:

ish all the gods of the earth; and all the islands of the nations shall worship him, every one from his place." In concise but most explicit terms, he foretells, first, the annihilation of idol-worship over all the earth, and that by a very expressive term he shall famish, cause to pine away (77) all the gods of the earth. Deserted by their former worshippers, and their altars left empty of offerings, they shall perish, as it were, by inanition. This is precisely the process by which idolatry was destroyed in the old Roman empire, and must be destroyed everywhere. As it has its seat in the minds of men, it cannot be abolished by mere outward force and authority. The gods of the heathen must be, to carry out the figure, starved to death by the failure of their entire revenue of gifts and offerings. Secondly, he predicts the conversion of "all the isles of the nations" (5) — an expression originally denoting the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, but here used to represent the nations generally - to the worship of Jehovah, every one from his place. This is a clear intimation that the worship of God his visible public worship-shall no longer be confined to one metropolis, as under the Jewish dispensation, but shall be extended over all the world. We may compare our Lord's words to the woman of Samaria: " Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. . . . when the true wor shippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." 3

In close relation to the above, as it respects character, stands another passage, which we find in Malachi. Rebuking the Jewish priests for their niggardly spirit, Jehovah assures them that he desires no such offerings as they bring to him. Higher and nobler worship awaits him among the

v. 11.

2 In vain did the Roman emperors seek, by cruel persecutions, to restore the worship of the gods to its ancient dignity and splendor. The only result was a spasmodic semblance of resuscitation, like that which galvanism produces upon a recent corpse. Idolatry was dying out of the souls of men, and the idol-gods must die with it.

John 4: 21-23.

heathen nations: "For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." According to the Mosaic ritual, incense and oblations were restricted to the sanctuary. There was but one place where they could be legitimately offered, and that through the medium of the Levitical priests. But now all these restrictions are to be done away. The gentiles, converted to the worship of the true God, are to offer to him in every place, as his priests, incense and a pure offering. The incense and offerings of the Mosaic economy are manifestly taken as symbols of the "spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ," which this "holy priesthood" among the gentiles is, everywhere, to offer up. Such is the interpretation which the New Testament has put upon this and kindred passages. How far the ancient prophets saw respecting the abolition of the old dispensation, and the introduction, in its stead, of one that knows no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, we cannot say. But this they did understand: that, in every place, the Gentiles should render acceptable worship to God.

2

The way is now prepared for considering the celebrated passage in Zechariah, 14: 16—21, which, although intensely Jewish in its costume, is yet perfectly explicit in respect to the conversion of all nations to the worship of Jehovah. After describing the judgments of God upon the nations that have fought against Jerusalem, the prophet goes on to say:

And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even 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 will not come up, of all the families of the earth, unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall

1 Chap. 1: 11.

21 Pet. 2: 5.

be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS 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 holiness 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 the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.

The care which the prophet takes to include "all the families of the earth" in this ordinance, is very noticeable. Whatever nation refuses to observe it, shall be punished with the absence of rain. But, recollecting that Egypt is always without rain, he appoints the plague as the punishment of that nation. In all our inquiries respecting the interpretation of this remarkable prophecy, we must constantly bear in mind that it is one homogeneous whole. If the beginning

is to be understood literally, so is the end; if the end must be taken symbolically, so must the beginning. In the light of this principle, let us examine the concluding portion of it. When "all the families of the earth" come up to Jerusalem annually, to keep the feast of tabernacles, the number of those who sacrifice will be immensely great. The holy vessels connected with the temple and altar will be wholly inadequate for the service. A special provision is therefore made for the offerers. Not only "shall the pots in the Lord's house be like the vessels before the altar," that is, consecrated to holy uses, but "every pot in Judah and Jerusalem shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts," that it may be used by those who bring sacrifices. The sacrifices to which reference is here made, are the free-will peace-offerings of the people. Of these the fat, with certain other prescribed portions, was burned on the altar; another portion was given to the priests, and then the offerer and his friends feasted on the remainder. Precisely in the same way, we find those who offered sacrifices boiling the flesh in caldrons and pots, in the days of Eli. Henderson, who adheres to the literal interpre

See the law for peace-offerings in the third and seventh chapters of Leviticus.

tation of the prophecy, attempts to escape the fatal objection from the presence of sacrifices, by rendering; "all who slaughter shall come." But this is inadmissible; for:

First, the word employed by the prophet is the regular scriptural term (n). Its common signification is that of sacrificing. It is to be taken in the general sense of killing, slaughtering, only where the context requires it; as, for example, in Deut. 12:21. But here the context is wholly against such a sense, for :

Secondly, Jerusalem, at that time, has its temple and its altar. "The pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar" (najan pb ophia). But where the temple and the altar are found, there sacrifices are found also.

Thirdly, the vessels used to boil the flesh of the victims are holy, "like the bowls before the altar." This naturally points to a sacrificial use to be made of them, which required holy vessels.

Fourthly, the Jews to whom Zechariah addressed this prophecy, must naturally have understood the word in question, of sacrifices (we mean, of course, in its proper grammatical sense), since these were always connected with their great feasts, not only as public sacrifices ordained by the law, but as private free-will offerings. The public sacrifices connected with the feast of tabernacles, may be seen in Lev. 23: 36. It was the custom of pious Jews, on their annual visit to the sanctuary, to bring private free-will offerings to Jehovah. See 1 Sam. 1: 3, 21. It is of such sacrifices that the passage before us plainly speaks.

But all sacrifices are done away by the perfect sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 10:10-18). It remains that we understand these words, and the whole prophecy of which they are a part, symbolically, of the spiritual services of believers, under the new dispensation, which were adumbrated by those of the Mo

1, properly, sprinkling-bowl, from p, to sprinkle, is a sacrificial bowl from which the blood of the sacrifices was sprinkled. Consequently it is one of the vessels enumerated as belonging to the brazen altar on which sacrifices were offered. Ex. 38: 3; Numb. 4: 14; etc. Being of the larger class of bowls, it is once used figuratively of a winebibber's bowl. Amos 6: 6.

saic ritual. In other 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. Did the laws of Moses prescribe a literal priesthood with literal sacrifices? Believers, under the new dispensation, are, as a spiritual priesthood, to "present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God."1 Did the Mosaic economy have a central metropolis—a literal Zion, to which all the people resorted at stated times? Believers in Christ have come to the spiritual" mount Zion," which this symbolized, and have become citizens of the "new Jerusalem," with its "innumerable company of angels," and its "spirits of just men made perfect." 2

II. PASSAGES FROM THE PSALMS.

We shall not here pause to consider such Messianic Psalms as the second and seventy-second, in which the universality of Christ's reign is expressly foretold. The principles upon which they are to be interpreted have been sufficiently indicated in the preceding discussion. Passing them by, therefore, we shall direct the reader's attention to some missionary gems, in the Book of Psalms, that have attracted less attention on the part of commentators.

We begin with a portion of the twenty-second Psalm, in which the sufferer, who is admitted by all evangelical interpreters to be the Messiah (whether immediately and simply,

1 Rom 12:1; 1 Pet. 2: 5.

* Heb. 12: 22-24. In the same symbolic way are we obliged to interpret Ezekiel's vision of the city and temple, chaps. 40-48. Henderson admits that its altar and sacrifices constitute a fatal objection to its being understood literally of anything that is to happen under the Christian dispensation. He would understand it simply of "the restoration of the temple and the temple-worship after the return from Babylon." Commentary on Zech. 14:16-18; and on Ezek. in loco. But if this be all, then the hopes legitimately awakened by this magnificent vision were never realized. An what then about the river that flowed out eastward from under the threshold of this literal temple? That, he tells us, is to be understood symbolically. The expositor who is thus compelled to jump from the literal to the symbolic in interpreting one and the same vision, must have a false hypothesis to support.