tini and Voifin, it is univerfally allowed to be of a very fufpicious nature.

The reading therefore must be either N or

may be confidered either as a כארי The word : כארו

noun,

with the caph of fimilitude prefixed, fignifying like a lion; or as a participle denoting action, the final

being omitted by Apocope. The former opinion must be rejected for the following reafons: 1ft. The conftruction will be thus rendered extremely unnatural, and contrary to the rules of grammar: for it must run thus, with the following ellipfes, "they have furrounded me, like a lion, in my hands and feet;" or "O my hands and feet;" or "as to my hands and feet;" or r even my hands and feet;"

which are all forms of conftruction without example. 2dly. There is no interpretation of the verb

to כארי which is confiftent with the fuppofing יקף

be a noun: for this verb fignifies either to clip off the hair round, or to compass any thing about, to enclose.

The first fignification is manifeftly inapplicable; and to enclose or to compass about is not the action of one lion. But further, to encompafs or to enclose the arms and legs like a lion, is abfurd. Taylor, in his concordance, tranflates, " They have crushed like a lion:" to which Archbishop Secker well objects, that though fignifies to furround, yet it never fignifies to furround fo clofe as to crush. Bate against Kennicott, p. 194. tranflates, They have coiled (or furrounded) me, as a lion,

(tanquam leonem) by the hands and feet," quoting Job. xix. 6. and Pf. xxv. 15. "He fhall bring my feet out of the net." But Archbishop Secker afks

Why are hands mentioned, as well as feet? And both joined with mention of a lion? But, 3dly. In fact there is no verb whatever which in this place could make tolerable fenfe with N confidered as noun, becaufe lions do not particularly attack the hands and feet, but the whole body.

The fignification of N as a noun being excluded, the reading will either be confidered as a participle, by the apocope of mem, or the verb 1: the difference of thefe readings cannot affect the import of the paffage, fince the meaning will be the fame, whether we fay," they encompass me, piercing my hands and feet," or they encompass me, they pierce my hand and feet." Now Archbishop Secker has fhewn, that if N in either of these words be epenthetic, the fecond radical of the verb must be quiescent; and therefore that the verb cannot be fodit, as has been generally supposed, and by the lxx tranflators also, as well as others: but muft neceffarily be the verb 11. But there is no fuch verb in Hebrew or Chaldee; nor does it fignify fodit in the other oriental tongues. The epenthefis therefore of N must be relinquifhed; and Michaelis has fhewn that it is a mere fiction of the Grammarians. The word therefore must come from N, which in Sy

riac fignifies pudefecit; accordingly we find that Aquila renders it noxvvav, they have put to shame; and therefore, as Dathe observes, he must have confidered as radical. Dathe alfo prefers this reading as being the more difficult, according to the rule of the critics, who confider the easier reading as lefs probable: for the not common verb might give occafion, partly to the reading N, the letter vau in 1 being a little effaced, or not sufficiently prolonged; partly to the other reading 172, in which the scribe, conjecturing the reading from the pronunciation, omitted the letter N. But the insertion of the letter & cannot be fo eafily accounted for hence Dathe adopts the interpretation of fædarunt or cruentarunt; so that it appears that all the different interpretations of the verb N are exactly adapted to exprefs the bodily injuries which we know Jeremiah fuffered from his perfecutors.

This interpretation of the word 1 is also more agreeable to the secondary application of this Pfalm to the Crucifixion of Chrift, than the generally received tranflation of wgvžav they pierced; for there are very great authorities for our concluding that the feet of the fufferer were not nailed to the cross, as is generally imagined.

Dathe fays that in crucifixion, the hands only, not the feet were nailed to the crofs: that the feet were only bound to it by ropes. And Le Clerc fays, "Hæc proprio fenfu in Chriftum quadrant, cujus

manus clavis pertufæ funt, et pedes (nam perforatos non omnino conftat) fune, quo arctius adftricti erant cruci, vulnerati, ita ut partim cutis effet detracta." But in Lipfius de Cruce we find, that in fome cafes. both hands and feet were nailed: However it seems highly probable, that Chrift was crucified in the former manner; for in John xx. 25. Thomas speaks only of the holes which had been made in his fide and in his hands. 66 'Except I fhall fee," fays he, "in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his fide, I will not believe." And in compliance with his defire, Christ at verse 27. fays to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithlefs, but believing." On which Mr. Le Clerc remarks, "Chrift does not add into my feet, because the feet were not nailed, but tied to the crofs, contrary to the opinion of modern painters and ftatuaries." And in Luke xxiv. 39, though he fhews his hands and his feet to his difciples, as exhibiting marks of his crucifixion, yet it is not faid, that there were holes in his feet; and they might certainly discover fufficient evidence that his body was that individual body which had been on the crofs, though no perforations had been made in them. "Behold," fays Chrift, "my hands and my feet, handle me, and fee me, for a fpirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye fee me have. And when he

had thus fpoken, he fhewed them his hands and feet.".

In further confirmation of this we may obferve, that though the Evangelifts quote the prophecy of the divifion of his garments, as being fulfilled at the crucifixion: yet they do not quote the prophecy of the piercing of his hands and feet, which was more striking, and to which the lxx version @gužav, which we know they used, must have immediately led them. Indeed in fuch a cafe, when they looked into the 22d Pfalm for a proof of the completion of that prophecy in Chrift's crucifixion, it can scarcely be conceived, how they could have omitted that very remarkable and obtrufive circumftance of the piercing of his hands and feet, had it really happened.

As to what has been faid on the manner of crucifixion, by the generality of writers fince the time of Christ, little regard is to be paid to it, because they appear to have been influenced by this very paffage in question, which described prophetically the Crucifixion of Chrift; and from which the perforation of the feet as well as of the hands арpeared to be a neceffary concomitant, according to the received tranflation of the original. Archbishop Secker, indeed, fays that there is one, and only one evidence before Chrift's time, that the feet as well as the hands were nailed; which is the following paffage of Plautus: