pafs, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you: fo the Lord fhall rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goeft to poffefs it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt ferve other Gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and ftones. Such are fome of the moft ftriking parts of the menacing prediction. And if the profeffed brevity of this work did not prohibit the detail, it would be easy to go through their whole hiftory, and point out the different feafons at which their idolatry and disobedience brought upon them different manifeftations of the divine difpleafure, in all the ordinary calamities of war and famine. But it will fuffice for the object of this Chapter, to advert only to those remarkable instances when the Jews were conquered by the Affyrians and the Romans; because it is plain that the Prophecy principally relates to the invafion of a formidable enemy, and the * 1 Chron. xxi. 12. Ruth i. 1. [2 Kings vi. 25. xxv. 3. 1 Kings xx. 1. 1 Sam, xxi. 1. 2 Kings xvii. 6, disasters difafters peculiar to the fieges of great and populous cities. The Jews, as we see above, are threatened in cafe of their rebellion, with captivity; and the character and remote situation of the hostile nations by whom they were to be taken captive, are particularly described, Ifaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and other Prophets, treading in the fteps of Mofes, but nearer the event, repeat many ftriking parts of the Prediction, and expressly declare the cause of the impending danger to be, the prevailing idolatry of their countrymen, and their attachment to the prophane rites and cuftoms of the Heathen. Accordingly, in the reign of Zedekiah, a nation [the Affyrian] agreeing with the inspired descriptions, invadẹ Judea, and fulfilling the Prophecy, pillage and burn the temple, put perfons of both fexes and all ages to the fword, and carry away multitudes as flaves to Babylon. But fulfilled as the Prophecy may feem to have been, and actually was, in this and many inftances, the Jews were not therefore released from the power of it. Temporal bleffings when obedient, and temporal punishments when disobedient, are the terms of the Jewish covenant; in force from the time of the Egyptian bondage, to the present hour. When by their repentance, which the Divine prescience After prefcience forefaw, when 70 years were fixed as the limits of their punishment, the Babylonian captivity was terminated, their return to their own land (where for a time they enjoyed fignal marks of the Divine favour) was not followed by any long continued obedience ; and the threats and even the terms of the Prophecy again attached upon them. Their adversity accordingly increased by degrees, as their wickednefs became more and more general, and more and more enormous. the death of Alexander, their country fuffered feverely by the wars which enfued, between the Princes who divided the Grecian Empire. Ptolemy Soter took poffeffion of Jerusalem on the fabbath-day, and carried a great number of the Jews captive into Egypt; and the and the privileges they enjoyed during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, were followed by the extreme miseries inflicted by the execrable tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes". From that period of their hiftory, excepting only the brilliant fcene of happiness, which the piety and valour of the Maccabees were allowed to open for this once more repentant people, we fee them immerfed in crimes, confufion, and tumult; conftantly fubject to the peace * B. C. 320. * B. C. 170. Syrian, Syrian, the Egyptian, or the Roman power; and continually a prey to plunder, flavery and maffacre, till, by rejecting the Meffiah, they became liable to the punishment denounced by Mofes against those who should "not hearken to the Prophet whom the Lord should raise up, like unto him;" and in confequence have fuffered, and are ftill fuffering, the fevereft chaftifement a nation can undergo, To the accounts of the fiege and destruc tion of Jerufalem, and the entire conqueft of Judea by the Romans, and the state in which the country and the people have ever fince continued, are we then to look, for the moft minute and complete accomplishment of thefe awful predictions; and here we shall indeed find the agreement between facts and Prophecies moft ftrikingly exact. The remote fituation, the unknown language, the " fierce countenance," and the martial character of the Romans are strongly marked in this Prophetical description, as if defigned to distinguish them from the Afiatic conquerors of the Jews. They * Several Jewish Expofitors are cited by Patrick and Parker, in their Commentaries upon this Prophecy. Manaffeh ben Ifrael, a very learned and acute Rabbi of the Spanish They came from far-from the end of the earth. Not only the distance of Rome from Jerufalem is thus marked, but this intimation of remoteness is peculiarly applicable to the generals and armies by whom Judea was conquered. In order to carry on war against that country, Pompey left a very diftant province, and Vefpafian and Julius Severus conducted their troops from the island of Britain. Adrian and Trajan, by whom they were finally fubdued, were natives of the diftant country of Spain, They came as fwift as the eagle flieth. The rapid flight of the most ravenous bird of prey may be confidered as a just emblem of a deftroying army; and the eagle as peculiarly applicable to the Roman standard. But the allufion has also an exact historical propriety; as Titus, being eager to return to Rome, preffed on the fiege of Jerufalem with the Spanish Synagogue in Amsterdam, who flourished in the beginning of the last century, is of opinion, that at the forty-ninth verfe commences the Prophecy of the calamities under the fecond Temple. He refers all the latter part of the chapter to the invasion of the Romans, and the misfortunes that followed it. Parker's Commentary, vol, v. p. 576. Tacit. Hift. lib. v. greatest |