tion to external rites and ceremonies. This reproof of their vices is closed with pathetic exhortations to repentance, and a promise of pardon.

Upon farther consideration of this part of the prophecy, since the sins, with which the people of God are charged in this chapter, though remarkably prevalent among the Jews in the time of our Lord and the apostles, are such as are incident to the visible church in all ages; and some parts of the fifty-ninth chapter seem more particularly applicable to the times of licentiousness and infidelity that have taken place in Christendom since the reformation, than to any period in the Jewish history, and are likely to receive a further accomplishment in the enormities that may be expected to arise out of the atheism and democratic spirit of the present times, I am inclined to think that what particularly regards the Jews ends, or is broken off at least, at the end of the preceding chapter. That the people of God whose transgressions the prophet is ordered to set forth in the 1st verse of this chapter, is the new people, styled the house of Jacob, because they succeed spiritually to the patrimony; and that the whole of this and the following chapter is addressed to the Christian church gathered out of the Gentiles.

But in the 20th verse of the following chapter the natural Israel comes in sight again, being the Jacob whose transgression the Redeemer is to turn away, after the fear of the Lord shall have been established in every quarter of the Gentile world in the west and in the east.

Verse 2. —" and delight to know my ways," &c.

And desire the knowledge of my ways:
As a nation that doeth righteousness,

And forsaketh not the law of their God,

They demand of me the rules of righteousness,

They desire that God would draw near. [Literally, they de sire the drawing near of God.]

St Jerome has well explained the general sense of this verse in his comment, though he has expressed it but indifferently in his translation: -“Est alia temeritas Judæorum, quasi fiduciâ bonæ conscientiæ, judicium postulant justum, et imitantur sanctorum verba, dicentium; Judica me, Domine, quando ego in innocentiâ meâ ingressus sum.'" These hypocrites affected to be disgusted with the wickedness of the world, and to be impatient for the promised reformation. The same sort of persons are described in Malachi as affecting to be scandalised at the impunity of the wicked, and even chiding the tardi

every

ness of God's judgment; as complaining that " one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them ;" and exclaiming "where is the God of judgment?" Mal. ii, 17. Mal. ii, 17. And the same affectation is very general among hypocrites of

all ages.

Verse 3. "you find pleasure." Read, with the Vulgate,; or with the LXX, . " you enjoy your pleasure, or pleasures."

-"your labours;" rather "grievances." The grievances meant are usurious bargains, enforced in various ways, by exacting the payment of heavy interest in money, or labour instead of money. It deserves remark, that the Vulgate, with Symmachus and Theodotion, understood the wordy of the persons, the debtors: "et omnes debitores vestros repetitis." And it seems probable that the LXX had set the example of this interpretation, for their version runs at present thus ; -και παντας τους ὑποχείριους ύμων ὑπονύσσετε. But υποχείριους may be

The consent of these

a corruption of ὑπὸ χρέους. antient interpreters in this sense of the word carries with it much authority. But the form of the word makes some objection to this interpretation of it, and the epithet a much greater. For this epithet

is of great force, applied to the thing exacted; of very little, applied to the persons, upon whom the exaction was made. For it is a great aggravation of a creditor's severity, to say that what he exacted, was the whole, the very last penny of an extravagant interest: whereas it is no dispraise of him at all to say, that his demands were made upon all his debtors. Houbigant, who takes the word "y in the sense which these antient versions give it, seems to have felt this difficulty; and he gets rid of it by expunging from the text, upon a supposition, which is plausible, that it was introduced by a corruption

כל

חפץ וכל For חפציכם or חפצכם in כם of the suffix

-It is a great ob חפצכם ועצביכם he reads ,עצביכם

jection to this conjecture, that the antient versions.

express both the suffix and the epithet

.כל

omnes debitores vestros." Vulgate; -TavTOS

—παντας

TOUS ÚTOXEIGIOUS &par. LXX. But perhaps, without any alteration, we may render,

-You enjoy your pleasures,

And exact the whole upon your debtors.

See Nehemiah, chap. v.

Verse 4. "To make your voice to be heard aloud.” Vitringa's interpretation deserves attention: -"And to smite with the fist of wickedness. Ye fast not at

this time, so as to cause your voice to be heard on high;" i. e. in heaven. -"Non estis enim ita affecti,ut preces vestræ exaudiri mereantur.'

Verse 6. "the oppressed;" rather "the broken." -"the broken;" in a mercantile sense, the bankrupts." qui paupertate sunt fracti, quos afflixit inopia," says St Jerome.

Verse 7.-"the poor that are cast out;" rather, "the poor that are reduced.",

brought

down,' from 77. See Barker in his Lexicon.

Verse 8." thine health;" rather, 66 thy pro

sperity," thy thriving.

-" and thy righteousness"

titiam ecclesiæ hîc intellige jus

.צדקר

P3. —" Per jusecclesiæ paratum ex

præstitis conditionibus fœderis: quod jus, ubi adest, sternit paratque ecclesiæ viam ad obtinenda bona fœderis.Absit quicquam hic tribuamus mentis aut justitiæ hominis. Universum enim factum gratiæ fundatum est in merâ Dei gratiâ et justitiâ Messiæ sed ex stipulatione, licet in gratiâ factâ, nascitur jus; cujus effectum, salvâ Dei veritate, fallere nequit." Vitringa ad locum.

Verse 9." the putting forth of the finger." Houbigant conjectures that the word is lost out

אצבע of the text after