Chapter 29

in it." The [Hebrew: hamiN] here corresponds with the [Hebrew: Hsh] with [Hebrew: b] there. The difference is, that there Zion itself is the object of confidence, while here it is the stone which is in Zion. _There_, Zion is the _spiritual_ Zion; not the mountain as an assemblage of stones, nor the outward temple as such, but Zion in so far as it is a sanctuary, the seat of the presence of the Lord. The Lord--such is the sense--has founded His Kingdom among us; and the circumstance that we are citizens of the Kingdom gives us security, enables us to be calm even in the midst of the greatest danger. _Here_, on the contrary, Zion is the outward Zion, and the Kingdom of God is the Church as distinguished from it. The Zion here corresponds to the holy mountains in Ps. lxxxvii. 1, where, in a similar manner, a distinction is drawn between the material and spiritual Zion: "His foundation is in the holy mountains," on which I remarked in my Commentary: "The foundation of Zion took place spiritually by its being chosen to be the seat of the sanctuary. It was then only that the place, already existing, received its spiritual foundation." The stone laid by God as a foundation in Zion, in the passage under consideration, is, in substance, identical with the "tent that He placed among men," in Ps. lxxviii. 60. "In substance the sanctuary was erected by God alone, who, by [Pg 156] fulfilling His promise, 'I dwell in the midst of them,'breathed the living soul into the body, and caused His name to dwell there." In Ezek. xi. the substance of the sanctuary, the Shechinah, withdraws into heaven.--Our passage, farther, touches very closely upon chap. viii. 14: "And He (the Lord) becomes a sanctuary and a stone of offence, and a rock of stumbling to both the houses of Israel, and a snare and a trap to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." The stone _here_ is the Church; _there_ it is the Lord himself, according to His relation to Israel, the Lord who has become manifest in His Church. Another point of contact is offered by Ps.