phorical stones of fire the stars, above which he had as it were placed his throne, so great was his pomp and magnificence. Such seems to me the most natural explanation of the term covering in this description. Why the king of Tyrus is denominated a cherub, and why called the anointed cherub, are not matters that come under this Observation. All that I would remark farther is, that it seems there was a different reading in the Hebrew copy, or copies, that St. Jerom made use of, from what we now find in those of the modern Jews, for he translates that word which we render anointed, ("Thou art the anointed cherub,") by the term extentus, which significs extended, or drawn out in length, and so both epithets may be considered as forming one idea -O thou extended and covering cherub thou cherub whose royal carpet extends far and near, and most magnificently covers a very large space. Jerom however gives us to understand the Septuagint translators read, as our Hebrew copies do now, that which signifies anointed. f It may not be amiss just to hint in a note, that as a cherub is supposed to fly with the rapidity of the wind, according to those words, He rode upon a cherub, and did fly; уса, he did fly upon the wings of the wind; by which it appears, that the wings of a cherub and the wings of the wind are terms of much the same import: for that reason the prince of Tyre, who was a most distinguished maritime power of that time, whose ships flew about the scas on the wings of the wind, and who might at times appear in great pomp, in some ancient bucentaur or royal yatch, flying like a cherub, from whence he might be so named, as other princes were called angels, from the general great splendor of their appearance. Wherever the mistake is supposed to lie, in our modern Hebrew copies or St. Jerom's, the mistake was easily made, cheth being put for he, or the reverse; and every one that knows the shape of the Hebrew letters, knows how nearly they resemble each other: Jerom, it seems, taking the word to be derived from the mashah, he drew out; our copies verb read o mashach, the anointed. OBSERVATION LXXIII. High raised Seats, Places of Honour. THOUGH the sitting on mats and carpets on the ground is now the common usage of the East, with hardly any variation from it; and though it seems to have obtained, on some occasions at least, in the time of our LORD, among the Jews: yet it is certain, seats raised to a considerable height from the ground, even so high as to make a footstool requisite, were in use anciently in places where hardly any such thing is now to be found. The Persian carvings at Persepolis, frequently exhibit a venerable personage sitting in a sort of high-raised chair, with a footstool; but the later sovereigns of that country have sat, with their legs under them, on some carpet or cushion laid on the floor, like their subjects. Sitting low in the like manner is Chardin, tome 3, planche 63, 64, and 66. practised now by all sorts of people, from the highest to the lowest in Egypt; but two very ancient colossal statues there, are placed on cubical stones, in the same attitude that we make use of in sitting; it being, according to Norden's measures, from the sole of the feet to the knees, 15 feet. In like manner, we find the figures on the ancient Syrian coins are represented sitting on seats as we do. From which, this conclusion I think may be fairly drawn, that they sat in these countries, formerly, not unfrequently as we do, particularly those in high life, though oftener on the ground or floor than among us, even among those low in the world. Accordingly Eli, the judge as well as highpriest of Israel, sat on a throne or high seat, when the fatal news of the defeat of his people was brought to him, upon falling from which he broke his neck, 1 Sam. iv. 18. Nor were such lofty seats appropriate to kings and supreme magistrates; Solomon represents a lewd woman, who sat at her door to inveigle passengers, as seated on such a seat, for it is the same word kissa in the original which is continually translated throne: She sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat (a throne) in the high places of the city, to call passengers who go right on their way. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither, &c. Prov. ix. 14, &c. That custom of sitting at their doors, in the Norden, vol. 2, p. 74. plate 5. i P. 69. most alluring pomp that comes within their reach, is still an Eastern practice. "The whores," says Pitts, speaking of the ladies of pleasure at Grand Cairo, "use to sit at the door, or walk in the streets unveiled. They are commonly very rich in their clothes, some having their shifts and drawers of silk, &c. These courtezans or ladies of pleasure, as well as other women, have broad velvet caps on their heads, beautified with abundance of pearls, and other costly and gaudy ornaments, &c. These madams go along the streets smoking their pipes of four or five feet long; and when they sit at their doors, a man can scarce pass by but they will endeavour to decoy him in." The Jewish police, in the time of Solomon, was not so rigid, as to prevent the appearance of lewd women in public; and when they did do so, it appears that they frequently sat at the doors of their houses, as they do now in that part of the world, to entice the unthinking. At which time they assume all the pomp and splendor in their power; and this sitting on an high seat was used, undoubtedly, with that view, in the time of Solomon. Agreeably to which he represents a lewd woman, in another passage, as talking of decking her bed with coverings of tapestry, with fine linen of Egypt, and of perfuming it with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.' They did not then among the ancients sit universally as the modern inhabitants of the East * Account of the Religion and Manners of the Moham. medaus. p. 99, 100. Prov. vii. 16, 17. now do, on the ground or floor, on some mat or carpet; they sometimes sat on thrones, or seats more or less like our chairs, often raised so high as to require a footstool. But it was considered as a piece of splendor, and offered as a mark of particular respect. It was doubtless for this reason that a seat of this kind was placed, along with some other furniture, in the chamber which the devout Shunamitess prepared for the Prophet Elisha, 2 Kings iv. 10, which our version has very unhappily translated a stool, by which we mean the least honourable kind of seat in an apartment; whereas the original word meant to express her respect for the Prophet by the kind of seat she prepared for him." These high seats were also used, in other parts of the East besides Judea; for St. James, ch. i. 1. writing to the Jews in their dispersions, speaks of them as using seats that required a m The word is * kissd, the same that is commonly translated throne. The candlestick is, in like manner, to be considered as a piece of furniture, suitable to a room that was magnificently fitted up, according to the mode of those times, a light being, kept burning all night long in such apartments. So a lamp was kept burning all night, in the apartment in which Dr. Richard Chandler slept, in the house of a Jew, who was vice-consul for the English nation, at the place where he first landed, when he proposed to visit the curious ruins of Asia Minor. Farther, we are told by de la Roque, in the account given of some French gentlemen's going to Arabia Felix, p. 43, 41, that they found only mats in the house of the captain of the port of Aden, where they were honourably received, which were to serve them for beds, chairs, and tables; so in the evening they brought them tapers without candlesticks, the want of which they were to supply as well as they could, which was but indifferently. |