ture is used to express earnest and humble entreaty. The behaviour of Saul towards Samuel was of the same kind, when he laid hold on the skirt of his raiment: 1 Sam. xv. 27. The preceding and following verses shew, that his whole deportment, in regard to the prophet, was full of submission and humility. Ibid. And let thy hand support-] Before Tл, a MS. adds which latter ,תקח בידך another MS. adds in the same place ;תהיה seems to be a various reading of the two preceding words, making a very good sense; "take into thy hand our ruinous state." Twenty-one MSS. and three editions, and the Babylonish Talmud, have, plural. 7. Then shall he openly declare-] The LXX, Syr, and Jerom. read , adding the conjunction; which seems necessary in this place. Ibid. For in my house is neither bread nor raiment.] "It is customary through all the east," says Sir J. Chardin, “to gather together an immense quantity of furniture and clothes; for their fashions never alter." Princes and great men are obliged to have a great stock of such things in readiness for presents upon all occasions, "The kings of Persia," says the same author,“ have great wardrobes, where there are always many hundreds of habits ready, designed for presents, and sorted." Harmer, Observ. ii. 11. and 88. A great quantity of provision for the table was equally necessary. The daily provision for Solomon's household, whose attendants were exceedingly numerous, was proportionably great. 1 Kings iv. 22. 23. Even Nehemiah, in his strait circumstances, had a large supply daily for his table; at which were received a hundred and fifty of the Jews and rulers, beside those that came from among the neighbouring heathens. Neh. v. 17, 18. This explains the meaning of the excuse made by him that is desired to undertake the government: he alleges, that he has not wherewithal to support the dignity of the station, by such acts of liberality and hospitality as the law of custom required of persons of superior rank. See Harmer's Observations, i. 340. ii. 88. 1.-the cloud] This word appears to be of very doubtful form, from the printed editions, the MSS., and the ancient versions. The first jod in, which is necessary according to the common interpretation, is in many of them omitted: the two last letters are upon a rasure in two MSS. I think it should be py, as the Syriac reads; and that the allusion is to the cloud, in which the glory of the Lord appeared above the tabernacle; see Exod. xvi. 9, 10. xl. 34-38. Numb. xvi. 41, 42. 10. Pronounce ye-] The reading of this verse is very dubious. The כי לא טוב לנו and :אמרו נאסר,or both ; נאסר read אמרו LXX for Δησωμεν τον δικαιον, ότι δυσχρηστος ήμιν εστι. Perhaps, for 1998, the true reading may be , bless ye: or NDX, say ye, blessed is— Vulg. and an ancient MS. read, in the singular number,, comedet. 12. Pervert], swallow. Among many unsatisfactory methods of accounting for the unusual meaning of this word in this place, I choose Jarchi's explication, as making the best sense. "Read 155, confound. Syr." Dr. JUBB. "Read 1, disturb, or trouble." SECKER. So LXX. 13. his people] Y, LXX. 14. —my vineyard], LXX, Chald. Jerom. 15. And grind the faces] The expression and the image is strong, to denote grievous oppression; but is exceeded by the prophet Micah: "Hear, I pray you, ye chiefs of Jacob; And their bones they dash in pieces; And chop them asunder, as morsels for the pot; And as the flesh thrown into the midst of the caldron." Micah iii. 1-3. In the last line but one, for NS, read, by the transposition of a letter, NW, with the LXX, and Chald. 16. And falsely setting off their eyes with paint] Heb. falsifying their eyes. I take this to be the true meaning and literal rendering of the word; from p. The Masoretes have pointed it, as if it were from p, a different word. This arose, as I imagine, from their supposing that the word was the same with PD, Chald. intueri, innuere oculis; or that it had an affinity with the noun D, which the Chaldeans, or the Rabbins at least, use for stibium, the mineral which was commonly used in colouring the eyes. See Jarchi's Comment on the place. Though the colouring of the eyes with stibium be not particularly here expressed, yet I suppose it to be implied; and so the Chaldee paraphrase explains it: “stibio linitis oculis.” This fashion seems to have prevailed very generally among the eastern people in ancient times; and they retain the very same to this day. Pietro della Valle, giving a description of his wife, an Assyrian lady, born in Mesopotamia, and educated at Baghdad, whom he married in that country, (Viaggi, tom. i. Lettera 17.) says, "Her eyelashes, which are long, and, according to the custom of the east, dressed with stibium, as we often read in the holy Scriptures of the Hebrew women of old, (Jer. iv. 30. Ezek. xxiii. 40.) and in Xenophon of Astyages the grandfather of Cyrus, and of the Medes of that time, (Cyropæd. lib. i.) give a dark, and at the same time a majestic shade to the eyes." "Great eyes," says Sandys, Travels, p. 67. speaking of the Turkish women," they have in principal repute; and of those the blacker they be, the more amiable : insomuch that they put between the eyelids and the eye a certain black power, with a fine long pencil, made of a mineral brought from the kingdom of Fez, and called Alcohole; which by the not disagreeable staining of the lids, doth better set forth the whiteness of the eye; and though it be troublesome for a time, yet it comforteth the sight, and repelleth ill humours." 66 Vis ejus [stibii] astringere ac refrigerare, principalis autem circa oculos; namque ideo etiam plerique Platyophthalmon id appellavere, quoniam in calliblepharis mulierum dilatat oculos; et fluxiones inhibet oculorum exulcerationesque." Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 6. "Ille supercilium madida fuligine tinctum Jav. Sat. II. 92. "But none of those [Moorish] ladies," says Dr. Shaw, (Travels, p. 294. כחלת עיניך,the same word in the form of a verb fol.)" take themselves to be completely dressed, till they have tinged the hair and edges of their eyelids with Al-kahol, the powder of lead ore. This operation is performed by dipping first into the powder a small wooden bodkin of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterward through the eyelids, over the ball of the eye.” Ezekiel (xxiii. 40.) uses "thou didst dress thine eyes with Al-cahol;" which the LXX render εorißičov rovç oplaλμους σου, "thou didst dress thine eyes with stibium;" just as they do, when the word is employed: (compare 2 Kings ix. 30. Jer. iv. 30.) they supposed therefore, that and , or, in the Arabic form, Alcahol, meant the same thing; and probably the mineral used of old, for this purpose, was the same that is used now; which Dr. Shaw (ibid. note) says, is a rich lead ore, pounded into an impalpable powder." Alcoholados; the word, in this place, is thus rendered in an old Spanish translation. Sanctitus. See also Russell's Nat. Hist. of Aleppo, p. 102. 66 The following inventory, as one may call it, of the wardrobe of a Hebrew lady, must, from its antiquity, and from the nature of the subject, have been very obscure, even to the most ancient interpreters which we have of it; and, from its obscurity, must have been also peculiarly liable to the mistakes of transcribers; however, it is rather matter of curiosity than of importance; and indeed it is, upon the whole, more intelligible, and less corrupted, than one might have reasonably expected. Clemens Alexandrinus (Pædag. lib. ii. cap. 12.) and Julius Pollux (lib. vii. cap. 22.) have each of them preserved, from a comedy of Aristophanes, now lost, a similar catalogue of the several parts of the dress and ornaments of a Grecian lady; which though much more capable of illustration from other writers, though of later date, and quoted and transmitted down to us by two different authors; yet seems to be much less intelligible, and considerably more corrupted, than this passage of Isaiah. Salmasius has endeavoured, by comparing the two quotations, and by much critical conjecture and learned disquisition, to restore the true reading, and to explain the particulars; with what success, I leave to the determination of the learned reader, whose curiosity shall lead him to compare the passage of the comedian with this of the prophet, and to examine the critic's learned labours upon it. Exercit. Plinian. p. 1148. or see Clem. Alex as cited above, Edit. Potter, where the passage, as corrected by Salmasius, is given. Nich. Guil. Schroëderus, professor of Oriental languages in the university of Marpurg, has published a very learned and judicious treatise upon this passage of Isaiah. The title of it is, "Commentarius Philologico-Criticus de Vestitu Mulierum Hebræarum ad Iesai iii. v. 16—24. Ludg. Bat. 1745." 4to. As I think no one has handled this subject with so much judgment and ability as this author, I have for the most part followed him, in giving the explanation of the several terms denoting the different parts of dress, of which this passage consists; signifying the reasons of my dissent, where he does not give me full satisfaction. 17. —will the Lord humble-] TATTELVWOEL, LXX; and so Syr. and שפל they read שפח Chald. For Ibid. —expose their nakedness] It was the barbarous custom of the con querors of those times to strip their captives naked, and to make them travel in that condition, exposed to the inclemency of the weather; and, the worst of all, to the intolerable heat of the sun. But this to the women was the height of cruelty and indignity; and especially to such as those here described, who had indulged themselves in all manner of delicacies of living, and all the superfluities of ornamental dress; and even whose faces had hardly ever been exposed to the sight of man. This is always mentioned as the hardest part of the lot of captives. Nahum, denouncing the fate of Nineveh, paints it in very strong colours: "Behold, I am against thee, saith JEHOVAH God of hosts: And I will expose thy nakedness to the nations; And I will throw ordures upon thee; And I will make thee vile, and set thee as a gazing-stock." Nahum iii. 5, 6. 18. —the ornaments of the feet-rings—] The late learned Dr. Hunt, professor of Hebrew and Arabic in the university of Oxford, has very well explained the word Dy, both verb and noun, in his very ingenious Dissertation on Proverbs vii. 22, 23. The verb means to skip, to bound, to dance along; and the noun, those ornaments of the feet which the eastern ladies wore; chains, or rings, which made a tinkling sound as they moved nimbly in walking. Eugene Roger, Description de la Terre Sainte, liv. ii. chap. 2. speaking of the Arabian women of the first rank in Palestine, says, "Au lieu de brasselets elles ont de menottes d'argent, qu'elles portent aux poignets et aux pieds; où sont attachez quantité de petits annelets d'argent, qui font un cliquetis comme d'une cymbale, lorsqu'elles cheminent ou se mouvent quelque peu." See Dr. Hunt's Dissertation; where he produces other testimonies to the same purpose from authors of travels. Ibid. —the net-works] I am obliged to differ from the learned Schroëderus, almost at first setting out: he renders the word ' by soliculi, little ornaments, bullæ, or studs, in shape representing the sun, and so answering to the following word ", lunulæ, crescents. He supposes the word to be the same with WD, the in the second syllable making the word diminutive, and the letter being changed for, a letter of the same organ. How just and well founded his authorities for the transmutation of these letters in the Arabic language are, I cannot pretend to judge; but, as I know of no such instance in Hebrew, it seems to me a very forced etymology. Being dissatisfied with this account of the matter, I applied to my good friend above-mentioned, the late Dr. Hunt, who very kindly returned the following answer to my inquiries: "I have consulted the Arabic lexicons, as well MS. as printed, but cannot find in any of them, nor any thing belonging to it. So that no help is to be had from that language towards clearing up the meaning of this difficult word. But what the Arabic denies, the Syriac perhaps may afford; in which I find the verb way to entangle, or interweave, an etymology which is equally favourable to our marginal translation, net-works, with yw, to make chequer-work, or embroider (the word by which Kimchi and others have explained D), and has more over this advantage over it, that the letters put for each other, but y and ▷ scarce ever. and D and are very frequently Aben Ezra joins DDIW ' (which immediately precedes it) together; and says, that was the ornament of the legs, as was of the feet. His words "שביס תכשיט של שוקים כמו עכס של רגלים,are 21. The jewels of the nostril-] 3. Schroederus explains this, as many others do, of jewels, or strings of pearl, hanging from the forehead, and reaching to the upper part of the nose. But it appears from many passages of holy Scripture, that the phrase is to be literally and properly understood of nose-jewels, rings set with jewels, hanging from the nostrils, as ear-rings from the ears, by holes bored to receive them. Ezekiel, enumerating the common ornaments of women of the first rank, has not omitted this particular, and is to be understood in the same manner: chap. xvi. 11, 12. (See also Gen. xxiv. 47.) "And I decked thee with ornaments: And a chain on thy neck: And I put a jewel on thy nose, And ear-rings on thine ears, And a splendid crown upon thine head." And in an elegant proverb of Solomon there is a manifest allusion to this kind of ornament, which shews it to have been used in his time: "As a jewel in gold in the snout of a swine; Prov. xi. 22. So is a woman beautiful, bat wanting discretion." This fashion, however strange it may appear to us, was formerly, and is still, common in many parts of the east, among women of all ranks. Paul Lucas, speaking of a village, or clan, of wandering people, a little on this side of the Euphrates; "The women," says he, (2nd Voyage du Levant, tom. i. art. 24.) "almost all of them travel on foot; I saw none bandsome among them. They have almost all of them the nose bored, and wear in it a great ring, which makes them still more deformed." But in regard to this custom, better authority cannot be produced than that of Pietro della Valle, in the account which he gives of the lady before-mentioned, Signora Maani Gioerida, his own wife. The description of her dress, as to the ornamental parts of it, with which he introduces the mention of this particular, will give us some notion of the taste of the eastern ladies for finery. "The ornaments of gold, and of jewels, for the head, for the neck, for the arms, for the legs, and for the feet (for they wear rings even on their toes), are indeed, unlike those of the Turks, carried to great excess; but not of great value: for in Baghdad jewels of high price either are not to be had, or are not used; and they wear such only as are of little value; as turquoises, small rubies, emeralds, carbuncles, garnets, pearls, and the like. My spouse dresses herself with all of them according to their fashion; with exception however of certain ugly rings of very large size, set with jewels, which, in truth very absurdly, it is the custom to wear fastened to one of their nostrils, like buffalos: an ancient custom however in the east, which, as we find in the holy Scriptures, prevailed among the Hebrew ladies even in the time of Solomon. (Prov. xi. 22.) These nose-rings in complaisance to me she has left off; but I have not yet been able to prevail with her cousin and her sisters to |