and represents transgressors (ver. 12). The difference between this passage and our own is merely that in the former the means are described by which the High Priest is to effect reconciliation, but not in the latter. And finally, even as early as Ps. cx., the Messiah is represented as a High Priest. Ver. 9. "For behold, the stone, that I have laid before Joshua, upon this one stone are seven eyes, I will hew it out, saith the Lord of Sabaoth, and wipe out the iniquity of this land in one day." כי כי shows that this verse assigns the reason for the statement contained in the clause immediately preceding: "for I bring my servant Zemach;" just as the first in ver. 8 introduces the reason for the command to "hear," and the second the reason for the assertion, "they are types." So far as appearances were concerned, there was nothing that indicated the coming of the Messiah. The deplorable condition of the new colony seemed to preclude the least prospect of the fulfilment of such splendid promises (cf. chap. iv. 10). Hence the Lord, the Almighty (Jehovah Sabaoth) turns the attention away from what is seen, by pointing to his loving care for the good of his kingdom, as the foundation of the promised blessings.-The eyes are the symbol of the powers of God, which are at work both above and within the sphere of creation. In Ezek. i. 18, the felloes of the wheels, which were attached to the cherubs, are described as full of eyes; and according to chap. x. 12, "their whole flesh, and their backs, and their hands and their wings, were full of eyes." In Rev. iv. 8, the four beasts, the representatives of the living creation, which is entirely pervaded with spirits, are said to have been "full of eyes within and round about." According to Rev. v. 6, the lamb had " seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth." And in Zech. iv. 10 the operations of the Spirit of the Lord (compare chap. iv. 6, "by my spirit") are represented under the figure of the seven eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth. It is a matter of comparative indifference, whether the seven eyes, the fulness of the creative power of God, and the whole energy of his Providence, are to be understood as being upon the stone, which the original passages in Ezekiel, and the parallel passage in the Revelations, would lead us to suppose, or as directed towards the stone, which we might infer from chap. iv. 10, where the seven eyes of the Lord are represented as looking upon the plummet, in Zechariah's hand, and where in fact "these seven eyes" are introduced as the same as those already referred to.-The question also arises, what are we to understand by the stone, upon which the seven eyes are described? Early expositors were almost unanimous in referring it to the Messiah. But this cannot be the meaning, as we may see from the expression "which I have laid before Joshua," where the stone is represented as something already in existence, and simply to be ornamented in the future, and also from the words, " I will hew it out." Others speak of the foundation stone of the temple; but we cannot see how this was to be carved. The correct explanation is, that the unhewn stone, which is to be polished and carved by the Lord, is a figurative representation of the nation and kingdom of God, descriptive of its present lowly condition, and the glory, which it is afterwards to receive from the Lord. In this case, the stone is very appropriately described as lying before Joshua, since he had at that time the chief oversight over the church of the Lord (vid. ver. 7). On the employment of the figure of a stone to represent the kingdom and people of God, see the notes on Is. xxviii. 16 (vol. 2 p. 155) and the commentary on Ps. cxviii. 22. The antithesis to the insignificant stone referred to here, on which, however, there are seven eyes, is found in the large mountain mentioned in chap. iv. 7, which represents the power of the world. This stone has nothing to do with the precious stones on the shoulders and breast of the High Priest. It is treated rather as an incipient mountain, as in Dan. ii. 35 (compare Jer. li. 63, 64), where the stone also represents the mountain. On the polishing and carving of the rough stone compare Ex. xxviii. 9, 11, and 21, and Michaelis, "I will make it into a highly ornamented stone." It consists chiefly in the sending of the Messiah, but without excluding the earlier manifestations of the mercy of God. Through him, according to Haggai's contemporaneous prophecy, (chap. ii. 7— 10), the second temple was to be filled with glory, and to be made more glorious than the first.-; to open openings, to carve. is transitive in this case, in other cases it is intransitive, recedere. This land; viz. the land of Judah, which is the only place mentioned here, because, although the reconciliation to be effected by the Messiah was to extend farther than this, and even over the whole Gentile world, the prophet's design throughout this prophecy was simply to comfort the troubled minds of his own people. The expression" in one day," where the day is mentioned as the shortest portion of time, implies that the atonement to be made by the Messiah will not be constantly repeated, like that made by the typical priesthood, but completed in one single action. Ver. 10. "On this day, saith the Lord of Hosts, ye will invite one another under the vine, and under the fig-tree." These words contain a figurative description of the repose, the peace, and the prosperity, which are to follow upon the forgiveness of sins obtained by the Messiah. The original passage is in Micah iv. 4. 5. THE CANDLESTICK AND THE TWO OLIVE TREES. (Chapter iv.) We must imagine a pause between this vision and the one before it. The interpreter had left the prophet for a short time, and the latter had come back from his ecstacy into the condition of ordinary consciousness. The weakness of human nature, and its inability to bear a vision of supersensual objects for any length of time, had been made manifest in his case; as they afterwards were in that of Peter and his companions, who could not help falling asleep during the transfiguration of Christ (Luke ix. 32). "And the angel that talked with me," the prophet says in ver. 1, came again and waked me as a man that is wakened out of his sleep." We have here the deepest insight into the state in which the prophets were, during their prophecies, as compared with their ordinary condition. The two bear the same relation to each other as sleep and waking. A man's ordinary state, in which he is under the control of the senses, and unable to raise his spiritual eye to the contemplation of divine objects, is one of spiritual sleep; but an ecstatic condition, in which the senses with the whole lower life were quiescent, and only pictures of divine objects were reflected in the soul, as in a pure and untarnished mirror, was one of spiritual waking. This explanation, which is the only true one, has not been adopted by any of the commentators, with the exception of Cyril, who says, "our condition, when compared with that of the angels, is to be regarded as a sleep." The others, as for example Theodoret, Jerome, and Vitringa, have been led astray by their preconceived and erroneous opinions as to the condition of the prophets while they were prophesying. They suppose that, in this case, the prophet was so absorbed in the contemplation of the vision described in chap. iii. that the admonition of the interpreter was needed to direct his attention to the new scene which opened before him. But it is a sufficient objection to this supposition, that it completely overlooks the expression, "the angel came again," and can give no reason for his having gone away. The new vision which is now presented to the prophet's view is the following. He sees a candlestick of pure gold, and over it an oil-vessel, from which the oil flows into the seven lamps of the candlestick, into each one through seven tubes.1 On the two sides of the candlestick, and towering above it, stand two olive trees. The interpreter first of all reminds the prophet of his human weakness, and directs his attention to the deep significance of what he saw, by asking him the question, “Knowest thou what this meaneth?" and then proceeds to give the following explanation of its meaning (vers. 6 and 7): "this (this vision, so far as it embodies a prophecy) is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Sabaoth. Who art thou, thou great mountain before Zerubbabel? Into a plain! And he has brought out the foundation-stone with the shouting (of angels, Luke ii. 13), 'Grace, grace unto it.'" (As the foundation of the temple had been laid long before, must be rendered as an ordinary preterite [not as a prophecy]: he has brought out, namely in 1 The number seven occurs so frequently (seven lamps, seven times, seven pipes, seven eyes) that we are led at the outset to expect the form of the narrative to correspond, especially as the whole consists of fourteen verses. These are divided into two sevens, and each of these into two parts of three and four verses respectively. In the first seven we have the vision (ver. 1—3), and a concise explanation (ver. 4-7). In the second we have a further expansion of the fundamental idea contained in the explanation (ver. 8-10), followed by a supplement to the account of the vision, in the shape of an incident which had been passed over before, that the attention might not be diverted from the leading idea (ver. 11—14). laying the foundation of the temple, as the result will show). Hence the meaning of the vision is this: the interests of the Church are not promoted by human strength, but by the Spirit of God alone, by which it is inspired, defended, and sustained. This truth is applicable to the Church of God in all ages, but the immediate object in setting it forth in symbol at this particular time was to impart consolation to the desponding nation and its head, and thus to give them strength to enter with greater spirit into the work of building the temple. For what did it matter though whole mountains of difficulties stood in the way, and even the gigantic mountain of worldly power rose up to intercept the work,' since it did not depend upon the power of man, of which indeed there was none at command, but the Lord had taken the whole upon himself? With this explanation, the general and the particular stand in their proper relation to each other. The immediate fulfilment, in connection with which Zerubbabel was the representative of the family of David, the temple, of the kingdom of God, and the Persian empire, of the worldly power in general, was merely the prelude to the true accomplishment. The great mountain did not become truly a plain till Christ appeared.—We proceed now to enquire in what relation the symbol and its interpretation stand to each other. Oil is one of the most clearly defined symbols in the Bible (compare the remarks on Dan. ix. 24). It always represents the Spirit as dwelling in the Church. At the same time it must be noticed that it is the physical, rather than the moral operations of the Spirit, which come into consideration here. Our remarks upon the seven spirits, mentioned in Rev. i. 4, are perfectly applicable to the passage before us: "the seven spirits form here a mighty bulwark against despair, a compact phalanx, by which all the attacks of the world-power upon the Church must be 1 A mountain is too commonly used as the symbol of a kingdom for us to suppose that, in this instance, the great mountain merely represents difficulties in general (see my commentary on Psalm lxviii. 17 and lxxvi. 5, and on Rev. viii. 18). The same symbol occurs in the books of Zechariah's immediate predecessors Jeremiah (li. 25, 63, 64) and Daniel, the latter of whom describes the stone, which breaks the image, as becoming a great mountain, and filling the whole earth (chap. ii. 35). There is an evident allusion, in the great mountain mentioned here, to the great mountain referred to in Daniel. Whilst the stone in the one case becomes a great mountain, the great mountain in the other turns into a plain. VOL. III. Y |