do the same: so fond are they of an old custom, be it ever so absurd, who have been long habituated to it." Viaggi, tom. i. let. 17.

23. The transparent garments—] , τα διαφανη λακωνικά, LXX. A kind of silken dress, transparent, like gauze; worn only by the most delicate women, and such as dressed themselves “elegantius, quam necesse esset probis." This sort of garments was afterward in use among the Greeks. Prodicus, in his celebrated fable (Xenoph. Memorab. Socr. lib. ii.) exhibits the personage of Sloth in this dress: conτα δε, εξ ής αν μαλιστα ώρα διαλαμποι.

"Her robe betray'd

Through the clear texture every tender limb,
Height'ning the charms it only seem'd to shade;
And as it flow'd adown so loose and thin,

Her stature shew'd more tall, more snowy white her skin."

They were called Multitia and Coa (sc. vestimenta) by the Romans, from their being invented, or rather introduced into Greece, by one Pamphila of the island of Cos. This, like other Grecian fashions, was received at Rome, when luxury began to prevail under the emperors; it was sometimes worn even by the men, but looked upon as a mark of extreme effeminancy: (see Juvenal, Sat. ii. 65, &c.) Publius Syrus, who lived when the fashion was first introduced, has given a humorous satirical description of it in two lines, which by chance have been preserved:

Equum est, induere nuptam ventum textilem?
Palam prostare nudam in nebula linea ?"

24. Instead of perfume-] A principal part of the delicacy of the Asiatic ladies consists in the use of baths, and of the richest oils and perfumes: an attention to which is, in some degree, necessary in those hot countries. Frequent mention is made of the rich ointments of the spouse in the Song of Solomon:

“How beautiful are thy breasts, my sister, my spouse!

How much more excellent than wine;

And the odour of thine ointments than all perfumes !

Thy lips drop as the honeycomb, my spouse!

Honey and milk are under thy tongue :

And the odour of thy garments is as the odour of Lebanon."

Cant. iv. 10, 11.

The preparation for Esther's being introduced to king Ahasuerus was a course of bathing and perfuming for a whole year; "Six months with oil of myrrhe, and six months with sweet odours." Esth. ii. 12. A diseased and loathsome habit of body, instead of a beautiful skin, softened and made agreeable with all that art could devise, and all that nature, so prodigal in those countries of the richest perfumes, could supply, must have been a punishment the more severe, and the most mortifying to the delicacy of these haughty daughters of Sion.

Ibid. A sunburnt skin-] Gaspar Sanctius thinks the words 'D an interpolation, because the Vulgate has omitted them. The clauseseems to me rather to be imperfect at the end. Not to mention, that, taken as a noun, for adustio, burning, is without example, and very improbable: the passage ends abruptly, and seems to want a fuller conclusion.

In agreement with which opinion of the defect of the Hebrew text in

this place, the LXX, according to MSS. Pachom. and 1. D. 11. and Marchal. which are of the best authority, express it with the same evident marks of imperfection at the end of the sentence; thus, Tavra ooi avtɩ KAλλωπισμου— The two latter add σου. This chasm in the text, from the loss probably of three or four words, seems therefore to be of long standing.

Taking in its usual sense, as a particle, and supplying from so of the LXX, it might possibly have been originally somewhat in this form:

כי תחת יפי תהיה לך רעת מראה:

"Yea, instead of beauty, thou shalt have an ill-favoured countenance."

, or

(q. ] "for beauty shall be destroyed." Syr. from . Dr. DUREll.

"May it not be, wrinkles instead of beauty?' as from is

Dr. JUBB.

".כדי to be wrinkled כהה c. so from& מרי מרה from ;יפי formed

גבורך an MS. גבורתך

25. thy mighty men-] For 1, an ancient MS. has 771. The true reading from LXX, Vulg. Syr. Chald, seems to be 7). 26. —sit on the ground.] Sitting on the ground was a posture that denoted mourning and deep distress. The prophet Jeremiah has given it the first place among many indications of sorrow, in the following elegant description of the same state of distress of his country:

"The elders of the daughter of Sion sit on the groǹnd, they are silent: They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth :

The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed down their beads to the ground."

Lam. ii. 8.

"We find Judea," says Mr. Addison, (On Medals, Dial. ii.)" on several coins of Vespasian and Titus, in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity. I need not mention her sitting on the ground, because we have already spoken of the aptness of such a posture to represent an extreme affliction. I fancy the Romans might have an eye on the customs of the Jewish nation, as well as those of their 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 Judea represented as a woman in sorrow sitting on the ground, in a passage of the prophet that foretels the very captivity recorded on this medal." Mr. Addison, I presume, refers to this place of Isaiah; and therefore must have understood it as fortelling the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation by the Romans: whereas it seems plainly to relate, in its first and more immediate view at least, to the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, and the dissolution of the Jewish state under the captivity at Babylon.

CHAP. IV.

1. And seven women-] The division of the chapters has interrupted the prophet's discourse, and broken it off almost in the midst of the sentence. "The numbers slain in battle shall be so great, that seven women shall be left to one man." The prophet has described the greatness of this distress by images and adjuncts the most expressive and forcible. The young women, contrary to their natural modesty, shall become suitors to the men: they will take hold of them, and use the most pressing importunity to be married; in spite of the natural suggestions of jealousy, they will be content with a share only of the rights of marriage in common with several others; and that on hard conditions, renouncing the legal demands of the wife on the husband, (see Exod. xxi. 10.) and begging only the name and credit of wedlock; and to be freed from the reproach of celibacy. (See chap. liv. 4, 5.) Like Marcia, on a different occasion, and in other circumstances:

"Da tantum nomen inane

Connubii: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis
Marcia."

Lucan. II. 342.

Ibid. —in that day-] These words are omitted in LXX, and MS. Ibid. The Branch of JEHOVAH-] The Messiah of JEHOVAH, says the Chaldee. The Branch is an appropriated title of the Messiah; and the fruit of the land means the great Person to spring from the house of Judah, and is only a parallel expression signifying the same: or perhaps the blessings consequent upon the redemption procured by him. Compare chap. xlv. 8. where the same great event is set forth in similar images; and see the note there.

Ibid.

the houe of Israel.] A MS. has

.

3. —written among the living.] That is, whose name stands in the enrolment or register of the people; or every man living, who is a citizen of Jerusalem. See Ezek. xiii. 9. where they shall not be in the writing of the house of Israel," is the same with what immediately goes before, "they shall not be in the assembly of my people." Compare Psalm lxxxvii. 6. lxix. 28. Exod. xxxii. 32. To number and register the people was agreeable to the law of Moses, and probably was always practised; being in sound policy, useful and even necessary. David's design of numbering the people was of another kind; it was to enrol them for his army. Michaelis, Mosaisches Recht, part ii. p. 227. see also his Dissert. de Censibus Hebræorum.

4. “The spirit of burning," means the fire of God's wrath, by which he will prove and purify his people; gathering them înto his furnace, in order to separate the dross from the silver, the bad from the good. The severity of God's judgments, the fiery trial of his servants, Ezekiel (chap. xxii. 18–22. has set forth at large, after his manner, with great boldness of imagery and force of expression. God threatens to gather them into the midst of Jerusalem, as into the furnace; to blow the fire upon them, and to melt them. Malachi treats the same subject, and represents the same event under the like images:

"But who may abide the day of his coming?
And who shall stand when he appeareth?
For he is like the fire of the refiner,

And like the soap of the fullers.

And he shall sit refining and purifiying the silver;
And he shall purify the sons of Levi;

And cleanse them like gold, and like silver;

That they may be JEHOVAH's ministers,
Presenting unto him an offering in righteousness."

Mal. iii. 2, 3.

but four MSS.

for the station

5.—the station-] The Hebrew text has, every station; (one ancient) omit ; very rightly, as it should seem: was mount Sion itself, and no other. See Exod. xv. 17. And the LXX, and MS. add the same word before, probably right: the word has only changed its place by mistake., "the place where they were gathered together in their holy assemblies," says Sal. b. Melec.

Ibid. A cloud by day-] This is a manifest allusion to the pillar of a cloud and of fire, which attended the Israelites in their passage out of Egypt, and to the glory that rested on the tabernacle. Exod. xiii. 21. xl. 38. The prophet Zechariah applies the same image to the same purpose:

"And I will be unto her a wall of fire round about;

And a glory will I be in the midst of her."

Zech. ii. 5.

That is, the visible presence of God shall protect her. Which explains the conclusion of this verse of Isaiah; where the makkaph between and, connecting the two words in construction, which ought not to be connected, has thrown an obscurity upon the sentence, and misled most of the translators.

6. And a tabernacle-] In countries subject to violent tempests, as well as to intolerable heat, a portable tent is a necessary part of a traveller's baggage for defence and shelter.

CHAP. V.

THIS chapter likewise stands single and alone, unconnected with the preceding or following. The subject of it is nearly the same with that of the first chapter. It is a general reproof of the Jews for their wickedness: but it exceeds that chapter in force, in severity, in variety, and elegance; and it adds a more express declaration of vengeance, by the Babylonian invasion.

1. Let me sing now a song] A MS. respectable for its antiquity, adds the word (a song) after N; which gives so elegant a turn to the sentence by the repetition of it in the next member, and by distinguishing the members so exactly in the style and manner of the Hebrew poetical composition, that I am much inclined to think it genuine.

Ibid. A song of loves] TT, for ; status constructus pro absoluto, as the grammarians say, as Micah vi. 16. Lament. iii. 14. and 66. so archbishop Secker. Or rather, in all these and the like cases, a mistake of the transcribers, by not observing a small stroke, which in many MSS

is the שיות דודים דודי' is made to supply the o of the plural, thus

same with NT,Psal. xlv. 1. In this way of understanding it,

we avoid the great impropriety of making the author of the song, and the person to whom it is addressed, to be the same.

Ibid. On a high and fruitful hill] Heb. "on a horn the son of oil.” The expression is highly descriptive and poetical. "He calls the land of Israel a horn, because it is higher than all lands; as the horn is higher than the whole body: and the son of oil, because it is said to be a land flowing with milk and honey." Kimchi on the place. The parts of animals are, by an easy metaphor, applied to parts of the earth, both in common and poetical language. A promontory is called a cape or head; the Turks call it a nose. "Dorsum immane mari summo:" Virg. a back, or ridge of rocks.

"Hanc latus angastum jam se cogentis in arctum

Hesperise tenuem producit in æquora linguam,
Adriacas flexis claudit quæ cornibus undas."

Lucan. ii. 612. of Brundusium, i. e. Bρɛvrɛσwv, which in the ancient language of that country signifies stag's head, says Strabo. A horn is a proper and obvious image for a mountain, or mountainous country. Solinus, cap. viii. says, “Italiam, ubi longius processerit, in cornua duo scindi:" that is, the high ridge of the Alps, which runs through the whole length of it, divides at last into two ridges, one going through Calabria, the other through the country of the Brutii. "Cornwall is called by the inhabitants in the British tongue Kernaw, as lessening by degrees like a horn, running out into promontories like so many horns. For the Britons call a horn corn, in the plural kern." Camden. "And Sammes is of opinion, that the country bad this name originally from the Phenicians, who traded hither for tin; keren, in their language, being a horn." Gibson.

Here the precise idea seems to be that of a high mountain standing by itself; "vertex montis, aut pars montis ab aliis divisa;" which signification, says I. H. Michaelis, (Bibl. Hallens. Not. in loc.) the word has in Arabic.

Judea was in general a mountainous country; whence Moses sometimes calls it the mountain: "Thou shalt plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance." Exod. xv. 17. "I pray thee let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan; that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.' Deut. iii. 25. And in a political and religious view it was detached and separated from all the nations round it. Whoever has considered the descriptions given of mount Tabor, (see Reland, Palæstin. Eugene Roger, Terre Sainte, p. 64.) and the views of it which are to be seen in books of travels, (Maundrell, p. 114. Egmont and Heyman, vol. ii. p. 25. Thevenot, vol. i. p. 429.) its regular conic form, rising singly in a plain to a great height, from a base small in proportion, its beauty and fertility to the very top, will have a good idea of "a horn the son of oil;" and will perhaps be induced to think, that the prophet took his image from that mountain.

2. and he cleared it from the stones.] This was agreeable to the ancient husbandry: "Saxa, summa parte terræ, et vites et arbores lædunt; ima parte, refrigerant." Columell. de Arb. III. "Saxosum facile est expedire lectione lapidum." Id. II. 2. "Lapides, qui supersunt [al. insuper sunt], hieme rigent, æstate fervescunt; idcirco satis, arbustis, et vitibus nocent." Pallad, I. 6. A piece of ground thus cleared of the stones,