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I will desolate the hills and the mountains,
And I will dry up all their herbage :

I will turn the rivers into arid tracks,
And I will dry up the lakes.

And I will lead the blind by a way they know not,
By paths they know not will I conduct them.

I will turn darkness into light before them,
And the rugged places into a smooth plain.

These things will I do for them,
And I will not forsake them."

The 30th and 31st of Jeremiah present us with the same scene of a people gathered and led back to the Holy Land, under the guidance of the God of Israel: they are, at first, contemplated as chastened with great troubles and afflictions; but at length brought to the desired country in circumstances of unbounded triumph and felicity.

"

Surely, thus hath Jehovah said :

A voice of trembling have we heard,

There is terror, and no peace.

Ask ye now, and see,

Can a male bring forth?

Wherefore have I seen every man,

His hands upon his loins, as a woman in travail,

And all faces changed to paleness?

Alas! for that day is great,

So that none is like it.

It is even a time of distress unto Jacob,
But he shall be saved out of it.

And it shall be in that day,

Hath Jehovah Sabaoth said:

I will break his yoke from off thy neck,
And his bands will I burst asunder,

And strangers shall no more exact service of him.

But they shall serve Jehovah, their Elohim,

Even David, their king, whom I will raise up for them.

Therefore fear thou not,

O my servant Jacob, saith Jehovah ;

And be not thou dismayed, O Israel;

For behold, I will bring thee safe from afar,

Even thy seed from the land of their captivity :

And Jacob shall be at rest,

He shall also be secure, and none shall make him afraid.

For I will be with thee,

Saith Jehovah, to save thee.

For I will make an end of all the nations,
Whither I have dispersed thee.

But I will not make a full end of thee;
But I will correct thee with measured chastisement,*
And will not make thee altogether desolate."

This is "the people," "the relics of the sword," "which find favour" in the wilderness, xxxi. 2, a passage we have already quoted. Verse the eighth we read:

"Behold, I will bring them from the north country,
And I will gather them from the extremities of the earth.
Among them the blind and the lame,

The woman with child and she that travaileth together,
A great company shall they return."

Their repentance is described, ver, 9, &c. and we discover that this part of the prophecy belongs particularly to "Ephraim, and the children of Israel, * Compare Dr. Blaney's Translation.

his companions." "Extremities of the earth may be equivalent to" the east, as "ends of the earth" appear to be, Isaiah xliii. 6; and this may be that part of the restoration, whom the "tidings out of the north and out of the east" in Daniel concern.

We saw reason to conclude, respecting that first restoration planted in their own country before the attack of the last invader, that their character would be superstitious and pharisaical; so I think, from several scriptures we may infer that portions of those Israelites whom the Lord-coeval with his last chastisement of restored Jerusalem by that invaderleads into the wilderness, the arena of their purification, will be found in an idolatrous state. Moses expressly says, "The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone."* It does not appear that this was ever the case with respect to that remnant which was restored from Babylon, and again dispersed by the arms of Rome, from whom, and from the dispersion in communion with them, we presume the present visible people of the Jews to have been descended. This has led to the inference, that the long-lost ten tribes are particularly in the view of the Prophetic Spirit, that they will be found among nations at this day worshipping idols of wood and stone. It was for idolatry - spiritual whoredom - that the ten tribes were "broken from being a people," by the judgments of God. "Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone." But when they are restored, "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols ?" †

* Deuteronomy xxviii. 64.

↑ Idols "of wood and stone" bespeak no high state of civilization. At what period connexion ceased between the Jews and their brethren of the ten tribes, has not, I believe, been determined; but I have been led to conclude, from Zech. xi. 14, and from the mention of twelve tribes in the New Testament, that the ruption was not complete till after the First Advent.

Led by the Divine Presence, in its cloud of glory, after the rebels have been purged out from among them, they are conducted, as we have seen, at the very period when God is about to judge their adversary: and from some passages of scripture, it should seem that their sword too is employed in some part of the conflict with the invading foe; although the manifestation of the Divine agency is that which brings on the final catastrophe.

The party led through the desert was pointed out to us as "Ephraim, and the children of Israel, his companions," designating the ten tribes. But besides Ephraim, we read of the "tents of Judah," as distinguished from "the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." Perhaps both the travelling companies are brought together, under the conduct of the Divine Shechina, and are on this occasion united together as one people. We read, Hosea i. 11, "And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be gathered together, and shall appoint to themselves one head; and shall come up out of the land" "to Jerusalem." They are evidently

† Hosea xiv. 8.

described as entering their country in a warlike

attitude: (Zech. ix. 13.)

"For I have bent Judah for me,

And have filled my bow with Ephraim.

And I have raised up thy sons, O Zion,

Above thy sons, O Grecia,

And I have made thee as the sword of a warrior."

Does this last refer to the conquests of the Macedonian Alexander, which the world, at the date of the prophecy, was soon to witness, intimating that Israel in martial prowess should exceed even these renowned conquerors of the world? Or, is Greece, as now restored, to fulfil this prophecy in the latter days? Greece is not mentioned in the array of Gog.

To proceed :

"For Jehovah shall be seen over them,
And his arrows shall go forth as lightning.

And Adonai Jehovah shall sound the trumpet,
And shall march in the whirlwinds of the south.

Jehovah Sabaoth shall be a shield over them,

And they shall consume 'with the sword,' and subdue

with sling-stones.

And they shall drink and shout, as from wine,

And they shall be filled, as the bowl and corners of the altar.

And Jehovah, their El, will give them the victory," &c.

Also, in chap. x. after speaking of them as a flock whose "shepherds" and "he-goats" have been visited with punishment, the oracle says:

* Or "though."

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