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scattered through the dominions and colonies of the maritime power, or through those of other smaller

To send messengers] The original word 'y may be taken for persons employed between nation and nation, for the purposes either of negociation or commerce.

Bulrush vessels] Navigable vessels are certainly meant-If the country spoken to be distant from Egypt, vessels of bulrush are only used as an apt image, on account of their levity, for quick sailing vessels of any material. The country therefore, to which the prophet calls, is characterized as one, which in the days of the completion of this prophecy should be a great maritime and commercial power, forming remote alliances, making distant voyages to all parts of the world with expedition and security, and in the habit of affording protection to their friends and allies. Where this country is to be found, is not otherwise said, 'than that it will be remote from Judea, and with respect to that country beyond the Cushèan streams.

A nation dragged away] The dispersed Jews: a nation dragged away from its proper seat, and plucked of its wealth and power; a people wonderful from the beginning to this very time for the special providence, which ever has attended them, and directed their fortunes; a nation still lingering in expectation of the Messiah, who so long since came, and was rejected by them, and now is coming again in glory; a nation universally trampled under foot; whose land rivers, armies of foreign invaders, the Assyrians, Babylonians, SyroMacedonians, Romans, Saracens, and Turks, have over-run and depopulated.

At that season a present shall be led] Immediately after the purgation of the Church, at the very time, when the bird of prey with all the beasts of the earth, Antichrist with his rebel rout, shall have fixed his seat between the seas, in the holy mountain, a present shall be brought; the nation, described in ver. 2. as those to whom the swift messengers are sent, after their long infidelity, shall be brought as a present unto

Jehovah

smaller maritime nations in alliance with and professing the same faith as the great naval power

itself.

Jehovah (Compare lxvi. 20.). They shall be converted to the acknowledgment of the truth, and they shall be brought to the place of the name of Jehovah, to mount Zion: they shall be settled in peace and prosperity, in the land of their original inheritance-This then is the sum of this prophecy, and the substance of the message sent to the people dragged away and plucked. That, in the latter ages, after a long suspension of the visible interpositions of Providence, God, who all the while regards that dwelling-place which he will never abandon, and is at all times directing the events of the world to the accomplishment of his own purposes of wisdom and mercy; immediately before the final gathering of his elect from the four winds of heaven, will purify his Church by such signal judgments, as shall rouse the attention of the whole world, and in the end, strike all nations with religious awe. At this period, the apostate faction will occupy the Holy Land. This faction will certainly be an instrument of those judgments, by which the Church will be purified. That purification therefore is not at all inconsistent with the secming prosperity of the affairs of the atheistical confederacy. But, after such duration as God shall see fit to allow to the plenitude of its power, the Jews, converted to the faith of Christ, will be unexpectedly restored to their ancient possessions. The swift messengers will certainly have a considerable share, as instruments in the hand of God, in the restoration of the chosen people: otherwise, to what purpose are they called upon (ver. 1.) to receive their commission from the prophet? It will perhaps be some part of their business to afford the Jews the assistance and protection of their fleets. This seems to be insinuated in the imagery of the first verse. But the principal part, they will have to act, will be that of the carriers of God's message to his people. This character

seems

itself. Another considerable body of the Jews there is reason to believe will be restored by land and

seems to describe some christian country, where the prophecies, relating to the latter ages, will meet with particular attention; where the literal sense of those, which promise the restoration of the Jewish people, will be strenuously upheld; and where these will be so successfully expounded, as to be the principal means, by God's blessing, of removing the veil from the hearts of the Israelites. Those, who shall thus be the instruments of this blessed work, may well be described, in the figured language of prophecy, as the carriers of God's message to his people. The situation of the country, destined to so high an office, is not otherwise described in the prophecy, than by this circumstance; that it is to be beyond the rivers of Cush: that is, far to the West of Judèa, if these rivers of Cush are to be understood, as they have been generally understood, of the Nile and other Ethiopian rivers; far to the East, if of the Tigris and Euphrates. The one, or the other, they must denote: but which, is uncertain. It will be natural to ask of what importance is this circumstance in the character of the country; which, if it be any thing, is a geographical character, and yet leaves the particular situation so much undetermined, that we know not in what quarter of the world to look for the country intended, whether in the East Indies, or in the western parts of Africa or Europe, or in America? I answer, that the full importance of this circumstance will not appear, till the completion of the prophecy shall discover it. But it had, as I conceive, a temporary importance at the time of the delivery of the prophecy; namely, that it excluded Egypt. The Jews of Isaiah's time, by a perverse policy, were on all occasions courting the alliance of the Egyptians, in opposition to God's express injunctions by his prophets to the contrary. Isaiah therefore, as if he would discourage the hope of aid from Egypt at any time, tells

them,

and in an unconverted state by the Antichristian faction; and that for mere political purposes. Those consequently, who are thus brought back, must be such Jews as are scattered through the territories of the infidel king and his vassal allies.

Daniel has given us a wonderfully minute account of the progress of the Antichristian confederacy to Palestine; which, as might naturally be expected from the circumstance of the maritime power commanding at sea, is plainly by land. This expedition of the infidel king, which we must conclude both from local and chronological evidence to be the same as the expedition of the beast under his last head, the false prophet, and the kings of the Latin earth, will at its first setting out be opposed by two kings of the south and the north. Now, if the infidel king be France, he must, in his attempt to invade the holy land from his empire in the West, necessarily pass through Turkey. Here therefore most probably will be the first collision. The Ottoman power, as we learn from St. John, will have previously fallen under the sixth apocalyptic vial: but in whose hands Turkey and Asia minor will then be, no one can at present with certainty determine. In spite however of all the opposition made by the

two

them, that the foreign alliance, which God prepares for them in the latter times, is not that of Egypt, which he teaches them at all times to renounce and to despise, but that of a country far remote: as every country must, that lies either West of the Nile, or East of the Tigris. - Bp. of St. Asaph's Letter on Isaiah xviii.

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two kings, Antichrist will enter into the countries, overflowing them like a resistless torrent; will pass over the narrow channel of the Constantinopolitan sea; and will force his way into Palestine. Such being his progress, he must unavoidably enter the holy land from the north: hence his invasion is so frequently spoken of as proceeding from that quarter *.

Successful in his first attempt, and having placed his allies the unconverted Jews in Jerusalem and its vicinity, he will next direct his steps towards Egypt. Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon, will nevertheless escape out of his band. For this they have to thank, not his moderation and clemency, but merely their local situation. A map will best explain the reason of their security. The districts, which those nations formerly occupied, lie so far to the east, as to be entirely out of the way of any army which is passing from Judea into Egypt. But, over other countries more closely adjoining to Egypt, he will stretch forth his hand: and, while Egypt is unable to escape his marauding rapacity, those, whom Daniel calls the Lubim and the Cushim, will be compelled to attend his steps, and probably either augment

* At this period, as I have already observed, I think it most probable, that the great hail-storm of the seventh vial will descend upon the western Roman empire. It is perhaps described as proceeding from heaven or the Church, in the same ense as the witnesses are said to shut heaven; that is to say not casually, but consequentially.