Chapter 68

shall not pass away.--From chap. xxxiii. 24: "They despise my people ([Hebrew: emi]) that they should be still a nation ([Hebrew: gvi]) before them" it appears why it is that [Hebrew: gvi] is here used, and not [Hebrew: eM]. The covenant-people in their despair imagined that their national existence, which, in the Present, was destroyed, was gone for ever. If only their national existence was sure, then also was their existence as a covenant-people. For, just as their national existence had ceased, because they had ceased to be the covenant-people, so they could again obtain a national existence as the covenant-people only.

Ver. 37. "_Thus saith the Lord: If the heavens above be measured, and the foundations of the earth beneath be searched out, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord._"

It is not without meaning that the Prophet so frequently repeats: Thus saith the Lord. This formed the [Greek: A] and [Greek: Ô]; His word was the _sole_ ground of hope for Israel. Apart from it, despair was as reasonable, as now it was unreasonable. The measuring of heaven, and the searching out of the innermost parts of the earth, come here into consideration as things impossible. The words: "All the seed of Israel," take from the hypocrites that consolation which they might be disposed to draw from these promises. It is as much in opposition to the nature of God that He should permit all the seed of Israel, the faithful with the unbelievers, to perish, as that He should save all the seed of Israel, unbelievers as well as believers. The promise, as well as the threatening, always leaves a remnant. All that the covenant grants is, that the whole cannot [Pg 448] perish (the discourse is here, of course, of definite rejection); but it gives no security to the individual sinner. The words: "For all that they have done," are added intentionally, because the greatness of the sins of the people was the _punctum saliens_ in the believers'despair of the mercy of God. _Calvin_ says: "The Prophet here intentionally brings forward the sins of the people, in order that we may know that the grace of God is greater still, and that the multitude of so many wicked men would not be an obstacle to God's granting pardon."

Ver. 38. "_Behold, days, saith the Lord, and the city is built to the Lord from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner._ Ver. 39. _And the measuring line goeth yet farther over against it, over the hill Gareb_ (the leper), _and turneth towards Goah_ (place of execution). Ver. 40. _And the whole valley of the carcasses and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, and from thence unto the horsegate, towards the East,_ (all this is) _holiness unto the Lord. No more shall it be destroyed, nor shall it be laid waste for ever._"

This prophecy embraces two features: _first_, the restoration of the Kingdom of God, represented under the figure of a restoration of Jerusalem, which, under the Old Covenant, was its seat and centre (it is this aspect only which Zechariah, in resuming this prophecy, has brought forward in chap. xiv. 10); and, _secondly_, the glorification of the Kingdom of God, which now is so strengthened and increased, that it can undertake to attack and assail the dark kingdom of evil, and subject it to itself, while formerly it was attacked and assailed by it, and often could not prevent the enemy from penetrating into the innermost heart of its territory. This thought the Prophet graphically clothes in a perceptible form, and in such a manner that he describes how the unholy places, by which Jerusalem, the holy city, was surrounded on all sides, are included in its circumference, and become holiness unto the Lord. In former times, the victory of the world over the Kingdom of God had been embodied in the fact, that the abominations of sin and idolatry had penetrated into the very temple; compare chap.