stupid. Thus Olearius tells us (p. 915.) that Schach Abas, the celebrated Persian monarch, who died in 1629, ordered a certain quantity of opium to be given every day to his grandson, who was to be his successor, to render him stupid, that he might not have any reason to fear him. Such are probably the circumstances alluded to in this passage, as also in Isaiah vi. 10. and in this view how beautiful do these words appear! The quality of the persons thus treated, the tenderness expressed in these sorts of punishments, the temporary nature of them, and the after design of making them partakers of the highest honours, all which circumstances appear in these quotations, serve to throw a softness over this dispensation of providence towards those who deserved great severity.

HARMER, vol. ii. p. 278.

No. 263.-xlv. 3. Treasures of darkness.] Treasures were frequently hid in the East when they were apprehensive of any danger. Sorcery was considered as the most effectual method of discovering them. But we are not to imagine that persons of this description had any other knowledge than what they derived from inquiry and examination, however for interested purposes they might pretend the contrary. God opposed his prophets to such pretenders as these, that by really communicating to them the knowledge of hidden riches, he might make it manifest that he was the God of Israel. HARMER, vol. ii. p. 282.

No. 264.-xlvi. 2. Themselves are gone into captivity.] It was a custom among the heathens to carry in triumph the images of the gods of such nations as they had vanquished. Isaiah prophesies of Cyrus, that in this manner he would treat the gods of Babylon: Bel

the

boweth down, Nebo stoopeth; their idols are laid upon beasts and upon the cattle, and themselves are gone into captivity. Daniel foretels of Ptolemy Euergetes, that he would carry captive into Egypt the gods of the Syrians, with their princes, ch. xi. ver. 8. and the like predictions are to be met with in Jer. xlviii. 7. and in Amos i. 15. We need less wonder, therefore, that we find Plutarch, in the life of Marcellus telling us, that he took away, out of the temple of Syracuse, the most beautiful pictures and statues of their gods; and that afterwards it became a reproach to Marcellus, and raised the indignation of other nations against Rome, that he carried along with him, not men only, but the very gods, captive and in triumph. SAURIN, vol. iv. Dissert. 24.

No. 265.-xlix. 16. I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.] This is an allusion to the eastern custom of tracing out on their hands, not the names, but the sketches of certain eminent cities or places, and then rubbing them with the powder of the hennah or cypress, and thereby making the marks perpetual. This custom MAUNDRELL thus describes: "The next morning nothing extraordinary passed, which gave many of the pilgrims leisure to have their arms marked with the usual ensigns of Jerusalem. The artists, who undertake the operation, do it in this manner: they have stamps in wood of any figure that you desire, which they first print off upon your arm, with powder of charcoal; then taking two very fine needles tied close together, and dipping them often, like a pen, in certain ink, compounded, as I was informed, of gunpowder and ox gall, they make with them small punctures all along the lines of the figure which they have printed, and then washing the part in wine, conclude the work. These punctures they make with great quickness and

dexterity, and with scarce any smart, seldom piercing so deep as to draw blood." Journey, at March,

27.

No. 266.-xlix. 23. They shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth.] It is well known, that expressions of submission, homage, and reverence, always have been, and are still carried to a great degree of extravagance in the eastern countries. When Joseph's brethren were introduced to him, they bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. (Gen. xlii. 6.) The kings of Persia never admitted any one to their presence without exacting this act of adoration, for that was the proper term for it. The insolence of eastern monarchs to conquered princes, and the submission of the latter, is astonishing. Mr. HARMER (vol. ii. p. 43.) gives the following instance of it from D'Herbelot; a certain prince threw himself one day on the ground, and kissed the prints that his victorious enemy's horse had made there, reciting some verses in Persian, which he had composed, to this effect:

The mark that the foot of your horse has left upon the dust serves me now for a crown.

The ring, which I wear as a badge of my slavery, is become my richest ornament.

While I shall have the happiness to kiss the dust of your feet, I shall think that fortune favours me with its tenderest caresses and its sweetest kisses.

These expressions, therefore, of the prophet are only general poetical images taken from the manners of the country, to denote great respect and reverence; and such splendid poetical images, which frequently occur in the prophetical writings, were intended only as general amplifications of the subject, not as predictions to be understood and fulfilled precisely according to the letter. Bp. Lowтн, in loc.

No. 267.-lii. 10. Made bare his arm.] Making bare the arm alludes to the form of the eastern hykes, which, having no sleeves, and their arms being frequently wrapped up in them, it was necessary, when the people proposed exerting themselves, to make their arms bare. (Ezek. iv. 7.)

No. 268.-lii. 15. So shall he sprinkle many nations.] "This passage has been embarrassing to commentators, especially the expression of sprinkling many nations. The sense of astonishing many has been followed by the LXX. our translators say sprinkle. Some have united the ideas, he shall sprinkle many nations with astonishment.' By attending to the scope of the passage, perhaps we shall see whence these ideas, seemingly so different, took their rise, and that they are radically the same. Imagine a great personage, a king, to be the speaker: I, myself, consider a certain servant of mine, my officer of state, as a very prudent and wise person; but when strangers look at him, they see only a mean and unpromising figure, so that when he introduces them into my presence, they wonder at seeing such an one in my court: but these strangers are from countries so very distant, as to be entirely unacquainted with our customs and manners; for when, as a sign of their kind reception, my servant sprinkles them with fragrant waters, they are absolutely astonished at this mode of shewing kindness, and what they had never before heard of, that they now see practised: and what they were intire strangers to, that they now experience.'

"Though I believe this representation of this passage to be uncommon, perhaps new, I shall not stay to consider who are these distant strangers, nor who is this person whose external appearance so ill denotes his internal excellencies, but shall merely subjoin the following extracts, which seem to me satisfactorily to ac

count for the same Hebrew word being taken by some translators to signify sprinkling, by others to signify astonishment.

"He put it (the letter) accordingly in his bosom, and our coffee being done, I rose to take my leave, and was presently wet to the skin by deluges of orange-flower water." (BRUCE's Travels, vol. iii. p. 14.) N. B. This is the customary mode of doing respectful and kind honour to a guest throughout the East.

"The first time we were received with all the eastern ceremonies (it was at Rosetta, at a Greek merchant's house) there was one of our company, who was excessively surprised when a domestic placed himself before him, and threw water over him, as well on his face as over his clothes. By good fortune there was with us an European acquainted with the customs of the country, who explained the matter to us in few words, without which we should have become laughing-stocks to the eastern people who were present." (NIEBUHR, Descrip. l'Arabie, French edit. p. 52.)

How naturally then, might the idea of sprinkling suggest that of surprise, in relation to very distant strangers! and how near to equivalent were these ideas in the estimation of the ancient translators, though to us widely dissimilar! (See Fragments supplementary to Calmet's Dict. No. 14.)

No. 269.-lviii. 13. Pleasure on my holy day.] The manner in which the modern christianized Greeks observed the sabbath was derived, probably, from the manner in which their pagan ancestors observed their sacred days. "In the evening," says Chandler, (Trav. p. 18.) speaking of his visiting the island Tenedos, "this being Sunday, and a festival, we were much amused with seeing the Greeks, who were singing and dancing, in