verb, answering to in the 13th verse, is lost out of the text here, which should express how the smith first employs that tool. The tool is certainly some cutting, cleaving instrument, not tongs.

Verse 13." with a line."," with a pencil." See Parkhurst's Lexicon, T.

Verse 14. For л, read, with the LXX, Vulgate, Houbigant, and Bishop Lowth, , or 75",

ויכרת or

-" which he strengtheneth for himself in the trees of the forest;" literally, "and he getteth strength to himself in the trees of the forest." That is, he layeth in great store of timber. See Bishop Lowth. For DN, one MS. gives DNA", in Hiphil.

Verse 21." thou shalt not be forgotten of me;" rather, " forget me not." So the LXX, Vulgate, and Houbigant.

Verse 24. In the sequel of the chapter Jehovah confirms his promises to the church, by various instances of his omnipotence. Among these the exaltation of Cyrus, and the restoration of the Jewish people, of which he was the instrument, are mentioned as seals of the greater deliverance. At the end of this 24th verse, for ", read 'MND.

Verse 25.-"the tokens of liars;" rather," the

VOL. II.

X

signs of astrologers." " homines vitam a gentes solitariam, se commercio publico subducentes, et vacantes contemplationi rerum divinarum

sunt stellaturæ, ex quarum ortu, occasu; conjunctione vel disjunctione, auguria rerum futurarum captabant." Vitringa ad locum.

Verse 26." his servant," Messiah. The first seven verses of the forty-fifth chapter should be joined to this chapter, and the new chapter should begin with the 8th verse, Drop down," &c,

CHAP. XLV.

Verse 1. "I will loose the loins," &c. A manifest allusion to the circumstances of the surprise of Babylon; when the kings, the king himself, and his captains, were unaccoutred, engaged in revelry and riot, and the gates that opened to the river were left open.

-"and make the crooked places straight." ögn ópañía. LXX. " et gloriosos terræ humiliabo.” ὁμαλιω. Vulg. These different translations indicate very antient variations in the MSS. The LXX, for the noun

which Bishop והררים in their copies had והדורים

Lowth adopts. The Vulgate, for the verb , had 778; and this gives far the best sense.

Verse 4. "For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect" See note on chap. xliii, 3, and xliii, 14.

"I have surnamed thee" or, "I have established thee"

Verse 6." that there is none besides me." The Layman renders "that nothing is without me."

Verse 8. "Drop down," &c. Here a new chapter should begin; for here the prophet leaves Cyrus, and returns to his main subject, the universal re demption. The universality of the blessing is the thing particularly described in this verse, under the images of the dew and the rain, falling indiscriminately on all parts of the earth, and the herbage sprouting spontaneously from its whole surface.

-"and let them bring forth salvation." The construction is difficult to be made out. Our English translators seem to have thought that the nouns

are the common subjects of ,ארץ and ,שחקים,שמים

the verb, and y its object. But I cannot find any other instance in which the verb in Kal is used transitively. Queen Elizabeth's translators took y and for the common subjects of that plural verb, for they rendered thus: "let the earth open, and let salvation and justice grow forth: let it

bring them forth together." And this I think better than our modern translation, although in the Hebrew the pronoun seems wanting after the verb

הצמיח

And righteousness sprout forth at once.

"I the Lord have created it."

Queen Elizabeth's Bible: "I the Lord have created him."

And so the Vulgate : " creavi eum." Him must be expounded here of the same person as below, in

verse 13.

Verses 9-12. "Wo unto him," &c. The prophet anticipates the objections which the prejudices of the Jews would raise against the doctrine of universal redemption, as an infringement of the privileges of their own nation, almost in the very words in which St Paul combated those objections when they were actually set up.

Verse 9. "[let] the potsherds [strive] with the potsherds of the earth." Bishop Lowth adopts an interpretation suggested by Mariana; "the potsherd with the moulder of the clay :" i. e. wo to the potsherd that contendeth with the moulder of the clay. Upon which Vitringa has this remark: -"Non repugnat analogia vocis, etsi non putem ullibi extare phrasin 78, faber terræ,'

ut faber æris, argenti, ligni;' et , faber lapidis,' sive in lapide.'" Vitringa in Is. vol. ii, p. 500, 1.

66

-" or thy work, he hath no hands." Read, with Houbigant,

ולפעלו אין ידים לך

Or to him that worketh it, thou hast no hands. Verse 10." [his] father-the woman;" rather, "a father-a woman." The Jews considering themselves exclusively as God's children, and envious of the extension of his mercy to the Gentiles, are angry that God, having them for his children, should beget any more. The prophet therefore says, Wo to him who says to a father, to one who is already a father, Why goest thou about to beget children? and to a woman, already a mother, Why art thou again bringing forth?

Vitringa, a Calvinist, has an excellent remark upon the true interpretation of the doctrine of God's sovereignty, as stated in this passage: "Nec tamen hæc sententia, ad Deum applicata, extendi debet extra limites suos contra scopum Dei et prophetæ ; ac si potestas Dei in hominem tam sit absoluta atque infinita, ut nihil planè sit, quod ejus exercitium circumscribat, ut eam Twissius et alii inter