Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/383



THE SHEPHERD-KING 367

My people ;. . . and I will put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live,. . . and ye shall know that I am Jehovah x Neither shall this new national and spiritual life be transient in its character. No ; not only shall they live, but " their children " also, the thought expressed in these words being the same as "their children also shall see it," in the gth verse. " And shall return " (or " turn again ") not only to their land but to their God, the word being the same which the prophets constantly used when calling to Israel to repent as, for instance : " Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways : for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " 2

In the loth verse the gathering and leading back by the Shepherd of Israel of His scattered flock are more minutely described :

" / will bring- them back out of the land of Egypt, and from Assyria will I gather them " ; which two Powers, to quote another writer, may perhaps be regarded as " standing here as of old, for the two conflicting empires (Egypt to the south and Assyria to the north) between which Israel lay, at whose hand she had suffered, and who represent the countries which lay beyond." But there is no need to allegorise the names of Egypt and Assyria, as almost all the commentators do, as used only typically of the lands of Israel s oppression. I believe it to be a prophecy which merges into the most distant future (from the prophet s then point of view), and will be literally fulfilled at the final restoration, "when Jehovah shall lift up His hand

1 Ezek. xxxvii. 11-14.

2 This is one of those scriptures which seem to speak of a turning of Israel to God while still in the " far countries" of their dispersion, and may appear to be in conflict with the many prophecies which predict a restoration of Israel in unbelief, and their conversion in the land at the visible appearing of Christ. But there is no real conflict or contradiction between these various scriptures, the solution of the apparent difficulty being in the fact that while a large repre sentative section of the nation will be in Palestine in a condition of unbelief when the Lord appears, and will be converted there, the remaining part of the nation will still be in the dispersion, and upon them the spirit of grace and supplication will come in the "far countries " where they shall be found. The subject is fully dealt with in Types, Psalms, and Prophecies, pp. 364- 377-