"Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be the ruler in Israel. . . And he shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof. Thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrians, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.'

And, indeed, the passage in Zechariah, which is supposed by many to predict the humility of Christ's character, because it speaks of him as riding on an ass, was not so intended by the original writer. He meant to describe thereby the calm and quietness which would prevail under the reign of this son of David, but at the same time to express the solemn dignity, the mild majesty, of His government. Speak, ye that ride on white asses,' says Deborah to the judges of Israel, Ju.v.10. The thirty sons of Jair ‘rode on thirty ass-colts and had thirty cities,' Ju.x.4; and the forty sons and thirty grandsons of another judge in Israel 'rode on three-score and ten ass-colts,' Ju.xii.14. Balaam, we remember, rode upon an ass; Absalom and the rest of David's sons rode upon mules, 2S.xiii.29,xviii.9, and David himself had his own royal mules, especially known as such, 1K.i.33,38,44. And, in fact, until Solomon's time, when horses were imported from Egypt, and were then used principally for war-purposes, they were but little employed in Israel; and, accordingly, we are told of overseers being placed over David's 'herds,' and 'camels,' and 'asses,' and 'sheep,' 1Ch.xxvii.29-31, but nothing is said about his horses. I will quote what is said on this point in the Dictionary of the Bible, III.p.xviii :

It is almost needless to observe that the ass in eastern countries is a very different animal from what he is in western Europe. There the greatest care is taken of the animal, and much attention is paid to cultivate the breed by crossing the finest specimens. The riding on the ass, therefore, conveys a very different notion from the one which attaches to such a mode of conveyance in our own country. The most noble and honourable among the Jews were wont to be mounted on asses; and in this manner our Lord himself made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He came, indeed, meek and lowly; but it is a mistake to suppose, as many do, that the fact of his riding on the ass, according to our English ideas, had ought to do with his meekness although thereby, doubtless, he meant to show the peaceable nature of his kingdom, as horses were used only for war-purposes.

I repeat, then, the ancient prophets, in predicting the coming of a king, the son of David,' did not themselves

foresee that spiritual king, the true son of David, whose word has subdued the stubborn heart, whose Divine Teaching has been a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of God's people Israel.' They looked only for a temporal deliverer, who should break the yoke of his burden' for Israel, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor.' They looked for a peaceful and glorious king, as Solomon the son of David was pictured of old, whose throne should be established in righteousness, and endure unto all generations,'

'of the increase of whose government and peace there should be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and for ever.' This was the king to whom Isaiah's words directly pointed, when he said in the words of the text—

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death-upon them hath the light shined; '

and when he said, in those other well-known words which follow the text, and which we will consider this evening

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.'

XXI.

LIGHT IN DARKNESS..

PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST PETER'S, MARITZBURG, ON SUNDAY EVENING, MAY 6, 1866.

ISAIAH IX. 2.

THE PEOPLE THAT WALKED IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT; THEY THAT DWELL IN THE LAND OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH-UPON THEM HATH THE LIGHT SHINED!'

I SPOKE this morning of the circumstances to which these words of the text more directly applied-to which they were meant to apply by the prophet who uttered them. The forces of the king of Assyria had ravaged the northern portions of Palestine, 'the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea [of Gennesareth], and beyond the Jordan,'-the district which was called Galilee of the Gentiles,' that is, the circle of the nations,' from the number of Gentiles who dwelt within its border, and from the close connection of its inhabitants, generally, with the heathen peoples who lived beyond them. The condition of the country and the blank despair of its occupants, under these dire visitations,-some of which had already taken place, while others were threatened,—are strikingly described in the words just before

the text :

'And they shall pass through it hardly bestead and hungry; and it shall come to pass that, when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their King and their God-[that is, shall curse Jehovah, their Divine King]-and they shall look upward, and they shall look upon the earth; and behold trouble and gloom, dimness of anguish and they shall be driven into darkness.' viii.21,22. Yet the prophet sees an end of all this misery, and exclaims in the language of the text

'The people that were walking in darkness have seen a great light!

They that were dwelling in the land of the shadow of death-upon them hath the light shined!'

He beholds in prophetic vision the nation'multiplied,' and its joy increased,' like the joy of harvest or of those who divide the spoil. He declares that Jehovah has broken the heavy yoke which the people has had to bear, the staff that was laid upon their shoulder, the 'rod' wherewith the Assyrian oppressed them, and that henceforth a calm and settled peace should prevail, and all the fierce and bloody panoply of war be burnt in the fire. I showed, by quotations from other prophecies, as those of Micah and Zechariah, that such language was commonly used to express the peaceful character of that glorious time, for which so many pious hearts were longing, when the king, the son of David, should be born, and restore the golden age to Israel,-when, as Isaiah says elsewhere,―

'There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse,

And a Branch shall grow out of his roots;

And the spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him,

The spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The spirit of counsel and might,

The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
And faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

And the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

And the cow and the bear shall feed;

Their young ones shall lie down together;

And the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,

And the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy,

In all my holy mountain;

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah,

As the waters cover the sea.' xi.1-9.

Many of these prophetical expressions are, no doubt, applicable to the kingdom of God, which Christ came to set up on earth, that spiritual kingdom of 'love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,' of which the most glorious and happy times under human governments are faint forthshadowings. But they cannot all be thus applied. I instanced this in the passages which I quoted this morning from

Micah, where the promise of this peaceful king is coupled with the assurance of great temporal glory and might reserved for Israel

'And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, and as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through, both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.' Upon such prophecies as these, interpreted in their own peculiar way, the saints' in Cromwell's time rested their claim to tread down and tear in pieces,' to 'execute vengeance in anger and fury' upon those whom they were pleased to call the heathen.' I showed how the meaning of Zechariah's famous prophecy of the 'meek' king of Israel riding upon an ass,' was misunderstood by many, as if the riding on such an animal implied in Eastern countries, what it might in ours, humility and degradation, instead of merely the mildness of his government, the peaceful quiet of his reign. But in all these cases, I said, the prophets themselves had no idea, apparently, of that spiritual kingdom, to which their utterances were in later days applied. They were thinking only of a great temporal deliverance, temporal glory, temporal blessings, for Israel-a reign of confirmed peace and surpassing glory, under a powerful and vigorous, yet meek and gentle, just and virtuous, prince of David's line :

:

'He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,
Neither reprove after the hearing of his ears;
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
And reprove with equity for the meek of the earth;

And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,

And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.'

And so, that same day, in which this rod shall come forth out of the stem of Jesse' and this branch grow out of his roots,' is described immediately as a day of triumphant return to their own land for the scattered remnant of Israel and Judah :

'And it shall come to pass in that day,

That Jehovah shall set His hand again the second time,

To recover the remnant of his people which shall be left,

From Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros,

And from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar,

And from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

And they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west;
They shall spoil the children of the East together;