no longer his;" but says, in a note, "I have endeavoured, so far as I was able, to render perspicuous the Hebrew reading, but, after all, that which is adopted by the Seventy, the Samaritan, and the Syriac, is, perhaps, nearer the truth. They are corrupted, they are not his (they are) sons of error, or blemish'-which is also partly confirmed by Aquila, the Vulgate, and Symmachus." Hence it is evident that Lowth, sanctioned by the versions above named, favours the rendering of father Houbigant, which is decidedly more poetical than his own or Herder's. Although our translators have somewhat perplexed this passage, I think, nevertheless, they have shown that they were not insensible to its poetical beauty; and it strikes me that a narrower scrutiny of their interpretation will show that they have come nearer to the sense than seems to be generally apprehended. I certainly do not consider that the interpretation given by Dr. Adam Clarke as that commonly assumed is a just one; namely, "God's children have their spots, that is, their sins, but sin in them is not like sin in others; in others, sin is exceeding sinful, but God does not see the sins of his children as he sees the sins of his enemies, &c." This is indeed a baneful doctrine, and one that may, in truth, be well characterized as bad. I entirely agree with the excellent commentator just named, that " spots" probably refer to the marks assumed by heathen worshippers, then as now, to designate their castes or sects. The most pious of those heathens were, no doubt, for this is still their character, exceedingly scrupulous in renewing daily their sectarian marks, whenever these were defaced by accident or other causes. In persons so sadly misguided by the errors of a wild and intemperate superstition, this was in truth an act of piety, howmistaken, since they considered it an obligation imposed upon them by their religion. As the Israelites had corrupted themselves by practising the idolatries of those misguided heathens, and by other abominations which had provoked God's displeasure, Moses, alluding to the marks of religious distinction adopted by the gentile nations, says of his own countrymen, Their spot is not the spot of his children; that is, ‘the mark by which their religion is distinguished from that of the idolater is no longer the mark by which those whom he had made his peculiar people may be recognized, because, having embraced the idolatries of the Gentiles, they have virtually assumed their mark or "spot," the notation of a worship which the Lord Jehovah not only does not approve but which had been interdicted by him to the seed of Abraham, under a denunciation of severe penalties.' According to this interpretation, which I believe to be the true one, the word spot is a mere metaphor, referring to a well-known heathen custom already explained, and the line in which it is found simply implies that the religious services of the Israelites, mixed as they frequently are with the impure rites of heathen superstition, are not the characteristics of that pure and holy worship which it is the province of God's children to perform; they, consequently, who have ceased to exhibit the characteristics by which his true worshippers may be distinguished are no longer the objects of his paternity or providential solicitude;-their religious observances are not the religious observances of those who delight to honour him; Their spot is not the spot of his children Viewed in this light, I do not see that the passage varies much in sense from the Septuagint and Samaritan versions, whose interpretations Bishop Lowth approves. All three declare the same thing, the common version only in a somewhat different form, and certainly by much the most poetical. I must confess it appears to me, that a far more serious exception has been taken against the textual rendering of our translators, than is warranted by a fair view of the clause: to a superficial scrutiny, it may appear somewhat embarrassed, but a closer examination enables us to bring out a very intelligible meaning, garbed in the vesture of poetry, and carrying a corresponding impression to the mind of the pious and intellectual inquirer. CHAPTER XII. The prophetic ode continued. DR. HALES considers this poem really to begin here, the exordium continuing to the end of the fifth verse. Bishop Lowth, however, evidently did not think so, since he connects the last member of it with what immediately follows in the sixth, as we shall presently see. The common reading is as follows: Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is he not thy father that hath bought thee? The poet here reproaches the Israelites with their atrocious ingratitude to God, by enumerating the manifold benefits which he had heaped upon them. They had "provoked his wrath and indignation against them" in various ways, and with various degrees of turpitude. They had formed an idol, the golden calf, in the wilderness and worshipped it with profane enthusiasm. They had murmured because there was a deficiency of water, and their Almighty benefactor wrought a miracle to relieve them. They had expressed intemperate dissatisfaction at being fed with manna, and God provided them with "meat from heaven." In the rebellion of Korah, they had provoked him to visit them with the earthquake and the pestilence. They blasphemed that divine guardian who had protected them through so many perils, and were plagued with fiery serpents, which caused a sad mortality among them. Even this dreadful infliction did not utterly subdue their rebellious spirit. They subsequently formed unholy alliances with the women of Midian, who seduced them to idolatry, and all the numerous vices consequent upon such a lax and depraved worship. Here was sufficient cause for the reproof of their lawgiver: Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? At first sight, this latter hemistich appears to be nothing more than an unmeaning pleonasm, "foolish" and "unwise" being, according to their commonly received acceptation, strictly synonymous terms; but in this clause the expressions are contrasted, not assimilated, the one signifying infirmity of heart, the other infirmity of mind in conjunction with it. Moses had just before called the Israelites a "perverse and crooked generation;" he immediately afterwards calls them "foolish and unwise." These two latter terms are in direct parallelism with the two former. The Israelites were " perverse, but not only so, they were "foolish;" that is, imprudently and recklessly wicked, in spite of their better convictions-reduced to the lowest state of moral infirmity, for foolishness, in the |