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two more than the truth; for, as we have already seen, the real width was one hundred and nineteen. How then comes this difference? We answer, that it was partly occasioned by the ascent becoming shorter when elevated, and partly, perhaps, because they counted the length of it only from the spot where it began, till where it became equal with the scarcement above the body of the altar. For the fact is, that to raise a pathway from thirty cubits' distance to the top of the altar, would not take thirty-two cubits only, but thirty-six cubits, as may be seen by measuring the following sketch, of half an inch to the ten cubits.

Whatever way therefore it happened, one thing is certain, that the altar and its ascent, when taken together, were uniformly counted by the Jews only sixty-two cubits so that the corrected account of the width of the Court will stand thus :-deduct two cubits from the sixty-five formerly mentioned, and there remains sixtythree, as the measure between the south side of the Court and the centre of the altar; the north side, we saw, was fifty-six: and these sums taken together make exactly one hundred and nineteen, or the real width of the Court.

We have now advanced into the Court of the Priests, from east to west, forty-three cubits; namely, the eleven cubits where the unofficiating priests and the officiating Levites stood during the service, and the thirty-two cubits which ran parallel with the front of the altar: let us next examine the remaining one hundred and twenty

two; for it will be in the recollection of the reader, that the whole length of the Court of the Priests, from east to west, was stated at one hundred and sixty-five cubits. Now the above mentioned one hundred and twenty-two cubits, or remaining length of the Court of the Priests, from the brazen altar to the western wall, may properly be divided into two portions-viz. that which was between the altar and the porch of the temple, comprehending a space of twenty-two cubits, and the length of the temple itself, which was one hundred cubits.

Let us begin then with the twenty-two cubits which lay between the altar and the porch. It extended from side to side of the Court of the Priests one hundred and nineteen cubits, and is recorded as remarkable for the following things.

1. It was a place where no man might come who had any bodily blemish, because of its nearness to the temple; nor durst any person come into it with his head uncovered, because that would have argued irreverence, since they always performed their devotions with their heads covered.

2. None might stand upon, or remain within it, while the priest was burning the daily incense in the holy place; or when the high priest went into the most holy place once a year, with the blood of the sin-offering: and, accordingly, to give them warning at these times, either the Sagan, or priest that presided over the service for the day, called to the priest that was within the holy place, with a loud voice, to offer the incense, when all the people that happened to be between the porch and the altar, hastily withdrew. As for the entrance of the high priest, its happening so seldom, and with such circumstances of solemnity, was itself a sufficient intimation. May not this removal of every person from between the temple and the altar teach us the utter inability of any

mortal whatever to take part with Christ in his intercession for the church; a doctrine which the offering of incense typified; and thereby convince us of the vanity of the doctrine of human merit, as the ground of our justification, either in whole, or in part?

3. It was between the porch and the altar that Ezekiel saw the five-and-twenty idolaters worshipping the sun, with their backs to the temple, and their faces to the east."

4. It was in that space, that the priests and ministers of the Lord, on days appointed for fasting, wept and prayed for deliverance from their enemies: the very words of which prayer we have in Joel ii. 17.

5. In that space, between the temple and the altar, was committed the murder of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, to which our Saviour alludes in Matt. xxiii. 35: but who that Zacharias was, has given room for conjecture. Some critics suppose him to have been the Zecharias who is mentioned in 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 21: others, Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist; and others, with less probability still, that our Saviour spoke predictively of Zecharias, the son of Baruch, who was afterwards slain in the temple, as mentioned by Josephus : while not a few have imagined, from the coincidence of names, that he was Zechariah, the prophet, who wrote the book that bears his name; and who is styled the son of Barachias in chap. i. 1. Although history is silent as to the manner of his death, his tomb is still shewn, a little to the east of Absalom's pillar, which stood in the king's dale: it is evidently a modern structure, entirely out of the natural rock, eighteen feet high, and as many square at the bottom; adorned with columns on each front, cut out likewise from the same rock, and support

• Ch. viii, 16.

Luke i. 5.

< War, iv. 5.

ing a cornice. The whole ends in a pointed top, like a diamond."

The sixth thing worthy of notice, between the porch and the altar, was the Megrupitha, n', (marked No. 25, Plate II.); which, although not particularly described by any of the Jewish writers, is thought by Lightfoot to have been a kind of bell, that lay directly between the porch and the altar.

The treatise entitled Tamid thus speaks of it: "They that were to go into the temple to burn incense, and trim the lamps, came between the porch and the altar; and one of them took the Megrupitha and rang it, between the porch and the altar. One could not hear another speak in Jerusalem, because of the sound of the Megrupitha. It served for three things: the priest that heard the sound of it, knew that his brethren, the priests, were gone in to worship, and he ran and came. A Levite that heard the sound of it, knew that his brethren, the Levites, were gone in to sing, and he ran and came. And the chief of the stationary men, or those who represented Israel in the public service, brought those who had been unclean, and set them in the gate Nicanor." Such is the account which the treatise, Tamid, gives of this instrument: and Dr. Lightfoot confesses that the Jewish writers are silent as to its particular form: some of them only saying in general, that it was a great vessel, which they struck for the purposes above-mentioned; and others of them supposing it to have been one of the largest of the fire-shovels, which was either struck or dragged along the pavement, so as to occasion sound.

Amidst this uncertainty, the modern eastern instruments of sound naturally presented themselves to the author, to whom it occurred that bells, according to the

Perth. Encyclop, Art, Jerusalem.

present acceptation of the term, were then unknown; and that, as the usages of the east have long been stationary, there might perhaps be something in that quarter, which might throw light on the subject. Of Judea he could find no account; but, on applying to persons of intelligence and respectability, who had resided long in India, he obtained the following particulars. They have two instruments resembling the Megrupitha-viz. the gurry and the gong.

The gurry is commonly made of a composition of copper, block tin, and zinc; but in those of very fine tone, they are said to add a little silver and gold; hence the composition of which these last is formed is called Pungi Russie, or the Five Metals. Their form is always circular, and their diameter from a foot to three feet. Taking one of twenty inches diameter as our model, and laying it on a table, its centre will rest on the table, and its sides will be elevated from it about an inch; while the whole will appear to the eye, when looking across it, as two watch glasses laid together, the centre of which is two inches and a-half, and the side half an inch. The metal plates are of the same thickness both at the centre and the sides, being about a quarter of an inch; but in those of three feet diameter, the uniform thickness is nearly an inch. The gurry has two holes drilled in the side for the purpose of suspending it by a leathern thong on some post or tree; and it is struck by a mallet stuffed and covered with leather, which will send the sound, in ordinary circumstances, about a mile and a-half, from a gurry of twenty inches diameter. This is the common native Indian clock: and their manner of computing time by it is as follows:-They divide the twenty-four hours into day and night, each having four parrs; each parr, eight gurrys; and each gurry, twenty lamas. The day parrs begin with sun-rise, and VOL. I.

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