curfes for difobedience: and indeed he had foretold at feveral times and upon feveral occafions, that they should be happy or miferable in the world, as they were obedient or difobedient to the law that he had given them. And could there be any stronger evidence of the divine original of the Mofaical law? and hath not the interpofition of providence been wonderfully remarkable in their good or bad fortune? and is not the truth of the prediction fully attefted by the whole feries of their hiftory from their first fettlement in Canaan to this very day? But he is larger and more particular in recounting the curfes than the bleffings, as if he had a prefcience of the people's disobedience, and forefaw that a larger portion and longer continuation of the evil would fall to their fhare, than of the good. I know that fome critics make a divifion of thefe prophecies, and imagin that one part relates to the former captivity of the Jews, and to the calamities which they fuffered under the Chaldæans; and that the other part relates to the latter captivity of the Jews, and to the calamities which they fuffered under the Romans: but there is no need of any fuch diftinction; there is no reafon to think that any Auch was intended by the author; feveral prophecies of the one part as well as of the other have been fulfilled at both periods, but they have all more amply been fulfilled during the latter period; and there cannot be a more lively picture than they exhibit, of the state of the Jews at prefent. 1. We will confider them with a view to the order of time rather than the order wherein they lie; and we may not improperly begin with this paffage, ver. 49. The Lord fhall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as fwift as the eagle flieth, a nation whofe tongue thou shalt not understand: and the Chaldæans might be faid to come from far, in comparison with the Moabites, Philistines, and other neighbouring nations, which ufed to infeft Judea. Much the fame defcription is given of the Chaldæans by Jeremiah, (Ver. 15.) Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O houfe of Ifrael, faith the Lord; it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whofe language thou knowest not, neither understandeft what they fay. He compares them in like manner to eagles, (Lam. IV. 19.) Our persecutors are swifter than •the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. But this description cannot be applied to any nation with fuch propriety as to the Romans. They were truly brought from far, from the end of the earth. Vefpafian and Adrian, the two great conquerors and deftroyers of the Jews, both came from commanding here in Britain. The Romans too for the rapidity of their conquefts might very well be compared to eagles, and perhaps not without an allufion to the ftandard of the Roman armies, which was an eagle: and their language was more unknown to the Jews than the Chaldee. 2. The enemies of the Jews are farther characterized in the next verfe, A nation of fierce countenance, which Shall not regard the perfon of the old, nor how favor to the young. Such were the Chaldæans; and the facred hiftorian faith exprefly, (2 Chron. XXXVI. 17.) that for the wickednefs of the Jews God brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who flew their young men with the fword, in the houfe of their fanctuary, and had no compaffion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into his hand. Such alfo were the Romans: for when Vefpafian entered Gadera, (1) Jofephus faith, that he flew all man by man, the Romans fhowing mercy to no age, out of hatred to the nation, and ' remembrance of their former injuries.' The like flaughter was made at Gamala, (2) For no body efcaped befides two women, and they efcaped by con 'cealing themfelves from the rage of the Romans. For they did not fo much as fpare young children, but every one at that time fatching up many caft them down from the citadel.' 3. Their enemies were also to besiege and take their cities, ver. 52, And he fhall befiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou truftedt, throughout all thy land. So Shalmanefer king of Affyria came up against Samaria, and befieged it, and at the end of three years they took it. (2 Kings XVIII. 9, 10.) So did Sennacherib king of Affyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them: (Ib. ver. 13.) and Nebuchadnezzar and his captains took and fpoiled Jerufalem, burnt the city and temple, and brake down the walls of Jerufalem round about. (Ib. XXV. 10.) So likewife the Romans, as we may read in Jofephus's hiftory of the Jewith war, demolished feveral fortified places, before they befieged and deftroyed Jerufalem. And the Jews may very well be faid to have trufted in their high and fenced wails, for they feldom ventured a battle in the open field. They confided in the ftrength and fituation of Jerufalem, as the Jebufites, the former inhabitants of the place, had done before them: (2 Sam. V. 6, 7.) infomuch that they are reprefented faying (Jer. XXI. 13.) Who shall come down against us? or who Jhall enter into our habitation? Jerufalem was indeed a very ftrong place, and wonderfully fortified both by nature and art according to the defcription of (3) Tacitus as well as of Jofephus: and yet (4) how many times was it taken? It was taken by Sifhak king of Egypt, by Nebuchadnezzar, by Antiochus Epiphanes, by Pompey, by Sofius and Herod, before its final deftruction by Titus. 4. In thefe fieges they were to fuffer much, and efpecially from famin, in the ftraitness wherewith their enemies fhould diftrefs them, ver. 53, &c. And accordingly when the king of Syria befieged Samaria, there was a great famin in Samaria, and behold they befieged it, until an afs's (3) Taciti Hift. Lib. 5. Jofephus de Bell. Jud. Lib. 5. Cap. 4 et 5. (4) See Jofephus de Bell. Jud. Lib. 6. Cap. ult. p. 1292. Edit. Hudson. head head was fold for fourfcore pieces of filver, and the fourth part of a cab of doces dung for five pieces of filver. (2 Kings VI. 25.) And when Nebuchadnezzar befieged Jerufa lem, the famin prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. (2 Kings XXV. 3.) And in the laft fiege of Jerufalem by the Romans there was a moft terrible famin in the city, and Jofephus hath given fo melancholy an account of it, that we cannot read it without fuddring. He faith, particularly, (5) that 5 women firatched the food out of the very mouths of ! their huibands, and fons of their fathers, and (what is * most miferable) mothers of their infants:' and in (6) another place he faith, that in every house, if there apfpeared any femblance of food, a battle enfued, and the dearest friends and relations fought with one another, fuatching away the miferable provifions of life:' fo litterally were the words of Mofes fulfilled, ver. 54, &c, the man's eye shall be evil toward his brother, and towards the wife of his bofom, and towards his children, because he hath nothing left him in the fiege, and in the ftraitnefs wherewith thine enemies fhall diftrefs thee in all thy gates, and in like manner the woman's eye fhall be evil towards the husband of her bofom, and towards her fon, and towards her daughter. 5. Nay it was exprefly foretold, that not only the men, but even the women thould eat their own children. Mofes had foretold the fame thing before, Levit. XXVI. 29, Ye shall eat the flesh of your fons, and the flesh of your daughters fhall ye eat. He repeats it here ver. 53, And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy fons and of thy daughters: and more particularly, ver. 56, &c. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would noț adventure to set the fole of her foot upon the ground, for delicateness and tenderness-fhe jhall eat her children for want of all things fecretly in the fiege and ftraitness, wherewith thine enemies fhall diftrefs thee in thy gates. And it was fulfilled about 600 years after the time of Mofes among the Ifraelites, when Samaria was befieged by the king of Syria, and two women agreed together, the one to give up her fon to be boiled and eaten to day, and the other to deliver up her fon to be dreffed and eaten to morrow, and one of them was eaten accordingly. (2 Kings VI. 28, 29.) It was fulfilled again about 900 years after the time of Mofes among the Jews in the fiege of Jerufalem before the Babylonith captivity; and Baruch thus expreffeth it, (II. 1, &c.) The Lord hath made good his word, which he pronounced against us, to bring upon us great plagues, fuch as never happened under the whole heaven, as it came to pass in Jerufalem, according to the things that were written in the law of Mofes, that a man should eat the flesh of his own fon, and the flesh of his own daughter and Jeremiah thus laments it in his Lamentations, (IV. 10.) The hands of the pitiful women have fodden their own children, they were their meat in the deftruction of the daughter of my people. And again it was fulfilled above 1500 years after the time of Mofes in the laft fiege of Jerufalem by Titus; and we read in Jofephus particularly of a noble woman's killing and eating her own fucking child. Mofes faith, The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adven-·· ture to fet the fole of her foot upon the ground for delicatenefs and tenderness: and there cannot be a more natural and lively defcription of a woman, who was according to (7) Jofephus illustrious for her family and riches. Mofes faith, he shall eat them for want of all things: and according to Jofephus fhe had been plundered of all her fubftance and provifions by the tyrants and foldiers Mofes faith, that the fhould do it fecretly: and accord ing to Jofephus, when fhe had boiled and eaten half, fhe (7) δια γενα και πλείον επίσης με genere atque opibus illuftris ταύτης την μεν αλλεν κλησιν δι τυραν νοι διηρπασαν, 2. T. λ. Hujus alias quidem facultates jam tyranni diri&c. puerant, επεί οπλήσασα το : |