ot prevent God from carrying out
His counsel." Thus it is seen--and this is alone suitable in this
context--that the apparent limitation of the promise is, in truth, an
extension of it. How great must God's love and mercy be to Israel, in
how wide an extent must the declaration be true: [Greek: ametameleta ta
charismata kai he klesis tou Theo], Rom. xi. 29, if even a single
righteous Lot is by God delivered from the Sodom of Israel; if Joshua
and Caleb, untouched by the pefunishment of the sins of the thousands,
reach the Holy Land; if every penitent heart at once finds a gracious
God! Thus it appears that this passage is not by any means in
contradiction to other passages by which a complete restoration of
Israel is promised. On the contrary, the [Greek: epitunchanein] of the
[Greek: ekloge] (Rom. xi. 7) announced here, is a pledge and guarantee
for the more comprehensive and general mercy.--Expositors are at
variance as to the historical reference of the prophecy. Some, _e.g._
_Theodoret_, _Grotius_, think exclusively of the return from the
Babylonish captivity. Others (after the example of _Jerome_ and the
Jewish interpreters) think of the Messianic time. It need [Pg 381]
scarcely be remarked, that here, as in so many other passages, this
alternative is out of place. The prophecy has just the very same extent
as the matter itself, and, hence, refers to all eternity. It was a
commencement, that, at the time of Cyrus, many from among the ten
tribes, induced by true love to the God of Israel, joined themselves to
the returning Judeans, and were hence again engrafted by God into the
olive-tree. It was a continuation of the fulfilment that, in later
times, especially those of the Maccabees, this took place more and more
frequently. It was a preparation and prelude of the complete
fulfilment, although not the complete fulfilment itself, that, at the
time of Christ, the blessings of God were poured upon the whole [Greek:
dodekaphulon], Acts xxvi. 7. The words: "I bring you to Zion," in the
verse under consideration, and: "They shall come out of the land of the
North to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto their
fathers," in ver. 18, do not at all oblige us to limit ourselves to
those feeble beginnings; the idea appears here only in that form, in
which it must be realised, in so far as its realisation belonged to the
time of the Old Testament. Zion and the Holy Land were, at that time,
the seat of the Kingdom of