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474 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH

another and altogether different figure, who is now made to pass before his vision, and whose experience, if not fore shadowed, is at least suggested by the treatment which had been meted out to the false prophet. He was the true prophet, and much more than a prophet, but He also was " wounded," yea, " smitten " even unto death, in the house of His friends (i.e., " His own " nation), who in their blind and ungodly zeal even thought that they rendered God a service in slaying the Prince of Life ; because, having become alienated in their hearts from God, they did not recognise Him Who is the very " image of the invisible God," and charged Him with blasphemy, because He claimed to speak to them in the Name of God, as one who is " equal with God."

But this great national crime, which has occasioned them unparalleled sorrow and suffering, was nevertheless overruled of God to the greatest good for the world as a whole, and is the very ground of Israel s future national redemption. The slaying of the Messiah, therefore, which, in chap. xii. 1014, is viewed as being the act of the Jewish nation, of which they shall yet repent with such deep and godly sorrow, is in the passage now before us described as an act of God. "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My Fellow." This aspect of Messiah s sufferings and death, namely, that they were inflicted upon Him by God in order to make His soul " an offering for sin," is set forth more fully in Isa. liii., where we read that " / / pleased Jehovah to bruise Him ; He fiath put Him to grief" etc. It was indeed by the hand of man that " He was led as a lamb to the slaughter " ; but, " human malice acting freely " could do no more than what " His hand and His counsel had fore ordained to come to pass." * Yes, " the envy and hatred of Satan, the blind fury of the chief priests, the contempt of Herod, the guilty cowardice of Pilate, freely accomplished that death which God had before decreed for the salvation of the world." 2

1 Acts iv. 28. " Pusey.