Commentary on the Holy Bible

IS'" That led them tlu'ough the deep as a horse in the wild'crness, that they should not stumble?

14 As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, '^ to make thyself a glorious name.

The praises of the Lord — ^" Tlie praise of Jehovah"] For niSnn tchilloth, plural, twenty-nine MSS. (three ancient) and two editions, have nbnn tehillath, in the singular number; and so the Vulgate renders it; and one of the Greek versions, in the margin of Cod. Marchal. and in the text of MSS. Pachom and i. D. n. Tip aivsrfiv Ku^iou, " the praise of the Lord." — L.

Verses 8, 9. So he was their Saviour. In all their affliction — " And he became tlieir Saviour in all their distress"] I have followed the translation of the Septuagint in the latter part of the eighth, and the former part of the ninth verse; which agrees with the present text, a little differently divided as to the members of the sentence. They read ^30 miccol, out of all, instead of 733 hechol, in all, which makes no difference in the sense; and iy tsar they understand as T'X tsir. Kai EysvSTo omtwc. £15 tfoiTvipiKV £x <xac/r,s &Xi<^£uc: av- Tuv on «pS(S^vs, oh&e ayyeXoS' " And he was salvation to them in all their tribulation; neither an ambassador nor an angel, but himself saved them." An angel of his presence means an angel of superior order, m inunediate attendance upon God. So the angel of the Lord says to Zacharias, " 1 am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God," Luke i. 19. The presence of Jehovah, Exod. xxxiii. 14, 15, and the angel, Exod. xxxiii. 20, 21, is Jehovah himself; here an angel of his presence is opposed to Jehovah himself, as an angel is in the following passages of the same book of Exodus. After their idolatrous worshipping of the golden calf, "when God had saidto Moses, I will send an angel before thee — I wUl not go up in the midst of thee — the people mourned,"' Exod. xxxiii. 2-4. God afterwards comforts Moses, by saying, " My presence (that is, I myself in person, and not by an angel) will go witli thee," ver. 14. Avtos Tpoi-ofEutfofxai Cou, " 1 myself wUl go before thee," as the Septuagint render it.

The MSS. and editions are much divided between the two readings of the text and margin in the common copies, s'7 lo, not, and iS lo, to him. All the ancient Versions exjiress the cbetib reading, X"? lo, not.

old — " And he took them up, and he bore them, all the days of old."] See the note on chap. xlvi. 3. — L.

Verse 10. And he fought against them] Tiventy-six MSS. {ten ancient) and l\ie first edition, with another, add the conjunction 1 van, Nini vehu, and he.

Verse 11. Moses and his people — " Moses his servant"] For lOJ' ammo, his people, two MSS. {one of them ancient) and one of my own, (ancient,) and one of De Rossi's, and the old edition of 1488, and the Syriac, read n^i' abdo, his servant. These two vrords have been mistaken one for the other in other places; Psa. Ixxviii. 71, and Ixxx. 5, for 10;J ammo, his people, and "|0J? ammecha, thy people, the Septuagint read nDJ,' altdo, his servant, and ■]^3J' aidecha, thy servant.

Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? ichere, c^r. — " How he brought them up from the sea, with the sheplierd of his flock; how," &c.] For rT'N aiyeh, hoiv, interrogative, twice, the Syriac Version reads "["S eich, how, without interrogation, as that particle is used in the Syriac language, and sometimes in the Hebrew. See Ruth iii. 18; Eccles. ii. 16.

The shepherd of his flock] That is, Moses. The MSS. and editions vary in this word; some have it nj'1 roeh, in the singular number; so the Septuagint, Syriac, and Chaldee. Others 'jn roey, plural, the shepherds. — L.

Verses 13, 14. That led them through the deep — As a beast goeth doum into the valley] In both these verses there is an allusion to the Israelites going through the Red Sea, in the bottom of wliich they found no more inconvenience than a horse would in running in the desert, where there was neither stone nor mud; nor a beast in the valley, where all was plain and smooth.

Verse 14. The Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest — " The Spirit of Jehovah conducted them"] For Un'jn tenichennu, caused him to rest, the Septuagint have ubriyi](i2v auTouf, conducted them; they read Dn;in tanchem. The Syriac, Chaldee, and Vulgate read Unjn tanchennu, conducted him. Two MSS, have the word without the ■ yod in the middle.

Numaj'Pompilii, of thy hohncss and of thy glory: R.Roman., 4. ^yj^g^g ig tl,y zeal aiid tliy Strength, ' the sounding '' of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?

16 "^ Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham '^ be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: ihou, 0 Lord, art our Father, ' oiu- Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

ana s hardened om- heart from NumiePompiiii thy fear? " Return, for thy ^- '^°""'"- *■ servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

18 ' The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: '' our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.

19 We are thine: thou never bai-est rule over them: ' they were not called by thy name.

Arc Ihey restrained?] For "Sx elai, from (or in regard to) Hie, the Sepluaginl and Synac read irSx eleynu, from us. — L.

Verse 1 G. Our Redeemer; thy name is from everiasling — " 0 deliver us for the sake of thy name."] The present text reads, as our translation has rendered it, " Our Redeemer, thy name is from everlasting." But instead of oSli'D meolam, from everlasting, an ancient MS. has ]])0i lernaan, for the sake of, which ^ives a much better sense. To show the impropriety 3 "the present reading, it is sufficient to observe, that the Septuagint and Syriac translators thought it necessary to add IJ'^i' aleynu, upon us, to make out the sense; That is, " Thy name is upon us, or we are called by thy name, from of old." And the Septuagint have rendered 1j'7!\J goalenu, in the imperative mood, purfai vifxaj, deliver us. — L.

Verse 17. Why hast thou made us to ere] A mere Hebraisin, for why hast thou permitted us to err. So,

Lead us not into temptation; do not suffer us to fall into that to which we are tempted.

Verse 18. The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little ivhile — " It is little that they have taken possession of thy holy mountain"] The difficulty of the construction in this place is acknowledged on all hands. Vitringa prefers that sense as the least exceptionable which our translation has expressed; in which however there seems to be a great defect; that is, the want of what in the speaker's view must have been the principal part of the proposition, the object of the verb, the land, or it, as our translators supply it, which surely ought to have been expressed, and not to have been left to be supplied by the reader. In a word, I believe there is some mistake in the text; and here the Septuagint help us out; they had in their copy "in har, mountain, instead of DV a'm, people, tou opoui, to'j arytm rfou, the mountain of thy Holy One. " Not only have our enemies taken possession of Mount Sion, and trodden down thy sanctuary; even far worse than this has befallen us; thou hast long since utterly cast us off, and dost not consider us as thy peculiar peo pie." — L.

vhole of this chapter, ivhich is very pathetic and tender, may be considered as a formulary of prayer and humiliation intended for the Jews in order to their conversion, 1—12.

burneth, the fire causeth the Olymp. xvii. i. waters to boil, to make thy name Numie Pompilii, known to thine adversaries, that R- Roman., 4. the nations may tremble at thy presence!

Verse 1. O that thou wouldest rend the heavens — This seems to allude to the wonderfial manifestation of God upon Mount Sinai.

the fire kindleth the dry fuel"] Q-o^n hamasim. " It means /;•'/ stubble, and the root is DrDH hamas," says

Rabbi Jonah, apud Sal. ben Melee in loc. Which is approved by Schulten.s, Orig. Heb. p. 30.

" The fure kindling the stubble does not seem like enougli to the melting of the mountains to be brought as a simile to it. What if thus! — ' That the mountains might flow down at thy pT sence!

3 When "^thou didst terrible

4 For since the beginning of the world ^ men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear.

As the fire of things smelted buineth,

As the fire causeth the waters to boil — ' There is no doubt of the Hebrew words of the second line bearing that version." — Dr. Jubb.

I submit these different interpretations to the reader's Judgment. For my own part I am inclined to think that the text is much corrupted in this place. The ancient Versions have not the least traces of either of the above interpretations. The Septuagint and Syriac agree exactly together in rendering this line by, " As the wax melteth before the fire," which can by no means be reconciled with the present text. The Vulgate, for D'O'on hamasim, read IDD'' yemasu.

have not heard — " For never have men heard"] St. Paul is generally supposed to have quoted this passage of Isaiah, 1 Cor. ii. 9; and Clemens Romanus in his first epistle has made the same quotation, very nearly in the same words with the apostle. But the citation is so very different both from the Hebrew text and the version of the Septuagint, that it seems very difficult, if not impossible, to reconcUe them by any literal emendation, without going beyond the bounds of temperate criticism. One clause, " neither hath it entered into the heart of man," (which, by the way, is a phrase purely Hebrew, nS hy Thy alah al leb, and should seem to belong to the prophet,) is wholly left out; and another is repeated without force or propriety; viz., " nor perceived by the ear," after, " never have heard:" and the sense and expression of the apostle is far preferable to that of the Hebrew text. Under these difficulties I am at a loss what to do better, than to offer to the reader this, perhaps disagreeable, alternative: either to consider the Hebrew text and Septuagint in this place as wilfully disguised and corrupted by the Jews; of which practice in regard to other quotations in the New Testament from the Old, they lie under strong suspicions, (see Dr. Oicen on the version of the Septuagint, sect, vi.-ix.;) or to look upon St. Paul's quotation as not made from Isaiah, but from one or other of the two apocryphal books, entitled. The Ascension of Esaiah, and the Apocalypse of Elias, in both of which this passage was found; and the apostle is by some supposed in other places to have quoted such apocryphal writings. As the first of these conclusions will perhaps not easily be admitted by many, so I must fairly warn my readers that the second is treated by Jerome as little better than heresy. See his comment on this place of Isaiah. — L.

i would read the whole verse thus; " Yea, from the

5 Thou meetest him that rejoiceth s and worketli righteousness, ^ those that remember

time of old they have not heard, they have not hearkened to, an eye hath not seen a God besides thee. He shall work for that one that waiteth for him." This I really think on the whole to be the best trans lation of the original.

The variations on this place are as follows: for lyDty shameu, they have heard, a MS. and the Septuagint read lJJ?Dty shamanu, toe have heard: for the second nS lo, not, sixty-nine MSS. and four editions have N7l velo, and not, and the Syriac, Chaldee, and Vulgate. And so |"j'l veayin, and eye, Septuagint and Syriac. fix eth, the, (emphatic,) is added before D'hSn Elohim, God, in MS. Bodleian, 'jn^'? limechaklcey, to them that wait, plural, two MSS. and all the ancient Versions. — L.

Verse 5. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and work eth righteousness — " Tliou meetest with joy those who work righteousness"] The Syriac reads cty nnx yi\2 "ii>i'2 poga attah shesh baashi, as above.

In those is continuance, and we shall he saved —

" Because of our deeds, for we have been rebellious"] ymy\ D^W Dn3 bahem olam venivvashea. I am fully persuaded that these words as they stand in the present Hebrew text are utterly unintelligible; there is no doubt of the meaning of each word separately; but put together they make no sense at all. I conclude, therefore, that the copy has suffered by mistakes of transcribers in this place. The corruption is of long standing; for the ancient interpreters were as much at a loss for the meaning as the moderns, and give nothing satisfactory. The Septuagint render these words by 5ia rouTo EffXavrj^rjfASv, therefore we have erred: they seem to have read j't^iJJ Dn'7i' aleyhem 7iiphsha, without helping the sense. In this difficulty what remains but to have recourse to conjecture? Archbishop Seeker was dissatisfied with the present reading: he proposed i'E'lJl ITTJ D3n hebet aleynu venivvashea; " look upon us, and we shall, or that we may, be saved:" which gives a very good sense, but seems to have no sufficient foundation. Besides, the word yiyiJl venivvashea, which is attended with great difficulties, seems to be corrupted as well as the two preceding; and the true reading of it is, I think, given by the Septuagint, i'iy3J1 veniphsha, SirXavrjSjjfAsv, we have erred, (so they render the verb yii/S pasha, chap, xlvi. 8, and Ezek. xxiii. 12,) parallel to NOn;! vannechela, ijjxapTOfjLEV, we have sinned. For D^U' Dn3 bahem olam, which means nothing, I would propose lJ'77i':Dn hammaaleleynu, " because of our deeds; which I presume was first altered to □n''?'?;':!^ bemaaleleyhem, an easy and common mistake of the third person plural of the pronoun for the first, (see note on chap, xxxiii. 2,) and then with some farther alteration to

6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all ^ our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do ' fade as a leaf: and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

7 And "■ there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast liid thy face from us, and hast ° consumed us, ° because of om- iniquities.

8 P But now, 0 Lord, thou art our Father; we are the claj^, i and thou our potter; and

□Su' ODD behem olam. The Qn-^y aleyhem, which the Septuagint probably found in their copy, seems to be a remnant of □iT^bi'-'^^ iemaaleleyhem.

This, it ma}' be said, is imposing your sense upon the prophet. It maj' be so; for perhaps these may not be the very words of the prophet: but however it is better than to impose upon him what makes no sense at all; as they generally do, who pretend to render such corrupted passages. For instance, our own translators: " in those is continuance, and we shall be saved:" in those — in whom, or what ^ There is no antecedent to the relative. " In the ways of God," say some: "with our fathers," says Vitringa, joining it in construction with the verb, navp katsaphta, "thou hast been angry with them, our fathers;" and putting Niorijl i-annecheta, " for we have sinned," in a parenthesis. But there has not been any mention of our fathers: and the whole sentence, thus disposed, is utterly discordant from the Hebrew idiom and construction. In those is con/!7(«ance; I3H1J* o?am means a destined but hidden and uninoHm portion of time; but cannot mean continuation of time, or eontimiance, as it is here rendered. Such forced interpretations are equally conjectural with the boldest critical emendation; and generally have this farther disadvantage, that they are altogether unworthy of the sacred WTiters. — L.

Corerdalc renders the passage thus: — -23ut to, tllOU art.msiie, for toe ofTenbe, anb Ij.ibc bccnchet in jil'nnc; ant) there ijS not one toljolc. This is, I am afraid, making a sense.

After all that this very learned prelate has done to reduce these words to sense and meaning. I am afraid we are still fer from the prophet's mind. Probably an3 bahcm, in them, refers to yyvy deraeheyeha, thy ways, above. tZ^SlJ' olam may be rendered of old, or during the whole of the Jewish economy; and J'ii'i:i venirvashea, " and shall we be saved V Thus: — Thou art wroth, for we have sinned in them (thy wavs) of old; and can we be saved 1 For we are all as an unclean tiling, &c.

9 Be not ^ wroth very sore, U Nums Pompiiii, Lord, neither remember iniquity R- Roma". ■*. for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, ' we are all thy people.

11" Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire and all " oiur pleasant things are laid waste.

12 ^ Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, 0 Lord? ^ wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?

ben Maimon interpretatur D'nj' iddim, vestes quibus mulier se abstergit post congressum cum marito suo. Alii pannus menstruatus. Alii panni mulieris parientis. —?llnb toe ben mabc a0 unclcnc alle toe: anb ajS tl)C tlotl) of tlje tooman rootcn blobc flotoing, all iut rigttoi.S'nc^^CS^. — Old JIS. Bible. If preachers knew properly the meaning of this word, would they make such a Hberal use of it in their public ministry 1 And why should any use a word, the meaning of which he does not understand ] How many in the congregation blush for the incautious man and lus " filthy rags!"

Verse 7. There is none] Twelve MSS. have "S ein, without the conjunction 1 vau prefixed; and so read the Chaldee and Vulgate.

And hast consumed us because of our iniquities — " And hast delivered us up into the hands of our iniquities."] For UJIT^ni rattemugenu, " hast dissolved us," the Septuagint, Syriac, and Chaldee had in their copies UJJOn temaggenenu, " hast delivered us up." Houbigant. Seeker.

Verse 8. But, now, O Lord, thou art our Father — "But thou, O Jehovah, thou art our Father"] For nnj'l veattah, and now, five MSS., one of them ancient, and the two oldest editions, 1486 and 1488, have nnXl veattah, and thou; and so the Chaldee seems to have read. The repetition has great force. The other word may be well spared. " But now, O Lord, thou art our Father." How very affectionate is the complaint in this and the following verses! But how does the distress increase, when they recollect the desolations of the temple, and ruin of public worship, ver. 11:" Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burnt up with fire," &c.

We all are the work of thy hand] Three MSS. (two of them ancient) and the Septuagint read n!y>'rD miiaseh, the work, without the conjunction 1 van prefixed. And for IT yadecha, thy hand, the Bodleian, and two other MSS., the Septuagint, Syriac, anil Vulgate read fT yadeycha, thy hands, in the phural number. — L.

laad thcor, one of my MSS. has =]Spn nyS load likisoph, "be not angry" as in the preceding clause. This has been partially obliterated, and 13in tizcor,

•nTitten in the margin by a later hand: but this MS. abounds with words of this kind, all altered by later hands.

We have here a vindication of God's dealings with the Jews, 1,2. To this end the prophet points out their great hypocrisy, and gives a particular enumeration of their dreadful abominations, many of ivhich were committed under the specious guise of sanctity, 3-5. For their horrid impieties, {recorded in writing before Jehovah,) the wrath of God shall certainly come upon them to the uttermost; a prediction ivhich was exactly fulfilled in the first and second centuries in the reigns of the Roman emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian, when the whole Jewish polity was dissolved, and the people dispersed all over the icnrld, 6, 7. Though God had rejected the Jews, and called the Gentiles, who sought him not, (Rom. ix. 24-26,) yet a remnant from among the former shall be preserved, to whom he will in due time make good all his promises, 8-10. Denunciation of Divine vengeance against those idolaters who set in order a table for Gad, and fill out a libation to Meni, ancient idolatries, which, from the context, and from the chronological order of the events predicted, have a plain reference to the idolatries practised by Antichrist under the guise of Christianity, 11, 12. Dreadful fate which awaits these gross idolaters beautifully contrasted ivith the great blessedness reserved for the righteous, 13-16. Future restoration of the posterity of Jacob, and the happy state of the world in general from that most glorious epoch, represented by the strong figure of the creation of new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and into u-hich no distress shall he permitted to enter, 17-19. In this new state of things the term of human life shall be greatly protracted, and shall possess none of that uncertainty which attaches to it in " the heavens and the earth ivhich are now." This is elegantly illustrated by the longevity of a tree; manifestly alluding to the oak or cedar of Lebanon, some individuals of which are known to have lived from seven to ten centuries, 20—23. Beautiful figures shadowing forth the profound peace and harmony of the Church of Jesus Christ, which shall immediately follow the total ovcrthroiv of Antichrist; ivith a most gracious promise that the g-eat chain of Omnipotence shall be put upon every adversary, so that none will be ahle any longer to hurt md destroy in all God's holy mountain, 24, 25.

T " AM sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said. Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that ^ was not called by my

This chapter contains a defence of God's proceedings in regard to the Jews, with reference to their complaint in the chapter preceding. God is introduced declaring that he had called the Gentiles, though they had not sought him; and had rejected liis own people for their refusal to attend to his repeated call; for their obstinate disobedience, their idolatrous practices, and detestable hypocrisy. That nevertheless he would not destroy them aU; but would preserve a remnant, to whom he would make good his ancient promises. Severe punishments are tlireatened to the apostates; and great rewards are promised to the obedient in a future flourishing state of the Church. — L.

Verse 1. I am sought of them that ashed not for me—" I am made known to those that asked not for

me"] 'D\ayM nidrashti, Sfi,(pa.vnS Sysvt,(Ar)v, the Septuagint, Alexandrian, and St. Paul, Rom. x. 20; who has however inverted the order of the phrases, ULiriavTjj sysvii\i.f[V, " I was made manifest," and Eupsiniv, " I was found," from that which they have in the Septua-

2 '^ I have spread out my hands ^^ ^^ ""■ l'^^- all the day unto a rebellious peo- Oiymp. xvii. i. pie, which walketh in a way that NumsePompilii, ivas not good, after their own R- Roman., 4. thoughts;

gijit. "nsynj nidrashti means, " I am sought so as to be found." Vitringa. If this be the true meaning of the word, then iSk'i? shaalu, " that asked," which follows, should seem defective, the verb wanting its ob ject: but two MSS., one of them ancient, have 'JlSuiJ/ shealuni, " asked me;" and another MS. 'V iSifa' shealu li, " asked for me;" one or other of which seems to be right. But Cocceius in Lex., and Vitringa in his translation, render 'ntyilJ nidrashti, by " I have answered;" and so the verb is rendered by aU the ancient Versions in Ezek. xx. 3, 31. If this be right, the translation wUl be, " I have answered those that asked not." I leave this to the reader's judgment; but have followed in my translation the Septuagint and St. Paul, and the MSS. above mentioned. 'WT>'2 bikeshuni is written regularly and fuUy in above a hundred MSS. and in the oldest edition, ''J1!2'p3 bihe.'shuni. — L.

Verse 3. That sacrificeth in gardens, and humelh incerise upon altars of brick — " Sacrificing in the gar-

dens, and bm'ning incense on the tiles"] These are instances of heathenish superstition, and idolatrous practices, to which the Jews were immoderately addicted

continually to my face; " that sacrificcth in gardens, and burnetii incense ^ upon altars of brick; 4 s Which remain among the

oefore the Babylonish captivity. The heathen worshipped their idols in groves; whereas God, in opposition to tliis species of idolatry, commanded his people, when they should come into the promised land, to destroy all the places wherein the Canaanites had served their gods, and in particular to burn their groves with fire, Deut. xii. 2, 3. These apostate Jews sacrificed upon altars built of bricks; in opposition to the command of God in regard to his altar, which was to be of unhewn stone, Exod. xx. 25. Et pro uno altari, ijuod impolitis lapidibus Dei erat lege constructum, coctos lateres et agrorum cespites hostiarum sanguine cru-

entabant. " And instead of one altar which, according to the law of God, was to be constructed of unhewn stones, they stained the bricks and turfs of the fields with the blood of their victims." Hieron. in loc. Or

it means, perhaps, that they sacrificed upon the roofs of their houses, which were always flat, and paved with brick, or tile, or plaster of terrace. An instance of this idolatrous practice we find in 2 Kings x.xiii. 12, where it is said that Josiah " beat down the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Aliaz, which the kings of Judah had made." See also Zeph. i. 5. Sir John Chardiii's MS. note on this place of Isaiah is as follows: " Ainsi font tons les Gentiles, sur les lieux eleves, et sur les terrasses, appellez lateres, parcequc sont fails de briq." " Who dwell in the sepidchres, and lodge in the caverns," for the purposes of necromancy and divination; to obtain dreams and revelations. Another instance of heathenish superstition: so A'^irgil: —

Hue dona sacerdos Cum tulit, et ca;sarum ovium sub nocte silenti Pellibus incubuit stratis, soranosque petivit: Multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris, Et varias audit voces, fruiturque deorum CoUoquio, atque imis Acheronta affatur Avernis. Mn. vii. 86. — L " Hero in distress the Italian nations come, Anxiou.s, to clear their doubts, and learn their doom. First, on the fleeces of the.slaughtered sheep. By night the sacred priest dissolves in sleep: When in a train, before liis slumbering eye, Thin airy forms and wondrous visions fly. He calls the powers who guard the infernal floods. And taU<s inspired, familiar with the gods." Pitt.

There was a practice exactly like this which preailed among the Highlanders of Scotland; an authen- 'c account of this is given by Sir Walter Scott, in a ■lOte on his poem called The Lady nf the Lahe. It is as follows: —

" The Highlanders, like all rude people, had various superstitions modes of inquiring into futurity. One of the most noted was the Tnghairm, mentioned in the text. A person was wrapped up in the skin of a new- ly-slain bullock, and deposited beside a waterfall, or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild, and unusual situation, where the scenery around him suggested nothing but objects of horror. In this situation he revolved in his mind the question proposed; and whatever was impressed upon him by his exalted imagination passed for the inspiration of the disembodied spirits who haunt these desolate recesses. In some of the Hebrides, they attributed the same oracular power to a large black stone by the sea-shore, which they approached with certain solemnities; and considered the first fancy wliich came into their own minds after they did so, to be the undoubted dictate of the tutelar deity of the stone; and as such to be, if possible, piuictuaUy complied with. Martin has recorded the following curious modes of Highland augury, in which the Taghairm, and its efiects upon the person who was subjected to it, may serve to illusirate the text.

" It was an ordinary thing among the over-curious to consult an invisible oracle concerning the fate of families and battles, &c. This was performed three diiTerent ways; the first was by a company of men, one of whom, being detached by lot, was afterwards carried to a river, which was the boundary between two villages. Four of the company laid hold on him; and, having shut his eyes, they took him by the legs and arms, and then, tossing him to and again, struck his hips with force against the bank. One of them cried out, ^^^lat is it you have got here? Another answers, A log of birch-wood. The other cries again. Let his invisible friends appear from all quarters, and let them relieve him by giving an answer to our present demands; and in a few minutes after, a number of little creatures came from the sea, who answered the question, and disappeared suddenly. The man w-as then set at liberty; and they all returned home, to take their measures according to the prediction of their false prophets; but the poor deluded fools were abusf^d; for the answer was still ambiguous. This was always practised in the night, and may literally be called tlic works of darkness.

" I had an account from the most intelligent nnd judicious men in the Isle of Skie, that, about sixty-two years ago, the oracle was thus consulted only once, and that was in the parish of Kilmartin, on the east side, by a wicked and mischievous race of people, who are now extinguished, both root and branch.

" The second way of consulting the oracle was by a party of men, who first retired to solitary places, remote from any house; and vliere they singled out one of their number, and WTapt him in a big cow's liide, which they folded about him. His whole body was covered with it, except his head, and so left in this posture aU night, until his invisible friends relieved him, by giving a proper answer to the question in hand;

6 Behold, " it is written before me: " I will not keep silence, " but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom,

7 Your iniquities, and p the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the Lord, iwhicli

which he received, as he fancied, from several persons that he found about him all that time. His consorts returned to him at the break of day, and then he communicated his news to them; which often proved fatal to those concerned in such unwarrantable inquiries.

" There was a third wa)' of consulting, which was a confirmation of tlie second above mentioned. The same company who put the man into the hide took a live cat, and put him on a spit. One of the number was employed to tui-n the spit; and one of his consorts inquired of him, What are you doing 1 He answered, I roast this cat until his friends answer the question; which must be the same that was proposed by the man.shut up in the hide. And afterwards, a very big cat (in allusion to the story of ' the King of the Cats,' in Lord Lyttleton's Letters, and well known in the Highlands as a nursery tale) comes, attended by a number of lesser cats, desiring to relieve the eat turned upon the spit, and then answers the question. If this answer proved the same that was given to the man in 'he hide, then it was taken as a confirmation of the other, which, in this case, was believed infallible.

" Mr. Alexander Cooper, present minister of North- Vist, told me that one.John Erach. in the Isle of Lewis, assured him it was his fate to have been led by his curiosity with some who consulted this oracle, and that he was a night whhin the hide, as above-mentioned; during which time he felt and heard such terrible things, that he could not express them. The impression it made on him was such as could never go off; and he said for a thousand worlds he would never again be concerned in the like performance, for this had disordered him to a high degree. He confessed it ingenuously, and with an aur of great remorse; and seemed to be very penitent under a just sense of so great a crime. He declared this about five years since, and is still living in the Lewis for any thing 1 know." — Description of the Western Isles, p. 110. See also Penn.int's Scottish Tour, vol. ii. p. 361.

Verse 4. Which remain among the graves'] " For the purpose of evoking the dead. They lodged in desert places that demons might appear to them; for demons do appear in such places, to those who do believe in them."' — Kimchi.

mountains, ^ and blasphemed oiymp. xvii. i. me upon the hills: therefore Numa; Pomplui, will I measure their former work R- Roman., 4 into their bosom.

8 Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith. Destroy it not; for ' a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all.

tuagint had it so in their copy. They render it by £v Toig- tffijXaioif, " in the caves."

Which eat swine^s flesh] This was expressly forbidden by the law, Lev. xi. 7, but among the heathen was in principal request in their sacrifices and feasts. Antiochus Epiphanes compelled the Jews to eat swine's flesh, as a full proof of their renouncing their religion, 2 Mac. vi. 18 and vii. 1. "And the broth of abominable meats," for lustrations, magical arts, and other superstitious and abominable practices.

In their vessels] For DItSd kehyhem, a MS. had at first Dri'hija hichleyhcm. So the Vulgate and Chaldee, (and the preposition seems necessary to the sense,) " in their vessels."

Verse 5. For I am holier than thou^ So the Chaldee renders it. ynanp kedashticha is the same with TD3 'riiyip kadashti mimmecha. In the san»e manner 'jnptn chazaktani, Jer. xx. 7, is used for "jorD nptn chazacta mimmenni, " thou art stronger than I.'" — L.

Verse 6. Behold, it is written before me] Their sin is registered in heaven, calling aloud for the punislmient due to it.

/ u-ill — recompense into their bosom] The bosom is the place where the Asiatics have their pockets, and not in their skirts like the inhabitants of the west. Their loose flowing garments have scarcely any thing analogous to skirts.

Into their bosom] For Si' al, ten MSS. and five editions have Sn el. So again at the end of this verse, seventeen MSS. and /our editions have Sn al. — L.

Verse 7. Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers — " Their iniquities, and the iniquities of their fathers "] For the pronoun afiixed of the second person on chem, your, twice, read cn hem, their, in the third person; with the Septuagint and Houbigant. — L.

Verse 8. A blessing is in it] The Hebrews call all things which serve for food nD~3 berachah, " a blessing." On this verse Kimthi remarks: "As the cluster of grapes contains, besides the juice, the bark, and the kernels, so the Israelites have, besides the just, sinners among them. Now as the cluster must not be destroyed because there is a blessing, a nutritive part in it; so Israel shall not be destroyed, because there are righteous persons in it. But as the bark and kernels are thrown away, when the wine is pressed out, so shall the sinners be purged away from among the just, and on their return from exile, shall not be perniitted to enter into the land of Israel;" Ezek. xx. 38.

1 1 But ye that forget ^

9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine ' elect shall inherit it, ants shall dwell there. Sliaron shall be a fold of flocks, alley of Achor a place for the down in, for my people that have

a?T they that forsake the Lord, ' my holy mountain, that prepare

For my servants' saies — " For the sake of my servant"] It is to be observed that one of the Koningsburg MSS. colhited by Lilienthal points the word ^12]? abdi, singular; that is, " my servant," meaning the Messiah; and so read the Sepltiagint, which gives a very good sense. In two of my old MSS. it is pointed "? abadai, and "i^y abdi, " my servant," this confirms the above reading.

A'erse 9. An inheritor of my mountains — " An inheritor of my mountain"] 'in hari, in the singular number; so the Septiiagint and Syriac; that is, of Momit Sion. See ver. 1 1 and chap. Ivi. 7, to which Sion, the pronoun feminine singular, added to the verb in the next line, refers; T\WV yereshuah, " shall inherit her." — L.

Verse 10. Sharon — and the valley of Achor] Two of the most fertile parts of Judea; famous for their rich pastures; the former to the west, not far from Joppa; the latter north of Jericho, near Gilgal.

A'crse 1 1. That prepare a table for that troop —

" AVho set in order a table for Gad"] The disquisitions and conjectures of the learned concerning Gad and Meni are infinite and uncertain: perhaps the most probable may be, that Gad means good fortune, and Meni the moon. "But why should we be solicitous about it V says Schmidius. " It appears sufficiently, from the circumstances, that they were false gods; either stars, or some natural objects; or a mere fiction. The Holy Scriptures did not deign to explain more clearly whaV these objects of idolatrous worship were; but chose rather, that the memory of the knowledge of them should be utterly abolished. And God be praised, that they are so totally abolished, that we are now quite at a loss to know what and what sort of things they were." Schmidius on the place, and on Jud. ii. 13, Bibl. Hallensia.

Jerome, on the place, gives an account of this idolatrous practice of the apostate Jews, of making a feast, or a lectisterniiun, as the Romans called it, for these pretended deities. Est in cunctia urbibus, et maxirne in ^Egy pto, et in Alexandria, idololatria» vetus consuetude, ut ultimo die anni, et mensis ejus qui extremus est, ponant mensam refertam varii generis epulis, et poculum mulso mixtura; vel praeteriti anni vel futuri fer tilitatem auspicantes. Hoc autem faciebant ct Israelitee, omnium simulachrorum portcnta vcncrantes; et nequaquam altari victimas, sed hujusmodi mensee liba funde-

12 Therefore will I number ^ ^""'""- •*■ you to the sword, and yc shall all bow down to the slaughter: * because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not lieai'; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose tJiat wherein I delighted not.

13 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Be hold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be

bant. " In all cities, and especially in Egj'pt and Alexandria, it was an ancient idolatrous custom on the last day of the year, to spread a table covered with variou? kinds of viands, and a goblet mixed with new wine, re ferring to the fertility either of the past or coming year. The Israelites did the same, w-orshipping all kinds of images, and pouring out libations on such tables," &c. See also Le Clerc on the place; and on Ixvi. 17, and Dav. Millii Dissert, v.

The allusion to Meni, which signifies number, is obvious. If there had been the like allusion to Gad, which might have been expected, it might perhaps have helped to let us into the meaning of that word. It appears from Jerome's version of this place, that the words tw Sai'MViu, to a demon, (or 6ai/j.ovi, as some copies have it.) and rp ru^^ri, to fortune, stood in his time in the Greek version in an inverted order from that which thej' have in the present copies; the latter then answering to IJ gad, the former to 'ja meni: by which some difficulty would be avoided; for it is commonly supposed that TJ gad signifies tv)(^/i, fortune. See Gen. xxx. 11, apud Sept. This matter is so far well cleared up by MSS. Pachom. and i. D. u., which agree in placing these two words in that order, which Jerome's version supposes.— L.

My Old MS. Bible translates: (CEIiat puttcn tl)e bathe of fortune; anti ofTceben licoin:^ upon it; and so the Vulgate.

Verse 12. Therefore loill I number you] Referring to Meni, which signifies number. " Rabbi Eliezar said to his disciples. Turn to God one day before you die. His disciples said. How can a man know the day of his death! He answered. Therefore it is necessary that you should tiu-n to God to-day, for possibly ye may die to-morrow."

14 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for son-ow of heart, and '' shall howl for "^ vexation of spirit.

15 And ye shall leave your name ^ for a ciu-se unto ' my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and ' call his servants by another name:

16 sThat he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and ^ he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are liid from mine eyes.

17 For, behold, I create ' new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be re-

wary who were among them adorned themselves; and, standing at the gate of the king's house, said, Is there any thing lacking in the king's house? i. e.. Is there any work to be done in it! But the foolish which were among them went, and mocking said. When shall the least be, in which there is no labour % Suddenly, the king sought out his servants: they who were adorned entered in, and they who were still polluted entered in also. The king was glad when he met the prudent.; but he was angry when he met the foolish. Therefore he said, Let those sit down, and let them eat; but let these stand and look on.

This parable is very like that of the wise and foolish virgins, Matt, xxv., and that of the marriage of the king's son, Matt. xxii.

Verse 15. Shall slay thee — " Shall slay you"] For "in'Oni vehemithecha, shall slay thee, the Sepluagint and Chaldee read LD^ri'IDni vehemilhechem, shall slay yoii, plural.

Verse 17. / create new heavens and a new earth] This has been variously understood. Some Jews and some Christians understand it literally. God shall change the state of the atmosphere, and render the earth more fruitful. Some refer it to what they call the Mdleunium; others, to a glorious state of religion; others, to the re-creation of the earth after it shall have neen destroyed by fire. I think it refers to the full conversion of the Jews ultimately; and primarily to the deliverance from the Babylonish captivity.

Verse 18. Rejoice for ever in that lohich I create — " Exult in the age to come which 1 create"] So in chap. ix. 5, nj' "3X aii ad, tarr)^ tov ixsWovTog aiuvoj, " the father of the age to come," Sept. See Bishop Chandler, Defence of Christianity, p. 136.

Verse 19. The voice of weeping, &c.] "Because of untimely deaths, shall no more be heard in thee; for

18 But be ye glad and rejoice Numa; PomJJ^iii, for ever in that which I create: R- Roman., 4. for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

19 And ^I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the " voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die a hundred years old; " but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed.

2 1 And ° they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vinej'ards, and eat the fruit of them.

22 They shall not build, and another in-

natural death shall not happen till men be full of days; as it is written, ver. 20: There shall be no more thence an infant of days, i. e., the people shall live to three or five hundred years of age, as in the days of the patriarchs; and if one die at one hundred years, it is because of his sin; and even at that age he shall be reputed an infant; and they shall say of him. An infant is dead. These things shall happen to Israel in the days of the Messiah. " — Kimch i.

Verse 22. They shall not build, and another inhabit] The reverse of the curse denounced on the disobedient, Deut. xxviii. 30: " Thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof."

For as the days of a tree] It is commonly sup

posed that the oak, one of the most long-lived of the trees, lasts about a thousand years; being five hundred years growing to full perfection, and as many decaying: which seems to be a moderate and probable computation. See Evelyn, Sylva, B. iii. chap. iii. The present emperor of China, in his very ingenious and sensible poem entitled Eloge de Moukden, a translation of which in French was published at Paris, 1770, speaks of a tree in his country which lives more than a h'lndred ages; and another, which after fourscore ages is only in its prime, pp. 37, 38. But his imperial majesty's commentators, in their note on the place, carry the matter much farther; and quote authority, which affirms, that the tree last mentioned by the emperor, the immortal tree, after having lived ten thousand years, is still only in its prime. I suspect that the Chinese enlarge somewhat in their national chronology, as well as in that of their trees. See Chou King, Preface, by Mons. de

Num.-E Pompilii, a tree are the days ot my people, ^ "°°"^' ^- and 1 mine elect ' shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

23 They shall not labour in vain, ' nor bring forth for trouble; for ' they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.

25 The •'wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: '" and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy momitain, saith the Lord.

^Heb. shall make them con-

Guignes. The propliet's idea seems to be, that they shall live to the age of the antediluvians; which seems to be very justly expressed by the days of a tree, according to our notions. The rabbins have said that this refers to the tree of life, which endures five hundred years. — L.

chosen shall not labour in vain"] I remove "'TTID bechirai, my elect, from the end of the twenty-second to the beginning of the twenty-third verse, on the authority of the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, and a MS.; contrary to the division ih the Ma.soretic text. —

L. The Septuagint is beautiful: My chosen shall not labour in vain, neither shall they beget children for the curse; for the seed is blessed of the Lord, and their posterity with them."

Nor bring forth for trouble — " Neither shall they generate a short-lived race"] nSna^ labbehalah, in feslinationem, " what shall soon hasten away." Eij xarapav, for a curse, Sept. They seem to have read nSs'? lealah. — Grotius. But Psa. Ixxviii. 33 both justifies and explains the word here: — habbehalah ushenotham " And he consumed their days in vamty, And their years in haste."

(ASTa (frouijijff, say the Septuagint. Jerome on this place of Isaiah explains it to the same purpose: " £ij avu'Ti'ap?!- av, hoc est, ut esse desistant."

Verse 24. Before they call I will answer] I will give them aU they crave for, and more than they can desire.

Verse 25. The umlf and the lamb, cjc] The glorious salvation which Jesus Christ procures is for men, and for men only: fallen spirits must still abide under the curse: " He took not on him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham."

Shall feed together] For inXD keechad, as one, an ancient MS. has lin^ yachdao, together; the usual word, to the same sense, but very different in the letters. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate seem to agree with the MSS. — L.

This chapter treats of the same subject with the foregoing. God, by his prophet, tells the Jews, who valuea themselves much on their temple and pompous worship, that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and that no outward rites of worship, while the worshippers are idolatrous and impure, can please him who looketh at the heart, 1-3. This leads to a threatening of vengeance for their guilt, alluding to their making void the law of God by their abominable traditions, their rejection of Christ, persecution of his followers, and consequent destruction by the Romans. But as the Jewish ritual and people.shadow forth the system of Christianity and it.s professors; so, in the prophetical writings, the idolatries of the Jews are frequently put for the idolatries afterwards practised by those bearing the Christian name. Consequently, if ice would have the plenitude of meaning in this section of prophecy, which the very context requires, we must look through the type into the antitype, viz., the very gross idolatries practised by the members of Antichrist, the pompous heap of human inrentions and traditions with iMch they have encumbered the Christian system, their most dreadful prrsrculion of Christ's spiritual and true worshippers, and the awfid judgments which shall overtake them in the great and terrible day of the Lord, 4-6. The mighty and sudden increase of the Church of Jesus Christ at^the period of Antichrist's fall represented by Ihe^very strmig figure of Swn being delivered of a man-child before the lime of her travail, the meaning of which symbol the prophet immediately subjoins in a series of inlcrrogations for the sake of greater force and emphasis, 7-9. Wonderful pro.sperity and unspeakable blessedness of the world when the posterity of Jacob, with the fulness of the Gentiles, shall he a.ssembled to Messiah's.standard, 10-14. All the ivicked of the earth shall be gathered together to the battle of that great day of God Almighty, and the slain of Jehovah shall be many, 15-18. Manner of the future restoration of the Israelites from their.several dispersions throughout the habitable globe, 19-21. Perpetmty of this new economy of grace to the hou.se of Israel, 22. Righteou.sness shall be universally diffused in the earth; and the memory of lho.se who have transgressed against the Lord shall be had in continual abhorrence, 23, 24. Thus this great prophet, after tracing the principal events of time, seems at length to have terminated his views in eternity, where all revolutions cease, where the blessedness of the righteous shall be unchangeable as the neiv heavens, and the misery of the wicked as the fire that shall not be quenched.

2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: ''but to this?nan will I look, "even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and •J trembleth at my word.

3 " He that killeth an ox 15 as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a ^ lamb, as if he

This cliapter is a continuation of the subject of the foregoing. The Jews valued themselves much upon their temple, and the pompous system of services performed in it, which they supposed were to be of perpetual duration; and they assumed great confidence and merit to themselves for their strict obsenance of all the externals of their religion. And at the very time when the judgments denounced in verses 6 and 12 of the preceding chapter were hanging over their heads, they were rebudding, by Herod's munificence, the temple in a most magnificent manner. God admonishes them, that " the Most High dweUeth not in temples made with hands;" and that a mere external worship, how diligently soever attended, when accompanied with wicked and idolatrous practices in the worshippers, would never be accepted by him. This their hypocrisy is set forth in strong colours, which brings the prophet again to the subject of the former chapter; and he pursues it in a different manner, with more express declaration of the new economy, and of the flourishing state of the Church under it. The increase of the Church is to be sudden and astonishing. They that escape of the Jews, that is, that become converts to the Christian faith, are to be employed in the Divine mission to the Gentiles, and are to act as priests in presenting the Gentiles as an offering to God; see Rom. XV. 16. And both, now collected into one body, shall be witnesses of the final perdition of the obstinate and irreclaimable.

These two chapters manifestly relate to the calling of the Gentiles, the establishment of the Christian dispensation, and the reprobation of the apostate Jews, and their destruction executed bj' the Romans. — L.

Verse 2. And all those things have been — " And all these things are mine"] A word absolutely necessary to the sense is here lost out of the text: 'b /;', mine. It is preserved by the Septuagint and Syriac.

K cut off a dog's neck; he that ^^ ^- «'.'^- 3292. offercth an oblation, as if he offer- Oiymp. xili. i. ed swine's blood; he that '^ burneth Numa; p'om^iii, incense, as if he blessed an idol. R- Roman., 4. Yea, they have chosen their ov^-n ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.

4 I also will choose their ' delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; ^ because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine ej^es, and chose that in which T delighted not.

same time affected great strictness in the performance of aU the external services of religion. God, by the Prophet Ezekiel, upbraids the Jews with the same practices: " ^Vheu they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it," chap, xxiii. 39. Of the same kind was the h'l'pocrisy of the Pharisees in our Saviour's time: " who devoured widows' houses, and for a pretence made long prayers," Matt, xxiii. 14.

The generality of interpreters, by departing from the literal rendering of the text, have totally lost the true sense of it, and have substituted in its place what makes no good sense at all; for it is not easy to show how, in any circumstances, sacrifice and murder, the presenting of legal offerings and idolatrous worship, can possibly be of the same accoimt in the sight of God.

He that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine^s blood — " That maketh an oblation offereth swine's blood"] A word here likewise, necessary to complete the sense, is perhaps iiTecoverably lost out of the text. The Vulgate and Chaldee add the word offereth, to make out the sense; not, as I imagine, from any different reading, (for the word wanted seems to have been lost before the time of the oldest of them, as the Septuagint had it not in their copy,) but from mere necessity.

Le Clerc thinks that nSi'C maaleh is to be repeated from the beginning of this member; but that is not the case in the parallel members, which have another and a different verb in the second place. "!Z3T dam, sic Versiones; putarem tamen legendum participium aliquod, et quidem nJ" -abach, cum sequatur n cheth, nisi jam prascesserat." — Secker. Hovbigant supplies Sdx achal, eatelh. Afler all, I think the most probable word is that which the Chaldee and Vtilgate seem to have designed to represent; that is, T^no makrib, offereth.

In their abominations.'] C3'r\"!S^pV>^'f ubeshiJdutset/- hem, " and in their abominations;" tivo copies of the Machazor, and one of KennicotCs MSS. have arrVlSjDl uhcgillulcyhem, " and in their idols." So the Vulgate and Syriac.

sake, said, °' Let the Lord be glorified: but "• he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.

6 A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies.

7 Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.

8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day: or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.

9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not ° cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.

Verse 5. Your hrelhren that hated you — said — " Say ye to your brethren that hate you"] The Syriac reads CJ^TIN'^ linx imru laachcychem; and so the Septuagint, Edit. Comp. Siirars aSek(p(iis Ujjiuv and MS. Marchal. has aSsXifoiS' and so Cyril and Procopius read and explain it. It is not easy to make sense of the reading of the Septuagint in the other editions; £i*aT£ aJaX^oi -/](j,wv TOij (XKroutfiv Lfitts" but for JifAuv, our, MS. I. D. II. also has up,uv, your.

Verse 6..4 voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord] It is very remarkable that similar words were spoken by Jesus, son of Ananias, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem. See his very affecting history related by Josephus, War, B. vi., chap. v.

Verse 8. Who hath seen — " And who hath seen"] Twenty M.SS., (four ancient,) of Kennicott's, and twenty-nine of De Rossi^s, and two ancient of my own, and the two oldest editions, with two others, have "01 umi, adding the conjunction 1 vau; and so read all the ancient versions. And who hath seen?

Verse 9. Shall I bring to the birth] "\'T<!!ii '3Nn haani ashbir, num ego matricem frangam; Montanus. The word means that which immediately precedes the appearance of the fetus — the breaking forth of the liquor amnii. This also is an expression that should be studiously avoided in prayers and sermons.

her abundant stores."] For V'n mizziz, from the splendour, two MSS. and the old edition of 1488, have VID mizziv; and the latter i zain is upon a rasure in three other MSS. It is remarkable that Kimchi and Sal. ben Melee, not being able to make any thing of the word as it stands in the text, say it means the

and be glad with her, all ye that Oiymp. xvii. i

love her: rejoice lor joy with her, Numie PompiUi, all ye that mourn for her: ^- '^°'"''"' *■

1 1 That ye may suck, and be satisfied w!lL the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the p abundance of her glory.

12 For thus saith the Lord, Behold, il will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream; then shall ye ■■ suck, 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.

14 And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and ' your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies.

same with Via mizziv; that is, in effect, they admit of a various reading, or an error in the text. But as Vitringa observes, what sense is there in sucking nourishment from the splendour of her glory? He therefore endeavours to deduce another sense of the word rt ziz; but, as far as it appears to me, without any authority. I am more inclined to accede to the opinion of those learned rabbins, and to think that there is some mistake in the word; for that in truth is their opinion, though they disguise it by saying that the corrupted word means the very same with that which they beheve to be genuine. So in chap. xli. 24 they say that J'iJN apha, a viper, means the same with D3X ephes, nothing; instead of acknowledging that one is wTitten by mistake instead of the other. I would propose to read in this place "ID mizzin or jiD mizzen, which is the reading of one of De Ros.srs MS., (instead of i'tO meziz,) from the stores, from pi zun, to nourish, to feed; see Gen. xlv. 23; 2 Chron. xi. 23; Psa. cxliv. 13. And tliis perhaps may be meant by Aquila, who renders the word by airo irav-To5a*iag- with which that of the Vulgate, ab omnimoda gloria, and of Symm-ichus and Theodotion, nearly agree. The Chaldee follows a different reading, without improving the sense; r":3 meyin, from the wine. — L.

Verse 12. Like a river, and — like a forcing stream — " Like the great river, and like the overflowing stream"] That is, the Euphrates, (it ought to have been pointed "inJ3 cannahar, ut fluvius ille, as the river,) and the Nile.

Then shall ye suck — " And ye shall suck at the breast"] These two words nK' hy al.ihad, at the breast, seem to have been omitted in the present text, from I iheir likeness to the two vifords following; ns 7i' al

1 6 For by fire and by " his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many.

17 "'They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens ' behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the

18 For I A:now their works and ^ """"'"- ^- their thoughts; it shall come that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

19 ^ And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar

tsad, at the side. A very probable conjecture of Houbiganl. The Chaldee and Vulgate have omitted the two latter words instead of the two former. See note on chap. Ix. 4.

Ver.se 15. The Lord will come with fire — " Jehovah shall come as a fire"] For tyN3 baesh, in fire, the Septuagint had in their copy l^Np kaesh, as a fire;

To render his anger with furi/ — " To breathe forth his anger in a burning heat"] Instead of 2^'rth Ichashib, as pointed by the Masoretes, to render, I understand it as 3iynS lehashshib, to breathe, from 2'ainashab. Verse 17. Behind one tree — "After the rites of

Achad"] The Syrians worshipped a god called Adad. Plm. Nat. Hist, x.xxvii. 11; Macrob. Sat. i. 23. They held him to be the highest and greatest of the gods, and to be the same with.Tupiter and the sun; and the name Adad, says Macrobius, signifies one; as likewise does the word Achad in Isaiah. Many learned men therefore have supposed, and with some probability, that the prophet means the same pretended deity, "inx achad, in the Syrian and Chaldean dialects, is nn chad; and perhaps by reduplication of the last letter to express perfect unity, it may have become nin chadad, not improperly expressed by Macrobius Adad, without the aspirate. It was also pronounced by the Syrians themselves, with a weaker aspirate, nn hadad; as in Benhadad, Hadadezer, names of their kings, which were certainly taken from their chief object of worship. This seems to me to be a probable account of this name.

But the Masoretes correct the text in this place. Their marginal reading is HHN achath, which is the same w^ord, only in the feminine form; and so read thirty MSS. (six ancient) and the two oldest editions. This Le Clerc approves, and supposes it to mean Hecate, or the moon; and he supports his hypothesis by arguments not at all improbable. See his note on the place.

Whatever the particular mode of idolatry which the prophet refers to might be, the general sense of the place is perfectly clear. But the Chaldee and Syriac, and after them Symmachus and Theodotion, cut off at once all these difficulties, by taking the word nriK achad in its common meaning, not as a proper name; the two latter rendering the sentence thus: Oiriau oXAt/zIwv n> ^eacf) etjdtovruv to Kpeac to xoipttov; *' One after another, in the midst of those that eat swine's

flesh." I suppose they all read in their copies Tnx nriN achad achad, one by one, or perhaps iriN ins nnx achad achar achad, one after another. See a large dissertation on this subject in Davidis Mtllii Dissertationes Selectae, Dissert, vi. — L.

I know not what to make of this place; it is certain that our translation makes no sense, and that of the learned prelate seems to me too refined. Kimchi interprets this of the Turks, who are remarkable for ablutions. " Behmd one in the midst" he understands of a large fish-pond placed in the middle of their gardens. Others make Tnx achad a deity, as above; and a deity of various names it is supposed to be, for it is Achad, and Chad, and Hadad, and Achath, and Hecat, an Assyrian idol. JJcfiiinti tijc ferst tree ot tje Qatt tDftljfnc tovtlj.— Old MS. Bible.

Verse 1 8. For I know their works^ A word is here lost out of the present text, leaving the text quite imperfect. The word is yw yodca, knowing, supplied from the Syriac. The Chaldee had the same word in the copy before him, which he paraphrases by jSj 'Onp kedemi gelon, their deeds are manifest before me; and the Aldine and Complutensian editions of the Septuagint acknowledge the same word sivicTafiai, which is verified by MS. Pachom. and the Arabic version. I think there can be little doubt of its being genuine. The concluding verses of this chapter refer to the complete restoration of the Jews, and to the destruction of all the enemies of the Gospel of Christ, so that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge and glory of the Lord. Talia sa;cla currite! Lord, hasten the time!

It shall come — " And I come"] For nS3 baah, which will not accord with any thing in the sentence, I read X3 ba, with a MS.; the participle answering to jnv yodea, with which agree the SeplnaginI, Syriac. and Vulgate. Perhaps it ought to be NDl veba, when I shall come, Syr.; and so the Septuagint, according to Edit. Aid. and Complut., and Cod. Marchal.

Verse 19. That draw the bow] I much suspec-t that the words niyp 'JW^ moshechey kesheth, who draw the boil', are a corruption of the word ICfO meshck, Moschi, the name of a nation situated between the Euxine and Caspian seas; and properly joined with S^n tubal, the Tibareni. See Bocharl, Phaleg. iii. 12. The Septuagint have pomx, without any thing of the drawers of the how: the word being once taken for a participle, the bow was added to make sense of it

20 And they shall bring all your brethren '^for an offering imto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in '' litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, sailh the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of

21 And I will also take of them for "priests and for Levites, sailh the Lord.

That have not heard my fame — " Who never heard my name"] For 'pSK' shimi, my fame, I read, with the Septuagint and Syriac, 'Diy shemi, my name.

Verse 20. And in chariots — "And in counes "] There is a sort of vehicle much osed in the east, consisting of a pair of hampers or cradles, tlirown across a camel's back, one on each side; in each of which a person is carried. They have a covering to defend them from the rain and the sun. Thevenot calls them counes, i. p. 356. Muillet describes them as covered cages hanging on both sides of a camel. " At Aleppo," says Dr. Russell, " women of inferior condition in longer journeys are conmionly stowed, one on each side of a mule, in a sort of covered cradles." Nat. Hist, of Aleppo, p. 89. These seem to be what the prophet means by the word OOi' tsabbim. Harmer''s Observations, i. p. 445.

Verse 2 1. And for Levites] For Q'lSS laleviyim, fifty-nine MSS., (eight ancient,) have Q'l'?'?! velaleviyim, adding the conjunction 1 vau, which the sense seems necessarily to require: and so read all the ancient versions. See Josh. iii. 3, and the various readings on that place in KcnnicotCs Bible.

words of the prophet are apphed by our blessed Saviour, Mark ix. 44, to express the everlasting punishment of the wicked in Gehenna, or in hell. Gehenna, or the valley of Hinnom, was very near to Jerusalem to the south-east: it was the place where the idolatrous Jews celebrated that horrible rite of making their children pass through the fire, that is, of burning them in sacrifice to Moloch. To put a stop to this abominable practice, Josiah defiled, or desecrated, the place, by filling it with human bones, 2 Kings xxiii. 10, 14; and probably it was the custom afterwards to throw out the carcasses of animals there, when it also became the common burying place for the poorer people of Jcru- Balem. Our Saviour expressed the state of the blessed by sensible images; such as paradise, Abraham's bosom, or, which is the same thing, a place to recline next to Abraham at table in the kingdom of heaven.

and the new earth, which I will oiymp. xvii. i. make, shall remain before me, Numi PompiUi, saith the Lord, so shall your seed Roman., 4. and your name remain.

23 And ^ it shall come to pass that ^ from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, s shall all flesh come to worsiiij) before me, saith the Lord.

24 And they shall go forth, and look upon ^ the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their ' worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

I'Heb. from new moon to his new moon, and from sahbalh to his sabbath. *Psa. litv. 2; chap. xlix. 26. I'Ver. 16. iMark

See Matt. viii. 11. Ccenabat Nerva cum paucis. Veiento proximus, atque etiam in sinu recumbebat. " The Emperor Nerva supped with few. Veiento was the first in his estimation, and even reclined in his bosom." Plin. Epist. iv. 22. Compare John xiii. 23; for we could not possibly have any conception of it, but by analogy from worldly objects. In like manner he expressed the place of torment under the image of Gehenna; and the punishment of the wicked by the worm which there preyed on the carcasses, and the fire that consumed the wretched victims. Marking however, in the strongest manner, the difTerence between Gehenna and the invisible place of torment; namely, that in the former the suffering is transient; — the worm itself wliich preys upon the body, dies; and the fire which totally consumes it, is soon extinguished: — whereas in the figurative Gehenna the instruments of punishment shall be everlasting, and the sufiering without end; " for there the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

These emblematical images, expressing heaven and hell, were in use among the Jews before our Saviour's time; and in using them he complied with their notions. " Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God," says the Jew to our Saviour, Luke xiv. 15. And in regard to Gehenna, the Chaldce paraphrast, as I observed before on chap. xxx. 33, renders everlasting or continual burnings by "the Gehenna of everlasting fire." And before his time the son of Sirach, chap. vii. 17, had said, "The vengeance of the ungodly is fu-e and worms." So likewise the author of the book of Judith, chap. xvi. 17: " Wo to the nations rising up against my kindred: the Lord Almighty will take vengeance of them in the day of judgment, in putting fire and worms in their flesh;" manifestly referring to the same emblem. — L.

Kimchi''s conclusion of his notes on this book is remarkable:^

He shall show us a token for good; — And the end of his miracles he shall cause to approach us." Several of ihe Versions have a peculiarity in their terminations: — righteous shall say, — It is enough. Chaldee. They shall be an astonishment to all flesh; So that they shall be a spectacle to all beings.

Syriac. The end of the prophecy of Isaiah the prophet. Praise to God who is truly praiseworthy. Arabic.

One of my old Hebrew MSS. after the twenty-first verse repeats the twenty-third: " And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord."

In the course of these notes the reader will have often observed two MSS. of the Septuagint referred to by Bp. Lowth, and marked i. B. ii., i. D. ii. They are both in the British Museum. The former contains the prophets, and was wTitten about the tenth or eleventh century; and because it once belonged to Pachomius, patriarch of Constantinople, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the bishop often quotes it by the title MS. Pachom. The other contains many of the historical books, beginning with Ruth, and ending with Ezra; and has also the Prophet Isaiah. This MS. consists of two parts, — one apparently written in the eleventh or twelfth century: the other, in the beginning of the fourteenth. Dr. Grabe and Dr. Woide, as well as Bp. Lowth, considered these MSS. of great value and authority.

It may be necessary to say something of the Hebrew MSS. which I have also frei^uently quoted. The collations of Kennkolt and De Rossi have been long before the public; and to describe them would be useless. The collections of the latter Bp. Lowth had never seen, else he could have strengthened his authorities: these, for the first time, I have in the preceding notes incorporated with Bishop Lowth's references, and thus added double strength to the learned prelate's authorities. But of my own I should say something, as they form no part of the above collections; and yet are among the oldest MSS. known to exist. Independently of rolls, which contain only the Megillah, Esther, and the Pentateuch, they are ten in number, and formerly belonged to the Rev. Cornelius Schulting, a Protestant minister of Amsterdam. After his death in 1726, they were sold by public auction, and came into the possession of the Rev. John Van der Hagen, a reformed minister of the same place.

In 1733, Jo. Christ. Wolf described these MSS. in the fourth volume of his Bibliotheca Hebreea, p. 79 A few years ago I had the singular good fortune to purchase the whole of these at Utrecht; a collection of MSS., which Dr. Kennicott complains that he could not by any entreaties obtain the privilege of collating. These are his own words, — " Wolfius, (Bib. Heb. iv. 79-83,) memorat codices 10. olirn penes Schultingium; quorum plurimi postea erant penes Rev. Joh. Van der Hagen. Usum Codd. Hagenianorum obtinere nuUa potuit a me precatio." Dissert. Gener. p. 78. sub Cod. 84. Dr. Kennicott supposed that three of those MSS. had been collated for him: but in this I believe he was mistaken; as he was also in supposing that only the greater part of the ten MSS. of Schulting had fallen into the bauds of Mr. Van der Hagen; for the fact is, the whole ten were purchased by Van der Hagen, and the same ten are now in my library, being precisely those described by Wolfius, as above. I have collated the Prophet Isaiah tliroughout, in two of the most ancient of these MSS.; and have added their testimony in many places to the various readings collected by Kennicott and De Rossi. The very bad state of my health, and particularly of my eyes, prevented a more extensive collation of these very ancient and invaluable MSS. Some of the oldest are without any date. They are marked with the ten first letters of the alphabet. Cod. C. was writtea A. D. 1076,— D. in 1286,— G. in 1215,— H. in 1309, — I. in 1136. In most of these there is an ample harvest of important various readings.

Bishop Lowth, in giving an account of his labours on this prophet, takes a general view of the difficulties and helps he met with in his work. This being of considerable importance, I shall lay an abstract of it before the reader, as a proper supplement to the preceding sheets. He observes: —

In conclusion, it may be necessary to give some account of what I have ventured to superadd to the labours of this very learned prelate. After consulting the various commentators, who have spent much time and labour in their endeaTOurs to illustrate this prophet, I found their interpretations of many of the most important prophecies strangely different, and often at variance. Former commentators have taken especial care to bring forth in the most prominent point of view all those passages which have been generally understood to refer to our blessed Lord, and the Christian dispensation. Later critics, especially those on the continent, have adopted the Jewish plan of interpretation, referring the parts belonging to the Messiah in his sufferings, &c., to the prophet himself, or to the children of the captivity in their state of suffering; and those passages which speak of the redemption of the world, and the glorious state of the Christian Church, they apply to the deliverance of the Israelites from the Babylonish captioity. It is really painful to see what labour and learning these critics spend to rob the prophet of his title of evangelical; and to show that even the sacred writers of the New Testament, in their application of select passages to om' Lord, only followed the popular custom of accommodating passages of the Sacred Writings to occurrences and events, to which their leading circumstances bore some kind of resemblance, the application being only intended to convey the idea of similitude, and not of identity.

\Vhile I have cautiously handled those passages, the application of which was dubious, I have taken care to give my opinion with firmness on those which seem to have no other meaning than what they derive from their application to the great work of redemption by Jesus Christ, and the glory that should follow the outpouring of his Spirit. Many readers will no doubt suppose that I should have dwelt more on the spiritual parts of this inimitable book; but to this there would be scarcely any end. 'Who could exhaust the stores of this prophet! and if any thing were left unsaid, some would stdl be unsatisfied, to say nothing of the volume being thereby swollen beyond aU reasonable bounds. I have marked enough for the reader's meditation; and have thro«ii out a sufficient number of hints to be improved by ministers of the word of God. To another class it may appear too critical; but this chiefly applies to the learned bishop, whose plan, as by far the best in my judgment, I have followed; and whose collection of various readings I felt it my duty to complete, a thing that none of his editors have attempted before. I have therefore added the various readings collected by De Rossi to those of Dr. Kennicott, which the bishop had cited as authorities, on which he built his alterations and critical conjectures.

T^HE Prophet Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, was of the sacerdotal race, and a native of Anathoth, a village in the tribe of Benjainin, within a few miles of Jerusalem, which had been appointed for the use of the priests, the descendants of Aaron, Josh. xxi. 18. He was called to the prophetic office when very young; probably when he was fourteen years of age, and in the thirteenth of the reign of Josiah, A. M. 3375, B. C. 629. He continued to prophesy till after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, which took place A. M. 3416; and it is supposed that about two years after he died in Egypt. Thus it appears that he discharged tiie arduous duties of the prophetic office for upwards of forty years.

Being very young when called to the prophetic office, he endeavoured to excuse himself on account of his youth and incapacity for the work; but, being overruled by the Divine authority, he undertook the task, and performed it with matchless zeal and fidelity in the midst of a most crooked and perverse people, by whom' he was continually persecuted, and whom he boldly reproved, often at the hazard of his life.

His attachment to his country was strong and fervent; he foresaw by the light of prophecy the ruin that was coming upon it. He might have made terms with the enemy, and not only saved his life, but have gained ease and plenty; but he chose rather to continue with his people, and take his part in all the disasters that befell them.

After the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar having made Gedaliah governor of Judea, the fractious Jews rose up against him, and put him to death; they then escaped to Talipanhes in Egypt, carrying Jeremiah with tliem; who, continuing to testify against their wickedness and idolatry, at lengtli fell a victim to his faithfulness: they filled up the measure of their iniquity, as tradition reports, by stoning the prophet to death. God marked this murderous outrage by his peculiar displeasure; for in a few years after they were almost all miserably destroyed by the Chaldean armies which had invaded Egj'pt j and even this destruction had been foretold by tiie prophet himself, chap, xliv: " They were consumed by the sword and by the famine until there was an end of them, a small remnant only escaping," ver. 14, 27, 28.

The pitch of desperate wickedness to which the Jews had arrived previously to their captivity was truly astonishing. They had exhausted all the means that infinite mercy, associated with infinite justice, could employ for the salvation of sinners; and they became in consequence desperately wicked; no wonder, therefore, that wrath fell upon them to the uttermost. It seems that their hardness and darkness had proceeded to such lengths that they abandoned themselves to all the abominations of idolatry to avenge themselves on God, because he would not bear with their continual profligacy. Were ever people more highly favoured, more desperately ungrateful, or more signally punished! What a lesson is tlieir history to the nations of the earth, and especially to those who have been favoured with the light of revelation!

I should have entered into a particular discussion relative to the history of those times mentioned by this prophet, had they not passed already in review in the Books of Kings and Chronicles; in which much of the historical parts of this propliet has been anticipated;

and to which, in order to avoid repetition, I must refer my readers. What is farther neces sary to be added will be found in the following notes.

As a writer, the character of Jeremiah has been well drawn by Bishop Loivth. On comparing him with Isaiah, the learned prelate says: " Jeremiah is by no means wanting either in elen-ance or sublimity; although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. St. Jerome has objected to him a certain i~usticity in his diction; of which, I must confess, I do not discover the smallest trace. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is moslly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expressing of which he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations, where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible also in his Prophecies; in the former part of the book more especially, which is principally poetical. The middle parts are for the most part historical; but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical; and contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls very little short of the loftiest style of Isaiah."

It has often been remarked, that although several of the prophecies in this book have their dates distinctly noted, and most of the rest may be ascertained from collateral evidence; yet there is a strange disorder in the arrangement. " There is," says Dr. Blayney, " a preposterous jumbling together of the prophecies of the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah in the seventeen chapters which follow the twentieth, according to the Hebrew copies; so that, without any apparent reason, many of the latter reigns precede those of the foriner; and in the same reign, the last delivered are ^vA first, and ihe. first, last" In order to prevent the confusion arising from this, Dr. Blayney has transposed the chapters where he thought it needful, without altering the numerals as they stand in our common Bibles.

This defect has been noticed, and attempts made to remedy it, by others. Dr. John George Dahler, Professor of Theology in the Protestant seminary of Strasburg, has just now published the first volume of a work, entitled, Jeremie, traduit sur le Teccte original, accompagni de Notes Explicatives, Historiques, et Critiques, 8vo., (antedated) Strasbourg, 1824. After a preface, and very judicious historical introduction, consisting, the first of twenty-two, the second of thirty -six pages, the text and notes follow. The poetical parts of the text are translated in the hemistich manner, as the original appears in the best copies; and the whole is divided into sections; each of which is introduced with judicious observations relative to time, place, circumstances, and the matter contained in that section. The discourses or prophecies delivered under a particular reign, are all produced under that reign in their chronological order. A table of this arrangement I shall here introduce, and refer to the use of it afterwards: —

After the destruction of Jerusalem.

Prophecies delivered in Egypt.

Prophecies relative to strange nations. xlvi. 1, and xlix. 1-6.

The kings under whom Jeremiah prophesied succeeded each other in the following order. 1. Josiah; 2. Jehoahaz; 3. Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah; 4. Jehoiakim; 5. Zedckiah. To render the transpositions evident which have taken place in these prophetical discourses we have only to look at those which bear the date of their delivery.

Delivered the thirteenth year of Josiah.

After the carrying away of Jeconiah,