Jerem. ix. 11, "And I will reduce Jerusalem into heaps, a den of dragons, And the cities of Judah will I make a desolation without inhabitant." When the opposite picture is intended, that is, a recovery from desolation, then the following language is used. Isa. xxxv. 7, "And the serab, or glowing sand, shall become a pool, And in the haunts of dragons shall spring forth The grass, with the reed, and the bulrush.” In Psalm cxlviii. 7, amongst other parts of creation invited to praise God, we find the following: "Praise Jehovah, ye dragons, and all deeps!" Meaning, ye great serpents, and all deep caverns, where they dwell. The Hebrew words tenim and tenout, seem sometimes to be applied to an animal of a different species, though our translators, without discrimination, have rendered them by dragons in the following passages : Job xxx. 29; Micah i. 8; Mal. i. 3. From the noise, wailing, or whining, ascribed to it by Micah, it more probably means the jackal, or shakal, which, in the night, makes a lamentable howling noise, as Pocock, Shaw, and Bochart remark. In Jerem. li. 34, Nebuchadnezzar is compared to a dragon: "He hath swallowed us up like a dragon, he hath filled his maw; From our Eden (or Paradise) he hath cast us out;" where there seems to be an allusion to the ejection of the first human pair from the garden of God's planting. According to the Oneirocritics, the dragon is the symbol of a king that is an enemy. сс Job xxvi. 13, "By his spirit he hath garnish'd the heavens, The Septuagint read: Hath killed the rebel dragon. It is difficult to say to what this applies. The Rabbis apply it to the constellation called Draco. Parkhurst, to some sea monster. Schleusner explains it :-" Serpentem celeriter se fuga proripientem.” Rev. xii. 3, the dragon here seems intended to represent some fierce and powerful enemy of the Christian church; and, from the description given of its seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon its head, we are led to infer that the Roman power is here meant, since to no other does this description so well apply. This dragon is said to have fought (see v. 7) with Michael and his angels; and in v. 9, he is said to be cast out or discomfited. The whole seems to intimate, that there should be a sharp contention between faithful Christians on the one hand, and the maintainers of error, idolatry, and wickedness on the other, represented by these two symbolical classes, which contention should at last end in a complete victory over the enemies of true religion. The language employed appears to allude to the fall of the rebel angels, at a period prior to the creation of the present world; but we are left so much in the dark on that subject, that the allusion is mere matter of conjecture. As to the beast, spoken of in Rev. xiii. 11, "who spake like a dragon," it is extremely difficult to give any satisfactory interpretation of what is meant by it. The opinions of commentators differ so widely from each other, and appear so little in accordance with the prophetic description, that one is compelled to leave the matter undetermined. That which seems most plausible, is the explanation given by Bishop Newton, who considers the ten-horned beast to be the Roman state in general, and the two-horned beast to be the Roman church in particular. And his "speaking like a dragon," he explains to mean, "his usurping divine titles and honours-his commanding idolatry, and his persecuting and slaying the true worshippers of God, and faithful servants of Jesus Christ." We read in the 21st chapter of the first book of Macrobius," that two serpents were carved under the images of Esculapius and Health, because they bring it to pass, that the human constitution is again renewed by their influence, as serpents are by throwing off their skins.” Herodotus, likewise, in his 8th book, says, "That the ancients worshipped the gods and genii of any place under the form of serpents." Hence Persius's expression, Sat. 1, 1. 113. 66 Pinge duos angues: Pueri, sacer est locus." The serpent was adored in Egypt as the emblem of the Divine nature, not only on account of its great vigour and spirit, but of its extended age and revirescence. In Cashmere, also, there were no less than 700 places where carved figures of snakes were worshipped. In Salsette and Elephanta, almost all the deities either grasp serpents in their hands, or are environed with them, which can only be intended as a mark of their divinity. In the hieroglyphic sculp ture of Egypt, their wreathed bodies represented the oblique course of the stars, while the same bodies formed into a circle were an emblem of eternity; and the serpent was one of the most conspicuous of the forty-eight great constellations, into which the ancients divided the visible heavens. (Maurice's Ind. Antiq. v. ii. p. 189.) SEVEN. Of all the sacred numbers this is the most ancient and remarkable; the most ancient, as marking the septenary division of time from the creation of the world; and the most remarkable, as being used to set forth a great variety of events and mysterious circumstances. It may be viewed in two lights, as the symbol of perfection, and as the symbol of rest. God consecrated the seventh day as a day of repose; and every seventh year was sabbatical, as being consecrated to the rest of the earth. The rest of the seventh day or Sabbath, according to the Apostle, Heb. iv. 4, 9, intimates eternal rest. Seven times seven, or the forty-ninth year, introduced the year of Jubilee. Jacob's seven years' service to Laban; Pharaoh's seven fat oxen, and seven lean ones; the seven branches of the golden candlesticks; the seven trumpets, and seven priests who sounded them; the seven days' siege of Jericho; the seven churches, seven spirits, seven stars, seven seals, seven vials, and many others, sufficiently prove the importance of this sacred number. But in several places, seven, like ten, is put indefinitely for many. Thus Isaiah iv. 1," Seven women," i. e. several or many women. Psalm xii. 6," Silver purified seven times," i. e. many times. Psalm lxxix, 12, "Render to our neighbours sevenfold," i. e. punish them severely. Prov. xxvi. 16, "Seven men that can render a reason," i. e. many men. The word seven (Heb. shebo) in its radical meaning, imports sufficiency, fulness, plenitude. And the seven prismatic colours, and the seven sounds of the octave, seem to give it a universality which no other number possesses. Cicero declares, that it contains the mystery of all things. Hippocrates affirms, that this number, by its occult virtues, tends to the evolution of all things; and he, like Shakspeare, divides the life of man into seven ages. Even in the heathen world, we find traces of this favourite number, the seven wise men of Greece; the seven wonders of the world; the seven stars; the seven chiefs before Thebes; the seven bulls' hides in the shield of Ajax, and many more. We have also the seven heavens of the Rabbis, the seven sacraments of the Church of Rome, the seven champions of Christendom, the common phrase of a man's seven senses, the seven years' apprenticeship, seven years' transportation, and the like. In the Divine economy, in respect of chastisements, it is very evident. Thus in Job v. 12, the just is only smitten six times, but not a seventh "He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee." Thus also in Ezek. ix. 2, six men are employed to destroy, but the seventh has the inkhorn, whereby they that were to be saved are marked. |