geance, that God may " cut off the sinners of his people." "For the consumption which was determined," continues the prophet," the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth will make in the midst of the whole earth." A language that seems to intimate, that at this awful period, the same judgments await other nations of the world, as well as Israel after the flesh. But I refer to Daniel, ix. 26, 27, where we find the language of the prophet clearly illustrated; where it will be evident, that he "who cometh with a flood," when "the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate," unquestionably relates to the inroad of the last enemy.

It is respecting this last enemy, and not respecting the literal Assyrian, I believe, we are to understand the following:

24. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth,

Fear not, my people, that dwelleth in Zion:

More than the Assyrian,' though he smite with the staff, And lift his rod against thee after the manner of Egypt. 25. For yet a very little while, and wrath is finished,

Even my anger, in their destruction:

26. And Jehovah Sabaoth shall raise scourge against him, Like the smiting of Midian shall it be' at the rock Oreb:

And like HIS rod,' which was' over the sea,

And HE shall lift it up after the manner of Egypt:

27. And it shall come to pass in that day,

His burden shall be removed from thy shoulder;

And his yoke from off thy neck,

And the yoke shall perish to make room for fatness."

I consider in “”, to be

the sign of the comparative.

"Because" of the anointing "shall be tied up from touching

the unguent."-BP. STOCK. "And the cord of the yoke, because of the anointing."-BP. HORSLEY.

Applying this to the last enemy of Israel, and not regarding it as a mere repetition of verses 16, 17, 18, and 19, where the miraculous destruction of the Assyrian army was foretold, we come to the description of the celebrated march towards Jerusalem, which, from the known circumstances of that army, commentators have found extremely difficult to apply to the Assyrian; and which, therefore, certainly corroborates the interpretation of the prophecy here adopted:

28. He came to Aiath: he passed to Migron: At Michmas he reviewed his train.'

29. They have passed the strait: Geba is their lodging; Ramah is alarmed: Gebea of Saul is in motion !

30. Raise high thy voice, O daughter of Gallim; Listen, O Laish, echo to her, Anathoth.

31. Madmena hath hastened away; the inhabitants of Gebim have fled.

For that day stationed at Nob, he shaketh his hand

Over the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

It is very evident, that the line of march here described is from the north towards Jerusalem; which, from the situation of Sennacherib, who was lying with his army in an opposite direction near Lachish, when he is supposed to have marched towards Jerusalem, would hardly proceed in the line described; we have no proof, indeed, that he advanced at all against the city. It is declared, chapter the thirty-fourth, He shall not come into this city," or unto this city;"2" nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against

66

"He will deposit his baggage."-STOCK.

2

אל העיר

it." But the description in the text, "For that day," or

yet a day stationed at Nob, he shall shake his hand over," &c. seems to imply, that he should actually come against it. We do not exactly know the situation of Nob; but as Anathoth, the last stage of the enemy's march towards Jerusalem, is only at the distance of three Roman miles, Nob must have been in its immediate vicinity; most probably the very spot on the Mount of Olives, where the Roman army encamped under Vespasian and Titus, in order to conduct the siege against the city and if I understand the force of the original, “the shaking the hand over," implies no empty threat, but an actual commencement of operations. This agrees not, indeed, with the Assyrian invader; but we shall find, from subsequent prophecies, that it agrees exactly with what the last great adversary is to do: and this will explain the mysterious circumstance of the enemy's abiding for a day at Nob, while he afflicts the city, when at the same time we hear nothing of his taking possession. It appears, that though the city is taken, the victory is left incomplete. "The consumption decreed is accomplished," in the very midst of Jerusalem's sufferings; and the tide of

1 , generally expresses the action of a real operation upon a thing, as the action of a workman, working with his tools in carving or shaping stones, Exod. xx. 25; Deut. xxvii. 5; Joshua, viii. 31. It so happens that the phrase is three times used in this very prophecy, where it will be evident, that not an idle threat is intended, but an actual operation. In the fifteenth verse, it expresses a workman mov

ing a saw : and is used for the supposed action of the rod moving him that lifteth it. It is used, again, in the fifteenth verse of the following chapter, for God's shaking his hand over the river with his burning wind. In all these instances, something performed by the hand is evidently implied, and not the shaking of the hand in defiance.

the overflowing flood is turned, at the very moment of sacking the city, to its everlasting ebb.

The destruction of the enemy follows, under the metaphor of felling the trees of a forest till all be laid pro

33. Behold the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth,

Loppeth the branching trees in the woody vale: '

And the great in height are felled,

And the prominent heads' are laid low:

34. And he penetrates the thickets of the forest with iron, And Lebanon with his mighty' cedar' falls.

What follows is so evidently a prediction of the glorious reign of the Messiah, in language so very similar to former prophecies, that no doubt remains on my mind, that the exposition of the former part of the prediction is correct:

2

1. But there shall spring up a sucker from the stock of Jesse, And a shoot shall grow up from his roots.

2. And the spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, The spirit of wisdom and of understanding:

The spirit of counsel and of might,

The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah; 3. And his great delight shall be the fear of Jehovah."

He shall not judge according to the sight of the eye, Nor shall he decide according to the hearing of the ear;' 4. And he shall judge the poor in righteousness,

And decide in equity respecting the meek of the earth.

That Jesus Christ, as he appeared at his first advent, was this "shoot from the stock of Jesse," none can deny; but he did not then come "to judge the world," or to vindicate his afflicted people in their rights: the prediction must necessarily, therefore, be referred to the time of his second coming. This will corroborate the meaning which I felt inclined to give to chapter the fourth, verse the second; and it is rendered more firm still by the description of vengeance that follows:

And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, And with the breath of his lips shall he slay THE WICKED: 5. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,

And truth the cincture of his reins:

6. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

And the calf, and the lion, and the fatling, shall be joined together,

And a little child shall lead them:

7. And the heifer shall feed with the she-bear,

Their young ones shall lie down together,
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox:

8. And the suckling shall play over the hole of the asp,
And the weaned child over the hole of the basilisk.

! According to the Septuagint and Vulgate, which omit the suffix 7.

* Chap. xi.