6 was too enchanting, the idea too ravishing to be soon lost sight of; I was delighted and sat;' so says the Hebrew, 'I was delighted,' ', hhamadti. The word is applied to the trees of Eden', 'every tree that is pleasant;' to the goodly (marg. desir'able) raiment of Esau, the first-born". It is spoken of Goddelighting to dwell 3.' The de'sire of all nations shall come. The apostates carried off this title; and the great idol of the alcoran bears the name, Mohammed, or as we improperly pronounce it, Mahomet. We see therefore what the church's delight' was, and what was her view. I was delighted,' she veishabti, and sat.' fines the idea. 6 וישבתי,says 'Sat down,' as we read it, conIt is settledness, dwelling, residence, in opposition to moving, wandering, or roving. Under his shadow. This is what we may call a favourite phrase in scripture, and always points to its proper meaning; it was in this shadow' that her delight was; here the church dwelt and dwells. They that dwell under his shadow 3, », ishabi, our word here, the sitters.' To be safe 6 under the shadow of thy wings,' was the Psalmist's great comfort. This is called a most significant metaphor; but it has its foundation in a most important reality, which discovers its significancy. That well known, and particularly sacred 2 Gen. xxvii. 15. I Gen. ii. 9. 3 Psalm lxviii. 17. 5 Hosea xiv. 7, quoted above, 4 Hagg. ii. 7. 6 Psalm xvii. 8. and xxxvi. 7. &c. ( cred ornament of the Jewish worship, the CHERUBIM, if not the representative, were the dwellingplace of Jehovah,, ishab cherubim, inhabiting the cherubim'. These cherubim had wings, covering the mercy-seat, where Jehovah took his stand, and gave his oracular responses. Under these wings, which, in a prayer to Jehovah, might with great propriety be termed 'thy wings,^ was mercy, forgiveness, comfort; and the church now, in looking back to, and joining communion with the church then, may, upon good ground, adopt her style, and with the same faith make use of the same language. It is our Adoni Jehovah, who, according to Ezekiel, adorns his church; and among other particulars of his love, spreads his skirt' (Heb. ", LXX. TTεguyas, Montan. alas, his wings) over her to cover her nakedness.' He is our 'sun of righteousness, with healing in his wings; and I doubt not but he himself alluded to this, in that pathetic expostulation with his church, in the days of his flesh upon earth-' How ⚫ often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings? where we cannot but observe likewise, with what fervency, and indisputable plainness of expression, he claims to himself in his own πτερυγας, 1 1 Sam. iv. 4. Ps. 1xxx. 2. Isaiah xxxvii. 16, &c. person 2 Exod. xxv. 20-22. xxxvii. 9. 1 Kings viii. 6, 7. 3 Chap. xvi. 8. 5 St Matth. xxiii. 37. St Luke xiii. 34. person, all these repeated manifestations of love and mercy in old times; and thereby holds himself out to be the Jehovah, in whom the faithful always trusted, and, in the shadow of whose wings,' his church always did, and always will rejoice. There is another of these many places, where' shadow' is mentioned in a comfortable sense, that has something of a strange appearance Shadow of a great 'rock in a weary land'. The metaphor here seems a little uncouth in its aspect, but like the shadow of thy wings,' is also built upon a reality, and the sense of it is not to be fully understood without having that reality in our eye. We read in Numb. xx. 8-11. of a rock, y, slo, (the prophet's word here), which Moses struck in the wilderness, the weary, thirsty land, and the waters gushed out ' like rivers. What this rock was, which Moses struck, St Paul very plainly tells us They drank 6 of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that • rock was Christ 3. The prophet calls his rock 39, chabed, we read it a great rock, but it is the word for glory, the glorious rock, the rock of glory, or, the rock the glory, attributed to Christ *. All this the prophet predicates of Paish, LXX. and, a MAN, which entitles us, who belong to the Godman, the man Christ Jesus, to the shadow' of F f VOL. II. that I Isaiah xxxii. 2. 2 Psalm 1xxviii. 16. 31 Cor. x. 4. 4 Psalm xxiv. 10. lxxxv. 9. cvi. 20. St John i. 14. Heb. i. 3. 5 1 Tim. ii. 5. that glorious rock, the only rock, that ever could or did refresh a thirsty land; and a christian cannot but see and admire the elegance and application of this, perhaps to others harsh and unseemly, comparison. This rock of the prophets, like the tappuhh in the song, afforded both refreshment and nourishment: A man,' says the prophet, shall be 'as rivers of water in a dry place','' the shadow of a glorious rock in a thirsty land. So says the church here, by another figure of equal significancy: Under his shadow was, is, my delight, and my residence, and his fruit sweet to my taste.' This is too frequent a simile to stand in need of explication. How sweet are thy words unto my taste? was the rapturous exclamation of another royal Poet; and no christian, I hope will, no man of sense, I think, needs be ashamed to join in it. The Psalmist's words' are but a part of our Songster's fruit. The church's tappuhh, apple-tree, here referred to, literally and really possesses the wonderful qualities, which the old mother of all living' foolishly and fatally imagined she saw in another tree that it was good for food, and pleasant to • the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one WISE. This tree stood in the sacred inclosure of Eden, opposite to another tree of symbolical institution, the tree of life. May not our tappuhh here have a retrospect to this blessed tree? It carries in 6 its formation the idea of that creative act, by which ⚫ life' was first infused into the body of dust; and except once, in the prophet Joel', we meet with the word nowhere but in the writings of our present bard, once in Prov. xxv. 11. and four times in this song; in all which there is no necessity from the context to confine it to the apple, or indeed to any real known fruit or fruit-tree whatever. Let it be remembered too, how frequently Solomon speaks of the tree of life*. Wisdom,' (and we know whom he means by wisdom in his Proverbs, none other indeed than his fair one, dudi, in this song), this wisdom, he says, is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her. The prophet Ezekiel, another emblematical painter, had a vision of something like this, in Ezek. xlvii. 7. Behold on the bank of the river (78¤ 77 WV, otz rab 'mad, sing.) a very great, princely, tree, on the one side, and on the other,' The translations indeed, all of them except Arias Montanus, render it plural, very many trees,' parallel to the 12th verse, all trees for meat,' where the original has it, col otz, every tree.' But the But the apocalypt St John, to whom our marginal references direct us, and who will be allowed to be as good an interpreter of Ezekiel as any other, not only has it singular, but expressly restricts it to my purpose— ⚫ On the one side of the river, and on the other (yτευθεν Ff2 * Chap. i. 12. 2 Prov. iii. 18. 3 See also Prov. xi. 30. xii. 12. XV. 4. |