Greek version in an inverted order from that which they have in the present copies; the latter then answering to 17, the former to : by which some difficulty would be avoided; for it is commonly supposed that signifies rʊx”. See Gen. xxx. 11. apud LXX. This matter is so far well cleared up by MSS Pachom. and I. D. II.; which agree in placing these two words in that order which Jerom's version supposes.

15. shall slay you.] For T

shall slay thee, LXX and Chald. read D, shall slay you, plural.

17. —I create new heavens, and a new earth] Concerning this image and the application of it, see De S. Poes. Hebr. Præl. ix.

18.-in the age to come, which I create] So in chap.. ix. 5. 7', TaTng TOU MEλλOVTOs aivos, LXX. See Bishop Chandler, Defence of Christianity, p. 136.

20. For DVD, thence, LXX, Syr. Vulg. read DW, there.

21. They shall not build, and another inhabit] The reverse of the curse denounced on the disobedient, Deut. xxviii. 30. "Thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof."

22. For as the days of a tree-] It is commonly supposed that the oak, one of the most long-lived of the trees, lasts about a thousand years; being five hundred years growing to full perfection, and as many decaying; which seems to be a moderate and probable computation: See Evelyn, Sylva, B. iii. ch. 3. The present Emperor of China, in his very ingenious and sensible poem, entituled, Eloge de Moukden, a translation of which in French was published at Paris, 1770, speaks of a tree in his country which lives more than a hundred ages; and of another, which after fourscore ages is only in its prime, p. 37, 38. But his imperial majesty's commentators, in their note on the place, carry the matter much further; and quote authority which affirms, that the tree last mentioned by the Emperor, the immortal tree, after having lived ten thousand years, is still only in its prime. I suspect that the Chinese enlarge somewhat in their national chronology, as well as in that of their trees: See Chou King, Preface, by Mons. De Guignes. The Prophet's idea seems to be, that they shall live to the age of the antediluvians; which seems to be very justly expressed by the days of a tree, according to our notions.

בחירי I remove

23. My chosen shall not labour in vain] from the end of the 22d to the beginning of the 23d verse, on the authority of LXX, Syr. Vulg. and a MS; contrary to the division in the Masoretic text.

Ibid. Neither shall they generate a short-lived race]

, in festinationem, what shall soon hasten away. Els naragav, for a curse, LXX. They seem to have read : Grotius. But Psal. lxxviii. 33. both justifies and explains the word here.

ויכל בהבל ימיהם ושנותם בבהלה:

Μετα σπουδης, say the LXX. Jerom on this place of Isaiah explains it to the same purpose: esse desistant.”

"815 averagžiav, hoc est, ut εις ανυπαρξίαν,

25. shall feed together.] For TN, as one, an ancient MS has , together; the usual word, to the same sense, but very different in the letters. LXX, Syr. and Vulg. seem to agree with the MS.

CHAPTER LXVI.

THIS chapter is a continuation of the subject of the foregoing. The Jews valued themselves much upon their temple, and the pompous system of services performed in it, which they supposed were to be of perpetual duration; and they assumed great confidence and merit to themselves for their strict observance of all the externals of their religion. And at the very time when the judgments denounced in verses 6th and 12th of the preceding chapter were hanging over their heads, they were rebuilding, by Herod's munificence, the temple in a most magnificent manner. God admonishes them, that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and that a mere external worship, how diligently soever attended, when accompanied with wicked and idolatrous practices in the worshippers, would never be accepted by him. This their hypocrisy is set forth in strong colours; which brings the Prophet again to the subject of the former chapter; and he pursues it in a different manner, with more express declaration of the new economy, and of the flourishing state of the church under it. The increase of the church is to be sudden and astonishing. They that

escape of the Jews, that is, that become converts to the Christian faith, are to be employed in the divine mission to the Gentiles, and are to act as priests in presenting the Gentiles as an offering to God; see Rom. xv. 16.: And both, now collected into one body, shall be witnesses of the final perdition of the obstinate and irreclaimable.

These two chapters manifestly relate to the calling of the Gentiles, the establishment of the Christian dispensation, and the reprobation of the apostate Jews, and their destruction executed by the Romans.

2. —all these things are mine.] A word, absolutely necessary to the sense, is here lost out of the text;, mine: it is preserved by LXX, and Syr.

3. He that slayeth an ox, killeth a man-] These are instances of extreme wickedness joined with hypocrisy; of the most flagitious crimes committed by those who at the same time affected great strictness in the performance of all the external services of religion. God, by the Prophet Ezekiel, upbraids the Jews with the same practices: "When they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it;" chap. xxiii. 39. Of the same kind was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in our Saviour's time; "who devoured widows' houses, and for a pretence made long prayers;" Matt. xxiii. 14.

The generality of interpreters, by departing from the literal rendering of the text, have totally lost the true sense of it, and have substituted in its place what makes no good sense at all; for it is not easy to show, how in any circumstances sacrifice and murder, the presenting of legal offerings and idolatrous worship, can possibly be of the same account in the sight of God.

Ibid. —that maketh an oblation, [offereth] swine's blood] A word here likewise, necessary to complete the sense, is perhaps irrecoverably lost out of the text. The Vulg. and Chald. add the word offereth, to make out the sense; not, as I imagine, from any different reading, (for the word wanted seems to have been lost before the time of the oldest of them, as the LXX had it not in their copy), but from mere necessity.

Le Clerc thinks, that by is to be repeated from the beginning of this member; but that is not the case in the parallel members, which have another and a different verb in the second place. "DT, sic versiones: putarem tamen legendum participium aliquod, et quidem П, cum sequatur

, nisi jam præcesserat:" SECKER. Houbigant supplies 8, eateth. After all, I think the most probable word is that which Chald. and Vulg. seem to have designed to represent; that is, p.

5. Say ye to your brethren-] The Syr. reads D; and so the LXX, edit. Comp. Tare adeλpors iμar: and MS Marchal. has adλpors; and so Cyril and Procopius read and explain it. It is not easy to make sense of the reading of LXX in the other editions: ειπατε αδελφοι ήμων τοις μισουσιν ύμας—but for ήμων, MS I. D. II. also has ύμων.

8. and who hath seen] Twenty MSS (four ancient), and the two oldest editions, with two others, have ", adding the conjunction : and so read all the ancient versions. 11. from her abundant stores] For 1, two MSS, and the old edition of 1488, have ; and the latter is upon a rasure in three other MSS. It is remarkable, that Kimchi and Sal. ben Melec, not being able to make any thing of the word as it stands in the text, say it means the same with : that is, in effect, they admit of a various reading, or an error, in the text. But, as Vitringa observes, what sense is there in sucking nourishment from the splendour of her glory? He therefore endeavours to deduce another sense from the word ; but, as far as it appears to me, without any authority. I am more inclined to accede to the opinion of those learned Rabbins, and to think that there is some mistake in the word; for that in truth is their opinion, though they disguise it by saying, that the corrupted word means the very same with that which they believe to be genuine. So in chap. xli. 24. they say, that YON, a viper, means the same with DEN, nothing; instead of acknowledging that one is written by mistake instead of the other. I would propose to read in this place, or 2, (instead of D), from the stores; from M, to nourish, to feed: see Gen. xlv. 23. 2 Chron. xi. 23. Psal. cxliv. 13. And this perhaps may be meant by Aquila, who renders the word by año Tavrodaτias: with which that of the Vulgate, "ab omnimoda gloria," and of Symmachus and Theodotion, nearly agree. The Chaldee follows a different reading, without improving the sense; , from the wine.

12. like the great river, and like the overflowing stream-] That is, the Euphrates, (it ought to have been pointed ut fluvius ille, as The River), and the Nile.

Ibid. And ye shall suck at the breast] These two words Toby, at the breast, seem to have been omitted in the pre

sent text, from their likeness to the two words following;

by, at the side. A very probable conjecture of Houbigant. Chald. and Vulg. have omitted the two latter words instead of the two former. See note on chap. lx. 4.

15. -shall come as a fire] For UN, in fire, the LXX had in their copy WN, as a fire; ws #vg.

Ibid. To breathe forth his anger] Instead of

as

pointed by the Masoretes, to render, I understand it as

נשב to breathe, from לְהָשִׁיב

,אחר

17.—after the rites of Achad-] The Syrians worshipped a god called Adad: Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 11. Macr. Sat. i, 23. They held him to be the highest and greatest of the gods, and to be the same with Jupiter and the Sun: and the name Adad, says Macrobius, signifies One; as likewise does the word Achad in Isaiah. Many learned men therefore have supposed, and with some probability, that the Prophet means the same pretended deity. 8, in the Syrian and Chaldean dialects is ; and perhaps by redu plication of the last letter, to express perfect unity, it may have become T, not improperly expressed in Latin by Macrobius Adad, without the aspirate. It was also pronounced by the Syrians themselves, with a weaker aspirate, 77; as in Benhadad, Hadadezer, names of their kings, which were certainly taken from their chief object of worship. This seems to me to be a probable account of this name.

But the Masoretes correct the text in this place: their marginal reading is , which is the same word, only in the feminine form; and so read thirty MSS (six ancient) and the two oldest editions. This Le Clerc approves, and supposes it to mean Hecate, or the Moon; and he supports his hypothesis by arguments not at all improbable. See his note on the place.

Whatever the particular mode of idolatry which the Prophet refers to might be, the general sense of the place is perfectly clear. But Chald. and Syr. and after them Symmachus and Theodotion, cut off at once all these difficulties, by taking the word in its common meaning, not as a proper name; the two latter rendering the sentence thus: οπίσω αλληλων εν μέσῳ εσθίοντων το κρεας το χοίρειον, one after another in the midst of those that eat swine's flesh. I suppose they all read in their copies TIN TN, one by one, or perSee a large Dissertation on this subject in Davidis Millii Dissertationes Selectæ, Dissert. vi.

.one after another אחד אחר אהד lhaps