no sign of life in the water." It is just the same in the antitype of the Dead Sea, the world. All that bears the name of life is really dead, destitute of happiness and salvation. "Living beings," which are anything more than walking corpses, are only to be found there, after the water from the sanctuary has overcome the elements which are destructive of life. The expression "will live" shows that the reference here is to "living beings," not in the lowest sense, but in the fullest sense of the word. The double river means the strong river, just as in Jer. 1. 21 Merathaim "the double fall," and Judg. iii. 8, KushanRishathaim" of the double wickedness," for " of the great wickedness," Kushan alone being the proper name, and Rishathaim a prefix like Evil in Evil-merodach. In a certain sense a double water has already been spoken of, viz., the fountain as it first issued from the sanctuary, and the addition which it afterwards received. It was not till after it had received this increase, that it effected the remarkable change in the Dead Sea, which is here described." And there will be very many fishes." The sea in the Scriptures is the symbol of the world. Accordingly men are represented by the living creatures in the sea, and especially by the fishes; see my commentary on Rev. viii. 9. In the Dead Sea of the world there had hitherto been only dead fishes, which are not reckoned as fishes at all, i.e., only carnal and godless

This verse and the following form the basis of Peter's miraculous draught of fishes before the resurrection (Luke v.), which the Lord explained in the words, " from henceforth thou shalt catch men" (ver. 10). The same may be said of Peter's miraculous draught after the resurrection (John xxi.), and of the parable of the net cast into the sea, in which fish of every kind were caught. And they are healed; viz., the waters spoken of in ver. 8. And everything lives, &c.: "it will not perish like those fishes, which are cast into the Dead Sea" (Grotius).

Ver. 10. "And it comes to pass, fishermen will stand by it from Engedi to Eneglaim, they will spread their nets there; their fish will be of every kind, like the fish of the great sea, very many of them."

The meaning of the fish being once established, there can be no doubt as to that of the fishermen. If the fishes represent men, who are made alive by means of the Messianic salvation,

the fishermen must be the heralds of this salvation, who gather those that are made alive into the kingdom of God, and introduce them to the fellowship of the church. The Saviour alludes to this passage, when he says in Matt. iv. 18, 19, to Peter and Andrew: "I will make you fishers of men ;" and in John xxi. 1-14 the apostles appear as fishermen.-The two places named are probably classed together, because each of them derived its name from a fountain. Engedi was some distance towards the south. As the intention is evidently to include a long strip of coast, the opinion of Jerome is a very plausible one, that Eneglaim was situated at the northern extremity of the sea, near the point at which the Jordan enters it. Neumann is wrong in supposing that the nominative to (they will be) is the fishermen. He explains the clause thus: "they will be a spreading of nets, they will devote themselves entirely to this, will do nothing else and have nothing else to do, than to spread nets." The verb, however, is governed by the places between Engedi and Eneglaim, where hitherto no nets had been spread, and which are regarded as symbols of the abundance of fish. For

66

למינה

in chap. xxvi. 5, 14, is decisive in favour of the meaning, place of spreading," and proves that allusion is made to the practice of spreading out the nets after the fish has been caught, -spreading as distinguished from throwing. points back to Gen. i. 21, (which had already been alluded to in ver. 9, "all the living things, with which it swarmed"): "and God created the great dragons and all the living things, which move, wherewith the waters swarm according to their kinds." In the Dead Sea of the world there comes forth a joyful swarm of those who have been made partakers of life from God, just like the swarms of ordinary fishes, which filled the natural sea at the first creation.

Ver. 11. "Its sloughs and its pools, they are not healed, they are given up to salt."

Here also we find an allusion to the natural constitution of the Dead Sea. The water-mark varies at different seasons of the year. As the water falls, pools and salt-marshes appear here and there, which have no longer any connexion with the lake itself. Robinson observes (Part 2, p. 459), that the Dead Sea must sometimes stand ten or fifteen feet higher than

it did when he saw it (viz., in May), and that when it is full it overflows a salt marsh at its southern extremity of five miles broad. Of the pools left by the Dead Sea, Robinson says (p. 434): "The largest and most important of these is situated to the south of the spot which bears the name of Birket el-Kulil. This is a small bay, a cleft in the western rocks, where the water, when it is high, flows into the shallow basin, and then evaporates, leaving only salt behind." In the Dead Sea of the world the pools and marshes were also originally exactly like the sea itself, the only difference is that they have shut themselves off from the healing waters, which flow from the sanctuary and thus confirm themselves in their original corruption. In substance, the same thought is expressed in the words, "there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked," in which Isaiah declares that the wicked are excluded from participating in the glorious promises, which he has just before described, chap. xlviii. 22, and lvii. 21; compare chap. lxvi. 24, and the threat in Jer. xxx. 23, 24. In Rev. xx. 10, the "lake of fire" corresponds to the sloughs and pools mentioned here. The salt is not introduced in this passage, as it frequently is, as an antiseptic, but as a foe to all fertility, life, and prosperity; thus Pliny says (h. n. L. 31, C. 7): omnis locus, in quo reperitur sal, sterilis est, nihilque gignit, compare Deut. xxix. 21; Jer. xvii. 6; Zeph. ii. 9; Ps. cvii. 34. We must not imagine the water gradually evaporating and leaving salt behind; but the continued power of the salt is contrasted with that deliverance from its corrosive influence, which would have been effected by the waters from the sanctuary, if they had been allowed to reach the pools: the waters remain given up to the salt. We may see how far a false habit of literal interpretation may go astray in dealing with such passages as this, from the remark of Hitzig : The sloughs are of some use therefore; for the new theocracy also stood in need of salt, material salt."

Ver. 12. "And by the river there will grow, on the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, all fruitful trees, their leaves will not wither and their fruits will not rot, every month they ripen, for their water cometh from the sanctuary, and their fruit serves for food and their leaves for medicine."

The fact that the trees produce fresh fruit every month, is an indication of the uninterrupted enjoyment of the blessings of

salvation. On the words "for their water" &c. Hitzig observes: "the reason is evident, namely, because this stream flows directly and immediately from the dwelling place of Him, who is the author of all life and fruitfulness." For the heathen world, so grievously diseased, it was especially necessary that salvation should be manifested in the form of gratia medicinalis. Hence not only are there nutritious fruits but healing leaves. It is very evident that (Sept. vyleta, Rev. xxii. 2, "and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations") is derived from No, to heal; and the certainty of this is increased by the fact that, which is closely allied to

רוף

רפא used in the place of

ריף

is frequently

DANIEL.

It is not a mere accident, that in the Hebrew canon Daniel is not placed among the prophets. He did not fill the office of a prophet among his own people like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, but from his youth upwards till he was very old he held the highest posts in a heathen state.

Daniel passed through several political catastrophes. At the establishment of the Chaldean empire he was torn from his native land. He not only outlived the fall of that empire, but was commissioned to announce it as the herald of God; cf. chap. v. And in the new Medo-Persian empire he witnessed the transfer of the government from the Medes to the Persians.

The peculiar circumstances, in which Daniel was placed, are stamped upon his prophecies. He might be called the politician among the prophets. "All the earlier prophets"-says G. Menken, das Monarchieenbild Ed. 2, Bremen 41-"had foretold the universal prevalence and dominion of the theocracy at the time of the final consummation, but to none of them had it ever been revealed so distinctly as to Daniel, through what long intervening periods the promise would be drawn out, before the time of fulfilment arrived, or how the nation and kingdom of God would come into contact with three successive empires like the ChaldæoBabylonian, before it subdued all the kingdoms of the world and filled the earth as the universal theocracy."

The fulness and distinctness of Daniel's political prophecies, and the extensive periods which they embrace, are in themselves a proof that the course of Old Testament prophecy is drawing to a close. His predictions, like those of Zechariah from another point of view, have all the marks of a conclusion about them.