From Book: A New Literal Translation From the Original Greek of All the Apostolical Epistles, Essay VIII,
"Concerning The Right Interpretation of the Writings in which the Revelations of God are Contained", p. 702, 1841.

Hence Isaiah, predicting the invasion of Judea by the king of Assyria, hath termed it the stretching out of his wings so as to cover and desolate the whole land. Isa. viii. 8, ' The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, О Immanuel.' By the like metaphor Jeremiah predicted the desolation of Moab, chap, xlviii. 40, ' He shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread his wings over Moab.' In the same highly figurative language, Isaiah denounced destruction to a kingdom which oppressed other countries by the greatness of its power, chap, xviii. 1. ' Wo to the land shadowing with wings.' This use of the symbol shews the four propriety of giving the wings of a fowl to two of the beasts, which in Daniel's vision represented the four great monarchies. By that symbol, the devastation which these monarchies were to bring on other nations, and the speed and force with which they would act, were strongly and beautifully represented to those who understood symbolical picture-writing. — It shews us, likewise, how the power of God in protecting his people came to be termed his feathers and his wings ; and the confidence of his people in his power to protect them, by their trusting in the covert of his wings.

2. A crocodile was one of the symbols by which, in the ancient picture-writing, the kingdom of Egypt was represented ; Divine Leg. b. iv. sect 4. Hence the Egyptians are called, Psal. Ixxiv. 13. Dragons in the waters ; and, ver. 14, their king is called leviathan ; and ' the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers,' Ezek. xxix. 3. So also Isa. xxvii. 1, ' In that day the Lord, with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish leviathan, the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon.'

The king of Ethiopia was termed a fly, and the king of Assyria a bee, probably because in picture-writing they were represented by these symbols: Isa. vii. 18, ' The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria,' that is, the Lord shall call the Ethiopian and Assyrian kings to avenge his quarrel.

3. In the picture-writing, a sword and a bow being symbols of war, the prophets use the names of these warlike instruments to denote great warriors ; and arms in general, to denote a powerful warlike nation, such as the Romans, Dan. xi. 31.; and gigantic stature, for a mighty leader of an army ; and balances, weights, and measures, for a judge or a magistrate. In like manner, because in picture-writing a sceptre denoted the administration of government, the word is used in that signification by Jacob, in his prophecy, Gen. xlix. 10, 'The sceptre shall not depart,' &c. ; and the annihilation of the power of Moab, by the breaking of his sceptre, Jer. xlviii. 17. 'All ye that are about him, bemoan him ; and all ye that know his name say, How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod !'

4. The figure of a star being used in picture-writing as a symbol of the Deity, that word was used by Balaam to denote the Jewish Messiah, of whose divine nature and government he seems to have had some obscure conception.  Numb. xxiv. 17, 'There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel.' Also, a star in picture-writing denoted the image of a god. Thus, Amos v. 26, ' The star of your god, which ye made to yourselves,' means the material image of your God. Lastly, the sun, moon, and stars, were used in picture-writing as symbols of the founders of nations, and of the fathers of tribes, and as the symbols also of mighty kings. Thus the king of Babylon is called, Isa. xiv. 12, 'Lucifer, son of the morning.' Thus also, in ordinary discourse, the sun, moon, and stars, were used to denote patriarchs and princes. Accordingly, when Joseph, Gen. xxxvii. 9, ' said, I have dreamed a dream, and behold the sun. and the moon, end the eleven stars made obeisance to me,' his father, understanding his words in their symbolical and true meaning, 'rebuked him, and said to him, Shall I and thy mother and brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee, to the earth ?' But as the heavenly bodies mentioned by Joseph could not appear, even in a dream, as making obeisance to him, we may believe that he saw in his dream, not the heavenly bodies, but a visionary representation of his parents and brethren making obeisance to him; and that, in relating this to his father, he chose from modesty to express it in symbolical rather than in plain language. Besides, as there never was any collection of stars called the eleven stars [but the total would be 12 counting Joseph himself, ed.], the application which Jacob made of that appellation to Joseph's eleven brethren shews clearly, that the word star, in common speech, was used to signify the father of a tribe.

5. That the use of ensigns, for distinguishing tribes and nations, was very ancient, we learn from Moses's command, Numb. ii. 2, ' Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father's house.' What the ensigns of the Israelitish tribes were, Moses hath not told us. But because our Lord, who sprang from Judah, is called, Rev. v. 5. ' The lion of the tribe of Judah,' it is conjectured, that the tribe of Judah had for its ensign a lion ; that Judah assumed that device because Jacob, in blessing his children before his death, had termed Judah a lion's whelp ; and that the other tribes assumed for their ensigns the pictures of the animals and trees to which Jacob had likened them. But be this as it may, it is probable, that in the ensigns by which tribes and nations anciently distinguished themselves, they painted the figures of such animals, trees, &c. as were emblematical of the qualities, circumstances, and events, by which they thought themselves most honoured. — Hence it was natural in picture-writing, to represent a nation or tribe by the thing which it carried as its ensign ; and in speaking of a nation or tribe, to call it by the name of its ensign. Accordingly, Jeremiah likens Egypt to a very fair heifer, chap. xlvi. 20, either because the Egyptians carried in their ensigns the image of a heifer, which was the symbol of Isis, their tutelary divinity ; or because they were represented in sculpture by that device. And this perhaps is the reason that in Pharaoh's dream Egypt was symbolically represented by kine. — In like manner, because the Roman armies had for their ensign the image of an eagle, they are called, in our Lord's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, eagles, Matt. xxiv. 28, ' Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.' — Since, then, it was customary to call a nation by the name of its ensign, ' the burden of the beasts of the south,' Isa. xxx. 6, means, the prophecy concerning the destruction of the nations of the south, who had beasts for their ensigns. — And since the Assyrians are called by the prophet Isaiah, chap. viii. 7, The waters of the river, it is not improbable that their armies carried in their ensigns a picture of the Euphrates, not only on account of the advantages which their country derived from that river, but because it was a fit emblem of the irresistible force of their armies. Wherefore, the Assyrians being represented in picture-writing by the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris, the great whore, who is said. Rev. xvii. 2, ' to sit upon many waters', signifies an idolatrous power which ruled over many populous nations.

6. The symbols by which nations and cities were anciently represented in picture-writing, were commonly formed on some remarkable quality belonging to them. Thus, because the laws, institutions, and discipline peculiar to a city or nation, were intended to form the manners of their people, it was natural to consider that nation or city as a mother.

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