28 The Rev. J. Hamilton on the Punic Passage in Plautus, 



The similarity of those curses and denunciations to the Punic imprecation, 

 both in the tenor and in the terms of them, is very remarkable. As the cir- 

 cumstances which elicited Hanno's appeal to the gods, bear an obvious analogy 

 to those which elicited that of the bereft Israelites in the Lamentations, so this 

 devoting or giving to the curse is in another place paraphrased by a synonime, 

 which is the very word Hanno uses, viz. ^^r\ and '^Vn, from Alonim, = Elohim, 

 " I will profane, or cast out as profane, '7'7^^«, and give to the curse."* And 

 this is also the very language in which runs the divine denunciation against the 

 Tyrian Andrapodist, as already referred to in Ezekiel, " I will '^"^n thee (cast 

 thee out as profane) from God," (Elohim). And in another verse of the 

 same chapter on the same subject, " They shall profane, and bring thee down 

 into the deep, and thou shalt die the death of a profane personf in the heart 

 of the sea." As the prophetic denunciation runs, " I will ^^r\ thee from 

 Elohim," so Hanno's words, it will be recollected, are, " They shall '^'^n him 

 from the Alonim." Still more striking and curious, and affording strong 

 cumulative confirmation of the t-ith of our reading and interpretation, is the 

 coincidence between the sequel of Hanno's imprecation and that other part of 

 the divine denunciation against the Andrapodist in the same chapter of the 

 prophetic word, " They shall profane '7'7n, and shall bring thee down, or sink 

 thee in the abyss, and thou shalt die the death of a ^^n, or ^e^rjXos, in the 

 midst of the sea." In citing this prophecy against the Tyrians, Bishop Newton 

 remarks, that the prophets Joel and Amos had before denounced the divine 

 judgments against the same people for being accessory to the same crime, that 

 of buying and selling the children of Judah and Jerusalem, like cattle in the 

 Grecian market.]}; So that the words are in the Scriptures directed against a 

 Tyrian by a prophet who of all others is supposed to have been best acquainted 

 with the Tyrian usages and modes of expression ; in the Punic used by a Tyrian, 

 or a Tyrian colonist ; in both cases pointed against the same crime Andrapodism. 



* Isaiah, xliii. 28. 



f This will be found the true rendering of the verse, which compare with that verse : Ezekiel, 

 xxi. 25. bbn nnW, o-u ^ejSijXB, " Thou profane," &,c. 



J See also the paraphrase of Grotius on Ezekiel, xxviii. 15. : " Perfectus fuisti in viis tuis," i. e. 

 " Successerunt— donee coepisti exercere piraticam." — Pol. Synopsis. 



