them up. For, not as our God is their god, even our enemies being judges.""

Moses, thus making the testimony of the heathen to operate against his countrymen in a matter which the former must be supposed to approve, is the strongest argument he could have advanced against the criminality of the latter. They are not only incidentally but positively condemned by the very persons who had seduced them to apostatize from the God of their fathers, and who, therefore, it might be presumed, approved of their conduct. They were condemned by those who had corrupted them, not indeed in direct terms, but indirectly, through their praise of that august Being whom the "perverse" seed of Jacob had abandoned.

The term rock is frequently used in Scripture as a symbol of the Divinity, denoting that his attributes are everlasting, like that most enduring thing in time, to compare infinite with finite, the rock embedded in the ocean, or fixed upon the everlasting hills. "The name of rock," says Cruden,* "is given to God by way of metaphor, because God is the strength, the refuge, and the asylum of his people, as the rocks were in those places whither the people retired in case of an unforeseen attack or irruption of the enemy, as in Psalm xviii. 31.

For who is God save the Lord?

Or who is a rock save our God?"

There is something extremely imposing in the

Concordance, art. Rock.

use of the metaphor in this place. Moses does not degrade the sacred name of the divinity by placing it in immediate apposition with that of heathen deities, neither does he say,

For their GOD is not as our God,

which would be apparently claiming for the idols of the Canaanites a rank and importance equal to that of the God of Israel-it would be virtually placing them upon an equality; but he cloaks the sublime image of omnipotence under a metaphor, thus generalizing the idea of divinity into the more diffuse and ordinary notion of his mere attribute of power. A quality of the being, not the Almighty infinite himself, is thus brought before the mind; as if he had said,

their affiance is not ours-the rebellious Israelites who abandon Jehovah cannot have the same security as we who trust in him; the power and protection on which they rely for the consummation of the brightest hopes of their humanity is very different from that upon which we have been accustomed to repose our confidence. We have established our faith upon one who is able to realize our highest expectations, while the heathens and those among my degenerate countrymen who have become their religious allies and members of their worshipping assemblies, have confided in mere imaginary powers, which can neither hear their appeals, nor help them in their necessities.' The mode of allusion to him "with whom is terrible majesty," is, in the extreme sense of the terms, impressive and poetical, bringing the divine

power with greater effect to the imagination, by an emblematical representation of it, than if it had been literally defined-the symbol, by the mere force of association, generating new objects of reflection, while the literal description would have confined it to a single, grand, indeed, but definite idea. Now there is a contrast suggested between the power of the heathen divinities and that of the true God; whereas, had the former been honoured with the divine designation, it would have appeared to be assuming for them a co-equality in those perfections which belong alone to him. The passage is managed with consummate skill and with no less effect. It will be observed that two trains of thought present themselves, that which belongs to the representative agent, and that which belongs to the thing represented, namely, God;—the qualities of the one being in every respect superlative for a material and therefore finite object, greatly heightening our impressions of the illimitable and ineffable qualities of the other. How admirably, too, does the metaphor harmonize with the preceding clauses, in which the idea of relative power is predominant, expressed by the one chasing a thousand, and two putting ten thousand to flight. The whole passage is full of poetry.

CHAPTER XXI.

The prophetic ode continued.

THE inspired bard goes on in a strain of prodigious fervor to depict the mournful degradation of his countrymen, still bringing the future backward to the present, as was commonly the case with the Hebrew prophets.

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom,

And of the fields of Gomorrah :

Their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter :
Their wine is the poison of dragons,

And the cruel venom of asps.

It is well known to the reader of scripture that Sodom was the capital of Pentapolis, which signifies the country of five cities. These five cities were Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar; all of which, with the exception of Zoar, whither Lot fled, were destroyed in that fiery inundation which effectuated the divine vengeance upon the inhabitants of those sinks of profligacy. The country round was at that time eminently fruitful, producing most of the luxuries as well as necessaries of life in prodigal abundance. In consequence of the overthrow of these five cities, the whole aspect of the district was changed. After the burning of Sodom,

the plain was overflowed by the river Jordan, forming a lake known at present by the name of the lake Asphaltites, or the Dead Sea, so called in later times from the vulgar error, that no animal can live in it. The waters of this lake are asserted by Galen* to be so strongly impreg nated with salt, that if any be thrown into it, the water will scarcely dissolve it. The story of the famous apples of Sodom is well known, and furnished Milton with the ideas so forcibly brought out in the following extract from his sublime poem of Paradise Lost:

Greedily they pluckt

The fruitage, fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake, where Sodom flam'd :
This more delusive, not the touch but taste
Deceiv'd; they, fondly thinking to allay

Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter asshes, which the offended taste
With spattering noise rejected.

Volney's account of the present state of this district cannot fail to be interesting.

"The south of Syria, that is, the hollow through which the Jordan flows, is a country of volcanos; the bituminous and sulphureous sources of the lake Asphaltites, the lava, the pumice-stones thrown upon its banks, and the hot baths of Tabaria, demonstrate that this valley has been the seat of a subterraneous fire which is not yet extinguished. Clouds of smoke are often observed to issue from the lake, and new crevices to be formed upon its banks. If conjectures in such cases were not too liable to

* De Simpl. medic. Facult. lib. iv. cap. 19.