Zechariah 14

14:1 BEHOLD, a day of the LORD cometh, when thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished: and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee by the valley of my mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azel: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the holy ones with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be with brightness and with gloom: but it shall be one day which is known unto the LORD; not day, and not night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time there shall be light. And it shall come to pass in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall the LORD be one, and his name one. All the land shall be turned as the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and she shall be lifted up, and shall dwell in her place, from Benjamin’s gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananel unto the king’s winepresses. And men shall dwell therein, and there shall be no more curse; but Jerusalem shall dwell safely. And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the peoples that have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour. And Judah also shall fight against Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the nations round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance. And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in those camps, as this plague. And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso of all the families of the earth goeth not up unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, upon them there shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, neither shall it be upon them; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the nations that go not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations that go not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLY UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holy unto the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.

Chap. 14. The principles of interpretation which should rule in this chapter have been fully discussed and brought out in my remarks introductory to chap. 12. The events which it portrays are all yet in the future. Consequently there is no occasion to try to locate them in history, or to define their precise historic character. Their general significance and results may be inferred with reasonable certainty. The entire costume is Jewish, as we ought to expect. Jerusalem is invested by the combined forces of all nations; the city taken and sacked; half its people go into captivity (verses 1, 2). The Lord comes forth to fight against those nations (verse 3); He stands on the Mount of Olives and cleaves it in twain for His people to pass through (verse 4); they flee, but ultimately the Lord and His holy ones appear for their salvation (verse 5); a most peculiar twilight period follows, breaking forth near evening into the effulgence of full day (verses 6, 7); living waters flow from Jerusalem perpetually (verse 8); Jehovah alone is King over all the earth (verse 9); the whole world becomes a plain, and the temple-mountain stands alone the only mountain (verse 10); the plague that comes on those who fought against Jerusalem (verse 12)—panic and mutual slaughter consume them (verse 13); Judah aids Jerusalem in this great conflict against their common foes (verse 14); God’s judgments reach all the domestic animals used by their enemies, as well as their owners (verse 15); all the surviving people of the world shall go up to Jerusalem to worship (verse 16); the plague on those who will not go up (verse 17), and especially on Egypt (verses 18, 19); holiness to the Lord in all inanimate things, universal and final (verses 20, 21). H. C.

The day of Jehovah comes, all nations are gathered against Jerusalem, already it is captured, and is suffering the last horrors of war, when Jehovah goes forth to battle for His people. All nature trembles as He marches along, Mount Olivet is cleft asunder, the people flee, the light of nature is shrouded, but living waters go forth from Jerusalem, and Jehovah’s kingdom is established over all the earth. Henceforward Jerusalem is safely inhabited, and from year to year all nations go up thither to worship, for she is now the holy city, and upon all that she has is inscribed “Holiness unto the Lord.” R. P. S.

1. “Behold,” calls special attention to what follows, as of the deepest interest and greatest importance. Remarkably, the usual form, “day of the Lord,” is materially changed here. It is,

“a day comes for the Lord,” one day pre-eminently for Him, in which He will fully vindicate His name as the God of Zion, His power as one mighty to save, and His faithfulness as one who, having long ago promised, comes forth now in the fulness of time to perform. The other form—simply day of the Lord—occurs in Joel 1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14; Amos 5:18, 20; Zeph. 1:14, and elsewhere; but this is unique and peculiar, occurring, however, substantially in Jer. 51:6: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon; be not cut off in her iniquity; for it is a time of vengeance for the Lord.” Also in Isa. 2:12: “Thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee,” is of course said of Jerusalem, and implies that she is in the power of her enemies.

2. This verse gives somewhat the details of the case, to show how it comes to pass that the spoil of the city is divided among its captors within her very walls. The Lord, by His providential agencies, brings all the nations up against Jerusalem to battle. In this one prominent feature, this prophecy harmonizes with Ezek. 38, 39, and with Rev. 20:8, 9. The city is taken; the horrible scenes usually consequent on such a capture ensue. Finally, half the people go into captivity; the other half remain in the city. We do not hear from these captives again. They meet the doom of the wicked, and doubtless represent the corrupt and not truly pious portion of the people. This cleansing of the nominal Church by which one half is sloughed off, taken in connection with the similar operation predicted (chap. 13:8, 9), which cut off two parts out of three, gives us a strong view of the fearful corruption of the Church, and of the amount of winnowing and separation requisite before her great victories over the wide world can be achieved. Like the host of Gideon, her host is to be reduced to the faithful few.

3. “Then shall the Lord go forth”—this Hebrew verb being the common one for “going out” to war and battle—e.g., Hab. 3:13; Isa. 26:21, which latter passage, like the one before us, assumes that the Lord has been at rest, waiting for the fit hour, and now comes forth for special displays of His power against His foes. 4. The commander of a vast army takes some elevated position which overlooks the battle-field. So Jehovah takes His stand on the Mount of Olives, which overlooked the city on the east, affording the best commanding view of the city. To give the greater vividness to the scene as a reality, it is said “His feet shall stand there.” The mountain cleaves asunder in the middle, half removing northward and half southward, leaving a wide valley. There can be no doubt of a tacit historical allusion here to the very similar cleaving of the Red Sea for His people to escape from Pharaoh’s pursuing host. That was done literally; this, being a historical allusion, means only that a deliverance is now effected like that, equally glorious to the power that saved His people, equally effective for their salvation. The analogy will be yet more complete if we may suppose, with Hengstenberg, that the mountain is cleft by an earthquake, which, while it opened the mountain for their easy escape, swallowed up their enemies. As the text does not affirm this, however, it must stand as mere conjecture. This earthquake alarmed the retreating host and hastened their flight—of which fear and flight the next verse speaks.

5. This earthquake in the days of Uzziah is not noticed in the historical books, but is probably alluded to by Amos (1:1). That, like this, was a time of panic and of earnest flight from the city to the mountains for safety. “Now there comes the Lord my God, and all the saints with thee.” With this the scene changes; Immanuel appears in pre-eminent splendor, and all the holy in His train. The nearest parallel to this scene as respects His retinue is De. 33:2, where Moses said: “The Lord came from Sinai; He shined forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints,” etc. The prophet speaks of this scene as it appeared to him in prophetic vision. The scene was peculiarly and pre-eminently impressive. He had a vivid sense of Immanuel, “the captain of the Lord’s host,” as his own God, and the God of his own people, and therefore says, “There comes the Lord my God!”

The next striking feature he puts in the form of an address to Immanuel: “All the holy ones are with thee.” The great aim of this revelation is to impress the prophet, and through his words all the people of God in every age, with this great truth, that Jesus Immanuel is the Almighty Saviour of His people, and that He employs angelic spiritual beings as His agents in the ministrations of His mediatorial reign, both in the care of His people and in His judgments on the wicked. Hence these agents sometimes appear in the visions of prophecy. Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and above him were the seraphim.” The same thing was symbolized when (2 K, 6:17) Elisha prayed in behalf of his young servant: “Lord, I pray Thee open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” This was only bringing before the prophet’s mental eye the actual verities of things—those agencies, full of power, though usually invisible to mortals, by which Jesus Christ administers the providential government of this world. H. C.

6,7. In a wide application, the words may be regarded as describing the mixed character of God’s dispensations to the race. Looking at the course of His providence and grace through the long day of time, at the whole train of events which have marked man’s existence on the earth, it is obvious that since holiness and sin began their strife in the primeval paradise, light and darkness, mercy and judgment, happiness and suffering, have been blended in all that God has done and man experienced. “But it shall come to pass that at evening time there shall be light.” The long, long day of varied light and darkness, the long world strife of good and evil, of truth and error, of happiness and misery, shall end in unclouded brightness, in the triumph, complete and lasting, of holiness, of truth, of blessedness. For at the evening of the world the Lord shall come! “He shall be King over all the earth,” there shall be “one Lord, and His name one.” The isles shall receive His law, the nations shall become His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth His possession. B.

“At evening time it shall be light.” The revolution of years is silently bringing nearer and nearer the evening time of the moral world. God’s administration of this world’s affairs is approaching a glorious completion. The mystery and darkness that now invest His throne will be dissipated, and His ways shall be justified before the assembled universe. The hands of the clock of Time are moving on, slowly and silently, toward an hour which shall be universally known and felt, soon as it is reached, as the end of Time. Oh, that last evening time of the world, what pen can adequately picture it? The cloudy day of Providence will end, and in the light of the great white throne of judgment the grandest vindication of His government will be made by Jehovah Himself! The reasons and equity of His acts will no longer appear uncertain. A thousand queries, suggested by as many strange things of our present state, will be answered. The prayer of the old reformer, that we offer, now and then, as we are brought under darkness, “more light, Lord; more light, more light!” will be granted in a manner that will awe us down into the profoundest attitude of thankfulness.

Then will there be made an adjustment of contrary things Inequalities of rank and condition will be rectified. Good and evil will be forever separated. Truth and error will dissolve companionship. The right shall be established and the wrong put down. Justice will be administered by One who cannot err. Merit will be recognized and receive its due reward, and mere pretence will be put to shame. Oh, what a clearing away of mists will there be! What startling revelations will be made! And as the finale of that wonderful scene of the last judgment the voices of ten times ten thousand angels and archangels, joining with the hosts of the saved from earth, shall be heard exclaiming, “Blessing, and honor, and power, and glory be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne! Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints!” Luckenbach.

In a personal application, these figurative expressions will describe the present mixed condition of the righteous. By day and night, light and darkness, are meant knowledge and ignorance, sin and holiness, prosperity and adversity, hope and fear. And when it is said that it shall be neither day nor night with the people of God, we are to understand that their condition in the world is neither perfectly good nor perfectly evil, that there is mixture and change in their portion. Out of compassion to our infirmities, the Lord diversifies our state. That we may not forget Him in the light, He sends us darkness; and then, that our feet may not stumble, that our hearts may not fall us in the darkness, He causes the light again to rise on us, and we are comforted. This procedure brings our graces into exercise; it manifests and strengthens them. Some of these are called forth by prosperity only, at least they shine then with peculiar brightness; such are moderation, deadness to the world, self-denial, humility. Others again are seen only or chiefly in the night of affliction—submission, contentment, patience, all the suffering graces of the Spirit. This diversified experience is designed also to bring the people of God to a more simple dependence on Himself. It accomplishes this end by showing them their own weakness and the Divine strength. C. B.

God in the end can turn even our failures and mistakes to His glory and our own blessing; His wisdom can overrule our error, and His mercy will forgive our weakness. If, through our own fault, not His, our pastures have not been as green, our waters not as still as they might have been, yet surely as we look back and count up our past blessings, they will make our heart full and our eyes dim. Dark as the day may have been, “at eventide it shall be light.” Sometimes our path in life seems like a lane full of windings, where the steep banks shut out the light and air, and all we can do is to trudge steadily on through the thick mire. But if we look high up in front of us we shall see, as Israel saw, the faint blue hills of the Land of Promise rising up against the sky. The path will come out at length in full view of the celestial city; and at last, at last we shall be at home. Bp. Thorold.

Oftentimes we look with forebodings to the time of old age, forgetful that at eventide it shall be light. To many saints old age is the choicest season of their lives. A balmier air fans the mariner’s cheek as he nears the shore of immortality; fewer waves ruffle his sea; quiet reigns, deep, still and solemn. From the altar of age the flashes of the fire of youth are gone, but the flame of more earnest feeling remains. The setting sun seems larger than when aloft in the sky, and a splendor of glory tinges all the clouds which surround all his going down. Pain breaks not the sweet calm of the twilight of age; for strength made perfect in weakness bears up in patience under it all.

The Lord’s people shall enjoy light in the hour of death. Unbelief laments, the shadows fall, the night is coming, existence is ending. Ah, no! crieth Faith; the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Light is come—the light of immortality, the light of a father’s countenance. Farewell, beloved one; thou art gone; thou wavest thy hand. Ah, now it is light. The pearly gates are open; the golden streets shine in the jasper light. We cover our eyes, but thou beholdest the unseen. Thou hast light at eventide, such as we have not. Spurgeon.

Into that unclouded day, into that perfect knowledge and vision of God, into that completely satisfied experience of His fellowship and joy, all our dead in Christ have entered. Their darkness is ended; their burdens laid down; their labor is terminated in rest, their trouble in peace, their sorrow in joy, their exile in home—an everlasting, blessed home with God. To that home of rest and peace and joy our exiled hearts aspire, and still we journey on. To us the way is still, as it hath been thus far, through weariness and trial. But He who led and holds us on the way bids us remember the infirmities, the burdens, the griefs which He has appointed as the means, needful, wise and kind, of attaining that blessed end. Since He appointeth our light afflictions which, in the comparison of an endless being, are but for a moment, to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, let us not faint or be discouraged because of them. Since these afflictions are God’s instruments in our needed discipline of refinement and purification, since in our every experience of trial He is chastening us for our profit, that we may be made partakers of His holiness, be it ours to watch and labor and pray, that they bring forth in us the fruit of patience, of trust, of more perfect consecration, of more active endeavor of love to do His holy, blessed will! B.

8. Water is a natural symbol of God’s spiritual blessings, especially those in which the agencies of the Holy Spirit are prominent. Indeed, water is the special symbol of this Divine Spirit, as may be seen in the explanatory clauses of Ezek. 36:25, 27; Isa. 44:3. The latter reads, “I will pour water on him that is thirsty”—shown to mean, “I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy offspring.” Ezekiel has it, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean,” etc., shown to mean, “I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes,” etc. Moreover, the very terms which express the manner of giving the Spirit indicate this: “I will pour My Spirit upon you,” etc. Strikingly parallel to this passage of Zechariah is Ezek. 47:1-12. There the water flows from under the sanctuary, here from Jerusalem; there is one widening, deepening stream, till it becomes a mighty river, and sweeping through the desert eastward, pours itself into the Dead Sea and heals its waters; here one half flows into the front sea, which is, of course, the Dead Sea, and the other half into the Mediterranean on the west. That of Ezekiel carries on its bosom health, abundance, undying verdure, and is of course to be considered perennial; this flows during the arid summer as well as the rainy winter, which amounts to saying that it flows all the year, and year after year, never failing. Now, as Palestine would be rendered almost an earthly Paradise by such living streams as Zechariah and Ezekiel have described, if they were to be miraculously created by the finger of God, and become literal verities, so we must take these figures as predictions of blessings of the richest, most abundant, and most enduring kind possible for God to bestow on human souls.

That Zechariah’s stream of water flows from Jerusalem and Ezekiel’s “from under the sanctuary” indicate plainly that the Spirit of God will yet continue, as ever, to make the institutions of the Gospel—the service and worship of the sanctuary—the vehicles and the channels through which He will pour abroad the fulness of His blessings upon men.

9. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one. The precious fact predicted here is that the Lord Jehovah reigns supreme over all the earth, and is recognized everywhere as the only true God. The sense is not precisely this—that now and henceforth there shall really be but one God, as if to imply that in former times there had been more true gods than one; but this—that now He is known, acknowledged, honored, obeyed, as the one only God. The very names of other gods are forgotten. No other name than His is recognized as a name for God. Now, therefore, “the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever.” Now, at length, the long-offered prayer, the burden of pious hearts age after age, is fulfilled: “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That good promise by the mouth and pen of David (Ps. 22:27, 28) has now come to pass: “All the ends of the earth shall remember, and turn unto the Lord, all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee; for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He is Governor among the nations.”

10. “All the land” should read, as it clearly means, all the earth, being precisely the same words rendered “all the earth” in the previous verse: “The Lord shall be King over all the earth.” “Turned” means changed, in its physical conformation, from a mountainous to a plain, level country. The sense is that all the earth shall become a plain similar to that from Geba to Rimmon. Geba was on the northern border of Judah (2 K. 23:8), and Rimmon on the southern (1 Chron. 4:32). “It shall be lifted up” means that Jerusalem shall rise in lofty, towering grandeur, the only mountain in all the world, and, of course, the chief wonder and admiration of the world, all else being a plain. It shall be crowned on its summit with the glorious temple of the living God. This carries forward the figure used (Micah 4:1; Isa. 2:2) at least one important step further. Micah and Isaiah speak of the temple-mountain as “established” (firmly set) “on the top of the mountains and exalted above the hills.” Zechariah sees all other mountains and hills sinking down to a plain, and the temple-mountain, or rather Jerusalem herself as a whole, is lifted up and becomes the only mountain of the world. So magnificent, honorable, and glorious is to be the future kingdom of Messiah!

12. The prophet left the enemies of Zion at the third verse to follow the fortunes of Zion herself, and to show us, through verses 4-11, how signally the Lord appeared for her help, and how gloriously He turned her darkness into day, and then poured out for her living waters and rebuilt her capital in greater and more enduring splendor than ever. Now he returns to inform us of the doom of those old enemies who marshalled their hosts against Zion, as appears in verses 1-3. They are smitten with a living death. Their flesh, touched with some consuming leprosy, perishes while yet they stand upon their feet. Their eyes consume away in their sockets; their tongue in their mouths. The eye and the tongue are specified as being the most valued organs—those of sight and of speech; and probably, too, as having been specially used in their war upon Zion. With their tongue they had spoken proudly, blasphemously, profanely. The type of their spirit had been, “Let her be defiled; let our eye look upon Zion” (Micah 4:11). “Where is the Lord thy God? Mine eye shall behold her” (Micah 7:10). The Lord is wont to make His retributive judgments indicate the sin for which they are sent. This plague wherewith the Lord shall smite the open enemies and actual assailants of His Zion is intended to be terrible.

13. The word “tumult” rather means a panic—the blended terror and confusion which an awful sense of the fact that Almighty God is against them would naturally produce. This verse and the preceding should be located in the events of this chapter, immediately after the first three verses. We are not to suppose that this plague of verse 12, and this panic with mutual slaughter of verse 13, come in only long after the scenes of the first three verses, and after Jerusalem has become peaceful and glorious. They rather go back to give us in detail the manner in which the Lord disposed of those enemies that fought against Jerusalem, took and divided her spoil, and made captives of half her people. All suddenly the plagues of Jehovah smite them; their flesh consumes away; this awful form of death serves to panic smite their hosts, and they fall upon each other in the dread work of mutual slaughter!

“So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love ‘Thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might’’ (Judges 5:31).

14. Judah fights in Jerusalem, not against her. The meaning is that, with a mutually good understanding, the people of the country rush to the help of the city, and fight heroically within the city for her defence. The spoil from the enemy is immense. The ultimate truth taught here is that real union shall be the strength and glory of the millennial Church.

15. The same plague that came from the Lord upon incorrigibly wicked men falls also on all their cattle, horses, mules, camels and asses. They are supposed to be polluted by the horrible corruption of their owners. Moreover, the Lord would make His judgments so terrible as to inspire awe of His majesty and justice. The cattle of a city given to idolatry were to be destroyed. So were the animals in some of those most wicked cities doomed of God to destruction. H. C.

16-21. In these words the future reception of the true religion by all nations is foretold under the symbols of the Mosaic economy, with its ritual, its yearly feasts, and its central place of worship. For this principle of interpretation we have the authority of the New Testament (Rom. 12:1; 1 Pet. 2:5). Barroves.

16. The slaughter of the wicked nations, implied in verse 3, and terribly indicated in verses 12, 13, leaves some yet living; how many relatively to the whole number, or to the number slain, we are not told. But we are told that those who remain shall be converted to God. They now come up to Jerusalem, no longer to fight against her, but to worship the living God in her temple, and to join heart and hand with the Lord’s people. They are changed men—changed from sinners to saints. The Jewish idea of a convert made to the true God in distant Gentile lands must naturally imply that he will come up year by year to Jerusalem to worship God at their great festivals. This idea they could not fail to carry over to the reign of their expected Messiah. Prophecy makes Him a second David, the great successor on David’s throne, to reign over all the nations from that great central metropolis of His kingdom. It remains for us to translate this Old Testament phraseology into that of the New Testament, and to modify those ideas which were the natural, not to say necessary, outgrowth of the ancient dispensation, and make them correspond to the new type of things established by our Lord and His apostles. So modified, we no longer think of converts in the ends of the earth making their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to keep her holy feasts and to worship Jehovah there. We understand that every living Christian heart is God’s temple, and that every sincere worshipper is accepted in the New Mediator of the better covenant. Now after Zion has been redeemed from her sins, made victorious over her foes, has received all that survive of them to her bosom as friends, and they are made welcome to her munificent blessings from her King, why should they not bring up their annual offerings of thanksgiving and praise? Isaiah (66: 23) names the “new moons and the Sabbaths” as the periods at which all flesh should come up to worship before the Lord—showing, when compared with this statement by Zechariah, that a literal coming is not thought of by the Spirit of inspiration. The essential idea is expressed as well by one form of statement as by the other. This idea is, that all the people of the earth will worship the true God in the modes of His own appointment, as Christ taught the woman of Samaria (John 4: 20-24), and as the converted Jews were taught (Heb., chaps. 7-10).

17. This curse is entirely in accordance with the principles of the ancient theocracy which promised rain to the people if obedient, but threatened to withhold it if they turned aside to idols. (See De. 11: 13-17.) The ancient economy provided for retribution in the present world sufficiently full and sure to make the sense of it effective in those early ages, and to minister to an intelligent faith in God’s actual government of the world. The previous verse speaks of “nations;” this, particularly, of “families,” because it was by families that the Hebrew people came up to Jerusalem on their great annual festivals.

18,19. The general sense is plain—viz., that Egypt shall be no exception to the general law. If they go not up, the same plagues shall fall on them for this neglect as on other nations. The fact is, that the failure of rain around the head waters of the Nile is as fatal to Egypt as the failure of rain in other countries. Let it be noted that these threatened plagues (verses 17, 18) do not of necessity imply that any families will refuse to go up to worship the Lord of Hosts. They may only show that men are still moral agents, acted upon by fear and hope, and made responsible for their free moral acts.

20,21. That holiness to the Lord shall be not only very pure, but widely extended, is taught here by three distinct statements: 1. Things that have no special sanctity—e.g., bells on horses, shall be consecrated as altogether holy. 2. The less sacred things about the temple shall become as holy as those most sacred were wont to be—e.g., common pots for cooking food shall become no less sacred than the bowls which received the blood of animals slain in sacrifice; the latter being of old accounted most holy, the former least so. 3. The Canaanites shall be no more in the Lord’s temple. Canaanite was the common Hebrew word for trafficker, merchant—a business in bad repute among the Hebrews because so much associated with fraud and deceit. (See Hos. 12: 7, 8.) There is special force in the allusion to the bells upon the horses because the Hebrew law and Hebrew sentiment had a prejudice against horses, as associated with pride and vain show; with reliance also on some other power than God, and with war. This prejudice was all the stronger because their most powerful enemies came upon them with a strong force of cavalry and chariots; while, on the other hand, their own kings were forbidden to multiply horses. (See De. 17: 16.) The pious Psalmist said, “Some trust in chariots and some in horsemen; we, in the name of the Lord our God.” The pious in Hos. 14: 3 say, “We will not ride upon horses.” But now, in the purity of the millennial age, even the bells, mere ornaments on the horses, shall bear the same inscription as the ancient breast-plate worn by the high priest—"Holiness to the Lord.” How exceedingly expressive of the absolute and universal consecration of all things to the service and worship of the one all-glorious God!

Reviewing briefly the course of thought in this entire chapter, I call renewed attention to the following points: 1. The whole chapter must be taken as figurative, and not literal. The literal sense, implying the actual cleaving of the Mount of Olives, and the escape of half the population of the city through its cleft bowels; two literal rivers flowing from Jerusalem, one east and the other west; all the mountains in the world levelled down to plains, save the one on which Jerusalem and its temple shall stand; all the nations coming up to Jerusalem yearly to the Feast of Tabernacles; Judaism with its bloody sacrifices enjoined on all the Gentile world, despite of the whole New Testament to the contrary: such things, supposed to take place literally, are simply incredible and absurd. Some of them, if they were to take place literally, would inevitably defeat their own ends. All would defeat and crush out New Testament Christianity. There can be no sufficient reasons for giving this chapter a literal construction. 2. I have studiously abstained from the attempt to determine and define the fulfilment of any minute feature in this grouping of Hebrew figures, because I have no faith in such attempts. When these things shall be fulfilled; in what precise form the wicked shall assail the Church of God; how many of them shall be cut off by the plagues of the Lord, and how many shall remain to be converted—these points, and such as these, I think it wise to make no attempt to determine. Ungodliness has its group of specific forms today; who can tell whether they will change essentially before this general onslaught upon Zion? The world has long since passed the besieging of the literal Jerusalem, as being herself the Lord’s Zion; probably has passed the era of religious wars, avowedly to destroy Christianity. But stern conflicts with Satan and his human aids await the kingdom of Christ ere its great and final victory. 3. In the exposition of this chapter the first main inquiry should be, How would the Jews of Zechariah’s time understand it? What would be the general impression made upon them by this grouping of Jewish images and ideas? Would not they hail this chapter as God’s word of promise, that the worship of their own Jehovah would one day become universal; that their old enemies would first be greatly reduced in numbers by fearful plagues, and the remnant be converted to the living God, and that then the worship of God would become pure and substantially universal? They could make of it nothing less than this. No other language could express these points more surely or more forcibly than this. 4. Then this is the general sense of the chapter. For it was written to be read and to be understood by the Jews of his time. The writer of it was himself a Jew, writing for first readers who were Jews, and therefore he used and could use only Jewish terms and figures. The general sense of these figures we get from that ancient economy. It only remains (as already said) that we translate Jewish into Christian terms, Jewish symbols into Christian thought and meaning, and we have the truth which the Lord hath taught us with so much clearness, beauty and force in this chapter. Let the name of the Lord be praised for such and so much light upon the otherwise unknown future of His earthly Zion! We will bless His name, not only that He has formed such purposes of loving-kindness—not only that He has determined to bring all the nations of men to live joyfully beneath Messiah’s sceptre, but that He has revealed to us this purpose, and delineated in such forms of beauty and joy the glorious future which awaits Messiah’s kingdom among men. H. C.

20,21. It is in allusion to the golden fillet around the high-priest’s mitre, inscribed on the forehead “Holiness to the Lord,” that the prophet Zechariah, predicting the glory of the future Church, declares, “In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses ‘Holiness to the Lord;’ yea, every pot that is in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of Hosts,” meaning that a time shall come that the consecration of all the people of God and their daily avocations shall be as complete as that of the high-priest, whose forehead wears this inscription; they shall all be priests as holy as the high-priest himself. S. R.—Holiness to the Lord had been written only upon the high-priest’s forehead, but now it shall not be so appropriated. All Christians shall be living temples and spiritual priests dedicated to the honor of God, and employed in His service. Real holiness shall be more diffused than it had been, because there shall be more powerful means of sanctification, more excellent rules, more cogent arguments, and brighter patterns of holiness; and because there shall be a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of holiness and sanctification after Christ’s ascension than ever before. There shall be holiness introduced into common things; and those things shall be devoted to God that seemed very foreign. When there shall be such an abundance of real holiness, people shall not be nice and curious about ceremonial holiness; they that sacrifice shall come and take of these common vessels and seeth their sacrifices therein, making no distinction between them and the bowls before the altar. H.

No scene or station of all the earth that can eye Paradise or catch the gleams of the atoning cross is truly ignoble or utterly forlorn. He who promised that, in the last days, the inscription which shone on the front of the high-priest’s mitre, “Holiness unto the Lord,” should be written also on the very bells of the horses, and that “every pot” in Jerusalem and its outlying streets should become holy as the consecrated furniture of His own temple and altar, can in like manner render the lowliest scenes of human art and toil and traffic the schools of truth and duty and peace, schools ministering alike to the truest happiness and to the most perfect holiness of our race. He can make each allowable task of our earthly life to become also “Holiness to the Lord;” and as the Christian’s body is made a temple of the Holy Ghost, so can he render the Christian himself, in all his social relations and enterprises, “a priest and a king unto God.” And the great principle of conciliation amid earth’s jarring tribes and clashing interests, and of true and helpful communion among mankind, is not external, but internal, not material, but spiritual, not terrene, but celestial; and is found in the blending by this one Divine Spirit of all earth’s inhabitants in a common contrition before a common redemption, tending as these inhabitants are, under a common sin and doom, to the same inevitable graves; but all of them invited, in the one name of one Christ, to aspire to the same heaven of endless and perfect blessedness. W. R. Williams.

Let “Holiness to the Lord” be written upon your hearts in all that you do. Do no work which you cannot entitle God to and truly say He set you about; and do nothing in the world for any other ultimate end than to please and glorify and enjoy Him. And remember that whatever you do must be done as a means to these, and as by one that is that way going on to heaven. All your labor must be the labor of a traveller, which is all for his journey’s end; and all your respect of affection to place or thing in your way must be in respect to your attainment of the end; as a traveller loveth a good way, a good horse, a good inn, a dry cloak, or good company; but nothing must be loved here as your end or home. Baxter.

With great distinctness the Scriptures of truth affirm that religion demands the consecration of everything connected with our life. Rightly viewed, it sanctifies, sets apart to a holy use and end every relation, every occupation, with every necessary, natural and proper action connected with business, with friendly intercourse, with solitary or social recreation. “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord,” is the Divine injunction for the governance of all human toil. Diligence and prayerful dependence in order to secure the prospering favor of God, and a single aim to make the prosperity He bestows tributary to His high and holy purposes, these are the principles here indicated as rightly directing and controlling the temporal pursuits of men. To the Christian, pursuing his calling upon these principles and with these ends, applying them faithfully day by day to the details of that calling, how blessed the effects upon his temporal condition, his spiritual character, his growth in grace and increase in usefulness! How would he be incited to patient persistence in labor, thus avoiding the temporal curse as well as the criminality of ignorance! How would his hardest toil be lightened by a cheerful consciousness of duty done! How would his cares, anxieties, and even reverses be relieved of their weightiest pressure, under the assured conviction that an Infinite wisdom and love were his, to which to appeal, and an Almighty arm on which to lean! How much more hopefully might he labor, and more confidently anticipate a satisfactory result! How much more just an appreciation would he attain of the true value of wealth as a means to a higher, holier end, and how much more wisely would he use that wealth! How would his accumulations, his merchandise, his flocks or herds, his lands or money, even the very implements and appliances of his toil, recall his stewardship, perpetuate and deepen his sense of obligation, and stimulate him to personal effort for perishing souls! And thus his very business or toil would become a part of his religion, an act of worship and a means of grace to help him on in the Divine life. This would identify his interests with the interests of his Master; in a word, he would be prompted to engage more and more in every good work, to give more and more of his substance to the diffusion of the Gospel, and so contribute to the efficient, rapid progress of the Redeemer’s kingdom in the world.

Of the life of such a Christian, one who thus consecrates his daily toil by the recognition and service of God, truthfully and beautifully it has been written, “Thus ordered, his whole life will be one prolonged act of consecration. The psalm of a grateful heart will, with unremitting flow, fill up all the interval of his visits to the closet and the sanctuary. The life of godliness will be devotional even on common days, in familiar scenes and secular employments. Its calendar will have its whole year hallowed, while it keeps still its days of special sanctity, the thrice hallowed. It will be worship at work, kneading the leaven of Christian principle into the entire mass of its personal activity and social influence.” B.

Zechariah’s prophecies of Christ are, in some respects, the most remarkable in the Old Testament. In one of his visions the Father summons the sword to awake against the Shepherd, and against the Man that is His fellow; in another, men are looking in agony on the Lord whom they have pierced; in a third, Messiah rides as a conqueror on an ass into Jerusalem; and in a fourth, He is King of all the earth, and on the very bells of the horses there is inscribed “Holiness unto the Lord.” The Divine as well as the human nature of Christ, and His office as an atoning Saviour, were thus very distinctly made known. W. G. B.

1:1 THE burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.

2. I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not 3 Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated, and made his 4 mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down: and men shall call them The border of wickedness, and The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. 5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD be magnified beyond the border of Israel. 6 A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O 7 priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye 8 say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. And when ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! and when ye offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now unto thy governor; 9 will he be pleased with thee? or will he accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts. And now, I pray you, intreat the favour of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been 10 by your means: will he accept any of your persons? saith the LORD of hosts. Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at 11 your hand. For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense is offered unto my name, and a pure 12 offering: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of the LORD is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is 13 contemptible. Ye say also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of hosts; and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye bring the offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the LORD. 14 But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing: for I am a great king, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles.

THE word “Malachi” means “my messenger” or “my angel.” As occurring in the title to this prophecy, it may be understood to be the name of the prophet who wrote the prophecy; or it may be a surname given him, taken from 3:1; or it may possibly be merely a designation for the book, taken from 3:1. The first view is a convenient one to take, and is at least as likely as either of the others. The book was written by a prophet of the time of the second administration of Nehemiah, a man of the same spirit with Ezra and Nehemiah. It was written either during the lifetime of Ezra or very soon after his death. W. J. B.

Malachi is the last of the prophets, and is therefore called “the Seal,” his book closing the Old Testament canon. Like Habakkuk, he is, in so far as his personal history is concerned, “a name, and nothing more.” The Sacred Chronicles, even in the Book of Nehemiah, do not so much as mention him, although he was a zealous fellow-laborer with that patriotic governor, and greatly aided him in his endeavors to secure a willing and grateful obedience to the Divine law. In this, however, he does but share the fate of those Psalmists who, on the return from the Captivity, composed many songs for the temple service. The simple fact is that we know nothing of the personal history of Malachi, and cannot even be sure whether “Malachi” is a proper name or an appellative. The Old Testament closes, as the New Testament opens, with the words of one who is “a voice” to us rather than a man.

But though we know nothing of the author, we can fix the date of this prophecy with reasonable accuracy. Indeed, it dates itself. All the notes of time it contains point steadily, and with one consent, to the second sojourn of Nehemiah in Jerusalem—i.e., about B.C. 420. It may even be said that the prophecy of Malachi, the last of the prophetic books, is simply a commentary on Nehemiah, the last of the historical books. From the whole tone of the prophecy it is obvious that the temple had been long rebuilt, its worship long restored—long enough for grave abuses to have crept in, and to have become habitual. Among these abuses were the violation of the Sabbath law, the offering of maimed and unclean sacrifices, the withholding of tithes, indifference deepening into weariness of the worship of the sanctuary, and intermarriage with heathen races on the part of the priests as well as the people. These are the sins which Malachi denounces, and these were the sins with which Nehemiah had painfully to contend. Cox.

The last of the long series of Hebrew prophets, Malachi stood in the same relation to Nehemiah during the latter portion of his work of restoration and reform at Jerusalem which Haggai and Zechariah had occupied in relation to Zerubbabel. Not that his name is directly mentioned as having been associated with Nehemiah in the events recorded in the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Nehemiah; but a comparison of his denunciation of the sins of the people with the record of Nehemiah’s reforms is strong evidence of the fact that they were contemporaries. The passages upon a comparison of which this conclusion is founded are: Mal. 2: 8 with Neh. 13: 15, 29; Mal. 2: 10-16 with Neh. 13: 23-27; and Mal. 3: 7-12 with Neh. 13: 10, etc. B. C.

That he prophesied after the times of Haggai and Zechariah is inferred from his omitting to mention the restoration of the temple, and from no allusion being made to him by Ezra. The Captivity was already a thing of the long past, and is not referred to. The existence of the temple service is presupposed in Mal. 1: 10; 3: 1, 10. The Jewish nation had still a political chief (1: 8), distinguished by the same title as that borne by Nehemiah (Neh. 12: 26), to which Gesenius assigns a Persian origin. Hence Vitringa, Kennicott, Hales, Davidson, and most biblical critics conclude that Malachi delivered his prophecies after the second return of Nehemiah from Persia (Neh. 13: 6), and subsequently to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Longimanus—i.e., about B.C. 420. From the striking parallelism between the state of things indicated in Malachi’s prophecies and that actually existing on Nehemiah’s return from the court of Artaxerxes, it is on all accounts highly probable (so Mr. Wright) that the efforts of the secular governor were on this occasion seconded by the preaching of “Jehovah’s messenger,” and that Malachi occupied the same position with regard to the reformation under Nehemiah which Isaiah held in the time of Hezekiah, and Jeremiah in that of Josiah. The last chapter of canonical Jewish history is the key to the last chapter of its prophecy. Malachi (so Ayre) was commissioned to reprove both priests and people, and to invite them to “reformation by promises of blessing and warnings of awful judgment.” The Book of Malachi is contained in four chapters in our version, as in the LXX., Vulgate and Peshito-Syriac. In the Hebrew the third and fourth form but one chapter. Dic. B.

Subject-matter. The prophecy of Malachi forms one connected treatise, having for its main object the denunciation of practices inconsistent with the obedience and responsibilities of God’s people; practices which had grown to a head during the absence of Nehemiah at the court of the Persian king. The prophet’s purpose was to strengthen the hands of Nehemiah in the reforms which he was laboring to effect; yet not without reference to the person to whom all the prophets with greater or less clearness of language had borne witness, and to the time when the spiritual kingdom of the Son of David was to be established upon earth. The writer addresses himself directly to the sins which he found prevailing among the people, and shows their inconsistency with their profession of obedience to the will of God and with the formal acts of worship which were duly rendered. The gross idolatry of earlier times had disappeared; but the not less dangerous error of practices not in harmony with the professed and outward service rendered to God had sprung up. B. C.

Not far from four hundred years before Christ this last in the long series of inspired prophets united his efforts with those of Nehemiah to call back the apostate people to their forsaken God, to rebuke them for their great sins, and to animate the believing portion by some very distinct and precious promises of the conversion of the Gentiles; of the coming of the glorious Lord, “the Messenger of the covenant,” to His earthly temple; and also of the coming of John Baptist, here designated as “My messenger who shall prepare the way before Me,” and as “Elijah the prophet.” H. C.

In the early part of his second administration, Nehemiah made strenuous efforts to place these matters again on a true footing, as we learn from Neh. 13. The contents of the Book of Malachi show that it was written just at this juncture and in furtherance of these efforts. It rebukes the priests (presumably including the singers, gate-keepers and other Levites), because they had not the courage and fidelity to stand by their duties even at the cost of hardships. It reminds them that such cowardice was especially reprehensible at a time when Jehovah’s name was great among the nations. On the other hand, it rebukes the people for not bringing all the tithes into the storehouse, so that the support of the temple would be provided for. It rebukes Judah because, in the persons of its citizens and its priests, it had “married the daughter of a foreign god” (2:11). It emphasizes the fact that this is the second offence of the kind (2:13). And it rebukes false swearing, along with adultery and oppression (3:5).

A second characteristic of the book is that, while it rebukes specific misconduct, it nevertheless gives principal attention to the bad spirit that lies back of the specific misconduct. It assumes that an evil habit of self-righteous scepticism is prevalent, and deals with this habit as well as with the wrong acts that spring from it. The habit exhibits itself in two ways. First, they answer back when Jehovah reproves them, instead of listening obediently (Mal. 1:2, 6, 7; 2:14, 17; 3:7, 8, 13). This answering back is mentioned eight times in the fifty-four verses of the book. Second, the same sceptical and self-justifying habit exhibits itself in certain sayings which Malachi quotes as current among the people:

“Any one that doeth evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and He delighteth in them” (2:17). “Where is the God of judgment?” (2:17). “It is in vain to serve God” (3:14). “What profit that we have kept His ordinances, and walked mournfully before Jehovah of hosts?” (3:14). “And now we congratulate the proud” (3:15). “[There have been such things as that] doers of wickedness have been builded up.” “[Men] have tempted God and escaped” (3:15). W. J. B.

Analysis of Contents. The book forms one continuous composition addressed to an age of overt, though unavowed, national discontent and disaffection. Theocratic scepticism, born of moral obtuseness, is the evil which Malachi confronts. The people look at their slow and humbling recovery, in place of the rapid and glorious progress prophecy had led them to anticipate, and they ask bitterly, “Is this God’s peculiar love of His people?” The prophet’s reply points them to the significant fact of Jehovah’s persistent restoration of Israel to national existence, in contrast with the irretrievable downfall of their kinsmen the Edomites. That the reverses of fortunes should be Edom’s destruction, but Israel’s discipline, is proof that Israel possesses a unique place and destiny in the Divine purposes (1:1-5).

The answer is adequate, but requires to be supplemented by an explanation of what is painful and perplexing in the present situation of tardy recovery. This is done by pointing out that the delay in fulfilling Israel’s destiny is due not to Divine slackness, but to Israel’s unworthiness and disloyalty to the covenant. The indictment consists of two parts, of which the first seizes and seathes with burning scorn the degradation of Divine worship, the corruptions of the priesthood and the social wrongs among the people (1:6; 2:16), while the second lays bare their roots in religious doubt of God’s moral earnestness, the profitableness of His service, and His fidelity to fulfil the promises of the covenant (2:17; 4:6).

The people are unwilling to admit their culpability, and it is necessary for the prophet to drive his charges home. Sons honor their fathers, servants their masters, but Israel has no reverence, not even bare respect for God. For His worship they select the sorriest beasts of their flocks and the shabbiest remnants of their possessions, such as they would never think of presenting to the civil ruler, and in this loveless insult priests and people are unblushingly combined. Better far to shut the temple and to quench the altar’s fire, for already in every land a worship ascends to Jehovah pure and warm and acceptable in His sight (1:6-14).

The priests, chosen by God to be the fountain of law and justice and religion, promised therefore the Divine favor and the people’s honor and support, have perverted their office, corrupted justice, alienated the laity from religion and morality, and have, therefore, in just recompense forfeited their power to bless, destroyed the dignity of their high vocation, and incurred universal obloquy and contempt (2:1-9).

The people, forgetful of the obligations of theocratic brotherhood, reckless of the risk to religion and the continuity of a holy seed, have intermarried for sordid advantages with heathen neighbors, and aggravated their guilt by heartlessly putting away their Jewish wives, whose tears and plaints ascending to heaven in the temple court hide from God’s eyes the sacrifice offered on the altar, and call down on the transgressors His righteous vengeance to root them and their houses out of His land and people (2 : 10-16).

This moral degeneracy has its root in a deep-seated religious scepticism. The delay in the accomplishment of the covenant promises, conceived selfishly and superficially as Israel’s material aggrandizement, has begotten doubt of God’s moral earnestness. Does God judge on earth? Is He on the side of the good and against the wicked (Ps. 73)? The prophet meets the sneering misgiving with a stern declaration of the certainty of the judgment, an explanation of its delay because of Israel’s unreadiness for it, and a description of God’s speedy advent, in order that He may, first of all, purge unsparingly people and priesthood, and, secondly, execute relentless judgment on all persistent wickedness (2 : 17-3 : 6). Further, the depression in the material affairs of the nation has produced scepticism as to God’s care for human homage—that is, in its material form, doubt of the profitableness of God’s service. The prophet protests that it is precisely this half-heartedness of worship and dishonesty in giving God His dues, that is the cause of their continued misfortunes. He challenges the people to make experiment of a contrasted course of conduct, and see what a wealth of blessing it will bring (3 : 7-12).

Finally, the Divine delay to right Israel among the comity of the nations has, on the one hand, set the ungodly sneering in unbelief, and on the other moved the devout to mutual conference and sad but trustful prayer and waiting. God is not blind as His silence might seem to suggest. He marks the loyalty of these, the defiance of those. Speedily He will speak out, and in the triumph of the just and the destruction of the unjust He will make forever unmistakable the eternal distinction of goodness and of evil. In a final manifestation of Divine grace and judgment God will avenge all wrong and establish all righteousness. He will make an end of sin, and gloriously reward His own, and so completely fulfil His covenant promises. In anticipation of that day Israel’s duty is a loyal return to the spirit of the ancient law and prophecy. For that end Elijah, the great prophet of fidelity and national decision, shall return. Thus prepared, Israel can face the coming judgment without fear, and welcome the consummation of the Divine covenant (3 : 13 ; 4 : 6). Elmslie.

The book opens with a brief introduction or preface (chap. 1 : 1-4) the theme of which is, God’s love to Israel a reason for a response of love to Him. After the introduction come the three main sections of the book : (1) On the impiety and profanity of the priests ; (2) on the heathen marriages of the priests and people ; and (3) on the day of the Lord.

Section I. extends from chap. 1 : 6 to chap. 2 : 9. It is addressed to the priests, who had despised the name of Jehovah, and laid defective and polluted offerings on His altar. They are rebuked for the mercenary and perfunctory spirit of their service, and for despising the worship which they themselves had rendered despicable. They are threatened with the Divine curse and punishment if they continue in their sins, but are assured that the threatening is designed to bring them to repentance and amendment. Perhaps their severest rebuke is contained in that fine sketch of the true priest (chap. 2 : 5-7) with which this section draws to a close—one of the most admired and suggestive passages in the whole book :

“My covenant of life and of peace was with him, And I gave them to him, For the fear which he shewed for Me, And the awe in which he stood of my Name. The law of truth was in his mouth, And no iniquity was found in his lips ; He walked with Me in peace and integrity, And brought back many from guilt : For the priest’s lips should preserve knowledge, And men should seek the law at his mouth.”

Section II. extends only from verse 10 to verse 16 of chap. 2. This section is addressed to the people as well as to the priests, and reproves a sin of which both had been guilty. In defiance of the law of Moses, they had treacherously and wrongfully divorced their Hebrew wives, that they might take to themselves consorts from the idolatrous daughters of Moab and Philistia. The sighs and tears of the wronged women “cover the altar of Jehovah,” so that He no longer regarded the offerings that were laid upon it. They are warned that, by these divorces and forbidden alliances, they are violating not the law of Moses alone, but the pure marriage law which God had given to man “in the beginning.”

Section III. extends from chap. 2 : 17 to chap. 4 : 4, and has for its main theme that “day of the Lord,” that day of judgment ushering in a golden age of purity and concord, of which all the prophets had spoken. The Lord will come, though He tarry, come when they look not for