14. And the remnant' shall be like a chased antelope, And like sheep when there is none that gathereth: Each shall look to his own people, And each shall look to his own land; 15. Every one that is overtaken shall be thrust through, 2 And every one that is discovered shall fall by the sword: And their children shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes, Their houses plundered, and their women violated. 66 The remnant," as we supply from the authority of the Septuagint, means not "the remnant" of Babylon, as many suppose, but the emphatic "remnant' "remnant" so often mentioned, which was to be left in Zion. Of Babylon, nothing yet has been said, and we read of no remnant of Babylon preserved. No, her destruction was to be like Sodom and Gomorrah: no remnant left. The leaving of a remnant, however, under every dispensation, was to distinguish the judgments that should befall the Jewish nation. Such a remnant would escape the Assyrian invasion. But a more disastrous event shortly awaited them from a new enemy. The taking of the city, the dispersion of the helpless inhabitants of the country, who had taken shelter there as their last resource, is strikingly described. The indiscriminate slaughter that ensues, and Here is plainly a defect in the sentence, as it stands in the Hebrew text; the subject of the proposition is lost: what is it that shall be like a roe chased? The Septuagint happily supply καταλεXμμvos, "w, the remnant.'-BP. LoWTH. 2 7 is commonly, "joined together, collected;" its proper meaning seems to be, got together by sweeping, raking, or scraping;" and may be well supposed to denote the secret search of the enemy, as we say "scouring the country." these cruelties of the ancient warfare, are fully illustrated in those parts of the sacred history that speak of the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, especially in the Lamentations of Jeremiah. It is probable that this vision was seen before the death of Ahaz; compare chapter the fourteenth, verse the twenty-eighth; that is, a hundredand-thirty years before its full accomplishment. The prophet is next shown what will be the fate and awful retribution to that nation, which should inflict such cruelties on the Jewish people: and now it becomes developed, that BABYLON is the cruel enemy, and that the rod preparing for its chastisement are the Medes. 17. Behold, I raise up against these the Medes: They esteem not silver, Neither will they delight in gold: 18. And their bows shall dash the youths to the ground, And they shall have no mercy on the fruit of the womb, Their looks will not pity the children. All this needs no other comment than the sacred narrative, that describes the taking of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. But what follows requires particular attention: 19. And Babylon shall become -Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, And the boast of the Chaldean's pride, Like those destructions of Elohim, Sodom and Gomorrah. 20. It shall be uninhabited for ever, And shall never more be dwelt in. Neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there, 21. But the wild beasts of the desert shall assemble there, And howling creatures shall fill their houses; And the hooping owls' shall inhabit there, 22. And jackals shall answer each other in their palaces, What we are here especially to remark, is this prophetical description of the most complete desolation of Babylon. Now, this certainly was not brought upon it by the Medes and Persians. Whatever cruelties they exercised on its inhabitants, they spared the city. The prophecy, therefore, means to tell us what shall become of Babylon after that visitation of Providence in what situation the renowned city should be found, at a period very remote from the prophet's times, and even from the that is so called, from the roughness of its hair, yw, horruit, horripilavit. I am led, however, to conclude, that some of the bat species is intended; both ou account of their being constantly found in ruins of ancient buildings, and from the name itself, which may be derived from yw, ut Arab. ,"fissus est, rimam egit et post se reliquit." Now, the bat is remarkable for inhabiting fissures in walls, and hollow cavities in the disjointed parts of old buildings. Mr. Rich, it will be seen from his late publication on the ruins of Babylon, actually found those ruins filled with bats. times of its first destroyers. It was, in fact, a work of ages to bring Babylon to that scene of desolation described in the prophecy. The diverting of the waters of the Euphrates, when Cyrus besieged the city, which were never afterwards properly restored to their former channel, is mentioned by historians as an irreparable damage to the city and country; and as reducing many parts to the condition of stagnant pools, and extensive morasses. In the reign of Alexander the Great, however, Babylon was still an inhabited city. The prophecy had not then been fulfilled. But between that period and the commencement of the Christian era, the destruction seems to have gone on fast; for Strabo, who wrote about that time, speaks of it as having become a désert. Travellers were, for some time, almost at a loss to find where the great Babylon" had stood; and it is among the wonders of our own times, that the ruins of this " glory of kingdoms" should be developed in the very state in which the prophet describes them. "The appellation of ruins, in its proper sense," we read in a recent publication,* "cannot be applied to the present ruins of Babylon, which consists almost wholly of bricks, fragments, and rubbish; piled, as it were, in masses, and serving for the construction of new cities." In this condition, nevertheless, they have deservedly attracted the attention of modern travellers; and interesting notices have been given by Della Vella, Niebuhr, Ives, Otter, and Beauchamp. But the recent observations of Mr. Rich, † enlightened by the previous inquiries of Major Rennell, have been so much more carc Encyclopedia Brit. Sup. + Memoirs of the Ruins of Babylon, by Claudius Rich, Esq. London, 1815. ful and complete, that they nearly supersede all prior information. Mr. Rich, speaking of part of these ruins, describes them as "heaps of rubbish, vitrified brick, and even shells, bits of glass, and mother of pearl." "There are many dens," he says, " of wild beasts in this part of the ruins; and most of the cavities are filled with bats and owls." Babylon is now, therefore, in the condition foretold by this prophecy and it is with Babylon desolated thus, as we at this day behold her, and not with the taking of the city by the Medes and Persians, that the following part of the wonderful prediction is connected :- 22. And 'now' her time draws near, And her days shall not be prolonged. It will be asked, To what does the feminine pronoun here refer? Clearly not to Babylon; for what concerns her in the prophecy was not near; her days of desolation were to be" drawn out" for many generations. It is, then, to the remnant of the fourteenth verse that this must be applied: and prophecy connects the time of Zion's mercy, not with the taking of the city by the Medes and Persians, but with the desolation of Babylon completed, as we behold it at this day: And now her time draws near, And her days shall not be prolonged, 1. WHEN Jehovah will have pity upon Jacob, And shall again look with regard on Israel, And shall cause them to rest on their own land. * Observe, it is Jacob and Israel that are said to be the object of mercy-" to find rest on their land." This * Chap. xiv. |