The act of mustering or reviewing a host is put for an analogous act of providence by which his instruments were led to assemble and muster them. The mountains from which the sound came, were those • doubtless of Media and Persia. That it was the sound of a tumult of kingdoms and nations, implies that the troops of both kingdoms, and the various peoples and tribes that constituted their populations, were to be mustered for the war.

5. Comparison of the sound in the mountains to that of a vast crowd of people. What can transcend the beauty of this expedient to impress the prophet with the greatness of the hostile host, and the certainty of their advance? A confused sound of a numerous army, marching, shouting, and perhaps clashing their arms, was borne to him from the mountains of Persia, producing as vivid a realization as though he had been in their presence, heard their thundering tread and shout, and witnessed their rapid march.

6. Hypocatastasis. "They come from a distant land, from the utmost heaven; Jehovah and the instruments of his wrath to lay waste the whole land," v. 5. Here Jehovah is represented as at the head of the host he had marshalled, and leading it towards Babylonia, to signify that he was to conduct them on their way by his providence. By the

utmost heaven, is meant the remotest line of the horizon.

7. Apostrophe. The prophet now addresses the Babylonians. "Howl! for the day of Jehovah is near. Like desolation from the Almighty shall it come," v. 6. The day of Jehovah was the day in which he was to inflict his vengeance on Babylon.

8, 9. Metaphors in the use of "near," which is properly an adjective of place, and is employed by analogy in respect to time; and "come," which properly denotes a motion in space, but is used analogically in respect to time.

10. Comparison of the mode in which the day of Jehovah was to come, to that of desolation from the Almighty, that is in suddenness and resistlessness. Desolation from his hand is instantaneous and absolute; as in the devastation of Egypt by plagues, the overthrow of Pharaoh's army in the Red sea, and the destruction of the Assyrian host by pestilence.

11. Metaphor in the use of melt. "Therefore all hands shall be relaxed"-unnerved-" and every heart of man shall melt," v. 7. This most expressive figure is used to indicate that the heart of every one should lose all its wonted energy, courage, and hope, as metals when liquified lose their firmness. Dismay and consternation were to be complete and

universal, and render the Babylonians incapable of defending themselves.

12. Hypocatastasis. "And they shall be confounded; pangs and throes shall seize them," v. 8. Pangs and throes of the body are used doubtless as representatives of analogous affections of the mind. They were to be seized, not with sudden and painful diseases, but with a terror, anguish, and despair, that were to unnerve and overwhelm them as effectually as a violent paroxysm of corporeal agony

could.

13. Metaphor. "Pangs and throes shall seize them." To seize is properly the act of an external agent. It is used here to indicate that the Babylonians individually would be as completely overpowered by terror and anguish, as they would be if each were grasped by a resistless antagonist, or a powerful beast of prey.

14. Comparison. "As a travailing woman they shall writhe," v. 8. Restlessness, and the assumption of attitudes like those which are prompted by bodily pain, are natural to persons suffering extreme anxiety and anguish.

15. Metaphor. "Each shall look at his neighbor with astonishment. Their faces shall be faces of flames," v. 8. That is, flushed with excitement, and perhaps confusion and shame. What a vivid deli

neation is presented by these few strokes of the alarm and horror with which the prospect of being conquered was to strike them; and how natural was their terror! The capture of the city was to be followed by promiscuous outrage, pillage, and slaughter; and those who should survive were to exchange the position of conquerors for that of the vanquished, and perhaps be reduced to slavery, or driven into exile.

16. Metaphor in the use of cometh. "Behold the day of Jehovah cometh, severe with wrath and heat of anger, to make the land waste, and its sinners he will destroy from it," v. 9. To come literally signifies a motion in space. It is used metaphorically, when applied to time. Though a day of wrath, it was to be a day of justice. Those who were destined to destruction in it, were sinners. 17. Elliptical metaphor in the use of heat of anger, to express its vehemence.

18. Hypocatastasis. "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not send forth their light; the sun is darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause its light to shine," v. 10. Those orbs are doubtless employed as representatives of the monarchs and princes of Babylon, and their not giving their light and being darkened, denotes the failure of those rulers to discharge the

proper functions of their office at the time of the onset of the Medes. There is an analogy between the influence of those light-giving orbs on the world, and the proper agency of the rulers of an empire on their subjects. The failure of the Babylonian chiefs to fulfil the duties of their station as the rulers of that city, was to their subjects what the failure of the heavenly orbs to give their light would be to the world. The language indicates that a change in the sun, moon, and stars, was the cause that they were not to give their light,—not, as some have supposed, a peculiar condition of the atmosphere, or dense clouds. It was their state, not that of the air, -their ceasing to emit their light, not its being prevented from penetrating the atmosphere, that was to be the cause of the extraordinary darkness; and the event corresponded to these representations. Instead of guarding the gates, watching from the ramparts, and discovering the advance of the Medes along the channel of the river and entrance beneath the walls, and vigorously repelling them, they entirely neglected their duties, and spending the night in feasting and revelry, left the city to be captured without an effort to defend it.

19. Hypocatastasis. "And I will visit evil on the world, and upon the wicked their iniquity," v. 11. To visit evil on a nation is to inflict it. That