your own head; bring swift and sudden destruction upon you. Vet, 5. Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, &c.] ' Which is all the Lord's, Hagg. iS. 8. or which he had bestowed upon his people, and they had taken from them: and have camped into your temples my goodly pleasant things; either the rich furniture of the houses of his people, which they carried into their own houses, or palaces {}, as it may be rendered; having either taken them away themselves, or bought them of Others that had taken them: or else the rich vessels of the temple; as these were carried away by the Chal- deans, and put into their idol-temples, Dan. i. 2, so afterward they were taken by the Romans, and put into the :temples of their gods: whether any of these came into the hands of the Tyrians, &c. by any means, and were put into their idol-temples, as the temple of Hercules, is not certain; however, it is notorious that the Papi. sts, the Tyrians are an emblem of, not only build stately temples, and dedicate them to angels and -saints, but most profusely adorn them with gold and .silver, and all goodly and desirable things; which is putting them to an idolatrous use they were not de- signed for. Ver. 6.- The children also of Judah and the children ~Jerusalem, &c.] Not children in age literally, as imchi, kidnapped or bought by the Tyrians; but the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem: have ye sold unto the Grecians; or sons of Javan; it was one part of the merchandise of Tyre to trade in the persons of men; and Javan, or the Greeks, with others, were their mer- chants for them, Ezek. xxvii. 13. and the souls of men are a part of the trade of the merchants of Rome, typified by the Tyrians, Ray. xviii. 13: that ye might remove them far from their border; from their own land, or place of dwelling, that so they might not be easily redeemed, and return to it any more. Rome, the antichristian Tyre, trading with the souls of men, is to their eternal damnation, as much as in them lies. Cocceius interprets this of the children of the church being trained up in the doctrine of Aristotle, in the times of the schoolmen. Ver. 7. Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, &c.] That is, bring them back to their own land, from their places whither they have been carried captive, and where they have dwelt in obscurity, and as if theft had been buried in graves, but now should be raised up and restored; and this their restoration will be as life from the dead. So the Targum, "behold, I will bring them publicly "from the place whither ye have sold them ;" this is to be understood, not of the same persons, but of their posterity, they being the same natural body. Kimchi interprets it of them and their children; them at the resurrectlon of the dead, their children at the time of salvation. Some think this had its accomplish- ment in Alexander and his successors, by whom the Jews, who had been detained captives in other countries, Were set free; particularly by Demetrius, as Josephus f relates: though it may be applied to the future re- storation of the Jews, out of all countries, unto their own land; or rather to the gathering together the spi- ritual Israel, or people of God, who have been per- secuted from p.lace to' place by their antichristian ene- mies. And will return your recompense upon your own head; do to them as they have done to others; pay them in their own coin; retaliate the wrongs done to his people; see Rev. xiii. 10. and xviii. 6. Ver. 8. And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, &c.] That is, deliver them into their hands, to dispose of them; this is thought to have been literally fulfilled in the Ty- finns, when thirty thousand {g} of them were sold for slaves, upon the taking of their city by Alexander, who put some of them into the hands of the Jews, they being in friendship with him: it mystically designs the power that the Jewish church, converted, and in union with Gentile Christians, will have over the anti- christian states: and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; the inhabitants of Sheba, acountry by the Jews reckoned the uttermost parts of the earth; see Matt. xii. 42. These are not the same with the Sabeans, the inhabitants of Arabia Deserts, that took away Job's oxen and asses; but rather those who were the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, which lay at a greater distance. So $trabo {h} says, the Sabeans inhabited Arabia Felix; and Diodorus Siculus {i} reckons the Sabeans as very populous, and one of the Arabian nations, Who inhabited that Arabia which is called Felix, the metropolis of which is Saba; and he, as well .as Strabo, observes, that this country produces many odoriferous plants, as cassia, cinnamon, frankin- cense, and calamus, or the sweet cane; hence incense is said to come from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country, Jar. vi. 20. and since the Jews traded with these people for those spices, it is easy to con- ceive how they sold their captives to them: now these lived at a great distance, in the extreme parts of Ara- bia, both towards the Indian sea and the Arabian gulf. And Diodorus Siculus {k} observes, that ***, because of the distance of their situation, they never came into the power or under the domi- nion of any, or were never subdued. These seem to be the descendants Of Cush, the son, of Ham; and if they were the descendants of Joktan, the son of Shem, as some think, these are placed by Vitringa {l} in Car- mania; and where Pliny {m} makes mention of a city called Sabe, and of the river Sabis; and it is worthy of notice that the ancient Greek fathers*, with one consent, interpret the Sabeans of the Saracens: and whether they may not design the Turks, in whose possession this country now is, and into whose hands the antichristian powers may be delivered by means of the Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, may be con- sidered. For the Lord hath spoken it; and therefore it shall be accomplished. The Targum is," for by "the word of the Lord it is so decreed ;" whose counsels and decrees can never be frustrated. This, in an ancient book 0f the Jews called Mechilta, is re- ferred to the prophecy of Noah concerning Canaan, {e} \^Mkylkyhl\^ "in palatia vestra", Montanus, Drusius, Burkius. {f} Antiqu. I. 13. c. 5. {g} Arriam de Exped. Alexand. I. 2. c. 24. {h} Geograph. I. 16. p. 536. {i} Bibliothec. 1. 3. p. 179, 180. {k} Ibid. p. 181. {l} Comment. in Jesaiam, c. 43. 3. {m} Nat. Hist. I. 6. c. 23. {n} "In Catena Graec. Patr. apud Spanhem". Hist. Jobi, c. 3. p. 47.