Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/328



3 i2 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH

became obedient unto death even the death of the cross

He was made perfect as Redeemer and Mediator, and

is now the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him." :

We cannot enter here into the significance of Christ s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which believers in the New Testament can never dissociate from this prophecy in Zechariah.

But I agree with the view of Vitringa, Hengstenberg, and Koehler, that though this scripture then received a literal accomplishment, " that triumphal procession was not, in the main, the fact which the prophecy was designed to depict. The prophecy would have been as truly and really fulfilled if the triumphal procession had never taken place. That single incident in the life of our Lord is not the point which the prophet had in view. It was rather the whole of the Saviour s life, the entire series of events connected with Christ s first advent, which was presented in one striking picture. The actual entrance of Christ into Jeru salem in the manner described in the Old Testament prophecy was an express declaration that this passage was indeed Messianic in the fullest sense, and was fulfilled in His Person and work." 2

It is in this sense that Matthew and John 3 quote this passage in connection with that entry ; not, however, in the stiffness and deadness of the letter. " On the contrary (as so often in Jewish writings), two prophecies Isa. Ixii. 1 1 and Zech. ix. 9 are made to shed their blended light upon this entry of Christ, as exhibiting the reality, of which the prophetic vision had been the reflex. Nor yet are the words of the prophets given literally as modern criticism would have them weighed out in the critical balances- cither from the Hebrew text, or from the LXX rendering ; but their meaning is given, and they are " Targumed " by the sacred writers according to their wont. Yet who that sets the prophetic picture by the side of the reality the

1 Rom. i. 3 ; Phil. ii. 8 ; Heh. v. 9. 2 C. H. H. Wright.

s Matt. xxi. 4, 5 ; John xii. 14, 15.