3434. [2 Chron. iii. 8. Gold six hundred talents] That is, four millions three hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling. Univer. Hist. vol. ix. p. 507.

3435. [10-14.] The cherubim made by Hiram were of two sorts; the carved image-work, each of which spread one wing over the ark, and touched the wall with the other; and those made in bass-relief, to adorn the sides of

3438. [2 Chron. viii. 4.] SCHULTENS observes (in Vit. Salad. ad vocem Tadmora) that, though in the text it is written Tamor, in the margin it is Tadmor. The first, the more usual and softer name of the place, he refers to Tamar the palm, with which this place abounded. In Arabic also, he supposes it was not originally spelled Tadmor, but Tatmor: and thus he accordingly finds it in his Arabic geographical Lexicon; the D being changed into a T euphona

3440. [2 Chron. ix. 14.] Arabia, on its largest scale, comprises that extensive Peninsula, which the Red Sea divides from Africa, the great Assyrian river from Irân, and Its western of which the Erythrean Sea washes the base: side would be completely maritime, if no isthmus intervened between the Mediterranean, and the Sea of Kolzom. the Hindoos and the people of Yemen were both commercial nations in a very early age, they were probably the first instruments of conveying to the western world, the gold, ivory, and perfumes of India.

3441. [

As

Works of Sir W. JONES, vol. i. p. 36.

29.] In Ethiopia there are certain Christians who have all the canonical books of our Scriptures, and several more. They reckon the prophet Iddo one of the greater prophets, and put him in the class with Isaiah, Ezekiel, Elisha, Elijah, and Daniel; affirming that he wrote 14,000 prophecies (or prophetic lines) many of which they pretend, are still extant among them.

Captain ALEX. HAMILTON.- Pinkerton's
Coll. part xxxii. p. 272.

3442. [2 Chron. xiii. 9. Whosoever shall fill his hands with a young bullock and seven rams] Had these been

3444. [2 Chron. xvi. 8.] In the earliest ages the Medes, Syrians, Arabs, &c. fought in chariots, but 'especially the Lybians and Ethiopians, as we are here informed. Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 654, note (B).

3445. [ 14. A very great burning] An illumination for him; Jer. xxxiv. 5. – A mode of exhibiting their belief in his future glorification.

3446.

From the antient Egyptians perhaps, the Israelites adopted the practice, not of burning bodies, but of, burning many spices at their funerals, 2 Chron. xxi. 19. Jer. xxxiv. 5.

BURDER'S Oriental Customs, vol. ii. p. 171.

3449. [2 Chron. xxi. 11.] The beginning of fornication is the devising of idols. Wisdom xiv. 12.

in the neighbourhood of Egypt; its inhabitants are classed with the Arabians of Gur-baal, who dwelt in another canton of the same province. These wars of Uzziah are omitted in 2 Kings xiv. 21, &c., where his history seems strangely curtailed. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 67.

3450. [2 Chron. xxii. 2. Forty and two] In 2 Kings viii. 26, we read two and twenty: the latter is evidently right; otherwise Ahaziah must have been two years older than his father Jehoram, who, at the conclusion of the last Chapter, is said to have died in the 40th year of his age.

Univer. Hist. vol. iii. p. 440. Forty-two years indeed, had elapsed from Omri's coming to the crown to the reign of Ahaziah.

See TREMELLIUS in loco. The error seems to have been introduced by some Transcriber, who might easily, from a similarity in the Hebrew letters, write mem beth 42, instead of caph beth 22. See Essay for a New Translation, part ii. P. 136.

3451. [2 Chron. xxiv. 17. The princes of Judah] These could not be of the blood royal, as those had been all destroyed by Athaliah: they were consequently, the chiefs or heads of families in Judah; such being often, if not always, denominated, after the Patriarchal system, princes. See Num. vii. 2.-xxv. 14. (See Univer. Hist. vol. iv. p.56.) These princes again, were called a king's sons born to him by adoption, as soon as they had attached themselves to his person and fortunes.

See, in particular, 2 Sam. iii. 2—5.

3456.[16.] Among the Antients, it was an opinion almost universally received, that there was a very near affinity between the offices of king and priest. Thus Jeroboam, as priest, was standing by the altar at Beth-el, when the prophet came to denounce its ruin. Even the Romans, when they had expulsed the Tarquins, preserved among their sacred officers the title of Rex. The Athenians also, though they equally hated monarchy, stiled their second archon, who presided in their public sacrifices, Basileus. Univer. Hist. vol. vi. p. 92.

3457. [

19.] At this time a great earthquake shook the ground, and a rent was made in the Temple, through which the bright rays of the sun shone and fell on the king's face, insomuch that the leprosy seized on him immediately. And before the city, at a place called Eroge, half the mountain broke off from the rest on the west, and rolled itself four furlongs, and stood still at the east mountain, till the roads, as well as the king's gardens, were spoiled by the obstruction.

JOSEPH. Antiq. b. ix. ch. x. § 4.
See Amos i. 1. Zech. xiv. 4, 5.

This earthquake, which must have happened 25 years posterior to that mentioned in Amos i. 1, is recorded in Zech. xiv. 4, 5, as a known fact, to which that prophet emphatically appeals.

3458. [2 Chron. xxviii. 3.] An astonishing instance of the superstition of the antient Indians in respect to their vene

3459. [2 Chron, xxviii. 3.] Jewish writers in general hold, that in this place children were merely carried or led between two fires, by way of (baptizmal) purification. The priests or servants of fire (says MOSES MAIMONIDES, More Nevoch, lib. 3. c. 38) persuaded men that their children would die if they did not pass them through the fire: wherefore, parents being anxious for the lives of their children, and perceiving there was neither danger nor difficulty in performing the ceremony, no one neglected it, considering that the children were not to be consumed by fire, but only to pass through it. Thus, in bringing Christians under the influence of the Divine Wisdom and Love, Jesus Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with Fire. Matt. iii. 11.

3460. [Ahaz king of reading.

19.] The Septuagint and Vulgate read Judah; which appears to be the true

3462. [ 27.] In Egypt, as soon as a man was dead, he was brought to his trial. The public accuser was heard. If he proved that the deceased had led a bad life, his memory was condemned, and he was deprived of the honors of sepulture. Even the sovereign himself was not exempted from this public inquest on his death. In like manner the Israelites, it seems, would not suffer the bodies of their flagitious princes to be carried into the sepulchres appropriated for their virtuous sovereigns. The effect must have been powerful and influential. The most haughty despot saw, by this solemn investigation of human conduct, that if he trampled on laws human and divine in his life, he also at death would be doomed without reserve to infamy and utter disgrace.

See No. 940, 943.

See FRANKLIN's Hist. of antient and modern Egypt, p. 374.

3463. [2 Chron. xxx. 18-20.] This is the only instance on record, to prove that such as had eaten of the Passover in an unclean (unprepared) state, might be healed at the intercession of man. See HUTCHINSON's Use of Reason recovered, p. 311.

3464. [2 Chron. xxxi. 5. Honey] Devesch, Dates. The Arabs at this day call dates dubous; and the honey of dates, dibs or dibis, which is not much inferior to bee-honey. Whence the most learned interpreters agree that the Hebrew in this place, speaks only of dates, or at most of the honey of dates. See Essay for a New Translation, part ii. p. 172.

3465. [612.] Dates are reckoned one of the most delicious fruits in Persia, they are no where else so good; the pulp which encloses the stone is a clammy substance, as sweet as honey when they are ripe, they are laid on heaps, where melting, they candy or preserve themselves without sugar. The fruit grows in clusters of thirty or forty pounds weight: the tree, which is slender, but very tall, and like other palms, has no branches but on the top, does not bear till it is fifteen years old, but (in this sense, the tree of life) continues bearing above a hundred years. (PINKERTON'S Coll. vol. ix. p. 179. See Rev. vii. 9. Matt. xxi. 8; Mark xi. 8; and John xii. 13.) The word âremoth signifies heaps of raisins, figs, pomegranates; as well as of corn threshed out.

HARMER'S Observations, vol. iii. p. 285.

3470. [2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 — 19.] The remarkable circumstances recorded here, are not mentioned in the book of Kings; Manasseh's captivity, reformation and deliverance, though important particulars, being equally unnoticed there. JOSEPHUS (Antiq. b. x. c. 4) says only, that the king of Babylon gave him his liberty after some time. The Talmudists affirm, that his imprisonment and repentance took place in the 34th year of his age. However this were, it is the general opinion, that he was imprisoned and liberated in one and the same year.

See Univer. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 89, 90.

3476. [ 20.] Persia, on the east, has the dominions of the Great Mogul; the ocean and the Gulf of Persia, towards the south; the territories of the Grand Seignior, on the west; and the country of Circassia, the Caspian Sea and the river Oxus, which divides it from the Usbeck Tartary, on the north. PINKERTON'S Coll. vol, ix. p. 169.

3477. To give you an idea of the largest boundaries of Persia, or Irân, the noblest peninsula on this habitable globe; let us begin with the source of the great Assyrian stream, Euphrates (as the Greeks, according to their custom, were pleased to miscall the Forat) and thence descend to its mouth in the Green Sea, or Persian Gulf, including in our line some considerable districts and towns on both sides the river; thence coasting Persia, properly so named, and other Iranian provinces, we come to the delta of the Sindhu or Indus; whence ascending to the mountains of Cashghar, we discover its fountains and those of the Jaihun, down which we are conducted to the Caspian, which formerly perhaps it entered, though it lose itself now in the sands and lakes of Khwarezm: we next are led from the sea of Khozar, by the banks of the Cur, or Cyrus, and along the Caucasean ridges, to the shore of the Euxine, and thence, by the several Grecian seas, to the point, whence we took our departure, at no considerable distance from the Mediterranean. Here let us observe the central position of Iran, which is bounded by Arabia, by Tartary, and by India; whilst Arabia lies contiguous to Iran only, but is remote from Tartary, and divided even from the skirts of India by a considerable gulf; no country therefore, but Persia seems likely to have sent forth its colonies to all the kingdoms of Asia.- Hence we may