“This text,” says Dr. Blayney, “has been supposed corrupt, and many attempts made to amend it. But without any alteration, it well expresses the sentiments of the men of Judah, concerning the interest they had in the safety of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, on which their own safety and security depended in a great degree,” &c. I fully agree with Dr. Blayney in the literal meaning of the words, which involves no difficulty; but in looking beyond the literal, to the symbolical and spiritual sense, considerable difficulty appears. A different solution from that I have offered at first occurred to me, which is this, that as _Judah_ means the earliest converts to Christianity, these being evidently contrasted with _the inhabitants of Jerusalem_, who were subsequently saved, the latter might mean the yet unconverted Jews. Upon this view, the anxiety of Christians for the conversion of the Jews, would appear to be the subject intimated in the verse before us; and as this idea may occur to others as it did to myself, I think it right to state my reasons for relinquishing it. One objection to this view is, that in verse 10, the _unconverted Jews_, if they be the inhabitants of Jerusalem, would here mourn the crucified Saviour, which would be a complete solecism. Another objection is, that the abolition of idolatry in the next chapter, instead of being represented as opening the way for the admission of the Pagans to Christianity, which it certainly did, would then be represented as opening the way to the conversion of the Jews, which it certainly did not, but rather had a contrary effect, as history declares. And, lastly, upon this view, the corruption of Christianity, leading to the loss of the spiritual Jerusalem, mentioned at the beginning of chap. xiv., instead of being ascribed to the Gentile church, would thus appear to be the work of the Jews, either of those more recently converted to Christianity, or of those still unconverted, both of which would be alike unreasonable. Such are the reasons which led me to reject that view, and adopt the one proposed in the text. With respect to the house of David, as signifying the Jewish converts who embraced Christianity subsequent to the Apostolic age, those objections do not apply. Verse 10. :והביטו אלי את אשר דקרו _And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced._ Blayney considers the אלי (or ילא), as simply a preposition, not a compound of אל with the affix pronoun י, the antecedent to אשר (or רשא), being understood, and renders the passage thus, _They shall look towards him whom they pierced._ The Jew argues from the change of person, that our version cannot be right, and he renders it, _They shall look to me concerning him whom they pierced._