hitherto I have made no distinction between it and the simple metaphor; for many of the examples, which I produced as metaphors, are probably of this class: the principle of each is the same; nor indeed would it be an easy matter to restrict each to its proper limits, or to define where the one ends or the other begins.

It will not, however, be foreign to our purpose to remark the peculiar manner in which the Hebrew poets use the congenial figures, metaphor, allegory, and comparison, and particularly in the prophetic poetry. When they undertake to express any sentiment in ornamented language, they not only illustrate it with an abundance and variety of imagery, but they seldom temper or regulate this imagery by any fixed principle or standard. Unsatisfied with a simple metaphor, they frequently run it into an allegory, or mingle with it a direct comparison. The allegory sometimes precedes and sometimes follows the simile: to this is added a frequent change of imagery, and even of persons and tenses; through the whole displaying a degree of boldness and freedom, unconfined by rule or method, altogether peculiar to the Hebrew poetry.

"Judah is a lion's whelp :"*

This metaphor is immediately drawn out into an allegory, with a change of person:

"From the prey, my son, thou art gone up ;"

(to the dens in the mountains understood). In the succeeding sentences the person is again changed, the image is gradually advanced, and the metaphor is joined with a comparison, which is repeated:

"He stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion,

And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?"

Of a similar nature is that remarkable prophecy, in which the exuberant increase of the gospel on its first dissemination is most explicitly foretold. In this passage, however, the mixture of the metaphor and comparison, as well as the ellipsis of the word to be repeated, creates a degree of obscurity:

"Beyond the womb of the morning is the dew of thy offspring to thee :"+

That is, "preferable to the dew which proceeds from the womb of the morning; more copious, more abundant."* In the interpretation of this passage, what monstrous blunders has an ignorance of the Hebrew idiom produced!

There is, indeed, a certain form which this kind of allegory sometimes assumes, more perfect and regular, which therefore ought not to be overlooked, and that is, when it occupies the whole compass and argument of the composition. An excellent example of this may be seen in that well-known allegory of Solomon,‡ in which old age is so admirably depicted. The inconveniencies of increasing years, the debility of mind and body, the torpor of the senses, are

• Some of the more modern translators seem at length agreed, that this is the proper sense of the passage; none of them, however, as far as I have been able to judge, has hitherto actually explained it at length. I shall, therefore, take advantage of this opportunity to give my sentiments upon it, lest doubts should afterwards arise concerning the meaning of a very important, and (as I think) a very clear passage of Holy Writ. The principal difficulty proceeds from the word me-racham, and from the ambiguity of the particle and the ellipsis of the word tal; which, I think, will be readily cleared up, if we attend to the following examples, the nature and meaning of which is evidently similar.-Psal. iv. 8.

"Thou hast excited joy in my heart,

Beyond the time in which their corn and wine increased." That is, "beyond (or superior to) the joy of that time."-Isa. x. 10.

“ Although their shrines are before Jerusalem and Samaria ;" That is, "excel the shrines of Jerusalem and Samaria." Job xxxv. 2. “My justice before God;" that is, "My justice is greater than the justice of God:" (compare xxxii. 2. and xl. 8.) In the same manner me-racham, before the womb," is the same as me-tal racham, “before the dew of the womb." Nor are there wanting in the Greeks examples of similar ellipses: M Oxuμxias "Neither can we celebrate a contest more noble αγώνα φέρτερον αυδασομεν· than is that of Olympia:” μηδε τε Ολυμπιακα αγωνος ἕἹερον βελτίονα. Pind. О. A. v. 11. & Schol. Edit. Oxon.

Ως ἡ λακαινα των Φρυγών μείων πόλις,

"As if the city of the Lacedemonians were smaller than that of the Phrygians." Eurip. Androm. v. 193.

The metaphor taken from the dew is expressive of fecundity, plenty, multitude; (compare 2 Sam. xvii. 11, 12. Mic. v. 7.) "A numerous offspring shall be born unto thee, and a numerous offspring it shall produce." Jaladecha, "thy youth," or "the youth that are produced from thee;" the abstract for the concrete, as Shebah, "whiteness," or being grey-headed, for a grey-headed man, Lev. xix. 32. Shebi,"captivity," for a captive, Isa. xlix. 24.; and so

יתבון לרוחצן תולדתן the Chaldee Interpreter takes the following

Thy offspring shall sit (or remain) in confidence."-Author's Note.

Eccles. xii. 2-6. Concerning this passage, consult the learned Commentary of that excellent physician of the last century, Dr John Smith. See also what has been lately advanced on the same subject by the first physician of this age, Dr R. Mead, in his Medica Sacra.-Author's Note.

expressed, most learnedly and elegantly indeed, but with some degree of obscurity, by different images derived from nature and common life: for by this enigmatical composition, Solomon, after the manner of the oriental sages, meant to put to trial the acuteness of his readers. It has on this account afforded much exercise to the ingenuity of the learned, many of whom have differently, it is true, but with much learning and sagacity, explained the passage.

There is also in Isaiah an allegory, which, with no less elegance of imagery, is more simple and regular, more just and complete in the form and colouring: I shall, therefore, quote the whole passage. The prophet is explaining the design and manner of the divine judgments: he is inculcating the principle, that God adopts different modes of acting in the chastisement of the wicked, but that the most perfect wisdom is conspicuous in all; that "he will," as he had urged before, "exact judgment by the line, and righteousness by the plummet," that he ponders with the most minute attention the distinctions of times, characters, and circumstances; all the motives to lenity or severity. All this is expressed in a continued allegory, the imagery of which is taken from agriculture and threshing: the use and suitableness of which imagery, as in a manner consecrated to this subject, I have formerly explained, so that there is no need of further detail at present.

"Listen ye, and hear my voice:

Attend and hearken unto my words.

Doth the husbandman plough every day that he may sow, Opening, and breaking the clods of his field?

When he hath made even the face thereof,

Doth he not then scatter the dill, and cast abroad the cum

min;

And sow the wheat in due measure;

And the barley, and the rye, hath its appointed limit?

For his God rightly instructeth him; he furnisheth him with knowledge.

The dill is not beaten out with the corn-drag;

Nor is the wheel of the wain made to turn upon the cummin: But the dill is beaten out with the staff;

And the cummin with the flail; but the bread-corn§ with the threshing-wain.

* Isa. xxviii. 23-29.

Isa. xxviii. 17.

$ pron.]—I have annexed these to the preceding, disregarding the Masoretic distinction: in this I follow the LXX (though they have greatly

But not for ever will he continue thus to thresh it ;
Nor to vex it with the wheel of his wain;

Nor to bruise it with the hoofs of his cattle.

This also proceedeth from JEHOVAH God of Hosts:

He showeth himself wonderful in counsel, great in operation."

Another kind of allegory is that which, in the proper and restricted sense, may be called Parable, and consists of a continued narration of a fictitious event, applied by way of simile to the illustration of some important truth. The

Greeks call these allegories anos (or apologues), the Latins
fabula (or fables); and the writings of the Phrygian sage,
or those composed in imitation of him, have acquired the
mistaken the sense) and Symmachus. I suspect also that the before
has been obliterated, which Symmachus expressed by the particle ds, the Vul-
gate by autem. The translation will sufficiently explain my reasons. Lechem,
however, seems to be taken for corn, Psal. civ. 14. and Eccles. xi. 1. "Cast
thy bread," that is, "sow thy seed, or corn, upon the face of the waters:" in
plain terms, sow without any hope of a harvest; do good to them on whom
you even think your benefaction thrown away: A precept enforcing great and
disinterested liberality, with a promise annexed to it," for after many days
thou shalt find it again:" at length, if not in the present world, at least in a
future, thou shalt have a reward. The learned Dr George Jubb, the gentle-
man alluded to in p. 67. suggested this explanation, which he has elegantly
illustrated from Theognis and Phocylides, who intimate, that to do acts of
kindness to the ungrateful and unworthy, is the same as sowing the sea:—

Vain are the favours done to vicious men,
Not vainer 'tis to sow the foaming deep;
The deep no pleasant harvest shall afford,
Nor will the wicked ever make return.

Theog. T. v. 105.

To befriend the wicked is like sowing in the sea.

Phocyl. v. 141.

These, indeed, invert the precept of Solomon; nor is it extraordinary that they should:

"Four methods of threshing are here mentioned, by different instruments; the flail, the drag, the wain, and the treading of the cattle. The staff or flail was used for the grain that was too tender to be treated in the other methods. The drag consisted of a sort of frame of strong planks, made rough at the bottom with hard stone or iron: it was drawn by horses or oxen over the cornsheaves spread on the floor, the drivers sitting upon it. The wain was much like the former, but had wheels with iron teeth, or edges, like a saw; and it should seem that the axle was armed with iron teeth or serrated wheels throughout. The drag not only forced out the grain, but cut the straw in pieces for fodder for the cattle; for in the Eastern countries they have no hay. The last method is well known from the law of Moses, which forbids the ox to be muzzled when he treadeth out the corn.'"-Bishop Lowth's Isaiah, p. 278.

greatest celebrity. Nor has our Saviour himself disdained to adopt the same method of instruction, of whose parables it is doubtful, whether they excel most in wisdom and utility, or in sweetness, elegance, and perspicuity. I must observe, that the appellation of parable having been applied to his discourses of this kind, the term is now restricted from its former extensive signification to a more confined sense. This species of composition occurs very frequently in the prophetic poetry, and particularly in that of Ezekiel. But to enable us to judge with more certainty upon the subject, it will be necessary to explain in a few words some of the primary qualities of the poetic parables, that, by considering the general nature of them, we may decide more accurately on the merits of particular examples.

It is the first excellence of a parable to turn upon an image well known and applicable to the subject, the meaning of which is clear and definite; for this circumstance will give it perspicuity, which is essential to every species of allegory. If, therefore, by this rule we examine the parables of the sacred Prophets, we shall, I am persuaded, find them not in the least deficient. They are in general founded upon such imagery as is frequently used, and similarly applied by way of metaphor and comparison in the Hebrew poetry. Most accurate examples of this are to be found in the parable of the deceitful vineyard,* of the useless vine,+ which is given to the fire; for under this imagery the ungrateful people of God are more than once described. I may instance also that of the lion's whelps falling into the pit, in which is appositely displayed the captivity of the Jewish princes; or that of the fair, lofty, and flourishing cedar of Lebanon,§ which raised its head to the clouds, cut down at length and neglected, exhibiting, as in a picture, the prosperity and the fall of the king of Assyria. I will add one more example, (there is, indeed, scarcely any which might not with propriety be introduced here), I mean that in which the love of God

• Isa. v. 1-7. + Ezek. xv. and xix. 10-14.

Ezek. xix. 1-9.

$ Ezek. xxxi. I take this passage according to the common explanation, disregarding that of Meibomius, which I find is blamed by many of the learned; and indeed it has some difficulties, which are not easy to clear away. Nor can I indeed relish that Assyrian, who has intruded himself I know not how. In the 10th, for 2 I think it were better to read with the Syriac and Vulgate, which reading is adopted by the learned Houbigant. Observe also, that the LXX have very rightly rendered Ben Grabathim by us peror TWO vλ, "through the midst of the clouds."-Author's Note.