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7. And ye have sold the sons of Judah and of Jerusalem to the sons of the Ionians, in order to carry them afar from their border.

8. Behold me raising them up from the place whither ye sold them, and that I requite your dealing upon your head;

9. And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah, that they sell them to the Sabæans, to a people afar: for the ETERNAL hath spoken it.

10. Proclaim this among the nations: cry a holy war, rouse the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up :

11. Forge your spades into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, I am a warrior.

12. Hurry, and come, all the nations from around, and be gathered together; bring down thither thy warriors, ETERNAL.

Spades, or ploughshares, is, with Maurer, reaping-hooks. Sed quale sit instrumentum, certo dici nequit. M.

5 In this verse the LXX. repeat the ending of verse 11, not from difference of text, but from misunderstanding what they had before them. They took the verb " bring down" as an adjective with the article, turned the name Jahveh into a future tense, and desperately forced warriors into a singular. The Vulgate, with slighter error, has" occumbere faciet Dominus robustos tuos," and so the Chaldee, and as Rosenm. attests, the Syriac. Most critics agree with our own version, given substantially above. verse is a good instance of Philology, without the faintest polemical bias, correcting, with the fullest right, traditional authorities.

This

forward nations; at some times consoling exile, at others prompting rashness.

10-13. Such a war is here invoked against Jerusalem, as her own possessors had waged against nations before them, such as the Sacred Wars of the Greeks, and the Crusades of medieval Europe; though such cries have most frequently found an echo in the Semitic races,

13. Let the nations be roused, and come up to the valley of the ETERNAL's judgment: for there will I sit to judge all the nations from around.

14. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, go down, for the press is full, the cisterns overflow: for their iniquity is great.

15. Multitudes on multitudes, in the valley of judgment: for the day of the ETERNAL is near in the valley of judgment.

Vulg. Populi Populi in valle concisionis; so Angl. Vers. in the valley of decision; both rightly, in etymological rendering. But better for meaning the LXX. iv ry koiλádi tñs diens, Conflict, or judgment.

whether Jews or Arabs. Hence the fierce extermination of whole nations, so often palliated; though the patriarch might say, "Cursed their anger for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel ;" and Christ might warn, "He who takes the sword, shall perish by the sword."

15. Joel's conflict is painted as nigh at hand; but the next enterprise of his king Amaziah against the Ten tribes (if we have rightly conjectured his chronology) was unfortunate. 2 Kings xiv. 10-14. Disaster and disappointment only push the vision forward into the future. What was spoken of neighbour states becomes applicable to fresh conquerors. From Tyre it passes to Babylon; from Samaria to Rome. 66 Magis de Romanis est intelligendum," says Jerome, on v.v. 5, 6, &c. Even if historical fulfilments are exhausted, a mystical one supervenes. Thus an English traveller (quoted by Burder) observes, "Those spiritualising Jews, Christians, and "Mahommedans, who wrest this passage, like a thousand "others of the Scriptures, turn a literal to a mystical

sense, insist on its applying to the resurrection of the "dead, on the last great day. From this belief the "modern Jews, whose fathers are thought by some of the "most learned to have had no idea of a resurrection, or

16. The sun and the moon have darkened, and the stars withdrawn their shining.

17. Then the ETERNAL out of Zion thunders, and out of Jerusalem utters his voice: so that the heavens and the earth tremble; but the ETERNAL is a refuge for his people, and a dwelling-place for the sons of Israel.

18. So shall ye know, that I the ETERNAL am your God, that dwell in Zion the mount of my sanctuary; and Jerusalem shall be a sanctuary, and strangers shall not pass through her any more.

7 Sol et luna obtenebrati sunt, &c. Vulg. The LXX. less correctly turns the vivid aorists into future tenses.

Refuge, or place of trust.

"of a future state, have their bones deposited in the "valley of Jehoshaphat. From the same hope the Moham"medans have left a stone jutting out of the eastern "wall of Jerusalem, for the accommodation of their

Prophet, who, they insist, is to sit on it here, and "call the whole world from below to judgment." On this quotation it may be remarked that the Prophet's meaning here was more mystical than local, though tinged probably by associations: but that the mysticism above described as superadded is a development, whether true or fanciful, out of his simpler thought.

16-19. The image of the heavenly orbs failing is applied in the Gospels to the fall of Jerusalem, and in the Apocalypse to the same or kindred events. The poetic style of the Prophet, which has already used it of the locust-plague, adapts it to the gloom of the nations in conflict. From such passages flow both many figurative expressions of the Apocalypse, and the more decided, grosser, anticipations of the early Chiliasts, of whom Papias is a type. Jerome blames both the Jews and Christian Millenarians for understanding the whole as a picture of the Millennium; "Hæc juxta literam sibi Israel

19. And it shall be in that day, the mountains shall drop new wine, and the hills flow with milk, and all the watercourses of Judah shall flow waters, and a fountain shall go forth out of JEHOVAH's house, and water the valley of thorns.9

9 Valley of Thorns, or Valley of Shittim; a valley of Moab, abounding in Acacia trees, near the Dead Sea : Numbers xxxiii. 49; hence the desert, or outer world. Compare Micah vi. 5.

miserabilis repromittit." He understands the enemies as being rather demons and their worshippers, or evil thoughts and sins. He makes Sion mean Christ, the dwelling-place of God. Again, by Egypt he understands persecutors; Tyre he twists into troublers; Sidon into hunters; Philistines into blood-drinkers, &c., by a wretched play upon words. Not that the Jews interpreted literally, but with the fault borrowed from them by the Christian Church, pushed forward the event from time to time, and saw persecutors of their race, where Jerome saw those of the Church. Both interpretations are equally removed from the mind of the old Prophet. Yet, if history repeats itself, by fresh instances of eternal principles, and if oppressors are at any time trodden under foot, the old description may become a new prophecy, "Præteritorum narratio est futurorum prænuntiatio," says Augustine, De fid. Christ. iii. 10. And if a holy organisation on a spiritual type takes the place of old Israel in God's favour, it may be argued that the threatenings and promises of the old were typically intended of the new; intended not by the Prophet, but by the Providence, which wields nations, patriots, tyrants, and their destinies, painting in the past the picture of the future. But the translator's first duty is to explain his author. Divines and Philosophers may dispute elsewhere, whether fresh applications are fulfilments or adaptations. In the 19th verse, water is the emblem of plenty, or of purity, and something of foreboding that his country will be a blessing, as well as

20. Egypt shall become a desolation, and Edom become a desolate wilderness, for the violence to the sons of Judah, wherein they shed innocent blood in their land.

21. But Judah shall abide for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

22. And I will purge1 their blood which I had not purged; and the ETERNAL shall be dweller in Zion.

1 Purge, or avenge their blood which I had not purged. From the idea of innocence, implied in vindication, the stronger sense branches out poetically.

blest, appears in the language of the patriot Prophet. Compare Zechariah xiv. 8, xiii. 1; Ezekiel xlvii. 1-13, and more doubtfully, Isaiah ii. 3. The main picture with which the book closes is Israel's triumph, not unmixed with vengeance, and the restoration of her lost children.

ON SOME VARIOUS RENDERINGS.

In the Ancient Versions of Joel, the Greek and Latin agree remarkably in making ch. iii. (ii. 18) describe a past deliverance, instead of predicting one to come. In other respects the Latin is (thanks to Jerome's Jewish preceptors, whom the stricter Ruffinus blamed him for following) somewhat more precise than the Greek. Thus in i. 5, 6, the Greek introduces suppoσúvη kaì xapà, as cut off, as if reluctant to admit the cutting off of wine as a subject for grief. The Latin more faithful says nakedly, periit ex ore vestro. In i. 8, Virum pubertatis may be more correct than τὸν ἄνδρα τὸν παρθενικόν. In i. 1920, τὰ ὡραῖα Tйs iρnμov, and speciosa deserti, represent a rendering of is which must have been early current, yet which yields in probability to the sense of pasture. Cf. Rosenm. in Psalm xxiii.

In the first nine verses of chapter ii. both versions agree in making the description of the locusts future: an inter