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The crimes of men]

CHAP. III.

their princes, and babes shall rule over them.

5 And the people shall be oppressIF ed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand:

7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people.

8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

9 The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

12 As for my people, children are

[and follies of women.

their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

13 The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.

14 The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

15 What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the LORD God of hosts.

16 Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet.

17 Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their nakedness.

18 In that day the LORD will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the

moon,

19 The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,

20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and

NOTES.

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Ver. 11. Given-Heb. "Done" to him.

Ver. 12. They which lead-Heb. "They which bless thee;" i. e. the priests.- And destroy-Heb. "Swallow up;" so the monsters of the deep destroy: but to swallow a way," seems to refer to an janndation of error and vice, which prevented their progress in the way of duty.

Ver. 14. The ancients-Lowth, "Elders."

Ver. 16. Wanton eyes- Heb. "Deceiving with their eyes;" i. e. by amorons glances. Lowth thinks this refers to painting the eyes. See Jer. iv. 30 Mincing as they go--Heb. Tripping nicely."

Ver. 17. Discover their nakedness.-The authorized version reads, "Secret parts;" but the Editor presumes that he shall be here approved in adopting the version of Bp. Lowth. The text refers to the barbarous enstom of exposing captives naked.

Ver. 18. Tinkling ornaments - Lowth, "Feetrings" i. e. rings on the toes, which tinkled in tripping as they went. Cauls Marg. "Net Works."Round tires, &c.-Lowth, "Crescents." Ver. 19. The chains- Marg, "Sweet balls,"

Lowth, "The pendents."- -The mufflers-Marg. "Spangled ornaments;" Lowth, "Their veils." Ver. 20. The bonnets-Lowth," Tires;" i. e. high head dresses.-The tablets-Heb. "Houses of the soul;" which Lowth ingeniously explains of " perfume boxes," and the ear rings as "amulets," or ornaments worn as charms against disease.

Ver. 21. Nose jewels were certainly used by ladies in the East, as they are in some parts to this day. See Note on Gen. xxiv. 47; also Ezek. xvi. 12. Lowth reads, "Jewels of the nostril."

Ver. 22. The changeable suits, &c.-Lowth, "The embroidered robes and the tunics."-The wimples and the crisping pins-Lowth," The cloaks and the little purses."`

Ver. 23. The glasses-Lowth, "The transparent garments," a kind of silken gauze, worn by women of light character. The hoods and the veilsLowth," The turbans and the mantles."

Ver. 24. Instead of a sweet smell, a stink-Lowth, "Instead of a perfume, a putrid ulcer."—Instead of a girdle, a rent - Lowth, "Instead of well-girt raiment, rags. A stomacher-Lowth," A zone.” And burning-Lowth, "A sun burnt skin."

Ver. 26. And she (being) desolate, shall sit the ground-See Lam. ii. 8. Mr. Addison re that on several coins of Vespasian and 'T Capta is so represented.

The love of Christi

SOLOMON'S SONG.

EXPOSITION-Chap. VIII. Continued.

quin approach, enquire, as on a former occasion, "Who is this that cometh?" &c. It need not, however, be referred to the same scene the wilderness here meant, may probably intend only one of the small wildernesses, or uncultivated spots, of which there were many in Judea, and some not far from the metropolis. These might, in the allegory, very properly represent barren and neglected spots within the boundary of the Christian church. The words "I raised thee," &c. are those of the bridegroom, reminding the spouse of her engagements to him by betrothment; and she begs (ver. 6.) to have a perpetual memorial in his heart. He then assures her, in return, (ver. 7.) that his love is as unextinguishable as it was unpurchaseable.

The spouse, in ver. 8. presents a petition on the behalf of a younger sister, not yet marriageable, which Christian commentators in general apply to the case of the Gentiles, and ground here the calling of the Gentile church; and though some have objected to this interpretation, they do not appear to have supplied a better.

The bridegroom returns a kind reply: "If she be a wall, though low, we will raise her by "turrets of silver;" that is, give her a marriage portion, that shall compensate all defects: and if she be an unprotected virgin, we will enclose and secure her from every danger.

The bride then turns his attention to herself: "I (was) a wall, and my breasts like towers:" that is, the Jewish church was, by the Spirit of prophecy, prepared for the coming of her Lord; then, says she, I was in his eyes" as one that found peace," or happiness. It was a time of love, when the bridegroom spread his skirt over her, and took her under his protection. (See Ruth iii. 9; Ezek xvi. 8.)

At ver. 11. the subject again chauges, and this verse is supposed to be addressed by the spouse to the virgins, as the next is to the bridegroom himself; neither of them are easy of explication. The situation of Baal-hamon is unknown and unimportant; but what was the vineyard of the bride? The sacred history informs us, that Pharaoh (her father) having previously taken Gezer from the Canaanites, and burnt it, afterwards made a present of it to his daughter, the wife of Solomon. It is very probable, that after having burnt the city, and destroyed its inhabitants, Pharaoh might have turned it into some

[to Gentiles.

kind of plantation, which the Hebrews would comprehend under the general name of vineyard, which she here speaks of as hers, and from which she received a certain revenue. This falling into the hands of Solomon, upon his marriage, some years afterwards, he rebuilt the city, which, according to Reland, was called Gazara, near Joppa. Now the object of mentioning this vineyard, (as at that time it probably was) seems to be, that its revenue might be transferred to her younger sister: but this is offered only as a conjecture.

To allegorize these vineyards, with any degree of propriety, is not easy; nor would the genius of Bunyan, united to the Oriental literature of a Jones, be sufficient to open all the allegories of Scripture, without a degree of local knowledge, now unattainable. It is therefore much better to leave many passages in the obscurity in which time has involved them, than to make them more obscure by "words with out knowledge;" at least by words without that knowledge which is indispensable to their proper explication. The Scriptures nave, perhaps, suffered more from the determination of commentators to explain all difficulties, than from any other cause whatever. There are mysteries in Scripture as well as in nature, that every attempt to penetrate only renders more ob

scure.

The two last verses are, however, more intelligible. In ver. 13, the church is addressed by her beloved as one that delighted to " dwell in the gardens;" intika mating not only commendation of a taste for rural employment and felicity, but more especially a pleasure in mental cultivation. Schools for moral and religious instruction, are gardens of immortal souls: and when Christians are thus employed with children, companions or spectators who listen to their instruction, are often excited to inquire, "whether these things be so," and the beloved himself delights to hear. "Cause me to hear it."

But all which believers saw or heard of the Messiah, under the Old Testament, was at a distance. Like Abraham, they saw his day afar off, and were glad; while, at the same time, they sighed for his coming, and, in the figurative language in which the spouse concludes this book, their prayers hastened his approach: "Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like a roe, or a y ng hart upon the spicy mountains!"

END OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON

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THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET

ISAIAH.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS.

"THE early Prophets committed nothing to writing: their predictions being only, or chiefly of a temporal nature, are inserted in the historical books, together with their fulfilment. Such appears to have been the case with Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, and others; but those who were gifted with the spirit of prophecy in its most exalted sense, and were commissioned to utter predictions, the accomplishment of which was as yet far distant, were directed to write them, or cause them to be written in a book (compare Isa. viii. 1-xxx.8; Jer. xxx. 2-xxxvi. 2, 28; Ezek. xliii. 11; Hab. ii. 2, &c.) The predictions thus committed to writing were carefully preserved, under a conviction that they contained important truths, thereafter to be more fully revealed, which were to receive their accomplishment at the appointed periods. It was also the office of the Prophets to commit to writing the history of the Jews; and it is on this account that, in the Jewish classification of the books of the Old Testament, we find several historical writings arranged among the Prophets. Throughout their prophetic and historical books, the utmost plainness and sincerity prevail. They record the idolatries of the nation, and foretel the judgments of God, which were to befal the Jews, in consequence of their forsaking his worship and service; and they have transmitted a relation of the crimes and misconduct of their best princes, David, Solomon, and others ;-who were types of the Messiah, and from whose race they expected that he would descend: regarding the glories of their several reigns, as presages of his,-are described, not only without flattery, but also without any reserve or extenuation. They write like men who had no regard to any thing but truth and the glory of God.

"The manner in which the Prophets announced their predictions varied according to circumstances. Sometimes they uttered them aloud in a public place: and it is in allusion to this practice that Isaiah is commanded to "cry aloud, spare not, lift up his voice like a trumpet, and show the people of God their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." (Isa. lviii. 1.) Sometimes their predictions were affixed to the gates of the temple, where they might be generally read, (Jer. vii. 2); but upon important occasions, when it was necessary to rouse the fears of a disobedient people, and to recal them to repentance, the Prophets, as objects of universal attention, appear to have walked about publicly in sackcloth, and with every external mark of humiliation and sorrow. They then adopted extraordinary modes of expressing their convictions of impending wrath, and endeavoured to awaken the apprehensions of their countrymen, by the most striking illustrations of threatened punishment. Thus Jeremiah made bonds and yokes, and put them on his neck, (Jer. xxvii.) strongly to intimate the subjection that God would bring on the nations' whom Nebuchadnezzar should subdue. Isaiah likewise walked naked; that is, without the rough garment of the prophet; and barefoot, (Isa. xx. 2.) as a sign of the distress that awaited the Egyptians. So Jeremiah broke the potter's vessel, (xix. 10.); and Ezekiel publicly removed his household goods from the city, more forcibly represent, by these actions, some correspondent calamities ready to fall on nations obnoxious to God's wrath: this mode of expressing important circumstances by action being customary and familiar among all Eastern nations.

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"Sometimes the prophets were commanded to seal and shut up their prophecies, that the originals might be preserved until they were accomplished, and then compared with the event, (Isa. viii. 16; Jer. xxxii. 14; Dan. viii. 26-and xii. 4.) For, when the prophecies were not to be fulfilled till after many years, and in some cases not till after

ISAIAH.

several ages, it was requisite that the original writings should be kept with the utmost care; but when the time was so near at hand, that the prophecies must be fresh in every person's recollection, or that the originals could not be suspected or supposed to be lost, the same care was not required, (Rev. xxii. 10.) It seems to have been customary for the Prophets to deposit their writings in the tabernacle, or lay them up before the Lord, (1 Sam. x. 25.) And there is a tradition, that all the canonical books, as well as the law, were put into the side of the ark.-Horne's Introd. (last Ed.) vol. iv. p. 146.

We here subjoin the following passages from other writers of eminence, on two important points connected with this subject:

tants.

ON PROPHETIC ACTION.

"There is a circumstance (says Mr. Murray) running through the Old and New Testament, which has puzzled many serious inquirers, owing to their unacquaintance with former manners: I speak of the mode of information by action. In the first ages, when words were few, men made up the deficiency of speech by action, as savages are observed to do at this day: so that conveying ideas by action was as usual as conveying them by speech. This practice, from its significancy and strong tendency to imprint vivid pictures on the imagination, endured long after the reasons for its origination ceased. It appears to have been confined to no parti cular country. The Scythiaus sent Darius a mouse, a frog, and a bird, which action spoke as plainly as words could do, and much more energetically, that he should fly with all speed to inaccessible fastnesses. When the son of Tarquinius Superbus bad counterfeited desertion to Gabii, and had secured the confidence of the citizens, he sent a trusty messenger to his father to know how he should conduct himself. Tarquin led him into a garden, struck off the heads of the highest poppies in his presence; which being related to Sextus, he knew that he should take off the heads of the principal inhabiConformable to this usage, when Jacob feared the wrath of Esau, an angel wrestled with him thereby signifying that his apprehensions were groundless, and that, as he had prevailed with a divine Being, so he should be powerful over man. Couformable to this, Ezekiel puts on a yoke to represent the bondage of his countrymen, and walks without his upper garment, to represent their nakedness in captivity. Conformable to this, Jesus Christ curses the fig-tree, to prefigure the fate of a people unfruitful in good works. Agabus binds himself with Paul's girdle, to prefigure the imprisonment of the latter; and a mighty angel, in the Revelation, cast a huge stone into the sea, saying, Thus shall Babylon be cast down, and found no more at all for ever. At other times this information was conveyed in visions, and not literally transacted; as when Ezekiel is said to lie many days on one side; to carry a wine-cup to the neighbouring kings; and to bury a book in the Euphrates. The reader must own now that in this mode of instruction there was nothing fanatic; for fanaticism consists in a fondness for unusual actions, or modes of speech: whereas these were general, and accommodated to the ruling taste. If God spoke in the language of eternity, who could understand him? He, like the prophet, shrinks himself into the proportion of the child, which he means to revive.”—(Murray's Evidences of the Jewish and Christian Revelations, sect. 7. p. 85.)

THE SUBJECTS OF PROPHECY.

The subjects of prophecy are various and extensive, indeed so much so, as has been shown by Bishop Newton, that they form a chain of predictions from the beginning to the end of the Bible, and the world; but the grand subject of prophecy is the coming and kingdom of the Messiah, who was promised as the seed of the woman and of Abraham, the son of David and of God. This is indeed the prominent topic of most of the Prophets now before us, and especially of Isaiah. Many of his predictions will be found to refer to him alone; and others, though they may have a partial accomplishment in nearer events and inferior circumstances, have in him their final and complete accomplishment.

"The argument from prophecy, (says the learned Bp. Hurd) is not to be formed from the consideration of single prophecies, but from all the prophecies taken together, and considered as making one system'; in which, from the mutual dependence and connexion

INTRODUCTION.

of its parts, preceding prophecies prepare and illustrate those which follow; and these again reflect light on the foregoing: just as, in any philosophical system, that which shows the solidity of it, is the harmony and correspondence of the whole; not the application of it in particular instances.

"Hence, though the evidence be but small, from the completion of any one prophecy taken separately, yet, that evidence being always something, the amount of the whole evidence resulting from a great number of prophecies, all relative to the same design, may be considerable; like many scattered rays, which, though each be weak in itself, yet, concentered into one point, shall form a strong light, and strike the sense very powerfully. Still more: this evidence is not simply a growing evidence, but is indeed multiplied upon us, from the number of reflected lights which the several component parts of such a system reciprocally throw upon each; till, at length, the conviction rises unto a high degree of moral certainty.” (Hurd's Sermons on Prophecy, Ser. ii.)

It is certain that the writings of the ancient Prophets were carefully preserved dur ing the captivity, and they are frequently referred to and cited by the later Prophets. Thus the prophecy of Micah is quoted in Jer. xxvi. 18, a short time before the captivity, and, under it the prophecy of Jeremiah is cited, in Dan. ix. 2, and the Prophets generally in ix. 6. Zechariah not only quotes the former Prophets, (i. 4.) but supposes their writings to be well known to the people, (vii. 7.) It is evident that Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and the other Prophets, who flourished during the captivity, carefully preserved the writings of their inspired predecessors; for they very frequently cited and appealed to them, and expected deliverance from their captivity by the accomplishment of their predictions.

Although some parts of the writings of the Prophets are clearly in prose, of which instances occur in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, and Daniel, yet by far the larger portion of the prophetic writings are classed by Bishop Lowth among the poetical productions of the Jews, and (with the exception of certain passages in Isaiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel, which appear to constitute complete poems of different kinds, odes as well as elegies) form a particular species of poesy, which he distinguishes by the appellation of prophetic. "The prophetic poesy," says the same learned Prelate, is more ornamented, more splendid, and more florid than any other. It abounds more in imagery, at least that species of imagery which, in the parabolic style, is of common and established acceptation; and which, by means of a settled analogy, always preserved, is transferred from certain and definite objects, to express indefinite and general ideas. Of all the images peculiar to the parabolic style, it most frequently introduces those which are taken from natural objects and sacred history; it abounds in metaphors, allegories, comparisons, and even in copious and diffuse descriptions; it excels in the brightness of imagination, and in clearness and energy of diction, and consequently rises to an uncommon pitch of sublimity."-Lowth's Lect. xx.

As it is well known the prophets did not live nor write in the order in which their books are inserted in our Bible, we shall here introduce a Chronological Table of their respective dates, from Mr. Horne. The four greater prophets (as they are called) we shall distinguish by putting their names in capitals.

These Prophets, Mr. Horne remarks, may be arranged under three periods —

1. Before the Babylonian captivity-Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Joel, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah: For the history of this period, see the second book of the Kings and Chronicles.

2. During the captivity, in part or in whole-Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Daniel, Obadiah, and Ezekiel.

3. After the return-Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Compare the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah as to this period.

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