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operation of shaving the head was probably performed much in the same manner as is now usual in the East, and a representation of which has been given under Judges xvi. The facility with which this operation is performed by the Oriental barbers, and the soothing sensation which is experienced by the patient, have been described by most travellers whose experience enabled them to do so. The operator rubs the head gently and comfortably with his hand, moistened with water. This he does a considerable

time; and then applies the razor, shaving from the top of the head downward. The instrument is generally rude, and not remarkably sharp, as compared with our own: but in consequence of the previous handling of the head, the hair is removed with such extreme ease that the process is scarcely felt, or felt only as an agreeable sensation, by the person subject to it, and who is not roused by it from the gentle slumber into which he may have been soothed by the preceding part of the operation.

CHAPTER VI.

1 The judgment of Israel for their idolatry. 8 A remnant shall be saved. 11 The faithful are exhorted to repent their calamities.

AND the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, set thy face toward the 'mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them,

3 And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.

4 And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

5 And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.

6 In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. 7 And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the LORD. 8 Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.

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9 And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

10 And they shall know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

11 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

12 He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them.

13 Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.

14 So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, 'more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

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Verse 11. Smite with thine hand and stamp with thy foot. This was probably to smite the thigh with the band, which we know to have been an action of grief (Jer. xxxi. 19; Ezek. xxi. 12). Stamping with the foot is not elsewhere mentioned as an expression of feeling; but it probably denoted indignation. Grief with indignation are the feelings obvious to the occasion, and which the text indeed expresses.

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13. Did offer sweet savour to all their idols.'-It was a very common act of worship, in all countries, to offer incense to all descriptions of idols. We have already

4 Chap. 21. 17.

spoken of incense and incense offerings under Exod. xxx.; and as a suitable illustration of the present text, which mentions the offering of incense to idols, we here introduce an engraving representing the emperor Trajan offering incense to Diana. It is copied from a bas-relief upon the arch of Constantine, many of the sculptures on which were taken from that of Trajan. This illustration is the more appropriate as Diana answered to that 'queen of heaven' (the moon), for burning incense to whom the apostate Hebrews are severely reproached by the prophets.

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CHAPTER VII.

that dwellest in the land: the time is come,
the day of trouble is near, and not the 'sound-

1 The final desolation of Israel. 16 The mournfuling again of the mountains.
repentance of them that escape. 20 The enemies
defile the sanctuary because of the Israelites' abomi-
nations. 23 Under the type of a chain is shewed
their miserable captivity.

MOREOVER the word of the LORD came unto
me, saying,

2 Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land. 3 Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. 4 And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

5 Thus saith the Lord GOD; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come.

6 An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.

7 The morning is come unto thee, O thou

8 Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations.

9 And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense 'thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth.

10 Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.

11 Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their 'multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them.

12 The time is come, the day draweth near let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

13 For the seller shall not return to that

1 Heb. give. 2 Heb. awaketh against thee. 3 Or, echo. 4 Heb. upon thee. 5 Or, tumult. 6 Or, their tumultuous persons.

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15 The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

16 But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.

17 All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.

18 They shall also "gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.

14

19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

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21 And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.

22 My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.

23¶ Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. 24 Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled. 25 Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

19

26 Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.

27 The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

12 Isa. 15. 2, 3. Jer. 48. 37.

20

7 Heb. though their life were yet among the living. 8 Or, whose life is in his iniquity. 9 Heb. his iniquity. 10 Isa. 18. 7. Jer. 6. 24. 11 Heb. go into water. 13 Heb. for a separation, or, uncleanness. 14 Prov, 11. 4. Zeph. 1. 18. Ecclus. 5. 8. 15 Or, because their iniquity is their stumbling-block. 16 Or, made it unto them an unclean thing. 17 Or, burglers. 18 Or, they shall inherit their holy places. 20 Heb. with their judgments.

Verse 16. Shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys.'-Newcome has, as moaning doves;' following the reading of Houbigant, founded on some Greek copies. This certainly makes a good sense; but so does the common reading, which therefore we see no reason to disturb. Paxton is mistaken in supposing the doves of the valleys' were necessarily tame ones; for the wild ones not only harbour in valleys, but in the trees around and in Oriental cities, and even in the courts of houses. These would naturally fly to the security and quiet of the mountains, when alarmed by the noise and confusion of war, supplying the very apt comparison which the prophet employs. Two pairs of wild doves harboured and reared their

CHAPTER VIII.

1 Ezekiel, in a vision of God at Jerusalem, 5 is shewed the image of jealousy, 7 the chambers of imagery, 13 the mourners for Tammuz, 15 and the worshippers towards the sun. 18 God's wrath for their idolatry.

AND it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.

19 Heb. cutting off.

young in the palm-trees which grew in the court of the house in which the writer of this note resided at Baghdad; but they disappeared, as did others which had settled in the town, during the siege of the place by Ali Pashabeing doubtless frightened by the noise of war.' The flight of doves, under similar circumstances, to the clefts and caverns of the mountains, has supplied many allusions also to the heathen poets. Thus Homer describes the flight of Diana from the power of Juno's arm (Il. xxi. 493)

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2 Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.

3 And he 'put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the

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seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.

4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.

5 Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.

7¶And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.

8 Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.

9 And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.

10 So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.

11 And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.

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12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, "The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.

13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

16 T And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the cast; and they worshipped the sun toward the cast.

17 T Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.

18 Therefore will I also deal in fury mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they 'cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

4 Or, Is there any thing lighter than to commit. 6 Prov. 1. 28. Isa. 1. 15. Jer. 11. 11. Mic. 3. 4.

Verse 2.Amber.'—The original (ı khasmalah) is rendered λEKTроv by the Septuagint; and this was certainly the Greek name for amber, but it was also the name of a very precious metal, so called from being of the colour of amber. The question is, which of the two is intended? The general opinion is perhaps in favour of the metal called electrum, and which we may therefore describe as being composed of fine gold alloyed with one-fifth of silver. The brilliant lustre of this compound, and its paler colour, was considered to render it more agreeable to the eye, and in other respects preferable to pure gold. We have not, however, been able to meet with one good reason why amber itself should not be here understood. That amber becomes dim when it feels the fire is no reason at all, because the prophet does not say that what he saw was amber, but of the colour of amber; and as the electrum itself derives its name from being of the colour of amber, it seems far more reasonable to suppose that the reference is to the colour of the amber itself than to the colour of that which was distinguished for being like amber. We think there can be no reason to doubt that amber was known to the Hebrews. It is found in different parts of the world, but most abundantly on the shores of the Baltic. Without inquiring whether it might not have been obtained from sources known to the Hebrews, it will be enough to shew that it might have been obtained through the Phoenicians, their neighbours; for

5 Chap. 5. 11, and 7. 4.

Herodotus expressly says that amber was brought by that enterprising people from the northern sea, coupling which with the fact that the Baltic was always celebrated for its amber, we may gather that the Phoenician traffic extended even to that remote region. But indeed amber is also found in Spain, with which country the Phoenicians maintained extensive and intimate connections.

This beautiful substance is found floating on the coasts, particularly after tempests, having doubtless been detached from the shore or the submarine repositories; and it is also obtained from mines often far removed from the sea. When obtained from the latter source, the upper surface is composed of sand, under which is found a stratum of loam; below this is a bed of wood, partly entire, and partly changed into a bituminous substance, and under this occurs a stratum of an aluminous mineral in which the amber is found in lumps of various forms and sizes. This solid, hard, semi-pellucid substance is too well known to need description. On account of its beautiful yellow colour, its transparency, and the fine polish it receives, amber was anciently ranked among gems of the first class, and employed in all kinds of ornamental dress. The wax and honey yellow colours were most esteemed, not only on account of their beauty, but because they are more solid than the yellowish white varieties. This therefore may explain the particular colour of amber which the prophet had in view. The high esteem in which it was

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held may be judged from Pliny's statement, that a small piece of wrought amber was more than equivalent to the price of a strong and robust slave. Its present uses for necklaces, bracelets, snuff-boxes, and other articles of luxury, is well known; and has long been highly valued in the East, as it is now in this country, for mouth-pieces of smoking-pipes, for which it is admirably adapted. The varieties of colour already mentioned are still those to which the preference is given.

3. The seat of the image of jealousy.'-Much ingenious conjecture has been expended in the attempt to discover what false god this image of jealousy' represented. If any particular idol be intended, it seems impossible to ascertain what it was; but, as a mere conjecture, the opinion that it represented a personification of the sun or moon (Baal or Ashtaroth), seems the most probable. It will be recollected that the Lord is often described as 'jealous' at the idolatries of his people, and that idols are mentioned as the objects of his jealousy; and therefore the image of jealousy' is to be understood of some idol by which the Divine jealousy was provoked. This chapter contains a lively representation of the principal forms of idolatry to which the Hebrews were addicted; and Bishop Warburton conjectures, with some reason, that the image of jealousy, which introduces the description, is idolatry itself personified and described as an idol.

10. Behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.'-Here begins the description of the idolatries which the Hebrews borrowed from their neighbours. This first was unquestionably taken from the Egyptians. How exactly it describes the

inner chambers and sanctuaries of the Egyptian temples, the tombs, and mystic cells, must be obvious to any one who has read the various descriptions and seen the representations which modern travellers have supplied. The walls are covered with representations, sculptured or painted in vivid colours, of sacred animals, and of gods represented in the human form, and under various circumstances, or in various monstrous combinations of the animal and human forms. These things now appear even more conspicuously in the tombs than in the temples, perhaps because the decorations of the latter have suffered more from the hand of man. And although the illustra tion to be derived from the existing temples is abundantly adequate to the elucidation of the prophetical description, that to be obtained from tombs is not to be regarded as something different and distinct; for we are to recollect that the Egyptian tombs and temples appear to have been closely connected in their origin, and that those of royal persons often formed in fact cells of the temple, being within its sacred inclosure; and there is every probability and some authority for the conclusion, which is also supported by the character of the decorations which many of them exhibit, that they were not merely tombs, but cells for the celebration of the darker mysteries and idolatries of a most debasing superstition. A pious traveller, the Rev. W. Jowett, who visited Thebes, quotes the present text as furnishing an exact description of the tombs found there, adding, The Israelites were but copyists, the master sketches being to be seen in all the ancient temples and tombs of Egypt.' In the following passage Mr. Salt graphically enumerates in verse the forms of creeping things, abominable beasts, and idols, which are portrayed upon their walls:

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