10

11

Your gardens, and your vineyard, and your figtrees,
And your olive trees, hath the locust eaten :
And yet ye have not returned unto me, saith
Jehovah.

I have sent among you the pestilence, after the
manner of Egypt:

have slain your young men with the sword,

And your horses have I led away into captivity;
And I have made the smell of your camps to come da
up into your nostrils :)

And yet ye have not returned unto me, saith
Jehovah.

I have overthrown some of you, like the great
overthrow

Of Sodom and of Gomorrah;

And ye have been as a firebrand plucked out of
the burning:

And yet ye have not returned unto me, saith
Jehovah.

overthrow of God.

§ Hebr. Together with the captivity of your horses. A good sense arises from thus changing the Masoretic division. of the sentence, and adding to the former clause. By pointing the word differently we may render, "Your many gardens, &c."

---the locust] The verb in Ar. and Eth. and in the Talmudical writers, signifies "abscindere ramos arborum." See Boch. Hieroz. part. ii. p. 443, 484.

10. ---after the manner of Egypt] See Deut. vii. 15. xxviii. The unwholesome effluvia, on the subsiding of the Nile, caused some peculiarly malignant diseases in this country. For the phrase, see Gen. xix. 31. Isai. x. 26. Ezek. xx. 30.

---into your nostrils] We may read without the vau, as V. 6. Ar. Syr. Houbigant, and one MS. in which the vau is erased. But Chald. has the vau: "even unto your nostrils." The pestilential smell of the dead is meant.

11. ---great overthrow] See on Jon. iii. 3. and the parallel places Isai. xiii. 19. Jer. 1. 40. For the fact, see 2 Kings xiii. 3:

xiv. 26.

---of Sodom] is sometimes the sign of the genitive case. See Nold. §. 24.

---plucked] Many MSS. read by here, and Zach. iii. 2.

Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: And because I will do thus unto thee,

Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

For, behold, he that formeth the mountains, and
createth the wind,

And declareth unto man what is his thought;
He that maketh the morning darkness,

And treadeth upon the high places of the earth;
Jehovah, God of hosts, is his name.

12. thus] I will overthrow thee with a great overthrow. Houbigant reads from Chald. and renders:

Nunc autem quit faciam tibi, Israel,
Postquam tibi hæ feci?

Para te ad occursum Dei tui, Israel.

Thus will I do] "This is a common form of imprecation, implying more than he who used it would, or perhaps could, express.' "Secker.

13. For behold, &c.] Prepare to meet him armed with vengeance: for he is a great and powerful God.

---the mountains] "Beaver 6. On" Secker. Bęoveny ó. Dyn"

---darkness] ó. Ar. Houbigant, and above twenty MSS. or

: ועיפה impressions read

"He that maketh the morning and the darkness:" Which is a very elegant various lection, and likely to be adopted by many readers. But God's power of changing day into night is mentioned c. v. 8: and in both these places there may be an allusion to the black clouds and smoke attending earthquakes which happen during the day. "Des nuages noirs & epais--sont ordinairement les avant-coureurs de ces funestes catastrophes. On a vu sortir une flamine de terre dans ces tremblemens, mais plus souvent de la fumce." Encyclop. 4to. Art. tremblemens de terre. See also c. viii. 9.

---and treadeth] That is, hath all power and sovereignty: treading under foot the highest and strongest places. See Deut. xxxii. 13.xxxiii. 29. This description of the all-powerful and all knowing God is very sublime, This line is repeated Mic. i. 8.

1

2

3

CHAP. V.

*

HEAR ye this word which I take up against you even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall not † rise again:

She is stretched out on her land; none shall raise

her up.

For thus saith the Lord Jehovah :

The city which went out by a thousand, shall leave an hundred,

And that which went out by an hundred shall leave ten,

To the house of Israel.

Wherefore thus saith Jehovah to the house of
Israel :

Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

5

But seek not Bethel,

And go not unto Gilgal,

And pass not over unto Beersheba.

*Or, utter.

+ Hebr. add to rise.

1. Hear, &c.] According to Bishop Lowth, Hebr. præl. xxii. p. 292, this verse is a part of the ', or elegy. It may be divided thus:

Hear this word

Which I take up against you;

Even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

I suppose this lamentation continued to the end of c. vi: though it may be confined to v. 2.

Or, "For I take up a lamentation over you." Secker.

2. No more rise] "The contrary seems often said, as c. ix. 15: even though Israel be taken as opposed to Judah. But my doth not signify, not for ever. Joel ii. 19." Secker. 3. went out Or, sendeth forth, emittit. For Bochart attributes a transitive sense to the verb in this place; agreeably to Deut. xiv. 22: and Ps. cxliv. 14: "nec sit in eis abortus, nec quæ ejiciat fætum." Hieroz. L. ii. xxx. 295.

5. Gilgal] In a na there is an allusion to the word Gilgal. ---Beersheba] It belonged to Judah: 1 Kings xix. 3: which circumstance gives a propriety to the phrase, pass not over." That it was the scene of idolatry, see c. viii. 14.

6

7

8

For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
And Bethel shall come to nought.

Seek ye Jehovah, and ye shall live:

Lest he § rush like fire on the house of Joseph;
$

And it devour the house of Israel, and there be
none to quench it:

Ye that turn judgment into wormwood, and righteousness into hemlock,

That have forsaken him who made the || Hyades and Arcturus;

Hebr. shall be for vanity. § Or, advance.

---to nought] See Isai. xli. 29.

Or, the seven stars.

6. ---rush] Advance, come. See 1 Sam. x. 6. "Notat nby irruere. sed cum by vel : sed pertransire cum accusativo, 2 Sam. xix. 18: ut non opus sit rescribere ' N mbw, 19, i. 4, 7, 10." Secker.

66 ut

---like fire] A strong and natural image. Thus Hector is said to be φλογι σκελος αλκήν. II. . 154.

And Horace describes Hannibal as passing through the cities of Italy "ceu flamma per tædas."

---the house of Israel] So 6. Ar. Houbigant: as the parallelism of the clauses requires. One MS. reads N. Perhaps the word was written contractedly. And the best way of accounting for the rendering of 6. ayyhyt, Deut. xxxii. 8, is the supposition that the word w, in an abbreviated form of writing it, resembled, God.

7. into hemlock] . This conjecture is supported by the parallelism, and by c. vi. 12. Observe too how the verses are divided in Syr: which translation furnishes authority for removing to the next verse. Doctor Durell.

8. have forsaken] See the original word Jer. xiv. 9. ---the Hyades] So Vulg. Job is. 9: where the reader may see at large Schulten's remarks on these astronomical terms. He thinks that Castel's derivation of from calefacere is a judicious one: but prefers the Ar. O, conscendit femellam; as thus the word will import " Sidus calidum genitale." Hyde, on Ulugh Beigh's tables, thinks that the Pleiades are meant. There may be a reference to the spring, when the warmth of the sun promotes vegetation:

Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum Virg. Georg. i. 217. ---Arcturus[ So Vulg. Job xxxviii. 31. As the Arab. root

Taurus.

9

10

11

ie dort mitt

And who turneth the shadow of death into morning,
And darkeneth the day into night;
Who calleth the waters of the sea,

And poureth them over the face of the earth:
Jehovah [the God of hosts] is his name:
Who scattereth desolation over the strong,
And bringeth desolation over the fortress:
Ye that hate him who reproveth in the Gate,
And abhor him who speaketh uprightly.

who hates t tul reproces not

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is on thend at love him that he hath not

poor,

And ye receive from him a gift of wheat; uprightly
Though ye have built houses of hewn stone,

Yet ye shall not dwell in them;

Though ye have planted pleasant

Hebr. vineyards of desire.

vineyards,

denotes segnities, torpor, this idea suits very well the cold and
slow car of Boötes. See

Frigida circumagunt pigri sarraca Boötæ. Juv. v. 23.

---into night] Several MSS. read . And V. 6. Syr, Chald. Houbigant. But I must repeat that in Hebrew the preposition is very often omitted.

---calleth the waters] Either at the creation: or, to punish men by inundations, which often attend earthquakes.

Jehovah---] 6. MS. A. Pachom. ed. Ald. and Arab. add • Gros • mavrongatwg, and read in the original nay. Thus the passage closes more grandly:

Jehovah, God of hosts, is his name.

.יחוה צבאות Two MSS. read

with ó. MS. A." Mr. Woide.

9.

See ix. 6. "MS. Copt. reads

scattereth] I read with 6. abbon. ·

---bringeth] The versions read : and many MSS. have
These two verses are very sublime.

10. the Gate] The usual place of administering justice,
and of reproving and passing judgment on iniquity. Selden, i.
1312, has this quotation from Maimonides: In urbe qualibet
Israelitica constituebant Synedrium minus, cujus sedes in porta
urbis. See also Bishop Lowth on Isai. p. 156.

Isai. xxix. 21."

Secker.

11. ---treading] Read

Calcare vestrum.

--a gift] See Esth. ii. 18. Jer. xl. 5.

מוכיח בשער

--vineyards] These are the curses of the law. Deut. xxviii.

30, &c. See Mich. vi. 15. Zeph. i. 13.