the tent, yet such as they are acquainted with come into it. I was kept in the harem for greater security; the wife being always with me, no stranger ever daring to come into the women's apartment, unless introduced." Vol. ii. p. 5. Nothing can be a better comment on this passage than this story.

No. 81. iv. 21. A nail of the tent.] SHAW, describing the tents of the Bedoween Arabs, (p. 221.) says,. "these tents are kept firm and steady, by bracing or stretching down their eves with cords tied down to hooked wooden pins well pointed, which they drive into the ground with a mallet; one of these pins answering to the nail, as the mallet does to the hammer, which Jael used in fastening to the ground the temples of Sisera.”

No. 82.-v. 6. In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by-ways.] Though there are roads in the eastern countries, it is very easy to turn out of them, and to go to a place by winding about over the lands when that is thought safer. Shaw took notice of this circumstance in Barbary, where he says they found no hedges, or mounds, or inclosures, to retard or molest them. (Travels, pref. p. 14.) To this Deborah doubtless refers, when she says, In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by-ways. The account Pococke gives of the manner in which the Arab, under whose care he had put himself, conducted him to Jerusalem, greatly illustrates this circumstance; he says, "It was by night, and not by the high road, but through the fields; and I observed that he avoided as much as he could going near any village or encampment, and sometimes stood still, as I thought, to hearks

en." Just in that manner people were obliged to tra vel in Judea in the days of Shamgar and Jael.

HARMER, vol. i. p. 452.

No. 83. v. 25. Butter.] D'ARVIEUX informs us (Voy. dans la Pal. p. 200.) that the Arabs make butter by churning in a leathern bottle. Hence Jael is said to have opened a bottle of milk for Sisera, Judges iv. 19. Mr. HARMER (vol. i. p. 281.) supposes that she had just been churning, and pouring out the contents of her bottle into one of the best bowls or dishes she had, presented this butter-milk to him to quench his thirst.

No. 84. vi. 38. And it was so; for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.] It may seem a little improbable to us who inhabit these northern climates, where the dews are inconsiderable, how Gideon's fleece, in one night, should contract such a quantity, that when he came to wring it, a bowl full of water was produced. Irwin, in his voyage up the Red Sea, when on the Arabian shores, says, " difficult as we find it to keep ourselves cool in the day time, it is no easy matter to defend our bodies from the damps of the night, when the wind is loaded with the heaviest dews that ever fell; we lie exposed to the whole weight of the dews, and the cloaks in which we wrap ourselves, are as wet in the morning as if they had been immersed in the sea." p. 87.

"Au

No. 85.-ix. 27. Trod the grapes.] In the east they still tread their after the ancient manner. grapes gust 20, 1765, the vintage (near Smyrna) was now begun, the juice (of the grapes) was expressed for wine; a man, with his feet and legs bare, was treading the fruit

in a kind of cistern, with a hole or vent near the bottom, and a vessel beneath to receive the liquor."

CHANDLER'S Travels in Greece, p. 2.

• No. 86. xvi. 27. There were upon the roof about three thousand men and women.] "The Eastern method of building may assist us in accounting for the particular structure of the temple or house of Dagon (Judges 16,) and the great number of people that were buried in the ruins of it, by pulling down the two principal pillars. We read (v. 27,) that about three thousand persons were upon the roof to behold while SamSON made sport. Samson must therefore have been in a court or area below them, and consequently the temple will be of the same kind with the ancient repén, or sacrèd inclosures, surrounded only in part or altogether with some plain or cloistered buildings. Several palaces and dau-wânas, as they call the courts of justice in these countries, are built in this fashion; where upon their festivals and rejoicing's a great quantity of sand is strewed upon the area for the wrestlers to fall upon, whilst the roof of the cloisters round about is crowded with spectators of their strength and agility. I have often seen several hundreds of people diverted in this manner upon the roof of the dey's palace at Algiers; which, like many more of the same quality and denomination, hath an advanced cloister over against the gate of the palace, Esther v. 1, made in the fashion of a large pent-house, supported only by one or two contiguous pillars in the front, or else in the centre. In such open structures as these, in the midst of their guards and counsellors, are the bashas, kadees, and other great officers, assembled to distribute justice and transact the public affairs of their provinces. Here likewise they have their public entertainments, as the lords and others of the Philis

.

tines had in the house of Dagon. Upon a supposition therefore that in the house of Dagon there was a cloistered structure of this kind, the pulling down of the front or centre pillars only, which supported it, would be attended with the like catastrophe that happened to the Philistines." SHAW's Travels, p. 283.

No. 87.-xxi. 18. Cursed be he.] The ancient manner of adjuring subjects or inferiors to any conditions, was by their superiors denouncing a curse on them, in case they violated those conditions. To this manner of swearing our blessed Lord himself submitted, Matt. xxvi. 63. It may be further remarked, that when the curse was expressed in general terms, as cursed be he, i. e. whosoever doth so or so, the superior who pronounced it was as much bound by it as the inferior who heard it; thus there can be no doubt but the curses pronounced, Deut. xxvii. 14. obliged the Levites who pronounced them; and those also, Joshua vi. 26, and 1 Sam. xiv. 24, obliged Joshua and Saul, who pronounced them, as much as the other people. They therefore by pronouncing those curses, sware or took an oath themselves. PARKHURST'S Heb. Lex. p. 20, 3d Ed.

No. 88.-1. SAMUEL iii. 21.

The word of the Lord.

WITHOUT recurring to the learned explanations which have been given of this expression, it may possibly receive an agreeable illustration from the following extracts. "In Abyssinia there is an officer named KAL HATZE, who stands always upon steps at the side of the lattice window, where there is a hole covered in the inside with a curtain of green taffeta; behind this curtain the king sits. (BRUCE's Trav. vol. iv. p. 76.) The king is described in another place as very much concealed from public view. He even "covers his face on audiences, or public occasions, and when in judgment. On cases of treason he sits within his balcony, and speaks through a hole in the side of it, to an officer called KAL HATZE, the voice or word of the king, by whom he sends his questions, or any thing else that occurs, to the judges, who are seated at the council table." (BRUCE's Trav. vol. iii. p. 265.) If such a custom ever obtained among the Jews, the propriety of the expression, the word of the Lord, is obvious, as the idea must have been very familiar to them. This clearly appears to have been the case as to Joseph and his bre thren, Gen. xlii. 23. Joseph spake by an interpreter, not of languages, but of dignity and state. Other instances of the same nature may probably be traced in 2 Kings v. 10; Job xxxiii. 23.

No. 89.-ix. 7. A present.] Presenting gifts is one of the most universal methods of doing persons honour in the east. MAUNDRELL (Journey, p. 26.) says, "Thursday, March 11, this day we all dined at Consul Hastings's house, and after dinner went to wait upon