he would go to Jerusalem, or to some other place, one branch of the road pointing to Jerusalem, the other leading to a different town.

HARMER, vol. iv. p. 442.

No. 314.-xxi. 21. He made his arrows bright.] This was for the purpose of divination. Jerome on this passage says, that "the manner of divining by arrows was thus.

They wrote on several arrows the names of the citics they intended to make war against, and then putting them promiscuously all together into a quiver, they caused them to be drawn out in the manner of lots, and that city whose name was on the arrow first drawn out was the first they assaulted." A method of this sort of divination, different from the former, is worth noticing. Della Valla says, (p. 276.) "I saw at Aleppo a Mahometan, who caused two persons to sit upon the ground, one opposite to the other, and gave them four arrows into their hands, which both of them held with their points downward, and as it were in two right lines united one to the other. Then, a question being put to him about any business, he fell to murmur his enchantments, and thereby caused the said four arrows of their own accord to unite their points together in the midst, (though he that held them stirred not his hand) and, according to the future event of the matter, those of the right side were placed over those of the left, or on the contrary." This practice the writer refers to diabolical influence.

The method of divination practised by some of the idolatrous Arabs, but which is prohibited by the Koran, is too singular to be unnoticed, "The arrows used by them for this purpose were like those with which they cast lots, being without heads or feathers, and were kept in the temple of some idol, in whose presence they were

consulted.

Seven such arrows were kept at the temple of Mecca: but generally in divination they make use of three only, on one of which was written, my Lord hath commanded me; on another, my Lord hath forbidden me; and the third was blank. If the first was drawn, they looked on it as an approbation of the enterprize in question: if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but, if the third happened to be drawn, they mixed them, and drew over again, till a decisive answer was given by one of the others. These divining arrows were generally consulted before any thing of moment was undertaken, as when a man was about to marry, or about to go a journey, or the like.”

SALE'S Koran, Preliminary Discourse, p. 168.

1

No. 315.-xxiii. 15. Dyed attire.] "The high priest of Mithra wore a linen tiara, or mitre, of great magnitude, and rolled round several times, in imitation of the convolutions of the orbs. Possibly the name of mitre might be primarily derived from this high conical cap worn in the rites of Mithra, which was also covered with rays, and painted with various devices. It is to these caps that Ezekiel alludes when he ridicules the ornaments that decorated the Gods of the Sabian idolaters, which he calls, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed upon the walls with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, and exceeding in DYED ATTIRE upon their heads. The brahmins and their deities, to this day, wear the mystic belt, or girdle; and it has been observed, from ancient travellers, that they formerly wore a cap or turban of white muslin, folded round the head in such a manner as that the extremities of the folds exhibited to the spectator the appearance of the two horns of a that is, of the moon in her increase."

cow,

MAURICE'S Indian Antiquities, vol. v. p. 233.

No. 316. xxiii. 12-16.] "The Egyptians and Ethiopians were the undoubted descendants of Ham; so possibly might be the Hindoos, and consequently all must be supposed to have been infected with the original idolatry of Chaldæa, that primeval country, where their ancestors so long resided. This passage of Ezekiel will elucidate the superstitious rites practised in the mystic cell of Egypt, and of the sculptures portrayed on the walls, both of those cells, and the caves of India. Whoever attentively considers what, from various authors, and some of such unimpeachable veracity as Niebuhr, Hunter, and Perron, has been related concerning the splendid regal ornaments that decorate the head and neck; the zones, jewelled or serpentine, that gird round the waist of the Indian statues; whoever, in India, has seen the profusion of vermilion or saffron, with which, according to his cast, the devout Hindoo marks both his own forehead and that of the deity he adores, must agree with me, that no allusion to these ornaments can be apparently more direct, and no description of the images themselves more accurate, than this of Ezekiel. Under the character of AHOLI BAH, an abandoned prostitute, does JEHOVAH thus parabolically stigmatize the idolatrous devotion of the apostate Judah. She doated upon the Assyrians, her neighbours; captains and rulers, clothed most gorgeously-and, when she saw men portrayed upon the walls, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity; then, as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doated upon them, and sent messengers unto them unto Chaldea. And again, towards the close of the same chapter it is said, Moreover this they have done unto

me; WHEN THEY HAD SLAIN THEIR CHILDREN TO

THEIR IDOLS; then they came, the same day, unto my sanctuary to profane it.—And furthermore, ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent, and, lo! they came, for whom THOU DIDST WASH THYSELF, (that is, perform ablutions) PAINTEDST THINE EYES, and sattest upon a stately bed, with a TABLE (that is, an altar) PREPARED BEFORE IT, WHEREUPON THOU HAST SET MINE INCENSE AND MINE OIL. And a voice of a multitude, being at ease, was with her, and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabians (that is, worshippers of the planets) from the wilderness, WHO PUT BRACE

AND DECKEDST THYSELF WITH ORNAMENTS,

LETS UPON THEIR HANDS, AND BEAUTIFUL CROWNS UPON THEIR HEADS."

MAURICE'S Indian Antiquities. vol. ii. p. 375.

No. 317.-xxiii. 40. Thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thine eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments.] Chardin supposes that the decorations and attitude which the prophet gives to Aholibah are those of a bride. "It is precisely after this manner the bride receives her husband in Asia. They carry her to a bath, they afterwards adorn her magnificently, they paint, they perfume her, they carry her to the nuptial chamber, and they place her upon a bed."

HARMER, vol. ii. p. 123.

No. 318.-xxiv. 17. Put on thy shoes upon thy feet.] When Ezekiel was commanded to abstain from mourning, he was ordered among other things to put his shoes on his feet. This was certainly contrary to the practice of the Jews, and was therefore the more remarkable. Addison, in his account of the modern mourning of the Jews in Barbary, says, "the relations of the deceased, for seven days after the interment, stir not abroad, or if

by some extraordinary occasion they are forced to go out of doors, it is without shoes; which is a token with them, that they have lost a dear friend." p. 218.

No. 319. xxiv. 17. Cover not thy lips.] Dean Addison, in his account of the Jews of Barbary (p. 218.) thus describes one of their mourning rites. "They return from the grave to the house of the deceased, where one, who as chief mourner receives them, with his jaws tied up with a linen cloth, after the same manner that they bind up the dead. And by this the mourner is said to testify that he was ready to die with his friend. And thus muffled the mourner goes for seven days; during which time the rest of his friends come twice every twenty-four hours to pray with him." This certainly explains what is meant by covering the lips, or the mouth, from which Ezekiel was commanded to abstain. The same rite was to be made use of by the leper when pronounced such by the priest. (Levit. xiii. 45.)

No. 320.-xxvi. 14. Tyre shall be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on.] This city standing in the sea, upon a peninsula, promises at a distance something very magnificent. But when you come to it, you find no similitude of that glory, for which it was so renowned in ancient times, and which the prophet Ezekiel describes, ch. xxvi, xxvii, xxviii. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle; besides which you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c. there being not so much as one intire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting themselves chiefly upon fishing, who seem to be preserved in this place by divine providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre. MAUNDRELL, Journey, p. 48.