chus, and Aquila. Every one of these interpreters evidently construes with yn. See Bardht's Hexapla.

If it be said that, according to this interpretation, Ahaz receives no sign of the truth of the prediction contained in the 7th, 8th, and 9th verses, the answer is, that none was meant to be given him, after the offence which he gave by declining the Prophet's offer. The Prophet is sent to dispel the king's fears by assurances that the confederate kings of Samaria and Syria would be frustrated by God's special interference, in the hopes they had formed of the conquest of Judah. The Prophet executes this commission; and then, in the 10th and 11th verses, the Prophet, in the name of God, invites Ahaz to ask whatever sign might best please him of the certainty of the predictions delivered to him. Ahaz, not relieved from his apprehensions by the promise of God's protection, in terms which indicate something of superstitious fear of the Divine Power, mixed with incredulity, refuses the Prophet's offer, in verse 12th. The Prophet, taking fire at the secret mistrust of God, which the continuance of the king's fears, strongly marked in the language of his reply, betrayed, attacks the miserable idolater in a strain of

VOL. II.

D

stern rebuke and threatening. Since he declined to receive a sign, a token of the certainty of the deliverance promised, God himself, he tells him, would in due season exhibit such a sign of his own power and of his government of the world, and care of man, as the heart of man never could have conceived. That the downfall of the Jewish kingdom, in both its branches, would be completed upon the exhibition of that sign. After the general prediction of this final calamity, he goes into the detail of that train of miseries which were to lead to it, and were now beginning. Thus, it is true, the word sign is used in different senses in the 11th and 14th verses: in the 11th, for a pledge of the truth of a particular prediction; in the 14th, for a token of God's power and providence in the general. This play, if it may be so called, between different, but cognate senses of the same word, is one of the proper symptoms of animated speech, and never creates obscurity when feelings are excited in the hearer's or the reader's mind, to correspond in any degree with those of the speaker.

Verse 17." even the king of Assyria." Omit these words with Houbigant, Archbishop Secker, and Bishop Lowth.

Verse 19.-"bushes;" perhaps "brilliant flowers."

נהל,See Parkhurst

CHAP. viii, 1. "Take thee a great roll"- I cannot find that the root a signifies to polish." And I much doubt the sense which Bishop Lowth, from that supposed meaning of the root, gives the word in this place, a mirror.' It is true, the

,הגליונים for which some MSS: have הגלונים word

6

is rendered the glasses,' chap. iii, 23. But from

the other things with which it is there connected, it should seem that it rather signifies some transparent garments. So the LXX understood it; and this sense naturally connects with some of the most usual senses of the root, 3. See Mr Parkhurst's Lexicon. But the word seems rather to be referred to the root 22, and to signify ‹ a roll.'

גליון

with a man's pen"- If there be any truth in what is said by some of the Rabbin, (vide Huetius Demonstrat. Evan. Prop. iv, cap. xiii, § 10), that the Jews before the captivity had a double character, one in which the sacred books were written, another for common use, "to write with a man's pen" may signify to write in the common character, that the writing might be legible to all.

concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz."-" and

write in it with a man's pen, To a swift one, the spoil; one that hasteneth, the prey."

Verse 6." this people;" i. e. the people of the kingdom of Israel. "Quia populus decem tribuum magis voluit Resin et filio Remaliæ, i. e. Damasci et Samariæ regibus esse subjectus quam stirpi David, quæ meo cœpit regnare judicio, faciam eum nequaquam his regibus quos assumpsit, sed regi servire Assyrio." Hieron. ad locum.

-"the waters of Shiloah that go softly" It is difficult to reconcile this "going softly" of the waters of Shiloah with St Jerome's description of that stream. He says that it is a periodical spring, "which bubbles up at the foot of mount Sion, not perpetually, but at stated times; non jugibus aquis sed in certis horis diebusque;' and runs with great noise through hollows under ground and the caverns of a rock of extraordinary hardness." Perhaps at its rise it may rush through the orifices of the rock at the foot of the hill with considerable noise and impetuosity, but issuing in no great quantity; at some small distance from its source it may form a scanty, gentle, silent stream.

Verse 8." he shall pass through Judah;" rather, " and he shall run on into Judea, flooding and

overflowing." The Assyrian is described under the image of a flood, first overwhelming the territory of the ten tribes, and thence proceeding in its irresistible course till it enters 'the land of Judea. The progress of the flood from one place to another is expressed in the word ; very imperfectly rendered in English by the words " pass through."

-"shall fill the breadth"

And the extension

of his wings (i. e. the length of his extended wings) [shall be] the full breadth of thy land, O Emanuel.”

Verse 9. "O ye people"- rather, "O ye peoples." Upon the mention of Emanuel, greater scenes open to the Prophet's view, and he breaks out in strains of triumph, for the final victory of the Emanuel over the confederated branches of the apostate faction, idolaters, atheists, profane men, and evil spirits.

Verses 10, 11. -"for God is with us. For the Lord spake thus to me, with a strong hand"- I cannot but much incline to the transposition proposed by Houbigant,

בחזקת יד :
אל
כי עמנו
כי כה אמר יהוה אלי

&c.

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