hardly be commodiously carried otherwise. Ulysses's key was of brass, and the handle of ivory: but this was a royal key; the more common ones were probably of wood. In Egypt they have no other than wooden locks and keys to this day; even the gates of Cairo have no better: Baumgarten, Peregr. i. 18. Thevenot, Part II. ch. 10. In allusion to the image of the key as the ensign of power, the unlimited extent of that power is expressed, with great clearness as well as force, by the sole and exclusive authority to open and shut. Our Saviour therefore has upon a similar occasion made use of a like manner of expression, Matt. xvi. 19.; and in Rev. iii. 7. has applied to himself the very words of the Prophet. 23. a nail-] In ancient times, and in the eastern countries, as the way of life, so the houses were much more simple than ours at present. They had not that quantity and variety of furniture, nor those accommodations of all sorts, with which we abound. It was convenient and even necessary for them, and it made an essential part in the building of a house, to furnish the inside of the several apartments with sets of spikes, nails, or large pegs, upon which to dispose of, and hang up, the several moveables and utensils in common use and proper to the apartment. These spikes they worked into the walls at the first erection of them-the walls being of such materials, that they could not bear their being driven in afterwards; and they were contrived so as to strengthen the walls, by binding the parts together, as well as to serve for convenience. Sir John Chardin's account of this matter is this: " They do not drive with a hammer the nails that are put into the eastern walls the walls are too hard, being of brick; or if they are of clay, too mouldering: but they fix them in the brickwork as they are building. They are large nails, with square heads like dice, well made; the ends being bent so as to make them cramp-irons. They commonly place them at the windows and doors, in order to hang upon them, when they like, veils and curtains:" Harmer, Observat. i. p. 191. And we may add, that they were put in other places too, in order to hang up other things of various kinds; as it appears from this place of Isaiah, and from Ezekiel xv. 3. who speaks of a pin, or nail, "to hang any vessel thereon." The word used here for a nail of this sort, is the same by which they express that instrument, the stake, or large pin of iron, with which they fastened down to the ground the cords of their tents. We see, therefore, that these nails were of necessary and common use, and of no small importance, in all their apartments; conspicuous, and much exposed to observation: and if they seem to us mean and insignificant, it is because we are not acquainted with the thing itself, and have no name to express it by, but what conveys to us a low and contemptible idea. "Grace hath been showed from the Lord our God, (saith Ezra ix. 8.), to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place:" that is, as the margin of our Bible explains it, "a constant and sure abode." "He that doth lodge near her [Wisdom's] house, Eccl'us xiv. 24. The dignity and propriety of the metaphor appears from the Prophet Zechariah's use of it: "From him shall be the corner-stone; from him the nail, From him the battle-bow, From him every ruler together." Zech. x. 4. And Mohammed, using the same word, calls Pharaoh the lord or master of the Nails; that is, well attended by nobles and officers capable of administering his affairs; Koran, Sur. xxxviii. 11. and lxxxix. 9. So some understand this passage of the Koran: Mr Sale seems to prefer another interpretation. Taylor, in his Concordance, thinks 7 means the pillar or post that stands in the middle, and supports the tent, in which such pegs are fixed to hang their arms, &c. upon; referring to Shaw's Travels, p. 287. But is never used, as far as it appears to me, in that sense. It was indeed necessary that the pillar of the tent should have such pegs on it for that purpose; but the hanging of such things in this manner upon this pillar, does not prove that was the pillar itself. 23. a glorious seat-] That is, his father's house, and all his own family, shall be gloriously seated, shall flourish in honour and prosperity; and shall depend upon him, and be supported by him. 24. -all the glory-] One considerable part of the magnificence of the eastern princes, consisted in the great quantity of gold and silver vessels which they had for various uses. "Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold: none were of silver; it was nothing accounted of in Solomon's days;" 1 Kings x. 21. "The vessels in the House of the Forest of Lebanon (the armoury of Jerusalem so called) were two hundred targets, and three hundred shields, of beaten gold;" Ibid. ver. 16, 17. These were ranged in order upon the walls of the armoury, (see Cant. iv. 4.), upon pins worked into the walls on purpose, as above mentioned. Eliakim is considered as a principal stake of this sort, immoveably fastened in the wall, for the support of all vessels destined for common or sacred uses: that is, as the principal support of the whole civil and ecclesiastical polity. And the consequence of his continued power will be the promotion and flourishing condition of his family and dependants, from the highest to the lowest. Ibid. -meaner vessels] seems to mean earthen vessels of common use, brittle, and of little value, (see Lam. iv. 2. Jer. xlviii. 12.), in opposition to, goblets of gold and silver used in the sacrifices; Exod. xxiv. 6. 25. The nail fastened-] This must be understood of Shebna, as a repetition and confirmation of the sentence above denounced against him. CHAPTER XXIII. 1. Howl, O ye ships of Tarshish-] This prophecy denounceth the destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. It opens with an address to the Tyrian negociators and sailors at Tarshish, (Tartessus in Spain); a place which, in the course of their trade, they greatly frequented. The news of the destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar is said to be brought to them from Chittim, the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean: "For the Tyrians, (says Jerom on ver. 6.), when they saw they had no other means of escaping, fled in their ships, and took refuge in Carthage, and in the islands of the Ionian and Egean Sea :" from whence the news would spread and reach Tarshish. So also Jarchi on the place. This seems to be the most probable interpretation of this verse. 2. Be silent] Silence is a mark of grief and consternation: see chap. xlvii. 5. Jeremiah has finely expressed this image: "The elders of the daughter of Sion sit on the ground, they are silent: They have cast up dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.' Lam. ii. 10. 3. And the seed of the Nile-] The Nile is called here Shichor, as it is Jer. ii. 18. and I Chron. xiii. 5. It had this name from the blackness of its waters charged with the mud which it brings down from Ethiopia, when it overflows, "Et viridem Ægyptum nigra fœcundat arena." as it was called by the Greeks Melas, and by the Latins Melo, for the same reason. See Servius on the above line of Virgil, Georg. iv. 291. It was called Siris by the Ethiopians; by some supposed to be the same with Shichor. Egypt, by its extraordinary fertility, caused by the overflowing of the Nile, supplied the neighbouring nations with corn; by which branch of trade the Tyrians gained great wealth. 4. Be ashamed, O Sidon- Tyre is called, ver. 12. the daughter of Sidon. "The Sidonians, (says Justin, xviii. 3.), when their city was taken by the king of Ascalon, betook themselves to their ships, and landed, and built Tyre." Sidon, as the mother city, is supposed to be deeply affected with the calamity of her daughter. Ibid. -nor educated-] 1, so an ancient MS, prefixing the 1, which refers to the negative preceding, and is equivalent to 1. See Deut. xxxiii. 6. Prov. xxx. 3. 7.-whose antiquity is of the earliest date.] Justin, in the passage above quoted, had dated the building of Tyre at a certain number of years before the taking of Troy; but the number is lost in the present copies. Tyre, though not so old as Sidon, yet was of very high antiquity; it was a strong ,עיר מבצר צר city even in the time of Joshua; it is called "the city of the fortress of Sor," Josh. xix. 29. Interpreters raise difficulties in regard to this passage, and will not allow it to have been so ancient: with what good reason I do not see; for it is called by the same name, "" the fortress of Sor," in the history of David, 2 Sam. xxiv. 7.; and the circumstances of the history determine the place to be the very same, 10. O daughter of Tarshish-] Tyre is called the daughter of Tarshish; perhaps because, Tyre being ruined, Tarshish was become the superior city, and might be considered as the metropolis of the Tyrian people; or rather, because of the close connexion and perpetual intercourse between them; according to that latitude of signification in which the Hebrews use the words son and daughter, to express any sort of conjunction and dependence whatever. П, a girdle, which collects, binds, and keeps together the loose raiment, when applied to a river, may mean a mound, mole, or artificial dam, which contains the waters, and prevents them from spreading abroad. A city, taken by siege, and destroyed, whose walls are demolished, whose policy is dissolved, whose wealth is dissipated, whose people is scattered over the wide country, is compared to a river whose banks are broken down, and its water, let loose and overflowing all the neighbouring plains, are wasted and lost. This may possibly be the meaning of this very obscure verse; of which I can find no other interpretation that is at all satisfactory. 13. Behold the land of the Chaldeans-] This verse is extremely obscure: the obscurity arises from the ambiguity of the agents which belong to the verbs, and of the objects expressed by the pronouns; from the change of number in the verbs, and of gender in the pronouns. The MSS give us no assistance; and the ancient versions very little. The Chaldee and Vulg. read mo in the plural number. I have followed the interpretation which, among many. different ones, seemed to me most probable, that of Perizonius and Vitringa. And The Chaldeans, Chasdim, are supposed to have had their origin, and to have taken their name, from Chesed the son of Nachor, the brother of Abraham. They were known by that name in the time of Moses; who calls Ur in Mesopotamia, from whence Abraham came, to distinguish it from other places of the same name, Ur of the Chaldeans. Jeremiah calls them an ancient nation. This is not inconsistent with what Isaiah here says of them: "This people was not;" that is, they were of no account, (see Deut. xxxii. 21.); they were not reckoned among the great and potent nations of the world, till of later times: they were a rude, uncivilized, barbarous people, without laws, without settled habitations, wandering in a wide desert country, DY, and addicted to rapine like the wild Arabians. Such they are represented to have been in the time of Job, (i. 17.), and such they continued to be till Assur, some powerful king of Assyria, gathered them together, and settled them in Babylon, and the neighbouring country. This probably was Ninus, whom I |