and this soon induced a disuse of their own among them; by which means it came to pass, that after their return, the common people, especially those of them who had been bred up in that captivity, understood not the Holy Scriptures in the Hebrew language, nor their posterity after them. And therefore when Ezra read the law to the people, (Neh. viii.,) he had several persons standing by him well skilled in both the Chaldee and the Hebrew languages, who interpreted to the people in Chaldee what he first read to them in Hebrew. And afterwards, when the method was established of dividing the law into fifty-four sections, and of reading one of them every week in their synagogues, (as hath been already described,) the same course of reading to the people the Hebrew text first, and then interpreting it to them in Chaldee, was still continued. For when the reader had read one verse in Hebrew, an interpreter standing by did render it in Chaldee; and then the next verse being read in Hebrew, it was in like manner interpreted in the same language as before; and so on from verse to verse, was every verse alternatively read, first in Hebrew and then interpreted in Chaldee, to the end of the section; and this first gave occasion for the making of Chaldee versions for the help of these interpreters. And they thenceforth became necessary not only for their help in the public synagogues, but also for the help of the people at home in their families, that they might there have the Scriptures for their private reading in a language which they understood." After further showing how this practice was perpetuated in the public services of the synagogues, first in respect to the law, and afterwards in respect to the prophetic and other Scriptures; and that as copies of the Scriptures both for public and private use were multiplied, and the number of synagogues increased, the Chaldee version was reduced to writing, and read alternately with the Hebrew, and finally, as he supposes was done in the time of our Saviour, read without and in place of the Hebrew, he proceeds to describe the several Targums which have come down to the present time. Of these, the two which are most esteemed are those of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, and Jonathan on the Prophets, which are supposed to have been copied or essentially derived by them from the earlier and well-accredited versions, and to have been written or edited about the same time, and not long before the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Onkelos, he observes, is rather a version than a paraphrase, for it renders the Hebrew text word for word. But Jonathan, he adds, takes on him the liberty of a paraphrast.