משא

Verse 2." they could not deliver the burthen;" rather, " they are unable to rescue the burthen;" i. e. the idols cannot rescue their votaries. —“si attendas ad contextum proximè sequentem, ubi Deus se populum Judæum bajulasse dicit, et tulisse instar oneris, et eripuisse; necessario per NVD hic intelligendus est populus Babylonicus incumbens idolis suis iisque fidens et innitens, quod onus tantum abest ut eripere et salvare potuerint idola Babylonis, ut contra ipsa iverunt in captivitatem." Vitringa in Is. vol. ii, p. 516, 1.

1

Verse 4. "I have made and I will bear, even I will carry and will deliver [you]." As no one of the verbs made, bear, carry, deliver,' has the pro ́noun suffixed 'to point out the Jewish people as the specific object, I think the sense is more general than the English translation by introducing the pronoun, renders, and might be more adequately rendered thus: "[What] I have made, I will carry; and [what] I take upon my shoulders [N] I will carry off safe."

same sense in which God' carried' his people. The two last lines therefore may be thus rendered:

They who should have been your carriers are become burthens, A load to the weary animal.

Verse 10." and from antient times the things that are not yet done;" rather, "and from the earliest times what had not been done." There is nothing in the Hebrew to answer to the 'yet' of our public translation. See Houbigant, note.

Verse 11. "Calling a ravenous bird," &c. Admitting that Cyrus is the ravenous bird,* yet since the calling of this ravenous bird is mentioned among the former things of old, among the instances of predictions accomplished, which the transgressors are called upon to remember, it is evident that the elenctic part of this discourse concerns times subsequent to the age of Cyrus; and it is reasonable to suppose that the final extirpation of idolatry by the preaching of the gospel, is within the purview of this prophecy. See chap. xliii, 18, note.

"En prophetiam luculentam de destructione idolorum Babylonicorum, auctoribus Persis et Medissed ne sic quidem hoc vaticinium perfectè completum est. Altius eo conditur mysterium, quod veteres jam viderunt: futurum ut idololatria per

* Ην δε αὐτῷ σημειον αετος χρυσους ἐπιδορατος μακρου ἀνατεταμένος· και νυν δε τουτο ἐτι σημείον των Περσών βασιλει διαμένει. Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. vii, p. 102, edit. Steph.

orbem terrarum, cujus typum et imaginem gessit Babylonica, ortâ luce liberationis spiritualis per Christum Jesum procurandæ, subverteretur, destrueretur." Vitringa in Is. vol. ii, p. 516, 1.

Babylon mystically represents the metropolis or chief citadel of the apostate faction; and for that reason the destruction of the Babylonian idols is an apt symbol of the general extirpation of idolatry. Verse 13. -" and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory." Rather,

And I will give salvation in Zion;

To Israel, my glory.

That is," to Israel I will give my glory." See Queen Elizabeth's translators, and Bishop Lowth.

CHAP. XLVII.

Verse 1. " for thou shalt no more be called"more exactly, "thou shalt no more get men to call thee"-" nec perficias ut te homines adhuc appellent"- Houbigant.

Verse 2." uncover thy locks;" rather, " take off thy veil." So the LXX.

-"make bare the leg;" rather,

"disattire, [or

perhaps, cut off] thy dangling hair.", "pilus descendens in maxillas." Castell. This is the sense

given by R. Moses Haccohen and Aben Ezra, Vitringa, though he allows that this sense suits well enough with the context, is rather inclined to understand the word here, of the lower part of the arm from the elbow to the wrist. -" strip up

the arm,' ," "Solent orientales honestioris conditionis, etiam feminæ, brachium usque ad juncturam manus arctâ veste interiore tectum habere, quod secus se habuit in ancillis et servis moleste opere distentis." Vitringa ad locum.

Verse 3. "I will not meet [thee as] a man.” Expunge the words thee as," which are inserted by the translators, without any thing to answer to them in the original, and you have the literal translation of the Hebrew words. "I will not meet a man ;" i. e. I will not give a man the meeting; i. e. I will not give audience to a man; i. e. I will not suffer man to intercede with me; which is Bishop Lowth's rendering. But the Bishop changes y into the Hiphily. Houbigant reads in the third person, making the nominative." Man shall not intercede." Either emendation seems unnecessary.

ער לא

Verse 7. —" so that thou didst not lay❞— as qy usque non posuisti," "so little didst thou

»,שמת

lay"

Verse 9. abundance"

for the multitude for the great

-"notwithstanding the-notwith

standing" Bishop Lowth and Vitringa.

"thy wisdom and thy knowledge;" rather,

thy politics and thy knowledge."

חברי שמים

Verse 11." which thou shalt not know;" i. e. which thou shalt not foresee. The Babylonians are upbraided in this verse, and the two following, with the vanity and fallacy of their judicial astrology. Verse 13," the astrologers." ""; literally," combiners of the heavens." I would render it, "casters of the configurations of the sky." "Conjunctores cæli, qui nunquam cessant stellas combinare; seu conjungere, ac conjunctiones astrorum, oppositiones et constellationes observare. " Forer. apud Poole,

-"the monthly prognosticators stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee." For ND, read, with the LXX and Bishop -"those who prognosticate each

.מה אשר,Lowth

month what shall come upon thee, stand up and save thee."

-"prognosticate each month."

may

either signify month by month,' and then the al