5. Founding the earth upon its bases, 6. 7. That it should not be moved for evermore. The deep, as a garment, was its covering;7 At thy rebuke they fled; At the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. 8. They ascended the mountains, they descended the valleys, Unto the place which thou hadst established for them. 9. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over ; That they may not return to cover the earth. 10. He sendeth springs into the valleys; The waters8 run between the hills. 11. They give drink to every beast of the field; The wild asses quench their thirst. 12. By them the fowls of heaven have their habitations: They sing among the branches. 13. 14. 15. 1 He watereth the hills from his chambers ;9 The earth is saturated with the fruit of thy works: Causing the grass to spring up for the cattle, And herb for the service of man; To bring forth food from the earth; And wine which rejoiceth the heart of man: To make the face shine with oil; And bread which sustaineth man's heart. nouns may be really plurals. For seems anciently, to have been added to the singular number, both in regimine, as 5, and with suffixes, as Gen. xxvii. 29. Num. xxiv. 9. Deut. xxiii. 14, or 15, and elsewhere. Another objec tion is drawn from Heb. i. 7.; but Beza argues for the contrary, on the principal See an Anonym. Annot. that it will answer the object of the quotation as well. in Merrick's Translation. 6 Reading for 7 Instead of יסר which the Greek has ὁ θεμελιων, Thou coveredst it, I read. So LXX. to więɩ Borasov autou, and Vulg. amictus ejus; as also the Ethiopic, Three of Dr. כיסיתו Kennicott's codices read 8 The parallelism seems to require us to read waters; which is sanctioned by the L X X. Vulgate, Ethiopic, and Arabic. 10 Reading instead of ", Fir-trees, w, tops or summits, which is the reading of Cod. 37. of Dr. Kennicott. The LXX. has roupa i oinia hyeitai ȧutov, and Vulg. Herodii domus dux est eorum, as also the Æthiopic; having, no doubt read their head or chief. The Arabic reads to the same effect, "The house of the stork is going before them;" of which translations it is difficult to make sense. Five of Dr. Kennicott's codices read .fir-trees ברותים and three ברשים 11 Dy or Rock-goats, a species of wild-goat, so called from the wonderful manner in which they mount to the tops of the highest rocks. Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. x. p. 281.) observes, that the Bouquetin or Rock goat, nearly resembles the Chamois. See Parkhurst in by. The Shephannim appear properly to denote the animal which Dr. Shaw (Travels, p. 348.) calls Daman Israel, or Israel's-Lamb, a harmless creature of the same size and quality as the rabbit; but of a browner colour, smaller eyes, and a more pointed head, like the marmot's. Their feet are perfectly round, and very pulpy and fleshy; and consequently liable to be excoriated Or hurt, and apparently inadequate to dig holes in the rock. Notwithstanding which they build houses in the very hardest rocks, more inaccessible than these of the rabbit. They are gregarious and live in families. It is affirmed of them that they build houses or nests of straw, as Solomon (Prov. xxx. 24, 26.) says of them, in contradistinction to the rabbit, and rat, and those other animals which burrow in the ground. See Bruce's Travels, vol. v. p. 121–144. who has given a print of this animal; and Parkhurst in 13 . The Leviathan appears generally to denote the crocodile. See Job. iii. 8. xl. 20. or xli. 1. Psal. lxxiv. 14. Isa. xxvii. 1. But here it would evidentTM 27. All of them look unto thee, To give their food in its season. 28. Thou givest to them, they gather up; 29. 30. Thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good. Thou takest away their breath, they expire. Thou sendeth forth thy Spirit, they are re-created; 31. The glory of Jehovah shall endure for ever; AMONG the many collateral testimonies to the credibility of the facts recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, those which are furnished by the remains of antiquity are not the least important. The various coins, medals, and inscriptions, which have survived the wreck of time, and have been rendered legible by the persevering researches of modern antiquarians and numismatologists, ly appear to denote the whale. See Parkhurst on the word, and Bochart, vol. iii. p. 769, et seq. 14 Hallelujah is made the title of the following Psalm by the Vulgate, Septuagint, Ethiopic, and Arabic; instead of concluding this. have contributed considerably to our stock of knowledge, and are allowed to be among the most important proofs of ancient history. To the friends of revealed religion, it must afford a subject of pleasurable reflection, that in no one instance have the researches of historians, travellers, or antiquarians, contributed, in the remotest degree, to contradict the facts of the Scriptures, or to render dubious, in an honest and upright mind, the accuracy with which the sacred historians detailed the transactions which employed their pens. On the contrary, each successive year, in this age of research, supplies us with materials for the illustration and confirmation of Scripture facts. The narrative of the invasion of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and of the carrying of the ten tribes into captivity, which is found in 2 Kings xvii. 6. and xviii. 10. is confirmed by some ancient sculptures on the mountain of Be-Sitoon, near the borders of the ancient Assyria. To the persevering researches of Sir Robert Ker Porter, we are indebted for the discovery and delineation of these interesting antiquities, which are described in his usual interesting manner. After an account of some ancient Assyrian sculptures which are ascribed to Semiramis, he thus proceeds :-" At a point something higher up than the rough gigantic forms just described, in a very precipitous cleft, there appeared to me a still more interesting piece of sculpture, though probably not of such deep antiquity. Even at so vast a height, the first glance shewed it to have been a work of some age accomplished in the art: for all here was executed with the care and fine expression of the very best at Persepolis. I could not resist the impulse to examine it nearer than from the distance of the ground, and would have been glad of Queen Semiramis' stage of hacks and fardles. To approach it at all was a business of difficulty and danger; however, after much scrambling and climbing, I at last got pretty far up the rock, and finding a ledge, placed myself on it as firmly as I could; but still I was farther from the object of all this peril than I had hoped; yet my eyes being tolerably long-sighted, and my glass more so, I managed to copy the sculpture with considerable exactness. "It contains fourteen figures, one of which is in the air. The first figure (to our left in facing the sculpture), carries à spear, and is in the full Median habit, like the leaders of the guards at Persepolis, his hair is in a similar fashion, and bound with a fillet. The second figure holds a bent bow in his left hand; he is in much the same dress, with the addition of a quiver slung at his back by a belt that crosses his right shoulder, and his wrists are adorned with bracelets. The third person is of a stature much larger than any other in the group, a usual distinction of royalty in oriental description; and, from the air and attitude of the figure, I have no doubt he is meant to designate the king. The costume, excepting the beard not being quite so long, is precisely that of the regal dignity, exhibited in the bas-reliefs of Nakshi-Roustam and Persepolis: a mixture of the pontiffking and the other sovereign personages. The robe being the ample vesture of the one, and the diadem the simple band of the other: a style of crown, which appears to have been the most ancient badge of supremacy on either king or pontiff. But as persons of inferior rank also wore fillets, it seems the distinction between theirs and their sovereigns, consisted in the material or colours. For instance, the band or cydaris, which formed the essential part in the old Persian diadem, was composed of a twined substance of purple and white; and any person below the royal dignity presuming to wear those colours unsanctioned by the king, was guilty of a transgression of the law, deemed high treason. The fillets of the priesthood were probably white or silver and the circlets of kings, in general, simple gold. Bracelets are on the wrists of this personage, and he holds up his hand in a commanding or admonitory manner, the two forefingers being extended, and the two others doubled down in the palm: an action also common on the tombs at Persepolis, and on other monuments just cited; his left-hand grasps a bow of a different shape from that held by his officer, but exactly like the one on which the king leans in the bas-relief on the tomb at Nakshi-Roustam. This bow, together with the left foot of the personage I am describing, rests on the body of a prostrate man, who lies on his back with outstretched arms, in the act of supplicating for mercy. This unhappy personage, and also the first in the string of nine which advance towards the king, are very |