Francis Patrick Kenrick

The remaining captives of those whom the Assyrians had led away. St. Jerome refers the whole to the conversion of the Gentiles, or the temporal events connected with it : " He will raise His hand over the rivers of Egypt in the strength of His spirit, or with a most vehement wind, by which we understand the power of the Romans. For in the reign of Ccesar Augustus, when the flower rose from the root of Jesse, and the first enrolment was made in the Roman empire, the kingdom of the Egyptians, which before had been very powerful, and which had lasted many ages, was destroyed at the death oOCleopatra, and the river of Egypt was divided Into seven rivulets, or valleys. For the Nile, a river of deep water, which flowed in one bed, and which was impassable, was divided and distributed into seven channels, so as to be fordable on foot."