of the fecond Solomon, and at the fame time marked out the year of it's conftruction'.

This account, which is fhort in this writer, and which I have still more abridged, furnishes us with materials for feveral remarks.

It shows us, in the first place, how natural it is to the Eastern people, to use the words houfe and tent as equivalent terms: this tent it feems, was called the House of Gold. This interchange of the two words frequently appears in the Old Teftament. Thus the goodly raiment of Efau, which was left in the custody of Rebekah, is faid to be with her in the house, Gen. xxvii. 15; which it is certain were kept in a tent.

On the other

hand, when Sheba, the fon of Bichri, a Benjamite, wanted to caufe the people to abandon David, he blew a trumpet, crying, "To your tents, O Ifrael," 2 Sam. xx. I; though Ifrael did not dwell in moveable habitations at that time, but in cities.

In the next place, this tent was called the Houfe of Gold, not that it was wholly made of gold, but because it was highly ornamented with it. This teaches us how we are to understand the houses of ivory, and the golden city, of which we read in the Scriptures. The houses of ivory appear to mean houses richly adorned with that precious

Tome 1. p. 203.

2

* Pf. 45. 8. 1 Kings 22. 39. Amos 3. 15.

fubftance

fubftance; and the golden city' means the city remarkable for it's being richly gilded in many parts of it, or at least in fome remarkable places

In the third place we may obferve, that this tent is called Throne: the Throne of the second Solomon." This shows that the word throne fometimes fignifies not the royal feat, strictly speaking, but the place in which that feat is fet. It is used in the fame enlarged fenfe in the Scriptures.

It is even probably used here, in the fourth place, to fignify any royal abode, even those where no feat of ftate ever appeared. For nothing leads us to imagine the Perfian throne, ftrictly speaking, was ever brought into this majestic tent. So when the men of Gibeon and of Mizpeh are faid to have

Mentioned If. 14. 4.

We may be fatisfied, I believe, that it doth not fignify, according to the marginal tranflation, exactress of gold, for however truly it might have been fo defcribed, the Chaldees themselves would hardly have given it fuch an appellation, and the word is acknowledged to be Chaldaic; but they might glory in it on account of it's being highly ornamented with gold, in fome of it's more remarkable parts. One or more of it's domes and towers might be richly gilded, like the dome and two towers of the mofque built over the supposed tomb of Ali, of which Niebuhr has given us an account in the fecond of his three tomes of Travels, p. 223; or it might have one or more fpires, like that over the tomb of Fatima, at Com, a city of Perfia, which Chardin tells us confifts of feveral balls of different magnitudes, and if of folid gold, as the inhabitants affirm, must be worth millions. Tome I. p. 204. 3 P. 203. VOL. III.

E

repaired

repaired unto the throne of the governor on this fide the river, Neh. iii. 7, nothing more may be meant than that they repaired to overagainst the palace of this great man.

Niebuhr has made a fimilar remark to the first of thefe, in the first tome of his Voyages', where he tells us, a young peafant invited him to go with him to his house, to drink fome fresh water, which had been taken from the spring that very day; and he did it with fo much cordiality, that Niebuhr fays he should not have refufed him, if it had not been then late. Cheime is properly the name of a tent among the Arabs, but he remarked that the Arabs of this country named their tents beit, that is to fay their houses.

OBSERVATION XV.

The word Pavilion may, it is very likely, excite the notion of fomething fuperior to a common tent, fo our tranflators ufe that term to exprefs the fuperb tent of a king of Babylon, Jer. xliii. 1o. " He (Nebuchadnezzar) "shall spread his royal pavilion over them." A mere English reader then will be furprized, perhaps, when he is told that the word tranflated pavilions, 1 Kings xx. 12, 16, fignifies nothing more than booths; and more still, if he is told that the facred hifto

• P. 189.

rian might, poffibly, precisely design to be fo understood, when defcribing the places in which kings were drinking.

That the word fignifies thofe flight temporary defences from the heat, which are formed by the fetting up the boughs of trees, is vifible by what is faid, Jonah iv. 5, and Neh. viii. 16; and we know that the common people of the Eaft frequently fit under them; but it may be thought incredible that princes fhould make use of fuch as the term, precisely taken, seems to imply. "And it came to pafs, when Ben"hadad heard this meffage (as he was drink

66

ing, he and the kings, in the pavilions,)" 1 Kings xx. 12. "But Benhadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he " and the kings, the thirty and two kings "that helped him," v. 16.

In the margin our tranflators have put the word tents: but that there is nothing incredible in the account, if we should understand the prophetic hiftorian as meaning booths, properly fpeaking, will appear, if we confider the great fimplicity of ancient times, and the great delight the people of the East take in verdure, and in eating and drinking under the fhade of trees; efpecially after reading the following paragraph of Dr. Chandler's Travels in the Leffer Afia.

"While we were employed on the the "atre of Miletus, the Aga of Suki, fonE 2

" in

"in-law by marriage to Elez-Oglu', croffed "the plain towards us, attended by a con"fiderable train of domeftics and officers, "their vefts and turbans of various and lively colours, mounted on long-tailed "hories, with showy trappings, and glittering furniture. He returned, after hawking, to Miletus; and we went to vifit him, "with a prefent of coffee and fugar; but "were told that two favourite birds had "flown away, and that he was vexed and “tired. A couch was prepared for him be"neath a shed, made against a cottage, and "covered with green boughs, to keep off the

66

66

pre

fun. He entered, as we were ftanding by, "and fell down on it to fleep, without "taking any notice of us." A very mean place, an European would think, to be pared for the reception of an Aga that made fo refpectable a figure, and in a town, which, though ruinated, ftill had several cottages, inhabited by Turkish families'.

It doth not appear incredible then, that Benhadad, and the thirty-two petty kings that attended him, might actually be drinking wine beneath fuch green sheds as a Turkish Aga, of confiderable distinction, chose to sleep under, rather than in an adjoining cottage; or rather than under a tent, which he other

A Turkish officer of great power and extenfive command in that country, dignified with the title of Mufulém, p. 106. 2 P. 149.

P. 148.