perhaps difficult to find an unexceptionable instance in the whole Bible.* Strange to tell! this unnatural resolution of the word has the approbation of the learned Vitringa. The sense of the word, according to this resolution of it, is supposed to be, I did go,' or 'I have gone,' or 'I will go,' (for different interpreters take the tense differently), 'in procession with them.' • With them'-with whom? Vel cum miseriarum mearum comitibus; vel quibuscum olim proficiscebar,' says De Muis. Others expound the pronoun, of the rejoicing multitude, mentioned at the end of the verse, which is more tolerable.

Bishop Hare, Father Houbigant, Dr Durell, and Bishop Lowth, justly dissatisfied with this exposition, somewhat too hastily, perhaps, suspect the text of corruption. Why may not OTTN be the first person future, Kal from the verb 77, (defective Phe), with the pronominal suffix of the third person plural masculine? The verb 7 signifies, to flee, to flee away, to move in a hurry from place to place, to move very quickly.' And why should not TN render ' effugiam eos,' or eos evaśurus sum?" I shall flee away from them;'

6

I shall escape them.' The suffix (them) being understood of those scoffers, who were continually saying to the suppliant, where is thy God?" It may be observed, by the way, that TN, in Isaiah xxxviii, 15, may be referred to

* See Masclef Gram. Heb. cap. viii, sect. 3.

the same root 773. For, in the future tense, those persons that have no increment often assume a paragogic; and the true rendering of that verse will be this- What shall I say? He hath given me a promise, and he hath performed it. After the bitterness of my soul, I shall go along briskly (i. e. chearfully) all my years.'

*

Be this as it may, if this sense of DTTN, in this passage of the Psalmist be admitted, the entire verse may be thus rendered;

These things I remember, and to myself I pour out my soul, That I am to pass over to the tabernacle. I am to flee away from them to the house of God,

Amidst the sound of exultation and thanksgiving; the multitude rejoicing.

"These things I remember,"-i. e. these taunts of the profane sink deep, and are never absent from my mind.

-and to myself I pour out my soul." This seems to me to be a proverbial expression, denoting the mind's silent brooding over its own thoughts, of whatever sort they may be, when a man states, as it were, to himself, in minute detail, what arises, upon any interesting occasion, in his thoughts, without any communication with others. It is perhaps most frequently applied to thoughts tinctured at

* See Parkhurst under T. 1.

least with melancholy. But, in the present instance, the thoughts are consolatory. For under a keen sense of the scoffs of his enemies, triumphing over him as a person totally disappointed in his hopes, he comforts himself with the recollection, that his return to the Holy Land is a thing fixed in the schemes of Providence; and that, notwithstanding his present oppressed state, his hope of returning in triumph will at last be realised.

"That I am to pass over.-I am to flee"- The verbs in the original have the form of futures, and I have the authority of all the antient versions, the LXX, Vulgate, St Jerome, Chaldee, Syriac, Aquila, and Symmachus, for rendering them as futures. These futures express, that he looks to this return, as what is promised to him and prepared for him.

-the multitude rejoicing." Jan Non. I take these words absolutely, and would render them in Latin by the ablative absolute, "turbá tripudiante.”

Thus the text, without any emendation, and without any forced interpretation of the words, gives a sense perfectly consistent with what seems to be the general subject of the Psalm. Bishop Hare's suspicion, that the words 0778 702 are a corruption of the name of some place, through which the passage lay to the temple, vanishes. And Houbigant's proposed alteration of

be for the worse.

into 7778, evidently appears to

It must be confessed, however, that all the ancients, except Aquila, Symmachus, and St Jerome, render this verse as if,

instead of TN, their copies of the original had some word which they referred to the root 778; which may seem tó give some plausible colour to the change, proposed by Bishop Lowth, of 778 into 8. But a note of Dr Kennicott's, upon this text, which occurs in Merrick's Annotations, deserves great attention. He observes, "that the word "K (the plural of TN) appears in Walton's Polyglott without the first, in Jeremiah xiv, 3, without the second, in Zechariah xi, 2; and without either, in Ezekial xxxii, 18." And by his collations it appears that these omissions are all authorised by many of his best MSS. Now, in this text,

TN appears, instead of OTIN, in three MSS. of Dr Ken

אדרס

nicott's, and two of De Rossi's.

7, therefore, it should

seem, would be a better reading than

8, which is desti

tute of all authority of MSS. If 8 be the true reading,

it is to be taken as

rendering will be,

N, the plural of TN, and the true

"That I am to pass over to the tabernacle of the Glorious Ones,

to the house of God."

אדירים

, or, "the Glorious Ones," I should understand here as a title of the N, the persons of the Godhead.

[C] Ver. 5, 6. For the help of his countenance.-O my God." E. T.

Read with the LXX (Alex.), Vulgate, Syriac, and one

MS. of Kennicott's,

D, as in the last verse of this

Psalm, and again of the 48d, and begin the next verse with

.עלי

I will yet praise him,

Who is the Saviour of my person and my God.

Ver. 6. Within me, &c.—I will yet praise him;" E.T. rather, "I shall yet give him thanks;" i. e. notwithstanding my present afflicted state, I shall yet again have cause to give him thanks for my complete deliverance, and for being still my God.

-therefore I will remember thee from," &c. E. T.; rather, "therefore I will remember thee, concerning the land of Jordan and the Hermons, and concerning the little hill;" i. e. to raise my dejected spirits, I will recollect the comforts of thy presence in the land of Jordan and the Hermons, and on the little hill of Sion.

"The Hermons”— O, plural, because Hermon was a double ridge, joining in an angle, and rising in many summits. See D'Anville's Map of Palestine. The river Jordan and the mountains of Hermon, were the most striking features of the Holy Land. Sion was a hill of moderate height; therefore little in comparison of the Hermons.

[D] Ver. 7. Deep-deep"- E. T.; rather, "wave-wave." -See the plural, n, used in the sense of waves, Exodus xv, 5 and 8.

VOL. I.

R