SURETY

in common speech, is one who gives security for another; and hence it has become prevalent among theological writers to confound it with the terms substitute and representative, when applied to Christ. In fact, the word “surety” occurs only once in our translation of the Scriptures, namely, Heb. vii, 22: “By so much was Jesus made the surety of a better covenant.” It is certainly true that the Son of God, in all that he has done or is still doing as Mediator, may be justly viewed as the surety of the new and everlasting covenant, and as affording the utmost security to believers that, as the Father hath given all things into his hands, they will be conducted with effect, and all the exceeding great and precious promises of that covenant a uredly be accomplished. But this does not appear to be the precise idea which the Apostle has in view in the above pa age. This has been sufficiently evinced by many critics and commentators, particularly by Pierce, Mac knight, and M’Lean, in their notes on the place. The substance of their remarks is, that the original term employed by the Apostle, and which occurs no where else in Scripture, is ἔγγυος, which is derived from ἐγγὺς, near , and signifies one who draws near , or who brings others near; which sense of the word will not very well accord with that of a substitute or representative. The Greek commentators very properly explain the word by μεσίτης, a mediator . Now, as in this pa age a comparison is stated between Jesus, as a high priest, and the Levitical high priests; and as the latter were considered by the Apostle to be the mediators of the Sinai covenant, because through their mediation the Israeli tes worshipped God with sacrifices; it is evident that the Apostle in this pa age terms Jesus the High Priest or Mediator of the better covenant, because, through his mediation, or in virtue of the sacrifice which he offered of himself to God, believers receive all the ble ings of the new covenant. And as in verse 16 the Apostle had said that “by the introduction of a better hope we draw near to God,” he, in verse 22, very properly calls Jesus ἔγγυος, “he by whom we draw nigh,” thereby denoting the effect of his mediation. From the whole, therefore, it is plain that the word “surety” in this place is equivalent with that of mediator or high priest. SWALLOWS, סיס , a bird too well known to need description. Our translators of the Bible have given this name to two different Hebrew words. The first, דרור , in Psalm lxxxiv, 3, and Prov. xxvi, 2, is probably the bird which Forskal mentions among the migratory birds of Alexandria, by the name of dururi ; and the second, עגור , Isa. xxxviii, 14, and Jer. viii, 7, is the crane; but the word סיס , in the two last places rendered in our version “crane,” is really the swallow. So the Septuagint, Vulgate, and two ancient manuscripts, Theodotion, and Jerom, render it, and Bochart and Lowth follow them. Bochart a igns the note of this bird for the reason of its name, and ingeniously remarks that the Italians about Venice call a swallow zizilla , and its twittering zizillare . The swallow being a plaintive bird, and a bird of pa age, perfectly agrees with the meaning of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The annual migration of the swallow has been familiarly known in every age, and perhaps in every region of the earth. In Psalm lxxxiv, 3, it is said, “The sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts.” By the altars of Jehovah we are to understand the temple. The words probably refer to the custom of several nations of antiquity,--that birds which built their nests on the temples, or within the limits of them, were not suffered to be driven away, much le killed; but found a secure and uninterrupted dwelling. Hence, when Aristodicus disturbed the birds’ nests of the temple of Kumæ, and took the young from them, a voice, according to a tradition preserved by Hero dot us, is said to have spoken these words from the interior of the temple: “Most villainous of men, how darest thou to drive away such as seek refuge in my temple?” The A then i ans were so enraged at Atarbes, who had killed a sparrow which built on the temple of Æsculapius, that they killed him. Among the Arabs, who are more closely related to the Hebrews, birds which build their nests on the temple of Mecca have been inviolable from the earliest times. In the very ancient poem of a Dschorhamidish prince, published by a Schulten, in which he laments that his tribe had been deprived of the protection of the sanctuary of Mecca, it is said, “We lament the house, whose dove Was never suffer’d to be hurt: She remain’d there secure; in it, also, The sparrow built its nest.” In another ancient Arabian poet, Nabega, the Dhobi an it swears “by the sanctuary which affords shelter to the birds which seek it there.” Niebuhr says, “I will observe, that among the Mohammedans, not only is the kab a a refuge for the pigeons, but also on the mosques over the graves of Ali and Ha ein, on the Dsjamea, or chief mosque, at Helle, and in other cities, they are equally undisturbed.” And Thevenot remarks: “Within a mosque at Oudjicum lies interred the son of a king, called Schah-Zadeh-Imam Dgiafer, whom they reckon a saint. The dome is rough cast over; before the mosque there is a court, well planted with many high plane trees, on which we saw a great many storks, that haunt thereabout all the year round.” See Sparrow .