origin ascribed to him, and in the same sentence an equally clear assertion of a prior and eternal existence.* Some, following the hint in the Targum, explain the latter clause of the foreknowledge, or the purpose, of God that the Messiah should come into existence, under the circumstances predicted. To this opinion it is obvious to reply, that it renders the most solemn and observable part of the whole description superfluous and unmeaning: for every human being, and every atom of existence, is equally with the Messiah an object of the divine decree "from eternity." No peculiarity of oriental idiom, no use of any language, can so violate the common sense of men, as to attribute ACTIVE PROCEEDINGS to a being, infinite ages before it came into existence. A man who should use such an expression, when he meaned only to say that the * "Hoc loco significat Michæus Messiam, quod ad humanitatem attinet, nasciturum Bethlehemæ; quod ad Divinitatem autem, non esse nasciturum, quippe qui sit sempiternus." "Micah here declares that the Messiah should be born at Bethlehem, with respect to his human nature; but that, with respect to his Divinity, he should not be born, since he is from eternity." Castalio in loc. an author whose predilections would not have led him to this annotation, had he not perceived the amplest reason for it. + The unquestionable sense of or in all its varieties of application, whether to the springing of fountains, to vegetation, to the rising of the sun, to the working of intelligent agents, or to any other of the motions of matter or mind. Deity had foreknown, or foreordained, the existence and actions of the object in question, would expose either his understanding or his integrity to suspicion. With as little reason can an objection be taken against our translation of the next words in the clause "FROM ETERNITY, FROM THE DAYS OF THE EVERLASTING PERIOD:" for, though the two principal terms, taken separately, are occasionally used to denote a limited (yet to present and human apprehensions a very long and hidden) period : the proper and usual meaning of each is a REAL ETERNITY, each occurs in passages evidently intended to be the most solemn assertions of Infinite Duration,* and the combination of the two furnishes the strongest expression for that purpose, of which the Hebrew language is capable.† * Op see the passages referred to in the note on the text. For y see Gen. xxi. 33. 1 Chron. xxix. 10. Ps. xc. 2. xxv. 6. ciii. 17, + See Note [B] at the end of this Section. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES то SECT. XXVII. Note [A] p. 319. L. 1. thousands: but the term was used to denominate a statistical subdivision in each tribe, as the words hundred and tything are in the English counties. See Ex. xviii. 21. Judges vi. 15. 1 Sam. xxiii. 23. To this meaning the word clan seems the most suitable.-L. 4. Op eternity; Deut. xxxiii. 27. Ps. lv. 19. D Habak. i. 12. "an age, eternity, the longest duration ;-in particular, time past, ancient times;—PERPETUITY, so far as the nature of the subject can admit the idea of perpetual duration. Not from but from a root preserved in the Æthiopic language, signifying the passage of time, continuance, duration." Simonis and Eichhorn in Lex. Hebr.-L. 3. ↳ in my presence, coram me: so is used in Jer. xxvi. 6.-L. 5. Following Grotius and Dathé, I conceive that this clause refers not so probably to Mary the mother of Jesus, as to the church, considered as now in the pangs of suffering, but to be delivered and honoured by the coming of the Messiah and by the accession of the gentiles, and finally of the Israelites. The same figurative representation occurs just before, ch. iv. 9, 10. and in many other instances in the prophetic scriptures.-L. 10. w peace, prosperity, safety, restoration; the abstract put for the concrete, as frequently. Here the paragraph ends, the next words beginning a new one. So the Targum, the Syriac Version, and the best modern translators and interpreters. Note [B] p. 322. "This prophecy of Micah is perhaps the most important single prophecy in the Old Testament, and the most comprehensive, respecting the personal character of the Messiah and his successive manifestation to the world. It crowns the whole chain of prophecies descriptive of the several limitations of the Blessed Seed of the woman, to the line of Shem, to the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the tribe of Judah, and to the royal house of David, here terminating in his birth at Bethlehem, "the city of David." It carefully distinguishes his human nativity from his eternal generation; foretels the rejection of the Israelites and Jews for a season, their final restoration, and the universal peace destined to prevail throughout the earth in "the regeneration." It forms, therefore, the basis of the New Testament; which begins with his human birth at Bethlehem, the miraculous circumstances of which are recorded in the introductions of Matthew's and Luke's Gospels; his eternal generation, as the ORACLE, or WISDOM, in the sublime introduction of John's Gospel; his prophetic character and second coming, illustrated in the four Gospels and the Epistles; ending with a prediction of the speedy approach of the latter, in the Apocalypse: Rev. xxii. 20." Dr. Hales's Analysis of Chronol. vol. ii. p. 463. SECT. XXVIII. THE DESIRE OF NATIONS, AND THE GLORY OF THE LATTER TEMPLE. Haggai ii. 6-9. 1. For thus saith Jehovah of hosts, It is yet a very little time And I will shake the heavens and the earth, And the sea and the dry land; 5. And I will shake all nations; And the DESIRE of all nations shall come, Saith Jehovah of hosts. Mine is the silver and mine is the gold, 10. Saith Jehovah of hosts. Great shall be the glory of this house, Saith Jehovah of hosts. And in this place I will give peace; 15. Saith Jehovah of hosts."* THE Messiah is, in this prediction, described as a Deliverer of whom the world would stand in the greatest need, and who should be very ex * L. 6. " Any difficulty from the verb N shall come, being plural, and the nominative non desire, being singular, ceases on its being considered that the verb to a substantive in regimine |