final restoration is introduced in this very prophecy. In verses twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth we read: "Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name; after that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses, whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.” This seems to have a special reference to the portion first restored; for they, when the enemy invades them, are described as a people "dwelling safely," or "confidently." It follows: xxxix. 27. “When I have brought them again from the peoples, and gathered them out of the enemies lands, and am sanctified in them, in the sight of many nations; then shall they know that I am Jehovah, their Elohim, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen; but have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith Jehovah Elohim." The mention in the prophecy above, of "the land of unwalled villages,"* as characteristic of the Holy Land in the latter days, will remind us of a similar expression in one of the prophecies of Zechariah: "Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls," or "Jerusalem shall dwell in villages," "for the multitude of men and cattle therein." And whatever mingling of type or symbol we may acknowledge in this prophecy, we cannot apply it * Ezekiel xxxviii. 11, + Zechariah ii. 4. wholly to the concerns of that remnant which returned from Babylon. It must have reference to "the times of the end:" for the scene described, as we learn from the latter part of the first chapter, is presented to us after the four "horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it," have been "cast out." Like the former prophecy in Ezekiel, I conclude, therefore, it is to be applied, to the first periods of a restoration of Israel, when the times of the Gentiles have been, or are about to be, fulfilled. This habitation of the land in "village fashion," appeared in the eyes of the last enemy in Ezekiel as an exposed and defenceless situation, provoking the cupidity of the spoiler. This is anticipated in the prophecy before us. It follows: "For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.” * The effectual protection here described has certainly never yet been afforded to Jerusalem since the restoration from the Babylonian captivity; but "the destruction from the Almighty," which awaits the last invader of "the land of unwalled villages" in Ezekiel, well illustrates this wall of fire for a protection, when the apparently defenceless state of the victim shall encourage the foe. And as her God will appear as the defender of restored Jerusalem, when the danger comes, so will he afterwards manifest his glory in the midst of her. For it appears from the eighth and ninth verses, that it is after he hath poured his vengeance upon the nations which came * Zechariah ii. 5. 411 as the remarkable expression apple of his eye," that they ice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come, dst of thee, saith the Lord. And many into the Lord in that day, and shall be ... dwell in the midst of thee; and thou van Sabaoth has sent me unto thee. And eit Judah, his portion in the Holy Land, and sdem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before raised up out of his holy habitation.” se passages I chiefly ground my expecprevious and partial restoration of Israel wid of their fathers. I conceive also from ext, that Jehovah's care of his vineyard, xvii.) is to be applied to Jerusalem at the ane and in the same circumstances. This thus given from the original: hat day Delightful vineyard!' Nye responsively to her. 'caovah, will watch her, I have no wall, * had a fence of thorns! tu time of war I shall be overrun, *Septuagint and Syriac Versions. "Jacob shall strike his suckers; Israel shall grow and flourish, And they shall fill the face of the world* with plants." This is evidently a scene in the last days, when judgment is about to be executed upon the last enemy of the people of God. Happy, as the daughter of Zion is soon to become through the Lord's protection, as the song congratulates her; in her own view, no less than in the view of her adversary she is altogether unprepared to meet the expected attack, the issue of which will nevertheless be so glorious to her. I have been led also to conclude that the hundred and seventh Psalm, or more strictly speaking the concluding part of it, has a reference to this first restoration. The redeemed of the Lord are called upon to proclaim the goodness and never-failing mercy of their deliverer, because "he hath redeemed them from the hand of the enemy, and hath gathered them out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south," or "from the sea.” This gathering of the dispersed family from all lands and every quarter of the globe designates plainly a future restoration, and excludes the exodus from Egypt, or the return from Babylon as the theme of this thanksgiving; for both these gatherings were but in a single direction towards the granted inheritance. In the Psalm before us we seem to distinguish four returning companies of travellers; as far as appears, in the directions enu * Or surface of the habitable earth. merated, from the east and the west, from the north and from the south. The first company arriving from the east, are contemplated as overtaken in the perils of the wilderness, wandering destitute of food and water. They pray to God in their distress, and are rescued from their imminent perils, and led in safety to the city they were to inhabit. The second portion which obtain deliverance, whose situation according to the order specified in the third verse, we must look for in the west, are described as in a state of oppression and thraldom, for their disobedience to their God, bound in a dark dungeon, “in affliction and iron:" for their deliverance, at their cry, the gates of brass are broken and the bars of iron cut asunder,* As the metals brass and iron distinguish in symbolical prophecy two of the four universal empires, "whose horns had scattered Judah," the Grecian and the Roman empires; and as their situation is westward of the Holy Land, we are easily led to the inference, that the Spirit of Prophecy here predicts a termination of the sad captivity and long sojourning of the Jews in these parts of the world. The third class, whose position should be in the north, are next described.* They are represented as having by their sin and foolishness brought extreme affliction upon themselves, and the instrument of this affliction is spoken of whether metaphorically or literally-as a pestilential sickness. But * Ver. 10-16. † Ver. 17-20. |