14. THE INTERVAL FORETOLD BY ZECHARIAH

FROM the words of Gabriel we have gathered that the course of the Four Hundred and Ninety Years was to be interrupted just before the cutting off of Messiah: are there any other notices in Scripture of the setting aside of His covenant with the Jews at that time? We shall find one in the eleventh chapter of Zechariah, of the contents of which the following is a slight sketch.

The prophet begins with a description of terrible destruction,³ the reason for which is given in the subsequent verses.

Then Judah is set before us as a flock destined for slaughter, whose rulers are swayed only by selfish motives: their possessors the Romans, their sellers the Herodians, and their shepherds the Pharisees and Sadducees, all join in oppressing them.

But the Lord undertakes to feed them, especially distinguishing the poor of the flock; and as Moses had his rod, so Christ takes two staves significant of His office, one of which He calls Beauty, or rather Favour, and the other Bands. By the first the full

¹ Dan. x. 1. ² Dan. xii. 10. ³ Zech. xi. 1-3.

THE PROPHACY OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS.

outpouring of God's love was secured to the nation, according to the prayer of Moses;—"And let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it."¹ By the second, even if they lost for a time the favour of God, they would still be held together as a covenant people.

Having Himself undertaken to be Shepherd, the Lord proceeds to cut off in one month three hireling shepherds whom His soul abhorred. These were probably the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, the silencing of whom we may find in the twenty-second chapter of Matthew. Our Lord Himself points them out as false teachers when, on one occasion, He warns His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and Herodians;² on another, against that of the Pharisees and Sadducees.³

Then because their soul abhorred Him, He declared that He would no longer feed them, and broke His staff called Favour, giving as His reason, "That I might break My covenant which I had made with all the peoples"—that is, the covenant which He had made with the Gentiles to restrain them from injuring the Jewish nation.⁴ This withdrawal of the light of His countenance was foretold by the Lord on the Mount of Olives, when He wept over the doomed city: and it was speedily carried into effect—as soon as

¹ Psalm xc. 17.

² Mark viii. 15.

³ Matt. xvi. 6.

⁴ In Hosea ii. 18, God promises to make a similar covenant, in favour of Israel, "with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground." Compare also Job v. 23, and Ezek. xxxiv. 25.

the rulers of the people had refused to recognize Him as the King of the daughter of Zion—at a time exactly corresponding to the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks.

Nevertheless, the poor of the flock, as many as believe on Him, continue to wait on the Lord, and He still feeds them; but of the rest of the nation He demands the wages of His service in anticipation of His betrayal, and is priced at thirty pieces of silver.

Then the second staff, Bands, is broken; for the Jews go on to smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek, and can, therefore, no longer be held together as a covenant nation at Jerusalem, but are given up to be scattered from their city, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth.¹

Such is an outline of the prophecy to the end of the fourteenth verse, after which comes the interval revealed to Daniel; and, consequently, we are at once carried from the betrayal of the Messiah and the dispersion of the Jews to the idol shepherd, the Anti-christ, who will destroy the flock in the last Week, and be himself overthrown "when the chief Shepherd shall appear."²

V.