to
follow _Caspari_, and to modify the explanation thus, "The law, which
was formerly confined to Zion, and hence to a narrow circle, shall go
forth from thence into the wide world,"--weighty objections to it would
still remain. If "to go forth" were to be understood as meaning "to
spread," the sphere of the going forth would have been more closely
determined; as, _e.g._, in Is. xlii. 1: "He shall bring forth judgment
_to the Gentiles_." In Is. li. 4, "Law shall _go out_ from Me, and My
judgment I will make for a light of the people," _to go out_ is
tantamount to, _to go forth_. "Mine arms shall judge the people," in
li. 5, is parallel to it. [Hebrew: ica] in itself does not mean "to go
forth." _Further_--The circumstance that the law spreads from Zion,
does not account sufficiently for the zeal with which the nations flow
to Zion. If it _goes out_, there is then no need for their seeking
for it at its home. In Zech. viii. 20-23, also, the thronging of the
people to Zion, in order to enter there into a closer relation to the
Lord, forms the subject of discourse. Zion, as the place where the
Lord of [Pg 448] the whole earth issues His orders, as if from His
residence (Is. xi. 10), forms an appropriate contrast to "Zion shall be
ploughed as a field,"--a suitable parallel to the exaltation of the
temple-mountain above all the mountains of the earth, to which the
prophet here returns, after having, in the first part of the verse,
expanded the thought: "People flow unto it;" and to vers. 7, 8 also,
where Zion appears likewise as the seat of dominion.

Ver. 3. "_And He judges among many people, and rebukes strong nations,
even unto a distance. And they heat their swords into ploughshares, and
their spears into pruning-knives; nation shall not lift up a sword,
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more._"

It appears strange to us that here we see ourselves transferred all at
once to the sphere of the general description of the Messianic time;
for, according to the whole context, and to the contrast with chap.
iii., we expect such predictions as will serve especially for the
consolation of the daughter of Zion, whose heart had been pierced by
the announcement that the mountain of the house should become a wooded
hill, and that she herself should be given into the power of the
Gentiles. But this difficulty is removed by remarking that this verse
only prepares the way for ver. 4, where there is a representation of