elegance of workmanship; and applied figuratively to actions, to want design and coherence.

Verse 23. -" and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians." The plain sense of the original, however difficult it may be to connect it with the other parts of the prophecy, is this: " and the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrian." N, after the verb, is in many instances the sign of the accusative following the verb; but I cannot find a single text in which it is the preposition of the concomitant or adjunct of the subject of the verb, as it is supposed to be here.

Upon second thoughts, I am inclined to believe that the force of n may vary according to its position in the sentence. That when it follows a verb transitive immediately, it is always the sign of the accusative; but if another word intervene between the verb transitive and N, then the object of the verb transitive may be understood, and may be the preposition of fellowship or concomitance. Thus,

had the words in the clause in question stood in this

-they would have ren ומצרים עבדו את אשור,order

dered this sense only, "and the Egyptians shall serve the Assyrian." But being placed between 1 and 8, the words may bear the other

sense;

"and the Egyptians shall serve [Jehovah] with the Assyrians."

Verse 24. a blessing," i. e. an object of benediction.

Verse 25. "Whom" rather "Which"

i. e.

which triple object of benediction, God shall bless in this form of words.

CHAP. XXI.

This prophecy of the overthrow of the Babylonian empire by Cyrus, contained in the first ten verses of this chapter, is certainly a masterpiece in the ecstatic style. It opens with a general declaration in the 1st verse of sudden danger from a distant land. In the 2d verse, the prophet signifies that he is speak ing with reference to a grievous vision set before him. The particulars of the vision make the whole sequel of the song; except that in the 3d and 4th verses the detail is interrupted with expressions of the horror and distress which the scene creates in the prophet's mind. The particulars of the vision are these. 1st, The prophet hears God himself declaring the crimes of Babylon, national perfidy and violence, and calling the Medes and Persians to execute vengeance, (verse 2). Then he sees the

festivity of the royal banquet the night that the city was taken: he sees the enemy enter, and gives the alarm (verse 5). Then a watchman is ordered to tell what he sees. The watchman sees a man riding in a military car, drawn by a camel and an ass yoked together, driven by two postillions, one on each beast. (This car is evidently emblematic of the united armies of the Persians and Medes, under their respective leaders; the man in the car, Cyrus: verses 6, 7). Upon the watchman's discerning the near approach of the man in this car, he proclaims that Babylon is fallen. In the 10th verse the prophet signifies that he is himself the watchman of the foregoing verses; that his prediction of the fate of Babylon came from God, and is delivered to the Jews for their comfort and edification.

St Jerome and Bishop Lowth imagine that the prophet in this effusion speaks in some parts in his own person, and in others personifies Babylon. But they disagree in the distribution of these parts; the one making him speak in his own person, what the other supposes to be put into the mouth of Babylon personified; and the contrary. It seems to me that the whole is delivered in the prophet's own person; except that in the 2d verse he abruptly recites the

VOL. II.

N

order which he hears given by the Almighty for the immediate execution of vengeance upon the perfidious tyrannical nation, without any previous or subsequent intimation that God was the speaker: and yet in this he can hardly be said to speak in another person, but in the height of the prophetic ecstasy he omits a circumstance which the imagination of the hearer or reader would easily supply.

Verse 1.-" whirlwinds in the south" The allusion is to the hurricanes in the sandy deserts of Africa and Arabia, that sweep up the whole surface of the plain, and bury every thing they overtake. The weary traveller, with wild surprise

Sees the dry desert all around him rise,

And, buried in the dusty whirlwind, dies.

In the original, a comma should be placed at 5, for the word, though it alludes to the devastation of these whirlwinds, belongs to the next clause. -" the desert," the champaign between Babylon and Persia.

-"terrible land,” Media. The Medes had long been an object of terror to the Babylonians, insomuch that the security of the country against that powerful enemy had been the principal object of

the great works of Nitocris. See Herodotus, lib. i,

c. 185.

Like hurricanes from the south, for devastation

It is coming from the desert, from the terrible country. Verse 2." the treacherous dealer-spoileth." This is a declaration of the crimes which brought the judgment upon Babylon.

Or thus, in a different sense;

The treacherous dealer is repaid with treachery, the spoiler is spoiled.

The treachery here seems to denote only military stratagem, which was employed in the reduction of Babylon, but no other fraud.

But perhaps the public translation is to be preferred.

.חשקי

את נשף

Verse 4.-"the night of my pleasure" It may be supposed that the prophet in his vision made one of the company at the royal banquet, and, as a partaker of that festivity, he calls that evening the evening of his pleasure. But the word , as a noun, properly denotes either the evening or the morning breeze: hence the dawn of day; hence the season of the morning sleep; which, for the refreshment it affords, is a season desired Thus the words may be

and liked by every man.