and I made Lebanon mourn for him, and all the trees of the field faint for him. 16. At the sound of his fall I made the nations shake, when I made him go down to Sheol with those that go down to the pit; and these were comforted in the lower regions of the earth, all the trees of Eden, the choice and good of Lebanon, all that drink water. 17. They also went down to Sheol with him, to the pierced-through with the sword, and, his arm, they dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the nations.1 18. To whom art thou so exactly like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? and art to be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower regions of the earth; in the midst of the uncircumcised thou shalt lie with the piercedthrough with the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord Jehovah."

This parabolical representation, it will be observed, is marked by the same peculiarity, which we had occasion to notice in the ideal delineation of the king of Tyre; it combines the historical with the figurative. While the cedar that represents the king of Assyria is called a cedar in Lebanon-Lebanon being by way of eminence the region of cedars-it is presently transferred in the prophet's imagination to the land of primeval beauty and perfection, the Eden in which was the garden that God had planted. There this cedar is described as flourishing, and growing till it overtopt in magnificence and beauty all the trees of the field around it; because, fed in a manner quite peculiar with the waters of that deep flood, which, rising somewhere in Eden, divided itself into four branches and watered the whole garden. Thus happily circumstanced, the exuberance and glory of paradise appeared to revive in this singular tree, and none even there could be compared with it. But it was only, that it might afford another specimen of that instability and transitoriness which belongs to all on earth, when the good bestowed by Heaven is

treasures, and to withhold the streams which it had hitherto poured forth with joyfulness; for it is of the nature of grief to contract and seal up the flowing streams of plenty.

1 It cannot be denied that the latter clause of this 17th verse is very peculiar in its construction and obscure in its import. Various emendations have been proposed in the text, but, as usual, with no satisfactory result; so that the last emendator, Hitzig, has still his own to propose, and, we have no hesitation in saying, with no better success than his predecessors. Many, after the LXX., with a slight difference in the punctuation, read his seed, for his arm; but the king of Assyria, as here considered, had no seed; he was the last of his race. I take: And, his arm, they dwelt, for: Even they who, as his arm, had dwelt, or: though, being his arm (the instruments of his power and glory) they had dwelt. Their connection with him was such, that they could not but share his fate.

abused to purposes of selfishness, and the creature begins to thrust himself into the place of his Creator. Thus the incomparable cedar, forgetting as it were, its own place, is given to destruction, and its place is no more found.

Transferred to the king of Assyria, whom the cedar represented, this parabolical history tells us in the first instance, of his unparalleled greatness; he was the head and centre of a vast monarchy, which was fed by the tributary streams of surrounding nations, and gathered within its ample bosom the resources of the civilised world. But its peerless grandeur proved the occasion of its overthrow; for it only served to nurse into fatal maturity that "pride which goeth before a fall." How thoroughly the loftiness of spirit in the head of that monarchy kept pace with the growth and magnitude of his dominion, may be seen from the Heaven-daring language of Sennacherib to Hezekiah, when, before the gates of Jerusalem, his servants openly blasphemed and defied the God of Israel. Most truly was his heart lifted up in his greatness; and the hand of a righteous God must cast him down. When God's purpose is formed, the proper instrument is sure to be forthcoming at the appointed time; and in an amazingly brief period, the mighty fabric of Assyrian glory fell, an irrecoverable ruin. It was a lesson on a gigantic scale to the world that then was, how God in his providence abases the proud, and scatters the mighty from their seats; how all power and glory that is of the world, is destined to vanish away as a dream of the night! And connected, as it here is, with the guilt and the doom of Pharaoh, it was to him, and to those who knew the will of God concerning him, an instructive warning and example of that which certainly awaited him! for, in the government of an unchangeable God, that which has been, is the sure index to what in like circumstances shall again be.

CHAPTER XXXII.

SONGS OF LAMENTATION OVER THE FALL OF PHARAOH AND HIS KINGDOM.

THIS chapter is composed of two closely-related parts, though the visions contained in them were given at two different periods, -the one on the first, the other on the fifteenth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year. They are both elegies, or songs of lamentation over the coming fall of Pharaoh and his kingdom; not entirely, however, in the same strain, but with certain marked differences in the one as compared with the other, which will appear as we proceed. They afford striking examples of that feature in the prophet's mental constitution, which delighted in amplifying his subject, and following it out to all, even the most minute and varied particulars. He would leave nothing to be supplied by the reader's own fancy, but would place every circumstance and result distinctly before his view.

The first vision reaches to the close of ver. 16, and is as follows:

Ver. 1. And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 2. Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say unto him, A lion of the nations thou art like, and thou art the crocodile in the waters, and dost break forth in thy rivers, and dost trouble the waters with thy feet, and makest foul their rivers.1 3. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I will spread upon thee my net, in the assembly of many peoples (that is, with such for spectators, ver. 9, 10), and they make thee to come

1 There is a crowding of thought here, and in connection with that a mixture also of images. Pharaoh is like a lion on dry land among the nations, and a monster, a crocodile, in the rivers. The idea, however, is still the same Pharaoh was an object of terror, by reason of his great power and dominion. And his breaking forth,-for such is undoubtedly the usual, and here quite appropriate, meaning of ; and there is no need for repairing, with Hävernick and Hitzig, to the cognate languages for some other, his breaking forth in the waters, like an impetuous and self-willed monster of the deep, and disturbing them with the commotion he raised, is merely added to strengthen the idea of his formidable character.

up with my drag. 4. And I leave thee on the land, on the face of the field I cast thee, and I make to nestle on thee all the fowl of the heavens, and I will satiate with thee the beasts of the whole earth. 5. And I lay thy flesh upon the hills, and fill the valleys with thy hugeness. 6. And I water the earth with what flows from thee, from thy blood (reaching) to the hills, and the valleys are full of thee. 7. And I cover the heavens when I extinguish thee (literally, with thy extinguishing), and darken their stars, I will cover the sun with clouds, and the moon shall not shine in brightness. 8. All the shining lights of heaven I will bedim for thee, and I give darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord Jehovah. 9. And I will grieve the heart of many peoples, when I bring thy ruins among the nations, to lands which thou hast not known. 10. And I make many peoples astonied at thee, and their kings shall be filled with horror because of thee, when I brandish my sword in their faces; and they tremble every moment each for his life in the day of thy fall. 11. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, The sword of the king of Babylon shall come on thee. 12. By the swords of the mighty I will cause thy multitude to fall, the terrible of the nations, all of them; and they shall spoil the pride of Egypt, and all her multitude shall perish. 13. And I will destroy all her cattle, from beside the great waters, and the foot of man shall not trouble them any more, nor shall the hoofs of beasts trouble them. 14. Then will I cause their waters to subside, and will make their rivers flow like oil, saith the Lord Jehovah;5 15. When I make the land of Egypt desolate, and the

1 With thy hugeness, . The verb

commonly signifying, to be high, lifted up, greatened; and the participle, lofty, great of stature; it is a very natural meaning for the noun to bear here, hugeness,—such an elevation or magnitude as to fill up the valleys of the land. It might be put more literally thy prominences, thy projecting heights (referring, perhaps, to the scaly protuberances of the crocodile), these filling up the valleys, as the flesh was to be spread over the hills. Havernick's corrupting corpse, and Hitzig's blood, are quite fanciful, and are without the least shadow of support in Hebrew.

2 The first part of ver. 6: And I water the earth with, or make the earth to drink, what flows from thee, is evidently the correct rendering, and is now generally adopted; though De Wette still has, "where thou swimmest." But, as Hävernick remarks, the verb, from which comes, never signifies exactly to swim, but rather to flow, or stream out; hence the word here, which is properly a participle, the discharging or streaming of blood that flowed out from the slain creature.

3 Pharaoh is represented, in these two verses, as himself a great light of heaven, a star of the first magnitude, at the fall of which the whole heavenly host are put into disorder, and veiled in darkness. A poetical representation, of course; to show the terrible sensation that would naturally be caused in the political heavens by the fall of so great a monarchy: trouble and confusion would seize many a heart.

4 66 Thy ruins,", literally, thy breakage or fracture, a strong expression for the broken and ruined people themselves. Shattered and dispersed, they would appear among the nations as one great fracture,-the ruins of what they had been.

Our translators give the first part of this verse: Then will I make their

land is destitute of that of which it was full; when I smite all the inhabitants in it; then they shall know that I am Jehovah. 16. This is a lamentation, and they lament her; the daughters of the nations shall lament her; upon Egypt and upon all her multitude they shall lament her, saith the Lord Jehovah.

In this first song of lamentation, there is a gradual transition from the strictly figurative to the more literal. It begins with parabolical representations of the coming destruction of Pharaoh's greatness: the huge monster, that had moved at will and troubled all around him, becomes himself a helpless prey in the hands of the mighty; and his mortal remains are spread forth over hill and dale, so that they everywhere meet the eyes of men, and cover with the monuments of his fall the whole extent of his kingdom. This is the main idea intended to be conveyed by the details of this part of the description. It was not to be, as if the proud monarch, after being slain, were buried out of sight, and no more seen or thought of among men. The circumstances connected with his overthrow should be ordered so as to keep fully before them his fallen greatness, that they might neither forget him, nor the sad change that had taken place in his condition. And the idea is still further expanded, by the introduction of a new image-the extinguishing of the light of that portion of the world, so as to make it, instead of a bright and illuminated region, a land of darkness, striking horror into the minds of those who should behold it. Then, becoming more literal in his delineations, the prophet exhibits the kingdom of Egypt as a general wreck; its people scattered in fragments among the nations; its riches given up as a spoil to the hands. of enemies; its waters no more frequented by man or beast, and themselves shrivelled into smaller dimensions, and running smooth and calm in their channels, as if they were no longer able to overflow their banks, and saturate the fields with the means of fruitfulness and plenty.

We see thus a gradual change from the more to the less figu

waters deep. The verb is, properly, to sink; but this, as applied to a river, may be variously understood, according to the circumstances. When the discourse here is of a diminishing of the resources of Egypt, the most natural sense is, certainly, the subsiding of her waters,-make them sink or decrease, so that they should not overflow, but keep easily in their proper channel. To deepen, in the sense of increasing, or to make them clear, are both unsuitable.