CHAPTER V. VERSES 1-4, 30.

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. 2 Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. 3 Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. 30 In that night was Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans slain.

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V. I. A GREAT FEAST] Chaldee, lèkhěm rav, a feast, a great (one).' Lekhem is the Chaldee for 'food,' and thence is used to represent a large supply of food, a banquet. LXX., deipnon mega, ‘a great feast.' (The Greek deipnon answered to the modern fashionable dinner,' both as forming the principal meal of the day, and as being served up in the evening.) V., grande convivium, ‘a great feast.'

AND DRANK WINE] Chaldee, vě-lah-qahvāl alpah khamrah shahtha, and to (or before) a thousand he drank wine.' The Chaldee khamrah corresponds to the Hebrew khemer, but its primitive sense of 'foaming' had merged into a new and pregnant significance, from the practice of adding to the juice of the grape an artificial form and depth of color, the outward sign of qualities holding fierce enmity with the blood of man,' yet capable of exercising a fatal witchery over his nervous system. As the king drank, so did his nobles. The LXX. has and over against the thousand, wine.' The V. has and he drank to every one according to his age'-i. e. he toasted the principal guests.

V. 2. BELSHAZZAR, WHILE HE TASTED THE WINE, COMMANDED] Chaldee, Belshatzar amar bitam khamrah, 'Belshazzar ordered, in the taste of wine’= whilst drinking wine, he ordered, etc. Yet more than simple tasting is probably designed by bitam khamrah; for as teăm, from the original sense of 'tasting' or 'flavor,' acquired the secondary meanings of 'knowledge,' 'decree,' 'command,' the clause might not be improperly translated 'Belshazzar ordered, by (or under) the influence (or inspiration) of wine,' etc. Dr Gill's note is, "As he was drinking his cups, and delighted with the taste of the wine, and got merry with it; or, 'by the advice of the wine,' as Aben Ezra and Jarchi interpret it, as if that dictated to him and put him upon doing what follows; and which often puts both foolish and wicked things into the heads of men, and upon doing them." LXX., kai peinōn Baltasar eipen en tee geusei tou oinou, and Belshazzar drinking, said, in the taste of the wine.' The edition of the Lxx. preserved by Origen reads, enupsoumenos apo tou oinou, lifted up by the wine.' The V. is abrupt and expressive, præcepit ergo jam temulentus, 'he commanded, therefore, being now intoxicated.' Any reverence he might have felt for the sacred vessels of the Jewish temple vanished as soon as the wine had done its work of disturbance in the brain.

The feast was such as might be expected to take place under the presidency of an absolute king, pampered and dissolute, and wishing to vaunt of his security,

while his kingdom was in fact departing from him. This dissipation was the natural, but not less providential antecedent of the catastrophe sketched in the words, 'In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.' According to Xenophon, in his 'Cyropædia' (vii. 5, 15), all Babylon was given up to revelry while celebrating one of the great festivals of Bel; and taking advantage of this dissipation, Cyrus captured the city, and the king was slain. According to Herodotus, the gates opening toward the river Euphrates having been left open and unguarded, owing to the inebriety of the soldiers, the Persian prince (whose refusal as a boy to taste wine because it had poison in it, is one of the stories one wishes to believe) had no difficulty in entering with the troops he had marched down the river's bed, after drawing off its waters into an artificial channel. The name of the king who thus ingloriously fell was given by Berosus as Nabonnedus, or Nabonadius; Nabonnidochus, by Megasthenes; and Labynetus,* by Herodotus. And this discrepancy of nomenclature between the Scripture and secular historians had not been left unused to discredit the narrative of the former. But Sir H. Rawlinson deciphered, in 1854, some cylinders found in the ancient Ur of the Chaldees, which testified that the eldest son of Nabonnedus was called Bel-sharezar, and was admitted to a share in the government. "And we can now understand," writes Rawlinson, "how Belshazzar, as joint-king with his father, may have been governor of Babylon when the city was attacked by the combined forces of the Medes and Persians, and may have perished in the assault which followed; while Nabonnedus, leading a force to the relief of the place, was defeated and obliged to take refuge in Borsippa, capitulating after a short resistance, and being subsequently assigned, according to Berosus, an honorable retirement in Carmania." If this theory is correct, Belshazzar was slain B. C. 538; but if that of Niebuhr be entertained, which makes Belshazzar identical with Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and a first capture of Babylon to have happened under Astyages (= Darius) the Mede, his death must be placed twenty-one years earlier, B. C. 559.

It may be fitly asked, why so many modern critics refuse to treat the difficulties of the wine question as they do others,-as, for example, the one just discussed? Here they not only do not object to suppose facts that might remove a discrepancy, but search for such facts, and hail their discovery with delight. But while in the case of the governor of Babylon they are willing to accept two kings at once, they as positively refuse to discriminate the quality of wines, which, they tenaciously affirm, are but of one kind, and that of which the words are uttered, 'Wine is a mocker.'

CHAPTER X. VERSE 3.

I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.

WINE] Hebrew, yayin. Daniel does not use the Hebrew word khèměr, which might have indicated a liquor analogous to the Chaldee khamrah, drunk by Belshazzar and his lords, but he uses the generic name for the juice of the grape in all its expressed forms. In the absence of information, no one has a right to decide that Daniel, in his old age, habitually consumed the kind of yayin which

These three names are the same; in the last, L is substituted for N.

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the royal Preacher had designated a mocker,' and which the older prophets of his nation had employed as a symbol of Divine retribution. Innocent preparations of yayin could be procured in abundance. The question, what kind of wine Daniel drank, is to be answered, so far as an answer is possible, by the proba bilities of the case. That somebody consumed innocent vinous preparations is certain is it probable that the prophets and saints were the sole persons who refused to do so? Is it likely that, while moral pagans preferred good wines, the prophets and religious Jews invariably selected the drugged and intoxicating? But the associated element of Daniel's abstinence will refute the whole principle of the argument. He abstained from 'flesh.' Does this imply, because the term is generic, that, before and after his temporary abstinence from all animal food, he consumed pork and every other ordinary form of flesh? If there was discrimination in the case of the meat, why not in the case of the wine? If, behind the general formula, we have to place many guiding principles of limitation in regard to 'flesh,' universally a satisfier, is it not equally rational to do so in respect of 'wine,' of which one kind at least is said to be a deceiver and a poison? Whatever answer is returned can in no degree affect the general argument for abstinence based on Science and Experience, nor the particular argument deduced from the signal success of the abstinent practice which, in his youth, Daniel so firmly adopted and so consistently pursued.

THE

BOOK OF THE PROPHET HOSEA.

[HOSEA FLOURISHED ABOUT THE YEAR 750 B. C.]

CHAPTER II. VERSE 5.

For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

AND MY DRINK] Hebrew, vè-shiqquyahi, ‘and my drinks'; Lxx., kai panta hosa moi katheekei, and all things which it befits me (to have).' So the Syriac and Arabic. V., et potum meum, and my drink.' But the Aldine edition of the LXX. has ho oinos mou, my wine'; the T. of Jonathan, and all my sustenance.' These drinks' were probably aromatic compounds, such as a luxurious appetite would delight in.

CHAPTER II. VERSE 8.

For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

CORN, AND WINE, AND OIL] Hebrew, had-dahgan, vè-hat-tirosh, vě-hay-yitzhar, the corn, and the vine-fruit, and the orchard-fruit.' These principal products of the soil are here enumerated in the order which they had held in the Jewish writings for seven hundred years. LXX., siton, oinon, elaion; V., frumentum, vinum, oleum; Newcome, 'corn and choice wine'; Benisch, 'corn and must.'

CHAPTER II. VERSE 9.

Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

AND MY WINE IN THE SEASON THEREOF] Hebrew, vě-tiroshi bè-moado, and my vine-fruit in its appointed time.' The corn (dahgan) and tirosh are here both represented as being directly created by God, and having their seasons of maturity. Stronger evidence could hardly be afforded of their common nature as the solid outgrowth of the fertile earth. LXX, ton oinon mou, V., vinum meum, 'my wine.'

That the ancient Jews understood the language of the text in its plain and natural sense, and had no idea of giving to it a far-fetched metonymical meaning, is evident from the fact preserved to us in the Talmud (treatise 'Berakoth,' cap. vi.), where the various blessings of the Hebrews are explained :—“What blessing must be said for fruit? For fruit which grows upon a tree, say, Who createst the fruit of the tree-save for Wine, wherein the benediction is, 'Who createst the fruit of the vine.' ... For things that derive not their growth immediately from the ground (Psalm civ. 14, 15), say, 'Who gave being to all things.' R. Jehudah says no blessing should be pronounced over things that had their origin in a corruption or curse."

CHAPTER II. VERSE 12.

And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

HER VINES] Hebrew, gaphenah, 'her vine.' So the Lxx. and V. The T. of Jonathan has the fruit of her vine.'

CHAPTER II. VERSE 15.

And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

HER VINEYARDS] Hebrew, eth-kěraměihak, ‘her vineyards.' The LXX. and Arabic have 'her possessions' (ta kteemata); the V., ‘her vine-dressers' (vinitores). The Syriac agrees with the A. V.

CHAPTER II. VERSE 22.

And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

The triad is here repeated, dahgan, tirosh, yitzhar; and by an expressive figure, the earth, which brings them forth, is described as hearing (listening so as to answer) the cry of her offspring for her maternal sustenance. The whole beauty and consistency of this metaphor depends upon the supposition that the tiresh and yitzhar held the same relation to the earth as the dahgan (corn). Lxx., siten, oinon, claion, 'corn, wine, oil.' The V. has triticum, vinum, oleum, wheat, wine, and oil,'-thus further narrowing even the corn to a single species!

CHAPTER III. VERSE 1.

Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.