01.24. Quotations From The Old Testament In The New
Section Second.
Quotations From The Old Testament In The New, Considered In Respect To The Mode Of Application.
IT is but a comparatively small number of the passages, which have been already produced and compared with the original Scriptures, that require to be brought up for consideration here. The use made of them in the New Testament is, for the most part, so transparently reasonable and proper, that among thoughtful and sober-minded Christians there can be but one opinion regarding it. We shall, therefore, as formerly intimated, limit our inquiry to the examples which have chiefly created embarrassment, and require explanation.
I. Matthew 1:22-23; Isaiah 7:14.
It is remarkable, that the application of no testimony of Old Testament Scripture to the transactions of the New, has given rise to more variety of opinion, or is more frequently called up for fresh discussion, than the one which meets us at the very threshold of the Gospels,—in Matthew 1:22-23, where we are told, that the things concerning the miraculous conception of Christ took place, that the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 might be fulfilled, which said, “Behold the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.” By a large body of interpreters it is held, that in this application there is a certain accommodation of the prophecy to what was not primarily, if at all, contemplated in it; and that the child to be born and called Immanuel was, in the first instance at least, to be a child produced in the ordinary course of nature, and within a very short period from the deliverance of the prophecy. They argue this on the ground, that the birth of the child was to form the sign of Judah’s speedy deliverance from the hostile assaults of Syria and Israel; insomuch that, before he should know to discern the evil and the good, those two lands should be forsaken of their kings (Isaiah 7:16.) They, therefore, conceive, that by the child-bearing virgin must primarily be meant a then living maid—a maid presently to be married, and to have offspring; that to this offspring a symbolical name should be given, as a pledge of the Divine favour and protection, and that the pledge should be verified within two or three years by the removal of the kings of Syria and Israel. So that the Evangelist Matthew must, either have accommodated a prediction to Christian times, which did not originally and properly point to them, or the prediction of itself admitted and justified such an application because of a typical relationship between the nearer and the more remote birth—the one being like the foreshadowing sign of a much greater future. Many subordinate differences exist among the interpreters, who concur in the more fundamental part of this view; they only differ as to the particular almah, or virgin, and child that may be meant, and the way in which the ultimate is to be connected with the primary application. But as such shades of difference do not affect the principle of the interpretation, or obviate the objections, to which in any form it appears to me liable, there is no need for going into details.
I. (1.) To begin with the negative aspect of the matter, or the objections that present themselves to this mode of interpretation, we remark, first of all, that there is obviously in it the want of a proper nexus between the two events, such as the application of the Evangelist seems to indicate, and as the nature of the relation itself would require. We take for granted, that there was a relation of some kind; for the mere accommodationists are not worth arguing against. The Evangelist, then, plainly appears to have found, in the words of the prophet, an explicit and definite announcement of Messiah’s wonderful birth and person, as being in Himself a marvelous combination of the Divine and human, and as born into this world the singular offspring of a virgin. However he may have found this in the prophecy, he certainly appears to have found it; and can the right to do so be justified on such a relationship between the immediate and the ultimate as the view under consideration, in any of its forms, supposes? One can conceive of a birth among the chosen people so brought about and so circumstanced, as that it might fitly enough be taken for a prophetical sign or prefiguration of Christ’s birth. The birth of Isaac was pre-eminently one of that description; there was a quite special and supernatural element in the one as well as in the other; and in both cases alike connected with the higher interests of the Divine king dom. Such, too, in a measure, was the case with Solomon, the immediate successor of David on the throne of the kingdom. But in such cases there was a peculiarity connected with the parentage; a typical relationship already existed there, forming the ground of the prospective reference of the birth; and it became comparatively easy to pass from the immediate to the future, and to see the one imaged in the other; especially when there was a prophetic word uttered over the nearer event, which naturally carried the thoughts onward to the remoter and greater things of the kingdom. But here, on the interpretation in question, there is nothing properly special, either in the parent or the child; it might have been (for aught that appears) any young woman in Judea, any child born of such a woman, in the ordinary course of nature, whether in the line of Messiah’s parentage or not. One cannot even see why, on the supposition in question, the single specification should have been made, of the mother being at the time an unmarried person—granting, what we by no means admit, that the almah of the prophet denotes only a marriage able maid, though not necessarily a virgin; for there seems no proper call for the mother being a maid, if the child was to come by ordinary generation, and if it was to be the pledge of Divine protection and deliverance only by the period of its birth. In such a case, it seems arbitrary in the prophet to lay stress on the point of her maidenhood, especially when no particular maiden was indicated; and still more Arbitrary in the Evangelist to find in the child of this indefinite mother, with its immediate adjuncts, a distinct and circumstantial presage of Messiah’s birth.
(2.) Then, the name assigned to this child, for the purpose of indicating its nature and destiny, taken in connexion with the prophet’s own subsequent references to it, seems incompatible with the idea of its being a common child, produced by ordinary generation. That a maiden or virgin, without further specification, should be announced as the prospective mother of a child, that was to bear, as a fit designation, the name Immanuel (God with us,) would certainly be peculiar—we may even say, without a parallel—if in that child there was nothing supernatural in respect to its generation or its birth. The very imposing of such a name seems to import, that Divinity was somehow to be peculiarly manifested in the Being produced. Not only so, but in ch. 8:8, the prophet addresses Him as the rightful proprietor of the land; for, speaking of the adversary, he says, “The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of Thy land, Immanuel.” And in the very fact of that proprietorship, he descries the sure ground of a final deliverance from all oppression and violence: “Take counsel,” he says to the enemies, “and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand, because of Immanuel” (Isaiah 8:10.) Thus Immanuel is plainly regarded by Isaiah as the God-man, the proper Lord of the heritage, supreme Head of the kingdom. And still again, in another part of the same line of prophecy, in the glorious announcement with which it closes (Isaiah 9:6,) the prophet evidently points back to the original passage, and in vests it with the full meaning of which its words were susceptible: in the one, “a virgin conceives and bears a son;” in the other , “unto us a child is born, a son is given;” “God-with-us” is the name by which the first is to be called, and of this, in like manner, it is said, “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” With such marked resemblances, it is impossible almost to doubt the identity of the two; and looking at the whole of these subsequent references to the prediction of the Immanuel, it is not too much to say, that the prophet himself stretches out the hand to the Evangelist.
(3.) Thirdly, the interpretation we oppose would find only comfort and encouragement in what was announced to the house of David; and thereby leaves altogether unexplained the element of indignation and threatening with which it is so pointedly introduced. “Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, the virgin shall conceive,” etc. Does it seem a natural or satisfactory way to understand this address, to read it as if it meant, Because ye have wearied men by your faithless and foolish procedure, and are proceeding to do the same with God, therefore the Lord will Himself give you the most astonishing sign of His gracious nearness and protection. This, surely, would have been a premise and a conclusion that hung strangely together; and so some of its propounders have felt; for they have endeavoured to turn the therefore (
These objections which are derived mainly from the Old Testament passage itself, seem fatal to the view, under any modification, which would find in the Immanuel an ordinary child, born at that particular time. In urging them, no reference has been made to incidental topics—such as the attempt sometimes made to identify this child with that said, in Isaiah 8:1-4, to be born of the prophet and the prophetess; for this identification is utterly arbitrary, the latter child having both a different parentage ascribed to it, and a different name; nor can it be consistently understood otherwise than of a transaction in the ideal region of prophetic vision.
II. It is one thing, however, to make good, or to appear to make good a negative, and quite another thing to establish satisfactorily a positive, view of a controverted subject. And as the strength and plausibility of the class of interpretations now considered lie in the apparent necessity of finding a present birth to render the child a sign (as it is supposed the prophet meant it to be considered) of an immediately approaching deliverance, it is necessary to show how, on the supposition of the Messiah being directly contemplated in the prediction of Immanuel, this objection can be met.
(1.) Now, it is at the outset to be borne in mind, that the prophecy has in its very form something enigmatical—purposely has it; both from the nature of the subject, which refers to the deep things of God, and from the condition of the people, which was such as to call for what would, in a manner, drive them from their superficial mode of looking at Divine things. Our Lord. Himself sometimes, for like reasons, spoke enigmatically; He did so, for example, near the commencement of His ministry, when He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”—an announcement which none present at the time understood, and which was not even intended to be understood, except by such as would give themselves to prayerful and earnest inquiry. The real import and bearing of Isaiah’s prediction, in like manner, lay beyond the depth of those who had no eye to look beneath the surface, and might even baffle the research and inquiry of those who possessed such an eye, till farther revelations and the course of Providence had thrown additional light on it. Undoubtedly, there is no want of similar announcements in Isaiah and the other prophetical books.
(2.) Another thing to be kept in mind is the precise starting-point, or crisis of affairs, out of which the prophecy originated, and which it was designed to meet. The combination formed by the kings of Syria and Israel had for its object, not merely the invasion of Judah and the subjugation of the king, but the entire displacement of the house of David, and the substitution of another dynasty under the son of Tabeal (bible: Isaiah 7:6;) in other words, the avowed aim of the hostile party was to make void God’s covenant with the house of David. This was the audacious design which called forth the first word of God on the occasion, and led Isaiah to give to Ahaz and his people a solemn assurance that the scheme should certainly miscarry ( Isaiah 7:8-9) Yet, in the very act of doing this, he distinctly intimated, that for Ahaz and his house there still was danger—danger arising, not so much from any plans or power of their open adversaries, as from their own faithless and ungodly spirit; for the word concluded by saying, “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.” As much as to say, Even the overthrow of your immediate enemies, and the defeating of their hostile policy, cannot secure to you and your family the possession of the throne, and the establishment of the kingdom in your hands—unless you rid yourselves of the evil spirit of unbelief, and learn to rest in the word and power of Jehovah.
(3.) Then, partly with the view of bringing out this fatal defect in the character of Ahaz, and partly for the purpose of unfolding God’s own design as to the establishment of the kingdom in the house of David, the prophet represents himself as giving Ahaz the option of a sign—a sign of what? A sign, we are constrained by the connexion to think, of God’s purpose to maintain inviolate the covenant with David, and perpetuate the kingdom therein granted to his seed. Ahaz, however, as if already satisfied, pretended to regard the offer as superfluous, and declined asking a sign while really his heart was set upon earthly confidences, and from want of faith in the assurances given him, he was calling in the aid of the king of Assyria (2 Chronicles 28:16; 2 Chronicles 28:20.) Hence, the Lord interposes to give a sign; but of what nature? Such a sign, we naturally expect in the circumstances, as would show at once His determination to maintain the covenant, and His just displeasure with, or even virtual repudiation of, the existing representatives of the house and throne of David. While men should be made to see that God’s covenant must stand fast, they must also see, it would be in a way that should augur no good to persons in such ill accordance with its design.
(4.) In this state of matters, when there was given the sign of a virgin conceiving and bringing forth a son, whose name should be Immanuel, we are, if not absolutely necessitated, at least most naturally led to think of a son, that should bear directly and conclusively upon the point at issue; namely, the establishment and perpetuation of the kingdom in conformity with the covenant of David:—a son who, by his very birth and being, should form the truest sign of the full realization of all that properly belonged to it. Such a sign, could it be given, would settle, as nothing else could, the pending controversy. And what the connexion thus seems to point to, is confirmed by the implied contrast between this Son of the virgin, the destined possessor of David’s throne, and what had previously been said of the possessors of the two rival thrones in Syria and Israel (Isaiah 7:8,) “The head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin (these and nothing more they ascend no higher than a mere earthly city and a frail human being;) and in sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken, that it be not a people.” That is, both the two have about them the weakness and instability of the world; they shall presently become striking examples of its fleeting and transitory existence. But now, on the other hand, when the prophet turns to the kingdom of David, the Divine comes prominently into view along with the human; to establish it, Deity itself is to become incarnate; and the inference, therefore, is plain—all attempts to overthrow it must be fruitless; it moves in the element of immortality, and shall abide for ever.
(5.) But the mention of such a good implied for existing parties a corresponding evil; the sign given bespeaks a fall as well as a rising; and a contrast was indicated, not merely between the kingdom of David and the kingdoms of Syria and Israel, but also between the child Immanuel and the degenerate house of Ahaz. For in this Divine purpose and provision for a better future, the existing royal house is entirely overleapt; silently passed by on account of their unfaithfulness and corruption, when the higher interests of the kingdom and its ultimate stability come into consideration. The sign, in which the nature and destiny of the kingdom were to be imaged, bursts upon the view as a prodigy from an unknown quarter; it is to be a child born, not to the present occupant of the throne, nor to any future occupant, but to a virgin; and even she marked out by no distinct specifications of place or time,—foreseen only by the omniscient eye of God. He it is alone, who charges Himself with the accomplishment of the result; in His own time He will bring forth the almah and her Son—as if Ahaz and his successors in the kingdom had no personal interest in the matter!
(6.) This alone is ominous of evil, but what follows is much more so. And in what follows we include, not merely Isaiah 7:15-16—with which commentators usually and unhappily stop—but all the concluding portion of the chapter. There is no real break or proper termination at the close of Isaiah 7:16, as if the prophet intended to shut up his present communication there, and commence afresh with something different. The whole, to the end of the chapter, is but one message, and is required in its totality to make out a full arid consistent meaning. From what follows, then, it appears that the Son, on whose birth all hope hung, was to grow up in the midst of a depressed state of things; such as betokened a terrible and wide-spread previous desolation. The precise time is left altogether indefinite. From anything that is said in the prophecy, it might be comparatively near or remote; but the position and aspect of affairs, amid which Immanuel was to appear, is distinctly indicated to be one in which the reverse of prosperity and strength should prevail. For no sooner does the child appear, than butter and honey are assigned as His food (Isaiah 7:15,) and not for Him only, but the people in the land generally are afterwards spoken of as having these for their support (Isaiah 7:22 :) and butter and honey are most fitly regarded here as the symbols of a reduced and prostrate condition, being the products of a land, far from barren in deed, but yielding of its resources after little or no cultivation. It tells us, that at the period of Immanuel’s birth, and while He should Himself be still in the feebleness of childhood, all around should be in a weak, dilapidated, impoverished condition—in the kingdom of Judah, not less than in the regions of Syria and Israel. These, indeed, should experience the calamity first; before the child should have out-grown His childhood, they should have “been forsaken of both their kings.” This does not mean, as is very commonly assumed, that the then reigning kings of Syria and Israel should have ceased to fill the throne; far more than that—the land in both its divisions was to be bereft of those holding the state and office of king; it should have ceased to have kingdoms. There was no need, therefore, for the true children of God to be greatly concerned about them; Immanuel, when He came, with the manifestations of Divine power and glory, should not find them even in existence. But, if the earlier and the greater prostration should befall them, the house and kingdom of David should also be marred with symptoms of humiliation and decay. This is more briefly indicated in Isaiah 7:15 by the eating of butter and honey—nature’s products in pastoral countries—and then more pointedly and fully at Isaiah 7:17, where the prophet, turning to the ungodly Ahaz, says, “The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah,” etc. In a word, the substance of the message was, God’s covenant should certainly stand fast, and the sign to be given of its stability should eventually be brought to pass; but, meanwhile, the kingdom of David, in its existing form, together with the kingdoms of Syria and Israel, should undergo a sad and calamitous reverse; they should altogether go down, while it should be diminished and brought low. And the kingdom of David, as the object of faith and hope to the Lord’s people, was to spring as from a fresh starting-point in the person of Immanuel, and out of poverty and weakness rise to its proper magnitude and glory.
Such, by a careful consideration of the original passage, appears to be the progress of thought and the richness of meaning embodied in the prophecy here referred to by the Evangelist Matthew. If we are right in the view that has been given of it, the Evangelist was undoubtedly right in the use, to which he applied it; and not a tendency to catch at some obvious and superficial meaning, but a capacity to apprehend the real import of the prediction, was what determined him in turning it to such an account. Understood in the light, in which it has now been presented, it stands in no need of the embarrassing hypothesis of a double birth, nor of the fanciful supposition of Hengstenberg, (Christology, vol. ii.,) and also of Ewald, (if I rightly understand his view of the passage,)—the supposition of the promised child being ideally present in his birth and growth to boyhood before the spiritual eye of the prophet, and constituting, as so present, the sign of a speedy deliverance of Judah from Syria and Israel. Such an impersonation were far too subtle and involved for the purpose in question; and it would, besides, most incongruously confound together the ideal and the real—making the prophet’s internal apprehension of a future event, a sign to the people of a more immediate external reality. The sign, however, as already stated, was not intended to be directly or properly a pledge of Judah’s deliverance from her impending evils; it was strictly a sign of God’s purpose to ratify His covenant with David, and build up his throne to all generations; and a sign so conceived and announced as to speak at once of judgment and of mercy to the existing representative of David’s house.
II. Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1.
There can be no doubt, that the portion of Hosea here applied to the circumstance of our Lord’s recall from His temporary sojourn in Egypt, was in its original connexion simply an historical statement respecting what God had done for the national Israel in the commencing period of their history. The whole passage is, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and I called ray son out of Egypt.” The question, therefore, is, how the Evangelist could find in such a passage any proper pre-intimation of the circumstance in our Lord’s life to which he has so specifically applied it? The application can only be understood and vindicated on the ground of a typical relationship between the literal Israel and the Messiah; but on this ground it admits of a satisfactory explanation. The relationship in question was not obscurely indicated even in Old Testament Scripture; and particularly in the latter portion of Isaiah’s writings, where there is a constant transition from Israel in the literal sense to an ideal and prospective Israel—from an Israel called, indeed, to the enjoyment of high privileges, and the discharge of important obligations, but still compassed about with imperfection, backsliding and trouble, to an Israel, in whom the calling was to find its adequate fulfilment—God’s elect, in whom His soul delighted, and by whom His name was to be glorified, sin and evil purged away from the condition of His people, and the world restored to the favour of Heaven. (Compare, for example, on the one side, Isaiah 42:19-25, Isaiah 43:22-28, Isaiah 48:18-22, Isaiah 59:1-19; and on the other, Isaiah 42:1-8, Isaiah 49:1-13, Isaiah 53:1-12, Isaiah 59:20-21, Isaiah 61:1-11.) The same sort of relationship was indicated in another class of prophecies, between the son of David in the literal sense, and a son some time to appear, who should occupy an unspeakably higher position, and raise the kingdom to a state of purity and bliss it could never otherwise have reached. (Compare here also, on the one side, 2 Samuel 7:14; Psalms 89:30-32, Psalms 89:38-45; 1 Kings 11:36-39; Amos 9:11; and on the other, Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 45:1-17, Psalms 72:1-20, Psalms 110:1-7; Isaiah 9:6-7, etc.) There was no essential difference between this later covenant with the house of David, and the earlier covenant with Abraham or Israel; they both aimed at the same great end of obtaining salvation and blessing for the world, in connexion with the establishment of truth and righteousness:—only, what the one proposed to accomplish through the seed of Israel, the other, more specifically and individually, sought to work out by the administration of a kingdom, in the hands of a son of David. The design of each covenant should be realized, when (as it might be indifferently expressed) the kingdom among the sons of men had become the Lord s, or all the families of the earth were truly blessed in Him. Fundamentally, therefore, the relation of the promised Messiah to David’s immediate son was the same with that of Christ to Israel; it was such as, in God’s dispensations, subsists between the present and the ultimate, the preparatory and the final that is, in both there were relatively the same place and calling, but these in the earlier connected with an inferior-line of things, partaking more of the human, and the external,—in the later, rising more into the sphere of the spiritual Divine; consequently, in the one case intermingled on every hand with imperfection and failure, in the other, attaining to heavenly excellence and perfection. Such generally is the relation between the Old and New—between type and antitype; and such it is also here. Christ is at once the antitypical or the true Israel, and the antitypical or true Son of David; since in Him all the promises made concerning these were to stand fast, and the high calling of God was to find its proper realization. Hence, the prophetic announcements respecting Abraham’s seed of blessing, and David’s son and heir, are, in their higher bearing and import, ascribed to the Messiah; they have no adequate accomplishment till they find it in Him, (Acts 2:25-26, Acts 13:33; Hebrews 1:5.)
Now, as before the incarnation the Spirit gave forth a series of prophetical utterances, based on the relationship of Israel to the Messiah, and again a series based on His relationship to David, it was quite natural, that the writers of the New Testament, under the guidance of the same Spirit, should at times mark how the things concerning both were discovering themselves in the history of Christ. And in doing so, we might expect them to take, not merely the prophetical pas sages, which on the ground of the typical relationship, in either of its forms, pointed to the corning future, but also occasion ally at least, to render prominent the relationship itself, and show how, by remarkable coincidences in God’s providence, Jesus was, in a manner, identified with the literal Israel, or with the house of David. In the nature of things there could not be more than occasional coincidences of the kind referred to; for it had been impossible, or if possible, it had been on many accounts unsuitable, that Jesus should have been made to pass through all the recorded experiences belonging either to Israel at large, or to David’s house. It were enough, if a few noticeable agreements took place, fitted from their own nature, or from the manner in which they were brought about, to serve as finger-posts to direct the eyes of men to Him that was to come, or, like Heaven’s seal on the connexion between the beginnings and the end, to certify them that the old was at length in its higher form coming into being. Such was the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, the city of David,—fulfilling, indeed, a prophecy which had been announced regarding it (not overlooked by the Evangelist, Matthew 2:5-6,) but itself, especially when effected by so singular turns of Providence, a sign from above, that the long expected Son of David was born into the world. Of the same kind, and pointing to the other form of the typical relationship, was the removal of the infant Saviour for a time to an asylum in Egypt, and His recall thence when the season of danger was over; it was substantially doing over again what had been done in the infancy of the national Israel, and thereby helping a weak faith to recognise in this remarkable babe the new Israel, the child of hope for the world. Of the same kind, again, was His withdrawal, through the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil, and His sojourn there for forty days—the number, and the place, and the object, all pointing back to Israel’s forty years temptation in the desert; but by the day for a year (instead of, as in their case, a year for a day,) and by the baffling of the tempter in every assault, showing how infinitely superior the new was to the old, and that here, at last, was the Israel in whom God was to be fully glorified.
If these principles in the Divine government are kept in view, no difficulty will be found in the application made by the Evangelist of Hosea 11:1 to our Lord’s return from Egypt. His temporary descent thither, and subsequent recall to the land appointed for the fulfilment of His high vocation, as just noticed, was one of the more striking and palpable coincidences between His outward history, and that of Israel, which were ordered and designed by God to point Him out as the true Israel, the antitype of the old; and the passage in Hosea, which records the earlier event, necessarily formed, by reason of the typical connexion, a virtual prophecy of the corresponding event in the future. It embodied a typical fact; and so, when viewed in connexion with God’s ulterior design, it enclosed a presage of the antitypical counterpart. Substantially the requirements of the type might have been met, if some other local asylum had been” provided for the youthful Saviour than the literal Egypt—precisely as, afterwards, the circumstantials of His temptation differed in time and place from the prior temptation of Israel. But to render the correspondence here more obvious and convincing, the new was made formally, as well as substantially, to coincide with the old; so that, for those who were watching and desirous to learn from the footsteps of Providence, there might be the less difficulty in discerning the fulfilment of the typical prediction, when, the Lord anew called his son out of Egypt.
III. Matthew 2:18; Jeremiah 31:15. The application of Jeremiah’s prophecy, about Rachel be wailing her lost children, and refusing to be comforted on account of the apparently hopeless deprivation she had sustained, to the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem, undoubtedly proceeds upon a certain connexion between the earlier and the later event. But from the very nature of things, and the terms of the passage cited, the connexion could not be regarded as of such a close and organic kind, as that indicated in the last quotation. There, stress was laid even on the external resemblance between what befell Christ, and what had anciently befallen Israel; the connexion of both with Egypt formed the immediate and ostensible ground of the word, spoken originally of the one, being extended to the other. Here, on the other hand, there is a palpable diversity as to the external circumstances; for the scene of action in the one case was Rama, a city in the tribe of Benjamin, a few miles to the north of Jerusalem, while in the other it was Bethlehem, a city about the same distance to the south, in the tribe of Judah; and, consequently, if respect were had to literal exactness, Leah, the ancestral mother of Judah, should have been addressed as the chief mourner on the present occasion, as Rachel had been on the former. In such circumstances of obvious and palpable disagreement, the Evangelist could not possibly mean, that the passage he quoted from Jeremiah had either been directly uttered of the scene at Bethlehem, or even that the original mourning at Rama had a typical relation, in the stricter sense, to that at Bethlehem. And hence he does not say, as he usually does, that the circumstances took place in order that the word might be fulfilled, but merely that then was fulfilled what had been spoken by Jeremiah. The kind of fulfilment indicated must be determined by the points of agreement in the two related transactions. Even in its original application, the pas sage is highly poetical in form, and cannot be interpreted as a piece of prosaic writing. It was at Rama, as we learn from Jeremiah 40:1, that the last band of captives was assembled by the captains of Nebuchadnezzar, before they were sent into exile; and either in anticipation of this sore calamity, or in reference to it after it had taken place, the prophet represents Rachel, the ancestral mother of the tribe, where the hapless exiles were gathered, bewailing the fate of her off spring, and giving way to an inconsolable grief, as if all were gone. The introduction of Rachel is, of course, a mere cover, to bring out in vivid colours, the sadness of the occasion, and the apparently hopeless character of the calamity; to human eye, and especially to the passionate fondness of maternal affection, it seemed as if Israel had utterly perished under the stroke of Nebuchadnezzar. Yet it was not so in reality; and the prophet presently goes on to assure the disconsolate mother, that her grief was inordinate, that her children should return again from the land of the enemy, and that there was hope in her end.
Now, with all the circumstantial diversities that distinguish the original event at Rama, and the message it called forth, from the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem, there still is a fundamental agreement in the more peculiar features of both. Herod was the new Nebuchadnezzar, who, by his cruel and crafty policy, sought to do what, after another fashion, the Chaldean conqueror thought he had done, viz., extinguish for ever the better hopes and aspirations of Israel. When the one, after having razed the foundations of Jerusalem, bore away from Rama the shattered remnants of her people, he had struck, as he conceived, a fatal blow at their singular pretensions and distinctive glory. And, in like manner, when Herod smote the children at Bethlehem, with the impious design of embracing in the slaughter the new-born “King of the Jews,” he would, had his aim been accomplished, have buried in the dust all that was to render Israel pre-eminent among the nations. They might as well, thenceforth, have ceased to exist, gone to a hopeless exile, or a dishonoured grave. So that, looking upon matters with the eye of sense, the ancestral mother might, as of old, have raised anew the wail of sorrow, even such as might appear incapable of any true solace. Yet God, in His paternal faithfulness and oversight, had provided against the worst, and here again had taken the wise in his own craftiness. As regarded the main object in view, the stroke fell powerless to the ground; the bird escaped from the snare of the fowler. But situated as matters now were—not only with a Herod in the seat of power, but with an Herodian party, who thought that the best thing for the people was to maintain the Herodian interest, it was well to bring this memorable transaction of Gospel times into formal connexion with the ancient catastrophe—to show that Herod was virtually now what Nebuchadnezzar was then—and that, so far as concerned the real glory and salvation of Israel, to look for help from the existing representative of the worldly power in Judea, was like going to Babylon for pity and succour. From such a quarter misery and despair, not life and hope, were what might surely be looked for.
IV. Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:4. The explanation given of the terms, by which the Evangelist renders the original in this quotation, has shown the faith fulness of the rendering. It is at once more specific, and more literal, not only than the Septuagint, but also than the authorized version of the passage in Isaiah, which has, “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” Sicknesses and pains, however, are the more exact synonyms for the He brew terms; and it is not bearing and carrying, anyhow, that is ascribed to the Messiah respecting them, but more specially taking them on Himself, as a burden bearing them on His own person. Such also is the sense put upon them by the Evangelist. Yet Meyer says, “The passage is cited according to the original, but not in conformity with its import, since, according to this, the Messiah is represented as an atoning sin-bearer; for the parallel verbs,
Hengstenberg, in his comment on the original passage (Christology, vol. ii.,) maintains the rendering above given, and justifies the use made of it by the Evangelist. He says, “According to the opinion of several interpreters, by diseases all outward and inward sufferings are figuratively designated; according to the opinion of others, spiritual diseases, sins. But, from the relation alone of this verse to the preceding, it appears that here, in the first instance, diseases and pains, in the ordinary sense, are spoken of; just as the blind and deaf, in Isaiah 35:1-10, are, in the first instance, they who are naturally blind and deaf. Diseases, in the sense of sins, do not occur at all in the Old Testament. The circumstance, that in the parallel passage, Isaiah 53:11-12, the bearing of the transgressions and sins is spoken of, proves nothing. The servant of God bears these also in their consequences, in their punishments, among which sickness and pains occupy a prominent place. Of the bearing of outward sufferings,
V. Matthew 13:35; Psalms 78:2.
It is in connexion with the change introduced into our Lord’s method of teaching, when He began to speak in parables, that the passage from Psalms 78:2 is cited. He did so, the Evangelist states, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things that have been hidden from the foundation of the world.” The stress is plainly meant to be laid upon the first part of the passage; it was that, which now more especially had its verification in the procedure of Christ; the hidden or enigmatical nature of the things discoursed of was but a consequence, that, in greater or less degree, attached itself to the other. Now, in considering the fitness of this application of the Psalmist’s language, we are first of all met with a source of doubt and uncertainty in regard to the proper meaning of the word rendered parables. This in the original is
It is partly on this account, that the other shade of opinion respecting mashal has been adopted, and which would find the idea of similitude or likeness, that forms the root-meaning, in the parallelism of the sentences. Thus Gesenius, while here presents the word as often applied to parabolical and figurative discourses, holds it to be also employed of songs and other compositions, “the particular verses of which consist of two hemistichs of similar argument and form.” In this case there might be no figure, or illustrative style of thought employed in developing the subject handled; nothing, indeed, marked or peculiar beyond the digesting of what was uttered into a series of parallelistic members. This view, however, appears to give undue prominence to the mere structure of the sentences, which is never rendered prominent in Scripture itself, and only takes, in certain cases, the parallelistic form, from the requirements of the kind of instruction, or the species of discourse, with which it is associated. The fault probably lies in making the import and bearing of the word too determinate either way. The sense put upon, it by Lowth, which may be said to include both the shades of opinion now mentioned—giving chief prominence to the characteristics of the discourse, yet not altogether excluding the external form, into which its utterances are cast—is perhaps the correcter mode of representation. He takes it to be a term “expressive of the poetic style. Many interpreters designate it parable; a word in some respects not unsuitable, but by no means embracing the entire compass of the Hebrew term; which, taken in its full strength, and according to its current use, will be found to signify a sententious, figurative, and elevated kind of discourse.”
Precisely similar was the object of our Lord’s parables; differing only in so far as they employed for the cover of the instruction, not the records of actual history, but the ideal narratives of parabolical discourse. This, indeed, was a form of speech and instruction, that still more distinctly and fully realized the idea of the mashal, than the 78th Psalm—containing, as it did, more of the poetical element, and more palpably basing its instruction on the similitude of one class of relations to another. And as all preceding teachers, who in any measure possessed and exercised the spirit of prophecy, were but so many forerunners and types of Him, who was to be emphatically the teacher and prophet of His church, so, what by any one of these had been uttered of His calling and His work, might, with fullest propriety, be applied to Christ, as destined to find in Him its truest realization. Nor could any thing of that description be more fitly so applied, than the saying before us, which pointed to a method of instruction, that in one of its forms was carried by our Lord to the highest degree of perfection, and which, at once for what it un folded and for what it wrapt in temporary concealment, was peculiarly adapted to the ends of His mission. The exterior form conveyed to those, who heard, the image of the truth; and purporting to be but the image, it naturally served both to prompt their desires, and to direct their inquiries after the reality.
VI. Matthew 21:42; Psalms 118:22-23. The application, first by our Lord, and afterwards by His apostles, of the figurative passage in the 118th Psalm, respecting the rejection of the stone by men, and its elevation by God to the head stone of the corner, to the things which were to befall Himself, proceeds upon the same relation of Christ to Israel, which has been explained under No. II. The psalm speaks in the first instance of the literal and collective Israel; but of this with reference to its election of God, its higher calling and destiny. The experiences, therefore, to which it relates, while they had an earlier verification in the history of the covenant-people, necessarily had a higher development, a kind of culminating exemplification in the person and kingdom of Christ. As a prophecy, it is of that class which may most justly be said to have “springing and germinant accomplishment,” while “the height and fulness of them” are to be found only in the things which relate to the Messiah. The conflict, which the psalm describes, between the speaker and the ungodly adversaries around Him, was in some form perpetually proceeding. The purpose of God to bless Israel, and to make them the one channel of blessing to the world, was ever and anon calling forth the un godly opposition of the world sometimes within the natural Israel itself, as in the struggles through which David, the chosen servant of God, had to make his way to the throne—but more commonly with Israel as a community, when set on by the jealous rivalry and malice of surrounding nations. More especially did this conflict come to a height under the old relations, when the worldly power, headed by the king of Babylon, scattered the force of the chosen people, and, in boastful opposition to them, claimed to be recognised as the ruling dynasty among men. Israel was then like a stone rejected by the builders, deemed altogether unworthy of a place in their proud scheme of earthly dominion and personal aggrandizement. But when Babylon herself fell from her high position, and Israel not only survived the calamities which crushed their conquerors in the dust, but was sent back with honour, and the clear signs of Heaven’s favour, to lay the foundation of a new, and, ultimately, a nobler destiny in their native land, it then strikingly appeared how God’s purpose respecting them prevailed over the power and malice of men; and how the rejected stone was by Him appointed to be the head of the corner. At such a time, even thoughtful persons among the heathen were constrained to say, “The Lord hath done great things for them;” and the covenant-people themselves naturally sung their song of triumph, and exclaimed, “It is the Lord’s doing, and wondrous in our eyes.” In all probability, the event now referred to was the historical occasion on which Psalms 118:1-29 was composed and originally sung; a probability that is greatly strengthened, and rendered all but certain by the recorded fact, that at the laying of the foundation of the second temple, the returned exiles sung in responsive strains, (such as actually belong to this psalm,) and strains that commenced precisely as it does. For we are told, at Ezra 3:11, that they then “sang together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever toward Israel.” But the principles of the Divine government, which then received such a striking exemplification in the case of Israel, were again to be exhibited, and in a yet higher form, in the personal history of Messiah. Many prophecies had pointed in this direction—all, indeed, which spake of the Messiah as executing His work, and rising to the place of pre-eminent power and glory, through a course of trying experiences and headstrong opposition. These, one and all, betokened a contrariety between the views of men and the purpose of God, in respect to the Author and the plan of salvation; and never failed to make manifest the ultimate triumph of Heaven’s counsels over the perversity and malice of the world. But among these prophecies, there were several which connected the struggle and triumph of Messiah with substantially the same idea as that employed in Psalms 118:1-29. In Isaiah, for example, Isaiah 8:14, speaking of the Lord’s more peculiar manifestation of Himself, which was to take place in the future, it is said, “And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel.” Again, at Isaiah 28:16, with a more special and pointed reference to the work of Christ, “Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” In Zechariah also the promised appearance of the Lord’s Branch—the Messiah, as the scion of the house of David—is associated with the erection of a temple, of another and a nobler kind than that which was in process of erection by the returned captives, and in that, of course, Messiah Himself was to occupy the most prominent place, (Zechariah 6:12-13.) So that, when in Psalms 118:1-29, mention is made of the stone rejected by the builders, yet exalted by the Lord to be the head of the corner, and on that very account He is magnified as the God of salvation, the thoughts of believers, even in ancient times, might as readily have been led to think of the future as of the past. And had not a judicial blindness been on the hearts of the people, when our Lord asked them, “Have ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner?” they would have seen, that to continue their op position after all the mighty works that had showed themselves forth in Him, was but to enact anew, and with infinitely less excuse, the part which of old the heathen had acted toward Israel, or which the Sauline party had acted toward David. The same controversy was pending as of old, and the same disastrous results must inevitably befall those who set themselves against the manifested purpose of God.
It thus appears, that while the passage had a primary respect to Israel, it from the first included the Divine purpose, with which Israel was more peculiarly identified—their election of God to be the instrument and channel of blessing to the world, and as such to have the chief place among men. But as this purpose was to find its proper accomplishment in Christ, so to apply the passage personally to Him was in perfect accordance with its original import and design.
VII. Matthew 22:31-32; Exodus 3:6. This is one of the few passages in which it has sometimes been alleged our Lord occasionally fell in with the cabalistic mode of handling Scripture, which was current among the Rabbinical Jews. It is only, however, with the more extreme and reckless section of the Rationalists that this allegation is found; for, however often interpreters of Rationalistic tendencies have failed to bring out the full force of our Lord’s reasoning, they have commonly admitted that the argument He draws is based on a solid foundation; and even Paulus, in the last edition of his Commentary on the Synoptical Gospels, says, “Jesus reasons here in a subtle manner, yet by no means so that there did not really lie in the premises what He deduces from them.” It is not undeserving of notice, that, amid all the sayings which have been gathered out of ancient Jewish writings, for the purpose of elucidating New Testament Scripture, none has been found that bears any proper resemblance to the words of Jesus, before us. In a comparatively modern Jewish writer, the words themselves, and the reference of Christ, have been substantially appropriated; the passage is quoted by Schöttgen, on this part of Matthew’s Gospel. It is from R. Menasse Ben Israel de Resur., p. 68: “When the Lord first appeared to Moses, he is reported to have said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. But God is not the God of the dead, because the dead are not; but of the living, because the living exist. On that ground, therefore, it is rightly inferred that, in respect to the soul, the patriarchs still live.” Rabbinical men could in some measure perceive the force of the argument, when it was formed to their hand, but they wanted depth and discernment of spirit to discover it for themselves. Indeed, the argument is perfectly simple, and must appear so to all, the moment they apprehend what is implied in the relationship which God, as God, admitted to subsist between Himself and those patriarchs. He owns himself their God; their God still, though for hundreds of years their bodies had been mouldering in the cave of Mamre. In His account they were yet alive; and He, being their God, it necessarily behooved Him to do for them whatever a God is able to perform on their behalf—just as a father is bound to do for his children whatever he really can to promote their welfare. But cannot God—He who at first breathed into those patriarchs the breath of life, again raise them from the dust of death, and clothe them with strength and beauty? Doubtless He can; and because He can, He will—nay, He must, since He has Himself assumed the name, and thereby pledged Himself to make good all that it imports. He who would have been ashamed to be called their God, if He had not provided for them a city, would much more have been ashamed so to call Himself, if their bodies, a part of their very natures, were left for ever as a prey to corruption.
VIII. Matthew 27:9-10; Zechariah 11:13.
There are two points that require explanation, in the use that is made here of the words of ancient prophecy; one more general, and another more specific. The first has respect to the propriety of understanding the Messiah as the person who was to be so unworthily treated, and rated at the mean price of thirty pieces of silver—the price of a slave. This admits of a full justification; for, in the preceding context, the subject of discourse plainly is about the false shepherds, on the one side, and the true Shepherd on the other. Reproving and judging the former, the Lord Himself, whom the prophet personates, undertakes the office, and in doing so, feeds the misled and injured flock, and cuts off those who had impoverished and oppressed them. But, so far from meeting with a kind reception and grateful acknowledgment from those whose cause he undertook, “their souls rebelled against him,” and he resolved on withdrawing in disgust; but demanded of them a reward for his services in their behalf. This, they are represented as answering, by weighing out the contemptuous sum of thirty pieces of silver: a transaction which evidently bespoke the light estimation in which they held him, and the work he had performed amongst them. Hence they are again given up to bad shepherds, and disorder and trouble rush in as before.
Now, since the Lord Himself is the Good Shepherd spoken of, and the transaction about the rating, carries a peculiarly personal aspect, it is scarcely possible to understand it otherwise than as referring to some manifestation of Godhead more objective and realistic than any that had taken place in ancient times. The people, under the relations of the Old Covenant, might be represented as selling themselves (Isaiah 52:3,) but they neither were, nor could fitly be, spoken of as selling the Lord. Such a mode of representation pointed to another and more palpable exhibition of Godhead than had hitherto appeared; it pointed to the appearance of the Divine Shepherd, of whom the earlier prophets had so often and so distinctly spoken (Psalms 2:9; Psalms 72:1-20; Isaiah 9:6-7; Jeremiah 23:4-5; Ezekiel 34:23.) And when, in addition to this, we look to the particulars of the account given by the prophet of the treatment of the shepherd, we may justly say, with Hengstenberg, “The agreement of prophecy and fulfilment is so striking, that it would force itself upon us, although it had been indicated by no declaration of the New Testament. What could the last and most fearful expression of ingratitude towards the Good Shepherd here predicted be, other than the murderous plot by which the Jews rewarded the pastoral fidelity of Christ, and for whose accomplishment Judas was bribed?” (Christology.) The differences that present themselves between the terms of the prophecy and the record of its fulfilment, are such merely as respect the form, not the reality of things. In the prophecy, the shepherd demands the payment of a sum, and that in the shape of a reward for his services; but this is only for the purpose of bringing out more distinctly the fact that he had appeared to them in the character of one doing them important service, and that when they came formally to surrender their interest in him, the time and circumstances of the transaction might fairly be taken as an evidence of the value they set upon him. In a word, it would inevitably and justly be regarded as a proof of blackest ingratitude toward him, and senseless disregard of their own highest interests. Not only so, but as Divine Providence ordered it so that the ministers of the temple paid the price, and the price was again taken back and thrown down in the temple; so in reality all came to be, in a manner, transacted before the Lord; it was done as under His immediate eyesight. As for the command in the prophecy to cast the price to the potter, it was but a strong form of the future (as in Isaiah 6:9, noticed under Matthew 13:14,) and merely denoted the certainty with which the event should come to pass. But another point here calls for consideration, of a somewhat more special kind; viz. why should the price have been so explicitly adjudged to the potter? This seems to imply, that somewhere already mention had been made of a potter, in such a connexion, as rendered the destination of this money to the same quarter a natural and proper thing. The prophecy here, therefore, must lean on some earlier portion of Scripture, which it either resumes, or takes for granted as known and understood. Now, it is only in Jeremiah that we find anything of that description. There, but there alone is mention made of the potter, in a way that is fitted to throw light on the passage under consideration. In Jeremiah 18:2, the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, saying, “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there will I cause thee to hear My words.” From the use of the definite article, the potter, we are naturally led to think of some one being meant, who had a well-known and recognised place in connexion with the temple; and from the prophet being ordered to go down to him, we are not less naturally led to think of his workshop as being situated in a lower place, probably in the valley that lay adjacent to the temple. This, however, is rendered certain in Jeremiah 19:2, where, after being commanded to get a potter’s earthen bottle, he was instructed to proceed, in company with the priests and elders of the people, “into the valley of the son of Hinnom,” and proclaim certain words. This valley had first been the scene of frightful abominations, when idolatry was at its height in Jerusalem; and afterwards, to mark his abhorrence of these, Josiah had polluted the place, by throwing into it carcasses and bones—into that part of it more especially, which was called Tophet, and in which children had been made to pass through the fire to Moloch (2 Kings 23:10; comp. Jeremiah 7:31.) When the prophet, then, had gone down to the potter, he saw a vessel become marred in the potter’s hand; on which the word of the Lord came, intimating that the Lord could do the same with the children of Israel, and, on account of their sins, might even be expected to do it. But the second special message was the one recorded in Jeremiah 19:1-15, when the prophet was commanded to throw an earthen vessel of the potter into the valley of Hinnom, and accompany the action with these appalling words, “Behold I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and have filled this place with innocent blood; therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter. And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword,” etc. “Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks the vessels of a potter, which cannot be made whole again, and they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.”
Now, when in Zechariah it was said, regarding the thirty pieces of silver, without any farther explanation, “cast them to the potter,” there can be no doubt, that he refers to these transactions in Jeremiah. And the meaning of the appointment was to this effect, Let these pieces of silver become, like the potter of Jeremiah and his vessels, the symbol of the people’s consummate guilt and impending doom. They are the price of innocent blood—blood that must still more surely draw down the vengeance of Heaven, than that which was of old shed in the valley of Hinnom; let them, therefore, be identified with the potter’s field, the place emphatically of pollution and crime, as a sign and warning to all, that the former desolations are ready to come back again. Such was the natural import of the prediction; and it affords by far the most fitting explanation of the apparent anomaly in the reference of the Evangelist, who, when quoting a passage of Zechariah, ascribes it to Jeremiah. Many suppositions have been made to account for this, such as, that there may have been. a lost passage in the writings of Jeremiah to the same effect—that the portion of Zechariah’s writings quoted from may really have belonged to Jeremiah—that the Evangelist’s memory may have failed him, etc. The real reason, however, is, that the Evangelist had in his eye the inseparable connexion between the prediction in Zechariah and the earlier announcements in Jeremiah; that he regarded the one only as a later and more specific application of the other; and that as he wished the people to consider the denunciations of guilt and judgment most graphically portrayed in the original prophecy, so he couples the prophecy with the name of the earlier rather than of the later prophet. This view, which was first distinctly propounded by Grotius, who says, Cum autem hoc dictum Jeremiæ per Sach. repetitum hic recitat Mat., simul ostendit tacite, eas poenas imminere Judæis, quas iidem prophetæ olini sui temporis hominibus prædixerant, has been more fully vindicated and established by Hengstenberg, in his Christology, on Zechariah. He justly says, “Matthew might, indeed, have cited both prophets. But such prolixity in citation is entirely contrary to the custom of the authors of the New Testament; which may be explained by a twofold reason. They presuppose their readers to possess an accurate know ledge of Scripture; and then the human instrument was kept far behind the Divine Author, the Spirit of God and of Christ, who spake in all the prophets in the same manner. Very frequently, therefore, the human author is not mentioned at all; they content themselves with such forms of citation as “the Scripture saith,” “according as it has been written,” “for it is written,” “as saith the Holy Ghost,” etc. The explanation of Hofmann, in his Weissagung und Erfullung, differs only in some subordinate points. He also thinks, that the Evangelist cannot be supposed to have attributed to Jeremiah a passage of Zechariah, as if by mistake; especially as he has taken the chief circumstance, with which the citation is formally connected, not from Zechariah but from Jeremiah—that, namely, which respects the purchase of the potter’s field, Hofmann, however, would confine the reference to Jeremiah to the Jeremiah 18, making no account of Jeremiah 19:1-15; and would regard the link of connexion between the passage in Zechariah and that of Jeremiah, as consisting simply in this—that the shepherd in Zechariah treats the temple-court as a clay-pit, and under the conviction, that this was destined soon to become a clay-pit, casts down in that holy place the money that was to be given to the potter as a worker in clay. On which account a curse is pronounced upon the place by the prophet, as had been done by Jeremiah; and hence the combination of the two passages together by the Evangelist. The explanation has somewhat of a recondite and artificial appearance; and the other seems simpler.
It should be borne in mind also, that the throwing together in the way now supposed of two passages of Old Testament Scripture, is nothing absolutely singular. We have already had an example of it at Matthew 21:4-5, where a portion of Isaiah 62:11, is conjoined with Zechariah 9:9, while the Evangelist simply introduces the words as having been spoken by the prophet. In Romans 9:33, also, two prophecies of Isaiah are thrown together and treated as if they formed a continuous utterance. But the most striking example, next to the one under consideration, is at Mark 1:2-3, where, according to the correct text, the Evangelist says, “As it is written in Esaias the prophet, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” etc. Here, the two prophecies of Malachi and Isaiah are coupled together, and cited only in connexion with the name of Isaiah; partly, doubtless, because he was both the earlier and the greater prophet, and, partly, because the prophecy in Malachi was but the resumption of that in Isaiah, only cast into a somewhat more personal and specific form. It is remarkable, too, and lends further confirmation to the view now given, that while there are numerous references to Malachi and Zechariah in the New Testament, the prophets themselves are never named. Zechariah is quoted four times besides the occasion before us—Matthew 21:5, Matthew 26:31; John 12:14, John 19:37, and always with a general formula. Hosea alone of the minor prophets, and he but once, is expressly mentioned (Romans 9:25;) for, it seems very doubtful if the reference in Acts 2:16 to the prophet Joel should go further than simply, “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet.” The minor prophets were usually regarded as a single book of prophecies by the Jews, somewhat of the nature of an appendage to the larger prophetical books. Hosea stood at the head of the list, and it was natural to name him, but scarcely less natural to refer to the others in a more general manner; or even, when the passage taken from any of them coincided in substance with what had been uttered by one of the greater prophets, to bring out its connexion with the more prominent name. These things undoubtedly indicate a peculiar mode of contemplation in respect to the point at issue, and lend confirmation to the explanations given above.
IX. John 19:36; Exodus 12:46. The prescription regarding the Passover Lamb, that a bone of it should not be broken, is applied by the Evangelist to our Lord, as a Scripture that required to find its correspondence, or meet with its verification in His person. The application proceeds, of course, on the ground of a typical relationship between that sacrificial lamb and Christ, as the author of redemption to His people; on account of which it is said by the apostle, “For also our Passover, Christ, was sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7 :) and our Lord Himself, pointing to the same relationship, said, at the celebration of the last Passover he held with His disciples, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God “(Luke 22:15-16.) It will at once be admitted by all, who believe in the fact of this relationship, that it involved the necessity of Christ’s sacrificial death, as the means whereby the stroke of deserved judgment was to be averted from their heads. And not only that, but that this new passover-sacrifice was to hold relatively the same place as the old—was to be the formation of a new era for the Church, the redemptive act, that provided for her members life and blessing. But persons may admit this, without perceiving any necessary connexion between the preservation of our Lord’s limbs from the violence done to those crucified beside Him, and the order to break no bone of the Paschal Lamb. For, why, it may be asked, this specific formal agreement—while so many others were wanting? The lamb, for example, was to die, by having its blood shed with a knife, which was afterwards to be poured out or sprinkled; the flesh of it also was to be roasted entire, and eaten the very night it was slain. These were prescriptions respecting the mode of treating the lamb, as well as that about the bones, while yet we see no formal agreement with them in the personal history of Christ. Why, then, should there have been such an agreement in regard to this one particular? The precise relation of things may be thus stated:—The ordinance of the Passover had this as a distinctive feature in its institution, that the lamb, which had been the provisional means of deliverance from impending destruction, the source, in a sense, of material life, should also be the food and support of the life so preserved; it must be eaten, and eaten entire, by those for whom it had provided a ransom; and for this end it had to be roasted, without suffering mutilation. Now in this, the ordinance was to find its counterpart in the new dispensation, by the appropriation of Christ for strength and nourishment, on the part of all, who should be saved by his death; they must continue to live upon Him, and can only do so by making His fulness of life and blessing their own. And to give, even outwardly, a sign of this unbroken wholeness of Christ—of the necessity of it, and of the believer’s fellowship with it, to salvation—the Lord interfered by a singular act of providence, to preserve the body of the crucified intact. The type, might, indeed, without this external conformity have been substantially verified; but it was given as a special token or seal from the hand of God, to authenticate the antitype, and to point men’s thoughts back to the ordinance, which had been framed so many ages before in anticipation of the reality. The fulfilment here, therefore, belongs to the same class as those referred to in No. II.; a fulfilment that manifested an external correspondence, fitted to help an imperfect discernment, or a feeble faith, but one that, at the same time, bespoke a more inward and deeper correspondence lying beneath. It was, so to speak, but the outer shell of the antitypical development, which is noticed by the Evangelist; yet such, that through it discerning minds might discover the rich kernel of spiritual and abiding truth, of which it was the index.
X. John 19:37; Zechariah 12:10.
We have here another example of that kind of fulfilment of ancient Scripture, which has been treated of in the last number—in something outward and corporeal a verification of a word, which reached much farther and deeper. Here, however, it is connected, not with a typical transaction of former times, but with an emblematic announcement of ancient prophecy. Describing prospectively the repentance of the people, whose blindness and folly had alienated them from the Lord, and involved them in misery and ruin, the Prophet Zechariah represents them as looking to Him whom they had pierced, and mourning. It was, undoubtedly, a spiritual grief—a grief on account of sin, of which the prophet spake, and in connexion with that, a spiritual direction of the eye to their offended Lord; for the whole is described as the consequence of a spirit of grace and supplication being poured out upon their souls. In such a case the piercing, which more especially caused the mourning, must also have been of a like profound and spiritual kind; it could be nothing less than the heart-grief experienced by the Shepherd of Israel on account of the wrongs and indignities He had received from His people. But the Evangelist John, who had a peculiar eye for the symbolical, and was ever seeing the spiritual imaged in the visible, descried in the piercing of our Lord’s side by the soldier’s spear a sign of that other piercing. It was an in dignity that formed, indeed, so far as it went, a proper fulfilment of the prophetic word, yet still one that touched the surface only, of its dark meaning, and was important, more for what it suggested than for what it actually embodied.—(Comp. John 12:32-33.) XI. Acts 1:20; Psalms 69:25; Psalms 109:8. The manner in which St. Peter brought these passages from the Psalms to bear on the case of Judas, is such as to leave no doubt that they had in this their most legitimate and proper application. He prefaced the use made of them with the words, “Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spoke before concerning Judas.” There was a Divine necessity in the case; Judas was so definitely in the mind of the inspiring Spirit, that the things written must have their accomplishment in the fate that befell him. And when we reflect, that this was the very first application of a prophetic Scripture by any of the Apostles after they had been instructed by Jesus respecting all things that were written of Him “in the law of Moses, in the prophets, in the Psalms” (Luke 24:44,) we cannot doubt that it was made on the express warrant and authority of their Master. It is chiefly valuable, on account of the insight it affords into the position and character of Judas. For, as the hostile party portrayed in Psalms 69:1-36, Psalms 109:1-31, sometimes as an individual, sometimes as a band of adversaries, stands arrayed in the darkest features, alike of guilt and of condemnation—as in the delineation given we see ingratitude of the blackest dye, malice and wickedness taking entire possession of the soul, and rendering it incapable of yielding to the impressions of love and holiness, capable only of rushing headlong to destruction—so we are taught by the personal application of the words to Judas (what the evangelical history itself teaches,) that it was no accidental circumstance, his having found a place among the number of the apostles, and no misapprehension merely, or precipitancy of judgment, (as some would have it,) which led him to take the part he did, in betraying the Son of Man. Judas, within the bosom of the twelve, did what his countrymen generally did, in respect to the world at large—betrayed the Lord of glory to His enemies. He was, therefore, the unconscious representative and leader of these enemies—the impersonation of those elements of evil, which rendered them what they ultimately became to Christ, and the cause of the gospel. He was but accidentally separated from them—fundamentally and in spirit he was one with them. Hence, it was quite legitimate to take what is written in Psalms 69:25, of the adversaries as a body, and apply it, as St. Peter does, individually to Judas: what was to find its realization in the unbelieving portion generally of the Jewish people, was, in a concentrated form, to take effect upon him, who, with peculiar aggravations, acted the treacherous part, which they also pursued. In him, as an individual, their guilt and punishment were alike reflected—as the one first, by his own perversity, so of necessity the other, by Divine ordination. Happy, had they but read in time the sign it was intended to afford of their inevitable doom! In that case, even the melancholy fate of the son of perdition might have proved a beacon, to warn them away from that coming wrath, which laid their habitations desolate like his, and drove them from the office they had been called to fill, as the channels of blessing to mankind.
XII. Acts 13:33; Psalms 2:7; Acts 13:34; Isaiah 4:3. The peculiarity in the use of these passages of Old Testament Scripture lies in their being placed in such immediate connexion with the resurrection of Christ. It has been doubted by some, whether in Acts 13:33 the apostle is speaking directly and specially of the resurrection: they would rather regard the raising up (
It was probably on account of Christ’s having appeared to Paul as the risen Saviour, and wrought thereby such a marvellous change on his condition and prospects, that his thoughts took so strongly this direction. Not, however, as if there were anything properly singular in such a mode of representation—for the same substantially is found in the discourses of Christ, and the writings of the other apostles; but in those of Paul it assumed a more remarkable prominence. It proceeds on the contemplation of Christ’s work as the actual restoration of man from the curse of death, which came in by sin. The promise of such a restoration was the grand hope of the fallen, for which the children of faith were ever waiting and longing. And Christ, by His resurrection from the dead, and ascension to the heavenly places, actually brings in the hope; now at length it passes into a living reality; and He, who prevails thus to bring life out of death, and enter in the name of His elect on the heirship of immortality, is found, by the very act, to be, what He was long ago declared, God’s peculiar Son—for He could have done it only by having life in Himself, even as the Father hath life in Himself.
Such is the ground of the apostle’s application of the word in Psalms 2:7 to Christ, in connexion with His resurrection from the dead. It does not mean, that He was constituted God’s Son by the resurrection; but that the power of the resurrection belonged to Him as God’s Son, and by the exercise of this power was His Sonship made incontrovertibly manifest. And it is merely by following out the same line of thought, that the other passage—that from Isaiah—is applied to the perpetuity of Christ’s risen life. It was not enough for the apostle’s purpose to exhibit a risen Saviour; he must show this Saviour to be the possessor of an endless life; for, otherwise, the realization of the world’s hopes would not be complete; the covenant could not have been established on a sufficient basis. Therefore, the promise is called in, which spoke of “the sure mercies of David”—the mercies which had for their guarantee the everlasting faithfulness of Jehovah. Here there is no room for failure, as in the case of merely human gifts or promises; the covenant once ratified by the appearance and triumph of Jesus, stands fast for ever, living in the presence of the Father, He can see no corruption, and of His kingdom of grace and blessing there can be no end.
XIII. Romans 1:17; Habakkuk 2:4. The only question that can be raised upon this citation is, whether the word rendered faith is taken by the apostle precisely in the same sense in which it is used by the prophet. The word is undoubtedly employed in different senses; sometimes as an objective matter-of-fact property—stability, the settled condition of things; sometimes as a personal property of God, His fidelity or truthfulness; and sometimes, again, as a personal property of men, their truthfulness in word or deed, steadfast adherence to what is felt to be right and good. Some have hence sought to identify it, as used by Habakkuk, with the righteous principle generally; and Hitzig even says, on the passage, that it might as well have been said, that the righteous man shall live by his righteousness. But to this it is justly replied by Delitzsch, that “in a passage which treats, not of the relation of God to man, or of man to his fellow- men, but of man to God, it may fitly designate the state of him who, in respect to God, is named
XIV. Romans 11:9-10; Psalms 69:22-23. The verses here quoted and applied to the apostate part of the Jewish people, are from one of the psalms, which the Apostle Peter had applied to Judas, (Acts 1:20.) This application of it confirms the view taken of the subject at the place referred to. Judas and the Jewish people are identified; their sin was substantially the same, and such also must be their condemnation. In both cases alike, the falsehood and treachery that had been manifested toward the cause of Heaven, must be repaid into their own bosom.
XV. Galatians 3:16; Genesis 22:18. The apostle Peter, very shortly after the ascension of our Lord, had applied the promise to Abraham, about all the families of the earth being blessed in his seed, in such a way as clearly to imply, that the fulfilment was to be found in Christ. All were to be blessed in Abraham’s seed; and God having raised up His Son Jesus, hath sent Him (says Peter) to bless you first—meaning, to give the seed of Israel precedence in the enjoyment of the benefit, which yet was to be diffused through every tribe and region of the world, (Acts 3:25-26.) By implication at least, this really involves the principle of the Apostle Paul’s formal explanation in Galatians 3:16. For he merely asserts, that the Abrahamic promise of blessing concentrates itself, as to vital efficacy, in Christ, and so is enjoyed by such, but only by such as are in organic union with Him. Not to seeds, therefore, as of many—not to Abraham’s offspring indiscriminately—the various families and tribes that looked to him as their common fleshly head; but to the one seed that combined the spiritual with the carnal bond of affinity to Abraham—the seed of which Christ was to be the public representative, and the one living Head. This seed, throughout all its generations and members, is properly but one, having its standing, its characteristics, its destiny in Christ. So that by Christ, as the one seed, the apostle does not mean Christ individually, but Christ collectively—Christ personally, indeed, first, but in Him, and along with Him, the whole of His spiritual body the Church. This is put beyond all doubt by Galatians 3:28-29, where he says of believers, that they are all one (
XVI. Hebrews 1:6; Psalms 97:7. The chief peculiarity in this application of an Old Testament passage to Christ, is in respect to the time or occasion with which it is more particularly associated. The Lord, it is said, commanded all the angels (or Elohim) of God to worship the Son, when He introduced Him as the first-begotten into the world. To what occasion or period does this refer? There is nothing in the Psalm itself to enable us to give a very specific answer. It describes in figurative and striking terms a contemplated manifestation of God—such as should confound all the adversaries of Zion, and to Zion herself bring peace, security, and blessing. There can be no doubt, that this was to be accomplished in the highest degree by the incarnation and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and no otherwise could it be effectually accomplished. He alone was to put for ever to shame the enemies of God’s truth, and establish the interests of righteousness—to establish them on such a sure foundation, that the people of God should be able to rejoice with a joy unspeakable, and full of glory. The Psalm, therefore, in regard to its main theme, might be associated generally with the manifestation of Christ’s person and the execution of His mediatorial work; especially as in the pregnant and ideal style of prophecy particular stages and precise moments of the Divine kingdom are often less contemplated than its general character and results. At the same time, as the Psalmist seems to have more properly in his eye the final processes of the work of Christ, and speaks of the whole world having become the theatre of the manifested glory of God in Him, it is most natural to understand the language as pointing more immediately to the time of the end, when every thing shall be brought to its proper consummation. This seems also to be the view adopted by the inspired writer of this epistle; for the
XVII. Hebrews 1:10-12; Psalms 102:25-27.
It strikes one at first sight as strange, that a passage, which proclaims the eternity and immutableness of God, in marked contrast with the created universe, should have been applied, without a note of explanation, to Christ, as if He were beyond any doubt the subject of the representation. But it must be remembered, the sacred writer is not here arguing with Jews, who might have been disposed to question the ground on which the application is made. He is addressing believers, Jewish Christians, who were already persuaded of the truth of Christ’s Messiahship, and who, therefore, understood, that in Christ Divine and human met together—that by Him, as the Great Revealer of Godhead, the worlds were originally made, and all the provisions and arrangements connected with the Old Economy brought into existence. It is in truth as the Divine Head of the covenant with Israel, and in particular with the house of David, that the Lord is addressed throughout Psalms 102:1-28; and the thought of the eternal being and un- changeableness of God is brought in, not absolutely and as an independent consideration, but in connexion with the hopes of His Church and people. There were troubles, the Psalmist well foresaw, lying in the future—calamities and desolations enough to make the pious soul conscious of gloom and horror at the prospect. But he reassured himself, and would have afflicted believers in every age to re-assure themselves, by realizing their connexion with their eternal and glorious King. He is infinitely exalted above the mutable and the perishing; He fails not with created things, which He made by the word of His mouth, and which he can again change at His pleasure, or fold up as a decayed garment;—And we also, who by faith have become heirs of God, and have an imperishable interest in all that is His, are, on this ground, secured against failure, in respect to our hopes of final bliss. This is the train of thought in the Psalm; and the passage, therefore, is in the strictest sense applicable to the Divine Redeemer, by whom the worlds were made, and through whom all the operations of Godhead have been, and are executed in our fallen world.
XVIII. Hebrews 2:6-8; Psalms 8:4-6. The use here made of a portion of Psalms 8:1-9 has been so well vindicated by Hengstenberg, as to the ground on which it rests, that we shall do little more than quote what he has said on the subject in his introductory remarks on the Psalm. “The Psalm stands in the closest connexion with the first chapter of Genesis. What is written there of the dignity with which God invested man over the works of His hands, whom He placed as His representative on earth, and endowed with the lordship of creation, that is here made the subject of contemplation and praise. We simply have that passage in Genesis turned into a prayer for us. But how far man still really possesses that glory, what remains of it, how much of it has been lost,—of this the Psalmist takes no thought. His object was merely to praise the goodness of God, which still remained the same, as God, whose gifts are without repentance, has not arbitrarily withdrawn what He gave; only man, by his folly, has suffered himself to be robbed of it. But even with this single eye upon the goodness of God, which, on His part, continues unabated, it is to be understood, that the en tire representation holds good only at the beginning and the end; and but very imperfectly suits the middle, in which we, along with the Psalmist, now stand. When this middle is placed distinctly before the eye, man is represented quite otherwise in the Old Testament than we find him here—as a sheep, a shadow, a falling leaf, a worm, as dust and ashes. And why God is here thanked, see especially Isaiah 11:6-9, where the same reference is made as here to Genesis 1:1-31, and where a restitution is promised to man, in the times of Messiah, of the relation he originally held to the earth, but which is now in a state of prostration. Accordingly, the matter of the Psalm can find its full verification only in the future; and for the present it applies to none but Christ, in whom human nature again possesses the dignity and glory over creation, which was lost in Adam. By-and-by, when the moral consequences of the fall have been swept away, this also shall come to be the common inheritance of the human family.” Contemplated thus, the application of the 8th Psalm to the temporary humiliation and final exaltation of Christ, as the Head of redeemed and glorified humanity, admits of a perfect justification. Only, when viewed simply in reference to Christ, the words descriptive of the nearly Elohim-dignity of man necessarily become, at the same time, indicative of a relative, though temporary humiliation. “With the man of creation the
XIX. Hebrews 2:13; Isaiah 8:17-18.
Three passages are here appealed to in proof of the kindredness of Messiah to those whom He came to redeem. One is from Psalms 22:1-31, which is strictly Messianic; the other two from the eighth chapter of Isaiah. By not a few commentators the propriety of these latter applications is doubted; at least, they are judged applicable only in a secondary sense, as the prophet himself is considered to be the speaker; so that only by way of accommodation, or typically, can the words be understood of the Messiah. This, however, may justly be questioned, and is questioned, by a large body of interpreters. They hold, that as in the immediately preceding verse, it is the Messiah who appears to be the speaker—in the words, “Bind up the testimony, seal up the law, among My disciples,”—so He ought to be understood as continuing to speak in Isaiah 8:17-18, declaring His trust in the Father, and pointing to the spiritual seed the Father had given Him. The passage is unquestionably an obscure one; but even if we should prefer considering the prophet as more directly the speaker, he must be viewed as speaking in a representative character—personating the being, and maintaining the cause of the Immanuel. The whole discourse, from Isaiah 7:14-25, Isaiah 8:1-22, Isaiah 9:1-7, is perpetually-turning upon “the God with us,” as the great security and hope for Israel; and mediately or immediately, the words in question must be regarded as pointing in that direction. Either way the use made of them in the epistle is perfectly legitimate. In the remaining passages of Old Testament Scripture quoted, either in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or in the general epistles, there is nothing very peculiar, as regards the use that is made of them by the inspired writers. We may simply state, in regard to the application made of Psalms 40:1-17 in Hebrews 10:5-10, to the personal obedience and offering of Christ, that it is not to be understood as excluding an inferior reference to the Psalmist himself. He knew perfectly, in regard to his own spiritual state and calling, that a willing surrender of himself to God ranked higher than the mere presentation of animal victims; and substantially the same idea is expressed elsewhere, in passages that undoubtedly have a direct reference to the Psalmist and his fellow-worshippers in Old Testament times (Psalms 50:7-15, Psalms 51:16-17.) It is not necessary, therefore, to suppose, that in Psalms 40 no respect was had to that self-dedication to the Divine service, which even under the ancient dispensation was preferred to all burnt-offerings. But as little should the remarkable words there written be confined to that; and the defects and short-comings, of which the saints of God in those earlier times were painfully conscious, as mingling with all their personal surrenders to God, could not but dispose them to look for the proper realization of what was written in one higher and greater than themselves. The spiritual Israel in every age aimed at it; but He lone, in whom Israel’s state and calling were to find their true accomplishment, could in the full sense appropriate the words, and embody them in action.