Taking in its usual sense, as a particle, and supplying from oos of the LXX, it might possibly have been originally somewhat in this form: כי תחת יפי תהיה לך רעת מראה : "Yea, instead of beauty, thou shalt have an ill-favoured countenance." *** [q. *]" for beauty shall be destroyed." Syr. from лn, or л. DR. DURELL. May it not be, "wrinkles instead of ,מרי מרה from ;יפי is formed יפה beauty ? as from &c. so from ana, to be wrinkled." DR. Jubb. 25. thy mighty men-] For 75, an ancient MS. has . The true reading from LXX, Vulg. Syr. Chald. seems to be גבורך 26. —sit on the ground.] Sitting on the ground was a posture that denoted mourning and deep distress. The prophet Jeremiah has given it the first place among many indications of sorrow in the following elegant description of the same state of distress of his country: "The elders of the daughter of Sion sit on the ground, they are silent: They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth : The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed down their heads to the ground." Lam. ii. 8. "We find Judea," says Mr. Addison, (On Medals, Dial. II.) "on several coins of Vespasian and Titus, in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity.-I need not mention her sitting on the ground, because we have already spoken of the aptness of such a posture to represent an extreme affliction. I fancy the Romans might have an eye on the customs of the Jewish nation, as well as those of their country, in the several marks of sorrow they have set on this figure. The Psalmist describes the Jews lamenting their captivity in the same pensive posture. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion.' But what is more remarkable, we find Judea represented as a woman in sorrow sitting on the ground, in a passage of the prophet, that foretells the very captivity recorded on this medal." Mr. Addison, I presume, refers to this place of Isaiah; and therefore must have understood it as foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation by the Romans: whereas it seems plainly to relate, in its first and more immediate view at least, to the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, and the dissolution of the Jewish state under the captivity at Babylon. CHAP. IV. The pro 1. And seven women-] THE division of the chapters has interrupted the prophet's discourse, and broken it off almost in the midst of the sentence. "The numbers slain in battle shall be so great, that seven women shall be left to one man." phet has described the greatness of this distress by images and adjuncts the most expressive and forcible. The young women, contrary to their natural modesty, shall become suitors to the men: they will take hold of them, and use the most pressing importunity to be married; in spite of the natural suggestions of jealousy, they will be content with a share only of the rights of marriage in common with several others; and that on hard conditions, renouncing the legal demands of the wife on the husband, (see Exod. xxi. 10.) and begging only the name and credit of wedlock, and to be freed from the reproach of celibacy. (See (See chap. liv. 4, 5.) Like Marcia, on a different occasion, and in other circumstances: "Da tantum nomen inane Connubii: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis Lucan. II. 342. Ibib. in that day-] These words are omitted in LXX, and MS. . Ibid. The Branch of JEHOVAH-] The Messiah of JEHOVAH, says the Chaldee. The branch is an appropriated title of the Messiah; and the fruit of the land means the great Person to spring from the house of Judah, and is only a parallel expression signifying the same: or perhaps the blessings consequent upon the redemption procured by him. Compare chap. xlv. 8. where the same great event is set forth in similar images; and see the note there. Ibid. —the house of Israel.] A MS. has 3. — written among the living.] That is, whose name stands in the enrolment or register of the people; or every man living, who is a citizen of Jerusalem. See Ezek. xiii. 9. where "they shall not be written in the writing of the house of Israel," is the same with what immediately goes before, "they shall not be in the assembly of my people." Compare Psal. lxxxvii. 6. lxix. 28. Exod. xxxii. 32. To number and register the people was agreeable to the law of Moses, and probably was always practised; being, in sound policy, useful and even necessary. David's design of numbering the people was of another kind; it was to enrol them for his army. Michaelis, Mosaisches Recht, part iii. p. 227. see also his Dissert. de Censibus Hebræorum. 4. "The spirit of burning," means the fire of God's wrath, by which he will prove and purify his people; gathering them into his furnace, in order to separate the dross from the silver, the bad from the good. The severity of God's judgments, the fiery trial of his servants, Ezekiel, (chap. xxii. 18— 22.) has set forth at large, after his manner, with great boldness of imagery and force of expression. God threatens to gather them into the midst of Jerusalem, as into the furnace; to blow the fire upon them, and to melt them. Malachi treats the same subject, and represents the same event under the like images: "But who may abide the day of his coming? For he is like the fire of the refiner, And like the soap of the fullers. And he shall sit refining and purifying the silver; And cleanse them like gold, and like silver; Presenting unto him an offering in righteousness." Mal. iii. 2, 3. 5. -the station-] The Hebrew text has, every station; but four MSS. (one ancient) omit ; very rightly, as it should seem: for the station was mount Sion itself, and no other. See Exod. xv. 17. And the LXX, and MS. add the same word before , probably right: the word has only changed its place by mistake. p," the place where they were gathered together in their holy assemblies," says Sal. b. Melec. Ibid. A cloud by day-] This is a manifest allusion to the pillar of a cloud and of fire, which attended the Israelites in their passage out of Egypt, and to the glory that rested on the tabernacle. Exod. xiii. 21. xl. 38. The prophet Zechariah applies the same image to the same purpose: "And I will be unto her a wall of fire round about; Zech. ii. 5 That is, the visible presence of God shall protect her. Which explains the conclusion of this verse of Isaiah; where the Makkaph between 5 and 5, connecting the two words in construction, which ought not to be connected, has thrown an obscurity upon the sentence, and misled most of the translators. 6. And a tabernacle-] In countries subject to violent tempests, as well as to intolerable heat, a portable tent is a necessary part of a traveller's baggage, for defence and shelter. CHAP. V. THIS chapter likewise stands single and alone, unconnected with the preceding or following. The subject of it is nearly the same with that of the first chapter. It is a general reproof of the Jews for their wickedness: but it exceeds that chapter in force, in severity, in variety, and elegance; and it adds a more express declaration of vengeance, by the Babylonian invasion. 1. Let me sing now a song] A MS. respectable for its antiquity, adds the word (a song) after * which gives so elegant a turn to the sentence by the repetition of it in the next member, and by distinguishing the members so exactly in the style and manner of the Hebrew poetical composition, that I am much inclined to think it genuine. Ibid. A song of loves], for; status constructus pro absoluto, as the grammarians say, as Micah vi. 16. Lament. iii. 14, and 66. so archbishop Secker. Or rather, in all these and the like cases, a mistake of the transcribers, by not observing a small stroke, which in many MSS. is made to sup |