Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/86

 Babylon, and save every man his life: be not cut off in her iniquity. . . . My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of Jehovah"

(Jer. H. 6, 45).

This also had a primary, though only a partial, reference to the time in which the prophet wrote his visions. Though a remnant had returned, by far the greater number were still in the land to which they had been exiled. Some of them had grown rich and prosperous in the strange land. Their love for Jerusalem and all that it stood for had cooled down, and they were content to become dwellers " with the daughter of Babylon." They were reluctant to leave their comfortable homes and vineyards (which they had indeed been encouraged to build and to plant, but only as temporary possessions during the seventy years of the Captivity, Jer. xxix.) for the rough journey and hard life in the desolated land.

And so they are exhorted to flee out of Babylon, not only because of the goodness of the Lord which is to be shown to His people in their own land, but because of the evil which was about to overtake the country of their sojourn, and the calamities which would come on its people, occasioned probably by the two great rebellions in Baby lonia, and the t\vo captures of the city of Babylon one by Darius in person, and the other by one of his generals which had just taken place when the prophet wrote his visions.

At the same time, this call to come out of the Babylon