I 



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lion, all the Avrilten authorities agree ; but Dr. Barrett expresses 

 his doubts whether it would not be better, " Messias regnat," in- 

 stead of " Rex." The original will bear both of these inter- 

 pretations. 



Wagenseil contends that the latter part should be, " homo ex 

 hoinine," &c. ; because that the Vau, which is radical, is omitted 

 in "l^^, lux ; but he argues his point with some weakness. It is ne- 

 cessary for his construction to suppose, not only that the Resh 

 should be read a Daleth, whicii might be granted him, but that a 

 final Mem should have been left out by the error of the maker of 

 the medal.* Now one half of this stretch of supposition would 

 have sufficed to have restored the word "in to its perfection, by sup- 

 posing the 1 (a letter, by the way, more easy to overlook or omit 

 than the final Mem) to have been omitted through mistake. This 

 conjecture would have left him at liberty to agree with all other 

 writers upon the subject, had he desired it. It is further to be ob- 

 served, concerning the construction which I have given in con- 

 formity with the more general opinion, that it is impossible in our 

 medal to read the second letter of this word as a Daleth. 



Another, and the most disputed word, is the penultimate of the 

 inscription : the second letter is indisputably a Shin, the first may 

 be a Pe * or a Hajin, and all the authorities induce us to read it 



• He supposes " excidisse Mem, earn ob causam, quia sequent! veibo idem elementum est 

 " initiale; idque non tam sculptoris, quara ipsius autoris potuit accidisse errore. Nee enim 

 " est alius quern magis frequenter scribentes coramittunt, quam ut litera ante sibi similem, ab 

 " iis negligatur." Tliis, I allow is common in the hurry of writing, but is it at all probable it 

 should happen in the slow process of engraving or tbe striking of a die ? 



* It is to be observed, that the Pe and the Hajin have been written in a manner so similar 

 in some antient MSS. that it is difficult to distinguish tliem from each other. Thus it is in a 



