62 The Rev. J. Hamilton on the Funic Passage in Plautus, 



Now as the Israelites claimed to be under the tutelary guardianship of their 

 Elohim, Jehovah, who dwelleth at Jerusalem, and as Jerusalem was styled the city 

 of the great King, so the Tyrians gave to their tutelary deity the title of Melcarth, 

 as king, patron, and protector of their city. Moreover, with respect to Carthage, 

 the daughter of Tyre, and the mythological notions and phraseology of her peo- 

 ple, they, too, as represented by Virgil as well as Plautus, forcibly remind us of, 

 if they were not borrowed from, those of holy writ. As the tutelary God and 

 King of Israel is said to have loved the gates of Zion* more than all other dwel- 

 lings, so of the tutelary divinity or patroness of Carthage, the queen of the gods, 

 we read that this city was favoured of her so highly, that she gave it the pre- 

 ference above all lands : " terris magis omnibus iinam coluisse" " In Salem 

 his tabernacle," (or moveable shrine), the ark of His strength, from which pro- 

 ceeded the efHuence of his awful power, and effulgence of his visible presence. 

 So of the Heathen divinity, the poet says, " hie arma, hie currus fuit^ " Ta- 

 hernacolo," says the Italian interpreter, Fabrini, in explaining the word currus, 

 " Tabernacolo dove si portano a processione le statue de gli dei." " I have 

 set my king upon my holy hill." — Psalm, ii. " From Zion," says the prophet, 

 " shall go forth the law," or royal edict. — Micah, iv. 2. " Jehovah shall reign 

 in Mount Zion." — Micah, iv. 7- Ea; Hierosolyma gentibus jus dicet, in the 

 Latin translation. So Virgil, "Hoc regnum dea gentibus esse, jam turn tendit 

 quefovetque." " The hills stand about Jerusalem : the Lord round about his 

 people,'* {circumdat), says the Psalmist. So Homer, of the tutelary protection 

 of Apollo : OS xpvarjv aix(f)ifie^T]Kas TeveSoio Se i(l)c avaaa-eis. 



The parallel might be extended, but more to the purpose is it to observe, that 

 as the Latin colunt virtually includes the several meanings expressed by the tute- 

 lary phrases, yb?jeo,yaveo, rego, circumdo, sustineo, tueor, tutor ; so the Hebrew 

 root to which those phrases arc, according to lexicographers and translators, equi- 

 valent, is that which we find in the corresponding position in the Punic, the word 



\\\o\ig\\ future in the Hebrew, agreeably to the Hebrew enallage noticed by Michaelis the elder 

 in his commentary on Psalm cxxvii. 2 : " He giveth his beloved sleep :" the future, in the Hebrew 

 (]n\ dahit and det), implying a wonted act. So, though in the Latin colunt in the present, the 

 Punic word is in the future, p3S2D'', ysnwcun, like David's ''3D!SD% but pluraUzed in the mouth of 

 the Polytheistic worshipper. 



* " Jehovah hath chosen Zion," — Psalm, cxxxii. " Dis quibus septem placuere coUes." — HoR. 

 Carmen Seculare. 



