at the noise;" rather, " in addition to the noise." The tumult and noise of the raging sea is poetically de scribed, under the image of one rolling wave calling to another. And the tumult of the sea is in addition to the dreadful sound of water-spouts from the sky, which are indeed a principal cause of the disturbance in the ocean. But this raging of the elements, is to be understood as an image of the anarchy and turbulence of the world politic, in the latter ages, when the madness of the people (figured by the boisterous seas, its appropriate image in the prophetic language) will be excited and inflamed by the phrenzy of those prodigies of governments, which will be found in those wretched times.

-water-spouts from the sky." "thy water-spouts;" because all this disorder is under the controul of Providence, and these water-spouts are the instruments of his vengeance on the guilty world, and formed for that purpose.

"These ideas," says the learned Bishop Horne, “seem to be borrowed from the general deluge, or from a storm at sea, when, at the sound of descending water-spouts, or torrents of rain, the depths are stirred up, and put into horrible commotion."

—all thy waves," &c. The rage of this dreadful storm of anarchy, and misrule, will fall principally on the Church, and particularly on the new Church of the Circumcision.

[E] Ver. 8. in the day-time-in the night." "The day-time," the appointed season of the final deliverance of

the Church. tion.

"The night,” the previous season of redemp

his song." For , read with six MSS. of Kennicott's, and with all the antient versions, and our English Bible, 1. But the alteration is not necessary. Dr Durell well renders the textual reading, "A song shall be with me, a prayer unto," &c.; and the sense of the passage, so rendered, will be, "My constant night-song is prayer," &c.

[F] Ver. 10. While the sword in my bones," &c.

No emendation is necessary here.

"While the sword is in my bones my enemies reproach me;" i. e. my murderers insult over me, as deserted of my God, and left by him the victim of their cruelty, while they inflict the fatal blow. This is the highest aggravation of cruelty, when it is accompanied with insult.

This rendering may seem liable to two objections.

1st, That never renders when or while, except it be prefixed to an infinitive mood. Whereas, in this passage, according to this rendering, it is prefixed to a noun.

2d, That the noun is not used in any other passage for a sword.

To the first, it may be answered, that it is not true. Noldius observes, that the prefix 2, though but seldom, is so used before nouns and adverbs. He supposes, indeed, that, in such cases, the verb substantive, in the infinitive, (♫),

may be understood.* And this rendering supposes it to be understood here.

The second objection, though much relied on by Mr MerSince the verb y sig37, which, in prose, is

rick, appears to me of little weight. nifies, to slay, to murder, the noun

perpetually used for an homicide or murderer, may very naturally, in poetry, be applied to the instrument of slaughter, the sword; just as Sophocles's Ajax calls his sword, upon which he is about to fall, ‘O oqayɛùs. I know not that a similar application of the word paysùs (which literally renders the Hebrew, murderer) is to be found in the Greek language. And yet no one can doubt that, in this passage of the tragedian, it is applied to the inanimate steel.

From this verse, as well as from the general structure of the Psalm, but from this verse in particular, it may be probably inferred that the suppliant is the Hebrew Church, of the Antichristian age, rather than an individual of the Hebrew nation. For an individual could not with any consistency profess a hope of returning in high triumph to the Holy Land, at the same time that he complains of the cruelty of his murderers in a foreign country. But a church, collectively, may be supposed to express a hope of ultimate peace and prosperity, at the same time that she is suffering in her

* Vide Nold. not. 722.

+Ajax. Mast. lin. 826.

members. In the Apocalypse, it seems to be predicted, that, in the times of Antichrist, numbers of converted Jews will receive the crown of martyrdom.

The application, which many learned expositors would make of this Psalm, to David, driven from Jerusalem by Absalom's rebellion, seems liable to many insuperable objections. Even in the very height of that rebellion, David was never in the extreme danger and in the defenceless condition in which the suppliant in this Psalm is placed. David thought it prudent, indeed, to retire from Jerusalem; because Absalom had alienated the affections of so many of the people, that it was necessary, in order to avoid the danger of a surprise of the city by the disaffected party, that the king should put himself at the head of his army. But his departure was not the flight of a person fallen from his power, without means of defence, and abandoned of his friends, but the march of a great monarch, taking the field with a numerous army, (2 Sam. xv, 13—18,) and attended by generals of such high renown as Joab, Abishai, and Ittai (xviii, 2). It is true, he ascended Mount Olivet in the guise of a mourner (xv, 30). But his dejection arose not from any apprehension of the superior strength of his but from the reflection that "his son, who came enemy, out of his bowels, sought his life." (xvi, 11.) And it was from affection and attachment to his person, that his loyal adherents wept with their sovereign, and, after his example, "covered every man his head." He had his spies at Jerusalem, who gave him early information of all Absalom's mo

tions and designs; and when he had crossed the Jordan into the land of Gilead, so little did his situation resemble that of the suppliant in this Psalm, that he met with friendship and assistance even from the Ammonites. (xvii, 27-29). It is true, that one man of the family of Saul ventured to insult the king most grossly, upon his first departure from the city; but had it not been for the king's politic lenity, the audacious blasphemer of afflicted majesty would have met the fate he merited, from the just indignation of Abishai. (xvi, 5—14).

The Suppliant in this Psalm, holds the language of one who had long been in exile in a distant country, and is made to dwell upon the recollection of the principal features of his country, Jordan, the Hermons, and the little hill, as what he wished earnestly to see again after long absence. But David's absence from Jerusalem, upon the occasion of Absalom's rebellion, was certainly of no long duration. It should seem from the particulars of the history, that the whole interval, from the king's departure from Jerusalem to his triumphant return, could not be of many weeks. There seems no reason to suppose that the celebration of any one of the festivals of that year was obstructed. David, in what is called his flight, which, in truth, was only a retreat to a spot where he could give the enemy battle with advantage, was never beyond the limits of his own kingdom. As for Jordan and Hermon, which the suppliant in this Psalm so mournfully recollects, David was never out of sight of them. And from the "little hill," if this little hill be Zion, his greatest distance