CHAPTER XLI. VERSE 17, &c.

I will plant in the wilderness, 1st, the CEDAR, 2d, the SHITTAH-tree, 3d, the MYRTLE-tree, 4th, the OILtree: I will set in the desert, 5th, the FIR-tree, 6th, the PINE, and 7th, the Box-tree together.

1st, The cedar, arets.

2dly, The shittah, vide Exod. xxv. 5.

3dly, The myrtle, hadas, vide on Nehem. viii. 4thly, The olive, or oil-wood.

5thly, The fir-tree, berush.

6thly. The pine, tidaher; a tree so called from the springiness or elasticity of its wood, says Parkhurst. This would lead us to the yew, whose use in the making of bows should not be forgot by Englishmen. But no interpreter, that I recollect, has thought of this tree. One of the kinds of oak, which is most famous for bearing the galls produced by means of the puncture of insects, has authorities in its favour. Luther thought it was the elm, which is a lofty and spreading tree. The fir having been mentioned, we should not expect another of the same kind, which opposes the sapinus of the LXX, and in some degree

our pine.

I would observe further, that we should be cautious of choosing trees for this situation in the wilderness, which inhabit very far north. It is probably a tree which grows on mount Lebanon. Vide chap.

lxi. 13.

7thly, The box-tree, tashur; so called from its flourishing, or perpetual viridity, an evergreen. This might lead us to look for evergreens among the foregoing trees; and perhaps by tracing this idea we might attain to something like satisfaction respecting them, which at present we cannot. A plantation of A plantation of evergreens in the wilderness is not unlikely to be the import of this passage. The contrast between a perpetual verdure, and a sometimes universal brownness, not enlivened by variety of tints, must be very great: nevertheless, we must take care not to group unnaturally associated vegetation.

CHAPTER L. VERSE 6.

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheek to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Observations of actual occurrences, made on the spot, are certainly most effective and confident illustrations. Mr. Hanway having expressly recorded his remarks on a scene differing little, if at all, from that alluded to by the prophet, the reader will doubtless be pleased to peruse an extract from his description.

"A prisoner was brought, who had two large logs of wood fitted to the small of his leg, and rivetted together; there was also a heavy triangular collar of wood about his neck. The general asked me if that man had taken my goods? I told him, I did not remember to have seen him before. He was questioned some time, and at length ordered to be beaten

with sticks, which was performed by two soldiers, with such severity, as if they meant to kill him. The soldiers were then ordered to spit in his face, an indignity of great antiquity in the East. This, and the cutting off of beards, which I shall have occasion to mention, brought to my mind the sufferings recorded in the prophetical history of our Saviour: "He gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off his hair: he hid not his face from shame and spitting," Hanway, vol. i. p. 203.

"Sadoc Aga, sent prisoner to Astrabad, his beard was cut off; his face was rubbed with dirt, and his eyes cut out; upon his speaking in pathetic terms, with that emotion natural to a daring spirit, the general ordered him to be struck across the mouth to silence him; which was done with such violence, that the blood issued forth," p. 204.

This extract not only illustrates the treatment of Jesus Christ, who was struck on the mouth, in punishment, and to silence him, but that of the soldiers who were about to examine, by beating, the apostle Paul, and who only desisted on his claiming the exemption belonging to a Roman citizen, Acts xxii. 25.

We know that the Hebrew word bekar signifies the beeve kind; the Arabic has also bukre, as the generic name, and thaur, which is applied only to the bull: this is certainly a resemblance of the Hebrew tau or thau, also to the Latin taurus: might not the Hebrews have a similar duplication of name? If this may be, then the figure of this wild bull may possibly be seen with that of the rhinoceros, plate, Job xxxix. But some have supposed the buffalo to be the theus of this place. Are these, when wild, caught in nets? The buffalo is certainly allied to the beeve kind, if not indeed a species of it. Bochart thinks it is of Persian origin, and not known in Judea so early as this prophet.

CHAPTER LX. VERSES 6, 7.

A multitude of CAMELS and DROMEDARIES. 1st, Camel, gimel.

2dly, Dromedaries, bichri; a species of camel, of a lighter make, and of speed superior to others. For its figure, vide plate of Unclean Animals. For its speed, vide FRAGMENT, No. 122.

"The dromedary, from all that I was able to learn, is only a high breed of the Arabian camel. It is of slighter make, more cleanly limbed, its bunch smaller, and, on the whole, a less ugly animal. Instead of the solemn walk of the others, it ambles with more agility, and is capable, as it is said, of going as far in one day as the ordinary camels usually go in three or four," Russell's Aleppo, vol. ii. p. 169.

The camel with two bunches is of Persian breed, ib.

CHAPTER II. VERSE 22.

THOUGH thou washest thyself with NITRE and

much SOAP.

1st, Nitre, not the common nitre, but the salt, na tron; for which vide Prov. xxv. 20.

2dly, Soap, or fuller's soap, is named in Hebrew, berith or borith, signifying the cleanser. It is by some supposed to be a salt, extracted from the earth in India, &c. called by the Arabs bora: this name resembles borax, which is a salt used as a solder to metals. But others prefer a vegetable; the LXX render Toα, or Tox, an herb. The ancients certainly employed vegetables, and the salt extracted from them, for the purpose of washing linen. Dioscorides and Pliny mention the struthion as so employed. The Persians use this plant as soap. But others are for the kali or soda, which, in Syria, is used as soap. The Turks use this plant, or its ashes, to cleanse garments; and it imparts to them a great degree of softness.

The kali, soda, salsola kali, or barilla, is called in the London Pharmacopoeia, natron; and there seems to be sufficient reason to consider it as the borith plant of Jeremiah: at least it is the best known to us of those plants which possess the property of cleansing, either by themselves or their salts. In its wild state it rises about a foot in height; the leaves are long, narrow, and prickly, the flowers whitish or rose colour. It affects the sea shore, and indeed is considered as a sea weed. The best, burned into an hard mass of salt, comes from Alicant in Spain. Combined with fat, it forms soap, the cleansing virtues of which are well known in every family.

CHAPTER VIII. VERSE 7.

Even, 1st, the STORK in the heavens knoweth her appointed times, and, 2d, the TURTLE, and, 3d, the CRANE, and, 4th, the SWALLOW observe the time of their coming.

Few subjects in natural history are more interesting, than the periodical removals and returns of creatures, and among them of birds. Animals migrate, to what degree they are able; fishes migrate, through great extent of sea; but birds, by reason of their powers of flight, and the liberty they enjoy in their actions, traverse countries and distances, to which other creatures are incompetent. We cannot here enlarge on the migration of birds; but must content ourselves with determining to what birds the prophet alludes.

1st, The stork, chasidah, vide on Levit. xi. and plate of Unclean Birds. 2dly, The turtle, tur. There is no difficulty understood to occur on this word. The spouse in the Canticles is called by this name. That this bird visits the garden when spring appears, is evident, from its being one of the marks of that season: "the voice of the turtle is heard in our land," Cant. ii. 12. 3dly, The crane, sus, vide on Isai. xxxviii. 14. 4thly, The swallow, ogur, vide ib.

It is certain, by this passage, that the two latter birds are migratory; so that if we should change them for each other, as Bochart proposes, we should nothing vary the sense of this passage.

I think, however, we want information whether the turtle be a migrating bird. Among ourselves, I do not know that the wood pigeon migrates, and do not perceive any reason why the turtle should quit its residence in the much milder regions of the East. Perhaps this word, as here used, includes a whole genus, of which some may migrate. An English writer would certainly have mentioned the cuckoo among migrating birds, not the least remarkable. The following information determines the time of the cranes. Do the turtles follow them?

"The Turkish governor of Athens is called the Vaiwode. He is either changed or renewed in his office every year, the beginning of March. The Athenians say he brings the cranes with him; for these birds likewise make their first appearance here about that time: they breed; and when their young

have acquired sufficient strength, which is some time in August, they all fly away together, and are seen no more till the March following," Stuart, Antiq. Athens, vol. i. p. 10.

Hasselquist tells us, "The Arabs call the common pigeon, haram; the turtle, jamara: and the stock dove, josie. The last is a bird of passage. It makes its abode in the holes of the houses around Cairo, from the time that the water is admitted into the canal of Trajan, till the time when that canal is quite dry; and it is seen no more during the remainder of the year," French edit. p. 30. If this be correct, then the Hebrew tur is not the turtle, or at least not the turtle only, but the stock dove.

VERSE 17.

SERPENTS, Cockatrices, which will not be charmed. Vide on the naja, plate, Isai. xi.

VERSE 22.

Is there no BALM IN GILEAD? No physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

According to Mr. Bruce, the balessan, balsam, or balm, grows to the height of fourteen feet; its branches are numerous, spreading, crooked; the wood white, soft; the bark ash coloured. The leaves are small, few; the flowers white, scattered on the branches. It is a native of Abyssinia, growing behind Azzab, along the coast to the straits of Babelmandel; and, says Mr. Bruce, it was transported into Judea a thousand years before the queen of Sheba made presents of this tree to Solomon, as Josephus relates. Many of the ancient physicians supposed this tree to be the production of Judea only; and hence they named it Balsam Judaicum, or balm of Gilead. Professor Forskal discovered this tree to belong to the genus amyris. He found his specimen in Arabia. This balsam issues spontaneously from the bark of the tree; but is more commonly obtained by incisions. The Xylobalsamum, as its name imports, is prepared from the wood, and the Carpobalsamum, from the fruit. "The bark," Mr. Bruce says, "is cut by an ax, when the juice is in its strongest circulation, in July, August, and September. It is then received into a small earthen bottle, and every day's produce is gathered and poured into a larger bottle, which is kept closely corked. The opobalsamum, or juice flowing from the balsam-tree, at first when it is received into the bottle or vase, from the wound whence it issues, is of a light yellow colour, apparently turbid, in which there is a whitish cast, which, I apprehend, are the globules of air that pervade the whole of it in its first state of fermentation; it then appears very light on shaking it. As it set tles and cools, it turns clear, and loses the milkiness,

which it had when first falling-from the tree. It has then the colour of honey, and appears more fixed and heavy than at first. After being kept for years, it grows of a much deeper yellow, and of the colour of gold. The smell at first is violent, and strongly pungent, giving a sensation to the brain like that of volatile salts, when rashly inhaled by an incautious person. This lasts in proportion to its freshness; for being neglected, it loses this quality, as it probably also does by extreme old age," Bruce, vol. v. p. 16.

The quantity procurable from one tree is very small, three or four drops from some trees, from others sixty drops; and these are the most fertile. The collecting it is consequently tedious and troublesome ; and it is very rarely to be met with in purity. Lady Wortley Montague could procure but little, and that with difficulty, at Constantinople; and the experiment made by that lady on the skin of her face is not what, perhaps, many English ladies would wish to repeat. It had the effect of taking off the skin; and though the Turkish ladies said the succeeding was finer than the former, yet her ladyship was hardly persuaded into that opinion: nor does she seem to have been overpleased with the trouble it gave her, or the pleasure of the experiment. We must, how ever, make allowances for her ignorance of the best manner of using it; as that may be a sovereign balsam under good management, and for some disorders, which is injurious when improperly applied, or ill directed.

The antiquity of the commerce in this balsam, and consequently of its reputation, appears, Gen. xxxvii. 25. and the high opinion entertained of its salutary In Turvirtues, is evident in the passage before us. key it is in great esteem as a medicine, and no less as an odoriferous perfume, unguent, and cosmetic. Its reputation among ourselves is not superior to that of other balsams, as that of Canada, or that of Copaiba; but this may be partly owing to the adultera. tion it has undergone, and partly to keeping, or the effects of voyaging, &c. this at least seems to be countenanced by the virtues and uses attributed to it by eastern nations, to enumerate which would be outraging the bounds of all rational credibility.

CHAPTER XVII. VERSE 6.

He shall be like the heath in the desert: he shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land.

What plant is this heath? Hebrew, oror, auraur, or gnoror; the tamarisk, say some, as LXX and Vulgate; others, "a leafless tree;" and Parkhurst quotes from Taylor, "a blasted tree, stripped of its foliage." "If it be a particular plant, the tamarisk is as likely as any; .. the branches of these trees are produced in so straggling a manner, as not by any art to be trained up regularly, and their leaves are commonly thin on their branches, and fall away in winter." But, the question returns, can the tamarisk live in a salt land? in parched places? I would rather, therefore, seek this oror among the lichens, a species of plants which are the last productions of vegetation, under the severe cold of the frozen zone, under the glowing heats of equatorial deserts: so that it seems best qualified to endure parched places, and a salt land. Hasselquist mentions several kinds seen by him in Egypt, Arabia, and Syria.

I would also allude to what the Arabians say of their plant murar; which may, perhaps, be applicable to the Hebrew oror, to whose name also it bears some resemblance. It is of a sharp taste, astringent, and when brouzed by camels, contracts their gums around their teeth, and renders them bare, and causes the lips of those animals which have eaten of it, to adhere together. It grows to the height of a shrub, Michaelis, Q. xlii.

CHAPTER XLVIII. VERSE 6.

Flee, save your lives, and be like the HEATH in the wilderness. The word for heath is here spelled fully, as it should seem, oruor; which interpreters have usually rendered as they have done oror in chap. xvii. 6. But the LXX read orud [my my orud, or oror ;] "You shall be like the wild ass in the wilderness." This seems to agree with the flight recommended before; otherwise, we must refer to the despoiled, or to the solitary nature of the oror, as already hinted on the former passage. [May orud be the subject intended in that place, also? If so, the inhabiting a salt land, is perfectly natural. Vide wild ass, plate.]

CHAPTER LI. VERSES 14, 27.

I will fill thee with men as with CATERPILLARS, ialek: verse 27. cause the horses to come up as the

ROUGH CATERPILLARS, ialek. Vide Psalm cv. 27. where we have thought this insect might be the chafer, if not the rough caterpillar: Scheuzer adds, "We should not be far from the truth, perhaps, if, with the ancient interpreters of Scripture, we understand this ialek of a kind of locust. Several kinds of locusts have hair, principally on the head, and some are found which have prickly points standing_out. Perhaps there is an allusion to such a kind in Rev. ix. 8. where we read of locusts "having hair like hair of a woman." The Arabs call this kind of locust orphau, al-phantapho.

VERSES 84, 37.

Nebuchadnezzar hath swallowed me, as a dragon, tanin, swallows water, or inhales air, when swimming. Babylon shall become a dwelling place for dragons, tanim. Vide on Lam. iv. plate.

CHAPTER LII.

The transportation of captives in great multitudes, the confusion, and the manners of Eastern conquerors, and victorious armies, are well described in the

following extract: we need not doubt that the transportation of the Jewish captives was much like that of other nations in the same melancholy circumstan

ces.

"M. Fornetti and I resolved to go over to Krim Guerai, who had obliged the porte to nominate him in his place. We found the new khan at Kichela, with a part of his troops, loaded with the spoils of Moldavia, which he had laid waste. It is scarcely possible to form any idea of pillage so sudden and rapid; and it is difficult to conceive how an army of eighty thousand men could, in seven days, overrun a great province, and carry off forty thousand slaves, and all the flocks, herds, and tents, in which they were kept, besides an enormous quantity of other plunder. We saw the plain of Kichela covered, as far as the eye could reach, with male and female slaves of every age, oxen, camels, horses, sheep, and utensils of every kind, piled up at different distances," Baron du Tott's Travels, p. 15.

We may believe, also, that the army of Nebuchadnezzar had its plunder, besides that carried off by the king himself; for usually the suffering party sustains more injury from the marauders which accompany a camp, than from any regular requisition commanded by the general.

THE Lamentations of Jeremiah, which form an Appendix to the book of that prophet, do not afford

CHAPTER I. VERSE 4.

any thing new in natural knowledge; or different from what has been already treated elsewhere.

AS the colour of AMBER, out of the midst of the fire. The original word for amber is chasmal, which the LXX have rendered electron; not meaning amber, the natural production of certain countries, a bitumen found in the earth; but an artificial composition, probably of brass (copper) and gold. Vide on Ezra viii. 27. where we have hinted at this mixed metal. Among other reasons for thinking natural amber could not be intended here, is the remark, that in the midst of a fire that substance would soon lose its transparency, and instead of glowing would become opaque: neither could crystal be the substance meant, as that would gather soot: nevertheless, both these articles were called by the name electrum among the ancients. The Arabic version varies, reading in verse 4. al-karabe, amber; in verse 27. maha, crystal. Scheuzer is determinate for the mixed metal, as Bochart was before him. There are several kinds and degrees of it; but these we have no need to enumerate, as we cannot ascertain what kind the prophet intended.

CHAPTER II. VERSE 6.

.serebim סרבים is

Son of man, be not afraid though, 1st, BRIARS, and, 2dly, THORNS be with thee, and thou dost dwell among, 3dly, SCORPIONS. We have here two words which I suspect have been misunderstood: the first Parkhurst inclines to render it nettles, a plant which causes by its prickles a sensation of burning; as if this word, which occurs no where else, was related to tjerb, to scorch. Perhaps this word may rather indicate somewhat referrible to prickles.

The second word is no selunim, which Parkhurst supposes to be a kind of thorn, overspreading a large surface of ground, as the dewbriar; and it must be owned that this word is used chap. xxviii. 24. in connection with kutj, which in Gen. iii. 18. is rendered thorns; and this is the strongest argument against what I am about to propose. We have already seen that the thorny plants, from their numbers, elude our appropriation: but whether this place may be taken as decisive, is not, perhaps, easi

ly determined. The actions attributed to these thorns in chap. xxviii. 20. seem hardly coincident with those to which vegetables are competent: since they seem to have despised, perhaps insulted Israel, as the words following express.

But what connection have these words with the third, okrabim, which clearly signifies scorpions, and which forms a climax to the former? We should also remark the awkwardness of the phrase, "briars and thorns are with thee." Did the prophet then cultivate them? Surely not. The word s aut, signifies a sign, or token, of what may be expected: this is its usual import, and it may be so taken here. "Though serebim and selunim are instances, signs, similarities to what thou mayest expect, and with scorpions even, thou shouldst dwell, yet fear not." On considering this connection, I would inquire whether these three subjects are not all animals? and would refer to the millepedes, or scolopendra, or galley worm, or great iülus, for the first two. We know that the bite of the scolopendra is both painful and dangerous. They are common in hot countries; grow six inches long; consist of many joints, and an equal number of legs." "Of this animal there are different kinds : some living like worms in holes in the earth, others under stones and rotten wood; so that nothing is more dangerous than removing these substances, in places where they breed." Their legs have much the appearance of prickles or thorns.

If the second word, also, signifies an insect, of a like nature or form, whether or not what I have named above, then we see the uniformity of this passage; and the transition is easy from these to the scorpion, whose qualities are greatly like those of the former insects; but he is certainly more irascible in his disposition, if not more powerful in his venom; which appears to form the climax intended by the sacred writer. For the scorpion, vide plate, Rev. ix. [Vide Hosea iv. 16.].

CHAPTER XIII. VERSE 11.

Say unto them who daub with UNTEMPERED MORTAR, that it shall fall. Not to pass this subject entirely without notice, though we have offered some remarks on it elsewhere, vide FRAGMENT, No. 190,