Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/482



466 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH

persons will be ashamed of making any pretence to super natural visions, and confounded when charged with having made such assumptions. Instead of being anxious to be considered as prophets, they will rather seek in every way to avoid the reputation of such a dangerous and unpopular profession." l

The " hairy mantle " was the distinguishing garb of some of the great prophets. Some (as Koehler) suppose it to have been made of untanned skins ; others think it was a garment formed of camel s hair, such as that worn by John the Baptist. Thus, Elijah was recognised by Ahaziah when described by his messengers as " a hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins." 2 The " rough garment " was not only the outward sign of " the strict course of life and abstinence from worldly pleasures " " the frugality alike in food and attire," which marked the true prophets of Jehovah but, also (on certain great occasions, at any rate), it was the symbol of grief and mourning for the sins of the nation, and the consequent judgments which they were commissioned to announce.

In the case of the false prophets it was a cloak of hypocrisy, and was assumed " in order to lie," or " deceive " ; for, though outwardly they may be clothed like " sheep," or even like the true prophets of God, inwardly they are " ravening wolves."

The prophet having shown the opposition which would i be exhibited by the Jewish nation to the false prophets, i who in the past were the chief cause of their national un doing first, by the hypothetical instance of a son who should venture to prophecy falsely being slain by his own parents ; and secondly, by the general statement that the pretended prophets would themselves be ashamed of their evil profession and seek in every way to avert suspicion that they ever had to do with such evil practices, with a view to deceive the people proceeds in the next two verses still more fully to illustrate the condition of the time.

In a few but graphic touches he pictures a dramatic

1 Dr. Wright. " 2 Kings i. 8.