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cheering sentiment is uttered in Proverbs, xiv. 32, in these pithy and consoling words: "The righteous hath hope in death." The patriarch Jacob comforts himself, Genesis, xxxvii. 35, with the delightful thought that in the far spiritland, he should meet his beloved son Joseph, and in some degree be made happy again, in his presence and the enjoyment of his society. He thus gives vent to his mixed feelings of hope and sadness: “For I shall go down into the grave-Sheol, unto my son mourning." The prophet Isaiah, lvii. 1-2, announces-in the spirit and hope of the Gospel, the glad tiding: "That the righteous is taken away from the evil to come, and that-in Sheol, he shall enter into peace and rest in his bed."* Again, in Psalm, cxvi. 15, we meet with these welcome and grateful words: "Precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his saints." Moved, it appears, by the benign influence of the Divine spirit, the prophet Balaam-though a heathen, thus prays in a very sensible and Christian spirit, Numbers, xxiii. 10, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." This pious and exalted prophetic aspiration plainly and forcibly teaches that in the remote and twilight-age of the intrepid son of Beor, the termination of a righteous career on earth, was believed to prove of essential advantage in the gloomy and forbidding empire of Sheol. In Isaiah, xlviii. 22, we read the following significant announcement: "There is no peace," says the Lord, "unto the wicked:" if such is their fate on earth,

In the original, it is beds, because the third person singular he: the righteous, in the beginning of the sentence, is changed at the end of it, into the third person plural, they, while the meaning is still the righteous in the singular, as is the case in the first verse.

it cannot be different in Sheol, unless repentance is practicable there, of which we have no certain intimation.* The following apophthegm is the exact antithesis of the last passage: "The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch them." Such is the very encouraging and hope-inspiring doctrine, inculcated by the interesting and instructive author of the "Wisdom of Solomon," iii. 1. Agreeably to the same Hebrew sage, iv. 7, "The righteous may be prevented-cut off, by death; yet shall he be in rest." Examples of similar import might be readily multiplied from the pages of this author, but the foregoing, it is presumed, will suffice to exemplify and illustrate the principles which he advocates.

PARAGRAPH XV.

In Sheol the Wicked suffer Restraint: they taste the Fruits of an Ill-spent Life, and are doomed to Disappointment. The Punishment at this Stage of Judicial Knowledge among the Hebrews, though chiefly of a Negative Character, may be regarded as Incipient Hell.

"When a wicked man dieth," such is the positive teaching of the pithy author of the instructive Book of Proverbs, xi. 7, "his expectation shall perish;" and, again, "The hope of unjust men perisheth." Judging from the Wisdom of Solomon, iii. 18-19, the wicked involve their posterity in their guilt, and the offspring of adulterers shall die without hope-have a horrible end, and thus, of

I wish here to apprise the reader that whenever hereafter, an apocryphical author among the Old-Testament writers, teaches conformably with the canonical Books, in reference to Sheol, that I shall no longer hesitate to assign him at once a place and a voice in this part of my Work. Hence only where there is divergency of views, will a separate attention be bestowed upon them.

course, fare badly in Sheol. In Sheol, according to Job, iii. 17, as we have already seen, the good need no longer fear the wicked, but may rest in peace.

The forbearance

here implied on the one part, and the enjoyment on the other, are due, of course, to the restraint of evil, and must prove to be a sore trial, both to the tempers and the patience of the wicked. Speaking of those who, amid great and manifold material prosperity, are still Godless, the Psalmist, Psalm, xlix. 14, is made to say, in the English version of the text, "Death shall feed on them;" whereas, as de Wette well says, the true rendering is death, personified as a shepherd, shall feed them: implying that their Hadean fare is of a loathsome and disgusting quality, and in itself an evil, adapted to the desert of the impious worshippers of Fortune. The lucky and prosperous, but. worldly-minded, in short, the blind and profligate devotees of Mammon, must expect to meet with a sure and painful reverse, when the dread time arrives for their departure to their "long home." Accordingly, in Ecclesiasticus, xli. 1, this calamitous event is no less graphically than forcibly portrayed, in these at once impressive and admonitory words: "O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man, that liveth at rest in his possessions; unto the man that hath nothing to vex him, and that hath prosperity in all things; yea, unto him that is yet able to receive meat"-to indulge in the luxuries and the pleasures of the table. Mere secular honor or social success, in the competition and pursuits of life, however eminent may be the one, or complete and satisfactory the other, is no guar antee of a commensurate happiness or marked distinction, in the airy, unsubstantial, and somber spirit-realm of Sheol.

So far, indeed, is this from being the case, that the experienced and circumspect writer of Psalm, xlix. 16–17, considers himself warranted to enjoin the following exceedingly reasonable and judicious exhortation: "Be not thou afraid when one is made rich; when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away; his glory shall not descend after him." It appears that in the era in which the author of the thirtyfirst Psalm flourished-a production which, by common consent, is attributed to David, the Hebrew bard, hero, and king, the dogma prevailed, at least to some extent, that in death the wicked must suffer the two-fold penalty of shame and silence; for in the seventeenth verse of that beautiful ode, occurs this spirited and peremptory invocation: "Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent, in the grave"-in Sheol.*

As it seems necessary somewhere in these pages to comment especially on certain words and phrases, which occur somewhat frequently in the writings of some of the Old-Testament authors, and which—it appears, are often misapplied and taken to imply evils and sufferings which can only emanate from the infernal regions, I shall at once here devote a few lines to this subject. Several of these modes of expression are: "The sorrows of death compassed me; the sorrows-snares, of hell: of Sheol, compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me; the pains of hell -Sheol, got hold of me," Psalm, xviii. 4-5; cxvi. 3. Other idiomatic terms demanding particular attention, are the following: "The floods of ungodly men made me afraid; the waves of death compassed me; the sorrows: snares, of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me," Psalm, xviii. 4; 2 Samuel, xxii. 5-6. The singular coincidence of phraseology on this subject, employed by two Hebrew authors in different epochs of the Jewish Commonwealth, is clearly indicative either of plagiarism or of an identicalness of authorship.

First, the expression "the snares of hell and death."-By the use of

PARAGRAPH XVI.

The Dead do not return from Sheol. Sheol is a closed Realm, for ever hiding the Dead from the Living.

In the bitter agony of his soul, and the just apprehension of a speedy dissolution, Job, vii. 8, writes: "The eye

these phrases, the writer personifies death and hell, and represents them as wily hunters who, by artfully spreading their snares or cords, treacherously entrap the unsuspecting game. Secondly, the terms "the sorrows of death; of hell; and the pains of hell."-These phraseologies do not denote suffering in Sheol, as the words-at first blush, might seem to intimate, for the writers, making use of them, were not in Sheol; but they signify very great calamities and trials, which are calculated to overwhelm the afflicted with disease and death, and thus hasten their exit into Sheol. Thirdly, the peculiar appellations "the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; the waves of death compassed me."-Here, the phrases floods of the ungodly, and waves of death, according to de Wette, do not import floods and waves of a river in Sheol, as some distinguished authors, led astray by a familiarity with the geography of the Hades of heathen mythology, would fain make us believe, but simply great and imminent dangers, threatening signal destruction. Floods; turbulent streams; oceanic waves, surging and rolling in wild and menacing commotion, etc., afforded the usual images and types among the writers of the Old Testament, of extreme perils and overwhelming misfortunes, Psalm, xviii. 17; xxxii. 6; xlii. 7; lxix. 2; Job, xxii. 11. To revert to the phrase "floods of ungodly men," Psalm, xviii. 4, I may observe that it is an erroneous translation, and should be rendered the floods of belial: an expression which implies ungodliness; wickedness; destruction; devastation, etc., Nahum, i. 11; ii. 1; sickness and affliction generally, Psalm, xli. 9. Finally, the term " snares," considered in its proper import, may serve further to explain some of the definitions in the last sentence, by stating that it is often employed in the Old-Testament scriptures, to import danger of any kind either openly threatening or slily lying in wait, Job, xviii. 9-10; Psalm, lxiv. 4-5; cxl. 5, etc.

Though already made the subject of a passing remark, a concise notice of the result of a critical investigation of the various significations of the

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