check a vain curiosity? Is it that in this, as in all his dealings with his creatures, he would make trial of their faith, and convince them that they must be ever learning, without acquiring perfect knowledge, -approaching more nearly to him, yet looking forward to the future day of promise when all things shall be revealed? Is it that he has visited some ages with blindness and ignorance, as in the days of inspiration he, in just judgment, withheld his spirit from the prophets, -" night shall be unto you that ye shall not have a vision, and it shall be dark unto you that ye shall not divine, and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them: then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded; yea, they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer of God." Micah iii. 6, 7.;-and that even in the present day; when we would willingly hope that "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God" shines in the hearts of many of his servants, the unbelief of many, and the sins and infirmities of the best among us stand in the way to hinder the full revelation of his Will and Truth? Whatever may be thought of these things, it should appear from the word of God as well as from the experience of past ages, that though the progress which we have made in the interpretation of prophecy gives little cause for boasting; yet we have abundant encouragement to proceed in our researches, so long as they are conducted in that spirit which alone can hope for a blessing, -a spirit of humility and faith, of devotion and sincere love of the truth. There are two things requisite in him who would hope to understand Prophecy aright, and trace out its fulfilment: a patient investigation of the meaning of the original-the literal meaning of the words, and then their sense according to the prophetic style; and that which may be thought sometimes to require almost equal patience, a scrupulous adherence to the written word. This is, perhaps, the more necessary upon a subject where some licence must be granted to the imagination. For if to some boldness of interpretation we add a freedom of conjectural emendation, where are we to stop? If we are at liberty to alter a text because it is obscure (there being reason to believe that the Almighty intended to veil it more or less in obscurity,) may not the whole face of the prediction be changed, till we ourselves become rather the prophets than the interpreters. There is indeed a remark made by Bishop Lowth, and none of his words should fall to the ground, -that such forced interpretations as convey no meaning, or a very bad one, are equally conjectural with the boldest critical emendation. This may be true, and we are tempted to catch at the pleasing bait .... thus held out to us, and under the sanction of such an author to indulge our own fancies, or our vanity, if not our idleness. For be it observed that to alter the text is generally much easier than to discover the meaning of what we already find written. The passage indeed which occasioned the remark that we have quoted (Is. lxiv. 5.), may have suffered from transcribers. The Septuagint, at least, shews a different reading. What then is the language adopted by this accomplished scholar in commenting upon it? "I am fully persuaded that these words, as they stand in the present Hebrew texts, are utterly unintelligible: there is no doubt of the meaning of each word separately, but put together they make no sense at all. I conclude, therefore, that the copy has suffered by mistakes of transcribers, &c. In this difficulty what remains but to have recourse to conjecture?" Each succeeding commentator is, of course, at liberty to indulge his own invention, and the text will be altered according to the taste of him who handles it. They, we conceive, will act more wisely who shut themselves out from the exercise of such freedom, and are content to make the best they can of the words before them. How far they may derive assistance from old versions, or old manuscripts, or old commentaries, is another question; but mere conjectural emendation ought not to be admitted. If it be, the whole nature of a passage may be altered at our will; the present or the past may be substituted for the future; and instead of a prediction of events yet to come we may discover an historical record of those which had taken place. We are well aware that in delivering this opinion we are placing ourselves at issue with the most renowned of our biblical scholars and critics. Even Dr. Stonard, though he is scrupulous of altering a single word in the text of his author, admits that "the exigentia loci, when fairly made out, is always pleaded with great effect;" but, he adds with some point, "the exigentia interpretationis has not yet obtained firm footing in the canons and court of criticism." It is because we conceive that such emendations may almost always be traced to this exigentia interpretationis that we desire to shut the door against conjecture, as far as concerns the words of the text. The strange alterations which have been made in the prophecy of the seventy weeks by various translators and interpreters, and amongst the rest by so able a critical scholar as the late Dr. Blaney, must be our apology for this expression of our own feelings upon the subject. The Doctor has not perhaps, strictly speaking, put forth any merely conjectural emendation; but by the aid of "patchwork readings," (to use an expressive phrase of Dr. Stonard's), and slight authorities, he has mangled and interpolated his author, who, if he is before obscure, becomes almost unintelligible from the various attempts which have been made to discover and unfold his meaning. We have been much gratified, therefore, by finding that Dr. Stonard, in adding one more name to the list of commentators on this passage, has adhered (not without a strict investigation) to the original text, and has given his readers a literal translation of it without the alteration of a single word. : Dr. Stonard has thought it becoming to enter with much minuteness into a critical examination of the alterations in the text proposed by Dr. Blaney and Mr. Faber; yet as he, and not his learned predecessors, is at present under our review we shall pass over this part altogether; and, reminding our readers that the Doctor takes the text exactly as he finds it (unless we except the pointing of one or two words), present them with his translation of this celebrated Prophecy; -which, as it consists of no more than four verses, they may be glad to have before them in one view. "24. Seventy weeks are the determined period upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to put a stop to the transgression, and to seal the sin-offerings, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in the righteousness of the ages, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint an holy of holies. "25. Know therefore and understand, from the going forth of the word to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah shall be leader, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty and two weeks it shall be rebuilt, the street and the lane, but the times will be with straitness. "26. And after the sixty and two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, and no one will be on his side; and he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary with the leader that cometh; and his end shall be with an inundation, for until the end shall be the war, the determined judgment of desolations. "27. Yet will he confirm the covenant unto many one week; but in the midst of the week he will cause sacrifice and meat-offering to cease; afterwards upon the border of abominations shall be the desolator, and that until he shall be consumed, and the determined judgment shall have been poured upon the desolated." P. 118. Our readers will not be displeased, upon perusing the above extract, to find that the effect of Dr. Stonard's labours is to confirm, in many respects, the translation in our Bible. This translation is so familiar to them that they will easily detect the points of difference. We shall direct their attention to two or three of the most important passages, where they will have an opportunity of forming their judgment of our author's mode of Investigation. In the 25th verse, we have the words, "until Messiah shall be leader" )עד משיח נגיד( an expression which points out a determinate period. The substantive verb is not expressed; and Dr. Stonard properly remarks, that neither of the words has the emphatic ה "The former," he says, " is evidently a proper name, and consequently could not regularly have the article prefixed." With regard to the latter, Dr. Stonard quotes the rule of Hebrew grammar, that "Hayediah is not prefixed to a noun, whether substantive or adjective, which is used as a predicate;" and adds, "since then it is not here prefixed to נגיד as that circumstance probably shews that the word is not to be taken in opposition with the preceding one, so does it shew, with equal probability, that it is to be taken as its predicate with the copula or verb substantive understood." By this mode of rendering the words, Dr. Stonard fixes a date for the fulfilment of one part of the prophecy, and it is of consequence, therefore, to ascertain that the criticism is correct. We would not willingly quarrel with it, yet we would venture to ask whether, according to the usual construction in Hebrew, the word עד in this case would not have been followed by a verb expressing the sense of leading in the infinitive, or by אשר with the verb in the future tense? It is of the first importance to determine whether the period of "seven weeks," in the same verse, should be taken in connection with that of "sixty-two weeks," or be separated from it. Our translators have adopted the former mode of construction; and Dr. Stonard has brought very high authority to shew that, according to the idiom of the Hebrew language, the number sixty-nine could not be expressed in this form, and he therefore places a comma after "seven weeks," thereby making the other term represent the period during which the city should continue rebuilt. We have no doubt of this being cor-. rect, but must refer our readers to the author for the proof of it. "The street and the lane," דחוב וחרוץ. We mention these words on account of their affording an instance, the latter of them particularly, of Dr. Stonard's accurate investigation of the meaning of the Hebrew: they may properly, perhaps, be translated the broad and the narrow, and thence naturally as above, the street and the lane. "Messiah shall be cut off." We should scarcely have thought it necessary to mention this expression, but as Dr. Blaney has introduced a most material alteration, by construing the verb in the active sense, and Mr. Faber has followed him, we sincerely rejoice at finding Dr. Stonard adopting that inter pretation in which both Jews and Christians, translators and commentators had before agreed, and opposing the learned Professor with ingenious and correct criticism. We will not join with Dr. Hales in the severe censure which he has passed upon Dr. Blaney, but we do feel that the interpretation to which we allude, is one of the most unfortunate and ill-judged instances of a bold departure from all authority upon record. " And no one will be on his side," ואין לו. This is another very favourable example of Dr. Stonard's talent for accuracy in criticism. The translation is not, indeed, original. Vatablus, in Pole's Synopsis, had rendered the words "et nullus erit pro eo, id est, nullus stabit a parte ejus." And Dr. Blaney has, in fact, adopted the same signification. But the manner in which Dr. Stonard has defended it is quite satisfactory. We must be permitted to quote his language in noticing the sense given to the words in our Bible. "The rendering given by our English translators is, but not for himself; a solemn, awful, and pious rendering; calculated to excite in the reader the most devout, humble, and thankful sense of the spotless innocence of the person, whose cutting off is here predicted. But this rendering, though supported by other very learned men, must be given up as not reconcileable with the Hebrew idiom." P. 83. Having gone through a critical examination of the literal meaning of the prophecy, and previous to entering on an interpretation of it, our author lays down some preliminary positions for the better fixing and regulating of the interpretation. These, perhaps, should be quoted at length, but we shall content ourselves with noticing those which are most important, and may best enable the reader to form some judgment of Dr. Stonard's book. The seventy weeks, then, he pronounces to be, as they are generally understood to be, weeks of "proper or solar years," "beginning with the complete restoration of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity, and ending with the dissolution of the same," and "the six particulars mentioned in the 24th verse are comprehended within this term, and must be brought to pass at, or before its conclusion." The term of seven weeks, ver. 25, (as has been already mentioned) "is separate from, and prior to, the term of SEVENTY WEEKS, and concludes at the point where the other commences." "The Leader that shall come, ver. 26, is a different person from Messiah the Prince, in the 25th verse." The 27th verse is supplementary to the history of the seventy weeks; and the week here mentioned is not the last week of the seventy, nor yet a week superadded to them, but comprehended among them." "The word until, ver. 25, |