Note 10 — A Review.

I know some would make this Place of no effect by rendering the Hebrew Particle על juxta, by or near to; so they would read it thus, he had founded the Earth by the Sea-side, and establish’d it by the Floods. What is there wonderful in this, that the Shores should lie by the Sea-side? Where could they lie else? What Reason or Argument is this, why the Earth should be the Lord’s? The Earth is the Lord’s, for he hath founded it near the Seas. Where is the Consequence of this? But if he founded it upon the Seas, which could not be done by any other Hand but his, it shews both the Workman and the Master. And accordingly in that other, Psal. cxxxvi. 6, if you render it, He stretched out the Earth near the Waters, How is that one of God’s great Wonders, as it is there represented to be? Because in some few Places this Particle is rendered otherwise, where the Sense will bear it, must we therefore render it so when we please, and where the Sense will not bear it? This being the most usual Signification of it, and there being no other Word that signifies above more frequently or determinately than this does, why must it signify otherwise in this Place? Men will wriggle any way to get from under the Force of a Text, that does not suit to their own Notions.