temple, or to the top of the rock where the goat was lost; and they concluded that if it turned white, as they say it usually did, the sins of Israel were forgiven; as it is written, Though your sins have been as scarlet, they shall be as wool. They add, that for forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans the scarlet cloth never changed colour at all; which is a fair confession that, having rejected the substance, the shadow stood them in no stead. No. 1054.-i. 18. Sins as scarlet.] This colour was produced from a worm or insect, which grew in a coccus or excrescence of a shrub of the ilex kind, (Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 8.) like the cochineal worm in the opuntia of America. (Ulloa's Voyage, b. v. cap. 2, p. 342.) There is a shrub of this kind that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak, from kermez the Arabic word for this colour, whence our word crimson is derived. Neque amissos colores Lana refert medicata fuco, says the poet, applying the same image to a different purpose. To discharge these strong colours is im possible to human art or power: but to the grace and power of God all things, even much more difficult, are possible and easy. LOWTH, in loc. No. 1055.-ii. 4. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.] This description of well established peace is very poetical. The Roman poets have employed the same image. Martial xiv. 34. Falx ex ense. Pax me certa ducis placidos curvavit in usus: 1 The prophet Joel hath reversed it, and applied it to war prevailing over peace. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears. Joel iii. 10. and so likewise the Roman poets: Non ullus aratro Dignus honos; squalent abductis arva colonis, Virg. Georg. i. 506, So also Ovid Fast. i. 697. LoWTH, in loc. No. 1056.-ii. 5. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.] "In the evening when they (the Jews) proceeded to testify their joy for the effusion of water, the temple was so completely illuminated by means of lights placed fifty yards high, that, it is said, there was not a street in Jerusalem which was not lighted by them. Many carried lighted torches in their hands. Deyling supposes that there is an allusion to this custom in the beautiful invitation given by believing gentiles to the Jews, as above cited." JAMIESON'S Use of Sacred History, vol. i. p. 449. No. 1057.-iii. 23. The fine linen.] This must refer to garments of the Lacedæmonian kind, which might be seen through. We are informed by ancient writers, that those worn by the Lacedæmonian maidens were so made as to be highly indecent, and not to answer a principal end of clothing. It is possible that some of the Jewish ladies might wear dresses of a similar fashion. Parkhurst (Heb. Lex. p. 123.) supposes that the prophet means vestments of the cobweb kind, which would not hinder the wearers from appearing almost naked: such as Menander calls διαφανες χιτώνιον, a transparent vest, and mentions as the dress of a courtesan: and such as Varro styles vitreas vestes, glassy vestments: and Horace, from the Island of Coös where the stuff was made, denominates Coan: -Coïs tibi pæne videre est Ut nudam. Lib, i. sat. 2. 1. 101, Through the Coan vest You almost see her naked. This Coan stuff was probably a kind of very thin silk or gauze. Lady M. W. Montague describes part of her dress as being of fine white silk gauze, closed at the neck with a diamond button, but the shape and colour of the bosom was very well to be distinguished through it. Letter xxix. No. 1058.-iii. 26. And she being desolate shall sit on the ground.] Sitting on the ground was a posture that denoted mourning and deep distress. Lam. ii. 8. "We find Judæa on several coins of Vespasian and Titus in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity,-sitting on the ground. I fancy the Romans might have an eye on the customs of the Jewish nation, as well as those of their own country, in the several marks of sorrow they have set on this figure. The Psalmist describes the Jews lamenting their captivity in the same pensive posture. By the waters of Babylon we sat down, and wept when we remembered thee, O Sion. But what is more remarkable, we find Judæa represented as a woman in sorrow sitting on the ground, in a passage of the prophet that foretells the very captivity recorded on this medal." ADDISON on Medals, Dial. ii. No. 1059.—v. 2. And planted it with the choicest vine.] And he planted it with the vine of Sorek, LoWTH. The vine of Sorek was known to the Israelites, being mentioned Gen. xlix. 11. There is something remark able in the manner in which it is there spoken of: binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine. Chardin says, that at Casbin, a city in Persia, they turned their cattle into the vineyards after the vintage, to browse on the vines. He speaks also of vines in that country so large, that he could hardly compass the trunks of them with his arms. (Voyages, tom. iii. p. 12.) This shews that the ass might be securely bound to the vine; and without danger of damaging the tree by browsing on it. LoWTH, in loc. No. 1060.-v. 2. And made a wine-press therein.] And he hewed out also a lake therein. LowтH. By this expression we are to understand not the wine-press itself; but what the Romans called lacus the lake, the large open place, or vessel, which, by a conduit or spout, received the must from the wine-press. In very hot countries it was perhaps necessary, or at least very convenient, to have the lake underground, or in a cave hewn out of the side of a rock, for coolness, that the heat might not cause too great a fermentation, and sour the wine. The wine-presses in Persia, Chardin says, are formed by making hollow places in the ground, lined with mason's work. Nonnus describes at large Bacchus hollowing the inside of the rock, and hewing out a place for the wine-press, or rather the lake. Και σκοπελες ελαχηνε πεδοσκάφεος δε σιδήρε, &c. He pierc'd the rock; and with the sharpen'd tool No. 1061.-vi. 6. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar.] Hoc quoque inter reliqua neglectæ religionis est, quod emortuo carbone sacrificatur. (Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xvi. tom. 2. p. 139.) Pliny mentions as a mark of neglected religion the sacrificing with a dead coal. No. 1062.-vii. 15. Butter and honey shall he eat.] D'Arvieux (Voy. dans la Pal. p. 24.) being in the camp of the grand emir, who lived in much splendor and treated him with great regard, was entertained on the first morning with little loaves, honey, new-churned butter, and loaves of cream, more delicate than any he ever saw, together with coffee. Agreeably to this he assures us in another place, (p. 197.) that one of the principal things with which the Arabs regale themselves at breakfast is cream, or new butter, mingled with honey. HARMER, vol. i. p. 294. No. 1063.-viii. 6, 7. Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly,-now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many.] 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 state of the kingdom and house of David, much reduced in its apparent strength, et 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 punishment for their manifold iniquities. Juvenal, inveighing against the corruption of Rome by the importation of Asiatic manners, says, that the Orontes has long been discharging itself into the Tiber: Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes. |