in a very far country. The going into captivity had not privacy attending it; and accordingly, the sending their goods to a common rendezvous beforehand, and setting out in an evening, are known to be eastern usages. On the other hand, I should not imagine it was the wall of a caravansary, or of any place like a caravansary, but the wall of the place where Ezekiel was, either of his own dwelling, or of the town in which he then resided: a management designed to mark out the flight of Zedekiah; as the two first circumstances were intended to shadow out the carrying Israel openly, and avowedly, into captivity. Ezekiel was, I apprehend, to do two things: to imitate the going of the people into captivity, and the hurrying flight of the king: two very distinct things. The mournful, but composed collecting together all they had for a transmigration, and leading them perhaps on asses, being as remote as could be from the hurrying and secret management of one making a private breach in a wall, and going of precipitately, with a few of his most valuable effects on his shoulder, which were, I should think, what Ezekiel was to carry, when he squeezed through the aperture in the wall, not provisions. Nor am I sure the prophet's covering his face was designed for concealment: it might be to express Zedekiah's distress. David, it is certain, had his head covered when he fled from Absalom, at a time when he intended no concealment; and when Zedekiah fled, it was in the night, and consequently such a concealment not wanted; not to say, it would have been embarrassing to him in his flight, not to be able to see the ground. The prophet mentions the digging through the wall, after mentioning his preparation for removing as into captivity; but it is necessary for us to suppose these emblematical actions of the prophet are ranged just as he performed them.HARMER. CHAPTER XIII. Ver. 4. O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes. in the deserts. When game fails him, or when the sword has ceased to supply his wants, the fox devours with equal greediness, honey, fruits, and particularly grapes. In allusion to his eager desire for the fruit of the vine, it is said in the Song of Solomon," Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." In scripture, the church is often compared to a vineyard; her members to the vines with which it is stored; and by consequence, the grapes may signify all the fruits of righteousness, which those mystical vines produce. The foxes that spoil these vines, must therefore mean false teachers, who corrupt the purity of the doctrine, obscure the simplicity of worship, overturn the beauty of appointed order, break the unity of believers, and extinguish the life and vigour of Christian practice. These words of Ezekiel may be understood in the same sense: "O Jerusalem! thy prophets, (or as the context clearly proves,) thy flattering teachers, are as foxes in the deserts;" and this name they receive, because, with vulpine subtlety, they speak lies in hypocrisy. Such teachers the apostle calls "wolves in sheep's clothing," deceitful workers, who, by their cunning, subvert whole houses; and whose word, like the tooth of a fox upon the vine, eats as a canker.-PAXTON. In this passage, Dr. Boothroyd, instead of foxes, translates "jackals," and I think it by far the best rendering. These animals are exceedingly numerous in the East, and are remarkably CUNNING and VORACIOUS. I suppose the reason why they are called the lion's provider is, because they yell so much when they have scent of prey, that the noble beast hearing the sound, goes to the spot and satisfies his hunger. They often hunt in packs, and I have had from twenty to thirty following me (taking care to conceal themselves in the low jungle) for an hour together. They will not, in general, dare to attack man: but, let him be helpless or dead, and they have no hesitation. Thus our graveyards are often disturbed by these animals; and, after they have once tasted of human flesh, they (as well as inany other creatures) are said to prefer it to any other. Their CUNNING is proverbial: thus, a man of plots and schemes is called a nareyan, i. e. a jackal. "Ah! only give that fellow a tai., and he will make a capital jackal." Begone, low caste, or I will give thee to jackals.”— ROBERTS. In countries destitute of coal, bricks are only either sundried or very slightly burnt with bushes and branches of trees, laid over them and set on fire. Such are ready to moulder if exposed to moisture, and entirely to melt away if exposed to heavy rain dashing against them. To prevent such a catastrophe, all the houses in the Cape colony are daubed or plastered over with fine mortar, made from ground seashells. Should only a small hole remain unnoticed in the plaster, powerful rain will get into it, and probably soon be the destruction of the whole building. Well do I remember one deluge of rain that turned a new house of three floors absolutely into a mass of rubbish, and brought down the gable of a parish church, besides injuring many other buildings.-CAMPBELL. Ver. 18. And say, Thus saith the Lord GoD, Wo to the women that sew pillows to all arm-holes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature, to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you? The margin has, instead of "arm-holes," " elbows." The marginal reading is undoubtedly the best. Rich people have a great variety of pillows and bolsters to support themselves in various positions when they wish to take their ease. Some are long and round, and are stuffed till they are quite hard; whilst others are short and soft, to suit the convenience. The verse refers to females of a loose character, and Parkhurst is right when he says, "These false prophetesses decoyed. men into their gardens, where probably some impure rites of worship were performed." The pillows were used for the vilest purposes and the kerchiefs were used as an affectation of shame.ROBERTS. In Barbary and the Levant they "always cover the floors of their houses with carpets; and along the sides of the wall or floor, a range of narrow beds or mattresses is often placed upon these carpets; and, for their further case and convenience, several velvet or damask bolsters are placed upon these carpets or mattresses-indulgences that seem to be alluded to by the stretching of themselves upon couches, and by the sewing of pillows to arm-holes." (Shaw.) But Lady M. W. Montague's description of a Turkish lady's apartment throws still more light on this passage. She says, "The rooms are all spread with Persian carpets, and raised at one end of them, about two feet. This is the sofa, which is laid with a richer sort of carpet, and all round it, a sort of couch, raised half a foot, covered with rich silk, according to the fancy or magnifi cence of the owner. Round about this are placed, standing against the walls, two rows of cushions, the first very large, and the rest little ones. The seats are so convenient and easy, that I believe I shall never endure chairs again as long as I live." And in another place she thus describes the fair Fatima: "On a sofa raised three steps, and covered with fine Persian carpets, sat the kahya's lady, leaning on cushions of white satin embroidered. She ordered cushions to be given me, and took care to place me in the corner, which is the place of honour."-BURDER. Ver. 19. And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley, and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies? See on Jer. 37. 21. At Algiers they have public bakehouses for the people in common, so that the women only prepare the dough at home, it being the business of other persons to bake it. Boys are sent about the streets to give notice when they are ready to bake bread; "upon this the women within come and knock at the inside of the door, which the boy hearing makes towards the house. The women open the door a very little way, and hiding their faces, deliver the cakes to him, which, when baked, he brings to the door again, and the women receive them in the same manner as they gave hem." This is done almost every day, and they give the boy a piece, or little cake, for the baking, which the baker sells. (Pitts.) This illustrates the account of the false prophetesses receiving as gratuities pieces of bread: they are compensations still used in the East, but are compensations of the meanest kind, and for services of the lowest sort.-HARMER. It was an ancient custom to salt the bodies of new-born infants. It is probable that they only sprinkled them with salt, or washed them with salt-water, which they imagined would dry up all superfluous humours. Galen says, "Sale modico insperso, cutis infantis densior, solidiorque redditur;" that is, a little salt being sprinkled upon the infant, its skin is rendered more dense and solid. It is said that the inhabitants of Tartary still continue the practice of salting their children as soon as they are born.—BURDER. Ver. 10. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. See on Ex. 25. 5. Ver. 18. And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. 19. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord God. The burning of perfumes is now practised in the East in times of feasting and joy; and there is reason to believe that the same usage obtained anciently in those countries. Niebuhr mentions a Mohammedan festival, "after which every one returned home, feasted, chewed kaad, burnt fragrant substances in his house, stretched himself at length on his sofa, and lighted his kiddre, or long pipe, with the greatest satisfaction."-HARMER. CHAPTER XVII. Ver. 3. And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD, A great eagle with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar. The eagle is the strongest, the fiercest, and the most rapacious of the feathered race. He dwells alone in the desert, and on the summits of the highest mountains; and suffers no bird to come with impunity within the range of his flight. His eye is dark and piercing, his beak and talons are hooked and formidable, and his cry is the terror of every wing. His figure answers to his nature; ndependently of his arms, he has a robust and compact body, and very powerful limbs and wings; his bones are bard, his flesh is firm, his feathers are coarse, his attitude is fierce and erect, his motions are lively, and his flight is extremely rapid. Such is the golden eagle, as described by the most accurate observers of nature. To this noble bird the prophet Ezekiel evidently refers, in his parable to the house of Israel: "A great eagle, with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the' cedar." In this parable, a strict regard to physical truth is discovered, in another respect, for the eagle is known to have a predilection for cedars, which are the loftiest trees in the forest, and therefore more suited to his daring temper than any other. La Roque found a number of large eagle's feathers scattered on the ground beneath the lofty cedars which still crown the summits of Lebanon, on the highest branches of which, that fierce destroyer occasionally perches.-PAXTON. Ver. 7. There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers; and, behoid, this vine did bend her 'roots towards him, and shot forth her branches towards himn, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation. The reason of the figure must be obvious to every reader: the erect and majestic mien of the eagle, point him out as the intended sovereign of the feathered race; he is, thèrefore, the fit emblem of superior excellence, and of regal majesty and power. Xenophon, and other ancient historians, inform us, that the golden eagle with extended wings, was the ensign of the Persian monarchs, long before it was adopted by the Romans; and it is very probable that the Persians borrowed the symbol from the ancient Assyrians, in whose banners it waved, till imperial Babylon bowed her head to the yoke of Cyrus. If this conjecture be well founded, it discovers the reason why the sacred writers, in describing the victorious march of the Assyrian armies, allude so frequently to the expanded eagle. Referring claimed in the ears of Israel, the measure of whose iniquistill to the Babylonian monarch, the prophet Hosea proties was nearly full: "He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord." Jeremiah predicted a similar calamity to the posterity of Lot: "For thus saith the Lord, Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread his wings over Moab:" and the same figure is employed to denote the sudden destruction which overtook the house of Esau: "Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread his wings over Bozrah." The words of these inspired prophets were not suffered to fall to the ground; they received a full accomplishment in the irresistible impetuosity and complete success with which the Babylonian monarchs, and particularly Nebuchadnezzar, pursued their plans of conquest. Ezekiel denominates him with striking propriety, "a great eagle with great wings;" because he was the most powerful monarch of his time, and led into the field more numerous and better appointed armies, (which the prophet calls by a beautiful figure, his wings,) than perhaps the world had ever seen.-PAXTON. CHAPTER XIX. Ver. 8. Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him he was taken in their pit. The manner in which this is done, Xenophon describes at considerable length: They dig a large círcular pit, and at night introduce into it a goat, which they bind to a stake or pillar of earth at the bottom, and then enclose the pit with a hedge of branches, that it cannot be seen, leaving no entrance. The savage beast hearing in the night the voice of the goat, prowls round the hedge, and finding no opening, leaps over, and is taken. When the hunter proposes to catch him in the toils, he stretches a series of nets in a semicircular form, by means of long poles fixed in the ground; three men are placed in ambush, among the nets; one in the middle, and one at each extremity. The toils being disposed in this manner, some wave flaming torches; others make a noise by beating their shields, knowing that lions are not less terrified by loud sounds than by fire. The men on foot and horseback, skilfully combining their movements and raising a mighty bustle and clamour, rush in upon them, and impel them towards the nets, till, intimidated by the shouts of the hunters and the glare of the torches, they approach the snares of their own accord, and are entangled in the folds.-PAXTON. Ver. 11. And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches. The allusion here is evidently to the sceptres of the ancients, which were no other than walking-sticks, cut from the stems or branches of trees, and decorated with gold, or studded with golden nails. Thus Achilles is introduced as swearing by a sceptre, which being cut from the trunk of a tree on the mountains, and stripped of its bark and leaves, should never more produce leaves and branches, or sprout again. Such a one the Grecian judges carried in heir hands. See Homer, Il. i. 234.-BURDER. CHAPTER XXI. Ver. 14. Thou, therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thy hands together, and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers. "SMITE THY HANDS TOGETHER." To smite the hands together, in the East, amounts to an OATH! In the 17th verse, the Lord says, in reference to Jerusalem, "I will also smite my hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest I the Lord have said.' By the solemn smiting of hands it was shown the word had gone forth, and would not be recalled. When a priest delivers a message to the people, when he relates any thing which he professes to have received from the gods, he smites his hands together, and says, "TRUE." Does a Pandarum, or other kind of religious mendicant, consider himself to be insulted, he smites his hands against the individuals, and pronounces his imprecations upon them, crying aloud, "True, true, it will all come upon you." Should a person, when speaking of any thing which is certain to happen, be doubted by others, he will immediately. smite his hands. "Have you heard that Muttoo has been killed by a tiger ?"-" No! nor do I believe it." The relater will then (if true) smite together his hands, which at once confirms the fact. "Those men cannot escape for any great length of time, because the king has smitten his hands;" meaning, he has sworn to have them taken. Jehovah did smite His hands together against Jerusalem.— ROBERTS Ver. 21. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver. Heb. "mother of the way." It is a common thing among the people of the East to denominate a man the father of a thing for which he is remarkable. It appears also that both people and places may in like manner be called the mother of such things for which they are particularly noticed. Thus Niebuhr tells us, that the Arabs call a woman that sells butter omm es subbet, the mother of butter. He also says, that there is a place between Basra and Zobier, where an ass happened to fall down, and throw the wheat with which the creature was loaded into some wa'ter, on which account that place is called to this day, the mother of wheat. In like manner, in the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, omm alketab, or the mother of books, signifies the book of the divine decrees; and at other times the first chapter of the Koran. The mother of the throat is the name, of an imaginary being (a fairy) who is supposed to bring on and cure that disorder in the throat, which we call the quinsy. In the same collection we are told, that the acacia, Egyptian thorn is called by the Arabians the mother of salyrs, because these imaginary inhabitants of the forests and deserts were supposed to naunt under them. After this we shall not at all wonder when we read of Nebuchadnezzar's standing in the mother of the way, a remarkable place in the road, where he was to determine whether he would go to Jerusalem, or to some other place, one branch of the road pointing to Jerusalem, the other leading to a different town. "He made his arrows bright." This was for the purpose of divination. Jerome on this passage says, that "the manner of divining by arrows was thus: They wrote on several arrows the names of the cities they intended to make war against, and then putting them promiscuously all together into a quiver, they caused them to be drawn out in the manner of lots, and that city whose name was on the arrow first drawn out, was the first they assaulted." A method of this sort of divination, different from the former, is worth noticing. Della Valle says, "I saw at Aleppo a Mohammedan, who caused two persons to sit upon the ground, one opposite to the other, and gave them four ar rows into their hands, which both of them held with their points downward, and as it were in two right lines united one to the other. Then, a question being put to him about any business, he fell to murmur his enchantments, and thereby caused the said four arrows of their own accord to unite their points together in the midst, (though he that held them stirred not his hand,) and, according to the future event of the matter, those of the right side were placed over those of the left, or on the contrary." This practice the writer refers to diabolical influence. The method of divination practised by some of the idolatrous Arabs, but which is prohibited by the Koran, is too singular to be unnoticed. "The arrows used by them for this purpose were like those with which they cast lots, being without heads or feathers, and were kept in the temple of some idol, in whose presence they were consulted. Seven such arrows were kept at the temple of Mecca: but generally in divination they make use of three only, on one of which was written, my Lord hath commanded me; on another, my Lord hath forbidden me; and the third was blank. If the first was drawn, they looked on it as an approbation of the enterprise in question; if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but if the third happened to be drawn, they mixed them, and drew over again, till a decisive answer was given by one of the others. These divining arrows were generally consulted before any thing of moment was undertaken, as when a man about to marry, or about to go a journey, or the like.'BURDER. CHAPTER XXII. was Ver. 12. In thee have they taken gifts to she blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD. There is surely no part of the world worse than the East for usury and extortion. A rich man will think nothing of demanding twenty per cent. for his precious loan. Does a person wish to buy or sell an article; does he want to avoid any office or duty, or to gain a situation, or place any person under an obligation; he cannot think of doing the one or the other, without giving himself into the hands of the extortioner.-ROBERTS. Ver. 30. And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none. A man having lost all his children, and in complaining of his forlorn condition, says, "Alas! I have not any one to stand in the gate; my enemies can now enter when they please to tear and devour me." "In the gate, in the gate, no one stands."-ROBERTS. CHAPTER XXIII. Ver. 5. And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours, 6. Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. Blue was a sky colour in great esteem among the Jews, and other oriental nations. The robe of the ephod, in the gorgeous dress of the high priest, was made all of blue; it was a prominent colour in the sumptuous hangings of the tabernacle; and the whole people of Israel were required to put a fringe of blue upon the border of their garments, and on the fringe a ríband of the same colour. The palace of Ahasuerus, the king of Persia, was furnished with curtains of this colour, on a pavement of red, and blue, and white marble; a proof it was not less esteemed in Persia, than on the Jordan. And from Ezekiel we learn, that the Assyrian nobles were habited in robes of this colour: "She doted on the Assyrians her neighbours, which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men." It is one of the most remarkable vicissitudes in the customs of the East, that this beautiful colour, for many ages associated in their minds with every thing splendid, elegant, and rich, should have gradually sunk in public estimation, till it became connected with the ideas of meanness and vulgarity, and confined to the dress of the poor and the needy. In modern times, the whole dress of an Arabian female of low station, consists of drawers, and a very large shift, both of blue linen, ornamented with some needle-work of a different colour. And ifcredit may be given to Thevenot, the Arabs between Egypt and Mount Sinai, who lead a most wretched life, are clothed in a long blue shirt, To solve this difficulty, Mr. Harmer supposes that "the art of dying blue, was discovered in countries more to the east or south than Tyre; and that the die was by no means become common in the days of Ezekiel, though some that were employed in the construction of the tabernacle, and some of the Tyrians in the time of Solomon, seem to have possessed the art of dying with blue. These blue cloths were manufactured in remote countries; and to them that wore scarcely any thing but woollens and linens of the natural colour, these blue calicoes formed very magnificent vestments. It does not appear, however, that the Jews ever wore garments wholly of this colour; and perhaps they abstained from it as sacred and mysterious, than which none was more used about the tabernacle and the temple, in the curtains, veils, and vestments, belonging to these sacred edifices."-PAXTON. Ver. 14. And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion. The nature of those images, and the practices, may be seen from the context, and the portraying was of the colour of VERMILION. In the Hindoo temples and vestibules, figures of the most revolting descriptions are portrayed on the walls: there the sexes are painted in such a way as few men of discretion would dare to describe. In some temples there are stone figures in such positions as hell itself could only have suggested: and, recollect, these are the places where men, women, and children, assemble for wORSHIP.— ROBERTS. CHAPTER XXIV. Ver. 3. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD, Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it: 4. Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones. 5. Take the choice of the flock, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let him seethe the bones of it therein. The following account of a royal Arab camel feast, will afford some illustration of the parable contained in this chapter: "Before midday a carpet being spread in the middle of the tent our dinner was brought in, being served up in large wooden bowls between two men; and truly to my apprehension load enough for them. Of these great platters there were about fifty or sixty in number, perhaps more, with a great many little ones; I mean, such as one man was able to bring in, strewed here and there among them, and placed for a border or garnish round about the table. In the middle was one of a larger size than all the rest, in which were the camel's bones, and a thin broth in which they were boiled. The other greater ones seemed all filled with one and the same sort of provision, a kind of plumbbroth, made of rice and the fleshy part of the camel, with currants and spices, being of a somewhat darker colour than what is made in our country." (Philosophical Transactions Abridged.) The Hebrew word translated burn, should have been rendered, as in the margin, heap. The meaning cannot be that the bones were to be burnt under the caldron, but that they were to be heaped up in it; for it is said, "let them seethe the bones of it therein." With this interpretation the Septuagint translation of the passage agrees: and viewed in this light, the object is ascertained by the foregoing extract.-BURDER. Ver. 17. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thy head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. The time of mourning for the dead was longer or shorter, according to the dignity of the person. Among the modern Jews, the usual time is seven days, during which they shut themselves up in their houses; or if some extraordinary occasion forces them to appear in public, it is without shoes, as a token they have lost a dear friend. This explains the reason that when Ezekiel was commanded to abstain from the rites of mourning, he was directed to put his shoes on his feet. To cover the lips was a very ancient sign of mourning; and it continues to be practised among the Jews of Barbary to this day. When they return from the grave to the house of the deceased, the chief mourner receives them with his jaws tied up with a linen cloth, in imitation of the manner in which the face of the dead is covered; and by this the mourner is said to testify that he was ready to die for his friend. Muftled in this way, the mourner goes for seven days, during which the rest of his friends come twice every twenty-four hours to pray with him. This aliusion is perhaps involved in the charge which Ezekiel received when his wife died, to abstain from the customary forms of mourning: "Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead; bind the tire of thy head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men." The law of Moses required a leper to have his clothes rent, his head bare, and a covering upon his upper lip, because he was considered as a dead man," of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb."-PAXTON. This refers to mourning for the dead, and the prophet was forbidden to use any symbol of sorrow on the death of his wife. At a funeral ceremony the tires and turbans are taken off, and the sandals are laid aside. Thus nobles, who wear the most costly turbans, are seen walking with their heads uncovered, and those who had on beautiful sandals are barefoot. But the prophet was to PUT ON his tire and sandals, to indicate he was not mourning for the dead. -ROBERTS. CHAPTER XXV. Ver. 2. Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. It was prophesied concerning Ammon, "Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. I will make Rabbah of the Ammonites a stable for camels and a couching-place for flocks. Behold, I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen; I will cut thee off from the people, and cause thee to perish out of the countries; I will destroy thee. The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations. Rabbah (the chief city) of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a perpetual desolation." "Ammon was to be ac.ivered to be a spoú so the neathen -to be destroyed, and to be a perpetual desolation." so that they may be said literally to form a desolate heap The public edifices, which once strengthened or adorned the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also desolate; and the remains of the most entire among them, subjected as they are to the abuse and spoliation of the wild Arabs, can be adapted to no better object than a stable for camels. Yet these broken walls and ruined palaces, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon, can now be made subservient, by means of a single act of reflection, or simple process of reason, to a far nobler purpose than the most magnificent edifices on earth can be, when they are contemplated as monuments on which the historic and prophetic truth of scripture is blended in one bright inscription. A minute detail of them may not therefore be uninteresting. Al Seetzen (whose indefatigable ardour led him, in defiance of danger, the first to explore the countries which lie east of the Jordan, and east and south of the Dead Sea, or the territories of Ammon, Moab, and Edom) justly characterizes Ammon as "once the residence of many kings-an ancient town, which flourished long before the Greeks and Romans, and even before the Hebrews;" and he briefly enumerates those remains of ancient greatness and splendour which are most distinguishable amid its ruins. though this town has been destroyed and deserted for many ages, I still found there some remarkable ruins, which attest its ancient splendour. Such as, 1st, A square building, very highly ornamented, which has been perhaps a mausoleum. 2d, The ruins of a large palace. 3d, A magniñcent amphitheatre of immense size, and well preserved, with a peristyle of Corinthian pillars without pedestals. 4th, A temple with a great number of columns. 5th, The ruins of a large church, perhaps the see of a bishop in the time of the Greek emperors. 6th, The remains of a temple with columns set in a circular form, and which are of an extraordinary size. 7th, The remains of the ancient wall, with many other edifices." Burckhardt, who afterward visited the spot, describes it with greater minuteness. He gives a plan of the ruins; and particularly noted the ruins of many temples, of a spacious church, a curved wall, a While the country is thus despoiled and desolate, there are valleys and tracts throughout it, which "are covered with a fine coat of verdant pasture, and are places of resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their camels and their sheep." "The whole way we traversed," says Seetzen, L. we saw villages in ruins, and met numbers of Arabs with their camels," &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a building among the ruins of Ammon, "the masonry of which was evidently constructed of materials gathered from the ruins of other and older buildings on the spot. On entering it at the south end," he adds, "we came to an open square court, with arched recesses on each side, the sides nearly facing the cardinal points. The recesses into the northern and southern walls were originally open passages, and had arched doorways facing each other-but the first of these was found wholly closed up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage, just sufficient for the entrance of one man and the goats, which the Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night." He relates that he lay down among "flocks of sheep and goats," close beside the ruins of Ammon;-and particular-high arched bridge, the banks and bed of the river still ly remarks that, during the night, he was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the "bleating of flocks." So literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt, and Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or allusion whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled for a different object than the elucidation of the scriptures,that "the chief city of the Ammonites is a stable for camels, and a couching-place for flocks." "The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations." While the Jews, who were long their hereditary enemies, continue as distinct a people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the Ammonites remains; none are now designated by their name, nor do any claim descent from them. They did exist, however, long after the time when the eventual annihilation of their race was foretold, for they retained their name, and continued a great multitude, until the second century of the Christian era. "Yet they are cut off from the people. Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is destroyed." No people is attached to its soil-none regard it as their country and adopt its name; and the Ammonites are not remembered among the nations. Rabbah (Rabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon) shall be a desolate heap. Situated, as it was, on each side of the borders of a plentiful stream; encircled by a fruitful region; strong by nature and fortified by art; nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted the conjecture in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that the royal city of Ammon, whatever disasters might possibly befall it in the fate of war or change of masters, would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to become a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such tokens of its continuance as a city, more than a thousand years had given uninterrupted experience of its stability, ere the prophets of Israel denounced its fate; yet a period of equal length has now marked it out, as it exists to this day, a desolate heap-a "erpetual or permanent desolation. Its ancient name is till preserved by the Arabs, and its site is now " covered with the ruins of private buildings; nothing of them remaining except the foundations, and some of the doorposts. The buildings, exposed to the atmosphere, are all in decay," partially paved; a large theatre, with successive tiers of apartments excavated in the rocky side of a hill; Corinthian columns fifteen feet high; the castle, a very extensive building, the walls of which are thick, and denote a remote antiquity; many cisterns and vaults; and a plain covered with the decayed ruins of private buildings;monuments of ancient splendour standing amid a desolat heap.-KEITH. Ver. 4. Behold, therefore, I will deliver thee to the men of the East for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee: they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk. The seed-time is attended with considerable danger to the husbandmen, in Palestine and Syria; for although the more peaceful Arabs apply themselves to agriculture, to supply their families with grain, many of the same wander. ing race choose rather to procure the corn which they want by violence, than by tillage. So precarious are the fruits of the earth in Palestine, that the former is often seen sowing, accompanied by an armed friend, to prevent his being robbed of the seed. These vexations, and often desolating incursions, are described by the prophet in the following remarkable terms, when he denounced the judgments of God against the descendants of Ammon: "Behold, therefore, I will deliver thee to the men of the East for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee: they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk." The practice of robbing the sower in the field, seems to have been very ancient: and is perhaps alluded to by the Psalmist, when he encourages the righteous man, to persevere in working out his salvation, in spite of the dangers to which he is exposed, by the complete success, which in due time shall assuredly crown his endeavours. "They that sow in tears," on account of the danger from the lurking and unfeeling Arabian, "shall reap in joy." He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless ccme again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves |