we doubt that the first method of treating the vine was the prevalent one in Syria and Asia generally, as Pliny seems to intimate, it no doubt existed there, the vineyard being probably, as now, laid out in ridges over which the vines extended. May not this explain the spreading vine of low stature' of Ezek. xvii. 6? But some one of the other vines, or all of them, did of course supply the shade under which the Hebrews delighted to repose. In reading this and the parallel passages, it is by no means necessary to suppose that vines were trained over a trellis, and formed a sheltering arbour; since one or more of the standard vines, which grow unsupported, and which to a considerable extent form the vineyards of the East, would extend a grateful shade, whether in the suburban garden or in that which the house enclosed. Vine-shades, or arbours, such as our cuts exhibit, must however be understood as included, and are perhaps principally intended. They are and have been in use wherever the vine is common. The old rabbinical writers attest the prevalence of the general custom to which the text alludes, as they are

constantly describing their learned predecessors as sitting and studying the law, meditating or conversing, on particular occasions, under fig-trees, olive-trees, and vines. Where the fig-tree grows, its broad leaf and expanded shade naturally point it out for that preference which the Scriptural intimations assign.

Although, in the note referred to, we have assumed that the vine and fig-tree alluded to may have been generally in the court of the house, this does not by any means preclude the notion that the people may not also have rejoiced in the shelter of the fig-trees and the vines which grew in their suburban gardens. Indeed, as these became dangerous places in troublous times, when it is unsafe to venture beyond the walls of a town, the blessed condition of the times of which the prophet speaks would be beautifully evolved by our understanding him to intimate that the people might then repair in safety to their gardens, and that none should make them afraid as they sat there under their own vine and under their own fig-tree.

2 But thou, 'Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from 'everlasting. 3 Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.

4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.

:

7 And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.

8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be

among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.

9 Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off.

10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots:

11 And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strong holds:

12 And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers:

13 Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy 'standing images out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands.

14 And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.

15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.

Verse 5. When the Assyrian shall come into our land.' -There is little if any difference of opinion that by the Assyrian' is here meant the Syro-Macedonian empire founded by Seleucus; for to apply it to the Assyrian em

pire which existed in the time of the prophet does not at all suit the connection, which has regard to the distant future, and not to contemporary events. The prophet could only describe the future empire by a name already

known. The only other term he could have used was 'Syrian,' which, although it seems more correct to us, would have been very confusing to those who heard this prophecy, when another realm more usually distinguished by that title existed. Besides, the term 'Assyrian is correct in this appropriation, seeing that the Syro-Grecian

empire did comprehend the realm over which the Assyrians had ruled. Thus understood, the prophecy is taken to have reference to the noble stand made by the Jews under the Maccabees against the encroachments of Antiochus Epiphanes upon their rights and their laws.

CHAPTER VI.

1 God's controversy for unkindness, 6 for ignorance, 10 for injustice, 16 and for idolatry.

HEAR ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou 'before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice.

2 Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.

30 my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me.

4 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

5 O my people, remember now what 'Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaain the son of Beor answered him from 'Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the LORD.

6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of

1 Or, with.

2 Isa. 1. 2.

13

11 Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?

12 For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

13 Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.

14 Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.

15 Thou shalt "sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.

16

16 For "the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of "Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people.

Verse 6. 'Wherewith shall I come before the Lord.— Bishop Butler (Serm. vii. p. 121) thinks that we have here the demand of Balak and the answer of Balaam. This idea is adopted by Lowth, and also by Peters (Sermons, p. 333), who say that we have a sort of dialogue between Balak and Balaam represented to us in the prophetical way. The king of Moab speaks in verse 6; Balaam replies by another question in the first two hemistichs of verse 7; the king of Moab rejoins in the remaining part of the verse, and Balaam replies in verse 8.

7. Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,' etc. -We may refer the reader back to the considerations on human sacrifice stated under Jer. xx. 5; where we have supposed that the horrid custom originated in the impres

sion that the life of the most valuable creature must needs be most acceptable to the gods. This verse announces a principle of the practice--a reason for it-not distinct from, nor adverse to, that which we have considered, but connected with and involved in it. We are told that such sacrifices were sometimes intended to be expiatory-were sacrifices of atonement. A father offered his firstborn, or his other children, for his transgression-for the sin of his soul. No one conversant with the principles and practice of heathenism can be unaware that common animal sacrifices were often regarded as expiatory. In the heathen poets, the gods are continually requiring from particular persons, or bodies of men, sacrifices at their shrines, to appease their anger and atone for offences com

mitted against them: and in these and other ancient writings, where a person sees cause to fear that by some act he has incurred the displeasure of some god, he hastens, as soon as he can, to offer a sacrifice to appease the incensed deity. This being the case, it follows, on the principle alleged in the previous note, that when men became familiar with human sacrifices, the life most precious to the offerer himself was deemed to furnish the most acceptable and prevailing atonement for his offences. And, to a father, the most precious lives were those of his children; and of his children, that of the firstborn above all. And as even men the most besotted in superstition could not, we should suppose, be induced frequently to offer such costly sacrifices without a powerful constraining motive, we may perhaps believe that, when we read of such sacrifices, we are always to understand them rather as sacrifices of atonement than as freewill offerings. This might be clearer if our information were more complete: but the ancient writers, and the moderns also, usually mention the custom in general terms, without stating on what principle it proceeded: but, when they happen to do so, it generally proves that the horrid sacrifice was made to pacify an incensed god, or to atone for the past offences of a nation, city, family, or individual. Indeed it is surprising to what an extent this principle has operated, among nations in every respect most different from each other, not merely in the East, but also in America and in the regions of the Northern Sea. To illustrate this, one or two examples may suffice. When we learn from Eusebius that the Phoenicians sacrificed children once a-year to Saturn, may we not, under the view suggested by the prophet, understand that the day on which this was done had a similar object with the Day of Atonement among the Hebrews; and that the design of the horrid rites then performed was to atone for the offences of the past year? The famous sacrifice of Iphigenia, with the consent of her father, seems a very striking illustration of the subject, if taken in the version of Eschylus. The sacrifice was avowedly one of expiation-to atone for the offence which the goddess avenged by tempests and contrary winds, which kept the Argive fleet from sailing. The victim was her demand; and nothing is more instructive as to the real character of such transactions than the grief and horror which the demand inspired, and which attended and followed the consummation. From this we may gather, that the offerers might, as is alleged, consider it a duty to seem cheerful, and even joyous, but that their real feelings were agonized and their hearts rent at the inevitable necessity which their dark idolatries' laid upon them. In this instance the father did not, as the mother bitterly alleges that he did,-

-Think no more his tender child to spare Than a young lamb from fleecy pastures torn From out the midst of his unnumber'd sheep.' But rather, when the prophet announced the fatal demand,―

The sons of Atreus, starting from their thrones,
Dash'd to the ground their sceptres, nor withheld
The bursting tears that dew'd their warrior checks;
And thus exclaiming spoke the elder king:
"O heavy, fatal doom! to disobey!

O heavy, fatal doom! my child to slay!
My child! the idol-treasure of my house!
Must I, her father, all bedabbled o'er
In streaming rivers of her virgin gore,
Stand by the altar with polluted hands?
O woe! woe! woe!

Where shall I turn me?" "

Agamemnon.-SYMMONS.

The whole of this powerful tragedy is most instructive as to the ideas, feelings, and practices connected with such sacrifices as the inspired prophet mentions: but we cannot advert to them further, or produce the other examples which press upon our recollection.

6

15. Thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shult not drink wine.' -The word translated 'sweet wine,' and usually so translated in the Auth. Vers. is tirosh, and that rendered 'wine' is yayin. No one questions that the latter word means 'wine,' but it is much questioned, by the writers on what is called 'the wine question,' whether the former means anything else, wherever it occurs, than the solid products of the vine. In the note on Gen. xxvii. 28, we have expressed the view we take of the word, and in reverting to that note we take the opportunity of stating, at the request of Dr. F. R. Lees, that we had no authority for ascribing the tract called Tirosh lo Yayin to his pen, although we had always understood that he was the writer. The present text is that which is regarded by those who take the view of that writer as the one which establishes beyond doubt the point for which they contend. In a tract called Tirosh, by the Rev. Peter Mearns, Glasgow, 1844, that view is clearly stated as follows. After giving the text thus, Thou shalt tread the olives, but shalt not anoint thee with oil; and (thou shalt tread) the grapes (tirosh), but thou shalt not drink wine (yayin),` the writer proceeds: A moment's reflection may satisfy every reader that the English version is inaccurate here. It is plain that the term here improperly rendered sweet wine is employed to designate the solid article out of which wine was pressed, as oil from olives. We may also remark, that the term (yayin) here employed to denominate the wine which it yields is used only of that which is obtained from the vine, which establishes the fact that this term is connected with the vine. The passage obviously refers to the treading of olives and grapes. The custom of treading grapes is said to exist still in the East, and in different parts of Europe. There is no propriety, however, in speaking of treading sweet wine. It is possible to wade in it, where there is abundance of it, but not to tread it. In the passage under consideration the prophet is speaking of a time of famine, when the people would have olives, but would obtain little or no oil from them; and the few grapes they would have would be almost destitute of juice. Whatever be the meaning of the term in other passages it must refer to a solid here. Bishop Lowth saw this, and (in his Prel. Diss. to Trans. of Isaiah) rendered the verse thus

"Thou shalt sow, but shalt not reap;

Thou shalt tread the olive, but shalt not anoint thee with oil;

And the grape, but shalt not drink wine."

Dr. Lowth was not the first who saw the propriety of assigning the term a solid interpretation here. In fact, the Chaldee version, which was written a short time before the birth of Christ, renders this text thus:-" thou shalt

tread the grapes," etc. The Septuagint omits the term altogether, and the Syriac version, which was executed about the close of the first century of the Christian era, is chargeable with the same error, probably from a culpable unwillingness to deviate from the former, which was then held in high estimation. Drusius, whose commentaries on the minor prophets were originally published between the years 1595 and 1627, remarks on this passage that the term here has been "improperly rendered must; for it is not the must (or fresh juice) which is trodden, but the grapes whence the must is expressed. Must, therefore, has been put here instead of grapes, which a certain poet calls hanging wine." Archbishop Newcome (Improv. Vers. of Min. Proph., published in 1785, being after Lowth, whose work on Isaiah was published in 1778) renders this text "the grape of the choice wine." It were easy to add other translations similar to those we have already given (for instance, Julius Bate [Crit. Hebr. 1767] observes on this passage, "It is plain that tirosh is what is pressed, the grapes;" Dr. Conquest, in his amended translation, here follows Lowth; Ray, in his revised translation, renders," And the grape, but shalt not drink," omitting the word for wine altogether, as the Septuagint and Syriac that for grape), but let those given suffice.'

The view which ourselves take of the text may now be indicated. We suppose that the meaning of a word must be determined by the general sense which may be collected from the great body of the examples in which it occurs. If in the great number of cases the word can only mean a description of wine, the present text must be read in conformity with them, and cannot be regarded, on any just rule of criticism, as a sufficient authority for a different signification. In other cases when a word in a particular text seems at the first view opposed to that which it obviously bears in many others, we do not feel authorized to turn all the other texts from their obvious sense to meet the interpretation which this one text seems to sanction, but we conclude that our interpretation of this one text must be wrong, since it contradicts the prevailing sense of many passages, and we apply ourselves to seek another interpretation which shall be consistent with them. In the present case we easily obtain an interpretation conformable to the others, by supposing that the word 'grape' has, by a licence common in Hebrew poetry, been omitted, and if we supply it a sense entirely conform

able to that which is generally assigned to the word TIROSH is obtained. This is what is really done by Abp. Newcome in his Improved Version of the Twelve Minor Prophets, who translates

'Thou shalt tread the olive, but shalt not anoint thee with the oil,

And the grape of the choice wine, but shalt not drink the wine.'

Dr. Henderson, in his more recent version of the Minor Prophets, takes the same view, and translates

Thou mayest tread the olive, but shalt not pour out the oil,

And the grape of the new wine, but the wine thou shalt not drink.'

it up.

4 The best of them is a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.

5 Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.

6 For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. 7 Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

8 Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.

Heb. the gatherings of summer.

9 I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for I shall behold his righteousness. me he will bring me forth to the light, and

10 Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the LORD thy God? mine eyes shall behold her now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

11 In the day that thy 'walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed.

10

12 In that day also he shall come even to thee from Assyria, and from the fortified cities, and from the fortress even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.

13 "Notwithstanding the land shall be desolate because of them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.

14 Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.

15 According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto him marvellous things.

16 The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall

be deaf.