not attributable to their "synagogues," but to the decree of Him who has spoken of them in such language as the foregoing and the following: "Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of Hosts is His name. If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for ever. Thus saith the Lord; if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord."1 "I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished." 2 And the grand object for which they are thus preserved is that they may yet be restored to their own land and serve God in it, according to the purport of the following predictions: "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. But the Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the North, and from all the lands whither He had driven them and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." 3 "Many nations are gathered together against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eyes look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they His counsel: for He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make thine horn iron, 1 Jer. xxxi. 35-37. 2 Jer. xxx. II. 3 Jeremiah xvi. 14, 15. and I will make thy hoofs brass and thou shalt beat in pieces many people : and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth."1 "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up My hand to the Gentiles, and set up My standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers." 2 "Thus saith the Lord God: In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it." "I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God."4 "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery (lest ye should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungod 1 Micah iv. II—13. 2 Isaiah xlix 22. 4 Amos ix. 14, 15. liness from Jacob: For this is My covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins." 1 "Even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel." The "fall" has taken place; the "rising again" is yet to come. There is no obscurity in these passages; they are to the point, and are sufficiently expressive. See also the whole of Jeremiah xxxi., which is a continuous prophecy relative to the future of this nation, the 15th verse of which being applied by Matthew to the time of the Messiah's advent, shows that the predictions immediately following in reference to there being "hope in their end," and that they should come again to their own border," may justly be taken to apply to a period subsequent to the dispersion which immediately followed the crucifixion of Christ, and the destruction of Jerusalem. Their turning "again to their cities" after the "lamentation and weeping" applied by the Evangelist to the time of the Messiah, must hence be taken to refer to a period that is yet to come in the history of the Jewish people, and to which the Apostle Paul also refers in the verses just quoted. That the predictions relative to the restoration of the Jews to their own land are to be understood literally there can be no reasonable doubt. It should be regarded as surely so as that they stand in connection with the predictions which relate to their actual dispersion among the nations, and which have since been literally fulfilled. Speaking of the Jews under the Old Testament dispensation, in which he might have recognised the orderings of a Divine Providence preparing the way for the future fulfilment of the predictions of His prophets, M. Renan says: "They were a living protest against superstition and religious materialism. An extraordinary movement of ideas, ending in the most opposite results, made of them at this epoch, the most striking and original people in the world. Their dispersion along all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and the use of the Greek language, which they adopted when out of Palestine, prepared the way for a propagandism, of which ancient societies, divided into small nationalities, had never offered a single example. Profound pity for the Pagans, however brilliant might be their worldly fortune, was henceforth the feeling of every Jew. Israel became truly and specially the people of God, while around it the Pagan religions were more and more reduced, in Persia and Babylonia to an official charlatanism, in Egypt and Syria to a gross idolatry, and in the Greek and Roman world to mere parade." On the same subject as connected with the Law given by Moses, which he supposes to have been "the work of men penetrated with a high ideal of the present life, and believing that they had found the best means of realising it," he says: -"The work at which this people labours is a kingdom of God, not a civil republic; a universal institution, not a nationality or a country. The idea of a sovereign religion, the idea that there was something in the world superior to country, to blood, to laws-the idea which makes apostles and martyrs -was founded." Does M. Renan really think that this "idea" was innate in the Jewish mind as distinguished from the people of every other country and nation? In view of the universal corruption of human nature, and of the moral ignorance and depravity of the nations around them, is there nothing in this moral and religious superiority found among the Jews, indicative of "the finger" of God as supernaturally manifested among them through His chosen instruments, the prophets? Renan fails to recognise it; but further observes: "Notwithstanding numerous failures, Israel admirably sustained this vocation. All Indo-European antiquity had placed Paradise in the beginning; all its poets had wept a vanished golden age. Israel placed the age of Gold in the future. The perennial poesy of religious souls, the Psalms, blossomed from this exalted piety, with their divine and melancholy harmony. The idea that Israel was a holy people, a tribe chosen by God and bound to Him by covenant, took deeper and firmer root. An immense expectation filled their souls." And had they not the best of reasons for considering themselves such a people, and for entertaining such expectations, in view of the miracles performed to effect their deliverance from Egyptian bondage; of those also which attended them in their journey through the wilderness, their entrance into the promised land, and even after their settlement in it; together with the numerous promises and predictions (many of which had been already fulfilled) which they had received from God respecting their future as a nation, and the great 'Deliverer" that was to arise, exercise regal dominion, and to whose "kingdom" there was to be " no end"? They had every reason, I should say, not only to believe but to know that they were "chosen by God and bound to Him by covenant." 66 Referring to a "very early" period of the Mosaic economy, Renan says: "Mystical utterances already made themselves heard, tending to exalt the martyrdom and celebrate the power of the 'Man of sorrows.' Respecting one of those sublime sufferers, who, like Jeremiah, stained the 1 Pages 41, 42. |
