"And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side and all the pomegranates upon the net-work were an hundred round about."-Ver. 23.

In 1 Kings vii. 42, and 2 Chron. iv. 13, it is said, there were four hundred pomegranates for the two net-works or wreaths, two rows of pomegranates for each net-work or wreath. The mode of expression here is different, but amounts to exactly the same. For, divide the two pillars into four quarters, according to the four winds [as the text, literally translated, reads], and let ninety-six pomegranates stand opposite to each of the four winds upon the two pillars; the whole number in front of the four winds, taken together, will be three hundred and eighty-four. But they were in four rows, two on each pillar; and in each row must have been four angular pomegranates, that could not be said to be opposite to any one of the four winds, consequently sixteen angular ones in the four rows; which sixteen being added to three hundred and eighty-four, make up the number of pomegranates in all four hundredthat is, one hundred in a row upon the wreathen work round about.*

Vers. 28, 29, 30.

The numbers given in these verses could not be the entire amount of the persons carried away from Palestine by the king of Babylon. They probably relate to some cases not mentioned in the other accounts.†

THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL.

CHAPTER I.

"And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came

the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance," etc.-Ver. 4—14.

FEW subjects have occasioned so much discussion as the cherubim, which are so repeatedly spoken of in the Old Testament. The first time we read of them is in Genesis :- "God placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword." It is generally supposed that the phrase translated a flaming sword signifies more properly a bright flame of waving fire, that this appearance was permanent at the gate of Paradise, and that it was the same glory of the Lord, or the Shechinah, which afterward appeared to Moses. Under the Levitical economy the cherubic symbols and the burning flame were united, both in the tabernacle and in the temple. The cherubim appear to have been considered as emblems of the visible church,* and the burning flame as the symbol of the Divine presence. The time had now arrived when the visible church

* See the "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. xciii., part ii., pp. 118-122; or, "Critica Biblica," vol. i., pp. 293-301.

was to be removed from the holy land, and established among the faithful worshippers of Jehovah, who were taken captives to Babylon. This removal is denoted in the vision, by the appearance of the cherubim, of the glory of the Lord, and of the angel Jehovah speaking out of the midst of a burning flame. Ezekiel recognised in the appearance of a man speaking from between the cherubim and from the midst of the flame, the same mysterious and Divine Being who was well known to have formerly appeared to the patriarchs-to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. He fell upon his face, as Paul and John afterwards did, when the same Almighty Being manifested Himself, on the road to Damascus, and in the island of Patmos. Ezekiel fell down before Him, as all mankind will fall, when the same angel Jehovah, of the Patriarchial and Levitical church, the Messiah of the Christian church, shall descend to judgment, says Townsend; when He shall again appear, not as a friendless, insulted, and crucified man, but in the glory of His Godhead, which He had with the Father before the world was.

CHAPTER XII.

"And I will bring him [Zedekiah] to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there."-Ver. 13.

SEE remarks on Jeremiah xxxii. 4.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Woe to the women that sew pillows to all arm-holes," etc.Ver. 18.

THIS will be quite unintelligible to the person not acquainted with oriental manners. The reference is

undoubtedly to the duan, or sofa, commonly used in the East, a description of which will not only illustrate this but several other passages also.

The bed, or duan, upon which the orientals sit or recline, is a part of the room raised above the floor, and is spread with a carpet in winter, and in summer with fine mats, and having cushions or pillows placed along the back to lean against.

The meaning of the prophet, then, seems to be this, that those who utter false prophecies to soothe the mind of the wicked are like women who study and employ every art to allure by voluptuousness. Against such he declares woe: "Woe to those who adorn-embroider-brocade-luxurious cushions to suit the dimensions of persons (females) of all ages; that is, a lower cushion for a child, a higher one for a full-grown woman;-those who make veils to adorn heads of every stature, studiously suiting themselves. to all conditions, capacities, ages, making effeminacy more effeminate," etc. The cushions, then, were not to be sewed To all arm-holes, and carried about the person, as our translation seems to imply; but they were to be so soft in their texture, so nicely adapted in their dimensions to suit ALL leaning arms, as to produce their full voluptuous effect. These the prophet compares to toils, snares, etc., in which the persons were caught, into which they were chased, decoyed, surrounded, ENCLOSED, in the corner; like animals hunted by a surrounding company, which drives them into a narrow space, or trap, where their capture or destruction is inevitable, according to the eastern mode of hunting. From these compulsive seducers he foretells delivery (ver. 20).*

*See "Fragments to Calmet," Nos. xii., xiii.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE whole of this chapter, says Dr. A. Clarke, is a tissue of invective; sharp-cutting, and confounding; everywhere well sustained, and in every respect richly merited. In the thirteenth verse the figure

explains itself:

"Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work: thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil; and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom."

By the wretched infant, the low estate of the Jewish nation, in its origin, is pointed out; by the growing up of the child into woman's estate, the increase and multiplication of the people; by her being decked out and ornamented, her tabernacle service and religious ordinances; by her betrothing and consequent marriage, the covenant which God made with the Jews; by her fornication and adulteries, their apostacy from God and the establishment of idolatrous worship, with all its abominable rites; by her fornication and whoredoms with the Egyptians and Assyrians, the sinful alliances which the Jews made with those nations, and the incorporation of their idolatrous worship with that of Jehovah; by her lovers being brought against her and stripping her naked, the delivery of the Jews into the hands of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans, who stripped them of all their excellencies, and at last carried them into captivity.

This is the key to the whole of this long chapter of metaphors; and the reader will do well to forget the figures, and look at the facts. The language and figures may in many places appear to us exceptionable but these are quite in conformity to those