' recover,' makes ufe of the figure or trope called Irony, by which a perfon expreffes a contrary meaning to the literal fenfe of his words, as appears from his manner of pronouncing them, or fome other circumftance. As there are frequent examples of this in other writings, fo there are fome remarkable instances of it in the Sacred Books. Thus, in Micaiah's fpeech to Ahab,' Go up to Ramoth-Gilead, and profper:' 1 Kings, xxii. 12. And in Solomon's apoftrophe to young men, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, walk after the fight of thine eyes, and after the way of thyheart,' Ecclef. xi. 9.—And in Chrift's addrefs to his difciples, Sleep on now, and take your reft.' Matth. xxvi. 45. For in all these cafes, the speakers intended a fevere prohibition of what they seem, by their words literally considered, to permit or injoin. And this answer to Hazael may be. added to the number, as if Elisha had faid, ' Go, tell ' him he shall recover, difpofed as you are, like a courtier, to flatter him, and encourage his hopes; never'theless, the Lord hath fhewed me he fhall die, instead ' of ever being restored to health and soundness, and ' released from his confinement.' Nor might he be in any fufpence, it was the prophet's defign to forbid him, from his air in uttering the words, more than they who heard the words of the other speakers juft recited upon their different occafions. It is true, upon this hypothesis, Hazael must have told a lie to his mafter, when he affirmed, at going home, The prophet told me, thou fhalt furely recover. But this cannot be any valid objection to fuch fenfe, fince it can never

* The latter claufe in Ecclefiaftes, xi. 9. begins with vau, there turned, but, here, howbeit.

be thought the man who. fcrupled not to fuffocate and fmother his prince, would hesitate to relate to him a falfhood that he might render him more easy and secure, and, perhaps, facilitate the fuccefs of his own wicked machinations against him, by giving rise to greater negligence and remiffness in attending upon him.

It will make little difference, if we reckon the first part of the answer, not a prohibition, in the way of irony, to carry affurances to Benhadad of his recovery, but a prediction that he would do it, for his own purposes. Hereby, as Jefus's words* to the Jews, when they asked from him fome evidence of his authority at purging the temple, John, xx. 19. Destroy this temple, &c. were equivalent to his faying, Ye fhall destroy this temple; fo Elifha's words will be as if he had faid, 'I know + thou wilt go and buoy him t C up with expectations of recovery from his disease, 'through thy fawning temper and difpofition. But 'the Lord hath fhewed me that he will die.' Thereafter, adds the hiftorian, he fixed his eyes upon Ha

So in Virgil's Eclogue 7. ver. 36. Aureus efto,' is for Aureus eris,' where Thyrfis fpeaking of the effect if the young should recruit his flock, tells the god Priapus, he (i. e. his statue) should be of gold instead of marble,

'Si foetura gregem fuppleverit, aureus efto.'

This interpretation is adopted by Houbigant, as well as by fome others. In his verbis, fays he, "Dic ei, certiffime vives," contineri • Elifaei exprobrationem tacitam, cum non nefciret Elifaeus hominem 'de aula regia fuo regi adulaturum.' And feems much more easy than Schmidius's, who would read the first claufe by way of interrogatory, Say to him, fhalt thou live? Shall this favour be granted to thee, who haft fo oppreffed and vexed my people? by no means. 'God hath fhewed me thou fhalt furely die.'

Ι

For

zael till he was afhamed, conscious, probably, of his own black contrivancet.

In any of these ways of interpretation, all shadow of charge against Elisha, for contradiction and equivocalness, is taken away. If, in one of them, we must

Thefe explications do all proceed upon fuppofition that the keri or marginal reading, is the true one which hath to him. And indeed, it appears very probable to have been the original one here, as well as in Ex. xxi. 8. Lev, xi. 21. 1 Sam. ii. 3. 2 Sam. xvi. 18. and some other places. For the authors of the antient versions, the Chaldee, Syriac, Greek, Arabic, and Vulgate, have all translated Elisha's answer to Hazael, as having that pronoun instead of the negative particle. Jofephus alfo appears to have founded his relation of this interview between Elisha and Hazael on the same state of the text, for he says, Antiq. 9. 3. 4. He commanded Hazael to fay nothing disagreeable

to the king,' which he could not have faid with justice, had the negative particle 7 been in his copies.-The change, moreover, might eafily happen. For how readily might a transcriber write not, for

bim, mistaking, through the famenefs of the found, that which was dictated. And, indeed, I would rather conjecture this to have been the cause of the corruption, than that any ignorant perfon, from a pious zeal for the honour and credit of Elisha (that he might not be thought to direct Hazael to utter a falfhood to Benhadad, in bidding him say, That he would furely live, when yet he had life foon cut off) wilfully vitiated his copy, and wrote the particle of negation instead of the pronoun.-Houbigant obferves, in confirmation of the marginal reading, that the verb, with its infinitive conjoined as here, excludes the negatifor fuch a form of writing never occurs but when fomething is affirmed.---There are not wanting, however, learned men, who, after all, give the preference to the cethib or textual reading, though they are not agreed about the meaning. For fome, joining it with fay, tranflate fay not, and fuppofe Elifha to forbid Hazael to give Benhadad any affurance of life, because God had revealed to him his death. 'Go, 'fay not to Benhadad thou shalt furely live, for God hath fhewed me And others join it with live, and make Elifha melancholy tidings of his fpeedy diffolution.

on;

he shall furely die.'

direct him to carry the

suppose a certain tone of voice in speaking, or some other circumftance of which the hiftorian makes no mention, this is no more than what we think equitable to admit in reading paffages, both of antient and modern authors. Why then should we walk by different rules here?

SECTION XVII.

Of his faying that 'little innocents' were devoured at Bethel for words which they said to Elisha in laughing.'-That Ifaiah walked three years quite naked in Jerufalem.-That Jeremiah was only fourteen years old when he was employed as a prophet; and that he prophefied in favour of Nebuchadnezzar.-And of a mistake in his account of God's order to Hofea.

IN the fame page + of the Philofophy of Hiftory, we have his recital of the tranfaction in the neighbourhood of Bethel. But no more is this altogether fair

Go, fay, thou shalt not furely live; for God hath fhewed me he fhall 'furely die.' Such is Junius's and Tremellius's verfion, fuch too is the tranflation of the Dutch divines, of Lyra, and Tostatus, and fome Jewish Rabbis. And a third fort make the negative particle stand apart, and contain Elisha's order to Hazael about his answer to the king's interrogatory, whether he would recover of the disease; after which, according to them, he proceeds to declare what would be his own fate, and what would be the king's. Go fay, not. Thou shalt furely live,

but, the Lord hath fhewed me he shall furely die.' This is the explication given by Raschi, that is, Rabbi Salomon Jarchi, and by Guffetius, who thinks there is a fimilar use of 7 not, 2 Kings, vi. 10. and 1 Kings, xi. 22.

+ Page 205.

when he sets forth, That fo many little children 'faid to Elisha in laughing, Mount, bald-pate, Mount,' and mentions the prophet's vengeance thereupon, in calling forth two bears who devoured the little 'innocents.'

For the original denotes that they spake these words, 'Mount,' or rather, ' Afcend, thou bald-pate, Ascend, thou bald-pate,' in derifion and mockery, away with thyself to heaven, after the example of thy mafter Elijah. Agreeably, even the Vulgate verfion, of which he is so tenacious, as we have obferved, when at any time it furnishes him with a handle to infult and cavil at the facred writers, or the heroes they celebrate, has here, They fcoffed at him, faying, Afcend, thou bald, Afcend, thou bald,' whereas he, by his manner of expreffion, would lead us to think they threw out thefe words in mere unexceptionable gaiety and pleasantry of spirit.

Again, the Hebrew word ya nagnarim, tranflated children, occurs, as is well known, concerning perfons arrived to years of difcretion: for Ifhmael when he mocks Ifaac, and could not be less than fifteen or fixteen years old; Ifaac, when he carried the wood for the burnt-offering, and difcourfed fo rationally with his father in their journey to mount Moriah; Jofeph, when he was seventeen years old, and kept the flocks of the family in the field; nay, when he interpreted the dreams of his fellow prifoners in Egypt, and was not much short of thirty; and Rehoboam, when he rejected the requests of his fubjects, about granting an abatement of their burdens, in oppofition to the more prudent advice of his father's old counfellors, are each called y nag