PROPHECY. Again: "If ye think good, give me my price; and, if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter; a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.”—Chap. xi. 12. FULFILMENT. saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold thy king cometh unto thee, meek and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass."-Matt. xxi. 4, 5. "Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver."-Matt. xxvi. 14, 15. "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's PROPHECY. Again: "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 me 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 firstborn."-Chap. xii. 9, 10. Again: "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd, and the FULFILMENT. field to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me." Matt. xxvii. 3-10. "One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another Scripture saith, They shall look on him, whom they pierced."-John xix. 34 -37. "Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night; for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the PROPHECY. sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones."—Chap. xiii. 7. FULFILMENT. flock shall be scattered abroad.” -Matt. xxvi. 31. Also: "All this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him and fled."-Matt. xxvi. 56. There are several allusions to the Messiah in the visions of this prophet; for instance, the ulterior fulfilment of the second chapter, at the ninth verse, et seqq. cannot be found, unless in the times of Christianity. The tenth and eleventh verses are conclusive; for, first, God says, that HE will dwell in the midst of Zion, in the day, when many nations shall be joined to the Lord, and shall be his people, which clearly implies the incorporation of the Gentiles with the Christian church; but, he who will dwell in the midst of Zion then says, "Thou shalt know, that the Lord of Hosts hath sent me unto thee." Therefore, as the promised dweller is shown to be God, by the accompanying "saith the Lord," and the use of the first personal pronoun in ver. 10, it follows, that here not only the Messiah is intended, but that his co-equality and co-essentiality with the Father are asserted. In the third chapter at the eighth verse, the Messiah is introduced under his ancient prophetic name "the BRANCH," where Kim 6 chi's paraphrastic connection of the verse with the context is deserving of notice. He says, "Although I now bring to you this salvation, I will bring to you a yet greater than this, when I shall bring my servant the BRANCH.' I say My Servant-the BRANCH."" We detect two titles of the Messiah, which were frequently applied to Him by Isaiah the prophet, in "my servant" and "the branch;" and it otherwise appears, that Zechariah had Jeremiah and Ezekiel in his recollection. The Jews assented to the interpretation, which is here given, and the Chaldee paraphrast adds to the verse the words, "who shall be revealed." The vision, in which it occurs, forcibly alludes to the atonement for sins, in the symbolical part, where Joshua the high priest is brought forward. Proceeding to the sixth chapter, at the ninth verse, et seqq. we have reasons for conjecturing the possibility of Zechariah having referred to the identity of name in Joshua and Jesus, since the prophecy concerning Christ stands there, as in the preceding instance, in a very remarkable connection with him. It is well observed, that as THE BRANCH, Christ is not described in his full glory, but springing like a plant upwards, and gradually elevating himself above his lowly condition'. Thus shall he grow up out of 1 Jer. xxxiii. 15. his place, and build the temple of the Lord;-not the external temple made with hands, but that which is spiritual and heavenly; not that, in which the blood of beasts of old sanctified to the purification of the unclean, but that temple of God within us, which is sanctified by the answer of a good conscience unto God. But that temple, in the larger sense, was the kingdom and church of Christ'. To Him the royal and priestly characters are assigned in combination, and He Himself is predicted to bear the glory, and the insignia of Divine dominion; "ita," as Reuss writes, “in solium gloriæ exaltatum iri, ut non modo divinæ illius majestatis et gloriæ particeps sit, sed et actu etiam imperium ipse administret." All of which highly distinguishing characteristics, comprised though they be in a few words, display the full character of Christ as splendidly and as luminously as the severest inquirer into the predictions about the Messiah can possibly desire. The sixth chapter, from the ninth verse to the end, has by all the ancient commentators been applied to the Messiah; and in Bereshith, R. Barachiah is introduced pronouncing these memorable words, "the Goel, whom I will raise up to you, has no 1 Cocceius says, 66 templum autem Dei unum est ecclesia Tv owsoμévwv, inde à promissione in Paradiso promulgata usque ad finem mundi." |