66 'And they shall sit, every man under his vine, And under his fig-tree, and none shall affright them: For the mouth of JEHOVAH God of Hosts hath spoken it." The description of well-established peace, by the image of "beating their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks," 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: Agricolæ nunc sum; militis ante fui." 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." And so likewise the Roman poets: "Non ullus aratro Dignus honos: squalent abductis arva colonis, "Bella diu tenuere viros: erat aptior ensis Vomere: cedebat taurus arator equo. Sarcula cessabant; versique in pila ligones; Factaque de rastri pondere cassis erat.” Joel iii. 10. Virg. Georg. i 506. Ovid. Fast. i. 697. The Prophet Ezekiel has presignified the same great event with equal clearness, though in a more abstruse form, in an allegory; from an image, suggested by the former part of the prophecy, happily introduced, and well pursued : "Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH: : I myself will take from the shoot of the lofty cedar; On the lofty mountain of Israel will I plant it; And it shall exalt its branch and bring forth fruit; And it shall become a majestic cedar: And under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; In the shadow of its branches shall they dwell: And all the trees of the field shall know, That I JEHOVAH have brought low the high tree; Have dried up the green tree; And have made the dry tree to flourish: I JEHOVAH have spoken it, and will do it.” The word ' Ezek. xvii. 22—24. in this passage, verse 22. as the sentence now stands, seems incapable of being reduced to any proper construction or sense; none of the ancient versions acknowledge it, except Theodotion and Vulg.; and all but the latter vary very much from the present reading of this clause. Houbigant's correction of the passage, by reading, instead of ',, (and a tender cion), which is not very unlike it, (perhaps better p", with which the adjective will agree without alteration), is ingenious and probable; and I have adopted it in the above translation. 6. they are filled with diviners—] Heb. They are filled from the east; or more than the east. The sentence is manifestly imperfect. The LXX, Vulg. and Chaldee, seem to have read ; and the latter, with another word before it signifying idols: They are filled with idols as from of old. Houbigant for DTP reads DDP, as Brentius had proposed long ago. I rather think that both words together give us the true reading: DTPD DDPP, with divination from the east; and that the first word has been by mistake omitted, from its similitude to the second. Ibid. And they multiply-] Seven MSS and one edition and have joined themselves to ; יספידו Read » יספיקו read the children of strangers; that is, in marriage, or worship." Dr JUBB. So Vulg. adhæserunt. Compare chap. xiv. 1. But the very learned professor Chevalier Michaelis has explained the word D, Job xxx. 7. (German translation, note on the place) in another manner; which perfectly well agrees with that place, and perhaps will be found to give as good a sense here. D, the noun, means corn springing up, not from the seed regularly sown on cultivated land, but in the untilled field, from the scattered grains of the former harvest. This, by an easy metaphor, is applied to a spurious brood of children irregularly and casually begotten. The LXX seem to have understood the verb here in this sense, reading it as Vulg. seems to have done; this justifies their version, which it is hard to account for in any other manner: και τεκνα πολλα αλλόφυλα εγενήθη αυτοίς. Compare Hos. v. 7. and LXX there. 7. And his land is filled with horses] This was in direct contradiction to God's command in the law; "But he [the king] shall not multiply horses to himself; nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses--neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold:" Deut. xvii. 16, 17. Uzziah seems to have followed the example of Solomon, (see 1 Kings x. 26, : -29), who first transgressed in these particulars he recovered the port of Elath on the Red Sea, and with it that commerce which, in Solomon's days had "made silver and gold as plenteous at Jerusalem as stones:" 2 Chron. i. 15. He had an army of 307,500 men; in which, as we may infer from this testimony of Isaiah, the chariots and horse made a considerable part. "The law above-mentioned was to be a standing trial of prince and people, whether they had trust and confidence in God their deliverer." See Bp. Sherlock's Discourses on Prophecy, Dissert. iv. where he has excellently explained the reason and effect of the law, and the influence which the observance or neglect of it had on the affairs of the Israelites. 8. And his land is filled with idols] Uzziah and Jotham are both said (2 Kings xv. 3, 4. and 34, 35,) "to have done that which was right in the sight of the Lord;" (that is, to have adhered to, and maintained, the legal worship of God, in opposition to idolatry, and all irregular worship; for to this sense the meaning of that phrase is commonly to be restrained); "save that the high places were not removed, where the people still sacrificed and burned incense." There was hardly any time when they were quite free from this irregular and unlawful practice; which they seem to have looked upon as very consistent with the true worship of God; and which seems in some measure to have been tolerated, while the tabernacle was removed from place to place, and before the temple was built. Even after the conversion of Manasseh, when he had removed the strange gods, and commanded Judah to serve JEHOVAH the God of Israel; it is added, "Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still on the high places, yet unto JEHOVAH their God only:" 2 Chron. xxxiii. 17. The worshipping on the high places therefore does not necessarily imply idolatry: and from what is said of these two kings, Uzziah and Jotham, we may presume, that the public exercise of idolatrous worship was not permitted in their time. The idols therefore here spoken of, must have been such as were designed for a private and secret use. Such probably were the Teraphim so often mentioned in Scripture; a kind of household gods, of human form, as it should seem, (see 1 Sam. xix. 13. and compare Gen. xxxi. 34.), of different magnitude, used for idolatrous and superstitious purposes; particularly for divination, and as oracles, which they consulted for direction in their affairs. 9. shall be bowed down] This has reference to the preceding verse: they bowed themselves down to their idols; therefore shall they be bowed down and brought low under the avenging hand of God. 10. When he ariseth to strike the earth with terror.] On the authority of LXX, confirmed by the Arabic and an ancient MS, I have here added to the text a line, which in the 19th and 21st verses is repeated together with the preceding line, and has, I think, evidently been omitted by mistake in this place. The MS here varies only in one letter from the reading of the other two verses: it has .הארץ instead of יי.שפלו שח read שפל ושח For »» 11. be humbled] Dr DURELL. Which rectifies the grammatical construction. 13-16. Even against all the cedars-] These verses afford us a striking example of that peculiar way of writing which makes a principal characteristic of the parabolical or poetical style of the Hebrews, and in which their prophets deal so largely; namely, their manner of exhibiting things divine, spiritual, moral, and political, by a set of images taken from things natural, artificial, religious, historical; in the way of metaphor or allegory. Of these, nature furnishes much the largest and the most pleasing share; and all poetry has chiefly recourse to natural images, as the richest and most powerful source of illustration. But it may be observed of the Hebrew poetry in particular, that in the use of such images, and in the application of them in the way of illustration and ornament, it is more regular and constant than any other poetry whatever; that it has, for the most part, a set of images appropriated in a manner to the explication of certain subjects. Thus you will find, in many other places beside this before us, that cedars of Libanus and oaks of Basan are used, in the way of metaphor and allegory, for kings, princes, potentates, of the highest rank; high mountains and lofty hills, for kingdoms, republics, states, cities; towers and fortresses, for defenders and protectors, whether by counsel or strength, in peace or war; ships of Tarshish, and works of art and invention employed in adorning them, for merchants, men enriched by commerce, and abounding in all the luxuries and elegancies of life; such as those of Tyre and Sidon: for it appears from the course of the whole passage, and from the train of ideas, that the fortresses and the ships are to be taken metaphorically, as well as the high trees and the lofty mountains. Ships of Tarshish are in Scripture frequently used by a metonymy for ships in general, especially such as are employed in carrying on traffic between distant countries; as Tarshish was the most celebrated mart of those times, frequented of old by the Phenicians, and the principal source of wealth to Judea and the neighbouring countries. The learned seem now to be perfectly well agreed, that Tarshish is Tartessus, a city of Spain, at the mouth of the river Bætis; whence the Phenicians, who first opened this trade, brought silver and gold, (Jer. x. 9. Ezek. xxvii. 12.), in which that country then abounded; and pursuing their voyage still further to the Cassiterides, (Bochart. Canaan, I. cap. 39. Huet, Hist. de Commerce, p. 194.), the islands of Scilly and Cornwall, they brought from thence lead and tin. Tarshish is celebrated in. Scripture (2 Chron. viii. 17, 18. ix. 21.) for the trade which Solomon carried on thither, in conjunction with the Tyrians. Jehosaphat (1 Kings xxii. 48. 2 Chron. xx. 33.) attempted afterward to renew that trade; and from the account given of his attempt it appears, that his fleet was to sail from Eziongeber on the Red Sea: they must therefore have designed to sail round Africa, as Solomon's fleet probably had done before, (see Huet, Histoire de Commerce, p. 32.); for it was a three years' voyage, (2 Chron. ix. 21.); and they brought gold from Ophir, probably on the coast of Arabia, silver from Tartessus, and ivory, apes, and peacocks, from Africa. "N, Afri, Africa, the Roman termination, Africa terra. ww, some city, or country, in Africa. So Chald. on I Kings xxii. 49. where he renders wwn by PN; and compare 2 Chron. xx. 36. from whence it appears, that to go to Ophir and to Tarshish is one and the same thing." Dr JUBB. It is certain, that under Pharaoh Necho, about two hundred years afterward, this voyage was made by the Egyptians. (Herodot. iv. 42.) They sailed from the Red Sea, and returned by the Mediterranean, and they performed it in three years; just the same time that the voyage under Solomon had taken up. It appears likewise from Pliny, (Nat. Hist. ii. 67.), that the passage round the Cape of Good Hope was known and frequently practised before his time; by Hanno the Carthaginian, when Carthage was in its glory; by one Eudoxus, in the time of Ptolemy Lathyrus king of Egypt: and Caelius Antipater, an historian of good credit, somewhat earlier than Pliny, testifies, that |