Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Murat Bey knew something of me; but when they heard the whole affair, they only said of Osman Bey, God blacken his face." This explanation of the phrase perfectly agrees with the sense of the passage referred to in this article; as also with Joel ii. 6. To gather blackness signifies, in these extracts as well as in the scriptures, to suffer extreme confusion or terror.

No. 363.-HABAKKUK i. 8.

Their horsemen shall spread themselves.

THE account which the Baron Du Tott has given of the manner in which an army of modern Tartars conducted themselves, greatly illustrates this passage. "These particulars," says he, "informed the cham (or prince) and the generals what their real position was; and it was decided that a third of the army, composedof volunteers, commanded by a sultan and several mirzas, should pass the river at midnight, divide into several columns, subdivide successively, and thus overspread New Servia, burn the villages, corn, and fodder, and carry off the inhabitants of the country. The rest of the army, in order to follow the plan concerted, marched till it came to the beaten track in the snow made by the detachment. This we followed till we arrived at the place where it divided into seven branches, to the left of which we constantly kept, observing never to mingle, or confuse ourselves, with any of the subdivisions, which we successively found, and some of which were only small paths, traced by one or two horsemen, &c. Flocks were found frozen to death, on the plain; and twenty columns of smoke, already rising in the horizon, completed the horrors of the scene, and announced the fires which had laid waste New Servia." (Memoirs, part ii. p. 170-175.) The difficulties which have attended the explanation of these words are thus happily removed, and the propriety of the expression fully established. HARMER, vol. iv. p. 230.

No. 364.-ZECHARIAH ix. 3.

Silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets.

HOUSES are in some places built of mud on the outside, which is the occasion of great inconvenience. The editor of the Ruins of Balbec gives us the following account of Cara, (vol. ii. p. 32.) "This village is pleasantly seated on a rising ground. The common mud, formed into the shape of bricks, and dried in the sun, of which its houses are built, has at some distance the appearance of white stone. The short duration of such materials is not the only objection to them, for they make the streets dusty when there is wind, and dirty when there is rain." Maundrell says, that upon a violent rain at Damascus the whole city becomes by the washing of the houses as it were a quagmire. (p. 124.) From this representation the image of the prophet acquires peculiar energy. HARMER, Vol. i. p. 176.

No. 365.-xii. 3. A burdensome stone.] Jerome upon this place thinks that a burdensome stone is an expression taken from an exercise kept up in Judea to his time, where young men used to make trial of their strength by lifting great stones as high as they could. In such an exercise, where men undertook to lift a stone too heavy for their strength, they were in danger of its falling upon them, and bruising or crushing them to pieces. To the same purpose Christ saith, on whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder, Matt. xxi. 44.

No. 366.-MALACHI i. 8.

Offer it now to thy governor.

THIS is designed as a reproof to Israel for offering such sacrifices for the service of God's altar as were imperfect; and such as, if offered to a superior, would not be accepted. Presents in general are acceptable; but circumstances in the East make a considerable difference on this head, as to the ideas which would be attached by those people to gifts, and those which are commonly entertained in this part of the world. Presents were indispensably necessary to obtain the favour of the great. Frequently indeed the royal revenue was paid in the necessary articles of subsistence; so also was that of individuals; of course such persons would be particularly careful to have what was good and perfect, and would disdain to receive what was otherwise.

Agreeable to this statement, Mr. Bruce (Travels, vol. i. p. 353.) tells us, that "the present governor of Dahalac's name is Hagi Mahomet Abd el Cader. The revenue of this governor consists in a goat brought to him monthly by each of the twelve villages. Each vessel that puts in there pays him also a pound of coffee, and every one from Arabia a dollar, or pataka." Chardin observes that "it is the custom of the East for poor people, and especially those in the country, to make presents to their lords of lambs and sheep, as an offering or tribute." Presents to men, like offerings to God, expiate offences.

See more in HARMER, vol. ii. p. 25.

No. 367. iv. 2. The sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.] The late Mr. ROBINSON of Cambridge called upon a friend just as he had received a letter from his son, who was surgeon on board a vessel then lying off Smyrna. The son mentioned to his father, that every morning about sun rise a fresh gale of air blew from the sea across the land, and from its wholesomeness and utility in clearing the infected air, this wind is always called the DOCTOR. "Now," says Mr. Robinson," it strikes me that the who lived in that quarter of the world, might allude to this circumstance, when he says, the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. The Psalmist mentions the wings of the wind, and it appears to me that this salubrious breeze, which attends the rising of the sun, may be properly enough considered as the wings of the sun, which contain such healing influences, rather than the beams of the sun, as the passage has been commonly understood."

prophet Malachi,

No. 368.-iv. 3. Ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.] One sort of mortar made in the East is composed of one part of sand, two of wood-ashes, and three of lime, well mixed together, and beaten for three days and nights incessantly with wooden mallets. (SHAW's Travels, p. 206,) Chardin mentions this circumstance, and applies it to this passage of the prophet, supposing there is an allusion in these words to the making of mortar in the East, with ashes collected from their baths. Some learned men have supposed the wicked here are compared to ashes, because the prophet had been speaking of their destruction under the notion of burning, ver. 1; but the sacred writers do not always keep close to those figures which they first propose; the paragraph of

« ПредишнаНапред »