countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely." The phrase which we render the secret places of the stairs, may, with more propriety be translated, the secret crevices of the precipitous rocks; for the original term signifies a place so high and steep, that it cannot be approached but by ladders. So closely pursued were the people of Israel, and so unable to resist the assault of their enemies, that, like the timid dove, they fled to the fastnesses of the mountains, and the holes of the rocks. Homer has availed himself of the same circumstance, Δακρυεσσα δε έπειτα θεα φυγεν ὡς πέλεια Il. lib. xxi, 1. 493. "But then the goddess fled weeping, like a dove which flies in terror from the hawk into a hollow rock." The miserable remains of the Jews, that survived the destruc tion of their country by the arms of Nebuchadnezzar, are represented by the prophet as tame doves, violently driven from the valleys which they had been accustomed to haunt, and wandering, lonely and mournful, upon the mountains, the proper abode of the wild pigeon: "But they that escape, shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity." The truth and propriety of these allusions, are confirmed by the writings of several modern travellers. In Asia Minor, according to Chandler, the dove lodges in the holes of the rock ; and Dr. Shaw mentions a city in Africa, which derives its name from the great number of wild pigeons which breed in the adjoining cliffs. It is not uncommon for shepherds and r น Song ii, 14. * Ezek. vii, 16. + Trav. p. 19. A fishermen, to seek for shelter in the spacious caverns of that country, from the severity of the weather, and to kindle fires in them, to warm their shivering limbs, and dress their victuals; in consequence of which, the doves which happen to build their nests on their shelves, must be frequently smutted, and their plumage soiled. Some have conjectured, that the royal Psalmist may allude to this scene, in which he had perhaps acted a part, while he tended his father's flocks, in that singular promise, "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold."" The people of Israel, who had long bent their necks to the galling yoke of Egypt, and groaned under the most cruel oppression, may not unfitly be compared to a dove in the fissure of a rock, which had been terrified by the intrusion of strangers, and polluted by the smoke of their fires which ascended to the roof of the cavern, and penetrated into the most remote and secret corner; or by the smut of the pots, which they had set over these fires for culinary purposes, among which she fluttered in her haste to escape. -The dove issues from the cave of the shepherds, black and dirty, her heart dejected, and her feathers in disorder; but, having washed herself in the running stream, and trimmed her plumage, she gradually recovers the serenity of her disposition, the purity of her colour, and the elegance of her appearance. So did the people of Israel more than once escape by the favour of Jehovah, from a low and despised condition, and gradually rise to great prosperity and splendor. In Egypt, they laboured in the brick kilns, and in all the services of the field a u Psa. lxviii, 13. 硼 poor, enslaved and oppressed people; and after their settlement in the land of promise, they were often reduced to a state of extreme distress; but in their misery they cried to the Lord, and he heard and delivered them from all their calamities; he subdued the surrounding nations to their sway; he poured the accumulated riches of an cient kings into their treasury; he made them the terror or the admiration of the east. But the holy Psalmist may have a prospective reference to the deliverance which the Gentile nations were to obtain, from the basest and most despicable condition, the worshipping of wood and stone, the gratifying of the vilest lusts, and their advancement to the service of Christ, and the practice of universal holiness and virtue. His words are not less арplicable to the deliverance of the church, from the distresses in which she may be at any time involved, and the restoration of individual believers, from a state of spiritual decline. On these joyous occasions, the people of God shake off their fears and their sorrows, and resume their wonted serenity, peace, and joy; they worship God in the beauty of holiness; they press forward with renovated vigour to the promised inheritance; they are as a dove, the most beautiful of the species, whose wings rival the silver in whiteness, and the feathers of whose neck, the yellow radiance of gold." t The spreading tree is often her chosen haunt, where she builds her nest, and rears her young. Anacreon's pigeon demands, who bus Tyag us dis Tiradai, &c. For why should I fly to the mountains and over the fields, and perch upon trees, eating any wild thing I can ▾ Harmer's Observ. vol. i, p. 176, 177. find?" Horace records the same fact. In the sixth book of the Æneid, Virgil sends the doves, which Venus had dispatched to her son, to roost on the trees: "Sedibus optatis gemina super arbore sidunt." 1. 203. To this circumstance, the Psalmist seems to allude, in the ;(על יונת אלם רחוקים) : title of the fifty-sixth Psalm Gnal yonath elem rehokim; which Selomo applies to David, and renders, Concerning the silent dove of those that are afar off. Bochart has offered the most natural, and in every respect, the best exposition of this obscure title." In the opinion of Aben Ezra, it is the first line of a song, after the measure of which, the royal Psalmist composed this sacred ode; but he left it unexplained. This idea Bochart adopts, and proceeds to inquire into the mean. ing of the words. As they stand in our pointed copies of the Old Testament, no consistent sense can be extracted from them. He, therefore, proposes to change a single point in, by which it may be converted into the plural noun, the hirec for segol. This being done, the sacred song, which furnished the measure of David's composition, will begin thus: The dove of the remote forests. The circumstance, which in the opinion of Bochart has misled interpreters, is the absence of yod, the usual sign of the plural. But, as Buxtorf rightly observes, yod is often omitted in the plural, as in dragons, ¬ perfect. If this trifling emendation be admitted, which the necessity of the case seems to require, the words will mean the dove of distant groves, that is, the wild pigeon which dwells in the deep recesses of the wood, and builds her nest among the thickest branches. Those who apply the words to the Psalmist himself, suppose that they express Hieroz. lib. i, c. 3, p. 18. * Deut. xxxii, 33, and Lev. ix, 2. a wish for the wings of a dove, that he might fly away and be at rest. Driven by the violence of his enemies from the place of his rest in the sanctuary, he was compelled to wander far off, and seek repose in a distant and strange land; but he neither murmured against God, nor inveighed against his unjust and cruel enemies, the causes of his distress; he was mild, as he was guiltless before men; patient, as inoffensive: like the doves in the valley, he was dejected, and mournful; but he encouraged himself in the Lord, and quietly resigned himself to his sove reign disposal. The manners of the dove are as engaging, as her form is elegant, and her plumage rich and beautiful. She is the chosen emblem of simplicity, gentleness, chastity, and feminine timidity. Our blessed Lord alludes with striking effect to her amiable temper, in that well known direction to his disciples: "Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Wisdom without simplicity, dege nerates into cunning; simplicity without wisdom, into silliness: united, the one corrects the excess, or supplies the defects of the other, and both become the objects of praise; but separated, neither the wisdom of the serpent, nor the simplicity of the dove, obtains in this passage the Saviour's commendation. The character which is compounded of both, makes the nearest approach to the true standard of Christian excellence. The wisdom of the serpent enables the believer to discern between good and evil, truth and error, that having proved all things, he may hold fast that which is good; the simplicity of the dove renders him inoffensive and sincere that he may not deceive nor injure his neighbour. Such were the qualities Mat. x, 16. Bochart. Hieroz. lib. i, cap. 4, p. 19, &c. |