to which man could with any advantage be compared.

But even admitting the ox to stand as a mere metaphor for a brave man, what is there in sacred history to show that the characters of Hamor and Shechem were such as the learned German would infer from his comparison? I am not aware that they are any where represented as heroes by the sacred writer, and surely they exhibited no heroism in their transactions with the daughter and sons of Jacob; on the contrary, there was much licentiousness and more pusillanimity. Upon the whole, then, I greatly prefer the common reading.

An elegant translation has been given of this benediction in the Critica Biblica (vol. i. p. 227.)

Simeon and Levi-brethren !

They completed the iniquity of their stratagems.
O my life, come not thou into their secret!
In their assembly be not one, mine honour!
For in their wrath they slew a man,

Even a prince they cut off in their violence.
Cursed was their wrath, for it was fierce,
And their violence, for it was stubborn!
I will divide them among Jacob,

And disperse them through Israel,

In the third couplet it will be observed that the author reads after Waterland, Durell, and others, against which I have already declared my opinion. In this version, the parallelisms are marked with great distinctness, and the whole artificial conformation is attended to with much exactness. The rendering of the second line is nearly the same as Dr. Adam Clarke's, after the Septuagint and Samaritan copies, which I think

greatly inferior in beauty and force to the reading in our authorized version; nor am I convinced, by the arguments of the learned Wesleyan, that the sense which I prefer is not the true one. In the second couplet, as rendered in the translation just given, a tolerably fair specimen of the epanode may be traced:

O my life, come not thou into their secret!

In their assembly be not one, mine honour.

Here are two pair of terms, one pair being more important than the other; these, as will be seen in the above example, are so disposed as to bring out the sense in the most impressive manner. The two terms of most importance begin and conclude the couplet, whilst the two less prominent are placed between them, which is the peculiar form of this graceful figure. Had the third couplet been given in its natural form, with a very trifling change in the distribution, an epanode would have been likewise produced; e. g.

For a man they slew in their wrath,

In their violence they cut off a prince.

Here again the most emphatic terms begin and end their respective clauses; whereas, by adopting the inversion, as is done by the writer in the Critica Biblica, the beauty of the epanode is destroyed.

The following will, I apprehend, be found a sufficiently intelligible paraphrase of the entire passage. "Simeon and Levi might have succeeded to the forfeited rights of primogeniture,

of which Reuben's incest had justly deprived him, had they not proved such instruments of treachery and cowardly cruelty. cruelty. May my soul be for ever preserved from such sanguinary counsels, and my honour continue unstained by such horrible guilt, for the fierceness of their anger hurried them to break through every obstacle which opposed their terrible revenge. Cursed be their anger, for it was violent in the highest degree, and their vengeance, for it was alike cruel. That savage and inhuman society which they had established for such a barbarous purpose, obliges me to divide their tribes, and, by the spirit of prophecy with which I am endowed, to foretel that their posterities shall be disunited and scattered in Israel."*

• See Dodd's Note.

CHAPTER XIII.

The benediction on Judah.

THE patriarch proceeds in the same strain of prophetic inspiration.

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise;
Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies:
Thy father's children shall bow down before thee.
Judah is a lion's whelp;

From the prey, my son, thou art gone up:

He stooped down, he couched as a lion,

And as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,

Nor a lawgiver from between his feet,

Until Shiloh come,

And unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

Binding his foal unto the vine,

And his ass's colt unto the choice vine;

He washed his garments in wine,

And his clothes in the blood of grapes.
His eyes shall be red with wine,
And his teeth white with milk.

Great as are the obscurities of this prophecy, it nevertheless may be truly said to abound with poetical beauties. They cannot escape detection. The language is highly figurative and animated, the metaphors extremely felicitous and forcible, the pictures presented to the mind exceedingly vivid, graphic, and full of vital energy. Every thought is elevated, every expression vigorous, every image significant,

and every sentiment sublime. The chief obscurity of the prediction lies in that portion of it, which directly refers to the coming of God in the flesh-that great Deliverer, promised to our unhappy progenitors in Paradise, immediately after their signal and ungrateful act of disobedience.

The birth of Him that no beginning knew,
Yet gives beginning to all that are born;
And how the Infinite far greater grew

By growing less; and how the rising morn

That shot from heaven, did back to heaven return;

The obsequies of Him that could not die,

And death of life, end of eternity;

How worthily He died, that died unworthily,*

is the prodigious mystery which was the subject of Jewish prophecy, and which Christianity has revealed to us in all the glory of its accomplishment.

The word Shiloh, in the tenth line, is admitted by nearly all commentators of repute, to refer to the Messiah, of whom, therefore, it may be said to be now universally understood.

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise.

Judah signifies praise, and from this the patriarch took occasion to render the very name of his son, as it were prophetic, declaring, that Judah's descendants should be pre-eminently esteemed among the other tribes, as the Messiah was to proceed from them, and not only should they hold a high rank among the Israel

Giles Fletcher.