back their origin through a long series of remote ages, the sons of ancient kings seem to have acquired a kind of eternity in empire, and promised to themselves a similar duration in subsequent ages. The extravagant pride and impiety of Pharaoh-Hophra, who affected divine honours, and confided so much in the strength of his kingdom, that according, to an ancient historian, he boasted "that the gods could not dispossess him," brought upon him the vengeance of heaven, of which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was the instrument. The prophet with great dignity, addresses him under the image of one of those crocodiles which inhabited that river of whose riches and revenue he vaunted; and denounces the Divine judgments against him and his nation, subjecting them to the Babylonian yoke till that empire should fall. "Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, who has said, the river is mine, and I have made it. Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of the land: and I will make Egypt waste and desolate, from the tower of Syené even to the border of Ethiopia. Egypt shall become the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, and they shall no more rule over the people. Thus saith the Lord, I will make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. He and his people, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land: and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain. I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt. I will break the arm of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and lo, it shall not be bound up to be healed, to

make it strong to hold the sword. And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them through the countries." Ezek. xxix. 3. 10. 14.

xxx. 13. 21. The prophet next describes to Pharaoh, the fall of the king of Nineveh, under the image of a fair cedar of Lebanon, once flourishing and majestic, but now cut down and withered, with its broken branches strewed around. He then holds up to the king of Egypt the picture of his own fate, and informs him that the catastrophe of the Egyptian monarchs should be like that of the Assyrian. "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches and a shadowing shroud. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high, with the rivers running around his plants. His height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his branches were multiplied because of the abundance of waters. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and beneath his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. The cedars in Eden envied his height, and no tree in the garden of God was equal to him in beauty. But I delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; and strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off: upon the mountains, and in all the valleys, are his branches fallen; his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land, and all the people have gone down from his shadow, and have left him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Hades with them that descend into the pit. To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet thou shalt be brought down to the nether parts of the earth; thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that be slain by the sword.

This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord." Ezekiel xxxi. 3. 18.

As the kingdom of Egypt had made such a distinguished figure in the ancient world, the destruction of it is afterwards predicted in another form; the severity of its fate is described by eclipses of the heavenly bodies, a figure in the prophetic writings to denote revolutions in empires and the fall of kings. The prophet then, by the Divine direction, orders a place in the lower regions of the earth for the king of Egypt and his host; and bids those who buried the slain, drag him and his multitudes to the subterraneous mansions. At the tumult and commotion which this mighty work occasions, the infernal shades are represented as roused from their couches to inquire the cause. They see and hail the king of Egypt, and again lie down to their slumbers. Pharaoh being now introduced into this subterraneous cavern, the prophet leads him all around the sides of the pit; shows him the gloomy mansions of former tyrants; tells their names as he goes along; shows to what all their terror and pomp is come; and concludes with pointing out to Pharaoh the place destined for his lasting habitation. "When I shall extinguish thy lustre, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will hide the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright luminaries of heaven will I obscure over thee, and set darkness upon thy land. Many people shall be amazed at thee, and their kings shall tremble. Son of man, cast down Egypt and her multitudes to the nether parts of the earth. The mighty of past times shall speak to the kings of Egypt out of the midst of Hades. Assur, that is, Assyria, is there, and all her company; their graves are around; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which

causeth terror in the land of the living.

There is Elam,

or Persia, and all her multitude, round about her grave, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth. There is Mesheck, Tubal, or the Scythians, and all her multitude; they have laid their swords under their heads, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. There are the princes of the North, and the Sidonians, who bear their shame with them that go down to the pit. Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his armies that perished in battle. Terror shall seize the land of the living; and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God." Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8. 18. 22. &c.

Some circumstances in this prophecy are so singular and striking, and have been so remarkably verified in the subsequent period of Egyptian history, that it is impossible not to recognize the Divine wisdom by which they were foretold. It is denounced by the prophet, "that the arm of Pharaoh should be broke, and no more hold the sword: that there should be no more a prince of the land of Egypt; and that Egypt should not exalt itself any more above the nations, but become the basest of the kingdoms." At the time when this prediction was uttered, Egypt was flourishing in arts and arms. Opulent at home and mighty abroad, the kingdom enjoyed the height of prosperity, carried on an extensive commerce, and cultivated the arts and sciences. Works of industry and of genius; splendid cities, lakes resembling seas, pyramids, temples, and stately monuments, announced present prosperity, and seemed to promise future dominion. But the time was marked in the Divine decrees, when "Egypt was to become the basest of kingdoms;"

the sceptre of the Pharaohs soon perished in their hands. For these two thousand years past, Egypt has been a tributary kingdom, without a prince of its own, subjected to a foreign yoke, and often governed by slaves. It has submitted to every revolution in empire, and acknowledged the yoke of every conquering nation. After having been invaded by the Chaldeans, it was subdued by the Persians under Cyrus. Alexander the Great added it to his conquests, and the Romans annexed it to their dominions. After forming a province in the empire of Constantinople, it became subject to the Caliphs in the reign of Omar. It was wrested from the Saracens by the Mamalukes, or slave usurpers; and in the fifteenth century was annexed to the Ottoman empire, of which it still forms a province. It is now governed by a Turkish Pacha, whose authority is little more than nominal, and twenty-four Begs or Chiefs, who have usurped the wealth and power of the country. During the five hundred and fifty years in which these Mamlouk chiefs have decided the fate of Egypt, not one of them has left subsisting issue; there does not exist a single family of them in the second generation; all their children perish in the first or second descent; and the race is continued by annual supplies of slaves from Georgia, Mingrelia, and the countries in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus. Volney's Travels, vol i. p. 107. The Egyptians have been so long habituated to the yoke of servitude, that they are possessed with a superstitious belief that it is the decree of fate, that foreign slaves must ever rule in Egypt, and the natives be subject. In such an extraordinary manner has the prediction revealed by HIM who alone foresees futurity, been verified, "That Egypt should become the basest of kingdoms, and not have a prince of her own to sit upon the throne!" Jones. Rutherford. Newton.