Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/261



Here we note first of all how both " Judah " and " Israel " i.e., the entire nation, which had previous to the Exile been for a time divided into two kingdoms are now after the partial restoration from Babylon, included in undivided unity in one common destiny, both of wretched ness and blessedness. Together they are, during the Loammi period the time during which God's face is averted from them " a curse," for the solemn and terrible words which He spoke through Jeremiah have been literally fulfilled in the whole nation: " I will give them up to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places wherein I shall drive them " (Jer. xxiv. 9, xlii. 1 8).

But, as they have been together in their entirety " a curse," or the object of curse, i.e., so smitten of God as to serve the object of curses, and " the nations when impre cating curses on their foes were wont to wish them the fate of Israel a and not only so, but as the unbelieving majority of the nation had also actually and actively in the period of their separation from God and bitter hostility to their Messiah and His gospel been a curse to the nations so says Jehovah, " will I save you " (not only from your captivity, but from your sin; not only from your outward enemies and oppressors, but from the evil of your own hearts from yourselves}, " and ye shall be a blessing? This glorious promise is to be understood, not only as " equivalent to being so blessed as to be used as a benedictory formula," but is a revival and an application of the original promise to Abraham, " thou shalt be a bless ing" as Pusey well observes, and reiterates the oft-expressed purpose of God to make saved and blessed Israel the source and instrument of blessing to all the nations of the earth, even as we read in Isa. xix. 24, " In that day shall Israel be . . . a blessing in the midst of the land"; and Ezek. xxxiv. 26, " / will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing."