according to the Egyptian mythology, were supposed to take place in the regions of the dead, or in the valley of the shadow of death. Each of these scenes is divided from the next by a tall door, turning upon pivots instead of hinges, and guarded by a serpent, as here represented. There we see the Egyptian opinion of the trial of the dead, the employment of the good, the punishment of the wicked, the warfare against the serpent of evil and its overthrow, with a variety of superstitions very foreign from the Jews; but yet some such opinion about the unknown world beyond the grave may have been in the mind of the Hebrew writer. In the British Museum is a stone door brought from Syria, which turns upon pivots like this door; and the large doors for the gates or entrances of the courts of Solomon's Temple probably turned upon iron nails or pivots of this form (1 Chron. xxii. 3), while the small doors of the house turned upon hinges of gold (1 Kings, vii. 50). PSALM XXIII. 4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me." An Egyptian overcoming some of the dangers which he meets with in passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.-Copied from the Turin Papyrus, called the "Book of the Dead," chap. xxxii. xxxiii. Other dangers that the Egyptian was supposed to meet with in this valley were from the Cabeiri godsthe gods of punishment-who attack him with swords. PSALM XLVI. 4. "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High." SOLOMON'S Pool of Siloam The Aqueducts which brought a supply of water from The first was an open, paved trench, which skirted the hills with a continual fall, except that for a very short distance it ran in a tunnel; and again, in a pipe, it crossed first the valley of the Gihon into the city, and then the valley of the Tyropæon by a second pipe into the holy place, or Temple-yard. This aqueduct was broken by Hezekiah on the invasion of the country by Sennacherib, lest the Assyrian army should make use of the water. (See 2 Chron. xxxii. 4.) Herod afterwards made a new aqueduct, which ran from the same pools in a more straight direction, and not on a level. The water passed through a pipe made by a series of hollowed stones, which fitted one into the other, and it thus reached Hezekiah's Pool on the west side of the city. Such aqueducts gave rise to the simile in Prov. xxi. 1, which should be translated, "The king's heart is a water-pipe in the hand of Jehovah He turneth it whithersoever He will." PSALM XLVIII. 7. "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind." We learn from Herodotus that the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's army, B.C. 714, which is described in 2 Kings, xix. 35, took place at the siege of Pelusium, the frontier town of Egypt, on the side towards Palestine. For this siege supplies by sea would be wanted, which would be brought in Phenician ships, furnished by the city of Tyre, which had resisted the arms of Shalmanezer, but was now at peace with Sennacherib. The sculpture below, published in Botta's Nineveh, from the walls of the Assyrian palace, seems to represent the transport of these supplies. That the ships are Phenician-called ships of Tarshish-appears from the horse's head on the prow. That they are in the service of Assyria is shown. by the Assyrian god, the winged bull, which accompanies them. Dagon, the god of Azotus, half man and half fish, tells us that they are passing by the coast of the Philistines. The island city, from which they are bringing the timber, may be Tyre; and the hill behind, from which the timber is cut, may be Lebanon, which there reaches the coast. The wreck of these vessels, as described in our text, would deprive the Assyrian army of the necessary supplies for the siege, and hasten their |