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." . I take these words absolutely, and would render them in Latin by the ablative absolute, turba 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 TN 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 TN into 77, evidently appears to be for the worse.

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

instead of OTT, their copies of the original had some word which they referred to the root 77; which may seem to give some plausible colour to the change, proposed by Bishop Lowth, of OTTN into N. But a note of Dr. Kennicott's, upon this text, which occurs in Merrick's Annotations, deserves great attention. He observes, "that the word 78 (the plural of T) appears in Walton's Polyglott without the first, in Jeremiah XIV, 3, without the second, in Zechariah x1, 2; and without either, in Ezekiel xxxii, 18." And by his collations it appears that these omissions are all authorised by many of his best MSS. Now, in this text,

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

אררם

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

seem, would be a better reading than

tute of all authority of MSS. If

it is to be taken as

rendering will be,

N, therefore, it should

77, which is desti

be the true reading,

TN, 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."

ON, or the Glorious Ones,' I should understand here as a title of the 8, 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,, as in the last verse of this Psalm, and again of the 43d, 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"-, 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, л, used in the sense of waves, Exodus xv, 5 and 8.

VOL. I.

R

at the noise;" rather, " in addition to the noise." The tumult and noise of the raging sea is poetically described, 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. "The night," the previous season of redemp

tion.

his song." For , read with six MSS. of Kennicott's, and with all the antient versions, and our English Bible, 17. 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, (),

R 2