and anxiety, which is offenfive to God, and prejudicial to our beft interefts; fo there is a criminal eafe and careleffness, which is not lefs pernicious and displeasing in the fight of God, that ought to be cautiously avoided. Be on your guard, I beseech you, against these oppofite extremes; and study, in dependence upon God, to fteer the middle course, which lies at an equal distance from both these exceffes.

Rife up, hear my voice, &c. Awake from the ftate of indolence and fecurity in which you have indulged; lay afide your thoughtlefs indifference about approaching events; that you may become more active, vigorous, and vigilant, than in times past. Arife from that torpid infenfible condition, by continuance in which, you may be involved in ruin; receive, with facred respect, the meffage I now bring from God to you; and fhew your profound veneration for the intimation he is pleafed to give you of his purposes, by a fuitable practical regard-Hear my voice. Stop not your ears at my reproof, but take heed what, and how you hear. Be not like the idols of the heathen, who have ears and hear not. Impreffed with a juft fenfe of the bad effects refulting from carelefs inattention to the word of God, and of the fubftantial benefits that may accrue from hearkening to it as you ought; liften, with diligent attention, to what I am now about to deliver. The call is repeated and urged-Give ear unto my Speech; which plainly intimates, that our Prophet was going to fpeak, not of trivial matters, wherein his hearers were little concerned; but of matters of the greatest moment, wherein they were deeply interested, which were not to be involved in obfcurity, but reprefented with perfpicuity, and eftablished by fatisfying evidences. No wonder then that he was folicitous that they fhould hearken with attention and refpect, to the predictions he was about to utter.-Let us learn from hence, how we ought to hear the word of God delivered to us by his fervants; not with unaffected induierence, but

with the closest attention. It is not enough that we testify reverence for the divine authority, by the decent posture of our bodies; our minds muft likewife be deeply engaged in hearkening to the voice that speaketh to us from heaven. In the words of Jefus Chrift, He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.' The admonition is rendered more forcible by the organ and the act being joined together by our Saviour. When we fay we faw fuch an object with our eyes, or heard fuch a thing with our ears, though we can neither fee nor hear without these organs, yet they are mentioned to give more energy to the expreffion, and to call forth greater attention from others.

10 Many days and years fhall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage fhall fail, the gathering fhall not come.

Having requested diligent attention, Isaiah proceeds to deliver the inftructions he had in command from God to communicate.-Many days, &c. Thefe words may be confidered as fixing the time when the threatened calamity was to commence, or rather as determining the period of its duration. The Hebrew words properly fignify, After days above a year; and feem to point at an indefinite time, wherein the judgment described should be executed; or according to our tranflation, they may refer to its continuance, which, as we learn from ver. 14. was to be extended to a long period of time, year after year, as we say in our language, until the Spirit be poured out from on high, ver. 15. The prediction seems to relate to the calamities brought upon the Jewish nation in a leffer degree by the Affyrians, and afterwards in a larger measure by the Chaldeans and Romans. At these feafons, the careless, indolent, voluptuous inhabitants of Judea, were to be troubled by diftreffes of various kinds, and particularly by the failure of the vintage and the harveft. The vintage

was

was to fail, not through the inclemency of the weather, but on account of the devaftation made by the invading enemies of the country; and for the fame reafon, the time of gathering in the precious fruits of the earth, as in former years, was not to arrive.According to this prophecy, Senacherib king of Affyria, (of whom Hezekiah in his prayer to God, complains that he had laid waste all the nations and their countries) having advanced into Judea with a large army; defolated the land, deftroyed or confumed the vineyards, the fig-trees, and olive-trees, with the rich produce, and luxuriant crops, wherewith the land every where abounded; upon which the effeminate inhabitants of Canaan were accuftomed to feast and regale themselves. On these accounts they were to be greatly troubled; and like the rich men of whom the apoftle James fpeaks, they were to weep and howl for the miferies that were come upon them.-The Moft High over all the earth, who had bestowed manifold kindneffes on the Jewish people, greatly provoked by their base ingratitude, their infolent abuse of his mercies, and other atrocious crimes, deprived them of their corn in the time thereof, and their wine in the season thereof. This procedure, the justice of which cannot be queftioned, ought to excite us, who have been guilty of fimilar tranfgreffions, to admire the longfuffering of God, which we have experienced in time past-to confider our ways, and return unto the Lord-to ftand in awe, and not to fin after the fimilitude of the Jews, who were vifited with fuch terrible things in righteousness, which they looked not for.

11 Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careleis ones: ftrip you, and make you bare, and gird fackcloth upon your loins.

The Prophet proceeds in ftill ftronger terms to admonish

admonish the effeminate inhabitants of the cities and towns of Judea, of greater calamities wherewith they were to be vifited for their many heinous fins.-In the doleful profpect of the terrible deftruction of their church and nation, which he was now about to foretel, he calls upon them to tremble and to be troubled. The awful feverity of Jehovah to be hereafter manifefted in the dreadful punishment of your enormous crimes, of which you receive this early intimation, ought to excite in your minds, not flight tranfient emotions, but that pungent forrow and extreme fear which is accompanied with great tremor and uneafiness. When you hear what I am about to deliver, justly may your lips quiver, rottennefs enter into your bones, and you may tremble in yourfelves, that you may reft in the day of trouble. Fear ought to come upon you, and trembling which may make all your bones to shake. Be afraid of God's righteous judgments, and be afflicted on account of thofe tranfgreffions, of which they are the juft retribution.-Strip you, &c. Throughout the whole of this prediction, the allegorical ftile is adopted; in which, under the cover of fymbolic expreffions, though the language is clearly explicable, the meaning feems to be obfcure. The cities of Judah are here addressed under the emblem of refpectable, yet delicate matrons; decked with elegant robes and rich ornaments, which they are required to lay afide. They are likewife directed to put on fackcloth, or other coarse garments, fuited to the mournful occafion; that their exterior appearance might correfpond with the employment to which they were invited. Similar advice was given to the Moabites, by the prophet Jeremiah, when he foretold their kingdom fhould be broken like a veffel: Upon the loins fackcloth, and lamentation generally up' on all the house tops*. The words then are not to be literally explained, but understood according to the interpretation now given.-So great were the calamities

Chap. xlviii. 37, 38.

calamities here predicted, that they called not only for trouble and anguish of mind, but for those external figns of grief and diftrefs, which are certain indications of their truth and reality. Outward expreffions of forrow are demanded; the more effectually to awaken from fecurity, the more deeply to imprefs the heart with approaching judgments, and the fins whereby they are incurred. Words often leave only a faint impreffion upon the heart, which is apt foon to wear off; but fenfible objects that remain always prefent to the fenfes, have a more powerful and permanent influence.

12 They fhall lament for the teats, for the pleafant fields, for the fruitful vine.

Some of the accumulated evils are here mentioned, which were to befal the Jewish nation, and to be the fubjects of lamentation and wo, especially at the period to which this prophecy refers. Our Prophet having called the inhabitants of Judea to the exercife of penitential forrow, with its proper expreflions, changes the form of his difcourfe, and introduces them mourning for the terrible devaftations which he immediately foretels. The first ground of grief and vexation is thus flated-They fhall lament for the teats; because of the deplorable condition to which mothers giving fuck, with the infants at their breafts, were to be reduced. The words of Jefus Chrift, when speaking of the calamities which were coming on the city Jerufalem, perfectly accord with this fentiment, and may in fome meafure explain the prediction under confideration. Wo unto them,' (faith the compaffionate Saviour), that are with child, and to them that give fuck in those days*;' whofe particular fituation, and tender affection for their young ones, render them incapable of fleeing from their enemies into distant places for fafety, like people in more favourable circumftances. Again, when bearVOL. III.

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* Mark xiii, 17.

ing