No. 1142.-iv. 10. The pestilence after the manner of Egypt.] Abp. Newcome says, that this means the unwholesome effluvia on the subsiding of the Nile, which causes some peculiarly malignant diseases in this country. Maillet (Lett. i. p. 14.) says, that “the air is bad in those parts, where, when the inundations of the Nile have been very great, this river, in retiring to its channel, leaves marshy places, which infect the country round about. The dew is also very dangerous in Egypt."

No. 1143.-vii. 14. A gatherer of sycamore fruit,] or more properly, a dresser of sycamore fruit. Pococke gives the following account of it. "The dumez (of Egypt) is called by the Europeans Pharaoh's fig; it is the sycamore of the ancients, and is properly a ficus fatuus, (wild fig.) The fig is small, but like the common figs. At the end of it a sort of water gathers together; and unless it be cut, and the water let out, it will not ripen. This they sometimes do, covering the bough with a net to keep off the birds: and the fruit is not bad, though it is not esteemed. It is a large spreading tree, with a round leaf, and has this particular quality, that short branches without leaves come out of the great limbs all about the wood; and these bear the fruit. It was of the timber of these trees that the ancient Egyptians made their coffins for their embalmed bodies, and the wood remains sound to this day." Travels, vol. i. p. 205.

This shews the propriety of rendering Psalms lxxviii. 47. He destroyed their sycamore trees with frost.

No. 1144.-OBADIAH, ver. 18.

There shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau.

THEY shall all be cut off by, or swallowed up among, the Jews: not so much as a torch-bearer left, one that carries the lights before an army, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; which versions, and the custom alluded to, serve very much to illustrate the passage. It was usual with the Greeks (Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. 1. v. c. 3.) when armies were about to engage, that before the first ensigns stood a prophet or priest bearing branches of laurels and garlands, who was called Pyrophorus, or the torch-bearer, because he held a lamp or torch; and it was accounted a most criminal thing to do him any hurt, because he performed the office of an embassador. This sort of men were priests of Mars and sacred to him, so that those who were conquerors always spared them. Hence, when a total destruction of an army, place, or people was hyperbolically expressed, it used to be said, not so much as a torch-bearer, or fire-carrier, escaped. (Herodot. Urania, sive 1. viii. c. 6.) So Philo the Jew, speaking of the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, says, there was not so much as a torch-bearer left to declare the calamity to the Egyptians. And thus here, so general should be the destruction of the Edomites, that not one should be left in such an office as just described.

No. 1145.-MICAH v. 8.

As a young lion among the flocks of sheep; which, if he go through, both treadeth down and teareth in pieces.

THE lion is remarkable for tearing his prey to pieces. This circumstance is particularly noted both by sacred and profane writers. Gen. xlix. 9. Deut. xxxiii. 22. Psalm xxii. 13. Hosea xiii. 8. Thus also Virgil:

1

Impastus ceu plena leo per ovilia turbans,

(Suadet enim vesana fames) manditque trahitque
Molle pecus.

The famish'd lion, thus with hunger bold,
O'erleaps the fences of the nightly fold,
And tears the peaceful flocks.

Comp. Homer, Il. xi. lin. 176.

Æn. ix. 339.

DRYDEN.

Buffon says, (Nat. Hist. tom. viii. p. 124.) when the lion leaps on his prey, he gives a spring of ten or fifteen feet, falls on, seizes it with his fore-paws, tears it with his claws, and afterwards devours it with his teeth.

No. 1146.-vi. 7. Shall I give my first-born for my transgression?] This actually was the practice of the inhabitants of Florida. The ceremony was always performed in the presence of one of those princes or caciques, whom they call paraoustis. The victim must always be a male infant. The mother of it covers her face, and weeps and groans over the stone, against which the child is to be dashed in pieces. The women who accompany her sing and dance in a circle, while another woman stands up in the middle of the ring, holding the child in her arms, and shewing it at a

!

distance to the paraousti; who probably is esteemed a representative of the sun, or deity to which the victim is offered; after which the sacrifice is made. "The Peruvians of quality, and those too of mean sort, would sacrifice their first-born to redeem their own life, when the priest pronounced that they were mortally sick." More's Explanation of Grand Mystery, p. 86. And as the king of Moab when in distress took his firstborn son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering, 2 Kings iii. 27. so "Hacon king of Norway offered his son in sacrifice, to obtain of Odin the, victory over his enemy Harald. Aune king of Sweden devoted to Odin the blood of his nine sons, to prevail on that god to prolong his life.” See MAILLETT's Northern Antiquities, vol. i. p. 134.

No. 1147.-vii. 19. Thou wilt cast all thy sins into the depths of the sea.] It is a custom with the modern Jews on new year's day to sound the horn, to invite the people to hearken with humility and attention to the judgments of God, and to thank him for his favour and support during the year which is just ended. This festival lasts two days, and all the people in the synagogue are to pray with a loud voice and in a húmbler posture than usual. In Germany the Jews send their children to the grand rabbi to receive his benediction; and when they sit down to table, the master of the house takes a bit of bread, and dips it in honey, saying, may this year be sweet and fruitful; and all the guests do the same. They seldom omit serving up a sheep's head at this entertainment, which they say is a mystical representation of the ram sacrificed instead of Isaac. The sounding of the horn is performed standing, where the law is read, the whole congregation remaining in the same posture. This is made of a ram's horn, being also a monument of Isaac's ram. It is

to sun-set.

crooked, as representing the posture of a man humbling himself. The time for blowing it is from sun-rise The ancient Jews upon the day of atonement discharged their sins upon a he-goat, which afterwards was sent into the desert. But the modern Jews, of Germany in particular, instead of a goat, now do it upon the fish. They go after dinner to the brink of a pond, and there shake their clothes over it with all their might. They derive this custom from the passage of the prophet Micah now above cited.

No. 1148.-NAHUM iii. 10.

They cast lots for her honourable men.

THE Custom of casting lots for the captives taken in war appears to have prevailed both with the Jews and Greeks. It is mentioned by another of the prophets, besides the one now referred to. Strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem. Obad. ver. 11. With respect to the Greeks, we have an instance in Tryphiodorus:

Shar'd out by lot, the female captives stand:
The spoils divided with an equal hand :
Each to his ship conveys his rightful share,
Price of their toil, and trophies of the war.

Destruction of Troy, Merrick, ver. 938.