With the reign of sin, began the reign of mercy. Thus early was it declared that the Messiah should come to destroy the _works_ of the Devil; and thus early was it announced that the Christ should _suffer_ and enter into his glory! All the attempts of the Wicked One for ages have never been able to obliterate this first and glorious prophecy of God from the remembrance of the human mind. Onward it has passed from father to son, and from patriarch to patriarch, gathering fresh vigour and clearness in its descent; brightly did it beam, even in the Antediluvian age, through the righteous preaching of Enoch and of Noah; and having survived the deluge, anew did it shine forth in the Postdiluvian age, in the glorious anticipations of the ancient Idumean prince, and in the Divine revelations vouchsafed to the great Father of the Jewish nation. “I know,” said Job (xix. 25), “that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the _latter day_ upon the earth.” Again, “to Abraham and his seed were the promises made;” for, God said not “_And to seeds_, as of many; but as of one, _And to thy seed_, which is Christ.” See Genesis xiii. 15; xv. 18; xviii. 7; xxii. 18; and Galatians iii. 16. The divine predictions concerning the person and work of the Messiah were more clearly developed in the Patriarchal age. To Isaac and to Jacob, they were at first announced in terms very similar to those in which they were conveyed to Abraham; Genesis xxvi. 3; xxviii. 13; and xxxv. 10. But to Israel, was it given, to declare to the Twelve Patriarchs, while uttering his dying benediction, the celebrated prophecy concerning _Shiloh_, which was fully verified in the Advent of our Saviour, whatever may be deemed the true interpretation of the name; Genesis xlix. 10. Although we cannot agree with Dr. Lamb, in his theory of the existence of a Hieroglyphic language previous to a Phonetic one, we think that he has struck out the real meaning of this term _Shiloh_, when he says, “The word is literally ‏ש‎, ‘who’ or ‘who is’ ‏ילוה‎(Jelovah), the very same word as ‏יהוה‎ ‘Jehovah,’ with the original ‏ל‎ restored. Thus Jacob points out the Messiah by a title which could be applied to no other individual, and declared the Divinity of our Saviour about seventeen hundred [1838] years before his birth. The three words, (omitting ‏יס‎ which implies an attribute of omniscience) ‏אליה‎ Alovah, The Creator, ‏יהוה‎ Jehovah, The God of Israel, ‏ילוה‎ Jelovah, The Promised Messiah, are one and the same. We need no farther comment upon the 58th verse of the 8th chapter of St. John: Ἀμὴν, Ἀμὴν, λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενεσθαι, ἐγώ εἰμι. “Verily, verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was I am.” See his work entitled “Hebrew Characters derived from Hieroglyphics,” p. 86.