8. Nothing certainly in the finest writings of antiquity, were all their best thoughts collected as to the majesty and power of God, can bear any comparison with the views thus presented to us by divine revelation. Were we to forget, for a moment, what is the fact, that their noblest notions stand connected with fancies and vain speculations which deprive them of their force, still their thoughts never rise so high; the current is broken, the round of lofty conception is not completed, and, unconnected as their views of divine power were with the eternal destiny of man, and the very reason of creation, we never hear in them, as in the Scriptures, “the THUNDER of his power.” ALMOND TREE, לוז. Arabic, _lauz_. Translated _hazel_, Gen. xxx, 37; שקד, rendered _almond_, Gen. xliii, 11; Exod. xxv, 33, 34; xxxvii, 19, 20; Num. xvii, 8; Eccles. xii, 5; and Jer. i, 11. The first name may be that of the _tree_; the other, that of the _fruit_, or _nut_. A tree resembling the peach tree in its leaves and blossoms, but the fruit is longer and more compressed, the outer green coat is thinner and drier when ripe, and the shell of the stone is not so rugged. This stone, or nut, contains a kernel, which is the only esculent part. The whole arrives at maturity in September, when the outer tough cover splits open and discharges the nut. From the circumstance of its blossoming the earliest of any of the trees, beginning as soon as the rigour of winter is past, and before it is in leaf, it has its Hebrew name _shakad_, which comes from a verb signifying _to make haste_, _to be in a hurry_, or _to awake early_. To the forwardness of the almond tree there seems to be a reference in Jeremiah: “The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it;” or rather, “I am hastening, or watching over my word to fulfil it,” Jer. i, 11, 12. In this manner it is rendered by the Seventy; and by the Vulgate, _Vigilabo ego super verbum meum_. [I will watch over my word.] This is the first vision with which the Prophet was honoured; and his attention is roused by a very significant emblem of that severe correction with which the Most High was hastening to visit his people for their iniquity; and from the species of tree to which the rod belonged, he is warned of its near approach. The idea which the appearance of the almond rod suggested to his mind, is confirmed by the exposition of God himself: “I am watching over, or on account of, my word to fulfil it;” and this double mode of instruction, first by emblem, and then by exposition, was certainly intended to make a deeper impression on the mind both of Jeremiah and of the people to whom he was sent.