all nations and tongues together: and they shall come, and see my glory.

19. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, Tarshish, Pal, and Lud, Mesech [skilled in the bow]*, Tubal, and Javan, and distant islands, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. 20. And they shall bring all your brethren out of all nations, an offering unto the Lord, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and in covered vehicles, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel unto the house of the Lord. 21. And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. 22. For, as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and 23. And it shall come to your name remain.

"the heathens practised magic or divination, and saith, that 66 some derived the word puclngior from us." Mr. Lowth in loc.

* Mesech skilled in the bow.] It seems evident, that nup has crept into the text from the original gloss of some transcriber, who mistook the proper name Mesech for a participle, and therefore pluralized it in his note, adding nup to it by way of explanation. The word nup could not have been in the copy, which the Lxx used; for they justly consider Mesech to be a proper name, writing it Mocox, and make not the least mention of any bow. Mesech is ordinarily joined with Tubal, precisely as we ought to read in the present passage. See Ezek. xxvii. 13. xxxii. 26. xxxviii. 2. xxxix. 1. See also Bp. Lowth in loc.

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pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. 24. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die *, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

COMMENTARY.

Isaiah, in the last of his prophecies, seem as it were to sum up, in exact chronological order, all that he had previously said relative to the restoration of the house of Israel. He had already taught us, that part of his countrymen should return by sea, and part by land: that those who returned by sea, namely the converted of Judah, should be chiefly brought back through the instrumentality of the ships of Tarshish, or the navy of the then principal maritime European power, of the then modern Tyre: that Antichrist and his associates, who will contemporaneously restore certain members of the house of Judah in an unconverted state, should at

* Their worm shall not die.] An allusion to the valley of Hinnom. The whole conclusion of this prophecy is couched under" images, which relate not to the translation of the just “to heaven, and the burning of the wicked in hell; but to the

placing of the faithful in a state of peace and security on "earth, and to the excision of the incorrigible of the irreligious "faction." Bp. Horsley's Letter on the 18th Chap. of Isaiah,

P. 97,

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the same era be utterly overthrown; and that another grand division of Israel, or the ten tribes, should be brought back out of all nations, notwithstanding they had so long vanished, as it were, from the face of the earth, and had been lost in the countries whither they had been carried away captive. He now repeats much of what he had said before, adding however certain other particulars which are highly interesting and important.

He begins with calling upon the Jews, who, in the midst of their long blindness, had never ceased to venerate their ancient Scriptures, to hear the word of the Lord. This word declareth to them, that their brethren of the Gentiles, who, through a succession of dark and bigotted ages, had hated them, and had cast them out, from a pretended zeal for the glory of God, and as if persecution had been a meritorious act of faith, should now have abundant reason to fear and be ashamed. The Gentiles, here alluded to, are manifestly those of the papal apostasy, whose descendants at the time of the end shall constitute the great Roman confederacy of Antichrist. The various persecutions, which the Jews have suffered throughout Europe from the bloody superstition of Popery, are well known*: England herself, while she remained in the polluted communion of Rome, partook largely, as of her other sins, so of this

*See Bp. Newton's Dissert. vIF.

Since

Since the reformation, the Jews have been persecuted only in Popish countries: to them therefore we may safely apply the words of the present prophecy *.

But, when the Papacy shall have filled up the measure of its iniquities by leaguing itself with Antichrist, by sanctioning all his enormities, by entering into a confederacy with him, by proclaiming (such is the wretched perversion of language) a holy war of extermination against the converted Jews and their supporters the mighty maritime protestant nation; then shall the Lord suddenly cause his voice to be heard from his holy temple, and shall render recompence unto his enemies. Under the image of a woman travailing and bearing a man-child, the prophet sets forth the unexpected conversion and restoration of Judah. The description necessarily implies, that these great and wonderful events will be almost as it were instantaneous. Ere Zion hath well begun to travail, the time of her delivery is come. As a single address of St. Peter converted three thousand of the Jews, and brought them unto God the first fruits of their people so now a yet more astonishing thing shall happen; a whole nation shall be born at once. It is no objection to say, Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? The Lord himself affords an answer by asking, Shall I bring

* See Bp. Newton's Dissert. VII. 15.

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to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? Shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? From the whole passage we must necessarily, I think, conclude, that the conversion of Judah will be sudden as that of St. Paul, general as that of the congregation of St. Peter *.

The whole, that the prophet has hitherto said, refers exclusively to the conversion of one great branch of Judah and to the restoration of that branch by the instrumentality of the maritime power; an event, which is destined to take place previous to the no less remarkable event of the conversion and restoration of the ten tribes: he now, therefore, preparatory to his prediction concerning the second of these events, directs our attention to the overthrow of the Antichristian confederacy. He declares, that, at the period of the restoration of Judah, the Lord will plead with all flesh by fire and sword; and that great shall be the slaughter of his enemies. The criminality of these his enemies had already been partly described, as consisting in a persecution of the Jews under the pretext of

* I may however here again observe, that, although the whole of Judah will be restored previously to Israel, yet there is reason to believe that he will be restored partly in a converted and partly in an unconverted state, partly by sea and partly by land, partly by some great maritime power, and partly by Antichrist. It appears that the conversion of both these branches of Judah will be so sudden, as to deserve to be considered (comparatively speaking) as instantaneous.

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