the confusion of idolaters, and the final destruction of idolatry; contrasted with the salvation of Israel, not from temporal captivity, but the eternal salvation by Messiah, strongly marked by the repetition and augmentation of the phrase, to the ages of eternity. But there is not only a sudden change in the sentiment; the change is equally observable in the construction of the sentences; which from the usual short measure runs out at once into two distichs of the longer sort of verse. See Prelim. Diss. p. lxvi, &c. There is another instance of the same kind, and very like to this, of a sudden transition in regard both to the sentiment and construction in chap. xlii. 17.

Ibid. —his adversaries, all of them.] This line, to the great diminution of the beauty of the distich, is imperfect in the present text; the subject of the proposition is not particularly expressed, as it is in the line following. The version of the LXX happily supplies the word that is lost; oi AVTIKELIEVOL AVTy: the original word was

.

18.-for he formed it to be inhabited] An ancient MS. has before

.and so the ancient versions ; לשבת

19. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth.] In opposition to the manner in which the heathen oracles gave their answers; which were generally delivered from some deep and obscure cavern. Such was the seat of the Cumean Sibyl:

Virg. Æn. vi. 42.

"Excisum Euboicæ latus ingens rupis in antrom." Such was that of the famous oracle at Delphi: of which, says Strabo, lib. ix. φασι δ' ειναι το μαντείον αντρον κοίλον μετα βαθους, ου μαλα ευρύστομον. "The oracle is said to be a hollow cavern of considerable depth, with an opening not very wide." And Diodorus, giving an account of the origin of this oracle, says, "that there was in that place a great chasm, or cleft, in the earth; in which very place is now situated what is called the Adytum of the temple.” Αδυτον σπηλαιον, η το αποκρυφον μέρος του ιέρου, Hesych. "Adytum means a cavern, or the hidden part of the temple."

Ibid. I am JEHOVAH, who speak truth, who give direct answers.] This also is said in opposition to the false and ambiguous answers given by the heathen oracles; of which there are many noted examples; none more so than that of the answer given to Croesus, when he marched against Cyrus; which piece of history has some connexion with this part of Isaiah's prophecies. Let us hear Cicero's account of the Delphic answers in general, and of this in particular. "Sed jam ad te venio, O sancte Apollo, qui umbilicum certum terrarum obsides, Unde superstitiosa primum sæva evasit vox fera.

Tuis enim oraculis Chrysippus totum volumen implevit, partim falsis, ut ego opinor; partim casu veris, ut fit in omni oratione sæpissime; partim flexiloquis et obscuris, ut interpres egeat interprete, et sors ipsa ad sortes referenda sit; partim ambiguis, et quæ ad dialecticum deferenda sint. Nam cum sors illa edita est opulentissimo regi Asiæ,

Croesus Halym penetrans magnam pervertet opum vim: hostium vim sese perversurum putavit; pervertit autem suam. Utrum igitur eorum accidisset, verum oraculum fuisset." De Divinat. ii. 56. 21. bring them near, and let them consult together.] For y, let them consult, the LXX read T, let them know; but an ancient MS

has 1, "let them come by together by appointment;" which may probably be the true reading.

23. —truth is gone forth from my mouth; the word,-] So the LXX distinguish the members of the sentence; preserving the elegance of the construction, and the clearness of the sense.

24. Saying, Only to JEHOVAH-] A MS. omits, unto me; and instead of, he said or shall say unto me, the LXX read, in the copy which they used,, saying. For , he shall come, in the singular, twelve MSS. (three ancient) read , plural; and a letter is erased at the end of the word in two others: and so the Alexandrine copy of the LXX, Syr. and Vulg. read it. For p, plural, two MSS. read ЛTY, singular; and so LXX, Syr. and Chald.

CHAP. XLVI.

1. Their burdens are heavy] For J'ANU), your burdens, the LXX had in their copy DMNV), their burdens.

2. They could not deliver their own charge] That is, their worshippers; who ought to have been borne by them. See the two next verses. The Chaldee and Syriac versions render it in effect to the same purpose, portantes se, those that bear them, meaning their worshippers; but how they can render ND in an active sense, I do not understand.

Ibid. Even they themselves-] For OWN), an ancient MS. has DVD, with more force.

66

3-7. Ye that have been borne by me from the birth,—] The prophet very ingeniously, and with great force, contrasts the power of God, and his tender goodness effectually exerted towards his people, with the inability of the false gods of the heathen. He like an indulgent father had carried his people in his arms, as a man carrieth his son;" Deut. i. 31. he had protected them, and delivered them from their distresses: whereas the idols of the heathen are forced to be carried about themselves, and removed from place to place, with great labour and fatigue, by their worshippers; nor can they answer, or deliver their votaries, when they cry unto them.

Moses, expostulating with God on the weight of the charge laid upon him as leader of his people, expresses that charge under the same image, of a parent's carrying his children, in very strong terms: "Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them? that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers." Num. xi. 12.

Pindar has treated with a just and very elegant ridicule the work of the statuary, even in comparison with his own poetry, from this circumstance of its being fixed to a certain station. "The friends of Pytheas," says the Scholiast, came to the poet, desiring him to write an ode on his victory. Pindar demanded three drachms (minæ, I suppose it should be) for the ode. No, say they, we can have a brazen statue for that money, which will be better than a poem. However, changing their minds afterward, they came and offered him what he had de

manded." This gave him the hint of the following ingenious exordium

of his ode:

Ουκ ανδριαντοποιος ειμ

Ωστ' ελινύσσοντα μ' εργαζεσ
θα αγαλματ' επ' αυτας βαθμιδος
Εσταότ'. Αλλ' επι πασας
Ολκάδος, εν τ' ακατα,

Στοιχ' απ' Αιγινας διαγγελ

λοισ ̓ ὅτι Λαμπωνος υιος
Πυθέας ευρυσθενης

Νίκη Νεμείας παγκρατιου στεφανον.

Nem. v.

Thus elegantly translated by Mr. Francis in a note to Hor. Carm.

iv. 2. 19.

"It is not mine with forming band
To bid a lifeless image stand

For ever on its base:

But fly, my verses, and proclaim

To distant realms, with deathless fame,

That Pytheas conquer'd in the rapid race."

Jeremiah seems to be indebted to Isaiah for most of the following passage:

"The practices of the people are altogether vanity:

For they cut down a tree from the forest;

The work of the artificer's hand with the axe:

With silver and with gold it is adorned;

With nails and with hammers it is fastened, that it may not totter.
Like the palm-tree they stand stiff, and cannot speak;

They are carried about, for they cannot go:

Fear them not, for they cannot do harm;
Neither is it in them to do good."

Jer. x. 3-5.

8. shew yourselves men] WUN, this word is rather of doubtful derivation and signification. It occurs only in this place: and some of the ancient interpreters seem to have had something different in their copies. Vulg. read wann, take shame to yourselves. Syr. 19an, consider with yourselves. LXX, OrevažETE; perhaps aл, groan, or mourn, within yourselves.

11. Calling from the east the eagle] A proper emblem for Cyrus, as in other respects, so particularly because the ensign of Cyrus was a golden eagle, AETOΣ xpuσovg, the very word y, which the prophet uses here, expressed as near as may be in Greek letters. Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. vii. sub init.

Ibid. And from a land] Two MSS. add the conjunction 1, PINDI; and so LXX, Syr. Vulg.

CHAP. XLVII.

1. Descend, and sit on the dust—] See note on chap. iii. 26. and on chap. lii. 2.

2. Take the mill, and grind the corn] It was the work of slaves to grind the corn. They used hand-mills: water-mills were not invented till a little before the time of Augustus: (see the Greek epigram of Antipater, which seems to celebrate it as a new invention: Athol. Cephalæ, 653.)

wind-mills, long after. It was not only the work of slaves, but the hardest work; and often inflicted upon them as a severe punishment.

"Molendum in pistrino; vapnlandum; habendæ compedes."
Terent. Phormio, ii. 1. 19.

"Hominem pistrino dignum!"

Id. Heaut. iii. 2. 19.

But in the east it was the work of the female slaves. See Exod. xi. 5. xii. 29. (in the version of the LXX.) Matt. xxiv. 41. Homer, Odyss. xx. 105-108. And it is the same to this day. "Women alone are employed to grind their corn." Shaw, Algiers and Tunis, p. 297. "They are the female slaves that are generally employed in the east at those hand-mills [for grinding corn]; it is extremely laborions, and esteemed the lowest employment in the house." Sir J. Chardin, Harmer's Observ. i. p. 153.

3. I will not suffer man to intercede] The verb should be pointed, or written, DN, in Hiphil.

4. Our Avenger-] Here a chorus breaks in upon the midst of the subject; with a change of construction, as well as sentiment, from the longer to the shorter kind of verse, for one distich only after which the former subject and style is resumed. See note on xlv. 16.

6. I was angry with my people—] God, in the course of his providence, makes use of great conquerors and tyrants, as his instruments to execute his judgments in the earth: he employs one wicked nation to scourge another. The inflictor of the punishment may perhaps be as culpable as the sufferer; and may add to his guilt by indulging his cruelty in executing God's justice. When he has fulfilled the work to which the Divine vengeance has ordained him, he will become himself the object of it. See chap. x. 5-12. God charges the Babylonians, though employed by himself to chastise his people, with cruelty in regard to them. They exceeded the bounds of justice and humanity in oppressing and destroying them; and though they were really executing the righteous decree of God, yet, as far as it regarded themselves, they were only indulging their own ambition and violence. The prophet Zechariah sets this matter in the same light: "I was but a little angry, and they helped forward the affliction." Chap. i. 15.

; so two MSS. and one thy latter

7. Because thou didst not-] For Ty, read by; edition. And for, the latter end of it, read end: so thirteen MSS., and two editions, and Vulg.

9. On a sudden-] Instead of pɔ, in their perfection, as our translation renders it, the LXX, and Syr. read in the copies from which they translated, ON♫ɔ, suddenly; parallel to y, in a moment, in the preceding alternate member of the sentence. The concurrent testimony of LXX and Syr. favoured by the context, may be safely opposed to the authority of the present text.

Ibid. Notwithstanding the multitude-] 17; for this sense of the particle, see Num. xiv. 11.

11. how to deprecate] : so the Chaldee renders it; which is approved by Jarchi on the place; and Michaelis Epim. in Prælect. xix.; see Psal. lxxviii. 34.

Ibid. "Videtur in fine [hujus commatis] deesse verbum, ut hoc membrum prioribus respondeat." SECKER.]

In order to set in a proper light this judicious remark, it is necessary to give the reader an exact verbal translation of the whole verse:

"And evil shall come upon thee, thou shalt not know how to deprecate it; And mischief shall fall upon thee, thou shalt not be able to expiate it; And destruction shall come suddenly upon thee, thou shalt not know”What? how to escape, to avoid it, to be delivered from it; (perhaps MDD NY, Jer. xi. 11.) I am persuaded, that a phrase is here lost out of the text. But as the ancient versions retain no traces of it, and a wide field lies open to uncertain conjecture, I have not attempted to fill up the chasm; but have in the translation, as others have done before me, palliated and disguised the defect, which I cannot with any assurance pretend to supply.

13. What are the events-] For WND, read : so the LXX. 15. —to his own business] 17y. Expositors give no very good account of this word in this place. In a MS. it was at first 12, which is probably the true reading. The sense however is pretty much the same with the common interpretation.

CHAP. XLVIII.

1. Ye that flow from the fountain of Judah] DD, from the waters. "Perhaps, from the bowels [so many others have conjectured], or [TT] D, or TD, from Judah." SECKER. But see Michaelis in Prælect. not. 22. And we have pyy, the fountain of Jacob, Deut. xxxiii. 28. and PD, from the fountain of Israel, Psal. Ixviii. 27. Twenty-seven MSS., and three editions, have "D", from the days ; which makes no good sense.

6. —behold, the whole is accomplished] For, see, a MS. has n, this; thou hast heard the whole of this: the Syriac has , thou hast heard, and thou hast seen, the whole. Perhaps it should be, behold. In order to express the full sense, I have rendered it somewhat paraphrastically.

9. And for the sake of my praise] I read. The word ws, though not absolutely necessary here, for it may be understood as supplied from the preceding member, yet seems to have been removed from hence to ver. 11.; where it is redundant, and where it is not repeated, in LXX, Syr. and a MS. I have therefore omitted it in the latter place, and added it here.

10. I have tried thee-] For TA, I have chosen thee, a MS. has , I have tried thee. And so perhaps read the Syriac and Chaldee interpreters: they retain the same word; but in those languages it signifies, I have tried thee., quasi argentum. Vulg.

; and

11. -for how would my name be blasphemed?] The word "DV, my name, is dropped out of the text: it is supplied by a MS. which has by LXX, órɩ to eμov ovoμa Beßnλovraι. The Syr. and Vulg. get over the difficulty, by making the verb in the first person; that I may not be blasphemed.

12. -O Jacob, my servant] After tions of 1486 and 1488, add the word

py, a MS., and the two old edi

y, which is lost out of the pre