temple was built, the spot on which it was erected and the environs were still regarded as a part of Benjamin's portion. However, this is certain, that God intended these two tribes to share in the same fortune, and to continue the enjoyment of their property and privileges longer than any of the other tribes, as the prophecies plainly intimate; and this may be the reason why we cannot easily trace what belongs to each separate.' Houbigant, after the Seventy, whose interpretation he much approves, reads as follows:

The beloved of the Lord shall have a secure dwelling-place-
The Most High shall overshadow him;

He shall hang all the day long over his shoulders.

"In which words," he observes, "God is compared to an eagle descending from on high, hovering over the shoulders of Benjamin, and protecting him with his wings." I am disposed to concur in this exposition, it is so exquisitely poetical, yet so clear and natural. It is a magnicent image, representing with no less beauty than truth the "tender mercy" of God towards those whom he determines to succour. There is, moreover, no perplexity in this rendering. The same image too had been before employed, though with greater amplitude of detail, in chapter xxxii. 11; and if the two passages are compared, it will be at once obvious how dexterously the poet uses the same symbol of divine. sustentation without servilely copying himself, both passages exhibiting the most perfect originality from the varied manner in which the

like image is introduced. In the first instance it is positively expressed and extended into the most minute detail; in the second it is only intimated and confined to one general action.

Herder has caught the spirit of this interpretation, and given it with great felicity; his remarks upon this blessing deserve notice.

The beloved of Jehovah shall dwell safely,
The Most High hovereth over him daily,
And giveth him rest between his wings.

"This blessing," writes the eloquent German, "is tender in sentiment, and entirely changed from the character of Jacob's. The ravening wolf is here again the same Benjamin, whom his father restrained from the hazards of a journey, and carefully commended to the guardianship of his brethren. So Moses commends him to the protecting care of Jehovah, under the frequent and favourite image of an eagle. This bird hovers over its young, supports them when about to fall, and permits them to rest upon its back between its wings. All this the lawgiver applies to Benjamin." He says, further-"It is not shown that 'shoulders,' either of God or Benjamin, mean mountains, and the discourse here is not of the mountains of Benjamin between which God should dwell. Between the mountains, Moriah and Zion, even had they belonged to Benjamin, Jehovah never dwelt. There was a cleft between them, but the temple stood upon the mountain. The Hebrew text must be read here as the Seventy read it."*

Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, vol. ii. p. 158.

According to the interpretation of the Seventy, as adapted by Houbigant and Herder, there is not the slightest obscurity in the animated and eloquent blessing pronounced by Moses upon the posterity of Benjamin, and of the poetical beauty present in it there can be no question. This is too prominent to lie beyond the perception of the most heedless reader. Our version, undoubtedly, gives a good sense, though it is more perplexed than that proposed by the French and German commentators, which likewise differ; still, whichever interpretation is embraced, for after all they each represent the divine protection and favour towards Benjamin in equally strong terms, though under somewhat varied aspects, the blessing will not be essentially different. The triplet in which it is conveyed expresses three stages of the divine mercy; first, Benjamin dwelling in safety; secondly, the Lord's protecting providence, represented by his hovering over, or overshadowing him, as an eagle over its young; and thirdly, the crowning dispensation of love is consummated by giving the offspring of Jacob's beloved son rest between his shoulders or wings. This, according to Herder's rendering, is one of the most magnificent examples of climax to be found among the divine treasures of Hebrew poetry, the wealth of which is so abundant and of so rare a quality.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The benediction on Joseph.

THE blessing upon Joseph next follows, which is characterized by extraordinary sublimity. Joseph was a man eminent in his generation, highly favoured of God, and not without reason, for he was a person of distinguished integrity, morally pure almost beyond example, gifted with the rarest endowments of intellect, as good as he was wise, and entrusted with power in a measure proportioned to his wisdom and goodness. Here then was a noble subject for prophetic song, and it was evident that Moses felt this, for he has embellished it with the richest graces of the poetic art, although, as will be seen, many of the images are borrowed from Jacob's prophecy. "And of Joseph he said,"

Blessed of the Lord be his land,

For the precious things of heaven, for the dew,
And for the deep that coucheth beneath,

And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun,
And for the precious things put forth by the moon,
And for the chief things of the ancient mountains,

And for the precious things of the lasting hills,

And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof,
And for the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush :

Let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph,

And upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his

brethren.

His glory is like the firstling of his bullock,
And his horns are like the horns of unicorns :
With them he shall push the people together
To the ends of the earth:

And they are the ten thousands of Ephraim,
And they are the thousands of Manasseh.

This prophecy corresponds very nearly with that of Jacob, and almost exactly in many of the main particulars. In several instances the same terms are employed, though somewhat differently distributed, according to the more refined taste and peculiar genius of the poet. In the first hemistich a blessing is invoked upon the "land" or portion of Joseph; that is, upon the portions inherited by his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. The division of Palestine subsequently possessed by the posterity of these patriarchs, was prodigiously fertile, yielding a greater general abundance than any other district of that fertile region.

For the precious things of heaven, for the dew,
And for the deep that coucheth beneath.

Durell reads these two clauses, and I have no doubt rightly,—

With the precious things of heaven above,
And with the deep lying beneath;

for in this version the correspondency of the two verses is exactly preserved, which is not the case in our translation, and the sense is maintained in Durell's reading with equal, if not