therefore the daughter of spoil must be set forth as doing violence to the person of Zion's Ruler and not to Zion herself. From which insult Zion's champion, the Bethlehemite, Ancient of days, must redress the royal line, and revenge it upon the head of the Assyrian and of the land of Nimrod, from whence came the oppression and the wrong. Perceiving therefore, beyond a question, that "the daughter of a troop," is the oppressing, and not the oppressed city-Babylon, and not Jerusalem-we have next to inquire, And whence the name "daughter of a troop," and what is the import? Methinks the name needs no explanation, but speaks its own meaning to be of a place or city which arose from a troop of banditti or plunderers, and became the capital of the banditti or plunderersof the world; which arose from troops, and by troops did stand. Those two cities in the world, of any celebrity, which have had such an origin, are Babylon, and Rome the mystical Babylon of which the former had its origin from Nimrod and his troop, the latter from Romulus and his troop; and both became the centres of mighty empires, which held the whole earth in bondage. That it is Babylon, and not Rome, which is here signified in the first instance, though Rome hath succeeded to the evil occupation, is manifest from the context preceding, where it is mentioned by name, and the context succeeding where Nimrod the leader of the troop is also mentioned by name. That Babylon had such an origin, the following extract from Dr. Well's admirable Geography of the Old and New Testament will sufficiently shew :-"The occasion of Nimrod's applying himself to hunting is probably conjectured to be in order to destroy the wild beasts, that began to grow now very numerous, and so to infest very much the parts adjoining to the nation of Cush; the deserts of Arabia being a convenient place for them, to harbour in. Hereupon, having got together a body of stout young men of his own nation like himself, he began by degrees to be a great master in the art of hunting, and destroying the beasts of prey; by which means he not only very much ingratiated himself with the inhabitants of the adjoining countries, but also inured himself and his companions to undergo fatigue and hardship, and withal to manage dexterously several sorts of offensive weapons. Being thus occasionally trained up to the art of war, and perceiving at length his skill and strength sufficient to act offensively even against men, he invades first the neighbouring parts of the nation of Shem, which, upon the division of the earth, fell to the lot of the family of Arphaxad; and so makes himself master of the lower part of the land of Shinar. The extraordinary fruitfulness and also pleasantness of this tract, might be the motive that induced Nimrod to invade this part, rather than any other adjoining part of the nation of

Shem. As for the land of Canaan and Mizraim, they were possessed by the descendants of Ham, as well as himself; and therefore he might shew them the more respect on that account. Having conquered the southern parts of the land of Shinar, he pitches upon that very place, as is probable, where the city and tower of Babel had been begun, to build the capital city of his kingdom; which therefore was called by the same name Babel, whence by the Greeks and Latins it was called Babylon."

But, if I err not, we have higher authority than Dr. Wells for this interpretation. In the Hebrew word Gad, which is used twice over in the expression before us, as if it were "Now troop, thou daughter of a troop ;" or rather in the name of Gad given to one of the sons of Jacob and the tribes of Israel; we have, I think, a key to the name before us. When Leah brought forth Gad, she said " a troop cometh, and she called his name Gad." Over this her son, keeping up the meaning of the name, old Isaac, when he gave forth the prophetical fates of the tribes, thus pronounced (Gen. xlix. 19): "Gad, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last." Now what was the power that overcame Gad, for to this it is that the name of "a troop" is appropriated in the vocabulary of prophecy, which is far more constant than any other vocabulary? Let the sacred historian testify this: 1 Chron. v. 26, "And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day." Beyond a question then the Assyrian is the troop that overcame Gad, and whom Gad is yet fated to overcome. And of Nimrod, the founder of the Assyrian empire, Babylon was the daughter in her original estate; as in her after more glorious state she was the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, another captain of the Assyrian troop, who so beautified Babylon as to be able to say, Is not this great Babylon that I have built:" and in Babylon at length the Assyrian kingdom merged. So that, taken in all Babylon is the daughter of Assyria; and if Assyria, for her spoiling of the nations and her warlike prowess, be called "a troop, as we have seen, then is Babylon properly called "the daughter of a troop." If confirmation were wanting of this point, it might well be taken from that beautiful description of Babylon as the spoiler who is at length herself spoiled: "Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously

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with thee." But no one, that is at all acquainted with the prophecies, will doubt to what the strong city, the oppressing city, the city of confusion and tumult, hath respect. Be it so, then, that Micah, some seventy years after the Assyrian had asserted for herself the propriety of this name "troop," by overcoming Gad, doth call upon Babylon by this name "daughter of a troop;" the next inquiry is, For what calleth he her, and what part doth she perform? This is expressed in the next clause.

"He hath laid siege against us."-Our prophet standeth in point of time about seventy years after the invasion and spoliation of the two tribes and a half beyond Jordan, whereof Gad was one; and, as we judge, upon the eve of the insolent invasion of the Assyrian, who, having overthrown and possessed all the country around, came up to the siege of Jerusalem, and uttered those blasphemies against God, and against Hezekiah his anointed king, which are not only recorded in the historical books, but deemed of importance enough to be embodied in the prophecies of Isaiah. (xxxvi. xxxvii.) To this event in the history of Jerusalem, the first and only one of the kind that ever hath been, and the type, as we have already observed, of the only other which is written of in the prophets as yet to be; to this siege, made famous by the supernatural consumption of those troops who had vanquished the world, I have no doubt that our prophet refers in these words, "He hath laid siege against us." First, he proudly summons him to come up with the gathering of all his troops-with those matchless troops which laid the foundation of the Babylonian greatness; then he intimates the siege which he was to lay against Jerusalem; and, thirdly, the final success and issue of the siege, "He shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek ;"--which Sennacherib did not, being himself smitten with horrible dismay: he did but shake his head at the virgin daughter of Zion, without being able to injure her in the least; he did but insult her king, to his own undoing. It was reserved for Nebuchadnezzar, the second founder of Babylon, to lay Jerusalem low, and to carry her king captive, to put out his eyes, and otherwise to treat him with indignities. But because our prophet, like Isaiah, looking forward, contemplates the Assyrian as the one oppressor of Israel from the beginning to the ending, he sees nothing but his yoke until the day that the Bethlehemite cometh to smite the oppressor and to waste his land. He doth not distinguish the persons of the successive conquerors, but simply those features of their action which are necessary to explain it as a purpose of God: a city built up by rapine arising against the Lord's own city, founded upon his faithful word; drawing out her powers to besiege it, and, if possible, make void the word of the Lord; succeeding so far as to dishonour and disgrace her sovereign power,

until the Avenger cometh out of Bethlehem, of David's line, and heir of David's throne, who, standing up in his father's might, doth smite the Assyrian hip and thigh, and scatter his troops, and waste his kingdom, and destroy his city, "the daughter of spoil," and glorify Zion," the city of righteousness," and make her a praise upon the whole earth.

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The reason why the siege is always mentioned here, and every where else in the prophets-as by Zechariah, by our Lord in the Gospels, and even in the Apocalypse, at the end of the Millennium,-is this, that a city, as well as a people, and a land, is of the essence of God's purpose, from Abraham's time, who looked for a city, until those days when we are promised to be inscribed citizens of the new Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from my God." (Rev. iii.) And because, as we have shewn in our former interpretation, Mount Zion, and the city clustering around her sacred temple, the palace of the Great King, forms a conspicuous object in this prophecy, we have the siege particularly mentioned among the few incidents that are recorded. It is clearly to be gathered, both from the prophecy of Zechariah (chap. xiv.), and likewise of our Lord (Matt. xxiv.), as also from the symbolical prophecy of the Revelation (chap. xx.)—which, though not a prophecy of the same event, is yet written in terms of it, and carries a clear demonstration that the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning Gog and Magog is also of that fearful siege;-from these various predictions, I say, it is to be clearly gathered, that as in the time of Hezekiah Jerusalem was saved by the angel of the Lord, so in the last times it shall be brought into the utmost straits, and besieged almost to despair; when Christ shall come in his glory for its deliverance, and shall judge those assembled nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat; and so shall he be proved to be the Watchman and Preserver of the city, as well as the Redeemer and Restorer of the people.

The expression "they shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek," being considered in itself, expresses treatment of the greatest contempt and mockery: such, for example, as Micaiah the prophet of the Lord received from the proud and imperious son of Chenaanah, the court prophet of Ahab; such as our Lord received from the hands of the menials and soldiers, who waited about the judgment-hall. I do not think that the passage hath any reference to the indignation which the Lord endured in person, but which he endured in the persons of his ancestors of David's house. They were affianced to him, who is the Root as well as the Offspring of David; and therefore he is represented as coming forth from Bethlehem-Ephratah to avenge them. They are his wrongs, inasmuch as his name was named upon David and upon David's children. The literal ful

filment of this prophecy was not done upon Christ, but upon Zedekiah, who was taken captive and treated with all manner of indignities, as may be seen at length in the Second Book of Kings (xxv. 6, 7)," So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon." And yet not to the destruction of his life, nor yet to the utter extinction of his glory, as is set forth in the conclusion of the same chapter: "Evil merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison; and he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon" (ver. 27, 28). Wherein that treacherous and unfortunate king was a kind of sign of the royal line of David, which came into great straitness and meanness of condition, but did not entirely cease, or lose its existence, till the glory of David's race arose, fulfilling the prophecy of old Jacob, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" (Gen. xlix. 10). Some have applied the words before us to Hezekiah, and among them the learned Lightfoot; but in this I differ from him, not only for the reason stated above, but also because from the preceding chapter it is manifest that in Babylon the great catastrophe is to be felt, and while they are under the bondage of Babylon the great Avenger is to be brought forth. Now Hezekiah knew Babylon only as a kingdom which delighted to do him honour, and not at all as a prison-house. But, as hath been said, Babylon is only a stage in the mystery of the Assyrian-or rather is but his strong hold, as Zion is of Christ-and therefore the language, "smiting with a rod," is the same as is used of the Assyrian, Isa. x. 24 "He shall smite them with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against them after the manner of Egypt." It is the rod of a master, indicating the estate of servitude: not the sword of war, but the rod of captivity and slavery. The judge of Israel is the king of Israel, according to the ordinance of government which God appointed at the first; and which therefore he frequently useth as the name for their king, which God and Christ do often take to themselves as the name of regal authority. I think it is used here rather than kings to signify the utter casting down of all jurisdiction which should take place before the Deliverer came: not only the royal dignity, but even the judicial authority of king not only the pinnacles of glory, but even its lowest basement. For all kingly power came originally out of the judicial. No state, no city, nor even township, can exist without a judge and there