and what is mine house! for Thou hast
spoken of Thy servant's house for a great while to come." John must
have been taught by his mother that they were of the honored house of
David. They, in common with other Jews, believed that the "great while
to come" was near at hand.

John read in Isaiah of her who would be the mother of the Messiah,
without thought that she was his aunt Mary. He read that she should call
her son Immanuel, meaning "God with us," without thinking this was
another name for his cousin Jesus. John would find other names
describing His character. His eye would rest on such words and phrases
as these--"Holy One;" "Most Holy;" "Most Mighty;" "Mighty to Save;"
"Mighty One of Israel;" "Redeemer;" "Your Redeemer;" "Messiah the
Prince;" "Leader;" "Lord Strong and Mighty;" "King of Glory;" "King over
all the earth."

Most of all John would think again and again of a wonderful declaration
of Isaiah, writing as if he lived in John's day, saying, "Unto us a
child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon
His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The
Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the exercise
of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of
David."

Had John known that these words of Isaiah referred to Jesus, he might
have repeated them, not as a prophecy, but with a present meaning,
saying, "The Child _is_ born!" As he read the prophecy of Haggai,
uttered more than five hundred years before--"The desire of all nations
shall come"--he might have exclaimed, "He _has_ come!"

In John's reading in the Old Testament it seems strange to us that some
things made a deeper impression on him than did others, and that he
understood some things so differently from what we do, especially about
the Messiah's kingdom. He noticed the things about His power and glory,
but seems to have misread or overlooked those about the dishonor, and
suffering and death that would come upon Him. We read in the fifty-third
chapter of Isaiah, how He was to be "despised and rejected of men, a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief, ... wounded for our transgressions
and bruised for our iniquities, ... brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before his shearers, ... and make His grave with the
wicked." We know that all this happened. We think of a suffering
Saviour. We wonder that John did not have such things in his mind. But
in