3 4 5 And it fhall come to pass in that day, that JEHOVAH shall give thee reft from thine affliction, and from thy difquiet, and from the hard fervitude, which was laid upon thee: and thou shalt pronounce this parable upon the king of Babylon; and fhalt say: How hath the oppreffor ceased! the exactress of gold ceafed ! JEHOVAH hath broken the staff of the wicked, the fceptre of the rulers. 6 He that smote the peoples in wrath, with a stroke unremitted; He that ruled the nations in anger, is perfecuted, and none hindereth. 7 The whole earth is at reft, is quiet; they burst forth into a joyful shout: 3.-in that day] . The word is added in two мss, and was in the copies from which the LXX and Vulg. tranflated: a exevy, in die illa, ( avaπavou, MS Pachom. adding). This is a matter of no great confequence: however, it reftores the text to the common form, almoft conftantly used on such occafions; and is one among many inftances of a word loft out of the printed copies. 4. this parable-] Mahal. I take this to be the general name for poetic ftyle among the Hebrews, including every fort of it, as ranging under one, or other, or all of the characters, of Sententious, Figurative, and Sublime; which are all contained in the original notion, or in the use and application of the word mahal. Parables or Proverbs, fuch as thofe of Solomon, are always expreffed in fhort pointed fentences; frequently figurative, being formed on fome comparison; generally forcible and authoritative, both in the matter and the form. And fuch in general is the ftyle of the Hebrew Poetry. The verb mahal fignifies to rule, to exercife authority; to make equal, to compare, one thing with another; to utter parables, or acute, weighty, and powerful fpeeches, in the form and manner of parables, though not properly fuch. Thus Balaam's first prophecy, Num. xxiii. 7-10, is called his mahal; though it has hardly any thing figurative in it; but it is beautifully fententious, and, from the very form and manner of it, has great spirit, force, and energy. Thus Job's laft fpeeches, in answer to the Three Friends, chap. xxvii,-xxxi. are called mashals; from no one particular character, which difcriminates them from the rest of the poem, but from the fublime, the figurative, the fententious manner, which equally prevails through the whole poem, and makes it one of the first and most eminent examples extant of the truly great and beautiful in poetic ftyle. The Lxx in this place render the word by Spavos, a lamentation. They plainly confider the speech here introduced as a piece of poetry, and of that fpecies of poetry, which we call the Elegiac: either from the fubject, it being a poem on the fall and death of the king of Babylon; or from the form of the compofition, which is of the Longer fort of Hebrew verse, in which the Lamentations of Jeremiah, called by the LXX Se, are written. 6 8 Even 3 Even the fir-trees rejoice over thee, the cedars of Libanus: Since thou art fallen, no feller hath come up against us. 9. 10 Hades from beneath is moved because of thee, to meet He roufeth for thee the mighty dead, all the great chiefs of He maketh to rise up from their thrones, all the kings of the All of them fhall accoft thee, and fhall fay unto thee: Art thou, even thou too, become weak as we? art thou made 11 Is then thy pride brought down to the grave; the found of 12 Is the vermin become thy couch, and the earth-worm thy co- How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, fon of the Art cut down to the earth, thou that didst subdue the nations! 13 Yet thou didst fay in thy heart: I will afcend the heavens ; Above the ftars of God I will exalt my throne; And I will fit upon the mount of the divine prefence, on the 14 I will afcend above the highths of the clouds; I will be like 15. But thou shalt be brought down to the grave, to the fides of 16 the pit. Thofe that fee thee fhall look attentively at thee; they Is this the man, that made the earth to tremble; that hook the kingdoms? 17 That made the world like a defert; that deftroyed the cities? That never difmiffed his captives to their own home? 11thy covering-] Twenty-eight MSS, (ten Ancient) and feven Editions, with the Lxx and Vulg. read, in the fingu lar number. 13. The mount of the divine prefence-] It appears plainly from Exod. xxv, 22. and xxix. 42, 43. where God appoints the place of meeting with Mofes, and promifes to meet with him before the ark, to commune with him, and to speak unto him; and to meet the children of Ifrael at the door of the Tabernacle; that the Tabernacle, and afterward the Temple, and Mount Sion, (or Moriah, which is reckoned a part of Sion,) whereon it tood, was called the Tabernacle, and the Mount, of Convention, or of Appointment; not from the people's affembling there to perform the fervices of their religion, (which is what our Tranflation expreffes by calling it the Tabernacle of the Congregation,) but becaufe God appointed that for the place, where He himself would meet with Mofes, and commune with him, and would meet with the people. Therefore, ,means the place appointed by God אהל מוער or הר מועד where he would prefent himfelf: agreeably to which I have rendered it in this place, the Mount of the Divine Prefence. 18 All 18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, Lie down in glory, each in his own fepulchre: 19 But thou art cast out of the grave, as the tree abominated; Cloathed with the flain, with the pierced by the sword, 20 21 22 With them that go down to the ftones of the pit; as a trodden carcafe. Thou shalt not be joined unto them in burial; Because thou hast destroyed thy country, thou haft flain thy people: The feed of evil doers fhall never be renowned. Prepare ye flaughter for his children, for the iniquity of their fathers; Left they rife, and poffefs the earth; and fill the face of the For I will arife against them, faith JEHOVAH God of Hofts: 19.-like the tree abominated-] That is, as an object of abomination and deteftation; such as the tree is, on which a malefactor has been hanged. "It is written, faith St. Paul, Galat. iii. 13. curfed is every man that hangeth on a tree:" from Deut. xxi. 23. The Jews therefore held also as accurfed and polluted the tree itself on which a malefactor had been executed, or on which he had been hanged after having been put to death by ftoning. "Non fufpendunt fuper arbore, quæ radicibus folo adhæreat; fed fuper ligno eradicato, ut ne fit excifio molefta: nam lignum, fuper quo fuit aliquis fufpenfus, cum fufpendiofo fepelitur; ne maneat illi malum nomen, & dicant homines, Iftud eft lignum, in quo fufpenfus eft ille, & deva Sic lapis, quo aliquis fuit lapidatus ; & gladius, quo fuit occifus is qui eft occifus ; & fudarium five mantile, quo fuit aliquis ftrangulatus; omnia hæc cum iis, qui perierunt, fepeliuntur." Maimonides, apud Cafaub. in Baron. Exercitat. xvi. An. 34. Num. 134. "Cum itaque homo fufpenfus maximæ effet abominationi,-Judæi quoque præ cæteris abominabantur lignum quo fuerat fufpenfus, ita ut illud quoque terra tegerent, tanquam rem abominabilem. Unde Interpres Chaldæus hæc verba tranftulit, ficut virgultum abfconditum, five fepultum." Kalinski, Vaticinia Obfervationibus illuftrata, p. 342. Agreeably to which, Theodoret, Hift. Ecclefiaft. i. 17, 18, in his account of the finding of the Crofs by Helena, fays, that the three Croffes were buried in the earth near the place of our Lord's fepulchre. Ibid. -cloathed with the flain.] Thirty five мss (ten Ancient), and three Editions, have the word fully written, 5. It is not a noun, but the participle paffive: thrown out among the common flain, and covered with the dead bodies. So ver. 11. the earthworm is faid to be his bed-covering. 20. Because thou haft deltroyed thy country; thou haft flain thy people.] Xenophon gives an inftance of this king's wanton cruelty in killing the fon of Gobrias, on no other provocation than that, in hunting, he ftruck a boar and a lion, which the king had miffed. Cyrop. iv. p. 309. 2 23 And 23 And I will make it an inheritance for the porcupine, and pools of water; 24 And I will plunge it in the miry gulph of deftruction, faith JEHOVAH God of Holls hath fworn, faying: Surely as I have devised, so fhall it be; And as I have purpofed, that thing shall stand: 25 To crush the Affyrian in my land, and to trample him on my mountains. 26 Then fhall his yoke depart from off them; And his burthen fhall be removed from off their fhoulder. This is the decree, which is determined on the whole earth; And this the hand, which is ftretched out over all the nations: 27 For JEHOVAH God of Hosts hath decreed; and who shall dif 28 29 annul it? And it is his hand, that is ftretched out; and who shall turn it back? IN THE YEAR, IN WHICH AHAZ THE KING DIED, THIS Rejoice not, O Philiftia, with one confent; For from the root of the ferpent fhall come forth a bafilifk; 30 For the poor fhall feed on my choice firft-fruits; But he will kill thy root with drought; 23. I will plunge it-] I have here very nearly followed the verfion of the LXX: the reafons for which fee in the latt Note on De Poefi Hebr. Prælect. xxviii. 25. To crush the Affyrian-on my mountains] The Affyrians and Babylonians are the fame people: Herod. i. 199, 200. Babylon is reckoned the principal city in Affyria: ibid. 178. Strabo fays the fame thing; lib. xvi. fub. init. The circumftance of this judgment's being to be executed on God's mountains is of importance: it may mean the deftruction of Senacherib's army near Jerufalem; and have ftill a further view: compare Ezek. xxxix. fee Lowth on this place of Ifaiah. 4. and 28. Uzziah had fubdued the Philiftines, 2 Chron. xxvi. 6, 7; but taking advantage of the weak reign of Ahaz, they invaded Judea, and took and held in poffeffion fome cities in the fouthern part of the kingdom. On the death of Ahaz, Ifaiah delivers this prophecy, threatening them with the deftruction that Hezekiah, his fon, and great grandson of Uzziah, should bring upon them: which he effected; for he fmote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof." 2 Kings xviii. 8. Uzziah therefore mult be meant by the rod that fmote them, and by the ferpent, from whom should fpring the flying fiery ferpent; that is, Hezekiah, a much or terrible enemy, than even Uzziah had been. Apr. 1780. U And 31 And thy remnant he will flay. Howl, O gate; cry out, O city! O Philiftia, thou art altogether funk in confternation! And there shall not be a straggler among his levies. 32 And what anfwer fhall be given to the ambassadors of the nations? That JEHOVAH hath laid the foundation of Sion; And the poor of his people shall take refuge in her. Any person who fhall hereafter be difpofed to enter more deeply into the theological explanation of the prophecies of Ifaiah, will now be enabled to purfue his defign with fingular advantage, 30. He will day] The LXX read, in the third perfon, ; and fo Chald. The Vulgate remedies the confufion of perfons in the present text, by reading both the verbs in the first perfon. 31. From the North cometh a fmoke] That is, a cloud of duft, railed by the march of Hezekiah's army against Philiftia, which lay to the fouth-weft from Jerufalem. A great duft raised has, at a diftance, the appearance of smoke: "fumantes pulvere campi.” Virg. Æn. xi. 9c8. 32. -to the ambassadors of the nations] The Lxx read O, plural; and fo the Chaldee. The ambaffadors of the neighbouring nations, that fend to congratulate Hezekiah on his success; which in his answer he will afcribe to the protection of God. See 2 Chron. xxxii. 23. Or, if, fingular, the reading of the Text, be preferred, the ambaffadors fent by the Philistines to demand peace. ART. IV. The British Fruit-Gardener; and Art of Pruning; comprifing, the most approved Methods of Planting and Railing every ufeful Fruit-Tree and Fruit-bearing-Shrob, whether for Walls, Espaliers, Standards, Half-Standards, or Dwarfs: The true fuccessful Practice of Pruning, Training, Grafting, Budding, &c. fo as to render them abundantly fruitful: And full Directions concerning Soils, Situations, and Expofures. By John Abercrombie, of Tottenham-Court, Gardener; Author of Every Man his own Gardener, First published under the Name of Thomas Mawe. 4 s. bound. Davis. 1779. HOUGH the experienced Gardener may, perhaps, find little in the prefent publication that is altogether new, yet it is not without its use. Whatever, has been hitherto written on this fubject was rarely to be met with, except in voluminous works +, intermixed with other matter in which the mere fruit-gardener had no concern; or in compendiums of gardening, in which the fubject was very imperfectly treated. + We must except Mr. Hitt's valuable tratife on Fruit-trees, in one octavo volume; an account of which was given in the 13th vol. of our Review. • With K. |