nexion with the context, of future times. The last seven chapters are applied by Dr. Henderson to the final conversion and restoration of the Jews, and the millennial state of the church. This gives a satisfactory definiteness to the predictions, and removes all need for that loose allegorizing which cannot be too strongly condemned. Such an application is also fully borne out by other parts of holy writ, and by the consideration that a prophet of the theocracy might naturally be expected to be chiefly charged with the proclamation of what concerned the fortunes of his own nation, and its polity. Yet we think there is something too fanciful in the idea expressed in the introduction to chap. lxvi.; that the prophet there ، anticipates and reprobates the attempt that will be made by the unbelieving portion of the Jews to rebuild their temple and re-establish their ancient ceremonies.' We have no evidence whatever that any such attempt will be made; and it is without example in the prophetic writings that an expostulation should be introduced concerning sinful conduct, the occurrence of which is not directly foreshown. It is doubtless a warning against that inveterate fondness for forms and ceremonies which the Jews have continually manifested. This tendency has been, and ever will be, the great obstacle to their reception of the gospel, with its more pure and spiritual mode of worship. Such declarations, therefore, were well fitted to draw the ancient Jews to a perception and appreciation of the spirit of their law, and to prepare them for the free and noble principles of the Christian dispensation.

But with another interpretation, which may displease some on account of its entire contrariety to received opinions, and with the arguments by which Dr. Henderson has supported it, we were highly satisfied. We mean his explaining chap. xix. 18, 19 of the temple of Onias near Heliopolis, as he does in the text, and in the following notes.

، For by the city of destruction, which several of De Rosse's codices express by Dy, sixteen MSS. and several printed editions read by the city of the sun, which is supported by the renderings of the Complutensian edition of the LXX., Symm. Vulg. Arab. Saad., the Talmud, and other Jewish testimonies. Whether Aq. and Theod. also so read, is uncertain. The Targ. unites both readings. The present is one of the only two passages in the Hebrew Bible, in which Eichhorn is inclined to admit that the Jews have been guilty of wilful corruption; and certainly there is ground to suspect that it has been tampered with, in support of party prejudice. We learn from Josephus and other Jewish authorities, that Ônias, son of the high-priest Onias III., whose right it was to have succeeded to the office, finding that the high priesthood was transferred by Antiochus to another family, fled into Egypt, where he so effectually recommended himself by his talents to Ptolemy Philometor, and his queen Cleopatra, that in the year B.C.

149, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the army; and, soon after, he and Dositheus, one of his countrymen, had committed to them the entire administration of the government. Availing himself of his popularity, Onias persuaded the king to grant him permission to build a temple for the religious services of the numerous Jews resident in Egypt, and actually constructed one on the site of an ancient temple of Bubastis, or Isis, at the city of Leontopolis, in the Heliopolitan nome, of which he was governor. This erection corresponded, in miniature, to the temple at Jerusalem. Onias himself became high-priest; other lineal priests and Levites were appointed; and the whole service was conducted strictly according to the Mosaic ritual. The temple continued to be thus used till the time of the emperor Vespasian, who ordered it to be shut up and finally destroyed, on account of the attempt of the Egyptian Jews to throw off the Roman yoke. Joseph. Antiq. lib. iii. cap. iii. § 1-3, xx. x. § 1. Con. Apion. lib. ii. cap. v. Wolfii Biblioth. Hebr. tom. iv. p. 353. ́ Talmud. Joma, 4. Maimon. Menachoth, 6.

To justify this understanding, Onias appealed to the 19th verse of this chapter, by which the scruples of many of his brethren were removed; but it would seem that strong prejudices continued to be excited and fostered against it, most likely by Palestinian Jews; for the text of the LXX. if not originally, yet very early, exhibited the reading, Adedex, i. e. p the city of righteousness: a reading copied in the Hexaplar Syriac JJ JA, which inserts in the margin the readings of Aq. Symm, and Theod., but takes no notice of the Complutensian 'Ages, so that it cannot have existed in the MSS. consulted by Origen. So violent a departure from the Hebrew text, on the part of the Alexandrian Jews, could only have been provoked by something similar on that of their brethren in Palestine, who, finding the use to which they applied the text, in all probability changed on into D, and thus characterised Heliopolis, the city of the sun, as that of destruction, to which they wished it might be devoted. What warrants this conclusion, in addition to this circumstance and the support it derives from the authorities above quoted, which sustain O, is the total irrelevance of the common reading in such a context. Were the prophet still denouncing judgments against the Egyptians, there would be some propriety in his giving to one of its cities the name of the city of destruction,' but he is speaking of the establishment of the worship of the true God, in application to which, nothing would be more out of place.'

Ver. 19. Commentators generally take the 'altar' and 'pillar' here spoken of in a figurative sense, and some, as Gesenius, regard them as collective nouns, intimating that spiritual worship would be rendered to Jehovah throughout the land of Egypt. Since, however, the prophecy has respect to a period prior to the introduction of the gospel economy, we are not at liberty to interpret the terms otherwise than literally; and as, during the period referred to, myriads of Jews were resident in Egypt, and worshipped the God of their fathers, there seems no valid reason why we should not consider the altar to be that erected by Onias at Leontopolis. It may, indeed, be objected, that such a prediction would sanction the violation of the Mosaic statute, which ordained that sacrifices should nowhere be offered except at the

place which God should choose, Deut. xii. 5-14: but it must be recollected, that this enactment had an exclusive reference to Palestine, to the circumstances of the Israelites as exposed to idolatry in that country, and to the theocracy as established among them there. Had they been at liberty to sacrifice privately, i. e. each at his own altar, it would infallibly have led to idolatrous practices, as the event proved, in the numerous instances in which they transgressed the commandment. None of these reasons apply to the Egyptian Jews. The theocracy was drawing to its close. Few, comparatively, of the Jews in Egypt could repair to Jerusalem at the appointed festivals. No encouragement was given to private sacrifice. The establishment at Leontopolis was exclusive; and Onias, who would have succeeded to the priesthood at Jerusalem, if he had not been unjustly deprived of it, had alone the right to officiate in holy things, and not Alcimus, who only exercised the office of high-priest in virtue of his having been invested with it by Antiochus. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 9. § 7.

'Nor does it appear that this central worship in Egypt had the smallest influence in leading the Jews to practise idolatry, but the contrary. It tended to wean them from an undue attachment to Jerusalem, as the place where men ought to worship,' and to attract the surrounding idolaters to the service of Jehovah; and as both temples were destroyed, under the same emperor, within a few months of each other, and no provision was made in the Hebrew scriptures for any future erection of the kind, it was demonstrated to the Jews that henceforth, neither at Jerusalem nor elsewhere, were men exclusively to worship the Father, but that in every place incense should be offered to his name and a pure offering.'—Mal. i. 11.

By the publication of the present volume Dr. Henderson has conferred a very valuable boon on the Christian public at large, and on students of theology in particular. The latter have now within their reach the collective results of the labors of all preceding commentators on this most important book, digested and freed from whatever was discordant with the spirit of the inspired author. The work of Lowth no longer remains as the only guide to which one could apply when beset with difficulties. Those, too, who wish to consult the prophecies for the evidences of their faith or for encouragement to their hopes, may now do so without fear of being perplexed. They are here presented with an antidote to the conceited vagaries of such literalists as the Brethren, while they need no longer have recourse to the old unsatisfactory expedient of a perpetual vacillation between a temporal and a spiritual reference. We heartily wish success to all Biblical critics, who, like Dr. Henderson, endeavor to elicit and display the mind of the Spirit, by the employment of all the aids which learning can furnish, under the guiding and animating power of the only principles which can lead to the right apprehension of revealed truth.

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Art. IV. 1. Reise in Abyssinien, von Dr. EDUARD RUPPELL. Erster Theil. Frankfurt am Main. 1838.

2. Travels in Abyssinia. By Dr. EDWARD RUPPELL. Vol. I.

DR.

R. Rüppell is well known to our German neighbors by his Travels in Nubia, Kordofan, and Arabia Petræa, which made their appearance in 1829, and also by his Illustrations of African Zoology. The subject of his present work is of equal interest, as it relates to a country of which little knowledge has hitherto been obtained in Europe. Referring to the idea which originated in the narratives of both Salt and Bruce, that the entrance into Abyssinia was barred up with almost insuperable difficulties, and that the individual who penetrated into the interior of the country would have to pay the penalty of his rashness by imprisonment, our author says that he encountered 'none of the obstacles which these travellers had represented as so formidable. Times may have changed in Abyssinia as well 'as elsewhere; be that as it may, it is gratifying to learn that that religious fanaticism, depicted in such fearful colors, no longer exists against Europeans; the hope may therefore be 'entertained, that an abundant harvest will shortly be reaped from this productive field now opened to philosophical (and may we add to Christian ?) research.' The obtaining accurate geographical and statistical information was not the only thing kept in view by Dr. Rüppell in his different journeys into Africa, one principal object was the prosecution of inquiries connected with various branches of natural history. The results of his labors in these distinct departments of knowledge he has published in separate works; it is to the travels alone that we now proceed to introduce the reader.

His first chapter, on the political condition of Egypt under Mehemet Ali, contains a sketch of the political events in which the viceroy or his adherents acted the principal parts, or which were immediately connected with his plans. This history embraces a period of thirty-four years, and ends with 1834; but as other materials exist from which the English reader may obtain information on these points, we pass over this part of the work.

Chapter II. is on the administration of Egypt under Mehemet Ali. The alterations gradually introduced into the government of that country are numerous and vast. At the time of the French invasion, and even down to the end of the year 1809, the only assessment levied on the peasantry was a land-tax, paid partly in money and partly in kind, for such lands as were overflowed by the Nile; the extent of the inundation decided the abundance of the harvest; when it, therefore, had ended,

the probable return could be estimated, and the tax was accordingly fixed for the current year. Any artificial irrigation did not subject the cultivator to an additional tax. In many places this land-tax had become private property; in others it was appropriated to the support of the mosques and to the maintenance of schools. The principal revenues of the government were derived from the customs and from the capitationtax paid by all except the Mahomedan part of the population, increased by occasional contributions levied on individuals and public bodies. These resources proving insufficient to meet the expenses of the war against the Wahabees, Mehemet Ali imposed a tax in money on every village throughout the country. When the individual owners of the taxes of different localities remonstrated, he required them to produce the documents on which they founded their demands. These deeds he never returned, but declared the claims to be null and void. At about the same time he imposed an assessment on the estates belonging to the mosques and various public establishments, the entire maintenance of which he subsequently undertook, making himself successively sole proprietor of all the taxes and then of the soil, exempting only the ground on which dwelling-houses stood, and gardens inclosed within walls, which were still regarded as private property. The peasantry were restricted as to the articles they should raise on their ground; additional imposts were levied, being certain quantities of butter, coals, and other fuel, straw, dates, baskets, mats, pigeon-dung, etc.; and conscriptions of men, children, and cattle for compulsory labor on the public works were enforced. The government then usually purchased the remaining produce at a fixed price, and retailed it to the consumer at a fourfold cost.

The ingenuity of the pascha was however not yet exhausted; as appears from the following passage.

Ever since 1822, the sale of products brought for daily use into the market has been burthened with a particular tax. I mean not merely the ordinary duties levied at the gates of cities on all provisions carried into towns from the country, but an entirely new impost, which the genius of Mehemet Ali discovered for his unfortunate subjects. When a countryman had the extraordinary good luck to have paid all his arrears of taxes, and not to be liable to either the government or the farmer through the default of any living or deceased member of his district, if he ventured to sell the remaining portion of his wheat at the regular market, he was compelled to purchase this favor by paying an ad valorem duty of from sixty to eighty per cent.

In 1833, when the Nile scarcely rose at all, and consequently a partial failure of the next year's crop might be expected; all provisions naturally rose in value; notwithstanding this Mehemet Ali saw fit to buy up 10,000 ardel of wheat for exportation to the coasts of