No. 228.-ISAIAH i. 8.

As a cottage in a vineyard.

THIS was a little temporary hut, covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden, or vineyard, during the short season while the fruit was ripening, (Job xxvii. 18.) and presently removed when it had served that purpose. The eastern people were probably obliged to have such a constant watch to defend the fruit from the jackals. "The jackal," says HASSELQUIST (Travels, p. 277.) "is a species of mustela, which is very common in Palestine, especially during the vintage, and often destroys whole vineyards, and gardens of cucumbers."

Bp. LowтH, in loc.

No. 229.-i. 22. Wine mixed with water.] This is an image used for the adulteration of wine with more propriety than may at first appear, if what Thevenot says of the people of the Levant of late times were true of them formerly. "They never mingle water with their wine to drink, but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating the strength of the wine." It is remarkable, that whereas the Greeks and Latins, by mixed wine, always understood wine diluted and lowered with water, the Hebrews on the contrary generally mean by it, wine made stronger and more inebriating, by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients, such as honey, spices, defrutum, (or wine inspissated by boiling it down to two thirds, or one half of the quantity) myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. Such were the exhilarating, or rather stupifying ingredients, which Helen mixed in the bowl, together with the wine, for

her guests oppressed with grief, to raise their spirits, the composition of which she had learned in Egypt. (HOMER, Odyss. iv. 220.) Such was the spiced wine mentioned, Solomon's Song viii. 2.; and how much the eastern people to this day deal in artificial liquors of prodigious strength, the use of wine being forbidden, may be seen in a curious chapter of Kempfer upon that subject.

Thus the drunkard is properly described as one that seeketh mixed wine, (Prov. xxiii. 30.) and is mighty to mingle strong drink (Isaiah, v. 22.); and hence the Psalmist took that highly poetical and sublime image of the cup of God's wrath, called by Isaiah (li. 17.) the cup of trembling, containing, as St. John expresses it, (Rev. xiv. 10.) pure wine made yet stronger by a mixture of powerful ingredients. In the hand of Jehovah there is a cup, and the wine is turbid; it is full of a mixed liquor, and he poureth out of it: (or rather, he poureth it out of one vessel into another, to mix it perfectly) verily, the dregs thereof, (the thickest sediment of the strong ingredients mingled with it,) all the ungodly of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.

Bp. Lowтн, in loc.

No. 230.-i. 30. A garden that hath no water.] In the hotter parts of the eastern countries, a constant supply of water is so absolutely necessary for the cultivation, and even for the preservation and existence of a garden, that should it want water but for a few days, every thing in it would be burnt up with the heat, and totally destroyed. There is therefore no garden whatever in those countries but what has such a certain sup ́ply, either from some neighbouring river, or from a reservoir of water collected from springs, or filled with rain water in the proper season, in sufficient quantity to afford ample provision for the rest of the year.

Moses having described the habitation of man newly created, as a garden planted with every tree pleasant to the sight, and good for food; adds, as a circumstance necessary to complete the idea of a garden, that it was well supplied with water. (Gen. ii. 10. and xiii. 10.) And a river went out of Eden to water the garden.

That the reader may have a clear notion of this matter, it will be necessary to give some account of the management of the gardens in this respect. "Damascus," says MAUNDRELL, "is encompassed with gardens, extending no less, according to common estimation, than thirty miles round, which makes it look like a city in a vast wood. The gardens are thick set with fruit trees of all kinds, kept fresh and verdant by the waters of Barrady, (the Chrysorrhoas of the ancients) which supply both the gardens and city in great abundance. This river, as soon as it issues out from between the cleft of the mountain before mentioned into the plains, is immediately divided into three streams; of which the middlemost and biggest runs directly to Damascus, and is distributed to all the cisterns and fountains of the city. The other two, (which I take to be the work of art) are drawn round, one to the right hand and the other to the left, on the borders of the gardens, into which they are let as they pass, by little currents, and so dispersed all over the vast wood, insomuch, that there is not a garden but has a fine quick stream running through it. Barrady is almost wholly drank up by the city and gardens; what small part of it escapes is united, as I was informed, in one channel again, on the south east side of the city, and after about three or four hours course, finally loses itself in a bay there, without ever arriving at the sea. (Journey, p. 122.) This was likewise the case in former times, as Strabo, (lib. 16.) and Pliny, (v. 18.) testify, who say, "that this river was expended in canals, and drank up by watering the place."

"The best sight," says MAUNDRELL, (Journey, p. 39.) "that the palace (of the emir of Beroot, anciently Berytus) affords, and the worthiest to be remembered, is the orange garden. It contains a large quadrangular plat of ground, divided into sixteen lesser squares, four in a row, with walks between them, The walks are shaded with orange trees of a large spreading size; every one of these sixteen lesser squares in the garden was bordered with stone, and in the stone work were troughs, very artificially contrived, for conveying the water all over the garden, there being little outlets cut at every tree, for the stream as it passed by to flow out, and water it." The royal gardens at Ispahan are watered just in the same manner according to Kempfer's description. (Aman. Exot. p. 193.) See Psalm i. 3. Jer. xvii. 8. Prov. xxi. 1. Eccles. ii. 5, 6.

Bp. Lowтн, in loc.

No. 231.-ii. 19. The holes of the rocks and the caves of the earth.] The country of Judea, being mountainous and rocky, is full of caverns, as it appears from the history of David's persecution under Saul. At Engedi in particular there was a cave so large, that David with six hundred men hid themselves in the sides of it, and Saul entered the mouth of the cave without perceiving that any one was there. (1 Sam. xxiv.) JOSEPHUS, (Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 15. and Bell. Jud. lib. i. cap. 16.) tells us of a numerous gang of banditti, who having infested the country, and being pursued by Herod with his army, retired into certain caverns, almost inaccessible, near Arbela in Galilee, where they were with great difficulty subdued. Some of these were natural, others artificial." Beyond Damascus," says Strabo, (lib. 16.) "are two mountains called Trachones (from which the country has the name of Trachonitis,) and from hence, towards Arabia and Iturea, are certain rugged moun

tains, in which there are deep caverns, one of which will hold four thousand men." TAVERNIER, (Voyage de Perse, part ii. cap. 4,) speaks of a grot, between Aleppo and Bir, that would hold near three thousand horse. "Three hours distant from Sidon, about a mile from the sea, there runs along a high rocky mountain, in the sides of which are hewn a multitude of grots, all very little differing from each other. They have entrances about two feet square; on the inside you find in most or all of them a room of about four yards square. There are of these subterraneous caverns two hundred in number. It may, with probability at least, be concluded that these places were contrived for the use of the living, and not of the dead. Strabo describes the habitations of the Troglodyte to have been somewhat of this kind." (Maundrell, p. 118.) The Horites, who dwelt on Mount Seir, were Troglodytes, as their name imports; but those mentioned by Strabo were on each side of the Arabian gulf. MOHAMMED (Koran, cap. 15 and 24.) speaks of a tribe of Arabians, the tribe of Thamud," who hewed houses out of the mountains to secure themselves." Thus, because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds. (Judges vi. 2.) To these they betook themselves in times of distress, and hostile invasion. When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed) then the people hid themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits. (1 Sam. xiii. 6. Jer. xli. 9.) Therefore to enter into the rock; to go into the holes of the rocks; and into the caves of the earth; was to them a very proper and familiar image to express terror and consternation. The prophet Hosea hath carried the same image further, and added great strength and spirit to it. (cap. x. 8.) They shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us; which image, together with