Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/239

 patience and long-suffering, His anger is in the end poured out upon all who are obdurately impenitent.

On the last page of the Hebrew Bible which, as the books are there arranged, closes with 2 Chronicles we read these very sad and pathetic words: " Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the heatJien; and they polluted the Jiouse of the Lord which He had /tallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending; because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy " (2 Chron. xxxvi. 14-1 6) " till there was no remedy " and " there came great wrath from Jehovah."

How His wrath showed itself is next described: " And it came to pass as He cried (that is, called, remonstrated, and reasoned ivith them through tJte prophets ) and they luould not hear, so they shall cry " (in their distress and anguish) " and I will not hear " solemn and awful words, which have not only verified themselves in the terrible history of the Jewish people these past two thousand years, but are a warning to the individual sinner, whether Jew or Gentile, of whom similar language is used, when he hears God's voice, not to harden his heart and refuse to obey His word as Israel did, "in the provocation and the day of temptation in the wilderness," and who entered not into God's rest because of unbelief.

The last verse of the 7th chapter shows the awful consequences of the " great wrath " which came from Jehovah:

(a) In relation to the people. " But I will scatter them"

D 1V9^1 (ve esa-areim " as with a whirlwind" or, " / will toss them ") " among all the nations w/iom they have not known "; who will therefore have no pity or compassion upon them a process which only began with the destruction of the