was reduced to sue for protection from Cleopatra, who had seized upon Egypt, and obliged her son Lathyrus to be contented with the island of Crete. Cleopatra, at first, was inclined to take advantage of Alexander's misfortunes, and to seize upon him and his dominions: but Ananias, one of her generals, by birth a Jew, and relation to Alexander, dissuaded her from so unjust a design, and obtained her protection for him. Nevertheless Alexander's martial spirit sought out new employments. His country being clear of foreign forces, he attacked and took Gadara and Amathus in Syria. But being followed by Theodorus, prince of Philadelphia, who had laid up his treasure at Amathus, he lost his plunder, ten thousand men, and all his baggage, B. C. 101. This did not deter him from attempting the reduction of Gaza; which however he could not have taken, had it not been treacherously surrendered to him by Lysimachus, the governor's brother. Here Alexander, ordering his soldiers to kill, plunder, and destroy, was the author of a sad scene of barbarity; and reduced that ancient and famous city to ruin and desolation. After his return from this carnage he was grossly insulted by a mob at home, while he was offering the usual sacrifices on the Feast of Tabernacles. But he made the people pay dearly for it, for he fell upon them with his soldiers, and slew six thousand. And from this time he took into his pay six thousand mercenaries from Pisidia and Cilicia, who always attended his person, and kept off the people while he officiated. B. C. 101. All being again quieted at home, Alexander marched against the Moabites and Ammonites, and made them tributaries. In his return he took possession of Amathus, which Theodorus had evacuated: but he lost most of his army; and had like to have lost his own life in an ambuscade which Thedus, an Arabian king, had laid for him near Gadara. This raised fresh discontents among his subjects, and new troubles at home; which were attended with the most unheard-of barbarities. They were not able to overpower him: but his wickedness had so provoked them that nothing but his blood could satisfy them; and at length, being assisted by Demetrius Eucharus, king of Damascus, they entirely routed him, so that he was forced to consult his own safety by fleeing to the mountains. His misfortune was the cause of six thousand of his rebel subjects deserting him; which, when Demetrius perceived, he withdrew and left the revolters to fight their own battle. After this separation Alexander gained several advantages; and at last, having cut the major part off in a decisive battle, he took eight hundred of the rebels in Bethome, whom he carried to Jerusalem; and having first killed their wives and children before their faces, he ordered them all to be crucified on one day, before him and his wives and concubines, whom he had invited to a feast at the place of execution. Then, resolving to revenge himself on the king of Damascus, he made war on him for three years successively, and took several places: when, returning home, he was received with great respect by his subjects. His next expedition was against the castle of Ragaba, in the country of the Gerasens, where he was seized with a quartan ague, which proved his death, B. C. 79. His queen Alexandra, by his own advice, concealed it till the castle was taken; and then, carrying him to Jerusalem, she gave his body to the leaders of the Pharisees, to be disposed of as they should think proper; and told them, as her husband had appointed her regent during the minority of her children, she would do nothing in the administration without their advice and help. This address to the Pharisees so much gained their esteem, that they not only settled the queen dowager in the government, but were very lavish in their encomiums on her deceased husband, whom they honoured with more than ordinary pomp and solemnity at his funeral. The Pharisees having now the management of the queen regent, and of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, her sons by Alexander, had all the laws against Pharisaism repealed and abolished, recalled all the exiles, and demanded justice against those that had advised the crucifixion of the eight hundred rebels. The queen made her eldest son Hyrcanus high-priest. But Aristobulus was not contented to live a private life; and therefore, as soon as his mother seemed to decline, he meditated in what manner he might usurp the sovereignty from his brother, at her decease: and he had taken such measures beforehand, that upon the death of his mother he found himself strong enough to attempt the crown, though Alexandra had declared Hyrcanus her successor. The two armies met in the plains of Jericho: but Hyrcanus being deserted by most of his forces, was obliged to resign his crown and pontificate to Aristobulus, and promise to live peaceably upon his private fortune. This resignation was a subject of great discontent to some of Hyrcanus's courtiers, among whom was Antipater father to Herod the Great; who persuaded Hyrcanus to fly to Aretas, king of Arabia, who, on certain conditions, supplied him with fifty thousand men, with which Hyrcanus entered Judea, and gained a complete victory over Aristobulus. But while he besieged him in the Temple, Aristobulus, with the promise of a large sum of money, engaged Pompey, the general of the Roman army, then before Damascus, to oblige Aretas to withdraw his forces: but Aristobulus, though he was for the present delivered from his brother's rage, prevaricated so with Pompey, that he at last confined Aristobulus in chains, took Jerusalem sword in hand, retrenched the dignity and power of the principality, destroyed the fortifications, ordered an annual tribute to be paid to the Romans, and restored Hyrcanus to the pontificate, and made him prince of the country, but would not permit him to wear the diadem. Pompey, having thus settled the government of Judea, returned in his way to Rome with Aristobulus, his sons Alexander and Antigonus, and two of his daughters, to adorn his triumph. Alexander found means to escape by the way, and abent three years after arrived in Judea, and raised some disturbances: but he was defeated in all his attempts by Gabinius, the Roman governor in Syria; who, after this, coming to Jerusalem, confirmed Hyrcanus in the high-priesthood, but removed the civil administration from the Sanhedrim into five courts of justice of his own erecting, according to the number of five provinces, into which he had divided the whole land. When Aristobulus had lain five years prisoner at Rome, he, with his son, escaped into Judea, and endeavoured to raise fresh trouble: but Gabinius soon took them again; and, being remanded to Rome, the father was kept close confined, but the children were released. It was about this time (B. C. 48,) that the civil war between Pompey and Cæsar broke out; and when Aristobulus was on the point of setting out by Caesar's interest, to take the command of an army in order to secure Judea from Pompey's attempts, he was poisoned by some of Pompey's party. When Caesar was returned from the Alexandrian war, he was much solicited to depose Hyrcanus in favour of Antigonus, the surviving son of Aristobulus: but Cæsar not only confirmed Hyrcanus in the high-priesthood and principality of Judea, and his family in a perpetual succession; but he abolished the form of government lately set up by Gabinius, restored it to its ancient form, and appointed Antipater procurator of Judea under him. Antipater, who was a man of great penetration, made his son Phasael governor of the country about Jerusalem; and his son Herod governor of Galilee. Soon after this appointment, Herod, who was of a boisterous temper, having seized upon one Hezekiah a ringleader of a gang of thieves, and some of his men that infested his territories, he put them to death. This was presently looked upon as a breach of duty to the Sanhedrim, before whom he was summoned to appear. But, lest the sentence of that court should pass upon him, he fled to Sextus Cæsar, the Roman prefect of Syria at Damascus; and, having with a sum of money obtained of him. the government of Calosyria, where having raised an army, he marched into Judea, and would have revenged the indignity which he said the Sanhedrim and high-priest had cast upon him, had not his father and brother prevailed with him to retire for the present. While Julius Cæsar lived, the Jews enjoyed great privileges: but his untimely death, (B. C. 44,) by the vil lanous and ungrateful hands of Brutus, Cussius, &c. in the senate-house, as he was preparing for an expedition against the Parthians to revenge his country's wrong, delivered them up as a prey to every hungry general of Rome. Cassius immediately seized upon Syria, and exacted above seven hundred talents of silver from the Jers. And the envy and villany of Malicus, who was a natural Jew, and the next in office under Antipater, an Idumean, rent the state into horrid faction. Malicus bribed the highpriest's butler to poison his friend Antipater, to make way for himself to be the next in person to Hyrcanas. Herod, making sure of Cassius, by obtaining his leave and assistance to revenge his father's death, took the first opportunity to have him murdered by the Roman garrison at Tyre. The friends of Malicus, having engaged the high-priest and Felix the Roman general at Jerusulem on their side, resolved to revenge his death on the sons of Antipater. All Jerusalem was in uproar; Herod was sick at Da- | slaughter, had not Herod redeemed them with a large sum mascus; so that the whole power and fury of the assail- of money. ants fell upon Phasael, who defended himself very strenuously, and drove the tumultuous party out of the city. As soon as Herod was able, the two brothers presently quelled the faction; and had not Hyrcanus made his peace by giving Herod his grand-daughter Mariamne in marriage, they certainly would have shewn their resentment of the high-priest's behaviour with more severity. Again, this faction was not so totally extinguished, but that several principal persons of the Jewish nation, upon the defeat of Brutus and Cassius, accused Phasael and Herod to the conqueror, Mark Anthony, of usurping the government from Hyrcanus. But the brothers had so much interest with the conqueror that he rejected the complaints of the deputies, made them both tetrarchs, and committed all the affairs of Judea to their administration: and, to oblige the Jews to obey his decision in this affair, he retained fifteen of the deputies as hostages for the people's fidelity, and would have put them to death had not Herod begged their lives. The Jews, however, when Anthony arrived at Tyre, sent one thousand deputies with the like accusations; which he, looking upon as a daring tumult, ordered his soldiers to fall upon them, so that some were killed and many wounded. But upon Herod's going to Jerusalem the citizens revenged this affront in the same manner upon his retinue; the news whereof so enraged Anthony, that he ordered the fifteen hostages to be immediately put to death, and threatened severe revenge against the whole faction. But after that Mark Anthony was returned to Rome, the Parthians, at the solicitation of Antigonus the son of Aristobulus, who had promised them a reward of a thousand talents and eight hundred of the most beautiful women in the country, to set him on the throne of Judea, entered that country, and being joined by the factious and discontented Jews, (B. C. 37,) took Jerusalem without resistance, took Phasael and Hyrcanus, and put them in | chains: but Herod escaped under the cover of night, and deposited his mother, sister, wife, and his wife's mother, with several other relations and friends in the impregnable fortress Massada, near the lake Asphaltites, under the care of his brother Joseph, who was obliged to go to Rome to seek protection and relief. In the mean time Antigonus remained in possession of all the country, and was declared king of Judea. The Parthians delivered Hyrcanus and Phasael to Antigonus; upon which Phasael, being so closely hand-cuffed | and ironed that he foresaw his ignominious death approaching, dashed his own brains out against the wall of the prison. Antigonus cut off the ears of Hyrcanus, to incapacitate him from the high-priesthood, and returned him again to the Parthians, who left him at Seleucia, in their return to the East. Antigonus surrendered himself to Socius, who carried him in chains to Anthony; and he, for a good sum of money, was bribed to put him to death, that in him the Asmonaan family, which had lasted one hundred and twenty-nine years, might be extinct. By this event Herod found himself once more in full power, and at liberty to revenge himself upon his enemies. He began his reign with the execution of all the members of the great Sanhedrim, except Pollio and Sameas, who are also called Hillel and Shammai. Then he raised one Ananel, born of the pontifical family at Babylon, to the place of high-priest; but Mark Anthony, at the intercession of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, who was solicited thereto by Alexandra, Mariamne's mother, and the entreaties of his own beloved Mariamne, in behalf of her young brother, prevailed with him to annul this nomination, and to prefer Aristobulus to the pontificate. But as Hyrcanus was yet alive, and the Jews, in the place of his exile, paid him all the honours and reverence due to their king and high-priest, Herod, under a pretence of gratitude and friendship to that author of all his fortunes, prevailed with the old prince to desire it, and with Phraortes, king of Parthia, to permit his return to Jerusalem, with an intention to cut him off at a proper opportunity; which he soon after did on a pretence of his holding treasonable correspondence with Malchus king of Arabia. But in the mean time Alexandra, valuing herself upon the interest she had with Cleopatra, laid a scheme to obtain the regal dignity for her son Aristobulus, by the same means that she had got him the pontificate. But this intrigue ended in the death of Aristobulus, and her own close confinement at first, and afterwards in her own and her daughter Mariamne's death; though this tragic scene was at several times acted under disguise. Aristobulus was drowned at Jericho, as it were accidentally, (B. C. 29,) in a fit of jealousy; Mariamne was adjudged to die; and Alexandra was ordered for execution, (B. C. 28,) on a supposition that she wished his death; which unjust sentence pursued his very innocent children, Alexander and Aristobulus, for expressing their dislike of their father's cruelty to their mother Mariamne. But it is very probable that he himself had fallen a sacrifice to Octavius after the battle, and the total loss of Mark Anthony at Actium, (fought B. C. 31,) had he not hastened to the conqueror at Rhodes, and in an artful speech appeased him, and with a promise to support his faction in those parts, obtained from him a confirmation of his royal dignity. The cruelties, however, which he exercised to his own flesh and blood, filled his mind with agonies of remorse, which brought him into a languishing condition; and what helped to increase his disorder, was the conspiracy of Antipater, his eldest son by Doris, born to him whilst he was a private man. But Herod having discovered the plot, accused him thereof before Quintilius Varus, the Roman governor of Syria, and put him to death also; which occasioned that remarkable exclamation of the emperor Octavianus, that "it was better to be Herod's hog than his son." Herod on this occasion served himself so well on the friendship which had been between his father and himself with the Roman general Mark Anthony, and the promise of a round sum of money, that he in seven days' time obtained a senatorial decree, constituting him king of Judea, and declaring Antigonus an enemy to the Roman state. He immediately left Rome, landed at Ptolemais, raised forces, and being aided with Roman auxiliaries, by order of the senate, he reduced the greater part of the country, took Joppa, relieved Massada, stormed the castle of Ressa, and must have taken Jerusalem also had not the Roman commanders who were directed to assist him been bribed hy Antigonus, and treacherously obstructed his success. But when Herod perceived their collusion, he, for the present, satisfied himself with the reduction of Galilee; and hearing of Anthony's besieging Samosata on the Euphrates, went to him in person to represent the ill-in honour of Augustus; set up an image of an eagle, the treatment he had met with from the generals Ventidius and Silo, whom he had commanded to serve him. Upon his departure, Herod left the command of his forces to his brother Joseph, with charge to remain upon the defensive. But Joseph, contrary to orders, attempting to reduce Jericho, was slain, and most of his men were cut to pieces. And thus Herod again lost Galilee and Idumea. M. Anthony granted all he requested; and though at first the army which Anthony had spared him, was roughly handled, and he himself wounded as he approached Jerusalem to revenge his brother's death, he afterwards slew Pappus, Antigonus's general, and entirely defeated his army; and in the next campaign, after a siege of several months, Herod, assisted by Socius, the Roman general, took it by storm. The soldiers expecting the spoils of the city as their due, and being exasperated by the long resistance of the citizens, spured neither men, women, nor children, and would certainly have utterly destroyed every thing and person with rapine and devastation, death and The great pleasure that Herod took (B. C. 25,) in obliging his protector Octavianus, and the dread he had of being dethroned for his cruelties, prompted him to compliment him with the names of two new cities, the one to be built on the spot where Samaria stood before Hyrcanus destroyed it, (B. C. 22,) which he called Sebaste, the Greek word for Augustus: the other was Cæsarea, once called the Tower of Straton, on the sea-coast of Phœnicia. And after this he built a theatre and amphitheatre in the very city of Jerusalem, to celebrate games and exhibit shows Roman ensign, over one of the gates of the temple; and at last carried his flattery so far as idolatrously to build a temple of white marble in memory of the favours he had received from Octavianus Augustus. These advances to idolatry were the foundation of a conspiracy of ten men, who bound themselves with an oath to assassinate him in the very theatre. But being informed thereof in time, Herod seized the conspirators, and put them to death with the most exquisite torments; and, to ingratiate himself with the Jews, he formed a design to rebuild the Temple, (B. C. 17,) which now, after it had stood five hundred years, and suffered much from its enemies, was fallen much into decay. He was two years in providing materials; and it was so far advanced, that Divine service was performed in it in nine years and a half more, though a great number of labourers and artificers were continued to finish the outworks till several years after our Saviour's ascension: for when Gessius Florus was appointed governor of Judea, he discharged eighteen thousand workmen from the Temple at one time. And here it should be observed, that these, for want of employment, began those mutinies and seditions which at last drew on the destruction both of the Temple and Jerusalem, in A. D. 70. Thus I have finished that brief connection of the affairs of the Jews from the death of Nehemiah, and conclusion of the Old Testament, to the coming of Christ, where the New Testament begins; which, from the creation of the world, according to the most exact computation, is the year 4000. The general state of the Heathen world was in profound peace under the Roman emperor Augustus, to whom all the known parts of the earth were in subjection when Christ was born. This glorious event took place in the year of the Julian Period 4709, and the fifth before the vulgar æra of Christ, commonly noted A.D., Anno Domini, or the year of our Lord. See the learned Dr. Prideaux's connected History of the Old and New Testaments. I need not add here the years from the birth of Christ to the end of the New Testament history, as these are regularly brought down in a Table of Remarkable Eras, immediately succeeding the Acts of the Apostles, and terminating at A. D. 100. For the desolation that took place when the Temple was taken and destroyed, see the Notes on Matt. xxiv. 31. The general history of the Jews, especially from the destruction of their Temple, A. D. 70, to the end of the sixteenth century, has been written by Mr. Basnage, intituled Histoire des Juifs, depuis Jesus Christ, jusqu'à present; pour servir de continuation à l'Histoire de Joseph; the best edition of which was printed at the Hague, 1716, 12mo. in fifteen vols. The first edition was translated into English by T. Taylor, A. M. Lond. 1708. fol.; but the author has greatly enlarged and corrected his work in the Hague edition above mentioned. The learning and research manifested in this work are amazing; and on the subject nothing better, nothing more accurate and satisfactory, can well be expected. This work I heartily recommend to all my readers. For the state of the Jews in the different nations of the earth, the Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin, a native of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre, has been referred to; first translated from Hebrew into Latin by B. A. Montanus, and printed at Antwerp in 1575; and much better by Constantine L'Empereur, and printed at Leyden, 12mo. with the Hebrew text and notes, 1633. This work has gone through many editions among the Jews, in Hebrew and in German. It has also been translated into French by Baratier, with many learned notes, Amsterdam, 1734. But all the preceding translations have been totally eclipsed by that of the Rev. B. Gerrans, Lecturer of St. Catharine Coleman, and second master of Queen Elizabeth's Free Grammar School, St. Olave, Southwark, with a Dissertation and Notes, 12mo. Lond. 1784. If we can believe Rabbi Benjamin, (who, it appears, flourished in A. D. 1160,) he travelled over the whole world, and found the Jews in general in a most flourishing state, and living under their own laws in many places. But the work is a wretched imposition too hastily credited by some learned men; written with a view of keeping up the credit of the Jewish people, and with the tacit design to shew that the Messiah is not yet come; and that the sceptre has not departed from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet: but he is at such variance with himself, and with the whole geography of the globe, that, as Mr. Gerrans properly observes, no map could possibly be made of his travels. "Reduce," says he, "the universe to its primeval chaos; confound Asia with Africa; north with south, and heat with cold; make cities provinces, and provinces cities; people uncultivated deserts with free and independent Jews, and depopulate the most flourishing kingdoms; make rivers run when and where you please, and call them by any name but the right ones; take Arabia upon your back and carry it to the north of Babylon; turn the north pole south, or any other way you please; make a new ecliptic line, and place it in the most whimsical and eccentric position which the most hobby-horsical imagination can possibly conceive or describe: and such a map will better suit such an author." What, therefore, this author says of his travels and discoveries is worthy of no regard; and it is a doubt with me, (if this person ever existed,) whether he ever travelled beyond the limits of the kingdom of Navarre, or passed the boundaries of the city of Tudela. I mention these works, the first in the way of strong recommendation; the second, to put the reader on his guard against imposition; at the same time recommending these outcasts of Israel to his most earnest commiseration and prayers, that the God of all grace may speedily call them to eternal glory by Christ Jesus, that all Israel may be saved; and that through all their dispersions they may be soon found singing the song of Moses and the Lamb! Amen, Amen. CONCLUSION. In my General Preface, prefixed to Genesis, page vi. &c., I gave a succinct account of the Plan I pursued in preparing this Work for the press: but as this plan became necessarily extended, and led to much farther reading, examination, and discussion, I judge it necessary, now that the Work is concluded, to give my Readers a general Summary of the whole, that they may be in possession of my mode of proceeding, and be enabled more fully to comprehend the reasons why the Work has been so long in passing through the press. My education and habits, from early youth, led me to read and study the Bible, not as a text-book to confirm the articles of a preconceived creed, but as a revelation from God to man, (of His will and purposes, in reference to the origin and designation of His human offspring,) which it was the duty and interest of all the inhabitants of the earth, deeply to study, and earnestly endeavour to understand; as it concerned their peace and happiness, and the perfection of their being in reference to both worlds. best editions of the Septuagint and Vulgate, which are the earliest translations of the Hebrew Text which have reached our times. Nor have I been satisfied with these collections of Various Readings; I have examined and collated several ancient Hebrew MSS. which preceding scholars had never seen, with many ancient MSS. of the Vulgate equally unknown to biblical critics. This work required much time and great pains, and necessarily occasioned much delay: and no wonder, when I have often, on my plan, been obliged to employ as much time in visiting many sources and sailing down their streams, in order to ascertain a genuine reading or fix the sense of a disputed verse, as would have been sufficient for some of my contemporaries to pass whole sheets of their work through the press. Had I not followed this method, which to me appeared absolutely necessary, I should have completed my Work, such as it would have been, in less than one half of the time. These previous Readings, Collations, and Translations, produced an immense number of Notes and Observations on all parts of the Old Testament: which, by the advice and entreaty of several learned and judicious friends, I was induced to extend in the form of a perpetual comment on every Book in the Bible. This being ultimately revised and completed as far as the Book of Judges, which formed, in my purpose, the boundary of my proceedings on the Hebrew Scriptures, I was induced to commit it to press. Conscious that Translators in general must have had a particular creed, in reference to which they would naturally consider every text; and this reference, however honestly intended, might lead them to glosses not always fairly deducible from the original words; I sat down with a heart as free from bias and sectarian feeling as possible, and carefully read over, cautiously weighed, and literally translated, every word, Hebrew and Chaldee, in the Old Testament. And as I saw that it was possible, even while assisted by the best translations and best lexicographers, with the Old Testament; yet, as several of them were Though my friends in general wished me to go forward to mistake the import of a Hebrew term, and considering apprehensive, from the then infirm state of my health, that that the cognate Asiatic languages would be helps of I might not live long enough to finish the whole, they adgreat importance in such an inquiry, I collated every verse, where I was apprehensive of any difficulty, with the Chal-ment, and begin with the New. This was in conformity vised me strongly to omit for the present the Old Testadee, Syriac, Arabic, and Persian, and the Ethiopic in with my own feelings on the subject; having wished the Polyglott Translation, as far as the Sacred Writings simply to add the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles are extant in these languages: and I did this with a constant reference to the Various Readings collected by Hon-Judges; as these two parcels of Divine revelation, careto the five Books of Moses and the Books of Joshua and bigant, H. Michaelis, Kennicott, and De Rossi, and to the fully illustrated, would give a full view of the origin and 1004 final settlement of the church of the Old Covenant and the commencement and completion of that of the New. And thus I proceeded. ings, which have been the subjects of animadversion or ridicule by free thinkers and infidels of all classes and in all times; and I hope I may say that no such passage is either designedly passed by or superficially considered; that the strongest objections are fairly produced and met;-that all such parts of these Divine writings are, in consequence, After having literally translated every word of the New Testament, that last best gift of God to man; comparing the whole with all the ancient Versions, and the most important of the modern; collating all the Various Read-exhibited in their own lustre ;-and, that the truth of the ings collected by Stephens, Courcel, Fell, Gherard of Maestricht, Bengell, Mill, Wetstein, and Griesbach; actually examining many MSS., either cursorily or not at all examined by them; illustrating the whole by quotations from ancient authors, Rabbinical, Grecian, Roman, and Asiatic; I exceeded my previous design, and brought down the Work to the end of the Apocalypse; and passed the whole through the press. I should mention here a previous work, (without which any man must be ill qualified to undertake the illustration of the New Testament,) viz. a careful examination of the Septuagint. In this the phraseology of the New Testament is contained, and from this the import of that phraseology is alone to be derived. This I read carefully over to the end of the Book of Psalms, in the edition of Dr. Grabe, from the Codex Alexandrinus; collating it occasionally with editions taken from the Vatican MS., and particularly that printed by Field, at Cambridge, 1665, 18mo., with the Parænetic Preface of the learned Bishop Pearson. Without this previous work, who did ever yet properly comprehend the idiom and phraseology of the Greek Testament? Now, all these are parts of my labour which common readers cannot conceive; and which none can properly appreciate, as to the pains, difficulty, and time which must be expended, who have not themselves trodden this almost unfrequented path. doctrine of our salvation has had as many triumphs as it In this arduous labour I have had no assistants; not even When the New Testament was thus prepared and fin- a single week's help from an amanuensis: no person to ished at press, I was induced, though with great reluc-look for common places, or refer to an ancient author; to tance, to recommence the Old. I was already nearly worn find out the place and transcribe a passage of Greek, Latin, down by my previous work, connected with other works or any other language, which my memory had generally and duties which I could not omit; and though I had gone recalled, or to verify a quotation;-the help excepted which through the most important parts of the Sacred Records, I received in the chronological department from my own yet I could easily foresee that I had an ocean of difficulties nephew. I have laboured alone for nearly twenty-five to wade through in those parts that remained. The His- years previously to the Work being sent to press; and torical Books alone, in their chronology, arrangement of fifteen years have been employed in bringing it through facts, concise and often obscure phraseology, presented not the Press to the public; and thus about forty years of my a few-the books of Solomon, and those of the Major life have been consumed: and from this the Reader will at and Minor Prophets, a multitude. Notwithstanding all once perceive, that the Work, well or ill executed, has not these, I hope I may say, that having obtained help of God, been done in a careless or precipitate manner; nor have I am come with some success, to the conclusion; having any means within my reach been neglected to make it in aimed at nothing throughout the whole but the glory of every respect, as far as possible, what the title page proGod, and the good of men. mises,-A HELP TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE SACRED WRITINGS. But still something remains to be said concerning the modus operandi, or particular plan of proceeding. In prosecuting this work I was led to attend, in the first instance, more to words than to things, in order to find their true ideal meaning; together with those different shades of acceptation to which they became subject, either in the circumstances of the speakers and those who were addressed, or in their application to matters which use, peculiarity of place and situation, and the lapse of time, had produced. It was my invariable plan to ascertain first, the literal meaning of every word and phrase; and where there was a spiritual meaning, or reference, to see how it was founded on the literal sense. He who assumes his spiritual meanings first, is never likely to interpret the words of God either to his own credit or to the profit of his readers but in this track commentator has followed commentator, so that, in many cases, instead of a careful display of God's words and the objects of His providence and mercy, we have tissues of strange doctrines, human creeds, and confessions of faith. As I have said in another place, I speak not against compilations of this kind; but let them be founded on the words of God, first properly understood. : As I proceeded in my work, I met with other difficulties, I soon perceived an almost continual reference to the Literature, Arts, and Sciences, of the Ancient World, and of the Asiatic nations in particular; and was therefore obliged to make these my particular study, having found a thousand passages which I could neither illustrate nor explain, without some general knowledge at least of their jurisprudence, astronomy, architecture, chemistry, chirurgery, medicine, metallurgy, pneumatics, &c., with their military tactics, and the arts and trades, (as well ornamental as necessary) which are carried on in common life. In the course of all this labour, I have also paid particular attention to those facts mentioned in the Sacred Writ Several judicious friends have expressed their hearty desires, that I should add at least, "A Sketch of the Jewish History from Malachi to the present times; [this I have done;] and also to furnish the Work with a much more ample PROLEGOMENA." That this latter would be a real improvement, and if well executed, very useful, there is no room to doubt: but the Work has been already too long delayed, principally in preparing the Index, which has been earnestly called for by many, and without which I plainly see my labours would have been much less complete, and less useful. This is now executed on such an amplitude of scale, and minute detail of circumstances, as I hope will leave little on this head to be further desired : and as to the Prolegomena, it cannot be undertaken at present, though much has been prepared, as well on this, as on preceding subjects. Thus, through the merciful help of God, my labour in this field terminates; a labour, which were it yet to commence, with the knowledge I now have of its difficulty, and my (in many respects) inadequate means, millions, even of the gold of Ophir, and all the honours that can come from man, could not induce me to undertake. Now that it is finished, I regret not the labour; I have had the testimony of many learned, pious, and judicious friends, relative to the execution and the usefulness of the Work. It has been admitted into the very highest ranks in society, and has lodged in the cottages of the poor. It has been the means of doing good to the simple of heart; and the wise man and the scribe, the learned and the philosopher, according to their own generous acknowledgments, have not consulted its pages in vain. For these, and all His other mercies to the Writer and Reader, may God, the Fountain of all good, be eternally praised! ADAM CLARKE. Eastcott, April 17, 1826. 1005 |