mits and angles of the mountains, then the other signifies the towers built on these, or the men who garrison them. The children of Seth' is a term that could have no meaning here, as distinguishing the family descent." To this it may be replied, that there was no direct intention of distinguishing the family descent; at least, nothing appears in the words of the prophet to warrant such a conclusion. The phrase is merely used, as I apprehend, in a poetical sense, by way of synecdoche, to denote the whole human race- that Christ would subdue unto himself the entire posterity of Seth, from whose descendant, Noah, the whole world was peopled after the deluge, and that they should finally become "one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ the righteous."

There is, as may be readily perceived by a close attention to the artificial but exquisitely refined texture of the passage, a remarkable significancy in thus referring to that good son of Adam, the forefather of the existing human race; placing their progenitor in prominent conjunction with David, at once the type and progenitor of Christ,-not, indeed, by direct generation, but by legal adoption,-and with his illustrious descendant, our blessed Redeemer, to whom all mankind are indebted for their birth to spiritual life, as to Seth for their birth to temporal life. Herder evidently did not perceive the alternations of reference in the parallelisms, which he considered to be simply gradational, not observing the hyperbaton, purposely

employed to render them so, each referring, as he concluded, to the same object. He accordingly, after Le Clerc, applies the whole passage to David, thus stunting, and thereby abridging it of its beautiful proportions. Besides having the large majority of commentators against him, his version gives so restricted an interpretation to the whole passage, as to deprive it of much of that copiousness of signification combined with uncommon condensation of language, which the exposition previously proposed would exhibit, and which is a distinguished characteristic, though certainly in a less degree than in some other examples that might be quoted from the early Hebrew poets, of these highly finished compositions.

I know not where I could refer for brighter specimens of poetical excellence than to the prophetic poems of Balaam, which, although they fall behind some of the prophecies of Isaiah, and some of the grander portions of Job, in that prodigious elevation of thought and exquisite adaptation of phrase for which those productions are so celebrated, nevertheless, frequently display the richest emanations of genius. It is hardly possible to conceive finer specimens of primitive poetry.

He shall smite the corners of Moab,

is to me an image at once felicitously expressive and eminently picturesque. It flashes upon the understanding in a flood of light. In the

corners of an edifice lies the chief strength; if, therefore, these are destroyed, the whole structure must fall. Thus we cannot fail to perceive how eloquently significative the phrase is of that complete subjugation of the Moabites, by David, which subsequently ensued. What animation and force of colouring it imparts to a simple idea!

CHAPTER IV.·

Balaum's fourth prophecy, continued.

HAVING mentioned David as the adopted progenitor as well as the type of Christ, I break off here to give the view of Dr. Macknight upon this subject, taken from his observations upon the genealogies of Joseph and Mary, as given by St. Matthew and St. Luke. "But," says that acute and laborious writer, "to show this opinion all the favour possible, namely, that Joseph had a legal as well as natural father, who were brothers by their mother, let us allow that Joseph had a legal father, whose pedigree is likewise given, and that, by the custom of the Jews, he might be called the son of his legal father. It will necessarily follow, on these suppositions, that we are altogether uncertain whether our Lord's mother, from whom alone he sprang, was a daughter of David, and consequently cannot prove that he had any other relation to David than that his mother was married to one of the descendants of that prince. Let the reader judge whether this fully comes up to the import of the passages of scripture, which tell us he was made of the seed of David' (Rom. i. 3), and that, according to the flesh, he was raised of the fruit of his loins' (Acts ii. 30). Upon the whole, this

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important difficulty may be removed more happily, by supposing that Matthew gives Joseph's pedigree, and Luke, Mary's. For the words of the latter evangelist, properly pointed and translated, run thus: And Jesus himself, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed, the son of Joseph) the son of Heli.' He was the son of Joseph by common report, but in reality the son of Heli by his mother, who was Heli's daughter. We have a parallel example (Gen. xxxvi. 2), where Aholibamah's pedigree is thus deduced: Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon. For since it appears, from verses 24, 25, that Anah was the son, not the daughter, of Zibeon, it is undeniable that Moses calls Aholibamah the daughter both of Anah and of Zibeon, as Luke calls Jesus the son both of Joseph and of Heli. And as Aholibamah is properly called the daughter of Zibeon, because she was his grand-daughter, so Jesus is fitly called the son of Heli, because he was his grand-son. In the mean time, the common pointing and construction of the passage may be retained consistently with the opinion I am contending for, because, though the words, son of Heli, should be referred to Joseph, they may imply no more but that Joseph was Heli's son-in-law, his son by marriage with his daughter Mary. The ancient Jews and Christians understood this passage in the one or other of these senses; for the Talmudists commonly call Mary by the name of Heli's daughter.

"That Matthew should have deduced our