"

hands of the Persians, and the spoils of this fruitful country are "Content's proposed as a prize of your valour and discipline." The enemy wear the crown. kingdom, and I being defeated after an arduous conflict, "the spoil was such as-Heywood. might be expected from the riches and luxury of an Oriental camp; large quantities of silver and gold, splendid arms and trappings, and beds, and tables of massy silver."

v. 15. Dr. J. Bar

row, iv. 391.
«The fountain of

content must

spring up in the mind; and he

who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but

his

own dispositions will waste his life in fruitless

tiply the griefs which he purposes to remove." -Johnson.

efforts, and mul

14-18. (14) Lord.. himself, Am. vi. 8. caterpillars, or locusts; Neh. iii. 15. lift.. shout, or sing over thee the vintage-song, as those who tread the grapes. (15, 16) made, etc., comp. ch. x. 12, 13. (17, 18) every man, etc., ch. x. 14, 15. A plague of locusts-The Mormons are threatened with as many plagues as the Egyptians of old. The last grievance is the advent of locusts, which have committed great devastation. Their doings are thus described in the Deseret News :-"The mode of their operations in this city and neighbourhood has been very simple. After flying for a time at a very high altitude, numbers of them began on Sunday afternoon, the 5th, to fly low, and towards evening settled down, covering trees and every kind of vegetation, hanging in clusters from twigs and tender branches, and covering the ground under foot. Apple trees, pear trees, carrots, and corn seemed their favourite food; for they stripped them of every leaf in an incredibly short time. Peach trees suffered somewhat in the fruit, which was eaten clean away; but the leaves were mostly uninjured. Oats, barley, and wheat, where not ripe, suffered severely. It was a curious-looking spectacle to see apple trees stripped of everything except the fruit, and much of that eaten into the core on one side, after the voracious insects had cleansed them of leaves, in some instances devouring the tender twigs. There seems no way of successfully driving them off when they settle down in a locality. They can be dislodged from particular trees by kindling small fires of straw, a little damp, underneath, and shaking the branches. Then they will rise, and the smoke compels them to leave. They can also be caught in large quantities with bag nets or similar contrivances, in early morning, before the heat of the sun gives lesson by himself. them that vitality which they possess during the day; or they can be so caught in a dull, cloudy day, when the sun is not shining, for then they keep near the ground. When thus caught, they are sometimes boiled and fed for hogs and poultry, the latter being particularly fond of them. One wheat field, nearly nine miles out, seemed literally alive with them, flitting in countless myriads just above the grain, their thin, gauze-like wings glistening in the sunlight."

a

If happiness were
an attainment of
the mind, to be
science or an art
acquired, as
is learned from
the master, no

place could con-
tain the numbers

that would flock to the school. But there is no such school; each must learn the

"When I am pressed with. thoughts about worldly or home cares, I take a Psalm, or a saying of Paul, and go to sleep on

it."-Luther.

19-24. (19) portion, etc., ch. x. 16. (20) battle axe, ham-a mer; the reference is to Cyrus. (21, 22) break in pieces, and so utterly ruin. (23) captains, Heb. Pakah, prob. the original of the title pasha. (24) render unto, bring upon Bab. retributive judgments.

"The mace, or mall, was among

the weapons used by the soldiers, and by the Asthemselves."—

syrian monarchs

Rawlinson.

r. 20. Dr. G. Law

God's mercy to His people (v. 20).-I. The extent of God's mercy to His chosen people. 1. They are constantly represented as a remnant; 2. For them God designs the richest mercy. II. The interest the Jews have in it. 1. We ought not to overlook son, 31. this; 2. The promise should fill us with unutterable joy. III. The effect which the contemplation of it should produce on us. 1. & C. Simeon, M.A. humiliation; 2. Gratitude; 3. Affiance.

a Gesenius.

b Roberts.

25-29. (25) destroying mountain, fig. for Babylon, which had been like a volcano. burnt mountain, i.e. one burnt out, whose fires are quenched, and which is left a mere useless ruin. "I earn that I (26) not.. stone, bec. the stones of volcanoes are unfit for eat, get that I building purposes. (27) Ararat, in Armenia, 2 Ki. xix. 37. wear, owe no Minni and Ashchenaz, also in Armenia. Ge. x. 3. capman hate, envy no man's happi-tain, or satrap. rough caterpillars, or bristling locusts." ness, glad of (28, 29) prepare, lit. consecrate. tremble, with its fear and other men's good, confusion.

and content with my harm."Shakespeare.

a Herodotus says

that the extreme parts of the city were taken before they who dwelt in the middle of it were sensible of their danger.

Locusts or caterpillars?-Some think locusts are meant instead of caterpillars; and one reason assigned is, that they "have the appearance of horses and horsemen." Others translate "bristled locusts." There are bristled caterpillars in the East, which at certain seasons are extremely numerous and annoying. They creep along in troops like soldiers, are covered with stiff hairs or bristles, which are so painful to the touch, and so powerful in their effects, as not to be entirely removed for many days. Should one be swallowed, it will cause death: hence people, at the particular season when they are numerous, are very cautious in examining their water vessels, lest any should have fallen in. In the year 1826, a family at Manipy had to arise early in the morning to go to their work, and they therefore prepared their rice the evening before. They were up before daylight, and took their food: in the course of a short time they were all ill, and some of them "Atright angles died during the day. The rice chatty was examined, and there were found the remains of the micutty, the rough caterpillar. Dr. Hawkesworth says, of those he saw in the West Indies, "their bodies were thick set with hairs, and they were ranging on the leaves, side by side, like files of soldiers, to the number of twenty or thirty together. When we touched them we found that their bodies had the qualities of nettles."

with the river were the main streets, at the

end of each of which were gates, and prob. steps leading

down to the river, and so the people were carried across in

boats."-Spk. Com.

e"After draining off the river, Cyrus burned the stockade of dense tree-like reeds on its banks, forming the outworks of the city forti

fications. The burning of these would give the appearance of the marsh or river being itself on

fire."-Fausset.

a "Near Jericho

all trodden by

30-32. (30) forborn, etc., in utter hopelessness and despair. bars are broken, all her fortresses, and chief defences. (31) one.. another, intimating the simultaneous entry of the enemy at different points." (32) passages, poss. the ferries, or the passages up from the river bank, reeds.. fire, a fig. designed to show how dry the river marshes had become. The reeds may have been formed into stockades on the river banks.

Overthrow of Babylon.-It seems a contradiction to say that one post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his kingdom is taken (not at one end, as our translation says, but) at the extremity. Yet this was strictly true; for Babylon was taken at each end at the same time, so that the messengers who carried the news to the king at his palace in the middle of the city, did run to meet each other, as coming from opposite quarters.

33-35. (33) threshing floor, such were in the open air, were no less than the ground being trodden down hard by cattle." time to thresh, five such floors. or at the time when it is trodden. (34) devoured me, i.c. the oxen, cows, and Jewish nation, wh. is here introduced, complaining of the inyounger cattle, juries inflicted on them by the Chaldæans. dragon, or serpent arranged in each which swallows its prey whole. A sea monster. delicates, tase five abreast, delicacies, treasures; dainty meats, Ge. xlix. 20. cast me out, keeping up the fig. of the overgorged animal. (35) my flesh,

and driven round

in a circle, or

inhabitant, rather in all

At

directions, over the floor."-Robinson.

"Babylon is like a threshing-floo" not trodden for a the time of harlong time, but vest, when her citizens shall be foot, shall come." -Calvin.

trodden under

made of her inhabitants and

their treasures, as the harvest clears the fields, and leaves them

empty and bare." -Lowth.

"Nebuchadnezzar had devoured treated her ruthlessly as

Jerusalem, had

33

a

crocodile does its

wh. Nebuchadnezzar, as a wild beast, devoured. marg. remainder or posterity. Babylon-On the one side, near to the site of Opis, "the country all around appears to be one wide desert of sandy and barren soil, thinly scattered over with brushwood and tufts of reedy grass." On the other, between Bussorah and Bagdad, immediately on either bank of the Tigris, is the untrodden desert. The absence of all cultivation,-the sterile, arid, and wild character of the whole scene, formed a contrast to the rich and delightful accounts delineated in Scripture. The natives, in travelling over these pathless deserts, are compelled to explore their way by the stars." "The face of the country is open and fat. presenting to the eye one vast level plain, where nothing is to be seen but here and there a herd of half-wild camels. This "There shall be immense tract is very rarely diversified with any trees of mode-a clear riddance rate growth, but is an immense wild, bounded only by the horizon." In the intermediate region, "the whole extent from the foot of the wall of Bagdad is a barren waste, without a blade of vegetation of any description; on leaving the gates, the traveller has before him the prospect of a bare desert, a flat and barren country." "The whole country between Bagdad and Hillah is a perfectly flat and (with the exception of a few spots as you approach the latter place) uncultivated waste. That it was at some former period in a far different state, is evident from the number of canals by which it is traversed, now dry and eglected; and the quantity of heaps of earth covered with fragments of brick and broken tiles, which are seen in every direction.-the indisputable traces of former population. resent the only inhabitants of the tract are the Sobeide Arabs. Around, as far as the eye can reach, is a trackless desert." "The abundance of the country has vanished as clean away as if the besom of desolation' had swept it from north to south; the whole land, from the outskirts of Babylon to the farthest stretch of sight, lying a melancholy waste. Not a habitable spot appears for countless miles." The land of Babylon is desolate, without an inhabitant. The Arabs traverse it; and every man met with in the desert is looked on as an enemy. Wild beasts have now their home in the land of Chaldæa; but the traveller is less afraid of them, even of the lion,-than of "the wilder « Our contentanimal, the desert Arab." The country is frequently "totally ment is our best impassable." "Those splendid accounts of the Babylonian lands having."-- ShakeFielding crops of grain two or three hundred fold, compared with the modern face of the country, afford a remarkable proof c Keith. of the singular desolation to which it has been subjected. The canals at present can only be traced by their decayed banks."c 36-40. (36) plead thy cause, ch. 1. 34. dry. . sea," Jos referring to the "great lake dug by Nitocris to receive the waters of the Euphrates." Prob. only the usual Oriental term for any large river, or great body of water. (37) heaps, or ruins: ch. 1. 26, 39. (38) yell, or growl; "the Heb. word is an itation of the actual sound." (39) heat, i.e. when flushed with confidence and security. drunken, or a drinking-bout, a carousal. a perpetual sleep, the sleep of death at the hands of their conquering enemy. (40) lambs, etc., all classes of society are here indicated.

Babylon." The soil of this desert," says Captain Mignan, who

prey, and for this cruelty he and Babylon are justly to be punished."-Spk.

Com.

If

make

you transient objects, uncertain riches, or fleeting pleasures your chief good, prepare for disappointment.

speare.

a Lit, fulfilled in Cyrus's draining

the river.

Fig.

in the exhaustion

of the multitudes

and wealth

of

Babylon.
"The night in
wh. the conquest
of Babylon was

effected, was dur
ing the great

festival which

had been insti

tuted in honour of the idols, and

at which revelry of every description was indulged in to such a pitch that most of the

inhabitants were more or less in a state of inebriation. Henderson.

c Is. xxxiv. 6.

You may be the greatest man and

the richest in the world; but if you are without Christ, you are "wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked."

d Keith.

a Is. xiii. 19.

"Babylon

had

traversed it on foot, and who, in a single day, crossed forty water-courses, "consists of a hard clay, mixed with sand, which at noon became so heated with the sun's rays that I found it too hot to walk over it with any degree of comfort. Those who have crossed those desert wilds are already acquainted with their dreary tediousness even on horseback; what it is on foot they can easily imagine." Where astronomers first calculated eclipses, the natives, as in the deserts of Africa, or as the mariner without a compass on the pathless ocean, can now direct their course only by the stars over the pathless desert of Chaldæa. Where cultivation reached its utmost height, and where two hundredfold was stated as the common produce, there is now one wide and uncultivated waste; and the sower and reaper are cut off from the land of Babylon. Where abundant stores and treasures were laid up, and annually renewed and increased, fanners have fanned, and spoilers have spoiled them till they have emptied the land. Where labourers, shaded by palm trees a hundred feet high, irrigated the fields till all was plentifully watered from numerous canals, the wanderer, without an object on which to fix his eye but "stinted and shortlived shrubs," can scarcely set his foot without pain, after the noonday heat, on the "arid and parched ground," in plodding his weary way through a desert, a dry land, and a wilderness. Where there were crowded thoroughfares, from city to city, there is now "silence and solitude;" for the ancient cities of Chaldæa are desolations,where no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.d

41-44. (41) Sheshach, ch. xxv. 26. praise. . earth, ch. xlix. 25. (42) the sea, a fig. for the invading army. (43) been embellished cities, related, or dependent cities. Poss. the reference may be with ornaments to the inner and outer cities, the two parts into which Babylon was divided by the Euphrates. (44) Bel, Is. xlvi. 1. swallowed up, poss. alluding to the sacrifices offered to this idol; more prob., to the treasures taken by the nation called after the name of this god.4 flow together, in their pilgrimages to Bel's shrine. wall, v. 58.

more than any city that we are acquainted with." Herodo

tus.

b Comp. Is. viii.

7, xvii. 12, 13.

Cities of Chaldæa.-While the ancient cities of Chaldæa are thus desolate, the sites of others cannot be discovered, or have not been visited, as none pass thereby; the more modern cities, which flourished under the empire of caliphs, are "all in ruins." The second Bagdad has not indeed yet shared the fate of the first. And Hillah-a town of comparatively modern date, near to the site of Babylon, but in the gardens of which there is not the least vestige of ruins-yet exists. But the former," ransacked by massacre, devastation and oppression, during several hundred years," has been " gradually reduced from being a rich and powerful city to a state of comparative poverty, and the feeblest means of defence." And of the inhabitants of the latter, about eight or ten thousand, it is said that "if any. thing could identify the modern inhabitants of Hillah as the descendants of the ancient Babylonians, it would be their extreme profligacy, for which they are notorious even among their immoral neighbours." They give no sign of repentance and reformation to warrant the hope that judgment, so long continued upon others. will cease from them; or that they are the people that shall escape. Twenty years have not passed since