Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/477



lH THE OPENED FOUNTAIN 461

,,,. Jerusalem which in this passage also, as in chap. xii. 10,, f represents the whole nation but for purification from the guilt and the moral defilement of sin, of which bodily j,j s uncleanness is often used in the Bible as a figure. Thus, t |, e for instance, in Ps. li. 7 David prays : " Purge me (literally, u if one may invent an expression, unsin me or rid me of, my sin ) with hyssop " which is a distinct allusion to the L cleansing of the leper from his bodily plague, 1 in connection

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\with which a Jewish commentator rightly observes : I " What has befallen the soul is like unto the plague of ,j s leprosy in the body." 2 To pass from the figure to the
 * . treality, from the shadow to the substance, the " fountain"

. which shall then be opened to the house of David and the

n *

, inhabitants of Jerusalem for the national and individual cleansing from guilt and sin, is nothing else than the blood

Mof their Messiah whom they have pierced. Hence, those are not far wrong who trace a connection between ~iip,


 * maqor (" fountain ") in chap. xiii. I and ip^, daqar

("pierced") in chap. xii. 10, and say that the opening of the fountain took place when the Roman soldier with his spear pierced our Saviour s side, and " there came out of it blood and water" though the basis for the connection is not in philology (the root of the two words not being the same though of cognate significance), but in fact.

Yes, Israel " in that day " shall experience the wonder ful and everlasting efficacy of the blood of Jesus their Messiah, God s Son, which cleanseth from all sin. In quite another and blessed sense shall that fearful prayer once uttered in ignorance, " His blood be on us and our children," which has haunted the Jewish conscience through all the centuries since, and has, like the blood of Abel, brought down the curse of Cain on the whole nation, be fulfilled " in that day." It shall be upon them for life and not for death, for cleansing and not for defilement.

They shall experience then the truth of the inspired words in Heb. ix. 13, that " if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, 1 See Lev. xiv. 1-9. 2 Eben Ezra.