applies it according to the original design and principal intention of the prophet.

17. But JEHOVAH will bring] Houbigant reads ", from LXX; aλa sπažει & Oɛoç: to mark the transition to a new subject.

Ibid. Even the king of Assyria—] Hougibant supposes these words to have been a marginal gloss, brought into the text by mistake and so likewise Archbp. Secker. Besides their having no force or effect here, they do not join well in construction with the words preceding: as may be seen by the strange manner in which the ancient interpreters have taken them; and they very inelegantly forestal the mention of the king of Assyria, which comes in with great propriety in the 20th verse. I have therefore taken the liberty of omitting them in the translation. 18.-hist the fly] See note on chap. v. 26.

Ibid. Egypt and Assyria] Senacherib, Esarhaddon, Pharao Necho, and Nebuchadnezzar, who one after another desolated Judea.

19. caverns] So LXX, Syr. Vulg. whence Hougibant supposes the

הנחללים true reading to be

20. -the river] That is, the Euphrates; 7, so read the LXX, and two MSS.

Ibid. JEHOVAH shall shave by the hired razor-] To shave with the hired razor the head, the feet, and the beard, is an expression highly parabolical; to denote the utter devastation of the country from one end to the other, and the plundering of the people, from the highest to the lowest, by the Assyrians; whom God employed as his instrument to punish the Jews. Ahaz himself, in the first place, hired the king of Assyria to come to help him against the Syrians, by a present made to him of all the treasures of the temple, as well as his own: and God himself considered the great nations, whom he thus employed, as his mercenaries, and paid them their wages; thus he paid Nebuchadnezzar for his services against Tyre, by the conquest of Egypt: Ezek. xxix. 18-20. The hairs of the head are those of the highest order in the state; those of the feet, or the lowerparts, are the common people; the beard is the king, the high priest, the very supreme in dignity and majesty. The castern people have always held the beard in the highest veneration, and have been extremely jealous of its honour. To pluck a man's beard is an instance of the greatest indignity that can be offered. See Isaiah 1. 6. The king of the Ammonites, to shew the utmost contempt of David, "cut off half the beards of his servants; and the men were greatly ashamed: and David bade them tarry at Jericho till their beards were grown." 2 Sam. x. 4, 5. Niebuhr, Arabie, p. 275, gives a modern instance of the very same kind of insult. "The Turks," says Thevenot, "greatly esteem a man who has a fine beard it is a very great affront to take a man by his beard, unless it be to kiss it: they swear by the beard." Voyages, i. p. 57. D'Arvieux gives a remarkable instance of au Arab, who, having received a wound in his jaw, chose to hazard his life, rather than suffer his surgeon to take off his beard. Memoires, tom. iii. p. 214. See also Niebuhr, Arabie, p. 61.

The remaining verses of this chapter, 21-25. contain an elegant and very expressive description of a country depopulated, and left to run wild, from its adjuncts and circumstances: the vineyards and corn-fields, before well cultivated, nor overrun with briers and thorns; much grass,

so that the few cattle that are left, a young cow and two sheep, have their full range, and abundant pasture; so as to yield milk in plenty to the scanty family of the owner: the thinly scattered people living not on corn, wine, and oil, the produce of cultivation, but on milk and honey, the gifts of nature; and the whole land given up to the wild beasts; so that the miserable inhabitants are forced to go out armed with bows and arrows, either to defend themselves against the wild beasts; or to supply themselves with necessary food by hunting.

CHAP. VIII.

THE prophecy in the foregoing chapter relates directly to the kingdom of Judah only: the first part of it promises them deliverance from the united invasion of the Israelites and Syrians; the latter part from ver. 17. denounces the desolation to be brought upon the kingdom of Judah by the Assyrians. The 6th, 7th, and 8th verses of this chapter, seem to take in both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. This people, that refuseth the waters of Siloah, may be meant of both: the Israelites despised the kingdom of Judah, which they had deserted, and now attempted to destroy; the people of Judah, from a consideration of their own weakness, and a distrust of God's promises, being reduced to despair, applied to the Assyrians for assistance against the two confederate kings. But how could it be said of Judah, that they rejoiced in Retsin and the son of Remaliah, the enemies confederated against them? If some of the people were inclined to revolt to the enemy, which hoewver does not clearly appear from any part of the history or the prophecy, yet there was nothing like a tendency to a general defection. This therefore must be understood of Israel. The prophet denounces the Assyrian invasion, which should overwhelm the whole kingdom of Israel under Tiglath Pileser and Shalmaneser; and the subsequent invasion of Judah by the same power under Senacherib, which would bring them into the most imminent danger, like a flood reaching to the neck, in which a man can but just keep his head above water. The two next verses, 9, 10. are addressed by the prophet, as a subject of the kingdom of Judah, to the Israelites and Syrians; and perhaps to all the enemies of God's people; assuring them, that their attempts against that kingdom shall be fruitless; for that the promised Immanuel, to whom he alludes, by using his name to express the signification of it, for God is with us, shall be the defence of the house of David, and deliver the kingdom of Judah out of their hands: he then proceeds to warn the people of Judah against idolatry, divination, and the like forbidden practices; to which they were much inclined, and which would soon bring down God's judgments upon Israel. The prophecy concludes, at the 6th verse of chap. ix. with promises of blessings in future times, by the coming of the great Deliverer, already pointed out by the name of Immanuel, whose person and character is set forth in terms the most ample and magnificent.

And here it may be observed, that it is almost the constant practice of the prophet to connect in like manner deliverances temporal with spiritual. Thus the eleventh chapter, setting forth the kingdom of Messiah, is closely connected with the tenth, which foretels the destruction of Senacherib. So likewise the destruction of nations enemies to God, in the

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thirty-fourth chapter, introduces the flourishing state of the kingdom of Christ in the thirty-fifth. And thus the chapters, from forty to forty-nine, inclusive, plainly relating to the deliverance from the captivity of BabyIon, do in some parts as plainly relate to the greater deliverance by Christ. 1. Take unto thee a large mirror-] The word is not regularly

from כליון (פדה from פדיון as ;גלה to roll, but from גלל formed from c. the supplying the place of& עלה from עליון נקה from נקיון כלה

the radical. signifies to shew, to reveal; properly, as Schroederus says, (Dé Vestitu Mulier. Hebr. p. 294.) to render clear and bright by rubbing, to polish:, therefore, according to this derivation, is not a roll, or volume, but may very well signify a polished tablet of metal, such as anciently was used for a mirror: the Chaldee paraphrast renders it by, a tablet; and the same word, though somewhat differently pointed, the Chaldee paraphrast and the Rabbins render a mirror, chap. iii. 23. The mirrors of the Israelitish women were made of brass finely polished, Exod. xxxviii. 8. from which place it likewise appears, that what they used were little hand-mirrors, which they carried with them, even when they assembled at the door of the tabernacle. I have a metalline mirror found in Herculaneum, which is not above three inches square. The prophet is commanded to take a mirror, or brazen polished tablet, not like these little hand-mirrors, but a large one; large enough、 for him to engrave upon it in deep and lasting characters, N Ina, with a workman's graving tool, the prophecy which he was to deliver.

in this place certainly signifies an instrument to write, or to engrave with; but, the same word, only differing a little in the form, means something belonging to a lady's dress, chap. iii. 22. (where however five MSS. leave out the, whereby only it differs from the word in this place); either a crisping-pin, which might be not unlike a graving tool, as some will have it; or a purse, as others infer from 2 Kings v. 23. It may therefore be called here VUN D, a workman's instrument, to distinguish it from X, an instrument of the same name used by the women. In this manner he was to record the prophecy of the destruction of Damascus and Samaria by the Assyrians; the subject and sum of which prophecy is here expressed with great brevity in four words, maher shalal, hash baz ; i. e." to hasten the spoil, to take quickly the prey:" which are afterward applied as the name of a prophet's son, who was made a sign of the speedy completion of it; Maher-shalal Hashbaz: Haste-to-the-spoil Quick-to-the-prey. And that it might be done with the greater solemnity, and to preclude all doubt of the real delivery of the prophecy before the event, he calls witnesses to attest the recording of it.

4. For before the child-] The prophecy was accordingly accomplished within three years; when Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria, went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Retsin, and also took the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and carried them captive to Assyria, 2 Kings xvi. 9. xv. 29. 1 Chron. v. 26.

6,7. Because this people have rejected-] The gentle waters of Siloah, a small fountain and brook just without Jerusalem, which supplied a pool within the city for the use of the inhabitants, is an apt emblem of the

state of the kingdom and house of David, much reduced in its apparent strength, yet supported by the blessing of God; and is 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, and their contemptuous disregard of his promises. The brook and the river are put for the kingdoms to which they belong, and the different states of which respectively they most aptly represent. Juvenal, inveighing against the corruption of Rome by the importation of Asiatic manners, says, with great elegance, that the Orontes has been long discharging itself into the Tiber:

Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes." And Virgil, to express the submission of some of the eastern countries to the Roman arms, says, that the waters of Euphrates now flowed more humbly and gently:-" Euphrates ibat jam mollior undis." Æn. viii. 726. But the happy contrast between the brook and the river gives a peculiar beauty to this passage of the prophet, with which the simple figure in the Roman poets, however beautiful, yet uncontrasted, cannot contend.

8. Even to the neck shall he reach] He compares Jerusalem (says Kimchi) to the head in the human body; as when the waters come up to a man's neck, he is very near drowning, for a little increase of them would go over his head: so the king of Assyria coming up to Jerusalem was like a flood reaching to the neck; the whole country was overflowed, and the capital was in imminent danger. Accordingly the Chaldee render's reaching to the neck, by reaching to Jerusalem.

9. Know ye this] God by his prophet plainly declares to the confederate adversaries of Judah, and bids them regard and attend to his declaration, that all their efforts shall be in vain. The present reading, is subject to many difficulties: I follow that of the LXX, WT, yvwrɛ. Archbishop Secker approves this reading. WT, know ye this, is parallel and synonymous to ¶¶, give ear to it, in the next line. The LXX when have likewise very well paraphrased the conclusion of this verse ; ye have strengthened yourselves, ye shall be broken; and though ye again strengthen yourselves, again shall ye be broken;" taking ¶ as

נשברו meaning the same with

11. As taking me by the hand] Eleven MSS. (two ancient) read pin: and so Sym, Syr. Vulg.

; for they renand MD, re

12. Say ye not, It is holy—] Wp. Both the reading and the sense of this word are doubtful. The LXX manifestly read der it by oλпpov, hard. Syr. and Chald. render it bellion. How they came by this sense of the word, or what they read in their copies, is not so clear. But the worst of it is, that neither of these readings, or renderings, gives any clear sense in this place. For why should God forbid his faithful servants to say, with the unbelieving Jews, it is hard; or, there is a rebellion; or, as our translators render it, a confederacy? And how can this be called, "walking in the way of this people," ver. 11. which usually means, following their example, joining with them in religious worship? Or what confederacy do they mean? the union of the kingdoms of Syria and Israel against Judah? That was properly a

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league between two independent states, not an unlawful conspiracy of one part against another in the same state; for this is the meaning of the word. For want of any satisfactory interpretation of this place that I can meet with, I adopt a conjecture of Archbp. Secker, which he proposes with great diffidence; and even seems immediately to give up, as being destitute of any authority to support it. I will give it in his own words: "Videri potest ex cap. v. 16. et hujus cap. 13, 14. 19. legendum

Hos. xiv. 3. Sed nihil אלהינו eadem sententia, qua קדוש vel קדש

necesse est. Vide enim Jer. xi. 9. Ezek. xxii. 25. Optimè tamen sic responderent huic versiculo versiculi 13, 14." The passages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel above referred to, seem to me not at all to clear up the sense of the word up in this place. But the context greatly favours the conjecture here given, and makes it highly probable: "walk not in the way of this people; call not their idols holy; nor fear ye the object of their fear:" (that is, the oßaopara, or gods of the idolaters: for so fear here signifies, to wit, the thing feared; so God is called the Fear of Isaac:' Gen. xxxi. 42. 53.)" but look up to JEHOVAH as your Holy One; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread; and He shall be a holy refuge unto you." Here there is a harmony and consistency running through the whole sentence; and the latter part naturally arises out of the former, and answers to it. Observe, that the difference between p and p is chiefly in the transposition of the two last letters; for the letters and are hardly distinguishable in some copies, printed as well as MS.: so that the mistake, in respect of the letters themselves, is a very. easy and a very common one.

14. And He shall be unto you a sanctuary.] The word ↳ unto you, absolutely necessary, as I conceive, to the sense, is lost in this place: it is preserved by the Vulgate; et erit vobis in sanctificationem:" the LXX have it in the singular number; εσTaι σoi εiç aylaopov. Or else, instead of PD, a sanctuary, we must read up, a snare, which would then be repeated, without any propriety or elegance, at the end of the verse: the Chaldee reads instead of it DVD, judgment; for he renders it by

, which word frequently answers to D in his paraphrase. A

which clears the sense ;להם לאבן (מקדש ולאבן MS. has (instead of

and construction. But the reading of the Vulgate is, I think, the best remedy to this difficulty; and is in some degree authorized by, the reading of the MS. above-mentioned.

16. among my disciples] . "The LXX render it rov μn palɛiv. Bishop Chandler, Defence of Christianity, p. 308. thinks they read, that it be not understood; and approves this reading." Archbishop

19. Should they seek—] After W7, the LXX, repeating the word, read : Ουκ εθνος προς θεον αυτου εκζητησουσι ; τι εκζητήσουσι περι των ζώντων τους νεκρους ; and this repetition of the verb seems necessary to the sense; and, as Procopius on the place observes, it strongly expresses the prophet's indignation at their folly.

20. Unto the command, and unto the testimony-] "Is not the attested prophecy, ver. 1-4? and perhaps

here

the command, ver.

11-15? for it means sometimes a particular, and even a human com