Josiah, the true descendant of David, "he
wrought justice and righteousness," and chap. xxii. 3, where his
spurious descendants are admonished: "Work justice and righteousness,
and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, and do not
oppress the stranger; the fatherless and the widow do not wrong,
neither shed innocent blood in this place." Farther, still, is the
progress to be observed: the King is righteous, his righteousness
passeth over from him to the subjects; then follows salvation and
righteousness from the Lord.--To explanations, such as that of
_Grotius_, who, by the righteous Branch, understands Zerubbabel, we
here need the less to pay any attention, that the fact of his being in
this without predecessors or followers palpably proves it to be
erroneous. If, indeed, we could rely on _Theodoret's_ statement ("The
blinded Jews endeavour, with great impudence, to refer this to
Zerubbabel"--then follows the refutation), the older Jews must have led
the way to this perverted interpretation. But we cannot implicitly rely
on _Theodoret's_ statements of this kind. In the Jewish writings
themselves, not the slightest trace of such an interpretation is to be
found. The Chaldean Paraphrast is decidedly in favour of the Messianic
interpretation: [Hebrew: atN amr ii vaqiM ha ivmia ldvd mwiH dcdqh]
"Behold the days shall come, and I will raise up to David the righteous
Messiah, (not [Hebrew: dcdqia] 'the Messiah of the righteous,' as many
absurdly read), saith the Lord." _Eusebius_ (compare _Le Moyne_, _de
Jehova justitia nostra_, p. 23), it is true, refutes the interpretation
which refers it to Joshua, the son of Josedech; but we are not entitled
to infer from this circumstance, that this view found supporters in his
time. His intention is merely to guard against the erroneous
interpretation of [Greek: Iosedek] of the following verse in the
Alexandrian version ([Greek: kai touto to onoma autou, ho kalesei auton
kurios, Iosedek]). It can scarcely be imagined that the translators
themselves proceeded from this erroneous view. For [Pg 416] Josedech,
the father of Joshua the high-priest, is a person altogether obscure.
All which they intended, by their retaining the Hebrew form, was
certainly only the wish, to express that it was a _nomen proprium_
which occurred here; and they were specially induced to act thus by the
circumstance, that this name was, in their time, generally current, as
one of the proper names of