for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her" (ver. 8-10). Then follows the picture of peace and quiet joy in verses 12-14: "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: Then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb; and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies." But his dealings with the obstinate idolaters shall be in bold contrast to all this :-"For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire, and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh and the slain of the Lord shall be many. They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord" (ver. 15-17). "The abomination" of ver. 17, is equal to the "broth of abominable things" of lxv. 4. It includes every kind of vermin used by the heathen as food, but which Israel was accustomed to regard as unclean. "The mouse (achbar)" may have been the Egyptian jerboa-see under 1 Sam. vi. 4.

"Your bones shall flourish like an herb." The words are a beautiful allusion to the swelling of the bud in spring on the dry, witheredlooking twig or branch, or to the late scorched herbage becoming green again. Blessing shall come in the belief of the promise.

JEREMIAH.

THE prophet was overwhelmed by the views given him of the sovereignty of God, in his calling to be a messenger to the nations, and by the greatness and difficulty of the work to which he was called. 'Ah, Lord God," he said,

'I cannot speak; for I am a child" (i. 6). But He who had raised him up could fit him for the work:-"Say not thou art a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak" (ver. 7). He had been chosen for the work, the purpose of God had been brought out in his being raised up, and he had been appointed to it by God himself. He was ready, and God promised to realize the providences which were to bring the prophet specially out before the people. He had become fully persuaded of all this. "The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond-tree. Then said the Lord unto me, thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it" (ver. 11, 12). The almondtree (Amygdalis communis), is specially referred to under Eccles. xii. 5 -which see. The word used here is also employed to designate the fruit of this tree. See under Gen xliii. 11, and Numb. xvii. 8.

The people had been upbraided for their unteachableness and backsliding, but in vain. The hopelessness of their case was manifested by their inability to see that they had done anything amiss. "No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, what have I done? every one turned to his course" (viii. 6), under the blind force of simple impulse. Times of temptation came, opportunities of sin presented themselves, and sinful instincts became excited by the presence of objects alluring to sin. "As the horse rusheth into the battle," so they hastened to make themselves vile before God. Yea their case was worse even than the irrational creatures. They were daily dealt with by priest and prophet-daily by the privileges of the sanctuary reminded of their duty to their heavenly Father-but in vain. The birds of the air regularly obeyed the laws under which they had been put by the Creator, but not so the people whom God had chosen in grace, and on whom he had lavished the proofs of his kindness and love :-" Yea, the

stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord. How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?" (ver. 7-9.)

"Stork," Heb. hhăsidah, is noticed under 2 Chron. ix. 21; Ps. civ. 17-which see. It is named here as a bird of passage. Two species are still common in their season in Palestine—the white stork (Ciconia alba, Plate IV., fig. 2), and the black stork (C. nigra).

"The turtle," Heb. tor, was the migratory species (Turtur auritus) as distinguished from the permanent resident (T. risorius), the Syrian dove proper (Lev. i. 14). The original word is sometimes translated simply "turtle," as in Song ii. 12-" The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." The church is spoken of by the Psalmist as God's "turtle-dove:"-

"O deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the multitude.
Forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever" (lxxiv. 16).

The thoughts suggested by this allusion have been set in other lights in modern poetry. When God was angry with Aaron and might have destroyed him, Moses "prayed for Aaron" (Deut. iv. 20):-

"So let thy turtle-dove's sad call arise

In doubt and fear

Through darkening skies,

And pierce, O Lord, thy justly sealed ear,
Where on the house-top, all night long,
She trills her widow'd faltering song."

The crane," Heb. sis. Bochart has laboured to make out that this word should be rendered "swallow," and the next crane." In either case it is believed we have undoubted reference to the crane (Grus), one of the Gruido or crane family. The common crane is an inhabitant of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It spends its summer in the temperate regions, and migrates southward in autumn.

"Gilead" (ver. 22)—see vol. i., p. 443.

The people "who had slidden back by a perpetual backsliding, who held fast deceit, and refused to return" unto the Lord (ver. 5), are brought to acknowledge the hand of God:-"The Lord our God hath

put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord" (ver. 14). In the view of referring again to "gall," under Mark xv. 23, the allusions to it in other passages may be considered here. Two Hebrew words, under different forms, are translated gall, namely, rōsh and merōrah, the latter from marar, to be bitter, hence Marah. The former is the word employed by Jeremiah. It is first met with in Deut. xxix. 18, where it is spoken of as the produce of a root, and as a bitter sap it is associated with wormwood"Lest there should be

among you a root that
beareth gall." This pas-
sage may be associated
with the New Testa-
ment strong expression-
'Looking diligently lest
any man fail of the grace
of God; lest any root of
bitterness springing up
trouble you, and thereby
many be defiled" (Heb.
xii. 15). In Deut. xxxii.
33, the same word is
rendered "venom
"Their wine is the poison
of dragons, and the cruel
venom of asps." And in
verse 32, written in an-
other form, it is again
translated gall-"Their
vine is of the vine of
Sodom, and of the fields
of

Gomorrah : their

Fig. 146.

grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter." When Zophar the Naamathite characterizes the triumph of the wicked and the joy of the hypocrite, he says of each :-"He shall suck the poison (rōsh) of asps, the viper's tongue shall slay him" (Job xx. 16). In Psalm xxii. 21, gall is described as the meat offered to the Saviour on the cross-a prophecy literally fulfilled, Matt. xxvii. 34-"They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall." Jeremiah uses the same word in other four passages, besides the one under notice. Address

ing those who were "walking after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim," the prophet adds :-"Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink" (ix. 15). And when "the horrible thing" was laid to the charge even of the prophets of Jerusalem, the same form of judgment was threatened (xxiii. 15); so likewise Lam. iii. 5, 18, 19. In the grievous departure of Israel from God, Amos complains that one fruit of this was the "turning of judgment into gall"-the complete perversion of truth and righteousness (Amos vi. 12). Hosea uses the same word in a passage in which our translators have rendered it "hemlock" (Hos. x. 4).

The other word also rendered gall is so translated in Job xvi. 13— "His archers compass me round about; he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground." The term used here (mererah), as I have shown under this passage, refers to the gall cyst or bladder of the human body. In Job xx. 14, the word (merōrah) indicates what is bitter and poisonous-"His meat in his bowels is turned; it is the gall of asps within him." But that the same expression may be applied to the gall-bladder, is clear from verse 25 of the same chapter-“The glittering sword cometh out of his gall.” The conclusions to be drawn from the interpretation of the passages quoted are:-(1) The word is used for bitter things in general; (2) When a specific meaning is attached to it, the context demands it, as in Hosea x. 4, and Job xvi. 13, xx. 25—“ I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me" (xi. 19). The Hebrew alluph is nowhere else, except in Psalm cxliv. 14, rendered "ox." The general sense is—I was as the tenderest or as the strongest of the animals which men slaughter for food. The term is translated "duke" throughout Genesis xxxvi.-"duke Teman, duke Omar," &c.; "guide" in Psalm lv. 13; "friend" in Prov. xvi. 28; "captain" in Jer. xiii. 21; and "governor" in Zech. ix. 7; the prevalent idea being that of full maturity and strength.

The sin and hypocrisy which the prophet saw all around him, are represented as influencing all nature, and in his deep mental depression Jeremiah asks "How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end" (ver. 4). "The herb," Heb. eshev, points to herbaceous plants generally, which supply food for man or for the beasts. The original word is sometimes rendered "grass" (Deut. xi. 15; 2 Kings xix. 26;