Star of Jacob was announced against his own will, by the mouth of a heathen, as well as the future humiliation of Moab, and the increasing prosperity of Israel. The Ammonites and Moabites, on account of their disgraceful origin, were not admitted into the congregation of the Lord till the tenth generation. Nevertheless, there is in Christ reconciliation between Moab and Israel, and it was carried into effect many centuries before the birth of our Saviour. In the time of the Judges, a daughter of Moab, having faith in the God of Israel, acted with kindness and fidelity to a widow of Judah, and, by her means, the genealogy of the king of Israel still transmits on its records the name of a Moabitess. In the same genealogy, we find the name of another daughter of Canaan, Rahab, of Jericho, who, at the glorious victory of the children of Israel, was made the first-fruits of the Gentiles who should be blessed in the seed of Abraham, and by her subsequent marriage to Salmon, of the tribe of Judah, she also became an ancestress of the incarnate Messiah, the Son of David. (Matt. i. 5.)

Among the nations of Canaan, the Phonicians have afforded most matter of interest to universal history. We also find them, for many

succeeding centuries, in close alliance with the people of Israel. The language of the Phonicians, notwithstanding their descent from another son of Noah, (the Israelites from Shem, the Phoenicians from Ham), was nearly allied to that of the Israelites, and the art of writing came to that people either through the Egyptians, or at once from the Phoenicians, its inventors. With Tyre and Sidon, the chief cities of this celebrated commercial nation, the Israelites, after their settlement in Canaan, were either at open war, or engaged in commercial relations. The Sidonians were early mentioned as enemies and persecutors, from whom the Lord delivered his people, after he had chastened them by their means. (Judg. x. 1-12.)

The kings of Tyre supplied David with cedar wood; and workmen to build his house, and also assisted Solomon in building the temple. But these commercial connections with the Phoenician cities communicated also idolatry and immorality, and were the means of bringing the iniquities of the Sidonian Jezebel and Athaliah upon the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

The high exaltation and deep debasement of Tyre were both spoken of by the prophets

of Israel. Of ancient Tyre, taken by Nebuchadnezzar, and modern Tyre, humbled by Alexander the Great, there remains scarcely a ruin. It is become literally "a place to spread nets on," as foretold by Ezekiel.

But, for the inhabitants of Tyre, as well as for the Phoenicians in general, better things have been foretold by men of God in Israel. The Psalmist says, "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon, as them that know me; behold Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia." (Psalm lxxxvii. 4.) As in the days of Elijah a widow of Sarepta, a city of Sidon, found grace in the sight of the God of Israel, so in the time of our Saviour a Syro-Phoenician, or Canaanitish, woman, also sought and found it at the feet of Jesus. (St. Mark vii. 26.) When the Gospel was preached, the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon gladly received what was first offered to the Jews, and soon after we find recorded the brotherly love and consolation received by the Apostle of the Gentiles, from the Christian communities of Tyre, Sidon, and Ptolemais. (Acts xxi. 2-7, xxvii. 3.) Thus, the Gospel brought not Japhet alone, but also Canaan, into the tents of Shem.

The connexion between the Israelites and the Syrians is an abiding feature in the history

of the former people. Syria, situated between Palestine and Mesopotamia, bore at first, in common with the latter, the name of Aram. It was in remembrance of this part of Syria,, (Padan Aram, between the Euphrates and Tigris), that the Israelite, each year, at the feast of first-fruits, confessed before God that he was the son of a "Syrian, ready to perish." (Deut. xxvi. 5.) With Aram, more properly speaking, that is to say, Syria beyond the Euphrates, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were in turns bound by treaties of alliance, or at open war. Macedonian Syria subsequently subdued the Jewish people, and continued to persecute and oppress them, until the heroic Maccabees restored their country to liberty.

The children of Abraham were also closely united to Damascus, the celebrated city of Cælo-Syria. Abraham probably dwelt there. for some time; there, at least, was born his faithful servant, called in Scripture, Eliezer, of Damascus. Although, in the time of the first temple, idolatry and enmity against the Jewish people existed at Damascus, when the Gospel was preached, we find that a Jewish synagogue had long been established there, and from it arose a small body of Christians. While Saul of Tarsus was hastening to destroy

this way, it was before the gates of Damascus that he was converted to the faith he had persecuted, and within its walls he first preached the Gospel.

In quite a different manner from any we have yet considered, were the Israelites connected with the two most ancient Asiatic monarchies. The Assyrians and Babylonians were in God's hand a rod of chastisement for his people. What the kingdom of the ten tribes suffered from the Assyrians, was inflicted in later times by the Babylonians upon the people of Judah. Both these kingdoms received their punishment from God, by the hand of the same nations with whose idols they had so long defiled themselves, and provoked the Lord to anger. Shalmanezer, king of the Assyrians, carried captive great part of the ten tribes into his own country, and Sennacherib, his successor, had prepared a similar fate for Judah; but he was utterly overthrown before Jerusalem, because Hezekiah and Isaiah had made supplication unto Him that dwelleth between the cherubim. Two centuries after, Babylon carried into effect what Assyria had threatened. The city of Jerusalem was taken, the Temple destroyed, and the greater part of the people carried captive to Babylon. This