BIBHGAE rFAPEBS, W* K. COLEMAN, BSH92 m WM tibravy of Che theological Seminary PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY • vC' a y AUG 23 1956 * BIBLICAL PAPERS; REMAINS THE EEY. W. H. COLEMAN, M.A., or st. John's college. Cambridge. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, U, HENRIETTA STREET, COYEST GARDEN. LONDON \N[i 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET. EDINBURGH 1864. HEBTFOBD: FrintOfl by Stkphf.n Austin. PREFACE, A few words are needed by way of introduction to the following papers, and but few, for their tale is soon told. It was well known to the friends of the writer, that lie had been long engaged in minute and extensive researches, accompanied by patient thought, for the purpose of illustrating the more striking and difficult of the poetical passages of the Old Testament. An examination of his papers after his decease showed the extent of preparatory labour, but that little had been done in the way of finished results. Of these, the following are published as some memorial of the ability and industry of their departed author, and as having, in their independence of thought and sound execution, a strong claim on the attention of the Biblical scholar and critic. The second paper has already appeared in the " Journal of Biblical Literature" for July, 1863, and is reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. PREFA< l It may be mentioned that among the author's papers were found the framework of a treatise on the Sinaitic Inscriptions, and fragments of an elaborate and exten- sive one on the Geology of the Midland district. These are here noticed to complete a brief record of ripening labours thus painfully cut short by the hand of Death. Juxy, 1864. ERRATUM. Page 8, 1. 14, for mrp DJ? read HIIT DJ? THE SONG OF DEBOEAH. JUDGES, Chap. V. For the taking of vengeance for Israel, For the people's offering itself, bless ye Jehovah ! Hear, ye kings ! Give ear, ye princes ! I to Jehovah, I will sing ! I will sing to Jehovah, the God of Israel ! ii. Jehovah ! at thy going forth from Seir, At thy marching from the plain of Edom, The earth shook ! The heavens too dropped ! The clouds also dropped water ! The mountains melted from before Jehovah, This Sinai from before Jehovah, the God of Israel ! in. In the days of Shamgar-ben-Anath, In the days of Jael, The highways were unoccupied, And the travellers went through bye-ways : The villages ceased ! In Israel they ceased ! Till I, Deborah, rose, Arose a mother in Israel! 2 THE SOKC OF DEBOKAH. TV. He chose new Gods : Then was war in the gates. A shield, — was it seen ? — or a spear ? Among forty thousand in Israel. v. My heart is towards the governors of Israel, That offered themselves willingly among the people, Bless ye Jehovah ! VI. Ye riders on white she-asses, Ye sitters on the seat of judgment, And walkers on the way, Meditate ! VII. Instead of the noise of archers at the watering-places, There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah, His righteous deeds towards his villages in Israel. VIII. Then went the people of Jehovah down against the cities. Awake, awake, Deb6rah ! Awake, awake, utter a song ! Arise, Barak ! And lead thy captivity captive, O son of Abinoam ! Then went down the remnant against the strong ones : The people of Jehovah went down for me against the mighty. IX. Out of Ephraim, a shoot [of those] against Amalek, — After thee, O Benjamin, [of those] against thy people, — Out of Machir came down engravers. THE SONG OF DEBORAH. From Zebulun [men] handling the pen of the writer, And the princes of Issachar [were] with Deborah, And [as] Issachar, so [was] Barak ; Into the valley at his feet he sent [them]. For the divisions of Reuben [were] great thoughts of heart ! Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds ? To hear the bleatings of the flocks ? For the divisions of Reuben [were] great searchings of heart ! XI. Gilead abode in [the land] beyond Jordan : And why did Dan remain in ships ? — Asher sat at the haven of the seas, And in his creeks abode. XII. Zebulun [was] a people jeoparding his soul to death, And Naphthali, in the high places of the field. XIII. The kings came : — they fought : — Then fought the kings of Canaan, At Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo : They took no gain of silver ! XIV. Out of heaven fought the stars ! In their orbits they fought with Sisera ! The torrent Kishon swept them away : The ancient torrent, — the torrent Kishon ! O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength ! THE SONG OF DEBORAH. XV. Then were broken the hoofs of the horse : By the pransings, — the pransings of his mighty ones. w I. " Curse ye Mer6z," said the angel of Jehovah, " Cursing, curse ye her inhabitants ; Because they came not to the help of Jehovah, To the help of Jehovah against the mighty. XVII. Blessed above women be Jael ! The wife of Heber the Kenite. Above women in the tent be blessed ! XVIII. Water he asked : — milk she gave ; In a dish for nobles the cream she brought. XIX. Her hand to the tent-peg she put forth, And her right hand to the workman's mallet.. And she struck Sisera, she smote his head, And crushed, and pierced his temples. xx. At her feet he bowed : — He fell, — he lay at her feet : He bowed, — he fell where he bowed ; There he fell down dead ! XXI. From out the window she looked forth, From the lattice the mother of Sisera cried, "Why lingereth his chariot in coming ? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?" THE SONG OF DEBORAH. O XXII. Of her ladies the wisest answered her, — She too returned her words to herself, — " Have they not found ? — divided the spoil ? A damsel [or] twain to each head of the bold : A spoil of many colours to Sisera, A spoil of many coloured embroidery, Many coloured embroidery for the necks of the spoil ? " XXIII. Thus may all that hate thee, perish, Jehovah ! But [be] they that love thee, as the going forth of the sun in his might ! l UK BONG OB DEBOB Ml. NOTE 8. I. In this version, or rather re- arrangement of the Song of Deborah, t have aimed at being as literal as possible, and have added as few words as I could, only where they seemed absolutely necessary to make the passage intelligible. I have also not only endeavoured to arrange the poem in the original stanzas and lines as far as my judgment would enable me, but have endeavoured by the choice of words to give to the whole some degree of rhythm, though I fear this will hardly be perceptible. The first stanza has been restored to its poetical form (almost lost in the E. V.), simply by translating it more literally, and following the order of the original. II. This stanza contains an obvious reference to the greatest event of Israelitish history; — the giving of the Law from Sinai. The first two lines are slightly imitated from the Ode of Moses in Deut. xxxiii. 2. The rest has had its beauties imitated, but nowhere excelled, in several places of the Psalms; by Isaiah in lxiv. 1-3; and by Habak- kuk, iii. 3-6. The word "this" in the last line is rather puzzling: the LXX. found it in their copy, so that it is not likely to be an error. The only passage that occurs to me at all similar, is in 2 Kings v. 20, "Xaaman this Sj'rian." III. In this stanza we have a triumphant contrast of the dubious peace enjoyed in the days of former Judges with that secured by the present victory. In those times the public roads were dangerous from the predatory bands of the enemy; and those who had occasion to journey from place to place, were under the necessity of using much precaution, aud performing their journey in haste and by stealth. "In those times," says Azariah, (2 Chron. xv. 5) " there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in." The unwallcd " vil- lages" were no longer safe places of residence, but were of necessity abandoned for fortified places. There seems no occasion for the word "inhabitants" BUpplied in E.Y., the sense being quite clear without it. The LXX. translate fin? by SvvaTOi, and the Vulg. by fortes : "The THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 7 mighty failed, in Israel they failed." I should like to know their reasons. IY. Here we have the reason assigned for the miseries suffered hy the Israelites. They were divine judgments inflicted on them for their idolatries, in fulfilment of the threats contained in the latter chapters of the book of Deuteronomy. The latter part of the stanza receives much light by comparison with 1 Sam. xiii. 19-22, and 2 Kings xxiv. 14; from which it appears to have been a frequent policy with con- cpuerors to deprive the conquered both of their arms and the means of making them, that they might be more under control. V. But in spite of the disadvantages under which any attempt to cast off the yoke of the Canaanites was placed, men were found willing to hazard their lives in the attempt. In the first stanza Jehovah had been praised for stirring them up to this, and in the present their praise is coupled with his. Their weapons were probably of the same rude nature as those with which the army of Saul was equipped ; as we may infer from 1 Sam. xiii. 21, that the agricultural implements there enumerated were made use of in default of better arms. Sham- gar-ben-'Anath had no better when he delivered Israel from the Phi- listines (Judges iii. 31). VI. In this stanza the rulers of the Israelites are exhorted to medi- tate upon the goodness of Jehovah, in relieving them from the calamities in which they had been involved. The riding on white asses, (horses were discouraged by Moses,) was a distinction attached to the judges and other superior magistrates, as we learn from what is said of Jair (x. 4), and 'Abdon-ben-Hillel (xii. 14). And thus the Messiah is represented by Zechariah (ix. 9) as adopting the habit of the ancient judges; a prophecy literally fulfilled by our Lord at his triumphant entry into Jerusalem five days before his death. VII. There seems no occasion to supply the words " they that are delivered," at the beginning of this stanza : it will be sufficient to translate the preposition by "instead of," to make the sense clear. This signification is rare, but it occurs in Hab. ii. 1G, "instead of glory;" and in Prov. viii. 10, "instead of choice gold." The foun- tains and wells (usually shaded with a grove of trees) are in that country the most agreeable places of resort, and therefore doubtless much frequented in the cool of the evening. Hitherto, however, they had been places of danger, from the frequency of ambushes ; for the lion is not the only animal that takes advantage of the necessity of 8 THE SONG OF DEBOKAH. water to his prey. The prophetess reminds the people to praise their God as often as they experienced the happy change of circumstances in this respect. VIII. The first line of this stanza seems incorrectly joined with the preceding by our translators, deceived by the parenthetic burst which cuts it off from the parallel lines at the close of the stanza. In these latter the LXX. have made a little confusion, but their version is much superior to the E.V. Our translators seem to have been misled by the division into lines found in some Hebrew Bibles; where we find the words Dy DHHK^ 1*"8S> TP TN forming one clause or verse : but to be good grammar this should be Dy *T1K? {le-adirey 'dm, not le-adirim 'dm) in order to give the signification "the nobles of (or, among) the people." But the word Dy {'am) no doubt belongs to the next line : nilT Dy {'am Jehovah) " the people of Jehovah," \ao<; Kvpiov as the LXX. rightly give it. Again, the word T1* {yerad) as pointed in the Hebrew text is clearly the present of TV " to descend ;" and not the present Hiphil of HIT "to tread under foot," which is HTV. (yardeh) or 77- {yard). It is remarkable that our translators should have given " go down " for this very same word in the first line of the stanza, and yet here have given a different meaning, following the Vulgate in opposition to the LXX. The word y {li) "for me," means "at my request," or perhaps is merely expletive ; it seems to have puzzled the LXX. IX. Now follows a list of those who principally assisted in the battle. From Ephraim came some of the descendants of those who had fought under Ehud (iii. 27) against the combined forces of Moab, Amnion, and Amalek. This seems to be the meaning of the line ; but it is obscure from its elliptic brevity : literally, it is " Out of Ephraim, — their stock against Amalek." From Benjamin came the descendants of those who had fought with a valour worthy of a better cause, against their own countrymen, as related in the last three chapters of the book of Judges. And here we may by the way observe that those chapters are out of the chronological order, since it appears from xx. 28 that the occurrences there detailed happened during the life and high-priesthood of Phincas-ben-Eleazar, and therefore in all probability at least a century before the victory of Barak. By Machir is no doubt intended the Manassite portion of Gilead : Machir was the son, and Gilead the grandson of Manasseh, to whose descendants Bashan and half of Gilead were assigned by Moses. The word translated "go- THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 9 vernors" in E.V. is derived from a root signifying primarily "to inscribe" or "engrave;" whence it afterwards came to mean "to legislate" because laws were "inscribed" on tablets of stone or metal. It seems therefore to me that it would be better to translate "en- gravers" in the simple sense of the word; as by so doing we shall have a parallelism with the following line. It is probable that the idea intended to be conveyed is that the peaceful inhabitants of Gilead and Zebulun, being roused by the call of the prophetess, came to the war armed for hick of better weapons, with the styles and other instru- ments then used in writing and engraving on stone. The latter part of the stanza is difficult, and perhaps corrupt. The LXX. read " and Barak" instead of the second "Issachar;" and point n?^ airecrTeike "he sent" (shdlak), not n?£> {shuTlak) "he was sent." But the former does not improve the sense. X. Our translators have servilely followed the Hebrew copies in attaching the first line of this stanza to the preceding, with which it surely has no connection. The Reubenites were expected to send their quota to the army as well as the Manassites : their absence caused much anxiety, and their tardiness is here ridiculed. The similarity of the words ">ppn (khiqqey) in the first and npn (Jchaqrey) in the last line of the stanza, might lead us to suppose that one of them is an error ; but, if so, it originated before the time of the LXX. The first is from the same root as that before referred to under " Machir," and may signify "engravings" or "impressions." XI. By Gilead must here be intended Gad, though that tribe pos- sessed but the half of it ; and the Manassites, its conquerors, had imposed the name of their ancestor on the whole. The country after- wards called in Greek, "Peraea/'e'.e. ra irepaia, is here as often denoted by a similar name, " the Trans-Jordan." This would have saved the commentators a world of trouble, if remembered in reading such pas- sages as Deut. i. 1, "These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel in the Trans- Jordan." The mention of ships in connection with Dan is to me quite inexplicable ; neither the southern nor the northern Danites possessed any sea-coast. I could wish there were some authority for reading nirj? "fountains," instead of nVJK "ships;" since the Northern Danites were near the sources of the Jordan. And lest I should be charged with an anachronism, I must again observe that Judges xvii. and xviii. are out of their proper place in order of time. For the Levite who was concerned in that transaction was 10 THE SONG OF DEBORAH. Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, not Manasseh ; for the Jewish critics have long ago rejected the common reading, writing Manasseh with the medial : " suspended," as it is called, i.e. above the line of letters, thus ng^O i.e. m n sn 11 or, me n ashshch. The ) being • • e a e removed there remains nc ; E mosheh, or Moses, as we write it. This 3 was probably put in by some Jew anxious for the credit of the de- scendants of Moses ; and this must have been done before the time of the LXX. : the Masorites had no doubt good MS. authority for marking it as spurious. We might perhaps translate " And why did Dan fear sorrows ;" but that would not improve it. XII. The Vulgate takes »»n» (mrrome) "high places," for a proper name : "obtulenmt animas suas morti in regione Merome." But this is bad grammar, and the battle did not take place at Merom, the lake or marsh near the sources of the Jordan, but near the torrent Kishon, "in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo." XIII. Who the kings were that are here referred to, does not ap- pear; but Jabin was probably the head of a confederacy. At the conquest we find almost every town to have its own king. These " reguli" must have been very plentiful, for Adoni-bezek to have " threescore and ten " subject to him. " They took no gain of silver " seems to be a proverbial expression for utter loss and disappointment. XIV. By the stars are doubtless chiefly intended the planets, which were objects of worship to the Canaanites. These would now seem to their votaries to have turned against them; not only causing them "bad luck," but also in all probability by a miraculous storm, which would be ascribed to them by the Canaanites. For setting aside the second stanza, which certainly has nothing whatever to do with this matter but refers to the transactions at Sinai, we have in the mention of "fighting from heaven," and the swelling of the Kishon, pretty clear indications that Barak partly owed the victory to a miraculous storm, such as that recorded in Josh. x. The epithet "ancient" applied to the Kishon i3 almost a singular one: being only paralleled by "the ancient mountains'' Dent, xxxiii. 15. Is it possible that in both these places the word should be taken for a proper name? — "the Kadmonite torrent," "the Kadmouite mountains." If so, they received their name from the nation of the Kadmonites mentioned in Gen. xv. 19, who do not indeed occur in the THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 11 after enumeration of the tribes of Canaan ; but who may possibly have emigrated and formed the Kadmeans of the Greek Thebes. I translate the word ^>n3 (nachal) by "torrent" advisedly. It should always be so translated to prevent confusion, such as arises in the case of QnVD ^m (nachal Mitzraim) "the torrent of Egypt," which is a very different stream from IX* ( Yeor) " the Nile." XV. It must be remembered here that the shoeing of horses is quite a modern invention : and that cavalry was in ancient times soon ren- dered useless when acting on hard and rugged ground, as seems to have been the case here. "Shall horses run upon the rock?" asks Amos (vi. 12). When it is considered that the chief strength of the Canaanites was in their " nine hundred chariots of iron," we see the propriety of the elegant allusion to the means by which this force was disabled. By "chariots of iron," I understand "plated," or otherwise strengthened with iron; as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar's "image of gold," and the chryselephantine statues of the Greeks. XVI. Meroz, the site of which is entirely unknown, is supposed to have been adjacent to the field of battle. Its inhabitants might pro- bably have rendered important services, but from cowardice refused to assist their brethren. We know not how the prophetic curse took effect ; but it seems to have been fulfilled to the uttermost, since Meroz is never again heard of in history. XVII. It would seem from stanza in. that Jael the wife of Heber was herself a prophetess, and had acted as Judge previous to the call of Deborah. The terms of the commendation of Jael are remarkable, "Blessed shall she be above women in the tent." From the mention of "tent" here and in chapter iv. 11, etc., we see that the Kenitos had not abandoned their Arab mode of life. Whether they continued it till the time of Jehu, or it was then revived by Jonadab-ben-Rechab their descendant (1 Chron. ii. 55), is uncertain. Why Jael was not only justified but blessed for what seems at first sight a breach of hospitality and a treacherous murder, is a question of some difficulty. The subject has been largely discussed by others, and I shall not therefore enter upon it. XVIII. I have preferred the word "cream" to "butter," as cor- responding better to the " milk " of the preceding line. Sisera having fled a long way on foot, — from the Kishon to Kadesh-Naphtali is five and thirty miles as the crow flies, — was doubtless suffering from thirst, 12 THE SONG OF DEBORAH. for which butter would hardly be a proper remedy. Indeed, I should almost doubt whether butter, such as ours, is to be had in Palestine; but I have no book of travels to refer to. Would it not rather be in the fluid form called "ghee" in India? XIX. On the "nails" of the Orientals, see Lowth's Isaiah, xxii. 23, note. Here in all probability the tent-pegs are intended to which the cords were attached. It does not appear that Jael cut off Sisera's head, but only drove the tent-peg through his temples to the ground. Hence, the "off" supplied in E.V. is superfluous and injurious. XX. I have found it necessary entirely to alter the punctuation of this stanza from that of the E.V. before I could reduce it to anything like order. For the first two lines I have the authority of the LXX. The repetition adds greatly to the beauty. XXL "The lattice" is in the LXX. to to^ikov "the arrow-slit," or perhaps "the battlement;" it is said to be derived from an Arabic root 2W to be cool. The two following lines are literally "Wherefore blusheth his chariot to come ? Wherefore delay the steps of his chariots ? a curious personification. XXII. I need information on the idiom DTHDm Dm " a damsel two damsels:" not being satisfied whether it means "a damsel or twain," or "a damsel of two damsels," i.e. the better of twain. The Vulgate take the latter view of it ; the LXX. are wide of the mark. The latter part of verse 30 has puzzled me very much, — " the necks of the spoil" not being what one would expect, and the ellipse sup- posed in E.V. being very harsh. However, it has occurred to me that the version of the LXX. may clear up the difliculty a little. They have ra) Tpa-)(r)\

prefixed to another substantive is equivalent to the Latin compounds with trans. Thus, qui trans Rhenum incolunt is not "who live beyond the Ebine " but "who inhabit the Trans-Rhine." 1 In like manner in Hebrew, the pTmny is the Trans-Jordan or Percea in its widest sense ; the *rn:im:iy is the Trans-Euphrates or Mesopotamia; — the terms in all cases having reference to the position of the speaker. Thus in the king of Persia's decree in Ezra and Nehemiah, the Trans-Euphrates is Syria, which is beyond that river in respect of Susa. And thus, too, Moses would naturally call the west of Jordan the Trans-Jordan, as he does in Deut. iii. 25, etc., though it is the east which is usually so denominated. But the great quarrel we have with the translators and commen- tators is the neglect of the prepositions prefixed to such compounds as pTrfDy : as if there were no difference whether 2 "in," or ft "from," preceded them. The fact is that both have their distinct and proper meanings here as elsewhere. With the former the phrase becomes, "in 1 Similarly in Arabic writers, the country north of the Sihiin or Oxus,— the fcrans- oxiana of Latin writers, — is called r£-j' \j) ^» Ma-wara-al-Nahar (pronounced Ma-waran-nahar), i.e., what is beyond the river. 22 THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. the Trans- Jordan ;" with the latter, "from the Trans- Jordan," though is O sometimes used where English idiom would require "on" or " at," as in the Latin phrases, a latere, a dextro cornu, etc. Let us proceed to apply this to a few passages in which the mean- ing is either incorrectly or imperfectly given. Numb. xxi. 3. They removed (and pitched) from the Trans-Arnon. Joshua xxiv. 3. Took your father Abraham from the Trans-Eu- phrates. xxii. 7. Among their brethren from the Trans- Jordan (2TD). xxiv. 15. Your fathers that were from the Trans-Euphrates. 2 Sam. x. 16. The Syrians that were from the Trans-Euphrates (np). 1 Chron. xix. 16. The Syrians that were from the Trans-Euphrates. Job i. 19. There came a great wind from across the desert. The signification is somewhat altered by the particle ^> prefixed to the word denoting the boundary. In such cases ft prefixed to "\2]3 is much the same with the Latin de or ex, implying some or a por- tion of, answering to the old English "of" in such phrases as, "Give us of your oil ;" while the h signifies "in respect of," and may be repre- sented by "of." Thus Numb. xxii. 1, And they encamped in the 'Arabah of Moab, [a portion] of [the country on] the other side [in respect] of the Jordan of Jericho. Numb, xxxii. 19. We will not inherit of tbe other side of the Jordan . . . our inheritance is fallen to us of the other side of the Jordan eastward. So at least runs the Samaritan and several MSS. ; the printed Hebrew omits the ? in the second clause. See also Numb. xxxii. 32. Deut. xxx. 13. Nor is it of the other side of the sea, i.e., not of the products of the country beyond sea, — not a foreign production. Joshua xiv. 3. Joshua gave them an inheritance at the other side of Jordan. 1 Sam. xiv. 1. Let us go over to the post of the Philistines, who are (rather tban which is) of the other side. It follows from all this, that in the passage under consideration the full meaning is " the land . . . which is [a portion] of the other side of the rivers of Cush." And as a nearly similar idea is conveyed by the ordinary translation, "which is beyond the rivers of Cush," this may be allowed to pass. The rivers of Cush.'] — Michaclis and others arc of opinion that Cush is Southern Arabia. But this is utterly disproved by the very THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 23 words here employed ; for few facts in the geography of Arabia arc better established than that it does not possess a single iri3 or perma- nent river, all its waters being water-torrents ^>m. There remain then to be considered the African Cush = Nubia, Abyssinia, etc., and, secondly, the country between the Gihon and Tigris, called Cush in Gen. ii. 14. In the former case the rivers of Cush would be the Tacazze and the Blue and White Niles; in the latter, the Gihon (either the Kerkkah or the Diyalah) and the Tigris. We can have no hesi- tation in preferring the former interpretation; since, except in the passage above referred to, there is no example of tbe application of tbe name Cush to the country east of the Tigris. The land therefore which is beyond the rivers of Cush is doubtless Nubia, with its depen- dencies at Abyssinia, 1 etc., and chiefly the so-called island of Meroe, the modern Jezirah between the Tacazze and the Bahr-al-Azreq. To resume, then, the whole line may be thus paraphrased: "Which is a portion of the country beyond the rivers of Nubia." And this being settled, we must now seek for some explanation of the preceding line which shall correspond to this interpretation, and equally describe the same region. The land overshadowing with wings. .] — The commentators are here divided in opinion as to whether Egypt or Nubia is the country in- tended : we have seen that the latter interpretation must be accepted, since it is impossible that on any probable hypothesis as to the position of the speaker, Egypt should be " beyond the rivers of Cush." How- ever, it will be well to give all the opinions on the subject, which wo may conveniently classify according to the view taken of the derivation and meaning of the word 7¥?¥. I. The majority derive from W " shade ;" but they differ widely in their interpretations. 1. Some take it as an active participle, "overshadowing with wings," and of these by this phrase a. Castalio and others understand simply "great;" /3. Calvin, Ostervald, Haheisel, etc., " protecting others," specially Israel. 2. Others take it in a passive sense, "overshadowed with wings," which a. Junius, Piscator, Gx'otius, Vitringa, Dathe, and others explain of 1 The Arabic has c Ul«.*^ »l^ " the rivers of Abyssinia." 24 THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. the position of Egypt, overshadowed by the two ranges of hills bound- ing the valley of the Nile. ft. The Chaldee, Luther, and Munster, refer to the Nile, crowded, and as it were oversbadowed by the sails of boats, which they suppose to be figuratively called " wings." 7. Le Moyne is singular in supposing D^BJD to represent the name of the god Knuph, and accordingly translates, "overshadowed of Knuph." 3. A tbird party, Vogt, Kocher, and D'Orville take it in a neuter sense, "for casting a shadow both ways;" and suppose it to relate to the Amphiscii (afMpia/aoi), or dwellers between the tropics. II. The second class of commentators derive the word from ?¥?¥ "to tingle or rattle;" and among these the favourite explanation is — 1. That of the Vulgate (i.e., Jerome) adopted by Bochart, Huet, Le Clerc, Lowth, etc., namely, " the land of the winged cymbal;" i.e., say they, the sistrum of the Egyptians. 2. Symmachus seems to have held this derivation, though his 6 tj'xp'i 7rrepa>T0<; is unintelligible. 3. Doederlein makes a verb of it, "he whirrs with his wings, who sends ambassadors beyond the rivers," etc., understanding Tirhakah. 4. Michaelis, in his German version, puts forward the singular notion of an allusion to the fable of the inhabitants of the tropical regions hearing the whirr of the wings of the sun ! III. The author of the great Arabic Lexicon, called the Qamus, gives JialSiJ as a synonym of „JLs " ships." This seems to be the origin of — 1. The LXX.'s ttXoicov TTTepvyes, wings of sbips (Ar.^JLsfLs^sj-l), 2. As well as of the Chaldee' s first explanation, " the land to which men go in ships." IV. Lastly, we come to those who take W?V for the name of an insect : a sense in which, though with different vowel-points attached, it is used in Deut. xxviii. 42. In that passage it is usually, but hypo- thetically, translated "locust." Michaelis (supp. 2094) would have it the " mole-cricket," ' without adducing any evidence of that animal's existence in Palestine ; and he suggests that the same insect may be intended in the present passage, which idea is adopted by Schelling. 1 Tlic existence of the mole-cricket in Palestine is highly improbable, since it is never found except in wet situations on the banks of canals and ditches. See White of Selborne, letter xc. THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 25 We believe that the opinion of the insect nature of the WW is the true one, though the particular animal intended has been mistaken. Michaelis himself hints at another explanation, but so slightly as to shew that he had no confidence in his own suggestion. " You may too," says he (supp., 2097), "speculate on flies; one kind of which, very troublesome to the Abyssinians, Bruce has mentioned." The iden- tity of the Tziltzal of Isaiah with the Abyssinian gad-fly had occurred to ourselves before we were aware that Michaelis had thus suggested it; but we willingly yield to him whatever priority the above- quoted remark may entitle him to. That he did not work the idea out is not to be wondered at, when we consider the suspicion with which Bruce' s statements were so long undeservedly regarded. But before we proceed to discuss the animal intended, it will be well to shew how entirely unsatisfactory are all the other proposed explanations. In the first place, we must reject without hesitation all the interpretations grounded on the hypothesis that Egypt is the country intended. For the land in question is expressly, as we have seen, stated to be a portion of the other side of the rivers of Cush ; and Egypt can by no possibility be beyond such rivers in respect of Judaaa, whatever Cush or the rivers may be. On this ground, then, we reject No. I., 2, though (a) would, otherwise, be not improbable ; while (/3) is no peculiarity of the Nile, and (7) is almost absurd. On this ground, then, we reject No. II., 1, which indeed merely requires an inspection of the figure of the Sistnim to refute itself. The explanations under No. I., 1, labour under the disad- vantage of want of precision, since it was no more true of Cush than of several other nations, that it was great and capable of protecting ; and a similar objection applies to the explanations, if they deserve that name, under No. III. The view, No. I., 3, would be probable, were it not far beyond the geographical views of those days. No. II., 3, sets all laws of Hebrew poetry and construction at defiance; and of No. II., 4, we can only say that it is quite unworthy of the usual sobriety of its author. Let us, then, revert to the insect theory. The WW of Deut. xxviii. 42 (pointed by the Masora so as to read Tzelatzal), is presumed to be an insect destructive to vegetation. But, first, let it be well under- stood that we have no knowledge whatever of its nature, except by inference from the context ; and that in consequence it is not even certain that it is an insect. And, secondly, let it be observed that 26 THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OP ISAIAH. many translators, our own among the number, writing under the pre- sumption that some kind of locust was intended, have somewhat strained the sense. For it is not "shall the locust consume," but, " Every treo of thine, and the fruit of thy ground, shall the Tzelatzal possess." This may indeed signify that the Tzelatzal should possess, and, in accordance with its nature, consume them ; but it may with at least equal probability be taken to mean that the inhabitants should be compelled to abandon their lands in consequence of their occupation by an animal noxious, not to trees, but to men and cattle. Surely " pos- sessing nations and cities" (Dcut. ix. 1, and xi. 23) does not imply either the devouring of one, or the destruction of the other. Setting, then, aside the difference of the assigned vowel-points as of no weight in the argument, we have quite as much right to believe that the Tzelatzal of Deut. xxviii. 42 is the same as the Tziltzal of Isaiah xviii. 1, as others claim to regard them as different, especially since the addition of D*33D "of wings," or "of the two wings," indicates to a certain extent the winged nature of the Tziltzal. And thus, if either the Tzelatzal or Tziltzal be an animal and an insect at all, we have as much reason for referring it to the mosquito or the gad-fly tribe, as to that of the locusts, or other herbivorous or granivorous destroyers. Having thus, as we trust, shewn the unsatisfactoriness of all other explanations, and the absence of any a priori objection to the insect theory, we may boldly profess our belief that the Abyssinian fly of Bruce is the thing intended, at least in Isaiah xviii. 1, if not also in Deut. xxviii. 42. Bruce himself seems to have been of this opinion in respect of the latter passage ; for, speaking of the fly in Isaiah vii. 18, he says, "The Chaldee Version is content with calling this animal simply Zebub, which signifies the fly in general, as we express it in English. The Arabs call it Zimb in their translation, which has the same general signification. The Ethiopian translation calls it Tsal- tsalya, which is the particular name of the particular fly in Gecz, and was the same in Hebrew." Now if this statement is correct — for we have no means of verifying it — it is evident from the concluding words that Bruce believed that the btbt of Deut. xxviii. 42, was the animal intended ; and that the Ethiopic translator of Isaiah vii. 1 8 considered the allusion there to be the terrible gad-fly of his own country. Thus, then, " the fly, which is in the uttermost parts (D*¥p) of the rivers (Dns* 'Niles') of Egypt," will not, as llosenmiiller supposes, be the mosquito of the Delta, but the gad-fly of the Tacazze aud Bahr-al-Azreq. THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 27 This view of Bruce has not hitherto attracted the attention it de- served; partly from the general disposition to regard his statements with suspicion ; and partly from its being supposed that an insect so small and apparently insignificant, could hardly have been adopted as a prophetical emblem for the power of the Ethiopian princes Sabaco and Tirhakah. But the latter objection is quite overruled by the obviously similar description of the Assyrian power by " the bee that is in the land of Assyria." And the doubts respecting Bruce's statements either have already dissolved, or are fast melting away before the light thrown upon eastern and interior Africa by the pro- gress of modern discovery. His despised Zimb or Tsaltsalya is now found to play so important a part in the equatorial regions of Eastern Africa, that we need no longer wonder at its being adopted by Isaiah, as the emblem of Abyssinia. Under the name of the Tsetse or Isitse it is only too well known, and too much an object of dread both to European traveller and native stock-keeper. "We shall append to this paragraph some extracts relating to this insect pest, — the Olassinia morsitans of entomologists. It may be remarked that its name Tsetse shews evident affinity to the Tsintziya of the Amharic, and Tsaltsaliya of the Geez dialect; as well as to the Tziltzal or Tzelatzal of the Bible. The nbvni^ (perhaps pronounced Tzenhatzalah) of the Sama- ritan Version seems to connect the varieties in the orthography. We may even venture to suggest that the Phoenicians or Carthaginians may have carried into Italy this name for the terrible gad-fly, — adopted by the Bomans in the form Asilus : just as it may well be believed that the same people carried to Greece the name njnsn hatzir'ah for a simi- lar animal, — written oiarpos by the Greeks. Bruce's account of the Zimb is as follows: — "It is in size very little larger than a bee, of a thicker proportion, and has wings, which are broader than those of a bee, placed separate like those of a fly; they are of fine gauze without colour or spot upon them. The head is large; the upper jaw or lip is sharp, and has at the end of it a strong pointed hair, of about a quarter of an inch long ; the lower jaw has two of these pointed hairs; and the pencil of hairs, when joined together, makes a resistance to the finger nearly equal to that of a hog's bristle. Its legs are serrated, on the inside, and the whole covered with brown hair or down He has no sting, though he seems to me rather of the bee kind ; but his motion is more rapid and sudden than that of the bee, and resembles that of the gad-fly in 28 THK KIGHTKKNTH CHAl'TKK OF ISAIAH. England. There is something peculiar in the sound or buzzing. It is a jarring noise together with a humming ; which induces me to believe it proceeds, at least in part, from a vibration made with the three hairs at the snout. As soon as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain till they die, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No remedy remains but to leave the black earth [where they breed] and hasten down to the sands of Atbara ; and there they remain while the rains last, this cruel enemy never daring to pursue them farther. Though his size is as immense as is his strength, and his body covered with a thick skin, defended with strong hair, yet even the camel is not able to sustain the violent punctures the fly makes with his pointed proboscis. He must lose no time in removing to the sands of Atbara, for when once attacked by this fly, his body, head, and legs break out into large bosses which swell, break, and probably to the certain destruction of the creature All the inhabitants of the sea coast of Melinda down to Cape Guardefris, to Saba, and the south coast of the Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion and remove to the next sand in the beginning of the rainy season to prevent all their stock of cattle being destroyed. This is not a partial emigration ; the inhabitants of all the countries from the mountains of Abyssinia to the confluence of the Nile and Astaboras northwards, are once a year compelled to change their abode, and seek protection in the sands at Beja ; nor is there any alternative or means of avoiding this. Providence from the beginning, it would seem, had fixed its habitation to one species of soil, being a black fat earth, extraordinarily fruitful ; and small and incon- siderable as it was, it seems from the first to have given law to the settlement of the country." ' We must here call attention to the exact correspondence of the geographical limits of Bruce's Zimb with those of Isaiah's Tziltzal. The "land of the Tziltzal" does not begin till "beyond the rivers of Cush:" the land of the Zimb is exclusively south of the confluence of the Nile and Atbara or Tacazze. 2 And if any one still doubts the probability of a fly being adopted as the emblem of a country, let him observe Bruce's unwitting testimony, — (for Bruce had no idea of the 1 Bruce, i., 388-390, and v., 188-192. 8 But if the Zimb of Bruce be confined to these limits, it will be asked, how can it be the Tziltzal or Tzelatzal of Palestine ? This confessedly is a great difficulty ; and the only explanation we can suggest is this : that it is not. and never was, natu- rally an inhabitant of Palestine: but that the Israelites are (in the passage above THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 29 mention of his animal in Isaiah xviii. 1,) — to the important part it plays in Abyssinia. In the effects of the bite, Bruce's account differs from that quoted below, but no more than might be expected from Bruce's deficiency in scientific matters ; in consequence of which he has probably confounded the blood-sucking Zimb of the Tabanidas, with some other " bot-" producing flies of the (Estridae family. While on this subject we may observe that if any reliance could be placed in the dual number assigned to the word "wings" by the vowel-points, it would be a remarkable confirmation of our view, since the Zimb or Tsetse is a member of the order Diptera. The following account of the Tsetse of the interior of the south of Africa is extracted from an account of " Oswell and Livingstone's Ex- plorations into Central Africa," contained in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1852, vol. xxii. p. 164, etc. : — " Having come at length upon a rhinoceros trail, we allowed the cattle, which were nearly worn out by the deep dry sands through which we had passed, to run along it until their instinct led them to the water; unfortunately, however, at a part of the Mababi infested by the ' Tsetse fly.' (p. 172) The bite of the Tsetse (fly) is fatal to nearly all domestic animals ; yet when allowed to settle on the hand, all it is observed to do is to insert its proboscis a little further in than seems necessary to reach the blood ; it then withdraws it a little, the proboscis assumes a crimson colour, the mandibles appear in operation, the shrunken body swells, and in a few seconds the animal becomes quite full and quietly leaves. Its size is almost that of the common blue-fly, which settles on meat, but the wings are longer. In the ox the following symptoms are produced by the bite of the insect. The eye runs, the glands under the jaw swell, the coat loses its gloss, there is a peculiar flaccidity of the muscles generally, and emaciation commences, which proceeds un- checked until, perhaps months after the bite, purging supervenes, and the animal perishes of extreme exhaustion. Some die soon after the bite is inflicted, especially if they are in good condition, or should rain fall ; but in general the process of emaciation goes on for months. I had a horse which perished five months after being exposed to the insect. When the animal is destroyed in consequence of not being able quoted from Deuteronomy) threatened with it as a miraculous visitation. Perhaps they had seen its fatal effects in Egypt, where it may have been one of the flies (Zebub = Zimb in the Hebrew) which formed one of the plagues. And in this con- nexion, it is worthy of remark that the plague of flies precedes the murrain. May it not then have been the necessary consequence of the bites of the Tsetse ? 30 THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. to rise, the following appearances may be observed. The cellular tissue under the skin is injected with air, and the surface of the body presents the appearance of a number of soap-bubbles strewed over the carcase. The fat is of a greenish-yellow colour, and of oily consistence. The muscles are flabby, and the heart frequently pale and softened. The lungs have diseased patches on their surface of a pink or grey colour. The liver is frequently diseased, and the gall-bladder always distended with bile. The stomach presents no particular appearance; but the small intestines arc pale, and generally empty. The blood is remark- ably small in quantity, and so devoid of colouring matter, that it scarcely stains the hands. The poison seems to be of the nature of a ferment, capable of propagating itself, and acts chiefly on the brain, heart, lungs, and liver. The brain seemed affected in several by the circulation of the morbid fluid ; for the animal became unsteady in its gait, and sometimes even blind. The Tsetse is fatal only to domestic animals, as the wild feed in parts infested by it quite undisturbed. There are large tribes, which cannot keep either cattle or sheep because the Tsetse abounds in their country ; yet it bites man and no danger follows. Our children lived for two months among the Tsetse, and were frequently bitten, but suffered no harm ; while we lost most of our best oxen, after having been in contact with the fly on only one or two occasions. We have seen zebras, buffaloes, and antelopes, feeding undisturbed in the vicinity of our waggons on the Chobe, quite un- molested by the Tsetse which buzzed around them. Oxen and buffa- loes, horses and zebras, antelopes and goats, jackals and dogs, possess somewhat of the same nature. What is there in domestication, which renders domestic animals obnoxious to the poison ? Is man not as much a domestic animal as a dog ? Is it the Tsetse at all which kills the animals ? Captain Vardon of the Indian army decided this point, for he rode a horse up to a hill infested by Tsetse, and in ten days his doubts were removed by the death of his horse. A curious feature in the case is, that dogs though reared on milk die if bitten, while calves are safe so long as they suck the cow. A dog reared on the meat of game may be hunted in the Tsetse districts in safety. The Tsetse only inhabits peculiar localities, well-known to the natives. Is there any antiseptic in the fluids of game and man which does not exist in the fluids of tame animals, or in those of dogs reared on milk?" The following, from Diodorus Siculus, iii. 22, given also in an abridged form by Strabo, 16, may possibly have originated in some THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 31 perverted account of the Tsetse : — " In Ethiopia above Egypt, along the banks of the river called Asa (Strabo says Astaboras, i.e., Atbarra or Tacarre, and Astaphas, i.e., Bahr-al-Azreq), lives the tribe of the root-eaters who are much annoyed by lions And doubtless the tribe would be utterly destroyed had not nature contrived for them a self-acting remedy. For about the [heliacal] rising of the dog-star, unexpectedly, there previously not having been a single fly in the place, so great a multitude of mosquitoes (kgovcottwv) collects, of a far worse sort than any known elsewhere, that the natives only escape by taking refuge in the marshes ; and all the lions fly the country, at once sorely damaged by their bites, and terrified by their noise." ' Ver. 2. That sendeth.'] — With one exception all critics and trans- lators have taken the word rh&7\ for the participle hal, with the defi- nite article prefixed; in which state it became practically a noun, "the sender," "he or it that sendeth." If so, it must here mean "the land that sendeth ;" but to this there is an objection in the masculine gender of the supposed participle, y\a " the land " being feminine. We are willing to grant that this is not an insuperable difficulty, such irregularities being not without parallel ; see Michaelis Be Solccci&mo, 28. Hensler alone ventures to differ from all other critics, and takes the word for the Prset. Hophal, pointing it n ?^C> which he unjustifiably translates man sendeth, "people send." We take it for the imperative Hiphil Hp^n properly, "cause thou to send;" but which, in all the passages where it occurs (Exod. viii. 21 ; Lev. xxvi. 22 ; 2 Kings xv. 37 ; Ezek. xiv. 13 ; Amos viii. 11), has the simple sense of " sending." We accordingly translate it by " send thou," taking the words to be addressed by Jehovah to the prophet : our reasons will appear more clearly when we come to the clause, "Go ye swift messengers." Ambassadors.] — The LXX. have o/x^pa "pledges given in the place of hostages:" all others, both ancient and modern, "ambassadors or messengers ;" with the exception of Eochart, who takes D^V for "images," as in Isaiah xlv. 16. He builds upon this a connexion with the rites of Adonis, as described by Herodotus. But our concern is with Cush, and not with Egypt ; and Cush can by no means be the land that sends images by sea. 1 Dr. Livingstone gives an excellent account of the Tsetse in his travels, pp. 80-83 ; and a figure of the insect at p. 571. 32 THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. By the sea.] — Taking into consideration the already established reference to Ethiopia, and the papyrus boats of the following clause, — which of course could not navigate either the Red Sea or the Mediter- ranean, — little doubt can remain that the name " sea" is here used to describe the Nile. Nor is this a solitary instance, for we find the Nile so denominated in chap. xix. 5, and again in xxvii. 1. And to this day it is styled by the Arabs, Bahr-Nil, " the Nile Sea ;" as its two branches, the Bahr-al-Abiad, "White Sea," and the Bahr-al-Azreq, " Blue Sea," are even called by ourselves. Even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. ~\ — Here there is an almost general agreement among interpreters, that boats formed of the papyrus or some similar rush, and coated with pitch like the ark of the infant Moses, are intended. The only apparent variety of translation is that of the LXX., who have kcu eiriaroXa^ ftifiXtvas eirava) rov vSaro*;. It is possible, however, as Schultens (Opusc.) suggests, that this is a corruption of eiri arokots /3i(3\ivoi,<;, or even of a-roXais fitftXivcus, if the possibility be granted that they may have used aroXr] for