394 APPENDIX. NOTES. 



who shall promise liberty to their followers, while they 

 themselves are the servants of corruption; 1 who shall 

 resemble Corah, and his companions in rebellion Dathan 

 and Abiram, 2 and rise up against their civil and eccle- 

 siastical rulers ; and who shall for a time prevail against 

 them, as seems to be intimated by one of the most ancient 

 prophecies in the Bible. Dan shall be a serpent by the 

 way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so 

 that his rider shall fall backward. 3 So says the venerable 

 patriarch, in his valedictory and prophetic address to his 

 twelve sons before his death. These words seem to foretell 

 that serpents, or apostates, symbolized by the tribe of Dan, 

 would, in the last times, incite the lower orders to rebel 

 against their governors and reject their authority; and when 

 Jacob adds I have waited for thy salvation, O Jehovah, it 

 seems to be further indicated that this event will be followed 

 by the great day of salvation. It was an ancient opinion 

 that Antichrist would be an individual of the tribe of Dan, 

 who, in the last times, to use the words of Irenaeus, would 

 leap like a lion upon the human race; 4 an opinion probably 

 derived from this prophecy, or from that of Moses delivered 

 on a similar occasion, Dan is a lion's whelp : he shall leap 

 from Bashan; 5 and from the exclusion of that tribe from 

 the number of those that were sealed, as recorded in the 

 Apocalypse. 6 St. Paul, in his description of the man of 

 sin, describes him as exalting himself above all that is 

 called God, or that is worshipped or venerated.? This has 

 been interpreted as meaning idols, but in Scripture princes 

 and rulers are called Gods, as when it is said Thou shalt 



1 2 Pet. ii. 9, 19. 2 Numb. xvi. 13, 3135. 



3 Genes, xlix. 17. * Adv. Hares. 1. iii. c. 38. 



5 Deut. xxxiii. 22. 6 ft eve l. X vi. 58. 



7 Gr. fftaffjia. 2 Thess. ii. 4. 



