shall smite the waves of the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up; and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart away. 12. And I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord.

COMMENTARY.

Zechariah opens this prophecy with the same imagery that Ezekiel had used before him. The anger of God is kindled against the shepherds or governors who had so long troubled his people Israel: and he threatens to punish the goats, or those apostate Jews who had joined the party of Antichrist; while he promises in general to visit his flock, and to make them as the goodly horse in the battle. For this purpose he will bring it to pass, that, at the time when the infidel confederacy is overthrown, Judah shall take an active part in the destruction of his enemies. Out of him shall go forth a corner, or a chief commander §; out of him a nail, or the officers next in rank ||; out of him the bow of battle, or the arch

* Ezek. xxxiv.

Compare Zechar. xii. 2-6.

† Compare Ezek. xxxiv. 17.

§ "A community is often expressed by an edifice or building; and the corresponding parts expressed by the same name. Hence, as the largest stones or timbers are used in the angles to bind together and strengthen the sides of the building, which meet therein as in a common centre; so the angle or corner metaphorically denotes the chief personage in a community, on whom its strength and security principally depends. Accordingly we find ma, properly corners, rendered chief in our English version, Judg. xx. 2. 1 Sam. xiv. 38. and in Isaiah xix. 13. they that are the stay; in the margin, governors; and by Bp. Lowth, chief pillars. Therefore by here may be understood the commander in chief?" Dr. Blayney's Zechariah in loc.

" is properly a nail or pin used to fasten the timbers or parts of a building together; and may therefore serve to denote the officers next in command under the chief, by whose means the common soldiers are united, kept steady, and in regular order. Bp. Lowth has two excellent notes on Isaiah xxii. 23, 24. in which are stated the use and importance of nails, spikes, or wooden pins, and their application to denote persons eminent in station and power. Such a nail or pin was Eliakim to be, the support of his family and friends; and such had Shebna been; but he, it is said, ver. 25, was to be removed, cut down, and to fall, so as to involve in his ruin all that depended on him. In one of these notes the Bishop cites Ezra ix. 8, Grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place. That is, says the Bishop, as the margin of our Bible explains it, a constant and sure abode. But might it not rather mean, a person of wisdom and authority to conduct and steady them, and on whom they might lean for support, after that God had brought them once more to his holy place?" Dr. Blayney in loc.

ers*; out of him all that draw near together. And the Lord will give them strength to tread down their foes, and to fight as mighty men even as the riders on horseback.

Nor shall Judah alone be restored: God will save likewise the house of Joseph, though he appears to have long entirely forgotten them. He will hiss for them, and gather them: and, after he hath mightily redeemed them, he will sow them among the people, and they shall remember him in far countries. He will make them as it were the seed of his Millennian church: and cause them to be instrumental in spreading the knowledge of his truth, to the uttermost parts of the earth. He will bring them moreover out of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria. The figurative sea of Egypt shall then be smitten, and the river of Assyria shall be dried up; or, as the prophet himself explains this symbolical imagery, the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart away. Nevertheless, while restoring his ancient people and executing vengeance upon his enemies, God will not forget to be gracious. Though he will smite Egypt, and give it up for a season into the hand of Antichrist; yet he will smite it only to heal it for "they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them." Assyria shall likewise taste his mercy, after he has gathered his long lost sheep of the house of Israel from out of the midst of her. "In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land; whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance §."

*

"The bow of battle can only mean the archers in an army." Dr. Blayney in loc.

"In the house or building these words would denote the stones of common use placed contiguous or in close order one by another. Correspondently in the army must be meant the close embodied phalanx, or main boily of men of war advancing on together in regular order to meet the enemy. Accordingly wa frequently signifies to draw nigh towards an enemy for the purpose of giving him battle, and this both with and without non following it. See Josh. viii. 11.-1 Sam. vii. 10.---xvii. 16, 40.---2 Sam. x. 13.--Jer. xlvi. 3.---Joel iii. 9--14" Dr. Blayney in loc.

+ Compare Hosea ii. 23.

§ Isaiah xix. 22, 24, 25 Compare Isaiah xi. 15, 16. and xxvii. 12, 13.

PROPHECY XI..

The miraculous overthrow of the Antichristian confederacy-The conversion of certain Jews in Jerusalem-The préservation and conversion of the third part of the Antichristian confederacyThe previous sacking of Jerusalem by Antichrist--The manifestation of Messiah to destroy Antichrist-The extermination of false religion-The destruction of Antichrist-The prevalence of true religion--The nature of the plague, with which the faction of Antichrist will be afflicted-The part, which Judah will act-The final conversion and prosperity of Judah.

Zechariah xii. 1*. The burden of the word of the Lord. Concerning Israel saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him; 2. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the peoples round about, even when they shall be against Judah, in the siege against Jerusalem. 3. Even in that day will I make Jerusalem a stone of burden unto all the peoples all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, and all the peoples of the earth shall be gathered together against it. 4. In that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness. 5. And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength in the Lord of hosts their God. 6. In that day will I

.*

Chap. xii. 1.] Mr Lowth supposes, like myself, that this prophecy relates to an invasion of Judea at the period of the yet future restoration of the Jews; but he imagines, what I cannot see the least reason for believing, that the invaders will be the Turks. In fact, the Turks will have been overthrown as a nation previous to the restoration of the Jews. This I have already shewn in my Comment. on Prophecy XXV, and in my Dissert. on the 1260 years, Vol. I. p. 388---393. (2d edit.).

† They shall be.] I take the singular verb ♬ to relate to the peoples considered collectively as one great body. See in the original Isaiah v. 26---30. This translation and the exposition consequent upon it seem to me to accord better with the context of the prophecy, than those proposed by Dr. Blayney.

A stone of burden.] "Jerusalem is here compared to a stone of great weight, which, being too heavy for those who attempt to lift it up or remove it, falls back upon them, and crushes them to pieces." Dr. Blayney in loc.

make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf: and they shall devour all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. 7. The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah* first, that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem†, do not magnify themselves against Judah. 8. In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel Jehovah before them.

9. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon him whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. 11. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of the vintage-shouting of Rimmon‡ in the valley of Megiddon. 12. And the land shall mourn, every family apart: the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; 13. The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; 14. All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. xiii. 1. In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. 2. And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, I will cut

*The tents of Judah.] "The body of the Jewish nation, that encamp in the open country." Mr. Lowth in loc.

†The inhabitants of Jerusalem.] "The people that defend Jerusalem from within." Mr. Lowth in loc.

The vintage-shouting of Rimmon.] The word, or as it is here written , signifies loud shouting, either as of men treading grapes, in which sense it is used in Isaiah xvi. 10, and Jerem. xxv. 30; or as of soldiers encouraging one another to battle, in which sense it is used in Jeremiah li. 14. The second signification is plainly borrowed from the first, the treading of the wine-press being a constant scriptural image of the slaughter of a battle. See Parkhurst's Heb. Lex. Vox 1977.

off the names of the idols* from the earth, and they shall not be mentioned any more; and also the prophets and the unclean spirit will I cause to pass from out of the earth. 3. And it shall come to pass, when any one shall prophesy any more, that his father and his mother, who begat him, shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live, because thou hast spoken falshood in the name of the Lord and his father and his mother, who begat him, shall thrust him through when he prophesieth. 4. And it shall come to pass in that day, the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he prophesied † ; and they shall not wear a garment of hairt in order to deceive. 5. But he shall say, I am not a prophet, I am a man that tilleth the ground; for a man hath had the property of me from my youth. 6. And, when one shall say unto him, What are those wounds || in thy hands? then he shall say, They are what I inflicted in the house of my friends.

*

Idols.] "Ezekiel, confessedly prophesying of the latter times, when Israel and Judah, incorporated again into one nation, shall return into their own land, says, to the same effect as Zechariah, Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with all their transgressions (Ezek. xxxvii. 23.)---We are taught to expect that the conversion of the Jews will be followed by a further reformation of the world (Rom. xi. 15); and that the time will come when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Rev. xi. 15), and the beast and with him the false prophet shall be cast into a lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. xix. 20)." Dr. Blayney in loc.

t of his vision when he prophesied.] "That is, of the extraordinary communication, which he pretended to have received, when he uttered a prophecy which he knew to be false." Dr. Blayney.

A garment of hair.] "See 2 Kings i. 8. Matt. iii. 4. They shall not affect the dress of the old prophets, in order to pass off their impostures." Dr. Blayney.

Hath had the property of me.] "Disclaiming all pretensions to the character of a prophet, he shall profess himself to be no other than a plain ordinary labouring man, employed in husbandry business by those, whose property he had been, quasi adstrictus gleba, from his youth. Mr. Harmer's observations on this passage, which he justly parallels with the declaration of Amos, that he was no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but an herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, go to shew the incompatibility of such active and laborious employments with the retired and sedentary life of those, who were trained up in the schools or colleges of the prophets, in order to qualify themselves for that profession." Dr. Blayney.

Those wounds.] Two ancient usages are clearly alluded to here: "the one, that of the idolatrous priests and prophets, who sought to engage the attention and favour of their deity by cutting and slashing themselves, as the priests of Baal did (1 Kings xviii. 28); the other, that of those who cut themselves as a token of their grief and mourning for their deceased relations and friends. It appears also from Jer. xlviii. 37, that these cuttings were performed on the hands in particular. When therefore the man, now ashamed of his pretensions to prophesy, came to be challenged for those scars that