Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/526



5io VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH

and blessed Potentate ; l for the false gods of the nations, to whom even Israel was tempted in former days of apostasy to render worship, shall be " cut off," and all idols utterly abolished.

And His Name" which embodies His revealed character as the God of Redemption, the faithful covenant- keeping God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, now fully made known to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Himself the fullest revelation of the Name, shall be " One " to the exclusion of all others as the only object of reverence, praise, and worship, " so t/tat he who blesseth himself in the earth sJiall bless Jiimself in the God of truth ; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth ; 2 and the nations, even from " the ends of the earth," confess that the gods which they had formerly worshipped were " no gods," and the idolatries which they had inherited from their fathers were " nought but lies, even vanity, and things wherein there is no profit." 3

IV. As "the city of the great King" (Ps. xlviii. 2), whose dominion extends to earth s utmost bounds, and as the centre whence God s light and truth shall go forth among all the nations, Jerusalem is also to be physically exalted above the hills by which she has hitherto been surrounded and overshadowed. This is the announcement in the roth verse: " All the land shall be turned" (or " changed" so that it shall become " as" or) " like the Arabak" Then the district to be thus transformed is more closely

1 I Tim. vi. 15. 2 Isa. Ixv. 16.

3 Jer. xvi. 19-20 (R.V.). Von Orelli thinks that by the unity of the name Jehovah "is to be understood primarily unity of designation, which is important as the plurality of designations of the one God has led in various ways to plural conceptions of the Godhead," and refers to Hos. ii. 16. Lange, by simply referring his readers for an explanation of this clause to Hitzig, seemingly adopts it as his own namely, "that in consequence of the display of Jehovah s glory, the heathen who had hitherto worshipped God under other names, such as Moloch, Baal, etc., should from henceforth honour and adore Him as Jehovah, under which Name He had made Himself known to the people of Israel." But, as another has observed, " The idea that the heathen under the various names of their gods really n.eant to worship Jehovah, appears to be an attempt to engraft modern ideas (whicix I venture to add, have no basis in fact) upon those of the Old Testament prophets."