nce a year, but
now is promised the _entree_ to the heavenly court, as if he were one of
the bright spirits who stand there. They who have access with confidence
within the veil because Christ is there, have more than the ancient
promise of this vision.

The main point of verse 8 is the promise of the Messiah, but the former
part of the verse is remarkable. Joshua and his fellows are summoned to
listen, 'for they are men which are a sign.' The meaning seems to be
that he and his brethren who sat as his assessors in official functions,
are collectively a sign or embodied prophecy of what is to come. Their
restoration to their offices was a shadowy prophecy of a greater act of
forgiving grace, which was to be effected by the coming of the Messiah.

The name 'Branch' is used here as a proper name. Jeremiah (Jer. xxiii.
5; xxxiii. 15) had already employed it as a designation of Messiah,
which he had apparently learned from Isaiah iv. 2. The idea of the word
is that of the similar names used by Isaiah, 'a shoot out of the stock
of Jesse, and a Branch out of his roots' (Isaiah xi. 1), and 'a tender
plant, and as a root out of a dry ground' (Isaiah liii. 2); namely, that
of his origin from the fallen house of David, and the lowliness of his
appearance.

The Messiah is again meant by the 'stone' in verse 9. Probably there was
some great stone taken from the ruins, to which the symbol attaches
itself. The foundation of the second Temple had been laid years before
the prophecy, but the stone may still have been visible. The Rabbis have
much to say about a great stone which had been in the first Temple, and
there used for the support of the ark, but in the second was set in the
empty place where the ark should have been. Isaiah had prophesied of the
'tried corner-stone' laid in Zion, and Psalm cxviii. 22 had sung of the
stone rejected and made the head of the corner. We go in the track,
then, of established usage, when we see in this stone the emblem of
Messiah, and associate with it all thoughts of firmness, preciousness,
support, foundation of the true Temple, basis of hope, ground of
certitude, and whatever other substratum of fixity and immovableness
men's hearts or lives need. In all possible aspects of the metaphor,
Jesus is the Foundation.

And what are the 'seven eyes on the stone'? That may simply be a vivid
way of saying that the fulness of divine Providence would watch over the
Messiah, bringing Him when the time wa