and Dramatic Poetry, and the imperfection of the Copy does not at all impeach the authority of the Legislator. Important and fundamental doctrines do not wholly depend on fingle paffages; an univerfal harmony runs through the Holy Scriptures; the parts mutually fupport each other, and fupply one another's deficiencies and obfcu rities. Superficial damages and partial defects may greatly diminish the beauty of the edifice, without injuring its firength, and bringing on utter ruin and destruction.' The copies of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament being then fubject, like all other ancient writings, to mistakes arifing from the unfkilfulness or inattention of tranfcribers, it is to be confidered what remedy can be applied in this cafe; how fuch mistakes can be corrected upon certain or highly probable grounds. Now the cafe being the fame, the method, which has been used with good effect in correcting ancient Greek and Latin authors, ought, in all reafon, to be applied to the Hebrew writings. This and the other methods pursued by Dr. Lowth, in the prefent work, are here fully explained; and he is very particular in acknowledging his obligations to his learned friends, especially to Dr. Kennicott. Though the Bishop hath ventured to call this a new translation, he obferves, that much of our vulgar tranflation is retained in it, and he affigns unanfwerable reafons to fhew, that taking too great liberties in varying either the expreffion or the compofition, in order to give a new air to the whole, would be apt to have a very bad effect. Accordingly, our Author is of opinion, that, whenever it fhall be thought proper to fet forth the Holy Scriptures, for the public ufe of the Church, to better advantage than as they appear in the prefent English tranflation (the expediency of which grows every day more and more evident), a revifion or correction of that translation may perhaps be more advisable, than to attempt an entirely new one. For as to the ftyle, it admits but of little improvement; but, in respect of the fenfe, and the accuracy of the interpretation, the improvements of which it is capable are great and numberless.In these remarks, we entirely agree with our worthy Prelate. The defign of the Notes is to give the reasons and authorities on which this tranflation is founded; to rectify or to explain the words of the text; to illuftrate the ideas, the images and the allufions of the prophet, by referring to objects, notions, and cuftoms, which peculiarly belong to his age and country; and to point out the beauties of particular paffages. Sometimes, indeed, our Right Reverend Author tells us that he endeavours to open the defign of the prophecy, to fhew the connection between its parts, and to point out the event which it foretels. But, in general, all that he undertakes, is faithfully to exprefs the literal fenfe. If the Reader would go deeper into the mystical fenfe, into theological, hiftorical, and chronolo gical difquifitions, there are many learned expofitors to whom The may have recourse, who have written full commentaries on this prophet; to which title, fays his Lordship, the prefent work has no pretenfions. The fublime and fpiritual ufes to be made of this peculiarly evangelical prophet, muft be all founded on a faithful representation of the literal fenfe which his words contain. This is what I have endeavoured clofely and exactly to exprefs. And within the limits of this humble, but neceffary, province, my endeavours must be confined.' We cannot, however, avoid expreffing our fincere regret that the Bishop did not extend his views much farther; and we must acknowledge that in this refpect we have been difappointed. It is, no doubt, of great confequence to have an accurate and elegant tranflation of Ifaiah, accompanied with fuch notes as are described above. But it is of much greater import to have the defign of the prophecies in the Book of Ifaiah fully opened, and the events they predict precifely and clearly ascertained and especially that this fhould be done, with regard to thofe prophecies which relate, or are supposed to relate, to the Meffiah, and the times of the gofpel. Notwithstanding the labours of former commentators, there is ftill room for much useful and important criticism upon these heads; and from whom was it to be expected, if not from the Bishop of London? ; As a fpecimen of this excellent work, we fhall infert the translation, with the notes, of the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, being part of the prophet's fublime oracle concerning Babylon: For JEHOVAH will have compaflion on Jacob, 2 And will yet choose Israel. And he shall give them reft upon their own land: And shall cleave unto the house of Jacob. And the nations fhall take them, and bring them into their own place; And the houfe of Jacob fhall poffefs them in the land of JE HOVAH, As fervants, and as handmaids : And they fhall take them captive, whofe captives they were; 1. And will yet choose Ifrael.] That is, will ftill regard Ifrael as his chosen people; however he may feem to defert them, by giv ing them up to their enemies, and fcattering them among the nations. Judah is fometimes called Ifrael: fee Ezek. xiii. 16. Malach. i. 1. ii. 11. but the name of Jacob, and of Ifrael, used apparently with defign in this place; each of which names includes the twelve Tribes; and the other circumstances mentioned in this and the next verfe, which did not in any complete fenfe accompany the return from the captivity of Babylon; feem to intimate, that this whole prophecy extends its views beyond that event. 3 And And it shall come to pafs in that day, that JEHOVAH give thee reft from thine affliction, and from thy difquies and from the hard fervitude, which was laid upon the and thou shalt pronounce this parable upon the king of Ba bylon; and shalt say: How, hath the oppreffor ceafed! the exactress of go ceafed ! 5 JEHOVAH hath broken the staff of the wicked, the fceptre the rulers. 6 He that fmote the peoples in wrath, with a ftroke unremitted He that ruled the nations in anger, is perfecuted, and fou hindereth. 7 The whole earth is at reft, is quiet; they burst forth ico joyful fhout: is added ההוא The word ביום ההוא [in that day- .3 two мss, and was in the copies from which the LXX and Vulg. tran flated: pa exe, in die illa, (avanavon, Ms Pachom. add ing). This is a matter of no great confequence: however, it re ftores the text to the common form, alm ft conftantly ufed on fuc occafions; and is one among many inftances of a word loft out of the printed copies. 4. this parable-] Mahal. I take this to be the gener name for poetic ftyle among the Hebrews, including every fort d it, as ranging under one, or other, or all of the characters, of Sec tentious, Figurative, and Sublime; which are all contained in the original notion, or in the ufe and application of the word maja Parables or Proverbs, fuch as thofe of Solomon, are always exprefiel in fhort pointed fentences; frequently figurative, being formed o fome comparison; generally forcible and authoritative, both in the matter and the form. And fuch in general is the flyle of the He brew Poetry. The verb mahal fignifies to rule, to exercife autho rity; to make equal, to compare, one thing with another; to utter parables, or acute, weighty, and powerful fpeeches, in the form and manner of parables, though not properly fuch. Thus Balaam's firit prophecy, Num. xxiii. 7-10, is called his mashal; though it has hardly any thing figurative in it; but it is beautifully fententious, and, from the very form and manner of it, has great fpirit, force, and energy. Thus Job's laft fpeeches, in anfwer to the Three Friends, chap. xxvii,-xxxi, are called mashals; from no one parti cular character, which difcriminates them from the rest of the poem, but from the fublime, the figurative, the fententious manner, which equally prevails through the whole poem, and makes it one of the first and most eminent examples extant of the truly great and beau tiful in poetic style. The Lxx in this place render, the word by Invos, a lamentation, They plainly confider the fpeech here introduced as a piece of poetry, and of that fpecies of poetry, which we call the Elegiac: either from the fubject, it being a poem on the fall and death of the king of Ba bylon; or from the form of the compofition, which is of the Longer fort of Hebrew verse, in which the Lamentations of Jeremiah, called by the LXX Sen, are written. 6 8 Even 8 9 10 Even the fir-trees rejoice over thee, the cedars of Libanus: Hades from beneath is moved because of thee, to meet He roufeth for thee the mighty dead, all the great chiefs of He maketh to rife up from their thrones, all the kings of the All of them fhall accoft thee, and fhall fay unto thee: Art thou, even thou too, become weak as we ? art thou made 11 Is then thy pride brought down to the grave; the found of 12 13 Is the vermin become thy couch, and the earth-worm thy co- How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, fon of the Art cut down to the earth, thou that didst subdue the nations! And I will fit upon the mount of the divine prefence, on the 14 I will afcend above the highths of the clouds; I will be like 15 16 17 But thou shalt be brought down to the grave, to the fides of the pit. Thofe that fee thee fhall look attentively at thee; they Is this the man, that made the earth to tremble; that shook That made the world like a defert; that deftroyed the cities? 11thy covering-] Twenty-eight мss, (ten Ancient) and feven Editions, with the Lxx and Vulg. read TD21, in the fingu lar number. 13. The mount of the divine prefence-] It appears plainly from Exod. xxv. 22. and xxix. 42, 43. where God appoints the place of meeting with Mofes, and promifes to meet with him before the ark, to commune with him, and to speak unto him; and to meet the children of Ifrael at the door of the Tabernacle; that the Tabernacle, and afterward the Temple, and Mount Sion, (or Moriah, which is reckoned a part of Sion,) whereon it flood, was called the Tabernacle, and the Mount, of Convention, or of Appointment; not from the people's affembling there to perform the fervices of their religion, (which is what our Tranflation expreffes by calling it the Tabernacle of the Congregation,) but becaufe God appointed that for the place, where He himself would meet with Mofes, and commune with him, and would meet with the people. Therefore, ,means the place appointed by God אהל מוער or הר מועד where he would prefent himself: agreeably to which I have rendered it in this place, the Mount of the Divine Prefence. 18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, Lie down in glory, each in his own fepulchre : 19 But thou art caft out of the grave, as the tree abominated; Cloathed with the flain, with the pierced by the sword, With them that go down to the stones of the pit; as a trodden carcafe. 20 Thou shalt not be joined unto them in burial; 21 22 Because thou haft destroyed thy country, thou haft slain thy people: The feed of evil doers fhall never be renowned. Prepare ye flaughter for his children, for the iniquity of their fathers; Left they rife, and poffefs the earth; and fill the face of the For I will arife against them, faith JEHOVAH God of Hofts: 19.-like the tree abominated-] That is, as an object of abomination and deteftation; fuch as the tree is, on which a malefactor has been hanged. "It is written, faith St. Paul, Galat. iii. 13. curfed is every man that hangeth on a tree:" from Deut. xxi. 23. The Jews therefore held also as accurfed and polluted the tree itself on which a malefactor had been executed, or on which he had been hanged after having been put to death by ftoning. "Non fufpendunt fuper arbore, quæ radicibus folo adhæreat; fed fuper ligno eradicato, ut ne fit excifio molefta: nam lignum, fuper quo fuit aliquis fufpenfus, cum fufpendiofo fepelitur; ne maneat illi malum nomen, & dicant homines, Iftud eft lignum, in quo fufpenfus eft ille, & dara. Sic lapis, quo aliquis fuit lapidatus ; & gladius, quo fuit occifus is qui eft occifus; & fudarium five mantile, quo fuit aliquis ftrangulatus; omnia hæc cum iis, qui perierunt, fepeliuntur." Maimonides, apud Cafaub. in Baron. Exercitat. xvi. An. 34. Num. 134. “Cum itaque homo fufpenfus maximæ effet abominationi,-Judæi quoque præ cæteris abominabantur lignum quo fuerat fufpenfus, ita ut illud quoque terra tegerent, tanquam rem abominabilem. Unde Interpres Chaldæus hæc verba tranftulit, ficut virgultum abfconditum, five fepultum." Kalinski, Vaticinia Obfervationibus illuftrata, p. 342. Agreeably to which, Theodoret, Hift. Ecclefiaft. i. 17, 18, in his account of the finding of the Crofs by Helena, fays, that the three Croffes were buried in the earth near the place of our Lord's fepulchre. Ibid. cloathed with the flain.] Thirty five мss (ten Ancient), and three Editions, have the word fully written, . It is not a noun, but the participle paffive: thrown out among the common flain, and covered with the dead bodies. So ver. 11. the earthworm is faid to be his bed-covering. 20. Because thou haft dellroyed thy country; thou haft flain thy people.] Xenophon gives an inftance of this king's wanton cruelty in killing the fon of Gobrias, on no other provocation than that, in hunting, he ftruck a boar and a lion, which the king had missed. Cyrop. iv. p. 3c9. |