taken in the night is a circumstance somewhat unusual; and not so material, as to deserve to be so strongly insisted upon. Vitringa, by his remark on this word, shows, that he was dissatisfied with it in its plain and obvious meaning; and is forced to have recourse to a very hard metaphor, ical interpretation of it. "Noctu, vel nocturno impetu; vel metaphorice, repente, subito, inexpectata destructione: placet posterius." Calmet conjectures, and I think it probable, that the true reading is . There are many mistakes in the Hebrew text arising from the very great similitude of the letters and, which in many MSS. and even in some printed editions, are hardly distinguishable. Admitting this reading, the translation will be:

"Because Ar is utterly destroyed, Moab is undone !

Because Kir is utterly destroyed, Moab is undone !

2. Beth-Dibon :- -] This is the name of one place; and the two-words are to be joined together, without the intervening: so Chald. and Syr.

Ibid. on every head] For x1, read wx7. So the parallel place, JER. xiviii. 37, and so three MSS. (one ancient.) An ancient MS. reads

,על כל ראשך

Ibid. On every head there is baldness, and every beard is shorn.] \Herodotus, ii. 36, speaks of it as a general practice among all men except the Egyptians, to cut off their hair as a token of mourning. "Cut off thy hair and cast it away, says Jeremiah, vii. 29, and take up a lamentation."

Έντο νυ και γερας οιον οιζυροισι βροτοισι

Κειρασθαι τε κόμην, βαλεειν τ' απο δακρυ παρείων. Hom. Odyss. iv. 197.

"The rites of woe

Are all, alas! the living can bestow;

O'er the congenial dust enjoin'd to shear

The graceful curl, and drop the tender tear." POPE.

Ibid. -shorn-] The printed editions, as well as the MSS. are divided on the reading of this word: some have 73, others . The similitude of the letters and has likewise occasioned many mistakes. In the present case, the sense is pretty much the same with either reading. The text of JER. xlviii. 27, has the latter.

4 .-the very loins-] So the LXX. oσpus, and Syr. They cry out violently, with their utmost force.

5. The heart of Moab crieth within her.] For 5, LXX. read 125, or

.and so likewise the LXX ; ברוחה Syr. reads בריחיה For .לבו .the Chald ;לב

rendering it ev aury, Edit. Vat. or ev laury, Edit. Alex. and MS. 1 D. ii.

Ibid. —a young heifer] Heb. a heifer three years old, in full strength;

as Horace uses equa trima, for a young mare just coming to her prime. Bochart observes from Aristotle, Hist. Animal. lib. iv. that, in this kind of animals alone, the voice of the female is deeper than that of the male : therefore the lowing of the heifer, rather than of the bullock, is chosen by the prophet, as the properer image to express the mourning of Moab. But I must add, that the expression here is very short and obscure, and the opinions of interpreters are various in regard to the meaning. Compare JER. xlviii. 34.

Ibid. they shall ascend] For by, LXX. and a MS. read in the plural by. And from this passage, the parallel place in JER. xlviii. 5, must

יעלה בו which give no good sense, read יעלה בכי be corrected; where for

7. shall perish] 1728, or 77728. This word seems to have been lost out of the text it is supplied by the parallel place, JER. xlviii. 36. Syr. expresses it by y, præteriit; and Chald. ¡man, diripientur.

:

Ibid. to the valley of willows.] That is, to Babylon. Hieron. and Jarchi in lọc. both referring to Ps. cxxxvii. 2. So likewise Prideaux, Le Clerc, &c.

9. Upon the escaped of Moab and Ariel, and the remnant of Admah.] The LXX. for " read b. Ar Moab was called also Ariel, or Areopolis, Hieron. and Theodoret. see Cellarius. They make x also a proper name. Michaelis thinks, that the Moabites might be called the remnant of Admah, as sprung from Lot and his daughters escaped from the destruction of that and the other cities; or metaphorically, as the Jews are called the princes of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah, chap. i. 10. Bibliothek Orient. Part v. p. 195. The reading of this verse is very doubtful; and the sense, in every way in which it can be read, very obscure.

CHAP. XVI.

1. I WILL send forth the son-] Both the reading and meaning of this verse are still more doubtful than those of the preceding. The LXX. and Syr. read now, in the first person sing. future tense: the Vulg. and Talmud Babylon. read nbw, sing. imperative. The Syr. for reads, which is confirmed by one MS. and perhaps by a second. The two first verses describe the distress of Moab on the Assyrian invasion; in which even the son of the prince of the country is represented as forced to flee for his life through the desert, that he may escape to Judea, and the young women are driven forth, like young birds cast out of the nest, and endeavouring to wade through the fords of the river Arnon.

3. Impart counsel-] The Vulg. renders, the verbs in the beginning of this verse in the singular number. So the Keri; and so likewise many MSS. have it, and some editions, and Syr. The verbs throughout the verse are also in the feminine gender; agreeing with Sion, which I suppose to be understood.

4. the outcasts of Moab-] Setting the points aside, this is by much the most obvious construction of the Hebrew, as well as most agreeable to the context, and the design of the prophet. And it is confirmed by the LXX. oi quyades Mwab, & Syr.

Ibid. —the oppressor-] Perhaps the Israelites; who in the time of Ahaz invaded Judah, defeated his army, slaying 120,000 men; and brought the kingdom to the brink of destruction. Judah, being now in a more prosperous condition, is represented as able to receive and to protect the fugitive Moabites. And with those former times of distress, the security and flourishing state of the kingdom under the government of Hezekiah is contrasted.

6. We have heard the pride of Moab-] For x, read п; two MSS. (one antient,) and JER. xlviii. 29. Zephaniah, in his prophecy against Moab, the subject of which is the same with that of Jeremiah in his xlviiith chapter (see above note on xv. 1,) enlarges much on the pride of Moab, and their insolent behaviour towards the Jews:

"I have heard the reproach of Moab ;
And the revilings of the sons of Ammon:

Who have reproached my people;

And have magnified themselves against their borders.

Therefore, as I live, saith JEHOVAH God of Hosts, the God of Israel:
Surely Moab shall be as Sodom,

And the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah:

A possession of nettles, and pits of salt,

And a desolation for ever.

The residue of my people shall spoil them,

And the remnant of my nation shall dispossess them:

This shall they have for their pride;

Because they have raised a reproach, and have magnified themselves,
Against the people of JEHOVAH God of Hosts."

ZEPH. ii. 8-10.

7. For the men of Kirhares-] A palpable mistake in this place is happily corrected by the parallel text of JER. xlviii. 31, where, instead of wwx, foundations, or flagons, we read wx, men. In the same place of Jeremiah, and in ver 36, and here in ver. 11, the name of the city is Kirhares, not Kirharesheth.

Ibid. are put to shame] Here the text of Jeremiah leaves us much at a loss, in a place that seems to be greatly corrupted. The LXX. join the two last words of this verse with the beginning of the following. Their rendering is; xaι un evтpannoy тA wedia eσ6wv. For they must have read otherwise, how came they by the negative, which seems not to belong to this place? Neither is it easy to make sense of the rest without a small alteration, by reading, instead of evrpannon ra, evrganserai. In a word, the Arabic version taken from the LXX. plainly authorises this reading of the LXX. and without the negative; and it is fully confirmed by MSS. Pa~

chom. and 1 D. ii. which have both of them wrpaяnotrai wedia Erelov, without the negative; which makes an excellent sense, and, I think, gives us the

They frequently ren .שדמות חשבון אך נכלמו :true reading of the Hebrew text

der the verbɔ by ergeroμα. And ɔ answers perfectly well to box, the parallel word in the next line. The MSS. vary in expressing the word , which gives no tolerable sense in this place; one reads □'85), twọ others, in another the is upon a rasure of two letters: and Vulg. instead of it reads non, plagas suas.

8. Her branches extended themselves-] For wwɔ, a MS. has waɔ; which may perhaps be right: compare JER. xlviii. 32, which has in this part of the sentence the synonymous word waɔ.

The meaning of this verse is, that the wines of Sibmah and Heshbon were greatly celebrated, and in high repute with all the great men and princes of that and the neighbouring countries; who indulged themselves even to intemperance in the use of them. So that their vines were so much in request, as not only to be propagated all over the country of Moab, to the sea of Sodom; but to have cions of them sent even beyond the sea into foreign countries.

, knocked down, demolished; that is, overpowered, intoxicated. The drunkards of Ephraim are called by the prophet, chap. xxviii. 1, . See Schultens on Prov. xxiii. 25. Gratius, speaking of the Mareotic wine, says of it,

"Pharios quæ fregit noxia reges."

Cyneg. ver. 312.

9. as with the weeping-] For 2, a MS. reads 5. In JER. xlviii. 32, it is . LXX. read, which I follow.

Ibid. And upon thy vintage the destroyer hath fallen] 777 Typ byr. In these few words there are two great mistakes; which the text of JER.

both which : שדד הידד and for ; בצירך it has קצירך xlviii. 32 rectifies: for

corrections the Chaldee in this place confirms. As to the first,

"Hesebon and Eleale, and

The flowery dale of Sibmah clad with vines,"

were never celebrated for their harvests; it was the vintage that suffered by the irruption of the enemy: and so read LXX. and Syr. T is the noisy acclamation of the treaders of the grapes and see what sense this makes in the literal rendering of the Vulgate: super messem tuam " VOX calcantium irruit." The reading in JER. xlviii. 32 is certainly right, T

:

, vastator irruit. The shout of the treaders does not come in till the next verse: in which the text of Isaiah in its tum mends that of Jeremiah xlviii. 33, where instead of the first TT, the shout, we ought undoubtedly to read, as here, 77, the treader.

10. An end is put to the shouting] The LXX. read naw, passive, and in the third person; rightly: for God is not the speaker in this place. The rendering of LXX. is werauraı yag xɛɛoμa; which last word, necessary to

the rendering of the Hebrew, and to the sense, is supplied by MSS. Pachom. and 1 D. ii. having been lost out of the other copies.

12. when Moab shall see- -For N, a MS. reads 7, and so Syr. and Chald. "Perhaps is only a various reading of D." SECKER. A very probable conjecture.

14. and without strength] An ancient MS. with LXX. reads x7.

CHAP. XVII.

THIS prophecy by its title should relate only to Damascus : but it full as much concerns, and more largely treats of, the kingdom of Samaria and the Israelites, confederated with Damascus and the Syrians against the kingdom of Judah. It was delivered probably soon after the prophecies of the viith and viiith chapters, in the beginning of the reign of Ahaz; and was fulfilled by Tiglath Pileser's taking Damascus, and carrying the peo ple captives to Kir, (2 Kings xvi. 9.) and overrunning great part of the kingdom of Israel, and carrying a great number of the Israelites also captives to Assyria: and still more fully in regard to Israel, by the conquest of the kingdom, and the captivity of the people, effected a few years after by Shalmaneser.

1. —a ruinous heap] For yn the LXX. read wb, Vulg. y. I follow the former.

2. The cities are deserted for ever] What has Aroer on the river Arnon to do with Damascus ? and if there be another Aroer on the northern border of the tribe of Gad, (as Reland seems to think there might be,) this is not much more to the purpose. Besides, the cities of Aroer, if Aroer itself is a city, makes no good sense. The LXX. for y, Aroer, read y TY, EIS TOY αiava, for ever, or for a long duration. The Chald. takes the word for a verb from my, translating it 1, devastabuntur. The Syr. read Ty. So that the reading is very doubtful. I follow the LXX. as making the plainest sense.

3. the pride of Syria-] For Houbigant reads nw, the pride, answering, as the sentence seems evidently to require, to 5, the glory of Israel. The conjecture is so very probable, that I venture to follow it.

5. —as when one gathereth-] That is, the king of Assyria shall sweep away the whole body of the people, as the reaper strippeth off the whole crop of corn; and the remnant shall be no more in proportion, than the scattered ears left to the gleaner. The valley of Rephaim near Jerusalem, was celebrated for its plentiful harvest; it is here used poetically for any fruitful country.

8. the altars dedicated to the work of his hands] The construction

S