Page images
PDF
EPUB

the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees 'stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.

15 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon 1oto mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.

17 They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.

18 ¶ To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell 9 Or, stand upon themselves for their height.

10 Heb. to be black.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Verse 3. The Assyrian.'-Bishop Lowth thinks this noble parable much confused by the translation here of Hasshur, as a proper name, the Assyrian,' which, he says, can have no meaning at all in this passage. He would therefore, with Meibonius, understand it here as an epithet, 'tall,' or 'straight,' applied to the cedar. This is certainly an unusual sense, but occurs in Isa. i. 17; 1 Kings v. 13. It is adopted by Boothroyd, who translates, Lo, he is as a tall cedar in Lebanon;' and adds in a note, The exigence of the place requires this unusual sense, or else that we should suppose the word a mistake for some other.' This is possible: but we do not see much difficulty in the common interpretation, or that any force is lost by supposing that the king of Egypt is admonished by the account of the glory and downfall of the Assyrian empire, under the image of a cedar. The doom of Assyria had been foretold by the prophets, and the recent accomplishment of their predictions might well be adduced as an argumentative confirmation of the prophet's veracity, in declaring that Egypt should soon meet with a like fate. For such reasons Newcome, though aware of the objections we have stated, prefers the common interpretation.

A cedar in Lebanon with fair branches,' etc.Whatever be the wider significance of the word rendered • cedar' in Scripture, there is no question that in the noble description here given, it has a special reference to the tree usually distinguished by that name. Indeed, Lebanon affords no other tree to which it could be applicable. See the note on Lev. xiv. 4. It might indeed be plausibly contended that the prophet has in view the very grove of trees in the Upper Lebanon which travellers usually visit; for the nearest village to that spot bears to this day the name of Eden, and Ezekiel speaks repeatedly of the tree from which he draws his figures being the chief of those in Eden,' though his meaning in this allusion is rendered to some readers less definite than was probably intended, by the occasional glance of the prophet to the fact that the garden of God' bore the same name. not, however, by any means certain that even this side allusion is to Adam's Paradise, seeing that the phrase 'garden of God' may, in Scripture phraseology, denote any great and magnificent garden or plantations; and to this day, as Forbes states, the royal gardens in Hindustan are often called 'the gardens of God. It is right to observe that this is not the only place of cedars: many other clumps of them have now been found in other parts of the mountains, but nowhere else have any trees go large and venerable as this place exhibits been discovered.

It is

The trees which bear the honoured name of the cedars of Lebanon' are the most conspicuously exhibited among

the higher ascents of the mountain from which they take their name. This is not on the summit of Lebanon, or on any of the summits which that rauge of mountains offers, as sometimes has been imagined; but is at the foot of a lofty mountain, in what may be considered as the arena of a vast amphitheatre, open on the west, but shut in by high mountains on the north, south, and east. The cedars here stand upon five or six gentle elevations, and occupy a spot of ground about three-fourths of a mile in circumference. A person may walk around it in fifteen minutes. The largest of the trees is about forty feet in circumference. Six or eight others are also very large, several of them nearly of the size of the largest. But each of these is manifestly one or more trees, which have grown together, and now form one. They generally separate a few feet from the ground into the original trees. The handsomest and tallest are those of two and three feet in diameter. In these the body is straight, the branches almost horizontal, forming a beautiful cone, and casting a goodly shade. Pliny Fisk (Memoir of the Rev. Pliny Fisk, A.M., lute Missionary to Palestine, Boston, 1828, p. 327), whose account we are now following, measured the height of one of them by the shade, and found it ninety feet. The largest were not so high, but some of the others seemed to him a little higher. He counted them, and made the whole number three hundred and eighty-nine; but his companion (Rev. J. King), who in counting omitted the saplings, made the number three hundred and twenty-one. I know not,' observes Fisk, why travellers have so long and so generally given twenty-eight, twenty, fifteen, five, as the number of the cedars. It is true that of those of superior size and antiquity there are not a greater number; but then there is a regular gradation in size, from the largest down to the merest sapling.' This is confirmed by another and later American traveller, who confesses he did not count them, which, from the nature of the ground and the situation of the trees, would be no easy matter (Rev. J. Paxton, p. 81); but he counted a small section, and was disposed to think that there might be from three hundred to five hundred trees that are above a foot in diameter-possibly one hundred and fifty that may be above two feet-and about fifty or sixty that may be from three to four feet. Of the few he measured the largest was thirty-nine feet in circumference-one thirty-two-one twenty-nine-one twentyeight-one twenty-three. These may serve for a sample. 'It is pretty certain,' remarks this traveller, 'that this grove did not furnish wood for Solomon. It lies opposite to Tripoli, which is two days north of Beirut, and Beirut is [forty-five miles] north of Tyre, and [twenty-five from] Sidon. It lies far from the sea, and has a piece of country

[ocr errors]

between it and the sea, as rough as can well be found anywhere. The grove does not appear to be diminishing, but rather increasing. I saw no stumps of fallen trees, and young ones were springing up. There is a kind of religious reverence for these trees among the neighbouring villagers. They have a singular appearance standing alone in the midst of a small plain on which no other trees grow, with no other trees above them, nor for a considerable space below. Another singular fact is, that there is no running water among them. There is a stream on the side of the plain, but it comes not near them. The ground appears enriched with the leaves that fall from them, and looks precisely as the soil usually does in a pine grove.' Upon the whole, the grove failed to make upon this traveller the impression for which he was prepared-and perhaps because he was prepared. On approaching them at first, he says:- Near the middle of the little plain, at the foot of the steep ascent below us, we saw a clump of trees; but they looked too few or too small for the cedars. They resembled a small orchard of evergreens. We found, however, on reaching the plain that these were the cedars we sought. They stand in irregular groups, spread over several little stony knolls, and may possibly cover eight or ten acres of ground.'

Such undervaluing impressions had been fairly met, or rather anticipated, by Fisk, who observes :-'Let such a one put himself in the place of an Asiatic passing from barren desert to barren desert, traversing oceans of sand, and mountains of naked rock, accustomed to countries like Egypt, Arabia, Judæa, and Asia Minor, abounding, in the best places, only with shrubbery and fruit-trees, let him, with the feelings of such a man, climb the rugged rocks, and cross the naked ravines of Lebanon, and suddenly descry among the hills a grove of three hundred trees, such as the cedars actually are, even at the present day, and he will confess that to be a fine comparison in Amos ii. 9,-"Whose height was as the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks," let him, after a long ride in the heat of the sun, sit down in the shade of a cedar, and contemplate the exact conical form of its top, and the beautiful symmetry of its branches, and he will no longer wonder that David compared the people of Israel, in the days of their prosperity, to "the goodly cedars" (Ps. lxxx. 10). A traveller who has just left the forests of America may think this little grove of cedars not worthy of so much notice, but the man who knows how rare large trees are in [southwestern] Asia, and how difficult it is to find timber for build

[graphic][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

CHAPTER XXXII.

11

1 A lamentation for the fearful fall of Egypt. The sword of Babylon shall destroy it. 17 It shall be brought down to hell, among all the uncircumcised nations.

AND it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a 'whale in the seas: and thou camest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their

rivers:

[blocks in formation]

9 Heb. provoke

will cause all the fowls of the heaven to remain upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee.

5 And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy height.

6 I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains ; and the rivers shall be full of thee.

7 And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.

8 All the "bright lights of heaven will I make 'dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD.

9 I will also "vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known.

10 Yea, I will make many people amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, when I shall brandish my sword

[blocks in formation]

before them; and they shall tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of thy fall.

11 For thus saith the Lord GOD; The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee.

12 By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitude to fall, the terrible of the nations, all of them and they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, and all the multitude thereof shall be destroyed.

:

13 I will destroy also all the beasts thereof from beside the great waters; neither shall the foot of man trouble them any more, nor the hoofs of beasts trouble them.

14 Then will I make their waters deep, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord God.

15 When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be 'destitute of that whereof it was full, when I shall smite all them that dwell therein, then shall they know that I am the LORD.

:

16 This is the lamentation wherewith they shall lament her the daughters of the nations shall lament her: they shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for all her multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

17 ¶ It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

18 Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.

19 Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.

10.

20 They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.

21 The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.

22 Asshur is there and all her company : his graves are about him all of them slain, fallen by the sword:

23 Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave: all of them slain, fallen by the sword,

Heb. desolate from the fulness thereof.

which caused "terror in the land of the living.

24 There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.

25 They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword: though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit: he is put in the midst of them that be slain.

26 There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude: her graves are round about him : all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living.

27 And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

28 Yea, thou shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with them that are slain with the sword.

29 There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.

30 There be the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, which are gone down with the slain; with their terror they are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to the pit.

31 Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord GOD.

32 For I have caused my terror in the land of the living and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

10 Or, the sword is laid. 13 Heb. given, or, put.

11 Or, dismaying.

12 Heb. with weapons of their war.

Verse 14. Their rivers to run like oil'-that is, smoothly and calmly, untroubled, without a wave or

storm.

18. 'Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt.'Lowth justly regards this prophetic ode, vv. 18-32, as a masterpiece in that species of poetry which is calculated to excite terror.

The daughters of the famous nations'-that is, the inferior cities and towns belonging to them.

22. Asshur is there and all her company; his graves are about him.'-The latter portion of this remarkable chapter describes the nations in the state of the dead, and as some curious distinctions occur in the mention of some of them, it would appear that there are several allusions to the different modes of sepulture which prevailed among them. When one of the nations is mentioned thus in nearly the same terms as another, we may perhaps infer that no remarkable distinction existed. This view has not entirely escaped the notice of some commentators; but we are aware of none who have given it so much attention as Mr. Charles Taylor, in one of the 'Fragments' appended to his edition of Calmet. In adopting the same view, we are glad that the plan of our work enables us to give the subject that pictorial illustration which it has not hitherto received, and which is calculated to afford the most effective elucidation of the prophet's meaning. In introducing the subject, Mr. Taylor well observes, 'It is more than possible that if we could discriminate accurately the meaning of words employed by the sacred writers, we should find them adapted with a surprising precision to the subjects on which they treat. Of this the various construction of sepulchres might, probably, afford convincing evidence; and perhaps it is a leading idea in passages where it has not hitherto been observed. The numerous references in the Sacred Scriptures to sepulchres supposed to be well peopled, would be misapplied to nations which burned their dead, as the Greeks and Romans did, or to those who committed them to rivers, as the Hindoos; or to those who expose them to birds of prey, as the Parsees. Nor would the phrase, "to go down to the sides of the pit" be strictly applicable to, or be properly descriptive of, that mode of burial which prevails among ourselves. Single graves, admitting one body only, in

width or in length, have no openings on the sides to which the bodies may be said to go down.'-We may observe, once for all, that the frequently recurring expression here alluded to by Mr. Taylor, seems generally to refer to excavated sepulchral chambers, in the sides of which were recesses to receive the bodies of the dead. Many sepulchres of this description occur in different parts of the East.

With respect to the present allusion to the Assyrians, Taylor acknowledges that nothing is known about their mode of sepulture, except that it appears to have been similar to that of the Persians; and, he might have added, the Babylonians: and this resemblance is corroborated by the evidence, with which Taylor does not seem to have been acquainted, of many existing sepulchral sites on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates-the rivers of Assyria and Babylonia. Some of these have been examined with interest by the present writer, and they contain urns of various forms, lined with bitumen, and sometimes glazed, containing bones and dust. They are found in almost every situation-in mounds of ruin, in the cliffs of the rivers, and even within the thick walls of ancient towns and fortresses: in some places where the stream has cut the bank perpendicularly, its steep face presents multitudes of urns, from the summit to the water's edge, in every variety of form and size, arranged sometimes regularly, and sometimes not; which, with the occasional discovery of lines of brick-work connected with these sepulchral remains, suggests the idea, sanctioned by the Desatir, that most of the public buildings of the country had within their mass receptacles of various kinds, as cellars, niches, etc., for sepulchral urns. These seem to have been formed of kiln-dried brick, investing an interior mass of sun-dried material. Few of the urns are large enough to contain an adult human body, and which therefore could not have been deposited entire. The statement of Taylor, that bodies were not burnt in this region, though a very common one, is incorrect; and we have ourselves seen bones that bore traces of the action of fire. But this is not always the case: and, upon the whole, the evidence of existing remains tends strongly to confirm the account of the prevalent modes of sepulture, in this part of the world, which is given in the Desatir. TEXT. A corpse you

[graphic][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »