comparison exhibits them as applying to God for a manifestation of his judgment respecting them, as though they were an obedient people. They were to ask him to signify his approval of them, as though it could not be withheld because of any defect in them. Why, they were to inquire, did he not signify his satisfaction with their fasts and humiliations of themselves? This indicates that they were not, as some have supposed, to be conscious hypocrites, but were to be self-deceived. They were to lose all sense of the spirituality of the service God required of them towards him, and the justice and love which he demanded of them towards one another. They were to think religion consisted of mere external acts, the performance of which should meet immediate signals of God's acceptance, though they violated his laws without restraint in the indulgence of their selfish and malign passions towards the poor and helpless, who fell within their power. The office of the prophet, therefore, was not to rebuke them for sins of which they were to be aware, not to charge them with deliberate hypocrisies-but to proclaim and show to them that their religion and their morals, the formal service they were to render him, and the dispositions and actions they were to indulge towards one another, were, instead of meritorious, to be offences against his law; and that to startle them from their self-complacency, to rouse them to a just sense of their guilt, a trumpet voice of earnestness and power was to be necessary. 6. Hypocatastasis in the use of God's ways, for the measures of his administration.

God now answers their question, and gives on the one side their utter want of humbleness, penitence, self-renunciation, and love; and on the other their selfishness, tyranny over their dependents, and mercilessness to the poor and suffering, as the reason that he was not to accept their fasts.

"Behold in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labors. Behold ye fast for strife and contention, and to smite with the fist of wickedness," vs. 3, 4. Their fast involved no true humiliation, no renunciation of sin, nor return to righteousness. It was a mere external formality, and designed, it is implied, to give them a religious character, and enable them, from their repute for asceticism, to assume a more supercilious air, and domineer more

haughtily over their inferiors; while in fact, instead of abstinence they found pleasure on the days of fasting, either in privately indulging in ease and luxury, or else in the ostentatious display of sanctity, and the notoriety they acquired by their show of homage to God. To smite with the fist of wickedness, was not only to smite unjustly, but with brutal violence. It was to attempt to compel the submission of the unoffending to their imperious will by sheer force, and in a form degrading to their victims in the utmost degree. It was to treat them as though they had neither conscience nor reason, but were mere brutes. This, in the professed worshippers of Jehovah, bespoke an astonishing darkness and debasement of mind.

7, 8. Comparisons, "Ye will not fast to-day (so as) to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it like this-the fast that I have chosen, the day of a man's humbling himself? Is it to hang his head like a bulrush; and make sackcloth and ashes his bed? Wilt thou call this a fast and a day of acceptance to Jehovah," vs. 4, 5. These were mere external acts; mere attitudes and draperies of the body. They were no sure expressions of the mind, and might spring from ignorance, superstition, or ostentation, as well as from humility, penitence, and a renunciation of sin. Such a service would not meet God's acceptance. To call it the fast which he requires, was to affront instead of conciliating him. Very different were the manifestations

which he demanded of a renunciation of evil.

9, 10, 11. Hypocatastases in the use of loosing bonds, undoing fastenings of the yoke, and breaking the yoke. "Is not this the fast that I have chosen; to loose the bonds of wickedness; to undo the fastenings of the yoke; and to let the oppressed go free; and every yoke ye shall break?" vs. 6. The first characteristic of the fast God has chosen is, that the humbleness, self-renunciation, and return to rectitude of which it is meant to be a means and a profession, should manifest themselves in a discontinuance of all injustice and oppression towards servants and dependents. To loose the bonds of wickedness, was to release those who were unjustly held in bondage or restraint as slaves or debtors. To undo the fastenings of the yoke and let the oppressed go free, was to relieve those who were tasked, in a service they owed, be

yond their strength, and crushed with cruel exactions. To break every yoke, was to put an end to violent and inhuman vassalage in all forms. This abstinence from injustice and cruelty to those in their power; this restraint of selfishness and malevolence in their domestic and social relations, was the abstinence and self-denial of the fast which God required. The next was a repression of their hard-heartedness and mercilessness towards the poor and suffering who were disconnected with them, and a direct performance towards them of the offices of sympathy and humanity in relieving their wants.

"Is it not to break thy bread to the hungry; and the poor and homeless thou shalt bring to thy home; that when thou seest one naked thou shalt clothe him; and thou shalt not hide thyself from thine own flesh?" vs. 7. They were not only to abstain from abusing and oppressing their own families or dependents; but they were to be sympathetic and beneficent towards the poor and suffering of every class whose wants were witnessed by or known to them. They were to show their piety towards God by obeying his law of good will and benignity towards their fellow men :-"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." If without this love, if animated by its opposite, a cold, cruel, and remorseless selfishness, they were utter strangers to the spirit of God's acceptable worshippers. They knew nothing of a true homage of him; they knew nothing of the abstinence and self-rejection which belong to the fast he enjoins.

12. Hypocatastasis in the use of light breaking like dawn, for new and clear manifestations of God's favor to them. "Then shall thy light break forth like the dawn," vs. 8. Their light was not the light of their virtue, as some have supposed; that is inconsistent with the context, and the other figures, with which this is connected. If it were the light of their virtue exhibited in justice and compassion to those around them, it would be contemporaneous with, and involved in that virtue, not consequent on it. Instead of that, it is the light of God's favor, the absence of which had before surprised and perplexed them; but at the manifestation of which, their uncertainty and fear were to vanish like darkness at the dawn of a resplendent morning.

13. Comparison of the serenity, the peace, the assurance

which the signals of God's love would impart to them, to the glow and beauty of a cloudless dawn, when the sun shoots his first rays up the far arch of heaven, and night flies from the silent vales and glens over the western hills.

14, 15, 16. Hypocatastases in the use of their healing, the going before them of their righteousness, and their being followed by the glory of Jehovah. "And thy healing shall germinate speedily; then shall thy righteousness go before thee, and the glory of Jehovah shall be thy rereward." vs. 8. Their healing, a restoration from a bodily wound or disease, is put, it would seem, from vs. 12, for relief from the frowns and avenging judgments with which, as a people, they were to be smitten. The figures of their righteousness going before them, and the glory of Jehovah following in their rear, are taken from the station the cloud of the divine presence assumed at the march of the Israelites from Egypt. and on the passage through the Red Sea. Their righteousness is the Redeemer, and his going before them is used to denote that he will continually and manifestly guide them. The glory of Jehovah is his manifested presence, and its being their rereward, is used to signify that he will defend them from their enemies, as he defended Israel at the Red Sea from the approach of the Egyptian host, by removing the cloudy pillar to the rear of the Israelitish host, between them and the advancing Egyptians. What wondrous promises! If they turned from their sins, they would not be left without signals that God noticed the change in their conduct, and in uncertainty but that they were still the objects of his displeasure. He would manifest his approval in the most public and decisive forms; rearing, as he did in the wilderness, the flaming symbol of his presence at their head, and setting it as a fiery rampart between them and their enemies.

17. Metaphor in the use of germinate, to signify that their recovery from the desolating judgments with which they had been smitten, should be rapid, and like a new creation; as a plant, the moment that winter has gone, waking as it were to a new life, unfolds itself in a few days in fresh leaves, flowers, and fruit.

18, 19. Hypocatastases in the use of putting away the yoke, and pointing the finger, to denote the discontinuance of oppression, and the scorn, and ridicule of infe

riors. "Then shalt thou call, and Jehovah will answer, thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Behold me;-if thou wilt put away from the midst of thee the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and the speaking of vanity," vs. 9. All the barriers betwixt them and God would be removed, if they renounced their injustice, their cruelty, and their scorn of the rights and well-being of those in their power. Unselfishness, rectitude, benignity, truth would instantly meet the tokens of God's favor. Putting away the yoke, the symbol of oppression, is used to signify the discontinuance of injustice and cruel exactions from those in their power putting away pointing the finger, a signal of scorn, is employed to denote the discontinuance of a base and malignant contempt and disregard of the rights and feelings of one another. These are marks of a mind that finds pleasure in wounding and torturing others, and debars itself necessarily by its malignity from God's favor.

20. Metaphor in the use of let out the soul, for a hearty manifestation of sympathy and compassion. "And (if) thou wilt let out thy soul to the hungry, and wilt satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light arise in the darkness, and thy gloom be as the noon day." vs. 10. Their pity and generosity were to be sincere, earnest, and habitual, a true expression of their principles and dispositions; not begrudged, constrained, and against the reigning affections of their hearts.

21. Hypocatastasis, in putting the rising of light in darkness, for the sudden return of favor, prosperity, and joy. Then shall God's favor return, and prosperity like a dawn that should break instantaneously on the darkness of night. It will be immediate, startling, and carry wonder and joy to every heart.

22. Comparison of its suddenness and wonderfulness to ah instant transition from the gloom of night to the glare of noonday-refulgent, dazzling, and filling the mind with a sense of the presence, the immeasurable power, and the infinite glory of God.

23, 24. Comparisons. "And Jehovah will guide thee ever: and satisfy thy soul in drought (in scarcity), and he will strengthen thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not," vs. 11.