captivity, who are styled rulers of the congregation, and after the return the government was restored to them; so that during the captivity the sceptre was rather interrupted, as to its full extent, than departed from Judah: but an interruption or ceasing for a time is not the thing here spoken of, but a departing, the government wholly cut off and ceased, as it was under Titus the Roman emperor.

It is here to be observed, that before the coming of Christ, the ancient Jews and their interpreters understood this prophecy to be certainly meant of the Messiah, and of none other: but since that time, they have forced themselves to put the most strained and contradictory meanings upon it', to avoid this ancient and clear evidence of our Lord Jesus being the true Messiah or Christ: but the truth of this exposition is confirmed by the last words of the aforementioned prophecy; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be; for this is the same character by which he was declared to Abraham, In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. He was signified also by this character in the prophets, In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek. And, " The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it. In short, this prophecy began to be fulfilled when the Romans had brought the Jews under subjection; and in Christ's time the prophecy was still accomplished more and more, Judæa being reduced into the form of a province, (on the banish

t

P Ezra i. 5. and x. 14. Haggai i. 1. 4 P. Fagius et Grot. in Gen. xlix. 10. Mede, ibid. r Vide Pool's Synopsis in Gen. xlix. 10. s Gen. xxvi. 4. t Isa. xi. 10. u Micah iv. 1.

* See the fourth general Remark on the Prophets. phus, Wars, book ii. chap. 7. at the beginning.

y Jose

ment of Archelaus,) and the Sanhedrim, or great council, having lost their judicial power of life and death; and at last, when Jerusalem was destroyed, the sceptre and lawgiver finally departed from them, then their commonwealth and church were destroyed together; and so this ancient prediction was completely fulfilled.

For the better understanding this history of the Patriarchs, we may observe, that the most constant abode of Abraham in Canaan, and of Isaac afterwards, was near Beersheba, in the utmost corner of Canaan southward, and sometimes they abode near Hebron, a little higher in the country. And as for Jacob, he was sent by his father Isaac into Charan, (called also Haran, or Aram,) in the country of Padan-Aram, in Mesopotamia, whence Abraham came, above four hundred miles distant from Beersheba in Canaan, to fetch him a wife of his own kindred, who lived in that country, that he might not marry any of the idolatrous Canaanites; and after twenty years stay at his father-in-law Laban's house, he returned with his family and numerous cattle into Canaan, where also he sojourned in tents in divers places, as Abraham and Isaac had done before him, until his old age, when he was removed into Egypt.

Thus, though God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's seed, yet, as the Apostle observes, they dwelt therein themselves in tabernacles, as strangers only, by faith relying on it, that God would make good his promise, as he did afterwards; to which purpose he blessed Jacob with twelve sons, whose numerous offspring made up the children of Israel, and possessed the land of Canaan.

z Gen. xxi. 31. xxiv. 62. xxvi. 33. xxxv. 26. b Gen. xxxiii. and xxxv.

a Munster in Gen.

c Heb. xi. 9.

These people were called Hebrews, according to the most received opinion, from Heber, one of the ancestors of Abraham; and Israelites, or the children of Israel, from Jacob, who was also named by God himself Israel, that is, as a prince prevailing with God, from the combat mentioned Gen. xxxii. 28, 29. And after the return from the Babylonian captivity, they were called Jews, and their country Judæa, (as it hath been already remarked,) from Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob; and because the tribe of Judah was the largest, and which returned from the captivity, whereas the ten tribes never did.

e

Gen. xxxvii. &c. we have a relation of this people, especially in these following particulars; namely, the preservation of Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob, from the design of his brethren to destroy him, and his advancement in Egypt; how God brought it to pass, in the time of a famine, that Jacob and his family were succoured by Joseph's means under Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and afterwards concerning their posterity's being oppressed there by another king, called also Pharaoh, (as all the Egyptian kings were then called ;) how miraculously Moses was preserved by the means of Pharaoh's daughter; how God appeared to him, when grown up, by the shechinah, or glory, before mentioned, in the likeness of flame, in a bush in mount Horeb; and appointed him (together with Aaron his brother) the deliverer of the Israelites; how many signs God wrought by him for their deliverance, and what plagues were brought upon the Egyptians, their oppressors; how they were at length (after fourscore and six years' slavery) delivered, and passed over the Red sea;

d

Hottinger. Thesaurus, lib. i. c. i. §. 2. p. 5. • Hor. in Gen. xii. 15. the king of Egypt is called Pharaoh; and chap. xli. 1. he is so called two hundred years after; and Exod. i. 8, 11. about a hundred and forty years after that. fSee Heylin and Dr.

what befel them afterwards in the wilderness; and, at last, how they were brought into the land of Canaan, which God had promised Abraham. This history takes up the rest of Genesis, and most part of Exodus and Joshua.

Here we have many instances of the provocation of sin, of the calamities of God's people in this life, of God's truth in fulfilling his promises, of his wisdom, power, and providence in protecting his servants, and destroying the designs of their enemies, and bringing to pass what he had determined.

In particular, who can read the history of Joseph's preservation and protection in Egypt, in order to the succouring his father and brethren in a time of famine, without adoring the wisdom, goodness, and providence of God? That Joseph should be hated, and sold by his brethren to merchants, who were travelling into Egypt, (as it was and is still the custom in the east to buy and sell slaves :) that these merchants should dispose of him not to a private person, but to a great officer in the king's court there, (which was the occasion of his future authority:) that he should be preferred, and yet after that cast into prison, and so (to all outward appearance) rendered incapable of any future eminency that he should there interpret his fellowprisoners, the chief baker's and butler's dreams, in such manner as it came to pass; upon which he should be recommended to Pharaoh, for interpreting his dream, and by him advanced, and made ruler over all the kingdom, and so enabled to entertain his father and brethren, with their families, and to preserve them from perishing.

Wells's Geogr. of the Old Test. vol. ii. ch. ii. §. 2. It is not called so for any redness of either water or weeds, &c. but because anciently styled the Sea of Edom, (as being partly on the coast of Edom;) the Greeks, knowing that Edom signifies Red, by mistake called it the Erythrean or Red sea. Gen. xxxvii, &c.

:

Concerning Jacob's settlement with his family in the land of Goshen, in Egypt, it is said, that Joseph contrived they should be there apart by themselves, because every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians, and yet Pharaoh had flocks of cattle, and rulers over them; of which this account is given that the great courtiers and generality of the Egyptians lived in towns and cities, and the common people mostly exercised arts and trades; but there was another sort, who lived more remote in open places, and were shepherds, and, for the diversity of their employments, contemned and disrespected by the former sort: besides, that those shepherds had often, in a tumultuous manner, occasioned great commotions in the kingdom, which made their very employment odious to the rest.

In the next place, the providence of God appears in the sufferings of Jacob's posterity afterwards in Egypt: when they had been succoured there an hundred and twenty years, they suffered very sore affliction and slavery, which is computed to have continued fourscore and six years, viz. from the time that there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph', either as being born after Joseph's death, or who willingly slighted the service that Joseph had done for that nation, on a political account; for the reason the Egyptians gave for their severity to the Israelites was, because they multiplied so much as to become more and mightier than the Egyptians themselves". The danger that might arise from thence was designed to be prevented by hard usage, in employing the Israelites in buildings, in making bricks, and in all manner of service in the field; for which purpose they had task-masters,

h Gen. xlvi. 34. i Gen. xlvii. 6. * Cunæus de Rep. Hebr. lib. i. cap. 5. Compare Grotius and Patrick on Gen. xlvi. ult. m Ver. 9. n Josephus (Antiq. book ii. chap. 9.)

I Exod. i. 8.