Part 6

Ezekiel did write much nearer to the time in question, and commentators appear undecided whether some of his predictions refer to the destruction of Old or New Tyre, or to both; for if he uttered this prophecy before the siege of Old Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, which can hardly admit of doubt, when he says, chap. xxvi. 7, “Behold I will bring upon Tyrus, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon;” still the expression of “_the destroyed in the midst of the sea_,” does seem peculiarly applicable to the insular situation of New Tyre. But if it be granted that the siege of this latter, by Alexander, be intimated in that remarkable expression; yet Ezekiel no where, that I can find, specifies _fire_ as the peculiar agent of destruction; therefore, it cannot be inferred from any thing he says, that in Zechariah’s prophecy, which appears to be directed against both Tyre and Sidon, this particular mode of destruction may not apply to Sidon, as the text certainly warrants that interpretation. Thus I see no reason to relinquish Dr. Blayney’s view, which I should give up with the more reluctance, as I have so rarely been able to go along with that learned commentator; while this exposition appeared to me a very happy solution of a difficulty presented by the received translation.

ZECHARIAH ON THE MESSIAH’S KINGDOM. INTERPRETATION: CHAPTER XI.

It was before stated, that we should find in its proper place, due notice taken of the pride and worldly-mindedness which led the Jews to reject the Messiah, as he offered no temporal advantages; and of their forfeiting thereby all claim to the blessings which his kingdom was calculated to afford. We are now come to that place. The introduction to this chapter announces the frustration of their hopes of worldly greatness built upon the promised Messiah; and distinctly states what portion of their nation would be blinded by such motives, and what portion would be exempt from them. The rulers, the rich, and the great are declared to be those who would mislead the flock; while the poor and the humble are stated to be those who would recognise the hand of God in his works, and perceive that this was the word of the Lord.

At the time of Christ’s coming, it is unquestionable, that a very general expectation prevailed among the Jews, that the period for their Messiah’s appearance was arrived; but so remote was the character of Jesus from what they expected in their prince, and so different were the advantages he offered from what they had hoped to obtain, that the majority of the people willingly yielded to the persuasion of their interested rulers, that he was not the promised Messiah; and thus the misguided flock for the most part entered into the views of their priests and rulers, and rejected Christ.

The motives for this rejection are manifest even to this day, in the backwardness of Israel to relinquish the hopes of a temporal Messiah, and in their blindness to the benefits offered them by a spiritual one; although the consequence has hitherto been to them the loss of even the temporal advantages they previously enjoyed, instead of the attainment of others which they expected. Small, however, in the Christian’s estimation, are these, in comparison with their loss, in a spiritual point of view, or their loss of the especial favour of Heaven; which from that time has not only withheld from them any further revelations, but, as we conceive, has even blinded them to the true spiritual import of those previously vouchsafed. Thus, in whatever light we view it, whether spiritually or politically, the humiliation of Israel from that time to the present, has been abundantly manifest; as declared in the prophecy, under the metaphor of the fall of the loftiest trees, the pride of the forest.

_Open thy doors, O Lebanon! that the fire may devour thy cedars. Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen, because the mighty is spoiled. Howl, O ye oaks of Bashan, for the forest of the vintage is come down. There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds, for their glory is spoiled. A voice of the roaring of young lions, for the pride of Jordan is spoiled._

This language is highly figurative, no doubt; yet is it interspersed with expressions, which almost preclude the possibility of its misapplication; for _the cedars of Lebanon_, and _the oaks of Bashan_, are next, by a change of metaphor, called, _the shepherds of the flock_; and soon after, dropping the metaphor entirely, it appears that they are the rich and the great, who sacrifice their flock to avarice and ambition. Their hopes, however, were frustrated, in the appearance of a spiritual, instead of a temporal prince, and an exultation over their disappointed ambition forms the exordium to this chapter, which may be explained as follows:—

Literally, the shepherds are supposed to howl for the loss of their rich pastures on mount Carmel, the forest of the vintage; and the lions to roar for the loss of their covert, the thickets on the banks of Jordan, the pride of the river, which, with other trees, are doomed to destruction; but the figurative meaning is, that the priests and rulers of Israel should be disappointed of their hopes of worldly greatness at the Messiah’s coming, and be deprived, under the new dispensation, of their power and influence.

The lamentation over their frustrated hopes, is next coupled with expressions of compassion for their misguided flock, whom they had doomed to the slaughter; that is, by depriving them of _the life which is in Christ_. This flock, the prophet is commanded to feed.

_Thus saith the Lord my God. Feed the flock of the slaughter, whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty. And they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord for I am rich. And their own shepherds pity them not._

Avarice is thus foreshewn to be the vice which would lead the priests to reject Christ; the sending of whom is next declared to be the last act of Divine interposition in behalf of Israel; those who reject him being thenceforward left to themselves.

_For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord, but, lo! I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour’s hand, and into the hand of his shepherd, and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them._

But while further interposition is thus denied to those who reject Christ, being the rich and the great; spiritual food is expressly promised to those who receive him, who were the poor and the meek.

_But I will feed the flock of the slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock._

The food here promised to those who are willing to receive it, cannot be any other than spiritual food; that is, the knowledge to discern truth from falsehood, and the grace to make a proper election between right and wrong. To the poor, this was given, of whom Christ declared that “_Theirs was the kingdom of Heaven_:” to the rich it was not given, of whom he declared, “_That it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle_,” than for them to enter his kingdom.

We now come to the events to which this introductory matter is intended to lead us; and to render the prophetic annunciation the more impressive, it is typically represented by actions, as well as expressed by words. This is the most important part of the prophecy; that on which it may be said that the whole interpretation hinges. And yet it is here that the Christian is at fault, and that the Jew expects a certain triumph: nor without reason, when our ablest commentators disagree, or even acknowledge the difficulties to be insurmountable. Whether they are removed by the proposed exposition, the reader must decide; and to enable him to do so, we shall state them as briefly as possible.

The events alluded to will, with the Christian, scarcely admit of doubt, for the passage before us is cited in the Gospel of Matthew, though by some error, it is there ascribed to Jeremiah instead of Zechariah. But were the citation in question even supposed to be a marginal note, which had found its way into the text in transcribing, still the purport of the prophecy would be not the less manifest, for the connection of this with the context, and the unity of the whole, sufficiently declare the subject.

The events foreshewn, are the death of Christ; the dissolution of the old, and the founding of the new covenant; the rejection of this latter by the great body of the Jewish nation, and their immediate forfeiture of the benefits it affords; with other circumstances attending these events, such as the betrayal of Christ for thirty pieces of silver; the employment of this money in the purchase of the potter’s field; the separation of the Jews, who rejected Christ, from those who received him; and the evils entailed upon those who, having rejected the true, followed after false Messiahs. These are the circumstances shadowed forth in the prophecy; but to give a consistent explanation of every part of it, and to shew the exact adaptation of the events to the prediction, constitute the difficulty.

The typical actions of the prophet, consist in his taking two staves, or crooks; first affixing to each of them a significant denomination, and then breaking them in succession; accompanying this action with explanations, declaratory of the purport of his doing so. Yet is the whole highly mystical, and in parts so obscure, that Dr. Blayney acknowledges he cannot solve these difficulties; an avowal that would have been rendered unnecessary, had his predecessor Lowth been more successful. Their failure seems chiefly to have arisen from their misconceiving, in the first place, whom the prophet here personates in the character of the shepherd; and, in the next, what the staves are intended to represent; for the general purport of the whole, is rightly understood by both to be an allusion to the death of Christ, and the completion of his mission. Accordingly, Lowth supposes the shepherd to personate the Messiah, as the shepherd of his flock. But the Messiah is throughout the person spoken of, rather than the speaker, as will presently appear. Blayney also considers the prophet as a type of the Messiah; but supposes him sometimes to speak in his own name, as being himself the shepherd. Not to dwell on the want of consistency in this change of character, its avowed inadequacy to furnish the solution required, is alone a sufficient refutation of it.

That the prophet is the actual speaker is clear, but he speaks in the name of the Almighty, as is distinctly declared three times at least in the present chapter. The great Shepherd is then no other than God himself; and all mankind are his flock. Who are the staves, or crooks, we have next to inquire.

The staff, or crook, is the shepherd’s implement, with which he tends his flock, protecting them on the one hand, or correcting them on the other. Hence the two names adapted to the two-fold office, which might be rendered Pleasure and Pain, instead of Beauty and Bands; but there is no occasion to alter the translation, which is equally literal, and equally appropriate as it stands. It is, perhaps, worthy of note, that two staves were once in use for these different purposes. What are these staves then intended to represent? In a word, God being the Shepherd, and all mankind his flock, the staves appear to be typical of _Christ_ and _Israel_; these being the agents employed, the great instruments in the hands of God, in accomplishing the work of man’s redemption, from the darkness of idolatry to the light of true religion. One staff being _Israel_, with whom was founded the Old Covenant, the express object of which was the abolition of idolatry; a covenant which is continually called the “_bondage of the law_;” and the other staff, _Christ_, the founder of the New Covenant, called “_the beauty of holiness_” who declared that his yoke was easy, or pleasant; thus the name will be equally appropriate, whichever translation is adopted.

_And I took unto me two staves, the one I called __ Beauty, and the other I called Bands, and I fed the flock._

The parallelism between these two staves strikingly appears in the circumstance that the most remarkable prophecies, as the liiid. chapter of Isaiah, which the Christian conceives to be exactly fulfilled in the person and character of Christ, the Jew imagines to accord as perfectly with the circumstances and condition of the house of Israel. May we not suppose them to be designedly applicable to both? instrumental alike to the same great purpose, man’s redemption from idolatry.

One of the earliest acts of Christ, who, however, did every thing in the name of the Father, was his exposing the unfitness of the Jewish leaders, who were the priests, the scribes, and the elders, to be the spiritual guides of the flock. Their selfishness and hypocrisy he unsparingly denounced, as rendering them unfit for such an office; of which they were consequently deprived under the new dispensation. Such appears to be the purport of the following verse, as ably expounded by Lowth.

_Three shepherds also I cut off in one month, and my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me._

_One month_, is an indefinite expression for a short time, as if the prophet had said, _at once_. When the people had been duly warned against these treacherous guides; those who chose to disregard that warning, had no reason to complain, if it pleased Heaven to leave them to their fate, as is next declared.

_Then said I, I will not feed you; that that dieth, let it die, and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another._

The prophet next foreshews, by typical actions, accompanied by explanations declaratory of their purport, the death of Christ, and the dissolution of the Old Covenant.

_And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder; that I might break my Covenant, which I made with all the people._

The Covenant with Moses promised protection against all nations, while Israel remained obedient. Israel disobeyed and the Covenant was broken. The Covenant with Abraham promised blessing to all nations through his seed. The Gospel of Christ was that blessing; refused by the Jews, and consequently given to the Gentiles; for a remnant only of Israel received the Gospel, and those were the poor of the flock.

_And it was broken in that day, and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me, knew that it was the word of the Lord._

“The poor had the Gospel preached unto them,” and received it with gratitude; but the ingratitude of their leaders towards the Great Shepherd, for the care he had so long taken of them; and the small estimation in which they held a spiritual Messiah, are aptly foreshewn by the prophet, in the name of the Great Shepherd, claiming his reward at their hands, and their offering the precise sum which was given for Christ, thirty pieces of silver.

_And I said, If ye think good give me my wages, and if not, forbear; so they weighed me for my reward, thirty pieces of silver._

The way in which this money was actually bestowed, is next foreshewn, by the Shepherd’s rejecting it scornfully, and desiring it may be given to the potter.

_And the Lord said unto me, cast it to the potter; a goodly price that I was valued at by them: so I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord._

The price they actually gave for Christ, aptly denotes the value they put upon God’s goodness in sending him, the Great Shepherd’s proffered remuneration. The house of the Lord, or the temple, is the supposed scene of action, shewing the spiritual import of the transaction. The money being given to the potter, foreshews how it would be actually employed, to wit, in the purchase of the potter’s field; in fact, it was given to the potter. If it be asked what the potter had to do in the temple? the answer is, he went there, as others did, to pray. His being there does not, as some suppose, imply that he was at work there.

Those who rejected and crucified Christ, are thenceforward rejected from being God’s chosen people. As Christ was cut off from natural life, so Israel was cut off from _the life in Christ_ as next intimated.

_Then I cut asunder my other staff, even Bands, __ that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel._

The house of Jacob was from this time divided into Christians and Jews, who appear to be distinguished in the prophecy under the types of Judah and Israel; the former denoting those who received, and the latter those who rejected Christ. This distinction appears to be maintained till their promised re-union in the New Jerusalem.

The spiritual evils entailed on those who reject the true Messiah, to follow after false teachers, are next foreshewn.

_And the Lord said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd, for I will raise up a Shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut of, neither shall seek the young, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still, but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their hoofs asunder._

Israel is thus left to the mercy of these false shepherds, while spiritual blindness, infatuation, and utter helplessness, are the awful judgments denounced against the selfish and worldly-minded priesthood, who thus mislead and sacrifice their flock.

_Woe to the idol shepherd, that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye; his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened._

The spiritual blindness which has since darkened the mental vision of Israel, appears to the Christian to be here distinctly foretold.

NOTES TO CHAPTER XI.

Ver. 1. פתח לבנון דלתיך—_Open thy doors, O Lebanon, &c._

That Jewish writers have understood “_the forest_,” as metaphorically representing Jerusalem with her stately buildings, and “_Lebanon_,” as the temple itself, appears from the following note of Mr. Lowth, on this passage.

“By Lebanon, most interpreters understand the temple, whose stately buildings resemble the tall cedars of that forest. Thus the word is commonly understood,” Hab. ii. 17.

There is a remarkable story mentioned in the Jewish writers to this purpose. Some time before the destruction of the temple, the doors of it opened of their own accord; a circumstance mentioned by Josephus, Bell. Jud. 1. 7. c. 12. Then R. Johanan, a disciple of R. Hillel, directing his speech to the temple said, _I know thy destruction is at hand, according to the prophecy of Zechariah_, Open thy doors, O Lebanon, &c.

The passage in Josephus in my edition is, lib. 6, cap. 5, and a very remarkable one it is, containing many other portents preceding the destruction of the temple, besides the spontaneous opening of these massive doors, which were so ponderous as to require twenty men to open and shut them.

Ver. 2. כי ירד יער הבצור—_For the forest of the vintage is come down._

By the forest of the vintage, is understood Mount Carmel, which was partly covered with vineyards and rich pastures, for the loss of which the shepherds are said to howl, in the following verse. The shepherds metaphorically designate the leaders of the people; the different trees of the forest denoting the different classes and orders of men.

Ver. 3. כי שדד גאון הירדן—_For the pride of Jordan is spoiled._

By the pride of Jordan is to be understood, as Dr. Blayney observes, the woods and thickets on the banks of that river. These served as covert for lions, which often infested the country when driven from them by the rising of the river. These trees being along with others doomed to destruction, the lions roar for the loss of their shelter, as the shepherds howl for the loss of their rich pastures. The lions denote metaphorically the great and powerful among the people. Their disposition to prey upon and devour the flock, well accords with the character afterwards given to the shepherds also, and shews the consistency of the metaphorical language.

Ver. 6. כי לא אחמול עוד על ישבי הארץ—_For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, &c._

The distinction between _the sea_ and _the land_, has been already pointed out in the note to ver. 11, of the last chapter, and is here too manifest to admit of doubt. Lebanon, Bashan, Carmel, and Jordan, clearly shew what land is here spoken of, which can be no other than Palestine.

Ver. 10. להפיר את בריתי—_That I might break my covenant, &c._

It might be supposed here that the two staves were typical of the two covenants; the Old and the New. But how is the parallelism then to be supported? If the breaking of one staff denotes the dissolving of the Old Covenant; what then is denoted by the breaking of the other staff? for the New Covenant was not also dissolved. By the proposed solution, the parallelism is maintained; Christ and Israel so exactly accord, that the prophecies seem, in many points, alike applicable to either. Both were instrumental to the great work of redeeming mankind from idolatry, and both were cut of; Christ from natural life; Israel from the life which is _in Christ_. To understand clearly the cutting of the staves, the most intricate subject perhaps in the whole prophecy, the reader has to keep in view two distinct points of consideration, the confounding of which will involve him in no little perplexity; these are, first the symbolical meaning, or the event foreshewn by the act of cutting; and secondly, the end or purport of the cutting; for along with the act, the prophet also declares the motive for the act, which must not be confounded with the act itself, being the effect or consequence that followed that act. Thus he says—_And I took my staff Beauty and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant, which I had made with all the people._

Now the cutting of the first staff, Beauty, signifies or foreshews the death of Christ, or the cutting off of the Messiah. This is the symbolical meaning of the act. But the end or consequence of that act, was the cessation of the covenant of protection to Israel. “The covenant,” as it may be rendered, “concerning all the people.” From that time, the Jews ceased to be under the especial care and protection of Heaven; no more interpositions were manifested in their behalf; no prophet from that time appeared in Israel; these blessings being confined to the Jews who received Christ, or transferred to the Gentiles.

Next follows the cutting asunder of the second staff, Bands; and this in fact appears to be precisely the end or consequence of the cutting of the first staff; for the cutting of this staff symbolically foreshews the rejection of Israel, or the cessation of the Covenant of protection. Such appears to be the event symbolized by cutting the staff, Bands. But the effect or consequence of that event, or of the rejection of Israel, was as declared in the prophecy, a breach in the brotherhood, between Judah and Israel, or between the Jews who received and those who rejected Christ; in short, between Christian and Jew, who are here supposed to be symbolised by Judah and Israel. This division or breach was not the event foreshewn by the cutting of the staff, but the end or consequence of that act; and this distinction requires to be kept clearly in view.

It seems immaterial whether the symbolical meaning of cutting asunder the second staff, Bands, be expressed by the rejection of Israel, the breaking of the covenant of protection, or the abrogation of the law of Moses; for all these events are so closely connected, or so nearly identical, as scarcely to admit of their being disjoined or distinguished.

Ver. 12. הבו שכרי—_Give me my price._