a narration, containing the general argument of the song. In the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th verses, the song proceeds in a mixed strain of tender complaint and threatening. In the 7th, the Prophet, resuming the discourse in his own person, explains the allegory; and in the sequel of the chapter he specifies the principal crimes which drew down judgment on the Israelites, by the denunciation of six distinct woes. 1st, Woe to the avaritious, in verses 8, 9, 10. tending to reason upon the nature of good 5th, Woe to the deist, who sets up the authority of human reason against revelation; 21. 6th, Woe to wicked magistrates, who neglect their public duty to pursue riotous pleasure, and abuse their authority for private gain; 22, 23. Verse 6. "I will also command the clouds," &c. St Jerome, with his usual sagacity, remarks, that this menace was not accomplished in the Babylonian captivity; "inasmuch as Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesied among their countrymen, after the city was taken; Daniel also, and the three children, as history relates, either prophesied or performed wonderful signs in the captivity. And afterwards, Haggai and Zachary afforded comfort to the people in servitude by predictions of future things." Verse 7. The transition from the song to the Prophet's comment is highly artificial and elegant. It is so contrived, that the conclusion of the song so necessarily introduces the comment, that the two seem one thing; and the spirit of the poetry is not less in the exposition than in the song itself. -"I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it." Who is this that talks of overruling Nature, and controlling the Elements? is the sentiment that this conclusion naturally suggests. Truly, replies the Prophet, He who hath all Nature and the Elements under his control. "For the vineyard of Jehovah," &c. "a cry," " of the oppressed," says Bishop Lowth. But it may mean the cry of the rabble; by which justice was overborne, and judgment perverted. So St Jerome understood it, with particular al lusion to the oppression of our Lord, and the cry of the rabble against him. Certainly pys signifies any loud cry or vociferation, not the cry of distress only. Verse 8." that lay field to field." to answer תקריבו Bishop Lowth would read יקריבו to the verb following; and he thinks he has with him the authority of the Vulgate. But it is by no means certain from the Latin of the Vulgate, that the Hebrew copies, from which that version was made, had . It might seem a safer conclusion from the Greek of the LXX, that their copies had the participle to answer to the preceding participle, to which, not to the following verb, the word in this place might be expected to answer. Οὐαι οἱ συνάπτοντες οἰκιαν προς οἰκιαν, και άγρον προς ἀγρον iyyiores. LXX. And the version of the Vulgate might be formed upon the same reading. "Væ qui conjungitis domum ad domum, et agrum agro copulatis." "qui conjungitis- et [qui] copulatis." Here the participle " is resolved by the inter preter into the pronoun and verb, qui conjungitis ;' whence it might seem probable that the verb copulatis,' with the pronoun understood, tackt to the former verb and pronoun by the conjunction copulative, which is not in the Hebrew, is a similar résolution of the participle p. In short, their version is just what it ought to have been had been the reading of their Hebrew text. But after all, there is no necessity for any alteration in the text as it stands in our modern copies. The form of the expression is the very same which occurs again in verse 11; הוי משכימי בבקר שכר ירדפו "Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning -they follow strong drink"- where the LXX, as in the former woe, render both the participle in the first clause, and the verb in the second, by a participle. Οὐαι οἱ ἐγειρομενοι το πρωί, και το σίκερα διώκοντες, which entirely destroys the certainty of the conclusion that their copies, in the 8th verse, had pp, instead of p. The Vulgate, in the 11th verse, יקריבו in מאחרי and the participle, ירדפו render the verb the next line, the one by a participle in dus, with a preposition, the other by a gerund, "Væ qui consurgitis mane ad ebrietatem sectandam, et potandum usque ad vesperam." In short, these two passages, the 8th and 11th verses, are instances in which the turn of the expression in the original is neglected both by the Greek and the Latin interpreter, and shew what caution should be used in altering the text upon the authority of versions, which may easily be imagined where it is not. The use of the second person in the Vulgate seems to have betrayed Bishop Lowth into this unnecessary alteration. "that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth." The LXX, Aquila, Symmachus, St Jerome, and the Vulgate, all take this clause as a question: "Would you dwell yourselves alone in the land, or in the earth?" i. e. you who are taking to yourselves all the room, would you wish to be the sole inhabitants of the earth, or of the land? This whole verse should be thus rendered, "Woe unto them that join house to house; They lay field to field till no room is left. Would ye dwell yourselves alone in the midst of the earth?" Verse 13." their honourable men-their multitude"-" their nobles their plebeians" Lowth. Bishop Verse 14. “ their glory, and their multitude" "her nobility and her populace" Bishop Lowth. "and their pomp" and her busy throng," Bishop Lowth; "and her riotous throng." Verse 17." Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers [rather, strange ones] eat." |