"quity" so irrelevantly and ungrammati cally rendered by all the ancient versions, followed by our authorized translation, If "he commit iniquity," &c.-For, the condi tion, "if he commit," is totally wanting in the original ;—the first term (to which it is sup* posed to correspond), x, asher, signifying "who," or "whosoever;" as in Exod. ix. 21. "And whosoever (1) regarded not the "word of the Lord, left his servants and his "cattle in the field," Joshua xv. 16. "Whosoever (8) smiteth Kiriath Sepher, "and taketh it, to him will I give my daugh"ter Achsah to wife," the phrase being elliptical, and put for, omnis qui, or quicunque, as in Psalm cxv. 8.-"They that "make idols are like unto them, and so is

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every one that (-) trusteth in them" -the second term, na, be-haōthō, may either be taken as a verb, signifying “ in in"juring him," or as a noun," in his injury;" either from the verb y, aoth, which signifies" to injure or wrong, by perverting judg"ment," as it is used Job viii. 3, Lament. iii. 36:-or the noun men, ny, aoth-thi, "

ny, aothah, in regimy wrong," as it is

rendered Lament. iii. 59, (or by contraction, my, aothi). And how exactly does this accord with the sufferings of the MESSIAH, who was

cut off" by an iniquitous judg

ment of his foes! as described by David himself in the second and twenty-second Psalms; and by Isaiah, in his fifty-third chapter; and by Daniel, in his famous prophecy of the seventy weeks, chap. ix. and in sundry other passages of ancient prophecy.

-Perhaps the ancient versions were led into this grievous error (which has chiefly contributed to weaken the authority of this most noble and important prophecy, in sharing it with Solomon) by misapplying to CHRIST the explanatory clause of that sublime commentary upon this prophecy, Psalm lxxxix. 30-33.--(“If his children forsake my laws, "and walk not in my judgments; if they "break my statutes, and keep not my com"mandments; then will I visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes :) But his children” alas, were his persecutors!" He came unto his own. "home, but his own household entertained him not!" John i. 11. "He was despised

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and

and rejected by that wicked and apostate generation"—who unwittingly "crucified the "LORD OF GLORY"-and have ever since been visited" with the rod," and chastised "with stripes;" furnishing an awful lesson and tremendous example to mankind, of the severity of divine vengeance, and of the minute accomplishment of THE SCRIPTURE OF TRUTH.

DISSERTATION V.

ON PSALM LXXXIX.

I NOw proceed to examine that admirable commentary contained in the eighty-ninth Psalm, unfolding and explaining the conciser oracle delivered to Nathan.

This psalm is entitled "MASCHIL,” a word prefixed to many of these sacred odes, signifying an instructive poem," and therefore may justly be rendered" a hymn” conveying religious instruction.

Various and discordant are the guesses of the learned touching " ETHAN THE EZRA"HITE," the writer of this psalm: Aben Ezra supposes that he was the grandson of Judah, noticed 1 Chron. ii. 6; and Solomon Jarchi makes him out the son of Abraham himself!

2. Hammond and others suppose, that Ethan was not the author; but that the names of Ethan, Heman, Asaph, &c. pre

fixed to several of the psalms, denote only the favourite airs or tunes to which they were set or sung by the sacred choir, like York tune or Salisbury tune in our psalmody! and improving on the imagination, the Monthly Magazine for October, 1801, p. 219, has degraded" the sweet Psalmist of Israel," David himself, into " an excellent harper !" and denied him the credit of composing those psalms that bear his name, and are ascribed to him in the NEW TESTAMENT.

3. Hence a wide field has been opened to the extravagance of conjecture respecting its author and its drift. Some suppose that it was written by Isaiah, Jeremiah, or some scribe after the captivity; that it related primarily to David, or to Hezekiah, or to Josiah, or to Jehoiakim, or to Jehoiachin, or to Zedekiah, among those that refer it ultimately and chiefly to the MESSIAH: And such discordant reveries disgrace the pages of the most celebrated commentators, foreign and domestic, Aben Ezra, Grotius, Bossuet, Michaelis, Doederlin, Knapp, Eichorne, Dathe, Hammond, Dodd, Kennicott, Mudge, Horne, &c.