ion, not in point of quantity, but of quality. The emphasis rests
rather on: "The throne of the Lord;" and these words receive from the
antithesis the more definite qualification: the true throne of the
Lord. Quite similarly, those who boasted that over the Cherubim was the
throne of God, and that the Ark of the Covenant was His footstool, are
told in Is. lxvi. 1: "The heaven is my (true) throne, and the earth my
(true) footstool;" comp. the passages according to which the Ark of the
Covenant is designated as the footstool of God, and, hence, the place
over the Cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant as the throne of the Lord,
p. 387; and farther, Is. lx. 13; Ezra i. 26.--The highest prerogative
of the covenant-people, their highest privilege over the world, is to
have God in the midst of them; and this prerogative, this privilege, is
now to be bestowed upon them in the most perfect manner; so that idea
and reality shall coincide. Perfectly parallel in substance are such
passages as Ezek. xliii., in which the Shechinah which, at the
destruction of the temple had withdrawn, returns to the new temple, the
Kingdom of God in its new and more glorious form. Ver. 2. "And behold
the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the East; and its
voice was like the voice of great waters, and the earth shone with its
splendour." Ver. 7. "And He said unto me, son of man, behold the place
of _my throne_, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will
dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and the house of
Israel shall no more defile my holy place." Zech. ii. 14 (10): "Sing
and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo, I come and dwell in the midst
of thee," with an allusion to Exod. xxix. 45: "And I dwell among the
children of Israel, and will be their God." The Prophet declares that
the full realization of this promise is reserved for the future; but it
could not be so, unless it had already been realised, throughout all
past history, in God's [Pg 396] dwelling over the Ark of the Covenant;
compare Zech. viii. 3: "Thus saith the Lord, I return unto Zion, and
dwell in the midst of Jerusalem."--If we enquire after the fulfilment,
we are at once met by the words in John i. 14: [Greek: kai ho logos
sarx egeneto kai eskenosen en hemin, kai etheasametha ten doxan autou,
doxan hos monogenous para patros]; and that so much the more that these
words contain an evident allusion to the former dwelling of God in the
temple, of w