ist"), comes from the Hebrew word meaning to smear or to
anoint. It designated in ancient times the weapons consecrated for battle
or the king chosen and thus symbolically set aside to lead the people as
Jehovah's representative, or a priest called to represent the people in
the ceremonial worship. The common underlying idea in the word is that of
consecration to a divine purpose. In its narrower application it describes
simply the agent who is to realize God's purpose in history, but in its
broader and prevailing usage it designates all prophecies that described
the ideal which Jehovah is seeking to perfect in the life of Israel and of
humanity, and the agents or agencies, whether individual or national,
material or spiritual, natural or supernatural, by which he is to realize
that ideal.

II. The Kingly, Nationalistic Type of Messianic Hope. The messianic
prophecies of the Old Testament seem only confusing and contradictory
until the three distinct types are recognized. These different types of
messianic prophecy naturally shade into each other, and yet they are
fundamentally distinct and were represented throughout Israel's history by
different classes of thinkers. The first is the kingly, nationalistic type
of hope. It came into existence as soon as Israel became a nation, and may
be traced in the Balaam oracles in Numbers 24:17-19, where the seer is
represented as beholding Israel's victorious king smiting its foes, the
Moabites and Edomites, and ruling gloriously over a triumphant people. It
is echoed in II Samuel 7:10-16 in the promise that the house of David
should rule peacefully and uninterruptedly through succeeding generations.
Ezekiel, in his picture of the restored nation in 37:21-28, declares in
the name of Jehovah that "my servant David shall be king over them and
they shall dwell in the land that I have given to my servant Jacob wherein
their fathers dwelt, and they shall dwell therein, they and their sons
forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever." In such
passages as Isaiah 9 and 11 the Davidic ruler is represented as reigning
not despotically or selfishly, but in accordance with the principles of
justice and mercy, bringing peace to all his subjects. As has already been
noted, in the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah and in connection with
the rebuilding of the second temple Israel's kingly, nationalistic hope
reached its culmination, but through the victories of Darius was rudely
c