efcit, doubling the third radical. The beauty of this emen. dation immediately arifes to the view; that as a mass of snow gradually melts and difappears, fo in like manner does the glory of his woods and fruitful fields.

V. 22. "For though thy people, O Ifracl, be as the fand of the fea, a remnant only of them shall return. Their fixed com. pletion taketh its round in righteoufnefs." Dr. Stock.

"The confumption decreed fhall overflow with righteouf nefs." Pub. verf.

Inftead of a Iafhab "fball return," the 70 appear to have read yw, awnGerai, Rom. ix. 27. or, perhaps as the return from the Babylonian captivity faved that remnant from the fatal effects of the furrounding idolatries of the nations, fo the laft return of the Jews to Meffiah in the latter days, may, in the moft emphatic manner, be termed falvation, and the Apoftle's owlmoeras may be built rather on the fenfe than on the literal expreflion.

V. 30. "Lift up thy voice O daughter of Gallim: hearken O Laith: anfwer her O Anathoth." Dr. Stock.

"Caufe it to be heard unto Laifh: O poor Anathoth." Pub. verf.

"O poor Anathoth," is a verfion conveying no meaning whatever. Viewing with Dr. Stock, the word map Aniah, as a verb and not as a noun adjective, it is a command to Anathoth to re-echo the founds, as Anathoth means an echo. A fenfe then is given fuiting the natural hiftory of the place, The fhouts of the inhabitants, alarmed at the approach of the enemy, run along the hills, and are repeated by the echoing vales.

Chap. xi. 14. "Edom and Moab becoming their freedmen, and the children of Ammon obeying them." Dr. Stock.

"They fhall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon fhall obey them."

Manumiffion" is a rendering more fuitable to the Latin idiom and to the cuftoms of the Romans. Taking it in this fense, it merits the praise of ingenuity, but it would have been fomewhat to the purpose to have produced a few Hebrews converting their flaves into freedmen with a thump. This would have settled the business at once. But we know that in conferring freedom, no alap intervened, but the found of the trumpet at Jubilee. We are inclined to think that the two laft lines are exegetical of the fecond line of the verfe. Together shall they spoil the children of the east.”

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i4

Then

Then follows this more particular delineation. Edom and Moab (children of the eaft) are the putting forth of their hands. Mifbloach Iadam, i. e. becoming their easy con, queft, and the children of Ammon their obedience, i. e. fend, ing letters of fubmiffion, faying, as the Gauls to Cæfar, fe quicquid imperaffet effe facturos.

Chap. xiii. 3. "I have given charge to my appointed ones." Dr. Stock.

"I have commanded my fanctified ones." Pub. verf.

wp Li-mkudashi. The common verfion of this is apt to mislead, as if the perfons here fpoken of were meritorious characters. The term fanctified is here to be taken in its radical and moft extended fenfe, to denote felected or pitched upon, for the execution of a particular purpose, and this as to God, without the knowledge of the parties themselves. "I have chofen thee although thou haft not known me." Chap. xiv. 4. "How hath the golden city ceafed.”

na Medebah. The conjecture of the learned prelate on this word is ingenious; that it was an epithet by which the people of that capital diftinguifhed their city. So of old Jerufalem was called Hakkedofha or the holy, and it is fo termed by the Arabs at this very day. Had the appellation golden been given it by those of the captivity, it would have been in the Hebrew Zahebah. The interpretation exacnefs of gold in Dr. Lowth's version, is not his, but a marginal note of our tranflators.

V. 2d. "And they fhall be captors of those who captivated them." Dr. Stock.

"And they fhall take them captives whofe captives they were." Pub. verf.

We judge that the authorized verfion is preferable for the following reafons. First, we conceive that captors is rather an unhappy term, as being applied chiefly to naval exploits. Secondly, the term captor implies no more than the fimple act of making them prifoners. Whereas both the Hebrew and the common tranflation denote not only taking, but the carrying them to a diftant country. Captivated is also an unlucky term. For this word having taken, in a different fenfe, a prior poffeffion of the mind, instead of the Babylonian captivity, conveys us at once into the world of gallantry, where captivated has a much more gentle fignifi. cation.

The truth of this prophecy is beautifully delineated by Rutilius lamenting in his Itinerarium,

Atque utinam nunquam Iudæa fubacta fuiffet,
Pompeii bellis imperioque Titi;
Latius excifæ peftis contagia ferpunt,
Victorefque fuos natio victa premit.

V. 9th. Hell from beneath is moved for thee—

dead." Dr. Stock,

He roufeth for thee the mighty

"It ftirreth up the dead for thee," Pub, verf.

Sheol. This is by no means the poeticum infernum of the Hebrews, as Dr. Lowth would have it, nor founded on the dreams of vulgar ignorance. Sheol, or the invifible world is as certain, as to its exiftence, as the feparate spirit is, which goes to be its inhabitant. In the early ages, we conceive, that on this article, the vulgar were the wife, and the philofophers the fools.

OND Rephaim carries always in it a particular diftinction, which, in both verfions, is confiderably funk. It denotes, in general, reprobate fpirits in the feparate ftate. Solomon, in two paffages, places this out of all doubt. Speaking of the perfon allured by the harlot "but he knoweth not that the dead (Rephaim) are there." Prov. ix. 18. "The man that, wandering out of the way of understanding, shall remain in the congregation of the dead (Be Kahal-Rephaim) i. e. Giants." Prov. xxi. 18. The note of Rofenmuller on this verse, adduced by Bishop Stock, we think very filly, as if fcripture adopted as truths, bugbears employed to frighten children. 66 Rephaim, the gigantic fpectres. Ghofts are commonly magnified by vulgar terror to a stature far superior to the human." Rofen.

V. 12, 13, 14. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, fon of the morning: Yet thou didst say in thine heart, to the heavens above will I afcend.I will fet alfo upon the mount of the affembly on the fides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.” Dr. Stock.

Between the two verfions, there is little or no diverfity of rendering. We ftop only to remark a little on the curious and airy note of the learned Michaelis of Gottingen, who fays that,

"The mount of the affembly is not mount Moriah at Jeru falem, for that would be a manifeft anticlimax to him who had

in

in imagination feated himself in the heavens. The mountain here pointed to is the Olympus of the eastern nations, where they fuppofed the gods to be met in council by the fupreme. (Such a council feems alluded to in Job i. 6-11. ft.) It would of courfe be fuppofed to fit on the greateft heights known to the Afiatics, which were the mountains of Armenia to the north of their country. Hence this climber of heaven is faid to get up to the fides of the north."

There is fomething here of ingenuity and fanciful imagination, but not the fmalleft atom of folidity. Thefe expreffions of the monarch of Babylon, are not fuggefted to him either from the imagery of the country, or from the mythology of the Chaldeans. What he fays is nothing but a farcaftic parody on the language of the captive Jews. Being How in a strange land, they looked back with regret to Jerufalem, to the temple and its worship. They had fung,

Beautiful for fituation is mount Zion on the fides of the worth." Pfal. xlvi. 2. That proud defpot took up the phrafe after them, and fpoke as if he could have diflodged Jehovah from his dwelling in Jerufalem "I will fit upon the mount of the affembly on the fides of the north." If the captives fpoke of their glorious fovereign "riding upon the heavens of heavens;" he too imitates the language and mocks their hopes, "To the heavens above I will afcend." This is not faid from imagination. The Jews had fung and had grown weary, and had hung their harps upon the willows. Sing us, faid the inhabitants of Babylon, one of the fongs of Zion." As to the paffage alluded to in Job, there is not a fhadow of a council of Gods, but merely an affembly of pious worshippers, who, on that account, are termed the fons of God.

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Chap. xv. 1. "Because in the night Ar is facked, Moab ftands aghaft; because in the night Kir is facked, Moab ftands aghaft." Dr. Stock.

"Becaufe in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste and brought to filence: becaufe in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste and brought to filence." Pub. verf..

In the common verfion nothing follows, although promifed by the particle "becaufe." In the repetition the reader is difappointed. By our tranflators, Ar and Kir were taken to be in regimen with Moab. This, in confequence, Dr. Lowth has avoided, as well as Bifhop Stock. They differ in rendering a Nidemah. Bishop Lowth takes it as denoting xfcindi. Bishop Stock, as expreffive of that fpeechlefs furprife occafioned by the fudden arrival of bad news.

Chap.

Chap. xvi. "Send the Lamb due to the ruler of the Lamb from Selah to the defart, to the mount of the daughter of Zion." Dr. Stock.

Inftead of Car the Syriac reads a bar fon, and inftead of the imperative nb, the feventy read the future np. So Dr. Lowth renders it, and viewing as in regimen with Ruler, thus expreffes the fenfe, "I will fend forth the fon of the Ruler of the Land from Selah of the Defart."

V. 3. "Impart counfel execute juftice." Dr. Stock. "Take counfel execute judgment." Pub. verf.

an Habii, is better rendered impart, than in the public tranflation, take counfel. It is the imperative hiphil to caufe to come, which is to give to another, not to take to onefelf.

V. 8th. "For the fields of Hefhbon languish, and the vine of Sibmah, whofe choice plants over-mastered the Masters of na. tions." Dr. Stock.

"The lords of the heathen have broken down the principal plants thereof." Pub. verf.

It is a curious circumftance that here the two tranflations exhibit a fenfe diametrically oppofite. The common verfion makes the lords of the heathen the mortal enemies of the vine plants. On the other hand Dr. Stock, as the accufative article ns is affixed neither to Lords nor plants, has given this ambiguous fentence a more charitable turn, and has imagined it to be infinitely more natural for the juice of these plants to overthrow the lords of the nations, ita ut nec pes nec mens fatis fuum officium facerent.

Chap. xvii. 11. "Away flieth the harvest in the day of hurry and of woeful trouble."

Dr. Stock.

"But the harveft fhall be a heap in the day of grief and of defperate forrow." Pub. verf.

This is not only fuperior to the public verfion but it alfo renders its fupplements unneceffary. Ned is taken here as the 3d perf. fing. to which harveft is nominative. "Fled away is the harvest." We cannot approve of reading a hurry inftead nbna poffeffion, without any authority from manufcript or ancient verlion. Of these conjectural emendations we fee no end, and they must multiply in proportion to that quickness of ingenuity in difcovering words nearly fimilar, and producing, as is imagined, a better fenfe.

Chap.