own land. In Hosea, (i. 10) concerning Israel we are told, that " it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." This refers to the period of their future conversion; and observe what follows, Then shall the children of Judali and the children of Israel Be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel." ver. 11. The time of their being gathered together, thus appears to be when they shall appoint over them one head,—"tiie\," and not before. In Zechariah both are expressly mentioned, and in such terms as appear to imply their being in a distinct state, even after their return from captivity: "When I have bent Judah for me, [as a bow,] filled the bow with Ep/iraim," &c. Zech. ix, 13. We stop not to inquire particularly into the meaning of the prophecy, but simply observe, that the one being represented as a bow, while the Other is the arrow with which it is filled, implies a correspondence in the different purposes for which they shall respectively be employed by the Lord immediately before the Millennium, thus intimating their separate existence at that period. And again, when they are made "one nation," it is to be "on the land, upon the mountains of Israel," as if the case continued other^ wise with them while in the lands of their enemies. It is only when the,are to cease being "divided;" and it is then, "they shall be no more two nations." Even when thus united, there is no reason to believe they shall be blended, as those who lake an opposite view suppose they already are. If " Judah shall not vex Ephraim," it will not be on account of their distinctions having passed away; but because " Ephraim shall not envy Judah," an expression which is deprived of its meaning by supposing them to have no separate existence. We say nothing here of the future distinction of both kingdoms into their respective tribes. Since such information can only be supplied miraculously, the prophecy of the New Division of the Holy Land, afterwards noticed, (Sect. VI.) supplies us with no information relative to their present state.*

SECTION V.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE HOLY LAND.

Cavaan is in Scripture expressively termed,The Land of Promise. By this appellation our views are carried back direct to the intimations of Heaven's purpose concerning it; and Israel's title of possession is read in the promise of God. His Promise to the Father of the faithful, repeatedly made with various specifications, and even confirmed by an oath. God again and again renewed to the descendants of Abraham, after his decease, with more precise definition of its boundaries.

When, obedient to the call of God, the patriarch with his near relatives left their kindred and departed from Ur of the Chaldees, after sojourning for a time in Haran, "they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land upon the place of Sichem unto the plain of Moreh; (and the Canaanite was then in the land.) And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this Land." Gen. xi. 31. xii. 1,7. "And he went on his journies from the south even unto Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, [xii. 8, 9.1 between Bethel and Hai." (xiii. 3.) While dwelling here, "The Lord saith unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will 1 give it, and to thy seed for ever." (xiii. 14, 15.)

These promises are very distinct, but they were followed by others in which the boundaries of the land are expressly stated. Having intimated to him while he dwelt in the plains of Mamre, the servitude to which his descendants should be subjected in Egypt for 400 years, "In that same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this Land, from the River of Egypt, Unto the Great River, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites." Gen. xv. 13-21. Here is an extensive territory indeed. The Euphrates does not approach farther west than 40 deg. 20. min. east longitude, in any latitude corresponding with that of the Holy Land, either as promised or as hitherto enjoyed; while the most eastern point of the land, as already possessed, does not extend beyond 37 deg. of east longitude. The Nile or " River of Egypt" being here given as another boundary mark of the Promised Land, it necessarily includes Idumea and the land of Goshen, north of the eastern branch of that river. This allotment then embraces a considerable part of Syria, being the whole territory from the Euphrates on the north east; and the whole of Idumea, being to the Nile on the south-west. And of this we are presented with a more particular specification of the nations included within the general outline given. The Kenites inhabited a district lying to the westward of the Dead Sea, and extending their southern boundary far into Arabia Petrsea. (Compare Exod. iii. 1, with Judges i. 16. Num. xxiv. 21. 1 Sam. xv. 16.) The Kcnnizzites seem to have occupied a district south-east of the Kenites, (Joshua xv. 17. Judges,!. 13. iii. 9, 11. 1. Chron. iv. 13. xxvii. 35.) The Kadmonites, or Eastern people, dwelt in the north-eastern parts of Canaan, under mount Hermon, in the land of Mispeh or Gilead, (supposed to be the same with the Hivites, Numb. xiii. 29. Josh. ix. 1. xi, 3. Judges iii. 3.) The Hittites, the offspring of Heth, the second son of Canaan, dwelt in the southern part of Palestine near Hebron, (Gen. ii. 3. Judges i. 26. 2 Sam. xi. 6. 1 Sam. xxv. 6. 2 Kings viii. 7. 1 Kings xi. 1. 2 Kings vii. 6.) The Perizzites are supposed to have principally lived dispersed among the other tribes of the Canaanites, living sometimes in one country and sometimes in another. (Gen. xiii. 7. Josh. xvii. 15. Judges iii. 5. i. 4. 1 Kings ix. 20, 21. 2 Chron. viii. 7. Ezra ix. 1.) The Rephaims were a race of giants, inhabiting a fruitful valley situated on the confines of what became the territories of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. (Josh. xv. 8. xviii. 5. 2 Sam. v. 18, 22. xxiii. 13. 1 Chron. xi. 15. xvi. 9. Is. xvii. 5.) The Amorites had two powerful kingdoms on the east of Jordan, governed by Sihon and Og. They had at one time a great part of the territories of Moab and Ammon; and they had other kingdoms along the south of Canaan, westward of Jordan. (Num. xxi. xxxii. Deut. i. 44. Josh. xii. xv. xix. Judges vi. 10. 2 Kings xxi. 11. Amos ii. 9.) The Canaanites here refer to some tribes of that people particularly called by their name, who dwelt in the mid-land by the sea westward, and by the coast of Jordan eastward. The Girgashites are supposed to have been the ancestors of the Gergasenes, on the east of the sea of Tiberias. (Josh. xxiv. 11. Mark v. Luke viii. 26. Mat. viii. 28.) The Jebusites dwelt about Jerusalem, and the mountainous country adjacent. (Num. xiii. 29. Judges i. 21. 2 Sam. v. xxiv. 16. Zech. ix. 7.)

This promise was renewed to Abram when his name was changed to Abraham, the Lord re-assuring him that there should be given to him and to his seed, " the land wherein thou art a stranger," [or the land of thy sojourning?, marg.] "all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession." Gen. xvii. 5—8.

This assurance was repeated to his son, Isaac, while at Gerar, whither he had removed from the well, Lahai-roi, in the wilderness of Shur, on account of a famine. "And the Lord appeared unto him and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of; sojourn in this land and 1 will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee and unto thy seed will I give all these countries, and / will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father." Gen. xxvi. 2, 3.

It was also renewed to Jacob in the vision of the ladder of celestial communication at Bethel: "And behold the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land whereon tlwu liest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south, and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Gen. xxviii. 13, 14.

The same promise was renewed, with new and important specifications, to the children of Israel, after the giving of the law from Mount Sinai: "I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the Sea of the Philistines, and from the Desert unto the River; for 1 will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and thou shalt drive them out before thee." Exod. xxiii. 31. As, by other specifications, we find that part of Stony Arabia included which is embraced between the Gulphs of the Red Sea, it is evident that the expression " from the Red Sea even to the Sea of the Philistines" points to the Elanitic Gulph on the south-east and all west from it to the Mediterranean, or the Sea of the Philistines. "From the Desert to the River" gives us the desert of Egypt and Arabia, (Gen. xvi. 7. Exod. xv. 22.) through which they were just passing, as their southern boundary, from which the whole land "unto the River," as the Euphrates is by way of eminence termed, is comprehended in this important grant.

This extent of the divine promise is again declared in the address delivered by Moses to the children of Is