And thus in Ps. cxxi. 6,

"The sun shall not smite thee by day,
Nor the moon by night,"

s in the next place explained thus:

"Jehovah shall preserve thee from all evil,
He shall preserve thy soul."

HEAVEN.

There is, says Daubuz, a threefold world, and therefore a threefold heaven. The invisible, the visible, and the political, among men, which last may be either civil or ecclesiastical.

Wherever the scene is laid, heaven signifies symbolically the ruling power or government; that is, the whole assembly of the ruling powers, which, in respect of the subjects or earth, are a political heaven, being over and ruling the subjects, as the natural heaven stands over and rules the earth.

So that according to the subject, is the term to be limited; and therefore Artemidorus, writing in the times of the Roman emperors, makes Italy to be the heaven : "As heaven," says he, "is the abode of gods, so is Italy of kings."

The Chinese call their monarch Tiencu, the Son of Heaven, meaning thereby the most powerful monarch. And thus in Matt. xxiv. 30, heaven is synonymous to powers and glory: and when Jesus says, "the powers of the heaven shall be shaken," it is easy to conceive that he meant, that the kingdoms of the world should be overthrown to submit to his kingdom.

Any government is a world, and therefore in Isa. li. 15, 16, heaven and earth signify a political universe, a kingdom or polity. And in ch. lxv. 17, a new

heaven and a new earth, signify a new government, new kingdom, new people. (See under Heaven and Earth.)

A door opened in heaven, is the beginning of a new kind of government.

To ascend up into heaven, signifies to be in full power to obtain rule and dominion. And thus is the symbol to be understood in Isa. xiv. 13, 14, where the king of Babylon says,

"I will ascend into heaven,

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God." To descend from heaven, signifies symbolically, to act by a commission from heaven. And thus our Saviour uses the word " descending," John i. 51, in speaking of the angels acting by Divine commission, at the command of the Son of Man.

To fall from heaven, signifies to lose power and authority, to be deprived of the power to govern, to revolt or apostatize.

The heaven opened. The natural heaven, being the symbol of the governing part of the political world, a new face in the natural, represents a new face in the political.

Or, the heaven may be said to be opened when the day appears, and consequently shut when night comes on, as appears from Virgil, Æn. 1. 10, v. 1, "The gates of heaven unfold," &c. And thus the Scripture, in a poetical manner, speaks of the doors of heaven, Ps. lxxviii. 23; of the heaven being shut, 1 Kings viii. 35; and in Ezek. i. 1, the heaven is said to be opened.

Midst of heaven, may be the air, or the region between heaven and earth; or, the middle station between the corrupted earth and the throne of God in heaven.

And in this sense, the air is the proper place where God's threatenings and judgments should be denounced. Thus, in 1 Chron. xxi. 13, it is said that David saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, as he was just going to destroy Jerusalem with the pestilence. The angel's hovering there, was to shew that there was room to pray for mercy, just as God was going to inflict the punishment, it had not as yet done any execution.

HEAVEN AND EARTH. These, in the prophetic language, often signify the political state or condition of persons of different ranks in this present world.

The heaven of the political world is the sovereignty thereof, whose host and stars are the powers that rule; namely, kings, princes, peers, councillors, magistrates; and this is perhaps what Sapor, king of Persia, meant, in his address to Constantius, the emperor, where, speaking in the Oriental style, he calls himself "King of kings, brother of the sun and moon, companion of the stars," &c.

The earth is the peasantry, plebeians, or common race of man, who possess no power, but are ruled by superiors.

Of such a heaven and earth, we may understand mention to be made in Haggai ii. 6, 7, 21, 22, referred to in Heb. xii. 26, meaning the political heavens and earth. Also, Jerem. iv. 23, 24,

"I beheld the earth, and lo, disorder and confusion,
The heavens also, and there was no light.

I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled,
And all the hills shook."

As if the world were returned to chaos again.

And in Isa. li. 15, 16,

"I am Jehovah, thy God,

Who divided the sea (i. e. the Red Sea), when the waves thereof roared;

Jehovah God of hosts is his name:

And put my words (i. e. my law) in thy mouth,
And covered thee with the shadow of my hand,

(i. e. protected thee in thy march to Canaan,) That I might plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth,

(i. e. make thee a state, and build thee into a political world,)

And say unto Sion, Thou art my people."

See also Isa. xxxiv. 2, 4, 5; Isa. xiii. 10; Ezek. xxxii. 7; Matt. xxiv. 29.

Such modes of speaking were usual in the Oriental poetry and philosophy, which made a heaven and earth in every thing, i. e. a superior and inferior in every part of nature; and as we learn from Maimonides, quoted by Mede, who affirms that the Arabians in his time, when they would express that a man was fallen into some great calamity, used to say, "His heaven has fallen to the earth;" meaning, his superiority or prosperity is much diminished.

"To look for a new heavens or a new earth," 2 Peter iii. 13, then, may mean, to look for a new order of the present world, or, as the Scripture phrases it, Matt. xix. 28, Acts iii. 21, "The regeneration, or the restitution of all things."

HE-GOAT. Daniel viii. 5, "And as I was considering, behold an he-goat came from the west, on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground; and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes," &c.

The Macedonians are called Egeades, from Ayos,

a goat; see Justin, l. 7; and from the same author we learn, that the goat, since their king Caranus, was the arms of Macedon.

γνωρίσματα,

Bishop Chandler, in his Vindication, p. 154, observes, "That princes and nations being of old painted by their symbols, which Procopius calls yvwgoμata, they came afterwards to be distinguished by writers with the names of their symbols, as by their proper appellations. Yet Alexander derived himself from Jupiter Ammon, and he and his successors had two ram's horns on their coins, the very description of the former beast. But this happened not till after he had subdued Egypt, when, being lord of Persia, he might adopt her arms or ensigns for his own." Dr Newton observes, "That Alexander's son by Roxana was named Ægus, or the son of the Goat, and that some of his successors are represented in their coins with goats' horns."

"And touched not the ground," denoting the rapidity of his conquests. But the Syriac renders it, Nothing touched or hindered him in the earth," i. e. he met with no impediment or material molestation. The "notable, or conspicuous horn," is Alexander himself, as explained by the angel, v. 21.

Verse 6, "He came to the ram," &c., i. e. he encountered Darius.

Verse 9, The single, or small horn, is understood by some to mean Antiochus Epiphanes, whom Polybius calls Epimanes, or the Madman. But interpreters are by no means agreed on this subject.

See the articles Horn and Leopard.

The particulars which illustrate the fulfilment of this remarkable prophecy may be found at large in