the dismission, because usually the people were dismissed upon it. unless any one stood up and expounded the word of God to them. This is the reason of the message sent to the apostles, " Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on." — Gill. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 13. Then the priest of Juj iter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands THE VCTS. Chap. 14—18. unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people. When the gods are taken out in procession, their necks are adorned with garlands; the priests also wear them at the same lime. On all festive occasions men and women have on their sweet-scented garlands, and the smell of some of them is so strong as to be offensive to an Englishman. Does a man- of rank offer to adorn von with a garland, it is a sign of his respect, and must not be refused. In the latter part of 1832 I visited the celebrated pagoda of Rami- seram, (the temple of Rimar :) so soon as I arrived within a short distance of the gates, a number of dancing girls, priests, and others, came to meet us with garlands; they first did me the honour of putting one around my neck, and then ptesented others for Mrs. Roberts and the chil- dren.— Roberta. CHAPTER XVI. Ver, 11. Therefore, loosing- from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis. The view of the ancient Sichem, now called Napolose, otherwise Neapolis, and Napoleos, surprised us, as we had not expected tu find a city of such magnitude in the road to Jerusalem. It seems to be the metropolis of a very rich and extensive country, abounding with provisions, and all the necessary articles of life, in much greater profusion than the town of Acre. White bread was exposed for sale in the streets, of a quality superior to any that is io be7 found else- where throughout'the Levant. The governor of Napolose received and regaled us with all the magnificence of an eastern sovereign; refreshments of every kind known in the country, were set before us : and, when we supposed the list to be exhausted, to our very great astonishment a most sumptuOusdinnerwasbroughl in. Nolhingseemedtogratify our host more, than that any of his guests should eat hearti- ly; and, to do him justice, every individual of the party ought to have possessed the appetite of ten hungry pilgrims, to satisfy his wishes in this respect. There is nothing in the Holy Land finer than a view of Napolose, from the heights around it. As the traveller descends towards it from the hills, it appears luxuriantly imbosomed in the most delightful and fragrant bowers; half concealed by rich gardens, and by stalely trees collected into groves, all around the bold apd beautiful valley in which it stands. Trade seems to flourish among its' inhabitants. Their principal employment is in making soap ; but the manufactures of the town supply a very widely extended neighbourhood, and they are exported to a great distance upon camels. In ihe morning after our arrival, we met caravans coming from Grand Cairo; and noticed others reposing in the large olive plantations near the gates. — Clarke. Ver. 13. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made ; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. The Jewish proseuchrjs were places of prayer, in some circumstances similar to, in others different from, their, synagogues; the latter were generally in cities, and were covered places ; whereas for the most part the proseucha? were out of the cities, on the banks of rivers, having no cov- ering, except, perhaps, the shade of some trees, or covered galleries. Their vicinity to water was for the convenience of those frequent washings and ablutions which were in- troduced among them. — Burder. Ver. 22. And the multitude rose up tog-ether against them; and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. It was usual for the Roman magistrates to command the lictors to rend open the clothes of the criminal, that he might the more easily be beaten with rods. No care was taken of the garments on these occasions: but they were suddenly and with violence rent open. Thus were Paul and Silas treated in this instance. — Burder. Ver. 24. Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast "in the stocks. It is generally supposed that these stocks were the cippi, . r large pieces of wood used among the Romans, which tot only loaded the legs of prisoners, but sometimes dis- tended them in a very painful manner ; so that it is highly probable the situation of Paul and Silas here might be made more painful than that of an offender sitting in the slocks, as used among us, especially if (as is very possible) they lay with their bare backs, so lately scourged, on the hard or dirty ground ; which renders their joyful frame, expressed by songs of praise, ^o much the more remark- able. Beza explains it of the numellrc, in which both the feet and the neck were fastened, in the most uneasy posture that can well be imagined. — Paxton. CHAPTER XVIII. Ver. 3. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: (for by their occupation they were tent-makers.) It was a received custom among the Jews for every man, of what rank or quality soever, to learn some trade cir han- dicraft ; one of their proverbial expressions is, that who- ever teaches not his son a trade, teaches him to be a thief. In those hot countries, where tents (which were commonly made of skins, or leather sewed together, to keep out the violence of the weather) were used not only by soldiers, but by travellers, and others whose business required them to be abroad, a tent-maker was no mean or unprofitable employment. This custom, so generally practised by the Jews, was adopted also by other nations in the East. Sir Paul Rycaut observes, that the grand seignior, to whom he was ambassador, was taught to make wooden spoons. The intention of this usage was not merely amusement, but to furnish the person so instructed with some method of ob- taining their living, should they ever be reduced to want and poverty.— Burder. Ver. 6. And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads : I am clean : from henceforth 1 will go unto the Gentiles. " The shaking of his coat, a very common act in Tur- key, is, no doubt, an act of the same kind and import as that of St. Paul, who, when the Jews opposed themselves and blasphemed, shook his raiment." (Morier.) " Our Tchochodar Ibrahim, at sight of this people, immediately grasped his carbine, and shaking the hem of his pelisse, made signs to us to be upon our guard." (Clarke.) This is a sign of caution universal among the Turks. — Burder. Ver. 10. And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into the syna- gogue, and reasoned with the Jews. Ephesus was a celebrated city on the western coast of Asia Minor, situated between Smyrna and Miletus, on the sides and at the foot of a range of mountains which over- looked a fine plain, watered and fertilized by the river Cays- ter. Among other splendid edifices which adorned this metropolis of Ionia was the magnificent temple of Diana, which was two hundred and twenty years in building, and was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. This edifice' having been burnt by the incendiary Herostral us, B. C. 356, in the foolish hope of immortalizing his name, it was afterward rebuilt with increased splendour at the com- mon expense of the Grecian states of Asia Minor. The remains of ancient Ephesus have been discovered by learn- ed modern travellers at the Turkish village of Ayasaluk. The ruins delineated in our engraving comprise all that is supposed now to exist of this far-famed structure, which in the lime of St. Paul had lost nothing of its magnificence. Here was preserved a wooden statue of Diana, which the credulous Ephcsians were taught to believe had fallen from heaven, (Acts xix. 35,) and of this temple small silver mod- Chap. 19,20. THE ACTS els were made, and sold to devotees. (Acts. xix. 21.) Nero is said to have plundered this temple of many VOli and great sums of gold and silver. This edifice appears to have remained entire in the second century ; though the worship of Plana diminished and sunk into iiisignilicance, in proportion to the extension of Christianity. At a later period " Ihe temple of the great goddess Diana, w horn Asia and all the world" worshipped, (Acts xix. 27.) was again destroyed by the Goths and other barbarian- ; and time has so completed the havoc made by the hand of man, that this mighty fabric has almost entirely disappeared. During three years' residence' in this city, (Acts XX. 81,) the great apostle of the Gentiles was enabled, with divine assistance, to establish the faith of Christ, and to found a flourishing Christian church. Of his great care of the Ephesian community strong proof is extant in the affect- ing charge which he gave to the elders, whom he had con- vened at Miletus on his return from Macedonia, (Ads xx. Ifi— 38;) and still more in the epistle which he addressed to them from Rome. Ecclesiastical history represents Tim- othy to have been the first bishop of EpnesQS, but there is greater evidence that the apostle John resided here to- wards the close of his life : here, also, he is supposed to have written his Gospel, and to have finally ended his life. Besides the rums which are delineated in our engraving, widely scattered and noble remains attest thesplendoui of the theatre mentioned m Acts xix. :il, the elevated situation of which on Mount Prion accounts for the ease with which an immense multitude was collected, the loud shouts of whose voices, being reverberated from Mount Cornissus, would not a little augment the uproar caused by the popu- lace rushing into the theatre. The Ephesian church is the first of the "apocalyptic churches" addressed bvlhe apostle John in the name of Je- sus Christ. '■ I lis charge against her is declension in re- .igious fervour. (Rev. ii. 1 ;) and his ihreat, in consequence, (ii. 5,) is a total extinction of her ecclesiastical hrigiitness. After a protracted struggle wilh the sword of Rome and the sophisms of the Gnostics, Ephesus at Inst gave way. The incipient indifference, censured by the warning voice of the prophet, increased to a total forgelfiilness; till at length the threalcnings of the Apocalypse were fulfilled; and Ephesus sunk with the general overthrow of the Greek- empire, in the fourteenth century." The plough has pass- ed over this once celebrated city: and in Match, lsjii. « hen it was visited by the Rev. Messrs. Arundell and Hartley, green corn was growing in all directionsamid the forsaken ruins: and one solitary individual only was found, who bore the name of Christ, instead of its once flourishing church. Where assembled thousands once exclaimed, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" the eagle now yells, and the jackal moans. The sea having retired from the scene of desolation,.! pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has sueeei ded to the waters, which brought up the ships laden with merchandise from every country. The surrounding country, however, is both fertile and healthy : and the adjacent hills would furnish many delightful situa- tions for villages, if the difficulties were removed winch are thrown in the way of the industrious cultivator by a despotic government, oppressive agas, and wandering ban- ditti.— Horne. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 11. And Ood wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12. So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, ami the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. At a short distance, near the road-side, we saw the burial- place of a Persian saint, enclosed by very rude walls. Close to it grew a small bush, upon the'branches of which were tied a variety of rags and remnantsof garments. The Persians conceive that these rags, from their vicinity lo the saint, acquire peculiar preservative virtues againsi sickness; and substituting others, they take bits away, and lying them about their persons, use them as talismans. May not this custom have some distant reference to Acts xix. 11, 12 1 — Morier. Ver. 28. And when they heard these sayings. they were lull of wnitli, and cried out, saying, tire.it u Diana of the Kpliesians. The temple of Diana, at Ephesus, always has been ad- id ,i one of the noblest pieces of architecture that th«! world has ever produced. It wasfour hundred and twenty- D feel long, two hundred and twenty broad, and supported by one hundred and twenty -seven co.umiis oi marble, Bixty. or as some say, seventy fed high, twenty- seven of which were beautilullv carved. This temple, which was at least two hundred years in building, was burnt by one Herosiratus, with no oilier view ihan to per- petuate his memory : however, it was rebuilt, and the last temple was not inlet ior, either in riches or beamy, to the former; being adorned by ihe works of the most famous ' of Greece. This latter temple « a- Trebellius, plundered and burnt by the Scythians, when they broke into Asia Minor, in the reign of Gallienus, about the middle of the third century. The cry of the Bphesian populace was a usual form o'f praise among the Gentiles, when they magnified their gods, tor their benefi- cent and illustrious deeds. In Anstides, a similar passage occurs : " There was a great cry, both of those who were present, and of those who v. - i nig in that well-known form of praise, Great is jEsculapius." (Sit R. K. Porter.)— Burder. chapter' XX. Ver. 7. And upon the first iayof the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. Bishop Pearce, in his note on this passage, says, " In the Jewish way of speaking, la brtak bread is ihe same as to make a meal : and the meal here meant seems to have been one of those which was called arniroi, love-feasts. Such of the heathen as were convened lo Christianity were obliged lo abstain from meats offered to idols, and these were the mam support of the poor in ihe heathen cities The Chris- tians therefore, who were rich, seem very early to have begun the custom of those ur.is-.n, love-feasls, which they made on every first day of the week, chiefly lor Hie benefit of the poorer "Christians, who, by being such, had lost the Benefit, which they used to have for their support, of eaimg part of the heathen sacrifices. It was towards the latter end of these feasts, or immediately after ihern. that the Christians used to take bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus Christ, which, from what attended it, was called the eucharist, or holy communion.— Birder. Ver. 9. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into n deep sleep; and, as Paul was long preach- ing, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. Chardin informs us, that the eastern windows are very large, and even with the floor. It is no wonder Eutychus might fall out if the lattice was not well fastened, or if it was decayed, when, sunk into a deep sleep, he leaned with all his weight against it.— Harmer. Ver. 17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. The present state of this city is thus given by Dr. Chan- dler: " Miletus is a very mean'place, but still is'called Palat, or Palatia, the palaces. The principal relic of its former magnificence is a mined theaire, which is visible afar off, and was a most capacious edifice, measuring <157 feet long. The external face of this vast fabric is marble. On the side of the theatre next the river, is an inscription, in mean characters, rudely cut, in which the city Miletus is men- tioned seven times. This is a monument of heretical Christianity. One Basilides, who lived in the second century, was the founder of an absurd sect, called Basili- dians and Gnostics, the original proprietors of the many gems, with strange devices and inscriptions, intended to 622 THE ACTS. Chap. 21, 22. be worn as amulets or charms, with which the cabinet of the curious now abound. One of the idle tenets was, that the appellative Jehovah possessed signal virtue and effica- cy. They expressed it by the seven Greek vowels, which they transposed into a variety of combinations. This su- perstition appears to have prevailed in no small degree at Miletus. In this remain the mysterious name is frequent- ly repeated, and the deity six times invoked: Holy Jeho- vah, preserve the town of the Milesians, and all the inhab- itants ! The archangels, also, are summoned to be their guardians, and the whole city is made the author of these supplications; from which, thus engraved, it expected, as may be presumed, to derive lasting prosperity, and a kind of talismanical protection. The whole site of the town, to a great extent, is spread with rubbish, and overrun with thickets. The' vestiges of the heathen city are pieces of wall, broken arches, and a few scattered pedestals and in- scriptions, a square marble urn, and many wells. One of the pedestals has belonged to a statue of the Emperor Ha- drian, who was a friend to the Milesians, as appears from the titles of saviour and benefactor given him. Another supported the statute of the Emperor Severus, and has a long inscription, with this curious preamble: ' The senate and people of the city of the Milesians, the first settled in Ionia, and the mother of many and great cities, both in Pontus and Egypt, and various other parts of the world.' From the number of forsaken mosques, it is evident that Mohammedanism has flourished in its turn at Miletus. The history of this place, after the declension of the Greek empire, is very imperfect. The whole region has under- gone frequent ravages from trie Turks, while possessed of the interior country, and intent on extending their conquests westward to the shore. One sultan, in 1175, sent twenty thousand men, with orders to lay waste the Roman provin- ces, and bring him sea-water, sand, and an oar. All the cities on the" Meander, and on the coast, were then ruin- ed ; Miletus was again destroyed towards the end of the thirteenth century, by the conquering Othman." — Border. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 1 1. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that ovvneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. This was significant of what was to occur to the apostle. Does a person wish to dissuade another from some project, he acts in such a way as to show what will be the nature of the difficulties or dangers. Thus, should he doubt his per- sonal safety or fear disgrace, he puts off his sandals, to inti- mate he will die or be beaten with them. Or he takes off his turban, unfolds it, and ties it around his neck, or gropes as if in the dark, to intimate the difficulty. — Roberts. Ver. 21. And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gen- tiles to forsake Moses, saying, that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. In every part of the world man is too often the slave of custom ; but in all the old countries of the East, where in- novations have not been made, the people are most tena- ciously wedded to their customs. Ask, Why do you act thus 1 the reply is, " It is a custom." Their implements of agri- culture, "their modes of sowing and reaping, their houses, their furniture, their domestic utensils, their vehicles, their vessels in which they put to sea, their modes of living, and heir treatment of the various diseases, are all regulated by the customs of their fathers. Offer them better imple- ments, ind better plans for their proceedings, they replv, " We cannot leave our customs : your plans are good for yourselves, ours are good for ourselves : we cannot alter." — Ver. 40. And when be had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue. The object of Paul in beckoning with his hand was to obtain silence. See that man who has to address a crowd, and who wishes for silence, he does not begin to bawl out, Silence, that would be an affront to them; he lifts up his hand to its extreme height, and begins to beckon with it, i. e. to move it backward and forward; and then the people say to each other, "pasathe, pasdtke," i. e. be silent, be silent. — Roberts. CHAPTER XXII. Ver. 3. I am, verily, a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous towards God, as ye all are this day. This form of expression is only used in reference to great saints or great teachers. ,; He had his holiness at the feet of the grioroo, or his learning at the feet of ths philosopher." — Roberts. With respect to the schools among the Jews it should be observed, that, besides the common schools in which chil- dren were taught to read the law, they had also academies in which their doctors gave comments on the law, and taught the traditions to their pupils. Of this sort were the two famous schools of Hillel and Sammai, and the school of Gamaliel, who was St. Paul's tutor. In these seminaries the tutor's chair is said to have been so much raised above the level of the floor, on which the pupils sat, that his feet were even with their heads. Hence St. Paul says, that he was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. — Border. Ver. 22. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth ; for it is not fit that he should live. 23. And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, 24. The chief captain com- manded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging : that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. A great similarity appears between the conduct of the Jews on this occasion, and the behaviour of the peasants in Persia, when they go to court to complain cf the governors, whose oppressions they can no longer endure. " They carry their complaints against their governors by com- panies, consisting of several hundreds, and sometimes of a thousand ; they repair to that gate of the palace nearest to which their prince is most likely to be, where they set themselves to make the most horrid cries, tearing their garments, and throwing dust into the air, at the same time demanding justice. The king, upon hearing these cries, sends to know the occasion of them : the people deliver their complaints in writing, upon which he lets them know that he will commit the cognizance of the affair to such a one as he names ; in consequence of this, justice is usually obtained."— Paxton. Ver. 25. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondtjmned ? Scourging was a very common punishment among the Jews. It was inflicted in two ways ; with thongs or whips made of ropes or straps of leather ; or with rods, twigs, or branches of some tree. The offender was stripped from his shoulders to his middle, and tied by his arms to a low pillar, that his back might be more fully exposed to thfc lash of the executioner, who stood behind him upon a stone. Chap. 23—28. THE ACTS. 02J lo have more power over him, and scoured him both on i he back and breast, in open court, before the race ol in judges. Anion? the Arabians, itie prisoner is placed op- right on the ground, with bis hands and feel bound to- gether, while the cxecutionei stands before him, and with a short stii k strikes linn with a smart motion 00 the outside of bis knees. The pain which these strokes prodnce is exquisitely severe, and which no constitution can support for any length of lime. The Romans often inflicted the punishroeni iments employed «■ re sticks or staves, rods, and whips or lashes. The first wore . the last were i plied to citizens, till they were removed by the Poreiau law.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXIII. «Ver. 2. And the high-priest Ananias commanded them thai stood by him, to smite him on the mouth. The Persians smote the criminals who attempted lo speak in their own defence with a shoe, the heel ol which was shod with iron; which is quite characteristic of the eastern manners, as described in the sacred volume. The shoe was ■red as rile, and never allowed to enter sacred or respected places ; and to be smitten with it is to be sub- jected to the last ignominy. Paul was smitten on the mouth by the orders of Ananias: and the warmth with which the apo .tie resented the injury, shows Ins deep -en-e of the dishonour : "Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall : for siitcst thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to law 1" — Paxton. " Call the Ferashes," exclaimed the king, " and beat these rogues till they die." The Ferashes came; and heat them violently; and when they attempted to say any thing in their own defence, they smote them on the mouth with a shoe, the heel of which was shod with iron. (Morier.) The shoe was always considered as vile, and never allow- ed lo enter sae red t i icMieeiod phn---. ; and lo be mitten with it, is to be subjected to the last ignominy. " As soon as the ambassador came in, he punished the principal of- caosing them to be beaten before him; and those who' had'spoken their minds a little loo unreservedly, he smote uponJhe mouth with a shoe, which in their idiom they call kiif-.li Ulmid.n, eaiitig -I ." " llv I n est of all indignities, and the most insupportable, is to In- hit with a shoe, or one- of the pandnnllos, which the Hin- doos commonly wear on their feet. To receive a kick from anv foot, with a slipper on it, is an injury of so on- pardonable a nature, that a man would sutler i-xidu-i.m from hi- :: ' .■. \r.< could submit to it without receiving some adeqnaic s.iti-faction. Even to threaten one with the stroke of a slipper is held to be criminal, and to call for animadversion." (i- ton of the People of India.)— Burder. CHAPTER XXVII. Vr-r. 40. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder-bands, and hoisted up the mainsail to the wind, and made towards shore. Bishop Pococke, in his travels, has explained very partic- tilarly the rudder-bands mentioned by St. Luke, Acts xxvii. 40, and mv plan excludes that account from these papers; but Sir John Cbardin has mentioned some other things re- latins to this ship of St. Paul, which ought not to b titled. Fir-t, the eastern people, he tells us, " are wont lo leave their skiffs in the sea, fastened to the stern of their vessels." The skiff* of this Egyptian ship was towed alone, it seems, after the same manner, v. 16, Wc had much irork to come bit the boat. Secondly, They never, according to him, hoist it into the vessel, it always remains in ihe water, fastened to the ship. He therefore must suppose the toting it up, w apanrts, men- tioned ver. 17, does not mean hoisting it up into the vessel, as several interpreters have imagined, but drawing it up close to the stern of the ship; and the word v" ■'""'" "'■ which we translate, in the thirteenth verse, letting down into the !ca, must mean letting it go farther from the ship into the sea. Thirdly, He supposes this ship was like "a large modem Egyptian saiqae, ol three nui Ired and twenty tons, ana Fourthly, These ( iques.hetell u , " always carry their anchors at the stern, and nevet contrarily to our managements; the anchors ol St. Paul's Bhip were, in ' <>f the ttern, ver. 29. Fifthly, They carrj ihe ship, "by means of the skiff, in such a mannei as al- ways to have one anch n I the p ber on the ,,il,er side, so that tin een them, lest the i] be entangled with ei ch o bet ' ToSt. Paul* ship there wen- foul ancbocs, two on pai li All these several particulars are contained, though not distinctly proposed, m his rcmai ' in whiefa St. Paul' wasshipwrei ked : the cut tous will probably con- sider them. If the mode of navigating eastern ships had been attended to, it is po iible the jocular and lively re- mar);- of -nine indevont sailors, bordering on profaneness, would never have bei n made opon ilns pari of the narra- tion nl St. Luke; and some clauses would have been differ- ently translated from what we find them in our version — IIakmer. CHAPTER XXVIII. Ver. 3. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. 4. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hangon his hand, they said among them- selves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance affereth not to live 5. And he shook offthe beast into the Sre, and fell do harm. 6. Howbeit, they looked when be should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: hut af- ter they had looked a greal while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their mind;, and said that he was a od The certain and speedy destruction which \\.P.,.\i* the bite ol this creature, clearly proves the seasonable inter- position of Almighty power for Ihe preservation of the apostle Paul. Exasperated by Ihe be f the fire, the deadly reptile, leaping Item the bushwood where it had concealed itself, fixed the canine teeth, which convey tha poison into the wound which thev had made, in his hand. Death must have been the consequence, had not the power of his God, which long before shut the lions' mouths, 'hat they might ooi hurl die prophet, neutralized the viper's deadly poison, and miraculously preserved the valuable life o'f ins servant, 'i I agency of God ii clearly taught in these words of the historian : " lie shook Into the lire, and fell no harm ;" for he who had been wounded bv a viper, could not be said to have been exempt from all harm. The disposition of the en- raged reptile to take its full revenge, is intimated by the nr, to fasten and twine itself about the hand of Paul. Some interpreters render the term to seize upon, others lo hang from the hand, and others to bite ; but ac- cording lo Bocha'rt, it properly signifies to bind or intwine, a sense which seems entitled to the preference; for, when a serpent fastens on its prey, it endeavours uniformly to strangle the victim bv winding round its body. The viper on this memorable occasion exhibited every symptom of rage, and put forih all its powers ; the deliverance of Paul, therefore, was not accidental, nor the effect of his own ex- ertion, but of the mighty power of that Master whom he served, whose voice even the deadly viper is compelled tc obev. This conclu-ion was in effect drawn by the barba- rians themselves; for when "they had looked a great 1 while, and saw no harm come to him, tbev changed their ! minds, and said that he was a god :'' they did noi hesitate to attribute his preservation to divine power; they only mis- took his real character, not the true nature of that agency which was able to render the bite of the viper hi I This was to them a singular and most unexpected iccur- 624 ROMANS. Chap. ■13 rence, for they looked when he should have swollen and fallen down dead suddenly. We are informed by natural historians, that under the action of this dreadful poison, the whole body swells to an extraordinary size, and in about seven hours death relieves the hopeless and agonized sufferer from his torments. These barbarians, it would seem, had been taught bv their own experience, or the tes- timony of others, that the poison of this creature proves fatal in a much shorter time, for they waited some time in lie confident expectation of seeing Paul suddenly expire. They knew, perhaps, what has been iully ascertained, that the bile of this animal is more pernicious, according to the place of its abode, the aliment on which it feeds, its age, the heat of the season when the wound is inflicted, and the de- gree of provocation it has received. On this occasion, it must have been exceedingly provoked; and the high state of excitement in which the Melitese saw it fastened upon the hand of the stranger, was, perhaps, the true and the only reason which induced them to believe the pc M/a would produce a sudden effect. — Paxton. ROMANS, CHAPTER III. Ver. 1 3. Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have used deceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips. Of a deceitful man, of one who speaks in smooth language, it is said, " Ah ! at the tip of his tongue is ambrosia, but under it is poison." — Roberts. CHAPTER VII. Ver. 24. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? " Wretched man that I am !" " Do I often cry out, in such a circumstance, with no better supports and incitements .han the law can give, ' Who shall rescue me, miserable captive as I am, from the body of this death 1' from this continual burden which I carry about with me; and which is cumbersome and odious as a dead carcass tied to a living jody, to be dragged along with it wherever it goes V Thus are the words paraphrased by Dr. Doddi igc, to which he subjoins this note : " It is well known that some ancient writers mention this as a cruelly practised by some tyrants on miserable captives who fell into their hands ; and a more forcible and expressive image of the case represented can- not surely enter into the mind of man." That such a cru- elty was "once practised is certain from Virgil: " Quid mcninreni iufan'hs cr^ifs ? ijuid f.n.ta tyianni !" 4c. " Why should I mention his unutterable barbarities'! Or, why the tyrant's horrid deeds'! May the gods recompense them on his own head and on his race. Nay, he even bound to the living the bodies of the dead, joining together hands to hands, and face to face, a horrid kind of torture : and them, pining away with gore and putrefaction in this loathed embrace, he thus destroyed with lingering death." — Burder. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 24. For if thou wert cut out of the olive- tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive-tree ; how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive-tree. This practice is so far contrary to nature, that it isnot usual for a branch of a wild olive-tree to be grafted in a good olive- tree, though a branch of the good is frequently grafted into the wild. Pliny savs this latter was frequently practised in Africa. And Kolben tells us, that " long ago,' some garden olive slips were carried to the Cape from Holland, and graft- ed on the stocks of the wild olives at Constantia, a seat so call- ed in the Capian colony." Theophrastus takes notice of both the abovementioned modes of graftiny olives. — Burder. CHAPTER XII. Ver. 13. Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. Hospitality has always been highly esteemed by civilized nations. It has been exercised from the earliest ages of th.: world. The Old Testament affords numerous instance: of its being practised in the most free and liberal manner. In the New Testament it is also recommended and enforced. The primitive Christians were so ready in the discharge of this duly, that even the heathens admired them for it. Hos- In Homer and the ancient Greek writers, we see what respect they had for their guests. From these instances we turn with satisfaction to view the kind and friendly dispo- sition of less polished people. Modern travellers often mention the pleasing reception they met with from those among whom thev made a temporary residence. Volney, speaking of the Druzes, says, " whoever presents himself at their door in the quality of a suppliant or passenger, k sure of being entertained with lodging and food in the most generous and unaffected manner. I have often seen the lowest peasants give the last morsel of bread they had in their houses to the hungry traveller. When they have once contracted with their guest the sacred engagement of bread and salt, no subsequent event can make them violate it." "An engagement with a stranger is sometimes accept- ed as ail excuse for not. obeying the summons of a great man, when no other apology," hardly even that of indisposi- tion, would be admitted." (Russef.) The Hindoos extend their hospitality sometimes to ene- mies, saying, " the tree does not withdraw its shade even from the wood-cutter." — Burder. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 4. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. This is spoken agreeably to the notions and customs of the Romans at the time when the apostle wrote. Thus Suetonius says, (in Vitell. cap. 15,) that Vitellius gave up his dagger, which he had taken from his side, to the attend- ing consul, thus surrendering the authority of life and death over the citizens. So the kings of Great Britain are not only at their inauguration solemnly girt with the sword of state, but this is alterward carried before them on public occasions, as a sword is likewise before some inferior ma- gistrates among us.— Bcrder. Ver. 14. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 CORINTHIANS. ami make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. " To be clothed with a person" is a Greek phrase, signi- fying to assume the interests of another, to enter into his views, to imitate him, to be wholly on his side. Chrysostom particularly mentions this as a i mum > piessnin', 1 1 ,W,i tok itma jwiinror.!, Such a one hath ]>ut on fnih a our. So Dionysius Malicarnassus, speaking of Appins ami the rest if the decemviri, says, n |Mrpia$>rr.? a cast-awav." The latter part of this verse Doddridge renders, " I .<■■■: aftei having served as a herald, I should be disapproved ;" and says in a note, " I thought it of importance to retain the primitive sense of these gymnastic expressions." li is well known to those who are at all acquainted with the original, that the word Hjfxfot, means to discharge the office of a herald, whose business it was to proclaim the conditions of the games, and display the prizes, to awaken the emulation and resolution of those who were to contend in them. But the apostle intimates, that there was this peculiar circum- stance attending the Christian contest— that the person who proclaimed its laws and rewards to others, was also to en- gage himself; and that there would be a peculiar infamy and misery in his miscarrying. Afwut*, which we rende'r cast-away, signifies one who is disapproved by the judge of CHAPTER X. Ver. 25. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking- no questions for conscience' sake : 28. But if any man say unto you, This is offer- ed in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience' sake : for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. These verses refer to articles of food which had been presented to the idols, and were afterward sent to the shambles to be sold. The heathen make large presents to the temples of grain, fruit, milk, and other eatables, and therefore the priests send what they do not require to the market to be sold. The fruit railed plantain (banana) may be known as having been offered to idols by having a small piece pinched off one end; and the other articles have generally some sign by which they may be known. It is however impossible at all limes to ascertain the fact, and I doubt not that most Englishmen have at one time or an- other eaten things which have been offered to idols. The apostle is very particular in his directions to the Christian converts, (v. "27 :) " If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go, whatsoever is set before von, eat, asking no questions for conscience' sake." We see the converts were not forbidden to go to a feast, •. c. a family, not a religious festival ; but the phrase, " If ve be disposed to go," shows there were doubts and hes- itations as to whether they ought to go. The moment they found the food had been offered to idols they were to - eat not." — Roberts. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 5. But every woman that prayeth or prophe- sieth with her head uncovered, dishonoured her head : for that is even all one as if she were shaven. It is still customary to this day in the East, when you accidentally meet a woman in her house, that she instantly covers herself up, and even runs away, and will not appear before a man ; nay, even if a person lives among them as a physician, and eventually has free access to their rooms, be has yet gre.u trouble to gel a sight of their faces, unless they have a defect there; nay, he can scarcely ask it of them, though in diseases much may be perceived and v ihe countenance. Now, as in these countries modesty requires that women should cover themselves, even when al home, before all men, and particularly be- fore young peeple, tl would have been extremely improper, if, when speaking publicly in the congregation, they had exposed themselves to everybody's view.— RosENMlLLEa. Ver. 10. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head, because of the angels. The head-dress of the women is simple: their hair is drawn behind the head, and divided into several tresses : the beauty of this head-dress consists in the thickness, and ii< the length of these tresses, which should fall even down to the heels, in default of which they lengthen them with tresses of silk. The ends of these iresscs they dec-orate With pearls, and jewels, or ornaments of gold,' or silver. The head is covered under (he veil, or kerchief, (eirurre chef,) only by the end of a small bandeau, shaped into a triangle . [his bandeau, which is of various colours, is thin and light. The bandclctte is embroidered by the needle, or covered With jewellery, according to the quality of the wearer. This is, in mv opinion, the ancient liitra, or diadem, of the queens of Persia ; only married women wear it ; and it is the mark by which it is known that they are under subjec- tion, (e'est la la marque a laquelle on rcconnoit qu'ellcs sonl tout n isin, b— pmrcr.) The girls have little caps, instead of this kerchief, or tiara ; tbey wear no veil at home, but let two tresses of their hair fall under their cheeks. The caps of girls of superior rank are tied with a row of pearls. Girls are not shut up in Persia till they attain the age of six or seven years; before that age they go out of the se- raglio, sometimes with their father, so thai they may then be seen. I have seen some wonderfully pretty. They show the neck and bosom; and more beautiful cannot be seen. — Ciiardin. The wearing of a veil by a married woman was a token of her being under power. The Hebrew name of the veil signifies dependence: great importance was attached to this pan of dress in the East. " All the women of Persia are pleasantly apparelled; when they are abroad in the streets, all, both rich and poor, are covered wilh a great veil, or sheet of very fine white cloth, of which one half, like a forehead cloth, comes down to the eyes, and, going over the head, reaches down to the heels, and the other half muffles up the face below the eyes, and being fastened with a pin to the left side of the head, falls down to their very shoes, even covering their hands, wuh which they hold that cloth bv the two sides, so that, except the eyes, they are covered all over with it. Within doors they have their faces and breasts uncovered ; but the Armenian women, in their houses, have always one half of their faces covered with a cloth, that goes athwart their noses, and hangs over their chins and breasts, except Ihe maids of that nation, who, within doors, cover only the chin, until they are mar- ried."—Thevenot. Ver. 14. Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him? See on 1 Pet. 3. 3. Ver. 15. But if a woman have long hair, it :'s a glory to her: for her hair is given her fur a covering. The eastern ladies are remarkable for the length, and the great number of the tresses of their hair. The men there, on the contrary, wear verv little hair on their heads. Lady M. W. Montague thus speaks concerning ihe hair of the women: "Their hair hangs at full lenglh behind, divided into tresses, braided with pearl or riband, which is always in great quantity. I never saw in my tile so many fine heads of hair. In one lady's I have counted one hundred and ten of these tresses, all natural ; but it must be owned that every kind of beauty is more common heic than with us." The men there, on the contrar, , snavt all the hair off' their he^s excepting one lock; and those that G> 1 CORINTHIANS. Chap. 14, wear hair are thought effeminate. Both these particulars are mentioned by Chardin, who says, they are agreeable to the custom of the East : the men are shaved, the women nour- ish their hair with great fondness, which they lengthen, by tresses and tufts of silk, down to the heels. The young men who wear their hair in the East, are looked upon as effeminate and infamous. — Harmer. CHAPTER XIV. Ver. 7. And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a dis- tinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? 8. For if the trum- pet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? The words of St. Paul, in 1 Cor. xiv. 7, will appear with the greatest energy, if we consider them as signifying, that for want of a due distinction of sounds, those by whom a procession according to the usages of the East should pass, might be at a loss to know whether they should join them with expressions of gratulation, or in words of lamentation. Irwin has given an instance of such a joining in the latter case, where, speaking of the singing in a funeral procession, that went by his house, he says, " There was an Arabian merchant on a visit to us, when the funeral went by ; and though in company with strangers, he was not ashamed to run to the window, and to join audibly in the devotions of the train." If a pipe was designed to regulate the expressions that were to be made use of, if it gives an uncertain sound, and sometimes seemed to announce a triumph or a wed- ding, and sometimes a precession on account of the dead, how should a bystander know how to behave himself! " Even things without life give sound, whether pipe or harp; except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall a man know what is piped or harped V How shall a man know what the music is designed to produce, congrat- ulation, or condolence'! This is a much stronger sense than the supposing, if the sounds were irregular, the apostle meant it was impossible to tell what dance was intended. In truth, such an explanation would not well agree with ..re extemporaneousness of eastern dances, for the hearer of the music might in that case know what was to be done, and all that would follow from it would be, that if the music was irregular, so would the dance be. — Harmer. CHAPTER XV. Ver. 24. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power. If the opinion of the eminent critic, Storr, maybe ad- mitted, that the kingdom here said to be delivered up to •he Father is not the kingdom of Christ, but the rule and dominion of all adverse powers — an opinion rendered very probable by the following words : " when he shall have put down (Gr. done away, abolished) all rule and all author- ity and power," and ver. 25, " till he hath put all enemies under his feet"— then is the passage of identical import with Rev. xi. 15, referring to precisely the same period: " And the seventh angel sounded ; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." It is, therefore, we con- ceive, but a peculiar mode of denoting the transfer, the making over of the kingdoms of this world from their for- mer despotic and antichristian rulers to the sovereignly of Jesus Christ, the appointed heir and head of all things, whose kingdom is to be everlasting. If this interpretation be correct, we are prepared to advance a step farther, and suggest that the phrase, he shall have delivered up, (Greek, •>arado,)be understood as an instance of the idiom' in which '.lie verb is used without any personal nominative, but has reference to the purpose of God as expressed in the serip- ■ures ; so that the passage may be read, " Then cometh the end, (i. e. not the close, the final winding up, but the per- fect development, expansion, completion, consummation >f the divine plans, in regard to this world,) when the pro- phe'ic announcements of the scriptures require the deliv- ering up (i. e. the making over) of all adverse dominion into the hands of the Messiah, to whose supremacy we are taught to expect that every thing will finally be made sub- ject."— Bush. Ver. 32. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die. The barbarous custom of making men combat with wild beasts has prevailed in the East down to the most modern times. Jurgen Andersen, who visited the slates of the great mogul in 1046, gives an account in his Travels, of such a combat with animals, which he witnessed at Agra, the residence of the great mogul. His description affords a lively image of those bloody spectacles in which ancient Rome took so much pleasure, and to which the above words of the aposile refer. Alamardan-C'han, the gov- ernor of Cashmire, who sat among the chans, stood up, and exclaimed, " It is the will and desire of the great mogul, Schah Choram, that if Ihere are any valiant he- roes who will show their bravery by combating with wild beasts, armed wilh shield and sword, let them come for- ward : if they conquer, Ihe mogul will load them with great favour, and clothe their countenance with gladness." Upon this three persons advanced, and offered to under- take the combat. Alamardan-Chan again cried aloud, " None should have any other weapon than a shield and a sword, and whosoever has a breastplate under his clothes, should lay it aside and fight honourably." Hereupon a powerful iion was let into the garden, and one of the three men abovementioned advanced against him; the lion, on seeing his enemy, ran violently up to him; the man how- ever defended himself bravely, and kept off the lion for a good while, till his arms grew tired; the lion then seized the shield with one paw, and with the other his antago- nist's right arm, so that he was not able to use his weapon ; the latter, seeing his life in danger, took with his left hand his Indian dagger, which he had slicking in his girdle, and thrust it as far as possible into the lion's mouth ; the lion then let him go ; the man however was not idle, but cut the lion almost through with one stroke, and after that entirely to pieces. Upon this victory, the common people began to shout, and call out, " Thank God, he has con- quered." But the mogul said, smiling, to this conqueror, " Thou art a brave warrior, and hast fought admirably ! But did I not command to fight honourably only wilh shield and sword 1 But, like a thief, thou hast stolen the life ol the lion with thy dagger." And immediately he ordered two men to rip up his belly, and to place him upon an ele- phant, and, as an example to others, to lead him about, which was done on the spot. Soon after a tiger was let loose ; against which a tall, powerful man, advanced with an air of defiance, as if he would cut the tiger up. The tiger, however, was far too sagacious and active, for, in the first attack, he seized the combatant by the neck, tore his throat, and then his whole body in pieces. This en- raged another good fellow, but little, and of mean appear- ance, from whom one would not have expected it: he rushed forward like one mad, and the tiger on his part undauntedly flew at his enemy ; but the man at the first attack cut off his two forepaws, so that he- fell, and the man cut his body to pieces. Upon this the king cried, " What is your name V He answered, " My name is Gey- by." Soon after one of the king's servants came and brought him a piece of gold brocade, and said, " Geyby, receive the robe of honour with which the mogul presents you." He took the garment with great reverence, kissed it three times, pressing it each time to his eyes and breast, then held it up, and in silence put up a prayer for the health of the mogul ; and when he had concluded it, he cried, " May God let him become as great as Tamerlane, from whom he is descended. Mav he live seven hundred years, and his house continue to eternity !" Upon this he was summoned by a chamberlain to go from the garden up to the king, and when he came to the entrance, he was received by two chans, who conducted him between them to kiss the mogul's feet. And when he was going to re- tire, the king said to him, " Praised be thou, Geyby-Chan, for thy valiant deeds, and this name shalt thou keep (r Chat. 3—10. 2 CORINTHIANS. eternity. I am your gracious master, and thou art my | slave.'' — RoSEN.MLU.KK. CHAPTER XVI. Ver. 9. For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. The chariot races were the most renowned of all the exercises used in the games of the ancients, and those from which the victors derived the greatest honour; but the writer can find only one or two allusions to them in the sacred volume, and those in vol Ted in some uncertainly. One occurs in Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, where he informsthem of his great success in collecting a church at Ephesus : " But I will tarry at Ephesus until pente- cost; for a great door and effectual is opened unio me, and there are many adversaries." The inspired writer, it is though}, alludes here to the door of the circus, which was opened to let out the chariots when the races were to begin; and by the word mruriurnii, which is translated ad- vcrsarifs, but which Doddridge renders opposers, means the same with antagonists, with whom he was to contend as in a course. This opposition rendered his presence more necessary to preserve those that were already con- vened, and to' increase the number, if God should bless his ministry. Accordingly a celebrated church was planted 01 Ephesus ; and so far as we can learn from the tenor of his epistle, there was less to reprove and correct among them than in most of the other churches to which he wrote. — Paxton. Ver. 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, mnran-atha. The expression used by the apostle," Let him lie anathema. maran-atJia," is so remarkable, that it has allnn led notice. U is usually understood tobeaSyriac exclama- tion, signifying, " Let him be accursed, when the Lord comes/ It certainly was noi now , lor the first time, used as a new kind of cursing by the apostle, but was the ap- I'lh.iiion of a current mode of speech, to the purpose he bad in contemplation. Perhaps, therefore, by inspecting the naanen W the East, we may illustrate the import of this singular passage : the nearest approach to it that 1 have been able to discover, is in the following extract from Mr. Bruce ; and though, perhaps, this does not come up to the full power of the apostle's meaning, yet, probably, 11 gives the idea which was commonly attached to the phrase among the public. Mr. Bruce had been forced by a pretended saint, in Egypt, to take hiin on board his vessel, as il t. carry him to a certain place — whereas Mr. B. meant nu such thing; but, having set him on shore at pome little dis- tance from whence he came, " we slacked our vessel down the stream a few yards, filling our sails and stretching away. On seeing this, our saint fell into a desperate pas- sion, cursing, blaspheming, and stamping with his feel ; a; every word crying ' Shak Ullaii !' i. e. ' May God send, and DO n smear This appears to be the strongest execra- tion this passionate Arab could use, q. d. ' To punish you adequately is out of my power : I remit you to the ven- geance of God.' Is not this the import of anathema, ma- ran-atha .'"—Taylor in Calmkt. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE, TO THE CORINTHIANS. CHAPTER III. Ver. 11. For if that which is done away was glo- rious, much more that which remaineth is glo- rious. This verse, as any who consults the original will see, is undoubtedly susceptible of a much improved rendering. An exact translation would not vary essentially from the following : — " For if that which was done away, (was done away) bv glory ; much more that which remaineth, (re- maineth) in glory." That is, since that which was done a way, was done awavbv means of a greater glory and splendour, then certainly' that which remains must remain glorious. The reasoning of the apostle may be illustrated thus : If the light of the stars, which vanishes at the rising of the sun, was done away by the superior light and brightness of the sun; much more shall the light of the sun, having thus eclipsed that of the Kara, remain glorious. So since the glorvcf the gospel has availed to abolish that of the law, the gospel is hereby evinced to be superlatively great, and •hafof the law will never be able to equal it. — Bush. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 7. But we have this treasure in earthen ves- sels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. Cups of the most beautiful appearance, and ornamented in the most costly manner, are formed out of the nautilus. Such drinking-vessels are frequent in China. Perhaps to such beau;iful vessels as these, containing the most costly >, literally vessels made of shell.— Burdeb. In a Cingalese pollen', I have seen hundreds of erathen vessels for hoarding money in. They are nearly round, and in size something less than the two fisis. They have no opening but a small hole, like that in a till to slip in a coin ; and are said to be mostly bought up by children, to hide the profit of their play in, and other such sums.— Callaway. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righte- ousness with unrighteousness? and what com- munion hath light with darkness? See on Deut. S3. 10. CHAPTER X. Ver. 14. For we stretch not ourselves beyond em mrasure, as though we reached not unto you ; for we are come as far as to ycu also in jit tack- ing the gospel of Christ. Within the measure and determinate limits of the sta- dium, the athleta? were bound to contend for the p. ize, which thev forfeited without hope of recovery, if they de- viated ever so little from the appointed course. In allnsiou to this inviolable arrangement, the apostle tells the Corin- thians, "We will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which Go^ ka'.h 2 CORINTHIANS. Chap. H. 15s distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you. For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, as though we reached not unto you; for we are come as far as unto you also, in preaching the gospel of Christ." It may help very much to understand this and the following verses, if, with Hammond, we consider the terms used in them Rsago- nislical. In this view of them, the measure of the rule al- ludes to the path marked out, and bounded by a white line, for racers in the Isthmian gajaes, celebrated among the Corinthians; and so the apostle represents his works in preaching the gospel as his spiritual race, and the province to which he was appointed as the compass or stage of ground, which God had distributed or measured out for him to run in. Accordingly, " to boast without his meas- ure," and to stretch himself beyond his measure, refer to one that ran beyond or out of his line. " We are come as far as to you," alludes to him that came foremost to the goal ; and " in another man's line," signifies in the province that was marked out for somebody else, in allusion to the line by which the race was bounded, each of the racers having the path which he ought to run chalked out to him, and if one stepped over into the other's path he extended himself over his line.— Paxton. CHAPTER XI. Ver. 19. For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise. The Orientals pay a particular respect to lunatics. " The Arabs," says Poiret, " show a kind of reverence to lunatics according to the principles of their religion. They look upon them as saints, as beings endowed with peculiar privileges, and favoured by Heaven. I met such a man in the duar (villages of the Bedouin Aralte) of Ali Bey. He was quite naked, went into all the tents, and showed himself to the women, without the men being offended at il. It would be considered as a criminal action to send away such a man, or to treat him ill. He could eat where he pleased ; nothing was denied him. Ali Bey himself bore his freedoms and importunities with a degree of indulgence that astonished me." Lempriere says, that in Morocco in- sane persons form a peculiar class of saints. The Moors believe that such men are under the especial protection of God. They consequently find everywhere compassion and support. To treat their excesses with rigour is thought to be as criminal as to lay hands on the person of the em- peror. The consequence of this ill-judged humanity is, that worthless vagabonds feign lunacy, and commit the greatest crimes, no one venturing to hinder them. A lunatic of this description went about without restraint in Morocco, who, under the appearance of being immersed in his devotions, strangled with his rosary several persons who came too near him. Stephen Schullz relates a story of a Franciscan monk, who, being pursued by the populace in the streets of Alexandria, saved himself by feigning madness, dancing and playing strange antics, so that he not only escaped the shower of stones that threatened his life, but was treated with the greatest respect. CEdmann applies these observations to illustrate the words of the apostle in the above passage. Paul's adversaries- in Co- rinth, endeavoured to lessen the reputation he enjoyed, by extolling their own merits. He therefore found it neces- sary to compare his merits with those which these people assumed, feuch self-praise he declares to be folly : but as it was extorted from him, he requests them to judge favour- ably, or at least to grant him the indulgence which they afford to a man whose mental faculties were deranged. " You are accustomed," says he, " to treat mental weakness with indulgence, to give proof of your own understanding. You disregard it, when such an idiot in his madness treats vou as slaves, consumes what is yours, or appropriates to himself what belongs to you ; or is proud and fancies him- self above you; nay, even if he strikes you in the face. This indulgence you will not refuse me, now that I have been compelled to be guilty of the weakness of speaking in my own praise." The above account of the opinion entertained of lunatics -y the Orientals, serves to illustrate what is said of David, 1 Sam.xxi. 10, when, to escape the pursuit of Saul, he fled to Achish, king of the Philistines, but was discovered ; then he feigned himself mad, and thus saved his life.— Rosen- U'M.LER. CHAPTER XII Ver. 2. I knew a man in Christ above fouiteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell ; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell : God knoweth;) such a one caught up to the third heaven. , Macknightsays, "That the apostle speaks of himself here is evident from verses C and 7." This is the eastern way in which a man modestly speaks of himself. Has an indi- vidual performed a great exploit which he does not like to mention in plain terms as having been done by himself, he simply says, in relating the affair, " I know the man who did it." Ndii^arevain, i. e. I know. Do people express their pleasure or surprise in the presence of a person at some work which has been accomplished by himself, and should they inquire, "who is the man," he will say, "I know him:" he will not say he is the man, because'some would perhaps not be disposed to believe him ; and the slight intimation conveyed in the terms, I know him, is quite sufficient to convince others he is the fortunate individual. Should a person receive a favour from an unknown hand, he will make many inquiries ; and when he thinks he has found him out, he will go to him and talk on the subject, and then, should he be right, the individual will say, " I know him." But in this way also the people praise them- selves, by saying, " I know a man who performed such a penance: I am acquainted with one who gave such gifts to the temples : I know one who performed an extraor- dinary fast, or went on such a dangerous pilgrimage." — Roberts. Ver. 7. And lest I should be exalted above meas- ure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. The following communication from a Mr. Stephen, in a letter to Mrsr Hannah More, presents an interpretation of this passage, so highly ingenious and plausible, that it is well entitled to a place in the present woik : — " When are we to have our new or improved views of St. Paul 1 With such a subject, and such an artist, we may reasonably be impatient for the exhibition. Does it fall within the plan or general character of the work to notice the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, and to give any conjecture as to the infirmity alluded to 1 I have an interpretation of this, which, as far as my reading, or that of Wilberforce's and some others, goes, is original, and yet it is admitted by them to be as probable, or more so, than any other of the many conjectures they have seen. For my own part, I hold il almost demonstrably the true solu- tion. St. Paul's infirmity was one well known in hot climates, a chronical ophthalmia. Hence he was what is called blear-eyed, and was ofien, perhaps, obliged to wear a shade. It made his personal presence mean, it was a visi- ble infirmity in his flesh, it hindered his usefulness, and therefore he besought the Lord anxiously that it might de- part from him : but was answered, ' My grace is sufficient for thee.' It made it for the most part painful and difficult for him to write. Hence he generally employed an aman- uensis, and resarded it as a great matter when he used his own pen. 'You see how long a letter I have written to you with mine own hand.' — ' The salutation of me, Paul, written with mine own hand.' It is thought that he might abstain from writing to save his strength or time; why then did he work at tent-making? Aman who maintained himself by that sedentary labour, might as well have been at his desk, for we cannot suppose that the wages of a jour- neyman tent-maker were greater than those of an aman- uensis. It exposed him to contempt and deriMon among strangers, and therefore he gives praise to the Galatians, that when he preached the gospel to them at the first through infirmity of the flesh, his temptation, which was in 'his flesh, they despised not.' That the infirmity was of a bodi- ly kind seems to me quite indisputable. Doddridge, and a.. the best commentators, take that aside. It is literally so described ; and the calling it a ' messenger of Satan' is perfectly consistent with its being a bodily disease. Satan, Ohm'. 12. 2 COKliVJ'IllAN: 631 in fifty places i. represented as the immediate author of Corporal defects and maladies. The passages cited show it was something visible to others. How could a temptation to a particular sin be so unless it was complied with ? It would be derogatory to the character of the apostle, and even of an Antinomian tendency, to suppose lllls '" Uve been the case. The Galatian despised him, g the gospel he had exhibited helore ihclll the strength of a temptation by the commission of open sin. They would have deserved no praise for nol despising, but the reverse;— i. e. for not despising the temptation, it hut far the visible sin, which was its evidence. In short, 1 " If it was bodilv, it was also some bodtlv infirmity of an unsightly appearance, making his ' person' or aspect 'mean,' and exposing him to contempt, I low shall we find a more probable hypothesis to suit those and the other preconceptions ? He was not lame— witness his great bodily activity. " Doddridge supposes that the view he had of celestial glories might have effected his nervous system, so as to occasion stammering in his spei :h, and ome ridiculous distortion in his countenance. (Exposition, 'J Cor. xii. 7.) But it is at least equally probable that those heavenly vis- ions, or the supernatural light which blinded him at his conversion, might have left a weakness and disease in the organs immediately affected. It is notorious, that after a severe inflammation in the eyes, they are extremely liable for a longtime, or through life, to a return of the complaint. It may be even presumed from analogy, that unless the miracle which restored Paul to sight removed also a na- tural secondary effect of the temporary injury the organs had received, there must have been a predisposition after- ward to the complaint which I suppose him to have had. Now that frugality in the use of means which has been observed even in the miraculous works of God, maybe supposed to have permitted that predisposition to remain, it being designed that the apostle, for his humiliation and the exercise of his faith and patience, should have a per- manent infirmity of the flesh to struggle with in future life. " The choice of the metaphor by which St. Paul describes his infirmity, also weighs much with me; indeed it first excited my conjecture. The pain of ophthalmia, when severe, exactly resembles the prick of a thorn or pin. I once had it very severely indeed in the West Indies. It made me blind in a manner for about three weeks, and during that time, if a ray of light by any means broke into my darkened chamber, it was like a thorn or pin run into my eye, and so I often described it. I felt also the subse- quent effect for years, which I suppose to have been ex- perienced by St. Paul, — a predisposition to inflammation in the eyes, which extreme care and timely applications pre- vented from recurring. and rcspi-ctliil indulgence, m consideration of t In- great and good qualities which were seen in the same " Iseca further possible source of this idea in his ruind, in .-..lively used in dil- ferenl parts of si i ipture io signify troubles and temptations, I I it Numb ■!-. xxxiii. 55, and Joshua xxiii. 13.) Now JI tins metapboi had an affinity n ith the actual bodily sensa- tions of the apostle, it was natural he should think of and Use u ; but as natural thai he should vary it into the more general term fesh, that he might not confound the pro- per with the metaphorical sense, and be understood Io mean that a thorn actually thrust into his eye had produced Ihed "'This may be though! perhaps too refined. Butthestrong- f all remains, and appears to me nearly, il not guile, decisive It rests upon Ualaiians iv. 15. After prais- ing them in the preceding verse for not despising bis flesh- ly infirmity, (whatever that was,) he here subjoins, / bear you record, that if it had been possible, yr would kavt plucked mil your own tins, on, I fimr i:in-n llfin tunic. How natural this context on my hypothesis! How little s i any other! Was it a moral infirmity, a temptation shown by its fi nils 1 It might then have pardon, it might have char- respectft' g 1 qua character; but it could not give rise to such glowing affec- tion, such ardour of sympathetic kindness, as these words import. Again, was it a bodily infirmity affecting some other member than the eyes? how extremely unnatural this expressi. ,n of the sviupathv which il produced. Let us take, for instance, Doddridge's conjecture, 'You saw my paralytic distortions in my moulh and cheeks, you heard my stammering tongue, when I first preached the gospel to you; but you despised not those Infirmities. On the contrary, you would, if it had been possible, have plucked out your own cues and given them to me.' Suppose lameness, or some sharp internal disease, (as others have supposed, not- withstanding the visible character of the infirmity,) and the incongruity is not much, if at all, less. But if the apostle was speaking of his diseased eyes, which made his aspect unsightly, and prevented perhaps much of the natural ef- fect of his preaching, to which they nevertheless respect- fully listened, and with affectionate sympathy did all they could for his comfort and relief, how natural, how appro- priate this grateful close of the encomium ! Such was your generous and tender sympathy, lhat I verily believe if you could have removed those sufferings of mine, and that obstacle to my more perfect usefulness, by taking the infirmity in my stead, by plucking out your own sound eyes, and transferring them to my use, you would have been willing to do so. " If parental fondness for a supposed discovery of my own does not deceive me, these reasons, « hen taken together, are nearly conclusive. The point to be sure, after all, is of no great importance; but if Mrs. II. More thinks it worth her while to notice the guesses on this subject at all, here is what I suppose to be a new one, for herconsidetttion." (Memoirs of Mrs. Hannah More, vol. ii. p. 224.)— B THE EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE, TO THE GALATIANS. CHAPTER II. Ver. 9. And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Bar- nabas the right hands of fellowship ; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. " Pillars," i. e. " the principal supporters and defenders of the gospel." It is said of those who have done much to support a temple, or who are zealous in its religious cere- monies, " They are the pillars of black stone belonging to •he temple." — Roberts. CHAPTER III. Ver. 24. Wherefore the law was our schoolmas- ter to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The Hindoos have some books which they call school- master, clamriyan, or rather schoolmaster-book, meaning, they will teach science without the help of a master. When a man who was formerly in poverty has learned how to pro- cure a comfortable living, he says, " Ah ! my adversity was my teacher ; it has guided me into this." — Roberts. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 15. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. "Ah! how great was her love for him; had he asked her, she would have given him her own eyes." " Dearer: dearer than my own eyes." — Roberts. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 7. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he aLso reap. The Tamul proverb on this subject is, " virtti-arvppdn," i. e. he reaps what he sowed. " Ah ! the wretch, he cast in cruelties, and is now reaping them." "Yes, yes, he has a large harvest ; his lies have produced fruit." " Go, go to thy harvest, fiend."— Roberts. THE EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE, TO THE EPHESIANS. CHAPTER II. Vet. 14. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Some think that this refers to the ancient manner of living iimong the Gentiles, who always endeavoured to reside in some place by themselves, and to have a river or a wall between them and their heathen neighbours. Some others refer it to that partition-wall in the temple, which separated the court of the Gentiles from that into which the Jews entered, and on which was written, that no alien might go into it, it being, says Josephus, a sanction of Antiochus, that no foreigner should enter within the enclosure of the temple. — Buroer. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 8. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. The highest military honour which could be obtained in the Roman state, was a triumph, or solemn procession, in which a victorious general and his army advanced through the city, to the capitol. He set out from the Campus Mar- tins, and proceeded along the Via Triumphalis, and from thence through the most public places of the city. The streets were strewed with flowers, and the altars smoked with incense. First went a numerous band of music, sing- ing and playing triumphal songs ; next were led the oxen to be sacrificed, having their horns gilt, and their heads adorned with fillets and garlands ; then in carriages were brought the spoils taken from the enemy ; also golden crowns sent by the allied and tributary states. The titles of the vanquished nations were inscribed on wooden frames; and images or representations of the conquered countries and cities were exhibited. The captive leaders followed in chains, with their children and attendants ; after the cap- tives came the lictors, having their faces wreathed with laurel, followed hv a great company of musicians and dan- cers, dressed like satyrs, and wearing crowns of gold ; in the midst of whom was a pantomime, clothed in a female garb, whose business it was, with his looks and gestures, to insult the vanquished; a long train of persons followed, carrying perfumes ; after them came the general, dressed in purple, embroidered with gold, with a crown of laurel on his head, a branch of laurel in his right hand, and in his left an ivory sceptre, with an eagle on the top, his face painted with vermilion, and a golden ball hanging from his neck on his breast; he stood upright in a gilded chariot, adorned with ivory, and drawn by four white horses, at- Chap. 6. EPHESIANS. Ou3 tended by his relations, and a great crowd of citizens, all in while.' His children rode in the chariot along with turn, 'tis lieutenants and military tribunes commonly BJ bis side. After the general followed the consuls and senators on foot; the whole procession was closed bv the victorious army drawn up in order, crowned with laurel, and decorated with the gifts which they had received for their valour, singing their own and their general's praises. The trium- phal procession was not con lined to the Romans; the Greeks had a similar custom, lor the conquerors used to make a procession through the middle of their eitv, crowned with garlands, repeating hymns and songs, and brandishing their spears; the captives followed in chains, and all their spoils were exposed to public view. The great apostle of the Gentiles alludes to these splen- did triumphal scenes, in his epistle to the Kphcsians, where he mentions the glorious ascension of his Redeemer into hi aven : " When be ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." These words are a quo- tation from the sixty-eighth Psalm, where David, in Spirit, describes the ascension of Messiah, in very glowing col- ours: "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels ; the Lord is amdng them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive," or an immense number of captives ; " thou hast received gifts for men, yea, lor the rebellious also; that the Lord God might dweli among them. Bless- ed be the Lord, who daily loadelh us wilh his benefits, even the God of our salvation; Selah." Knowing the deep im- pression which such an allusion is calculated to make on the mind of a people familiarly acquainted with triumphal scenes, the apostle returns to it' in his epistle to the Colos- sians, which was written about the same time: "Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." After obtaining a complete victory over all his enemies, he ascended in splen- dour and triumph into his Father's presence on the clouds of heaven, the chariots of the Most High, thousands of holy angels attending in his train ; he led the devil and all his angels, together with sin, the world, and death, as his spoils of war, and captives in chains, and exposed them to open contempt and shame, in the view of all his angelic attend- ants, triumphing like a glorious conqueror over them, in virtue of his cross, upon which he made complete satisfac- tion for sin, and by his own strength, without the assistance of any creature, destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. And as mighty princes are accustomed to scatter largesses among the people, and reward their companions in arms with a liberal hand, when, laden with the spoils of vanquished nations, they returned in triumph to their capital; so the Conqueror of death and hell, when he ascended far above all heavens, and sat down in the midst of the throne, shed forth in vast abundance the choicest blessings of the Spirit upon people of every tongue and of every nation.— Paxton. Ver. 2G. Be ye angry and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath. One of the apartments in the houses of some rich men is appropriated to a very curious purpose, viz. when any mem- bers of the family are angry, they shut themselves up in this room, called krodhagarfi, the room of anser, or of the angry. When any individual is gone into this room, the masterof the family goes and persuades him or her to come out. (Ward's View of the Hindoos.)— Birder. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 14. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast- plat;' of righteousness. The breastplate is frequently mentioned in The sacred volume. It was properly a half corslet, defending the breast, as its name imports, but leaving the back exposed to the enemy. Breastplates were not always formed of the same materials; some were made of line or hemp twisted into small cords, and close set together; but these were more frequently used in hunting than in war. The most ap- proved breastplates were made of brass, iron, or other met- als, which were sometimes so admirably hardened as to resist the greatest force. Plutarch reports, that Zoilus, an artificer, having made a presenl of two iron brigandines to Demetrius Poliorcetes, for an expel ime&l of then hardness, caused :i|i arrow to be shot out of an engine called cata- pulta, placed about twenty-six paces off, which was so fai from piercing the iron, that it scarcely rased or made the least impression upon it. These faets'may serve to display the inestimable value of "the breastplate of ri^h" which the apostle recommends to the hearers of the gospel • a piece of spiritual armour which the fiery darts of the devi! cannot pierce. The scales of brass, which compo ed the breastplate of the ancient warrior, often reflected the li^ht so as to dazzle the eyes of his antagonist, and strike him with terror. The military girdle was another piece of defensive ar- mour; it surrounded the other accoutrements; the sword was suspended in it, as in modern times in the soldier's belt; and it was necessary to gird the clothes and armour of the combatant together. This was so essential to a war- rior, that among the" Greeks, {uvvvefai, to eird, came to be a general name for putting on armour. Homer thus intro- duces Agamemnon commanding the Grecians to arm : ArfWqj it Pmecv, lie favvvaOai ova-fa.— Mad, lib. ix. "Atrides strait commands them all to arm, or gird them- selves." We learn from Plutarch, that the Romans had the same custom ; and it prevailed also among the Persians, ■ for Herodotus relates, that Xerxes having reached Al dera, when he fled from Athens, and thinking himself out of danger, Xsm* r<\y ftww, loosed his girdle, that is, put off his armour. The same phrases occur in many parts of the sa- cred volume, the military belt being not less'nccessary to the Hebrew soldier, on account of his loose and flowing dress. To gird and to arm, are therefore synonymous terms in scripture; for those who are said to be able to put on ar- mour, are, according to the Hebrew and Septuagint, girl with a girdle; from whence came the expression of girding to the battle. This was the species of girdle which Jona- than bestowed on David, as one of the pledges of his entire love and friendship. He stripped himself, not only of his wearing apparel, but what a warrior valued at a much higher price, his military habiliments also, his sword, his bow, and his girdle, and' gave them to David. The girdle is mentioned by the apostle, in his particular description of the Christian armour, addressed to the church at Ephesus: " Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about wilh truth." As warriors are accustomed to gird them- selves with a broad belt to keep up their long garments, to bind them and their armour close together, and to fortify their loins, that they maybe stronger, and more fitted for the labours and fatigues 'of war; so must believers encom- pass themselves with sincerity and uprightness of heart, and with truth and honesty of conversation, that righteous- ness may be the girdle of their loins, and faithfulness the girdle of their reins, that they may be steady, active, and resolute in every spiritual encounter.— PaXTON. Ver. 15. And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. The legs of the Grecian warrior were defended with greaves of brass, copper, or other metals. Potter thinks it is probable that this piece of armour was at first either pe- culiar to the Grecians, or at least more generally used by them than any other nations; because we find them so per- petually called by the poet (n.-.u„o't,- A> after a dead dog 1" The term ni, i.e. dog, is an expression of sovereign contempt for the faithless, the ignoble, and the outcasts. "Never more will I go to the house of that dog." " You call me a dog! then (running at him) I will bite thee." " Here, dog, are some bones for thee." "Yes, yes, he will be a dog in the next birth." — Roberts. Ver. 14. I press towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The most remarkable parts of the stadium, were its en- trance, middle, and extremity. The entrance was marked at first only by a wie drawn on the sand, from side to side of the stadium. To prevent any unfair advantage being taken by the more vigilant or alert candidates, a cord was at length stretched in front of the horses or men that were to run; and sometimes the space was railed in with wood. The opening of this barrier was the signal for the racers to start. The middle of the stadium was remarkable, only by the circumstance of having the prizes allotted to the vic- tors set up there. From this custom, Chrysostom draws a fine comparison : " As the judges, in the races and other games, expose in the midst of the stadium, to the view of the champions, the crowns which they were to receive ; in like manner, the Lord, by the mouth of his prophets, has placed the prizes in the midst of the course, which he de- signs for those who have the courage to contend for them." At the extremity of the stadium was a goal, where the foot-races ended ; but in those of chariots and horses, they were to run seTeral times round it without stopping, and ti. hide the race, by regaining the other extrem- ity of the lists from whence they started. It is therefore to the root-race the apostle alludes, v. hen he speaks of the race set before the Christian, which was a straight course, to be run only once, and not, as in the other, several times ipping. According to some writers, it was at the goal, and aol in the mi, I, lie of the course, that the prizes were exhibited ; and (hey were placed in a very conspicuous situation, thai i on nii'-'ht he animated by having them always in their sight. This accords with the view which the of the ('liiis'ian life: " Brethren, I count not mysell to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, for- getiing those things which arc behind, and reaching forth onto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." L'Enfant thinks the apostle here compares our Lord to those who stood at the elevated place at the end of the course, calling the racers by their names, and encouraging them by holding out the crown, to exert themselves with vigour. — Paxton. Ver. 19. Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. When a pandarum is reproved and told to serve the gods, he exclaims, " What ! is not the belly the god 1" " I will tell you all about him, his god is in his belly." " Belly, belly, nothing to the belly," bawds the beggar at your door. — Roberts. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 3. And I entreat thee also, true yeke-fellow, help those women which laboured with me in the o-ospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names arc in the book of life. This expression refers to the custom of those cities which had registers containing the names of all the citizens, from which the names of infamous persons were erased. Agree- ably to this we read of names being blotted out of God's book, Rev. lii. 5. Those citizens who were orderly and obedient were continued on the roll, from whence they could easily obtain their title to all the immunities and privileges com- mon to all the members of the city ; and to be excluded from these was both disgraceful and injurious.— Burder. THE EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE, COLOSSIANS. TO THE CHAPTER II. Ver. 14. Blotting out the handwriting of ordi- nances that was against us, which was contra- ry to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. See on Zech. 11. 7. The handwriting, xt<"6y'""P'"'i signifies a bill or bond whereby a person binds himself to some payment or duty, and which stands in force atrainst him till the obligation is discharged. In these words the apostle alludes to the differ- ent methods by which bonds formerly were cancelled: one was by blotting or crossing them out with a pen, and another was by striking a nail through them. In either of these cases the bond was rendered useless, and ceased to be valid. These circumstances the apostle applies tc the death of Christ. — Eurder. Ver. 15. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, tri umphing over them in it. The most grand and magnificent procession the ancients ever beheld was a Roman triumph. After a decisive bat- tle gained, the most illustrious captives in wai,with theit wives and children, were led in fetters before the general's chariot, through the public streets of Rome, scaffolds being 636 I THESSALONIANJ Chap. 4, 5. everywhere erected, and the public places crowded to be- hold the sight. It was also accompanied by vast numbers of wagons, full of rich furniture, statues, pictures, plate, vases, and vests, of which they had stripped houses and palaces; carts loaded with the arms they had taken from the enemy; the coin of the empires they had conquered and enslaved : these preceded the triumphal car. The temples were all thrown open, and adorned with garland?; they were filled with clouds of incense and perfume. The spectators were clothed in white garments. Whole heca- tombs of victims were slain, and the most sumptuous en- tertainments were given. The captives, after being public- ly exposed, were generally imprisoned and put to death, or sold lor slaves.— Bcrder. THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE, TO THE THESSALONIANS. CHAPTER IV. Ver. 17. Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. See on 2 Tim. 4. 7, 8. CHAPTER V. Ver. 8. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. See on Eph. 6. 17. Ver. 17. Pray without ceasing. We learn from church history that an ancient sect, called Euehitae, gathered from this "and similar passages, that it was the duty of Christians to pray literally without ceasins, making prayer the whole means of salvation and the whole business of the Christian life. A slight acquaintance with the idiom of the original languages of the scriptures, will enable us to correct this as well as many other errors which have, at different times, crept into both the practical and speculative theology of the church. It may be laid down as a canon of philological interpretation, that adverbs of time expressing perpetuity, sometimes denote only fre- quency or regularity at stated times and seasons. This will abundantly appear from the following examples: Ex. xxvii. '20, " To cause the lamp to burn always." (Hebrew, tamid.) That this is not to be taken strictly, but merely as equivalent to, " from evening to morning," appears from the ensuing verse : " Aaron and his sons shall order kfrom evening to morning." That the lamp of the tabernacle did not burn during the day, is evident from 1 Sam. iii. 3: " Ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord." Again, it is said, Ex. xxviii. 30, " And thou shah put in the breastplate of judgment, the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before the Lord ; and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continu- ally ;" i. e. whenever he went into the inner place of the sanctuary, as is clear from the preceding clause, by which the word " continually" is to be limited. So 2 Sam. ix. 7, David says to Mephibosheth, " Thou shah eat bread at my table continually ;" i. e. at the stated hours of meals. In like manner, "to pray without ceasing," is, to pray con- stantly, morning and evening, at the stated hours of prayer. In this precept, the apostle seems to have had reference to the injunction of the Mosaic law, Ex. xxix. 38,42: "Now this ir that which you shall offer upon the altar: two lambs of the first year, day by day, continually. The one lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer in the evening. This shall be a continual burnt- offering throughout your generations." At those stated hours of sacrifice, viz. at nine o'clock in the morning, and at three in the afternoon, the devout Jews used either to go up to the temple to pray, or to pray in their own houses. This duty the apostle would haye the Christian disciples still observe; and the word here used.Mialeiptoes, with- out ceasing, continually,') is applied to their praying statedly, morning and evening. The same rule of interpretation will throw light upon numerous other passages of scrip- ture, which are frequently misapprehended by the English reader, such as David's saying that he would " dwell in the house of the Lord for ever ,-" that he would " bless the Lord at all times ;" that he would "meditate in his law day and night." So Luke ii. 37, it is said of Anna the pro- phetess, that " she departed not from the temple, but server God with fasting and prayers night and day ;" by which is implied, not that she took up her permanent abode at the temple, but regularly resorted thither, at stated times, and was uncommonly assiduous in her devotions. Compare with this, Acts xxvi. 7: " Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come." This is in accordance with our Saviour's direction, Luke xviii. 1, " That men ought always to pray, and not to faint ;" i. e. that they should continue in the regular discharge of this duly every day at the appointed times ; and that they should not desist, though their prayers should not be im- mediately granted. According to the same usage, from the apostles going up to the temple at the stated hours of prayer, they are said to have been "continually in the tem- ple, blessing and praising God." To this circumstance of the temple-worship there is a beautiful allusion, Rev. iv. 8, where, concerning the four living creatures, it is said, " They rest not day nor night, (or at the morning and even- ing sacrifices,) saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Al- mighty, which was, and is, and is to come." In the same sense, Cornelius is said (Acts x. 2) to have " prayed to God always." And through Christ we are said to " offer unto God the sacrifice of praise continually." And, finally, in this sense of the words are we to understand all such passages as the following, in which the apostle speaks of the unremitlingness of his prayers and praises to God on the behalf of Christians. Rom. i. 9: " For God is my wit- ness that, without ceasing, I make mention of you always in- my prayers." Col. i. 3 : " Praying always for you." 1 Thes. i. 2, 3 : " We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers ; remembering, without ceasing, your work of faith." 2 Tim. i. 3: "I thank conscience, that, without ceasing, thee in my prayers night and day."— Bush. THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE, TO TIMOTHY. CHAPTER II. Ver. 9. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame-faced- ness and sobriety ; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. See on 1 Pet. 3. 3. CHAPTER VI. Ver. 7. For we brought nothing into this wor.d, and out. is certain we carry nothir.j " Mv friend why are you so anxious after this, world 1 How much did you bring into if! How much will you take out V " Ah ! my son, be charitable to all ; recollect, you brought nothing into the world, and be assured you will take nothing out." " That wretch would like to carry his money and lands into the other world." "Tamby, did you bring these fields into the world with you"! No j and they will remain when you are gone." — Roberts. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE, TO TIMOTHY. CHAPTER II. Ver. 5. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. Those who were designed for the profession of athletse, or combatants, frpquented from their earliest years the academies maintained for that purpose at the. public ex- pense. In these places they were exercised under the di- rection of different makers, who employed the most effectu- al methods to inure their bodies for the fatigues of the pub- lic games, and to form them for the combats. The regi- men to which they submitted was very hard and severe. At first they had no other nourishment than dried figs, nuts, soft cheese, and a gross heavy sort of bread called ? 1 ginning la ripen, and needs noth i m h a §•< od wi tling to make .the grain fullei and more solid, and to malurc it. This rain, therefore, which comes in ihe hoi very different from the rain in ihe rvinv season, .-ml i- verv favourable to the standing corn. In the 1 son', at ihe end of ihe year, as ■ n as il begins to rail eopi- on.slv, and ihe ground i ie-i ebl ol d, and for the plough, the fat operations and sow his grain.' Ver. II. Is arty sicli an rig yon? let him call for the elders of the church ; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. "In Yemen, the anointing of the body is believed to strengthen and protect it foomthe he; i of the • on. 1 v v. hi. t. the inhabitants of tbi | ey wear so little cloth- ing, are very liable to suffer. Oil, by closing up the pores of the skin, is supposed to prevent lhal loo copious transpira- tion which enfeebles ihe frame ; pei kip* too. these Arabians think a glislening skin a beauty. "When ihe intense heat comes in, they always anoint their bodies with oil. At Sana, all the Jews, and manv of the Mohammedans, have their bodies anointed whenever ihey find themselves indisposed." (Niebuhr.) That in some degree explains the direction < I the apostle James, the meaning of which will be, to do that solemnly for ihe purpose of healing, which was often done medicinally; and accordingly we find Solomon, in many places of his Proverbs, speaking of administering ointment, which rejoices the heart, which may be a hearing medicine lo the navel, &c— BrnrBn. THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. CHAPTER I. Ver. 4. To an inheritance incorruptible, and un- defiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. See on 1 Cor. 9. 25. CHAPTER III. Ver. 3. Whose adorning, let it not be that out- ward adorning of platting- the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel. The eastern females wear their hair, which the prophet emphatically calls the " instrument of their pride," very long, and divided into a great number of tresses. In Bar- bary, the ladies all affect to have their hair hang down to the ground, which, after they have collected into one lock, they bind and plat with ribands; a piece of finery which ihe apostle marks with disapprobation : "Whose adorning, l.H it not be that outward adorning of platting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel." Not that he condemns in absolute terms all regard to neatness and elegance in dress and appearance, but only an undue atten- tion to these things; his meaning plainly is: "Whose adorning, let it not chiefly consist in that outward adorning of platting the hair, but rather let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the orna- ment of a meek and quiet spiri', which is, in the sight of God, of great price." The way in which the apostle uses the negative particle in this text, is a decisive proof that this is his true meaning ; it extends to everv member of the sentence ; and by consequence, if it prohibit the platting ol hair, it equally prohibits the putting on of apparel. But it never could be his design to forbid women to wear clothes, or to be decently and neatly dressed ; therefore, the negative must have only a comparative sense, instructing us in the propriety and necessity of attending more to the d ispositions of the mind, than to the adorning of the body. And as one inspired writer cannot, in reality, contradict another, the command of Paul must be explained in the same way, not as an absolute, but comparative prohibition : " In like man- ner, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with," or, according to this view, rather than with "broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." Where nature has been less liberal in its ornaments, the defect is supplied by art, and foreign is procured to be interwoven with the natural hair. The males, on the contrary, shave all the hair of their heads, excepting one lock; and those who wear their hair are stigmatized as effeminate. The apostle's remark on this subject, corresponds entirely with the custom of the East, as well as with the original design of the Creator : " Does not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto himl But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her ; for her hair is given her for a covering." The men in the East, Chardin observes, are shaved ; the women nourish their hair with great fondness, which they lengthen by tresses, and tufts of silk, down to the heels.— Paxton. THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. CHAPTER III. Ver. 12. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. 1 he word " unto" has here been supplied without autho- rity. The original (spcudonlas teen parovsian) exhibits no preposition, and properly requires a transitive rendering, viz. accelerating, or hastening on, the coming, &c. Thus un- derstood, the words convey the very interesting and solemn intimation, that Christians are not only earnestly to expect the great day of God, the day of the restitution of all things but by their devoted lives and a pre-eminent sanctity of spirit, they are to be instrumental in expediting its approach. According to their conduct, as marked by all manner of holy conversation and godliness, or the reverse, will be thf speediness or the tardiness of itsarrival.— Bcsa. THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE. Ver. 4. For there are certain men crept in un- awares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ; ungodly men, turningthe grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying tne only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Those who were summoned before the conns of justice were said to be rooyiyp.xft^ai tn »■«■>, because they were cited to appear, by posting up their names in some public place; and the judgment of the court was published or de- clared in writing. Such persons the Romans called pro- scriptos, or proscribed, that is, whose names were posted up in writing, in some public place, as persons doomed to die, with a reward offered to any that should kill them. These are the terms which the apostle JuVe applies to the ungodly, who had crept unawares into the church : they were before of old, wpoytypafifani, ordained to this condemnation ; per- u is who most not only give an account of their crimes to Gul, but are proscribed or destined to the punishment which they deserve. In Persia, malefaclors were not al- lowed to look on ihe kins; this was the reason, that as soon as Hainan was considered a criminal they covered his face. From Pococke we find thecustom still continues, for speak- in? of the artifice by which an Egyptian bey was taken off, he says, " A man being brought belore him like a malefac- tor just taken, with his hands behind him as if lied, and a napkin put over his head, as malefactors commonly have, when he came into his presence, suddenly shot him dead." THE REVELATION OF JOHN THE DIVINE. CHAPTER I. Ver. 9. I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in ike kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Pattnos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Patmos has an excellent harbour, and the town, being situated on the loftiest part of the island, makes a prettv appearance on entering. The houses, being constructed of a white freestone, have a peculiarly neat aspect. It has been calculated that the town has an elevation of nearly five hundred feet above the level of the sea. In its centre is a large convent dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, who was banished to this island. Here he wrote his Revela- tion. We saw, in walking to the summit of the hill, the grotto in which he is said to have composed them. The convent has a resident bishop, with a considerable number of monks, and is a college for the education of young men of the Greek persuasion. In those parts of the island which the inhabitants are able to cultivate, we saw several small fields, or patches of corn, banked up with stones lo prevent the soil from being washed away by the rains. It appeared, however, to be capable of producing but an inconsiderable quantity of grain. The inhabitants procure sheep and eat- tle from the neighbouring Hands. The town contains >bout two hundred houses. The women are to the>nen in proportion of five to one. (Wittman.)— BcRnKB. CHAPTER II. Ver. 1. Unto the angel of the church of Ephe- sus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. See on Acts 18. 19. Ver 8. And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive. Smyrna, situated at the extremity of a beautiful bay on the coast of Asia Minor, was one of the principal cities of the ancient region of Ionia : its early history is involved in some obscurity. According to the geographer Strabo, it derived its name from an Amazon, so called, who, having conquered Ephesus, had in the first instance transmitted her appellation to that city. The Ephesians afterward founded the town to which it has since been appropriated. Herodotus, however, states that Smyrna originally belonged to the jEolians, who received into the city some Colophonian exiles. These subsequently taking advantage of a festival held without the town, to which festival the Smyrnocans re- sorted in great numbers, shut the gales and became masters of the place. From that time Smyrna ceased to be an .£olian citv, but was received into the Ionian confederacy. < If all the different cities which laid claim to the honour of being the birth-place of Homer, Smyrna seems to assert her claim to that distinction with the greatest zeal and plausibility. Though the Smyrnjenns successfully resisted the attacks ofGyges, king of Lvdia, they were subjugated by his de- scendant, Alyattesj and in consequence of this event the city sunk into decay, and was deserted for the space of four hundred years. Alexander proposed to rebuild it; which design wascarried intoeffect by Anligonus and Lysimachus. the latter of whom completed the new city ; the streets of which are slid to have been remarkably handsome, being well paved, and drawn at right angles. Numerous fine porticoes, temples, theatres, and a public library, with the splendid and lofty acropolis, rendered it one of the mcl beautiful cities of Ionia. Various grants and privileges were conferred upon the Smyrnaeans by the Roman senate, for the part which they had taken during the wars with Anliochus and Milhridates. Under the Roman emperors, Smyrna flourished greatly ; and its schoc Is of eloquence and philosophy were held in' considerable iepute. Under the Greek emperors Smyrna experienced great vicissitudes. Having been taken by Tzachas, a Turkish chief, toward* 644 REVELATION. Chap. 3 the close of ihe eleventh century, it was nearly destroyed by a Greek fleet tinder the command of John Ducas: the Em- peror Comne'.us subsequently restored it, but it again suf- fered very ss lerely from a siege which it sustained against the forces o( Tamerlane. Not long after this event it fell into the hands of the Turks, in whose possession it has re- mained ever since. Modern Smyrna, by the Turks called Ismir, is beauti- fully situated at the foot of a lofty mountain, that stretches along the shore to a great extent, and has upon its summit the castellated building seen on the right of our engraving, which looks towards the bay. From this elevation the prospect is truly grand ; and this is perhaps the finest port in Asia, as a large fleet, might ride in it, and vessels receive and discharge their cargoes close to the shore. Upon this mountain was founded one of those churches which became the peculiar care of the apostle John, who addressed to its angel (presiding minister or bishop) the solemn admonitions in Rev. ii. 8 — 1 1. This church is dedicated to Polycarp, the first bishop of Smyrna, who suffered martyrdom here A. D. 106, being committed to the flames. The population is commonly estimated at 100,000 or 110,000; but the Rev. John Hartley, who was here m the year 1825, is of opinion that it is greatly overcharged. He thinks that Smyrna does not contain many more than 75,000 inhabitants; of whom about 45,000 are' Turks, 10,000 Greeks, 8000 Armenians, 8000 Jews, and less than 1000 Europeans of different na- tions. The English residents may be upwards of one hun- dred1 : they dwell in the British factory, which is very ex- tensive, and is enclosed with gates. The streets are narrow, and many of the houses, which are built of clay, are low; most of them have roofs of pantiles, some of which are flat, while others are gaudily painted. There are twenty mosques : the Greeks have three churches ; the Armenians, one; the Latins, two ; and the Protestants, two : the Jews have eight synagogues. Prank street, where the Euro- peans reside, and in which many sign-boards are exhibited, is by far the best street in Smyrna: by the English it has been named Bond street; but the Turks call it Ghul Ma- bala, or the Rose CUianer. Smyrna has been subject to several awful visitations. In 1713 it was destroyed by fire, and in 1750 by an earthquake; in 1752, 1758, and 1760, it was depopulated by plague; fire again consumed almost the whole of it in 1703, 1709, and 1778; and in 1814 ihere were 40,000 persons cut off by the plague. Earthquakes and the plague, indeed, are the great calamities of this place: the condition of the Christians re- siding here (which is not the most secure under the Turk- ish government) is said to be better than in that of any other of the sites of the seven churches mentioned in the Apoc- alypse, as if the promise was still in some measure made good to Smyrna : — " Fear none of those things which thou shall suffer" Be thou faithful unto death, an4 I will give thee a crown of life." (Rev. ii. 10.)— Horne. Ver. 12. And to the angel of the church in Per- gamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges. Pergamos, or Pergamus,. was the ancient metropolis of Mysia, and the residence of the Attalian kings, who col- lected here a noble library, containing two hundred thou- sand volumes, which was afterward transported to Egypt by Cleopatra, and added to the library at Alexandria. It is situated on the right bank of the river Caicus, about sixty miles to the north of Smyrna. Against the church at Pergamus was adduced the charge of partial instability ; but toils wavering faith was prom- ised the all-powerful protection of God. (Rev. ii. 12—17.) The errors of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans have been purged awav ; Pergamus has been preserved from the de- stroyer; and three thousand Christians, out of a popula- tion of fourteen or fifteen thousand inhabitants, now cherish the rites of their holy religion in the same spot where it was planted by the Apostle Paul; though the poor Greeks are restricted to one small and mean church, under the Acropolis, or citadel of the ancient citv, where the hymn of praise to their Redeemer is whispered, rather than sung, for fear of offending the fanatical Turks. Numerous ancient ruins of a fortress, a theatre, and a uaumaehia, attest the magnificence of this once roval city. The modern town of Bergamo is seen through the mag- nificent arch on the right of our engraving. It . t* partly upon the left, is the Acropolis, on which is a castle nearly covering its whole summit, inclu- ding about eight acres, together with some remains of a heathen temple. A neighbouring cemetery has, lor ages, been supplied with marble embellishments from the theatre, which are collected in great profusion to ornament the graves, near to which, if not on that site itself, was once placed the celebrated temple of jEsculapius, which, among other privileges, had that of an asylum. Here also are massive ruins of the church of Agios Theologos, con- jectured to be one of those which the Emperor Theodosius caused to be erected. There is another ancient church in the town, that of Saint Sophia, which, about thirty vears since, was desecrated by being converted into a Turkish mosque. The scenery from the Acropolis is grand, but sad. The fine plain before Pergamus, which seems ready- to start into fertility at a touch, is sparingly cultivated, ex- cept on the very edges of the town ; but that touch is want- ing. The unrestrained flood-courses of the Caicus and its tributary streams have cut the plain into broad sandy veins. In 1828, when this place was visited by Mr. Macfarlane, a collection, in a Greek school, of about fifty volumes, in Romaic, or modern Greek, was called " the" library," and represented the ancient store of two hundred thousand volumes, which had been formed by the munificent mon- archs of Pergamus : and a dirty little Italian quack, igno- rant and insolent, was head practitioner of medicine in the city which gave birth to Galen, and of which JEscu- lapius was the tutelary divinity. The town was as dull as the grave, except during the night, when, as it happened to be the Ramazan of the Turks, there was some stir among the Mohammedan portion of the inhabitants. — Horne. Ver. 17. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the chtyches ; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. It was a custom among the ancients to give their votes by while or black stones; with these they condemned the guilty, with those acquitted the innocent. In allusion to this ancient custom, our Lord promises to give the spirit- ual conqueror "a white stone; and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that re- ceiveth it ;" the white stone of absolution or approbation, and inseparably connected with it, a new name of dignity and honour, even that of a child of God and heir of glory, which is known only to himself, or the inhabitants of that world to which he shall be admitted, and who have already received it. When sentence of condemnation was pro- nounced, if the case was capital, the witnesses put their hands on the head of the criminal, and said, Thy blood be upon thine own head. To this custom the Jews alluded, when they cried out at the trial of Christ, " His blood be on us, and on our children." Then was the malefactor led to execution, and none were allowed openly to lament his misfortune. His hands were secured with cords, and his feet with fetters; a custom which furnished David with an affecting allusion, in his lamentation over the dust of Abner: " Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put in fetters."— Paxton. CHAPTER III. Vev. 1. And unto the angel of the church in Sar- dis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars : I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead. Sardis, or Sardes, the capital of the country of Lydia, in Asia, was a city of great antiquity, the founder of which is not certainly known. It was situated in a fertile plain, at the foot of the northern slope of Mount Tmolus ; which rears its majestic head in the background of our engraving, and commands an extensive view over the circumjacent coun- try. The river Pactolus, (now an insignificant brook,) which Chap. 3 REVELATION. 645 isalso seen in our view, flowed through the fonim. To ihe south of the plain, on winch Sardis was erected, stood the temple of Cybele, tlie fabled mother of the gods, according 10 pagan mythology: it was a very ancient and magnificent edifice. con'-iruc:rd of wlnic marble. I >i this temple tin- two noble columns which are delineated in the foreground i ii h a few mutilated fragments of other columns scattered on Ihe sward or sunk in it, are all that now remain : these columns a re buried Heal Ij to the half of their height in the soil, which has accumulated in ihe valley since their erection, most probably by the destruction of ihe continually crumbling eminence, on which stood the acropolis ot citadel. The columns which hare been destroyed have been blown np by gunpowder, reduced to Hocks, and sold In masons and eirtris p ■■;■.] some of the fairest portions of the Church. This view of the arch-imposture of Islamism has been taken by seme very able writers of modren times, particularly by Mr. ■Vyhitaker, in his " Origin of Arianijm." The grand here- sies, therefore, of the Christian church, previous lo the time of Mohammed, seem to be here personified in the fallen star, and represented as being instrumental in introducing this master-plague of error and supersiition inlo the world. The poetical machinery of the vision is supposed lo be taken from the sacred oracular caves of the ancient Pa- gans, which were often thought to communica'e with the sea, or the great abyss, and which were specially valued. when (like that at Delphi) they emitted an inib:;icaiing vapour : it is used, therefore, with singular proj rielv in Uhaiv 9. REVELATION 641 foretelling the rise of a religi jus imposture. There may possibly lie an allusion also to the cave of Hera, wliiiher the prophet WHS wont 10 retire for the purpose I I mi:,' Ins system, and from which it really emanated. The opening of ihe bottomless pit, therefore, and the letting nit tin* vapour and smoke of the infernal regions, aptly represents the wicked and diabolical system of leligion, the den e and noxious fumes ol Ih i eorrupi theology which I. and by means ol which bo large a portion of Christendom was finally obseuiedaud involved in darkness. manual darkening of the sun foreshows the ellipse of the line religion; and that of the air prefigures the uncontrolled dominion of the powers of darkness. As a striking coincidence wiih the signs here predicted, it is worthy of note, thai a remarkable cornel immediately pre- eeded'lhe birth of Mohammed ; and that an eclipse of the Min, of e\;raordinary degree and duration, attended the lirst announcement of his pretended mission. — Bush. Ver. 3. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. Arabia has long been noted for giving birth to prodi- gious swarms of locusts, which often overspread and lav waste the neighbouring countries; and it is remarkable, that in a genuine Arabian romance, the locust is intro- duced as the national emblem of the Ishmaelites. The symbol, therefore, of the locusts issuing out of the smoke strikingly represents the armies of the Saracens, the mar- tial followers of the prophet, first engendered, as it were, amid the fumes of his religion, and then marching forth, at his command, to conquer and to proselyte the world. The pages of hisiory must be consulted to learn the devas- tations of those hosts of destructive Saracens, which, under the guidance of Mohammed and his successors, alighted upon and wasted the apocalyptic earth. Yet, notwithstand- ing the phantasms lhat came forth from the pit of the abvss bore a general resemblance to locusts, they were marked by several peculiarities, by which they were more per- fectly adapted to typify the people designed to be thus shadowed out. These we shall consider as we proceed. — Bush. Ver. 4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. By the command that they should not hurt the grass, nor the trees, but men only, it is evident that ihese were not natural, but symbolical locusts; and also that iliev were tinder providential control. The same thing appears from other attributes assigned them, which plainly belong lo the objects signified, and not to the sign; as' ihe human face, the woman's hair, the golden crowns, the iron breas!- plates. But it is very common in the symbolic diction of prophecy, to find the literal and the allegorical scn-e in- termixed, and that even in the same passage. We are thus furnished with a clew to the real meaning of the symbols. By the precept here given, the emblematic lo- custs were required to act in a manner perfectly dissimilar to the ravages of natural locusts : and yet how faithfully the command was obeved, maybe inferred from I lie fol- lowing very remarkable injunction of the Calif Ahube- ker to Yezid, upon selling out on the expedition against Syria, the first overtaking of the Saracens in the way of foreign conquest. It can scarcely be doubted, ihai these insrructions have been preserved, under the providence of God, for the express purpose of furnishing an illustration of this prophetictext. " Remember," said Abubeker, " that you are always in the presence of God, on the verge of death, in ihe assurance of judgment, and the hope of par- adise. When you tight the battles of the Lord, acquit yourselves like men, without turning vonr backs; but let not vour victory be stained with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm-trees, nor bun ami fields of corn. Cvt dou-n no fruit-trees ; nor do any mischief lo cattle, onhi such as you hill tu eat When you make' any covenant. siand to it, and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will lind some religious person'., who live retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to serve God that way: lei them alone, Mid neither kill them, nor destroy their monasteries, And you will God another sort ol people, thai nagogueol Satan, who have shaven crowns : be Bure you ca'a\ e then .en IN, and give them do quarter till they either turn Mohammedans, oi pay tribute." Il has accordingly been noticed, thai those parts of the Roman empire which were [eft untouched by these Saracen hordes, were those in which, as it appears from hisiory, the remnant of the true church of God was still found residing: they were only lo hurt ihe men who had not the mark of God on their foreheads.— Bobh. Yrr. 5. Audio them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should he torment- ed five months: and their torment wo* as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man Mr. Gibbon's undesigned commenlary on these words will show how the commission was lulhlled. "The fair option of friendship or submission, or a battle^ was proposed to the enemies of Mohammed. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were admitted to all the temporal and spirii- ual benefils ol bis primitive disciples, and marched under the same banners, to extend ihe religion ihey had embraced. The clemency of the prophet was decided by his interests yet he seldom trampled on a prostrate enemy, and he sec inn! lo promise, that on the payment of a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving subjects might be indulged in their wor- ship." The period assigned for Ihe power of the locusts, in this prediction, is " five months." Prophecy has its pecu- liar mode of compuling time. A day for the most pari stands for a year. Five months, therefore, of ihirly (lays each, amount, in the computation of prophecy, to one hundred and fifty years. As five literal months is Ihe utmost term of the duration of ihe natural plague of the Wusts, so the prophetic five months accurately denote the period of the main conquests of the Saracen empire, com- puting from the appearance of Mohammed to the founda- tion of Bagdad. " Read," says Bishop Newton, " ihe his- tory of the Saracens, and you will find that tie exploits were performed, and iheirgreaiesi conquests in.- rV. within the space of live piophrtir months, or one hundred and fifty years,— between the year G12, when Mohammed opened the bottomless pit, and began publicly to leach and propagate his imposture ; and ihe year 7 n t numbers, in ihe height of their enthusiasm, sh< old pant in vain for ihe glorious privilege of dying in ihe field o battle.— Bcsh. Ver. 7. And the shapes of the loeus'.s REVELATION. Chap. 9. unto hocses prepared unto battle ; and on their heads were, as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. "Arabia," says Gibbon, " is, in the opinion of natural- ists, the native country of the horse." The horsemanship of the Arabs has ever been an object of admiration. " The martial youth, under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the^ield, to practise the exercise of the bow, the javelin, an4 the cimeter." In correspondence, therefore, with the hieroglyphic of the prophet, the strength of the Saracens consisted very much in their numerous cavalry, and the unrivalled speed of the Arabian coursers forms the most striking possible emblem of the rapid career of the Saracen armies. " And on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their laces were as the faces of men." — "Make a point," says a precept of Mohammed, " of wearing tar- Dans; because it is the way of angels." The turban, ac- cordingly, has ever been the distinctive head-dress of the Arabs, and their boast has been, that they wore, as their common attire, those ornaments which among other peo- ple are the peculiar badges of royalty. The notice of the " faces of men" seems to be intended merely to atford a clew to the meaning of the emblem ; to intimate, that not natural locusts, but human beings, were depicted under this symbol. — Bosh. The Mamalukes wearing their beards long and rough, with grave and stern countenances, having strong and able bodies, used such cunning in all their fights and battles, that after they had given the first charge with their lances, they would by-and-by, with wondeiful activity, use their bows and arrows, easting their targets behind them ; and forthwith the horseman's mace, or crooked cimeter, as the manner of the battle or place required. Their horses were strong and courageous, in make and swiftness much like unto the Spanish jennets : and that which is of many hardly believed, so docile, that at certain signs or speeches of the rider, they would with their teeth reach him up from the ground a 'lance, an arrow, or such like thing-; and as if ihey had known the enemy, run upon him with open mouth, and lash at him with 'their heels, and had by nature and custom learned not to be afraid of any thing. These courageous horses were commonly furnished with silver bridles, gilt trappings, rich saddles, their necks and breast 'armed with plates of iron: -the horseman himself was commonly content with a coat of mail, or a breastplate of iron. The chief and wealthiest of them used head-pieces: the rest a linen covering of the head, curiously folded into many wreaths, wherewith they thought themselves safe enough against any handy strokes ; the common soldiers used thrumbed caps, but so thick that no sword could pierce ihem. — Knoli.es. Ver. 8. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth weTe as the teeth of lions. 9. And they had breastplates, as it were breast- plates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running; to battle. The Arabs, as Pliny testifies, wore their beards, or rather mustaches, as men, while their hair, like that of women, was flowing or platted: The "teeth like those of lions," has reference to the weapons and implements of war: and the " breastplates of iron," to the armour made use of by the Saracen troops in their expeditions. The " sound of their wings as the sound of chariots of many horse; running to battle," is but a part of the same expres- sive imagery denoting warlike scenes and preparations. — Bosh. Ver. 10. And they had tails like unto scorpions ; and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months. The interpretation of the svmbols of the Apocalvpse must be sought for in the Old Testament. From the fol- lowing words cf Isaiah (ch. ix. 14, 15) it appears that the "ail of a beast denotes the false doctrines or the supersti- tions which he maintains: " Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that tcachcth lies, he is the tail." The emblem, therefore, strikingly represents the infliction of spiritual wounds by the propagation of poisonous and e'eadly er- rors and heresies. And nothing is more evident from the page of history, than that the Moslem followers of Moham- med have scattered, like scorpions, the venom of their doc- trines behind them ; and whether conquering or conquered, have succeeded in palming a new creed upon those with whom they have had to do. By this symbol, then, -we are plainly laughr, that the plague of the allegorical locusts consisted not only in the ravages of war, but in the suc- cessful propagation of a false religion, of which the doc- trines should be as deleterious in a spiritual point of view, as the sting of a scorpion in a natural. In like manner, when it is said (ch. xii. 3, 4) of the " great red dragon hav- ing seven heads and ten hoins, that his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth," the explication is. that the antichristian power shadowed out by this formidable monster should be permitted to instil the most pernicious errors into the minds of the pro- fessed ministers of the truth, and thus bring about their entire defection from Christianity. — Bush. Ver. 1 1. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue, he hath his name Apollyon. Both these terms signify destroyer. Since the locusts are at once secular conquerors and the propagators of a false religion, their king must stand to them in the double relation of a temporal and spiritual head. Such accor- dingly were Mohammed and the Califs his successors, who must be viewed as jointly constituting the locust-king Abaddon; for in the usual language of prophecy, a king denotes, not any single individual, but a dynasty or king- dom. The chief of the locusts, when th'ey first issued from the pit of the abyss, was Mohammed himself; but during the allotted period of the wo which they occasioned, the reigning destroyer was, of course, the reigning Calif. If, therefore, we were to suppose the genius of Mohamme- danism under the Califs to be personified, and this sym- bolical personage to be designated by the most appropriate title, Abaddon, the destroyer, would be the appellation. As the portion of the prophecy thus far considered, has reference to the origin of Mohammed's imposture, and to the rise, progress, and conquests of the Saracens, its ear- liest abetters and propagators, so the remaining part an- nounces the commencement and career of the Turkish power, the principal of its later supporters.— Bush. Ver. 13. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God. It is impossible, from the train of events, and from the quarter of the world in which we are directed to look for the irruption of these prodigious multitudes of horsemen, to mistake to whom the prophecy refers. The four angels who are described as bound in the regions bordering on the river Euphrates, not in the river itself, are the fcur contemporary sultanies or dynasties, into which the em- pire of the Seljukian Turks was divided towards the clos of the eleventh century: Persia. Kerman, Syria, an Rhoum. These sultanies, from different causes, were Ion; restrained from extending their conquests beyond wha may be geographically termed the Euphratean regions, but towards the close of the thirteenth century, the four angels on the river Euphrates were loosed in the persons of their existing representatives, the united Ottoman and Seljukian Turks! Gibbon, the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, must of necessity be the guide to any English commeivaior on this part of the prophetic history. The following is his testimonv as to the immense number of the Turkish cavalry: " As the subject nations marched under the standard of the Turks, their cavalry, both men and horses, were proudly computed by millions. On this occasion, the myriads of the Turkish horse overspread a REVELATION. G49 f-ontier of six hundred miles from Taurus to Erzeroum." Bush. Ver. 17. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them thai sat on them, having breastplateB of (ire, and of jacinth and brimstone: and the heads of the horses toere as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued lire, and smoke, and brimstone, is. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. These prophetic characteristics of the Euphratean war- riors accord in the most perfect manner with the descrip- tion which history gives of the Turks. The; immense armies into the field, chiefly composed of horse, and from their first appearance on the greal political stage of nations, their costume has heen peculiarly distinguished hy tl ■ 1 .111- of sr.nVi, Miie, and yellow, which are here denoted by the terms "fire," "jacinth," and "brimstone." Rycaut's 'Present Stale of the Ottoman Empire," pub- lished towards the close of the seventeenth century, will satisfy the reader on tins point. heads oi the horses were as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brim- stone." We have here a symbol which is not elsewhere 4o be met with in the scriptures. The prophetic horses are represented ;is vomiting out of their months " fire, and moke, and hri'ns'one," by which, it is added, "the third part of men was killed." Mede, Newton, Faber, and most o her eminent expositors of the Revelation, agree in sup- posing that the flashes of tire attended by smoke and brim- stone, which seemed to proceed from the mouths of the horses, were in real itv / >'< -'us »f artillery. The Turks were among tie- first who turned io account the European invention of gunpowder in carrying on their wars. Can- non, the most deadly engine of modern warfare, were employed by Mohammed II. in his wars against the Greek empire: and it is said that he was indebted to his heavy ordnance for the reduction of Constantinople. The pro- phet, therefore, is to be considered as depicting the vision- ary scene of a field of battle, in which the cavalry and artillery are so mingled together, that while flashes of fire and dense clouds of smoke issued from the cannon, the horses' heads alone would be dimly discerned through the sulphureous mist, and would seem io the eye of the spec- tator to belch forth the smoky flames from their own mouths. As the design of this striking imagery is to describe the appearances rather Man the reality of things, the prophet employs an expression, " in the vision," or rather "in vision," i. e. apparently as it seemed, which evi- dently conveys the idea that the phantasm of a battle scene was presented to the imagination. We may now see how far history confirms this interpretation : " Among the im- plements of destruction," says Mr. Gibbon, " he (.Moham- med II.) studied with peculiar care the recent and tremen- dous discovery of the Latins; and his artillery surpassed whatever hail vet appeared in.the world." "TheOlloman artillery thundered on all sides, and the camp and city, the Greeks and Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be di.-pelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire." "The great cannon of Mohammed has been separately an important and visible object in. the histom nf the times.' But that enormous en- gine, which required, it is said, seventy yoke of oxen and two thousand men to draw it, was flanked bv two fellows almost of equal magnitude: the long order of Turkish. artillery was pointed against the wall ; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, that it was mount- ed wiih a hundred and thirty guns, or that it discharged a hundred and thirty bullets." — Bush. Ver. 10. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails irere like unto ser- pents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. already considered. The imagery in the present symbol is slightly different 'from that ol the Saracen locusts, which had the tails of scorpions; but the import is the same. Here the tails of the horses terminated in a head; and it is not a little remarkable, that the Turks have been in the habit, from the earliest periods of their history, of tying a knot in the extremity of the long flowing tails of theif horses, when preparing lor war; so that their resemblance to serpents with swelling heads must have been singularly striking. Striking too is ihe fact, tha» SO slight a circumstance should have been adverted to by ihe historian so often quoted, who thought as liitle of being an organ to illustrate the predictions of scripture, as the Turks themselves did of being the agents lo fulfil ihem. Speaking of Alp Arslan, the first Turkish invader of the Roman empire, he says, " With his own hands he tied up his horse's tail, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot should be the place of his burial." The scope of the hieroglyphic here employed is to predict the propaga- tion of a deadly imposture' by the instrumentality of the same warlike power which should achieve such prodi- gious conquests. The event has corresponded with ihe prophecy. Like the Saracens of the tirst wo, the Turks were not merely secular conquerors. They were anima- ted with all the wild fanaticism of a false religion.; they professed and propagated the same theological system as their Arabian predecessors; they injured by their doctrines no less than by their conquests; and wherever they estab- lished their dominion, the Koran triumphed over ihe gos- pel. Thus writes Mr. Gibbon : " The whole body of the nation embraced ihe religion ot Mohammed." " Twenty- five years after the death of Basil, his successors were sud- denly assaulted by an unknown race of barbarians, who united the Scythian valour with the Janalicism of new con- verts." Sufficient proof has nowbeen afforded, if we mistake not, that the appearance of the Arabian prophet in the world, and the rise, progress, and results of his imposture, are clearly foretold in ihe sacred volume. Indeed, it woula not be easy io specify any admitted subject of prophecy, upon which history arid Providence have thrown a stronger or clearer light, than that which we have been considering. Interpreters have been justly struck at the surprising exact- ness of the delineations, and their perfect accordance with the details of history. " The prophetic truths," says Dr. Zouch, "comprised in the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse, are, of themselves, sufficient to stamp the mark of divinity upon that book. When I compare them with the page o'f history, I am filled with amazement. The Saracens, a people which did not exist in the time of John, and the Turks, a nation then utterly unknown, are there described in language the most appropriate and distinct." If, then, the considerations commonly adduced to account for the rise, progress, and reign of Mohammedanism, appear tt be inadequate,— if the human causes usually quoted to expiain the astonishing success of Mohammedan imposture sii)/ seem to us to leave many of the phenomena inexplicable, and the greatest revolution in the world connected with the history id' the Church, stands forth an unsolved problem,— why should we hesitale to ascribe it directly to the deter- minate will and counsel of Ihe Most High, and thus find a clew to all the mysteries connected with it 1 Why should we be anxious lo escape the recognition of a Divine inter- ference in the rise of this arch-heresy 7 If we have been correct in our interpretation of the preceding pn Daniel and John, the Mohammedan delusion is as real and as prominent a subject of prophecy, as any in the whole compass of ihe Bible. Now, to insist upon the operation of merely human causes in the production of an event which is truly a subject of prophecy, is in fact to take the govern- ment of ihe world out of thehands of God. And ihis prin- ciple pushed to the extreme will inevitably hover and im- pugn the sure word of prophecy; for il makes God the predicter of events over which, at the same time, he has no special superintendence or control. Such a principle cannot stand the least examination. When Daniel fnretels Ihe fortunes of the four great empires; or when Isaiah speaks of Cyrus by name, as one who should accomplish certain great purposes of ihe Infinite Mind, is it to be sup- posed, that the events predicted were lo happen exclusive of Providential agency 1 As easily and as justly then «( mav acknowledge a special pre-ordainmem in the ease n> 650 REVELATION. Chap. 10—21. Mohammed, whose slill more formidable dominion and more lasting and more fatal agency in the affairs of men, are equally i he iheme of unquestionable predictions. No admission of this nature militates with the free agency of man, or at all affects the moral character of his actions. The mere fact that an event is foreknown or foretold by the Deity, neither takes away nor weakens the accounta- bility of" the agents concerned. Of this, the whole scrip- ture' is full of proofs. But the reflecting reader will de- sire no further confirmation of so plain a position.— Bush. CHAPTER X. Ver. 5. And the angel, which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, 6. And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer : 7. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. The solemn asseveration of the angel here cited is very frequently misunderstood. It contains no intimation of the actual and absolute cessation of time, for in the part of the prophecy in which it is introduced, the spirit of inspiration is not speaking of the end of the world, the winding up of all sublunary concerns, or of any thing pertaining to it, but of the ushering into the world of a state of triumph and glory. The object of the angel is simply to announce be- forehand that this grand event shall take place, without longer delay, under the seventh trumpet. A translation that should give the exact scope of the original, would, dis- regarding the present punctuation, read thus: " that there should be delay no longer, than untoJhe days of the voice of the seventh angel," &c. The original word for ' time' (chronos) is in several instances in the sacred writings used in the sense of delay, as is also the verb chronica, formed directly from it, as 'Matt. xxiv. 48, " And if that evil ser- vant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayclh (chronizei) his coming." That the Greek alia, but,' is used in the sense of except, than, unless, &c. is expressly shown by Schleusner, in his N. T. Lexicon. The conclusion there- fore may be safely rested in, that the burden of the angel's oath in this place is not that time, considered in itself, should then end, but that the consummation of a certain great event, called the " finishing of the mystery of God," should not be deferred anv longer than to the period of the seventh trumpet. What this event is, is clearly intimated Rev. xi. 15, " And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." But this is an event which is certainly to take place during the course of time, and not after its close.— Bush. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 1G. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads. It was a general custom in the East to brand their slaves in the forehead, as being the most exposed; sometimes in other parts of the body. The common way of stigmatizing was by burning the member with a red-hot iron, marked with certain letters, till a fair impression was made, and then pouring ink into the furrows, that the inscription iniHlrt be more conspicuous. Slaves were often branded with marks, or letters, as a punishment of their offences; but the most common design of these marks was to distin- guish them if they should desert their masters. For the same reason, it was common to brand their soldiers, hot with this difference, that while slaves were marked in the hand, with the name, or some peci; ia character belonging to their masters; soldiers were marked in the hand with the name or character of their general. In the same man- ner, it was the custom to stigmatize the worshippers and votaries of some false gods. Lucian affirms, that the wor- shippers of the Syrian goddess, weie all branded with cer- tain marks, some in the palms of their hands, and others in their necks. To this practice may be traced the custom, which became so prevalent among the Syrians, thus to stig- matize themselves; and Theodoret is of opinion, that the Jews were forbidden to brand their bodies with stigmata, because the idolaters, by that ceremony, used to consecrate themselves to their false deities. The marks employed on these occasions were various. Sometimes they contained the name of the god; sometimes his particular ensign, as the thunderbolt of Jupiter, the trident of Neptune, the ivy of Bacchus: or they marked themselves with some mysti- cal number, which described the name of the god. Thus the sun, who was denoted by the number DC VIII, is said to have been represented by the two numeral letters XII. These three ways of stigmatizing, are all expressed by the apostle John in the book of Revelation : "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads ; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. ' The followers of the beast received a mark in their right hand, because they ranged themselves under his banners, ready to support his interests, and extend his dominions with fire and sword;' they bore the name of their general, the bishop of Rome, Lirt.m?, and the number of his name, which is 6t>G. But they also received the mark of slaves on their foreheads, to denote that they were his absolute property, whom he arrogated a right to dispose of accord- ing to his pleasure; who could neither buy nor sell, live with comfort, nor die in peace, without his permission. But they were not only soldiers and slaves ; they were also devotee's, that regarded and acknowledged him' as a god, and even exalted him above all that is called God "and is worshipped; in token of which they received a mark in the palm of their hands, or in their foreheads. Thp prac- tice of marking the soldier and the devotee, although ol great antiquity, may be traced to one origin, to a custom still more ancient, of marking a slave with some peculiar stigma, to prevent him from deserting his master's service, or rendering his discovery and restoration certain and easy. To this custom the prophet Ezekiel refers: "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." Anotjier instance may be mentioned from the Revelation: " Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." In both instances, it is the symbol of protec- tion and security both to the persons and privileges of the people of God.— Paxton. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 19. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper ; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald. This is not only a description of what must be exceed- ing beautiful in its appearance, but is moreover manifestly corresponding with the mode of building anion? the ancient Romans, who, it is well known, constructed their wall; from the bottom to the top with alternate layers, or rows of bricks, and of white stone, and sometimes' of blank (1 nts. Each of these layers was always of a considerable thick- ness, or breadth ; and while their different colours formed a beautiful appearance to the eye, and were a most elegant kind of ornament, this mode of placing materials of differ- ent dimensions and substance in alternate lows greatly strengthened the work.— King. I N D E X . „ the interests of s enleriainii • I wilh .1 in. ill. -in AimIi eunr, Lazarus' being carried to Ins bosom, \ ABSALOM'S characlcrand conduct, 217 ; ABSTINENCE from food througti vexal l.i.i iMi:s i , in. ,i i.v \i-.iii Muiih. s.:;:;. I.VIoNIi UlllE, natural ln>lorvof, 486. i.oe-tree. .1.-. hi.-. i. ;k. M M.I.K i-.-r [■. ui.d wai ilir.-.-ir.-n.-.l nM.iin-' .'" ! MMoMl'Es |ir. i i'.. :i. alumni of, 214; |iro M.AIIiI. . r ■ m messengers, 580. v:i:i.>. • ■.. - ,i;.li.-.l in Hi..- East, 216. noiir. -; ii -.1 'in:.-,:t>i. N I viae FOOD, seldom eaten by the I anki,mi> I .in in n -; -. 1--.I.633. ANOINTING of the body, supposed effects of, Ml. \ \ r i , ■ . cies, sea ANTELOPE, account of the, 184, 251, 413, 411 J iii.nl.- ..I huuum: t tie, 456. ANTIOCH in Piai lie, account of, 619, ANTON1A, lown of. described, 217. APOI.oi:! i;s. Hi, i iri.-ntaU much addicted to in.- us i.iii, '2M. ::«). APPI.E-TREE, i.l Intl.- value in the East, 4 13; apples ol gold in pictures of silver, 430. ARABS, lli.-ir i I.- of life. 111; th.-i I. ul I In plunder, 326; lie ill wait for caravans, 4SS; dress of, in the Holy ARARAT, mount, description of, 13; ascent of. 14. Allllol R. eastern, account of, 444,562. ARCHIVES, kepi of in, p.. riant events, 311 ; sometimes re.uii.. princes, 321. ARIEL whj JeriK di m so called, 466. ..llv footmen, ',301. 1.331, i\v s ( .,.,■ .1. the practise d lor pestilence, 399; term applied to the guc, 491 ; children sometimes so called, ; burning, whal, 367. INTS l.i step-, made in honour of an em- ill..- : ,55. 279, 280; female, why 324; wild, description of, 863: j by persons of distinction 136. 110 431. ASSEMHI.Y, poor man con ASSOCIATE^ desired by travellers, AT Hl.r.T T ,'i- I," mis, how trained, 637. ATTIRE OF II VRI.OTS. described. 12ll. Aid lis. covered with a mantle when con- sulted 176 AVEN'clNt. Hie blood of reunions, 99, 100. AWAKING one from sleep, 443. A/.i •'! 1 s present state of described, 617. BAAL'S PROPHETS, did not ordinarily sal : . ib.ii conduct Illus- trated, 264 BAAL /tin It. B dies, 274, 583. HAIIEI. lowel ol, wilh wh.,1 .I,-.-ili, . BABVS I ON, proj [ea . on. i ruing, 457,513-- BACA, rsllej of, whatptaci meant by, 3S7. BAUGI ii s SKINS, whal i le ml by, 06. I! mil \t.i; ...a ,. ..-, ■ '.ill nclling. 627. BAKING - B VI. BEC, enormous si s among us rums, 234. BALDNESS, made for* the dead, 109; use of leriil e\|,|;il||ei1, [M BALD HEAD, phrase how used. 276. II VNNERS. carried ,,, ., |, I,, vui- ,,l, phrase h.uv I, i be innj, , ' I. . -■ IIAMil El', wb re o I : 240, 667 I1AIIEI DOT when On, III, I, walk, 218. BARLEY BREAD a< at latere BASH vn Bitl --' v. ,i, ,,., ,.- II \ I H'.m; . _ , ■ luxury in the BATS \ Mi vim i g, i II VTTEIUM. It \M . Bv I II, EMI N l> , ' ,,■;-..! houses, 117. ii n nil i: -, HIl X It. I-li-n us ;-a ... ,- ..I r 425; makes a I I nol i lion, 181 symbol of tio- i-ini.ii .- ol lb,: Modes and Per- sians. 515. HE VSTS. fallen, kindlv cared for in the Mosaic law, 116. IIEARll. held in great reverence in Ihe East. ■log Hie. a mark of subjection. '.'.Hi; soil,, 111, „S .lie. I I1EAT1M: lb.- brcu-u through gn III 1 X I IV , l. mil, . .-., i. in ii is ..i, 417; of form, highly i - BEDS, eastern, coi uru lion and irrangemenl of,274, 121 BEI1 CHAMBER, what .ml bv in Ihe East. 289, 300 HllllSni VI> of Og. loin; ,,f llisban, 11)3. m 1 >i il in Mi vi:s, i, i. ;?2...ub. III. lis, expressions r.-l.iiiM- l. ,. 1U3; how kept ill Ihe Easl, X r J > ; I,,..-. I 125; opllllolisol ibe aii,-ii-iiis re>|,e,iuig, 1 12. Itm.i; mis 7en con thi I HI HEMOTH, whal kindol animal, 3S3-36a Bi.l.I.S. used upon garments, OS , hung on Ihe n.-.-ks ol" horses. 509. 1II1N.I IM1N, • . - BES11 i.ru IN w \,i. ,. . . used in defend themselves, 189 BESOM orni.slRt'rriiiN. phrase explain- HETHA.NY, d.-=.ciiplion of its present state. Oil. HEIIII.SDA. pool of, 611. BETHLEHEM, description 05 675. Illl.lt. ,,.-.- oi ,„ i, mends. 1-7. 1,17. BILES, Hon Ii .Ire i.l.-.l ,u th.- Easl, 327. HI It l)S. employed ill ceremonial cleansing, 77, ; nestling n< BIRTH, i . > us,,!. 291; of a son. sea.-oii of gre.il i, --[,-, HI.Vi K.NI.SS Oi FACE i I, 572j gathering, plira-e e.vpl ■ BLANKETS, a single one worn. 599. BI.VCK VN1I Willi 1 1 t.VRMIlNl'S. when BI.ASPI1EMV, I.- I a. ah. -ii. ..us crime. SI. BLEMISHES, personal t allowed in priests, BLESSING, Importance attached to, 32. HI a ii di in be eaten bv the Israelites, 21 ; mixed wilh ul.. lair.. ns sacrifices. 369. BLUE, colour of, greatly in esteem among Ihe BODIES ,.f executed criimn.ds ex,. •..-]. 179. B0L3TKR, eastern, described, 170. BONES of men bun I upon the altar, 253; , 110; of the dead burn,,. Book, ib, writing ol bv an adversary, XI; HOW SHOT .-.■nil,,-. 111,5*;. I Persians, 450 '; oriental, how I,, I.,- hot, 260. e earth as a token of respect. BOW is .ml dishl Sl Arabs, 137. HON INl.\ HI! Al 1. 1. Ill's,. I ,.;, leiii la, h,s ,|,-s. riheil, 17,1; worn by prin, 6S, 1 -". IIREAKI ASPS ,,l lb. oneiil.d- ,b ,,-ribed, -Hi, BHEVKINi; HREAl), whal m. ,. . BRICK, Ihe soil about Babv!,.,, peculiarly I for L" " ' mil in; a - Hilt'. ROOM 1.502.523. ' . ■ wilh as a mill. \ nii HRi.VlsTO> brother HI 'II.iiim; Easl. 125 ISO; on i tind of armour, 503. g of. i'lii; how spoken ol on i.v 123 applied II, Ibe lla-1,013 on the s;. In the ie sand, phi -_u ,,, |,,-oph. ,-y. .,,0 "u- I bs of saints, ul Ihe walls of cities, ,| bodu s, 1S1 ; over the 79 in i hi;, bow made in the East, 135,310,431. CAIN'S sentence explained. 13, i \MI.I, mm , usoil in o.v. Iling in the East, ,,,!,. is an mini v lung. 138; his led Us, Hi-.i; remarks upon il„- loading oil 2X"i; llOW said lo pass |hrol|e|, llee.lle. 7.s7 ; Camel's hair, u.al.oi.N of r.u- , lo ilk. value of to the Arabs, 39; sometimes compared to a ship, ■ lili,-, I. la,'. : ,-. deserts, 103; origin,! f.-mliu ,,i p. , I , l. II canceii.ini; or hamiuriting, mode c\N|i| 1 s m nieht , ncampn enls, 346. CAPTIVITY, scriptural idea of, 365; captives, how procured 111 ibe I CARAVAN ■ . orn, 4S5, I'M! CATERIMI EARS, _ CATPI.E. apl to wander in travelling, I < ' \ \ VI i Vim ,,-'■ in. ,1, -ciipnon of. herds. 3' ilinent, scen.-s of idolatry, 5-6; and dens places oi I shep 37o; . 'EDAR 'I'll U.E described, 98; of Lebanon, '£0, 456, S6S. CHAFF, CUSlOOl (.1' burning lifter witlllO\MIILr. 577. OIIAMP.EK, prophets', how constructed. 2711. CHANGES in lot-tune, how described in the scriptures, 374. CHAPPING of the earth in the East, 494. OH A Ull ITS, „l',r„n. anciently used in war, 131; expression.. .■ :erumg, 275; races of, 1 Ihd'lv ; the. 335. bETHlTES, what. Ol. KAN and unclean bea 7-j, eo. OI. KIT in tlie rock of Calvary, 594. ULIEN'FSIHF. an am ient custom in Arabia, 337. CLODS of ||„. vallev, allusion to. 341. CLOTHES, given in pledge, 04; numerous suits of, 311 ; clothed with a person, phrase * explained, 525. CLOUDS, pret ursursof rain, 266. COACHES tilled with l.'inale slaves, 320. coal, quenchingol one's, 216. I'lM'KA I'KH'lv remarks upon the, 481. COCK-CROWING, nui- o{ 598 1 111 ! in 1 irried round .n fi asls, 440; not ge- CtlM'l IllNL.thr I.evil.-'S CUt to pieces, 140 CONEY, what kiii.ta.f animal, 409. CONGREG.'.TI"N UK ISRAEL, what meant I.V Ihotenu V.I CONSEOR \TE. term how used, 08. CONSOLATION, Till,, a title of th. Messiah, 001. CONSUMING of the life or soul, 215. COOKING, p. rtoruied hasnlv m the East. 176 COOLING, parlours, mode of in the East, CURSE .riod innl'iiie, phi cursing in war, 93; term how to be uittier- si I. 586. CI H IAIN, hung helorea I. nt-dnor, 68. CESIUMS, ancient, held 111 groat reverence in 1 he East, 022. CUTTING the llesh of the ,1, ad, 79 ; on what other occasions practised. 20."., 507. OVM HALS, what keel of instruments, 417. DANCES, eastern, described. 58. 17s. 198; music, when practised, 164; dancing Hindoo, ornaments worn by, 450; danc eastern, solicit money from the comp diligence to his child towards .loah. '221. '227, osheth. 225; inwards stieatiou of the Gib. Shimei,224. DAYS, time computed 1 11,0.1 phrase ,„ ihe Ei DAY SPUING, rising,, DEAD, how laid out, an. DEAD DOC., term of c. DEMONIACAL possession believed in in t East. 58}. DESERTS, African, described, 107; of Me pntaniia. gieal scarcity of water in, 29. DESOLATE PLACES, what meant by, 3: desolate houses, coalmen in the East, 458 DEVOTED things not redeemable, 89. DEMOTION, apparent, of the Hindoos. 312 DEWS. ve,v copious in the East, 181,548. DI\L OF AHAZ. shadow upon. 296. DINNER, a Pecsian described, 589. DISMOUNTING, a token of respect, 169, 6 DISSOI.VER OF DOU11TS, phrase how us. 541. DIVINATION bv F.DOM, prophecies concerning 507. 511, 540. EGYPT, land of compare. 1 with Judea. 108, piophecies con, .riling. 535. ELDERS, or Senators, term explained, 331. ELEPHANTIASIS, perhaps .lob s disease, 327. EMERoDS, severe disease in the East, 123 ; ENCAMPMENTS, eastern, how regulated, 170.311. i:\l.Elll. village of wliv so called, 168. ENTRANCE],, oa-lern I1011.es made low. 436. ENTREATING a wile hv a husband. 33?: EPHAII borne by two women, Zocliaiiail'j vision of explained, 567. EPIIF.SUS. city of described, 020; temple of I SHCOL, grapes of, 94. KUPI1K VI'Es, . 167 ; execu- tent, 160, 29S, nig, 287; the plained, 567; vens, 434 ; of how used, 169, PACE, to see on 216 ; to put awav one's, 248, 331 ; to ent one's. 258; to linn to a holv place in pra 254. 367 ; to put between the knees, 265. FAIRNESS of compl how esteemed in for employ- PAN, eastern, form of. 467. FARE, scanty, of the Arabs, 423. FATHER, term how use, I m the East, 455. FEAR, a proniiiienl effect of heathenism, 291 of wild beasts, lis effects, 428 FEASTING, from house to house, in turn. 324 ; eastern, how conducted, 429. FEAS'PS. given ill the Easl to ihe poor as well * """ ; how tables arranged at. (603. •s, phrase explained, 135: shed in the East, 26; of I, 187; and fingers, speak- East generally able t II -111 U.s religious, expediency of, 110. I'll.! DS s id lo complain of their owners, 351 FIG-TREE, pal Ocularly valuable in Canaan 551 : grow in oriental gardens, 009. FIGURES, representing captiMtv of Israel, 292 FINGERS, dipping in adish.592. FIRTREE. felling of wiih an axe. 458. FIRE, treading or walking on, 291. F1RF.IIR \ND, term how applied in the East. FIRST BORN, privileges of, 116. FISH, in the Red Sea. 92. FISHERMEN prefer the night for fishing, ClM FLAGONS, supporting one with, 4-13. II USD-MEAT bltle ealeil 111 the Last. 63.129 FLEA. David's comparison o[ himself to, 172. in Ihe Easl kept by ■ 'CORNERS, .fa le II |. .1 I.. '■■ "leaned, 81; to CORN STACKS, if -•r-o. d bv fire. 64. COTTAGE in a vineyard desi ri L 119 COURTESANS, heathen, dedicated to the temple, 501. COURTS of eastern bouses. 602. COVERED, to be. .sign ol n ruing. 462; cov- ering th,- lips, sign ol u ruing, 531. CRACKLING of thorns under a "pot, 437. CREATION, a. it of. considered, 10. CRIMINALS, where executed, 394; cast into the sea, 587. CRIMSON" or scarlet, the favourite colour of CRUi'ii ixniN, r-niirks upon, 593; created cruise'.' wl,'a'iVin''l,'.f Vessel, 275. CRYING to the gobs m trouble, 372. CUP-BEARER, ..dice of, 213. DUST, strewed on the head, 180; licking the, dwelling' DEEP,' phrase explained, 510. EAGLE, peculiarities of the, 124; the golden, 529; the bald. 567. EARLY RISING, common in the East, 39. EARS, the digging or opening of, 370 ; of corn, EATING "under ihe shade of trees, 350 ; mode of in the East. 427; early in the morning disgraceful, 410 ; eaten up, when one said to 374. J, alluded to by Job, who place, phrase explained, FOREHF..DS mai ko.1 I.V idolaters. 527. FORERUNNER, term how used, 639. FOUNTAIN'S of water, fi-euiienili places ol danger, 135; armies assembled at, 176; stop- ped in time of war, 310; sealed, phrase ex- plained, 445. FOWLING, mode of in Ihe East, 373. FOXES, pailirnlarlv fond of grapes. 445, 518 Samson's catching, 143. FRECKLED spots in leprosv, 74. FROGS, plague of, 54. 410. FRONTLETS, Moses' words concerning ex- plained. 105. FRUIT TREES, not willingly cut down in Ihe East, 115. FUEL, what kind of used in the East, 156 ; scarcitv of how compensated, 480, 581. FUNERAL, attending upon made one unclean, 89; chariots, described, 285 ; feasts, in horn our of the dead 496. C VMH, h"W l.ik. 11 in liii. j v.n.s snd ■ ii ai c. VKIHINS, l,i« w.,n red in Mi. I D VRDENERS, . •-.,iii, custom of alluded In, e GARLANDS . n. i ■!..> . -■ 1 ,, INDEX HE-GOATS n ril I, .-lore llie (lock, 513. HI] \1.IM. ii, III, V I ' ol <•■■ l il;il. '-Til. epulchral I,, i , 36d . . u, ::>. 117. GLORYING i.v. .' ■IN VSI1IM; „l i.-. , ,, II III1AT, wil.l, described, UK; symbol of Mac- don, 546, GOBI, or avenge] of blood, 99 iiiUMI on ■ ' ■■ i i son. 17*. I. Ill H ,| : .I,;, .,| I, ... i;i)l'Ul>, wiiii. what, jm . in, ii i, ,i i.i .1..H ,', GRAIN, product of Sync Silo; whore lodged after winnowing, "v"d, 777; various km, Is ol sown in P.il. i:i: vn villus, made an ledr ground, 308. GRAPHS 91 ; mil GRASS, generally founil in ll, ,■ , i ; grows wiih great rapidity m lite Bast GRAVE, spokt ii M, .■ . >n I GRAVING on the palms ol theliahds, 177.. GRAY II VMS .,,....:.,. in the E GIUIVYIIs. miluarv. described, 161,633. GREECE and Persia, prophecies concerning, GREEDY of gain, p'urase explained, 118. i.ki:i: v how term applied t" p. i in mode of expn si GRINDING Chi . phrase i xplaiucd. I.V1. <;kiiv us anciently made na i.i iists. dismissed fn m f. asts ••. , 2110; how , ill Mills in GUITAR, pi opli ol Ihe Bs I « ry fond of, 350. Mv<;vr. ,', stand o ir sendingaway ll \M. plagu of enormous HAIR horn worn I j i ,1" i-Vil-llorl - ,111 .Of . ,1 |,'HI standing up through terror, 329 ,.,! by east, rn ladies, 151 ; cutting .,iT in mourning. 1'iii ; worn i.v fein.il SO. HAKIMS or doctors, much in esteem In the East 57a 1 1 V M '. w alretching out I iw u 377, 391 ; rig servants. 412: liiind inmed in I, explaioe '. 107 ; h in Is on ihe head, what In- Ii, ,ii, ■! i!i, r.'l.v. 4S\ ii vNivs iiui: vm ii ullar, 311; by the bands, ll vngim; 522. 'lAN'GIN'GS. use I in temples. 297; in courts ami Harden*. 319. 1IVM VS iriiiin-ntof Divi, Is servants. 201, HAREMS of the East, considered as sanctu- aries. Z73. MARKS, eastern modes of rooking, 423. HARNESSED, lenn explained. :,-t. HART and fallow-deer, what kind of animal, 250; panting for water 1. rooks. 376. HAWKS how distinguished. S.7. II.VZVIII.S murder ol 11,-u'ia lid considered 2S5. HEAD of a onu piered eiieiuv. how disposed o(, 161; takinuawav from. phn-. 275; decapitated, how disposed of, 2S3; of the way, phrase explained, 53J. HIDDEN n, i, IIH. Mils I' .. ,1 in . i,i, iLoim, en I =, 606. Iin. II v\ v\s, ii.ipu-uily deserted by travel- Illl.l.S ,„i,| hii-h plans, aui-i. nil}- the Scat 0< WMI -lll|, ., HIM" iiiiuii: forth lor fawn ii .'. d lor an%c- mate, 419. HINDOOS believi in numerous gods and de- Jvu BONE, it which Romson drank, con- Jl M.ii si very i In the Eaat, 420; ihabltantsof, to David, jiiniinvn ei , JI.IIH lln n, • ! iii, . ,1 iipoiihnnwlio ii..- country : ...I 604. i.,| ihereal the l. sin ,,i pilgrims up, hi cluing 111 Hjht ..t. IM6; how 11 could ' , Volm-v's JEWELS 1,1. lie , In • k-, iS',; ■ ly by Jewish ' .11. V\ .- LO ■!.' ' V, I. 1.111 111 . h-lll. 153. 1. 219. 1 profm 1 ; Jcruaa- 1 ii,, 1,00k of. as .ion \ 1 11 V. -i mi • ling David m Ihe 1 ll.uiK ,'m7i" '" llie , : .7. HORN, worn l,v l.-iual.-sm ill. I also l>v soldiers. 272 390. HORNETS, s. in ..- .1 judgment, 66; very an- nnving in the II 1 1. h'l HORSES, iimi allMWed I., lie kings of Israel to Inulliply, 112 307 ; of cm, jo, 1 how dealt Willi, l-'tll. hiiiiieh! liMln ll.ii ... ■ ■ :, of shoeing, loll ; p. Hilled red 567 ; led In llie wild, H'll. remarks up h of the ■ 1. Mtil sn ,0 lein.ii ,1-scribed, 153; of sheep- horse 1.1:111 1 ,ted. 159.414,461; noi -1 tops riwelling Ml \ TIM;, ii III SHVN1)\1E\ in ll, . , iki ,1 591 111 SM VIS lleieli.rv hyssop, what kind of plant, 383. IMFX. or wild 1 II11S Ihe. panic ularlv von. i .,ie 1 .., IV, i,r. SOU iimi - great nun In rof In India, 450. INTERMENTS nl ihi dead, frequently hurri- INQ.1 my. Vug, 603. 1. 106 ; and clav, mixture of in Nebuchadnezzar's vts- . . 513. IRONY and salim, common in the East, 353. ISHMVEL. ihe prophecies concerning him JACKALS, devouring human bodies. 3S7 ; further acco. 11,1 of, 60S. JACOB'S wages changed by l.al.an.37. JAEL. here, i-i, Inri towards Sisera consi,ler»d. offering him milk and hutur ex- .lliUllVN. .0. 127. .11 im I'll , M, .,;, ,,1 id 10 a 1, mind vine, SI ; i\ lore nil .lor ,,r Mile. I. 1111 eve; .11 1 1 VII. w 1 ,1 lan d to a lion, 49; cover- Hie ,,,, j,lM .11 niiv 1 . m| ■;. . , e cy, Sei, 463, 464, 626 Jl NII'IIR TRIHI. lint of, 266; coals of. KT.III'IIR o: the ie id. I hrase h..w used, 171. 1 . 1 i 1 conferring 1 KINDRED, laws respecting marriage be twei 11. I- KINGDOM, delivering up the, to the Father KNl.vl. M.'liliil ..lis, eastern, described ' KNOW INi: a person, phrase In I VI HRVM.VTt.Kli>. „,.,,! lo 11, 634. 1 villus. , ,-v appear in public, 350. I I.vmiini.-ss ml dumbness, effect of walkins 169, LAMPS, niu, h u.e.l in 11. i,d. 333; of Cairo LAN 11 ,,i I ot to be perm uientlv i.appim; i I.v I ,ii fell, 274 I. VI l.fllNt;, 1 Vjui .- leu When Used liv One It- tills. 27. 1 vi ini. , , !, every weight, 040 I. II VMM. i,,„ ,, .,,1 ■ , v.,.,; . ,;;n, up,,,, ||e l.KAVIIN. c.rruptiiu innuence of, 625. LEBANON, mount, description of, 103; how an object of comparison, 417; fragrant odour of its wines. 44-*. 550; unrms aud leu, pe sis ii ;,., 1 1 verv severe. 4 ( III , vio!eii:e of, !, 171': cedars of, 550. LENDING 'upon usury, 109 ; upon pledge, 119", I.EPERSol.iieeli ienhe,rlii„,74; expel. cities, 281. LEPROSY ,|,., nled. 73.71; leprosy in gar LEVIATHAN, Ji li s, 313. ,135. INDEX. MFE compared lo a story or dream, 398. METING up the feet, 34; the countenance. 89. LIGHTS always Lurning in Egyptian houses, TIGHT HOUSES, allusion to, 634. I H.HI N1NGS, li. tjn.-iit in Syria, 415. I.II.l, eastern, nfieu very magnificent, 581. MP. protrus I, a mark "I cnnlepupt, 371. LIVING WATER, wis, I meant t,v. 4S7. LOCKS, eastern, described, 131, 446. LOCUSTS, aceoiiutni', 3(1."); operation in lav- nig their eggs, 56 1 ; their destructive ravages, 651 ; symbol of the Saracens, 619 LOINS, custom of nil ling up, 266, 352. LONG LIFE, esp. ciallv desired hv the Orion- tals. 484. LOOKING BACK, h,,w understood in the East, 27. LOTS, casting of among the Orientals, 320. 617 I LYING upon [lie left or right side, 525. MACHINE, lor throwing stones, 524. tl V.IEM'Y. how reverenced in the East. 5.2. MAKING hare [he arm, phrase explained, 478, 479. MALE CHILD, hirth of, 328; male children principally ,!■■ -ired in the East, 497. VI Al.EEAt 1'OKS, not allowed lo look at kings, 322. . MANDRAKES, what they were, 36. MANNA described, 60. MANOAI1, his luslory illustrated, 142. MANTLE. MaTyDAVS, phi 582. 268; Jewish, an hands and arms, 474. MARRIAGE LEASTS, sometimes continued for seven days, 143 ; marriage, ceremony performed in the open air, 151 ; delay of, con- sidered by the Hindoos as a disgrace and calamirv, 394 ; processions, customs con- nected with, 592. MARRING a laud with stones, 278. MASTER and scholar, phrase explained. "71 MATS or carpets employed by the Orientals in prayer, 480. M vTTKEsSES I for sleeping, 617. MEAT-OKKERING, what, 70. MEDICINES, externally applied, 596. MEETING friends or guests, the custom of, MELONS, and other fruits of Egypt, 91. MEN a' on.'s I, e[. phrase explained, 135. MERCHANTS ol the L.isi, for what famous, 641. MESIIA. hislnhnt " lambs, 579. MESSENt.'EKs in tl,, r. ,st ii .vel rapidly, 332. MICE, the Pliili-'ii scourged by, 157. MIDDLE wall of partition, 632. MII.CI1 camels, ver; valuable in the East, 39. MILETUS, prose,,, slate of, 621. MILITARY operands commenced in the ng, 206. by the Arabs. 129 ; poured 333; sometimes spring, v lll.K, how afforded by lathi great pan of Hie diet of [he Orielilals, ll:.'. MILLET, aeeounl of ll,e plant so called .V.'.i. Mll.I.O, aplaeein.lei-usalem, 191. MILLS, easier,,, described. 91. MIRAGE ol the desert, allusions to, 469, 495 MIRRORS, what kind in use in the East, 69. 432. MoAR. prophecies concerning, 505, 507. MODEM' i. ay of speakingof one's self, 630. MOHAMMED i\l:')l.„ need hv fifth inn, i- p,t.646; votaries smct in their religion, ,V,2. MOLOCH, children sacrificed to by passing througl fire. 113. MOMENT, a. T.imiil mode of expressing, 374. MONEY put op m bags, 289, 331; chaug, r.. among !he Jews, 5*8. MONSOONS, severe,!, the East, 352. MORDI.'AI'S ,!, ,„.. „,„ur towards II i„..,i illustrated, 321, 323. MORTARS, how made in the East, 56,572; pounding in as a punishment, 432. MoTiluiiRM, desenpnoil of, 329,341. Mol NT Hid! |e ctiheil 90 MOURNING, eastern, described, 211, 533; ex- press.nns u.-u,.l in, 492; mourners, female, .IEL1I1E among the ruins of Babylon, 458. I.BERRY, the, whether mentioned it ;ripture, 240. MURDERER, no satisfaction to be tak the life of, 102. MUSIC and ( 607; in the o ght, 467; as an expression of respect, 279 Ml STAR!) TREE, MI //.LING of oxi MY LORD, phrase how used,30. MYRRH, allusion to explained, 446 iral history of, I Nazareth, descrii n 01,576. NAZARITISM, vow of. 155. NEAPOl.IS, presents NECK, NEHEMIAH, ex NEIGHING, ter ! hold of. 236. ! table, 315. n the East. 4S9. ne for travelling in the East, ■ipal time for heathen rites, earning forth of wild beasts, NILE, waters of pleasant to the taste, 53; charmed into blood, 54. NINEVEH, description of, 559; prophecies concerning, 563. NO-AMMON in Egypt described, 503. NORTH WIND, Solomon's allusion to, 430. NOSTRILS distended in anger, 329. Nl MBER1NG lie penele. Hand's sin in, 236. NURSES „i the East, 31. OATH, ceremonies in taking, 254, 289; very common among, he healhen, 261 ; doctrines of the Jews concerning, 590. OBEISANCE made hv women to men, 241. OBLIGATIONS, will! how cancelled, -.69. OIL. [erasure,, of, how k-pt, 303; burnt in honour of the dead, 549 ; how used in sacri- fices, 70; poured upon the head, 415; oil- olive, what, 68. I gleaned, 459. grapes, how OPENING the mouth in speaking, 579, 328; open hands. 109. ORACLE llobrcw.cmparod with heathen. 192. ORDAINED lo condemnation, phrase ex- plained, 643. ORN-MENTS, Rebecca's considered, 31; worn by females in the nose, 31; laid off in OSTRICH, na'und luslory of the, 355; dole- PAINTING the eyes and face, 287. PAl.VNill IN, , ffectsof b, aring. 535. I'M M 1 REE. are, ; of the. 404, 493. PANTING lor die dust, phra-e explained, 55.5. PARENTS, on. 's. reproach, I by enemies as an expiession of anger, 166. PARTING, ceremony used at, 580. PARTRIDGE, account of the, 171. I'VRTI RII'ION of east, in women easy, 53. PASSOVER, circumstances of eating the first, PATMOS, pi PAVILION, PEACOCK, ■ of, 643. ■J rip! ion of, 268. ' the, 256; exe, edlligly East, 355. PEARLS, casting before swine, 581. PELICAN, account nl ;!., 405 PERU VIES poured open heads nf guests, 372.431,479; boxes of suspended from the neck, 412; burnir filmed garuienls, com, no PERCAVIOS. account of. ( PETRA. ancient city of. de„ rmed, Hoi. PHILADELPHIA described, 545. PIGEONS bmidnig „,,,,„ ,„ rocks and hollow places. 507; carrier, still employed in the East. 384, 440. PILLAR, or column, a scat by. 269; pillars, term how applied, 632. PILLOW of goat:' haii phrase how to be tin dersiood, 166. PIT, criminals cast into, 352; used for cat. n ing wild beasts. 368, 529. PITCHERS or jars, used for carrying water instead of leathern bottles, 139. PLOI Gil. the Svnan. described, 554, 604. PLOUGHING, how managed in llie East. 117 118; upon the back, 414; often done in win- ter. 427. PLUCKING out the right eye, 579. POINTS of the compass, how expressed. PIS. I'OI ITENESS ot (he On, ml. lis, how evince'!. 30. POLYGAMY" productive of many evils, 36; among the Jews considered, 152. POMEGRANATE Jl ICE, employed as a drink, 95. PORTIONS, custom of sending to friends and Pol's ID. what meant by the term, 327. POTTED lie, I,, ,, us.. i„ the East, 222. POTTER'S wheel, what, 497; potter's-field, a burial place for .,1 rangers, 592. f POURING water on one's hands, 277. PRAY without ceasing, phrase explained, 636. PRAYERS. Ire no ol among the Brahmins. 3S4 ; ascending up before God, 046. PRECIOUS slones, forming foundation of New Jerusalem, 650. PRECIPITATION, mount of at Nazareth de- scribed, 602. PRESENTS given the East at the close 1 1 ) procure help, 200; of garuienls, 306 ; valuable made to governors, PRISONERS', oriental, miserable condition ol. 391 ; how (reated, 501 ; generally easy to be visited, 592. PR (SONS, eastern, desc ribed, 502. PROPERTY of executed duals confi6c&. PRi is I It CI'ION pr o-ii,o,i ,n prayer, 590. PROVENDER, carried for beasts of burden on a journey, 251. PROVERBS, or aphorisms, ancient modetl conveying instruction. 41S. PROVISIONS, how demanded by public of- ,314 composed, built 5S2 , PSA I M 119th, on what o, 417. PUBLICANS, where their office of described, 596. PEEKING at one's enemies, 3C8. PI lit HASKS. how made in the East, 499. PUTTING the life in the hand. Ill; putting on Egypt as a garment, phrase explained, 503. RABBI, when title b, g in to he used, 689. RAINS in Judea described, 123 ; when fall In the East, 261. 371 ; the sound of, 265 ; some limes falls in neighbourhood of Red Sea, 387; former and lailer, 424, 641; very i lent in Ihe East, 433, 603; makers of p tended, 495. RAISING up e slnod. 211. " RAMAII. city of described, 132. RANK and opulence, how distinguished, 4.38 RAVEN'S, made lo provide food lor Elliah, 201 REACHING beyond one's measure, 629. REAPING, customs connected with in tl» East, 147. RECORDER, what kind of office, 204. RECORDS, how preserved in the East, 499. REDEMPTION of land, 87; " " pre phrase how to be under of the first-born, nelling. 489. REGISTERING thenamesof citizens, 635. RENDING of garments, phra-e explained, 436 KEPIIA1M. term for rleceas.d giants, 343. REPHIDLM, rock of, described, 61. REPUBLIC, Hebrew, form of, 89. RESPECT, at n, teles and expressions of, 16ft RETALIATION. Mosaic law ofconsidered, 83. RH 1', e .cog one's, how considered, 314. RIDING into houses, 565. RINGS, usually worn in the East, 99; given as a token of afleclion, 320. •n wilhrh d, 285, 555. up, 331 : cut 315; fi-rlill u. In t uatod.ZH. 01 » nu,;niss ft< I vege Bed i«»r matatc- ; is dung Hh' ! travelling, a ii Loi i i direct! in ,1 so called, MS ie beaten with, i the feet, 677. fi< -i- nrosporling. ,, j, S57, 524 SCORPION, effecl SCOI RGE el II l I st'OLRoiM;, a , ,,„„,,„n punishment in the East, 622. scribes, the nature of their office, 110; mode ol teaching, 57a SCRIP, a garment used for carrying money, Si KIPPERES, custom of readlnj in public, 601,609 oKAI. set upon (lie heart, 418. SEATS ii ! uri i 13, M7. -'EIIVSTE i|„.;„i.-i..|ii Sani.ii described, 465. SECRETS nut usually comided to women in the East, 143. SKi: ,-ve to iv, ■. phrase cvptained. 479. SEED TIME, auen led with langi husbandmen. 113. .Vti SENNACHERIB, his vatn boastings. 456; .,!,.. si ruction ol" his armv considered, '.".I.", SEIR. II lit. prophee'ies roucei: SEPULCHRES, i constructed, 30. 453. e'EltPENTS. tierv. or sei.iul,s d.-serihed, 0/ ; th, ir hi I ■ at 336; serpenl i In SERVANTS, in what man 40. J. -wish, regain, d lln-ir fr,. dniu , . r i l ] , *■ s.w nth year. I hi; how treated In the East, .110. .41).-.. s.lvlli: . - . ,, ■.. .-,. :,•■! Inuirr, 413 ■!l SHOW, e. |,|.I. a . : ■sll VK1NIJ 111. lap '■ ' H llv VIM ;. and rem hull he mantle, 326. SilEVTH, term how apph. .1 to [lie body, Sir,. RIIEBA'S rebellion, 226. sheep, employ* -I in making a covenant, 29; large tails of. lis ; shearing of 16'J ; great fe- cundity of. -111". ; hi ■ "IKMIMTII, title of some of the Psalms, 367. SHEPHERDS in the East accountable for the Ilocka under their cha,^e. ;>s : why the oc- rllpalion of offensive to [lie Egyptians, 48; allusions to. 170; duly of to provide water, 472: figures drawn froin [he occupation of, 37'2; Syrian .-vims,-., t t!..- seasons, 533. -ilIIKU). highly valued In- the iincmiits, 1-1 . uses of. 367 ; llll-hlsli;ii: and anoiti'mg, 4;'. I 8H1I.OAH, senile waters of, 154. SIIIMEI'S ronducl illustrated. 220. SHIRTS worn bv the Arabs, 113. ■■■MIlTIV-WOon. what. 67. SHOES, one n of the use of. 23; taken off in SILENT praise |,i.i, lis, .1 l.\ Sil.OAM, lounlain ol. '241. 61 tiger. 47 .he ||„ altli, nous, ,110 . t, nil how applied hv the SITTINIi at no -d . 33; in prayer. '.' n a ,-ush.oii, 157; ii lb f. etoi i t, ,., Iii-r.622. SKIN lor skin, phrase explained. 3 .'. . ,,t -'a teelh. phrase e\pl.ill|eii.;C,7 SKIRT, spr. ad over as a sign o! 119. S|.\\ MS. how US, ,| III the |',i I i branded in the lorchead, 650: female, gen- erally siven toadauglu, r upon h. ' r.iii SI I.I I'INC. arrangements in the I:, -1,437, 60.V SLIME PITS near Sodom, account of, 22. SMEI I -I v.du. cms, 171 SMITINi; with a sh,„ on the mouth. 623; the hinds together. 530. bow applietl loan angry man, SMOKE, 391. BMl l!N V. aeeonnt of, 643. splendour , ION. lertn I SPARROW, I, aim- of the, 407. SPICKS, l.inie .pi.ll, llll.-S .11 , swa'liing dead bodies, bill; liurtil in hollo, of the dead, 07 . PIT PINO lace. 91. 121. SPOILS of a conipiered enemy tledicated th.- gods, 166. SPORT' nude by prisoners, 145. Sl'RINt; il-scea-r- d ill tie- Wilderness, lis, spurn M, description of the m. SYMPATHY of the Orientals with the afflicted, TABLES, for writing, liferent antiipiily. TO). TMIoll. ii. ,1- a ,|| a, i. |;H TV NNOOK , nbed, 70 TMII'.S soil sown bv on- ,m n i TARGETS an ■ understood. twls, how lived in Persia, and elsewhere II, -la I 181 TEARS drinking ol, expression common io t! . I', : 394 I I.MI'I E, Sol >u's, h- of building illus- TEMPTATION of Christ, pla« of, described. i-not, phrase explained, 6 des, phrase explained I a plant, 615; in the He 1. I. I a. 'lull., nee SGft| t Oft 1-33. and showers in Syria, t state, 612 STOI'Ks. pui.i.h it of ,les-i , - STONES anointed bv the ancients. 31; , great size ill building. 300; si. -no pitch, - made use of for baking, 3^1; white. ruslo of giving. 614. STOMMi to death. 63, 80. STORK, account of the. 408, 490. STREETS, making in Damascii., phrase e plained, '270; hiving anamein the. 337; 01 111 .lerusaleiii, a ' - Thll'I'INi; the dead bodies of enemies. 17 STREWIM! tluw.rs and branch. s ol tie. before great men. 5*. STRIKING HANDS, what meant by phras 336. Il\:i 1:1 I - rii 1 ru-e, 1 ;:;.. 1 imiier. -Hi I. a of felling, 531. I IMP , . d bv the length ol Hie shadow, e no longer, phrase oxplained,650. ■tin n - ■ aUver, l». TTTLI.s, ,1 i,| a. t,, give la Olll 3,1, 'TiiMI'.s .-1 Never orders, how I n-islrucleiL a I, \ - I : how closed, 615. TONCEE. the. compared to lire. 611. Ii ii;i II 1 s .,,1,1 ii mi to aux, when used in the 'I - II; KIN I'S . are lal - I I r.\ I 1;- , .:., 308; fig. -V -- vineyarda, 163 ' TRADE, every Jew expected to follow one, 620. TREASURES, how disposed of in the En«t, STltlNt;-! of African bows, of wh u STUBBLE and grass, burning of. 475. SIT MHI.lNt; lil.Ol'K.011 what alius,..,, l,.,m,l- ed. 455 SEIl.ll-'.l'TS si-ldien a-luntlei! to the tables of SUBMISSION, outward tokens of, 269; by SIMMER parlour described. 133; summer fruits. Onenrals tend of. 502. SI EZ present sU'erf, 273. SEN. intense heat of in th. SI III.TISIIIP. ceremonies lelating 10, 419; very often hazardous, 425. SWALLOW, remarks- on the habits of, 470 : swailowTp. phrase how us., I, 473; swallow- TUTELARY deities presiding over places. TYMPANUM or drum, mode of punishment TYRE, prophecies concerning, 533. UMBRELLA, its use very ancient. 412. CM'LEvNNESS, contracted by attending > funeral. 89. 1 Mi urn, vtiatkind of animal intended b> EPPER t lUMP.IRs eastern. oescrioed.49S LITER GARMENTS I, ken in pledge, 579. ISI'RV an-1 -xiortum common In the Ea«, UZZAH, the fate of considered, 19A VALLEYS 611ed np to prepare a highway, t-0 VEi;l:'T\TloN short-lived in the East. 398. \ I ii n II s eastern, ol conveyance, 197. VIHS-. orn I. v brides intheEaat,32; a token 656 VINE, luxuriance of in Canaan. -19; running overwalls.51 : why Joseph ( ompaied io, 51 ; how injured hy insects, 123; of Eitypr, de- struction of, '-'Xi ; made lo ;row ahou' houses. 414 ; how fen. ■ .1 in ih- L.i.-l. 429, 43S. VIM* \U. !■ :.■ -I.,:. J ■,'.. .■> ■•! .:■- \ l\l;> \Rlts ,, :..,-. i:, il,,. i;.,s!, 64; liighlvvalii..liti Ah,.,. , ,:nt.,, 270. iged, 210; be- ry cereme.nious.301. edjy performed, 437 ; of the VISITSofthe Orient \V.\HY lill UtENDEI. d. scribed, 59. U ■\UlMi upon' ih.- 'roof of a house, 544; M.i.'d 'i.;''iio' himi'iii lor i'.',',.:s.";i;7|-.'.i the refreshment of travellers] :V.'7 ; drawn from WATERING a garden, mode of, 294. WATER SPOLT. allusions to, 376. WEANING children, 27. W EAIUlVi one by continual con, in- 11. CI»S WEaVEK. allusion to in l.-aiah's prayur. 469. \-. i.i.riv. ..■■! .• ... -i. i-i wedding, i, ....:,.-.,; . I Chris! with his WEIGHING grit 6 Willi; iris, divert in required, 424. WELLS,, stopping East. 32; furnish j WHEEJJS aT,i livi ..ii.l. J-l: i line nllil 611. E/.eki.d'i 486. WIND, vi.,1, nt eastern described, 34a WINDOW iiooi v.huh persons I hi own. 2S7. W1NE. time of drinking in the East, XO ; red particularly esteemed III the East. 3'.'1. 1 -".I : l.inying Ii.ii-j over, 429; eusioiu of i ooling. 430; mixed with water, 419, 47i; kept upon the lees, 464; 506; or oil, p 637. WINEPRESS, [loured from vtssd to vessc* lUred on toe head of a victim, the treading of, 317; re nark? w'lNGS.' ngura ive application of tern, 428 | WINTER in li WIPING Ji ei i'i..,si 'how divided, 444 iii.i'i,. r houses, ,li,t :■, ii, ■ •■ relove.l. ale,„a..,,l...h.ph,Jsrl., , be ..r win ii ii Will. r. I,; Wll'.ll v fusing in moder WORDS , WoIOH in the human hodv, 340. WRESTLERS, piohable allusion 10 Ike cus WRITING, il.e most ancient way of, X^ ; or stoii- alluded to. is'.'.': on tine sand, 497 ; wrt tings how sealed in the East, 526. ZIHAS present of summer fruits, what, 219 David's conduct towards, 219. ZION, u.ount, present slate of, 561. r O^iJU