movements-its rapid march, without those members of progression with which other animals are gifted-and the vibrations of life preserved in the separated parts for some time after the carcase has been cut in pieces,-are all circumstances well calculated to impress the idea, that the serpent had a condition of life peculiar to itself, and that there was something supernatural in its being. The way of a serpent upon a rock' is one of the four things which even the wise Agur confessed to be too wonderful for him (Prov. xxx. 19).

This class of ideas, as well as the influence of example, may have induced the Israelites to worship the brazen serpent. They might do this the more readily, because, whatever may be the general character of the serpent in the Bible, there was room for them to associate with the particular brazen serpent the ideas of beneficence which the heathen usually connected with that creature. In the wilderness they had been directed to look upon it-and to live: they did so, and they lived. And this direction and its consequences, misundertood and perverted, may have formed the foundation of the idolatry into which they fell. How they worshipped, is not very clear. Perhaps, like the Egyptians, they regarded it as a symbol of 'the Good God;' and that Good God, to them, certainly could not have been other than their own JEHOVAH: and, in this case, the worship of the serpent may have been a sort of mitigated idolatry, not in principle unlike that of which the golden calf was the object. Or they may have worshipped it as the symbol of some strange god, perhaps

of Egypt. Or, finally, and which we think most probable, they, with a recollection of its origin, regarded it as symbolizing the Divine healing power, and as such resorted to it, and burned incense before it, when afflicted with diseases, much in the same manner that the classical ancients resorted, on similar occasions, to the serpentsymbol of the healing god.

7. 'Rebelled.'-He neglected to send the customary tribute or presents; and, in his expedition against the Philistines, acted as an independent sovereign.

13. Sennacherib.-This prince was the son of Shalmaneser; and his reign, according to Hales, extended from 714 to 710 B.C. It appears that Hezekiah's revolt began in the reign of Shalmaneser, who however was too much engaged in other affairs, perhaps the siege of Tyre, to take against him such strong measures as we see his son now undertaking. It would seem, from the insinuation in verse 24, that Hezekiah had been encouraged in his revolt by some vague promises of assistance from Egypt, which were never fulfilled. We have several intimations in this part of the history, of the great and just alarm with which the Egyptians regarded the westward march of the Assyrian power; and it appears to have been their policy to divert the attention of the Assyrians from themselves, by giving them sufficient employment in confirming their authority over the intervening states, already rendered tributary. We have already seen them giving similar encouragement to Hoshea, king of Israel, in his disastrous attempt to shake off the Assyrian yoke.

CHAPTER XIX.

1 Hezekiah mourning sendeth to Isaiah to pray for them. 6 Isaiah comforteth them. 8 Sennacherib, going to encounter Tirhakah, sendeth a blasphemous letter to Hezekiah. 14 Hezekiah's prayer. 20 Isaiah's prophecy of the pride and destruction of Sennacherib, and the good of Zion. 35 An angel slayeth the Assyrians. 36 Sennacherib is slain at Nineveh by his own sons.

AND 'it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.

2 And he sent Eliakim, which was over the houshold, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to 'Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

4 It may be the LORD thy God will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are 'left.

5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

8 So Rab-shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah : for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

9 And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee: he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying,

10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered?

12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the 4 Heb. found.

3 Or, provocation.

king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah?

14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

15 And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.

16 LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.

17 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,

18 And have 'cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.

19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD God, even thou only.

20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.

21 This is the word that the LORD hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.

22 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.

23 By thy messengers thou hast reproached the LORD, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.

24 I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of 'besieged places.

25 10Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that

5 Heb. given.

Heb. By the hand of.

thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.

26 Therefore their inhabitants were "of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the house tops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.

27 But I know thy "abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.

28 Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

29 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.

30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

1

31 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.

32 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.

33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD.

34 For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead

to be ruinous heaps?

14 Heb. the escaping.

18 Heb. the escaping of the house of Judah that remaineth. 16 Tob. 1. 21. 17 Heb. Ararat.

11 Heb. short of hand.

15 Isa. 37. 36. Ecclus. 48. 21.

that in the early part of his reign Sethos (or 'So') divided the kingdom with him, and ruled in Lower Egypt, while the Ethiopian monarch possessed the dominion of the upper country; and this would account for the absence of the name of Sethos upon the monuments of Thebes. Whether Tirhakah and Sabaco's claim to the throne of Egypt was derived from any right acquired by intermarriage with the royal family of that country, and whether the dominion was at first confined to the Thebaïd, it is difficult to determine: but the respect paid by their successors to the monuments they erected, argues the probability of their having succeeded to the throne by right rather than by usurpation or the force of arms.' It should be added that at Medinet Abou are the figure and name of Tirhakah, and of the captives taken by him. The figure which we here give is from Rosellini. It will be observed that he wears the crown of Upper Egypt. The name of Sabaco is found at Abydus. [APPENDIX, No. 50.] 24. With the sole of my foot have I dried up all the rivers,' etc.-In the note to Deut. xi. 10, we have expressed an opinion that the passage respecting watering by the foot,' as used there, is best illustrated by the use of the water-wheel worked by the assistance of the foot. But it is no less clear to us that the present passage refers to the other custom of irrigation which is sometimes produced in illustration of that place, but which did not seem to us there so applicable; it seems to be in the present instance, in which the words have a double reference to that mode of watering, seeing that it describes not only the act of irrigation, but the drying up of rivers by the foot, an image most clearly derived from the channels for irrigation in Eastern gardens being habitually closed with the foot by the gardener. The water, being raised to the surface by any of the various processes known in the East, is distributed over the ground in the manner shewn in the annexed engraving. Grounds requiring to be artificially watered are divided into small squares by ridges of earth or furrows: and the water flowing from the machine or from the cistern into a narrow gutter, is admitted into one square or furrow after another by the gardener, who is always ready, as occasion requires, to stop and direct the torrent by turning the earth against it with his foot, at the same time opening with his mattock a new trench to receive it. The same process takes place when the ground is divided for irrigation by indented channels instead of

ridges; for in these the gardener in the same manner, by the active and timely use of his foot and his mattock, conducts the rills which flow in these channels wherever he pleases, suffering the water to overflow into every part that requires it, and closing the channels in which it is no longer required to flow. This process of irrigation is not confined to Egypt, but is followed in the gardens of Syria; and rice, which requires much water, is only sown in those quarters where this mode of irrigation is practicable, as in the valley or hollow which contains the lake Huleh, in the valley of Baalbek, and in the plain of Damascus.

35. Behold, they were all dead corpses.'-Upon the agency which the Lord employed on this occasion, in delivering Judah, and in avenging the insulted honour of his own Great Name, we shall have occasion to remark under Isaiah xxxvii. At present, we wish to adduce the very remarkable and valuable coincident testimony afforded by Herodotus, who mentions Sennacherib by name, and recites his miraculous defeat in such a manner, that, although greatly distorted, we cannot fail to recognize the same event which the sacred writings record in three different places. He says, that at this time there reigned in Egypt a priest of Vulcan, named Sethon, who neglected and contemned the military establishment which had been formed in Egypt; and, among other dishonours which he put upon the soldier caste, he withdrew the allotment of twelve acres of land which, under former kings, had been allowed as the portion of every soldier. After this, when Sennacherib invaded Egypt with a great army, not one of the military class came forward to his assistance. The royal priest, seeing no help before him, withdrew to a temple, where, standing before the image, he deplored bitterly the evils with which his kingdom was threatened. As he wept, sleep overpowered him, and he saw, in a vision, the god standing by and bidding him be of good cheer, assuring him that no harm should befall him if he marched out against the Assyrians, for he would himself send him assistance. Sethon took courage from this vision, and, collecting a body of men, entirely consisting of shopkeepers, artisans, and the dregs of the people-there not being one soldier among themhe marched out, and formed his camp at Pelusium. The night after his arrival, myriads of field-mice infested the camp of the enemy, gnawing in pieces their quivers, their bow-strings, and the straps of their shields; so that, in the morning, finding themselves deprived of the use of their arms, they fled in great disorder, and many of them were slain. Herodotus adds, that in his time this event was commemorated by a statue of the king standing in the temple of Vulcan, and holding in his hand a mouse, with the inscription, Whoever looks on me, let him be pious.' This is most evidently nothing more than an adaptation to Egypt, to its king, and to its gods, of what belonged to Judah, to Hezekiah, and to the power of Jehovah. It is the same narrative Egyptianized. We do not see any evidence that Sennacherib really invaded Egypt: and he certainly was not doing so at this time. But there can be little doubt that his proceedings in Palestine were but preparatory to the invasion of that country; and this rendered the destruction of his army a deliverance not only to the Hebrews but to the Egyptians also. Deeply interested as the latter were in the event, we may easily see the inducement of their priests to relate this amazing manifestation of Divine power, with such circumstances as might make it appear to have been intended for the deliverance of their own country, and effected by the power of their own gods. Altogether, this Egyptian narrative, while it confirms that which we receive on an authority which needs no confirmation, furnishes one of the most curious instances of historical adaptation which we have the means of distinctly authenticating.

376

His sons smote him with the sword.'-It appears, from the book of Tobit, that on his return home the Assyrian king, his temper being soured by the signal defeat he had sustained, behaved with great severity, and even cruelty, in his government; and particularly to the cap. tive Israelites, numbers of whom he caused to be slain every day, and thrown into the streets. 'By which savage humour having made himself so intolerable that he could not be borne even by his own family, his two eldest sons conspired against him' (Prideaux, i. 37). Some think that he had made a vow to sacrifice these two sons, to appease his gods, and to incline them to bestir themselves for the restoration of his affairs. But this conjecture rests on no authority.

-'Land of Armenia.'—The original is the land of Ararat; but the term doubtless designates Armenia, and the text thus furnishes evidence that the Ararat of Scripture was in Armenia, which some have questioned. Esarhaddon.'-This king, the third son of Sennacherib, is the great and noble Asnapper' of Ezra (iv. 10), the Sargon of Isaiah (xx. 1), the Sarchedon of Tobit (i. 21), and the Asaradin of Ptolemy. It seems that the Babylonians, Medes, Armenians, and other tributary nations, took the opportunity offered by the prostration of the Assyrian power, by the Lord's hand, to throw off the yoke they had so long borne. Esarhaddon was therefore actively engaged, during the first years of his reign, in attempting to re-establish the broken affairs of the empire to which he had succeeded. It was not until the thirtieth year of his reign, however, that he recovered Babylon; and the Medes were never again brought under the yoke. It appears, from Ezra iv. 10, that it was this prince who transported the Cuthites, Babylonians, etc., into the waste cities of Samaria: and Hales conjectures, with probability, that this was to punish them for their revolt. When this king had settled his affairs at home, he undertook an expedition against the states of Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, to avenge his father's defeat, and to recover the revolted provinces west of the Euphrates. For three years he ravaged these provinces, and brought away many captives; as foretold by Isaiah (xx. 3, 4). About two years after, he invaded and ravaged Judea; and the captains of his host took Manasseh, the king, alive, and carried him away captive, with many of the nobility and people, to Babylon. Hales says, Esarhaddon was a great and prosperous prince. He seems not only to have recovered all the former provinces of the Assyrian empire, except Media, but to have added considerably thereto, if we may judge of the several states which his grandson, Nabuchodonosor, summoned as his auxiliaries in the war with the Medes; namely, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Cilicia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt (Judith i. 6-10; see Jackson, i. 532). He is ranked by Ptolemy, in his Canon, among the Babylonian kings, probably because he made Babylon his chief residence during the last thirteen years of his reign, to prevent another defection.' The same learned writer proves that this prince is the Sardanapalus of Diodorus and Justin, in whose reign happened the revolt of the Medes, 710 B.c.; and whom both of these historians unskilfully confounded with the last king Sarac, who perished in the overthrow of Nineveh, about a century afterwards, in 606 B.C. [APPENDIX, No. 52.]

[Vv. 17, 18. APPENDIX, No. 53.]