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6. "Of-the-increase-of the-superiority, even-of-peace where
“Shall-be-an-end unto the-throne-of David ?”

Bp. Lowth writes: Chap. ix. 7. — Ch. x. 4.] This whole passage makes a distinct prophecy. It has no relation to the preceding or following prophecy. Those relate principally to the Jingdom of Judah; this is addressed exclusively to the kingdom of Israel.' On the contrary, it appears to be a regular continuation of the prophecy of peace to Judah, and an assurance that the prosperity of the Jews would be effected by the humiliation, first of their neigh bouring enemies the Israelites, and afterwards of the more distant Assyrians and this seems to be the general subject to nearly the end of the xth ch. in the 33d and 34th vv. of which the invasion and captivity of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar appear to have been predicted.'

Is. xxiii. 1. is here rendered The suffering of Tyre! how! ve.' We shall not farther attend to the innovations attempted by this critic, in conformity with his new principles of rhythm: but we shall observe that, howmuchsoever we dislike Dr. Lowth's and Dr. Stock's substitution of the heathenish term "Oracle," for the burden of the common version, we cannot think that suffering is to be adopted as the synonym of

. Perhaps denunciation would be preferable to either.

Dr. Clarke supposes that, in the first thirty-five chapters of Isaiah, the prophet delivers the series of visions which he saw until the end of the reign of Ahaz; and that the thirty-sixth chapter introduces the reign of Hezekiah, during which the prophet saw all the remainder of his visions. Their direct import he endeavours to unfold, avoiding that turn for spiritualizing which is so general in commentators. He regards the prophet, in the commencement of The Song of the Desert,' (chap. xxxv. 1.) as foreshewing the preparation of the return from the Babylonish captivity, in order to exhilirate and support the minds of the afflicted Jews. It is thus given in metre:

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THE SONG OF THE DESERT.

Isaiah, chap. xxxv. ver. 2.

Boast, Lebanon, again the seat divine!
Carmel and Sharon, in new splendor shine!
Once more thy cedars veil Jehovah's face :
Once more your fields with fruit our God shall

grace.

Ye hands relax'd! be with fresh sinews strung:
Ye yielding knees of age! once more be young,
Bid each unsettled heart in God be bold:
Dispel your fears; your present God behold!
Crush'd is Chaldea by his vengeful rod:
He, captives! he is come; your Saviour, God.
E'en the blind view him with unclouded eye:
E'en list the deaf salvation's joyful cry:

E'en

E'en leap the gladsome lame, like bounding deer:
E'en now the dumb their own loud carols hear.

The deep canal the wither'd plains divides:
Across the desert torrents roll their tides:

Where gleam'd the sand, the pool's wide waters spread;
And quench'd is thirst at many a fountain's head:
No steril haunt the couching dragon knows:
Rich pasture springs, where reed and bulrush rose.
Here, captives! is your causey;-e'en a road,
God's own highway to Sion's blest abode!
No foot unclean profane this sacred ground:
But ever on it be God's faithful found:
Where devious paths no simple folk shall tread:
Near which to roam shall hungry lions dread.
E'en upon it no beasts of prey shall rise;

No lordly tiger meet the trav'ller's eyes.

But now proceed the claim'd;-God's ransom'd race
With songs returning Sion's causey trace:

For, Sion's ancient lays their thoughts employ.

(Ps. cxxxvii. 6.)

Sion they reach, fit theme of mirth and joy.

Captives! YOUR sighs are fled! You griefs no more annoy.` To chap. xxxviii. 20. the following note is subjoined ; which may be of use in ascertaining the objects to which we are immediately referred in many of the Psalms:

. Hezekiah's invitation to Isaiah to assist him in setting to his stringed musical instruments compositions of thanksgiving, to be sung in the temple all the days of his life, probably denoting all his allotted years, or upon each anniversary of his recovery, seems to indicate Isaiah as the author of many of the Psalms in the collection principally ascribed to David. How many of them may appear descriptive of the distress occasioned by the combination of Israel and Syria against Judah, and by the invasion of Sennacherib; of the defeat of the latter; and of the storm by which his army perished: how also may correspond with circumstances in the reign of Hezekiah, or in the time of Isaiah, equally as in that of David; an attentive reader may discover. But, without an examination of all of them, the xxxth, ciid, and ciiid Pss. seem peculiarly to present themselves as compositions on the subject of Hezekiah's sickness and recovery. Compare them with Hezekiah's writing here recorded. The + Asaphs appear to have been the collectors of the Psalms; or the authorized composers. of them, the prophets of the respective times, who also were the writers

many

* See also Pss. vi. xx. xxi.xci. ci. ; also the Ps. for the service of the Inauguration, (on the 25th of October,) and exvi. in the Thanksgiving of women after childbirth: but vv. 7-10. of Ps. vi. and 7, 8. of xx. and 8-12. of xxi. seem to respect the subject of Sennacherib and the Assyrians.'

Isaiah, the Asaph in Hezekiah's time. ed. Griesbach, and before on ch. xxxii. 15.'

See Matth. xiii. 35.

of the historical books of Kings and Chronicles. The ancient Jews, speaking of the law and the prophets, included the book of Psalme under the latter term. Marsh on Michaelis, vol. i. p. 496.

The whole collection, named in the Hebrew title Praises, was probably ascribed to David, because they were either composed by him, or by his order; or by the kings of Judah, his successors and of his family, who were also frequently called by his name, or by their

order.'

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Not only is the commencement of chap. xl. restricted to the consolation of Hezekiah and his contemporary countrymen, but even chap. liii. is interpreted with a similar allusion. shall quote the passage:

Ch. LIII. 1. The prophet speaks, and in the prophetic præter, as in 8, 9, 10. 14. of the preceding chapter. The report refers to the last metre of lii. 15. Who hath believed? i. e. who will believe this future alteration in the captive restored from Babylon?

· "Who hath-believed our-report;

"Even-the-arm-of Jehovah (5) to-whom hath-been mani-
"fested?

2. "That-one-should-aspire, as-a-tender-plant into-the-open-air ;
"Even-as-a-root from-a-land-of drought;
"In-which is-not elegance,

'3.

"Or beauty, that-we-should-regard-it ;

"Neither-is its-appearance-such, that-we-should-desire-it.
"Despised, even-ceasing from-amongst-men: (such was the
"captive,)

"A-man of sorrows, even-known-to grief:
"Even-as-one-that-hideth the-face from-us,
"Despised; neither esteemed-we-him.

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'4. Surely our-infirmities he hath-borne ;

"Even

*The most usual signification of is, to bear, and of, to carry; which latter confirms the meaning of the former. The person described by Isaiah, the Jewish captive returning from Babylon, or the Israelitish from Assyria, did not take away or remove the infirmities or sorrows of his countrymen, but he bare and carried them. Neither did our Lord, to whom Matth. viii. 17. this prophecy is applied, take away or remove, but, as 6 and so express, he took up and carried. The physician does not take away or remove infirmities and disorders, but he takes up and carries the burden of them: not exactly as the, captive bears the miseries of captivity, by suffering them; but by lifting a considerable part of the load from his patient, and bearing it upon his own mind. The physician is but the instrument under God, the remover of infirmities and diseases. Thus our Lord was the physician, the homo, to whom humani nihil alienum; and by analogy to the captive, possibly an unoffending person, who suffered for the faults of his countrymen who lived before him, he lifts upon himself the load of human wretchedness.

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"Whilst we esteemed-him one-stricken,
"A-smitten-of God, even-an-afflicted.

5. "But-he was-wounded for-our-revolts :
"He () was-bruised for-our-idolatries:

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The-discipline by-which-our-peace-was-effected was-upon

"him:

"Even-by-his-bruises healing-was to-us.

(See also 8, end.)

6. "We-all-of-us as-sheep have-strayed:
"Each to-his-own-way, we-have-turned:
"Even-hath-Jehovah made-to-light upon-him
"The punishment-of us-all."

See v. 11. and Blayney on Lam. iv. 22.

7.

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"He-was-brought-forth; even-he was-questioned:
"But-he-opened not his-mouth:

"As-a-lamb to-the-slaughter was-he-brought :
"Even-as-a-sheep before her-shearers is-dumb :
"Even-opened-he not his-mouth.

8. From-the-solemn-day (r. ), even-from-written-law was-he

"taken :

"Even-his existence who will-be-able-to-declare?"

The captive was deprived of his religion and sacred law, and in unseen and unknown existence.

up

"Surely he-was-cut-off from-the-land-of the-living:
"For-the-revolt-of the-people was-the-blow-inflicted
"upon-them."

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Niph impersonal future relative: see 5, end. Many died in captivity; and all were cut off from their own country, and from their relatives therein. The last word of the v. signifying to-him, or tothem, shows, that the person described is, in the noun of multitude, the people immediately before mentioned.'"

The extracts which we have already made will be sufficient to shew the manner and design of Dr. C. as a critic on and commentator of the prophetic parts of the O. T., and we shall not follow him through his readings and interpretations of Jeremiah, but proceed to the prophet Ezekiel; where, at the very threshold, we are stopped by a note on the phrase, “ Visions of God" (Chap. i. 1.) in which the annotator does not appear sufficiently respectful to the prophet:

wretchedness. The prophecy was fulfilled when the captive returned from Babylon or Nineveh: and the thing spoken by Isaiah the prophet' again and might be publickly declared as a true saying, when our Saviour dispossessed the dæmoniacs and healed the sick. That Anpów in Hellenistic or Jewish Greek acquired such signification, see Michaelis's Introduction, translated by Marsh, vol. i. pp. 128, 129.'

Also

Also xl. 1. Great sights, or dreams of the night. See the word so connected, Gen. xlvi. 2. This vision of the chariot-throne of Jehovah appears to have been the dream of a young priest, divinely impressed with a sense of his duty, in preparing his countrymen for a future restoration from captivity, by withdrawing them from idolatry. To detach a reader from his attention to the sober interpretation of Abp. Newcome, is by no means intended by the assertion that if a general comprehension of the vision as denoting the glorious majesty of Jehovah, v. 28., satisfy not, the different parts of it, like those of a dream, so far from submitting to accuracy of interpretation, bid fair to mock and defy for ever whatever attempts of criticism may be made to elucidate them. The mission of Isaiah, ch. vi., had doubtless filled the mind of the young Ezekiel in his waking hours antecedently to his dream of his own introduction to the prophetical office. The ænigmatic diffusion of this prophet may be considered as a mark of a declining age, and perhaps of the captivity of the language, or of the mind, as well as of the people.'

To whatever source we attribute the pictorial representations and strange combinations of objects in Ezekiel's first vision, we shall be at a loss to arrive at any definite idea of their import. The vision in the first chapter baffles all interpretation: but the object of the prophet's mission is very clear; he was sent to the captive Jews; and his addresses consist of a pointed reproof of their idolatry, with offers of a change in their civil state on a reformation of manners. No figurative language can more beautifully and strikingly illustrate the withered hopes of the Jews during the Babylonish captivity, than the vision of the valley full of dry bones (chap. xxxvi.); and no mode of address could speak more forcibly to them than that which the prophet has adopted. No mark of declining age here appears: but every thing is bold and appropriate. Jehovah is introduced as commanding the re-union and re-vivification of these bones; and, as all things are possible with God, the Jews were instructed to depend on their civil restoration. If any antient prophecy be susceptible of a double fulfilment, it is this; for it prefigures the prominent doctrine of the N. T. dispensation: yet it is manifest that Ezekiel restricts its application to the re-occupation by the Jews of their own land, or a national resurrection (as Dr. C. expresses it) by a return from captivity. As a farther specimen of his new readings, we copy a portion of this chapter:

1. "Was upon-me a-hand of Jehovah,

"Even-one brought-me-forth-in-a-mind-of Jehovah,
"Even-set-me-down in-the-midst-of the-valley,
"Even-it-was full-of bones :

2. "Even-he-caused-me-to-pass beside-them round and round;
"Even-were-not many exceedingly

"Upon the-face-of the-valley?

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