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against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased,-the golden city ceased;" the city made a heap,-the defenced city a ruin;"the Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked and the sceptre of the rulers." The same subject is declared with equal plainness in the 47th chapter : Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground:"-she is called a virgin, not for her purity, but because she had never suffered invasion, nor had her power been broken by any adversary:-" Take the millstones and grind meal; uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen,”—as a bearer of burdens, a grinder of meal, the most degrading of employments. Then there were only handmills. It was not till the decline of the Roman republic, immediately before the age of Augustus, that water-mills were known; and wind-mills were not introduced until a much later period. Grinding was, therefore, done by hand, and it was the occupation of the vilest among the slaves. This was the task to which Samson was put by the Philistines. "Sit thou silent," he continues, " and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms." Now mark the 6th verse: "I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke." God gave Israel into the hand of Babylon to be chastised, but she showed her no mercy. In

dulging her tyrannous spirit, she laid her hand very heavily on the Lord's ancient people, beloved for their fathers' sake. "And thou,"-that is, Babylon," saidst, I shall be a lady for ever; so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it."

I wish to show you a few other plain prophecies bearing upon this subject, before I come more. closely to the interpretation of our text. Take the 50th and 51st chapters of Jeremiah. At the 17th verse of the former it is said, "Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away. First the kings of Assyria have devoured him, and last this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath broken his bones. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria. And I will bring Israel again to his habitation, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon mount Ephraim and Gilead." Again, in the 51st chapter, at the 35th verse: The violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry." Here is an allusion to the sea of Babylon, the great river Euphrates running through her: and God put it into the heart of Cyrus to turn the channel, to draw off the waters, and to march his army in the night through the bed of the

river into the city, and take it. Thus God dried up the sea, by turning her channel elsewhere, through the instrumentality of the Medes and Persians. "I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant."

With the assistance of these clear prophecies we shall have light on the beautiful passage of our text, where the prophet exclaims to God, in the anticipation of the accomplishment of his work, the judgment of Babylon, and the deliverance of Israel. "For thou hast made of a defenced city an heap; that proud city, Babylon, the city of the oppressor, the golden city, that said she would be a lady for ever, and laid her yoke very heavily on thy people, Israel; thou hast made of the city · an heap; of a defenced city a ruin; a palace of strangers," a place of much celebrity, visitors from all quarters flacking to behold her glory, her beauty, and her magnitude-" to be no city: it shall never be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee," they shall give God glory in their ruin; as He said concerning the Egyptians when He overthrew them: "I will get me honour upon Pharaoh and upon his horsemen ; so he got honour upon the Babylonians when he overthrew them, and the strong people were forced to glorify him in their destruction: "the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee." Then follows His protection of Israel, again combined with His destruction of Babylon. "For thou hast been a strength to

the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress." This was His people, oppressed and overwhelmed by the Babylonish power: they asked her to sing one of the Lord's songs, when she sat by the rivers weeping, and her harp hanging on the willows, they said," Come, sing one of the Lord's songs for us," making a mock of her distress. How can we," she replied, "sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" But the Lord was protecting her still: "Thou hast been a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shelter from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall." The fury of Babylon is represented as a storm raging against a wall,-the Lord's kind protection over Israel as a refuge from the storm, affording a gracious assurance of hope and safety, notwithstanding the inveterate enmity, and the unrestrained and ungovernable tyranny of the Babylonish conquerors. Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers as the heat in a dry place, even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low." This is the same subject. The noise of the tyrant shall fall upon Israel tempered by the hand of God, as the heat of the sun falls tempered by the cloud, softened and abated of its burning vigour. The threatenings of Babylon shall be prevented falling with full force on Israel, -the heat should be brought down under the shadow of a cloud. The image is very beautiful. She should not be altogether delivered from the threatenings, but they should fall in a manner

mitigated and broken. Not that her oppressors so intended it: they intended only her ruin. But God interposed a cloud, and its shadow abated the heat of their wrath.

Now if this were the whole of the prophecy, we might be induced to suppose that it had been entirely fulfilled by the destruction of Babylon literally, and the restoration of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. That destruction took place 200 years after Isaiah, under Cyrus, by means of a mixed army of Medes and Persians; and immediately on getting the possession of the kingdom, he made proclamation that such of the Jews as chose might return to their own land. But the prophet does not end here: there follow events for which he gives praise in the next verses, and concerning which, we have an inspired comment, which enables us to feel assured that we possess true light upon the whole strain of this prophecy. "And on this mountain"-the mountain already mentioned in chapter xxiv, verse 23, before the prophet burst forth in his song,-the mount Zion, wherein the Lord shall then be reigning,-" On this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering,"—or covering of the face, the blind from the face of all people, the veil, another name for the covering of the face

-" cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in