which the author fuppofes to be requifite, he gives notice to the reader of such correction, and offers his reafons for it. CHAP. XIII. The oracle concerning Babylon, which was revealed to Isaiah, the fon of Amots. 2 Upon a lofty mountain erect the standard; 3 Exalt the voice; beckon with the hand; That they may enter the gates of princes. I have given a charge to my enrolled warriors; I have even called my ftrong ones to execute my wrath; 4 A found of a multitude in the mountains, as of a great people; A found of the tumult of kingdoms, of nations gathered together! Jehovah, God of Hofts, muftereth the host for the battle. 5 They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens ; Jehovah, and the inftruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land. 6 Howl ye, for the day of Jehovah is at hand: As a destruction from the Almighty fhall it come. Therefore fhall all hands be flackened; And every heart of mortal fhall melt; and they shall be terrified: 8 Torments and pangs fhall feize them; They fhall look one upon another with astonishment; 9 Behold, the day of Jehovah cometh, inexorable; To make the land a defolation; And her finners he fhall destroy from out of her. 10 Yea the stars of heaven, and the conftellations thereof, Shall not fend forth their light: The fun is darkened at his going forth, And the moon fhall not caufe her light to shine. 11' And I will vifit the world for its evil, And the wicked for their iniquity: And I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud; 13 Wherefore I will make the heavens tremble; 14 And the remnant fhall be, as a roe chafed; And as fheep, when there is none to gather them together; 2 15 Every 15 Every one, that is overtaken, fhall be thruft through; And all that are collected in a body fhall fall by the fword. 16 And their infants fhall be dashed before their eyes; Their houfes fhall be plundered, and their wives ravished. 17 Behold, I raise up against them the Medes; Who fhall hold filver of no account; And as for gold, they fhall not delight in it. 18 Their bows fhall dafh the young men ; And on the fruit of the womb they fhall have no mercy: 19 And Babylon fhall become, fhe that was the beauty of kingdoms, The glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, As the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by the hand of God. 20 It fhall not be inhabited for ever; Nor shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: Neither shall the shepherds make their folds there. 21 But there fhall the wild beafts of the deferts lodge; And howling monsters shall fill their houses: And there fhall the daughters of the oftrich dwell; 22 And wolves fhall howl to one another in their palaces; And her time is near to come; And her days fhall not be prolonged. For Jehovah will have compaffion on Jacob, And will yet choose Ifrael. And he shall give them reft upon their own land: And the ftranger fhall be joined unto them, And fhall cleave unto the house of Jacob. 2 And the nations shall take them, and bring them into their own place; 3 And the houfe of Jacob fhall poffefs them in the land of As fervants, and as handmaids: And they fhall take them captive, whofe captives they were; And they fhall rule over their oppressors. And it fhall come to pafs in that day, that Jehovah fhall give the reft from thine affliction, and from thy difquiet, and from the hard fervitude, which was laid upon thee: 4 and thou shalt pronounce this parable upon the king of Babylon; and fhalt fay: How hath the oppreffor ceafed! the exactress of gold ceased! 5 Jehovah hath broken the staff of the wicked, the fceptre of the rulers. He that fmote the peoples in wrath, with a firoke unre mitted; He that ruled the nations in anger, is perfecuted, and none hindereth. 7 The whole earth is at reft, is quiet; they burft forth into a joyful fhout: 8 Even the fir-trees rejoice over thee, the cedars of Libanus:" Since thou art fallen, no feller hath come up against us. 9 Hades from beneath is moved because of thee, to meet thee at thy coming: He roufeth for thee the mighty dead, all the great chiefs of the earth; He maketh to rife up from their thrones, all the kings of the nations. 10. All of them fhall accoft thee, and fhall fay unto thee: Art thou, even thou too, become weak as we ? art thou made like unto us? 11 Is then thy pride brought down to the grave; the found of thy fprightly instruments ? Is the vermin become thy couch, and the earth-wòrm thy covering? 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, fon of the Morning! Art cut down to the earth, thou that didft fubdue the nations! 13 Yet thou didst fay in thy heart: I will afcend the heavens; Above the ftars of God I will exalt my throne ; 14 And I will fit upon the mount of the divine prefence, on the fides of the north: I will ascend above the highths of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 But thou shalt be brought down to the grave, to the fides of the pit. 16 Thofe that fee thee fhall look attentively at thee; they fhall well confider thee: Is this the man, that made the earth to tremble; that shook the kingdoms ? 17 That made the world like a defert; that destroyed the cities? That never difmiffed his captives to their own home? 18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, Lie down in glory, each in his own fepulchre : 19 But thou art caft out of the grave, as the tree abominated: Cloathed with the flain, with the pierced by the fword, With them that go down to the ftones of the pit; as a trodden carcafe. 20 Thou shalt not be joined unto them in burial; Because thou haft destroyed thy country, thou haft flain thy people: The feed of evil doers fhall never be renowned. 21 Pre 21 Prepare ye flaughter for his children, for the iniquity of their fathers; Left they rife, and poffefs the earth; and fill the face of the world with cities. 22 For I will arise against them, faith Jehovah God of Hofts: And I will cut off from Babylon the name, and the rem nant; And the fon, and the fon's fon, faith Jehovah. 23 And I will make it an inheritance for the porcupine, and pools of water; And I will plunge it in the miry gulph of deftruction, faith. Jehovah God of Holts. 24 Jehovah God of Hofts hath fworn, faying: Surely as I have devised, fo fhall it be; And as I have purposed, that thing shall stand: 25 To crush the Affyrian in my land, and to trample him on my mountains. Then fhall his yoke depart from off them; And his burthen fhall be removed from off their fhoulder.. 26 This is the decree, which is determined on the whole earth; And this the hand, which is ftretched out over all the nations: 27 For Jehovah God of Hofts hath decreed; and who fhall difannul it? And it is his hand, that is ftretched out; and who fhall turn it back ?' The defign of the notes, which are fubjoined, is to give the authorities on which the tranflation is founded; to rectify or to explain the words of the text; to illuftrate the ideas, the images, and the allufions, of the prophet, by referring to objects, notions, and cuftoms, which peculiarly belong to his age and country, to point out the beauties of particular paffages, and fometimes the events, which the prophet foretells. The limits of our Review oblige us to omit many of the author's valuable notes on this paffage. The following however are fome of the moft material. Thefe two chapters (triking off the five laft verfes of the latter, which belong to a quite different fubject,) contain one intire prophecy, foretelling the deftruction of Babylon by the Medes and Perians; delivered probably in the reign of Ahaz, (fee Vitringa, 1. 380.) about 200 years before the completion of it. The captivity itself of the Jews at Babylon (which the prophet does not exprefly foretell, but fuppofes, in the fpirit of prophecy, as what was actually to be effected,) did not fully take place till about 130 years after the delivery of this prophecy and the Medes, who are exprefly mentioned chap. xiii. 17. as the principal agents in the overthrow of the Babylonian monarchy, by which the Jews were releafed from that captivity, were at this time an inconfiderable people; having been in a state of anarchy ever fince the fall of the great Affyrian empire, of which they had made a part, under Sardanapalus D4 danapalus; and did not become a kingdom under Deioces till about the 17th of Hezekiah. The former part of this prophecy is one of the most beautiful examples, that can be given, of elegance of compofition, variety of imagery, and fublimity of fentiment and diction, in the prophetic ftyle; and the latter part confists of an Ode of fupreme and fingular excellence. The prophecy opens with the command of God to gather together the forces which he had destined to this fervice; v. 2, 3. Upon which the prophet immediately hears the tumultuous noise of the different nations crowding together to his standard; he fees them advancing, prepared to execute the divine wrath; v. 4, 5. He proceeds to defcribe the dreadful confequences of this vifitation; the confternation which will feife thofe that are the objects of it; and transferring unawares the fpeech from himself to God, v. 11. fets forth, under a variety of the most striking images, the dreadful deftruction of the inhabitants of Babylon, which will follow; y. 11-16. and the everlasting defolation to which that great city is doomed; v. 17—22. • The deliverance of Judah from captivity, the immediate confequence of this great revolution, is then fet forth, without being much enlarged upon, or greatly amplified: chap. xiv. 1, 2. This introduces, with the greatest eafe, and the utmost propriety, the triumphant Song on that fubject; v. 4-28. The beauties of which, the various images, fcenes, perfons introduced, and the elegant tranfitions from one to another, I fhall here endeavour to point out in their order; leaving a few remarks upon particular paffages of these two chapters, to be given after these general obfervations on the whole. A chorus of Jews is introduced, expreffing their furprise and aftonishment at the fudden downfall of Babylon, and the great reverfe of fortune that had befallen the tyrant, who, like his prede ceffors, had oppreffed his own, and harraffed the neighbouring kingdoms. Thefe oppreffed kingdoms, or their rulers, are reprefented under the image of the fir-trees and the cedars of Libanus, frequently used to exprefs any thing in the political or religious world, that is fupereminently great and majestic: the whole earth shouteth for joy; the cedars of Libanus utter a fevere taunt over the fallen tyrant; and boast their fecurity, now he is no more. The scene is immediately changed; and a new fet of perfons is introduced: the regions of the dead are laid open, and Hades is reprefented as roufing up the fhades of the departed monarchs; they rife from their thrones to meet the king of Babylon at his coming; and infult him on his being reduced to the fame low eftate of impotence and diffolution with themselves. This is one of the boldeit profopopoeias, that ever was attempted in poetry; and is executed with aftonishing brevity and perfpicuity, and with that peculiar force, which in a great subject naturally refults from both. The image of the state of the dead, or the Infernum Poeticum of the Hebrews, is taken from their cuftom of burying, thofe at least of the higher rank, in large fepulchral vaults hewen in the rock. Of this kind of fepulchres there are remains at Jerufalem now extant; and fome that are faid to be the fepulchres of the kings of Judah. See Maundrell, p. 76. You are to form to yourfelt an idea of an immenfe fubterranean vault, a vast gloomy cavern, all round the fides of which there are cells to receive the dead bodies; here the deceafed monarchs lie in a diftinguifhed fort of |