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In the three other places of holy writ in which the word appears', it is tranflated hammer, and evidently fignifies fome fuch inftrument; but it is very difficult to conceive, how the fame word came to be made ufe of to express such very diffimilar things as an hammer and a pair of breeches.

There will be much the fame difficulty, in making out the connexion, if we should fuppofe this fecond word means the covering they wore on their heads, as the Septuagint and vulLatin tranflations feem to have done.

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Nothing, in fhort, can be more indecifive than the translations that have been given of these words. But confidering that these three Jews had been fet over the province of Babylon, by King Nebuchadnezzar, at the request of Daniel their countryman; that this was a time of great folemnity, when it was to be fuppofed all officers of ftate were to appear in their proper habiliments; that Shadrach and his two companions were prefent on this occafion; I have thought nothing can be more natural, than the fuppofing thefe three words fignify three particular things, fuperadded to the garments worn by the people of that country in private stations.

Impreffed with this idea, I confulted the plates Sir John Chardin has given us, of the carvings that are found in the ruins of Perfepolis, which are supposed to have been erected about the time of the prophet Daniel, in

* If. 41. 7. Jer. 23. 29, ch. 50. 23.

which that eminent traveller has given us a delineation of an ancient Perfian facred proceffion. Among other figures I obferved one man that had an hammer, or mallet, or fome fuch inftrument, in each hand. A variety of other instruments appear in the hands of other perfons, which it must be difficult to give a fatisfactory account of. But the hammers in fo ancient a monument; erected in that country; and carried in a facred proceffion there, very much ftruck me.

Numbers of thefe figures wore, according to the ancient fimplicity, no covering whatever on their heads, but that which Nature gave them; but others had different kinds of coverings on their heads: but not one refembling our hats, nor the modern eaftern turbant; confequently, fo far as this ancient monument will be admitted to afford fome illuftration of that grand affembly, which was convened to confecrate the image of gold, set up by Nebuchadnezzar in the plain of Dura, if one of the three words fhould fignify an artificial covering of the head, as has been commonly fuppofed, though fome understand the fecond of the words, and others the third, to have that meaning, fo little are the learned agreed in determining the fignification of these words; I fay, fuppofing one of them should fignify a covering of the head, the word hat in our

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Niebuhr, Defcript. de l'Arabic, p. 57, gives an account of many of the Arabs wearing only a cord about their heads.

tranflation

tranflation is not proper; nor even the word turbant, which is put into the margin, from an apprehenfion, as it fhould feem, that the name of a modern eaftern. coiffure would be more agreeable here, than one known only in these more western parts of the world.

Antiquity will not, however, determine, with precifion, what the fhape of that ancient covering of the head was that these three Jews wore, if it is allowed that it probably is to be found in this ancient monument, fince there are no fewer than four or five different forts of them, that appear in this delineation of an ancient facred proceffion, though not one that refembles an hat or a turbant. It cannot therefore from hence be told, which Shadrach and his companions wore upon this occafion. Different ranks of people probably wore different coiffures, as differently made turbants are now worn in the Eaft, in different countries, and even by people of different ranks in the fame country.

All the five forts, however, or at leaft almost all of them, may be called in our language caps, which perhaps may be a more proper word, to be used in tranflating this paffage, than either bat on turbant.

Many of thefe figures have a fhort fort of cloke hanging over their fhoulders, something like one of thofe ancient veftments put on the fhoulders of our English kings, in the day of their coronation. Perhaps fomething of this kind is what is meant by the first of

thefe

these three words, which our English verfion renders coats; but which the more modeft tranflators of the Septuagint would not venture to put a Greek word for, but gave the original word, or what they took for the original word, in Greek letters. The like modesty appears in the interlineary version of

Montanus.

The vulgar Latin, Symmachus, and a Greek fcholiaft, whose words are given by Lambert Bos in his edition of the Septuagint, fuppofe that the first of these three words fignifies breeches, or fomething of that kind; but the reafon I before mentioned prevents an acquiefcence in fuch an interpretation, and it only ferves to fhew how little able they were to determine the fenfe of the words.

The fuppofing they were enfigns of dignity, or office, in general, appears to be the most natural account that can be given: the command, it seems, was, that they should not only be thrown into the flames with their common garments; but even with all the enfigns of dignity and office which they had on, when firft feized. The vehemence of the king's anger being such as to command immediate execution, without that degradation, (that ftripping off veftiments, and taking away enfigns of dignity,) which the cool and determi nate cruelty of the popish church in former times has been wont to practise, before the offender in holy orders was committed to the flames.

VOL. III.

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If it fhould be objected, that the hammers that appear on this Perfian antiquity were probably things belonging to their idolatrous worship, and it may be the facred beetles with which they knocked down their facrifices, and that therefore these faithful and zealous worshippers of the one living and true God, would never have appeared with them in this folemn affembly: I would anfwer, that we cannot certainly tell what use they were put to; and if it should be admitted, that they were inftruments belonging to their idolatrous worship, yet other things are seen in the hands of many of thefe figures, or fixed about them, that plainly appear to have had no fuch reference, as pears, bows, quivers, &c. Confequently the second of these words may very well be understood to mean, fome enfigns of their fecular honour which they carried in their hands, or had about them, and which might bear fome refemblance to the hammers of that age, and that country.

Or perhaps the word might mean those large hammer-like hilted fwords, which appear fuck by the fide of feveral of the leaders of each diftinct company in this grand proceffion, and which feem to be the mark of dignity. The form of the hilt of these fwords is really remarkable, if the drawings of Chardin are exact. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that they do not appear, at all, in the engravings of thefe antiquities, in

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