Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/90

 read that, after Jehovah shall have had compassion on Jacob, and have chosen Israel again, and set them in their own land, that " the stranger shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob; . . . and the house of Jacob shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and for handmaidens, and they shall take them captive whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors."

And the reason "the subjective motive" of His lifting up His hand in judgment over the nations is expressed in a phrase which gives us a glimpse of God's tender love for His people: " For he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye" the word literally is "the gate," the opening in which the eye is placed, but it is generally, and most probably correctly, understood to mean the pupil of the eye:

"The aperture through which rays pass to the retina is the tenderest part of the eye the member which we so care fully guard as the most precious of our members, the one which feels acutely the slightest injury, and the loss of which is irreparable." This is how God felt about Israel at the beginning; for already, in Deut. xxxii., Moses, in summing up their high privileges and God's great lovingkindness to them as a nation, says: " He found him in a desert land, and in the waste, howling wilderness. He compassed him about, He cared for him, He kept him as the apple of His eye Many and terrible have been Israel's sins and apostasies since, but He has never ceased to care and yearn for them.

Zion in her desolation may indeed sometimes say to herself, " Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me "; but God's answer comes: " Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have com passion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually before Me." And even while " the dearly beloved of His soul " is in the hand of her enemies, He jealously watches the conduct of the nations toward her, and wishes it to be