Judah and Ephraim are represented as warlike instruments in the hand of God, the sword, and the bow which he bends, and fills his hand with; similar to the expression in 2 Kings, chap. ix. ver. 24. Verse 14. _And the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as lightning; and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go forth with the whirlwinds of the South._ Verse 15. _The Lord of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue the sling stones; and noisily drink (their blood) as wine; and they shall be filled as a bowl, as the corners of an altar._ The prophet in derision here compares their enemies to sling-stones, contrasted with which in verse 16 that follows, Israel is compared to precious stones; and of whom it was before said that they were the sword in the hand of the Lord, to be filled with the blood of their relentless persecutors. See also Isaiah, chap. xxxiv. ver. 6. Verse 16. _And the Lord their God will save them, his people as a flock, for as the stones of a crown shall they be glittering upon his land._ Verse 17. _For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! The young men he will make as fruitful as corn, and the maids as wine._ Remarks On The Rabbi’s Exposition. Were I candidly to express my sentiments, I might say, perhaps, that the Rabbi’s answer had disappointed me, being neither so full nor so forcible as I expected; but if he, as a Jew, be satisfied, it is not for me as a Christian to complain. There are, moreover, certain points of coincidence in our translation, in which the acquiescence of the Rabbi, as a distinguished Hebrew scholar, is truly gratifying; while there are also some points of disagreement, in which I am inclined to relinquish my own in favour of the Rabbi’s translation. I propose briefly to advert to each; but there is one circumstance that first deserves to be noticed, and which, however singular it may appear, might yet have been expected. It is this, that wherever I have ventured to differ from Christian commentators, there I am also at issue with the Rabbi. Now, having formerly stated that our received translation is chiefly founded on the Masoretic punctuation, which is Jewish, a coincidence was naturally to be looked for between the Jew’s exposition, and that which is in a great measure borrowed from it. And accordingly such is the case, the Jew’s exposition differing from that of our own commentators, principally on those points where the latter discover allusions to Christ. These, the Jew, of course, no where finds.