easiness, and consequently is pleasing and quieting, at least for the present. Ezekiel introduces God expressing himself in the same manner : "And mine anger shall be fully accomplished; 7 7 Chap. v. 13. This is a strong instance of the metaphor called Anthropopathia; by which, throughout the Scriptures, as well the historical as the poetical parts, the senti ments, sensations, and affections; the bodily facul ties, qualities, and members, of men, and even of brute animals, are attributed to God; and that with the utmost liberty and latitude of application. The foundation of this is obvious; it arises from neces sity: we have no idea of the natural attributes of God, of his pure essence, of his manner of existence, of his manner of acting: when therefore we would treat on these subjects, we find ourselves forced to express them by sensible images. But necessity leads to beauty: this is true of metaphor in general, and in particular of this kind of metaphor; which is used with great elegance and sublimity in the sacred poetry and, what is very remarkable, in the est instances of the application of it, it is generally the most striking and the most sublime. The reason seems to be this: when the images are taken from the superior faculties of the human nature, from the purer and more generous affections, and applied to God, we are apt to acquiesce in the notion; we overlook the metaphor, and take it as a proper attribute: but when the idea is gross and offensive, as in this passage of Isaiah, where the impatience of anger, and the pleasure of revenge, is attributed to God; we are immediately shocked at the applica tion, the impropriety strikes us at once; and the mind, casting about for something in the Divine nature analogous to the image, lays hold on some gross great, obscure, vague idea, which she endeavours in vain to comprehend, and is lost in immensity and astonishment. See de S. Poësi Hebr. Præl. xvi. sub fin. where this matter is treated and illustrated by examples. 25. in the furnace] The text has ; which some render, "as with soap :" as if it were the same with ; so Kimchi: but soap can have nothing to do with the purifying of metals: others, "according to purity, or purely," as our Version. Le Clerc conjectured, that the true reading is 33, as in the furnace;" see Ezek. xxii. 18, 20. Dr. Durell proposes only a transposition of letters to the same sense: and so likewise Archbishop Secker. That this is the true reading is highly probable. 26. And after this-] The LXX, Syr. Chald. and eighteen MSS. add the conjunction i 27." in judgment;" by the exercise of God's strict justice in destroying the obdurate, (see ver. 28.) and delivering the penitent: "in righteousness;" by the truth and faithfulness of God in performing his promises. 29, 30. For ye shall be ashamed of the ilexes-] Sacred groves were a very ancient and favourite appendage of idolatry. They were furnished with the temple of the god to whom they were dedicated; with altars, images, and every thing necessary for performing the various rites of worship offered there; and were the scenes of many impure ceremonies, and of much abominable superstition. They made a principal part of the religion of the old inhabitants of Canaan; and the Israelites were commanded to destroy their groves, among other monuments of their false worship. The Israelites themselves became afterward very much addicted to this species of idolatry. ; "When I had brought them into the land, Then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree: And there they presented the provocation of their offerings; And there they poured out their libations." "On the tops of the mountains they sacrifice; And the ilex, because her shade is pleasant." Ezek. xx. 28. Hosea iv. 13. Of what particular kinds the trees here mentioned are, it cannot be determined with certainty. In regard to , in this place of Isaiah, as well as in Hosea, Celsius (Hierobot.) understands it of the terebinth because the most ancient interpreters render it so; in the first place the LXX. He quotes eight places; but in three of these eight places the copies vary, some having δρυς instead of τερεβινθος. And he should have told us, that these same LXX render it in sixteen other places by dgus: so that their authority is really against him; and the LXX stant pro quercu, contrary to what he says at first setting out. Add to this, that Symmachus, Theodotion, and Aquila, generally render it by dgus; the latter only once rendering it by regeCivos. His other arguments seem to me not very conclusive: he says, that all the qualities of agree to the terebinth; that it grows in mountainous countries; that it is a strong tree; long-lived; large and high; and deciduous. All these qualities agree just as well to the oak, against which he contends; and he actually attributes them to the oak in the very next section. But, I think, neither the oak, nor the terebinth, will do in this place of Isaiah, from the last circum stance, which he mentions, their being deciduous; where the prophet's design seems to me to require an ever-green: otherwise the casting of its leaves would be nothing out of the common established course of nature, and no proper image of extreme distress, and total desolation; parallel to that of a garden without water, that is, wholly burnt up and destroyed. An ancient, who was an inhabitant and a native of this country, understands it, in like manner, of a tree blasted with uncommon and immoderate heat: "velut arbores, cum frondes æstu torrente decusserunt." Ephræm Syr. in loc. Edit. Assemani. Compare Psal. i. 4. Jer. xvii. 8. Upon the whole, I have chosen to make it the ilex; which word Vossius (Etymolog.) derives from the Hebrew ; that, whether the word itself be rightly rendered or not, I might at least preserve the propriety of the poetical image. an, in the se 29. For ye shall be ashamed] cond person, Vulg. Chald. two MSS. and one edition; and in agreement with the rest of the sentence. 30.—whose leaves] Twenty-six MSS. and three editions ready, in its full and regular form. This is worth remarking, as it accounts for a great number of anomalies of the like kind, which want only the same authority to rectify them. 30. a garden wherein is no water.] In the hotter parts of the eastern countries, a constant supply of water is so absolutely necessary for the cultivation, and even for the preservation and existence of a garden, that should it want water but for a few days, every thing in it would be burnt up with the heat, and totally destroyed. There is therefore no garden whatever in those countries, but what has such a certain supply; either from some neighbouring river, or from a reservoir of water collected from springs, or filled with rain water in the proper season, in sufficient quantity to afford ample provision for the rest of the year. Moses, having described the habitation of man newly created, as a garden, planted with every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food; adds, as a circumstance necessary to complete the idea of a garden, that it was well supplied with water: (Gen. ii. 10. and see xiii. 10.) "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden," That the reader may have a clear notion of this matter, it will be necessary to give some account of the management of their gardens in this respect. "Damascus," says Maundrell, p. 122. "is encompassed with gardens, extending no less, according to common estimation, than thirty miles round; which makes it look like a city in a vast wood. The gardens are thick set with fruit-trees of all kinds, kept fresh and verdant by the waters of Barrady, (the Chrysorrhoas of the ancients,) which supply both the gardens and city in great abundance. This river, as soon as it issues out from between the cleft of the mountain before-mentioned into the plain, is immediately divided into three streams; of which the middlemost and biggest runs directly to Damascus, and is distributed to all the cisterns and fountains of the city. The other two (which I take to be the work of art) are drawn round, one to the right hand, and the other to the left, on the borders of the gardens, into which they are let as they pass, by little currents, and so dispersed all over the vast wood. Insomuch, that there is not a garden but has a fine quick stream running through it. Barrady is almost wholly drunk up by the city and gardens. What small part of it escapes is united, as I was informed, in one channel again, on the south-east side of the city; and, after about three or four |