The sword shall be without, and terror within,*
And shall destroy both the young man and virgin,
The suckling, and the man of gray hairs.
I had almost said, I will destroy them, t
And blot out their name among men;
Had I not feared the pride of the enemy,
That their oppressors would mistake it,
And
66
say, our own high hand,

And not Jehovah hath done this."

For they are a nation void of counsel,
There is no understanding in them.
O! that they were wise, to understand this,
That they would consider their latter end.
How is it, that one can chase a thousand,‡
And two of them put ten thousand to flight?
Is it not, that their rock hath forsaken them,
That Jehovah hath given them for a prey?
Else their rock were not like our rock,
Our enemies themselves being judges.

Their vine is from the vine of Sodom,
Their grapes from the fields of Gomorrah,
Grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter,
Their juice is the poison of dragons,
The deadly venom of serpents.

Have I not already my secret counsel,
Sealed and laid up in my treasures?

"Vengeance is mine and the day of recompense,
Their foot is even now ready to slide,
The day of their calamity is at hand,
Their destiny is soon coming upon them."
Jehovah is now the judge of his people,[]

* Without and within the cities and houses.

It is plain, that God is here introduced with human feelings of jealousy, speaking against other national gods.

At once the poet places himself in view of the melancholy end of this people, and how exactly, as well as fearfully, was the prophecy fulfilled! And the legislator of the nation must himself utter it, must close his life, already melancholy, with such prophetick anticipations ! a fate, which only a rock like Moses could have sustained.

Those translations, which take these lines in a favourable sense, have the context plainly against them. The curse proceeds and contin

It repents him, that they are his children,
He seeth, that their power is departed,
That nothing is left to them more.

He asks them, where are now their gods,
The guardian God, in whom they trusted?
Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices,
And drank the wine of their drink-offerings?
Let them now rise up and help you,
Let them now be your protection.
See now, that I, even I am he,

And there are no Gods with me.

I am he, that killeth and maketh alive,
I am he, that woundeth and healeth,
And none can deliver out of my hand.

For I lift up my hand to heaven,
`And say, I am, the living one
From eternity to eternity.
If I whet my glittering sword,

And my hand take hold on judgment,
I will render vengeance to mine enemies,
And will reward them that hate me.*

I will make mine arrows drunk with blood,
My sword shall satiate itself with flesh,
The blood of the slain, and of the captives,
With the head of the chief of my enemy.
Rejoice, ye Gentiles, now his people,
He will avenge the blood of his servants,
And render vengeance to his enemies,
And purify his land and people.t

ues to the end of the poem. The blessing first begins in the next chapter. It is indeed a fearful consideration, that God must thus forget the father in the judge, and yet feel that they are his children.

* I can understand these words only as still referring to the Jewish nation, once his children, now his open enemies, on whom he avenges himself. He rejects them, and takes the Gentiles for his people.

t The last line is obscure to my mind, because the connecting particle in the Hebrew is wanting before the word people. It would seem as if it were wished to read as a blessing, what was meant as a curse, though the blessing properly follows in a separate chapter. The Gentiles are here summoned, as now the people of God, to witness the judgment of

God upon Israel. He avenges the blood of his servants upon this people, and purifies the land from sin. (I will not decide, whether in relation to the last word we should read and or from his people. The blessing which follows, as well as that of Jacob, is translated in another work, "Letters on the study of Theology," and need not be repeated here.) This chapter ends like the last of the prophets. The nation is cast forth and banished from the land.

INDEX

OF THE PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE TRANSLATED AND EXPLAINED IN THIS