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but it is sufficiently plain that he was not aware of the superiority of this sort of wine.

OBSERVATION XXIII."

Curious Exposition of Hosea xiv. 5—7.

PERHAPS all the three verses of this paragraph of Hosea, relating to the promise of GOD to Israel, to recover that people from the low state into which their iniquities had brought them, may be best illustrated by dividing it in some such a way as this:

I will be as the dew to Israel:

He shall flourish as the lily, and cast forth his roots:
As Lebanon his branches shall shoot out;
And his beauty shall be as the olive-tree;

And fragrance shall be to him like that of Lebanon.
They that dwell under his shadow shall recover,
They shall revive as a garden, and they shall flourish
as a vine:

His memorial shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

St. Jerom has gone before me, in the manner in which I have divided the things contained in the second and third lines; and as a caph is

N. B. This article, as well as the preceding, was written before the Bishop of Waterford paid me the obliging com pliment of sending me his Translation of, and Comment on the Twelve Minor Prophets. P. Israel's.

• Hos. xiv. 5, 6, 7.

apparently wanting in the 7th verse, and is supposed to be so by our translators, who have supplied the want of it by inserting the particle as, which the caph signifies, they shall revive as the corn, I think it is no harsh conjecture to suppose that the daleth, the first letter of the word dagan, translated corn, was originally a caph; and if it were, the two remaining letters gan, will signify a garden, which reading is extremely natural.

גן

This reading, however, does not appear in the various lections of Dr. Kennicott, and can only be considered as a conjecture.

The image in general made use of here by Hosea, is the change that takes place upon the descent of the dew of autumn on the before parched earth, where every thing appeared dead or dying, upon which they immediately become lively and delightful. Israel by their sins reduced themselves into a wretched disgraceful state, like that of the earth when no rain or dew has descended for a long time: but GOD promised he would heal their back-slidings, and would restore them to a flourishing state.

The gentleman that visited the Holy Land in autumn 1774, found the dews very copious then, as well as the rain, and particularly observed, in journeying from Jerusalem, a very grateful scent arising from the aromatic herbs growing there, such as rosemary, wild thyme, balm, &c. I will be, saith Gop, that to Israel that the dew is to the parched earth when for a long time there has been neither dew nor rain.

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So Moses supposes the great advantage of dew to vegetation, in his blessing the posterity of Joseph.

If the fragrant herbs between Jerusalem and Joppa afforded such a grateful smell, as to engage this ingenious traveller to remark it in his Journal, the scent of Lebanon must have been exquisite, for Mr. Maundrell found the great rupture in that mountain, in which Canobin is situated, had "both sides exceeding steep and high, cloathed with fragrant greens from top to bottom, and every where refreshed with fountains, falling down from the rocks in pleasant cascades; the ingenious work of nature." No other illustration is wanted of that line,

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Fragrance shall be to him like that of Lebanon."

:

It will in like manner be sufficient as to the second line, to set down a passage from Dr. Russell's account of the natural history of Aleppo "after the first rains in the autumn, the fields every where throw out the autumnal lily daffodil; and the few plants which had stood the summer now grow with fresh vigour.** Only adding, that Rauwolff found this kind of lily, which he calls hemerocallis, in the Holy Land, as well as about Tripoli.'

The other trees of Lebanon, as well as the cedars, are admired by travellers on account of q Deut. xxxiii. 13.

Vol. i. c. 3.

• P. 47, where he describes them as a kind of wild white lilies, by the Latins and Greeks called hemerocallis.

t P. 206.

their enormous size, which is the circumstance alluded to in the third line. So de la Roque, describing his ascending this mountain, says, the farther they advanced, the more hermitages they met with, together with the little chapels belonging to them; and the loftier the trees, which for the most part were plane-trees, cypresses, and ever-green oaks :" and Rauwolff, after mentioning several kinds of trees and herbs which he found there, goes on, but chiefly, and in the greatest number, were the mapletrees, which are large, big, high, and expand themselves very much with their branches. But, above all, the size of the cedars attracts admiration: "I measured," says Maundrell, "one of the largest, and found it twelve yards, six inches in girt, and yet sound; and thirty-seven yards in the spread of its boughs. At about five or six yards from the ground, it was divided into five limbs, each of which was equal to a great tree.” No other comment is want

ing for the line,

"As Lebanon his branches shall shoot out."

The beauty of the olive-tree is frequently mentioned in Scripture, and being considered elsewhere, I shall say nothing about it here.

And not only was Israel to regain its former prosperity, but those smaller tribes of people that were connected with Israel, and shared in its depression, which are described by the. words dwelling under his shadow.

P. 149.

Tome 1, p. 48, 49.

They were to revive as the corn, or rather as a garden. Corn is not at all remarkable for reviving. It can bear considerable drought, and it was wont to be reaped in Judea, before the cessation of the rains, or immediately after. But a garden must have often suffered for want of proper supplies of water, and accordingly Isaiah threatens, Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water, ch. i. 30.

The last of these eight lines seems to refer to a vine that had been stripped of its leaves, and afterwards flourishing again, recovering its lost verdure. Several trees will do this, but a vine, being of such consequence to the comfort of their lives, would be very particularly remarked, and might be oftener stripped of its leaves than other trees. Locusts left many sorts of trees bare, when they came as a scourge to a country, as well as the vine, as we'read Joel i. 12; but it may be that vines

The contrary to this I know to be fact. Corn, in its first sprouting out, makes a beautiful appearance; but when the first spires begin to fall down on the earth, to make way for the stalk, the whole appears withered and comparatively dead. In a short time after this, the tender stem, with its concomitant branches, begins to shoot forth, and the whole field appears revivified. Hence that rhyming couplet used in several countries:

"Visit your corn in May, and you'll come weeping away :
"But visit your corn in June, and you'll come whistling home."

However ingenious the emendation proposed by Mr. Harmer above, may appear, I mean the change of a dugan, corn, into a kegan, like a garden, there is certainly no need of it here, as the words convey a very natural and appropri. ato sense as they stand in the present Hebrew text. EDIT.

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