Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/41

 the lowly, with those of a contrite and humble spirit, that the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, ever dwells and identifies Himself (Isa. Ivii. 1 5, Ixvi. 2).

The myrtles among which the Angel of Jehovah is seen standing are represented as growing " in the bottom," as the Authorised Version has it; but the word is metsulah, from tsul the verb tsollal being used of sinking in the water (Ex. xv. 10). The margin in the Revised Version suggests the rendering of " shady place," and various other translations as the basis of different interpretations have been given by Jewish and Christian commentators.

The Jewish Targum and the Talmud, followed by Kimchi and some Christian interpreters, translate " valley," and say that it represents Babylon, where the Jews had been banished on account of their sin; and some, like Hengstenberg, think that the metsulah was symbolical of the Kingdom of God in its then outwardly depressed condition, but still under the gracious protection of the Angel of Jehovah. But "Tp-fE)?, bammetsuliah, should, we think, be certainly rendered " in " or " by " " the deep." It is at least rightly so rendered in two passages in the Psalms. The first is Ps. Ixxxviii. 6: " Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in the dark places in the deeps (bimetsoloth}" the next verse showing that it is in the deeps of the sea, since the writer goes on to say: " Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves." And the second passage in Ps. cvii. 23, 24, where we read that " they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters these see the works of Jehovah and His wonders in the deep (bimetsulah}."

It might thus be a suitable figure of the unfortunate condition of Israel over whom the waves of troubles and oppression were rolling in their captivity among the Gentiles; but where dogmatic certainty is out of the question, we would venture to suggest what to us seems the most likely meaning of this symbol, namely, that " the deep " of " the great sea " represents the great Gentile world-power at that time, with whom commenced " the times of the Gentiles " " the abyss-like power of the kingdom of the