Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/449



FINAL CONFLICT AND DELIVERANCE 433

events of " that day " in the spirit of prophecy " she shall not be moved ; God shall help her " (lit, " at the dawn of the morning" l i.e., after the long night of sorrow and weeping.

A slight alteration in the original text of this verse has been suggested already in the Targum, which would read : " The princes of Judah shall say in their heart, The strength of the inhabitants of Judah is in Jehovah their God." But the " correction " is not needed, for this is not the only instance, even in Zechariah, where a collective body is represented as speaking in the singular as one man. Thus, the inhabitants of Bethel speak to the prophet through the deputation which they sent to him (chap. vii. 15), saying, " Should I weep, etc. ?" The singular pro noun, y, It (" my," or, " to me ") is meant to express the fact that each individual says, " in their heart " (which is also in the singular), because all are as one in this con fidence that there is strength for them in Jehovah their God, whose power is now displayed on behalf of Jerusalem. " And in that day" the prophecy proceeds, " will I make the princes of Judah as a pan (or basin ) of fire among wood, and like a torch of fire among sheaves, and they shall devour all the people round about on the right hand and on the left, and Jerusalem shall yet again dwell in her own place in Jerusalem " (tachteah, lit., " under her place" i.e., " in her place ") the name " Jerusalem " in this last clause standing in the first instance for the people personified as a woman, and in the second for the city as such.

That this great deliverance will be all of grace and by the power of God is brought out in the verses which follow: " And Jehovah shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, be not magnified against Judah?

The reason that " Judah " (which stands here for the people of the land generally in contrast to those who are within the city of Jerusalem) are saved " first," is not, as is mistakenly supposed by some, because Judah, having,

1 Ps. xlvi. 5. 28