it, as to strong meat; but here it signifies the whole Word of God, and all its wholesome and saving truths, as the proper nourishment of the children of God. And so the Apostle's words are a standing exhortation for all Christians, of all degrees.

And the whole estate and course of their spiritual life here, is called their infancy, not only as opposed to the corruption and wickedness of the old man, but likewise as signifying the weakness and imperfection of it, at its best in this life, compared with the perfection of the life to come; for the weakest beginnings of grace are by no means so far below the highest degree of it possible in this life, as that highest degree falls short of the state of glory; so that, if one measure of grace be called infancy in respect of another, much more is all grace infancy in respect of glory. And surely as for duration, the time of our present life is far less to eternity than the, time of our natural infancy is to the rest of our life; so that we may be still called but "new or lately born." Our best pace and strongest walking in obedience here, is but as the stepping of children when they begin to go by hold, in comparison of the perfect obedience in glory when we shall "follow the Lamb wheresoever he goeth." (Revelation xiv. 4.) All our knowledge here is but as the ignorance of infants, and all our expressions of God, and of his praises, but as the first stammerings of children, in conparison of the knowledge we shall have of them hereafter when we shall know even as we are known; (1 Corinthians xiii. 12;) and of those praises we shall then offer him, when that new song shall be taught us. LEIGHTON.

HEROD THE KING.

It is in the order of Providence that great social evils should bring their own cures. When the darkness of night is most dark, the dawn of day begins. As disease in the body sends out from itself remedial matter, so social disorder begets the means of social renovation; and as in ordinary life men pass from one extreme to another, so the greatest evils, in their re-action, issue in the greatest good. Thus the tyranny of Pharaoh produces the patriotism of Moses. Thus the profligacy of the papacy is met and counteracted by Luther's holy zeal. And thus Herod and Jesus touch each other in the line of historical causation; and the deepest night of

social degradation, is visited by the bright morning star of sacred love.

In the time of Herod the vital strength of the Hebrew state had become utterly exhausted. For now 600 years, from the time, that is, of the captivity of Babylon, the national character had been suffering marked declension, in purity, simplicity, honour, and strength. During the same long period religion had been hardening into a dogma, and degenerating into a form. More than once, in consequence, had the government of the country changed. The hands that received the reins on the return from Babylon, were too weak to hold them with effect, still less to hold them independently. Self-government was really lost ere the nation was transported to the banks of the Euphrates; and henceforth Judæa, with one brief exception, formed an inconsiderable member of the great monarchies that arose. To Persia allegiance and tribute were first paid. Then Alexander, in conquering Persia, acquired sway in Judæa. On his early death, a dynasty, founded by one of his generals, held Judæa in subjection. His yoke was heavy and galling, and the fiery old Hebrew blood was not extinct. When therefore religious persecution was added to political despotism, the insulted and injured nation arose, and in a fit of lofty patriotism, threw off its bonds, and made its heroic leader king. In little more than a century, the Maccabean race of princes, thus raised to power, declined and disappeared, chiefly owing to dissensions among themselves. In the extirpation of the family, Herod the king had a share. And for the half century immediately preceding the advent, the house of the Maccabees had sunk into a shadow.

The law expressly required that the kings of Judæa should be of Hebrew blood. Herod was a foreigner. He was of a hated race, belonging by birth to that Edom or Idumea, against which prophets had uttered terrible denunciations. His father, Antipater, appointed the representative of Rome at the court of Hyrcanus, the last Maccabean prince, contrived, by unworthy means, to undermine the throne, and to aggrandize himself. Anxious to found a dynasty, he employed his power for the promotion of his son Herod. On his part, Herod put in action every resource likely to advance his own aggrandizement. For a long time his fate hung in doubt. Having, however, succeeded in gaining the favour of Augustus, who had become the master of the world, Herod was made king of Judæa, and was crowned in the Roman

capitol. Still he had to subdue the nation over which he had been appointed to rule by a foreign monarch. The gold which had proeured him a crown, procured him also soldiers. Furnished with pagan troops, he marched against Jerusalem, which, animated by religious patriotism, twice beat back his forces. A third attack was successful, and placed a foreign despot on the throne of David. Herod's power had no root in the heart of the land; neither in the priests, nor the aristocracy, nor the people, had he any natural support. By extraneous means had he gained the crown, and by extraneous means only could he hope to keep it. His great aim, therefore, was to retain the favour of Augustus. Hebrew powers and authorities he was anxious to discourage and destroy. The priesthood, accordingly, he filled with creatures of his own. The old royal line he allied himself with by marriage, or sought to root out with unsparing cruelty. Aware that after all he could not be a king without subjects, he, in his better moods, courted the people and abated their burdens. Probably he would thus have won their favour, had he been of Hebrew blood, or had his general policy been less anti-national. It was with a view to gain popularity that he undertook, and in the main accomplished, the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, the great centre of the Hebrew unity. But the tendency of Herod's reign was in direct opposition to Judaism. A foreigner by birth, he received his sceptre from a foreign power, and governed in such a way as to give prevalence and ascendancy to foreign influences. Pagan manners and customs received encouragement. Theatres and amphitheatres, with corresponding plays and games, were, to the astonishment and offence of old Hebrew worthies, introduced into the land, and allowed to contaminate even Jerusalem. Cities were built in honour of Augustus, or the native names of cities were exchanged for Roman names, in order to flatter the emperor, or gratify some of his dependants. An eagle, the emblem of Roman power, was sculptured and set up on the front of the temple; and when the religious feeling could no longer endure the outrage, some persons who endeavoured to remove the abomination, were partly beheaded, and partly burnt to death. Judaism, indeed, was rapidly becoming paganism. Rome, not Jerusalem, was the capital of the country. Herod was only an instrument in the hands of Augustus. To Cæsar, in every important matter, was an appeal made. Herod could not punish a

servant, or make his will, until he had procured the emperor's permission. Two of his own sons, whom he suspected of treason, he sent to Rome to be tried, and by the favour of Augustus, they were for a time rescued from the bloodthirsty hands of their father.

It was, indeed, in his own family that Herod's base and brutal character was chiefly seen, and there it was that he received the punishment due to his crimes. Like all tyrants, living in perpetual fear of his life, he suspected every one around him of treacherous and deadly designs. Selfish to an almost irresistible extreme, and therefore resolving that if he lost his power, he would leave no aid to a successor, he more than once ordered his wife, Mariamne, of the Maccabean family, to be slain, should he fail in matters which took him to a distance from Jesusalem, and put his power, if not his life, in peril. And when he was haunted by the unfounded suspicions, which arose from his learning on his return that Mariamne had become acquainted with his sanguinary command, he, in his fears and his ambition, found no other resource than to have his innocent wife destroyed. Suspicions and fears, equally exaggerated, and almost equally groundless, drove him to the enormity of slaying three sons. Blood, indeed, was his ordinary instrument. began his reign by slaughtering all the members of the Sanhedrim, because their views were opposite to his own; he cleared the ground for his feet by slaying the Maccabean princes,-Hyrcanus, one of whom, fell under his sword at eighty years of age; and when he felt that his own end was approaching, he gave a secret command that the chief men of the nation should be put to death, in order that there might be mourning in the land at the time of his own decease. That event, with all his power and all his tyranny, he could not retard, much less prevent. He had, indeed, hastened his demise by a life of the most dissolute profligacy, and he died infected with a disorder, the natural consequence of his licentiousness, which was no less disgusting than painful.

He

Alas of what terrible abuse is man's free will capable; and by what terrible penalties does God declare that he will not be mocked. Herod, lying at Jericho, tortured by his conscience, with no friend near, in bodily distress, and in fear of death, worn out by forced and unnatural enjoyment, and eaten by lice,—what a black contrast to the same being who drew life from his mother's breast, and gambolled with children of his own age! Look first at one

massacre, for in so inconsiderable a place as Bethlehem, there could not be more than some few children of two years old and under; and had the crime been on a larger scale, the Jewish historian might still have regarded it as unworthy his pen; or he might have advisedly concealed it in order to spare the character of Herod and the character of the nation; to the credit of both of which we know he was sufficiently alive.

In the historical facts however which have now been set forth is there a strong presumption in favour of Matthew's record. The slaughter of the infants is in keeping with Herod's sanguinary character. As the narrative stands in the New Testament, the ordinary reader is tempted to think such a Ideed too bad to be true. When one knows what Herod was, he feels that such a crime for such a purpose—the life of a few children in order to preserve his throne-would, in the eyes of Herod, be a very small thing. This will appear in a clearer light when we consider the circumstances that attended the death of the last son he murdered. A few days before his demise, Herod, in a frenzy, brought on by bodily and mental suffering, endeavoured to commit suicide; hence, a rumour got abroad that the king was dead. On this Antipater, his son, who lay in prison under sentence of death, offered his keeper a sum of money to allow him to escape. The keeper conveyed the news to Herod, who ordered his son to be forthwith led to

execution. The man, who in his ambition, jealousy, and wrath, spared not his own children, would have no hesitation in slaughtering the infants of the small town that stood a few miles from his capital.

In truth not only is there no presumption against the historical credibility of Matthew's narrative, but the more minutely and accurately we know the age to which it refers, the more numerous and satisfactory are the guarantees that we acquire of its truth. If it were even doubtful when or at what time, the account commands itself to our

acceptance by its general agreement with the

historical features of Herod's character and Herod's times.

Here we see the importance of giving our attention to those questions in which religion and history are intimately blended together. True it is that we may be very good Christians without knowing aught of the ancient world. Christianity stands not in any minute points of general or of Jewish history, but in the grand image of Christ crucified, and

in the realization of his Spirit in our hearts and lives individually. Nevertheless that image will be more definite in our apprehension, and that spirit more powerful over our characters, when we know the perfect trustworthiness of the narratives in which they are recorded; and can call up into vivid pictures the scenes in the midst of which that image and that Spirit dwelt among men. If the sight of his mountains, after a long absence, affects the Swiss wanderer to tears; if the presence of even a trinket that was once worn by a departed parent, brings before our mind's eye the form and presence of that parent, so that we almost hear his voice, and quite realize his presence; if the traveller in the Holy Land is at every step he sets in the vestiges of his Lord's journeyings, moved with unwonted emotion;—now sunk in sorrow, and overcome with awe; now filled with love, now lifted up in adoration ;-—then the more minutely we are acquainted with the historical personages, nay with even the minutest events of the days of "the Son of man," the more vividly will his sublime form rise on our minds, the more impressively will his "gracious words" echo in our hearts, and the more deeply will his whole life and spirit sink and dwell in our souls.

THE TARGUMS.*

1

THE Chaldee word "TARGUM," signifies in general any interpretation or version; but the appellation is more particularly restricted to the versions or paraphrases of the Old Testament, executed in the East-Aramaan or Chaldee dialect, as it is usually called. These targums are termed paraphrases or expositions, because they are rather comments and explanations than literal translations of the text. They are written in that dialect, because it became more familiar to the Jews, after the time of their captivity in Babylon, than the Hebrew itself; so that when the law "read in the synagogue every Sabbathday," in pure biblical Hebrew, an explanation

was

* As most readers have heard of the Targums, and seen references to them and quotations from them, it has been judged, that a plain account of these writings, with specimens, might be acceptably other articles of the same class will occasionally be given in the "Sunday Reading." If well received, given in future Numbers. The present article has been compiled mainly from Bush's "Introduction to Genesis;" the "Cyclopædia of Biblical LiteraBen Uzziel) the "Journal of Sacred Literature,” ture," Art. TARGUMS; and (as regards Jonathan for October, 1850.