(by drying up) the tongue (or bay) of the sea of Egypt (i. e. the Red Sea), and he will wave his hand (as a gesture of menace or a symbol of miraculous power) over the river (Euphrates), in the violence of his wind (or breath), and smite it (the Euphrates) into seven streams, and make (his people) tread (it) in shoes (i. e. dry-shod). Tongue, which is applied in other languages to projecting points of land, is here descriptive of a bay or indentation in a shore. The sea of Egypt is not the Nile, as some suppose, although the name sea has been certainly applied to it from the earliest times, but the Red Sea, called the Sea of Egypt for the same reason that it is called the Arabian Gulf. The tongue of this sea is the narrow gulf or bay in which it terminates to the north-west near Suez, called by the old writers the Sinus Heroopolitanus, to distinguish it from the Sinus Elaniticus, the north-east extremity. Through the former the Israelites passed when they left Egypt, and it is now predicted that it shall be utterly destroyed, i. e. dried up. At the same time the Euphrates is to be smitten into seven streams, and so made fordable, as Cyrus is said to have reduced the Gyndes by diverting its water into many artificial channels. The terms are probably strong figures drawn from the early history and experience of Israel.

16. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of my people, which shall be left, from Assyria, as there was for Israel, in the day of his coming up from the land of Egypt. This verse admits of two interpretations. According to one, it is a comparison of the former deliverance from Egypt with the future one from Assyria and the neighbouring countries, where most Jewish exiles were to be found. According to the other, it is a repetition of the preceding promise, that previous deliverances, particularly those from Egypt and Assyria, should be repeated in the future history of the church. The fulfilment has been sought by different interpreters, in the return from Babylon,

in the general progress of the gospel, and in the future restoration of the Jews. The first of these can at most be regarded only as a partial or inchoate fulfilment, and against the last lies the obvious objection, that the context contains promises and threatenings which are obviously figurative, although so expressed as to contain allusion to remarkable events in the experience of Israel. Such is the dividing or drying up of the tongue of the Red Sea, which must either be figuratively understood, or supposed to refer to a future miracle, which last hypothesis is certainly not necessary, and therefore can be fully justified by nothing but the actual event.

CHAPTER XII.

TAKING occasion from the reference to Egypt and the exodus in the close of the preceding chapter, the Prophet now puts into the mouth of Israel a song analogous to that of Moses, from which some of the expressions are directly borrowed. The structure of this Psalm is very regular, consisting of two parts, in each of which the Prophet first tells the people what they will say, or have a right to say, when the foregoing promises are verified, and then addresses them again in his own person and in the usual language of prediction. In the first stanza, they are made to acknowledge the divine compassion and to express their confidence in God as the source of all their strength, and therefore the rightful object of their praise, vs. 1-3. In the second stanza, they exhort one another to make known what God has done for them, not only at home but among all nations, and are exhorted by the Prophet to re joice in the manifested presence of Jehovah, vs. 4–6.

1. And thou (Israel, the people of God) shalt say in that day (when the foregoing promise is accomplished) I will praise thee (strictly, acknowledge thee as worthy, and as a benefactor) for thou wast angry with me, but thine anger is turned away and thou comfortest me.--The apparent incongruity of thanking God because he was angry, is removed by considering that the subject of the thanksgiving is the whole complex idea expressed in the remainder of the verse, of which God's being angry is only one element. It was not simply because God. was angry that the people praise him, but because he was angry and his anger ceased. The same idea is expressed by the English Version in another form, by intimating early in the sentence the relation of its parts, whereas it is characteristic of the Hebrew style to state things absolutely first, and qualify them afterwards. The same mode of expression is used by Paul in Greek, when he says (Romans 6: 17), God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have from the heart obeyed etc. Thou comfortest me, not by words only but by

deeds.

2. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust, and not be afraid; for my strength and song is Jah Jehovah, and he is become my salvation. The first verb may be rendered in the present (I trust), as describing an actual state of mind; but the future form, while it sufficiently implies this, at the same time expresses a fixed determination, I will trust, be confident, secure. The next words contain a negative expression of the same idea. My strength and my song, i. e. the source of my protection and the subject of my praise.

3. And ye shall draw water with joy from the springs of salvation. This is a natural and common figure for obtaining and enjoying divine favour.

4. And ye shall say (to one another) in that day, praise (or give thanks to) Jehovah, call upon his name (proclaim it), make known among the nations his exploits (or achievements), remind (them) that his name is exalted. Name is here used in the pregnant sense of that whereby God makes himself known, including explicit revelation and the exhibition of his attributes in all.

5. Praise Jehovah (by singing, and perhaps with instruments) because he has done elevation (or sublimity, i. e. a sublime deed). Known is this (or be this) in all the earth, means properly to play upon stringed instruments, then to sing with an accompaniment, then to sing in general, then to praise by singing or by music generally. In this last sense it may govern the noun directly. The English Version, excellent things, is too indefinite. The English Version supplies is, and makes the last clause an appeal to the whole world for the truth of the thing celebrated. Most of the recent versions make it an imperative expression, exhorting to a general diffusion of the truth.

6. Cry out and shout (or sing), oh inhabitant of Zion (the people or the church personified as a woman), for great in the midst of thee (residing in thee by a special manifestation of his presence) is the Holy One of Israel (that Holy Being who has bound himself to Israel, in a peculiar and extraordinary manner, as their covenant God).

8*

CHAPTERS XIII, XIV.

HERE begins a series of prophecies (chap. XIII-XXIII) against certain foreign powers, from the enmity of which Israel had been more or less a sufferer. The first in the series is a memorable prophecy of the fall of the Babylonian empire and the destruction of Babylon itself (chap. XIII, XIV). The Medes are expressly named as the instruments of its subjection, and the prophecy contains several other remarkable coincidences with history both sacred and profane. Hence it was justly regarded by the older writers, both Jews and Christians, as an extraordinary instance of prophetic foresight. The great majority of Christian writers understand these chapters as a specific prophecy of the downfall of the Babylonian empire occasioned by the conquests of the Medes and Persians. To this event there are repeated unequivocal allusions. There are some points, however, in which the coincidence of prophecy and history, on this hypothesis, is not so clear. This is especially the case with respect to the total destruction and annihilation of the city itself, which was brought about by a gradual process through a course of ages. The true solution of this difficulty is that the prediction is generic, not specific; that it is not a detailed account of one event exclusively, but a prophetic picture of the fall of Babylon considered as a whole, some of the traits being taken from the first and some from the last stage of the fatal process, while others are indefinite or common to all. The same idea may be otherwise expressed by saying, that the king of Babylon, whose fall is here predicted, is neither Nebuchadnezzar nor Belshazzar, but the kings of Babylon collectively, or rather an ideal king of Babylon, in whom the character and fate of the whole empire are concentrated. Some of the terms applied to him may therefore be literally true of one king, some of