ll be so
fortified as to prevent them from forcing it." But this interpretation
destroys the whole figure, and violates the type of the deliverance
from Egypt which lies at the foundation. For the gate through which
they break is certainly the gate of the prison.--The three verbs--"They
break through, they pass through, they go out"--graphically describe
their progress, which is not to be stopped by any human power.--The
last words open up the view to the highest leader of the expedition;
compare besides, Exod. xiii. 21; Is. lii. 12: "For ye shall not go out
in trembling, nor shall ye go out by flight. For the Lord goeth before
you, and the God of Israel closeth your rear;" Is. xl. 11; Ps. lxxx. 3.
In the exodus from Egypt, a visible symbol of the presence of God
marched before the host, besides Moses, the breaker. On the return from
Babylon, the Angel of the Lord was visible to the eye of faith only, as
formerly when Abraham's servant journeyed to Mesopotamia, Gen. xxiv. 7.
At the last and highest deliverance, the breaker was at once the King
and God of the people.

As this prophecy has no limitation at all in itself, we are fully
entitled to refer it to the whole sum of the deliverances and salvation
which are destined for the Covenant-people; and to seek for its
fulfilment in every event, either past or future, in the same degree as
the fundamental idea--God's mercy upon His people--is manifested in it.
Every limitation to any particular event is evidently inadmissible;
but, most of all, a limitation to the deliverance from the Babylonish
captivity, which, especially with regard to Israel, can be considered
as only a faint prelude of the fulfilment. They, however, have
come nearest to the truth who assume an exclusive reference to
Christ,--provided they acknowledge, that the conversion of the first
fruits of Israel, at the time when Christ appeared in His humiliation,
is not the end of His dealings with this people.

Footnote 1: The reference to the general judgment would indeed
disappear, if we suppose [Hebrew: bkM] in ver. 2 to be addressed to
_Israel_. It seems, indeed, to be in favour of this supposition, that,
in 1 Kings xxii. 28, the people alone are called upon as witnesses, and
that in Deut. xxxi. 28, xxxii. 1, and Is. i. 2, heaven and earth, and
in Hos. vi. 1, the mountains also, are called upon only in order to
make the scene more solemn. But the reference of [Hebrew: bkM] to the
nations mentioned immed