Exodus. The passage of Israel through the desert was at that time, indeed, attended with the miraculous supply of food and of water; and for a moment this may make us hesitate, whether this be not all that is meant. These miracles, however, did not so far exceed what Jehovah had done at the Red Sea, as, in a figurative sense, to obliterate their memory: and, therefore, something far greater, and more important, is to be looked for to take place hereafter in this great desert. This, indeed, is the burden of prophecies we have seen before:* and the notion of forgetting the wonders of the first Exodus in the greater wonders of the final restoration, we shall meet with in subsequent prophets.

The twenty-second, and two following verses, seem fairly to imply, that the people for whom these wonders are wrought, were previously in a state of irreligion and forgetfulness of God, were living without the services of God, and the ordinances of public worship:

22. But thou hast not invoked me, O Jacob;

Neither hast thou laboured for me, O Israel.'

23. Thou broughtest me not the lamb of thy offering,
And thou honourest me not with thy sacrifices.
I burdened thee not for oblations,

Nor did I make thee to labour for incense.

money,'

24. Thou boughtest me no sweet reed with
I was not filled with the fat of thy sacrifices.

But truly thou hast burdened me with thy sins,
And hast wearied me with thine iniquities.

This might certainly apply to Israel at several periods

Psalm lxviii.; Isaiah, xxxv. 1; xl. 1; xli. 17; xlii. 11.

Vulgate and Septuagint.

of their history, but never so emphatically, as future prophets, especially Hosea, will teach us, as at the eve of their final restoration.

At length that dispensation of mercy and grace, of which Israel is to be made partaker in the last days, is announced:

25. I, I am He

That blot out thy transgressions for mine own sake,
And will remember thy sins no more.

Israel is in the next verse invited to approach the throne, to consider the true situation of his affairs, and the causes of that calamity that had come upon the

nation:

26. Remind me, let us enter into judgment together, ' Set forth thy cause in order to thy justification.

27. Thy chief father sinned,

Thy teachers revolted from me:

28. And I profaned the princes of the sanctuary,

And I gave up Jacob as separated for destruction,
And Israel as branches cut off.❜

Such had been the public sin that had caused their national degradation. In the ordinary circumstances of the Jewish commonwealth, we might have been at a loss to know which had been meant by the term "chief father," the king or the high priest, but as the event has shown, for some time previously to their final dis

Remind me of thy plea, let

us join issue together.

More correctly, thy" inter

preters."

3

signifies to separate, to devote, a, to cut off, to amputate, as boughs of a tree.

persion, the Jews possessed but one native prince, and the high priest was in some respects the head of their civil as well as of their ecclesiastical constitution. He, then, was the "chief father," and the Scribes and Pharisees," who sat in Moses's seat," were "the teachers' or "interpreters" mentioned in the passage before us. These were the "princes of the sanctuary" that were profaned; and they were profaned when Jerusalem and the temple were given into the hands of the Romans: and the "natural branches” were " broken off” from their "olive tree."

SECTION V.

Remarks on Parts of the Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Chapters.

THE greater part of the forty-fourth chapter I may be permitted to omit in the pursuit of my present object, after briefly noticing its contents, in order to show the connexion of what follows. In the first and following verses of this chapter, Jacob is addressed with some words of comfort. Low as the family of Abraham would be reduced, there would yet be "a remnant according to the election of grace."- God had not cast away his people, whom he foreknew, and at this very period of Israel's rejection, when the church had been a dry wilderness indeed, an outpouring of the Spirit was to be expected; which came to pass on the day of Pentecost, and generated a faithful seed of true Israelites, peculiarly blessed and adorned with spiritual prosperity. To these Christian Jews, were added a body of Gentile converts in every part of the civilized world; the circumstances of whose accession to

the church exactly answered to the language of the fifth verse. They were not Israelites by birth; but, invited by the Gospel call, they voluntarily surrendered themselves to the "God of Israel," and enrolled themselves among his people, and the title of " Israel of God" was conceded to them. They were acknowledged as "Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." As St. Paul represents this transaction:-"Some of the branches were broken off," and the Gentile church, being "a wild olive tree," " was grafted in among them," " and with them hath partaken of the root and fatness of the olive tree."

It is foreseen, however, that this people, the adoptive Israel, like the natural Israel of old, will lapse into idolatry, and form them new gods. The faithful remnant, however, are told not to be discouraged when they behold this state of things:

8. Tremble ye not, neither faint ye,

Have I not from the beginning declared it to you,
Have I not declared it? ye are my witnesses.

We perceive therefore for whom, in this connexion, the exposure of the extreme folly of idolatry, in the worshipping of images, contained in the ten following verses, is intended. It is for the apostate churches of Christendom: and the twentieth verse will strongly remind us of the apostle's exhibition of the same judicial hardness of heart. "For this cause God will send them a strong delusion, that they may believe a lie," &c. *

Again; in the twenty-first verse, Israel is addressed:

I formed thee, thou art my servant,

O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.

22. I have dispelled as a cloud thy transgressions, And as a gathering mist thy sins:

Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.

23. Sing, O ye heavens, for Jehovah hath done it,
Shout, ye lower parts of the earth!

Burst forth into song, ye mountains,
O forest, and every tree therein.

24. For Jehovah hath redeemed Jacob,

And he hath vindicated his honour on Israel.

This seems to intimate that the apparently desperate cause of the church of God, at this era, will be only relieved by the recovery of the natural Israel; which appears indeed to be consonant with the general voice of prophecy. Heaven and earth, the whole creation in general, are called upon to offer songs of congratulation for this event; the redemption of Israel:- the event foretold more expressly in a subsequent chapter, "when the Redeemer comes to Zion, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob."

Here, then, we arrive at the consummation of all the theme of prophecy. A break must carefully be remarked in this place, indicated in the usual style by the expression, "Thus saith the Lord.",

What follows, from the twenty-fourth to the seventh verse of the following chapter, is to be regarded in the nature of an episode, introduced to show the impending fate of Babylon, which at that time stood immediately in the way, as it were, of Messiah's kingdom-was an obstacle first in order to be removed out of the way,