Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/22

 prophets" about the person and mission of Messiah about His Divine and yet truly human character, and of His sufferings and of the glory that should follow.

His betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (chap, xi.); the Roman spear with which He was " pierced " by His own nation; the awakened sword of Jehovah's justice which, in love for a lost world, and for the sin of the guilty, smites the Good Shepherd, " the Man " who is God's own equal; and the outcome of His sufferings, when He alone shall bear the glory, and " shall sit and rule upon His throne," and when upon His blessed brow, once crowned with thorns, shall at last be put the crown of glory: these, as well as other striking details, are brought before us in this prophecy very vividly and in small compass.

" The Messianic prophecies of Zechariah," says Hengstenburg, " are only second to those of Isaiah in distinctness. In this, the last prophet but one, the prophetic gift once more unfolded all its glory as a proof that it did not sink from exhaustion of age, but was withdrawn according to the deliberate counsel of the Lord."

Secondly, on account of the light it throws on the events of the last times preceding the great and terrible " Day of the Lord," which is fast approaching.

The presence in Palestine of a representative remnant of the Jewish people in a condition of unbelief; the fiery furnace of suffering into which they are there to be thrown; their great tribulation and anguish occasioned by the final siege of Jerusalem by the confederated Gentile armies under the headship of him in whom both Jewish and Gentile apostasy is to reach its climax; how in the very midst of their final sorrow the spirit of grace and supplication shall be poured upon them, and they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn; how this blessed One whom they so long rejected shall suddenly appear as their Deliverer, and His feet stand " in that day " on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; how God shall again say " Ammi " to the nation which during the long centuries of their unbelief were