It is very remarkable, that sentence is pronounced, not on the accused, by rejecting his petition, although he either makes no defence, or pleads guilty, but upon the malevolent adversary and accuser; "Jehovah rebuke thee." The words being uttered by the second person in the Holy Trinity, and the verb being in the third person, the Almighty Father is meant by the name Jehovah, which is the nominative case to it. He is invoked to rebuke Satan. The word. “rebuke" in the original language properly signifies to check, curb, or restrain; and when

circumstances, but to what passes within a man's own mind, it is the same thing, as to be inclined, to resolve, to think proper. Accordingly, in this text of St. Jude, the meaning is, that Michael could not endure, was not inclined, did not think proper; not out of any respect for Satan, much less from any fear of him, but out of a due regard to his own character and dignity, to bring against him a railing accusation, or rather to pass upon him a judgement expressed in opprobrious terms. Non quod timuerit diabolum, sed quod ex decoro omnia agere voluerit. Witssii Com. in Jud. cited by Lardner, in vol. 6, p. 621, of his works. That learned critic has not scrupled to express his conviction, that St. Jude refers in the text above cited to the vision of Zechariah, which may console us for the contrary opinion of Michaelis. Introduction to the new testament, cap. 29, sec. 4. I venture however to differ from Lardner in attributing to Bp. Sherlock's Dissertation on the second Epistle of St. Peter, a much higher praise than that of mere ingenuity. To me that prelate's hypothesis seems to supply the only probable means of accounting for the very unusual style of the apostle in cap. 2, for the near likeness which it bears to the Epistle of St. Jude, and at the same time for the strong lines of difference, which are discernible between the two.

proceeding from God, is a word of very serious and awful import. It is applied not merely to verbal reproof or to slight animadversions of jus tice, but to the severest inflictions of divine vengeance and the most terrific acts of divine power*. To rebuke Satan then is to curb and restrain him in the free use of that dominion, which he holds and exercises among fallen men by sufferance, to put an end to his perverse opposition to God's people, and confine him within the barriers of his infernal prison-house. We are certainly justified in putting the severest construction on the sentence; for it is here repeated with emphasis, in order to mark, according to the Hebrew manner, the certainty, the depth and extreme bitterness, of the rebuke. Jehovah rebuke thee; even or yea, Jehovah rebuke theet.

* See Deut. xxviii. 20, Psalms, ix. 5, xviii. 5, Isaiah, vii. 13, li. 10, Nahum, i. 4, Malachi, ii. 3, 6, iii. 11, where the word "ys is used.

† Dr. Blaney, in his translation, has rendered as a particle of similitude, and r in the past tense. In justification of the former he has appealed to Noldius de particulis, § 62, Such references, I must observe, unless they afford examples in point, are to very little purpose. Noldius has ascribed no less than seventy three significations to the particle Vau; that is to say, he has enumerated so many probable, or possible, modes of rendering it in different connections. Great care is therefore required in the use of his learned and laborious work, lest we apply it injudiciously and indiscriminately; so that unless both his citations support his renderings, which they sometimes are far from

It was a strong rebuke, which he received on the reestablishment of Judah and Jerusalem, in opposition to his kingdom of darkness and idolatry and in preparation for the advent of Messiah. A still more formidable one was that, which he received, when he had the audacity to tempt our Lord, who saw him under his victorious hand, fall from his usurped dominion, like lightning

doing, and the passage in question be found to coincide with them, a reference to his concordance will only afford countenance to error. Now whoever will take the pains to consult the texts cited by Noldius at § 62, and the an notations of Tympius, Nos. 1214 and 1215, will find, that when Vau is used as a particle of similitude, or will admit of that rendering, it is in cases very differently circumstanced from that before us. In the Proverbs of Solomon this use of it is frequent, but in no instance similar to this. But if this rendering of the particle could be justified by the clearest instances, that of the verb, to which it is prefixed, cannot; for is in the future tense, and the Vau is not conversive, but merely copulative, for the verb which precedes is also in the future tense. To render it therefore in the past is contrary to the rules of Hebrew grammar. Ex gr. see Schroderi's Hebrew grammar, rule 49, and Granville Sharp's second rule in his letter to a friend, &c. No one of the ancient versions has rendered it in the past tense; and the point being Sheva, not Pathach, gives the whole weight of Jewish authority in favour of Vau Chibbur, against Vau Hippuch. The repetition of the rebuke is plainly intended to aggravate its force, whence the copulative seems to have an intensive power, which our translators have correctly expressed by "even," in conformity with their usual practice in such instances. In Latin it would be rendered by" inquam," of which numerous instances quite parallel to this may be seen in Noldius, § 30. Tympius in his note, 1206, observes that is properly so rendered, when any thing before said is repeated; for the sake of emphasis, of perspicuity, or of explanation.

from heaven*:

Another stern rebuke he receiv

ed at the reformation, when "the accuser of the brethren was cast downt." Two more yet await him; the one when he shall be bound for a thousand years, the other final and eternal, when he shall be cast into the lake of fire and: brimstonet.

The opposition of Satan to Joshua, is not made to him personally, but officially, so as to apply to any high-priest whatever, it being founded, as has been before slightly noticed, not on Joshua's own incapacity or sinfulness, but on the unworthiness of the Jewish people. If it were not so, the ground of the opposition would not be fairly and fully met by the ground of the rebuke; for that is clearly determined to be, not the election of Joshua to the high-priesthood, but the election of Jerusalem to be God's peculiar possession upon earth; "Jehovah hath chosen," not Joshua, but "Jerusalem;" not the man to exercise the office, but the people, for whose benefit the office is instituted. Satan, it is intimated, well knew the purpose of God, to make Jerusalem the seat of his true and holy worship; and he knew that in opposing the restitution of the pontifical office to Joshua, the law* Luke, x. 18. + Revelation, xii. 10. Revelation, xx. 2, 10..

ful claimant, he was opposing the accomplishment of the divine purpose, since that was necessary to the reestablishment of the templet itself in its proper use, the celebration of divine worship therein with significant rites, with dignity and splendour.

Accordingly St. Jude, in the passage before cited, informs us, that the dispute on this occasion was "concerning the body of Moses," that is, not, as has been supposed by some, the dead body of Moses, about which the Rabbinical writers have many absurd and superstitious stories, by referring to which, the meaning of the apostle has been perplexed and lost, but the spiritual body of Moses, the Jewish church, which St. Jude calls the body of Moses, by the same sort of figure, as the christian church is termed by St. Paul, the body of Christ*.

Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to recur once more to the irksome task of stating

This interpretation is far from being new. In the 4th century Ephrem Syrus considered Joshua clothed in filthy garments, to represent the abject and deplorable state of the Jewish people in the Babylonish captivity. Whom, as Lardner observes, St. Jude might call the body of Moses as christians are called the body of Christ, by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xii. 20, 25, 27, et al. He also observes, that the same interpretation was proposed some while ago, and well supported in a dissertation of a learned writer, who was not acquainted with Ephrem. Lardner's works, vol. 4, p. 435, and vol. 6, p. 622. The same interpretation is adopted by Dr. Macknight in his commentary on the Epistle.