atonement with him, to let him go for Azazel into the wilderness." How then does this comport with the idea of the Jewish people being the substance of the type in question? Does it not follow that they were themselves the victim of expiation for their own sins, instead of their sins being laid. upon Christ, the grand propitiation for the sins of the world? We answer, undoubtedly it does. This, in fact, we conceive to be the very aim and drift of the ceremony before us, viz., to intimate that the guilty race were to "bear their iniquity,' that they were, upon their rejection of the Messiah, to be sent forth into the wilderness of the world, scattered over the broad surface of the earth, and after being loaded with the guilt of that blood which they imprecated upon their own and the heads of their children, to be delivered over to the dominion of darkness, of which Satan, under the mystic denomination of Azazel, was the reputed prince and potentate. This we are certain was the fact in regard to the great body of the outcast nation of Israel according to the flesh, and as before remarked, we see no grounds to question that an event of so much moment should have been darkly, yet significantly, shadowed forth in the typical ordinances of that solemn day which celebrated prospectively the events of the atonement. Nor do we read any insuperable objection to this in the language of the institute itself; "to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scape-goat (to or for Azazel) into the wilderness." We have already intimated that the original lekapper âlauv, properly imports, to make an atonement over, upon, or for him, instead of with or by him, instrumentally, as rendered in our translation. The goat in this act was plainly considered as the subject, and not the medium, of atonement or reconciliation. The interposition of the particle is extremely common after the verb

kaphar, to denote the object of expiation or pacification, expressed by that Hebrew term. Thus, Lev. 4: 20, " And the priest shall make an atonement for them (pp kipper alëhem), and it shall be forgiven them," i. e. the congretion. So also in v. 18 of this chapter:-" And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement for it, ( kipper àlauv)." So again, v. 30— "For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you (yekapper alëkem)." In v. 33, the same usage

repeatedly occurs :— "And he shall make an atonement for (32) the priests, and for (3) all the people of the congregation." From these instances of the usus loquendi, which might be indefinitely multiplied, it would seem to be indisputable that the goat was not viewed in this connexion as the instrument, but as the object of the expiation, and a reference to the Concordance we believe will show that the preposition 3 is never used in a similar connection with but as denoting the person or thing which is the object of the atonement. Our English translation therefore is unquestionably wrong in rendering it in this place "with him," instead of over, or for him."

But still it may be asked how an atonement or reconciliation was made for, over, or on account of, the scape-goat, seeing that all the action mentioned was confined to the animal itself? We refer for answer to the passage under consideration, and beg that its phraseology may be carefully scanned; "to make an atonement for him, to let him go to Azazel into the wilderness." Our translators have here gratuitously inserted the word "and" before "to let him go," which is wanting in the original, and the absence of which affords, we believe, the true clue to the interpretation. The latter clause is exegetical of the former. The atonement was made by the letting go of the gout to Azazel. He was consigned over, by way of judgment and punishment, to the jurisdiction of Satan, as the type of a similar allotment towards the recreant and rejected Jews. It was thus, and thus only, that the Most High was to be propitiated for their offences, and we have only to appeal to the truth of history to learn how accurately the fact has corresponded with the typical prediction.

But this is to be shown more fully by reference to the evangelical narrative, where, in the details of the crucifixionscene, we may expect to recognize the fulfilment of the Old Testament earnests. There we behold the elect and accepted victim meekly submitting to the fearful death which. the body of the nation clamorously demanded, and by demanding which they sealed their own doom of dereliction. And as if on purpose to make the coincidences more remarkable, the controlling providence of God so orders it that almost by the decision of a lot Barabbas is released and

Jesus retained for execution. In this incident we are furnished with a striking counterpart to the ceremonies of the expiation-day. In the release of the robber Barabbas we see the lot coming up with the inscription "for Azazel," while in the condemnation of Christ, we read the opposite allotment, "for Jehovah." We cannot refrain from regarding Barabbas in this transaction as an impersonation, a representative type, of the whole people to whom he belonged, and in the words of Peter on the day of Pentecost, we more than imagine that we see described the very process of selection and rejection which stands forth before us in the prescribed ceremonies of the Jewish Law; Acts 3: 13-15. "The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our father has glorified his Son Jesus, whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead." Here we have the typical scene of the wilderness. vividly enacted before us in its substantiated realities of a far different place and a far distant age. In Barabbas released, with all his crimes upon his head, in accordance with the emission of the goat loaded with the sins of the congregation, we see a lively, and we doubt not, a designed, emblematic presentation of the fact of the judicial thrusting forth of that covenant race, with the weight of the imprecated curse of God abiding upon them from one generation to another. Nay, so precise is the accordance between the items of the adumbration and of the accomplishment, that we behold in Pilate the fore-shadowed "fit man" by whom the discharged goat was led forth into the wilderness. "He shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." The original is peculiar; beyad ish itti, by the hand of a man timely, opportune, seasonable. The proper Greek rendering, as Bochart remarks, is xaigiw or suxaigw well-timed; and the evangelist in his account of Pilate's time-serving agency in the events of the crucifixion, presents us with the very man for the nonce, who is so significantly designated by the epithet before us. Matt. 27: 20-26: But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them: Whether of the twain will

ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why? what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and our children. Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified."

We here leave the subject, commended to the calm consideration of our readers, to whom we say, in the language of Spencer, proposing his views of the same subject," Si quis lumine perspicaciore donatus, hujus instituti rationes solidiores assignaverit, me minime pertinacem experietur."

ARTICLE VII.

EXPLANATION OF Ζαχαρίου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου, ΜΑΤΤ. 23: 35.

By Christ. Wilhelm Müller, Preacher at Recknitz Mecklenburg. Translated by the Junior Editor from the Theologische Studien und Kritiken.

Dr. Winer-Bibl. Realwörterbuche 2. Aufl. Th. II. p. 822, -declares himself, with the latest expositors of the above passage, for the opinion, that Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, of whose being stoned, we have an account in 2 Chr. 24: 21, is unquestionably here meant. Even Olshausen, the faithful student of the Scriptures, finds nothing objectionable in the opinion, that Matthew confounded the name of the father of the murdered, perhaps with the father of Zechariah, one of the prophets of the Old Testament, and rather adopts it, than favor an opinion at all forced.-Bibl. Commentar I. p. 854. 3. Aufl. But, notwithstanding this agreement of the latest expositors, it seems to us that there are objections of no little weight to this interpretation. The opinion, that the

evangelist has here been guilty of a failure of memory is ever to be received with caution, and is liable to the charge of arbitrariness. Then, too, the place and time given in Chronicles seem not to suit the passage in our Evangelist. In Chronicles as above, it is said, that Zechariah was stoned in the court of the temple-in, according to the LXX., sv auλñ oïxou xugíou. And although we should concede, αὐλῆ that the place as indicated by Matthew, μεταξὺ τοῦ ναοῦ καὶ To budiaorgiou-compare the parallel in Luke 11: 51,—is consonant with the representation in the Chronicles, yet we ask if the Lord in his discourse alluded to that passage in Chronicles, wherefore the extended and more exact specification of the place in the gospel? It seems not to have originated from Jewish tradition; for in the Talmud, to the question: ubinam loci interfecerunt Zachariam, the answer is the following: nec in atrio Israëlis, nec in atrio mulierum, sed in atrio sacerdotum-cf. Lightfoot Hor. Heb. ad Matt. 23: 25. The circumstantial pointing out of the locality in the gospels, itself renders the allusion to the Chronicles improbable in our estimation.

In respect to the chronological agreement also, we might find, in our most recent expositors, more subtilty than truth. Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, was put to death under king Joash about 840 B. C.; and Jesus is supposed to have meant this murder in the passage before us, forsooth, because it is the last recorded murder of a prophet in the Old Testament. But if the Lord says to his contemporaries, that all the innocent blood shed on the earth must come on them, why should he exclude from the recompense the whole period from Joash to his own day? Is it not much more natural and probable to suppose, that he took the murder of Abel as the terminus a quo, the murder of a pious (dixaios) man of that generation as the terminus ad quem, and so comprehended all innocent blood shed from the creation of the worldἀπὸ καταβολῆς xóoμou in Luke-to his own day? This view is supported by the fact, that the poveúdars-ye have murdered-points precisely to a deed of those then living, especially as a nice distinction between the fathers and the contemporaries of our Lord runs through the whole discourse. To remove these difficulties, De Wette remarks-exeget. Handbuch I. 1, p. 194-"oveúσate is spoken according to the idea of community of guilt; properly speaking, the fathers had done it