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country which Philopater had reduced after the victory at Raphia.

4320. [Dan. xi. 31.] The prophet here foretells the oppression of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria; which took place in the year B. C. 170, accompanied with the following horrid circumstances. After the Jews had returned from the Babylouish captivity; they were subject to Persia till the time of Alexander: they were afterwards in subjection either to Syria or Egypt, as the events of war between these two kingdoms alternately determined. Egypt being at length considerably reduced by Antiochus, the Jews fell under his power, and were treated by him very tyrannically. On a report of his death, therefore, they shewed some signs of joy; when Antiochus came against them in all the fury of revenge, took Jerusalem by storm, and committed such acts of cruelty and outrage, that the wretched inhabitants were constrained to fly to caverns, and holes of rocks, to escape the fierceness of his wrath. Their religion was abolished; their temple profaned; and an image of Jupiter Olympus set up on the altar of burnt-offerings, on

the 15th of the month Chisleu, which answers to part of our November and December. See Univer. Hist. vol. ix. p. 608, &c.

4321. [Dan. xi. 31.] This first abomination, I conceive, implies the statue of Jupiter Olympus, which Antiochus Epiphanes caused to be placed in the Temple of Jerusalem.

4322. [Dan. xii. 11.] This second abomination probably relates to the ensigns of the Romans, during the last siege of Jerusalem by Titus on which the figures of their gods and emperors were embroidered, and placed in the Temple after it was taken.

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4324. [Hosea iii. 2] He who is desirous to adopt a child, must inform the magistrate thereof, and shall perform the Jugg (the sacrifice usual on the occasion) and shall give gold, and rice, to the father of the child, whom he would adopt; then, supposing the child not to have had his ears bored, nor to have received the Brahminical thread, nor to have been maried in his father's house, and not to be five years old, if the father will give up such a child, or if the mother give him up by order of the father, and there are other brothers of that child, that child may be adopted.

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4327. [Hosea ix. 1, 2.] In Samaria, during the revolt of the ten tribes, the kings and the priests of Israel exacted tythes for their support. This was a principal cause of their being sent into captivity. See Ezek. xiv. 8.

4328. [ 10.] PLINY, Nat. Hist. b. xv. ch. 18, chumerates nineteen species of fig-tree: one produces fruit called by the Latins mamillanæ, from its resemblance to a woman's breast; another yields figs quite red, and not bigger than an olive; another, white fruit; another, black; another bears fruit of the color of porphyry; and the fig-tree of Hyrcania is sometimes loaded with more than two hundred bushels of fruit Besides those noticed by Pliny, there is a great variety of others unknown to the Romans and to us; with fruits, some green and just beginning to shoot, while others are violet and cracked their crevices stored with honey.

4329. [

St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. ii. p. 166.

17.] To this day, the Ten Tribes are subject to the kings of the Persians, nor has their captivity ever They still inhabit the cities and mountains of

been loosed. the Medes.

JEROME, Tom. vi. pp. 7, 80.

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4332. [11.] In Languedoc, the corn is all roughly stacked around dry firm spots, where, in treading it out at each place, great numbers of mules and horses are driven on a trot round a centre, a woman holding the reins; and another, or a girl or two, with whips drive: the men supply and clear the floor; other parties are dressing, by throwing the corn into the air for the wind to blow away the chaff. YOUNG'S Travels in France. Pinkerton's Coll. part xiv. p. 113.

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4334. [Hosea xi. 2.] The Egyptiaus represented the Supreme Being, and his Divine Attributes, his Immensity and Omnipotence, his Fecundity and infinite Perfection, under the symbol of the Sun; and they represented Nature or matter, which is altogether dependant on that Supreme Being, and diversified every moment, under the image of the Moon, who borrows her light from the Sun, and is perpetually changing her appearance. This mode of representation was undoubtedly the primary cause of idolatry and superstition; men growing by degrees forgetful of the Supreme Being, and confining their attention to that glorious luminary the sun, as the immediate Cause of what they beheld, instead of considering it, as the material Representative of its Spiritual Source, the invisible Producer of all visible objects.

Nat. Delin. vol. i. p. 292.

4335. [Hosea xi. 11.] The priestesses of Dodona assert, says HERODOTUS, that two black pigeons flew from Thebes in Egypt, one of which settled in Libya, the other among themselves; which latter, resting on the branch of a beech-tree, declared with a human voice that here by divine appointment was to be an oracle of Jove. — If, he adds, the Phenicians did in reality carry away two priestesses from Thebes, and sell one to Libya, the other to Greece, -the name of doves was probably given them because, being strangers, the sound of their voices might, to the people of Dodona, seem to resemble the tone of those birds. When the woman, having learned the language, delivered her thoughts in words which were generally understood, the dove might be said to have spoken with a human voice. - It certainly cannot be supposed, he argues, that a dove should speak with a human voice; and the circumstance of her being black, explains to us her Egyptian origin.

See Euterpe, Iv, Ivi, lvii.

4336. [Hosea xiv. 2. Calves] Fruit: Heb. xiii. 15. Ia this case the whole branch was value that piece of money stamped with the figure of a bull: Its clusters, its fruit, cach were value the money denominated from its stamp a calf. In the same way the branch value a ram, ħad grapeclusters each value a lamb. Hence, JESUS CHRIST, when drinking the vinous blood of the lamb, says, "I will drink no more of this fruit of the vine, till I drink (after my resurrection, at the feast of Pentecost) new with you in my FATHER'S kingdom." Matt. xxvi. 29.

4337.5.] Auger de Busbequius, Ambassador from Ferdinand the First King of the Romans to the Porte, in 1562 transported the lilach from Constantinople to Europe. See St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. iii. p. 270.

4338. [6.] The great and small cedars of Lebanon have a fragrant smell: and sweet-scented greens from top to bottom, particularly in its great rupture, clothe its surface. See MAUNDRELL's Journey, May 9.

4339. [7.] The Vines of Hermon and Lebanon yield wine of a red color, very generous, grateful, and so light as not to affect the head, though taken freely.

Travels from Ephesus through Asia Minor, by EGIDIUS VAN EGMONT, and Professor HEYMAN.

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4341. [Joel i. 5.] The prophet here threatens a desolation of the vineyards by locusts, which it seems, injures their produce for many years. Since the locusts destroyed the vineyards at Algiers in the year 1723 and 1724, the wine, says Dr. SHAW, has not in ten years recovered its usual qualities.

Trav. p. 146.

It is not a few fields, or only two or three villages, that are ruined by these voracious creatures; the face of the country is covered with them for many miles; yet in India they are not near so pernicious as in Arabia, and many parts of Africa, where they prove a scourge of the severest kind. FORBES' Oriental Memoirs.

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Kumeil, the son of Ziyad, was a man of fine wit. One day Hejage made him come before him, and reproached him because in such a garden, and before such and such persons as he named to him, he had made a great many imprecations against him, saying, the LORD blacken his face, that is, fill him with shame and confusion; and wished that his neck were cut off, and his blood shed. It is true, said Kumeil, I did say such words in such a garden; but then I was under a vine-arbor, and was looking on a bunch of grapes not yet ripe I wished that it might be turned black soon, cut off, aud made into wine.

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OCKLEY'S list. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 319.

4342. [Joel ii. 1. Blow ye the trumpet] The Jubilee trumpet probably; as the locust is a septennial insect, seen only (a small number of stragglers excepted) every seven years, when its swarms do the greatest mischief. The years when they thus arrive in the interior colonies of North America, are denominated there the locust-years.

CARVER'S Trav. in N. America. p. 327. Swarms of locusts sometimes visit the heart of Persia in

4344. [- 30. Pillars of smoke] Such exhalations impregnating the clouds, probably caused in the year 1762, the phenomena at Detroit in Canada, thus recorded by CARVER: "It rained on this town and the parts adjacent, a sulphureous water of the color and consistence of ink; some of which being collected into bottles, and wrote with, appeared perfectly intelligible on the paper, and answered every purpose of that useful liquid.

Trav. in N. America, p. 96.

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HIS prophet, it seems, was carried into captivity with the Ten Tribes. After his return into the land of Judah, he probably retired into the city of. Tekoah, where he foretold the calamities which the Israelites would fall into after Jeroboam the Second's death, the murder of his son and successor; the coming of Pul and Tiglath-pileser, kings of Assyria, against Israel; and the consequent captivity of the Ten Tribes. Other of his prophecies are levelled against Syria, Tyre, the Philistines, Edomites, Ammonites and Moabites; and some against Judah.

Univer. Hist. vol. iv. p. 64. Verse 1.] See 2 Chron. xxvi. 19.

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by a second Bar still more elevated, which pursues it at the distance of about a hundred fathoms. They run much faster than a horse at full speed. See Jonah ii. 10.

St. PIERRE'S Studies of Nature, vol. iv. p. 121.

In North America, opposite the mouth of Buffalo Creek, there is a very dangerous sand bar, which at times it is totally impossible to pass in any other vessel than bateaux, or flat bottoms. WELD's Trav. in N. America, vol. ii.p. 145.

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