for the old paths", the footsteps of antiquity; and so St Paul points to the steps (vestigia, traces, heel-marks) of the faith of our father Abraham '.' This was antiquity in Jeremiah's time; and St Paul refers to it, as a rule to direct the walking' of Christ's sheep in all ages.

6

And feed thy kids beside the shepherds tents.(meschnoth, Heb.) tabernacles, the word always used for the sacred tabernacle, the dwelling⚫ place of Jehovah upon earth;' and distinguished from tent, used for any purpose, sacred or common 3. These 'tabernacles' belong to the Wan, the herdmen, the substitutes, servants, feeders, under the αρχιποιμήν, the chief shepherd, and are called amiable,', as connected with 77, David the beloved'. Beside them the church is directed to feed her charge; beside these tabernacles, to which the footsteps of the flock' would guide her. The meaning is plain, and deserves our most serious attention. But why her kids? Let me indulge a conjecture here. St Matthew makes a striking distinction between the sheep and the goats. The people of God in scripture are compared to sheep, and their wanderings described under this figure. That

See Psalm cxix. 176. Isaiah liii. 6. Jerem. 1. 17. Ezek. xxxiv. 6.

That we have erred, and strayed like lost sheep,' is our daily public confession. What if the kids here, the young goats, should be intended to put us in mind that, till we be brought to the shepherds dwellings, we are of the goat kind; and must be led to the holy tabernacle to be received into the congregation of Christ's visible flock,' and denominated his sheep. I hope there is nothing of heresy, whatever of fancy there may be in this conjecture; and as such let it pass.

VER. 9.-I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariot.

This stroke of poetic painting is acknowledged to come from the bridegroom, as he is called; and, under the interpretation of a pretty compliment, has been eagerly laid hold of to support the fond notion ' of the marriage with Pharaoh's daughter.' At the same time, these writers are forced to confess, that though the mention of Pharaoh's chariot seems ⚫ to favour the notion of the bride being his daugh'ter, yet to a Hebrew woman it would probably be a simile of a thing unknown, or known only by hearsay.' In this indeed I agree with them, that the Hebrew women had this idea by hearsay, because I find the expression in a triumphant song composed by a Hebrew poet, and sung by the Hebrew women- The horses of Pharaoh went in with his chariots into the sea',' &c. And I cannot

I Exod. xv. I-21.

לססתי

cannot help thinking that the simile in the Canticles may be as properly illustrated from the writings of a Moses four hundred years before, as from those of any heathen poet so many poet so many hundred years after. For it will not be an easy affair to shew, that any of the Egyptian manners were purposely adopted by the Hebrew writers, in their sacred or inspired compositions, especially such an emblem of bondage and oppression, as all the nation had been always taught to look back to with horror and aversion. But this is not all; the comparison here is in the singular number, though our translation, in part following St Jerom's, has it plural, ‘a company of horses,' which cannot well be accounted for. The Hebrew is singular, no lesusti, the LXX. has it TM' μov, Arias Montanus and Maιππω μου, rius Calasio, equæ meæ,'' to my mare.' This is the only place where the word is found in this form, with the feminine termination, and the possessive suffix, meus, my or mine. Horses in the plural number are often spoken of in scripture, indefinitely or with the addition of possessives, but always in the regular plural masculine susiu, susicha, &c. his, thy, your, their horses, &c. The paraphrasers I have in my eye lay hold of this singular rendering; and, in confirmation of their plan, draw from it a strange kind of picture of the bridegroom gazing fondly on her, and 'praising her graceful appearance, like a beautiful mare, taught to move with dignity when drawing 'a chariot.' Now, whatever dignity may be about

susim,

a

a beautiful steed, when in a state of nature, bouncing away at freedom, as is elegantly described by another eastern pen', there is still something that raises the disagreeable idea of drudgery and toil, when we see such a creature sweating and dragging the burden of a chariot. And though some of the translators, Jerom and others, have introduced a more significant peculiarity in the comparison, by rendering the passage, I have compared thee to my steed in Pharaoh's chariot;' may we not still ask what Solomon's steed had to do in Pharaoh's chariot? Is there taste or regularity in such an unnecessary mixture? Why not yoke a steed of Pharaoh's own to his chariot, if the design was to accommodate the simile to the Egyptian lady's conception? It will be said perhaps, that Solomon began now to have a title to her, and so might very properly call her his own. If so, what business or connexion had she now with Pharaoh or his chariot? The comparison should in that case have run, to Pharaoh's steed in my chariot.' From the moment she became Solomon's property, his love, &c. she was to bid adieu to Pharaoh and all his concerns, if we will allow the direction of another writer to have any application here'Hearken, O daughter, and consider, forget thine own people, and thy father's house. So So many improprieties, and unscriptural suppositions, should, I think, lead us to reject the silly, though common conceit

* Job xxxix. 19-25.

2 Psalm xlv. 10.

conceit about Pharaoh's daughter, and to look out for some more solemn and uniform interpretation of this remarkable simile, on which that conceit seems to have been first founded. Such an interpretation presents itself to the unprejudiced eye from the very words themselves, especially as connected with and analagous to what goes before : an interpretation indeed so very devoid of any strain of praise, or metaphorical flight of compliment, that it opens up a quite different meaning, and inculcates a mortifying lesson never to be forgotten. We have seen the bride (to speak in common style) entering upon this sacred stage with a lowly account of herself in a prior state, but rejoicing in the endearments of her beloved, and anxious to be further instructed and comforted by him. This humble, modest behaviour he takes hold of with the comparison in question, True, O my love, I ⚫ have compared thee, damiticha, thought thee ⚫ like to my steed in Pharaoh's chariot'. Time was, we know, when this was literally the case; when the steed of Solomon, or (as St Jerom has it, equitatui meo, to my cavalry), the cavalry, the favourite property of the Messiah, (who delights to ride upon his horses and chariots of salvation, Habak. iii. 8.) was toiling and pulling in Pharaoh's chariot, when, without a metaphor, the Israel of God, the flock

I See Psalm 1. 21. in the Hebrew, where there is likewise a peculiar and most emphatic construction.