nothing to be supplied by the reader's imagination. On this score his ingenuity is to be commended, and he is therefore of use to his readers, because he enables them better to understand the ancient poets; but he certainly does not strike with admiration or display any trait of sublimity. Of this I will propose only one example; many of the same kind may be found in looking over the writings of this prophet. In describing a great slaughter, it is very common in the best poets to introduce a slight allusion to birds of prey. Thus, in the Iliad,

Thus it is the language of boasting in the historical part of Scripture: I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the field.' 1 Sam. xvii. 44. Asaph also, in Ps. lxxviii. 48: He gave their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to the birds.' Moses is still more sublime, Deut. xxxii. 23, 24

I will spend mine arrows upon them;

They shall be eaten up with hunger, a prey unto birds,
And to bitter destruction!

I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them,
With the poison of the reptiles of the earth.

But Habakkuk is more excellent than either of the former, (chap.
iii. 5,) speaking of the victory of Jehovah over his enemies,-

Before him went the pestilence,
And his footsteps were traced by the birds.

Doubtless the birds of prey. chap. xxxiv. 6, 7

Isaiah is somewhat more copious,

For Jehovah celebrateth a sacrifice in Botzra,
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
And the wild goats shall fall down with them;
And the bullocks together with the bulls:

And their own land shall be drunken with their blood,
And their dust shall be enriched with fat.

These, and other images, Ezekiel has adopted, and has studiously
amplified with singular ingenuity; and by exhausting all the
imagery applicable to the subject, has in a manner made them his

own.

In the first prediction of the slaughter of Magog, the whole chapter consists of a most magnificent amplification of all the circumstances and apparatus of war, so that scarcely any part of the subject is left untouched: he adds afterwards, in a bold and unusual style, Thus, son of man, saith Jehovah, speak unto every feathered Ezek. xxxix. fowl, and to every beast of the field; Assemble yourselves and come, gather yourselves on every side to the banquet which I prepare for you, a great banquet on the mountains of Israel. Ye shall eat flesh, and ye shall drink blood; ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and

17-20.

of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. Ye shall eat fat till ye be satiated, and drink blood till ye be drunken, in the banquet which I have prepared for you. Ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with men of valour, saith the Lord Jehovah.' In this I seem to read a poet who is unwilling to omit any thing of the figurative kind which presents itself to his mind, and would think his poem deficient if he did not adorn it with every probable fiction which could be added; and for this very reason I cannot help placing him rather in the middle than superior class. Observe how the author of the Apocalypse, who is in general an imitator, but endued with a sublime genius, and in whose prose all the splendour of poetry may be discerned, has conRev. xix. 17, ducted these sentiments of Ezekiel: 'I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice unto the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat of the flesh of kings and of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit upon them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

18.

Supposed intercourse

of

and Ezekiel.

"But Ezekiel goes yet further, so delighted is he with this image, so intent is he upon the by-paths of the Muses, that he gives even the trees, taking them for empires, to the birds, and their shades, or ghosts, he consigns to the infernal regions. Thus, chap. xxxi. 13— 15: Upon his trunk shall all the fowls of heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches. To the end that none of all the trees by the waters shall exalt themselves for their height, nor shoot up their top among the thick boughs; neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water; for they are all delivered unto death to the nether parts of the earth in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit,' &c. In this we find novelty and variety, great fertility of genius, but no sublimity. "I had almost forgotten to mention that Ezekiel lived at a period when the Hebrew language was visibly on the decline. And when we compare him with the Latin poets who succeeded the Augustine age, we may find some resemblance in the style, something that indicates the old age of poetry."

Pythagoras is supposed to have acquired his knowledge concerning the Mosaic law from Ezekiel; and some have even believed him to Pythagoras have been the same person with Nazaratus, under whom the Grecian philosopher is reported to have studied. If, as is commonly said, Pythagoras were born nine years after the Babylonish captivity, he might have visited Babylon when very young, and have become acquainted with the prophet in the decline of life: certain it is, that he did travel to Babylon, and, according to some calculations, was the contemporary of our prophet.

Some writers represented Ezekiel as the president of the tribes of Gad and Dan, in Assyria, and as having introduced serpents

among them for their idolatry. Hieronymus reports that he was put to death by his countrymen for his invectives against their vices, which a just estimate of the temper of mankind will render by no means improbable. Epiphanius mentions a popular belief in his day, that Ezekiel's remains were deposited in the same tomb with those of Shem and Arphaxad, in the land of Maur. His sepulchre was reverenced by the Jews, Medes, and Persians. Tudela says,

that a roof was built to it by Jeconiah and thirty thousand Jews, containing the statues of Jeconiah and Ezekiel. A synagogue and library were also formed, in which were preserved the manuscript of Ezekiel's prophecies. A tomb is still shown as the tomb of this prophet, about fifteen leagues from Bagdad.

CHAPTER XV.

A.M. 3547.
B.C. 457.

Ezra

Jerusalem.

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.

FLOURISHED FROM A.M. 3547, B.c. 457; to a.m. 3570, в.c. 434.

THE first of the eminent persons whose names we have placed at the head of this section, was a Jewish priest, and, according to his own testimony, in the seventh chapter of his writings, the son of Seraiah, a high priest who was slain by Nebuchadnezzar, at the reduction of Jerusalem. B.c. 587. The term son may, however, be taken, in the large sense of the Hebrew language, to signify descendant, for, in all probability, he was his grandson or greatgrandson. This is shown by Prideaux, in a chronological argument, to which considerable attention, to say the least, is due. If he were not born in Assyria during the captivity, which is, however, likely, he must have been one of the Babylonish captives. Ezra represents himself as a ready scribe; and as he diligently devoted himself to the study of the laws and judgments of heaven, he obtained a very distinguished respect among the Jews for his learning, pious zeal, and knowledge of the Scriptures.

In the seventh year of the reign of Ahasuerus, or Artaxerxes Longimanus, according to the ordinary computation, about B.c. 457, Ezra was permitted to return with the Jews to Jerusalem, for the purpose of restoring the state and reforming the church. It is scarcely to be questioned that this act of royal favour ought to be attributed to the influence of Esther, the queen, who had been an orphan Jewess under the guardianship of Mordecai, a captive Jew, and who has been justly characterized as "she was one of the very few that resist the allurements of splendour-that cherish kindness for their poorer relatives; and remember with gratitude the guardians of their youth."

It was on the first day of the first month, called Nisan, or about proceeds to the middle of March, that Ezra left Babylon for Jerusalem, and, halting at the Ahava, a river of Assyria, he instituted a solemn fast. On the twelfth day he went forward towards Jerusalem, which they reached on the first day of the fifth month, called Ab, or about the middle of July, having devoted four months to the journey. No sooner were they arrived than our scribe delivered into the temple the presents of the Persian king and his nobles, and those of the people of Israel left behind, amounting to 100 talents of gold, 20

basins of gold, worth 1,000 drachms, and two of copper; and 650 A.M. 35±7. talents of silver, with silver vessels of 100 talents weight. He lost B.C. 457. no time in stating the nature of his commission to the king's lieutenants and governors of Syria and Palestine, and which intimated that he was empowered to settle the church and state of the Jews according to the law of Moses; to appoint magistrates and judges, with full powers of imprisonment and confiscation of goods, and even with banishment and death.

Ezra soon found abundant occasion for the exercise both of his talents and his virtues, which were of no ordinary description. Almost every class of the people had apostatized into idolatrous connections, having taken wives of other nations in direct violation of the law of God. Upon the discovery of this sad defection, he rent his clothes-that is, his inner and outer garments, and pulled off the hair of his head and beard, as the deepest token of mourning; and, after convening the people by public proclamation, he endeavoured to impress them with a just sense of their impiety, and engaged them by oath to repudiate their wives and dismiss their children; thus retracing their false and illegitimate steps. Commissioners were appointed fully to investigate the affair, which was by this means effectually settled.

year

governor

years.

Ezra succeeded Zerubbabel in the government of Judea, and in Civil the administration both of civil and ecclesiastical affairs, and executed there for this commission during thirteen years, when, in the twentieth thirteen of Ahasuerus, he was superseded by Nehemiah, who was appointed for the same purpose by the Persian court. We shall have immediate occasion to notice this eminent individual. Ezra was encouraged to proceed with the reformation of the church and state by the protection and patronage of Esther; and, in the second year of Nehemiah's government, he was employed from morning to evening to read the book of the law, during the feast of tabernacles, of which he is generally reputed to have been the compiler and corrector: but more of this subject presently. The next day he expounded this sacred volume, and continued the practice of reading it in the temple eighty days, which at length was succeeded by a solemn renewal of the covenant. Whether he retired into a private station in his own country or returned to Babylon, is not certain. According to Josephus, he died and was buried at Jerusalem, in the hundred and twentieth year of his age. Other traditions report, and it is the received opinion among the Jews, that he died in Persia, and was buried on the banks of the river Samura; where Benjamin Tudela states, that his tomb is shown in the city of Zamuza.

The book which passes under the name of Ezra was doubtless his The book own composition. In the last four chapters he speaks in the first of Ezra. person: "And hath extended mercy unto me before the king and his counsellors, and before all the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened, as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me;